Upcoming Changes for Free and Silver Members

Bah no option I can find to erase that post and when I added an edit, it said after 30 min time expired so I LOST all I wrote!

Bascially tho the above is BALONEY!

1) very few FTP players would PAY for the end game expansion pack and VERY few could level as non experienced paying players level in the time FTP came out to end game levels and AA's NEEDED and GEAR too!

2) they have such a minimal AA cap and unable to use the BEST gear due to prestige flag, that they cant handle end game zones anyways near as well as a T 5 merc, heck most paying Warriors with high AA count and best GROUP gear even cant tank most of End game missons and tasks, as good as a T 5 War merc! So paying end game subscribers NEVER group with unknown FTP players, maybe real llife friends, or those who USED to be paying customers that are too broke ( or cheap ) to pay anymore, but were friends previously, but on the whole the above isn't true at all.

THE TRUE REASON they are opening up races/classes, is because the POINT of FTP is to ENTICE new players to TRY EQ long enough to get hooked, but who wants to get hooked on a race and class combo that is the SAME as mercs? AND so also is a dead give away that they ARE a weak FTP player and not a skilled strong experienced PAYING player. So I'm sure there are FTP players who want the full experience, but DONT want to start from scratch, just to play the class/race they really would like to play so might quit instead, as they reach higher levels, and realize they NEED those AA;s and Prestige gear OPENED Up!

So although I was going to make an Erudite Wizzy as second toon to my Barbarian Rogue, that I had made on my bot acct right before FTP came out so deleted her, and remade her immediately on the FTP acct, since it was one of the Few race/class combos available so no sense wasting an unrestricted slot, when can put on the FTP and box up THEN pay to transfer over if really liked and played the class enough. ( i'm making at LEAST one of every class between my two accts that I also bought extra character slots for, with buffing classes on each, acct so can fully buff every toon eventually on both accts. so have two clerics, druids, shamans, enchanters. mage can pass around pet toys to both accts via box hand over. I might make a ranger and beast lord on both too.

You have TOO many accounts then lol! if you paid 500 bucks in a year, that's a YEARS subscription for 5 accts WITH money left over as a years subscription is under 90 dollars now!

What I really see and hear is FTP whiners want their cake and Eat it too! They want to be able to buy SC stuff, that a subscriber like me CANT afford, because its really just FLUFF mostly, the few important stuff can be gotten with loyalty SC, and time.

Why pay if prestige and aa's unlocked? Why Pay if can do baz trader and then compete with paying folks to get kronos with FTP accts out the wazoo and impact paying players trying to sell and buy to get ahead?

If by the time a FTP player can't have saved up money for 90 bucks a year, when getting close to end game zones where NEED AA"s and Prestige, gear, then beat it! Because you're taking up space from the REAL supporters of EQ, WE don't play with players who are JUST FTP, so once you've had your taste of EQ and enjoy it PAY up or GET OUT!

HEY you just confirmed what I wrote, without even reading your post before hand!, YEAH why would a company give stuff away FREE for NOTHING? to the point where its PAYING customers would say, HEY why should I pay when I can get the SAME thing for Free Too, ? and then SUDDENLY not Nearly enough money to pay the employees, hardware, much less the electric bill even means the whole game up and POOFS!

A good game TAKES good money invested to clear out STUPID bugs that dedicated players don't want to deal with, Free games SUCK and are a waste of time!

All you whining FTP players EVEN if previously paid, have NO concept of reality of things both in the bait and sell ( free samples at Sam's club NOT to feed you but to get you to BUY the product FULLY) and plain economics, that its not a evil trick, but a way to reach out to more customers or remind ex customers how much fun the game is even more so then in past, after maybe needing a burn out break like I took for 3 half years BUT even I saw that I didn't want to lose my $99 anniversary yearly special subscription was worth keeping up also to continue to get VET rewards like Throne of Heros I had looked forward too, and adding a character slot to be ENABLED to get vet rewards each year too, so that all 8 of my previously made characters now have vet rewards too! And they dropped the year price to BELOW 90 bucks EVEN ! I now pay for two subs and im living off savings basically, ANYONE can dig up 90 bucks if really try, and then have a year to save up another 90, for one thing then just STOP buying station cash then and be patient with loyalty earnings like I do!

I applaud opening the race and classes, so that once a player sees the game is worth an investment they don't have to re-start from level 1 to play the race and class they really want too, and also avoids over populating those few race class combos that already are same too as mercs!

No way they have enough items, to sell to sustain the game, you're clueless or hope to con the Sony devs who are smarter then you obviously. The other FTP games either have adds constantly showing and causing lag and are lame and simple for the stupid people OR have crappy game play and bugs, and or charge for GEAR as items which is against the whole principle of EQ, of EARNING BY Play the best items NOT by cash! Skill not one's wallet, is what makes a good equipped player!

I can't belive that after all these years with CHEAPER subscriptions even when inflation is always the name of the game in life over all ( food and gas, etc, all has still risen even if slowly over time as always) How all you FTP peeps are so greedy as to want more and more to point why would ANYONE pay, if EVERYTHING was free? Yeah im a raider, BUT NEWSFLASH there isn't enough qualified/time available players to have tons of raid guilds, why so many have merged, OUR fee's alone cant keep EQ going tho im sure they are a decent portion of it, and for sure station cash alone isn't doing it either, although there are some hard core players who pay and whether raid or not also buy SC, but without their subs, EQ would collapse, at least the quality would drop where everyone who's stuck to the game would leave in a heartbeat.

What you say makes no sense, IF want the character to experience more then TURN it GOLD, if not willing to turn it or can't turn it gold, why would raising the cap 500 more change that ?

Too many people are admitting they have TOO many accounts, and so really they want everything for ALL their accounts , THUS proving your fibbing because if you have TWO paid accounts you KNOW what the non paid ones are so called missing!

I'm retired and not really working and live out in boonies and I cant really play my two paid accts and my one FTP one, so how much time can anyone invest in the more of them? I have both my paid maxed to 14 character slots, Even doubling the buffing classes on each one, means more then enough room for me to make every single class besides those, especialy when can make a rogue and a wizzy on a FTP one like I have! Now you can if already have a rogue and or wizzy on paid accts, fill in any missing classes on a FTP one!

Duh clueless one! Terra I can tell knowing NOTHING about it either 1) is mega lame 2) or is or about to cease existence, or both.

Why would paying customers KEEP paying if non paying ones were fully equal? YOU have NO common sense what so ever, or are just a phony spouting phony crap trying to fool intelligent people who wont be fooled, which is why you ARE a FOOL!

WHY would sony want to KEEP players away from the game? FTP's of COURSE purpose is to make them take the plunge for the full enjoyment we have been having for YEARS! BUT nicely in mean time they get free hours, to decide, showing the quality of the product, CRAP isn't given away free in advance, because then it's realized its not worth It EVEN if FREE! ( being a waste of one's time).

The ONLY reasonable line of thinking from a FTP player, BUT they cant give really anything MORE or as pointed out in many posts, NO point in Being GOLD would KILL the income of the game, and there isn't enough raiders to carry it alone.

BUT if you simply like I did , took the LONG approach of PAY the cheap under 90 bucks a year cost, then you have unlimited any time, I had NO income and was out of work living on savings that I KNOW isn't enough to get me to true retirement age and retirement monies, YET my $ 99 bucks a year I kept up for 3 half years of NO playing due to EQ politics that led to burn out for me, and time flew so fast I thought was just a year and a half.

I really think MOST FTP's saying they are "helping pay their way" is mostly hogwash, without more GOLD players, servers will be merged, not enough money to pay for new expansions, and EQ will die, HECK maybe it IS dead, and as you say, EQ just trying to grab as much as it can even in minimal ways before it goes belly up! But yeah if they make FTP too attractive, so that they start to LOSE what GOLD players they have to FTP, then they are cutting their throat, and for sure they can't be that naïve, so no way can they unlock really much more IF anything, more. I'd say what they have unlocked is the MAX to unlock for FTP. THEY probably thought long and hard on how far to get FTPS involved enough in the game to go for broke OR as some say, to at least BUY some stuff, so can invest in the development of their character.

BUT anything else really would be a mistake, need prestige and AA limit as final carrot to get a player whos leveled to past 50 a reason to finally cough up the MEAGER amount that subscriptions cost! OR work hard to buy Kronos from well to do players!

I dont get it, this just showed up as the latest news story when opening up Everquest, so I come here thinking there are new changes yet again to free/silver memberships, but the original post was last updated in early march.

heh yeah this guy necrod this thread then rambled for 2 hours straight

time to nerf Necros?

I like this for my friends who are Silver and it is a great thing, but i would like to see those of us who stay gold and keep SoE out of the red recieve something that says okay we gave the silver a nudge now let's make it worth their while to take the next step and join the Gold. Monthly promotions gold gifts making them based on time in game all would say thank you for your financial support and would make it more enticing to the free and silver players to go for the gold.

The FTP model is tough, but giving everyone every expansion seems a bit much. Even if they dropped the price for each old pack to $1 and the newer ones ramp up, maybe have an old pack bundle for ten bucks or something.

Mercs kind of lower the sociability, and the LFG window should be stressed in the tutorial. So making mercs completely unavailable to FTP and silver would be good all around.

Either way, all the buzz with FTP can be a great shot in the arm for EQ, I just think the base game should have been the only completely free part. Loot that you earned while gold should be available to you, but shouldn't show up on mobs whilst you're not gold.

@Kreen ~ I wouldn't call FTP people whiners or freeloaders, after all, you haven't paid to visit every web page you've ever visited.

Yeah, maybe escalating SC, so the longer you have gold, the more you get, also maybe make a PS+ discounted auto-renewal. There are a lot of options for sony to increase subscribers of both EQ and their PS+ program that would make EQ a truly never-ending quest.

Our philosophy is simple. Free Games.
No commitment. And if you want to buy,
it's on your terms.

That is Sony's policy suppossedly. I agree things looted while gold should continue being useful. Come on its just a flag you program.

Make prestige cost per slot. $5/slot. You want it? pay for it, per character per slot. At 20 slots that $100 and only for 1 character. I dont think many will do this. Be easier to pay for the yearly subscription.

I'm a silver account, old gold, and although I enjoyed gold, I never played that long to catch end content, even though at one point I did have a ranger that was ranked 55th on server back when we could track it. I think that for the gold community that should be brought back... alot of players like to know how good their characters were. We all play for different reasons...but to have the top character on a server is about as close to "winning" as your going to get.

My thoughts about silver is stop trying to match the gold and enjoy the game. Help your gold friends and guild... maybe it's living viacariously through them but it still can be very enjoyable to get flags for content this way. I'd suggest playing a necro or a mage to those going the silver/ftp route. Your merc will help you get to L90 and your game play can help you to end content with the gold members. My mage has a cap of 2000aa atm and I see buying more. I wish I could have prestige items and merc (J5 flagged, but silver) I may go gold from time to time. I have 10 slots of characters.I did buy 3 merc slots, rk2 spells for all my characters, I did buy 10 bag slots for my tradeskiller, but i'm glad to have them now on ALL my toons. I did create another silver account, although with a guild banker shared slot banking was not really very limiting(put the item in deposit, get banker out, set it in gb and set to specific character), and have made a mage, necro, and shaman there. Again as support for my first account to get my toons upto par, when guild/friends are not on, and to continue my quest for flags etc. Overall I did like them opening up all classes & races...but I usually play specific classes & races anyway. The mage I normally play was grandfathered from a progressive server, so I didnt have to pay for them anyway. Am I cheap? ya, even I admit it. And I probably will go gold again. But during this time I can still help community/guild/friends. So it depends on how and why you play.

I think SOE should sell unblockers for prestige and mercs. Would it also decrease my chances of going gold? Yes. So I think they should think about what they unlock.

My other suggestion is that they make another level between silver and gold...call it electrum and have it simply be an increase in the aa cap from 1000 to 2000 for $15($20 if f2p). Lets face it 1000aa is nothing, a decent L70 has that many. 2000aa not much better but you're useful. And MAYBE increase the merc from a5 to j1. Ok thats my silver 2cp.

Hope you enjoy the game and support SOE to keep it open.

F2P is all that has brought me back. My max level toon right now is lvl 78 with 500ish AA. I have probably spent about $60 in SC over the past couple of years as a very casual part time player. I also play on the same account a silver account on Eq2 sometimes. Obviously without the F2P they would not have gotten the $60 from me and as a previous poster explained it don't really matter if I log in or not it costs SOE the same.

I really wish they would implement some of the features of eq2's F2P into eq1. With EQ2 you can pretty much do anything with silver it just costs per use. They charge 50SC to use good gear/spells (per item) and 10SC to list something on the Trader. There are pretty much unlocks for everything in eq2 and to me makes it a good F2P model as long as you are willing pay to per use you can do almost anything a Gold can do. With EQ1 its like they want to make you pay for unlocks and then force you into gold thus making all your unlocks pretty much useless. I don't see why they couldn't implement similar things on Eq1. I don't see how it would be hard to allow people to use priestage gear at 30 to 50SC per item. That would generate alot of money right there when you look at all the augs/gear at higher lvl that people would need. Add in the SC people will spend for AA cap increases and you have steady income. Now make it even better allow people to unlock better mercs. I don't know what amount they would need say 1000 SC, maybe more? People will pay this as well. Even if a person only plays one toon they will still be investing money into a game that otherwise they might give up on and quit.

If they could find a way to allow F2P traders to pay a fee per use on setting up a trader it would be really good for bother Silver and Gold subscribers. More people selling in the Bazaar is good for a server economy all together. I admit the way the bazaar is set up I don't know how they could implement something like this unless it was a one time fee to unlock.

Keep in mind, their choice to not add granularity to access on a pay for what you need system might be intentionally done. If they have packages that cost more, and they can hook you with just one feature you gotta have, then they are able to make more money for those that buy the package. It's a matter of can they hook enough people at the higher cost to offset the amount they lose for not having granularity for smaller options. Or: 10X - 5Y > 0, where we assume Y would almost assuredly be larger than X.