Chatty: Diablo III, Dragon's Dogma
FileShack: Unity of Command, Skyjacker
Daily Filter: Planetside 2, Deadlight
Weekend PC digital deals: strategy-o-rama
38 Studios, Harry Potter Kinect - Shacknews Daily: May 25, 2012
Free-to-Play EverQuest 2 'Extended' Launches
by Alice O'Connor, Aug 20, 2010 6:27am PDT
EverQuest II Extended, the free-to-play version of Sony Online Entertainment's fantasy MMORPG, has launched. Play it here.
Adventurers playing for free will face a number of restrictions on character, bank and bag slots, playable races, chat options and the like, which can be raised or removed with several membership plans. A one-off fee of $10 upgrades you from a Bronze member to Silver, while the $14.99/month and $200/year Gold and Platinum options offer even more. There are also optional microtransactions for items and other content.
EverQuest II Extended is entirely separate from regular, subscription-driven EQ2, using different servers and different forums so current players can avoid the proles.
While EverQuest II continues to receive updates and expansions--the next, Destiny of Velious, is due in February 2011--SOE is also working on the next major entry in the MMO series, currently known only as EverQuest Next.
Comments
Also, can't purchase classes, which would probably be one of the most desired things? Can't purchase char slots? Or bag slots?
What are you doing, SOE? All you had to do was look at what Turbine is doing and do that! :P
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 7 replies.
rigid.
I have some reservations about the paid portion of this business model. Mostly the fact that If I were to pay 15 bucks a month, it still wouldn't be enough to not be fully gimped. So I would have to lump sum 200 bucks to be able to play at the highest tier. I am not however commenting at all about the bronze level stuff as it is free and we should be happy about it being free, yay free.
Conjecture Mode: On
I'm guessing they are hurting for money :\