I just appealed to their Billing departement:

Greetings,

I have endured the NGE debacle with Star Wars Galaxies and have been pretty much angry for a long time.

With EverQuest 2 I have given SOE a second chance. Hoping they would have learned from their mistakes not to screw over your paying customers like what was done with the NGE update on SWG.

I have been a loyal customer of EverQuest 2 over the years, bought all expansions, etc.

And now you guys push the Station Cash through our troats without warning nor prior notification?!!

If I would have known this would be coming I would NEVER have bought The Shadow Odyssey expansion!

This is outragious and pretty much feels like a NGE dejavu!

So I demand a full refund of my TSO expansion purchase ASAP!

And to back up my claim I enclosed a statement by John Smedly (CEO of SOE) some time ago about RMT features and EverQuest 2!

----------------
Originally Posted by Smed [View Post]
I've been a regular lurker on this site for a while but I wanted to step in here and dispel something that's just plain not true - I don't have my name highlighted here, but anyone that doubts it's me can email me at jsmedley@soe.sony.com and I'll happily reply.

We aren't going to be allowing RMT in any way, shape or form on the non-exchange enabled EQ II servers. Period. End of statement.

In any event, I wanted to stop in and at least set the record straight - you aren't going to be seeing RMT allowed on the non-exchange enabled servers.

John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment
-----------------

Best Regards,

xxxxx xxxxxxx

______________________________________________________________

The reason I have done this... well is pretty much explained in my letter. But I wanted to add the following to open all your eyes in what is happening here. As it took a moment for me too, to let all this sink in:

What SOE has done here is a PURE SCAM! Plain and simple.

1. They didn't warn their paying customers way in front that this was coming!

2. They waited a couple weeks after the TSO expansion launch. Make sure they sell as much as possible.

3. They quickly changed the Terms and EULA with the patching in of Station Cash.

These SCAM'ing bastards knew pretty well and on forhand that this sytem, would they have announced it at forehand, would have made a lot of people cancel their accounts and would have hurt their TSO expansion sales drastically!

Cheers

Wait...you are saying Smed lied about something?  You are mistaken sir, he's never lied a day in his life. 

(or was that he's never told the truth a day in his life?)  I get those confused.

Smed later went on to say that SOE was going to firmly embrace alternate funding models for their new games, looks like they decided to backport the feature.

So you are REQUIRED to use their Stationcash option? 

Word to the wise, they are not making you do anything and if you don't like it quit being a little nancy and cancel your sub leave the rest of the world to their own.  Not to mention this has been talked to death for the last few days use the search function and vent in on of the already exhisting threads.

Originally posted by Locklain

So you are REQUIRED to use their Stationcash option? 

Word to the wise, they are not making you do anything and if you don't like it quit being a little nancy and cancel your sub leave the rest of the world to their own.  Not to mention this has been talked to death for the last few days use the search function and vent in on of the already exhisting threads.

I would have canceled my subs last month BEFORE I would have paid for the expansion! 80 euros total!!

That's what is the issue here!

I dont give a crap about this system. They said it would NEVER come into EverQuest 2.

More even so, that they DELIBERATELY waited till couple weeks after the TSO expansion and kept it all secret to MAXIMISE expansion sales!  As they knew lot of people would have canceled and NOT buy the expansion if they announced this lets say end of october / early november.

I don't know what SCAM means in your dictionary. But in mine this is a SCAM. Pure and simple!

And when you look into their feedback thread on the official forums, then you will see that a lot of people feel the exact same about this.

Cheers

Originally posted by Locklain

So you are REQUIRED to use their Stationcash option? 

Word to the wise, they are not making you do anything and if you don't like it quit being a little nancy and cancel your sub leave the rest of the world to their own.  Not to mention this has been talked to death for the last few days use the search function and vent in on of the already exhisting threads.

Still, all F2P game have cash shops. All P2P don't.

EQ2 is a good game but I am not paying monthly fees for something that should be free. if they take away the monthly fees, then fine but otherwise I am not playing another SOE game again.

Cash shops sucks in any game, in a P2P game it is far beyond that.

Originally posted by Guillermo197

What SOE has done here is a PURE SCAM! Plain and simple.

1. They didn't warn their paying customers way in front that this was coming!

2. They waited a couple weeks after the TSO expansion launch. Make sure they sell as much as possible.

3. They quickly changed the Terms and EULA with the patching in of Station Cash.

These SCAM'ing bastards knew pretty well and on forhand that this sytem, would they have announced it at forehand, would have made a lot of people cancel their accounts and would have hurt their TSO expansion sales drastically!

I dont know if I would call it a scam but I do agree with your 3 points - especially the 1st point

Microtransactions are controversial

to just add them to an older existing game

with no prior communication shows a complete disregard for their playerbase

Cancelled my account yesterday.  I been playing for 3.5 yrs.  This station cash was the last straw for me.

The only hard feelings I have is how this all was diabolically released after the expansion. 

The goal of a corporation is to make money; no arguement there.  But I do wish they would have given a heads up or notice before this crap was sprung on us.   A new low for SOE... grats on the epic fail.

Originally posted by Locklain

So you are REQUIRED to use their Stationcash option? 

Word to the wise, they are not making you do anything and if you don't like it quit being a little nancy and cancel your sub leave the rest of the world to their own.  Not to mention this has been talked to death for the last few days use the search function and vent in on of the already exhisting threads.

Well saiid Lock, you guys are pounding this topic to death. Station Cash not that popular, right, we get the picture. If you don't like it, cancel your bloody sub, but FFS stop littering up the forums with all this girning...

Originally posted by gracefield

Originally posted by Locklain

So you are REQUIRED to use their Stationcash option? 

Word to the wise, they are not making you do anything and if you don't like it quit being a little nancy and cancel your sub leave the rest of the world to their own.  Not to mention this has been talked to death for the last few days use the search function and vent in on of the already exhisting threads.

 

Well saiid Lock, you guys are pounding this topic to death. Station Cash not that popular, right, we get the picture. If you don't like it, cancel your bloody sub, but FFS stop littering up the forums with all this girning...

Well reality flash.

Ofcourse you are not forced to use the shop. Just like you are not forced to use the shop in the F2P games.

Get it? It's just a matter of time till they force you to buy something in the Cash shop if you ever want something.

As you can forget they going to add free stuff into the game from now on, while they can now ask money for it through this cash shop!

Cheers

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by Guillermo197

What SOE has done here is a PURE SCAM! Plain and simple.

1. They didn't warn their paying customers way in front that this was coming!

2. They waited a couple weeks after the TSO expansion launch. Make sure they sell as much as possible.

3. They quickly changed the Terms and EULA with the patching in of Station Cash.

These SCAM'ing bastards knew pretty well and on forhand that this sytem, would they have announced it at forehand, would have made a lot of people cancel their accounts and would have hurt their TSO expansion sales drastically!

I dont know if I would call it a scam but I do agree with your 3 points - especially the 1st point

 

Microtransactions are controversial

 

to just add them to an older existing game

with no prior communication shows a complete disregard for their playerbase

QFE!

But typically SOE though..what i dont understand is why they didnt try to cram it into another such as the matrix or VG? just to see how it worked out there before lumping it onto its "crown jewels" of games

---

Originally posted by fozzie22

QFE!
 
But typically SOE though..what i dont understand is why they didnt try to cram it into another such as the matrix or VG? just to see how it worked out there before lumping it onto its "crown jewels" of games

---

Quickest way to lose both populations.

If it's introduced in EQ2 and folks cancel, EQ2 can have the populations like Matrix and Vanguard and SoE will still have s-o-m-e income left.

SoE is willing to chance excusing all those "Living Legends" they lured back this summer, to make more coin on the "loyals" (you know the vets who are hoping for payouts for being loyal, who muck up their forums with defenses that are darn right personal and hateful?).

Dirty business. I hope SoE's games will die on the vine now.

As a player of EQ2, I really wished they said "BTW we're going to do this" before tossing it in like that. I've even heard rumors that the PR at SOE was scrambling because this was pushed so soon. For now I'll continue playing, but this was a bad move, especially after that one post on EQ2Flames.

---

Originally posted by Guillermo197

---

Originally posted by gracefield

---

Originally posted by Locklain

So you are REQUIRED to use their Stationcash option?
Word to the wise, they are not making you do anything and if you don't like it quit being a little nancy and cancel your sub leave the rest of the world to their own. Not to mention this has been talked to death for the last few days use the search function and vent in on of the already exhisting threads.

---

Well saiid Lock, you guys are pounding this topic to death. Station Cash not that popular, right, we get the picture. If you don't like it, cancel your bloody sub, but FFS stop littering up the forums with all this girning...

---

Well reality flash.
Ofcourse you are not forced to use the shop. Just like you are not forced to use the shop in the F2P games.
Get it? It's just a matter of time till they force you to buy something in the Cash shop if you ever want something.
As you can forget they going to add free stuff into the game from now on, while they can now ask money for it through this cash shop!
Cheers

---

Cash shops are lame and yes they probably did sneak it in because they wanted to milk the expansion.

But check out Playerauctions and i think still EBay. People have ALWAYS been able to buy items for real cash, this is nothing new. Why is it so much worse when the actual company that made the game is getting a piece of the pie?

Originally posted by safwd

Cash shops are lame and yes they probably did sneak it in because they wanted to milk the expansion.

But check out Playerauctions and i think still EBay. People have ALWAYS been able to buy items for real cash, this is nothing new. Why is it so much worse when the actual company that made the game is getting a piece of the pie?

If I wanted to play a game with Microtransaction model I would go play a FREE 2 Play Asian game.

We are talking about a PAY 2 Play game here. A game that has going on for over 4 years now!

They have a loyal playerbase that has stick with them through tick and thin through these years and always said they didn't want to see an Item Mall in the game.

They protested against Station Exchange and thats why it was done on seperate servers.

John Smedly said to calm the people down and not mass quiting already back then, that they would NEVER do it on the existing Non-Exchange servers in EverQuest 2!

And here we are today!

Nothing further to add.

Cheers

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by safwd

Cash shops are lame and yes they probably did sneak it in because they wanted to milk the expansion.

But check out Playerauctions and i think still EBay. People have ALWAYS been able to buy items for real cash, this is nothing new. Why is it so much worse when the actual company that made the game is getting a piece of the pie?

 

If I wanted to play a game with Microtransaction model I would go play a FREE 2 Play Asian game.

We are talking about a PAY 2 Play game here. A game that has going on for over 4 years now!

They have a loyal playerbase that has stick with them through tick and thin through these years and always said they didn't want to see an Item Mall in the game.

They protested against Station Exchange and thats why it was done on seperate servers.

John Smedly said to calm the people down and not mass quiting already back then, that they would NEVER do it on the existing Non-Exchange servers in EverQuest 2!

And here we are today!

Nothing further to add.

Cheers

No, hang on OP, you're absolutely right, this isn't a F2P game, it's Everquest II, it's much better than a F2P game.  So, there is now an item mall in the game, so bloody what? So far, the items you can buy are fairly tame to say the least, nothing that's going to rock anybody's world and give them a huge, unfair advantage over anyone else. 

If people don't want to use the thing, then don't use it but it's hardly worth all this righteous indignation. As someone else said, if people want to use RL money to enhance their play, they can go and buy Plat or get items from Ebay and they've always been able to do that.

Station Cash is lame and its money-grabbing, but until they start selling real, game critical items in there, it's hardly worth all this fuss.

Originally posted by gracefield

 

No, hang on OP, you're absolutely right, this isn't a F2P game, it's Everquest II, it's much better than a F2P game.  So, there is now an item mall in the game, so bloody what? So far, the items you can buy are fairly tame to say the least, nothing that's going to rock anybody's world and give them a huge, unfair advantage over anyone else. 

If people don't want to use the thing, then don't use it but it's hardly worth all this righteous indignation. As someone else said, if people want to use RL money to enhance their play, they can go and buy Plat or get items from Ebay and they've always been able to do that.

Station Cash is lame and its money-grabbing, but until they start selling real, game critical items in there, it's hardly worth all this fuss.

You people don't see the bigger picture here and don't understand that this will have a big impact one way or the other!

With this Cash Shop now in place, you can forget that SOE is going to add updates with fluff stuff for free anymore in the game. Why would they? They can now charge money for it.

All great stuff, wich a great deal of EQ2 players enjoyed, and what was always added for free, will now only be obtainable through the cash shop.

Like I said in the official thread. The amount of people who value fluff items like cosmetic armor, cloaks, pets, house items is a lot!

All fluff stuff people had been asking for to be added to the game to enhance their experience as all these people get their joy from making their character look unique and love decorating their houses and guildhalls. They don't care about endgame raiding.

So for all these people this Cash shop is a slap in their face!

They have now gotten what they wanted, but now have to pay for it on top of their monthly subscription fee!

And if you think the Cash shop will stay innocent. Well, with XP and AA pots already in place....

..you can count on that exclusive mounts, cloaks, more exclusive cosmetic armor and items will be added to the Cash shop wich will be ONLY available in the Cash shop.

And as Smed is the biggest liar of them all, you can count on that sooner then later Real armor and items will be added as well.

----------------------------------------------------------

What you also forget is that the Station Exchange had hurt Smed's feelings a lot!

He wanted to push Station Exchange on all servers, but because of the outrage it caused on the official forums and elsewhere he was forced to limit it to a few NEW servers!

Hence the bold statement he made in his first post ever on the official forums to calm people down.

So now he tries to do it with this Cash Shop with so called fluff items only (altho of great value for many RPers), waits till the shitstorm has passed and then turn them slowly into full fledged item malls, so he can shut down the unsuccesful Station Exchange servers and then achieve what he always wanted from the start!

Cheers

You can bet eventually the best items will be buyable only from the cash shop! I will see you all in WoW  where we would stone Smedley in seconds. As for the one who accepts this, wtf is wrong with you? Smed bold faced lied and it's okay? You are really sick to continue paying for a game with a bold faced liar in charge.

safwd,

I think it is because, in the past, the Exchange servers were there to provide people who wanted to do this kind of thing a place to go.

Now, of course, it is a game feature on every server.

Originally posted by krenalor

You are really sick to continue paying for a game with a bold faced liar in charge.

Hey! I paid my taxes the last eight years, I'm used to it!