Everquest II Extended Beta Begins

SOE has released the beta for Everquest II Extended, which means that you can finally experience Everquest II without a subscription. Only a few days past it’s originally schedule release, now portions of Everquest II’s five years worth of content can be accessed for free. Those still playing Everquest II will not be affected by this service as it will be offered in parallel to new and veteran players alike.

Extended will provide players with access to their new web-based streaming download application. This allows you to access the world of Norrath faster than before. Instead of waiting for a long download the content will be streamed to you on an as needed basis. This client has been in testing for sometime in the subscription based Everquest II. The technology is also used for SOE’s other Free-to-Play game, Free Realms. Having used both clients I know that as long as you have a decent internet connection that streaming works decently. For those of you with slower connections, such as low-end DSL, may notice issues with load times. This of course may change over time, but when dealing with larger zone areas I am not sure how much “network magic” they can work to make it stream any faster for those with lower bandwidth.

Everquest II Extended started August 19^th, 2010 and access to the Platinum Membership is scheduled to release on August 31^st, 2010.

I’m curious to see if the SOGA models that were released prior are still going to be available to those of us playing the Extended version of the game. Now that Everquest II has a free version available to play, even with its limitations, it may be one of the most polished Free-to-Play games on the market. Of course we won’t really know till we try it out. With that said I’ll be loading the client and taking a trip to Norrath once more, perhaps I’ll see you there.