I grabbed a Station Pass subscription as a means of re-subscribing, thinking I’d check out recent SWG changes and perhaps give some other SOE games a shot (along with a fresh look at Planetside). The idea of the pass sounds good – try our other products and you might get hooked. But it’s nearly pointless as a customer-expanding tool if you still have to go out and buy the boxed game to actually try them – just like if you hadn’t subscribed at all. And once you do that you’ve already got a month subscription to whatever you just bought, making the pass superfluous until your subscriptions run out.
Does the Station Access subscription include the games themselves?
A: No. You must have purchased discs with a valid account key for each game/expansion you wish to play. If you sign an account up for Station Access service but you have only bought EverQuest and PlanetSide, that account will not be able to play EverQuest Online Adventures unless and until you go buy a copy of EverQuest Online Adventures.
Too bad, that. I’m not a customer (cancelled after seeing what they’d done to my SWG professions and then discovering there was nothing more to see from SOE even with the pass), and I would have liked to have been. They’re pretty close to making it really easy to become addicted to their lineup.
So you want demos or do you expect to be able to play full versions of all of their games using the pass? If the latter, does the price of the pass really justify that? If the former, can’t you get demos for those games anyway?
Still, I am with you on your main point. What is the pass for exactly? Just the online services of each game? If so, it doesn’t seem to be any better than any other online service for your games.
Most of the SOE games are in the Bargin Bin, I think–even EQ2 was going for around $30 the last I checked. It would be nice if for say, $50 you could get a SOE Gold Pack.
I think something like “Buy a year and get licenses to X games” would be good. Offering free unlimited access to all their games for a slightly above-average monthly fee? Meh.
Some sort of distribuation system like Steam would be good, too.
That’s sort of the jab, though – whose game will you pick next, and how can they improve the odds of it being one of theirs? Being more or less finished with one game, if I’ve got to go back to the store to try the next thing then nothing’s keeping me from sampling someone else’s kool-aid. The lock-in opportunity is lost once you have to open your wallet anew, especially if it involves a check-out counter.
That’s sort of the jab, though – whose game will you pick next, and how can they improve the odds of it being one of theirs? Being more or less finished with one game, if I’ve got to go back to the store to try the next thing then nothing’s keeping me from sampling someone else’s kool-aid. The lock-in opportunity is lost once you have to open your wallet anew, especially if it involves a check-out counter.[/quote]
Yeah, but if you’re a savvy shopper you can get free trials or grab a gold edition of a game like DAoC or EQ for $10 and get a free month. Hardcore MMO players are savvy shoppers I would think.
To me, the real attraction of the SOE pass is for EQ players who want to retain their EQ accounts for social reasons but want to move on and play EQ2. That’s where the pass makes sense. Or substitute SWG for EQ2. Then toss in Planetside as an action game that you can play once in awhile and you’ve got a good deal.
If you don’t have that EQ account you want to keep, however, I don’t see the pass as being all that attractive.
I don’t think the original EQ1 account is the key. I can easilly see someone who plays both SWG and EQ2 wanting the station pass, with, as you said, Planetside tossed in.
I keep hoping NCSoft will do the same thing with all their MMOs
