Is Spell Research dead?

[Sukrasisx]

My wizard made the last 50+ points of research -- and finished evolving his trophy -- all by selling spells in the Bazaar. I would often get orders for several spells at once from regular customers levelling up their alts, and I also kept a "storefront" of 50-60 spells that sold slowly but continuously for years. So my blood ran cold when I saw this in the patch notes as EQ went free to play this week:

- The scholars of the Library of Myrist in the Plane of Knowledge have expanded their inventories. They now carry most spells, tomes, or songs that an adventurer will need. They do not carry ancient spells or advanced spell ranks.

Sure enough, all those spells that I kept in stock or made on request, are now available for far less than I can afford to charge. The cost of making the parchment cleaning solutions alone is more than the merchants are charging for the finished spells.

Without the spell business, I'm not convinced it's worth my while leaving a bazaar trader up at all. And I probably don't need my buyer to pay for all those parchments/vellums/etc. I guess I can see how it helps prop up players who can't find (or afford) spell researchers to make spells for them, but I wonder what people are going to do with all those spell research component drops now?

[Aanuvane]

I too was very surprised to see all the spells offered. I thought it was "nice" that they were offering more spells in one location rather than having to constanty research, do I go to PoK, Abysmal Sea, Everfrost, Commonlands etc to pick up a particular spell and then if it was only dropped, make the decision whether to buy or farm (I do have a fully loaded researcher on Povar, but currently on Bristlebane playing with the kids). Even the spells that were purchasable with LDoN points are there! I haven't gotten my new characters high enough to see if DoN spells are there, but I suspect they are. In some respects I think this is very sad, not entirely from your point of view that it kills the low end research market, but just that part of what makes EQ challenging and interesting was doing some of the content to get these spells. Personally, I use the bazaar a lot and make a fair amount of plat doing so and have never really ever bothered with spells - so it's possible to keep making money, but if you're interested it's probably just rk. IIs or shifting your focus to other items people commonly need

There is no denying that this move to F2P and the changes they brought with it will be disruptive to the existing "Gold Membership" player base. Change is inevitable, I'll be looking for more new ways to enjoy the game and trying very hard not to focus on the negative.