The Freeblood: More Information and Images

Katanallama@Permafrost wrote:

I was wondering why they didn't allow this. It would make sense, you'd think people would want to make sure they can create a character they like before spending money on it.

I'm curious. In February when we get the final winter reward for the Freeblood is that gonna unlock the race and then if we want an existing character to be a Freeblood we'd need to race change it? Or is a race change for -one character- that we can't use unless we buy the race? The reason I'm asking is because of the "one per account" thing that's mentioned in the fine print.

Do we get the entire vampire package free if we purchase the Velious expansion?

I'll be very disappointed if we only get the basic race. That would look a lot like SoE giving a partially complete 'reward' as a lure to get people to buy the very expensive stationcash items needed to complete the package.

Another thought that crossed my mind is, why isn't the introduction of a new race the centerpiece of a Game Update, rather than ending up as several hugely expensive stationcash items?

Brend wrote:

You have to be very careful when reading Sony's announcements. Their wordsmiths are very careful with their wording so they can later come back and say "See? We only said ____."
In this case, the rewards thing stated "New Freeblood Vampire Race". There's no mention of the three "extras" that are on the Marketplace, so I would bet dollars to donuts that you're only going to be getting the equivalent of the $20 "Unlock: Freeblood Race" marketplace item.
Their announcement of the racial details states that it "includes" the different hand-to-hand combat animations and "includes" an appearance item to hide your weapons -- but their idea of "include" there costs $5.

Brend wrote:

I'd like to point out again that there there is no race in the game that comes with a free +65% speed mount and themed mansion. When they said vampire race you should never even have expected these things. They are not "part of the package" they are racially related market items like the heritage armor sets. You don't need them at all to play and enjoy the race. I'd really be disappointed in people if that many actually did pay so much for fluff items.
If you want to complain, complain about the invisible weapon which was pretty clearly indicated as part of the race yet they are charging $5 extra per character for it.

Brend wrote:

The way $OE worded it, we get the race. Nothing more. And even worse is the fact that
"Requires that a player has qualified for the December and January rewards and has purchased EverQuest® II Destiny of Velious™. Items awarded one per account and will be available when the expansion in released."
I would expect that they are gonna put some stupid thing in at one per account so if you want to have more you have to spend the additional money to get it. Either way I think it is looking more and more sneaky, underhanded, and just plain greedy. Please take a moment to tell us that this is not what you meant and that you are not trying to rake us over the coals. At this rate you are no longer hinting at your true colors, but blatantly thumbing it in our face.

Sanati wrote:

/agreed, 100%
The mount and House are sure as hell additional to the race, not sure why anyone would feel entitled to them as a racial package, when such a thing has never existed in the past.
As to the invisible weapon, I agree that didn't belong on SC.. that belonged as part of the Imperceptible Beauty line. They were asked for by players during the World Events, like the Spires and Druid Rings, and should have been included as a part of the game and not a SC item. That one part of this whole Vampire sales pitch is the only thing I could see argued against.
As to the rest, you get what you pay for... want more, pay more. Want a house, a mount, or a Race change? You know what to do.

the race unlock item is a single item that you need for your whole account to have the race no matter how many times you create them after that. And you need the race unlock item if you want to change your character's race to the other race.
Maybe the January gift will be a race change token... then you can decide whether to change to the new race or some other, better race. If you want special new hand to hand animations, or to run fast while looking like a bat, you have to pay for them. That's not that bad, esp if you can use these new special hand to hand animations and cloud of bats mount on non-vampire characters.
There are TONS of cool weapons out there... do you really want to hide your ownership of them behind an empty weapon appearance? Do you really really want to go empty handed all the time? How boring! Do you really NOT want to see yourself except when fighting, and the rest of the time see a cloud of bats? I think that would get boring pretty quick too...
These are premium items, and throw away ones at that. I would love to get the new combat animations for my Bruiser, but I wouldn't necessarily give two poops about them on my warlock... But they are new EXTRA combat animations... art! that's all. They don't maike you any better at the game... just prettier... You can get the same stuff in game for the stuff that's relevant to actual gameplay. there ARE already 65% mounts in the game... The appearance animations have no real USE in the game, they're just for appearance... There's no need for that to be duplicated to people unwilling to pay a for it. I don't think you should HAVE to pay for real, game changing mechanics.... But art? I've got no problem with paying for art.

The appearance thing is flagged as vampire only, which makes sense because it seems only the vampires have the new hand-to-hand feral thing applied to them. You couldn't use the item to hide your weapons on a non-vampire.
But yeh, as I pointed out.. somewhere.. in one of these threads.. the announcement said that the animations and appearance item were "included" with the race. Which is obviously bs since they're charging for it.
As to hiding weapons in general.. some people enjoy hiding things for various reasons. Myself, I go barefoot.. partly to soften the obnoxiously metallic clunk-clunk-clunk of running around in boots, and partly cause I like it.

BTW I was expecting vampires to be on the live market right now, after this morning's patch. They aren't yet though.

Same here, any idea when they are going to have it avalible? It's driving me nuts!

Just noticed all the servers are not up. Keeping fingers crossed.

They said probably today. It made most sense to me it would be after the patch, but maybe it's just a server side switch they can flip whenever they want, so it could be at any point during the day. If that's the case they are probably going to make a few announcements beforehand. We were supposed to get another lore thing yesterday too.

The Lair has gone live (ah went inside it about 7-8 hours ago), looks kinda cool (can set up 2 seperate giant chess games and has a pretty nifty looking basement)

Sanati wrote:

The fae and arasai get Silvani and Unseelie forms. Just like the Cloud of Bats, they are racial spells that change your appearance (turn you into a tiny glowing pixie/a cloud of bats) and add to our speed. Sure, they're not nearly as fast as the Cloud of Bats, but that's besides the point. They're still FREE racial speed mount/illusion spells just the same as Cloud of Bats.
The fae came with themed mansions, as they were included in the EoF expansion along with fae-appropriate acorn abodes. Same thing with the sarnak, and the arasai - who were completely free, added in a game update - came with a whole free city, newbie area as well as new, themed mansions. In fact, the only added race so far that got nothing new were the frogloks (and they stirred up a bit of a scandal of their own back in the day - if only we'd known back then how much worse things were going to get!).
As a player who got all these things in the past, all for the price of a subscription and expansions, I feel that charging well over the price of an expansion for one race and its trappings is a total rip-off. Just because I don't have to buy it, doesn't change the fact that it's a terrible deal!

Zannah@Splitpaw wrote:

You obviously haven't used those forms much. They aren't even close to mounts, it's a 5% speed boost that silences you, you have to manually toggle it off in order to interact with anything in the game. They are absolutely useless.
Those houses aren't race specific, anyone who picks those cities gets one, and they aren't free. Also Neriak is a DE city, so that architecture isn't even related to Arasai.

Had my morning all planned out to get a Freeblood rolling off the presses with all the bells and whistles before the in-laws show up and postpone any game-play; servers go down, servers come up, no Freeblood. Epic /boo

Arkix@Permafrost wrote:

I was hoping they would be available as well =(

Belch@Nagafen wrote:

Same here...maybe later this evening...or tomorrow?

Sanati wrote:

I think a good consolation would be a fluff "Vampiric Mist" form you can aquire through a quest as a Freeblood Vampire, that grants a 25% movement speed increase, slowfall, transforms you into a whispy mist form, and stifles you whilst active. This is assuming they already dont have some form of innate Vampiric Mist ability...
They should also buff the movement speed increase of the Fae/Arasai fluff abilities to 25% as well, these speed increases would be inline with the Paladin and Shadow Knights "fun spell" mounts which were semi-recently buffed to an effective 25 percent movement speed increase. That should make everyone happy.

Deneir_Allaston wrote:

Nah, people would still complain about the stifle effect. I don't believe the SK/Pally horse stifles you while riding it, I think it's just a horse. If the innate ones were updated (or a new one added) while still having a stifle effect.. yeh.. 20 page post with nothing changed.
I do like the idea of a mistform via quest though. I was kinda hoping the Cloud of Bats would be that instead, since bats are so noisy and nobody likes scooping up guano off their furniture.
Well, maybe trolls and ratonga do.