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The lack of gratitude in this thread is absolutely astounding. Are some of you actually reading what you have posted? I'm guessing that most 10 year vets are over the age of 26, which makes some of these posts that much more disturbing.

Thank you SOE for 10 years of content and game availability. As well, thank you for this fantastic reward / prestige home.

I loved the community of my Scale Yard home. I walked out the door and right across from me was the instanced crafting area that housed the broker about 3/4 of the way down the stairs to the basement area. The bank was down the street to the left, around the corner past the fountain. There were racial quests in the various districts of Freeport.
There was a huge Troll who crafted diligently, and, just as diligently, blew up the crafting area he was in and died a bit, sometimes taking another player with him.
I tried one of the new quests in one of the former slum communities. I didn't like the quest. There was no real sense of Community.
The Freeport low-rent housing development has a door at the end of the corridor that has apartments on either side. The door is non-functional.
I seriously feel that for the convenience of the residents, the crafting instance of the slums should be placed in that unused space, along with the broker and banker in a separate room off of the tradeskill writ givers, and the fuel merchant.
Why would I want to leave my convenient slum to move to a place that is inconvenient when it comes to crafting and common financial and trade amenities? If given a choice, I would have stayed in my Scale Yard home and defended it to the death, but
I had no choice, and I was sent to a "posh?" apartment building without the convenient amenities of banker/broker/fuel merchant, writ givers, and crafting stations.
My little Halfling loved her Baubelshire home, but she detested having to run a half mile to the crafting instance.
I enjoy convenience in crafting. If I am adventuring, I know that there will be spaces...sometimes very long spaces, between harvest nodes I may want, and between some kinds of mobs I may need for L&L. Crafting is a job, not an adventure. The work place area should be convenient for the workers. We don't have to neatly make our beds anymore, Chloro Wash, and other ingredients to make frames and mattress, etc. Somehow, I felt more like I accomplished something when I literally made my bed. But..I still love crafting.
I guess some of us don't see some of the "improvements," as actual improvements, since they took away our sense of
community and personal identification with an area and a race, and made crafting less convenient but safer.
I have on a few occasions a few months ago, died while crafting. I was so happy...it was in a remote area, but I got the feeling that I was HOME again. It was more Real, and not just boring repetition.
I guess a lot of people get homesick if they have been displaced, and even the faults they may have found at that time, now have a nostalgic glow and engender Fond Memories.
I'm glad Gloomstalker still roams. I'm still afraid of him...even if I'm 70 levels higher. He made a distinct impact on my little psyche. Thanks, SONY, for keeping some of those things that we were fondly attached to, as well as some of the things that scared the living ink out of our lower level characters.
The Isle of Refuge is a nice tribute.
I wish that re-opening our former slum homes as homes would be considered, or at least use those unused doors in the apartment housing instances to house the transported instanced crafting area that we used from the trap door across the street from our home.

You make it sound like we are getting something for nothing which is absolutely not the case. Vet rewards are great but most 10 year vets have been paying subs each month for ten years which is hardly nothing.

From the update notes this looks like the 11 year vet reward, not 10 despite what the notes say. If this is the case it makes me wonder what is going on at SOE, the 10 year reward was a merc, a good merc for sure but that was it. I remember when we used to get XP potions and stuff, that stopped a couple of years ago. Now we are rationed further down to a single claim of a much loved zone that has at least a 1/3rd of it missing.

Like I said in a previous post, if this is an addition to the 10 year reward of a merc (again, a very good merc) then fair enough, but if this turns out to be the sole reward for spending between $100 and $150 depending on your subs for the 11th year, then I think its a pretty poor show seeing as its not even the full zone.

I should get mine on November 20 or 21. That is when my account will be the right age. Why don't you just check your vet rewards that you have already claimed and find out which one was your last one? If you have been playing as long as you say you have then it is probably only a matter of days until you can "Claim" it.

But weather I can claim it or not yet I still should be able to see it on the Housing list and be able to tour it. (I did on BETA . . just wondering if they fixed things we were wanting fixed or if it stayed the same.

And thank you Aranedhel for saying your peace so eloqhently. I could not have said it better myself.
" I tolerate not having access to certain items because my playstyle isn't suited obtaining them (mostly raid items, hate raiding for the most part, not my cup o' tea). As long as SOE continues to publish soloable content, and expands the housing item list I will continue to goof off in Norrath as much as I am able. "

I really only need one house per character . . . . I have way more than I need basically because when I first stepped foot on the Island, I told them I was to be a crafter! No adventurer here. Granted I did have to go adventuring so I could do all my gathering of supplies . . "ding . .ding. . .ding. . .ding . ." but I am a crafter at heart. When we got Guild halls and the means to have crafting supplies at our fingertips (save for rares) I was in HEAVEN! (and still am). I will be here for a L O N G time to come. . . .(yes I started with EQ1 also . .anyone from the RATHE server here??) Sony will have to do something REALLY drastic for me to leave. I don't know what that is. . . .but I will know it when they do it.

Having started on Nov 4 2004 my account age is not reflecting that. I have all the expansions that gave bonus time. I do not have the the prestige house ready to claim and wondering if others are experiencing this also?

We are paying customers and we have a right to feel whatever we want and to express those feelings here. We don't need your approval or consent.

I'm not asking for anything; I'm simply relaying my opinion as well. If you wish to be a miserable person, that is your choice. Good luck to you.

If disagreeing with your condemnation of paying customers that come here to freely express their opinions positive and negative makes me a miserable person, then what does that make you? The point is that these forums are for both sides of the aisle, negative and positive. Why have forums that only allow positive comments? They need to know how their player base feels about their decision making and I am sorry you have a personal problem with that.

The overall geometry changes to the zone were necessary to help improve performance, especially since the home was made flyable. Maintaining a good experience inside of player homes is always important and sometimes they have to make alterations to help ensure the house will actually be functional.

An official response! awesome.

Now the OP says its a 10 year reward but us 10 year's can't claim it. Whats the deal with that?

TBH this should have been able to be claimed "ONE PER ALIGNMENT" if only to be fair to us veteran players, and could have been easily done by having a one time "REQUIRES GOOD ALIGNMENT" and "REQUIRES EVIL ALIGNMENT" with each alignment getting the population packs for recreation purposes.

The Isle of Refuge was not technically one island with it having been broken up into "Queen's Colony" and the "Outpost of the Overlord" and many of us did have at least 1 good and 1 evil character at launch (it wasn't that rare TBH as we flopped back and forth as vitality ran out).

Sure, it would have been nice to have 1 per character, but to not at least have 1 per account per alignment irritates me. Not even for the fact that I could go buy a second one if I really had to, but the simple fact that as a VETERAN receiving this reward all the population stuff is on one character now with no way for us to get the replicas on any other character.

At the very least SOE you need to make this do a check on purchase and if the person buying is at the 11 year mark it gives the replicas for them with the population pack. It still does the same thing of allowing something unique and special only to use vets, but it gives us a reason to I dunno BUY ANOTHER IOR and POPULATION PACK.

It might also be nice if you would find a way to let us have a way to enter into "Queen's Colony" and the Outpost of the Overlord" at an auto mentored level (or even auto scale the zone) if anything just for the S&G's it would bring us to hang out and bring new and old to experience what the island was. Heck tack the loot and XP away if you have to, but at least something just for fun of redoing the area.

Anyway, that's my 2 copper's worth even though I'm sure it won't go far.

I was excited when i read it was an additional 10 year vet reward, seems like it would have made up for our already mediocre merc reward. But when I logged in there was no home to claim. When I read the patch notes, they said that it had been made the 11 year reward. Sitting at 10 years, 11 months, and 9 days. I'm a little disappointed. Should have made it clear from the get go that this would have been the 11 year vet reward and not a 10 year. Now that I see that this is probably the only thing (besides maybe the npc population pack), it makes me long for the days of getting titles and such that actually distinguished players that have been here since launch or near launch.

GG SOE

And yet you act like the atmosphere of the game ten years ago has much relevance to it today, except in that it happened and will have some small trickle-down effect on our current play? How many alts people had ten years ago when the game was first starting has almost no relevance to our current state.

i love this prestige home. the only thing disappointing in it is that the buildings are not usable. however, you can fly in it- which is way better than houses where you can't fly. it is not just for 10 year vets. you can actually buy the house on the marketplace.

Incidentally, all opinions are valuable and no one should ever put anyone down for expressing theirs. i might not agree with all you say, but i will fight to the death for your right to say it- Patrick Henry.

it is disappointing to come on the forums and see people bickering over who has the right to say what.

Kids today.

The context of this Isle is that of six to ten years ago. It is an artifact of that time. Therefore the target customer for it is one who dates from that time. Therefore the crafting of the product should be done from that vantage. Good product design should also include everyone else, and guess what- you were also included when you didn't have to be.

That would be the response if I indeed "act like the atmosphere of the game ten years ago has much relevance". I don't. That's is yet another of your misinterpretations. The grumpy way I am acting is because pandering to customers like you has altered the genre for the worse, in ways you don't even understand, because you cannot even seem to conceive of a circumstance where things don't revolve around what you think this instant.

Enjoy your sea of WoW-clones. You deserve them.

You can right now if you have access to Darathar's Flight.

Please tell me it has the original music there too?

The reward is 10 years based on your actual Account Age. So, if you created your account on Nov. 8, 2004, the reward should be available in your /claim 10 years from that time.

Ok, yes! It has the original music there too

Booo no Moocow plushie with the bell on his neck? .. Ah well, still a few months for me to get the house...island, have been wanting to go back there for a while now, thanks Sony now put the zone back in...the one without Darathar.