Silver membership

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by dartcron, Jul 26, 2015.

  1. Feldon Well-Known Member

    Agree 1,000%.
    Katz, Lucus and Finora like this.
  2. Finora Well-Known Member



    Check that link I posted. It should say something like Chat token or silver membership in your list. As I said before all my main all access accounts have that listed just like the auto granted silver accounts I have and the ones I actually purchased silver membership on.

    If you've had your eq2 membership since before f2p and do not see it (or even if you do see it) and your account is not behaving as a silver account should, then you should absolutely contact CS about it.

    Now silver can not buy direct from people, it has to be done through the broker so if you were in a house trying to buy from a sales crate, that is why you could not. Silver membership's old benefits were the loosening the gear/spell restrictions, which no longer exist for the most part. Its other benefits were 2 more character slots, opening up chat and allowing you to purchase from the broker without buying tokens.
    flameweaver likes this.
  3. Tawnia Member

    my characters are toons! :))
    That guy. and Seefar like this.
  4. mouser Well-Known Member

    To be fair, CWA wasn't stabled for monetary reasons, the contract simply ran out. There was no reason for LA or Disney (I forget who was in charge at that point) to renew it with SW:ToR running. Shame, really. It was a fun game.

    Wizardry was just a PITA throwback to 'old-skool' games by developers who refused to accept that many mechanics in old games were only accepted by players because other choices hadn't been made available yet. Vanguard was stillborn, to put it nicely - yes, it got better, for a bit, but not enough.

    Free Realms had a decent run, but it was a concept that simply didn't need to exist: parents don't mind their kids playing video games with adults (see: the lines of parents and kids buying Mortal Kombat and CoD this Christmas).
  5. mouser Well-Known Member

    I like not having to deal with 800 ads to gold selling sites cluttering up my display with messages from accounts with gibberish for names. They're recreated almost as quickly as they're banned so ignoring them is hardly worth the trouble.

    Yes, it's a PITA for FTP players, but unfortunately, it's a necessary evil.
    Siren likes this.
  6. Gulaep Well-Known Member

    Just so you are aware, you do have access to finding a guild or party group. If your free to play character is un-guilded just hit keybind U to open the guild recruiting window and if you find a guild listed that interests you, you can click the name of the online-recruiter.

    You cannot participate in global chat but you can still "watch/read" global chat and if you see a comment you wish to respond to you can always send that player a direct message via /tell. I do think that at the very least free to play players should have access to the /newbie channel. The fact that they don't even have that is wrong I think.

    And for forming party groups, you have /say and /tell at your disposal. If you are watching any of the global channels, even though you cannot speak in them if you see someone for example in the newbie channel looking for group you can always send them a /tell.

    Once you are in a group you can use /gsay to send group messages like normal and once you are guilded you can use /gu like normal. So you are not entirely cut off, just the global channels.

    Free to play should have access to the newbie channel for sure.

    ~Gulaep
  7. resonate Active Member

    Remember when the only option for MMOs was to pay the monthly sub? Now they give you a way to experience some of the game for free and people still can't be happy. Stop flooding the forums with the same thread
    Feylone likes this.
  8. Revel Well-Known Member

    I do. There was also one tenth of the MMOs then there is now. Competition for your gaming dollar is much fiercer now.
  9. Berserkerkitten Well-Known Member

    Exactly.
    Part of the EQ2 community has this horrible attitude towards FTP players, calling them freeloaders and basically wishing they weren't here in the first place. Problem is, EQ2 isn't exactly drowning in active users and the game could really use whatever players it can get, unless you want it to go the way of SWG or Vanguard.

    There are countless Free2Play-MMOs out there and lots of them allow you to use global chat and basic features such as the broker (or auction house or whatever equivalent they have there). If you want newcomers to stay, you're gonna have to allow them to get in touch with the community, make friends, find people to play with. If they like the game and decide to stay, then they'll spend a few bucks here and there on the marketplace or a sub to support the game. But you don't make a good first impression by punishing people for playing the game without spending anything.

    Ideally, paying a little something when playing a FTP game should make a great experience even better. You shouldn't feel like you have to do it, because you feel punished if you don't. Because that's just it - if you try EQ2 for the first time and then you can't even chat, ask for pointers in the right direction or broker off your stuff, then there are tons of other, similar games out there, which let you do exactly that. Yes, back in the day you had to pay monthly or you wouldn't get access to MMOs AT ALL, I was there, but this isn't 2004. If you limit potential new players too much, they'll simply go someplace else and forget about EQ2 until there will be no more EQ2 to forget about.
  10. Csipi Active Member

    Just as DBG regretted giving us player made dungeons it appears that they also regret going free to play.

    Back in the SOE era, F2P enjoyed perks as well. They ran bonus events almost every other weekend and they were open to everyone. Not any more. Silver is gone and I bet in the future so will F2P.
  11. Berserkerkitten Well-Known Member

    Hmm... doubt it. Are there even any MMORPGs out there today, which are exculsively subscription-based, aside from Final Fantasy XIV and WoW? I'd genuinely like to know. And WoW can be played till level 20 for free and you can buy subscription tokens with ingame gold, much like Krono on EQ2. I'd be really surprised if EQ2 suddenly went back to subscription only. Granted, it wouldn't be their first business decision that absolutely no sane person could possibly ever understand, but...
  12. Gulaep Well-Known Member

    Remember the game Dark Age of Camelot? Mark Jacobs the former head of the former Mythic Entertainment is making a successor to that game currently named Camelot Unchained. It will be subscription only. He is not shooting for a target audience of millions, he said he would be happy with and financially sound with a player base of 50k+ and that is with his projected monthly subscription cost of about $9.99. He says $14.99 is common and he is fine with it but he'd like to go even less to $9.99 if possible.

    His new company's name is CityState Entertainment and the game is Camelot Unchained and it sounds incredible!

    ~Gulaep
    Berserkerkitten likes this.
  13. Berserkerkitten Well-Known Member

    Of course I heard about Camelot Unchained. I didn't count that one, since it's not finished yet, but I won't lie - if that thing ends up doing half of what CityState are promising, I'll gladly pay for that!
  14. Feldon Well-Known Member

    I stand with the OP. Silver membership should be brought back. The whole purpose it existed was to prove that you were a real person and not a spammer.
    Adevil, Finora, Lucus and 3 others like this.
  15. Lucus Well-Known Member

    If they won't even do that they could add another membership tier that costs $5/month with silver's account features. think of it as a low budget subscription. i would find it hard to believe someone could not afford $5/month if they have an income.
    HaphazardAllure and Finora like this.
  16. mouser Well-Known Member

    The problem with the player made dungeons is they didn't go far enough. If they had combined it with the chronicle system from SWG they really would have had something. That's not entirely impossible, since the concepts can certainly be carried over, and there may even be someone left that worked on it, but it seems rather unlikely at this point.

    As for FTP, I can't imagine Daybreak regretting that. Every move has been toward more - remember they started out on their own servers (Freeport, the mother and destination of all lost EQ 2 servers). They still can do more in EQ 2 than in any other MMO I can think of. Global channel restriction is there - but in the 'free' MMO's that have them, gold selling isn't an issue because the cash shop handles just about everything. "Pay to win" isn't even disguised: Belly up to the bar, everyone!

    Every game I've followed with a free to pay structure that considered going subscription only concluded that they would lose money and players by doing so. It's a very different market than existed ten or even five years ago. Consumers have been conditioned to small online payments for apps, songs, and services. Pay as you go, or whatever you want to call it.

    From where I'm sitting I think Daybreak's biggest problem is too much on their plate. How many resources are they spending developing their PVE/PVP survival horror / death match game (H1Z1/Green Day)? How many developers? Plus EQ and EQ2 and Planetside 2 and DCUO ...
    Feldon and Lucus like this.
  17. Feldon Well-Known Member

    Free-to-Play was good for EQ2, but for a while, so much was free that a subscription was silly. The balance is just being restored so that a subscription is a significant benefit now.
    Lucus, Adevil, Spindle and 1 other person like this.
  18. Finora Well-Known Member


    It took them a while to get the balance right I think. Initially, f2p was pretty restrictive, then there was the period when even I questioned why I was still paying a sub, now it's heading back to a point where free is not bad, but having a sub is beneficial.
    Lucus likes this.
  19. Adevil Well-Known Member

    That 14-day unannounced member sub that 3 of my accounts got was perfectly timed. 2 x 5-packs from LoN on each. Unfortunately no New Halas deed, but did get a painting, a cloak, and a shield.