By John Walker on January 11th, 2012.
I still can’t quite shake off the strangeness of receiving information about a game that came out seven years ago. But EveryQuest II lives on, and of course last month became free to play. But that’s not stopping the updates, and the next is the ability to fly! Treading on Aion’s toes, the old man of online gaming has added wing-ed combat, and just general flying around, looking faintly ridiculous. For those who still doubt, there’s video proof below.
By Alec Meer on December 20th, 2011.
If you can’t or won’t afford The Old Republic but are grumpily hanging around comments threads wishing you too were off on online adventures, it’s worth remembering that exactly 312,129 MMOs have now gone free to play. No lightsabers, but also no queues. One of the more recent of these is Everquest II, the at-the-time ambitious fantasy world that’s probably slightly annoyed that its precusor still co-exists alongside it. Below is a narrated video tour of some of the new stuff in the free to play to play update, the Age of Discovery expansion, the new class Beastlords, a dungeon designer tool and a major overhaul of key city Freeport. This is actually my first peek at the game in quite some time – it’s really quite pretty, in a slightly austere way.
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By Adam Smith on November 14th, 2011.
Another day, another gobbet of news about pricing options in an MMO. This time it’s Everquest II, which has been running two parallel worlds, one for subscribers and a lesser world for those who want their fantasy for free. Confusingly, the slimline free world is called Everquest II Extended, presumably because Everquest II Shrivelled didn’t focus test well. Soon, that world shall be no more and subscribers will find themselves playing alongside all manner of freeloaders as the playerbase is merged. Non-subscribers will find some features limited, including access to the new Age of Discovery expansion. More details and a trailer below.
By Alec Meer on November 10th, 2011.
Right then, what’s left? Everquest 1, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Lineage… What else yet stands firm against the free to play tide? The latest to switch is SOE’s 2004-launched Everquest II, which will offer itself to the microtransaction gods next month.
It’s dabbled before with a F2P parallel client, with but as of the Age of Discovery expansion free-to-play will be active on every one of its servers. It’ll retain subscriptions and expansion packs for those who want to stick to the old ways, however. Full details on exactly how it all works are in this Massively post; apologies for not summarising here, but I’m still a zombie after power-playing Skyrim. Also, I want to go and play some more Skyrim.
