i need a sub now to play EQ2???

If I want to play WoW free to play, I would join a private server of WoW. So Blizzard might get mad and ban my "non-paid" account forever, not like I was going to come back and pay to play it. Right now, for free to play WoW I would barely get my money's worth, that's how little I care for WoW/Blizzard.

i agree, DayBreak/SOE needs to get a real marketing group and stop experimenting on pay models. be transparent...

Startrek Online and somewhat StarWars the Old Replublic are doable F2P atm. SWTOR sub is worth it. STO and Rift subs are not needed but useful if core-hardcore player and leveling...

a thought, buy to play, DLCs, f2p. if you want to toy with a sub then go for it but jump into the real F2P model please.

I think we ought to go pure subscription again, personally.

It utterly astonishes me, how easy this game is to play entirely for free, without spending a single penny. Rift isn't bad, either, but I prefer EQ2 to Rift. But the key to whether either game is "worth" playing for free is to determine precisely what you can & can not put up with. EQ2 & Rift both, for the most part, have quite generous F2P models that allow you to do most of what a subscriber can do, & as a result, I don't feel like I'm some sort of second-class citizen.

Conversely, I would not even think about playing SW:TOR without a subscription. The credit cap alone is heinous enough, but the loss of half your shipboard tradeskillers is brutal. Other issues, like caps on the amount of PvP & Starfighter missions you can do per week, are also unattractive, & honestly, I despise their whole "Cartel Credit" system, which IMO is the single-biggest "pay to win" concept going right now, mixing M:TG concepts in with MMO cash shop ideas to thoroughly squeeze both paying & non-subscribing customers equally.

As for WoW .... even if that worthless cartoon nonsense had a F2P model, I wouldn't play it. Blizzard can stuff itself.

I wasn't thinking about the ancients, I believe F2P cannot use Grandmaster tier spells. Unless that changed just recently.

Yes...RIFT. You have the option of buying extras but CONTENT is all free. For all the bad in Rift it deserves the title F2P. I am not blind to a games faults unlike some player bases who are blinded because the game has given a false sense of value.

Daybreak are slowly choking the EQ brand, instead it needs euthanizing (Original EQ/EQ2 player too).

I feel people are stuck in time in EQ/EQ2 it's not a good game anymore it's old and staid. The engine is tired and the raid mechanics are remedial, but they distract the players with more new shiny buttons to press giving them a false sense of accomplishment. When most games are pruning and combining abilities. It's not about skill, it's just s form of whack a mole. The game should be about enjoyment and not how many new spells combat arts you get given.

I recently in the hopes that all was not rotten came back to both EQ1/2 (trying to find out what held me so captivated) and paid for a sub. I realised quickly you cannot go back and should not try unless you want to destroy memories of happy times. I have gotten older, so has EQ, I have gotten more mature, sadly the EQ brand has just gotten older

I hope I got some people angry, if so, those same people I want to think about why they are angry.
Something I say to my kids "Will you be angry tomorrow?" in the hope they will see how little it actually means. Now if some of you are still angry tomorrow over a few comments then sadly your problems are bigger than EQ2, stop hiding.

Get angry about issues that matter, not about a random comment, by a random guy, over a game. Get angry about the real world and do something about it.

Peace.

It used to be subscription only along with it's predecessor EQ. No one back then would have thought they should play for free. I was just about to say the same thing. Return to the subscription only model and be done with all the whining and complaining and subsidizing by those who do subscribe. Of course no matter what they do, there will be whining and complaining. There always is.

So your idea is to cut the revenue from players who don't subscribe but do spend money in the cash shop and on xpacs and then put the burden of making up that cash shop revenue on existing players who only subscribe. That should work well.

You are assuming that F2P people are contributing a significant percentage of the total revenues. DBG doesn't release those kinds of statistics, but because they're increasing the pain points for F2P a bit tells me that they REALLY want F2P people to subscribe. Which, in turn, suggests that F2P people don't contribute nearly enough to the cashflow.

Anecdotal stories about "I spent $250 last month in the cash store" don't change the reality of the accounting on the real side of things, where company management and investors have to look at the actual cash flow and make decisions for the company based on that.

What that suggests to me is that they are desperate for money because so many people have quit playing this game. It has nothing to do with how much f2p spend on playing this game. Even if they completely do away with the f2p model, they still aren't going to make a lot of money if they don't step up the quality and quantity they are offering to players. If people don't perceive they are getting good value for their money, they aren't going to pay. It doesn't matter if a handful of players like it no matter what.

I saw an advertisement on Yahoo today for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I can't remember the last time I saw any amount of advertising at all for EQ2.

Gosh, maybe if the world knew this awesome game still existed, maybe more people might play it, but you know, in 2016, not advertising is totally the new advertising.

thing is they want advertising but they are too cheap to pay for it and instead hope someone will like the game enough to make a buzz on twitter or facebook/make a game themed meme that becomes popular.

Let's just throw logic out the window and jump to conclusions without facts to suit our own agendas.

I'll go with "They're not getting enough revenue period" for 500 Alex. Notice how the 30 fervor buff isn't for one subscriber. One subber isn't good enough. You need two. So not only are they sending the signal that they want non-subscribers to go sub or go away, they're sending the signal that your single sub isn't really that appreciated either.

It doesn't matter if non-subscribers are contributing a significant percentage. Non-subscribers are contributing some and/or are a potential revenue conversion. There are players who only subscribe part of the year but still log in and contribute to their server, guild, and community and might pay in the cash shop. If you think the game will be better and revenues increase by cutting off that income stream, I would like to see your logic behind that because I think it's just bad business.

Your point implies that non subscribers don't ever pay and that they are a burden on the game. So sure, if DBG really thinks they're a burden then they should lock it back up and keep only the subscribers. Let the full time subscribers carry the load. I don't think DBG is thinking that. I believe they're thinking they want more ARPU per player no matter what. Yes, they want the $15/mo from a sub. They also want another $15/mo in cash shop and another $20 per month in Krono per account too.

All decisions lately have been about increasing revenue, at least in the short term. All that says to me is they're getting pressure to make better numbers.

Well, they do have to answer to their stockholders and show a decent profit, or else they could have just put it into government bonds if they wanted a safe but little return. Morally, there may be such a thing as too much greed, but in the business world not to a corporation for which it is their lifeblood and reason for continued existence.
I do not object to their trying to get more money out of the players, Heck, our governments are always trying (and succeeding) in getting our money and then we have to fight to get some of it back. But when DBG's quest for more profit hurts the game, the players and the fun, then we have a problem. The quality of the game and its mechanics are slowly weakening, which hurts the playerbase which hurts the fun.

They can invest lots of money to try to fix it (a risky proposition and MIGHT pay off) or they can just squeeze harder and invest their monies into NEW games and hope to be the next super game to take the gaming world by storm. IMO, EQ/EQ2 will limp along, slowly getting worse until someone (players or DBG or both) pull the plug. I am quite sure that the EQ team is working hard, but its the bean counters who are watching the beans that are causing the problem.

You don't tell an engineer what tools he is allowed to have to do his job. He tells the bean counters what he needs to do the job and get it done. I weep for the future of EQ/EQ2 but ill hang around as long as I can. I have many more dragons to slay before I retire my sword.

I believe that to be the case, & I believe it to be astonishingly incompetent.

Regardless, I'm going to reiterate that the headline of this thread is entirely false. The OP equated not being able to access GU100 without a subscription, to not being able to play EQ2 at all. NOBODY should support that sort of sloppy nonsense.

I'm just waiting for that one item they add on the marketplace that helps progression even beyond what having a sub does.

Right now I think everyone agrees that currently it is 'sub or accept your character being significantly less powerful'. And I think that's fine. I think its P2P instead of F2P, but again, DBG has every right to choose their business model, and they're trending towards P2P for sure.

But the first time they add something on marketplace "Temporary Raid Fervor Banner" or "Cosmetic Helm of Fervor" that actually makes your character more powerful even beyond having a sub, that's when all bets are off and things go downhill fast. I never would have thought that would happen in EQ2, but man I'm getting less and less sure every patch.

sadly, new games dont seem likely as they decided to scrap everquest next. The company from what i read from interviews with personel and such, has stated the company is run at the top by bankers who know nothng about gaming. they decided everquest next wouldnt be fun enough to bring in subs so they axed it. thats just the reality of it these days. i came back to this game because it offers what most of the others dont now. a challenge. swtor, tera, even rift cater to making subs level faster. which to me takes the fun out of the journey of leveling your toon. i mean swtor had a summer long 12x xp event last year. you could level one of each class in a few weeks lol. to me that takes to fun out of the game.