Tag: Everquest

Everquest’s Massive FAQ: Making Sense of It


Everquest goes free to play this Friday and in preparation Sony has released a Frequently Asked Question list that covers everything, and I do mean everything. The list is enormous, and many questions overlap one another, so I’ve decided to create a list to consolidate most of the important points.

See the entire FAQ here.

  • A welcome pack will be given to all players.
  • Veteran rewards will accumulate on all accounts.
  • There will be multi-month subscriptions at a reduced rate. Existing subscriptions will become gold.
  • You need a reoccurring subscription for the monthly 500 station cash. If you have station pass, the EQ and EQ2 monthly cash does not stack. Yearly subscribers will receive 500 station cash monthly.
  • You will receive 500 station cash from each game if you subscribe separately (no station pass), but this is not advisable.
  • Silver membership is an upgrade in the store for 500 station cash, it is a separate purchase and should not be confused with “spend 500 station cash.”
  • All accounts will be upgraded to House of Thule, gold members will still have to buy Veil of Alaris if they haven’t already.
  • Alternate advancement point cap can be raised.
  • Legends of Norrath cards will still be handed out each month.

Free Limitations:

  • If you allow your subscription to expire, your gold races/classes will be locked. You will have to resubscribe or purchase to unlock those characters.
  • If you purchase Veil of Alaris, you still have access to it if your subscription lapses.
  • Free/Silver can buy from the bazaar but cannot use “trade mode.”
  • If you drop back to free with gold rank spells, you will keep the spells but they will only have rank 1 effectiveness.
  • You will not lose any platinum if you are over the limit and lapse, you will simply not be able to gain more currency.
  • Prestige gear (gold only) will not be lost on lapse of subscription, it cannot be used.
  • House of Thule augments are prestige, this will change when free to play comes.

Everquest Online Adventures Shutting Down


Talk about disappointingly bad timing. Just as I started writing about Everquest Online Adventures, Sony has announced the impending shuttering of the title. On March 29th, Sony will be shutting down Everquest Online Adventures, Cosmic Rift, Infantry, and Star Chamber. Everquest Online Adventures launched in 2003 as a Playstation 2 exclusive.

As a reward to the players of EverQuest® Online Adventures, we will be giving you 3 months of Gold Membership in both EverQuest® and EverQuest® II. We greatly appreciate all of you and hope that you choose to join us in another version of the Norrath that we all love. These gold memberships will be available starting on Friday, March 16, 2012.

Everquest Online Adventures has survived a long time despite all odds, being a subscription MMO on an obsolete console. While EQOA is playable on the Playstation 3, doing so requires not only a model that has backwards compatibility, but the physical disk itself. A new copy of EQOA Frontiers has become extremely rare and expensive, while the original version, still playable, can experience issues when Frontiers content is displaying on screen.

(Source: SOE Website)

Everquest Mac Accidentally Diagnosed As Dead


How much does John Smedley love you? Enough that, earlier tonight, he posted this on Twitter:

Ok EQ Mac Players. You are a wonderful group of players. We will leave it running with no changes or subscription fees. Details soon.

Sony announced with sorrow last month that Everquest Mac would come to an end on March 29th. Players mourned the loss of what many play for the experience of a “near classic” Everquest, what with EQMac still being based in the Planes of Power (4th expansion, 2002).

Additional details will no doubt come this week or next, but it is reassuring to see the game being run with no changes or subscription fees.

(Source: John Smedley Twitter)

Sony Shuttering Everquest On Mac


Everquest on Mac is interesting, to say the least. Almost like Everquest Online Adventures, Everquest Macintosh is a rather different game than Everquest on Windows. Released in 2003, EQMac lost pace with Everquest’s development a long time ago, leaving it very far behind in terms of development. But even without the same level of support as standard Everquest, the servers have gathered a rather close community of players, not to mention regular events with Sony staff. So, naturally, more than a few hearts will be broken with the announcement that Everquest Mac will be shutting down in March.

On Thursday, March 29, 2012, the Al’Kabor server and the EverQuest: Macintosh Edition will be closing. EverQuest: Macintosh Edition has had a wonderful run, seeing an incredible tightly-knit community band together to accomplish feats of heroism that remain unsurpassed in the annals of MMORPGs. Overcoming the challenges of the Planes of Power in their near original form is not a task for those who are not dedicated to victory, and we here at SOE are in awe of your dedication and commitment.

As far as compensation goes, Sony is going as far as sending a check by mail if you paid far in advance via SOE game cards or other retail cards.

We will stop all billing for EverQuest: Macintosh Edition on January 31, 2012. For players who have purchased prepaid time via a membership/subscription plan, SOE Game Card or other retail game card that extends the subscription period past January 30, 2012, SOE will provide a pro-rated refund for the time left on the subscription after that date. If a valid credit card is active on your account, any refund will be applied to such credit card. If your account is paid via an SOE Game Card or other retail game card, we will send a check in the refund amount to your current billing address within 90 days after the game ends. Please be sure to update your email and mailing address in your Station Account as this may be critical to the refund process.

It’s always disappointing to see a game shut down, especially in cases like this where only a specific section of the community is being cut off.

(Source: Everquest Forums)

Everquest Officially Free to Play in March


Someone call my doctor, nutritionist, and accountant, and find me enough provisions to last until I die. With Sony’s multitude of announcements over free to play, the titles have been falling like dominos. Everquest 2, Planetside 2, DC Universe, Pirates of the Burning Sea, and the possibility of Vanguard at some point, the idea that Everquest might go free to play is both exciting and unsurprising at the same time. So, behold! Everquest is moving free to play in March.

So what can I expect for free, you ask patiently. Everything, well mostly. Everquest is following a similar tier of payment to its predecessors. Tiers are divided between free, silver (past subscribers and gold subscribers. Free players have access to all content up to the seventeenth expansion (House of Thule) with Veil of Alaris purchasable. Free players are restricted to Human, Erudite, Barbarian, and Gnome races, as well as warrior, cleric, wizard, and rogue classes, with the rest purchasable. Free and silver members are also restricted to rank 1 spells, among a few other restrictions you might expect. Bag slots, mail and chat, guild, coin purse, quest limit, etc.

you can find the whole matrix here, there is really too much to discuss here.

More on the transition as it appears.

Sony: So Much For A Final Warning


Cheaters have a high rate of recidivism, especially when punishment is lax and not at all intimidating. Earlier this month, Sony unveiled a final warning on their forums, for cheaters to give up and play legitimately, or pack up and go home. Today, the developer announced that 700 accounts have been suspended as a first warning.

Remember that these suspensions are merely the first wave, and further action is on the horizon. We will not rest, but will instead continue to gather data and take action as necessary on behalf of the entire player base.

An unspecified number of players were discovered to have been flagged mistakenly and had their suspension removed with a small time credit to their account (one week according to a couple of users on the forums). Hopefully the suspension will be taken seriously by those involved.

(Source: Everquest forums)

Sony Grandfathers In Existing Everquest II Characters


Good news, everyone! Back when Sony Online Entertainment announced that the two Everquest II services would be merged, players were left wondering how extra characters would be dealt with once the slot restriction went into effect. For players with accounts on both services, which characters would be available and which would be locked? What if a player stopped subscribing? If your character is created after December 6th, you’re out of luck. However, Dave Georgesson announced that existing characters (created before 12/6) will not be subject to race/class locks, even if the account is silver.

*Every* character that was created before 12/06/2011 at 12:01 am will be grandfathered in without race or class restriction. This means that regardless of your membership level, you will be able to play any character created before 12/6 without paying for race- or class-pack unlocks.

A welcome announcement for returning Everquest II players. In addition, if you spent Station Cash on race/class packs after the free to play transition, but before the announcement above (12/8), Sony will be offering refunds for your purchase.

(Source: EQII Forums)

Everquest II's Free To Play Meets Minor Delay


Everquest II: Age of Discovery is the eight expansion in a growing list for Everquest II, and also marks a rather substantial undertaking for Sony Online Entertainment. Yesterday, servers for both Everquest II and Everquest II Extended were brought down in preparation for a merger of the two games into one free to play service, to coincide with the release of a brand new expansion pack and a fully revitalized city of Freeport. Needless to say, the twelve hour window offered by Sony was not enough, and technical difficulties have delayed implementation well past the twenty four hour mark.

The servers won’t be up until 10am PST (estimated) or 1pm EST, but until then players can still make time by ensuring their launcher is updated and downloading the updates Sony has made available so far.

Everquest II’s Free To Play Meets Minor Delay


Everquest II: Age of Discovery is the eight expansion in a growing list for Everquest II, and also marks a rather substantial undertaking for Sony Online Entertainment. Yesterday, servers for both Everquest II and Everquest II Extended were brought down in preparation for a merger of the two games into one free to play service, to coincide with the release of a brand new expansion pack and a fully revitalized city of Freeport. Needless to say, the twelve hour window offered by Sony was not enough, and technical difficulties have delayed implementation well past the twenty four hour mark.

The servers won’t be up until 10am PST (estimated) or 1pm EST, but until then players can still make time by ensuring their launcher is updated and downloading the updates Sony has made available so far.

Everquest Channels Jagex: Sends Cheaters Final Warning


Players who partake in cheating are hereby put on notice: stop now. This isn’t an idle warning. We have quietly invested significant behind the scenes effort into detecting cheaters quickly and accurately. The vast majority of players enjoy the game on a fair and even playing field. Those who gain unfair advantage over others will not be tolerated.

Everquest is among the elders in our list of MMOs and while the game has seen updates over the years to allow for more a more casual friendly experience, the game still stands as one of the hardest on the market. Unfortunately, the engine and the systems in place have aged far in their years, and the Everquest team has a lot on their plates to deal with hackers (real hackers exploiting the engine, not your run of the mill bug abusers). Well, on the official forums, SOE Piestro has unsheathed his sword (pictured above) and issued a final warning to cheaters: Stop now, or face the +5 banhammer of troll smite.

Ten Ton Hammer published an incredibly in-depth article earlier this year discussing the epidemic that is hacking in Everquest, which you can read here. Scripts and bots that allow players to warp themselves and NPCs, despawn bosses, and more. At the end of the interview, we’re left with a tease that investigations into cheating would ramp up once Veil of Alaris was completed.

Best of luck to the Everquest team in fighting this never ending threat.