Let's start our story just over 11 years ago, on Nov. I had spent a couple years in high school noodling around in the original EverQuest , a period that, despite my inability to make much progress in the game, helped me fall in love with the genre of massively multiplayer online role-playing games.
So I must have been excited for EverQuest 2 , right? Sadly, I didn't have a computer that could run it. I was a poor college freshman, and my three-year-old box didn't come close to meeting EverQuest 2 's minimum specs. This is a notoriously unoptimized game, even now, and I wasn't about to take chances spending what little money I had on a game that was unlikely to work.
World of Warcraft was an even larger obstacle. I enjoyed my time with EverQuest , sure, but Warcraft 2? Warcraft 3? These are games, worlds and characters that I absolutely adored. I jumped ship, and I wasn't alone. It's been a decade since I made what most people would historically call the "right" choice by playing World of Warcraft. EverQuest 2 has long since gone free-to-play, with Daybreak Game Company formerly Sony Online Entertainment pumping out 11 expansions in the same timeframe that a still-subscription-based World of Warcraft has released five.
I've never got rid of the nagging sensation that maybe I missed something with EverQuest 2. This is how I came to spending my evening on Friday and most of my day on Saturday playing, talking about and reading about EverQuest 2 , an year-old free-to-play MMO that many people would consider irrelevant. Here are some things that I discovered. To start with, I made a Storify of my tweets from the weekend that you can check out here if you'd like:.
There are plenty of ways that EverQuest 2 shows its age — the less-than-stellar visuals being an obvious example — but the most fascinating to me by far is the layer of reward programs and retention bonuses that have been piled onto the game since its first free-to-play iteration in I was bombarded by free items to claim within moments of logging in.
From the second I stepped foot into its world, the game did everything it could to convince me that it would be worth my while to continue playing. The most egregious example of this is the game's opening splash screen, where a breathless pop-up informed me that I could take a level 90 character for a free "test drive" or purchase one for unlimited play with real money. Being able to purchase high-level characters has become fairly common in MMOs — heck, even subscription-based games like World of Warcraft do it now.
But there was something in the wording and presentation of this in EverQuest 2 that felt desperate for whatever it could get. Clearly at least some of this had been successful, which makes looking at what doesn't work even more fascinating. If you own the new expansion, in addition to money, loot and experience points, which are already split between two systems, leveling and alternate advancement , you get a new reward for killing enemies and completing quests: tithe.
Tithe is a special currency that allows you to purchase new single-use "miracle" abilities from gods of your same alignment. It can also be spent further buffing up your character.
There is no time limit on free-to-play access as there may be with similar online games. Players start with two character slots. If they purchase a membership, that is increased to seven slots. Additional character slots can be purchased individually via the Marketplace. If you downgrade from All Access, all characters that are on the account will be saved and still be visible to you. If you are over the cap of characters for your account, only the most recently logged-on characters will be available for play.
Your other characters are still available if you upgrade back to All Access status or purchase additional character slots. Players are limited to Master quality spells. Higher tier spells are a perk of membership.
Players will still have access to Master tier versions of these spells while their membership is not active and do not lose spells. They will gain full access to their Grandmaster and Ancient tier spells again when they renew their membership. This was primarily intended as a way to reduce potential spam in the general chat channels.
Players can receive in-game email without a membership, but can't send in-game mail without an All Access membership. Full broker access is only available to All Access members. If you had items for sale on the Broker when you downgrade from All Access, those items will stay on the Broker, but you will not have access to the Broker.
If the items sell, the coin will stay in the Broker account until you upgrade back to All Access and can open the Broker interface again. Broker Tokens can be purchased by players with Free-to-Play accounts in order to sell items on the broker. See the in-game Marketplace for details on pricing and use.
Reforging has been made free to all players, and reforging requisitions can be purchased from the Marketplace to reforge items in lieu of paying platinum. This slider enables players to adjust how much adventure experience is converted to additional AA experience in order to gain AA points more quickly.
All Access members can change the conversion slider at will. An All Access membership is required in order to play on any of the specialty servers, such as the Time-Locked Expansion progression servers and Free Trade servers.
Free-to-Play members can only create characters on the standard ruleset servers. Fabled dungeons are high-level versions of classic dungeons, recreated with new monsters and gear.
Fabled dungeons over level will also require the player to purchase the current expansion. Note that purchasing an expansion will not grant a day All Access membership or extend an active membership. You may only create a guild if you have an All Access plan.
Anyone who plays EverQuest II can join a guild. The online self help knowledge base will be accessible to all players regardless of their EverQuest II membership status. Customer service is only provided to players who have made a monetary transaction in EverQuest II or have an All Access membership.
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Cookies Required Cookies must be enabled in order to view this site correctly. Please enable Cookies by changing your browser options. Toggle Navigation. Download the Game Play Free. Producer's Letter: 20 Years of Norrath EQ2 will be participating in the EverQuest anniversary celebrations this March with unique in-game content and new servers! Share On:. Greetings, Norrathians!
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