Zwillinger

We are still investigating these issues. Still no ETA.

The following servers are currently offline: Justice, Liberty, Guardian, Infinity and Union. We are currently investigating the cause of this downtime and will update as soon as we have further information. At this time we have no ETA for restoration of service.

Thank you for your patience and we apologize for the inconvenience.

One could go and dig up the various articles which we've (collective we meaning various representatives of Paragon Studios) been directly quoted as referring to our business model as "Hybrid".

In fact, one of the slogans we bandied about internally was "This is *not* free to play, this is Freedom."

We have no control over what a media outlet chooses to label our new business model, and the term "Free2Play" is used to mean various different things in many different articles. I won't lie and say that we went out of our way to correct them, those words connect with some people on a certain level, however we don't refer to City of Heroes Freedom as a Free 2 Play game in our verbiage, because it isn't, it's Hybrid.

You'll notice that when we speak publicly about Freedom, we chose our words wisely - "You can play for Free!", "Free Offering", "Free Players will have blah blah...". A "traditional" Free 2 Play game is just that...completely free, completely supported by MTX's. Games such as Maplestory are a good example. (and yes, I know I referenced another game, but I'm playing the parent card and saying do as I say, not as I do. ).

I hope that helps explain and clear up some confusion over terminology.

I believe that Arcanaville has put it...aptly, however to reiterate:

The cornerstone of our business is still going to be the VIP subscriber. Yes, we are offering both a Free and an Ala Carte experience, both being very robust, however our priority continues to be on delivering an amazing experience for our loyal Community.

What are your global handles/recognizable names?

Ummm...

What server do you primarily play on?

(Standard dev answer - All of them!)

What server do you prmarily PvP on?

See above

What toons do you have to offer for 8v8 PvP?

Whatever is needed - prefer tank or troller.

Which of these toons is on Freedom?

I can magic one up anywhere

If any, what toons would you be willing to transfer to Freedom for a league?

See above

What do you consider your primary/optimal role in a team setting?

Moderating and banning...oh wait...no... harassing and annoying.

What do you consider your favorite role in a team setting?

See above...I love me some Grav/TA

Would you be willing to make a new toon and level it to 50?

Level? You mean you can't automagically level to 50?

Would you be willing to respec into a new build for a league?

Sure!

Briefly describe your experience in PvP. (If you were on other 8v8 teams list them here, any substantial experience here also)

I'm pretty terrible. Just ask Masque.

I'm just playing to have some fun and annoy the hell out of someone.

(OPTIONAL) (Only answer if you have a firm grasp of team rosters)

Name Captains you would prefer to play for, minimum of 3. If you pick 3 I can guarantee you a spot on one of the 3 you choose, if you don't then whoever drafts you will be final. Also when we get down to the last draftees, there might be instances where people have to be picked in order to keep teams even numbers, in this case the draft protection will not apply.

I'm good wherever will take me.

While we certainly appreciate your feedback, I offer the following points of consideration:

- All PVE content that Premium/Free players will have access to is easily doable without IO's. One of the main reasons that non incarnate content can be challenging is difficulty sliders. Players are able to customize their experience to be something that is on par with with they're capable of handling. Additionally, these players will be able to team with players that are "geared" better than they are, allowing them to participate as well.

- All someone has to do is make a minimum investment (1 Reward Token) to have access to Private Tells. We do not feel that this is unreasonable, and it will serve as a necessary barrier of entry to prevent players from being flooded with RMT spam. 1 tier up, and they have access to ALL global chat channels. Again, we don't feel this is unreasonable.

- Our team has spent the last 12 months with the singular goal of providing the best overall experience for VIPs, Premium and Free players possible. Free players will have access to an extremely robust experience, hours upon hours of content to play though, the *most* robust character creation system and the City of Heroes Community. Premium players will have all of this, plus some amazing perks granted, just for having been a subscriber in the past. VIP players will have more than *what they have now* with features such as the Signature Story Arcs, free server transfers, more frequent updates and more content than we've been able to produce in the past.

What we've put together is a very robust free to play offering, and we're confident that players, both returning and new, will enjoy their free experience while the cornerstone of our business, the VIP player, will continue to enjoy an outstanding City of Heroes experience.

As has been said in the past, repeatedly, this isn't a fire and forget type of thing. We'll be closely watching how the different levels of players interact with each other and making improvements along the way .

The purchase of any box set in the past automatically grants you a Paragon Reward Token, and thus would qualify you as Premium. You would be, I believe, Tier 2.

We're looking into these issues this morning all.

Thanks for the reports.

-Z

If those of you who are experiencing this could help us out...

run a /netgraph 2 and screenshot/post it if you could.

Thanks!

You will know *well* in advance before Issue 21, and conversely Freedom, goes live.

The engineers are following this thread. They've been looking into what you guys are reporting and relaying information through me.

As soon as I've got more information I'll pass it along.

Thank you for testing!

-Z

All servers are online.

We will continue to monitor throughout the night. Thanks for your patience everyone!

-Z

All servers are online except Vigilance.

To give you guys a bit of insight;

Today/tonight was the result of issues with new hardware. While we certainly would loved for everything to have worked directly "out of the box", unfortunately that didn't happen today.

We've been working to resolve this ASAP, and only brought all servers offline when we were sure of a solution. Myself, the server engineers, both here and in Austin, are all working around the clock until we resolve this.

I'll keep you all updated should more information become available.