Milestones: In with Wizardry Online, Out with Pirates of the Burning Sea January 31, 2013
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Sony Online Entertainment.Tags: SOE All Access, Wizardry Online
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Wizardry Online is now a live, full fledged member of the SOE stable of games.
While it doesn’t really bring back the spirit of the original Wizardry for me… and really isn’t my cup of tea… it is now part of the line up, free to play if you want or as a subscription or part of SOE’s All Access Pass.
It was tough just getting past this screen…
It remains to be seen if this title will bring a lasting dungeon crawl experience or if their concept of “permadeath” will be a compelling feature. We shall see whether it lights a fire or languishes in the shadow of SOE’s other fantasy MMORPG titles.
Stropp has been in there for day one fun, if you are looking for a report on that. He does mention that the “connecting” issue, that so many people have arrived here searching for, appears to be SOE completely lacking any sort of informative “you’re in the login queue” messaging. You just sit there “connecting” until it is your turn.
Meanwhile, Pirates of the Burning Sea is taking its leave from SOE.
Flying Lab Software will no longer be the developer and SOE no longer the publisher of this title. The following announcement went out to those of us still on their mailing list:
Ahoy there!
As you may know, Pirates of the Burning Sea (PotBS) will be leaving SOE’s family of games at the end of the month and setting sail with Portalus Games. Portalus may be a new name, but the people behind it are veterans of Flying Lab who love the game. They have banded together to form a new company whose sole focus is PotBS, and will continue running, developing, and expanding the game into the future.
I’m personally very excited about Portalus and I’m looking forward to where they’ll be taking PotBS, but it will be as a player, not as a member of the development team. I’ve had a lot of great moments in the development of Pirates, and while the details of these moments are wildly varied, they all revolve around the same thing: interacting with you, the players. We decided to build an MMO because we wanted to have a more direct relationship with our players, and PotBS came through in spades. I’ve enjoyed going out, and meeting and talking with so many of you, and I wouldn’t trade a moment of it for the world.
I want to thank all of you for your support, and if one day you’re sailing on the open seas, and you meet a grizzled old Pirate who talks about the old days, think a kindly thought for me. Then give him a broadsides and take his ship!! See you on the Burning Seas!
Russell Williams
- Co-Founder Flying Lab
Accounts can be migrated to the new company, which takes over today. The SOE servers will go down at 10:30pm PST. Instructions on how to migrate your account are on the Portalus Games web site.
While Potshot and I were there at launch and before with the pre-boarding pass (and once again adopting the French faction), the game never really stuck with us.
The French have the most attitude
The ship to ship combat was very good. It was about all you could expect from such a game and then some.
Broadside!
Most other aspects of the game fell flat for us however. Ship boarding combat was dull, the economy was convoluted, the strategic game was broken, and even finding ship to ship battles was unsatisfying. In less than a month we felt adrift in the burning sea, rudderless and uninterested in where the current might take us. And so we left the game, though it sailed on.
Onward!
And while I always intended to come back and check on how things had progressed after our short time in the game, it never came to pass. There are always more games to play than time in which to play them.
As with Wizardry Online, the future remains to be written. Will this be a rebirth for the now five year old game, or has it merely been moved to hospice care where it can die quietly?
The Interesting Thing About Krono and the All Access Pass… November 16, 2012
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EverQuest II, Sony Online Entertainment.Tags: Krono, PLEX, SOE All Access, Station Access
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Krono is a new item from SOE, currently available in EverQuest II. The Krono page describes it as such:
When used, this magical krono adds 30 days membership time to the amount of the consuming character. This krono can be used only once.
- Adds 30 days of game time to the account of the consuming character
- Fully tradable and salable
- No expiration date
- Krono only redeemable in EverQuest II
So Krono is, essentially, the same thing as PLEX in EVE Online.
This is PLEX
I need to get a new stock PLEX screen shot. That one is out of date. PLEX is now just an object in game like any other and can be destroyed.
Anyway, Krono is an attempt by SOE to thwart RMT currency sales in EverQuest II by giving players a legitimate way to buy something that can be traded in-game for platinum.
And, on the flip side, if you are a player with lots of plat who wants to save some money on their subscription, you can fund your premium access with your game play.
As in EVE, generally a win-win, so long as the market can support such an item at a reasonable price. In EVE the price of PLEX has been rising over time, hovering around 600 million ISK per these days, double what it was two years ago.
We will see how the EverQuest II broker handles it. My own fear, if I were SOE, would be that of low demand and/or low or erratic price patterns. PLEX works in EVE because everybody has to use the marketplace. The same is not true in EQII. In fact, free players are somewhat restricted in what they can access at the broker. As I pointed out when I asked if WoW could support something like PLEX, market participation is a key factor.
I suppose we shall see how it works out. I applaud SOE for diving right in with this. According to the FAQ, if the response is favorable, Krono will be rolled out to EverQuest and Vanguard as well.
Also like PLEX, Krono are priced to be more expensive than a normal monthly subscription. A standard game pass… what SOE calls a subscription these days… is $14.99 a month, while Krono is $17.99 per 30 day unit of time.
Krono Pricing
Clearly, nobody is going to simply buy and consume Krono just to keep their subscription going.
Unless you happen to subscribe via the SOE All Access Pass.
There is a long history to the All Access Pass, once known as Station Access, which was introduced just about the time EverQuest II launched. In short though, it is a subscription plan where, for a few dollars more, you can have access to all SOE online games.
Pricing has varied over the years, peaking at $29.99 at one point. But once SOE went all-in on free to play (and shed a few games), the price was dropped significantly. Here is where the pricing stands today.
All Access Pricing
Nice, but what does that have to do with Krono?
Well, deep inside the Krono FAQ, there is a question about SOE All Access.
13. Do Krono work for game memberships as well as All Access memberships?
Yes. When a Krono is consumed, it will add 30 days of game membership time to the account associated with the character that consumed it. If that account has an existing All Access membership, the All Access membership will be extended by 30 days. If the account has a regular game membership, that membership will be extended by 30 days. If the account has no current membership, then 30 days of regular game membership time will be added to the account.
So using Krono will actually extended your All Access subscription.
And, in certain increments, it is cheaper than. Basically, if you subscribe in increments of less than 6 months, Krono is the cheaper route. At 6 months, they are essentially the same price. Only if you buy your All Access subscription in year long increments is Krono more expensive.
Which makes me wonder if this was a deliberate action to help boost the sale of Krono, or if we are seeing yet another case of SOE not quite thinking things through, as happened with the $1.25 worth of Station Cash buying a 30 day subscription situation.
What do you think about that, or about Krono in general?
SOE All Access – What Does $19.99 a Month Get You? June 28, 2011
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Sony Online Entertainment.Tags: SOE All Access, Station Access
10 comments
As noted over at Massively, SOE has now put in writing what they announced at E3, a new version of the all-games-for-one-price plan, Station Access, priced at $19.99 a month down from $29.99 a month.
The plan, renamed to SOE All Access, is up on on the SOE web site.
And it has some nice new features, including a price break for subscribing in longer time increments, something previously denied Station Access subscribers.
There is even a spiffy new chart, and I love charts.
All Your SOE Subscription Options
You will note that Star Wars Galaxies is not listed. That was expected. You can still play, but it is in wind-down mode and won’t be accepting new subscribers soon.
And the chart itself is a bit odd in my opinion. They put free to play games in their own box, which I understand, but that does create a visual gulf between them and the All Access Pass. And it is my experience that anything that can cause confusion will cause confusion and somebody is going to walk away from that chart convinced that All Access does not give them Gold access to EverQuest II Extended or member access to Free Realms.
At least they have removed the goofy Station Access Savings Calculator from the site. Now they just need to make the URL redirect some place useful…
Addendum: Extra character slots are not part of SOE All Access.
If you are a current Station Access subscriber you get to keep you extra character slots as long as you remain subscriber, but anybody taking up All Access will no longer get this benefit. Station Access used to give subscribers 2 extra EverQuest, 4 extra Vanguard, and 5 extra EverQuest II character slots. Those will now have to be purchased with Station Cash.
