Producer's Letter: AoD Expansion & Membership update!

i thought the changes didn't start until the first or are you on test???

Really? Cause I've been playing since the game went live so I would consider myself part of this community, too. I sure don't feel like I'm being listened to. Once again the casuals get priority, this may be the straw that breaks the camels back for me.

You may have missed the recent change, but now you can spend all 320 AA points at lvl 10. While it is true that many are useless at that level (since a lot modify spells/abilities that you don't acquire until higher levels), there are a lot of end-line items that have no level restrictions, and after DoV opens up to everyone the Heroic page should unlock for everyone also.

And again...how does this affect your game/gameplay?

Going with your analogy...what does it matter if a company decides to make a change to their business model? Maybe that oil change company opened a convenience store in the front and they found that offering free oil changes brought in more business and those people bought things from the shop? It doesn't change the fact that you received what you paid for in the past. Just because they had that payment model before, doesn't mean they should be locked into it forever.

You paid for an oil change...you got an oil change. It really doesn't matter what, if anything someone else pays for their oil change. It doesn't affect the performance of your vehicle.

If you continue to go through EQ2/life comparing yourself to what other people get and how they perform, you will not have a very good time. Someone is always getting a better deal than you.

You just need to decide if you are currently getting what you feel your payment is worth from the game and not worry so much what other people are doing.

SC

Likewise.

And just so I understand, you're referring to "John Smedley" who obviously performed so badly that he is now president of SOE? I can see how such "bad" decisions have manifested themselves in his career. Yes, he rode his bad decisions about EQ2 right to the bottom, apparently.

SC maybe you are one of the FTP??? sounds like it from your stance on the free stuff that shouldn't be free. How about give everyone a lvl 95 320 aa raid geared toon and call it good business?hmm??

Annnd, we should keep repeating Cloudrat's suggestion until it happens. I'll start

I think that being able to trade heirloom items from gold-account to gold-account would be an extraordinary bonus. Not just for personal convenience, but to eliminate the standard dialogue from the loot officer of "Same account, hopefully? Sigh, fine. ABC drop. XYZ, why isn't your alt parked outside the zone? Well, hurry up!"

Nope...been an annual subscriber since 2006. Just re-upped for a year as a matter of fact. But I'd definitely classify myself as 'casual' if that helps you stereotype me a bit more.

But again I ask...how does my gameplay affect yours at all?

SC

I will pay money or SC or subscribe to Gold to go from 320 A.A. to 400 A.A. and 500 A.A. and 600 A.A. etc. OR remove the A.A. cap per alt or total account.

I like the game but have no other reason to play since my alts are maxed and my guilds and friends are gone. Ty for consideration.

That sounds nice! Also keep the world chat option! Really, really like being able to NOT have to point and click to move alts around world! Would turn the game more into an RPG with 2nd Life mmo flavor!

Yknow, I find it hilarious how all the freeloaders that rarely frequent these boards are rejoicing. As a matter of fact, there have been many posts regarding how it should have been done away with long ago and how it will improve their game play. I feel that all of these people have blinders on and really don't see where this might go. My old SC sub is running out and I grab Kronos for 2 of my gold accounts ( Both are used for raiding ), knowing that every time I buy a Krono, SoE gets the $17 added to their "account" kind of puts me at ease. Now, let me take a step back here, I think that the latest content SoE put out was complete trash and a lot of their "decisions" were completely horrid. Especially as they catered to the "gimme" crowd. With that being said, I still WANT SoE to receive that cash because I know that they are receiving it on a monthly basis from A LOT of other people. I know that while I pay them, they will "try" to do their best and release content that is not complete trash.

I don't know how all the freeloaders don't see this but, I'd rather PAY the $15-17 a month than to have everything for free. There is no way Heroic Characters is ever going to replace the current buying of Kronos and selling them on the broker for plat. I have a VERY strong feeling that the content quality will go down over time. Why cater to a bunch of people that pretty much raid/play for free?. From a business standpoint, there is ABSOLUTELY no point. I really doubt many people will still continue buying Kronos when there is NO difference between a Gold and a silver account. I personally won't be upgrading back to gold because well, whats the point?. There NEEDS to be a BIG difference between gold and silver accounts, this game will not survive on SC purchases alone. I don't know if Everquest 1 will go the same way but, people have been subbing there for years without asking for any sort of "drop" in restrictions.

If you don't follow my way of thinking, let me summarize for you; game quality will plummet with no consistent means of cash flow. They will release the most ridiculous garbage and then LOL when you want an explanation. SoE thinks that people will buy enough stuff from the SC store to make it worth it but, I promise you, it will not be enough. Stop with the whole "But but Tiger, it is no good to seperate us gamers" .. Because yes, it damn well is. No one is going to be buying 3 mounts a month from the SC store to make it worth it. Also, when I started playing Eq/Eq2, if you didn't sub then you didn't play at all. Sick of the "gimmes" that brought us to this.

What is all station Access getting in the way of privilege? Just the gold level, or will there be something more for us?

I agree completely Tigerr. If you want to play something for free..... play something else. I've been playing EQ2 since the day of it's first release (and EQ1 before that), when the highest level you could get to was 20 and there were hardly any zones. One of the things that made me love the game was the feeling of accomplishment I got when I levelled up or finished a really difficult quest. As another forum writer stated, "now we can just buy our way to boredom". You can BUY AA's???? Please! What's the point in playing at all? Next thing you'll be able to buy XP! The other thing I loved about it what the sense of camaraderie playing with all the other players roaming around Norrath. Where are they all now? I am a working professional so I find it very hard to find spare time to play EQ2 but honestly all the challenge has gone. Now it's just a bad habit that I need to break, like giving up smoking. Costs me money, ruins my health and it's not even fun anymore.........

Not only among accounts but between chars on different servers on the same account. Though some folks I know play one only toon and are gold recurring subs. They need something more substaintional than this.

I have a gold account with a maxed beserker that is about to go silver for a few days. When this happens, I will check her and see what happens to her skill bars.

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i think you broke something maybe? havent updated UI in a while?

I have a gold account almost 7 years old that went silver, my assassins CA's are all available. I can not use them unless i equip a weapon i can actually use. once i equiped a treasured sword they all started working again.



and i think this is another attempt to shoot themselves in the foot (SoE) just to lower the population of the game. Its too coincidental that they (SoE) would make SOOO many bad decisions that effect the players on this level. This last bit with the gear will definitely lower the amount of Krono sold. There's just no reason to buy them anymore. If i need something from broker i have a guild that buys stuff for me. And the lack of player base has ruined the game for me.

I used to buy krono for 5 accounts i box with. I paid money for my main account, and have been playing for almost 7 years now. After that bit with the plat adjustment in the older raid zones, I have no reason to log on anymore. Being able to sustain the 5 krono each month with in game plats made it worth my time. And SoE got $17 for each one i bought from other players. But now with this new adjustment i have to say im done...for good.

I'll keep all 6 accounts gold subbed, can't do without broker.

In my opinion this seems like a huge gamble to increase revenue especially so soon after the lay offs that occurred. I would rather spend the 150 SC for 5 Spell unlockers, than continue to pay for each of my all access accounts. If EQ2 is going this model, chances are other SoE games will follow.

After discussing this with some members of my guild, it seems like many other subscribers feel the same way and will be dropping their sub since it will not hinder our game play.

The given 15% gold increase, and 10% mount speed increase, along with some of the proposed Faction increase, XP increase, broker discount, really have no appeal to many of us especially when you have 10+ max lvl chars and you rarely buy anything from the broker when the good stuff is sold via SLR.

I guess all I can do is wait and see what happens.

How about selling less than 280 AA - like in blocks of 100 or blocks of 50?

I dunno. Maybe it's because I'm old, but I think what's happening is that they have a limited staff right now (for whatever reason) and they are focusing on one or two items at a time. For instance, they made some changes to free, they made some changes to silver and they're going to make changes to gold which will be worth it...maybe.

Reason for this, of course, is that it's going to be much easier to get free players in with cool things and then they generate some revenue. Then, silver changes benefits and as more free are coming in, the free are switching to the new benefits.

I think our time is coming...I'll just hang in there.

Like I always say, this is the best single person FPS out there...(for those a bit slower, that's a joke). ;o)

Me.