Winback program and Gold subscription

Well I am very disappointed and upset with SOE. If you created a new character during the winback program and either it's class or it's race is not a free one or purchased, then the character becomes locked until either you upgrade to gold or you purchase the race/class. This is not how the subscription matrix reads. This, in my opinion, is deceptive. If SOE only wants to further alienate the customers who have come back because of the winback program, this is how you do it. The subscription matrix states for classes and races with gold full access. It does not state temporarily circumvents the need to purchase the non-free races and classes. What gold truly does is temporarily circumvents not give full access. Was I mistaken in that we as a community covered this when SOE made the game F2P? It appears that SOE has not learned. I well this is an attempt to cajole returning customers into paying for the race and class packs. Making returning customers feel like they have been ensnared in a marketing trap is not a good way to win friends and customers. I have several friends who play this game only to play it with my family and I. SOE may lose up to 14 accounts just from one upset customer here. How many have not voiced an opinion?

Regards,
One Upset customer

You clearly misunderstand what full access means.... it means you have full access to all races and classes WHILE YOU ARE GOLD. Not forever and ever. =P How silly would that be, then people would just sub for a month, make a bunch of toons, and avoid buying race/class unlockers.

Why would you think you can have gold, get everything you want, and keep it all after a month of gold?
You get access to all of it, without any unlockers, as long as you remain gold. I always thought it was pretty clear that once your sub lapses, you either need to resub or to unlock to resume with your class/race/gear of choice.

Tell me something Mae, does this sound right to you? Here have a free trial of an mmorpg for 15 days. You can make characters of any race and class combination. When those 15 days are done, you can continue to play for free. However since you did not chose the free races and classes, to play what you made you must now buy 4 class packs and 2 race packs (4 x $7.50 + 2 x $7.50 = $45.00) or you can buy the gold and continue to play. That means even if you buy a years subscription of gold the moment it drops to silver we will lock you characters. So, to recap here is a free trial. When it's done we shall rope you in and make you either 1) give money to continue to play what you made; 2) delete what you made and expect you to play; or 3) have you delay paying or deleting at $15.00/month.

Regards,

That kinda of what is the point of "gold" subscription. Maybe for the Winback program perhaps I could see allowing ONE free unlock for both a race and class thus letting you keep you "main" unlocked but forcing you to sub or unlock for alts.

When SOE made EQ2 Free to Play they decidedly locked roughly 50% of the gear and 60% of the classes/races. This isn't being vindictive to old customers. In the past it was all or nothing (pay to play) but now at least you can continue playing on some level. If the level you wish to play is usually Gold Level then you will sub. If not then you will choke up a bit of money. To my knowledge once you Unlock a race/class it remains unlocked, it's not like you are being forced for this.

Free to Play players earn SOE no money beyond the unlockers so of course they are going to structure thier game to promote the purchasing of unlockers. SOE has said at Fan Faire that they would like to offer all Expansion content for free just like GU's but to do that they must increase Subs or at least generate more from SC to cover the conversion. This is one way to do so.

You as a returning customer are not being treated any different than us Gold members were we to stop paying. We would lose all our Legendary+ gear and our non-F2P classes/races. Yes it was a promotion aimed to give you a taste of Gold Membership in hopes that when it ran out you would go "oh well, that was really fun" and then pay to get your fun back as it was on Gold. It is not an uncommon market tactic for subscription based games.

I have a silver secondary account, and you're right. Unlock a class/race, and it's permanently unlocked. Spending $7.50 for a race pack, and $7.50 on a class pack, means I can remake as many of that unlocked class and race as I desire without paying a single cent more.
SoE did take into consideration a la carte transactions. Of course they want you to go gold, and to keep spending money. But IMO, the free month of gold was a SUPER nice bonus, and they have removed so many restrictions on the silver accounts that I find it difficult to complain about them.

That's generally how trials work. I got 3 months of free HBO when I changed my tv/phone/net package. When those 3 months are over, should I get to keep full access to all the channels? Of course not.

Nice analogy.

Either you people do not understand what I am trying to say or you....well I don't think I will say it, it's not very nice.
Malleria, your analogy of EQ2 winback vs. HBO trial is like a comparison for tensor physics to inorganic chemistry.
I don't have a problem with the other aspects of the subscription model, except the gold legendary issue, but that is a differnt dissusion that this one. It's just the gold race/class locked until you buy the unlockers. I can understand if I want to make another character I can't make an unpurchased race or class with out going gold or buy the unlocker. That is reasonable, this is not and there is no disclaimer on the subscription matrix. It says full access and what it means is access only while you have gold.

I think you all are missing his point. I do not think that Rykazz is mad about not having access to his Chars. but the fact that there was no disclaimer.

I can see where that annoyed you but what everyone here including myself is essentially making as the argument is the age old "common sense" arguments of what a Trial period is which is all the Winback program was. Yes it is sad that they didn't include the "Oh you will lose access to your characters if they are made with normally locked races/classes once this period is over" but that isn't much of a selling point which is what Marketing is about.

Common sense indeed. Sony isn't trying to convince you to play silver. They're trying to convince you to play gold. To go back to my analogy. Suppose during my 3 free months I watch all the episodes of Game of Thrones. Now when my free time expires, and a new episode of Game of Thrones is aired, should I be able to watch it for free? Afterall, I started watching the show while I had access to it.

OMG Malleria you can not compare a movie station to an MMORPG.

It is not what sony did, it is how they went about it.

Why not? Both are subscription services to access content. The only difference is EQ2 requires more direct input by the user.

You all also need to realize that there are a few of us out there that have there account grandfathered.

*their* sorry for the spelling

I doubt it will make a difference, since I know that some people are not truly happy unless they get what they want, when they want, and exactly how they want it... but this stuff IS all written out concisely in the FAQ about membership.



If I decide to downgrade from the Gold to Silver or Free membership, what will happen to the Gold perks I had with that membership?

You don't lose anything permanently, but Gold membership content will become inaccessible to you until you repurchase a Gold membership. Letting a membership lapse is similar to allowing a subscription on the regular EverQuest II subscription service to lapse, where you become unable to access the features of that service until you renew your subscription.
- Character Coin Limits: The amount of coin you have is unaltered when you lapse your Gold membership. However, you'll be unable to gain any more coin until you reduce your current coin total below the Silver or Free per character limit.
- Backpack and Bank limits: Any bags or bank slots that are not available in Free or Silver are still present when you downgrade from Gold. However, you can only move items from those slots to other locations. You can't use items while they are in those disallowed slots, and you can't add anything to those slots until you upgrade back to Gold.
- Quest Limits: If you already have more quests in your Journal than are allowed at Silver or Free, those quests still exist, but you'll be unable to add new ones until you reduce your quest count to below those limits.
- Character Slots: When you downgrade from Gold, your maximum character slots are reduced. If you had more characters than are currently allowed, the extra characters become unavailable. However, they are not deleted. They are still available if you upgrade back to Gold status or purchase additional character slots.
- Broker: If you had items for sale on the Broker when you downgrade from Gold, those items will stay on the Broker, but you will not have access to the Broker. If the items sell, the coin will stay in the Broker account until you upgrade back to Gold and can open the Broker interface again.
- Items: Any Legendary or Fabled items are automatically removed from your character and placed in your inventory when you downgrade from Gold. You can use them again when you renew your Gold membership.
- Spell/Skill Tiers: Any spells/skills upgraded to above Adept/Expert level are unchanged when you downgrade from Gold. However, you'll be unable to scribe any further upgrades beyond your Silver or Free limit until you upgrade to Gold again.

Ok, First of all Malleria, you are still comparing apples to cucumbers. HBO is an either on or off subscription it has nothing even similar to characters let alone races or classes. But, most of all, can you use your HBO account in any form without paying for a subscription? No.

ColbyJack, I fail to see the relevancy in your quote. Can you point to the place where it talks about classes and races? I have never talked about Spells/Skills, Items (mentioned and stated it was a separate issue), Broker, Character slots, Quest Limits, Backpack and Bank limits, or Character Coin Limits. They are not what I am talking about here. Further more, the coin limits were removed after the kronos came out because SOE realized only gold members could buy them. The silver and F2P accounts could not store enough plat to buy them in any direct way.

First line.
You lose nothing permanently except for access to things. They don't go specifically into races/classes I imagine just because they are the only two things that are able to be unlocked permanently even if your sub lapses out of gold. However, in order to get classes/races you need to pay in some way: either unlock them when your sub lapses, or pay for gold.
Shortest answer possible: sorry; you don't get races and classes for free.