And it's all this guy's doing, obviously
Sometime in early March, the changeover is set to occur, with the 13-year-old game joining its sequel, EverQuest 2 as well as Sony Online Entertainment-published DC Universe Online in getting a tiered "freemium" model as Sony looks to keep the venerable classic MMO alive with a changeup to the F2P model beginning in March.
At the basic level, with a free subscription, you can jump in to play with the occasional pop-up ad reminding you upgrade to the Premium, Gold subscription, but otherwise it's mostly the EQ experience you've known for over a decade now. The one-time $5 Silver membership provides some additional perks like more alternate abilities and more walking around money that your character can carry on you. Then, there's the $14.99 a month Gold subscription which provides pretty much unlimited access to the many in-game elements as well as full customer support (you can see how the tiers break down on this handy chart).
I can see this as a way for Sony to keep the lights on for EQ, although I'm surprised that there are enough players out there to justify putting the work into keeping such an old game alive. The F2P model seems to be working out for SOE, so I can understand the motivation to apply it here, although I'm baffled that there's much clamor among gamers to keep EverQuest around.
[Source: Gamespot]
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