F2P new features, initial impressionsFollow

It seems pretty clear that everyone has a different take on how the F2P transition affects them. But some of the new features warrant discussion and feedback, so I thought I'd start a thread for that.

From what I can see, the main new features are:

* Hero's Journey (Golden Path)
* Enanced find, coupled with the Zone Guide.
* In-game advanced tutorials for returning players
* New spell availability on PoK vendors
* Gear lockouts on silver members

The hero's journey is a book you click to bring up a guide on what you shoudl be doing next. I'm perpetually lost in EQ (having taken a long hiatus after GoD), and I was really hoping this would be a panacea to help me along. It is a small help - but I expected something much more feature rich. For example, it tells me a couple zones I should visit (level appropriate, I assume) - but doesn't let me interact with the information to pull up the zone guide or a map. It also lists items/quest chains I am in progress with - the Serpent Seeker's Charm of Lore, for example. But rather than take me right to the achievement screen showing me the next step, it's a dead list with no link. I had to delve through help menus to find how to open the achievement window. This could have been a much simpler process.

The next thing I tried was the enhanced find and the new zone guide. I love the zone guide! I would have had to open up a couple browser windows to pull up a zone link map and zone level information to find, say, "Hate's Fury". But with the zone guide, I set it as my destination and it lists every zone and via point for me. Fantastic! As for "Find" though, well, even in the guild lobby it couldn't find "Annabelle", the housing information woman - "Mysterious forces prevent... blah blah blah."

The in-game tutorials are going to be a big hep to me, in particular. The first I ran across was one for Auras (I have no clue what these are). The NPC by the PoK bank had information on where I should go to start this quest. I am hoping there are tutorials on power sources, mercenaries, housing and everything else I have missed out on.

Spells are now sold on the PoK vendors! I'm level 65 and have never seen a glyphed rune word, so of course I had no level 65 spells. I was still working on picking up lower level spells via ethereal and spectral parchments. What a long, excruciating process. I now have all my current spells and can go do things that are more fun than waiting for rare drops just so I can have class capability par for my level. I think this removes a massive barrier to entry for returning players, and those that play alts.

Lastly, the complainers are out in force. Level 90's at silver level can't use their prestige gear, can't use their mercenaries. It seems to be the same story - "I worked hard to earn this and now I can't use it." I don't think that this system is going to make anyone in this category happy but really it wasn't intended to. People in end-game content are clearly intended to be subscribing from all the restrictions placed on silver accounts. On the flip side, people like me, mid level, low AAs - I could probably play at silver for a few years before I needed to upgrade.

edit: I'm gold level so I didn't notice this initially, but half of my augments are labeled as prestige. Mostly crappy defiant augments that are only set in my gear because I didn't have anything else to put in the slot. Hot zone augs look like they are not labeled prestige. This means if I was silver level, half of my gear would be unusable. That's a huge mistake. I thought prestige gear was high level gear from the last 2 expansions, not something a poorly geared level 60 would be wearing. I hope that SOE fixes this ASP. People aren't going to regear chracters they haven't played in 6 years because of an augment.

By the way, they are doing *Double Station Cash* from noon PST today (3/16) until noon tomorrow. It's a short window, sadly. I am eyeing those 20 slot bags that are on sale for 800SC. Unfortunately I can't find a link to this sale now.






Edited, Mar 16th 2012 11:12am by Samatman

Yes! SC 11988. But no other unlockers are currently listed in the store.

Heh, me too.

I have a bunch of station cash from the alst double SC weekend, so I'll pick up a bunch of walmart cards and get a year on all my accounts for half off. =D

I'm halfway through gloomingdeep on the new Vox server...

78 real characters in at any moment with constant spam of "this zone is over max with 102... 90 seconds until mercenaries are auto suspended... --so they've coded in a cap for the tutorial and a priority for booting mercs out to let real players try to get in.

The revised tutorial fills in missing holes of info well. With the insane competition for spawns there is a slow down (once the rush is gone it should be fine) in getting to level 10, but you'll definately be better geared. For some classes the new sow-like clicky they give you is reason alone to do the tutorial.

Several returnees in the tutorial had already upgraded to gold subs being annoyed with the limitations... Sony has a slogan for that I believe: "Working as intended".

EQ is still going, F2P won't kill it, might even help. That's good in my books.

Well. The Walmart's around me are all sold out of SC cards.....so I'm logged in as a silver account and cant use any of my old equipment. Any recommendations on where I could get some gear as an 81 monk?

It is a little lame to not be able to use your old gear, not 100% sure what I will be able to do naked. At the very least they could have offered some item to remove augs, not everyone has 15k to buy aug distillers.

My impression:

F2P is to encourage new players to sub or play through micro transactions.

F2P has nothing to do with returning players.

It's not a "complaint" it's an observation and more important than feature lists or dev-speak. A lot of people are happy to roll up new toons and romp around EQ and that's the successful part of this endeavor.

Go around to the existing class boards on the net and you will see anyone oh level 70ish and up has no reason to try this new pricing model.

You can't even carry enough plat to remove augs. That is a major oversight.

In short they didn't target returning players at all and they probably should/could have.

Edited, Mar 16th 2012 11:10pm by Reyla

The problem is, the primary reason they're even bothering is because they've seen other games make money hand over fist (Turbine being the most obvious) and don't want to get left out. But someone neglected to tell them that the reason these conversions were successful is because they gave players a multitude of choices as far as how and what they want to pay (and pay for). They also don't lock returning players out of gear they already have. The marketplace is so barebones as far as selection is concerned, they might as well have just kept it. Common sense would dictate they offer bundles (say, bag slots in blocks of 1, 2, or 4. AA point unlocks in blocks of 100, 250, 500.) Heck, I'd pay just to unlock the aug system since the vast majority of my characters have augs everywhere (so their gear is useless right now).

I agree with Reyla in that this is a huge mistake on SOE's part. One of the great things about the systems in LOTRO/DDO/CoH is, you can come back after some time away and there's stuff to buy that you'd actually want. So you drop a few bucks (often more than 'a few') and get to playing for a while. The important thing is, the publisher/developer is getting money from you consistently and often (from what I'm told) more than they would with a vanilla subscription plan. What's worse is, those new players they're looking to attract probably know some former players. Given EQ's age and how far behind the (theme park) curve it is, word of mouth could go a long ways toward drawing the interest of folks who wouldn't look at the game otherwise. But with downright toxic word of mouth from former players who come back to find themselves essentially naked, the opportunity to turn some of the game's biggest fans back into the evangelists they used to be is completely lost.

Reyla's right though. As I looked over the matrix, I saw clearly that this was a blatant attempt to get the MMO tourists to give EQ a shot. 1000 AA cap? REALLY? With no way to raise that cap except 100 AA at a time? No augs, stuff from group content FOUR EXPANSIONS AGO locked behind a gold wall, it's a bit much. Problem is, they give no ladders or ropes to scale that wall. Compare it to City of Heroes who lets you buy passes to the consignment market or invention system or side switching, when you want access to these things. Just seems really short sighted to me to put a huge pay wall up in front of people who could really drive new users into your arms.

This is easily fixed, though it's not intuitive (but this IS SOE we're talking about, so par for the course). If you go to the small bank in PoK, right across from that building is a gnome standing under an awning (around the corner from the spell research Erudites). His name is Caden Zarik and he's the parcel master. Click on him and he has a tab named 'Parcels'. Your extra bags are there. In fact, all I've done so far is log characters in, go to him, and get my bags back. This is SOE and screwups are not uncommon. I didn't want to wind up losing tink bags/haversacks/dreamweave satchels/merc boxes and such because I didn't get to them before they expired.

Honestly, I could've lived with it if they allowed access to gear already obtained (grandfathered since you've already "earned" it) including augs and made the restrictions for future items. They would've gotten several hundred from me right from the start (gold on 6-12 accounts plus 2k+ SC for each, just to try it out). As it stands, none of my characters over 65 are playable since the majority of their gear is augged (and not hotzone augs, camped/farmed augs). I think this is bassackwards. Grandfathering existing toons gives you a quantifiably wider audience to draw from. New people to the game aren't going to be impressed by its largely outdated systems. The older/previous players would have the frame of reference to see that what a new player sees as 'outdated', the vet player sees as 'better than it was' or 'progress' (potentially). I guess I just don't get why they'd want to close off so many people. The game is still missing several features that have become standards of the genre (a minimap, for example) and those missing features can be jarring to a new player. Having to ask where things are (since 'find' is still only partially useful. The Z axis wreaks havoc on it), useless crafting except at the top end, there are many things that set EQ back in the current landscape. Those vet players, as I said, could be your evangelists who explain the context of these omissions. Locking them out is, well, so SOE.

Edited, Mar 17th 2012 1:17pm by Remianen

Edited, Mar 17th 2012 1:18pm by Remianen

Edited, Mar 17th 2012 1:18pm by Remianen

First: Walmart & SoE cards. The Walmart in my town has quit stocking them and put in their place subscription cards to Facebook. Facebook?!?!? I've seen separate Farm Town/Farmville cards but what do people purchase with Facebook cards? Regardless, I'm peeved I can no longer get the Walmart SoE cards locally.

Second: Certain gear/augs not usable. That was one of the first changes that helped me decide when I play EQ (which is currently extremely sporadic) I'll continue as I always have - buy a month at a time at gold level. I may not have achieved "great things" by some player standards, but working on two characters for over 7 years does not make me want to "gear down" in any manner.

I have said this from the outset - I truly think a better way to go would have been to access certain continents/zones at various levels ie. original 3 continents in Old World at free level; silver perhaps being several expacs like Kunark, Velious, LDoN; even a few more levels that gradually opened up more content with gold being all content. Personally, I would be in EQ a lot if a model like that was introduced and I also think it would be a better enticement to returning players. As it stands, I agree with whoever said this really isn't a workable model for people who have been in game a long time and don't want to have less bags, bank space, lowered gear, etc.

After I complete the Prayer Shawl quest (and I haven't even been able to work up the motivation for that) I will likely be taking another long break from EQ - not due to these changes but mainly because I'm not interested in the higher end content for my level 80, I am involved in another MMORPG that, at least for now, I find more enjoyable, and a virtual world I have neglected in many respects.