Zekiran_Immortal

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I have no prob with ingame advertising as long as our monthly subscription fee is reduced as well. If we have to look at the signs then we deserve a discount to play.
If there is an option then let some players initially choose if they accept the adverts, so they can qualify for the discount.

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I'd have no problem with it either, IF the advertising money added up to enough that it would actually make a difference.

However, look at it from a business point of view: the money they get from subs (just as a number) is 100$ per month. The money they will be getting from these ads (again just a number, but based specifically on things that the rednames have stated within the last 2 days right here on the forums) is around 1$ at most. AT MOST. Pennies on the dollar, echoing the sentiment that this is merely *extra* for the company to devote to the game.

They don't want to raise our sub fees - they've also stated that. However, our sub fees have remained exactly the same (gosh this is sounding like another post I've already made) for almost 4 full years. Name anything else in the country that has done that? Gas? Water? Electricity? Food? nope. So...

If it means we take a penny off our subscription - that's what it'd be worth to them. They do not expect this extra funding to overshine their subscribers, and therefore have always tried to maintain that we come first.

Our sub money does not give them anything they didn't already have. The purchasable items and the ad income gives them extras which we have already seen bring us tangible results (VEATS an issue early for one real big one). This isn't trying to slice our costs to them, it's trying to gain them an extra penny or two, which add up in the long run.

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that sounds pretty sweet posi wish u would impliment that sooner

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..... I'm assuming you didn't notice that it's already in the game?

There's nothing whatsoever Reaganomic about this process.

1) we pay for monthly subs which provide for the basic financing for this game.
2) They provide occasional other services or in-game options for a fee, none of which have any indication of being "required" to play with everyone else. These extra fees have generated funding to accellerate the process of putting out more content for our subscriptions to use.
3) Advertising adds to that 'extra' by pennies on the dollar (see BAB's recent posts about it, along with LH's) that won't supercede subscriber dollars nearly enough to change anything drastically, but will provide extra, non-raising-subscription-fee type income which they can use to directly bolster the game's development (all stated clearly in interviews/articles).

Essentially, advertising is not bad. I don't know why people really think that looking at demographics is akin to evil stereotyping or something. If I had a product, I would want to know exactly who is in the right place and mood to buy it.

and you know... some people playing the game and others like it, might, you know, BE in advertising... They are not inherently evil. It is merely their job to promote a product or a type of service to people who they believe will want to use it. If people are inclined to buy or use SOME product, an ad may sway them to THAT product instead of its competition.

That's all.

We start running Blipverts on tv or inserting direct code into brains? That's evil. but... that's still 20 minutes into the future.

Yet the "obvious" benefit is "they have more to spend on the game".

That is enough for many. It obviously isn't enough for you - but do you ask "well why isn't Ford giving me a free car! I watch plenty of their commericals!" Or, do you like many of us, watch commercial free PBS and expect more than you're giving them? Even public broadcasting has always had to resort to getting corporate or local sponsorship because it's never quite enough to rely on the (what is it, they keep saying on the pbs radio station I listen to?) 4% of listeners who actually do contribute?

We're not in that boat yet. Everyone playing the game *is* sponsoring it with their dollars. But we've already been given the information we need to understand: this is EXTRA money, that they would otherwise have to merely wait for in sales of items, in game and out. By giving them more money more quickly, ads might help accellerate all the FREE issues we have on the roster upcoming.

That's pretty tangible, really.

Someone's already brought up the fact that MMO prices are bound to increase over time. It's been a very steady rate for us so far - the only change came when taxes on internet services were added to some states' payment schemes.

This isn't to "reduce our payment" and put in advertisements. It's to put in advertisements to *increase their revenue*.

New games which aren't free are likely to be as much as 20$ a month - if our 12-15 will remain the same and we still get the bonus of having extra income provide the devs with funds they'll apply to the program, I'm glad not to have an *increased* payment for the game.

So the likelyhood of our subs going down is nil. Unless you DO want splash screens and additional ads popping up, like in free games... I don't.

I've definitely got to get off my butt and organize the gamey thing I had in mind last year. *must go find the submission guides for image size and such*.

oHO

They're not swapping anything: they are adding those items to the new character creation lists. You cannot ever respec into a completely new powerset, still. They aren't "in addition to your existing" powers. They're only for newly created characters.

I didn't find any, but i'm not even sure what to look for. I'm not very good at guessing games... :/

Hm?

*goes back to check....*

Oh nice work. And color-coordinated too! Awesome!

I think my head just esplodedded.

Happy birthday Liquid

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Was an awesome prank. Can't wait to see what you do next year.

So how many people have made FREEM! their battle cry?

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I'm suspecting quite a few by now. I mean, I'm thinking of doing an entire character based on it ... FREEM-LASS or something.

Oh you know what would be just as good for a lot of us? A macro we could hook into that clicks like a power, and (because it's visual) would apply to the "chatspam" rule and be silent for a bit if you use it too much. With these sfx on them, click "FREEM!" appears. click "PEWPEWPEW!" appears.

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Now, I have read the article, and understand the logistics behind it all. It's not a bad idea to generate revenue, especially if they go after advertisers they know the audience will pay attention to. This opens up advertising opportunities for console video games, comics, movies, etc. targeted at the audience that plays CoH.

My main concern is I dropped an MMO that tried this horribly wrong, Dungeon Runners. Granted, I didn't want to pay the extra $5 a month to not see them, but if you even clicked on the screen while the ad was there you went directly to an offsite. I can't tell you quickly I dropped Dungeon Runners (even though it is free) because my computer got infested with spyware from some of those invasive sites. I'm all for ingame advertising, but please do NOT follow that model.

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They've made it very clear that they won't

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It'd also help those who are hard of hearing or deaf.

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This is the one good use for this I'd ever want. But it... just... looks so darn hokey.

Sorry - you are correct I've been reading the boards since 10 this morning. It's exhausting. snarkiness retracted The mechanism which controls Patron pools however - is not a badge, clearly though.

... Not like I have a villain to worry about it, anyway lol. *waggles my respec-able power pools at thread* hah.

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The key issue, as is the case with respeccing Patron Powers, is that they don't have a way to remove badges from the game.

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Sure they do. There might not be a way to automate the process, which there would have to be if side-switching were implemented. But they have removed badges before, so we know that removing badges is a possibility.

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And obviously you know that it's exactly the same process.
Which is why we can change Patrons. Oh wait.

We can't. Because it's NOT that simple. If it were JUST a badge, don't you think we'd have this feature by now?

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In case you got this far (or only found this through the Dev Tracker)...

Visual Sounds are NOT going into the game. We are NOT deleting all your sounds off your hard drive. This was NCNorCal's internet prank for April 1st, 2008.

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And when are the Martian's landing, Mr. Wells?

Gak, just realized I'm dating myself there

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Only if you were there to listen to it

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That would rule.

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In case you got this far (or only found this through the Dev Tracker)...

Visual Sounds are NOT going into the game. We are NOT deleting all your sounds off your hard drive. This was NCNorCal's internet prank for April 1st, 2008.

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really? i was looking forward to it.

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I think it's so very sad that a redname actually had to come and confirm this even though it's actually written right there on the page... *reading comprehension for the win*

It'd be cute. But ... eugh, really no. I didn't much even care for it in the offline game which used it. (was that freedom force or HeroX? I think it was HeroX, because I didn't really play ff much.)

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Holy Crap!!!

How are people not realizing it was an April Fools Joke!!!???

Of course, when I first read about the in-game ads they will be having, I thought, "Wait, the first was on Tuesday..."

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People don't actually READ. What's wrong with you. They cancelled 'reading' at the Internet front door.

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Personally, one of the things I like about the CoX games is that it's a comic book game without being too cheesy. I won't be turning this game feature on. To me, it would detract from the quality of my game-play experience. It's like putting all of those "visual sounds" from the old Batman TV series into the "Heroes" one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people out there who will like this. I'm glad the game is trying to be innovative and come up with options that appeal to a wide range of individuals. For me though, this one doesn't work.

And I have to say it... I'm constantly perplexed by introducing new fluff features such as this, when there are things in the game that are broken and need attention in a bad way (e.g. PVP balancing, base items that don't work, the Cathedral of Pain Trial, etc. etc.). Let's focus on the things that people REALLY want and have been asking for and not waste time on stuff like this. Or at least not until everything else that we've been asking for has been fixed or given to us.

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..... Read moar posts. April Fools gag. Not in game. Jeez.

With any luck the new ability to move things around on the UI and have more visible trays out might help there

This thread is still so full of awesome.

This is all manner of awesomesauce.

I definitely DO hope though that this leads to at least a "soon" looking over of the issues with supergroup mode, visibility of certain costume pieces while in the sg menu, off-colored items (those which have color 1 and 2 mixed as opposed to the others in that piece's selection) and the like. But this is very nice indeed!

And yes, it does give hope to those dramatically underachieving folks who can't organize a unique costume to save their lives now they won't have to worry. Unless there's some trickery involved and you press the button and it looks really, really funny

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Lighthouse, Ex, Castle, well..anyone really with a red name.

What if testing proves a set port didnt work en masse like ice brutes in CoV beta. They obviously made it through your internal testing and QA but in practice it was found they didnt work.

If something is found NOT to work, what is the plan?

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We still have a bit more time in Alpha with Issue 12. Then we have weeks of closed beta followed by more weeks of open beta. There is always time to remove or alter things, as per the plan.

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Thanks for saying that. Make me feel slightly better.

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Indeed - this is something that all the nay-sayers and a lot of the yay-sayers need to remember: this Issue hasn't even gone into Beta yet. This is a FLUID portion of the game's development. It means there might be significant changes still yet to come, or ones which had not been expected or forseen. If something doesn't work, it can be removed and put in at a later time, or tweaked to fit, or replaced entirely.

This also in no way *limits the devs* to new things to be added, changed, or mixed in. This is not the end of the world, we're not being encased in amber just this way.

Wait it out. If you're among the lucky ones chosen for Beta, do your best to help test this stuff out! But it's not worth crying Doom over, because something specific MIGHT work a particular way. We don't know yet. So chill.

And THANK YOU devs, for doing anything of the sort!

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Lighthouse did you forget about your "balance vision" or did you just stop caring? just wondering.. oh yea and gg.

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Lighthouse isn't responsible for game content. Poor guy.