Producer's Letter: AoD Expansion & Membership update!

I suspect Slippery has been involved in the testing, so if he's right Holly doesn't consider a master spell book to be an "item".

Excellent. If all items equipped before the invention of f2p had counted as unlocked, then I would have had more friends online. Dunno if they would have stayed, since they quit before, but they would have given it a chance. The items restriction was a gamebreaker for pretty much everyone I knew who ever came back on a trial basis.

Of course, I want them paying, too.
If gold status becomes a requirement for the new x4 raid zones ... hey, my character is "evil" you know!

Goblin tickets paid for every unlocker that allows me to pass every piece of heirloom useable gear to my other alts on the account, they also got me a few of the unique mounts. Only thing I use houses far is to have a broker and to get all the house items out of inventory, and have a full crafting area, other then that the houses are decorated using the nuclear bomb method of placing, right click and drop. Have a lot more then several thousand SC built up over all the accounts over the years with the double and triple SC promotions, I made it a habit to drop 1 drink out of the Friday night pub crawl and put it towards stock piling SC cards for that then turn them in during that period of time. Missing 3 adventure classes at 95 (soon to be 4) and 2 crafting classes. I also play LON, so 5 booster packs a month save me 14.95 each month for new cards.

Some other possible ways to raise the value of Gold (in no particular order):

• Can roll up to 120 on Lotto and NBG loot
• Cheaper prices from NPC vendors/menders/reforgers (including token vendors, may need to raise some prices for F2P)
• Better rare harvest rates
• Longer food/potion duration
• Extra loyalty tokens (50% chance for 2 each day? whatever)

I'm sure there are some other good ideas out there. Basically, if the economic benefits in game are worth the price of a Krono for you, then you'll obviously buy Kronos with plat.

Gold is still a good deal for me. Broker access alone is good, and being able to move the bar is invaluable.

What is wonderful about no more need for item unlockers is this:
Sometimes the cost of living for a month can be overwhelming to many, and being able to play an immersive game like EQ2 makes things much more enjoyable in those times. We had very high medical expenses this last year due to our son getting a broken leg that required two operations. And for a couple months I could not play one of my favorite characters, due to almost all her gear being legendary or higher. With these changes, I will able to enjoy all my characters even during months of hard times.

Thanks so much, SOE!

this discussion is not about game play, it is about a comparison between F2P and subscription costs are still worth it - aka economics. the actual impact is on the wallet not the fantasy play

Hmm, could not edit that last post, so will add this:

I also bought a few item unlockers on several of my silver accounts. It would most wonderful if those could be converted to spell/skill book unlockers.

that incentive was lost when character slots and mercs came in. transferred all the high level characters down to two accounts and canceled the other 4

So, since this post I've discovered that Silver can buy from the broker (just can't sell without tokens). That makes my point even more valid.

What? What are you talking about? This isn't about impact on the wallet, it's about is the value of a sub meaningful to actually playing the game. If you can play the game and get everything you want without paying anything 90% of people aren't going to pay. You can go on about all the LoN packs you get free, and the Goblin tickets that most people probably don't even use, but they don't mean anything. If that stuff doesn't actually do anything for people's gameplay they aren't going to care and it isn't going to keep them subbed. It doesn't matter if that stuff is worth the value of a sub in dollars, because it doesn't have any impact on how most people play the game.

I have to say the only real incentive to keep my gold account is the aa slider. I have a couple of characters I don't care about, so I can shunt them off to the end of the list and not worry about accessing them. I only use LON for the fluff so it doesn't matter if I lose them. I can buy $5 in SC for a third of the cost of a sub. Most of what I might need a broker for I can get around with my own effort - crafting

Silver's can buy from the broker, they just can't sell w/o buying unlockers.

I will also add that I like the changes but I do think that gold accounts need a bit more of a bump to keep it attractive over silver. The above Ideas are all great.

Going to agree with those above that there definitely needs to be more incentive for a gold restriction. I'm not going to bite that coin has been increased given coin has been nerfed over the years and the difference results in a few gold here and there. Mount speed is pfft too ... not enough features to be worth $15 any longer.

Suggestions!
-Restrict Bronze and Silver players to a limited number of instances and Battlegrounds a day. Give them a good taste, but encourage them to subscribe for more.
-Provide krono or non-reoccuring gold accounts with monthly SC as it is currently limited.
-Increase monthly SC to 1000-1500. If one is also receiving a SC card in the deal with the other features, it might just be worth it.
-Delay Game Update content to Bronze/Silver memberships by a month. Doesn't punish casuals, but encourages those who want to do it all to actually get a subscription.
-Gold Member-only loyalty point system or marketplace area.
-Iksar Heritage Armor

Also. I think to keep Kronos relevant you may want to give them an SC claim value, since the demand for SC is going to go up while Kronos are going to go waaaay down.

Yeah, there are dozens of different ways to add value to Gold membership that don't discourage returning players (or players who need to drop their sub for a month or two) like item restrictions did. Removing the item restrictions is 100% the right move, but it might necessitate some other improvements to Gold membership.

I don't like that one because everyone benefits from more players populating the world. Established players might just buy a Krono to bypass the instance/BG run restriction, but newer players will probably not be able to earn the plat for Kronos with the limit on instance runs.

Gold could certainly use more incentive, but not in this manner.
To begin with, you can't possibly delay content for people based on their account level.
The plat bag restriction is all we'll probably see for gold members on the loyalty vendor.
Providing non-recurring gold accounts with monthly SC does nothing to help with the incentives for a recurring membership.

Dice rolls don't need a change.
Cheaper prices would be overkill if you're already earning more money through the new bonus as well as loyalty points
Rare Harvest rates are fine as they are and aren't being touched.
Food/potion duration doesn't seem worth the investment.

More loyalty points could be an incentive.

Content can easily be delayed. It's a flagging system like anything else that kept non-expansion folks from zoning into expansion-only areas. Having an account-based flag roll out a month before free folks is no problem to code.

Membership is membership. Providing equal bonuses between non-reoccurring makes sense. It's all money made by SOE.

But, my ideas are just suggestions. They do need to do something. What that something is, I hope they'll find it and implement it. 'caus right now there's not enough bait on the hook.

I updated my post. The 20 AAs granted with AoD will be added to the base game that's available to all players.

Good to hear, then the only feature from AoD that makes a lick of difference in game-play is reforging. I'm glad its being added as a featurette for purchase. This way anyone returning presumable only has to buy the expansion on Nov 15th and the reforging feature. I'm assuming CoE will be included in the next expansion, I guess I could be wrong cause you guys have been inconsistent in your business practices of late.

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I am pretty sure I will take up the slack you leave