Yeah, I know I’m late on this, but… EQ2’s Passport program? $5/month for three consecutive days of play per month? Absolute genius.
To recap what the plan offers:
Weekend Warrior
Your game, your time and your money. You choose when to play! This is your chance to continue to play the game you love, with all your friends and most importantly, when you want!
Party Crasher
With the EQII Passport, your alt accounts or inactive accounts will not have to miss another seasonal event or special game update. Visit Norrath to participate in fun-filled events and festivities at a discount.
Item Hoarder Galore
You do not have to miss another login bonus or promotional “claim” special again! Just because your account is inactive doesn’t mean your collection of goodies will suffer.
Penny Pinching Multiboxers
Running several subscriptions might be a bit expensive these days, but not with this program! Fire up your alt accounts for a weekend raid or even a Battlegrounds match all by yourself!
Commitment Issues?
The EQII Passport program is available for a period of three (3) consecutive days per 30-day period. To continue playing after three days, you must convert to a standard EQII monthly subscription plan.
Vets Only, No Newbs Allowed!
This subscription option is only available for inactive or closed accounts. Visiting Norrath has never been so simple or economical. This is the most convenient option available for casual accounts.
If World of Warcraft offered this, I’d be all over it. If Lord of the Rings offered this, I would absolutely take it. If Champions Online did this, I’d be spending weekends in Millennium City. But since I can’t maintain a subscription to all these games, I don’t play them.
Now, EQ2 is one of my main games, and I have access to it, EverQuest and Vanguard (and SWG and Pirates of the Burning Sea) as part of the Station Pass. That gives me access to all SOE’s games for a flat rate. THAT was a subscription innovation we expected to see other multi-MMO developers such as NCsoft, Turbine and Cryptic copy, but it hasn’t happened.
Now, clearly SOE expects that three days will be too few, and you’ll want to convert to a regular subscription so you can continue playing on the FOURTH day. What’s wrong with that? Nothing’s wrong with that. The “Passport” program gives EQ2 three days a month to convince you to upgrade to a full subscription, and failing that, at least it has the chance to get more people on the servers. MMOs live and die on having lots of people online at the same time, after all.
It’s a great idea. Maybe this time the rest of the MMO developers will figure out that SOE’s got something worth copying and get with the program.
I particularly like how they encourage alt accounts. Can’t afford the subscription fees for a second or third account? Put them on the plan and then just haul them out once a month for some serious farming or whatever. Including farming battlegrounds, apparently 😛
So, Blizzard… Where’s my Passport to Azeroth?
I like this idea. I wish it were 72 hours rather than three consecutive days, but it’s a fantastic start to seeing some OPTIONS in pricing plans. Especially since I’ve always been ‘hmm, maybe I’ll activate my 2nd account for a month’ and then I never touch the thing. Activating it for three days would have been a FAR better choice.
I like the idea, but as most people have said, the implementation isn’t great. 72 hours /played might be going a bit too far, but just making it three days would work.
I’d prefer it on Vanguard, though.
I’m a fan of this idea too; going to use it to check out New Halas, for instance.
72 hours would be great for the players, but it would cannibalize monthly subs. 72 hours is (roughly) 18 hours/week. For a lot of players, that’s more than they play in an average week (consider its over 2 hours/days).
I guess they could do $5 for 12-15 hours, maybe? I really think they’re just thinking “a weekend of play” and keeping things clean. It probably works fine with existing systems… 3 non-contiguous days would require some development time on the back end. It’d have to poll every login to determine if it needed to deduct a day from the ‘bank’ of play days available, if you follow me.
Meh, maybe I’m totally missing something. But this 3-consecutive days just seems exactly like the current 30-consecutive days, only shorter, so less confusion and less work for SOE. But maybe if players embrace it, they’ll be inspired to look at even more flexible subscription options.
lol… user@example.com — best e-mail address of the day 🙂
I think we have to consider that the point of the EQ2 Passport program is to convince people to first, keep playing and second, have more chances to get deep enough into the game that they move to a regular subscription. As such, it’s not in THEIR best interests to make it the most comfortable plan; ultimately, they want people to chafe at the restrictions.
With games like LotRO, in which I am happy to spend an hour every three months or so, and have no intention to ever subscribe at full price again, this would be an amazing convenience.
I am surprised at the positive response to this. While any attempt at making subscriptions be more flexible is to be applauded I personally feel that the three consecutive days requirement is far too restrictive. I would much prefer a plan that gave a fixed time allowance that could be used whenever you liked. Sorry Stargrace 72 hours for $5 is not going to happen as many full sub players don’t spend more than 80 hours a month in game. Something like 15 hours for $5 is more realistic.
I accept your point Tipa that this is intended to be restrictive because what they really want to is to tempt lapsed players back into a full sub. However I think that is really unambitious and misses the fact that there are an awful lot of part time mmorpgers out there who would like to play several different games for a few days a month but are not prepared to pay for a sub for every one of them.
Well, it is explicitly for exactly that — casual players. As I mentioned, I’d be all over this for WoW, LotRo, Champions, even DAoC. I just can’t understand why it’s only SOE and only for EQ2!
The only bit I find puzzling is why they limit it to once in any 30-day period.
mbp – I find it curious that people have a negative reaction to a company adding an optional feature where before none existed.
It isn’t like SOE has taken anything away from players, they’ve just added an option. It seems illogical to have a negative response to that.
Could the deal be sweeter? Sure, the deal can always be sweeter. If they offered 15 hours for $5, someone would think it should be 20 hours for $4. Someone else would say the game should be free.
To me adding new options is always a positive thing.
I would never do this, because its on three consecutive days. I don’t have the time to commit 3 days in a row to playing a game; thats why i like my monthly sub. If they made you pay 5 dollars for X hours total game time played per month I’d do it because i could play at anytime and not only on three days where i may have things come up and waste 5 dollars.
I think its rather useless for casual players though, because its on three consecutive days. Maybe I’m projecting, but most casual players I know don’t know when they will have free time, and when they do it’s maybe two or three hours, and then not again for several days. So in essence, for me, this would mean paying $5 for 2 hours of play a month.
Now, if this plan were $5 for 15 hours of in-game time (not consecutive), it would be the BEST THING EVER. I would totally pay for that. Twice. I cancelled my subscriptions (I dual boxed) because I’ve been so busy that 15-20 hours a month wasn’t worth $15/mo (x2) for me. For $5 (x2) I’d be back in a heart beat.
But I imagine their billing system isn’t designed to handle tracking people by the hour, which is why they opted for this approach.
I agree with those who find the three consecutive days requirement not a good match. I’m not negative about the offer, altho I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t fit my situation and I won’t be taking them up on it to return part-time and see what’s new.
The option that Wizard101 offers, where “Once players purchase an area, they can access it forever, with all the characters on that account” is a good fit for me, and the option I chose in Wizard101 instead of their subscription … I wish more MMORPGs had similar options.
https://www.wizard101.com/game/areapricing
Heh. Thanks, Tipa.
Pete S: If you can buy it twice, $10 for six days is basically two solid weekends of play – if you only really find the time to play on weekends, that looks a lot more attractive than an extra $5 for all those weekdays you don’t have time to play on, and it’s more flexible in that you only pay for the weekends you have the time to play on.
I’m not saying that’s a good argument or makes sense, but it’s the easiest justification I could think of.
It’s a subscription plan. All you get is the three days per month.
Every game should offer this, however, I wish it were not consecutive, as everyone is saying. If it were not consecutive I would have already signed up.
What I could REALLY use is a “weekend pass” sort of plan where I pay less than $15 per month, but have unlimited play time on weekends. I wonder how many people would switch to this though, given that many adults can really only play on weekends.
I’m with Stargrace. I would have taken total hours but not consecutive days. For something that’s not my main game, I’d rarely utilize 3 days in a row and I’m probably not alone. But they get an A for trying something different.
I understand this is just one subscription option and they are entitled to give it, and I’m sure people will use it. But Many people feel it’s WAY too constrictive. Heck, I’d pay $9.99 a month for 72 non-consecutive hours. I might even play more games with a plan like this. This would allow me, for example, to be a hardcore raider in my favorite game, yet be a casual player in one or more games. I’m saving money yet getting to try more games (and 3 straight days just isn’t enough for any game) and the companies are getting more money because they’re seeing more casual players that they wouldn’t otherwise see.
I think the 5 for 3 plan is a great START . . . but I’d like to see more. I might even start an alt account if I didn’t have to pay the full subscription price . . . or have to fit all my game play in only three days.
– P.S. – Oh, and as far as keeping track is concerned, most games already keep track of how long you play per session and in total. In EQ and EQ2 the /played command shows you how long you’ve been on for that session and your total (consecutive) played time. I’m sure it couldn’t be THAT hard to add a running total showing how much time you have left if you have a limited subscription plan. This might even be an incentive for people to change their subscription to full time for that month if they see they’re going to run out of time. They can always change it back in the following month(s) . . .