Tag: Free to Play

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.

Final Fantasy XIV Billing Starts January 6th


We all knew this time would come eventually, when Square Enix would shake off the training wheels and Final Fantasy XIV would transition back to its intended subscription system. Last month, Square announced that billing would start around the time the much anticipated 2.0 update released, around November or December of this year. Today, in an article on Gamasutra, Square is ready to announce a final date: January 6th. According to Gamasutra, the 2.0 update, billed as a remade version of the game, is set to launch sometime in late 2012.

Until version 2.0 is released, players who opt to continue playing will enjoy reduced subscription rates, starting at $6.99 per month with the cost decreasing for 90 and 180 day subscriptions. The Playstation 3 version is expected in early 2013.

Lineage II Free To Play Brings Login Woes


Although Lineage II unofficially went free to play a week ago when NCSoft opened up all existing accounts, today brings the full release of Lineage II: Goddess of Destruction. With it brings the Path to Awakening, a system that gives players an incentive to grind through the levels (Lineage II is not an MMO where you can level solely through questing) by offering rewards, and the Goddess of Destruction expansion. You can head over to the Lineage II website to download the client and find more information on the game. Truly Free places forward all content free of charge to anyone willing to participate, while the cash shop is promised to sell only convenience items.

Of course, with the amount of people logging in today and creating accounts, the servers have become rather sluggish and have been coming down regularly. NCWest promises that they are working on the issue, and will be giving more information as it appears. Until then, you shouldn’t have any problem downloading and patching the game.

Just Kidding: Lineage II Becomes Free To Play Today


Omali you cheeky person, you say while you flick through the calendar here on MMO Fallout and see that yes, indeed, the free to play switch was announced for November 30th. You would be half correct: The Goddess of Destruction patch goes live on the 30th. Today, however, NCsoft has taken down the Lineage 2 servers at approximately 8am eastern for an estimated ten hours for maintenance. The patch notes are as follows:

  • The Vesper Dreams event continues.
  • The European server, Naia, will be moved to the United States. Moving forward it will be in the same physical location as Chronos. The Naia server time in-game will remain European: the next Castle Siege and Territory Wars on Naia will occur this weekend (November 26 and 27) as originally planned.
  • All Lineage II game accounts become Truly Free.
  • All characters’ vitality will be refilled. A vitality refill will happen with every regular weekly maintenance.

For now, the NCsoft account management is down for maintenance. You can find the announcement here, in case you still don’t believe me. You’re going to need an eleven gigabyte download for the client, so get to work!

Update: The NCsoft website is back up and accounts should be displayed as “playable” with an NCcoin amount listed.

DC Universe F2P Fun Facts, And Vanguard Free To Play?


If tweets carried a physical representation, the updates by John Smedley today would look not unlike grasping critics by the hair and smearing their faces in Sony’s statistics. Earlier today, Smedley tweeted a few of DC Universe’s accomplishments since its move to free to play:

  • Over 100% pre-f2p concurrent users.
  • 6% growth daily.
  • 700% increase in revenue (47% PC / 53% PS3)
  • Over 85% of daily logins are returning players.

Additionally, a user by the name of mupchu777 tweeted to John Smedley: “how about making vanguard saga of Heroes ftp… If not just kill the game already.” Mr. Smedley tweeted a response, “stay tuned.”

Cryptic.

New Everquest II Matrix And F2P Details


When Sony turned Everquest II into two services, they did so for a number of reasons, not least of which being a negative push back from the (at the time) current population of subscribers who did not want even more cash shop interference. And for what it’s worth, those of us on the Extended servers should be thanking these tough defenders, because when Sony merges the two services in December, those of us on the Extended servers will see a notable boost in what content we have available to us with a simple .

Gold players (subscribers) will now be able to access all races and all classes, according to the new free to play matrix. As many of you know, Platinum (the $200 yearly plan) is gone to anyone except recurring subscribers. You can find even more information on the transition here, while the EQ2 Wire has posted information that recurring subscribers will also be treated to monthly Station Cash injections into their accounts. Sony will also be discontinuing service with Live Gamer, the player to player auction house for RMT, around this time.

Coming December, there is a new way to spell Everquest II, and it’s l-o-d-s of e-m-o-n-e, and what’s that spell? Loads of money!

Probably.

New Player Experience: Is Vanguard Prepping For Free To Play?


Here’s something you didn’t expect to hear today: A Vanguard content patch was released. Sony Online Entertainment has been making relatively good on its past promise to begin supporting the title, and has unleashed a new dungeon as well as a new player experience. For starters, corpse recovery has been removed, making death less frustrating. Additionally, the experience required to attain each level has been scaled back, as well as increased loot drops (permanent) and the “golden path,” a leveling guide that assists players in finding areas to gain experience.

So is Vanguard in the preparation stages for free to play? It would certainly seem so, what with laying down the carpet and rose petals for the influx of players that the change would bring. We’ll be keeping an eye on Sony for the time being.

Rift F2P? Over Scott Hartsman's Dead Body


Will Rift eventually become free to play? No one can say for sure. As long as Scott Hartsman has a say, however, anyone who wants to play the MMO will have to pay up. In an interview with Eurogamer, Scott Hartsman of Trion stated that Rift is still growing, and that there are absolutely no plans to change face and make the game free. After all, the game is so pupillary, why would they reduce to 85% of the community (ala the 85/10/5 rule) paying nothing?

“One of the assumptions people make is you can just take a game and throw a switch and change the model. For starters, you’d have to decide that that would be a good thing, and I do not think it would be – that would be a fairly large net negative for Rift and Rift community.”

Sorry, folks! If you want to get into Rift, why not take advantage of Trion’s rather aggressive sales strategy? The game is on sale very cheap, very often.