surprised and a bit offended by the new subscription options

i read over the new subscription plans, and i have to say i'm a little surprised. the month to month players will be receiving a reward (free station cash)... but those who pay by the year receive nothing? this does not make sense to me.
unwise as it is... a pay check to pay check player (and everyone i know on my server is this kind of player) is thinking more about what is coming out of their pocket "right now". they are not thinking about what has already been spent or the bigger picture, and that includes me for an example...
i never bought a single item from the marketplace until i switched to the yearly plan, because every month that EQ2 fee was coming out of my pocket plus an expansion every year, and i was continually reminded of how much i was spending on it, so i never wanted to invest any MORE money it in. but after i paid for a year... i not only received a savings that worked out to be about $2 a month which loosened me up a bit, but i felt MUCH less pressured financially each month and began buying the things off the marketplace that appealed to me. i've spent WAY more on EQ2 now then i ever would have had i kept paying month to month which is unwise for me, but good for EQ2 business.
your suits should think about that.
not mention i'm a bit offended that those of us who are clearly devouted to playing by purchasing the one year subscription would be considered less valuable then those who are may or may not be paying you next month.

For every expansion or trial rewards that have been offered to new players, we have eleventy11111!!!! zillion people complaining that vets didn't get whatever trivial item it may be.
I will remind you that veterans get some veterans rewards every year that are EXTREMELY nice in some cases. That's OUR reward for sticking around.
You need to consider this: SOE *has* to recruit new players and *has* to make money, or else eventually the game would have to close down completely. These promotions are not an assault on veterans, but rather a way to get us more people to play with and make sure our game continues into the future.

Minsipone@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I don't know what you're talking about.
If you have a current yearly sub that you paid for, as soon as the conversion hits, you get 500 SC a month until the sub runs out.

SOE-Brasse wrote:

Do you people just default to complaining and feeling 'offended?'

From what I read.. one year subscribers get the bonus SC too.

Quoated from Smokejumper..
3) Do recurring subscriptions get a 500SC bonus grant per month?

The answer is "yes". All durations of recurring Gold memberships (1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month) get 500SC granted to them each month. (NOTE: This is a perk for recurring memberships only. Non-recurring memberships do not get this grant.)

Absyntheea@Crushbone wrote:

I think it depends. If you have a 12-month non-recurring, you may not get the SC. My guess is it's tied to how your account is paid: if it's set up to automatically bill a payment source when the current period expires it's considered recurring, but if you just bought a 12-month subscription and don't have it set up to automatically renew then it wouldn't be considered recurring and you wouldn't get the SC.
From what I've gathered Platinum is grandfathered in for the current term: you'll get the SC grant until your current subscription expires, but after that you won't get the SC (even if you buy another 12-month term) unless you've set it up for automatic renewal.

Absyntheea@Crushbone wrote:

well this is important to know. the thought the post on eq2players indicated the SC applied only to month-to-month subscribers which didn't make sense to me. i'll have to go back to reread it. maybe i read it wrong.

i had to think about it, but i guess what's really bothering me is i'm feeling a bit swindled. we're paying the same price for this "expansion" that we paid for DoV. i thought DoV was a bit high, but there was plenty of fun content, so i didn't mind paying it. then they said that DoV actually had more content to come, and i was like GREAT! if there was more to come then that price didn't seem so high after all.
but that didn't happen, and now they are releasing another expansion... which isn't actually an expansion. it's a like a game update with some gifts. and they are making the same claim - more to come. so i guess i'm having a little trouble believing this claim. i feel like maybe i'm... being sold a shiny sports car with a bad engine by a guy in a plaid tie. i'm concerned they are milking a bunch of money out of us to help recoup some of their recent financial losses, then they will close the game having never delived on their promises. but i hope that will not end up being the case.

If nobody buys AoD, they'll get the message. The question is.. Can You Resist the Beast?

First of all, there is just as much DoV content currently available in-game as they've provided in any past expansion pack, and they've all been about the same price. Not only that, but there is even more DoV content coming over the next year. I think it is unfair to say that DoV was somehow oversold: it's been a very solid release in terms of quantity of content (quality of content is of course a matter of opinion).
I obviously can't vouch for the value of AoD, as it has yet to be released. However, it's obvious that SOE is testing a new expansion model, and I am currently content to give it a shot and see how things pan out. All complaints aside, I still enjoy playing EQ2 and look forward to trying the newest features.
None of this has anything to do with the new subscription options, however, so I fail to see how it is relevant to your topic. If you're worried that SOE for whatever reason may choose to shut-down EQ2 in the foreseeable future after getting your money for AoD, I'd question why you feel that is even a possibility.
MMOs are a VERY risky property, they require a huge initial investment to develop, and continued support for as long as they remain active. However, once an MMO has become established, history shows that the developer can pretty much keep making money from it for as long as they want. The fact that games like UO and EQ1 are still running shows that MMOs can provide steady, reliable revenue basically as long as the company wants to maintain it. Most companies don't go around cutting their reliable income streams unless they are somehow forced to do so (such as SWG losing its license), especially considering how difficult and rare an accomplishment it is to get such an established property up and running in the first place.
Don't worry, barring some form of natural or economic disaster, I am confident that EQ2 will keep running for many more years.

The problem is, to buy the full EQ2 now costs $80, whether you're a free-to-play or someone who has been dutifully been buying every expansion since 2004 but for whatever reason held off on Velious. It's the WoW problem.