EQ Goes Free to Play
 

Just announced.

http://www.everquest.com/free/

Wow. Cool I guess.

Nice.

They offer a nice selection for the free races/classes. War, Clr, Wiz and Rog. All core group/raid classes. Quite a luring prospect for the retired raider. Might have to check this out.

Should also provide a steady stream of packet collects for our beloved emulator. ;)

Now my main was on the test server where i had 2.5 mill plat lvl 85 T4 HoT gear and 2.5k+ aa's does that mean im screwed if i am free to play when it comes to him. i know test server allows everyone to get all expansions thats the only thing of a non issue. but idk how i feel about this. old players i believe have their characters grandfathered in if you are a race/class that isnt available. but still idk ill have to give it a shot again maybe not id preffer to just stick to the glorious emulator if all fails =D

Their FAQ says this:

That is in reference to going from Gold to Silver.

Earlier on it says this:

It is not clear if we can add 1 + 1 here to arrive at a conclusion, but there is your hope.

It's nice that I'll be Silver for my old account, but I'm not sure if it's worth playing if I don't have Gold :O

Oh, and because it doesn't start until March 1st, I probably won't ever take advantage of it because TERA comes out. :/ oh well.

The EQMac is also getting the axe. I never played it, but I'm surprised it was still kicking around. I wonder if they will get the chance to play on the EMU side? Just think of all those new players!

Ouchie , A Max of 250 AAs On Basic..

I can See this being Abused hehe , People Fixing Bazaar etc :)~


Although i might use it to 3box on Live a bit haha :)

My Current acount of 90SK
then a Cleric and Wiz haha :)

Not a big surprise EQ live has been getting progressively worse for years now. Free to play is just another way to hopefully make a quick buck or two before they pull the plug.

I believe it to be not about it "getting worse" but about SOE gravitating toward a micro-transaction model.

There is one small, yet tingling implication that comes with this. I believe that Sony in the past did not pursue the emulation community because they felt that unless an emu server was charging a subscription to play, then they would not have an easy win, simply because of the difficulty in proving financial damages (their business model and resulting income were simply at odds with this). Now with their micro-transactions aligning with donations* (on the emu side of things), it would be a lot easier to convince a court of this.

Doom-saying? Nah not really. I think it is something to keep in mind, though.

*Donations here refering to quid pro quo transactions in which players get in-game items on specific servers. Not donations given to the development team.

I guarantee the population will skyrocket back up, because a lot of the old time players will be checking the game out again. It may fall back down, but it certainly won't be one big ghost town anymore... might even see some new raiding guilds rise up to beat RoI :P

So they are doing for EQ1 what they did for EQ2.
Too bad I hardly play either. Now if only they would make PlanetSide free...

EQ1 is and was never in danger of being closed down, even if they did not do this it would still be around 10 years from now, you can bet on that just like you could bet on death and taxes.

All this does is bring it in line with the way SOE bills games from now on, so they dont need to keep two systems for accounting purposes. I strongly doubt SOE will ever introduce a new game that is soley subscription based, I assure you Planetside 2 will also be the same new F2P model, as will any other game SOe creates from here on out.


The real Irony here is the only people that MIGHT be hurt by this is the EMU servers. There will be a population dip when this first comes out, it is almost assured, the real trick is will that population come back after a month or two.

I completely disagree. :rolleyes:

Other than death and taxes, nothing is sure in life, period.

None will change game billing because of an accounting system, lol. They do it because that's their only chance to keep EQ1 alive (at least to try it), just like other MMOs who lose player base and interest day after day.

I highly doubt many would go back from EQEMU to live EQ. EQEMU is EverQuest on crack, it's nostalgia, it's custom, it's versatile, it's basically endless fun, evolving day after day. We have an awesome community here.
If you want to play EQ live, get 95 levels, grind 7000+ AAs, do endless timesink progression quests, etc, you still need a subscription and have to pay just like before. Nothing really changed there.

Actually, I don't think many players pick EQEMU over Live EQ because it's free.. imo it's simply more fun. This is why I stuck here many moons ago.. and fyi I have 3 active EQ live subscriptions atm. I got bored of VoA during the beta period.. :P

That's my 2cp anyway. ;)

I suppose it comes down to this question:

Is the game a testament to the community or is the community a testament to the game? Sony is betting on the latter.

Agreed. I am sure the reason SOE changed the EQ1 model (as well as EQ2) is because they are losing subscriptions (look at LOTR, D&D, DC Universe, etc etc etc). I don't see WoW going to a free-play model? :roll:

I predict that if anything, MORE players will come from EQ1 to EQEMU than leave EQMEU to EQ1. I have many friends and none of them want to go back to EQ-Watered-Down (tm).

EQEMU is where is at. Custom content, no grinding, fast and fun. BLEEP EQLive.

Well what do you guys think in your own opinion will you be returning as a free player?

I wonder how that would work I have 4 accounts the main account has higher lvl players started back in 2002. I'll have to look into that more.
I could talk to my guild again let them known how i'm doing. This might shed more light on Hot as i have it enabled on eqemu. This would make
it better for everyone to get there client updates just an idea.

Speaking of client updates, with this free model I doubt any bundle releases will be sold that Emu can advance on. With patches constantly etc... this could hamper our progression to "keep up" or add new content past the last client compatibility.

That is the idea that kinda sucks but hey it would allow more packet collecting and better refinement of what we actually have. I for one may look into collecting what is needed. Thats about the only reason I would go on live.

I think it may be the opposite. They haven't yet updated Steam to include a VoA expansion purchase or a new download. When EQ2 went F2P, they put up the new download stuff on Steam right away and you can see them here:

http://store.steampowered.com/search...term=everquest

I don't know if they actually updated the EQ2 client download on Steam at that time, but it is possible. Once EQ1 makes the switch to FTP, I am hoping to see it available that way on Steam and maybe they have just been waiting to do their updates until the F2P change happens. At least we can hope that is the case :P

I also agree with what Lillu said about EQEmu or EQLive losing players to one another. There are many players on EQEmu that probably spend more playing on the EQEmu server they are on than it would cost them to have a subscription to Live for a long time. People are willing to pay for something they enjoy and find worth their money. Many EQEmu players are just the more casual type that don't have the endless amounts of time to play that it takes to make good progress on Live. Though, some are big boxers that might be interested in playing live if they could get away with using MQ2 there to control a crapload of characters. If any servers were going to lose players to EQLive F2P, it would probably be a small amount of the Live-Like servers such as PEQ. Though, most PEQ players have well established characters and probably would not want to start over again. I think most custom servers on EQEmu would be pretty unlikely to lose players. I suggested on the SOE forums years ago that they should allow custom servers that are run by players, as I think that would have a huge impact on their player numbers, but I am sure they think it would be impossible to properly implement a system that would allow that.

Good to know. I wasn't a huge EQ2 fan. Dropped after the first huge nerf that killed my ranger. So my knowledge of that was null.

Thanks for the info.

They have had one for several months now.
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Wor...lay-33227.html

They are giving you upto Hot client for Free. They said if you wanted VoA you'll have to buy it. So we'll have to sit back and watch what happends too Steam.

Feq:
All three membership levels give you the House of Thule expansion and access to nearly 13 years' worth of gameplay and diverse zones. The latest expansion, Veil of Alaris, is also available for purchase and will grant you full access to all the features and content of that expansion

Accounts
2. I don't play EverQuest or any SOE games, but I do have a Station account. Can I try EverQuest using my old Station account info?
Yes you can! Click here http://launch.soe.com/everquest/ to download the game now.

LOL touche! That will tell you how much WoW I play :-D

What they give you access to doesn't matter client side. Expansions and their content are locked via flags that are assigned to your account when you buy an expansion and redeem the code. The CLIENT will have all the way up through Veil of Alaris as well as any new expansions/patches regardless what subscription type you have, however. You won't be able to access them on Live, but you would on EQEmu...

As for Steam, you're right. As Trev said, Valve promoted EQ2 when they went F2P and dumped client updates. Anyone who uses Steam a lot may want to keep an eye out around March to see if SoE/Valve does the same for EQ1. It may mean a client update which MAY mean VoA on EQEmu.

-Danyelle/Miku

To be fair, your access to the game is severely restricted on the WoW trial. You're capped at level 20.

You may not be capped that low on EQ F2P but a level 90 with 250 AAs is...well...bad. 250 is passable at 60, maybe 65. Even by 70 you should have at least ~400. At 90? HAHA. They may as well be capping you at 20

Not to turn this into a which F2P is better debate, but there's a whole lot more game you can see in EQ with the F2P restrictions. I played for years up to the GoD expansion, and all of my toons are below the restrictions with the exception of bag slots and perhaps PP on one toon.

Admittedly it is a different game now than when I played on live, but I think there's far more to see and do to allow you to decide if you like the game in the EQ F2P model.

Oh I'm not debating that in the least, I agree. :) I'm just saying they're keeping you locked out of more than what is displayed on their F2P page. Indirectly of course. Modern EQ relies heavily upon AAs for example. Both statistically and, by association, when dealing with other people. At level 90 with 250 AAs you will find xp zones difficult to play through. Many groups, and ESPECIALLY guilds, will shun you due to low AA count (many guilds have a minimum AA requirement. A lot of experience groups are picking up on this as well. Elitism at work.). This essentially keeps you locked out of zones that technically you should be able to access. Makes some quests impossible to complete, items impossible to obtain. etc

It's really just a clever way to lure people back to Live, rehook them, then force them to pay. Though I doubt any of that was ever in question lol. Ironically if anything this will be more beneficial to Emu players than it is to those that still play Live. For one, people can go buy Underfoot from Steam and no longer have to worry about how to fix the missing files. Just set up a free account, patch a copy of your client to Live, and drag and drop files. No issues with legality or file distribution. Not to mention the possibility of Steam promoting this and updating the clients which can result in a VoA client for EQEmu (Which those that already bought SoD/UF could likely get for free) which opens up stuff like player housing etc for custom servers to fiddle with once it's coded in.

I totally worded that wrong and didnt get the right point across that I was trying to make, but hey some of you took what I said and trampled me like a fallen jockey at the derby.

So to clear it up, what i was trying to point out was that it makes sense for SOE to move EQ1 to the f2p model now because it is the direction the company is going in, with ALL of its products, past, present and future. Keeping one buisness model makes alot more sense in the overall scheme of things.

EQ1 is doing just fine for subscriptions. It has paid for itself (and the development of just about everything SOE/SCEA has done in the past 13 years (Playstation 1 Developement was soley funded by EQ profits as stated in the 10 year EQ anniverssary book)) many, many times over. It was never in danger of closing down in the near, or far future.

The best line from FanFaire two years ago was the DEV's response to how long does EQ have left. The DEV said, "Its not a question of how long will Everquest last, but a question of which one of you're kids will be working on the game as a deveolper in the future." That pretty much nailed SOE's commitment to keeping EQ1 going as long as it can.

Just to help make the point that 250 or even 1000 AA is ridiculously low for ANY character in EQ1. Combat Agility and Combat Stability is a 100% must have for Warriors, I wouldnt even consider taking a warrior to VoA or even the 1-2 expansions before that with less then max in just those to AA lines ... at lvl 95 CA and CS are 683 AA's maxed out ... for just 2 of AA lines, 2 of like 30 minimum required lines for a tank in EQ1 today.

yeah my warrior is lvl 90 2500+ aa's full T4 HoT armor was in best armor at the time without raiding and i couldnt tank shit in T4 zones. you really do need your aa's

Downloading New Lauchpad 4 Client updating VoA It's not broke yet they fixed it New Client size is 8,311 MB 80) one client for all that will solve alot of problems.

haha Noport you just have no clue.

Downlaoded new Voa client plus all missing client files plus all extracted zones plus mapfiend downloaded all maps New full clinet 9.37GB 9,244 Files 57 Folders nope i don't have a clue 80)

relevant...
http://i42.tinypic.com/5211eu.jpg

So does that mean the smart thing to do would be to download the new client on F2P launch day and make a backup copy to wait for EQEmu compatibility to catch up to it? It sounds like the plan, if possible, is for EQEmu to base compatibility off whatever the new client is.

There is 0 point in downloading a live client for anything other than playing on live. I didn't think the above picture was all that hard to get.

Contrary to Noport's posts, there is no such thing as a VoA client available to be downloaded. There is the default Steam client (unpatched), which basically Underfoot with the HoT zones in the download. Or there is the Live client. One is fixed in a specific point of time and can be developed against based on the opcodes etc. One is an ever changing client with opcodes that can change at SOny's whim, which is pointless to develop against.

I agree with the no reason to download the live thing, but at least Noport seems to want and try and to progress the emulator. IDK if you guys have ever heard the phrase "if you don't have anything nice o say don't say it at all'. Sure some people are doing things that are useless atm but at least is shows his interest

Giving out inaccurate information is not helping progress and only confuses people who do not know better.

Sorry, I may have been unclear. I wasn't suggesting to download the live client when it goes free to play. I meant, assuming it is available updated on steam when it goes free to play, the steam download would, presumably, have all of the content in it. So what I'm suggesting is to download the steam client when everything goes free to play as an easy means of accessing the client. Hopefully it would have everything up through HoT, since the F2P setup says it provides access to all those expansions.