Will you be buying the new Aerakyn race?

The freeblood race was free when you unlocked it, don't remember what you had to do, it's been a while, think you had to have an active account for few months prior to the expansion or something like that, i bought mine cause i didn't wanna wait 3 months till release, my bf and another friend waited and got it free, they only had to buy the freeblood pack for the bats illusion etc

Anything that makes Aerakyn more useful/impactful in the game. Better racial stats or abilities. If this is just another race then why should we pay for it? Next thing you know we will have to pay for having a dwarf because...well just because.

I do think that TOV should had come with mercenaries and reforge. Mercenaries are almost necessary to do advanced solo in quested gear, and indeed for some classes they may be compulsory. Sure you can duo those zones but they are balanced for solo.

Reforging is also very important, and it may be required if you want to join a serious raiding guild.

About the size of the expansion : ToV was really at the lower end but still acceptable. A meaningfull heroic progression was missing, the solo outdoor content was minimal and linear. ToV offered less solo content than Kylong plains (1/4 of ROK). There was no tradeskill content.

Ok, I hear you. I understand your thoughts I think, but you gotta remember, soe has to pull a balancing act here.

If they have such better racial stats or abilities? People will be up in arms, pitchforks at the ready, pay to win, this race is op, ad infinitum. (And said protestors would be right. We can't start seeing the introduction of races that trump all others because then the others become obsolete.). Soe cannot release a race that costs money and also is significantly more powerful without starting world war three on the boards. The appeal of this new race must rest within its backstory, culture, look, and animations. It will likely have a fine racial stat base and just like all races it will have a gimmick, something that looks neat but does not invalidate other races. We get at least one person a month on the boards saying what race should I pick? The go to answer? Pretty much any race does fine. If you want tracking go here, if slow fall or underwater breathing means more pick there, blah blah most if not all racial stuff can be negated in game with a totem or a buff. I would bet money this will remain the case with the new race.

It's gonna be a vanity item, not the answer to all of Norrath's woes. But then again, I might be just full of wishful thinking here. I mean, soe isn't exactly a stranger to the concept of leaping before looking...this weekend's "sale" being a fine example of that.

Bottom line is:

Soe will continue to add features to the SC market vs w/expansion because people will continue to pay more for them.

The SC races are fluff and fluff only. The races should provide more than any standard available race simply because they charge far more for them than what is included with the expansion but then the balance is once again tipped and people will complain which I don't blame them for.

There is literally no reason to charge separately for this race other than to fuel the fire under Landmark and EQNext.

Why EQ2 players have to pay extra for these things is beyond me but the fact of the matter is businesses have long ago stopped caring more about customer satisfaction and went far more in favor of lining their pockets. It's the American way of life though I guess...

Since I have been paying and playing SoE games since 1999 and enjoy the game, I won't be rage quitting as you suggest. I guess since I own a family business (a small restaurant) and constantly monitor my prices and deals as well as my customer's feed back, I simply assume that a much larger business might like to know how their customers feel about some of the current price changes and the cost to being unattractive to newcomers.

Respectfully, you have been apparently playing since the beginning. We played since beta of EQ-2; left for Vanguard and returned when they announced the sunset of the game. Playing and paying as you go dampens the sticker shock of re-entering or even entering the game for the 1st time. We looked at the features and changes, decided we would like to return (now with 5 accounts) and started the process. It's $100+ and a subscription if you want what the game has to offer per person.

Many people don't look at the itemized pricing when looking at the features of a game, or a premium burger meal. Businesses are set on getting a fair revenue on each customer, not a "holy crap, that's good, worth it, but a big hit on the wallet". That's why a beverage, fries and an 8oz signature burger cost $10.50 if purchased a-la-cart or $8.50 as a combo in our restaurant. You want a "complete meal"; so we offer one, at a combination price.

We just purchased season tickets at Six Flags and received a combination on both parks, parking and a food pass. Same concept. Now if I want to park really close to the front and I want to ride the rides without waiting in line, that will cost me extra. Not a case of the parking lot and the cool rides are there, but you pay extra to use them as a season pass holder. They count on one customer purchasing a season pass (subscriber) for steady income and another type to visit for the day and pay a-la-carte (F2P). Does that not sound a little like what they first explained F2P and the SC store to be?

Respectfully, that's my complaint. They introduce us to a race in the game. Then they give us the lore and back story, which some of us still enjoy exploring. Then they release the race as a playable race. Same goes with the Beastlord class with the added attraction that for some of us, it's a throwback to a class we loved and played in EQ-1. To me, and my family, that's a game mechanic. By all means charge me SC points for the bat illusion, lair, special looking pets and the like, that's acceptable and worthwhile if I have the points and enjoy the class/race enough. Don't charge me for the actually race/class, that's a bit over the top. We bought it, but not with a happy feeling as the money left the wallet.

The SC purchases that our family made in the past were based on:

• Saving time on something we don't really enjoy doing.
• Using a mercenary that allowed us to experience more of the game in the manner that we enjoy playing.
• Saving a piece of gear to pass on that took a long time to obtain or cost a chunk of our game savings.
• Some fluff appearance items that looked too cool to pass by.

All of those things could easily be passed by simply by utilizing the game mechanics or finding some other appearance item that looked good enough to substitute. No buyers remorse in those purchases.

Things like purchasing a class/race that we wanted to play and discovering the Mercenary that was *free* with the expansion, but required a purchase to use, they felt tacky. Obviously they got the money out of us, but not as willingly.

Being a recent newcomer to the game(a convert from Vanguard due to the closing), there are a lot of things you get with free to play. I decided to go with the Subscription because of the ability for the discount in the store and the added character slots. Admittedly the over $100 start up on two accounts is a hit to the wallet to ensure you get everything the game has to offer. If you want the perks you pay for the perks.

But you would think that Sony would learn from the mistakes of their competitors and if they are releasing an expansion, new race, new class, etc. that they would make it an all inclusive deal. That means that they are making changes to the game play mechanics with the new content being added. Why should anyone have to pay for an expansion then have to pay for a new race/class because they want more money in the corporate coffers? In the long run the nickel and dime concept will only serve to make people go F2P and wait for things to be made available to them, especially in the economy we have today.

They are betting on the fact that people "enjoy" the game so much they will take the wallet hit and spend as much money as they want for items. Not everybody has that ability or financial freedom today. Yes there are things in the game as a solo player I would pay for like being able to hire a merc from anywhere, which isn't a true change in mechanics it is a feature add on that for me makes sense to buy. However adding a race to the game is a mechanics change and not an add on which should be included in the game expansion even if they were to say ok instead of 39.99 for the expansion we are going to charge everyone 44.99 for the expansion to have the expansion and all the added features. Now you add the additional costs of wanting to stay current with content and choices, on top of drastically increasing prices in the SC store for things.

Sorry you are correct, it wasn't the collector's, it was a pre-order promotion. Something they also are not doing this time.

New races should be included with the Expansion Purchase. It is not for "free" you have to buy the expansion to get it but it should not be in addition to the expansion purchase. pretty soon if we as players let it continue we will be paying SC to log on or swap toons.

I'm taking this to PMs - so that I don't have to come up with something new about the upcoming Aerakyn race just to reply.

Well considering that terrors of thalumbra does not give any new levels, i would have thought that at least by now if i purchased it, i would be able to get the Aerakyn race. They still want money separately? Wow these guys really are greedy.

I guess no thalumbra purchase. Its not worth buying expansions if i cant level, let alone i have to pay another price as much as an expansion to get a playable race. then pay even more to make it flyable.

These guys have no conscience what so ever.

sad.

Necro threading is bad, 'mkay?

Don't forget they have an two entire classes behind a separate paywall as well.

With how competitive the game market is, and how the market has changed to the F2P model, I don't begrudge them diversifying and monetizing the game in various ways. I don't have to have ALL of the stuff. I like that there is a lot of variety and things that cater to different playstyles. I think it's totally reasonable to pay 35 bucks for an expansion, 10 for reforging, and 10 for mercs to get back into the game at a base price, and add on whatever other features you want.

I think a lot of people get really upset at games these days because they don't want to pay the money to keep them going, but they still want a ton of content. It's not like the old days where you could sustain an MMO with just subscriptions and expansions.

I've been enjoying the expansion daily since release, so on that basis alone I certainly got my money's worth. I remember when the adventure pack thing started and immediately failed because people just plain wanted more content while paying the same amount of money. Well, now the population is waaaay smaller and the development staff is teeny as well. We can't expect them to pump out decent content and not expect to have to pay for a feature here and there. It's not greed, it's making profit in a fiercely competitive market. There's so many races and people want to complain that they can't play the funny ugly one with wings without paying. Meh. I'll keep buying armor and funny hats for my rats.

Until they fix the horrible wing position, when a Aerakyn is crafting, I'm not interested.

Except Beastlord with reforging and mercs came as part of an expansion (AoD), they were not piecemeal. Want to make something cash shop only from the getgo ( Freeblood, Channeler ), I can live with that even if I don't particularly like it. Chopping content out of an already existing expansion I have a problem with.

Channeler class was part of the ToV expansion, and was chopped out and is now sold separately.

Beastlord class was part of AoD which had no content whatsoever. The entire set of featurs, by popular demand, were rolled out individually for SC. You'd be amazed how annoyed raiders and min-maxers were over having to buy a WHOLE FEATURE PACK just to get reforging

Welcome to Necro Thread Week. Next up, episode 3: The (dev) Axe Swings (critting Shinangyo for 100,000)....

So it was. I couldn't quite remember. Suppose every new class/race will be that way now. If there are any new class/races, which at this time with the state of the current studio and owners I doubt.