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Messages in topic: Magelo Exclusive: Sony Talks to Magelo About F2P Decision
Nepabrite
Registered User

Nbr post: 214
Register: 11/20/11
Posted: 2/1/12, 1:15 PM

Developers discuss F2P decision in part one of three in our exclusive interview

Yesterday, we got to sit down with Thom Terrazas (Executive Producer of EverQuest), Adam Bell (Lead Designer) and Eric Cleaver (Community Manager) and talked about EverQuest, the free-to-play announcement and so much more!

In the first of our three-part coverage, we focused on EverQuest's free-to-play announcement, and the changes the transition will bring.


Q: EverQuest is almost 13 years old. As such, it is the longest running paid MMO. Why go F2P?
Thom: For us, it's a no-brainer. It makes sense for us to go free to play like all our other games, and to give the same type of offering our other games have. We're designing a nice, flexible system for anybody to play the way they want to play. So many people have played our game that we see this as a great opportunity for our past players to come back and play, and to give new players an incentive to play.

Q: Will there be currency locks, such as we see in EQ2?
Adam: Yes, there will be a maximum amount of currency. Currency locks are in place for our free and Silver users.

Thom: The free-to-play system is something we have been working on for a long time – since long before the Veil of Alaris launch.

Q: So was this in the pipeline during VoA development?
Thom: We were talking about it then. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it at the same time. Veil of Alaris was consuming most of our time. It was something we wanted to take the extra time to do well, and to put a nice polish on it. Especially the tutorials.

Q: So will the F2P transition affect the pace of new content development?
Adam: No, it shouldn't have a significant impact. There was that one minor bump as we were developing the tutorials. We spent some time working on that where we weren't making new content. Going forward after launch, it shouldn't affect us at all.

Q: So will there be a reduction in services (such as customer service or technical service) for those who have the free service?
Adam: Yes, full customer service is only available to those with a Gold Membership. Billing will continue to provide full service.

Q: Will there be class locks, such as we see in EQ2?
Thom: Yes. There will be warrior, cleric, wizard and rogue. (To be clear, those are the ones that are UNLOCKED and available for free. The rest will need to be unlocked, unless of course you are gold)

Q: Will there be any type of system in place to balance any class flood-out (such as 100 warriors being rolled on the same day)?
Adam: We have no specific checks. Those things tend to balance themselves out, though. Plus, the mercenary mode would allow 100 warriors to play.

Q: Is the F2P transition a primer for any kind of merger of EverQuest and EQ2?
Adam: No. This is not due to any consolidation needs. EQ and EQ2 are completely different games.

Thom: Even though we've kinda toyed and talked about, “Wow! It would be cool to do this or that,” between the two games. It's definitely not a possibility.

Adam: The technology is too different.

Thom: Pretty much everything about it is too difficult for anything like a merge.

Q: You previously announced that there will be changes to EQPlayers along with the F2P launch. Any details you'd like to announce?
Adam: It is still a little too much in development at this point for us to go into it.

Q: What will happen to certain paid services, such as Recruit-a-Friend?
Thom: Recruit-a-friend has already been removed from our website. You cannot invite new recruits at this time. The recruit-a-friend program will then be unsupported at the time we go free-to-play. We are already in discussion about a new Recruit-a-friend program.


The development team did not have any information about whether there would be any compensation for paid services. The free-to-play transition will take place in early March.

Come back tomorrow, as we get to know the developers of Everquest, the games they like (and the football teams they don't).
Update (2/1/2012): Clarified answer attributions

Genadine
Registered User

Nbr post: 75
Register: 10/11/01
Posted: 2/1/12, 1:42 PM

So the Horse**** they fed us about EQPlayers no longer being supported was just that, as they now bring it back with support.

Free and Silver with zero GM support apart from RL currency issues will just mean open playing fields on the use of MQ as well as totaly ignoring the Fair play.

Unless they are going to make some serious attempt to advertise this then its just more Dev time wasted that could have been better spent on fixing the issues they have plenty of atm.

Just another gimic from a company so out of touch with reality

Nepabrite
Registered User

Nbr post: 214
Register: 11/20/11
Posted: 2/1/12, 6:44 PM

My understanding is that we'll be hearing a bit more about the EQPlayers changes, and that it was more a decided change in direction than misinformation. More to come soon, so stay tuned!

sparrowhawk
Registered User

Nbr post: 84
Register: 1/17/03
Posted: 2/4/12, 8:33 AM

I will not get an answer to this but just curious, any collaboration going on between magelo and SOE and the "player data" front.

Lets face it you seem to have an awful lot sussed which SOE could not manage with EQplayers.


Good job on the 3 articles by the way .



Nepabrite
Registered User

Nbr post: 214
Register: 11/20/11
Posted: 2/9/12, 5:36 PM

Thank you Sparrowhawk, I'm glad you enjoyed the articles!

As to your other question, you are quite correct that if we were looking into that, we wouldn't make an announcement until we were relatively close to a deployment.

Thanks for your support of Magelo