I am suprised I didn't see this anywhere. If I missed it feel free to delete this.

EDIT:

Added the linkage :D

http://eqlive.station.sony.com/news_section/newsarchive.jsp

Subscription Rates Increase

Due to the increased costs of running the EverQuest game service, we will be increasing our subscription rates in June. Effective June 12, 2005, the new monthly subscription rate will be $14.99/month. While this announcement may be unpleasant, the cost of operating a top tier MMO has increased significantly over the past three years and this change will help us achieve our goal of seeing that every player has a consistently enjoyable experience in the world of EverQuest. We will continue to offer discounts from the new rate plan on multi-month subscriptions. The new price for a 3-month subscription will be $41.97, a 6-month subscription will now be $77.94 and a 12-month subscription will now be $143.88. The 24-month subscription will continue to be $199.95. You don't have to do a thing; you will automatically be migrated to the new billing structure under your current subscription plan when your current subscription plan expires. Subscription rates are subject to tax and value-added taxes, as applicable. These price increases will not affect the SOE Station Access? subscription rate.

New EverQuest rates as of June 12, 2005:

$14.99 per Month
$41.97 for 3 Months
$77.94 for 6 Months
$143.88 for 12 Months
$199.95 for 24 Months
Additionally we'd like to thank our current EverQuest players by offering a 6 and 12-month limited time promotional offer. For a limited time only, you can take advantage of 6 or 12-month promotional subscriptions and reap great savings. Between May 12th and June 11th, 2005, we're offering a special discount on the new monthly subscription price:

A 6-month subscription costs only US$69.99 ? that's a 10% discount off of the new monthly plan.
Even better, a 12-month subscription costs US$99.99 ? a 31% discount off of the new monthly rates.
And for those customers subscribing to other great SOE games this is also an excellent time to become Station Access Members. The Station Access subscription provides an easy gateway for SOE fans to a variety of SOE titles for $21.99 a month. The Station Access subscription is good for EverQuest, PlanetSide, EverQuest Online Adventures, EverQuest II, Star Wars Galaxies and the Station Pass games.



EverQuest subscriptions are recurring, meaning you will continue to be billed at the appropriate interval, until you affirmatively cancel your subscription. Note that purchasers of the full game will receive 30 days of game-play included with the purchase at no additional charge (subject to certain restrictions) after supplying valid billing information. If you cancel your subscription during the period of 30 days of game-play included with purchase, no charges will be made to your credit card.

Subscriptions are subject to tax and value-added tax, as applicable.

All subscription fees will appear on your credit card statement under the heading "SOE*EverQuest".

Please note:

The subscription charges are in addition to the cost of the game. You will need to purchase a copy of the game from a retail store or online at the Station Store (http://store.station.sony.com) (http://store.station.sony.com)/). The price of the game will vary depending upon the store.

This may be the final nail in the coffin for many of us. It is for me I'm afraid. In my mind I was able to justify continuing EQ1 while other games came out which offered more and were kept more up to date by saying that EQ1 was a "cheap" game.

Now that EQ1 will cost the same as EQ2, CoH and WoW (and considering the serious lack of love for our class) I can no longer continue this.

I can't help but wonder if this is a one-two punch to try and get us to commit to a long term subscription.

1st they promise us abilities based upon how long you have played and now they are going to increase the cost. Sounds very forced to me but I wonder if all SOE is really doing is to "force" people to "quit" EQ1.

I know some will say that this is only a few $$$'s but can you honestly say that you feel that EQ1 gets the same support for your $$$ as you get in CoH or WoW?

-Cass

P.S. I rem when EQ1 was $9.95 a month and SOE told us that bump to $12.95 was to allow them to continue to give us the excellent support we deseved LOL..... shortly after that they cut out half the GM's and pooled them so that instead of hours waiting for help in game you waited days. But we continued to pay them so I guess we're the fools LOL

Seriously, as a business, I don't care what you sell, your prices will go up from time to time.

As far as EQ goes, 3 price increass in 6 years of playing is realy really cheap.

-Fenier

I agree with you to a limited extent Fenier but disagree overall. Yes, 3 price increases in 6 years is good but on the other hand, you get a lot less than you did before. Especially if you compare the game to others recently released.

Think about it...no more server GM's, no more GM events(or very very rarely), the game itself is just dated, and when is the last time they gave us a free zone? They used to do regular no charge content updates fairly often. Now content comes via expansion pack only.

All in all, the game really just doesn't compare graphicaly or featurewise with most of the newer games for the same money. I also believe that the recent server mergers are going to result in a substantial ongoing cost savings for SOE due to reduced staffing and bandwidth requirements. Based on all of the above, I personally don't think a price increase is justified at this time.

This may be the final nail in the coffin for many of us. It is for me I'm afraid. In my mind I was able to justify continuing EQ1 while other games came out which offered more and were kept more up to date by saying that EQ1 was a "cheap" game.ROFL. You played EQ only because it was $2/month cheaper? I doubt this applies to "many of us".

i think u misunderstood what he was saying, this was the final nail on the coffin, taking into consideration the fact all the other BS soe has put us through , now they want more money

They are basically in the process of retuning the entire game.

I can't even begin to imange how much work that really is.

What people don't realize, is heals where fine for the content when they where realeased more or less, but now people are trying to use PoP era heals in Omens of War and its not working so well.

They are bringing our skills back inline with the current game, there is nothing wrong with that imo.

Ontop of that they've added e-mail seveal other features which I am sure add to overall server load. I wouldn't think their saving alot of money, some sure, but not as much as some people claim.

-Fenier

We are getting less and they are charging more. Remember that all these so called "changes" (some would call them nerfs LOL) are supposed to be included in the price. Since they have been doing nothing for us for the longest time they should have a ton of $$$ banked up that they "supposedly" allocated for changes?

I mean the entire $12.95 was not "just" for keeping the servers going.

These are my issues:

1. SOE no longer communicates with the players. You cannot call the once in a blue moon "announcment" communication.

2. When SOE rasied the price of EQ from $9.95 to $12.95 (30%!) they stated it was for the same reasons yadda yadda but then they cut out half the GM's and "pooled" them which resulted in petitions taking days instead of hours.

3. These mergers are going to help them save even more $$$. While the bandwidth will stay the same they are cutting equipment costs in half as well as labor costs when they have to update less equipment hardware and software wise.

4. SOE used to offer discounts for expansions if you downloaded them. They passed on the savings of not having to share the profits with distributors nor pay for boxes, printed manuals yadda yadda but now you pay the full price.

Everything SOE has been doing for the past few years seems to be related to giving us less and adding to their profits. At one time there was talk of updating the old zones to the new graphics but this was quietly dropped - I'm sure due to cost constraints.

I look at it this way.... if the other "up and coming" games charge $15 and now SOE feels they can charge $15 for EQ1 then SOE must feel they give the same service, support and game experience that the new games do. IMHO they do not.

Remember this... EQ1 has been bought and paid for. SOE's only expense in regard to EQ1 is keeping the merged servers up and running, paying for bandwidth and for the "skeleton" crew of a handfull of GM's and programmers that try and give the apperance that these bugs are really really difficult when the real reason things take so long to do is that they do not hire enough people to do the job as they are trying to milk us for every $$$ they can get from us.

If this $2 price increase (16%) would bring back twice the GM's and get us some programmers who could actually get things done then I would be happy to pay but I'm still waiting for all the good stuff SOE promised when they raised the cost of EQ1 30% before and gave us less!

Fool me once shame on you.... fool me twice shame on me!

-Cass

Imagine being an IT manager, seriously, if one of your staff came up to you and said the following:

I want to consolidate two servers with low utilization into a single server which will have medium to high utilization. There will be no software or hardware changes. The overall cost for running the single server will be approximately 15% greater than running the two separate servers.

How likely would you be to say "Ok, go ahead"?

Consolidation of staff, servers, developers = lower overhead. I haven't seen justification for the <i>"increased costs of running the EverQuest game service"</I> statement for a long time.

Seriously, as a business, I don't care what you sell, your prices will go up from time to time.

As far as EQ goes, 3 price increass in 6 years of playing is realy really cheap.

-Fenier

3? I only remember one other. It started at $9.99, then went to $12.99 a couple years later, and now to $14.99. did I miss an increase?

Increased cost per customer maybe? According to mmogchart.com, Everquest lost just under 20% of its customers in the past year. There are a number of expenses that aren't tied directly to the number of customers.

Besides, I bet inflation accounts for a portion of the price increase too. Assuming 3% inflation a year over 6 years, $10/month in 1999 is pretty much equivalent to $12/month today.

I'm not happy with this either however I'm not so sure it's unfair.

Anyone paying the same rent they were 3 years ago? I'm not.
Anyone paying the same thing for Cable TV they were 3 years ago? I'm not.
Anyone paying the same price they did for a pizza 3 years ago? I'm not.
Anyone paying the same price they did for a postage stamp 3 years ago? I'm not.
How about gas?
Smokes?
Laundromat machines?
Medical Insurance?

How many of us have gotten cost of living raises in the last 3 years? Think Sony employees could use em too?

I'm certainly not happy with paying more money for EQ but it's a harsh reality that prices go up in the business world. They always have and they always will. Sony is no exception.

We are getting less and they are charging more. Remember that all these so called "changes" (some would call them nerfs LOL) are supposed to be included in the price. Since they have been doing nothing for us for the longest time they should have a ton of $$$ banked up that they "supposedly" allocated for changes?

How are we getting less? "changes" have been occuring in the game since release. the price hasn't reflected that, but, what the market would bare. They didn't raise the price to $12.99 until other games did. DAOC came out at that price and SOE eventually followed suite since people were willing to pay it.

The current crop of games charge $14.99 and again EQ is following the trend. Whether or not people are willing to pay that much for a 6 year old game remains to be seen, but it's certainly nothing to be surprised at.


I mean the entire $12.95 was not "just" for keeping the servers going.

These are my issues:

1. SOE no longer communicates with the players. You cannot call the once in a blue moon "announcment" communication.

SOE communicates with players on a regular basis. Certainly far better than they did when the cost was $9.99 a month. Class reps, And the forums have almost daily remarks from devs (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/tracker?role=Dev) . in 2000 communications were limited to patch messages and occasional announcements. There weren't even message boards.



2. When SOE rasied the price of EQ from $9.95 to $12.95 (30%!) they stated it was for the same reasons yadda yadda but then they cut out half the GM's and "pooled" them which resulted in petitions taking days instead of hours.

see above


4. SOE used to offer discounts for expansions if you downloaded them. They passed on the savings of not having to share the profits with distributors nor pay for boxes, printed manuals yadda yadda but now you pay the full price.


Have they? I honestly don't remember, but, the first expansion that was downloadable was LOY and that was originally released as online only. I don't remember if LDON was cheaper for the online version, but GoD, OoW, and DoN certainly weren't.


Everything SOE has been doing for the past few years seems to be related to giving us less and adding to their profits. At one time there was talk of updating the old zones to the new graphics but this was quietly dropped - I'm sure due to cost constraints.


Again, what have we lost? if we are getting less, we have to have lost something. Content today is coming just as fast today as it always has. Zone revamps are still in the works. Lots of class changes actively being done. Specialy events happen frequently (we just had a fabled thing. Now we have things like veteran rewards, The new bazaar system.

Customer service has improved Dramatically from where it was a couple years ago as well.

I fail to see where I'm getting less.

Then there's also the All Access Pass subsciption service. With that, I've been getting more and more. With things like Additional Character slots in EQ2 and the addition of SWG to the pass.

What they have "quietly dropped" were character model revamps, which may yet still happen.


I look at it this way.... if the other "up and coming" games charge $15 and now SOE feels they can charge $15 for EQ1 then SOE must feel they give the same service, support and game experience that the new games do. IMHO they do not.

I'm not sure if the market will bare $15 a month for a 6 year old game. Time will tell. But, to be honest, no other new game fills quite the same niche that EQ does either.


Remember this... EQ1 has been bought and paid for. SOE's only expense in regard to EQ1 is keeping the merged servers up and running, paying for bandwidth and for the "skeleton" crew of a handfull of GM's and programmers that try and give the apperance that these bugs are really really difficult when the real reason things take so long to do is that they do not hire enough people to do the job as they are trying to milk us for every $$$ they can get from us.


And Blizzard, Mythic, Ubisoft, etc aren't trying to get every penny they can from us? And while the original development cost of has long been since recouped, EQ doesn't just have a handfull of programmers and GM's. If that were the case we would never have seen OoW and DoN and such.


If this $2 price increase (16%) would bring back twice the GM's and get us some programmers who could actually get things done then I would be happy to pay but I'm still waiting for all the good stuff SOE promised when they raised the cost of EQ1 30% before and gave us less!

Fool me once shame on you.... fool me twice shame on me!

-Cass

I honestly don't remember SOE promising the things you claim back then. Then again, since that time, EQ customer service has improved dramatically as well. And while I didn't like going from $10 to $13 a month, I can't say I was surprised since that was what everyone else was doing.

You cannot include programmers hired to work on expansions that we pay for as part of the monthly fees.

Maybe you just do not remember what we "used" to get for less money.

There used to be weekly events on all the servers.
You used to get a response to a petition in under an hour.
You used to get a free res when you died due to a bug.
We used to get free zones about once every 6 months.
We used to have reps who would communicate with us on a daily basis (how you say they communicate with us now is beyond me)
We used to have regular events like the 6 year anniversary event but on a regular basis.

Heck I even remember when the GM's would hold ingame weddings (choke: get a life LOL) if you gave them a weeks notice. Lame to some but to others it was a service.

All this was for the $9.95 a month.

So all of this was taken away as they raise the price.

We are SOOOOOOO lucky.

Let's line up to pay. LOL

In return we have gotten what? Almost everything new and improved has come about via expansions.... WE PAY FOR THESE and this has nothing to do with the monthly fee. What was the last "free" thing we have gotten that was not tied to an expansion?

So what do we get for the monthly fee?

As far as all companies trying to make the most money.... well there is a difference here between trying to make a buck and trying to screw us for every last $$$ they can get.

This is all designed to try and "force" us into taking a 6 or 12 month "contract" - I, for one, will not "lock" myself into a long term contract with SOE. Once they have our $$$ what is to keep them from breaking more promises? You would think they would try and "impress" us with all sorts of wonderful changes "before" they hit us in the head with a price increase. Instead they tell us to "pay up or else"

Well I'll take the "else" thank you very much. I hate being strong arm tactics and SOE telling me to sign a 6 or 12 month contract or I'll have my monthly fee increased does not endear me to SOE.

First they tried to entice us into a long term contract (12 months) by saying they will give us a free extra "bonus year" on these new skills they are putting in. When not enough people took them up on that they come back and say...

If you don't sign a long term contract we're going to raise your monthly fee.

SOE can go take a long walk off a short peer as far as I'm concerned!

-Cass

I know some will say that this is only a few $$$'s but can you honestly say that you feel that EQ1 gets the same support for your $$$ as you get in CoH or WoW?

LOL....yes, we get more, at least in comparison to WoW.

If you think otherwise, you haven't been playing WoW.

[QUOTE=Stormhaven]Imagine being an IT manager, seriously, if one of your staff came up to you and said the following:

I want to consolidate two servers with low utilization into a single server which will have medium to high utilization. There will be no software or hardware changes. The overall cost for running the single server will be approximately 15% greater than running the two separate servers.

QUOTE]


I think merging servers was a dumb idea imo, they should have just had a month of free char transfers for the few ppl who wanted to be on a crowded server, i hate the fact that they are merging ..also about the e-mail system, i think thats also a stupid idea, and will prolly never use that feature, if i really wanted e-mail from another player i would just give them my reg e-mail address, instead of wasting our time and money on these dumb ideas they keep coming up with , they should fire the entire eq 1 staff and start out totally fresh, epecially the team/ppl that do the items, there hasnt been a all-all robe or any clickys for illusions, or spells that are item only in the game for a long long time, its just the same generic crap with different names higher hp/mana ect ect ect, but somehow we need an e-mail feature, and the servers need to be merged, lol i was never asked if i wanted this, if i wanted the money i paid them to go to a feature i will never use and to make the game hectic again, i personally like having 1/2 full servers i can go solo mobs that wouldnt be up otherwise

How many of us have gotten cost of living raises in the last 3 years? Think Sony employees could use em too?

.

is really not our problem

and on top of that Sony is one of the biggest companies in exsistance, if there employees are starving thats because they are cheap basterds that not only dont care about there customers, but also dont care about there help

CoH sends me a free comic book for my montlhy fee :D

is really not our problem

Actually it is our problem. Thats why we are talking about it. We are paying for those CoL raises. I am not saying I am happy about it. I'm just being a realist in the fact that its probably a fiscally intelligent decision for Sony....

They are jacking the price 15%. If they can get away with that and lose less than that 15% membership, then they make more money. It's a good business decision on the books. It may not be great for winning a popularity contest but it is financially sound for someone who's in business to maxmize revenue.

Dunno....It just seems to me that they are trying to make us believe the servers run on gasoline.

Well, I bet there are... ummmm... gasoline powered generators! And lets see... merging servers together they have ok, a lot fewer servers but there's a lot more people on each server so they have to use a lot more gasoline! And oh yeah! Interest rates going up means that they have to pay more interest to you all with all that platinum in the bank... yeah, that's the ticket!

And the servers that are going down after the merge, will be used for the mailling system.

/irony

And the extra ones will serve for the spamming of the special selling/buying that you can do on the station exchange service.

/irony

Eridalafar

There used to be weekly events on all the servers.

We're talking about EverQuest here. EQ hasn't had weekly events since the first couple months of the game, long before they increased the cost to $13, and they sucked. I did a few of them early on.


You used to get a response to a petition in under an hour.
And you had to remain online to get a response. And 1 hour response time hasn't been happening since the earliest days. It still happens now and then, but it's never been a common thing. Now you can open a ticket and get the problem solved while your off line.

You used to get a free res when you died due to a bug.

And you still do get a free res when you die due to a bug.


We used to get free zones about once every 6 months.

Not every 6 months. and in the past year we got the Temple zone off of Nedaria's Landing. The new Bazaar stuff, serveral zone ravamps (Lavastorm, ToFS, Veeshan's Peak) missions added on a regular basis.

We used to have reps who would communicate with us on a daily basis (how you say they communicate with us now is beyond me)
I linked you why I say that. http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/tracker?role=Dev&page=1 over 120 post by SOE people since the start of May alone.

We used to have regular events like the 6 year anniversary event but on a regular basis.
The only "regular" stuff they had were on holidays and Aniversaries, which they still do. And they still do other stuff from time to time.

If you don't sign a long term contract we're going to raise your monthly fee.


Not me. My rate of $21.99 a month is staying where it is.

Someone already said this in this thread but in case you missed it...

The game costs a certain amount to maintain, for customer service reps, servers, bandwidth, network maintenance, etc. Let's call that price X. X is a recurring cost that they have to pay all the time, let's say monthly for simplicity.

To pay for that amount X, Sony sells EQ software and EQ subscriptions.

If you have 500,000 people paying a subscription at 12.99, and a fair amount of people buying the EQ software packages, they get to X fairly easily.

But if you have 250,000 people paying 12.99 and nobody buying the EQ software packages because so few people are true newbies now, they have a much harder time getting to X.

There is a reason that MMORPGS charge a subscription unlike a game you buy for your console or PC that is single-player. These games are dynamic, they require constant maintenance and support, and despite all the bitching, SOE still is giving us a lot of new things to play with. The cost of these things will always be paid by the customers...that's how business works.

So, with hundreds of thousands of fewer subscribers, we're shouldering the same cost burden but spread amongst half as many people.

The price change is logical and frankly, for the hours played most of us get out of EQ, $14.99 is a great deal.

How many hours did you get out of the last single-player RPG you purchased for 49.99? Maybe 30? 50 if the game was great? Most EQ players get twice that much (or more) every month for $14.99.

I'm not any happier to be paying more money than the rest of you, but its hard to argue with the logic of the situation.

We're talking about EverQuest here. EQ hasn't had weekly events since the first couple months of the game, long before they increased the cost to $13, and they sucked. I did a few of them early on.


And you had to remain online to get a response. And 1 hour response time hasn't been happening since the earliest days. It still happens now and then, but it's never been a common thing. Now you can open a ticket and get the problem solved while your off line.

And you still do get a free res when you die due to a bug.


Not every 6 months. and in the past year we got the Temple zone off of Nedaria's Landing. The new Bazaar stuff, serveral zone ravamps (Lavastorm, ToFS, Veeshan's Peak) missions added on a regular basis.

I linked you why I say that. http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/tracker?role=Dev&page=1 over 120 post by SOE people since the start of May alone.

The only "regular" stuff they had were on holidays and Aniversaries, which they still do. And they still do other stuff from time to time.



Not me. My rate of $21.99 a month is staying where it is.

I liked many of the events... sorry you did not.
A revamped zone is nothing but a few changes in a table. I'm talking about new zones which take time. All new content whether free or not was paid for via new expansion dollars and not our monthly fees.

I challenge you to get a free exp res in todays game. Go ahead and try.... this will be good :)

Those events you speak of may have been years ago but they were not only in the first few months. The real reason (aside from the cost to pay GM's to do them) is that they were so popular that zones were often flooded to the point of crashing the zone. Now that we have much better equipment and the zones can handle more people this would not happen so we are left with reason #1 - GM's cost $$$ so why hire GM's when you can just bank the $$$ and give the players less.

Remember when we had a few GM's for each server? One main GM and a few assistants? Well I remember and CS was much better before they raised the cost to $12.95 and them axed half the GM's to same $$$ telling us that waiting days for a GM to tell us that they could not help was better than waiting an hour or two in game and getting assistance.

CS was not great back them either but you must be nuts to say that CS is better now. Do we even have guides anymore? At least the guides could do a res and some of the more easier tasks.

-Cass

City of Heroes 4th COMPLETELY FREE expansion pack hit the live servers recently.

Is that game REALLY that much more efficiently ran or cheaper to operate than Everquest?

I find that hard to believe since all of EQ's dev costs were returned years ago.

For those who feel this is the last straw, well sorry to hear that, but your choice, no need to go on and on and on... is there? I can understand people being upset but I am able to log on and have fun and escape from the RL for a few hours and I consider it to be money well spent.

To say that we are getting less for our dollar then when the game first came out is way off the mark, the game has so much more content now days, and is alot more fun to play then in the bad old days. I play off peak times being an Aussie and years ago I never got a response to a petition, now I always get an answer and it is helpful and has almost always solved the problem.

Everquest is not perfect, it's not WoW or EQ2 in case some of you missed that, it was never meant to be. If its the principle of the matter as it seems for some, well good for you the fact that we still have to pay such a small amount per month, after all this time is bloody amazing if you ask me.

As long as they keep the game running and the expansions coming i'll stay. Nothing really holds my interest like EQ. I have great friends that still play and I love my guild like family. It's one of those "priceless" things to me and im willing to pay to keep the memories coming.

Sony may not be the best company when it comes to customer service, but they're alot better then blizzard. They may not add new zones but they do revamps. It's great to go back to content I leveled in as I started and now I can raid it (mistmoore anyone?). Usually they'll release some story content before an expansion comes out in the form of quest or zones which is just awsome for the storyline.

Ive never had many customer service problems with Sony. In fact I still remember one time where a developer got in touch with me on a zone art bug that I had been emailing them about. A DEVELOPER! I also remember a time when I reported a guy for naming his toon "Sadamhussien" right after the invasion of Iraq and a gm sent me a tell the next day to follow-up on it. Once my guild wipped over 5x's trying to break into fear when I was just starting to raid and 3 gms came to help us after that last death. He died a few times too. A gm once turned my raid into frogs as we geared up in the nexus and gave us all milk and cookies. And a whole lot more with the Sony Staff.

This is just a few of the many reasons that I wont complain about Sony raising the prices. I'll keep playing, i'll enjoy my friends, i'll enjoy my guild, and I wont complain about the higher prices just like I have the past 4yrs.

Kalest MoonGlade
66th Stormwarden of Stromm
~Dragejegerene~

I challenge you to get a free exp res in todays game. Go ahead and try.... this will be good :)


LMAO. A few months ago my guild was doing a raid that a patch had fubared. The guild wiped, we petitioned, and the entire guild got a Customer Service Res, in some cases several for multiple deaths. The mob was caught in the world geometry and couldn't be harmed, but could easily kill everyone else.

Those events you speak of may have been years ago but they were not only in the first few months. The real reason (aside from the cost to pay GM's to do them) is that they were so popular that zones were often flooded to the point of crashing the zone. Now that we have much better equipment and the zones can handle more people this would not happen so we are left with reason #1 - GM's cost $$$ so why hire GM's when you can just bank the $$$ and give the players less.
You see, I point out what new stuff we have gotten. you say they're not good enough because they are only "updating tables." Then you also ignore things like adding new missions, the Bazaar stuff, recent updates to the spell effects.

Remember when we had a few GM's for each server? One main GM and a few assistants? Well I remember and CS was much better before they raised the cost to $12.95 and them axed half the GM's to same $$$ telling us that waiting days for a GM to tell us that they could not help was better than waiting an hour or two in game and getting assistance.

CS was not great back them either but you must be nuts to say that CS is better now. Do we even have guides anymore? At least the guides could do a res and some of the more easier tasks.

-Cass

Well, Here's a great example of your "bad" customer service. Yesterday, I logged in to check out my new Veteran Rewards. You know, one of those things that apparently doesn't count as something new. As it turned out mine got messed up. I only got 4 instead of the 6 I was entitled to.

I /petitioned it at 4:245M EST. I had to log off 30 minutes later for RL stuff. I just checked my /Petition and I got a response at 6:46pmEST with an update. And not only that, I had a resolved problem. I now have my two missing abilities. Problem resolved in 2 hours, without me needing to be on. That's better than most SC departments in ANY company.

Of course, if I had this problem 6 years ago I would of had to stay logged in for hours to get the response, and in all likelyhood had to wait days until my online schedule meshed with the GM working on the problem.

Here's another case of Bad CS. After my guild defeated ikky4, we didn't get all the key parts that we were supposed to. We /Petitioned it with a list of guildies that attended the Raid and didn't get the part. The next day we all had the part in inventory.

You claim that they don't communicate, despite HUNDREDS of posts over two weeks on the Official Boards. Let's not forget that when it comes time to release Expansions that the Devs now allow tons of players to try the beta and give feedback, which they clearly have used. Kunark, Velious, Luclin, LOY, PoP certainly didn't do this.

You claim they don't give CS resses, Dispite the fact that they do. When it's due to a BUG.

You claim CS is Terrible, Dispite the fact that it's improved dramatically over the past couple of years, especially after adding the ability to have tickets remain while you are off line.

the exact pricing to start was $9.89 i remember because it said 989 studios,
then they raised it to $12.95 and now $14.99 thats a $2.05 a month increase

has everyone forgot they RECENTLY??!!! revamped splitpaw and mistmoore?? that was FREE!!

then they added in FREE email and added more features and even allowed you to check any of your inboxes from the same character.

although it wasnt free for the guild lobby they did add the corpse summoners. and in the guild hall they have a portal to popular zones and/or cut the travel time down without needing a port. and none of the port stones cost near 500pp or 1kpp so whats the big deal? also they added shadowrest which eliminated people's corpses from rotting and losing all their gear

plus they have HOW many expansions? does any NEW game have that many expansions? how many years would it take for WoW or some other game to MATCH the content and expansions as EQ? do you think they are going to be around 6 years from now?

its not really a push to force you to sign up for 1 or 2 years at a time but a cost savings incentive. i myself got the 1 year package because before the cost increase it would save me at least $50 off the regular price and almost $75 from buying gamecards. you are essentially getting 2 to 3 months FREE play by taking advantage of the lower price.

and one more note LoY expansion WAS out on CD i remember because i went to the mall to see if they had it and they did but i didnt have the cash so i went back the next week and it was recalled because they wanted to make it the first downloadable expansion. most likely because a bigger majority of players use broadband connections and can download it in a few minutes. i remember when i got my cable connection it took me FOUR MINUTES to download LoY and patches only took a couple minutes.

and another thing they added the RETURN HOME button on the log in which eliminates non-gating classes from being stuck in a zone with no exit.

LMAO. A few months ago my guild was doing a raid that a patch had fubared. The guild wiped, we petitioned, and the entire guild got a Customer Service Res, in some cases several for multiple deaths. The mob was caught in the world geometry and couldn't be harmed, but could easily kill everyone else.

You see, I point out what new stuff we have gotten. you say they're not good enough because they are only "updating tables." Then you also ignore things like adding new missions, the Bazaar stuff, recent updates to the spell effects.


Well, Here's a great example of your "bad" customer service. Yesterday, I logged in to check out my new Veteran Rewards. You know, one of those things that apparently doesn't count as something new. As it turned out mine got messed up. I only got 4 instead of the 6 I was entitled to.

I /petitioned it at 4:245M EST. I had to log off 30 minutes later for RL stuff. I just checked my /Petition and I got a response at 6:46pmEST with an update. And not only that, I had a resolved problem. I now have my two missing abilities. Problem resolved in 2 hours, without me needing to be on. That's better than most SC departments in ANY company.

Of course, if I had this problem 6 years ago I would of had to stay logged in for hours to get the response, and in all likelyhood had to wait days until my online schedule meshed with the GM working on the problem.

Here's another case of Bad CS. After my guild defeated ikky4, we didn't get all the key parts that we were supposed to. We /Petitioned it with a list of guildies that attended the Raid and didn't get the part. The next day we all had the part in inventory.

You claim that they don't communicate, despite HUNDREDS of posts over two weeks on the Official Boards. Let's not forget that when it comes time to release Expansions that the Devs now allow tons of players to try the beta and give feedback, which they clearly have used. Kunark, Velious, Luclin, LOY, PoP certainly didn't do this.

You claim they don't give CS resses, Dispite the fact that they do. When it's due to a BUG.

You claim CS is Terrible, Dispite the fact that it's improved dramatically over the past couple of years, especially after adding the ability to have tickets remain while you are off line.

Well to be fair, when a whole group of people petition at the same time for a guild raid they will give it more attention. 1) because it's easy to confirm what's going on. 2) becaus they can take care of a whole bunch of problems at the same time. 3) they also know the higher end raiding guilds and know they aren't going to send in a bunch of petitions for no good reason. And they usually are talking to your guild/raid leader way before most in the raid know what's going on.

I have personally not gotten a free rezz for a bug in the same day (for over a year now) when I'm off by myself. You will have to know for sure it's a bug and then leave something on your corpse and of course not play for more then 2 hours and 59 min. So most people just get their own rez or eat the exp loss because they are going to get the exp back and/or they can continue playing while they have the chance to enjoy playing.

I'm not trying to take sides here but just letting you know my exp with the free rez thing.

I think what bothers me the most about the price increase is that a few of the other games that charge $15 a month give out free downloadable expansions while we are still forced to pay $30 extra per year or more. So, in effect we are paying more than $15 per year.

SOE is doing something wrong if they can't handle the costs at the current rate. There are a lot less playing now than used to be, they have less servers running than before, I just don't get it. Why can't they keep up with games like Lineage 2 where all of the expansions are free and are distributed through the patcher?

I just see this as either SOE being greedy or horribly mismanaged.

IMHO what SOE is really trying to do is to force people in taking a 6 or 12 month subscription. If you take one of those with this "special one-time deal" ROTFL they you can actually pay the same or even lower your cost.

They are ramming this down our throught and since I'm the type of person who "hates" being preasured into a sale I'll just walk away. Others will bow to the preasure and commit to a low term subscription which is what SOE wants.

IMHO they are hoping that if they force us to commit to a long term subscription that they lure of these other games will wane. In the past a new game came out and EQ saw a drop for 3-6 months and most people came back. If people are going to leave why not get their money up front :)

This happened with DAoC, SWG, Diablo II, and now EQ2 and WoW. In the past people would cancel EQ1 for 3-6 months while they played other games and SOE would lose the revenue. Why not lock us in and SOE could not care less if we play EQ1 or not.... as long as we come back to EQ1 before our subscription runs out.

Look at the timing of this.... summer is coming up and many people stop playing during the summer. This is a time when the pressure to cancel EQ1 will be the highest. Lock us in now with special prices and vet rewards and then cross your fingers and hope the smoke clears before our subscription does :)

-Cass

P.S. And in the fall when people start playing again a new expansion will be about to come out and all that hype will start.... almost like a formula :)

I spend more thant $15 just going to the movies ONE night a month. Let's not forget that it's a "for profit" company running this game.

Look at the timing of this.... summer is coming up and many people stop playing during the summer. This is a time when the pressure to cancel EQ1 will be the highest. Lock us in now with special prices and vet rewards and then cross your fingers and hope the smoke clears before our subscription does :)

I hardly doubt they're will be any pressure to cancel EQ. There's alot of people that pay for eq seperate from the soe all access which means they would loss a majority of their revenue by cancelling.

Kalest MoonGlade
66th Stormwarden of Stromm
~Dragejegerene~

I called SOE Billing today to switch my Station Access account to separate billing so I could convert to year. The agent said that SOE has decided against the increase because of customer feedback. Has anyone else heard or read about this?

They are ramming this down our throught and since I'm the type of person who "hates" being preasured into a sale I'll just walk away. Others will bow to the preasure and commit to a low term subscription which is what SOE wants.

Is that suppose to be throat? If so do they (as in SoE) have a gun to your head and making you log in? So what if its a couple of dollars. If it bothers you that much just think of it this way, ie: look at the price of gasoline, your utilities, rent, going to the movies, etc those price go up and fluctuate. Price increase is inevidable.

IMHO SoE had not increased there price in a few years and this increase is not all that out of line with the times/inflation etc.

Is that suppose to be throat? If so do they (as in SoE) have a gun to your head and making you log in? So what if its a couple of dollars. If it bothers you that much just think of it this way, ie: look at the price of gasoline, your utilities, rent, going to the movies, etc those price go up and fluctuate. Price increase is inevidable.

IMHO SoE had not increased there price in a few years and this increase is not all that out of line with the times/inflation etc.

Sorry for the mispelling but they are giving us two choices:

1. Sign up for a long term 6 or 12 month pre-paid contract
2. Pay 16% more per month

They might have forgot about the third option which I just elected to take...

Cancel

Which I just did although I have a few months pre-paid. Going to try WoW as I tried EQ2 and hated it.

I hope you all continue to enjoy EQ1 as before even with the nerfs, lack of communication, broken promises and price increases.

This is a game played for fun. Not a 2nd job. EQ1 has once again become a chore to play for me. I understand that others do not feel the same as I and I hope you all continue to have fun in EQ1.

-Cass

Sorry for the mispelling but they are giving us two choices:

1. Sign up for a long term 6 or 12 month pre-paid contract
2. Pay 16% more per month

They might have forgot about the third option which I just elected to take...

Cancel

Which I just did although I have a few months pre-paid. Going to try WoW as I tried EQ2 and hated it.

I hope you all continue to enjoy EQ1 as before even with the nerfs, lack of communication, broken promises and price increases.

This is a game played for fun. Not a 2nd job. EQ1 has once again become a chore to play for me. I understand that others do not feel the same as I and I hope you all continue to have fun in EQ1.

-Cass

EQ may be a game - but its played more like a Hobby, Think Warhammer 40k.

Same deal.

-Fenier

Think Warhammer 40k.

I hope that's not the price of that particular hobby.

I'm sticking it out for now, will keep playing. I don't like the extra cost of the expansions however. I feel like I paid for mostly content I'll never use. The last one has been of questionable use to me so far. For one reason or another I've only used about one or two of the new zones. I don't like most of the new content, found very few expansive zones like karana's eastern wastes ect. I really like those kind of zones. My idea of fun is not solo grinding the same mob in a instanced zone over and over. At least when I had to solo kite in EW there was an ocassional random visitor and we could shout at each other across the zone.

I have seriously considered droping back to the old world I liked the content better. Or perhaps I like how I played then, not so much on the treadmill and more exploreing.

If I found a game that had the same feel of exploreing a new world, finding new friends, with the richness of EQ I'd consider leaving. Instanced zones I like for the thrill and the capibility to do a "mission" in an hour. But they don't have the same immersion feeling that I liked in the old world wandering around. I doubt I will ever be a big time raider, I don't like the lock step feel. 2-6 is how I like to group. I guess its hard to balance, ability to play in chunks along with immersion. If I find a game that does that an where a 2-6 group can progress as well as anyone else I'll consider putting my disposable income someplace else.

Oh well, I like the game, its the best I've seen so far, I'm hanging in for another year, maybe not as a druid but thats a whole nother issue.

, lack of communication

No matter now many links I can send you of the constant communication you will never believe it. Over 70 posts by developers in the past 6 days. Yet, they somehow don't communicate.

It's hard for me to take someones opinion seriously when they maintain an opinion that is patently false.

Just curious... can opinions be false? I was under the impression that the facts used to form them can be, but they inherently cannot be false. /devil's advocate off

This is a game played for fun. Not a 2nd job. EQ1 has once again become a chore to play for me. I understand that others do not feel the same as I and I hope you all continue to have fun in EQ1.

Cass sorry you feel that way, imo I think that the price increase is just another thing to add to your plate of being disshearted with the game.

I have been playing for over 2 1/2 year and the last year in a high end raiding guild and I still love the game.

To me this is just your way of wanting out of something you no longer enjoy. Is that sad no its how your taking it and I hope you enjoy WoW or EQ2.

Just think of it this way, eq will be here and its SUPPOSE to be for enjoyment purposes, not a chore. Anyways enough of my rambling, have fun in what ever game you so choose.

Since November I have only been using one account with station access (EQII and my main EQ account). My other two accounts have just been sitting there.

So this raise in price means I'll keep my station access account with my EQII characters and my main EQ characters and cancel the other two accounts. Wasn't using them anymore anyway - this was just a not so gentle nudge to cancel them.

I imagine this move will serve as a catalyst for other multiple account owners to cancel extra accounts.

Just curious... can opinions be false? I was under the impression that the facts used to form them can be, but they inherently cannot be false. /devil's advocate off


Opinions, in of themselves, aren't true or false. It's the information used to form the opinion than can be true or false.

I imagine this move will serve as a catalyst for other multiple account owners to cancel extra accounts.

This I suspect to be true. A lot of the multi account holders in my guild are planning to drop an account or two. To some the increase itself wasn't bad, but it did remind them of an account they rarely used but paid for.