Original Everquest Taking the Free-to-Play Route

A popular trend happening with MMO gaming today is to either launch a title as free-to-play (F2P) from the get go, and to transition a failing pay-to-play into a free-to-play one. The latter fate struck one of my favorite MMORPGs this past December, Lineage II, and it’s certainly not alone. In recent months, both Star Trek Online and Everquest 2 have gone the F2P route. Apparently, Sony wasn’t about to stop with just EQ2, as it’s now been announced that the original game will become F2P in March.

Originally released in March of 1999, Everquest became one of the first three major MMOs (Asheron’s Call and Ultima Online were the others), and despite it having been released about 13 years ago, the game has retained a healthy following. But, with any game that starts to suffer revenue-wise, a F2P route is the best one to take, ensuring that a game (hopefully) has a long life ahead of it.

There are two F2P models that are popular right now. One offers all content in the game for free, but sells in-game items. The other restricts most of the game, requiring people to purchase content or opt for a subscription fee. Everquest seems to be implementing a model that uses elements of both. Classes, races and areas will be heavily restricted, but if someone opts for a premium account, everything will be available. If you don’t want a monthly fee, you can instead purchase Station Coin in order to purchase individual components of the game. It’s a clunky way to do it, but it’s an option.

As has become common with F2P MMOs, there’s a confusing matrix that has been posted that shows what is and what’s not available with the different accounts. For some, the F2P-only account might be sufficient, but it seems unlikely anyone would feel that way for too long.

As mentioned above, Asheron’s Call is another MMO that came out the same year as Everquest, but it’s yet to go F2P. However, the developer, Turbine, offers both of its other games as F2P, so it might just be a matter of time before AC goes the same route. And possibly every other MMO, the way things are going.