Today marks a big day for EverQuest fans of all stripes. Sony Online Entertainment has made some significant changes to the free to play matrices in EverQuest and EverQuest 2 and laid to rest the permadeath rumor for EverQuest Next. See what else we discovered when talking with Dave Georgeson and then chat about it in the comments.

Once we’d cleared up the permadeath issue, it was on to the big news that restrictions on free to play EverQuest and EverQuest 2 accounts will be lifting in a big way.

“We didn’t like a lot of the logic we put in our free to play.” Georgeson said. “We were conservative and when we look back, we thought it was too restrictive.”

Read more of Suzie Ford's EverQuest: Big News for the EverQuest Franchise.

very nice but gear restrictions are the most common complaint

in EQ2,

I'd like to see gear restrictions only for Fabled gear

Meh, seems to be a vain attempt to squeeze more cash(IE cash shop) from 'new' players...

Sadly, EQ is dead, EQ2 is not too far behind, just let it go and move on.(Chances are 'next' will just be a rehashed version of both before right?)

I have to agree here, the artifical limiters for all races/classes within EQ2 still exists. That alone is why myself and many others refuse to play EQ2 as a F2P and sadly the game isn't worth a sub.

The ability limiter really and I mean really effects characters in both solo and group play. Unforunately this stifles the enjoyment of the game, to a point where I'm just waiting for EQnext and even then I hope Sony has learned a lot from the quirky and awkward combat that EQ2 has.

 So Sony and Semd are still playing head games. If they have to outright lie to get attention for EQN guessing that doesn't speak very highly about the upcoming game.

As for lifting of F2P restrictions they still kept the worst one. If you want to equip anything much stronger then a rusty dagger  you have to pay. They could have kept some of the other and dropped this, but as long as they have this restriction they have you by the balls. "Oh look! You just got a nice loot drop, now pay us to equip it!"

too late....

and gear restriction still exist for legendary (fabled i dont mind ,but legenderay come on)

SoE even changed some crafted gear from MC to MClegendary >.>

Originally posted by Mardukk
None of these lifted restrictions will help me to log in and play my max lvl toon.  The system was already good enough for alts so...this isn't really much news to get excited about.

And they dont care, they dont want you to be a freeloader at max level.  they expect their max level players to sub.

The people that are upset about the gear restrictions really arent the target audience.  Maybe this is why that the communities have remained fairly strong since f2p whereas other games have suffered a bit.

Turbine method: nickel and dime.  intended for a steady stream of income off f2pers

SoE method: sub based.  limited money made off f2pers, instead more focused on making people want to sub.

They would rather have 100k people paying 15 per month, as opposed to having 300k people paying 5 per month

Originally posted by winter

 So Sony and Semd are still playing head games. If they have to outright lie to get attention for EQN guessing that doesn't speak very highly about the upcoming game.

 

As for lifting of F2P restrictions they still kept the worst one. If you want to equip anything much stronger then a rusty dagger  you have to pay. They could have kept some of the other and dropped this, but as long as they have this restriction they have you by the balls. "Oh look! You just got a nice loot drop, now pay us to equip it!"

 

I have to agree with you there.  Eq2 is my favorite game, however this publicity stunt was just awful.

boo hoo, complain, complain, complain, basically I summed up every post in this thread...........

I just for the life of me cannot understand why I keep coming to this site its nothing but negativity......

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by Mardukk
None of these lifted restrictions will help me to log in and play my max lvl toon.  The system was already good enough for alts so...this isn't really much news to get excited about.

And they dont care, they dont want you to be a freeloader at max level.  they expect their max level players to sub.

The people that are upset about the gear restrictions really arent the target audience.  Maybe this is why that the communities have remained fairly strong since f2p whereas other games have suffered a bit.

 

People tend to forget they don't want players that don't give them money.

Simply 'having players' isn't good enough. Having players paying nothing or even much less than $15 a month just isn't very motivating. 'Oh gee you wanna play but give us less than 15 measly dollars a month? Let me bend over backwards for you....' Although for a game with pathetic content pushes (no xpac label worthy pushes or even big GU's) basically running one level above maintenance mode customers who give them very little is actually worthwhile.

I love the krono system though. I basically subscribe to all SoE games in full by buying kronos in EQ2. I haven't spent a dime on them in months and I get full access, people spent cash for me via the kronos hehe.

Originally posted by TribeofOne
if they drop gear and spell tier restrictions how would they make ANY money off non-subscribers?

Gear unlocks are just a small part of the store.  There is a ton of stuff in there.

I agree with Nadia, keep the Fabled unlock and drop the Legendary unlocks.  You can easily level in Legendary gear/skills.  Paying a couple bucks per character to unlock Fabled wouldn't be that bad if all of the Fabled drops were really worth it.

Originally posted by TribeofOne
if they drop gear and spell tier restrictions how would they make ANY money off non-subscribers?

cosmetic items? but wait that would actually require SOE to do real work for once, so that's off the table.

the funny thing is that EQ2 had microtransactions when it was still a sub based game. SOE's greed knows no bounds, and the fans that they nickle and dime have deep wallets

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by TribeofOne
if they drop gear and spell tier restrictions how would they make ANY money off non-subscribers?

Gear unlocks are just a small part of the store.  There is a ton of stuff in there.

I agree with Nadia, keep the Fabled unlock and drop the Legendary unlocks.  You can easily level in Legendary gear/skills.  Paying a couple bucks per character to unlock Fabled wouldn't be that bad if all of the Fabled drops were really worth it.

About time that the EQ/EQ2 Pay2BAllowed2Play changed. One of the main reasons I never went back was that after subscription and a lot of bags/bank-slots you kinda were left out in the cold with a lot of stuff you had stored but could not really use.

Time to go back to EQ2..? Nah... I took a Station Pass just the other day and am playing already (along with VG as well)

<--- time to change the siggy I think...