I have been playing the game since the start of and on over the 21 years on service. But a Beta should be open to everyone that has a valid account. How else are you truly going to get the opinions and concerns that Membership fixes. Yes I am aware membership is still relatively cheap. But in my case that is not the case.
New Beta NOT for everyone
- Thread starter Madlyevil
- Start date
Melkior
Member
Beta has never been open to anyone with an account. Often it is by invitation. In EQ2 it has only been open to you if you pre-ordered the expansion. Also the new server is membership only, so you will never be able to play it as F2P. It doesn't really make sense for the Beta to be open to all if the server itself will not be.
ZUES
Member
Yes it was. Beta use to be open for everyone. unconditionally. It's smart that they don't now. For example: if I had known about the status needed and lack of status given for this expac I never would have bought it.
Melkior
Member
I'll take your word for it, my memory isn't that good. My bad. I didn't really do Beta early on, I preferred to wait for it to go live. Since I have done Beta (and it's been a good while) it was only available if you pre-ordered. I'm sure someone on here will recall the exact year that change happened. My real point was that in the case of Origins beta, the only requirement is the same requirement to play on the server when it goes live. That is a subscription.
It used to be invitation/application only with an NDA until the last few days when they would drop the NDA and open it up completely to get some load testing done. I think the first time it was changed to anyone who pre-ordered may have been Sentinel's Fate. I distinctly remember that beta being full of idiots in general chat whining about bugs instead of verifying and reporting them. It seems the reason for them being there completely passed them by.
KauaiJim
Member
This is what I remember but like Melkior my memory isn't what it used to be.
OP - I understand your frustration. I myself have nowhere near the disposable income that I used to. Sometimes when things get real tight I have to shut down the few subscriptions I have for a period until I can afford them again. That said, I myself love playing this game enough (over all other MMO's) that I choose to pay for a subscription for this game only. When things get tight I find myself asking, EQ2 or Netflix? EQ2 wins.
You could consider paying for EQ2 even just for one month just to give the beta a try. Just an idea. I realize that's not the point you are trying to make but I'm just trying to suggest a possible way for you to get into beta for now.
Hope you get in somehow. Take care.
Avianna
Member
I think the entire game should not be F2P. I think that membership is wonderful. F2P and "micro" transactions have been a double-edged sword in my opinion. Yeah, they probably saved the game financially speaking and the game is more profitable because of it. However, gameplay itself has suffered as a result of it.
Kenn
Member
You can choose to buy off marketplace or not. I just wish they had two versions. One for members which would keep original difficulty and a free version where it is like now and you can level to 90 in 3 hours and buy yourself to the top, two boxers, platinum skyrocket, anything willey nilley, but keep the paid version pristine.
I understand how everyone feels. Agreement on which is more important; But In the early years of the game I had the 3 expansions after release of BL. You would think that it would be more then mere Silver membership. Also I would glady pay the sub if I was better off; Unfortunately that is not my case But I would like to try other versions like it used to be
GrunEQ
Active member
If it's any comfort to you, it really won't be like it used to be, just kind of close to how it was with a marketplace.
ZUES
Member
For me personally it's about alts. It's about making new decisions about what my main will be. My alts have been rendered completely useless on live servers. Even if I had the time to get them to max level, which I don't, they're missing dozens of very important quest rewards to be relevant. The devs ask too much of our time in exchange for credit card numbers. I didn't feel rewarded at all in BoZ. Especially in tradeskilling. When they keep doing that they keep forcing me to drop my subscription. At launch of Anashti Sul we wont have these issues. We're all equal. I can level my alts to fill group and raid voids like I used to. That's the fun part of EQ2 for me personally.
Forestchild
Active member
Unfortunately; the F2P market is a way of life for ANY GAME that you find and play out there. Games devs have found out that if they can get that 1-3 person to buy that $5 item, then those will continue to come back to buy more at the $5 mark, and they make more than the average subscription player that pays that 1x fee of $16/mo. Every Game out there is doing this now, or have done this for years and years. Guild Wars 2 for instance only makes the player buy the expansion pack, but allows the game it self to be free to play with no restricts. BUT they have found out that the micro-transactions are Premium for them. Just like every other game.
Siren
Active member
Actually, two of the biggest behemoth MMORPGs out there, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV, are subscription only. And they don't have all the horrid pay-to-win and RNG crates that we do here, either. (And they have millions more players than we do, too. There's a connection there.)
The-Plethora
New member
I keep hearing good things about FFXIV online, even though it's an old game it is supposed to be a lot easier to get into. Zues mentions playing alts and they are absolutely right, keeping more than one character relevant is very tricky in this game.
Things that should be account wide by now as a minimum (I'm sure there are many more that could be added)
Access Quests
Diety Quests
Masters strikes
Language quests
Mercenary Unlocks and levelling
Mount Unlocks and levelling
Familiar Unlocks and levelling
ALL Ascension levels you have unlocked through upgrades and research on all characters
Flight in expansions if unlocked on one character
Things that should be account wide by now as a minimum (I'm sure there are many more that could be added)
Access Quests
Diety Quests
Masters strikes
Language quests
Mercenary Unlocks and levelling
Mount Unlocks and levelling
Familiar Unlocks and levelling
ALL Ascension levels you have unlocked through upgrades and research on all characters
Flight in expansions if unlocked on one character
Raeven
Member
Black Desert Online also has millions of players, and no subscription. It cost me $10, period, to play it. It does have a cash shop full of appearance items and probably some play to win items too. It seems to work well for them.
I seem to remember that was basically a handling and delivery cost of sending out physical diisks. I think I've still fot mine around here somewhere ...
queue cher "If i could turn back time". Simpler days.
Cyrrena
Active member
Way back in the day when there were still dinosaurs roaming I paid $5.00 for one of the UO betas. It was the handling fee for the CD.