Well, ouch!
Dear Station Access Subscriber,
We want to give you some important information regarding your Station Access subscription. Effective April 2, 2007, the new monthly subscription rate will be US$29.99 per month (not including applicable taxes).
We know that rate adjustments are never popular, but the increase is driven by our desire to provide our Station Access subscribers with a consistently high quality entertainment experience, as evidenced by our most recent addition to the Station Access subscription plan, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
You don’t have to do a thing; you will automatically be migrated to the new monthly subscription rate under your existing subscription plan when your current subscription plan comes up for renewal on or after April 2, 2007. We appreciate your support and continued participation in our community.
Station Access subscriptions are recurring, meaning you will continue to be billed at the appropriate subscription interval, until you affirmatively cancel your subscription. Subscription fees are subject to tax and value-added tax, as applicable. The subscription charges are in addition to the cost of the games that are part of the Station Access subscription plan. All game software is sold separately.
Now that the plan is effectively the price of two MMO subscriptions, and I only play one SOE game regularly, it is time to decide which of my six EverQuest II characters I want to keep, delete the rest, and change to the standard plan.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Hmmm… I will have to think long and hard about it too.
On one hand an extra $5 per month basically equates in Austalia to a cup of coffee in a city cafe. That doesn’t seem too bad.
On the other hand that is a 20% hike in the monthly subsription. It is a very compeditive world out there in MMORPG land – Sony had better make sure their valued subscribers continue to feel as though they are getting value for money.
I expect my husband may decide to drop his station account now too.
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Bye-bye Station Access. :(
Daniel
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If you haven’t done it yet, I just want to remind you to go get the artisan quests in the Village of Shin before you finish off your Station subscription. I believe you get access to all the adventure packs through that, or am I wrong (again)? Though, you probably are going to need to have some of your harvesting skills up to 240 on each of the toons doing the quest though :-/ but I suppose it can’t hurt too much to start them and see if the specific artisan quest for your trade needs a harvest requirement…
Oh, and if you intend to delete the surplus chars and not just make them unavailable for selection (not sure if that even is possible after they changed the login screen, but then I never have tried station access), remember any inn rooms, and the storage they have, any “presents” sent in mail, not to mention coin in bank and on character, bags, and equipment… Could probably sell the equipment the equipment they wear to a vendor… Oooh… sounds like you have quite a cleaning process ahead of you, not to mention the choice of choosing which characters get the axe…
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Sighs, figured it was only a matter of time. With both Vanguard and EQ2 on there, and a lot of people playing both (myself included) I was expecting the hike in price. Too bad it’s just going to end up costing them customers.
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Just as a side note.. I feel badly for those who pay in funds different then american ones.. for myself personally, it’s not just a matter of $5 extra a month, but almost double that due to the exchange rate (Canadian). So the decision is quite easy to make. In my house two people have station access for $24.99 american. With the price increase, that’s almost $38 Canadian (each). Do I really want to be paying almost $100 a month for two video games? It just doesn’t seem worth it. Especially with Vanguard still being in the beta stages.
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Pingback: West Karana » Blog Archive » Goodbye, Station Access
Heh, I came here to add my 2 cents and see my own post was pinged here. Good old WordPress!
SOE seems to be shooting themselves in the foot here, but in a year or two I can see how Gods & Heroes, DC Universe Online, Star Trek Online and their unannounced spy MMO could find their way to Station Access. (Certainly DCUO and the spy MMO, probably G&H and if G&H goes, so goes ST:O).
Some folk on the EQ2-Daily forums suggest SOE is doing this to make it harder for people to leave EQ2 for Vanguard. That would be kinda slimy but hey, they’re businessfolk, they just want the bucks.
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Pingback: Station Access - Now With Higher Cost ! « Mrrx’s Character Journal
I have had a chance to sleep on this and think about it – and I have become surprisingly REALLY REALLY BUGGED about this price hike.
I got home last night to play – only to find the servers going down for a hotfix to presumably fix something that was broken by the latest Live Update. This is something I can recall occurring after virtually every Live Update and now they want me to pay MORE????.
I have always enjoyed the immersive lore of EQ over the little WoW I have played. But my husband is a big fan of WoW and he never has any complaints similar to what happened last night.
I also mention the disgraceful reviews that I have seen about peoples experiences with Vanguard – one of the reasons why they want to ??raise?? the price? If i was SOE i would be offering discounts not asking people to pay for playing an obviously incomplete (beta quality) game.
Also, I can play WoW and have virtually an unlimited number of toons for around half the price. I am an altaholic too:) Blizzard have really set the standards for a polished gaming experience and SOE just aren’t showing me that they are rising to this challenge.
SOE needs to listen to their player base. I completely dumped SWG after the Combat Upgrade and NGE. I had a maxed out toon that i had played for over a year and was VERY attached to. I have invested a lot of time and effort in EQ 2 and – it will break my heart to do so but I am considering dropping my EQ altogether. Then they will have no subsription from me.
I love my toon and I will miss the people I have formed relationships with in my EQ world – but i have done it once and can do it again. Not only will they not get the exta $US5 per month but they will loose both my $25 and my husbands $25 monthly subsriptions.
Sorry for the rant – I hope that I have conveyed some logical considered reasoning in amongst my obvious passion:)
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You sound like me last year Kilanna :) .
I think all the players get the issue, and so do the developers. Whoever it is exactly holding the purse strings at SOE, though, doesn’t.
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Thank you Mrrx.
I was saying the very same thing to my husband this morning. I have sympathy for the developers – I am sure that they are passionate about their work and love EQ as much as the players do. I just feel sad that there are people in the upper management that are making decisions like this that in the end will only hurt the game.
Perhaps with the passion that has been circulating within the community they might re-assess the situation and propose some changes. I dont mind a price increase provided I feel like I am getting value for money.
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DON’T FORGET ABOUT THIS PART
Yes, in caps to get attention because most people aren’t seeing this at the bottom of the FAQ about Station Access.
If you drop from Station Access to a regular subscription you will also have to PAY for all the ‘one time fee’ expansions (Bloodline, Dynasty, Splitpaw).
So, basically one of the two biggest selling points of Access to customers at this time is being rescinded. Since the additional characters was the other one, then Sony is really sticking it to it’s loyal customers.
If they think alot of people have Access just to get all the other games they are nuts. I think in the beginning it was a big selling point due to EQ1 and SWG, but I know very few people who play EQ2 that are still active in the other games at this time.
To me, this is a total slap in the face. Basically I was paying all that extra money for two things that I will no longer be able to access. Alot of time on extra characters, and now I have to also dump a close to $20 into expansions to keep them as well (and some AA’s are built specifically towards they spells given in those expansions).
All of this to support a game that is already failing miserably … Vanguard. That is where this money is going to .. not to anything EQ2, you can bet on it. They already raised Station Access once to offset the Vanguard addition, and now they are upgrading again to cover the costs to make a thoroughly underachieving game into something playable.
They had better announce some counter-measures soon, or they will be sending out ‘We want you back .. so we are dropping the price’ emails in a few months like they had to do for Everquest twice during it’s heyday.
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