It was promised at FF that the EQ2Players site (www.everquest2.com) would be a lot more fair in the way it directed users to both live and extended, and then as promised the changes went into place. From that change Live players saw a breath of fresh air, but now, it is right back to the way it was, completely hiding the fact that there is actually a "live" enviornment out there. This is some really dirty smokeblowing Dave, if you really just don't give a flip about live players, come out and say it, stop with this false hope bs already.
Lalen@Everfrost wrote: Umm... what are you talking about??? EQ2Players hasn't changed in a long time...
Kryvak@Everfrost wrote: Over a month ago (and since EQ2 Extended release) they had changed it so when you visited EQ2's site from a fresh cache-clear it would pop up a screen that directed you strait to EQ2 Extended. About a month ago, they changed it so that you had two clear options -- a) Play for Free or b) Free Trial. They've taken that away again and pushing everyone to Extended.
Lalen@Everfrost wrote: Ohh, you mean the trial options? Yeah, that was annoying me before, can't get the 14-day trial for EQII without using Recruit-A-Friend anymore.
Kryvak@Everfrost wrote: Oh no no no... They changed that a few weeks back man.. They reintroduced the trial and started promoting that trial for fresh users on the EverQuest2.com site. See All New Free Trial. The free trial is still there, but they have now taken down that "lets be fair" ad that gave users the pros and cons of the Free Trial vs EQ2 Extended. It now just shoots you right into EQ2 Extended with no questions or hints that EQ2 Live exists. Any new user that finds eq2 on google, an ad, or overhears a friend talking about it will sign up for the EverQuest2 Extended without knowing that Live exists and that is just shady, not just to that new guy but for everyone else here that enjoys seeing the occasional "real newbie". As it stands right now, when you visit EverQuest2.com for the first time (which all newbies do), you will get a jquery lightbox or thickbox (or whatever library they're using) iframe popup that covers the real web page with an ad on it, with really big and bold "Play for Free" with a very small and subtile link at the top right and corner that says "Cont. to EverQuest II" (If I had to guess I would say this link is smaller than any other link on any parts of the websites except the footer links).
I really don't know why they keep Xtended separate from Live servers. The population needs the boost, and they didn't have to put all the dodgy stuff on SC for extended to buy. Extended accounts could have played (1) for free with the restrictions, or (2) pay to upgrade partly or (3) payed a sub to become live. If any of Live players fell on hard times they would just drop back to free status and could still enjoy limit functionality until they resubbed. BUT I agree it blows that new players get shunted to Xtended and later find out they they are not on the right servers, it's a bit like all those who mitakenly made characters on the Exchange servers (not realising what they were) and then found they they could never transfer off. I think Xtended is still in test mode, they want lots of people over there to see if it makes money (which it will), but at the detriment of the Live servers.
I think this is maybe a little less sinister? If you look at some of the ads you can see that they are for the welcome back. Considering the websites had crashed yesterday with that power outage I think that they have just been brought up incorrectly.
retro_guy wrote: Hatred for the free to play community isn't limited to here. BF plays AoC. They call the free to play guys "parasites".
