SOE's EQ2 Generosity

Big news on the EQ2 forums today - all EQ2-Live characters created prior to the free-to-play conversion will be grandfathered in for non-subscription access to their race/class.  Players who purchased access to these options after the relaunch will have their Station Cash refunded, as you will now only need to unlock the race/class if you intend to make additional characters using that option. 

Lots of locks, all going away tomorrow

Personally, all seven of my seven EQ2 Live characters are currently locked - all seven are premium races and six of the seven are premium classes.  I had resigned myself to paying to unlock Lyriana and never touching the other six characters again.  Now, I will have permanent access to all of them, and I was even granted enough character slots to use all of them without re-subscribing because I filled all my slots on EQ2X with placeholders to save names in case I ever copied Lyriana over. 

I don't agree with a number of decisions the EQ2 team has made in the last year, especially on the business model, but I have to tip my cap on this unexpected and generous move.  In fairness, SOE will make some money off this deal - I personally will immediately use my Station Cash balance (albeit unpaid, from various promos over the years) to purchase gear unlocks and bag slot unlocks (I don't remember when these went into EQ2X, but I'm shocked that you can expand your inventory back up to the full six bagslots for only $3).  Even so, I think they're leaving a significant amount of money on the table to make sure that they're doing right by former players, in a situation where I don't think they were in the wrong to begin with.