EQ & EQII: Many F2P Restrictions to Be Lifted

Several of the restrictions on Free and Silver memberships will be removed.

A big announcement from SOE today: many of the free-to-play restrictions will be lifted soon on EverQuest and EverQuest II Free and Silver membership accounts. Here's a look at the changes F2P players can soon enjoy.

As of mid-next week, we're going to be removing the following free-to-play restrictions in EverQuest and EverQuest II. Free and Silver players will now have access to all of the following options:

  • We are opening up ALL CLASSES.*
  • We are opening up ALL RACES. **
  • All bag slots are unlocked.
  • All players can now use the shared bank slots.
  • The quest journal restrictions are lifted entirely. Quest away!
  • Additionally, EverQuest is allowing all players to send delivery parcels! (This change is for a game-specific change in EQ, so it doesn't happen in EQII.)

* "All free classes" exception for EQII only: Beastlord is still only accessible via the "Age of Discovery" expansion pack.
** "All free races" exception for EQII only: The Freeblood race is still an SC-only marketplace option.

Head over to EverQuest II's site to read the full article on these changes.

Comments

Post Comment
Yay
# Mar 08 2013 at 8:54 AM Rating: Good
Scholar
Avatar
**
483 posts
I am usually very negative in my posts when it comes to SOE but i have to say i am very surprised that they are going to do this and that it is a very nice change. Since the game went the f2p model i made 2 new characters on 2 separate accounts to box more. Made both of them erudite wizard. I am happy with my 2 nukers now sitting at lvl 89 but i really wanted to replace one of them with a drakkin bard. I was not going to pay for that though. Now i will be able to start up that bard once the change goes into effect.
While we're on the subject, I have a REALLY dumb question
# Mar 07 2013 at 8:37 PM Rating: Decent
35 posts
With Silver and F2P, regarding bank slots, do you still have them for storing extra stuff? If so, is it limited to a certain number of bags that be stored there?

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 9:37pm by fluticazone
While we're on the subject, I have a REALLY dumb question
# Mar 07 2013 at 9:20 PM Rating: Excellent
**
782 posts
fluticazone wrote:
With Silver and F2P, regarding bank slots, do you still have them for storing extra stuff? If so, is it limited to a certain number of bags that be stored there?

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 9:37pm by fluticazone


For Silver, all 24 bank slots are available, and there are no bag restrictions that I noticed. No shared bank slots, but that appears to be changing soon, so no difference from Gold once that takes effect.

For inventory slots, 6 slots are available. No top level slot is available to store just one item. It's like the slot doesn't exist. But no restrictions on bag sizes for the slots you do have. Again, this is going away with the changes just announced, so Silver/F2P will be indistinguishable from Gold, as far as item storage in inventory and bank are concerned.

Tat
____________________________
Tatanka Wolfdancer, 115 Wood Elf Druid, 9 x 300+ Master Artisan, 7 maxed trophies (dang research! :)
Michone, 115 Troll Shadowknight
Anaceup Mysleeves, 115 Erudite Mage, 2 x 300 Master Artisan
Snookims Whinslow, 112 Erudite Enchanter, 2 x 300 Master Artisan
<Inisfree>, Tunare (Seventh Hammer!)
While we're on the subject, I have a REALLY dumb question
# Mar 08 2013 at 10:50 PM Rating: Good
35 posts
tatankaseventh wrote:
fluticazone wrote:
With Silver and F2P, regarding bank slots, do you still have them for storing extra stuff? If so, is it limited to a certain number of bags that be stored there?

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 9:37pm by fluticazone


For Silver, all 24 bank slots are available, and there are no bag restrictions that I noticed. No shared bank slots, but that appears to be changing soon, so no difference from Gold once that takes effect.

For inventory slots, 6 slots are available. No top level slot is available to store just one item. It's like the slot doesn't exist. But no restrictions on bag sizes for the slots you do have. Again, this is going away with the changes just announced, so Silver/F2P will be indistinguishable from Gold, as far as item storage in inventory and bank are concerned.

Tat


Thank you Tat and what timing! Last week, I spent numerous hours loading goods into my houses, selling off deluxe toolboxes that once held those goods, until all my bank slots were empty. Then I also cleared away the extra 4 spots, leaving 6 bag slots for each character's remaining bags. Then I thought that it would be nice if SOE would bring back those lovely 24 to 30+ slot containers only available at certain times in the EQ marketplace?

The greatest loss to me was time, plat, not so much (around 300pp down the drain). It's my own fault, for the most part, but really, I wish more time had went into laying out all facets of the Silver restrictions. Maybe, there could be a new Everquest forum category for this subject.
A few more to add that gold gives you
# Mar 07 2013 at 8:29 PM Rating: Decent
35 posts
1. Unlimited amounts of in game money (with Silver & F2P you are limited to carrying 500pp per level: Level 20 can only have 10,000pp).

2. Being able to place items in the guild hall. Personally, I'm turning my secondary acct. to Silver and that means that my Wizard can't port peeps to the guild hall. Bummer.

3. If starting a new character, you can start up in alternate home towns, not just Crescent Reach. I don't know about you, but I dislike not having a choice.

4. Lack of advertisement. I guess I won't know what it looks like until I actually go Silver.

5. In-game support. I might not petition the GMs in game as much as I used to, but when I did, it was almost worth it just to have that sort of piece of mind.

I've gotta say though, having the shared bank does help, not to mention being able to send parcels. Imagine, if you will, that you allowed your house to lapse because you didn't log that character in the last 3 months. All the stuff ends up in eviction crates, INCLUDING anything your friend(s) would have placed there in the past. How they would end up with your eviction crates seemed unlikely.

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 9:30pm by fluticazone
A few more to add that gold gives you
# Mar 08 2013 at 3:03 AM Rating: Decent
Scholar
31 posts
personally i think placing an item in guild hall is something i would like to see the ftp people get over something like race class restriction. i think some of the things we pay for as gold members should not be given away. but something that annoys me is to be grouping with a wizard or druid (if they purchased the class) to find out they cant port me or others in the group to our anchors because of the restriction. gold members lose out in a situation like that. but they give them our other gold benefits which doesnt make sense to me. soe if you want to give gold benefits away let the ftp people place an anchor so they can port us gold members when we group with them.
____________________________
[url=http://eq.magelo.com/profile/2125687][img]
A few more to add that gold gives you
# Mar 07 2013 at 9:16 PM Rating: Excellent
**
782 posts
Quote:
1. Unlimited amounts of in game money (with Silver & F2P you are limited to carrying 500pp per level: Level 20 can only have 10,000pp).

2. Being able to place items in the guild hall. Personally, I'm turning my secondary acct. to Silver and that means that my Wizard can't port peeps to the guild hall. Bummer.

3. If starting a new character, you can start up in alternate home towns, not just Crescent Reach. I don't know about you, but I dislike not having a choice.

4. Lack of advertisement. I guess I won't know what it looks like until I actually go Silver.


OK, here we go:

1 - They removed this last month. There are no more plat caps for F2P or Silver accounts.

2 - Not sure where you got this. I bought a guild hall in January on my Silver account, and have placed tons of items there. No idea if it was different before, but never saw this mentioned in a patch note since I've been back (~5 months). Edit: to be clear, the char that bought the guild hall is a druid, on a Silver account. He has placed an anchor in there, and ports group mates into the guild hall daily. Zero issues with this.

3 - Haven't started a new char in years, so no idea about that.

4 - For Silver accounts, you get 1 pop-up in game, about 3-5 minutes after you log in. One click dismisses it. Then when you log out, your browser opens to a web page advertising the benefits of Gold. On a scale of 1-100, I'd rate the annoyance of these as about a 5 or a 6. Not very annoying at all.

Tat

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 10:25pm by tatankaseventh
____________________________
Tatanka Wolfdancer, 115 Wood Elf Druid, 9 x 300+ Master Artisan, 7 maxed trophies (dang research! :)
Michone, 115 Troll Shadowknight
Anaceup Mysleeves, 115 Erudite Mage, 2 x 300 Master Artisan
Snookims Whinslow, 112 Erudite Enchanter, 2 x 300 Master Artisan
<Inisfree>, Tunare (Seventh Hammer!)
A few more to add that gold gives you
# Mar 07 2013 at 11:02 PM Rating: Decent
35 posts
I got my info from Everquest the newbee zone FAQ dated approximately a year ago; here's the link:

http://www.paullynch.org/tnzfaq/?page_id=397

It was the most informative information that I could obtain. SOE's player website was lacking in information.

Apparently, the website post I found was a tad outdated.
awesome news
# Mar 07 2013 at 7:54 PM Rating: Decent
**
654 posts
i bought all the bag unlocks and a number of other items on my silver accounts- but this is still awesome.
____________________________
Success comes when preparation meets opportunity -- and EQ is no exception.
interesting
# Mar 07 2013 at 5:53 PM Rating: Good
Avatar
*
113 posts
Is there any point in having a Gold account anymore?
interesting
# Mar 07 2013 at 6:08 PM Rating: Good
*
57 posts
Just a few things I can think of that still require gold membership

- Can't setup a trader without Gold membership
- Can't use journeyman mercs without Gold membership
- Can't use prestige gear/augs without Gold membership
- AA's are still capped without a Gold membership (or SC unlocker, not very cost-efficient)
- Spells are limited to Rank 1 without Gold membership (or SC unlocker)

- Cannot Play on Progression servers without Gold membership

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 7:12pm by Keshua
____________________________
Keshua Warclaws, 100 Vah Shir Warrior
Canudance, 100 Vah Shir Bard

Drinal/Maelin Starpyre
interesting
# Mar 07 2013 at 6:47 PM Rating: Excellent
**
782 posts
Keshua wrote:
Just a few things I can think of that still require gold membership

- AA's are still capped without a Gold membership (or SC unlocker, not very cost-efficient)
[/i]


Well, the efficiency really depends on how fast you gain AA's (not just play-style related, but also time related), and how much you pay for SC.

In the last two months, I've made a bit over 1000 AAs on two toons that are Silver (different accounts), and over 1000 AA to begin with. So those 1000 AAs have cost 10 x 250 = 2500 SC. Since I've only reloaded SC when it's triple weekends, and used WalMart bonus cards, those 2500 SC have cost me $6.25.

So that's $6.25 over 2 months, spread over 2 accounts. Way more cost efficient than paying for Gold. At least as far as AAs go.

There are still advantages to Gold. The really huge two reasons are Journeyman mercs and prestige gear. But these are only a factor at higher levels. Now that these chars are approaching 90, and have gotten the quests done for higher tier mercs, I'll likely go Gold with them anyway. But it's nice that Sony's unlocking some of these other items.

Tat

PS - yeah, access to a trader is huge, too. But that's what the third account is for :)

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 7:54pm by tatankaseventh
____________________________
Tatanka Wolfdancer, 115 Wood Elf Druid, 9 x 300+ Master Artisan, 7 maxed trophies (dang research! :)
Michone, 115 Troll Shadowknight
Anaceup Mysleeves, 115 Erudite Mage, 2 x 300 Master Artisan
Snookims Whinslow, 112 Erudite Enchanter, 2 x 300 Master Artisan
<Inisfree>, Tunare (Seventh Hammer!)
interesting
# Mar 07 2013 at 7:24 PM Rating: Good
*
57 posts
Yea it really depends which is the better deal for AA unlocks... but for me I can get alot more AA's on my alts when I go gold - it is way more cost efficient for me than spending SC on them. Mainly because many of my alts are way past the limit anyway, so I'd have to buy alot of AA unlockers just to get to where I can even earn any more AA's. Also, I have lots of alts so paying for more AA's would get very costly.

My bard had 8,000 AA when RoF came out. I would have had to spend $70 to even hit the 8k amount, and then I still wouldn't be able to buy more AA until I bought more unlockers... that's why I just went gold on her and worked on her AA
____________________________
Keshua Warclaws, 100 Vah Shir Warrior
Canudance, 100 Vah Shir Bard

Drinal/Maelin Starpyre
interesting
# Mar 07 2013 at 7:55 PM Rating: Excellent
**
782 posts
Good points all. Although, the $70 would only be $17.50 on a triple SC weekend with bonus cards :)

And to fair, in your favor, I also had to pay for 1000 AA worth of unlockers, because I was already slightly over the limit. So my total cost was 20 x 250 = 5000 SC, so $12.50. But yes, if you're way over the 1000 AA limit, then the unlockers are not a good option.

And also wanted to mention, saw your sig..... reminded me of a link I found last week that pointed to a post on your guild website. It was the first time I'd seen the guild name. Being from Chicago, my first thought was that you guys were from Wisconsin (Packer Fan!). I got a good laugh when I saw how the name came about. Nice website :)

Tat
____________________________
Tatanka Wolfdancer, 115 Wood Elf Druid, 9 x 300+ Master Artisan, 7 maxed trophies (dang research! :)
Michone, 115 Troll Shadowknight
Anaceup Mysleeves, 115 Erudite Mage, 2 x 300 Master Artisan
Snookims Whinslow, 112 Erudite Enchanter, 2 x 300 Master Artisan
<Inisfree>, Tunare (Seventh Hammer!)
interesting
# Mar 07 2013 at 7:57 PM Rating: Good
*
57 posts
tatankaseventh wrote:
Good points all. Although, the $70 would only be $17.50 on a triple SC weekend with bonus cards :)

And to fair, in your favor, I also had to pay for 1000 AA worth of unlockers, because I was already slightly over the limit. So my total cost was 20 x 250 = 5000 SC, so $12.50. But yes, if you're way over the 1000 AA limit, then the unlockers are not a good option.

And also wanted to mention, saw your sig..... reminded me of a link I found last week that pointed to a post on your guild website. It was the first time I'd seen the guild name. Being from Chicago, my first thought was that you guys were from Wisconsin (Packer Fan!). I got a good laugh when I saw how the name came about. Nice website :)

Tat


Haha, yea I get that all the time... are you a Packers fan lol
And no not really into sports :)

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 8:57pm by Keshua

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 8:58pm by Keshua
____________________________
Keshua Warclaws, 100 Vah Shir Warrior
Canudance, 100 Vah Shir Bard

Drinal/Maelin Starpyre
interesting
# Mar 07 2013 at 6:21 PM Rating: Excellent
Empress of News
***
2,350 posts
Keshua wrote:
Just a few things I can think of that still require gold membership

- Can't setup a trader without Gold membership
- Can't use journeyman mercs without Gold membership
- Can't use prestige gear/augs without Gold membership
- AA's are still capped without a Gold membership (or SC unlocker, not very cost-efficient)
- Spells are limited to Rank 1 without Gold membership (or SC unlocker)
- Cannot Play on Progression servers without Gold membership

Good summary of the EverQuest F2P restrictions still in place. :) Since this article is on both our EQ and EQ2 sites, here's a summary of restrictions that will still be in place on EverQuest II:

  • Free has 2 character slots; Silver has 4 character slots. You can purchase unlimited character slot unlockers on the Marketplace.
  • The AA slider will still be locked to 50%.
  • Can't send mail (Silver can receive)
  • Free is limited to Adept spells; Silver is limited to Expert spells. If you had further upgrades from being Gold they should not be downgraded, and of course you can unlock upgrades with tokens from the Marketplace.
  • Limited to Mastercrafted items. Legendary, Fabled, Mastercrafted Legendary and Mastercrafted Fabled can be unlocked with equipment tokens.
  • Broker: Free cannot buy or sell; Silver cannot sell. Broker credits will allow for single buying/selling transactions.
  • Free is still limited to /say, /tell, /group and /guild chats.
  • Free can only join guilds, not create.
  • Free and Silver are still limited to Knowledge Base only customer support, unless the issue is related to a transaction.


You can see the current EQ2 matrix here (sans upcoming changes to it): http://eq2.zam.com/wiki/Membership_Matrix_(EQ2)

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 7:27pm by Cyliena
____________________________
Cyliena Velnarin | @Cyliena on Twitter

cool was thinking of creating a silver bard
# Mar 07 2013 at 5:15 PM Rating: Decent
glad i did not spend the $ yet for the class and race unlocks
Good but frustrating too
# Mar 07 2013 at 4:28 PM Rating: Decent
32 posts
While these are great changes, I think there should be some compensation for people who purchases "unlocks" in the past few months... I just opened up all my bags slots and tasks expansions on EQ1....
Good but frustrating too
# Mar 07 2013 at 5:20 PM Rating: Excellent
Empress of News
***
2,350 posts
Garlin wrote:
While these are great changes, I think there should be some compensation for people who purchases "unlocks" in the past few months... I just opened up all my bags slots and tasks expansions on EQ1....

Maybe try contacting Customer Service and see what their stance is on it? If you do and get a response, let us know.

I do hope they refund anyone who has purchased within a certain time window--sounds like that would be fair to me. Either way though, these are a good move in the right direction and definitely allows more flexibility for Free/Silver accounts.
____________________________
Cyliena Velnarin | @Cyliena on Twitter

Better Late Than Never
# Mar 07 2013 at 3:31 PM Rating: Excellent
Guru
Avatar
**
610 posts
Good move by SOE.

Anything to keep our recently returned F2P and Silver players interested in EQ is good news.

A little late, but better late than never.Smiley: nod
Restrictions Lifted
# Mar 07 2013 at 1:23 PM Rating: Decent
Sweet :)
Post Comment

Free account required to post

You must log in or create an account to post messages.