The Original Everquest Goes F2P In March!
Huzzah! I seriosuly might have to go back to this and see if I can make it to level 50 by soloing.
I can’t help but wonder how many of today’s crop of MMOs will manage to last 13 years. Running expenses are surely so much higher than they were in dear old EverQuest’s day. The major precursor to the dark age of grinding and number keys that we know so well has indeed managed a baker’s dozen-sized lifespan, and while its days as a subscription game are not yet numbered, it now also wears a free to play coat on its aged frame.
There are three broad options, should you wish to check out granddad:
free-to-play, which offers some basic, low-level stuff and the option to buy additional chunks of game, character slots and whatnot.
Silver, which costs a $5 one-off fee and gets you access to more stuff as well as retaining the option to buy yet more.
Gold, which costs $15 per month and lets you do whatever, whenever.
There’s a faintly bewildering and evasive breakdown of what it all means here. The small print is probably the most illuminating stuff there, though:
The FREE access requires payment if you wish to upgrade your membership or make purchases in the in-game Marketplace. The Silver Membership can be purchased via a onetime Station Cash transaction (Silver Pack Item) available for $5.00 USD or 500SC in-game. Gold membership is available for $14.99 USD per month.
All membership levels are granted full access to game world through the EverQuest House of Thule expansion. The Veil of Alaris™ expansion must be purchased separately.
The four free races included with FREE and Silver Memberships are: Human, Erudite, Barbarian and Gnome.
The four free classes included with FREE and Silver Memberships are: Warrior, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue.
Levels are limited by the expansions owned. The House of Thule expansion will allow for a maximum level of 90. Level 91 to 95 requires the purchase of the Veil of Alaris expansion.
OK? OK. Also, existing subscribers are being granted 500 of SOE’s cross-game currency Station Cash per month as a thank you/sorry gesture.
The transition will happen in early March (which is when the 13th birthday is due), and there’s some enthusiastic words from EQ’s smiley producer here, of which the below is a sample:
“We’re excited to be expanding the EverQuest experience by making the game more accessible to every type of player so that you can choose to play the game in a way that suits you best. Anyone who wishes to start, return or continue to play one of the “Best Games of All-Time” can simply download and play EverQuest on their terms – think of it as Free to Play, Your Way. Recurring subscriptions, non-recurring subscriptions, Silver or Free memberships, item unlockers, and more. The game will now be setup to be flexible so that *you* can decide how much to pay, based on how much fun you’re having.”
What if I’m having more than $15/month of fun? Did they think of that in their fun quantifications, huh?
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/31/first-in-last-out-everquest-1...
| Posts: | |
User login
Navigation
Really? a 13 year old game
Really? a 13 year old game and they think people come in on a free to play and end up spending even a one time $5 fee? EQ was great at the time, sure. It was the first of it's kind. But by todays standards it is old and dated and sucks. Some people will go back to it for nostalgia sake, but I'm sure will very quickly come to the point of 'Oh ya, THAT'S why I don't play this anymore.'
If I was able to remake my Cat Beastlord for free I may have considered breifly poking it myself for the nostalgia, but I doubt it would even last one day.
Eh - may have to give it a try
I never got in to EQ or EQ2, never even played. Not that I have any desire to get into another MMO, but I could see myself giving it a try now that it's free. If nothing else, it'd be neat to see what everyone was talking about. They never did have a chance to get a subscription out of me, but I could see someone either picking it up or resuming for a month or two and quickly realizing that you need to pay $5 - $15 to get a few of the basic type of items. I have to imagine for a game like EQ, if they could convince 1/10 of their former player base to pay them $5 or $15 a year - that'd be a lot more than what they're making now.
EQ and EQ2 and a slight derail
I am an old time EQ vet who went the raid route and then burned out after a couple of years. It was a great time but boy did it suck away your spare time. For those who have only played WoW or similar games this post on Massively yesterday has a summary of the old EQ experience which is pretty accurate:
"During those early years, the game was extremely challenging. Grouping was not only expected but practically required, since soloing was very difficult. And the typical group experience consisted of clearing your way to a particular spot of a zone wall or dungeon and then plunking down and chain-pulling the rest of the time. Players created the idea of "camps" and would often call out for a "camp check" at popular dungeons. They made waiting lists for the popular named mobs and organized calendars for raid zones like Plane of Hate or the dragons (Vox and Naggy). Sure, there were quests, but they didn't offer much in the way of experience, and they usually required you to type the correct phrase to an NPC in order to receive them.
This was a game where travel and death could end up consuming your entire play session or even multiple play sessions. Shouting "Boat!" was an important public service, and players with teleport abilities could make a fortune sending people around the world. Leveling was slow, so slow that you had to squint to see whether your experience bar had moved after you'd killed 25 creatures. And then there were hell levels, which required double the usually amount of experience to get through to the next level."
Slight derail: I've been playing EQ2 off and on for a few years now. It went free to play a few months ago on terms similar to those described above.
I was really interested in the dungeon maker in the most recent EQ2 expansion from last December, the idea of player created content really appeals to me. Unfortunately the dungeon maker system is very limited in what you can do, which is basically dungeon decorating and mob placement. I did manage to create a pretty spiffy indoor garden dungeon (if I do say so myself) but the most popular player created dungeons are all token grinds so very few people have actually played it. Oh well.
Soloing to the 50s...
Been there, done that, sucks. Unless you're a necro, in which case it's stupidly easy.
EQ, at this point, is a waste of money, both for players and Sony. It hails from the era where you were basically paying for the privilege of running around a giant timesink. The only thing I could imagine that keeps people playing is the friendships they have on there; it's certainly not the graphics or gameplay.
Given how far we've come in
Given how far we've come in 13 years I'd imagine it's actually pretty cheap for Sony to keep it running.
It's less about the technology...
... and more about the people who have to be retained to maintain the game. Even if the tech is better, the underlying game is still the same, and they've never been able to fully dispense with downtime for repair.