Here’s the gist of things.

Those of us who have been paying the $15 monthly will still enjoy everything we’ve had access to up until now. There will be no change whatsoever because we’re grandfathered in as vets. New players will have some choices to make.

They can take a free option and get some really basic access to the game. There will only be a few options available for races and classes, only one character slot available, and other such restrictions. The biggest one to affect anyone who would buy plat is that there would be a maximum enforced on how much you can hold.

Next you have a Silver level that allows more freedom, an extra character slot, and some more room for plat and other things. This is designed as a one time purchase for people more serious about playing that the average free player but not quite into as much as the truly hardcore.

After that comes Gold. That’s roughly equivalent to what we have now as paying members. There are still some limits on starting races, but you can buy them separately. You can use legendary items and other such important things. Plus there’s plenty of room for plat if you were looking to buy some. That will give you just about everything except the content available in Sentinel’s Fate. Once you buy that, though, you’re covered.

Then comes the choice for the truly hardcore. The Platinum membership is not for the weak of heart or the empty of wallet. It’s $200 per year which kinda will cut into any plat buying around the time it’s taken, but you get benefits galore for it. It includes everything. By that I mean all content, including Sentienel’s Fate, all of the possible races and classes, EVERYTHING. It’s a lot to pay, but it will be worth every penny. I’m not opposed to the idea, although affording it is going to be… interesting at best.

I’m more for sticking with the monthly membership I have. It’s easier to budget and I won’t gain anything I don’t already have.

It isn’t often that a company will go back and add new content to the beginning of a game. But the crazy devs responsible for EQ2 have done just that.

If you haven’t heard, they launched the Halas Reborn expansion which is a brand new area for starting characters. It will have all of the great trappings of a whole new game. You’ll be playing in the Halas tundra that will have new housing, Raids galore, and a starting zone all its own.

Some of you may be wondering just why anyone would do that? Well, for one thing just about everyone and their dog has played the standard starting zone for EQ2, so it’s gotten a little stale. It’s hard to draw in the newest generation of gamers if you’re still using the content that the last two generations have played. Yes there is the nostalgia factor, but that just doesn’t hold up when there’s so much competition for the MMO audience out there.

The other reason this is fun is actually focused on the veteran players. Sometimes is really great to start a new character and play from the beginning again. No rushing, no powerleveling. You still buy plat of course, but not as much of it. It’s fun to take the trip down memory lane, same as if you ever got the itch to load up EQ1, or Diablo 2, or Double Dragon (okay I just dated myself there). The only problem with this is as soon as you start playing those opening areas again, you start remembering what you didn’t like about them as well. The quests were kind of tedious, focusing on fetching and really basic play. The area hasn’t changed much so you’re looking at the same old places you’ve been before.

The addition of a new starting area breaks that up a little. For me, it’s the chance to try out a different class and not mind starting from the very beginning. It will feel nostalgic in that I’m playing a weakling trying to make my way through the brutal fledgling stages of herodom, but it will feel new just like it did the first time I installed EQ2 because I won’t know what to expect.

Anyway, buy some plat and check this thing out. It’s going to be fun!

It’s one of those things that happens to everyone eventually, especially if you buy plat. The day will come when you really want to try out a new site because they’re offering a great deal on plat, and with the money you save you can almost double your buy. This, my friends, is where the tale begins.

It starts simply enough. Just like I outlined above, a friend of a friend was really looking to try out a new site because he did a basic search and found a wonderful new site that offered some screaming deals. He was more than happy to try them out. The site was a little shoddy, but it was new so that seemed forgivable. The delivery time wasn’t great, but he figured you get what you pay for, and he could afford to be patient. They claimed to have plat at 500 for $10, and with that kind of savings he was okay waiting a week for delivery. He placed the order and thought it was nice they didn’t hassle him with a confirmation call. He quickly bought a money order for $50 and sent it off to the po box listed, then sat back and waited.

Here are a few things that should have raised some red flags for him. First and foremost, there is no way any site is offering that good a deal on plat. Even Toonstorm, where I usually shop, never goes below $100 for that much plat.

Next, a week long delivery time? Really? Where do they have to go for this plat, the moon? The longest I’ve ever seen anywhere is 48 hours, and that’s an outside figure. Sorry, that just doesn’t fly in my book.

Third and biggest - no confirmation call! Not even a live chat option! That little field where you filled out your character name? Yeah, they aren’t even reading it at this point. It’s there for show.

Finally, and possibly the greatest cardinal sin of buying plat, HE SENT A MONEY ORDER! Never, ever, under any circumstances should you use that method of payment. You may as well eat the cash. You’ll get more out of it that way. Pay pal or credit cards only, please.

Needless to say, that week went by and he didn’t hear from them. Now it’s been 3 weeks, and the site doesn’t even exist anymore, typical of a good scam.

Words to the wise folks. Be careful

Some of you are veterans and don’t need me telling you anything. In that case, feel free to stop reading and tune in next time, same bat time, same bat channel. For the rest of you, read on.

If you’re going to buy plat, do some research first. Google to get a few sites that look good, then google them to see if they’re actually legit. The review information on any given site is rarely accurate because they can tailor it to whatever they want. You need good third party information. This can be a lengthy process because you need to weed out the flamers to get some really good insight into what a site is like.

This all leads me to point two: check for credentials. Most of the really good sites out there have been looked at by industry experts and rated. Take Toonstorm.com for example. They’ve consistently gotten excellent ratings from Bizrate and others over the years. For those of you who don’t know, Bizrate is an independant group that provides consumer ratings on a variety of products. They’re very reliable and extremely informative.

Next, try to stay local. While sites located outside the US can have some really great deals, there’s always the risk that they’ll take your money and run. There’s no real oversight on that sort of business. If they’re located within the US, they’re bound to US business laws and are easy enough and safe enough to work with. Besides, no one wants to see a repeat of what happend when WoW dropped their 3.1 patch and nailed all of the Chinese outfits on the market.

Finally, only use sites that take easily-tracked payments. If they insist on money orders, you may as well be burning the cash. Credit cards and Paypal are perfectly safe for plat buyers no matter what claims they try to make.

I really hope this helps everyone.

I had a little time today so I figured I’d drop a little advice for you all. I figure it’s a good time for a refresher. Whenever a new expansion comes out there is a massive influx of newbies who really want to get into the game. This is really great for us, because it generates revenue for EQ, which means more updates and expansions in the future.

Some of the people who are coming in will have the same mentality as we all do, as well. They, like us, will be fed up with the pointless grinding and wasting time on getting enough plat to do any of the fun stuff out there. This is great, but some of them have never done anything like that before, which puts them at serious risk if they aren’t careful. Plus, if a bunch of newbies get busted it can increase scrutiny overall which makes plat buying more difficult for the rest of us.

So here’s a little primer on things to avoid when you’re buying plat for the first time.

First and foremost, don’t make a big deal out of your buy, especially in game. The GMs are monitoring chat at all times, after all. And even if they somehow miss you, another player who overhears is usually happy to write up a complaint. From there you end up with an account review and a possible suspension or banning. Not good at all.

Next, be picky about who you buy from. There are plenty of places out there, but not all of them have the same security policies that others do. Toonstorm, for example, has a really good track record. I’ve never had a handoff go sour with them, and the GMs have never even noticed me.

The next thing to worry about is volume. If you start picking up tons and tons of plat but are a low level character, that puts you on the radar. Usually they won’t do anything at that point, but they will start watching you. Then the second they see anything that doesn’t look quite right, they’ll nail you for it.

Next time I think I’ll drop some tips about how to be safe when buying the plat. It’s really easy to get scammed if you aren’t careful, and I’d want you to be able to do your own buying safely.

So, with the new expansion has come a new opportunity for me to write a review. A guildmate of mine has been wanting to make a few upgrades to his lineup, but hasn’t had the plat to make the change just yet. I clued him in to buying plat a while back, but he wasn’t sure he trusted the idea enough to risk his cash or his character. With SF out he finally started seeing just how much time he could be saving himself with even a single buy.

He and I sat down and started pulling up a few sites to see what he felt comfortable with. Of course there were thousands to look through what with the new expansion, so we had to take a little time to weed out some of the obvious fakes.

That left us with three choices. After looking things over for a few minutes he settled on Toonstorm.com. He liked their layout, their prices were better than the other two, and their delivery times were faster. That last had him worried until I told him that I like to buy plat from them too, and have never had a problem.
So next he hops into live chat to verify the order. The rep there was really friendly and gave him an eta of about an hour for his plat. My friend logs on and starts lining up what he wants to buy with it. He’s only at that about 30 minutes when the delivery is ready.

There you have it. Another great review for Toonstorm.

Of course most of these goodies are for those of us at high levels, and come at high level prices. Nothing is cheap, nevermind free, and you’re really going to have to stock up on plat to get any of the really good stuff.

A serious downside to expansion launches is that every place out there seems to jump their prices on plat. There are good reasons for this of course. WHen the new expansion comes online, the GMs are going to be even more vigilant than usual where plat buyers are concerned, and everyone gets a little nervous. In order to combat the loss of available plat that comes with the paranoia their suppliers develop, they up the bounty on the plat, which ups our prices a little.

The only real exception I noticed was Toonstorm.com. Their prices moved, but not much. Their prices are still really good, and you can get 150 plat for under $50 easily there. And with the suppliers they use, your purchase is still guaranteed 100%. So while everyone else is running up their prices, Toonstorm is trying to do the best they can by their customers and their suppliers.

So, with that in mind I decided to make a little buy of my own. That 150 was just to good a deal to pass up. With my current stash of plat, that gives me enough to get some of the new gear that I was looking forward to.

As usual, I got a confirmation call within about 5 minutes of placing hte order. The rep let me know that things were running a little slower than usual due to the increase in order volume from the expansion. Even so, it was oinly going to be about 45 minutes before my order was ready. Not bad all things considered. That gave me some time to line up some of the items I was going to spend my plat on. I got a pleasant surprise about 30 minutes later when someone dropped me a message to meet them. So off I went to get my plat, and from there to do some serious upgrading.

Anywho, buy plat safely, and have fun with the new areas!

Well, here we are only a week before the next expansion launches for EQ2! I dont’ know about the rest of you, but I’ve really been enjoying all of the pre-launch stuff that they’ve been doing. Now I’m just drooling in anticipation of the release of Sentinel’s Fate.

Of course, with a new expansion, the market for anyone looking to buy plat is going to fluctuate pretty heavily in the next few weeks. I’ll try to keep some sort of tally about who’s got the best prices out there, at least among trusted names.

This brings me to something that I should mention to everyone out there planning to stock up. Whenever a new expansion or major patch drops for any MMO, you run a serious risk of getting scammed. New places will open up on launch day that will claim to have awesome prices and blah blah blah. They’ll spam just about every place they can to get noticed and lure in as many suckers as possible. DON’T BE ONE OF THEM!

For right now, I’d advise sticking with safe and familiar places for your purchases. It’s tempting to go after what looks like a great deal, but you just can’t be too sure with an expansion on the horizon.

I’ve recommended Toonstorm.com many times in the past, and I’m going to do so again. They are one of the safest places out there to buy eq2 plat, and their track record shows it. Plus, they’ll be ready for any new sort of security that the devs at EQ headquarters have planned for sniffing out plat buyers. I haven’t come this far only to have my precious plat or character taken away. Not with all of that glorious new content coming out!

Anyway, now is the time to keep a low profile and play everything as safe as you can. Feel free to buy, just make sure that the place you’re buying from can be trusted. Me, I’m going to stick with Toonstorm for the time being. I’ll let you know if anything new comes up after the dust settles.

Later.

Welcome to 2010! A new year means new opportunities for fun and adventure in EQ2. I’ve really been working my rear off trying to get some new gear and skill masteries. Getting the funds for this is never easy, so I’ve placed a couple orders over the last couple of weeks for some plat to really get me going. This did get me thinking that it’s been a while since I talked about how to handle buying plat safely.

So, here’s a refresher course on how this sort of thing should work.

First, a couple of don’ts:

Don’t buy the plat in large quantities. Most sites offer better prices the higher you go, but this also can put you on the radar for a suspension if they find out. It’s better to buy smaller quantities over time. Although you end up paying a little more, there are places where you can buy plat with good enough prices that it won’t matter anyway.

Don’t talk about buying plat! It’s the same as Fight Club - the first rule is, we don’t talk about it. The chats are always being monitored for that sort of thing, just like they are for spam. And if the GMs don’t catch it, other players who don’t feel the same way we do about it might, and they can report it just as well as a GM.

On the other hand…

Do pay attention when you place your order. Make sure you’ve selected the correct server and given the company your character name so that they can deliver it properly. Spelling matters here, with as many people playing as there are.

Do look for a money-back guarantee (like the one at Toonstorm.com). Places that offer one of these are willing to put you, the customer, first. That means better prices and safer delivery methods.

Also, use common sense. If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. Most of us heard what happened when Blizzard dropped the 3.1 patch on WoW. Dozens of players who had used shady gold farmers were suddenly banned and companies disappeared overnight. It’s better to find a US based company who offer realistic delivery times instead of hyped up claims from a website you can barely read.

Take it easy out there!

Sorry I’ve been out of touch for a while.  The long summer really kept me busy outside (those trails aren’t going to blaze themselves, after all) and I couldn’t help but take advantage of the nice weather.  At least until it disappeared about a month ago.  Since then I’ve been getting things reorganized and what not so I could get back in the blogging game. 

Enough about me!  I hope everyone out there had a great Frostfell this year!  I know I did.  I’m really excited to start catching up with my guild again.  It turns out that a 8 month break from a game really can make a difference.  So, in order to make up for lost time, I’m going to place a couple orders over the next week for some plat. 

Since I’ve been out of the loop for a bit I’m not 100% sure that I want to try a new place out this month.  A lot of new companies have sprung up lately, and some of them don’t look very reliable.  So today I’m going with an old standby.  Prices at Toonstorm.com are really good right now anyway, so I figure I may as well take advantage of it, right?  Plus, they’re offering a special deal right now to celebrate new year’s! 

Just go to the site and use coupon code PARTY when you process your order.  They’ll give you 10% off right then and there!  Talk about awesome!

Like I said, I’m way behind in my gear, so I’m going to place a pretty big order today.  I figure 200 plat should cover me, for a little while anyway.  I may have to get more soon since I have a lot I need to do.  Normally, that would run 81.20, but with the deal running right now, it’s only 73.08!

So, I placed my order about 3 minutes ago and I already have my email!  It says my order should be ready in about 20 minutes.  LIke I’ve said before, I’m  not very patient, so I’m going to log in right now.  Lo and behold, my plat is already waiting for me.  It would seem that Toonstorm.com has stood the test of time and is still a great place to buy EQ2 plat.