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Everquest 2 Premium Services Preview

Posted by Zonk on from the more-bang-for-your-plat dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "SOE has launched a beta preview of their EQ2 Premium Player Services, for current Beta Players. There are a few articles available that describe the services at GamePro, IGN, and GamerGod." An interesting feature, the services include guild websites, character stats, tons of in-game information, and leader boards. Probably part of their final gear up for the November 8th ship date.

3 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. I hope this is better than the Legends services by BrotherZeoff · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I subscribed to the Legends service for about a year. Part of the higher cost was a similar online service--showing what zones you'd travelled to, where you were currently camped, and a character info page showing your stats and gear.

    The website was frequently down. Even when it worked properly, The page was a disappointment. Item stats weren't given (part of the Vision, I guess), and the character info took at least 15 minutes to update after your logoff, if ever.

    What's really mind-boggling is that the Magelo service (www.magelo.com), a free third party application, is much, MUCH better than SOE's own Legends page. You can either update your character manually, or capture your char and new items by running the autoupdater in the background. Within days or weeks of each new expansion, Magelo's character database is updated with new character attributes, etc.

    If the EQII premium services are as bad as Legends, I can only think that SOE will get far worse press. Legends was restricted to less than 5% of the EQ community; EQII's premium services are targetted at the entire population. I really hope they've learned from their EQ1 v. Magelo experience.

  2. As a beta player... by Jerrith · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Let me just say I think this site is great! It's got a ton of neat stats and useful information, including listings of every item found in the game, and the first person to find it.

    You can also chat with people in game, both via your guild channel, and also via tells (private messages).

    I am a bit concerned about the update rate, as my character's information hasn't updated since the 24th, but I suspect this will be worked out. It's still in beta. I've seen a few other minor glitches too, such as spelling the name of the class one of my characters is (coercer, not coercor), but I'm not concerned about it.

    Here's one of my beta characters:

    http://eq2players-beta.station.sony.com/en/pplayer .vm?characterId=121640001

  3. Cost of an Early release by Everguide · · Score: 2, Interesting
    SOE just announced that they would be releasing EverQuest 2 on November 8th http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm ?section=Headline&id=215 ahead of their main competition World of Warcraft (last predicted release date: Week of November 22 http://www.freep.com/entertainment/videogames/gbit s24e_20041024.htm).

    SOE is notorious for launching games with content that is not finished or buggy (SWG Launch, EverQuest Expansion end game content, etc.). Blizzard on the other hand is known for at times delaying a game, and then delaying a game again just to work out all the minor bugs.

    The question I would like to ask Slashdot readers is if it worth launching a game early, yet buggy to grab a certain market from competition? I know Themis group thinks a poor launch can cost a company millions of dollars http://www.themis-group.com/uploads/Cost%20of%20La unch.xls, but will the benefit of launching early exceed the costs?

    Brian Whitener

    http://www.gameguidesonline.com/