EQII Extended - Feedback and Discussion Thread

SmokeJumper wrote:

I hope when you're talking about the bit I bolded that you consider the Station Access folks. The last thing I would want to see happen is bonuses for multi-month subs for regular EQ2 but no option for SA folks to do the same and end up not getting the same incentives.

We are soon to be the red headed step child. Why do i fear we will slowly be phased out!

with that said.. Lets ask our selves, What good is F2P going to do for us. I fear nothing. As "he who must not be named" graciously put it, the people playing on the f2p servers can upgrade to a gold level membership to be able to get all the goodies. Thats fine and dandy, but how exactly does it help the already established servers.
These new players are going to be on the f2p server, if they upgrade to the subscription model aka gold level they are still going to be on the f2p server. Its not like the majority are going to say " I wanna move to the subscription based plan, so now i get to reroll and remake my toons on a completely new server" not gonna happen. They start on the f2p server 99% will stay on the f2p server. And if the money rolls in and rolls in from f2p , it will just push us longtime subscribers further into the back closet.
This will just funnel all new blood to eq2x and the population on live will cease to grow.
I can see if it was going to be restricted to 1-50 but lets face it... this has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with helping out the population or even so much as getting tons of new blood as it does with RTM. Thats Mr. Gorgeson's specialty after all. This move is all about getting RTM, REAL RTM, into the world of EQ2.


anyone see the correlation between EQ2X and EQ2 neXt

My only concern, since I have no interest in playing f2p, is this:
This is being done to generate revenue, bring in new players to the game, etc. All good things but IMO we have to treat this as two separate games. In essence this will bring new players to EQ2X, while EQ2 Live will continue to see population stagnation, and possible decline. I am assuming that EQ2X will be the advertised model "hey come play our game for free and try it out" well they are trying out eq2x not eq2 live, which means they will remain on the other servers...which is absolutely no help to us over in the old servers, unless us old subscribers decide to go play in EQ2X as well, which I'd quit the game before doing that.
I hope I am wrong, but I don't think I will be. I think the next step in this chain will probably be server merges on the EQ2 live side, so that there will be enough people to populate the live servers. I am not a sky is falling type, but with the string of new MMOs due out, and the eq2 team spreading our playerbase out over more servers with different rules ...just doesn't look like a good future ahead.
My 2cp, however, if it works, great.

So this is just a glorified exchange server.....we all know how well that server is doing...
Like the previous posters have said..... this will just dilute the population even more. I hope you are offering free transfers to other servers or at least merging them.

My concern is this will stop new blood from coming to our servers... Everyone who is new will just be on a different one. I foresee many server merges down the road.

SmokeJumper wrote:

Do you have any more info on the "incentive programs"? What else do you have planned?

Once Extended launches, the 14-day trial will no longer be available to the general public. New players can try the Extended free adventure service instead. However, 14-day trial passes for the EQII subscription service will still be distributed by active players on the live subscription service via the Recruit-a-Friend program. This way, friends can play together on the same server and still enjoy free time. The RAF program will be updated at a later point in time to include Extended invitations and rewards.

I DO NOT like this bit at all. Not even a little bit. This funnels people to the 'extended' version, while limiting the new blood from trying out the real version of Eq2. I find this bit particularly unacceptable.
I love SOE's games, I really do but some of their moves leave me dumbfounded.
I'm fine that they'll offer this marketplace stuff on a seperate server set. That'll affect my gameplay about as much as livegamer did (which is to say not at all). However, the appearance given is that EXTENDED is going to be what you try to make any new players go to. That is just wrong.
The only real problem probably 99% of the current playerbase would have with this is the marketplace items. I'm willing to bet very few would be upset if there were lower tier memberships availble for the real servers. THAT would pull in some new players to our regular servers, giving a much needed population boost to the players on the slow servers.
If you think people are all just going to trickle over to the extended servers, I'm willing to bet you'd be really wrong. Many many would just quit and move on to another game that implimented things in a more sensible manner.

Will they access the same Battlegrounds? And have an edge there?

Personally, I don't want it on the live servers. Period. Marketplace, ugh, I rampaged against it in its early days, but in the end, I shut up and took it.

That being said -- how does adding an additional community help the current one? If they are on different servers, what good will that do the live players? None.

I admit fully and freely, I'm addicted to this game and the people. Never pretended otherwise. But, just because it's hard to quit smoking doesn't mean it isn't worth it.

Not a fan, either of being said, in essence... No F2P... Psyche!

( PS - the Subscription matrix, for those that haven't seen it yet: here )

awnya2 wrote:

thats probably the plan. Those of us on the regular monthly sub service will be forced pony up for server transfers or switch to the new f2p server which will make the original server even more less populated.

Grumble69 wrote:

I'm not really sure how this will bring new blood to our (version) of the game. The concern is that it's going to have a significantly negative impact on raiding because you're going to see population drift to the EQ2X servers. And personally I'm concerned, despite assurances otherwise, that players on the standard servers will become second-class citizens if EQ2X becomes very popular. Businesses naturally go where the money is, and it's not hard to imagine their limited development resources are going to be focused on what improves their bottom line the most.
My other concern is that this push to "simplify" the game is also only going to accelerate in an attempt to attract more EQ2X players. Since the core game mechanics are the same, if they keep making changes that are designed to be more "casual friendly" then we're going to automatically inherit whatever those changes may be.
I see a lot of potential for unintended consequences here, both in terms of gameplay and population.

Any word on how the new bonuses coming for doing multi-month subscriptions will effect station acess,since we can only pay by the month?

TalisX1 wrote:

There are certain items and equipment that will be Extended-only. That's true. But the vast majority of those are being offered now and most of them are items that already existed in the game, but are being sold in the free-to-play marketplace as convenience items.
Most items that go into the Marketplace from now on will be available on both sides of the fence, and the ones that take the greatest amount of effort are almost always Appearance items that do not have stats. (Like the new racial heritage armor sets that will be coming out soon.)

so how does this development time solve the other issues.. like server mergers which really needs to happen.. sooner the better. sitting around friday night at prime time and only 10 people talking in 80-89 is a joke in an mmo world. its more like we are playing a single player game with an irc chat program.

Also will there be any transfers available from extended servers to live servers.. like say a gold account is sitting at lvl 80 bored to death wants new things to do, Will he have the option to transfer to a live server or will this be out of the question and keep influx of new players out of the live server community.

Gaige wrote:

I didn't say that. I never said "EQII wasn't going F2P". What I said was that we wouldn't change your existing subscription service. And we didn't. We added a new one.

SmokeJumper wrote:

You said you weren't putting ftp in EQ2. You have now put ftp in EQ2 but contrived to remove any of the positive benefits of it from the live players.
Not only have you angered the people who are against ftp, who will now paint you as the biggest liar in existence since Smedley, you have annoyed the pro-ftp people like myself who have seen the huge benefits the model has brought to other games such as DDO.
Unless you can somehow get the players who want to go subscription off the extended servers and onto live, this is just bad news for the existing players. All we can now see is the slow decline of the live servers.

SmokeJumper wrote:

yeah but you added a new one that will eventually kill the old one.

i would pay a crapton for a increase odds of rare drop potion.

I realize a bulk of the players said no F2P on live servers, but there has to be some sort of compromise must exist. Just don't sell appropriate level armor/weapons in the SC store. I'm fine with temp buffs, character slots, storage limits, etc being available.

Tagwen@Mistmoore wrote:

Absolutely not true. If we didn't care about the players in the current worlds and subscription plan, then we would have just rolled F2P into the existing servers.
Instead, we've gone to significant effort to separate the worlds so that player types don't have to intermix...but still setting things up so that all content upgrades and improvements go to both services at the same time.

The elimination of the free trial on subscription servers combined with the leveling bonuses gained on Extended will greatly reduce the number of new players entering the Subscription model servers. I'd imagine we're looking at merging the existing Subscription model servers down in a nd year or 2 when the populations continue to dwindle.
I can't blame SOE though. How can you? This is a business for them and a hobby for us. They are required to do what increases their profit margain the most lest they be the next one on the list for layoffs.