I'm both ... Free to Play and Pay to Play. I will buy a krono (actually purchasing it, not buying it off the broker .. though if I ever saved enough plat, I would) once every other month or two. I played for almost 4 years as a full subscriber (early 2006 to late 2009) when I quit playing due to RL. I just came back earlier this year (probably around March). Started with paying for a subscription on a reloadable gift card. Let that run out after a couple months, saw a steady decline to the state of Nagafen server, decided I'd probably F2P mostly with just buying the krono every other month or two. If Nagafen had been HALF as fun, adventurous, populated, etc as it was in 2009; I would have continued with a full subscription. It isn't. If everything, as some have suggested, were taken from those that are F2P, then the game (not just Nagafen server, but across the whole game) would probably dry up really fast as the F2P would just stop playing. Then when they've stopped playing and the population is even in a worse state than it is now, most of those that are die hard Pay to Plays, will eventually ask themselves "what's the point anymore?" and stop paying and playing. F2P is an enticement to draw in people that will hopefully become subscriptions, pay for certain in game services/items, or become like me and partial pay to play. Currently, at the time of making this post, I am a paying member this month and I haven't logged on in 3 days. Frankly, because I'm bored. BG's over and over get boring. It was kinda fun at first, and it does let me get the pvp fix in. But then once the dailies are finished, I leave BG's and either wait for a WF or log out. This is how bad it was ... when I first came back in March, I was at whatever the max level was back in 2009 (80 or 85, I forget). As I was leveling up to get to 95, I died to pvp a total of 3 times in two weeks. If it was still like it was in 2009 and I was a lowbie trying to level up, I would have died 3 times inside of an HOUR to someone higher level.
Sorry I thought this was funny, especially the "catering" rofl. SOE caters to bluebies, always has always will. Dragon's Prophet is a f2p based game, has better graphics, gameplay and similar mechanics to EQ2. It's an SOE game. This game is pretty awesome and no one subs, yet SOE still receives a large portion of cash from players buying housing, dragons, marketplace items, etc. F2P is an excellent idea. Many games are basing their games AROUND f2p and doing what Exur says, adding fluff and bonuses to subbing players. I'm not F2P on eq2 but I have been before, and I agree fully with Exur and others who support it. It doesn't mean players don't support the game because they're on F2P. Doesn't mean they need better jobs, sometimes you just don't want to drop 15 a month on a game. Obviously SOE is going in the right direction, as EverQuest Next will join our family of free-to-play games. It's a great model, and I think they're going in the right direction with F2P, if only others could see how useful it is.
if the money SOE is getting goes to support and other things then why is it people still have issues like the Direct x error and other tech issues shouldnt that have been fixed way back 9 years ago or fixed before EQ2 went f2p???
