Snow Globe

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

None of these reasons is compelling enough to me to abandon my hope that I will be able to decide who is able to communicate with me. I certainly don't want *you* deciding that because you can't handle it, I can't either, and we pay the same monthly fee. In fact I find the idea of you being "against" paid players deciding who they receive tells from almost offensive.

Originally Posted by Brillig

That attitude will result in there being only two types of channels. The spam-filled and the dead.

People who moderate the globals take some of their play time to try to provide a better environment for the rest of us. Unless you're willing to do the same, your appropriate responses are either gratitude or silence.

Originally Posted by Virfortis

No it won't, that's RMT paranoia talking. Spending 5 minutes a day (less than that after the first few days) to unsilence new people in the channel is not going to cause a cascade failure. It's called responsibility, and if people don't take it, we get petty threats like this as a facade for the real issues.

Originally Posted by Virfortis

Fact: I can spend $5 and create a program that sends RMT mail to every person in the game. Really, just $5, no joke. Premium members get in-game mail. I can also spend $5 and spam messages to everyone.

Originally Posted by Virfortis

I just can't join a channel with MUCH less people in it and spam them because it's $45. Then again I couldn't do that in the first place if channel moderators owned up to their responsibilities and checked my name before unsilencing.

Originally Posted by Virfortis

RMT is a facade, a long past event that still grips people with paranoia and allows Paragon to get away with taking away a well nigh essential part of the game experience. Free players shouldn't get squat, but premium players that pay when they can? They deserve respect.

Originally Posted by UberGuy

This requires the channel to be set up that way by its (player, volunteer) moderators, who by doing so are signing up to keep on top of unsilencing new joiners. The channels are not set that way by default.

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

I cannot speak for everyone else who posted, but I personally am not talking about people who aren't paying. I'm talking about me, who pays, and is prevented from receiving tells from free players. I did not have a choice in the matter and there is no amount of money I can pay to fix it. While I do pay to play the game "as is" sometimes the way it is isn't what I'd hope for.

Originally Posted by Biowraith

What I care about is that it's impeding my own paid subscriber communications because a) I don't know if the person I just sent a tell to can reply, and b) I have to jump through extra hoops to get those who can't reply onto my teams. Maybe not by a huge amount, but when you play off-peak hours every little helps (or hinders, as the case may be).

Originally Posted by Biowraith

*Personally I favour a menu option to let players choose to accept free player tells, but a one-for-one reply allowance works too.

Originally Posted by Lost Ninja

Snow Globe is technically correct, however. If you have bought the retail versions of City of Villains and Going Rogue (either online or through a boxed product) you do not lose anything* that came with those products. Therefore you won't need to buy Going Rogue again.

*GR does not however include 1st Ward or Incarnate Content.

Originally Posted by With_Forks

Store says 23 costume unlocks with the purchase, but that would have to include a full set of light and heavy for average man, average woman, and large man.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

This game is not attempting to execute the conventional F2P model.


That makes this observation about as relevant as saying a successful barbeque attempts to infuse smoke into the meat.

In the conventional F2P model, it doesn't matter how much stuff you give away, all that matters is how much stuff you intend to entice people to buy. As long as you have a pipeline of stuff on a sufficiently deep treadmill, its completely irrelevant what you give away. Its a numbers game of trying to get as many players as possible under circumstances where a sufficiently high percentage will buy something, and that percentage can be low.

But in a hybrid model with VIP subscribers, it *does* matter how much stuff you give away, and what stuff it is, because the more you give away and the higher a percentage of the core stuff you give away, the more you devalue subscriptions relative to ala carte purchases and freemium play. That's why no on subscribes to Farmville.

People can debate whether this is or is not a free to play game based on silly semantics, but this isn't about labels. This is about whether this game intends to focus first on its subscriber base, and then create a free/ala carte game from a subset of the subscriber game that is not an identically complete experience so that VIP subscribers always have an advantage in their breadth and quality of gameplay.

If you're a VIP player, City of Heroes Freedom is as much about you as the current game is now. If you are an ala carte Premium player the game is offering you the ability to play less game for less money, where you get to choose what you want to get and what you can afford to give up. If you are a completely free player, then this game is offering you a look around. Have fun, but don't complain about what you get for free. Or complain, but know that you're complaining about what you get for free, and make note of the fact we don't allow you to complain somewhere the rest of the players have to see.

Oh, and just in case I wasn't clear the first time:

This game is not attempting to execute the conventional F2P model.


You'd think this was both obvious, given how many people manage to successfully *prove* Paragon Studios isn't actually doing what you'd expect if they were attempting to execute the conventional F2P model.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

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.

Originally Posted by Vinceq1980

Like i said I came back after issue 18 but of the few influence spams ive seen its what 1 bil for 6-7 dollars?

Originally Posted by Machariel

Do you honestly not understand that preventing free players from meaningfully interacting with other players is going to mean that they come into the game, think "well this isn't fun, I can't play with anyone," and leave?

Originally Posted by Machariel

The point of a F2P system is to ENTICE people to come and spend money on the game.

Originally Posted by Machariel

Not to provide a lower class that people like you can look down their nose at and say "ugh, why give them anything, they're a dirty freem."

Originally Posted by Aura_Familia

I'm actually surprised that EMAIL spam hasn't picked back up. But it could be it's easier to block email spam without the devs putting in any draconian blocks on THAT system.

Originally Posted by Aura_Familia

BUT for some time even RMT email spam was high. I have some older characters that have over 100 emails with nothing but email spam. If you'd like I'll take a screen shot and send to you.