We still don't know how the system will work. Seeing as how EQ2 is pretty far on the greed scale of F2P models I would wager that every account will get 1 heroic 85 and you can purchase more for probably way too much. That's complete speculation but you may not want to put all your eggs in that basket.
I think you need to have a closer look at the F2P models out there. EQ2 is one of the most lenient. To begin with, you're allowed to go past level 20 and very soon, you can start from 85.
I've logged in three times since hearing about the insta-level crap. And that's mostly been to monitor the liquidization of my 2.5 year old twink-gear broker business that was instantly obsoleted. The genre definitely does need a reboot. Fortunately I have education, credentials and ideas to contribute to it, unfortunately I have very little time for he next few months at least.
Games don't change as much as people change. Motivations change...personal life, kids, jobs, relationships all combined.
I wanted to 'like' this, but thought that would make the wrong impression...as I don't like the fact that it is true, I just like the fact that you so eloquently stated the reason that EQ2, and games in general, are being dumbed down...errr, sorry, I mean simplified. I would like to add a thought in case perchance a DEV, or someone with both the interest and a position to influence things, might stumble across it. Do not sell your new players short. I came back to EQ2 from other games and brought a new player with me, I mean straight up newb with minimal gaming experience. I had introduced her to Rift, and Wizardy Online, before she fell in love with EQ2 because of the depth and rich world/lore. Every time we do something in the game that is stupidly easy, she gets this depressed look on her face, so I tell her of how it 'used to be harder', and she gets sad and asks why it was made so easy. Whenever we do something that has some difficulty, she lights up and says how awesome that was. So SOE...please...when you are designing EQNext...please put in some hard content also...just enough to give the gamers who don't like handouts something to enjoy.
From my perspective, I would say that it's more about moving the genre forward. The main reason the old rewards were so exclusive was that the method of earning them was tedious. They didn't really require much talent or skill of the players beyond just patience and determination. Tedium is not a desirable quality in games, so the developers sought to reduce it. Now, the patient and determined players wish their rewards were as exclusive as they were in the past. Furthermore, excluding players from rewards based on skill or talent is much more discouraging than excluding players from rewards based on their tolerance for tedium. With the tedium method, almost everyone could achieve the most exclusive rewards if they just put their mind to it (and had the right life situation for it). However, people struggle to improve their skill beyond a certain point, so requiring a high skill threshold for rewards means that they are unattainable for many players no matter how hard they try. This explanation assumes that all MMO players are the same...
This also brings up a really good point about game evolution. When RL is tough - recently people have lost jobs and worried about their houses, etc...do you really want to log in to an amusement/game and have to start all over again from poor and scratch? Games need to be an escape. When they start looking like RL, people stop playing them. RL is tough enough to level and gear up, I don't need to repeat the same content in a game (lol).
I still LOVE this game and think about it when I'm not playing. I think part of the reasons why is that I can't play whenever I want or for 5+ hours at a time. If I could, I probably would and I'd run out of things to do and I'd enjoy it less, ie I'd burn out. I have 6 toons at 95 and one more to level. All of them have equipment goals still to reach. Because of my time restrictions, I often don't complete an xpac/GU before the next comes out, certainly not on every character, so I'm constantly chasing the carrots and that keeps me enjoying the game. As an example, I still need a flying stat mount from HE/ST on all of my characters... so I keep wanting to play.
I don't really see a problem here, if anything I'm against allowing people to start at 85. You should have to level up from 1 and actually learn you're class. It's not like going from 1-85 took that long anyways. If you really wanted to you could be at least 80 in one day. There's plenty of content out there for while you're leveling. Go do the old dungeons and instances, run claymore soulfire ect 90-95 I find there's quite a bit also, especially with an expansion coming up this year.
I wonder if making achievements more account based would help allow some of the people who don't want to rerun the same content from feeling that the game is such a beat down...similar to how the Speak as a Dragon quest is handled... this might be a viable balance option and allow a game, whether it be EQ2 or EQNext, to maintain the ability to cater to the people who still enjoy the game mechanic of reward for time input. I say this in response to the posts made here about how the players have changed, that people no longer have time or desire to run long quest lines for a reward...as i disagree with that statement; I think that what has happened is that they no longer enjoy such game mechanics. There are many players, including new players, who do enjoy long adventures providing an exclusive reward; for example again I use the Prismatic Weapon questline. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, extended investment of time to gain an exclusive reward allow everyone to gain that item/title/prestige/whever, some quicker than others...but eventually, everyone. If such long time investment requirements were made to be account based, then the feeling of accomplishment for having completed it is still there for those who enjoy such, but those who feel that they no longer wish to invest time into a game wouldn't have to for more than once per account...
