SOE releases EQII Age of Discovery expansion, Freeport revamp, F2P model

There are big days, and there are big days, and today is definitely the latter when it comes to EverQuest II. First of all, as producer Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson says in his newly minted producer's letter, "today we stop requiring any sort of payment."

Yes, free-to-play is here (again, and across the board this time). That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. Today also marks the introduction of the much-ballyhooed Freeport revamp along with the rest of Game Update 62, and oh yeah, did we forget to mention the Age of Discovery expansion?

If so, the short version of AoD includes the dungeon-maker tool, mercenaries, the Beastlord class, and a ton of customization and collectible updates sure to make your stay in Norrath even more enjoyable. We could tell you about 20 additional alternate advancement points, a new launchpad and website, new social networking integration, and more, but then you'd have no reason to check out the official forums for yourself. Check out the official AoD trailer after the break.

Reader Comments (18)

Stop posting misleading post. The game is not released yet it's still in progress.

@aaradun

This.

The new version of EverQuest II is not yet live, as of this writing, as far as I can tell.

The new launcher only sends you to the EQII website, where a "coming soon" announcement awaits.

@mysecretid that's what i meant it's not up and running thus this patch is not release and running.

@aaradun

I was agreeing with you. "This" was referring to what you said.

Cheers,

A dungeon maker in an MMO....Hmmmm.. That sounds like it could be brilliant.

I was going to make a Beastlord, but I've just realised that the expansion is $40!

Think I'll wait awhile :)

I would love to come back to this game. I was a day one player and I played a high elf templar and considering that toon is now locked and can not be played without a sub then I have to pass. I miss that toon she had her prismatic weapon before the first expansion.

@shoan All characters made before November of this year are grandfathered. That means you can play that character without an unlocker.

@shoan

Bah, the weekend was free. Today is free. The whole game went F2P. The last 4 characters you logged in as will remain free. So just log in as your main and you are good. To use your gear, you will have to purchase equipment unlocks, but that's it.

@Yellowdancer thank you so much for that info i hope I can get my high elf unlocked

"Unforeseen issues" have extended the downtime, no ETA yet.

Nothing unforeseen there then ;)!

I can log into the character select screen but says my server (Freeport) is locked. I'm a gold subscriber, all but 2 of my characters are locked. Says, "This character is beyond your character limit." So even with gold subscription you can only have 2 characters before you gotta spend 1k station cash for another character spot?

Did they give us 4k station cash for free. I had 11,050 station cash but now it shows 15,050 station cash. Perhaps they gave me 1k station cash credit for the 4 character slots they locked?

@(Unverified) most of those issues with locked chars will be worked out when the launch finishes, according to soe

@(Unverified)

I would assume you got SC with the expansion. All the other expansions had SC included.

Everything is locked...we're just twiddling our thumbs. I went to play some DCUO...but I really want my Beastlord

@Yellowdancer

I haven't purchased the expansion yet. Was waiting until i could purchase the CE with my SC. However, I saw they listed AoD standard edition in the marketplace but haven't seen CE listed yet. Standard edition in marketplace is listed at 3999SC.

@(Unverified) the CE one when it goes SC will be 8999 more then likely.

@(Unverified)

Yeah, I bought the standard one. I don't really go into the fluff stuff. I rarely ever claim my vet rewards.

all of my toons are must purchase race/class :(

SOE releases EQII Age of Discovery expansion, Freeport revamp, F2P model

Reader Comments (18)

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 5:10PM aaradun said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 5:26PM mysecretid said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 6:32PM aaradun said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 6:38PM mysecretid said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 5:12PM hami83 said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 5:24PM bobfish said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 5:36PM shoan said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 6:00PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 6:06PM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 9:32PM shoan said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 6:13PM Seffrid said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 6:16PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 6:24PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 7:16PM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 7:36PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 7:41PM aaradun said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 9:00PM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Dec 6th 2011 8:49PM (Unverified) said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

The Secret World launch delayed to July 3rd

Featured Stories

The Mog Log: The Legacy rewards and what they mean

The Tattered Notebook: The passing of Ribbitribbitt

The Firing Line: PlanetSide 2's Matt Higby on the MMOFPS revolution

Engadget

Joystiq

WoW

TUAW