Was going to return, but this nickle and dime crap is worse than airlines

I wanted to give this game another go, but the more Im relearning it, the less Im interested. New crafting features...if you pay additional beyond 'all access'. Mercs are cool, but again you have to pay in addition to subbing to 'all-access'. I guess SOEs definition of all access is different than Websters.

Mercs were part of a features expansion pack, which originally was like $40 (expansions are never free). They were nice enough to split it and let you pick and choose which features you wanted. I see that as a good thing.

That's not really nickle-dime. Try Dragon's Prophet if you want to see Nickle-Dime. The features you are listing are parts of the Age of Discovery Expansion. A Feature Pack if you will.

Later on players said they only used parts of AoD and as a response SOE was smart in deciding to split it up into Feature Parts. You may buy only what you use or you may buy all of it. That or buy none of it at all.

The OP has a point, albeit a small one, all previous Xpacs are included when you by ToV except that features pack which is now sold as a bundle or piece by piece. Not a biggy but still an unexplained difference.

I'm not their spokeperson, but I would say it is probably because AoD was a Features Expansion, whereas all of the ones included in expansion purchases are Content Expansions (for example, when CoE was included with ToV, DoV included with CoE, etc.). I'm guessing that they figured that the difference between those two types of expansions was considered sufficient justification to treat it in a different manner.

As I said no Biggy, whatever the narrative used to justify, what is after all, a small purchase cost if you want it.

When have game expansions ever been included with a subscription? Buy the latest expansion, or do without.

You can buy the AoD features pack, or that parts that you want from the Station Cash store. (I'm not calling this an expansion as it has no new overland content)

I'm sorry to hear you won't be coming back.

I hope you enjoy World of Pandas.

Mercenaries are not a needed thing in this game if you know what your doing they are just a luxury.
You can get all access by just buying a krono with plat in game if you dont want to spend any real money.
The only thing you miss out on with not being all access is being able to use the broker, in game mail, or upgrading masters(would have to be unlocked and yes that is nickel and dime if you choose to play for free).
As with any game a lot of extra features do require you buy an expac.

I don't think you can purchase the bundle anymore.

For a moment, I was going to join the chorus of explanation and justification, but really, I don't mind when someone with such a negative or entitled view decides not to join the party. We've got enough of those running around already.

kono

You can go to some store and pay $60 for the latest Call of Battleduty and have 10 hours of fun.
Or you can play EQ2 for $55 a year ($40 annual expansion + 1 month sub, just use krono after that) and have thousands of hours of fun.

So EQ2 is actually very cheap.

Tabri Don't forget an inability to join world chat channels.

To the OP the only crafting recipe I am aware of that requires you to be all access to buy is the house actor recipe from the loyalty merchant, but if you were willing to pay at least 75pp (the amount in the small bag of plat which costs the same) then the recipe is fully tradable. If there is something else I am unaware of then feel free to correct my misapprehension. Otherwise 1 recipe out of ,what, something like 12,000 won't kill you not to have.

When I see posts like this, I think to myself, gee and to think I paid full price for every feature/expansion as they came. Never once did I get anything from the past included all in one (well actually I did on a third account). Sorry, I just don't have a lot of sympathy. Businesses have to make money somehow.

The bundle is still available for SC. It just doesn't include any of the fluff items from that expansion.

The actor crate doesn't require all-access. Anything that does has that little golden EQ2 logo on it.

I just start up again after many years away.
I just play for free.
Funny part is, playing for free is just like playing the old game, but without subscription.
Most everything you pay for seems to be fluff. I can do nearly everything I used to 7 years ago, but for free now.

For example, pay SC to rez instantly? Never had that option back in the day.
Merc? Never had merc back then. I roll solo, do need no stinkin merc following me. I got pet classes for that.

Or at the very least, I have yet to run into a situation where I felt I "needed" to pay. Aside from not being to use Fabled spells.

You only have to be subbed at the time you scribe the master spells, you do not loose them once you have scribed them, so you can just buy one krono on the broker, scribe all the masters then drop back down to free after the 30 days are over.

100% agree, for folks coming back the first impression is that you are playing Amazon and not EQ2. It held me back for a long time (3+ years) until I came back, and I will still jump ship as soon as something interesting comes out. The problem is simply that I want to play a game, I don't want to play a virtual mall and a huge part of this game has turned into that.

Nothing's stopping you from playing the game. Any other MMO will be like this as well, though they won't have nearly as much content to run through. The marketplace is pretty big now, but it doesn't dominate the game experience in any way.