State of My Game: November

I’ve been thin on content lately my friends – I had a large family wedding this weekend and this week a dear friend passed away, so I have been neck deep in friends and memorial arrangements.  Here’s where I’m at:

EVE Online 

I should be back in the fold as of tonight.  I have plans and alot of future posts planned about those plans, so stay tuned.  Mostly I’m excited to strap into that badass Command Cruiser and put it to good use in the coming PVE events in Incursions (when it finally drops I suppose).  Also on the docket – T2 missiles and projectile weapons.  Its time to diversify into the world of Minmatar.  Kudos to EVE Online’s re-sub discount, its one of the reasons I’m back.

Fallen Earth

I am back in here as well, working my way through some content to catch up with my brother.  Mostly I have my eyeballs on crafting though, as usual.  I have a severe case of motorcycle envy, and and even worse case of submachinegun/shotgun envy.  I’m trying hard not to blow all my points on Pistol to have one  *now*.  Kudos to Fallen Earth for their re-sub discounts.  Its one of the main reasons I’m back.  Seeing a  trend here?

Star Trek Online

I am around 700 skill points shy of my Nebula and Akira.  After that, I have no idea what, if anything, I will be doing in the game.  I continue to be intrigued by Diplomacy though.   Part of my slow progress in the game has been spending time (without spending Credits, because I know I will need them for the non-free Tier 3 ship) stringing together enough Diplo XP to open up more missions.  I’d really love to see them spend more time in that category.  I enjoy the space battles and land battles, but I need the exploration and conversational stuff thrown in to break up the monotony that can come from having an MMO where your skill bar has less than ten buttons on it instead of the normal thirty or so.  One other request Cryptic – and a small thing I never thought I would miss – color code the quests by level.  As it currently stands you have no way of seeing, until the quest is in your log, its difficulty relative to you.  Gimme that old “grey to red” colorscale to help me sort them all out, m’kay?

Rifts: Planes of Telara

There may or may not be an Alpha.  It may or may not have an NDA.  I may or may not be in it.

Everquest II

I haven’t been playing but I’m excited.  My wife and I’s ten year anniversary is upcoming.  She asked me last week what I wanted.  And I jokingly said “play some games with me.”  She pursed her lips and replied “one night?”  I said, “one for each year of marriage.”  She frowned.  “Okay,” I admitted, “I’m open to some negotiation here.”  If it happens, and it looks like it might, this would probably be where we would play.  No extra money, its pretty vanilla in terms of system, not alot of grieving going on, etc.

Pirates of the Burning Sea

Goes F2P this month, and it will be on like Donkey Kong.

The Reincarnation

I continue to urge you to this free warhorse of a game.  Its been going on for over a decade now, and is fantastic.  We are currently neck deep in a two front war, and about to open a third.  Its my third or fourth set leading our guild, and we have truly grown into a veteran war guild.  Despite the two front war, we have lost only one mage to each of those opponents, while slaying multiple foes on each front in response.  And another two will probably be dead before the day is out.  If you like strategic PvP, this is the place for you.  I imagined that would apply to alot of you EVE pilots out there…

So that’s it.  Add in my long reading list and my neglected novel for NaNoWriMo, and you’ve peeked inside my world this month.  Was it good for you?

Turns out, its not so F2P after all.

Yeah, I guess I didn’t understand that whole quest pack unlocking mechanic.  My brother tells me that without shelling out, everything in our level range becomes a grind alone.  Basically at this point, to continue playing Lord of the Rings Online, I would have to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $15-$20 dollars.  For the next half dozen levels – and then I’d have to shell out more.  Rinse and repeat. And if I were to start from scratch, I could play to level 20 or so, and then I would have to start paying just as I would if I kept my current characters.

Maybe I’m a bit jaded by EQ2X’s system and the way it parses things.  If I wanted to keep my character there – it would be a $35 flat fee.  If I elected to start from scratch, as I have, it will cost me nothing.  I know this is in some way apples to oranges.  But I don’t think quests are an optional component of the game these days, as much as I wish they were, or were at least reduced in quantity and magnified largely in quality.   Bag size, number of character or storage slots – thats helpful but not necessary.

I Missed It!

I missed the blasted festival in Neriak.  I hate that.  I got out the other night and was going to do some collecting to get my city tokens, because some of those furniture items were out of this world.  It made me miss my main account, where I know I have some city tokens stashed in the shared bank.  However, because of my powerleveling the other night, I hadn’t gotten my harvesting skills up to Tier 2 for the quest to get me some city tokens, and by the time I had done that, I had to log for the night.

It's art. I sweat it is.

And yes, I’ve been in Neriak.  The truth is, outside of Qeynos and Freeport, its my favorite city.  While I love the housing in New Halas, the city itself is rather droll.  Gorowyn has the opposite problem – lots of personality, but housing that bugs me (I can’t ever get the angles on my furniture to line up right).  Fairyland is nice, but having to navigate the bridges and landings loses its charm pretty quickly.

Oh well, I’ll have to grab a few city tokens this month to stash away for wherever next months Festival lands at.  And avoid that @#$% fortune teller.  You can lost five GOLD in a hurry if you hit the wrong button…….

I wish I had some great gameplay or design updates for you today, because I’m really in the moot to mash one out on the keyboard here.  Unfortunately, inspiration is lacking.  Anything you all out there want to discuss?

I spent the weekend on my wife’s uncle’s farm, which is nice for relaxing to an extent.  On the one hand, kids can be set loose to run free and not get into too much trouble , and there are a plethora of adults on hand to watch over them, so I got to nap a bit and read a bit.  On the other hand, cramming 30+ people under one roof, even if it is a big farmhouse, can get hectic and stressful at times, and game playing time is all but nonexistant.

So I basically logged in each night to take some turns in The Reincarnation, and  contribute what I could to the war effort, and last night I spent a few minutes playing with my Champions Online characters since the free week was almost over.  I also ducked into APB to find that reports of its demise were greatly exaggerated, but that they were also not doing anything to help themselves in that regard – some of the patch notes are head scratching to say the least.  It was an ugly throwback to the early days of Vanguard patch notes, where one could find patch after patch going by with no solution to game killing issues, while changes to the game that were not warranted were implemented to further fuzzify the mudification.

Tonight I’ll probably be back to Fallen Earth (its time to raid Oilville after a rather disappointing roam through the Junk Fortress) or EQ2X to push my Warlock higher up the chain and hopefully make a decision on what character number 2 will be.  And tomorrow we will start the grand journey of free LotRO – though I’m not sure how that will work since I have banks stuffed full of crap that I probably won’t have access to unless I pay up…

Even with all that, I still wanna buy a Station Pass.  How sad is that?  I’d like to play my main characters in EQ2 rather than starting over again, and I’d really like to roam the Star Wars universe a little more in Galaxies.

Mainly though I just want that weekly group going.  How about it?  Anyone want a regular, once a week group activity night in EQ2X or LotRO?

State of My Game: September ’10

Well looks like I have shingles for another week - this according to my latest doctors visit on Monday.  I’ve also been told that I was lucky that we caught it early.  Normally shingles on the torso manifests around one nerver branch – with the rash covering perhaps a rib or two.   Mine is vertical from the top of my shoulderblade to midway down my back, wrapping around all the way to the front.   This week the fun has been numbness and itching, which don’t go well together.  Because it itches, and you try to scratch it, but you can’t feel anything.  Oi.

Anyway, onward to the games  (its more fun this way – if you see a game you dont play/dont like, just skip to the next one!):

EVE Online

I’ve decided to rest this one for awhile.  While there is alot still on my training list and I’d like to do planetary interaction, I just can’t seem to get motivated to do much more than change skills and sign in once a week to run a mission or two.  That’s still plenty of entertainment for $15, but I have other areas that would be probably more fun and productive.  My one big regret here is that this means the corp will probably sell that big beautiful Damnation they were building for me…

Star Trek Online

I swear I’m going to get that Akira before my sub lapses in February.  Consider it my other yearly goal or something.  Plus I want to see these new diplomacy missions.  Sadly enough though – I watched the AMC Star Trek Movie marathon last week (two weeks?) ago, and even that didn’t movitate me to play…

Champions Online

Free game time, for anyone (not just past account holders – new players will have access to the whole game) from today to September 7th.  That will be just enough time for me to check in on my favorite superhero and teleport around a bit.  And probably just enough time to get bored with the game again.

Fallen Earth

 Last night I went to cancel my subscription because my free time was out and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of my brother since he bought The Guild 2 (for the unfamiliar – its like a medieval version of The Sims).  I could have played some solo and been fine, but after 3 solid weeks of adventuring in the game, I was ready for a little break.  That turned into a big break when…well more on that later.  Anyway, as it turns out, they had billed my card for the month’s sub one hour and forty five minutes before I logged in to cancel.  I was *that close.*  Last night I was pissed about it, grumbling, and considered asking for the money back.  This morning though, I was of a more philosophical frame of mind.  The studio could probably use my money, I like what they’ve done, I’m not sure I’m really done with the game yet, etc.   Let it never be said that I’m not a generous person!

The Reincarnation

 And this is the reason I haven’t logged in to much in the MMORPG world lately.  My favorite free game heated up again when we got into a major war.  A three way alliance of guilds, totaling 77 players, taking on the servers favorite guild of villainous backstabbing players, totaling 30 in number.  Not fair yes, but the enemy brought it on their own head – running their mouth, trying to sneak spies into other guilds, leftover hostility from betrayals last set, etc.   I give them credit,  they were losing tactically just by shear numbers, but they made up for it strategically and diplomatically.  At first they war dec’d everyone, which caused us all to waste turns and trip over each other.  You can’t share battle reports and spell logs if you are not allied, and most of the other guilds weren’t going to ally for any number of reasons.  Then yesterday they simply disbanded their guild, leaving us to rebuild our enemylistings and battle morale issues from some of our guys who were ready to be done and thought that should be the end of it.   Thus far we’ve gotten 7 of them and only lost 1 of ours, and we have perhaps another 6 of theirs on the ropes that will go down in the next couple of days.   It will still make for a tough Armageddon though because we haven’t been able to drag down many of their top mages.  I’ve enjoyed being the guild leader again this set, particularly with all the diplomatic hurdles and hoops I’ve had to jump through.  Makes me want to play more Vanguard!

EQ2X

Yes, yes, yes.  I’ve really enjoyed it so far.  The limited races and classes has actually *helped* my game.  I know I can’t create mulitple crafting alts.  I know I can’t hoard my gold, I need to spend it on gear.  I’ve discovered two new classes that I passed over before that I really really enjoy (Warlock and Inquisitor).  I really like the new twists they put on the starter areas (yay no more annoying little girls in Feydark!)  though I still really do miss the trial islands.  And I’ve come to accept the fact that I like the Neriak and Gorowyn starting areas best, despite my earlier Gorowyn gripes.  The change up in skills was not as bad as I thought, and the new appearance flexibility goes way beyond what I imagined (you can be using a sword and board for group play and yet look like you are dual wielding axes, etc).  Some of the RP skills I liked (Summon Food and Water for example) are actually still available, but are considered “fun” spells now and can be purchased rather than given automatically.   Plus, I ran into someone who had transferred their level 90 over (a Shadowknight, what else?) and we had a good time talking as he ran me through Darklight Woods to the tune of 6 levels and 7 AA points.  While dumping a mound of gold on me (would have been platinum, but there’s that pesky cap on money).   I don’t know if this is representative of the whole game or not – but our group consisted of him with an active account, me with an inactive account – and two brand new players.   That’s a great sign for the game I think.

All that – and more than anything, all I want to do is shell out for a Station Pass.  How said is that?  All these good games, many of them for free, and I still want to spend money.  I guess the F2P systems works somehow then.  Perhaps alot like it worked for Wizards of the Coast when 3rd edition DnD dropped.  The Core Rules were free – but everything else cost ya.  And it made them truckloads of cash.

The downside is that it also made them greedy – hence no free stuff in 4th edition (I wish someone would take them to court over this, because I think they would win considering their public pledge that Dungeons and Dragons would henceforth, always and forever, be free).  But that would never happen to our friends in the MMO industry would it?

IMMD

 

That’s the first time I’ve laughed out loud at game text in a loooong time.  Not entirely sure, but I I think it could be a subtle jab at WoW (Warhammer 40k developers – take note!).  I haven’t logged on in two days now, both from feeling ucky and from losing my brother to The Guild 2.

Hopefully I can manage to get in tonight.  I’d love to do some of that Iron Man stuff in the new EQ2X…

Game (and Health) Updates

Well, its been a pretty miserable week.  I have discovered that shingles carries with it a host of unknown reactions.  I’ve experienced pain, true, and not to the level that some have I know.  But I’ve also had odd things happen – random long term repeated muscle spasms, burning sensations in random places, sweating on the side with the rash but not on the side without, numbness, restlessness, and trouble concentrating.

So between trying to get  the bare minmum done to keep my job afloat, sleeping alot, and taking alot of meds, I haven’t had a whole lot of lucid, pain free time.  But I did manage to log a decent number of hours last week, mostly playing with my brother as he rediscovers the world of Fallen Earth.

Wolverines!

I managed to pack in five levels, along with my first real sword, first real gun, and first real horse, all crafted by yours truly.  All quite satisfying.  But Fallen Earth itself, while fun and at times quite beautiful, is basically in a state of permanent beta.  The first time I pulled the trigger on my shiny new revolver – nothing happened.  Sometimes my character randomly holsters his weapons and tries to go fisticuffs on a mob.  I activated a clone mutation buff and ended up trailing sparkles for the next half hour.  And the lack of information, while at times exciting, can also be frustrating.  I finally, after completing four of the sector one towns, broke down and bought the only weapon crafting book I was missing.  Only to get it in the next town.  So I sold it for a pittance with storage space at a premium.  Only to discover a short while later that you can turn in sets of books you are not using for XP.  Oi.

In between, I logged some time in the new Free to Play version of Everquest 2.   I am terribly excited about it and fully intend to ride that horse till its dead.  I will probably also pay for a silver membership at some point.  I have some station cash from buying the last EQ2 expansion, and I hadn’t really found anything to use it on, and it would be nice to lift some of those restrictions.  I have found the renewed starter areas to be well done – kudos especially on reducing the annoying factor in the Fey starting area from an 11 to about a 2.

And as for EVE?  Well my sub lapsed halfway through the week, and I haven’t renewed it yet because I knew I wouldn’t be logging on during the week.  But I do plan to set that puppy up again.  I had just finished PI training, so its time to move back to the corporate stomping grounds with a satchel full of Amarr Starship Datacores and start grinding missions again.

Meanwhile, I continue to be intrigued by all of your great posts.  I will in the next day or so try to add in a few more blog links – there are some of you that have been active here that I havent added yet, and I need to do so.   And my health continues to be day to day.  I woke up this morning in a hell of a lot of pain, took alot of ibuprofen and went back to sleep – only to wake up an hour later in more pain that I started with.

Rest assured I will be doing some limited posting this week, and hope to return full bore next week.  So many games, so little time…

EQ2 Watch

Well sitting at home sick does allow one some extra play time.   One of the things I’ve been doing is keeping an eye out for the beta release of EQ2 F2P client.  Originally targetted for an August 17th release date, things look like they’ve been held up abit.  Along with that was a delay in the release of GU57.  Now that the GU57 release notes are out, its easy to see why*:

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  • More classes are now neutral:
  • Neutral: Troubador, Dirge, Ranger, Assassin, Templar, Inquisitor, Fury, Warden, Coercer, Illusionist, Wizard, Warlock, Bruiser, Monk, Guardian, and Berserker
  • When you start a new character you will have Apprentice spells. This spell tier along with Journeyman will have a beginner level of FX in both size and quantity. Later when you acquire Adept or Expert versions of the spells the level of FX will increase. Finally when you acquire Master and Grandmaster versions of the spells you will experience the full FX force of that spell.
  • All classes have had certain key abilities removed – they will no longer receive them automatically

You and I both know what provoked these changes.  F2P does, will, and will continue to have an effect on the non-F2P version of EQ2.  The move to additional neutral classes is fine I think.  The future of Norrath was a little too…black and white for my tastes anyway.  The past of Norrath (EQOA, my original stomping grounds) was a little more muddied and I think this helps move the lore back in that direction.   The changes in spell FX and graphics is probably fine as well.  As EQ2 gets older and older, its going to need more and more facelifts.  And this will help with that, while also driving a little incentive to pay for upgrades on the free program.

But the last group is where I draw the line.  One of the absolutely great things about EQ2 is the ability to “stay in the field” – not losing people in a group session (or solo for that matter) to have to return to town to buy abilities – and – this is my fear – to remove those abilities from the F2P version unless one is willing to shell out a little more cash.  Those abilities?  Primarily Taunts.  That key mechanic that makes groups function.   And Intercept – another primary group mechanic.

Secondary to that is my own particular beef with the current trend in the evolution of EQ2.  Note the following changes that I imagine many players skipped right over or perhaps even applauded:

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  • The Guardian ability “Shield Bash” is now “Bash” and no longer requires a shield.
  • Priests will no longer receive the spell “Summon Food and Water.”
  • Summoners: “Aqueous Stone” is now “Aqueous Soul” and no longer summons an item that grants water breathing. It now simply casts water breathing on the target.
  • “Hunker Down” no longer snares the caster.
  • “Wall of Rage” no longer snares the caster
  • The Berserker ability “Body Check” no longer requires a shield.
  • All versions of Will of the Heavens can now be cast while the monk is feared.
  • “Heroic Dash” no longer requires a shield or symbol to be equipped.
  • “Hateful Slam” no longer requires a shield or symbol to be equipped.
  • Mages will no longer gain “Bind Sight” automatically. It is now a fun spell and can be bought from the class trainers.

Ladies and gentlemen, all of those changes can be filed under one category:  loss of roleplaying opportunities.  Loss of fluff.  Sacrifice for the sake of mechanics and only mechanics.  I will always lament those, and I will always rage against them.  They will cause the death of your game.  Laugh all you want to.  EQ2 is at its heart an MMORPG.  And many of the players come not for the MMO, but for the RPG.

Its hard to put into words but a game needs have a certain amount of…synergy.  Synergy between the crunch and the fluff.  Between the mechanics and the lore.  Dissociate the two and problems begin to crop up.  You game loses its “soul” or it becomes difficult (or boring) to play.

The solution?  Those second set of changes should not have just been “removed” or had the fluff removed.   Instead they needed to be retooled to make them effective in (all the) way(s) they were originally intended to be.  If the beneficial effects granted by a spell or skill were not balanced well enough against the disadvantage of a self root – then fix the balance.  Don’t throw the the baby out with the bathwater.

That being said, there is something to balance out my disappointment.  Its a salve that doesn’t fix the problem but that does ease the pain a bit.

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  • Weapon appearance slots are no longer restricted to being the same wield style of your equipped weapons.
  • Appearance slots are no longer restricted to levels 20 and higher.

As always, since we are simple consumers, and in the word of MMO’s, just a small group among thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, we take the good with bad.  At least, if we can’t get a synergistic EQ2, we can have the next best thing:  one we can mold a bit in our image, and that’s free to boot.

* I got my personalized invitation to the launch of EQ2X at 9:20pm CST this evening after posting this in the morning.  Dang I’m good.

Should Vanguard Go F2P?

This started as a comments discussion on The Ancient Gaming Noob’s page about EQ2′s move to F2P, and is quickly expanding.  And my general rule is: your blog, you get the last word.  Its a reasonable assumption, and I think Wilhelm made his points well.  But I want to continue to expand my thoughts on the subject.  And here, I get the last word! Bwahaha!

@HZ – But you’re missing the point. That there is little in the way of downside is nice, but there is no real pay off likely for investing in Vanguard. And without a pay off, what is the point?

Do you really believe that if Vanguard went to this new model, that it would attract enough new players to not only pay for all the work and additional overhead, but would also make a profit on top of that.

…Vanguard, like a lot of games, has a small, loyal following, but it is never going to have more than that. Be happy that SOE keeps it alive at all.

……The game is not poised for success, lacking only in customers. It is a basket case and, having gone back to play it again in April, it still feels about like it did on day one.*

I don’t really care at this point whether or not Sony keeps it or tosses it, because I’m not a subscriber, and I won’t be unless something changes.  Not that I hate Vanguard (there’s few, okay, maybe no MMO’s that I just plain hate) but its not worth $15 a month – primarily because of the lack of playerbase.  This was, as I see it, the same problem that DDO faced before it went F2P.

Basically the quote above makes three assumptions to reach its conclusion.  We’ll take them one at a time:

Assumption #1:  Transitioning Vanguard to F2P requires a significant investment of time, money, and energy.

I believe this is a false assumption.  What resources are needed to make Vanguard F2P?  We can be reasonably certain that Sony did not decide to make the jump to F2P for EQ2 until they saw the success of DDO.  And DDO’s success was not certain until signaled by Turbines willingness to move LotRO to F2P.  That move came less than two months ago – and EQ2 F2P is already up and running as an Alpha, with Beta coming in 3 weeks time.  If Sony can roll out an entire reboot of EQ2 in that time period, there can be no real argument for what little work would need to go into Vanguard.  Even with far less developers supporting it!

Assumption #2:  Sony would only undertake this venture if it guarenteed profitability for Vanguard

The game is on the ropes, and we all know that.  Current players on the official forums have noted that the game has even less developer support than Matrix Online did before they axed it.  It looks like there may soon be a server merge down to one server, etc.  But Sony – well, say what you will about them, they have a long history of keeping games afloat long after their profitability has passed as a gift to gamers.  A good example would be EQOA.  The PS2 variant of Everquest that I cut my MMO teeth on in 2003 is still up, running, and live.  You cannot in any way convince me that there are enough people there for the game to be profitable, yet it trudges onwards.  So what does Sony have to lose in Vanguard by making a change?  Is it somehow possible that Vanguard would make *less* money if it went F2P?  I can’t imagine that it would.  And even if it did – Sony is already losing money on it, so, what’s the big deal?

Assumption #3:  Vanguard is still only a half-completed game, without the polish and content of DDO

Whew.  I’m not sure what to do with this one.  It was buggy at times when I last played, which was GU #4, but that was over two years ago, and even then, it wasn’t buggy enough that I cancelled my sub because of it, and I CTD more often in EVE than I ever did in Vanguard…

As for content – the one thing I never lacked for in Vanguard was content.  Our little group of three actually was divided for awhile on what content we should be tackling because we had so many choices.  Some of the dungeons, in particular the outdoors one for level ~15 on Qalia, was magnificent.  And you already have prebuilt avenues for revenue in the game – player owned housing, player owned boats, flying mounts, etc.  Each continent is really self contained for quests, etc.  So you could even limit the game that way as well.

So I cannot in any way characterize the game as a basket case.  It works, it works well, and its fun to play and gorgeous to look at.  Furthermore, I can’t imagine that DDO was “poised for success” when it went F2P.  The complaints about DDO were numerous and serious enough that its one of the only major MMO’s that I’ve never tried even on a trial basis!  Amazing isn’t it how those complaints were reduced in light of opening the gates for free play?  We can easily blow downsides out of proportion when we can’t find ways to work around them or live with them – and that can only happen if you are playing the game.  With Vanguards content and player options, I would think there would be enough upside there to entice players into at trying it – not unlike many people’s feelings about DDO when it made this transition.

Bottom Line:  I don’t buy into the assumptions.

I think there are some reasons why Sony decided not to go F2P with Vanguard – probably biggest among them being whatever Live Gamers contract they had for the Exchange in Vanguard.  Perhaps they are still thinking that the games hardware requirements are too steep to intice a large audience.  This may have some truth to it, but I think the game’s requirements are no longer as steep as they once were, given the advances in graphics and core processors in the last couple of years.   But I could still respect that as a legitimate concern in the process.

I think another reason is that Sony didn’t feel like they needed to test the waters, because they felt Turbine had already done this for them.  So they went ahead and jumped in the deep end of the F2P pool.  That may come back to haunt them later on.  Ultimately though I think that this is an issue of corporate shortsightedness.  There is nothing to be lost really by making Vanguard F2P, but they don’t think they will lose anything from EQ2 either.  That too, may be problematic.  Why?

From my viewpoint this is kind of a loss for Sony.  Their flagship game, that I have spent over $100 on this year just made a move that will insure that I don’t spend any money on it next year.  While their game that I would enjoy shelling out for a silver membership + some cash shop upgrades continues to remain out of reach.  The loss for Sony is our gain though, for the time being.  I fully intend to play the heck out of a free EQ2 this fall.  And who knows, maybe if  successful, it will entice them to open up Vanguard as well.

* TAGN is one of my favorite bloggers.  I’ve used his comments as a jumping off point for this post, but I have respect for him and do not intend this as a personal attack.

Christmas in July

Yeah all that snow in Halas made the people at Sony want to give us Christmas early.  Because Everquest II is going F2P.   The tl;dr version is that they are basically relaunching EQ2 as a free game.  Initially you will have access only to four races and eight classes (and two character slots), and will have access to content only up to the expansion before the current one.  However, as with any F2P game, all of that is upgradeable for a few bucks here and there.  The MMO watchword of customizing your character has truly advanced into one of customizing your game.

Found via the Green Tree Gazette (.com of course)

For me, it fits the bill.  I just about got down on my knees and wept for joy.  The restrictions imposed will keep hardcore players running on their servers, but for fun past time, casual players like me, I can play with little or no shell out.  Pardon me again while I go jump for joy and count my blessings.

Also, to be fair, this news came to me as a gift from the ever watchful gaze of the Stylish Corpse.