The cost to return to this game is Higher than any other MMO on the market. I suggest to SOE that if a player buys a gold sub for a year it should come with ALL the expansions and content. To make someone buy AoD, plus CoE, plus sub fee is dumb. The developer time has already been spent so it is not costing you anything to give it away and that sub is your money maker get them in the game the full game where they are able to experience ALL that Norrath has to offer and get that SC flowing. I can go buy All of WOW for $25 everything included plus a free month of game time. I can buy Rift for the same $25 and a free month of game time. Guild wars 2, $50 with no game time fee. Everquest 2...AoD $40 standard $90 Collectors, CoE $40 standard $90 Collectors. Year sub $120 so to get back into EQ2 is $200 standard or $300 collectors. More than ANY OTHER MMO on the market today for a game that is older than most MMO's on the market today. Too much for me, I'll play another game. How many of your potential customers have said this SOE? Life lesson: A man owned a large amount of land in a scarcely populated area, as a result the land was not worth a whole lot (around $100k or so), so the man decided to give half of the land away for free with the contingency that whoever took the free land would build a golf course on the land within 5 years. His offer was snatched up quickly by someone willing to receive free land and build a golf course on it. Now the other half of the land that he kept, every lot has multi-million dollar homes on it and the man retired a billionaire. Think about it SOE...
No you cannot pay 25.00 and buy all of wow, the last two expansions alone - cataclysm will cost you 30.00, mists of pandaria will cost you 39.99 - slight higher then your quote of 25.00. Please show where you can get everything for 25.00 that is not a special comeback incentive for ex-players. By the way you do NOT get 30 days free time with the expansions, you get the same thing that eq2 gives 0 free days, unless it is a special cpomeback incentive.. Technically you can come back to eq2 for nothing if you don;t have any level 90 characters
Are you really comparing the [incorrect] cost of expansions + 1 month playtime to expansions + 1 years playtime? And you wonder why they're vastly different? Holy fail OP.
that 25$ for all wow was a temp deal tho you can get them ALL + pandaland for 59$ not sure how much it would cost for eq2 but free game time is for new accounts so that's a mute point also in WOW or rift you can only play up to about level 20 then have to pay eq2 if your ok with the class / limits witch you prob should be if your new you will still get allot more out of it heck can even call using low rank spells/ca a challenge now that aside i do thank they should make a all in 1 pack maybe 69$ would help with ppl coming back to the game imo
Exactly. I just went and had a look at the situation in WoW, as someone who -already- has Cataclysm, but not the new Panda expansion. 1 year sub (2*6 month) in WoW = $155.88 Mists of Pandaria [standard Edition] = $39.99 Total cost = $195.87 I wonder how much it would cost someone who didn't have Cataclysm... Who knows if WoW had a special $25 come-back offer? It does not really matter, they aren't right now.
It might be useful for EQ2 to offer a full-access 5-hours/month feature. Not sure how it would work. But with all of the F2P offerings out there, I wonder why nobody has tried something like this? Maybe they could offer it to people who already bought the expansions. Useful for returning players.
I agree with the OP, I was looking to return however I find buying two expansions up to 89 dollars each plus the 15 a month, plus likely buying from the store, IMO is a very high cost of returning to this game. To high IMO. Looking at the competitive market, there is RIFT which BTW is excellent. WOW, which is pretty good, Guildwars 2, which has great PVP and is free to play. Star wars which also I believe is F2P, and many other MMOs and I have to ask myself, is it really worth all the cost to return to EQ2? nope! not at this return cost. I'd like to come back, in style, with out breaking the bank, but at the moment, IMO its not possible to do this. anyway, that's my opinion just like everybody else's on this thread.
I'd love to see you prove where you pull your figures from. By the way, comparing Rift to EQ2 is pretty laughable considering EQ2 has multiple expansion packs (most of which you get for free with a new account), and Rift has....one. One expansion pack. Yea... Have fun in Rift.
how are you listing WoW as competitive? you get your stuff for free Only until lvl 20 then its pay to play. comparing apples to oranges And guild wars 2? really? LOL thats a lemon in itself
Comparision of two subscription based service when one is a temporary offer is invalid and inaccurate - 30 day free time is the same for both games, new accounts only.
You can;t install Mists without having cataclysm, this is a blizzard requirement. If you want the latest expansion you are required to have ALL of the previous expansions, at least SOE allows you to come back and just installed COE without requiring you have all the previous expansions
EQ2 Passport was introduced April 20, 2010. 72 contiguous hours a month for $5. It was eventually discontinued in favor of F2P.
So the new expansion does not come with the previous content? I was thinking of coming back until EQ Next rolls out but not if this is true
Chains of Eternity comes with Destiny of Velious, Sentinels Fate, The Shadow Odessey, Rise of Kunark, Echoes of Faydwer, Fallen Dynasties, Kingdom of Sky and Desert of Flames expansions. $40 and you get all Expansions. The notable exception is the Age of Discover Content-Pack which features some very useful game tools, also $40. $80 to get everything you need to play at max level, minus Gold Subscription benefits, but until you hit level 90 I would recommend you play Silver ($5 one time purchase).
Thanks for the clarification. I did not know Age of Discovery was not considered an expansion and would cost extra. The game seems too far gone anyway as I left following Sentinels Fate, just before Velious. I would be lost .
I personally enjoy being lost in MMO's. If you came back and all was the same, how would that be fun? Sort of like WoW atm. If you played WoW at release of MoP, then left a month later, and went back today, you would literally have one new raid. And that was 6? months ago. As for the OP. Thanks for the laugh. Up until awhile ago WoW was easily over $150 to get back into, for a few years actually (minus any specials/sales). Currently JUST for content and for the past few years for just content EQ2 has been $40 to get back into. If you want the extra AoD it's $80 (minus any sales,etc). Still currently cheaper than WoW as WoW expansions don't offer previous expansions, a huge quarrel in my book in fact. Not to mention you aren't even comparing same subs or anything lol, what a joke.
Don't know if I agree with everything the OP said, but I know for me the cost to come back to play EQ2 is laughable. There is no way in hell I'm going to pay 80 dollars +15 for subscription.. nearly a 100 dollars to come back to a game of this age, especially when there are so many alternatives. Then take into account my other family members it would cost near 300 dollars to come back, that is flat out ridiculous. Seems to me Sony is way out of touch with it's customer base.
How do you come up with $300? If you are below lvl 90, there is no need to pay anything to get started. It would be nice to pay the one time $5 silver price to get some upgrades. And you might want to buy some class/race unlockers - but that is no where near $300, and the game is perfectly playable without the class/race unlockers.
You are not required to have AoD to install CoE. And the reason you don't need to install "all other expansions" with CoE is because - first, the game up through Sentinal's Fate is FREE. And CoE includes the DoV expansion.
