Producer Letter: About Heroic Characters...

Maybe they should have said Heroic Character $35- character slot not included, then there would be no doubt how it was being done.

The changes being made seem to be aimed at continually cutting revenue streams. The players seem to have a good grasp on this concept as channel chat has been a buzz with how great this is for players and the people that might come back to play for free now. Given these statements you have to consider that IF the only reason a player left was the cost and the only reason they will come back is the game is free without the restrictions - what is the probability of them spending money on it?

After returning and resubbing multiple accounts I just dont see the new for us to renew them again with these changes.

Aside from:

• Broker access
• Spell Research (1 spell per month at high level)
• Lon cards
• Perma Gold Rush buff (15% more coin and 10% mount speed) - if the loot buff was stackable in a group and affected drop rates and not coin percentage increases it would be more valuable to players I think, the mount thing - speed is irrelevant now for the most part.

...what else am I missing as an incentive to keep my gold subs?

I ...guess.. ?? ...if the goal is to always reach for the lowest common denominator and then it would have just been something else. It never crossed my mind that they would give me a slot. When Beastlords came into the game, did we expect a slot, freebloods? I don't recall the issue ever coming up. But, for this one it does..for no other reason then people had to find something to fuss about

Biggest one for me is limited chars slots 4 I believe on free account and broker access as I have 9 chars level 95 crafters

Ok call me dense but someone clarify this for me... My account is 4 Years old so I can create a free 85/280 from Oct1-15...So does that mean after the 15th I have to pay for it to continue using it?

No any character you is yours forever.

Yes

No, it's yours -

Yes, then No. It doesn't seem like others are clear on this subject either....

Ah ok. So we just pay for any new ones we create after the 15th got it! Thankees

I misread your first post - If you roll a new Heroic between today and the 15th - it will be just like you paid for it. They are running a special for people. Probably to measure response. Sorry for confusion.

from Caith posts:

Herioc characters get adepts spells & can of course choose their grandmasters for each tier.

Buying heriocs characters purchases the character itself, not a herioc slot. So if you buy one and delete it, you do not get to make another in the freed up slot without buying another. If you delete an unlocked heroic character, you do not retain any of the unlocked heroic features that were on that character.

Heroic characters are not going to have any quests auto completed for them. That includes epics, language quests, epic repurcussions or any others.

We don't have a date on when Channelers will become available as a Heroic option.

No current plans to do "herioc" characters for crafting.

Heroic characters are no different than normal characters when it comes to how they function in the game. If you betray a heroic character it will be no different than if you betrayed any other character.

Locked herioc characters refers to the try before you buy characters

Unlocked herioc characters are the ones you pay for or get via the promotion.

I returned only about 2 weeks ago and went ahead and paid for a month for Gold, although my account is about 9 years old. I have been back at times, usually when whatever the flavor of the month mmo was growing tiring.

I am having fun and the things that made the game unique within the genre over the years are still nice. I deleted one of the many alts I have been trying just recently for today. I am mostly interested in trying a high level character befpre I decide on buying either of the last two expansions. I didn't mind clearing a slot but I would never spend $35 for an 85, I am unsold on remaining a subscriber as it is.

It seems to me that a majority of the people having an issue with this are the people that are F2P - I don't understand. There are a lot of people coming from other MMOs (WoW) like myself. Was active since Vanilla. IMO, this is a great thing. I am an end game player. I have been since 2006. I like the gameplay of EQ2 that hasn't been "dumbed down" to the extent others have. With that being said - I wasn't excited about grinding toons through 95 levs. This has been negated, and I appreciate it.

This is no different than when people buy a leveled up toon on Ebay. More people running around that have no clue how to play their class or level. I think it is a BAD idea and denys them the advantage of growing, learning and earning what they have. They have already upgraded gear for low levels to the point that content is easy. I wish they would have stuck more to the game as designed in the beginning. Before you go off on me for my opinions, I have been playing this game since launch when it was more difficult and because of that, more exciting.

Forgot to add that I have been a PAYING player since launch. Never went F2P but I am seriously thinking of going that way now. May as well since there isn't a whole lot of incentive to pay out every month.

Why would you think people would go off on you???

I wish they would have stuck more to the game as designed in the beginning. Before you go off on me for my opinions, I have been playing this game since launch when it was more difficult and because of that, more exciting.

I agree in most part. I would be upset, to a degree if they had done this in my previous game (which they kind of did w/Dks). I think there should maybe be a prerequisite of having a toon of at least level 90 before this option is available. I started playing, I shortly thereafter subscribed - have used the SC Marketplace extensively. I started because I had friends here. They offered to PL, and I was reluctant. I believe certain things should be earned, but with the age of this title and the concept in general, SoE needs to be competitive in the realm of capturing new subs like myself. Not having to grind toons is a huge incentive to players like me. I like alts, I like lots of them - had 9 max levs in Cataclysm, but got tired of tanking 25 man HM with 4 buttons. It's why I am here more so than the RL friends that introduced me.

Feldon, I have to somewhat disagree it's being done due to the age of the game, although it is part of it but not for the age alone but the decisions which have been made that affect game play.

The forced soloing in a MMO is a bad decision and has been stated and restated more times than we need to recount.

After recently returning I remembered this issue as our household was trying to group and get through the Drinal Questlines - we almost all quit playing again. Few group updates - It takes longer to do content in groups than it does solo which is counter intuitive. There should always be incentives to group.

Other issues which I see as having lead to this state:

• Few new players - this is a marketing issue not a game mechanics issue.
• Incentives not to group - lacking group updates on quest lines so they take 6x as long to complete in a full group. This has been broken for far too long and they keep implementing the same garbage with every xpac.
• Broken/Overpowered mentoring - god toons are fun but unbalance the game.There have been many suggestions over the years as alternatives to fix this. Perhaps the time has come to revisit this.
• No incentive to mentor or assist beyond power leveling
• No relevance to lower level content. Toons dont need to progress anymore. Skip from grind location to grind location, do bare minimums to get the epic and ER done and start grinding dungeons for gear. I mean no disrespect to those who worked on them but the questlines in the last few expansions are very formulaic and lack flavor. I just dont feel myself invested or engaged in those storylines the way I did in earlier questlines and there seems to be no reason to really do them. I wonder how many people in Obol Plains and doing HE even know the back history of the Everling sisters or their family.
• Bad game economy. When an economy goes south in a game it always signals issues and players leave for varying reasons. It is incredibly disheartening to see things being auctioned starting at 500p and selling for thousands of plat in channel. It gives new players reasons to believe they wont be able to compete and SOE has done little to add sinks to the game.

As a business at the end of the day, it is better to have a few paying customers than hundreds of non-paying ones. I am simply failing to see the revenue streams by which SOE is going to thrive given these changes.

From a marketing stand point I think this will be a good thing. I can see the concern of some players about people not knowing how to play their class, however, everyone can learn. Did it take five levels to learn when to hit the hotkey associated with quickswipe? I rolled a tank class after I came back from a long break and leveling 1-89 did nothing more than become a soloing time sink. I didn't learn anything about tanking, in fact I qued everytime I played and in all that time got one group for the Clefts and BAM his freind logged in and PL'd us. What freak would say no to free PL, and in all seriousness what would have I learned about tanking when most pre90 zones are pretty much trivial at level anyway.