Feel the Wind Beneath Your Wings with the Aerakyn Player Race!

You're limited to 8 slots. unless you buy more, which is what the "additional slot" in the bundle is for. I don't believe there is any limit to how many additional slots you can buy.

In fact, i dont konw any limit and do know some players which have way more then 12 slots on one account. But i guess i leave this race out of my account.
Might sound dumb, but i still think, the race should be bundled with CE (which gives another incentive in spending more bucks).
But my wife will probably buy one bundle, as she still got plenty of SC left ^^ (i did some GM researches ^^)

After thinking long and hard about it, as a vet myself I've decided not to purchase the race or CE. I will be sticking with standard, not because I can't afford it but to make my own statement. It's too bad really. I know a lot of time went into design by the devs and I want to support them but not when it will only shout heck yeah its OK to charge the price.of.an expansion for one race. I got freebloods for free so no they didn't cost what these will. It should just be called Aerakyn expansion pack since it is more than the cost of AoM.

And that's the right way to think of it imo. I'm doing the same thing. Just buying regular expac. I was considering spending some of my free SC on the Aerakyn, but now it sounds like the base model doesn't even get proper combat animations so i'm leaning towards not doing that.

With these optional items, not purchasing is really the best message one can send. Ultimately if people don't buy it, SOE will either put it on sale or know not to make any more stuff like this. And if people do buy - in spite of their mass hysteria - then SOE is doing the right thing commercially, which is something we'll benefit from in the long term.

Even if the pricing was slightly reasonable I wouldn't purchase the new race due to my confusion of the wing combat animations that is only seen if unarmed. Unless the stats on the wings are op I don't understand the point of going without a weapon just to see the wing animations which would for me .. be a factor in wanting them in the first place.

Perhaps I am just not understanding it correctly though.

I'm not getting either.

What would make sense is if it works like this:

With the basic package, when you choose "wings" as your weapon visual option, you get just wing attack animations with no visible weapon. (despite the fact that you have a giant 2-h hammer on).

With the noble package, when you choose "wings" as your weapon visual option, you either get just the wings OR if you have the special Aerakyn weapon in the appearance slot, then you get Wing attacks + attacks with this special weapon.

This is how it would make sense to me. But what it sounds like is:

With basic package, the only way to get wing animations is by not equipping a weapon at all. Which means you can't use these for any meaningful combat - since every classes uses SOME kind of weapon - if only for stats.

With advancaed package, you get this special weapon - which i assume goes into the appearance slot - and if you have that equipped, you get wing attacks + weapon attacks. but there is no option to get JUST wing attacks, unless you want to forego having a weapon equipped in the firrst place, which you never would.

It's all quite confusing.

wow so 20 dollars for a race or add 22 more and get a race that actually does what they advertised. so between the high price for the collectors edition xpac that has a lot less in it than previous xpacs and paying for a new race when freeblood was included in previous collectors edition and paying double for the new race I can see SOE really doesn't care about their consumers. im convinced though time to play something else

You apparently did not read my statement all the way through. I said as a decorator AND solo player. I did not say I don't adventure, I said I don't raid. Besides, who are you to say that decorating is not a viable playstyle for the normal game, when the game has offered house deco items as quest rewards during it's decade of existence? Obviously that was one of the aspects of the game that was indeed originally planned as a normal activity in the game, therefore your assumption that it isn't a primary purpose of the game is incorrect. It's just simply not your playstyle, therefore you view it as being unessential to your game, therefore you don't want to be charged extra for it, anymore than I want to be charged extra for heroic zones and raid zones. The many hundreds of decorator's in this game are proof enough of this.

It's all a package deal, and as long as it all comes as part of the package, I'm fine with paying for it. I just hate when people say it's not part of the regular game, so take it out or bundle it separately from the rest of the package, when it is, in fact, part of the regular game.

I still don't like the price hikes that have been taking place by SOE though, and therefore will not be purchasing the expac on either account, unless they give us a hefty sale on it.As for the Aerakyn race, they can stuff it. If it had been included with the expac, that would be one thing, and though it came as no surprise to me with their less than honest advertisement of the race, that is the kind of behavior that leads me to stop supporting a company.

I'm still maintaining AllAccess on both my accounts, but will be even tighter with my purse strings where all other purchases are concerned, with exception of PlayerStudio items. While I appreciate the time and effort the devs take to create new content for us and I appreciate the time and effort that others, like Afista, take to do their best to answer our questions and actually show us that at least someone is listening, I cannot justify supporting SOE for it's less than appreciative attitude towards us as paying customers.

Someone somewhere at the top of the ladder is going to have to take a long hard look at what their marketing team is doing to their loyal customer base, or somewhere down the line they are going to reach the breaking point of no return. Every customer that walks away is potentially ten customers lost to them in future revenue (whether it be by word of mouth referrals, adding additional accounts to their own play, or family members, including children as they grow older - the future generation). How long before EQ2 gets sunsetted because they don't know how to effectively run a business?

As for LotRO, I have played that game for a very short time before it went F2P and was quite unhappy with the game. Even WoW beats LotRO, sad to say.

There was a reason they stopped the ability to buy expansions with SC, and that was due to all of the double (and one time triple) SC specials they did almost all of the time somewhere. If anyone thinks otherwise then keep drinking the Kool-Aid.

However, I was quite surprised it took them as long as it did to see that they were losing money by players getting the expansion for only about $15 to $20 dollars actual cash (at least for the basic versions).

Though the biggest thing that I am still even more surprised hasn't happen yet (based on tweaks to the whole SC equation over the many years) is that certain FEATURES that are not in-game only beneficial have not yet been moved onto the same cash only purchase, and I am sure if RACE / CLASS / CHARACTER SLOTS were all of a sudden cash only just like the expansions and not privy to the free SC (at least in the few ways left that it is given) a lot more of those complaining about us complaining on the OVERALL pricing trend (or cash grab if that's what you prefer to call it) would be crying just as loud all of a sudden when their 500 free SC was all of a sudden restricted to only things that immediately benefit a character in-game (potions, house items, mounts).

I'm sure at least a handful would all of a sudden be up in arms just as loud as now not only were they paying $15 a month, but also couldn't get some of the most bought things with their free 500sc without spending more non-SC related cash.

Since this is rather off topic, i didn't want to post a long reply here. I've sent you a PM with the description of every EQ2 release ever so you can read over them and decide for yourself how much of it is "my assumption" and how much of it is fact.

There really is no reason to buy the CE now. You can always buy it later at the 'upgrade' price for no extra cost to you.

Let some other people be the guinea pigs and find out just how much awesomesauce Silver Surfer is packing, and what those gems turn out to really do to armor in practice. If it looks like it's worth $50, then you can pick it up once you're sure.

I think the same holds true with the Aerakyn since there are so many unknowns with them from how they look (animations) to how their 'wing weapons' will work, to how they'll look equipped, to what their other racial ablilities are.

Only the unique Aerakyn weapon will work to enable the specific wing attacks.

BUT, I did find out some more information about wing animations while in combat! ALL Aerakyn have some unique wing animations as they do battle. You can see that the wings are active and reacting with movement in combat.

This is an example of the alternate jump attack animation all Aerakyns will have. This Aerakyn has a weapon (sword) equipped and is in basic auto-attack.



This is another example of a spin-flight animation all Aerakyns will have while using AoE abilities.





The very specific wing attacks that are reserved for the Nobles do require using the special Aerakyn weapon. This is an example of how those wing attacks work:

Hmm, they look pretty cool. It really doesn't make sense to me why they broke it in to 2 price points, but, what do I know? I would've preferred a quest line for wing functionality and the appearance weapon just included with the race, like Freebloods.

Can we enable them on beta? It would be nice to be able to play around with them a bit before deciding.

Everything that I would add to the discussion has already been said, but I think it is important feedback for SOE to know that I am an 11 year vet (whom purchased the CE of every expansion up to this point) and canceled my all access pass last night. Neither myself nor my hubs will be purchasing any of the new content at this time. These announcements have been a disappointing turn of events to say the least.

It's funny... at SOElive, during the EQ2 keynote, the room got excited when they saw this new race, I immediately turned to my hubby and said "They're going to charge us separately for this race aren't they." Our entire table gave a disgruntled nod.

It's great that SOE has the market place, and offers many options to game play. However, right along with most on this thread, I'm going to echo what has already been said: The prices are WAY TOO HIGH!

Let's break it down into real dollars, not SC. The Noble Aerakyn is $48, dunno what the purpose of the reg Aerakyn is if it is really just an appearance sort of thing. $48. Dollars. More than the cost for the standard xpac, pretty much the same price as tacking on the CE.

Some have been silly and made this about rich or poor. $48 is not a drop in the bucket. It's more than 3 months worth of a SOE sub, it's several weeks of pizza (if you get the Domino's special like my family does), it's about 20 loaves of bread, do I really need to go on? My point is, $48 is a lot to ask, especially when you take into consideration the other expenses like the monthly sub, the expansion, etc.....

With the holidays too quickly approaching, perhaps some might ask for SC cards as gifts so they can afford to pay for a race they've been bombarded with in advertisements and now desire it. As much as I REALLY want to give this race a try (DCUO got me hooked on combat with wings), I'll have to pass. Right now I have gifts to purchase for my family, and after that it's birthdays and the wonderful expense of taxes.....

SOE you seriously need to re-think how you are nickel and diming your client base.

$8 for a +50% 2hr status potion - too expensive
$48 for a real race (not cosmetic) - too expensive
$35 for a level bump to 85- too expensive
Paying so that a guild can be level 100-too expensive
and on and on and on.

[quote="Claudiana, post: 6125566, member: 701411"
Here is the comparison for you all. Freebloods are 2000 right? I saw they have their own selection of additions to the race, including a cloud of bats for additional amount. You cheapen the Freebloods if you just give away this new race like you all seem to want. In fact, I'd be surprised if Freeblood pricing stays where it is at. [/quote]
Most of us got the freebloods for free and SOE did that at the beginning without any of us "cheapening" the race by crying give it to us for free.

[quote="Claudiana, post: 6125566, member: 701411"
Everyone seems to be forgetting that we literally just had a SC sale at Gamestop and a Best Buy version of the same promo a few months ago.[/quote]

You must have missed all the posts that SOE didn't give Gamestop the proper stuff for them to actually honor the sale until it was almost over. Then we find out there was a typo so it ended 2 days earlier than announcement said. Grats you found a Gamestop that actually gave you the sale price. They should have had the sale after posting all the prices everything is going to be costing us and it should have been possible for everyone to actually get the sale prices.

Just because you feel that the prices are justified doesn't mean we all agree. Posting to forums is a way for us to give feedback to SOE so hopefully they can make better decisions in the future (just look at when they were going to change the 500SC per month and they changed their minds). Its not for you to be judging people for their opinions. Some of us were at SOE Live and there was NO comments that it will have TWO pricing schemes. We were told the wings will automatically work without doing anything special (to me that says one price). Now if we were all told at SOE Live there will be two versions, appearance only and functioning wings that is at extra cost then there would be much less angry comments. The mount unlock for freeblood is more of an actual mount its not wings attached to the character like this new race and everyone being told they will work without anything extra done. Nobody is bashing the devs. It just too much money for monthly fee, expansion prices with no pre-order discount, new race costs and all the holiday items that will be coming on top of us needing to spend money on multiple real life holidays. Trying to argue that we are wrong and giving us numbers of what you think is fair is not the purpose to any of this. It is us customers giving feedback to SOE, not other players. You are not going to change anyone's mind/opinion and just fuels peoples anger more. You got feedback for SOE then awesome then tell them but I really want people to stop telling us how we should think and feel.

Actually, the noble is $42, not $48. The $48 is for the bundle that includes an additional character slot if you need it. (Which would be $6 in the bundle instead of the usual $10.)

On the other hand, for the Freebloods, it was $20 for the race. But if you want to add wings to a single character for flight, well, that's another $20 or so. So that's $40 versus $42 for the Aerakyn.

But wait, the Noble Aerakyn is an account-wide unlock. So you could have 2, 3, etc. for the same cost of $42. Yes, you could have as many Freebloods as you want for that $20, but to get each of them to fly would be $20 <each>.

(Yes, I know that there are "free" flying mounts under certain conditions, but we're talking straight purchase here.)

The question of whether you would need additional slots and/or whether you want to pay for heroic (level 85) for each character is the same for either race.

But you can also get the Noble Aerakyn/Extra Slot/Heroic bundle at $77, so that is a savings of $10 for the bundle (vs. $42 for the Noble race + $10 for the slot + $35 for the heroic = $87), and you would have the Aerakyn unlocked for any future characters you might want.

Aside from the correction of the price, all of this ignores that the race was not released as advertised. We were told this would be a race with wings that worked at 85. No quest, no unlock, no additional purchase. The wing attacks were likewise advertised as part of the racial abilities. No additional cost for that either, and they certainly didn't mention that you'd have to cripple your fighting ability to use them without buying an extra-special pack.

Freebloods don't even have wings unless you purchase their flight ability. You are changing their appearance as well as giving them the ability to fly with Cloud of Bats. Arasai and Fae were given a lore-consistent reason for their lack of flight, and a way to unlock that ability without having to buy a special upgrade to noble Fae/Arasai. Both standard and noble Aerakyn get the wings with the different appearances at different levels, but standard Aerakyn cannot use them. This makes them the ONLY race in the game that comes with wings but can't fly.

And for the wing attacks, Freebloods have special unarmed combat animations too, but they come with the appearance weapon that unlocks those. You can buy an upgraded version off the marketplace that also adds a red-slash particle effect, but the animations are there to use any time, just because you made a Freeblood.

The $42 "bargain" is not actually that much of one compared to Freebloods unless you plan on making a few of them. And they are still FALSE ADVERTISING.

Grumbles, first off thanks for correcting the amount. I must have remembered it wrong, coulda sworn the reg Aerakyn was 2200SC and the Noble one was 4800.... but I digress. Thanks for the correction, other than that, what I have to say stands. It's too expensive.

The regular Aerakyn can fly at level 85, to me that isn't a huge deal, I generally tradeskill lvl 85 my characters so they can fly anyhow. Which is why myself, and I believe others, are referring to the regular Aerakyn as cosmetic (aka pointless). The Noble Aerakyn has the bells and whistles we expected with the race. As was pointed out, at SOELive, they didn't say there was going to be 2 different versions, they showed us what we now know is the Noble version, and said "Hey guys, look at the new race!"

Point is, it's too much money we are being asked to throw at SOE. And make no mistake, they expect that we will do just that. IMO just take the standard Aerakyn off the table, and make the Noble Aerakyn affordable, even $28 (2800SC) would be more reasonable, which is still more than what they are charging for freebloods.