EverQuest 2 Getting Free-To-Play Starting August
SOE announced that it's introducing a free-to-play option for EverQuest II.
Sony Online Entertainment said Tuesday that a new "free adventure service" is heading to EverQuest II. Called EverQuest II Extended, the new service will provide access to premium-subscription quality content through a free-to-play and optional paid membership levels. A new web-based download application will also be introduced, making it easier for players to jump into the game rather than waiting on extensive downloads.
"Players can register within minutes, download the client to join other people in an epic journey, and launch into adventure in a fantastical online 3D world," SOE stated in a press release. "Extended is the ultimate MMORPG experience. Excitement with every breath and adventure around every turn is now available for free!"
According to SOE, gamers can play Extended without needing to purchase software, use a credit card, or be required to take on a subscription. Extended will also grant players access to all EverQuest II gaming zones through The Shadow Odyssey. A Marketplace will be available for purchasing power-up potions, armor, classes, races, weapons, mounts and more.
But wait! There's more! "Both EverQuest II and Extended players will enjoy a plethora of recent user-interface improvements designed to improve functionality and game navigation," SOE said. "Players will experience a new and improved character progression through the Golden Path while creating their own legend with the Storyteller adventure journal that visually displays quest exploration. Additionally, both titles received a graphics quality update that gives a more realistic immersive experience to fully enjoy the beauty of Norrrath."
To learn about Extended's multiple tiers of service, head here. Extended is scheduled for a beta launch "on or around" August 17, 2010.
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All will fall to the mighty WoW machine!
Ummm, Sony, no one is hear to read your announcement, they're all playing SCII. Should have picked a dfferent day for this one.
WoW is unstoppable at this point, but this is a nice change for those that play MMORPG.
Huh, LOTRO or Evercrack? Which will be more fun to play for free?
Did you just compare that crappy game WoW to eq2?
Electron eq2 Server: Antonia Bayle Fear the Bayle Rawr!!!!!!
Everquest what?
I actually met someone who played eq2, they exist.
What is this Everquest?
So when will they follow with the original Everquest? I miss EQ but just can't justify the $15/month subscription fee.
SOE is useless, WoW is like candy to a screaming child and UO came before them all.
EQ/EQ II is beneath Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, which gets no love from SOE and is in my opinion one of the best MMO's ever created, just a very bad launch.
SOE will not be getting anymore of my money once RIFT comes out (if it can deliver)
Can't wait for RIFT: Planes of Telara
So Everquest 1 is still $15/month, but EQ2 is free? Wow haha!
I agree with Prodigygamer, Vanguard is far superior to WoW and EQ, but high system requirements and poor launch killed the subs.
But imo best MMO out atm is Aion, everything about Aion is better than Vanguard, but that's saying a lot because VG:SOH is a very good MMORPG.
I wouldn't be caught dead playing WoW, how embarrassing. Or any low grade blizzard games for that matter lol. D3 and SCII fail hard lol.
bad timing..this week belongs to starcraft 2
So Everquest 1 is still $15/month, but EQ2 is free? Wow haha!
All kidding aside...I don't understand Why pay for EQ I when you can play for free? Granted you must (for some reason) want to play EQ at all.
The Free to Play thing for EQ2 doesn't give you access to all the game's content, you have to pay for the full game and the subscription fee for that.
The details for this are still in the works and alpha testing has begun, so how it all works is subject to change based upon community feedback.
Huh, LOTRO or Evercrack? Which will be more fun to play for free?
Having played both... LOTRO
However each have had significant changes since launch and LOTRO claims to be something "entirely new"... again...
Since you can play them for free, try them both and decide for yourself.
So when will they follow with the original Everquest? I miss EQ but just can't justify the $15/month subscription fee.
Same here. I momentarily reactivated (now deactivated again) my account I hadn't played on for 8 years just to try it out. Still some fun left in the old EQ, but not worth $15/mo. Makes me wonder how bad EQ2 numbers are if its still worthwhile to charge for EQ1 but not EQ2.
Free to play = Having Ugly girlfriend
Paid content = Having Hot girlfriend
playing mmo's all day = no girlfriends
Did you just compare that crappy game WoW to eq2?Electron eq2 Server: Antonia Bayle Fear the Bayle Rawr!!!!!!
so he compaired a crappy game to a crappy game so what.
WoW looks like DX8 grafx
WoW looks like DX8 grafx
Only if you have an old system with all the settings turned to the lowest quality. On high-end systems with all the graphics maxed out the game looks amazing. Of course this is true for many games, the graphics depend on your machine, it isn't typically a fault with the game itself.
Cool would like to try it out .
Only if you have an old system with all the settings turned to the lowest quality. On high-end systems with all the graphics maxed out the game looks amazing. Of course this is true for many games, the graphics depend on your machine, it isn't typically a fault with the game itself.
Guess that depends on your opinion of amazing... i never saw anything in wow period that was amazing really. other then how amazed i was that blizzard makes so much money off that crap.
Im glad they have an option for FTP model,while leaving the P2P model.I dont play any FTP models.I would rather pay a measly 15 a month and have all the content.Instead of being nickle and dimed to death to have all the conent.I dont want part of the game.Although this is not coming from experiance in FTP,I have none.Maybe some day I will try one and see just how much free is in FTP :-)
As far as WoW has amazing graphics.I tried WoW over a month ago to see what thfuss was about for the game.I had the graphics maxed out.It does not take a high end system to run PS2 textures lol.I can not get past the cartoons,Im sorry.Maybe the game is good.But graphics is part of the experiance for me in games.If I didnt care about graphics I would just go back to console and save money on hardware.I made it for about 45 mins or so,I tried.
When I played AION for the first time,I almost could not bare the textures in it.They are better than WoW.The art form is nice in AION,the graphics are barely tolerable.
Maybe the reason WoW has such a large player base is because,one its probably has good gameplay,two,teh graphics required to run the game,make any POS PC able to run blocky textures.So it allows a larger audiance to play it.
Anyone that says WoW's graphics are amazing.You need your head and eyes checked.Maybe you should unplug from VR(WoW) and play other games,so you can see there graphics are way out of date compared to whats on the market now.My daughter wants to play that game,I refuse to let her because it seems that MMO has a very high addiction rate comared to other MMO's.Ive read some stupid shit kids would do.MMO's are addictive to begin with.I have to unplug and get back to real life too.
Im glad for people that graphics dont matter in games to them.I wish it did not matter to me.But it is part of the immersion for me.Ecspecially for FPS.
You may like the 'style' of WoW graphics better but you simply cannot, with any credibility, say WoW graphics are better. They are not. In fact they are barely better than the old EQ1 shaky gnome graphics.
WoW is popular because anyone can, with any character, run up to most mobs their level or lower and mash a few random buttons and defeat said mob. There is no strategy, no skill, no thinking involved. This is a good thing, and a bad thing depending on how you look at it and what you want out of it.