Veteran Rewards for All! Official Feedback Thread

apwyork wrote:

Originally, they went with account creation = Account Age for vet rewards (+90 Days for every expansion you bought), then they went to, you have to have a valid account to continue to acumulate them. So you could sign up at launch, do the 30 days free, come back 3 years later.. you got 3 year vet rewards.. (I realized they changed that a few expansions back)
Based on your post, are you stating that the second you stopped subbing, the clock resets???
On my account (and i havn't checked today), I had up to 5 year vet rewards availiable to my account in Sept 2011, Now that i am silver, do i reset to zero? (because i have no vet rewards on the acct?).. Again i haven't logged in today, so not sure if its fixed.. My account that i made "gold" On december 1st, GOT all of the vet rewards up to 6 year.. are you stating that I would loose those if i go to silver now???
Did anyone, who HAD vet rewards before, then "Lost" them when they went to silver, did they get them back with todays patch?

Marnus@Antonia Bayle wrote:

That part is completely irrelevant. You cannot compare a game to cheating on your wife. Everyone has tried other games. I never "ditched" this game for any other game, and I most certainly did not come back only when it was free. I have a high amount of vet reward time. Stop trying to divert my point. Things should be the way they used to be, for one sole reason that it IS the way it used to be! So why not make it 100%? Technically now that the terms and conditions have changed, all my off-time now should automatically be bronze/silver time. Also, I believe that if you want to complain about it like a whiney little girl, paid-time rewards should get something else and that they should seperate actual "vet" rewards. That sir is my point. WHO is going to get a 7 year reward now? NOONE! will this game even be around in 7 years? who knows. It is not easy for players to get that especially in the past. Vet rewards is supposed to be a nice feature to be able to log in and have privledge to for being a member of the game for so long, not a reward for filling pockets.

Mike585 wrote:

The change from creation date to subbed time happened quite awhile ago. The time to raise that issue is long past. The fact that it started form creation date and continued even when you didn't pay was fixed. Back then, there ws no ftp to cloud the issue, but people long ago came to terms with that change.

Mystfit wrote:

I never, ever have. I updated my above post a bit. So many people will never ever see a CoV. EVERYONE complains about this. Even if they have been playing a long, long time. Every time I ask for a CoV, I 85% of the time get the response, "I don't have one because SOE hates me". What does that say? CoV isn't even all that amazing at all, and it sure isn't worth $1,260 either. Before you start saying "oh they don't have to give you anything" (in which I wouldn't care either way) or taking this another direction like I know someone will, think about it. The game should have a "real" vet reward system. That's all I'm saying.

as someone with a cov, i do feel lucky and special whenever i need it and it saves me some zoning. i really value what it provides to me. giving it to everyone might make me feel ungrateful it has a 1 hour cooldown...

as a secondary issue...the cov is one reason i dont have a second account. if my original account could be cloned, i would gladly take on a second account. EVEN IF THAT MEANT THE CLONED ACCOUNT ONLY HAD F2P EXPAC UNLOCKS (yet still had same 'account age'.

as it is, im keeping a former raf account(f2p not actively playing since i dont want to invest in it) to do some management tasks like alt guild invites, keeping zones open so several alts can access same instance for quest updates, but im waiting for/until a vet guildy quits and let me take over his vet account. i know i would be kicking myself using the raf i started in late november soon down the road since it has basically zero account age.

as an alternative to secondary accounts, i think it would be awesome if concurrent connections were allowed (capped at ~6 if thats necessary), @ 14.99/month per connection. this would allow a customer to keep all toons on same account, benefiting from heirloom, vet rewards, and still paying a regular sub per person logged in.

imo account management is one of the most significant areas of improvement eq2 could work on. i know in eq1 you can call to home at char select. it would save CSR time and effort. just this morning i /petitioned because of the new shard of love zone being bugged, and my toon being located within a broken zone. (my toon was put into bbm this morning tyvm by GM) better account management tools for customers would give us more options and could potentially give players tools to resolve some of their own /petition issues.

zoning is an altoholics nightmare. i have an extensive network of prestige houses to my alt guilds and to the 8 cities where homes are available (to cut down on # of zone crossings), but /log alt is almost as long as 2 zoning periods. so logging, then zoning around norrath for world events/holidays, (even with a rally flag from one of my personal guilds), can be a bit cumbersome. often i park a raf at the holiday event and use the cov to get me started. even a new tradeskill class (like courier/rally flag planter/or quest sharer) would be better than no account management tools whatsoever.

i think of my characters as belonging to the same clan, some might join different guilds, but they all work for my same goals. the complete disconnect between each one (quest journal/interactivity) is logistically challenging since my zoning time ranges from 3 seconds to 10 seconds. i dont imagine all that zoning is easy on the server either.

ratbastard wrote:

Well I wouldn't be saying give it to everyone. Not everyone has an account 7 years old hehe. But heck I would gladly give up the expansion bonuses to be rewarded my true base account age time. Heck even in-game it says "Account Age", not "Paid Subscription Days". Silly if you ask me.

So I was able to log in, none of my accounts have vet awards calculated from the launch date, period. No extra bonus days for any expansion bought past kunark.. even on a brand spanking new account, it seem I get credit for buying all the expansions up to kunark.. (started from a retail Sentinal's Fate Collectors edition, so thats perhaps why)
First silver account has 1659 days, it NOW has veteran awards that were missing yesterday.
Two silver accounts have 1552 days, still NO veteran awards
Fourth silver account, 2073 days, it NOW has veteran awards that were missing yesterday
Gold launch account, has 2225 days, but has NO +90 days for any bought expansions past Kunark (i have bought 2 since then)., has vet awards, but definitly NOT calculated from account open date.
Gold account opened On Dec 2nd, 2011, shows... 373 days, and has veteran awards (all +90 for expansions up to Kunark, this was from a retail Sentinels Fate bought and registered before the F2P conversion)
So in the end.. I have no idea what is going on

So an update, all of my accounts across the board now have access to veteran awards.
All accounts only have a base + 90 Days for expansions up to Kunark, regardless if those accounts actually bought up to kunark or past them.
For those that were freaked out they would be since account creation date, they are NOT, these accounts all had creation dates of Nov 2004, Mar 2005, and Sept 2005. The Mar 2005 accts, ONLY have 4 year rewards..
Would I be happy if they made them all from creation date? Sure, it would allow me to get the Mistmoore house, and it would get me the orb of memories on two of my accounts, so I could play them more (vitality boost).. what would that mean to anyone else? Nothing.. what would that mean to sony? I would probally spend more money on SC, as I would likely unlock more classes and races on those accounts... that would also likely mean I would get those alts to a range where I would need the newest expansions and a sub.. more money for Sony..

It would trivialize the rewards for those that have earned them, it doesn't hurt you not to have it nor does it give anyone any real edge over you vitality burns down so quick anyway.
They have already bent and given in way too much to the demands of the F2P crowd, some of whom yes use the SC shop and support the game _somewhat_ and a portion I'm sure spend more than $15 a month in the SC shop. The larger majority might spend $30 a year in there and I'm sorry but they absolutely do not deserve the same level of rewards as those that have subscribed and supported the game for many years.

I see why someone could get offended, having said that, if a game isn't sustanable, and closes, who does it ultimately benifit.
The core market of any game or service like this is high revenue, low use. Sony makes more money from a person that buys SC, then forgets about it, plays the game for a bit, but doesn't log on often.. vs a sub that pays $15 a month, but plays substantially, calls tech support, etc.
(To be fair, the best person for Sony is the person that pre pays for 3 months, 6 mths or a year, and then doesn't log in, thats why they progressively discount those memberships)
Companies spend a fortune trying to attract new customers, often at the expense of "old" customers.. Amazon may offer $10 - off your FIRST order, a cable or phone company will offer 6 months 1/2 off for NEW customers only (or returning), costco may offer $10 off a member ship for new customers, or ones that held a membership and let it lapse. This is to address the thing companies HATE, customer churn, that means you paid to acquire a customer, throught special offers, advertising, etc, only to loose them.. companies spend a significant amount of cash to move churn a few percentage points. In some companies, for a company to recoup the cost of a freebee, they need to keep you for 2-3 years at full rate.. (thats the reason cell phones are significantly more expensive with no contract..)
Consumers have significant choice when it comes to spending money and or time. EQ2 is not the only game in town. Would I be cheezed if i had my launch account, which i pre-preordered, and paid every single month on for over 6 years and finally got item X for free, when some "newb" who came in, and did the same, but paid 1 year less, now got the same thing? or someone who played years ago, quit, but came back, also got the same thing? Sure.. but where would me getting angry get me... nowhere.. because in the end, if sony lost me, but gained two new subscribers, the game as a whole gets financially better

Lempo@Everfrost wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out how paying for the game for all these years counts as "earning" anything. You are paying a subscription, not technically doing crap else. People keep forgetting that the game used to give rewards from account creation, and now its BACK to that system. I don't see the harm in giving a couple more people their true vet rewards. It's all good fairness. Not that many more people would have the 6 year+ ones anyway. Just remember that.

ISeeker wrote:

Nothin' to worry about; they didn't award any extra time with expansions after Rise of Kunark. Only the first four (DoF, KoS, EoF, RoK) got +90 days.

how does something based off the day you bought (or activated) trivialized.... that is taking the trivialization idea a bit too far.
If you want an arguament on trivialized content look at SLR or nerfed zones or the whacked out progression they gave us in DoV
Like I have posted several times, its an issue SmokeBlower made a false or purposely misleading statement on 8 December saying that vet rewards were unlocked for all. Then on 12 December he in this thread posed a retraction and clarification, but in the between time anyone who petitioned for vet rewards to be based on Account Creation Date (eq2 acount was understood) is BY LAW required to recieve that promotion.
Rediculous would have been me calling 2 News Works for You on this and putting SOE on tv, so I took it through the BBB they will contact SOE and SOE will have to respond.
Extremely Rediculous would have been to call in legal councell .... then SOE would loose millions once the case ran its course, and believe me people have started class actions for much less, If you do or have done Netflix you got a notification for a Wall-Mart Gift Card and if you have ordered event tickets you are entitled to a whopping $2 refund on a max of 2 ticket orders. In each case law firms made the money (on both sides) at the expense of TicketMaster and Netflix and the consumer got very little.

Is this ever going live? Players who paid for 7 years and decided to go free can't even get rewards they earned. I turned all 3 of mine on but I'm speaking for other people. Mine are still a little short of 8 year reward when one of them was created on day 1, 1 a month after.

MystsofLedge12 wrote:

Might be nice since you've reported them to the BBB and, according to you, can't contact you if you limited your comments to facts and no name-calling since they can't even defend themselves publically against you...

Mike585 wrote:

I don't recall any time when vet rewards were given based upon account creation, rather than the amount of time that an account is active. I think you're confused. What SOE used to do was to give you a 90-day bonus toward your account age when you purchased an expansion. That ceased some time ago. And yes, I saw the part where you said that "those who actually payed (sic) all these years should just get rewarded something else...." Once again, you want what someone else has, and you're unwilling to do what they had to do in order to get it. Instead, you want SOE to give those people something else, and give you what those people used to get. That's utterly childish and silly.

grimesie wrote:

agreed

Elhonas@Antonia Bayle wrote:

yawn have my 5 year vet rewards working on my 6th year
have the title i been wanting on freeport server " from karana "
now where did i put the troll food ?

You know, at first I was put off about people getting vet rewards without paying for them, when i had all these years. Then last night i saw the triple sc sale and realized i could buy a years worth of gold level non recurring time for like 30 or 40 bucks. I have been paying 19.99 for a station access account, and for what? the 5 extra slots? i wasnt using them anyway, and if i need more i can just buy them with all the extra sc i bought during the triple when they go on sale. I dont need a sub to keep my vet rewards going anymore, as they just hand those out to anyone who starts up a free account now, and the extra 500 sc a month i get for recurring is a joke, as aside from slots, and now game time, i hardly ever use sc anyway. Now i dont have to worry about a monthly charge coming out of my account, and i still get to play without restriction I'm really not sure why soe would do this, but merry christmas i guess lol. Hopefully they will run a similar event next year, and if they dont, ive bought enough extra to cover and additional year at full price, plus 5 slots at full price. So basically, unless they come out with something that i really want on the marketplace, i dont have to pay another dime for the next two years Now thats free to play

MystsofLedge12 wrote:

that is just absurd. are you a lawyer? i'm guessing not bc that is such a silly statement.
he did not type what you stated. in fact, you didn't even type it! you are implying that vet rewards were unlocked for all going to back to character creation. he did not type that & neither did you. his response was ambiguous, as it usually is. he had to go back & clarify it, as he usually does. anybody who petitioned would have gotten a response with a clearer answer. in cases like this, i don't think he is intentionally being ambiguous; rather, he misses that his words could be read more than one way.