Saying goodbye to SOE after 8 years

Yes, for almost 8 years i have had accounts with SOE, i played practicly all their MMO's since i started playing Star Wars Galaxies in 2004.
I played The Matrix Online, Everquest, Everquest 2, Vanguard, Pirates of the Burning Sea, DC Universe Online, Clone Wars, Free Realms, Planetside.

Until i was able to get Station Access (later called "All Access Game Pass") in the EU, i had several accounts going, so you could say i was a pretty loyal customer.
Eventhough i hardly played any of the SOE games lately i still had my account going, just in case i wanted to jump into one of their games.

But like they say: all good things come to an end.
I don't think i have to go into details as to why i am now cancelling all my SOE accounts, as an EU player it is pretty much obvious.

Stargrace over at MmoQuests has a pretty good summary about the whole ProSiebenSat.1 thing over here

For me it is enough to say goodbye to SOE after so many years of playing their games..

To me it is quite obvious SOE only cares about money and doesn't give a shit about their customers, so my wallet will speak for me and i will cancel any account i have with SOE.

The End.

Having to go back to the same place over and over is no fun!

Played a bit of Vanguard today, still a fun game.
Finishing up some of my quests, mostly in the same spider cave which got pretty boring after having to return over and over... but i did reach level 16 on my Bard, Endellion.

Still having fun with Vanguard

Played a little bit of Vanguard, continued and finishing a couple of quests.
Still at level 15 with my main Endelion.

Play my song.

Continued doing a couple of quests in Vanguard with Endellion, she is now a level 15 bard.

Flight of the griffon

Played a little bit of Vanguard today, finally picking up with a couple of quests and finishing some of them, also went for a flight on a griffon, which was a lot of fun but awfully short. It was over before i knew it :)
Only played with my main Endellion a lvl 14 bard, who is now almost lvl 15

Little bear Paddington

Logged into Vanguard for a bit, started on some new quest that i got through the riftway.
Also claimed some veteran rewards, now i have a little bear cub following me around :)

Vanguard

Finally played some Vanguard and i have to say i like it a lot more than EverQuest 2.
Still a lot of fun to play.
I played one of my alts, a level 8 (almost 9) Necromancer and i think that's a lot of fun to play, more fun than playing my main that is a level 14 bard.

Vanguard

Logged into Vanguard for a while, didn't do much other than exploring for a bit.
Went out to New Targonor, still think Vanguard is one of the best looking games out there, however i am still lost (at lvl 8!!!) with questing..

Up in Renton Keep

Played a bit of Vanguard, didn't do any questing, been mostly exploring, couldn't see much because of fog but i ended up in Renton Keep.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Logged into Vanguard for a bit, doing a few quests into the Tursh academy.

He who comes first..

Guess this is a nice bonus of the server merge, got a message that i am the first to finish this quest, cool :)

I see people...!!

Logged in to Vanguard today, after the server merges happened yesterday and i am finally seeing people walking around.
Also finally got my station access working (with a little help from customer service) so i'll probably be playing Vanguard a bit more.

Mostly did some diplomacy missions with my latest character, Cynheiddon, around Tursh.

Starting over.

Only have a few days left on my account, until i finally get Station access running, i won't be playing Vanguard after that.
I filed a customer support ticket because of the problems i am having getting my subscriptions upgraded to station access.
I am still waiting (5 days so far) for a "tier 2 specialist" to respond to my ticket .

Anyway, decided to roll a new character on Vanguard, with my main (lvl 14 high-elf Bard) i seem to be stuck on questing, don't know where to go, what to do next...
Maybe i missed a quest somewhere..
Plus i am not very happy with playing a bard, so i rolled a new character, a human necromancer.
Hopefully i can keep going on the questline with this one..

Vanguard, one last look

Apart from the beta's i'm in i played a little bit of Vanguard, decided to have a few last looks before my subscription runs out on the 9th next month.
I've cancelled my account, along with Matrix Online and Everquest II, i might return when/if i am able to get a Station Access account.
At this time it is not possible for me to get Station Access and i am not going to pay for all these games if i am only occasionally playing them, Station Access will cost me half of what i am paying for them together (incl. Star Wars Galaxies) and will even give me access to more games and why pay more if you don't have to..
However since i payed my subscriptions with global collect i seem not to be able to get Station Access until the subscriptions run out (according to customer service), which probably means i have to wait until my SWG sub runs out in March 2008 (i was stupid enough to pay 12 month in advance), as you can only get Station Access with a credit card.....

On Vanguard.., well it was awfully quiet, apart from the gold spam tells, i only saw a few people in there, the cities that used to look very busy with players, now look deserted.
Maybe the coming server merges will change this quite a bit and make it feel less like you're playing a single player game.
It still looks great and i'll defenatly be back sometime, still think this game has a lot of potential.

Founder Hauntshade

Founder Endellion of Leth Nurae

Lumberjacking

Just played a little before going to work.
Worked on my harvesting skills, went up to 100 in lumberjacking and 166 in harvesting. I am now a skill 162 harvester.

Placed some of my harvested goods on a vendor (timber and hides), hoping some crafters have a use for it (and of course to make a little cash).
I am thinking about trying out crafting, might be fun.
That's what i really like about this game, you're not limited to doing combat. You can go out harvesting (can include combat if you're going for hides), or do diplomacy, or craft stuff, so whatever i feel like doing i can. Sometimes combat tends to get boring and it's great to have an alternative.
Diplomacy is also great, it's like a card game within the game and has been lots of fun for me and sure is a lot more fun than doing quests to go out and kill x amount of y and x amount of z.

Vanguard Adventures

Today i didn't do much adventuring with Endellion, i just didn't feel like doing combat so i went out to do some lumberjacking to get my skills up, went from 40 to 79 in lumberjacking, it took a lot of time just to find a tree to cut down.

Other than that i did a little bit of shopping, bought some new bracers and 2 rings, i did go for a ride on my horse until i ran into some lvl 20 bears and decided it was not safe :)
So i went back to Leth Nurae and was just hanging out watching other players.

Vanguard Players

Vanguard has some really cool features, one of them is Vanguard Players.
On there loads of stuff from the game gets automaticly posted, it even features a blog.

For example, check my characters:
Main: Endellion
Alt: Hauntshade

I've been playing with Endellion mostly, hence why she's a lvl 11 and Hauntshade is "only" lvl 9