Is the next expac pay 2 win, cause I'm spent

Unfortunately, I think everything you just said here is exactly correct.

When it was suggested that Grand Mastered Glacial Freeze would be needed by multiple characters to defeat T4 raid bosses, the response that I was given was "You do not have to pay for this spell, there are ways to get it without paying a single penny". This was before they put in the expert zones and before the Adept or Master versions of the spell were even put into the game outside of pay to win or research. Let that sink in. They expected that a suitable timeline for getting the spells was a minimum 85 days of research for anyone elementalist, to complete certain raid encounters...

The epic 2.0 is no longer prestige, it is Greater Relic only. So Free to Play can equip it still.

It amazes me that you think this game will be around 2-3 years from now at this pace.

Today I learned that ($15 a month x 12 mo/yr x 12 years) + ($40-60 x 15 expacs) = $2,910 = Free

It is one thing to have fluff items, decorations, sparkle ponies, and speedups on the Marketplace. It is quite another to look at the time investment to get an Ascension ability which is part of gameplay and a direct measure of player power, then look at the "why bother" drop rate, then see a dollar figure to get it instantly. The idea of Ethereals on the Marketplace was once farfetched.

I think it will be. It may be fading, but it's not dead. Even if the coming expansion is the last one, people will play it. People are saying that they will play on FG until whatever expansion it is they prefer and most of those are two years away. The game easily has 2 years, even without an expansion next year. It may not be the game you or most people want to play, but that's a different issue.

I don't imagine Fallen Gate will have the population a year from now. Stormhold dropped off pretty quickly too, and FG has already started to fall off now that the people who have done whichever HQ they wanted finish are done with the server.

It probably has dropped off some, but I still find groups 24/7 and general chat is very active. SH died because of FG, but only after two years of people playing there. I estimate the same for FG. That still gets us to two years.

I've been saying I give it 2-3 years tops. Business model aside, the quality of the product is that bad these days.

aaah ok

Thanks for the math. I mean it. It still works out to $242.50 a year which is still LESS than one large premium coffee at McDonald's every day = $543.85. That's black coffee, no frills.

2 nosebleed seat tickets to Seahawks vs Niners run $342! That's entertainment for ONE DAY and does not count insane prices at the concession stands. ONE DAY!

Sure, I'm a casual player BUT I find, using Feldon's math, that $242.50 is a heck of a lot more reasonable for my 200 DAYS of entertainment than blowing my discretionary funds for a couple of Seahawks games, Duck games, Beaver games, AAA league games and associated foods per year. Okay, I blow funds for a few sports events but not, example, 100 days of entertainment for a minimum of $342 = $34,200.

I enjoy EQ2 and I pay for my entertainment. Chuckles and eye rolls from the forums are just free added extras.

Do you really need anyone to point out why your comparisons are ridiculous, or can you figure that out for yourself?

**** it, I'll give it a shot.

It's still not 'free', is it? You're still paying for it, aren't you? In that regard, how much in comparison it cost to anything is completely irrelevant since the whole point that IT'S NOT ****ING FREE!, right?.

But, if you do want to compare costs, you have to do it with like products and services. I could compare playing this game to eating Taco Bell for a year or spending an hour or two in the V.I.P. lounge with a stripper. Those comparisons ARE ****ING STUPID, though, because Taco Bell and strippers are not online video games, are they?

So, how much does it cost to play: SWTOR, ESO, WoW, Rift, GW2, FFXIV, etc per year? How much extra are you coerced into paying in other games to remain competitive? How much are you expected to spend in the cash shop with or without a sub to keep up to date?

I think everyone gets the point.

Every time one of you people makes one of these weak arguments you are not putting up a good defense for the game you claim to like. What you are doing, at best, is making yourself look like you are making excuses and obfuscating the situation to build a defense for the indefensible. At worst, you make yourself look like a *** ****ed moron.

Step up your game, people.

ROFLMAO, because you want to defend having to not pay for stuff time to attack me for my opinion, and your opinion rules. No one is forcing anyone to pay $75 for anything, don't want it, can't afford it, don't buy it. I do raid, and I have raided, and I have way more than 3 friends, LOL (tried to down me but didn't work) I have had ACT installed for quite a long time now. This just shows the level of your ignorance. You don't know me, you don't know anything about me, about how I play and about how I pay. All of your assumptions are wrong. And if you are asking that thing not have a price on them, then you are asking for free stuff. My oh my how did people get these items, before they started buying them for convenience sake? My analogies and metaphors hit home too much, and you just can't cope.

Anyway, I am not going to change your mind, you are not going to change my mind, we just disagree. There is nothing wrong with a difference of opinion. Yours don't make you right, and mine don't make me right either. They are just opinions. Have a great day.

If we follow your examples, I look at eq2 like a movie, I pay a set price to come to a movie to watch the movie in whatever form it comes in. If I want to buy popcorn and soda during the movie to make my movie experience more enjoyable, that is a good thing, just like buying exp potions or easy travel stuff, that makes the game experience more enjoyable to some, and to some they don't need it to make the movie/game any different.

Eq2 now with the buying of ascension has made it so that you come to the movie and to see it in color (because they movie was made in color) you have to buy this new thing to see it now, or see the movie 50 times hoping to get the random Color Movie Drop. OR you can wait 48 days to see the movie before you get the first level of Color.

If that was the way movies worked, no one would pay to see them. Just like Eq2 is now losing people because they don't want to have to pay to make the game/movie better.

You are wrong sorry its greater Relic

Asking for them to be handed to me without work is asking for them to be free. Asking for them to not be offered for REAL LIFE money, and to be offered for in game work/currency is not asking for them to be free. You're confused. My point is, someone with enough real life money to spend $500+ dollars to buy in game spells should not get a leg up, ever, in any capacity. That business model lacks integrity when it comes to the gaming world. Take your "I'm okay with micro transactions for in game power" attitude somewhere else.

What guild do you raid with and link your character here. Let's see my level of ignorance.

If you were a raider in any significant guild you would know that every T4 raid turns into a serious DPS check at some point, every single one. DBG set this up in conjunction with the pay to win (increase) DPS model of ascension spells this expac. Any guild that is willing to pay for GM ascension spells will progress faster and farther. The fact that DBG's model for T4s originally included requiring Glacial Freeze to be GM before it was even offered IN GAME without paying REAL LIFE currency should be pretty telling. They finally changed it when they realized that people would rather just quit playing than to be FORCED to pay for spells.

Look around you on this thread, and that should tell you why your opinion is wrong, when it comes to paying for spells to get a leg up in games like this. People will quit, no one new will join. The business model is a "cash grab as it dies" business model in the MMO world, there is no debate on that.

I legit laughed at the idea of people going into a theater to see a movie hoping to get the random color movie drop.

It is fabled, greater relic, but not prestige.

https://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/3016226865

And there in what you said lies your answer: If you don't like or want to spend REAL LIFE money, don't, go find another game, there are TONS of games out there. If you don't like the business model here, or with ANY company, don't spend your hard earned money there, go someplace you feel comfortable with. Take your do it the way I want it so NO one can top me attitude, to the child's sand box. No one is forced, just don't do it. It's all because you don't want to wait and you want it now. No one is pointing a gun at you, while you are standing at the atm with your credit card.

So, like I said, you believe what you want, I am not gonna change your mind, and just like you, I have a right to my opinion as you do, and I am not gonna change mine. So, do what you want, rant all you want, talk to the devs on Discord, protest, threaten to quit, yell, scream and stomp about threatening to quit... maybe they will listen to you and take all of it away, making everyone wait until they can get thru each ascension, what is it nearly 90 days... That way everyone is even... cool. And those who already have it, can't change that, there just won't be any more unless you wait for it.

You are a confused individual. Your whole reply to my post shows how confused you are about the conversation we are even having here. That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works.

I will eventually take my money somewhere else, as will most people playing this game, and it will crash and burn (I feel like I've said this at least twice in this thread alone). The point is, I pay for it now, and I am allowed to comment on the product that is currently taking my money and the integrity in which they conduct themselves while taking my money. It's called customer feedback, it's a thing.

Again, the only person defending the "I want it right now" mentality is you, by supporting the idea that pay to win should be allowed in the game. I also noticed that you didn't mention what guild you are in or link a character profile to show how much of a "raider" you are. Prove my ignorance. I'll be shocked if your guild is above 50th in WW progression. I'll be shocked if you've even killed a T4 raid mob....