The first part of the adventure pack will come as a free download. All of the game's subscribers will be able to sink their swords into a new zone, fight new enemies, and so on. There will also be some new quests in this area for all players. Some of these quests will flesh out the lore behind the game's dark elf race and at least partially explain what has transpired in the 500 years that lie between the original EverQuest and EverQuest II. If players want to continue down this story path, they will have to pay what's been described as a "small fee" to download the rest of the adventure pack's content and continue on. Players that choose not to participate will still be allowed to adventure in this new zone and experience at least some of the new content. If the idea's a hit, SOE will likely follow with more adventure packs in the same vein. Some may continue where an existing adventure pack leaves off, though it's also possible that future content offerings may tell an entirely different story. If the price is right, EQII's adventure packs could be a cool solution to provide small chunks of more involving content on a more regular basis than you'd expect from the previous model of occasional expansion packs. That said, SOE certainly hasn't completely eliminated the concept of a retail expansion for EQII, either.
The first adventure pack is still being developed, and as a result, things like a level range for this new content, or the approximate time it will take the average player to experience all the upcoming content aren't available at this time. Availability and pricing information also haven't been announced, but both of these pieces of information, as well as the name of the first adventure pack, should be formally announced by SOE next week.
Carrot. Stick. 
Will take awhile to see how it pans out. Could end up being the same cost as an expansion pack with a similar amount of content over time if the cost is, like, 5 bucks per adventure pack thingie. Falaanla Marr fucked around with this message on 01-07-2005 at 08:42 AM.
2. We've already seen two new adventure zones go active with the last patch, along with a metric fuckton of quests and other nice goodies above and beyond the necessary routine bug fixes.
3. Frankly I'd rather have downloadable content over dealing with the middleman (stores and preordering through stores) if I could avoid it. I would like to be able to burn the expansion material onto a CD in case of reinstalls, but meh. I don't see where it's that big a deal.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael was naked while typing this:
1. Cobalt, I was under the impression you jumped ship from EQ2 to WoW. Why does this concern you in the least? I sense a subtle Maradon-esque stab at Sony here.
Because everyone knows you're not allowed to talk about the game if you don't play it, and moreso if you're currently playing it's biggest rival.quote:
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael's account was hax0red to write:
1. Cobalt, I was under the impression you jumped ship from EQ2 to WoW. Why does this concern you in the least? I sense a subtle Maradon-esque stab at Sony here.
Cobbi's not the type to do that, trust me. Besides, at least he has experience with the game. That's better than most of us who take pot shots at EQ2 right? Hell, don't most of the EQ2 players complain that folks haven't played EQ2 when folks comment on it?
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2. We've already seen two new adventure zones go active with the last patch, along with a metric fuckton of quests and other nice goodies above and beyond the necessary routine bug fixes.
I dunno. Sounds like the stuff that went in didn't make the cut for beta if its going in this early, and allows Sony to say "Hey, we put out free content!". I wouldn't expect the same treatment in the future when looking at the track record of prior SOE MMOGs. This "charge per zone" seems just like Sony actually.
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3. Frankly I'd rather have downloadable content over dealing with the middleman (stores and preordering through stores) if I could avoid it. I would like to be able to burn the expansion material onto a CD in case of reinstalls, but meh. I don't see where it's that big a deal.
Personal thing I guess. If I'm paying for software, I'd much rather have a CD in my hand. I guess I still don't trust companies in that way. Talonus fucked around with this message on 01-07-2005 at 09:57 AM.
So not only do you have to pay for the retail expansions, you have to pay for the semi-monthly publishes that other games release for free.
I guarantee if they had done something like this with the OoW release in EQ Live, it would have been more successful. People were still feeling burned from GoD and less likely to sink money into an expansion. But it was actually a decent expansion and not just a high level one. Sadly, not as many got to see this because of the mess that was GoD. If they had released a bit beforehand, people would have been able to get a taste for it and may have had their interest perked.
And as Deth just said, they had a major patch yesterday. They fixed some bugs, played around with some visuals and put in a buttload of new quests. They gave a listing of them all. So we're getting perks without them having to be expansions or adventure packs. And EQII is already content-rich, so anything we receive is just bonus material in my book.
Lyinar Ka`Bael, Piney Fresh Druidess - Luclin
Lyinar Ka`Bael, Piney Fresh Druidess - Luclin
They can clean up financially if everyone gets on board with that system.
As for the zone thing...Jaggedpine Forest and Nedaria's Landing were added to EQ1 for free. So was Stonebrunt Mountains. All of those eventually became connection points (two or three expansions later) to major gaming zones (Taelosia, in particular). Also keep in mind that Legacy of Ykesha was released for download, and every expansion since then has been available for download or you can go out and buy it on CD.
So the idea of paying for additional content doesn't seem all that ridiculous to me. My only concern would be in the quality of content in general. If I'm paying ten or fifteen bucks, I expect a solid zone with a good number of quests, because fifteen bucks is about a third of the cost that I would pay for an expansion.
As far as I know (and granted, I don't have anyone that can go in them yet), the zones that went active with the patch are wholly superfluous zones; IE they weren't necessary and aren't necessary to enjoy the game. There's already three sewer zones in Qeynos already (Down Below, Vermin Snye, Crypt of Betrayal). A fourth is just icing. I presume the same is true for Freeport. Plus the "not ready for prime-time beta playing" argument seems to be a fallacy, given that a lot of superfluous leftover crap from Beta stayed in the game at launch, whether it was really workable or not. Isle of Refuge is full of fairly obvious remnants. So they 1. just hacked off zones that 2. have people you have to speak with out in the world to go get the access quest for, but 3. couldn't just remove the other beta remnants? Seems a little too unlikely for me.
But to each their own. If this was just a gimme, great. I like gimmes. If the adventure packs are like mini-expansions, that's okay. The fact is that EQ2 is a really enjoyable game, and I'm not so strapped for cash that five bucks (or five bucks difference) is worth bitching over. That's like bitching that XBox live isn't worth it for additional downloadable content for XBox games.
The other thing that bugs me about the article in particular and the attitude here in general is this inherent distrust of Sony...
I'm going to say this once, and then I'm going back to being a smartass to him, but I kinda understand why Maradon was upset with the necromancer thing in EQ. Back in the day, EQ (especially run by Verant/The Vision) went nerf-happy. Within the design parameters of the game, there were a dozen different ways they could've fixed the perceived over-soloable nature of necromancers. Unfortunately, the choice was made to nerf necros rather than just bolster some foes. If I'd invested the time at that point to get my necro to high level, I'd have been disheartened too. For the most part, Sony stopped doing that. With the last two expansions especially in EQ, they made certain mobs resistant to certain tactics, while giving most classes something new to play with. Unfortunately, this was a new operational paradigm for Sony, and it went in the face of the old methods, and it didn't work so well. Chanters were suddenly half as useful as they had been previously and I watched Lyinar sitting LFG several nights for several hours each time.
ON THE OTHER HAND EQ2 has, for all that I've seen of it, more or less eliminated the problems of it's predecessor. The four basic classes each have a role to play in the party. Each of the subsets to those classes has a different means of executing that role. Each of the tertiary (final) specializations to those classes has a specifically different set of tactics. You know from day one what your role in a group is; the only issue is what sort of character you're playing. With the addition of chooseable training options in this last patch, you can further specialize (I went through several of my characters last night and took their training...no shit, it's some really nice stuff). EQ2 has gotten rid of pretty much all of the things that made me bitch in the first game (I say "pretty much" only because I'm taking time and enjoying quests, tradeskills that are worthwhile, etc, rather than lurch-racing to the high-end content like a steroided-out special olympiad). I was pretty paranoid about one particular fix in game that I worried could kneecap the tradeskill economy in this last patch, but near as I can tell it's nowhere near as bad as I feared. I consider it a hurdle smoothly jumped.
So Sony's earned a second chance with EQ2. There's a lot of possibilities I look forward to in the future.
Now, as for the whole "I bought it, I want a CD in my hand" I can understand that to some extent. For one thing, I'm going to be getting a DVD drive...probably a DVD writer drive, for that matter...in the future. That was just too many frickin' CD's to swap out. Granted it loaded fast, but that's a lot of CD's.
Far as I'm concerned, the happy middle ground, especially given that they charge you the same, whether you bought in store or not, is to make downloaded expansions into some form of self-expanding executable file. Or several executable files. That way we can DL it, burn it onto CD's, and be all safe and snug in the comfort that we won't have to DL a gig's worth of content. On the other hand, I don't think DLing should replace store-bought. Lyinar in particular likes collecting the little items, maps, etc they put in the boxed set. That's cool. She can buy the boxed set and we'll DL for the other accounts. Simple.
In any case, I invite people to look at this sort of thing with not their wounded-from-EQ eye, and instead look at it fairly with a new outlook. I'm by no means saying EQ2 or Sony are perfection incarnate, but they're certainly not the devils they're made out to be.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Reynar obviously shouldn't have said:
I'm glad I don't feel that obligated to defend the game I choose to play.
I've been a bit more violently outspoken about EQ2 than I mean to be lately, and I get tired of the old repetitive arguments, so I figured I'd DethEssay something polite and peaceful rather than rant like a PCP'ed up pro wrestler.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael thought about the meaning of life:
rather than lurch-racing to the high-end content like a steroided-out special olympiad
Curious: Why take shots at people that level fast?
You can still experience content but at a faster speed and level pretty fast. I know I had like 15 quests at one point and was doing them pretty fast while levelling at a good rate too.
Racing to the top isn't bad if you're experiencing the content along the way. It's only bad if you sit in one spot and grind it out. So...can you please stop with the "special olympiad" jab at people that like to level fast? Some of us just like to play a whole heck of a lot over multiple days and level fast because we play for 10+ hours a day over breaks when we have nothing else to do 
Not for bragging rights or anything, but because it's fun to do lots of quests fast.
As for Deth's comment on downloadable vs hard copies: I like downloadable. Most of those trinkets are things I look at a couple times, toy with a couple times, then ignore. IF I can save 5-10 bucks and a store trip, so be it Falaanla Marr fucked around with this message on 01-07-2005 at 10:56 AM. But I don't think boxed copies should be completely eliminated for people who actually do enjoy collecting those things.
Sure it's marketing genius...from a business perspective. They're not investing any more into the game than other developers, but they're making tons more money. From a player's perspective, though, I can't help but see it as anything but the same old cheapass racketeering that SOE is famous for.
As for "Second chances", this will be SOE's fourth attempt at a decent MMO and frankly I wouldn't count SWG and "BFRSide" as successes.
I mean honestly, what's the point of it OTHER than wang waving? It borders on the gaming equivalent of attention deficit disorder. You play one character all the way to the top in a mad rush, then either 1. you lose interest in the game, go to another game with just as many merits and flaws and spend the rest of your existence lambasting the first game (I can cite RECENT examples of this, if you like), or 2. as a normal course of the game, the company says "shit, we didn't mean for this to work like that, we're tinkering with encounters to make it harder" or something similar (it was Nerfing in the early days of EQ; now they just make the mobs tougher), then you end up with Maradon-type constant bitching about the company being so evil, like they popped your cherry and never spoke to you again or something.
In an ideal situation, you make a second character and work that character through. And in all fairness, several people hereabouts on the EC boards do that. Diadem, for instance, has characters on two servers he works on. I have seven characters right now. I've put every bit as much effort into those seven as some people put into two. I have a better first-hand idea of how the different classes work than someone who mad-dashed to the top and acts like they're king of the mountain.
If I offended you, sorry. My comments are not aimed at everyone, but I'm sure every one of us knows the sort of player I am talking about, and either usually tune them out, roll their eyes and ignore them, or ARE the obnoxious "I'm 50th level in a game with only 60 levels and it's three weeks in!" types. Who cares? I bet I know what I know better than you know the stuff you blew through in a day.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Maradon! had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
As for "Second chances", this will be SOE's fourth attempt at a decent MMO and frankly I wouldn't count SWG and "BFRSide" as successes.
SWG is run by a different staff. Sony just developed the game. That's why SWG isn't on the All-Access pass; Lucasfilm likes retaining a lot of control. Likewise Planetside isn't the same type of game. If WoWers can say the Diablo2/WoW comparison isn't fair on the grounds that it's not the same type of game, I can do the same thing with Planetside.
Your comparison between this new system and porn is also logically implausible, and it appeals to a negative connotation without actually dealing with the issue on the table. For one thing, they're giving you the zone anyway. You're just paying for additional content (porn doesn't work that way; you either pay or you don't). Secondly, if you're not giving them a chance, then you've already decided it's a negative, as usual in your case Maradon, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will change your mind.
Now for a question for you, Maradon. Do you actually even play EQ2? Or are you just talking out of your ass? At least Cobalt played the game. And please don't use the usual "I don't stick my dick in a blender, but I know I wouldn't like it" type argument. Simple yes or no. Do you play EQ2?
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Maradon!'s account was hax0red to write:
Why should it matter if I've played EQ2 or not, unless you're interested in a little ad hominem or an appeal to experience? Whether or not I've played EQ2 is totally irrelevant to the conversation at hand. How good or fun of a game EQ2 is is also totally irrelevant, the cost of the publishes is irrelevant, and the fact that you get a free sample is also irrelevant. None of that changes the fact that they're pulling a "tiered subscription" scheme to squeeze more money out of the player base without doing any more work for it.
Ah so your complaint isn't with Sony, but with the capitalist business model.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
The vast majority of the time, in my experience, it is a bragging rights thing. Yes, even here at EC, how fast you've made it to the new level limit, how many AAXP you have, etc, all turns into wang waving. So much so, on the whole, that people crack jokes or belittle you if in conversation you haven't devoted all of your time to pushing that one character all the way to the top levels of the game.
Are you kidding me? 95% of the population of EC are casual players. Most people here drool over a game before/during beta's, play 10 levels and never log in again.
How fast game fad's come and go in EC is hilarious.
There are very few people who stick with a game here and play it to the top level, and most of those people aren't wang waving about it.
The people wang waving are those who normally don't go very far, but once they make a tiny accomplishment they're all over the boards about it.
You're picking on the wrong people here, to those who excel at these games, they are generally quiet about minor accomplishments, because they complete them daily. Reynar fucked around with this message on 01-07-2005 at 12:13 PM.
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Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
Ah so your complaint isn't with Sony, but with the capitalist business model.
My complaint is with unabashed racketeering. The capitalist business model serves to handily crush racketeering, however. Observe the EQ1 "premium" servers that flopped despite SOE pulling any tolerable level of customer service from the "standard" game to support it.
Of course, fanbois are an exception to the rule. Whether or not there are enough fanbois to fuel this particular racket, well, time will tell. Maradon! fucked around with this message on 01-07-2005 at 12:15 PM.
Before you know it Sony will be announcing an exciting now billing option where you can pay for monthly subscriptions with oral sex.
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Densetsu wrote this stupid crap:
The thing is, if this announcement had been made by Blizzard regarding WoW, everyone on this board would be praising Blizzard for having such a unique approach to expansions, and being smart about cutting out the middleman.
Um, no. Bitter much?
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There was much rejoicing when Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael said this:
1. Cobalt, I was under the impression you jumped ship from EQ2 to WoW. Why does this concern you in the least? I sense a subtle Maradon-esque stab at Sony here.
To clear my own record, lemme explain. I played WoW beta for about 2 months prior to checking out EQ2 beta. Did that for about a month, was convinced by 17 levels to get retail. Got retail, played past 20 and realized the game wasn't for me, personally. (It still is a great game in its own right.) I went back to WoW, and that leads to present day. While yes, I don't play EQ2 anymore, regardless of what game I'm playing I like to stay current on what's going on in other games. This happened to catch my eye while browsing, and I knew it would stir up some discussion, so I posted it. Wasn't meaning to bash, but I do have my own opinions on the matter. If any other company did something along the same lines, believe me I'd post about it as well
That said, I don't think it is a very good idea coming from a consumer of games. Yes, marketing wise, it is absolutely briliant. But to be honest, what am I lead to believe the monthly fee is for if they have to charge for content updates? Surely not character space on the server, since each account is only 4 slots.
In every other MMORPG I have played, the general consensus is that you pay for the game, the monthly fee, and expansion packs when they come out. Between the expansions, there are patches and content updates that are assumed to be covered in your monthly fee. Now, one could say that these periodic content updates are in lieu of expansions, however the article did say that they haven't eliminated the concept of expansions.
What you have in EQ2 are so many ways to spend your money. Buy the game. Pay the monthly fee. Pay for extra features on the player site. Pay for 4 more character slots. Pay for content updates. Pay for expansions. I'm not wealthy by any means, and regardless of how "minimal" these fees are, they really do build up. It doesn't concern me anymore, I know, but I'm still wary.
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Noxhil had this to say about pies:
Um, no. Bitter much?
Because I pointed it out, you're able to say that.
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Densetsu enlisted the help of an infinite number of monkeys to write:
Because I pointed it out, you're able to say that.
So just because you pointed it out it couldn't POSSIBLY be untrue no matter how we deny it, eh?
My gripe is with a game company trying to siphon more money out of it's players without actually producing anything to warrant it. SOE just happens to have a long history of doing just that.
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Maradon! had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
So just because you pointed it out it couldn't POSSIBLY be untrue no matter how we deny it, eh?
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My gripe is with a game company trying to siphon more money out of it's players without actually producing anything to warrant it. SOE just happens to have a long history of doing just that.
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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Densetsu said:
SOE is a business. The first order of business is to make money. They'll do it their own way, you don't have to like it. You, Maradon, have already done your part by not subscribing to the game. It's time to get over it.
I didn't broach the topic, I'm simply engaging in conversation over it. If three replies in the same thread seems like fixation to you, maybe you need to be less defensive.
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Densetsu had this to say about Knight Rider:
SOE is a business. The first order of business is to make money. They'll do it their own way, you don't have to like it. You, Maradon, have already done your part by not subscribing to the game. It's time to get over it.
While I don't agree with that stance, if that's how you feel don't mention WoW at all in threads Since you don't play that game and all, yeah?
Playing or not playing a game shouldn't rule out your right to discuss a decision that could possibly alter the delivering of content across the whole gaming world.
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There was much rejoicing when New Age Bane said this:
Isn't this how Guild Wars is going to do it? Well maybe not the free content at first and then you have to buy it. Aren't they going to charge for new lands instead of having a monthly fee?
That's the key, instead of a monthly fee. Of course, the game isn't nearly the same type of game as EQ2 -- it is more like a graphical chat room where you go t adventures with a few friends. Like a Diablo type experience.
It never EVER felt like a mad dash. Yeah, I may have missed quests in certain areas; but I can still go back and have fun with them. And there's far from nothing to do at 60... Even besides battlegrounds.
60 mage and I were farming fel/runecloth last night. He finally jabbed my tradeskill window in the ribs hard enough to get me to make mooncloth (A four day cooldown) so we can crank out two 16 slot bags every week.
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Falaanla Marr painfully thought these words up:
While I don't agree with that stance, if that's how you feel don't mention WoW at all in threadsSince you don't play that game and all, yeah?
Playing or not playing a game shouldn't rule out your right to discuss a decision that could possibly alter the delivering of content across the whole gaming world.
I don't bring up WoW in threads unless someone else does first. I can post in WoW threads without ever taking a jab at the game. In fact, I haven't even taken a jab at the game in this thread. I never said that because you don't play the game, you shouldn't say anything. I don't post in every WoW thread and try to turn it into a discussion about EQ2 *coughdelphicough*.
Personally, I would like to see traditional expansion content given in the traditional way. But since we don't know hard facts like pricing, or anything like that, it's too difficult to really form a comparitive opinion, you can only assume. I, for one, will wait until I know more and possibly experience it, before I condemn or herald it. Maradon assumes the worst, because he thinks SOE is the great white satan, and feels that such a business practice may affect his game. And he has a reason to feel threatened, but he also blasts it way out of proportion in the negative direction, because of who it comes from. If you try to tell me that the source doesn't matter, then you are decieving yourself. There is so much negativity in this thread regarding the topic because it is SOE.
So yes, I took a jab at Blizzard fanboys. Forgive me. That doesn't change the fact that the source makes a difference in how one percieves things such as this. I watch the trends of how people act and react regarding the two games. I can see certain reactions coming. The reactions from the WoW players in this thread did not surprise me in the slightest.
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Densetsu had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
The reactions from the WoW players in this thread did not surprise me in the slightest.
I and many other WoW players would have reacted the same way had Blizzard made this announcement.
But let's try not to turn this thread into a discussion about WoW and how the players would react. A method of content distribution like this could become far reaching and applies to any MMO player or other game player in general. Falaanla Marr fucked around with this message on 01-07-2005 at 05:27 PM.
