Письмо продюсера 2011.11.10 — различия между версиями

Версия 20:02, 11 ноября 2011

Многие из тех, кто сейчас читает это письмо, уже долгое время играют в EverQuest и EverQuest II. Все это время вы были частью огромной семьи SOE (на этой неделе мы отмечали семилетие EQII!) и нашей целью всегда была забота об игроках и задача на годы вперед обеспечить их развлечениями в мире электронных игр.

Частью нашей заботы о клиентах является изучение их мнения. Кроме того, нам необходимо учитывать изменения в игровой индустрии, изменения в требованиях игроков, изменения экономической ситуации в целом.

Мы приняли к сведению ваше недовольство сложностью системы подписки на игру, услышали мнение о том, как отдельные форумы для EQII и EQ2Х без особой необходимости разделяют игровое коммьюнити, учли ситуацию с малой населенностью серверов с системой Live Gamer, и конечно то, что многие из вас хотят большей свободы с выбором вариантов оплаты, которые позволили бы лучше управлять собственным бюджетом.

Мы верим, что самое главное в том, чтобы соответствовать ожиданиям игроков, это предоставить им больше гибкости в выборе и возможность получать именно то, что хотят игроки, и именно тогда, когда они этого хотят, будь это базовый контент, полная подписка на игру или что-то посередине. Таким образом в начале декабря мы собираемся полностью изменить систему и сделать игру под девизом "Играй без ограничений. Так как хочется." Постараюсь объяснить, что мы под этим подразумеваем...

Изменения в оплате и уровнях доступа

В игре больше не будет предварительной оплаты за загрузку и установку игры. Вам больше не придется покупать саму программу, чтобы начать ее использовать, и также бесплатно будет доступен весь игровой контент, выпущенный до и включающий дополнение Sentinel's Fate. Вы просто скачиваете файлы, запускаете игру и играете в нее бесплатно.

В прошлом году отдельно от оригинальной игры мы запустили успешный условно-бесплатный (f2p) проект "EverQuest II: Extended" (EQ2X) Однако, сейчас, когда все серверы перейдут на систему f2p, мы объединяем обе версии вместе и EverQuest II (включая серверы EQ2X) будут являться единой игрой с единой системой уровней доступа.

Новая система уровней доступа EQII гораздо проще и понятнее, чем та, которую мы использовали раньше, и мы изменили модель таким образом, что Золотой уровень доступа полностью соответствует тому, который имеют игроки, сейчас оплачивающие постоянную подписку.

Некоторые отличия между новой системой доступов и ранее использовавшейся моделью в EQ2X

• Золотой уровень доступа в EverQuest II предоставляет возможность играть всеми расами и классами (за исключением Вампиров-ноообращенных и повелителей зверей) и полностью соответствует во всех отношениях тому, что имели игроки, оплачивавшие подписку.
• Бесплатный доступ теперь так и называется "бесплатный уровень" вместо "бронзового уровня доступа"
• Серебряный уровень доступа теперь можно будет приобрести за 500 единиц Station Cash вместо 1000 (если вы приобрели серебряный уровень в течение 60 дней до запуска новой системы, то 500 единиц Station Cash будет возвращено их плательщику)
• Игроки больше не смогут приобретать платиновый уровень доступа. Для текущих обладателей платинового уровня он останется действительным до срока его прекращения.

• SC - Station Cash, внутриигровая валюта, приобретаемая по курсу 100 SC = $1

http://everquest2.com/free_to_play/game_overview So basically, you can play at the Free level (with restrictions), upgrade to Silver to remove a bunch of those restrictions… or sign up for Gold membership and remove *all* of those restrictions, depending on which expansions you have on your account.

Additionally, Gold memberships are no longer required to recur each month. We will have non-recurring memberships that you can purchase with Station Cash or real-world currency. Recurring and non-recurring Gold memberships will be available for 1, 3, 6, and 12-month durations. Recurring memberships are still available for those of us who don't like having to remember to pay each month, and recurring memberships also get the perk of a Station Cash bonus grant each month.

The aim is to give you as much flexibility as possible, without drowning you in a sea of confusing options. Free, Silver, or Gold at whatever duration and recurring state that you desire. It's up to you to play EQII your way.

HOW DOES THIS AFFECT ME? For EverQuest II players, at the end of the day all we're basically doing is making your subscription optional. For EQ2X players, we're simplifying the membership model and adding benefits to the Gold membership. That's about it.

If you're an existing EQII subscriber and you keep your subscription active then the change will be in name only. We will simply call you a "Gold" member instead of a subscriber.

The conversion will be seamless; at launch, your current subscription status will roll over directly to an equivalent recurring Gold membership. The cost is the same, and all your benefits are exactly the same, including veteran status. There is no difference in service and you don't need to do anything unless you desire to change your membership status. If you're an existing EQ2X player, then you will not be affected, except that Gold members will actually get a bonus.

If you are a Bronze member, you will simply be called a Free member instead. Silver members will carry on as if nothing had changed. Gold memberships have been improved! They now have access to all races and classes (except the Freeblood race and the Beastlord class). (If you purchased a Race Pack in the 60 days before the launch of this transition, we will refund the Station Cash for that purchase.) Platinum membership is going away. If you are an existing Platinum member, your Platinum membership will continue until normal expiration with all of the original benefits. That membership is currently set to recur, so if you don't change it, you will stay a Platinum member and continue to get those benefits. However, if you drop Platinum membership, you'll be unable to re-subscribe to it. You'd have to rejoin at a Gold membership level for continued full access to the Game.

HOW DOES THIS CHANGE BENEFIT ME? Some of the changes affect you directly, whereas some of the others are more of a "soft return" that makes your gaming experience better by making the game better as a whole.

Here's a few of the obvious benefits:

More population! Our recent launch of free-to-play for DC Universe Online has been extremely successful with tons of new players logging on within the first week (1000 percent increase in concurrents!). With more players, everyone benefits! Payment flexibility! You don't want to pay anything at all? We can do that. You want to pay month-by-month? No problem. You want an annual recurring membership because you're going to be playing this game until 2050 and don't want to think about it? We can do that too! Better service! By merging EverQuest II: Extended and the original EverQuest II into a single game our messaging will become much easier and we will be able to focus our attention on one game instead of two.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE? Our content delivery plans are unchanged. We're still going to be delivering everything we've promised previously, and a lot more.

As a reminder, here are a few things we've committed to you previously (and maybe a bit of detail you haven't heard before):

We're going to create more content for "Destiny of Velious" through 2013. Skyshrine, the Withered Lands, Siren's Grotto, Cobalt Scar, the Western Wastes and more are all being worked on currently and will be released periodically during that time. Velious is a huge continent and we're giving it the justice it deserves. Please note that there is no additional price tag for this content if you own the "Destiny of Velious" expansion; all this content will be open to you when it is released. Next summer, we'll be revamping Qeynos as we're doing with Freeport right now. Just as Freeport is being Reborn, we'll be returning the "Greater Good" to Qeynos, making it a much more interesting and vibrant city, pivotal to Norrath once again. We intend to revisit old backwaters in Norrath, bringing them back to life with new content and new ways to game in those areas. In many cases where we've released features or fixes in the past couple of years, we had contingency "Phase 2" plans for many of those features. We're going to circle back around and implement many of those Phase 2 plans (including much of the feedback we received on those features), improving them and making them even higher quality than they already are. Plus a lot, lot more. We'll release more details on those things as we get closer in 2012. The EQII dev team is still fired up about this game. We all love what we're doing and we want to make this the best MMORPG in the industry, partly out of desire to deliver great entertainment, and partly out of pure pride of craft.

We're also looking into mechanisms that allow you, the players, to help guide us on what gets developed in the future. Look for more on that soon. In the meantime, a great way to provide feedback is through the forums, as well as through Facebook and Twitter. We'll also be covering topics you surface in our livecasts so be sure to tune in.

WHAT ABOUT "POWER ITEMS" IN THE MARKETPLACE? EQ2X currently has a list of items that are not available on the regular server marketplaces. These include:

Power potion Health potion Self-rez scroll Wand of Obliteration Rune of Devastation Mastercrafted Equipment (all) Tradeskill Components These items will no longer be offered on the marketplace when this revamp occurs.

We may reintroduce some of these items again later-on, but we intend to do some in-game polling of players about how we might bring them back before we do it. You will get a chance to chime in and we'll incorporate the results accordingly.

WHAT ABOUT LIVE GAMER? The Live Gamer ("Exchange") servers were set up to allow players to sell items, coin and even characters to each other for real-world profit. Those servers were walled off from other servers and over time, their popularity has waned to the point where their populations are currently very small.

We're going to liberate those players and characters by turning off the Live Gamer service, and merging the existing Exchange populations into other servers already in existence.

In mid-December, we'll merge Vox with Nagafen (where they can continue to play in their chosen PvP style), and then merging The Bazaar with Freeport. There are more steps than that involved, of course:

We'll shut off the ability to post new sales in mid-November. The auction service itself will be discontinued in early December. The server merges will happen about a week after the auction service is shut off, with Vox first, and then The Bazaar a couple days later. This will occur in mid-December. If you don't have the time or inclination to log onto an Exchange server to take your sales down, we'll auto-return the items to you at the time that we shut down the auction service in early December.

WHAT? YOU'RE STILL READING? OKAY… A SUMMARY! All of this (and more) is planned to happen on the same day in early December (we'll announce the exact date as we get closer):

"Age of Discovery" expansion launch (pre-order available now!). GU 62 -"Freeport Reborn" launch, free to all players! Free-to-play conversion. A brand new website with an all new players section! And more. Yes, there's still more that needs to firm up before being announced! When all is said and done, there will only be two types of servers, PvE and PvP. You'll have complete flexibility on payment options. There will no longer be a mandatory up-front cost of any sort.

Everyone will be a winner.

Today, we'll be doing a Community Webcast covering all of this. Please be sure to send in any questions you might have via the Facebook page or Twitter so we can respond with answers during the Webcast!

You're going to love Age of Discovery, and Freeport is fantastic. Now that everything else is so incredibly flexible as well, there's a ton to love about EQII. We're looking forward to a great future with you!

-- Dave "SmokeJumper" Georgeson EverQuest II Executive Producer

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