Awesome Bonus Items for Purchasing Altar of Malice!

Ya know, it works out to $7.50 a month USD for the CE. I can cut out one latte a day for two days, which is healthier, and enjoy the CE which is more fun than getting wired with caffeine. It's that easy. Peet's may wonder what happened to me but they will see me the other 3 days a week.

I would wager a house is not included as SO freaking many people COMPLAINED that TOO MANY HOUSES were being given as awards of any type.

Yep, folks, ya get what you ask for and you lose what you complain about.

Me, I LIKE to idea of my own portal to the Isle of Refuge AND with a choice of appearance!

I'm also jonesin' for the new mount ))

Well, there is a sort of-sale... if you consider 10% off if you are an all access member a sale after the old $30 off pre-order sales... Maybe they should package some of what they are smoking with the collector's edition? =P Less stuff, no real sale price, collector package costing $10 more than the whole expansion on it's own... it has GOT to be some good stuff they are smoking. (I dont' even smoke and I'm curious about it.)

I do miss the pre-sale, and I'm very glad I went to SOE Live or I wouldn't be able to afford the CE. But I do think there's plenty in the CE to make it worth my while. The tower with optional exploding appearance is my favorite. I was sort of hoping if we got a merc it'd be an Akhevan (their idle stance creeps me out and I can't explain why but I love it), but the cultist is also creepy as hell. If he heals well, a couple of my chars will gladly swap their lujen for him. The research time reducers and armor gems are pure gravy to me, but are also probably the most expensive items.

Portal to the Isle of Refuge!!! YES oh happy day Merry Christmas to me early
I don't have even one character at 95. Well one is almost 94 lol. But all that other stuff I can use and sooner or later
I'll be able to go on to the expansion

But Isle of Refuge!

Well, IMHO, there should be a little off something for every play type in the Collector's edition. I have apperance items and mounts coming out my ears, but I LOVE houses, especially one-per-character houses. I say keep those, but bring on the house that the decorators want. ^_^ There will always be a handful of people who complain about things that don't' affect them just because they like to complain (Unless there really IS someone holding a gun to their head, forcing them to use the houses?). This however, is overpriced or under goodied. :\
BTW, who didn't complain about the non-stop blabbering merc from the last x-pac? Or the can't-hold-agro tank mercs for the 10 year vet reward? If complaining about houses is why there are no houses, logically speaking, there wouldn't be a merc either, right?
And keep in mind, the people that were not complaining about houses in previous expansions were mostly people who were ok with it or loved it. Go check out the last expansion's announcement and see how many people loved the Ethernere house.

it's to the zone, not the house. The pictures are a dirty trick on those of us that assume there will be a house.
It goes to the same place any world bell sends you. :\

1. I got it that it was to the zone. I'm opinionated and cynical not necessarily thick.
2. Did I say the lack of house was logical? I was posting MY speculation and comment thereto.

Totally. Make it so.

So it's not the starter Isle? oh

$40 for an end-game only expansion?...
And a crap painting on top of that?...

They must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel on the trust fund...

No thank you. Guess I'll have to pass on this one.

I might be inclined to pay $30 for a no-frills Basic-Edition... which is basically what the so-called standard edition is. The All-Access which SOE has been *****'ing out for the last year or so, is really inconsequential in this case. You're already getting $12 a month out of me...

A '$10 off the expansion' coupon would be a better 'bait' than the standard 10% in this case.

And with this... I guess it's time to start looking for my entertainment somewhere else, as my chars will now fall even farther behind the rest of the end-game players.

The starter isle as a house is this year's vet reward.

I agree on the blather, though at least there is a command to turn it off. But I 'm confused about the can't-hold-aggro comment -- my experience is that I can't *take* aggro! They both have a Hate Mod of 100%!

Oh cool. Can you pay in monthly installments?

Giving it further thought, I have decided not to purchase the CE

Mage Tower Mirage - May be cool, but not everyone is house item crazy

Striped Savage Pterodon Mount - This mount looks wicked, but for it to be worth the money you want us to pay for it, it would have to have stats similar to Alberich the Wise or some raid mount. what you are giving us are the standard stats you get from mounts you buy in the marketplace.

Prehistoric House Pet - As cool as this is, you need to take into consideration that there are many that dislike pets. they roam off, even if you command it to stay and cotribute to lag. Make it a plushie and you might have something, then again to some, house items are useless.

At very most this package is not worth $90. The most I'd pay is $60 for it. The game changer for me would be if you included the Aerekyn race, the Isle of refuge of old as a house, and if the mount had heroic or raid stats.

If I am to assume what you are saying is "we don't have nice things because we complain too much" then I have to give the following reply.

First, I love this game and I adore the staff. The GM's in this game are by FAR the best GM's of any game I have ever played and the developers have created fantastic content we can't get anywhere else. It is my desire to do all that I can as a player to support this game (within reason). I want EQ2 to make money from this expansion. By them doing so, it insures us that we will continue to have awesome content to play because SOE can better afford the salaries of those brilliant minds with the imagination and skill to create the content as well as the many other expenses it costs them to maintain and run this game.

However in order for me and my husband to enjoy the full expansion, we are looking at this (for two accounts; his and mine):

2 x $89.99 for CE = $180 USD
2 x 2,000 SC to unlock new race (assuming the usual cost) = 4,000 SC / $40 USD
2 x 1,000 SC to unlock additional character slots = 2,000 SC / $20 USD
-10% all access member discount = minus $24

Grand Total = $216 USD

Not many people can truly afford this expense and therefor SOE won't sell as many CE, making them less money in the long run than they would make if the package were more affordable.

My concerns are not just in our wallets, it's also the overall success of this expansion for the game.

Just saying...

I, for one, am looking forward to the expansion. Is the cost for the CE a little more than I'd prefer to pay? Sure. But I know that I will pay for the CE as I like stuff, even "fluff" stuff.

I've been playing EQ2 since 2006 and love the game. I only have a few 95's and they are not well geared at all and I don't mind. I spend most of my days harvesting, decorating, and rolling (or more precisely, re-rolling) alts and I have a blast.

So thank you, SOE, for making some fun items that I add to my collection of items from previous CE purchases. And I am pretty sure that I will enjoy the content that the CE for AoM has to offer come November 11th.

I have many toons. I was very disappointed in the 89 (81 with all access) CE price, and am not going to pay that much....unless maybe if SOE did do as Boldac suggests above. 3 armor gems and 2 research reduction per character for All Access for 81? That might be worth the extra money.

Also, can we please see the stats on the merc, and what race is the merc? Is it a Kerra? It looks a little bit like a Kerra in the face.

That is not what pay-to-win means. Selling items that give you a competitive advantage in the game is pay to win. Selling top level spells and top level gear for real money is what pay to win means. Might as well start selling all raid gear for real money. EQ2 just becomes about who spends more cash. When Sony first brought out the station cash store they said they would only be selling appearance and convenience items. They used the examples of fast mounts and fancy looking clothes and appearance weapons, which would be fine. They know that many players will not be able to resist pay-to-win items so they really crank up the price/profits. There is no sense of accomplishment when instead of spending months of careful effort, someone can just pay cash and get the same thing in 2 minutes. It will drive even more good players from the game.

I love EQ2 and always will, met my wife in raid 6 years ago and ive been playing for over 9 years but i recently stopped raiding because the content had become so stale I could hardly stay awake. Even though the beta looks promising once you look past the bugs it's no where near 90 bucks worth of my money. At some point I might consider buying the basic but for now I'm going to join the others and throw in the towel.

I personally feel that eliminating the pre-order ability and jacking up the price is going to do a lot of damage to the population that has been loyal to the game from the beginning. I understand SOE has to make money but I get the sense that we are funding the development of EQNext nowdays instead of EQ2. EQ launched in 3/1999 and EQ2 launched in 11/2004. EQNext is 5 years overdue going by past releases so I think waiting is the better option.

There has always been a discount for All Access members, even on pre-orders.

The CE price is insulting, especially considering you have to buy the new race separately and there is no house. In the past I've always pre-ordered the CE.

I won't be ordering the expansion at all until the CE price goes down, or MAYBE if they include the new race.