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EverQuest II: Station Cash in EQ and EQ2
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
SOE has announced that they have implemented Station Cash, their new virtual currency, in EverQuest and EverQuest II.
Station Cash, Sony Online Entertainment’s new virtual currency, is now live in EverQuest and EverQuest II. Station Cash can be used to purchase items that will provide convenience and customization in game, providing everyone the opportunity to create a unique gameplay experience.
Want to learn more about Station Cash? You can learn more at the Station Marketplace, and by reading the Station Cash FAQ. Please note that Station Cash will not be available for customers in Europe until Wednesday, December 10th.
Read more here.
Comments
OMG
they finally did it....
im shocked....
sad day for MMO's
I play all ghame
Wasn't this supposed to be only implimented on certain servers? Because if not... wow. Just wow. I'm glad I don't play EQ2, because if I was enjoying any MMO that did this, I'd be pretty upset and have to leave.
...and a big "F#CK YOU!" from SOE to all its customers.
I don't play EQ2 anymore, but I had to dive back on the boards and check out what kind of revolt was brewing over this. Needless to say, the feedback is literally 95% negative.
Apparently, they just snuck this one in UNANNOUNCED (hmm wonder why...) in the last patch. Nobody had heard a word of it beforehand. I know the game isn't doing that well, but this is probably the most shameless attempt to squeeze the last drops of cash from a playerbase i've seen in quite a while.
How many times do people have to get cornholed by SOE before they finally "get it"?
For now its "fluff items" like xp potions...
until everyone stops playing the game I guess they will feel they can get away with a subscription + RMT game, if they can pull it off and people roll over and continue to play then I guess it makes good business sense...
They have a history of doing stuff to upset their dwindling player base; combat revamp, item revamp, prime time reboots (for southern hemi players), crafting revamp... lacklustered expansions (DoF, RoK imho were just plain bad) im sure there is more but thats a good list of why EQ2 has struggled to be anything but a bit player in the mmo world.
so its another push down the spiral for EQ2
I will not be going back to EQ games now. I feel like this was an attempt to get people use to the Agency and suck people into feeling it is ok to have to purchase needed parts of the game to play.
the items are like house pets and armor with no stats. its is all fluff. COH has similar items. you can buy xp potions like you get for vet awards. With the way they are making leveling easy, I'm not sure that the xp pots are all the intersting. people are already complaining that leveling is too fast.
This is a sad day indeed for mmo's players , shame on you sony and shame on you to all the devs responsable for this very dumb decision .
When Smed speaks of RMT and "macrotranscams" and the subscription model being dead, what he means is that he will make it so that your $14.95 isn't enough to play the game.
Sure, right now they are fluff items. That WILL change. Look at the SWG card game, the first round of loot cards there were fluff too, now they are introducing must haves in the second round.
I guarantee that they WILL sell stuff for EQ/EQ2 that will be perceived as "must haves" that will give players who fork over cash an advantage over those who don't, and that it will happen sooner than you think. Round one is meant to appear innocuous so you won't object too loudly.
Smed, after all, has a reputation as the most hated man in the MMO industry to keep up, after all.
SOE can at any time add anything they want to that list if people accept it. They already started doing it with the card game. They did it with station exchange after they railed against the negative affects gold selling had on their games. The list goes on and on and one with this company and their double talk.
Don't you for one second think they will not add items that are totally innappropriate for cash sales if they think it will make them a nickle more than they already make. This has been their plan for several years now and it is pretty clear this is just a baby step in the process to get their games to subscription fees PLUS micro transactions.
SOE can at any time add anything they want to that list if people accept it. They already started doing it with the card game. They did it with station exchange after they railed against the negative affects gold selling had on their games. The list goes on and on and one with this company and their double talk.
Don't you for one second think they will not add items that are totally innappropriate for cash sales if they think it will make them a nickle more than they already make. This has been their plan for several years now and it is pretty clear this is just a baby step in the process to get their games to subscription fees PLUS micro transactions.
Exactly,
You can count on a lot of people are going to quit over this (I did) and that's why they stealth patched it in AFTER the TSO expansion!
They just wanted to get as much profit from expansion sales and then push this Cash Shop through our troats in a desperate attempt that so shortly after the expansion launch people will not quit over this!
It's basically a SCAM they have pulled on us!
1. John Smedly said with the introduction of Station Exchange CLEARLY that no RMT kind of system would ever be implemented on their current non-exchange live servers!
2. They didn't gave us a warning nor heads up plenty of time beforehand nor has this been on PTS!
3. They deliberately waited till a couple weeks after the TSO expansion to maximise their expansion sales!
I have canceled, my gf has canceled, many of my friends have canceled all their accounts!
This has been the last straw for us. We endured the NGE debacle with SWG (a great game we all loved) and we gave SOE a second chance with EverQuest 2.
And now they pull this stunt on us! No we will NEVER EVER want anything to do with SOE ever again!
Cheers
it's just crappy no real use items you can buy. Like stuff to make your player house look neat, or cool looking armor that has zero stats. If they make it to were you can buy useful items (armor, swords, gold, ect.), then that would be the death of the game and SOE for sure!!!
I need a new MMOG
They already did it with Legends of Norrath. That started innocent too with just loot cards containing useless fluff stuff. Now look at what the loot cards have today!
So you know where this Cash Shop is heading to. Just a matter of time.
As you can count on that no fluff and later no real stuff will be added for free anymore, while they now can add it the cash shop from now on and ask money for it.
You forget that these so called Fluff items like house items, pets, cosmetical clothing is greatly valued by a lot of people!
EQ2 community have been crying for more house items, pets, cosmetical clothing in the game, as EQ2 has one of the largest MMO Roleplay communities.
So especially for them this Cash Shop is a huge slap in their face! All that they have asked for for a long time is now here and they now have to PAY for it ON TOP of their monthly subscription fee!
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You know what the worst in all this is, that on top of that John Smedly lied flat out in our face a while ago claiming that this kind of crap would never be implemented on the non-exchange servers....
...that they now on the official forums claim that they did a ingame survey about this cash shop and that this is what the majority wanted!
Me, nor my gf nor any of my friends, nor any other people I know ingame, nor any people on the official forums have ever heard of this survey nor seen it!
It doesn't exist! It's just an excuse and their way to justify this STEALTH patch with more lies and a non-existant survey!
They did it back then with the NGE update, claiming it was what the majority wanted, and now they did it again with this Cash Shop.
Have a nice day.
Nope, they're all still pretty much fluff cards...
"They already did it with Legends of Norrath. That started innocent too with just loot cards containing useless fluff stuff. Now look at what the loot cards have today!"
LON loot cards are still fluff items. What items on Legends of Norrath are a "must have." Its illusions, house items, mounts and cloaks. Apparently, you dont know anything of what you speak in regards to that statement.
"Me, nor my gf nor any of my friends, nor any other people I know ingame, nor any people on the official forums have ever heard of this survey nor seen it!"
I remember it. I just took another one recently.
If something as minor as this causes you this much pain, where you feel its as big a deal as the NGE, I feel sorry for you. The items are crap, which has been said already. Hell, you can go look for yourself. These items will probably never be as good as LON loot cards, because it will take alot of business from that game. These items are probably items that didnt make the LON loot card table. The rejects. Why let em go to waste.
All these complaints make me laugh.
Am I happy they added this... no
do i care... no
why?
because if i dont want the fluff... i dont buy it. And thats all it is...is fluff.
They would not add it if there wasnt a market for it. So who do we blame... the company for doing what every company does/needs to ...."make money" or the players that are buying this stuff that keeps this kinda of marketing in play?
To me it doesnt effect my game play, i have no need for more house pets or armor thats just for looks
I see and know of ppl that have paid cash for LoN game cards so they can have more fluffy items... only diff here is now instead of paying some random person for an item they have; you are giving the money to SOE. So like i said who is really to blame here... the player that keep this kinda marketing in play or the company thats doing what all companies do... try and make a profit.
If SOE ever sells items that are "needed" then yes that is total BS!
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no really, the items are total crap fluff. Even the best LoN items aren't all that great.
the objection is that maybe one day SOE might do something that the player really don't want them to do like sell uber items since now they have a mechanims to do so... so you are quiting the game because of something that might happen and not because of something that did happen?
this is like the stupid adventure pack idea that they use to have. you know the mini expansion that cost like $6 that they now give away with each expansion. some of these experiments don't work out and that is ok.
I'd like to have cooler house pets. if this is the way they worked out how to fund the dev and art work, well ok. EQ2 isn't the massive sucess that WoW is. There are limited resources to make things happen.
Personally, I think this idea is going to fail to make SOE any money because no one wants to pay for crap fluff. and I also think the stuff is crap and won't break the game.
I cancelled my acccount too. Which is a shame, because I really had fun playing. I don't care if it's 'fluff', or if it's the +infinite IWIN Sword of AssWhupping, the concept is the same: someone got something by buying it, not earning it. There's a lot of people who spend a lot of time working on their player housing, and they work really hard to get that 'fluff'. Now the best players (however you choose to define 'best') isn't necesarily the best any more, just the richest.
Just out of curiosity, what was the population like on the two Station Exhange servers that were *already there*? They must have been pretty popular for SOE to implement that scheme plan across all the servers...
Guild Wars: abandoned. Tabula Rasa: killed. EQII: screwed. Back to WoW, I guess...
Evil will always win, because Good is dumb.
There are a lot if not all the house items from the LoN cards that can only be have if you got the card.... so if you want it... you are going to have to trade or pay for it from the person who has it. Which involves 0 "hard work"
I dont see how this is any diff....
I dont agree with it but im not going to stop playing a game when they add a feature that im never going to use.
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there are 2 servers in eq2 that you can sell toons, items and goods on a cash market, this other stuff is fluff items available for everyone and in no way distorts the normal gameplay, as Sony has just had to lay off over 1000 people, they implemented this to try to recover some revenue in the failing economy market, and the items have no effect on the gameplay they are little odds and ends that go into the appearance feature of yer charecter with no stats, as well as some house pets and low quality experie3nce potions that everyone gets every eq/eq2 anniversery anyway.
playing eq2 and two worlds
Why do so many people not see the big picture.
Can SOE add more and more powerful items to the store, yes. They started in Everquest already to test the waters.
Did they add RMT to their games after they said it hurt the games, yes.
Most important is the change to the game design process now. Remember all those quests and rewards that offered fluff items? Well now it is in the best intereste of SOE to SELL THOSE ITEMS instead of putting them in the game as rewards for doing something that seems like a foreign concept to Sony, by actually playing the game.
Think about that. It serves SOE better to NOT put content in the game that you can earn, but instead that you can only purchase.
Where does the playerbase actually come ahead in any of this? How much will it take before this actually affects you, because it will happen. This is the company that screws its playerbase over time and time again.
SOE is definently a company that has been out of touch with it's paying customers for ages. My interest with EQ2 went out the window with the latest expansion so have been logging less and less hours each week so I won't lie when I say I was probably looking for any excuse to cancel thus this was the proverbial straw.
I do believe this is just an initial testing the waters foray with ever more must have items making their way into the system.
Smedley saying one thing and then doing the opposite. Stealth patches. Huge changes to games after launch that will affect how you play the game. The ingratitude by Smedley and SOE for the hundreds of dollars you have spent on the games, their expansions, hardware upgrades, etc. The shock by the current SOE community is akin to a woman who dates a man who is a known abuser, and then is surprised when she gets beat up.
You all had ample warning, but the NGE vets were criticized and demonized. And now once again we have yet another example of the contempt with which SOE holds it's players.
The ONLY way SOE will get the message is if EVERYONE cancels their account to send a very loud message that the WE the customers have a say in the integrity of our games, and how they are run. Hurting the bottom line is not enough. We have seen how they are willing to run these games with only a few people on the servers and skeleton crews of developers. We can't hurt their bottom line, we have to make it flatline.
But I suspect, like in my analogy above, a sufficient number of players will go crawling back and take what ever further abuse SOE and the Smedmeister has in store.
You really don't get it do you?
You know wich part of playerbase is keeping EverQuest 2 afloat these days? It's sertainly not the hardcore raiders thats for sure.
They reside on the only High Pop server left... Antonia Bayle.
It's the Roleplayers.
A lot of people, and especially them actually do like these fluff items. They do like Cosmetic Armor sets. They do like these pets. They do like all these house items.
Items that used to be offered as rewards in events and special quests! You know... content that was actually fun!
If you had any idea or maybe actually playing this game, then you would have also known and seen all these housing and guild hall decorating contests that have taken place.
They have been asking for more of these so called Fluff items for a very long time and were never heard.
So you might not care about this Cash Shop and appearently it does not affect your gameplay (yet).
But for the LOYAL part of the EverQuest 2 playerbase this Cash Shop with all the items they have been graving for, is a HUGE slap in their face!
So don't you dare to tell me I don't know what I am talking about!
The Legends of Norrath loot cards give rare mounts, rare cloaks, jewelry, crafting specific items, etc lately. They are not all that fluff and crap anymore.
Ofcourse you do not need them. You can just run around naked in the game or just in the standard crafted or quest gear and just completely forget about the INGAME feature called appearence slots.
Ofcourse you do not have to use the INGAME feature called housing.
Rare mounts from LoN loot cards of the same quality as 12 platinum equivalent mount in the game is not fluff to me.
Since Legends of Norrath no so called fluff items have been added for free anymore to the game.
And now with the Cash Shop you can forget this will ever be added for free again. As why would they? They can now ask money for it!
And if you think it will all stay innocent and fluff only (altho the AA potions aren't fluff in many people's eyes), then you are very very naive.
I will tell you that within a year these cash shops will have turned into fully fledged Item Malls! You can count on it, as that's the direction SOE wants to go all along.
Only doing it on existing games, while they always said they would never do it, is just plain wrong and actually for many it does feel like a DeJaVu with the NGE back in SWG!
It's an alteration in game design! And it's also the way they have done it!
If this was really what the majority of the playerbase wanted, then they didn't have to be secretive about it and STEALTH patch it directly into live!
Ever thought about that?
Ofcourse not! But it's people like you that cause companies like SOE to continue getting away with crap like this.
Cheers
Just wondering...........XP-boosters = Fluff?
I alway's thought pure cosmetic visuals are considered fluff, paintings, new visuals on your armor/weapons sort of things, but I never thought that regardless you can get xp boosters just by playing the game never thought something like it would be considered fluff as to me a person who is BUYING xp boosters for real life cash WILL in fact have a advantage over those who do not BUY them.
And thought that fluff was not about getting advantage over other players in terms of actuall gameplay.
So fluff has now a broader meaning?
Yes, believe it or not, an XP booster IS just fluff.
Ask yourself: why do you play MMO games? Presumably most people will answer "To have fun". For some that will entail actually playing through and enjoying all the content that has been written over the years for this game, while other (perhaps more casual) gamers would rather fast-track through that to see what the (potentially more challenging or engaging) end content has to offer.
Cute RP clothing aside, all SOE are really offering their players is the option of how they want to play their games. Once at the level cap XP becomes a moot point, and is certainly not a determining factor in how competitive a player is in PvP (raid gear, and skill/experience playing the game are what really count). This is not going to give anyone any kind of 'advantage' in the game. It's just a fast-forward button for those who can't be bothered with the journey, or for those who are put off from playing these older games by the thought that they're going to be so far behind the curve of the existing community. Guild Wars had this feature in from day one (the ability to make a max-level toon for some quick PvP action) and it's worked fine... certainly it has done nothing to unbalance the game or detract from the enjoyment of those who chose to take the longer road to the top.
So why is it that every time Sony does anything even remotely contentious or innovative in this stagnant genre (for better or worse) there's this unprecedented kneejerk reaction from their gaming community? Out come the pitchforks and flaming torches, and mob mentality takes over. It's become fashionable to hate SOE and attribute them the role of 'villain' in the MMOsphere, but the truth is many will embrace these changes and many more will choose to ignore them and go about their gaming lives unaffected by them.
The sky is not falling. More than anything, I pity those who decide to stop playing a game they love simply through some misguided sense of moral outrage or social injustice. At the end of the day they're mostly hurting themselves.