Please SOE add these 2 things for f2p players

I am pretty sure these two would increase your f2p player customer base a lot more and lot more revenue.

1. make mercenaries available for f2p - its from an older expansion now and they can allow so many solo players play by themselves or smaller group players play dungeons without need for full group.

2. add defiant armor like eq - The old world zones were the best. The new zones just don't cut it sorry but out of whack gear makes them less attractive. Please add random defiant armor drops to old world zones so all of this content you have is playable again.

what's defiant gear?

they haven't commented on any of the numerous threads asking for a price reduction on AoD so wouldn't expect it coming f2p anytime soon.

AoD will not be made free imo because they are still profiting on it. Ideally "content packs" or Expansions were to become Free while "mechanics or perk packages" or what is better called a Feature Pack like Age of Discovery were to be priced for profit.

It is unclear what SOE is aiming for but Mercs will not be F2P and really only Microtransaction-using F2P are actually "worth money" to SOE. Defiant armor... are you speaking like upgraded quests to make old-world armor viable? Old-World is already pretty easy so I must agree with Twyxx you will have to explain what Defiant Armor is.

Defiant armor is a better type of armor dropped in EQ. Basic legendary grade if you compare it to armor in EQ2, but without FtP restrictions. As far as I am aware, doesn't EQ still have no unlockers? That is the main reason I have not played it, even on my pay accounts, as it seems too unfair in how restrictive it is with gear and skills.

So rare "Fabled" that is actually usable by F2P? I guess that could be an incentive to keep F2P's playing to eventually decide to start paying or microtransactioning.

1. make mercenaries available for f2p - its from an older expansion now and they can allow so many solo players play by themselves or smaller group players play dungeons without need for full group.

F2P can already use mercs if you bought AoD. if you want to use them buy the pack and use them.

Yeah, old-world zones can be steamrolled in treasured or mastercrafted gear since they re-itemized a while back.

There are item unlockers on the marketplace. You can get five item unlockers for 150 or five spell unlockers for 150. That's pretty cheap, imo.

Plus if you get SC when there is a double sale, and then buy the unlockers when a rebate sale is going on, even cheaper for the unlockers.

As Twyxx said, 150SC for 3 Unlckers means 50SC or 50 cents for an unlock. Player Characters have 7 Armor Slots, 2 Charms, 3 Weapons and 6 Jewelry slots along with 1 Waist Slot and 1 cloak.

This means you have 20 Item Slots in which a Legendary or Fabled item can be unlocked. At 50 cents and unlock for just your gear you are looking at $10 which let's face it you don't even have Masters or Adornments yet.
Masters only have to be upgraded one time per 10 level bracket. Most classes have 15-20 masters that are relevant to their abilities. Again 50 cents per Master (spell unlock) is $10.

Then there are Adornments... If you use (Greater) or (Superior) those are Leg/Fab and most 92+ Armor's have 2 Whites and either 1 Red or 1 Yellow or one of each so up to 4 Adornments per Armor Piece and 2 Per Jewelry, 3 Per cloak, charm and waist if they have red slots (raid). All in all, about 50 Adornments to fully gear youself up. At 50 cents to unlock them (if you can) its $25...

So the cost of 100% Gearing up a Character for a Free To Play account is roughly $45 for 1 time gear up every 10 levels... times 9 level brackets (though you can ignore the first 6 at least... so lets say 3 is a total of $135 for a F2P member to get Member Gear Benefits.

Yeah I dunno about you, but to me $15/month is certainly cheaper given I can upgrade a new character (with no help from my lvl 95) at least 7 times during level 1-70 you are cutting your actual costs by a lot. Dispite being "Free to Play" really the best and imo only way to experience level 80+ is by paying a monthly subscription.

Think of Free to Play (Silver) as more of a "Here, try our game out and see if you like it. If you do then we strongly suggest you subscribe and get all the benefits of unlockers and more for less money out of your pocket." SOE get's their money, you get your fun game experience and you can always take a month off. You can also save up an buy a Krono and avoid having to pay for 1 month if a player will sell you one.

Everquest 2 has one of The Best Free to Play experiences in the MMO industry to my mind. Most Free to Play's nickle-n-dime you with "pay to win" type Microtransactions which Everquest 2 does not use. You do not NEED cure potions or rez pots from SC but they help if you really need them. Even the MMO giant World of Warcraft only lets you play to level 20 for free. Tera I have yet to try though. SWTOR was considered very weak endgame and RIFT is dead after you clear the content. I also hear from players from other MMO's that the Player Community in EQ2 is one of the best they have seen.

I certainly know from my own experience that the Player Community say in League of Legends (a very populer Multiplery Online Battle Arena game) has an absolutely horrid player community that whines, moans, cry's nerf please, hates, trolls and generally ruins any attempt at a good game unless you really love your mute button.

TLDR: Everquest 2 has a very competitive Subscription Price that actually will save you money if you really want to play to the fullest. Everquest 2 has one of the best and supportive Player Community I have seen to date and have heard from others. I hope you found my experience to perhaps help you judge Everquest 2 better as a gaming experience for you.

To fruitful adventures,
- Estred Shantile.

First, it is 30 cents each unlock, not 50 at full cost. It is 5 unlockers per unlock set. Buy your SC during one of the frequent double SC sales, that drops to 15 cents each unlock. Also, the unlockers are often included in the rebate sales, which is when I usually buy mine. Half off more, about 8 cents per unlock.

Until near the end of the game, around Kunark level, one does not really need to unlock very much. But at that point, you really feel the need. I just started subbing my second main account, 3 months at a time for now, because my beserker has hit the point where most quest rewards are legendary (or Sentinal Fate junk), and there are many really useful drops from names that are fabled or legendary. But until she got to around level 70 and started getting all those legendary and fabled drops from names in the Kunark zone, I was fine with mastercrafted gear and the occasional unlock for a nice weapon.

Then thank you for the correction. I haven't touched my F2P account for nearly 3 months. However you are right that you don't need to unlock until around Kunark and above. I was trying to illustrate how affordable a $15 month sub actually is though at 30 cents because you get 5 per pack not 3 changes my math a little bit still for a full 20 item set at 30 cents each; its $6 then for masters and adornments to "fully gear" its just around $27 for a 1 time full gear up. Not as horrid as I painted it but still more than $15.

Yes, and if you are playing multiple characters at high level, the $15 sub really is a good deal.

Unless it has changed in the last few months (and it is certainly possible that it has) adornments don't need to be unlocked. It makes transmuting/adorning fairly useful for f2p accounts as they can make use of all the legendary/fabled drops since they can't sell them on the broker.

Realistically, it is very unlikely that someone will get a full set of Legendary+ gear at each tier, especially when mastercrafted is solid and there is experimentation to improve upon that. The same goes for skills, going beyond expert really isn't worth the effort until the final tier.

It may be unrealistic, but I was illustrating an extreme case for purposes of better putting the price-competitiveness into perspective. $15 a month especially if you have multiple characters is quite affordable when compared to the price of doing the exact same thing without subscribing.

Basically, learn to work the system for the most fulfilling F2P gameplay experience. Playing with a plan makes both F2P and Gold Membership work out better.

Like to point out that its un-needed. I play EQ-1 and EQ-2 both and the changes that have been made i am as stated earlier Steam-rolling through now up to lv26 which when this game first came out would take many hours more then my current playtime of 1day !!!!!!

Ya, Im at the first tier plate set on my SK and there are some fabled items to unlock (currently silver member), but DON'T NEED TO.

Still rolling through, Flying, this is almost super speed gone plaid.

Who cant swing $7.50 for a race pack of choice and $1.50 for a unlocker set, mine currently is only 25SC a unlock , how sony math add's a extra 25SC to a unlock pack is beyond me BUT,

Unlock the few spells and gears once you get them, Forever and ever and never worry about it again. Sony has done enough to almost make this game seem to easy.

Spend your extra un-used SC$ on bag slots, vioaa-laa

I can see using FTP while trialing a game, but in ANY free-to-play scenario in which you can buy limited privileges for this and that, it is ALWAYS cheaper over time to just suck it up and subscribe. Much less aggravation, $15 a month is really not that much (one less visit to a hamburger joint, or one less pizza, etc.)

For the Mercenary thing, Were only on

Expansion
So we might not see that for a while.

So

(base game, 6 expansion packs and 3 adventure packs)

Honestly I kinda miss the game hijacking my browser when I was done playing EQ2, because I always start it when I'm done anyways... Hey SoE can you please add that as an extra option? I approve. Ooh maybe make it go to the forums too, or let us specify a website!!

Oh wait I got off topic... anyways this games F2P is pretty good now, you can easily live with the limitations to level 85. (Which is a lot more than most other games offer)