This is an issue that really should have been brought up way back when EQ2 first went F2P and I feel pretty bad asking about it now but... I have a concern that if I come back to the game in a few months/years from now all my gear will be unattuned which in turn will have me spending the first 30 minutes to an hour getting back into the game sorting out my now overflowing inventory. Which will likely destroy my chances of coming back to the game, Etc. Why not keep the gear currently on a player attuned during this downgrade because if the player still wants to stay relevant and keep playing they are going to have to pay to get new gear anyhow.
I'd like to know this too. Had let my subscription lapse, but was hesitant to log back in until subscribing for fear of finding all my items unattuned in my bags. Ended up paying for a month, just in case. It seems minor, but like resetting AA's, it's a real pita.
It stays attuned but is unequipped and placed in bags (I'd assume it'd go to overflow if you didn't have enough free space in your available bags, though). Found that out when my account accidentally switched to Silver for an hourish earlier this year. When I got reflagged as Gold it re-equipped automatically from my bags again, but not sure if that's normal or just a fluke. With a Silver account you do keep access to all your house vault slots so you could always store the gear there. Or, if it's good high level gear that you don't expect to replace for a while, you could also buy item unlockers from the Marketplace to make the pieces usable.
I asked SOE about this in a petition that equipped gear should stay attuned or the down-graded should get free unlocks to re-equip their gear. Without directly quoting the GM from the support ticket (not allowed) I was actually told such an item does not exist then what are the item/spell unlocks on the SC Market? Sony probably made it just examine your gear and look for 2 things. Is it normally not open to Silver AND have they used an unlock? If the returned response is a FALSE (no to a computer) then it is unequipped and the now downgraded gold must BUY the unlocks to reequip their gear and sort out their now probably borked inventory.
Another thing that can happen is very frustrating. One of my accounts was gold for a couple months, and I decided to go ahead and unlock the Frostfell barter gear for a character, while I was still gold. When I went to silver, all that gear became locked. I was mad, but bought unlockers to reunlock that gear. So do NOT unlock and equip gear while you are gold, as the game might be confused and lock it again when you go back to silver.
-edit- I will say that despite my confusion, anything unlocked regardless of status should hold and be credited for being unlocked. -edit2- I would have amended my previous statement instead of replying to myself, but they decided that editing posts was a horrible, horrible thing that they couldn't allow with the new forums.
I let my gear go to silver this week to switch over to krono. It did lock, but it did not unatune nor was it in my bags.
