EQ2 Producer’s Letter, Read All About It!

Truthfully, I'll be happy to have old, dead, never-to-return currencies out of my currency window. Nice that we can exchange them for something useful.

Amen! And I also like the idea of varying Tiers (not everyone is T10 already, folks), but almost wish it depended on the current level of the person turning it in...ah well. ;->

I do agree with those who are mourning the loss of so many other games; I remember the last SOE Open House I went to in San Diego introduced us to Free Realms (which I thought was a wonderful idea; not necessarily the F2P bit, but because it was set up to be a "safe zone" for kids ) and had lots of other games in the works, including a modern-setting spy game that looked pretty cool. But one thing I've learned from helping small business-people with their work is that about 1/3 of any budget has to be spent on ADVERTISING. No one may like the li'l Sales weasels, but you gotta admit, they do serve a useful function. I didn't see Ad One for EQ2 (or EQ1, for that matter) since 2005, 2006 or so, after the big initial blitz for EQ2 (loved the theater ads! Looked like a movie preview and was awesome! Then...nothing...). World of Warcraft ads everywhere, yeah, but it's almost like Sony was embarrassed we existed, like they really didn't know what to do with a gaming company. The only reason I knew about Free Realms and other games in the works was because I was already playing one game, had buddies from other areas of my life that worked for SOE, was close enough to San Diego to just drive there (plus, cool free swag!), and was curious enough about upcoming stuff to check it out. I still felt like I had to "knock three times and ask for Joe," though. Getting SOE cards in any stores here at all, two counties up from San Diego, meant describing it to the cashiers in the Electronics department (Target, etc.) thusly:

"Game cards?"
"Yes, game cards. For online gaming. ::roll eyes, sigh:: You know, like World of Warcraft?"
"Oh, yeah! We got those. Aisle 7. Yeah, we might have some others there."

Many are the electronics stores that had WoW cards at the check-out aisle, right next to the Programmer Noms and eco-friendly water bottles. :-/

Uwk

Nope they're right here. If you're a European player on a grandfathered SOE account, all-access will get you "some" SOE games, not "all" SOE games.

Even on grandfathered? That stinks...

I'd heard that EQNext (I guess even I can't call it EQ3, since it doesn't seem to have a thing to do with Norrath any more /shrug) was included, but I guess DCUO and Planetside 2 aren't? :-/

Uwk

DCUO and PS2 are not. EQN "isn't confirmed yet" even though the FAQ's seem fairly explicit that it is, and SOE customers services apparently are telling EU customers that it isn't. Confusion reigns and no red name seems willing to give a definitive answer despite months of requests to do so.

Well, that sounds familiar; we didn't get a lot of Red Names answering our questions about the Pro7 deal in the first place, even after months of requests, until there was so much--discontent--that Smedley Twitted, or Tweeted, or whatever (not sharing it with the rest of us that don't; had to hear it second-hand [I'm glad we actually have those in the margins now at the beginning Forums page here; I'd hate to miss other very important information]) 10 months after the fact of The Deal that grandfathering would actually be a thing. :-/

What is it about Europe? Do people there have "cooties"? Is it a security issue? Is it VAT, which has been in existence since what, the 80s? I know there are other third-party provider arrangements out there; why is this one so draconic? Was it an advertising issue? Goodness knows we don't have any here in the States, so that can't be it... Was it truly local tech-support? If so, why give it to Alaplaya, which still apparently causes many Europeans to shudder in their sleep when they think about them? Is it a local holiday issue (we don't have the Fireworks Festival thing any more in early July, so it can't be that; if it was, they could've removed it earlier, and the Heroes' Festival doesn't = Thanksgiving, it's for EQ2's anniversary)? Was Pro7 the lowest contractor bid? Why are Europeans being punished? :-/

Uwk

I'd like to be able to convert old currencies to the latest and greatest at some exchange merchant ... Maybe 2 old for. 1 new?

Currency conversion, best way to make all old content worth while again. Woot!

Absolutely!

Uwk

I just hope the Tunaria Battlegrounds zone is finally given to both PVE and PVP servers. You might also look into giving every PVE player a free copy of their main to the Nagafen server to increase the population to this server.

It's sad to see players unnecessarily beating the EQ2 team about the head with an upper management decision (weekly updates). If you have an issue with the rate of updates or the current announced scheme, e-mail the EQ/EQ2/EQN/Landmark executive producer directly. The EQ2 team are doing everything they can with the staff resources they have, but they do have to sleep sometime.

How about in the future adding more "customize" slots to the spell research apprentice option. Currently there are only 10 slots which means if you like to dress each of your apprentices in a different outfit, and you have 16 apprentices, only 10 of them can wear something besides what they came in. I have all my apprentices in a "tradeskill" house and like being able to dress them in the outfit it's "toon" wears but right now ONLY 10 of them look different. Please consider adding more!!

Good post Feldon! Alas, the lemmings of hate and cuteness don't ever think of the team as other human beings. To them the team personifies SOE Evil! Also the lemmings of hate and cuteness only find fault and live in the past. Don't think 'progress' and 'positive' are in their vocabularies.

Count me in as one really jazzed about the old currency exchange!

Personally I thought the whole weekly update was a pretty bad idea to begin with, for the same reasons most people think, too much work for their staff. But they went ahead with it anyways. I'm not mad that they arn't actually doing the updates every week, I'm mad about the fact that they decide to use that as part of their propaganda, even when they arn't actually doing it, that is so freaking lame.

I could imagine going to a store that has a big sign in the window saying 2 for 1 cokes and being like cool I'll get that. Pay for the cokes and the cashier is like oh sorry we only actually have the 1. Sadly taking it because I wanted the coke to begin with and then the cashier waving at the next person to come in saying 2 for 1 cokes!!!

That probably wouldn't fly, so it would be nice if sony (yes upper management, they are the ones who should rethink this) would say okay this whole weekly update thing is impossible lets go ahead and let the customers know we arnt going to be doing that and just go back to updating when we can, instead of you know jerking us around.

You people are silly, they need to be held accountable for what they say, otherwise all trust is lost.

I currently have a gold acct in EQ1 and my EQ2 acct went silver 2 days ago (my krono ran out). Does my EQ2 acct need to be gold when all-access goes live in order to reap these benefits? I'd hate to waste another krono for less than a week if I don't need to.

The way I read it you get the benefits ONLY WHILE you are gold. Let gold expire and so do the benefits.

Yes, but identifying the "they" correctly is incredibly important. Weekly updates didn't come from the EQ2 team.

But they are the ones now saying they are doing weekly updates while also not actually doing it.

The way I understand it if you are gold on one account in one game under the all-access-pass you become gold on all the sony games listed. My question is do I need to be gold on all of the games when all-access goes into effect?