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Role Playing (Games)

New EQ Expansion, Free Tutorial 25

Posted by Zonk from the free-as-in-ale dept.
Mobhunter.com has details from the annual Everquest Fan Faire, where SOE regularly unveils new information about upcoming additions to the game. The next expansion is apparently "Depths of Darkhollow", an underdark-like expansion that will allow for new kinds of gameplay. The other major announcement was the revelation that the new 10 level tutorial will be available as a sort of EQ trial period. From the article: "New players can sign up for a station account and play the tutorial on a special server known as 'escape'. New players can play up to level 10 without having to put in a credit card. The tutorial has all new artwork, mostly from DON but some unique models such as the Kobolds. This lets player get a good taste of EQ without having to commit anything more than download time. This whole package will be known as 'Escape to Norrath'."
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New EQ Expansion, Free Tutorial More

New EQ Expansion, Free Tutorial

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  • Now I know... (Score:4, Funny)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:05PM (#12784155) Journal
    .. it really is "EverCrack". Just like a good drug dealer, they hook you with "free samples", then reel you in when you are hooked.

    Brilliant!
    • Hey, moron. You forgot to yell "frist post". How do you expect to ever make it into the GNAA?
    • They've given away free trials at various points in the past as well, but those accounts turned out to be really popular with griefers and cheaters of various kinds. Walling them off in a tutorial zone is a good fix for that.

      I have mixed emotions otherwise though, EQ's many and varied starting cities and newbie zones are one of its best and worst features. They make you really feel the differences between the various races, but it also thins out the newbie characters to the point where those zones never
  • How will they know there are expansions!? There better be in-game ads! You know they don't leave the PC, shut the game down to read / watch news, they just don't get up, even to go to the bathroom or order a pizza.

    =)
  • I had two friends who help beta test EQ long long ago. They stopped playing once they actually had to pay for a subscription.

    And now what are they playing? Guild Wars. They both ran out to buy it when it was released. Maybe a free trial period would help EQ bring in some more gamers. The type that are willing to buy a game but not willing to pay a subscription. Well, they won't pay until the EverCrack syndrome hits them.

    I bought it too so we could group but soon proved to myself that I have no time to

  • I stopped playing EQ before the last expansion came out. Our uber guild fell apart when EQ2 launched and things got so bad many servers merged to deal with the large losses of players. It was hard enough playing the high-end game before, I don't see any reason to pick EQ back up again. I still have friends who are playing EQ2 but it's just the same hamster wheel with a little more shiny chrome on it.

  • Free works (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:45PM (#12784578)
    If you look here [mmogchart.com] you will notice a game called RuneScape [runescape.com], an mmo, can be played for free. Notice how it's beating the pants off EQ2, and looks like it will overtake EQ. Granted that the graphics aren't all that great and it's not the most in depth, but when you don't have to pay anything for it and it can be played nearly anywhere, it doesn't seem so bad.

    Further proof that you don't need photorealistic graphics to make a good game that people will use.

    • If there's an internet user out there that hasnt heard of Runescape, I havent met him and I certainly envy him. I just don't get it-it's a boring game with a horrible interface, yet it has all this buzz. Someone explain it to me.
      • First I've heard of it. I only have time for one MMORPG, this won't be it.
      • MMORPGs are, for most people, a chat room with something to do in between sentences. That's it. The only thing that keeps most people playing past-their-prime games like EQ and UO is that their friends still play and its how they spend the majority of their time with them.

    • Re:Free works (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Zeussy ( 868062 )
      a lot of my friends work for Jagex (under customer service, gm'ing and so on), was talking to them about Runescape, they get something like a 80k-100k of accounts created a day.

      They have 3.5million accounts that have logged in within the last 2 weeks and 370k subscribers.
    • And this one actually is free! It's open source under the GPL: Crossfire [real-time.com]

      Admittedly, the graphics are a bit dated looking, but you're more interested in gameplay anyway, right? And this game is bulging with gameplay.
    • Ah yes, "free" Runescape. Want to know the problem with free online games?

      May I introduce the "little kid factor" - the cheaper the game is the more they attract little kids. There are ultimately two problems with little kids online:

      1. They want to be everyone's friend without realising that a) telling random adults "be my friend" is damned creepy and b) they like the idea of power-gaming but don't want to read how to do it so bug you too much if you try to help them out.

      2. Lots of kids doesn't underst
      • There's got to be another name for this behavior driven by a low barrier to entry, because it's not just specific to videogames. Two examples:

        1. Working phone tech support for software that was being given away free, or selling for $7 or so, we had an inordinately large number of "generic asshats" wanting support. For more expensive products, significantly less asshattery.

        2. I worked in a bar, and on the nights that there was no cover or cheapo drinks, general asshattery increased exponentially. And
  • Awesome, now folks don't have to spend any money to realize what a boring timesink EQ is. See that "You hit foo for 3 hps?" In only 65 levels, it can be "You hit foo for 300 hps!" Holy crap! That's worth hundreds of hours of your time!
  • I hope that EQ3 will be like EQ1, because EQ2 is just crap after awhile. EQ1 was MUCHO better than EQ2. All the expanion packs in the world won't help this game. They should've had this content in the game from day 1, not months later.

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