Aura_Familia

Originally Posted by TrueGentleman

That brings us to the larger question of what a fantasy game (like an MMORPG) provides as entertainment.

If the emphasis is on the "fantasy" part, in CoH's case the adolescent power fantasy of superhero comic books, then failure becomes problematic since it breaks that fantasy's illusion. For those players looking for that kind of fix, then naturally other fantasy games - swords 'n' sorcery fantasy (Orcs vs. Dorks!), sci-fi fantasy (Space Wizards!), action-movie-style fantasy (Modern Gorefare!) - would be more attractive than a game that frustrates them. "Theme park" games cater to this type of MMO player. Additionally, F2P MMO players are notorious for bailing at a moment's notice for greener polygonal pastures since they tend not to make lasting commitments to their virtual communities, say, a simple subscription payment.

On the other hand, if the more important aspect is, well, the game, then winning every time would sap the satisfying challenge from the experience. A game you can't lose isn't a game any longer, and a game that doesn't require teamwork, on some level, isn't an MMO. For players in search of competition-driven stimulation, whether PVP or PVE, faceplanting is just another experience to be learned from*. This kind of player thrives in a sandbox online world—which CoH wasn't much of one to begin with.

So, yes, the Super Pack inspirations will appeal to a certain type of player. They'll tip the odds in their favor for a nominal price and keep them playing CoH Freedom. They'll make them feel more "super". ("And when everyone's super... no one will be.") This is hardly a deal-breaker issue as far as I'm concerned, just another recent decision from Paragon Studios where we part company.


* These are classified as "Achievers" in the Bartle Test.

Originally Posted by hyperstrike

long and hard-won experience has taught me:

Originally Posted by TrueGentleman

It's true, I have made my position about the Super Pack selling model of random rewards and exclusive items quite clear, but in this case, it's the pay-to-win side of the new inspirations that rub me the wrong way, regardless of how they were obtained. The idea that new players would get the impression they were necessities of any kind, rather than dispensible supplements, is bothersome.

The happiest outcome for TonyV's story would have been, "But then after faceplanting a few times, we regrouped, discussed our strategies, then went back and kicked ***!" Wiping is a time-honored tradition in MMO raiding, for newbies and vets alike. It builds (forgive the pun) character.

Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid

ONE run with windfall running and THREE runs without do not provide nearly enough data for a worthwhile analysis. Come back when you have data on a few hundred runs of each.

That said, I wouldn't bother spending real money on them but when I do use the ones I've gotten along the way I run x8 missions and usually end up trashing stacks of common high level salvage since it's worth so little and my salvage keeps filling up.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

With her whole mind-riding thing, I'm kinda wondering if she hopped into Penny Yin's mind at the last minute, and will be "sleeping" in there for a while.

Originally Posted by GadgetDon

I posted in detail my response to the story in another arc, so I'll just summarize here.

(1) Yet again, we are guaranteed failure. Heroes failing makes great drama in comic books. A guaranteed loss in a game annoys and frustrates me. Count me in with Kirk on this.

(2) As detailed in many places, while other arcs had the idiot ball in various NPC hero hands, this arc firmly places it in our hands. Please. My hero is not an idiot. I'm not saying Edwina Eaglethorpe can't be tricked, but she's going to do a bit more checking of things out.

(3) As with the last few SSAs, our player characters (blue side at least, haven't run red side) are neither the protagonist or antagonist, we're spear carriers. This story was about Penelope Yin stepping up to be a hero, and Manticore having to make a hard choice. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but based on the story so far, SSA#7 is going to be about Penelope Yin (or maybe some other NPC) taking down Darrin Wade and reclaiming the powers from him - with a minor assist from our player characters.

Originally Posted by Android_5Point9

If that was an account-wide unlock like the capes and auras unlock are, I'd probably be all over that.

Originally Posted by Tormentoso

Given the story in the OP and the problems he had with his teammates, I'd call them Pay-to-fix-stupid boosters.

Originally Posted by Ironblade

Well, two comments:

1) Firstly, the "stuff to do" once you hit 50 is still a huge amount. Almost everything you did on the way up, or MISSED on your way up, is still available to you. You're just excluding it because it doesn't give incarnate progress.

Originally Posted by Lycantropus

I get what you're saying, but that's why it's a choice (you don't have to take the others). Additionally, the trades should be significant. I tried to illustrate this in the 'trade' for the recipie drop to be from the 'best list'. If you wanted influence, it should be a very large ammount to represent the sacrifice of the XP or 'goodie' Temp Power. The Temp power should have a decent ammount of charges and work well enough to justify the sacrifice (75-100 charges, for example).
Then to get that and the goodie would mean the goodie would be a pretty piece of useless data in your tray, because to keep it balanced with heroes just getting the regular xp/inf instead of the more specialized villain 'cherry picking' choices, would mean the Temp Power would be pretty much effectively worthless. The Death Ray of Doom would barely hit, and when it did, would probably do brawl damage or something. I could see hero players complaining that villains get all the 'good stuff' in Temp Powers and whatnot anyway. There's gotta be a balance of give and take to justify it.

Anyway, The topic has strayed somewhat. My original suggestion was just to get the ball rolling, not justify the topic itself. If you don't like that, what would YOU prefer instead?

Frankly, compared to blueside, redside is floundering, so they're trying to make content that redside players can participate in, but it basically equates to having villains get suckered into helping heroes save the world, because there's so many more hero players they need to cater to. Just no money in doing more specific redside stuff unless more people are interested.

To me, that means a fundamental change in gameplay that makes playing Villains different enough to make them interesting in their own right. The current equality just means I see a lot of "hero" villains who have no reason being heroes in any capacity, other than the player perception of 'blueside is better, and it's easier to find teams'.

The two most fundamental ways I can think of would either be in gameplay itself, or the rewards. Rewards seem to be a good first step, as changes in the gameplay to cater more to various villain motivations would take a lot more work and effort. Obviously not something they're willing to do at the moment with such a smaller playerbase than blueside.

As am I. It won't get any better until there's more redside players to encourage the Dev's to develop more for them specifically.

So you don't like my idea? Again, what would YOU do to make redside a more interesting and unique experience from blueside, to draw more players to stay and/or become villains? That was the point of this, not to merely debate the merits of the first suggestion I popped out with, but get kind of a 'thinktank' going that might help the Dev's figure out ways to make redside more appealing. With redside already created, I really believe it somehow starts with the rewards.

Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare

Heroes already do; the Lost Curing Wand. And I'm all for it going both ways.

Originally Posted by Father Xmas

Yes but then it won't be using the BBC iPlayer but one targeting the US via their BBCA affiliate. Hulu and probably all the standard US broadcast network streams don't work in Canada.

Some people forget that these series is a product that costs a lot of money to make. That the broadcast rights to these series are sold around the world to local broadcasters who won't be all too thrilled if their customers could simply stream these episodes from the US days/weeks/months before they are broadcast there. And if people there could get the stream from the US, why would broadcasters there pay to air the series in the first place?

At least the BBC finally got it right with Doctor Who by airing the newest episodes and specials in the US via BBCA, unedited, only a few hours after they are broadcast in the UK. That probably wiped out a sizable chunk of torrent downloads while raising the ratings in the US.

Originally Posted by Granite Agent

I really hope this is true ... but the glut of merits and IOs from the first pack buying sprees may take a while to settle out. I, for example, had something like 24000 merits (yes 24K) after my pack-buying sprees. If other people like me keep minting the most expensive IOs and marketing them, supply will stay somewhat high. Also the packs remain relatively cheap to buy so no reason people can't keep buying 'em. I'd LOVE it if prices go up across the board on ATOs, but I'm just a tad skeptical.

Originally Posted by firespray

That's not entirely true. You can't get them directly, but you do get merits from them, which can buy IO recipes and salvage.

Originally Posted by Mazey

Start using them?

Originally Posted by Kitteh

Added the inf needs.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

It stacks .

Originally Posted by Neuronia

Let us spend points to get all the HP accolades, Geas and Archmage across our accounts, Arena only and you'll have yourself a bunch of money from my part.

I bought two packs, one each account. Got 5 costume pieces, a Catalyst, a Controller ATIO and various doohickeys including Reward Merits, Expereinced and some inspirations. Not bad but I cannot see myself getting a 24 pack bundle with new powersets coming out soon.

Originally Posted by Casual_Player

I'd like to thank all you people who are blowing money on this stuff for supporting the main game that I enjoy.

It's moderately annoying to me that development time and effort has been burned on yet another niche mini-game, but at least its a mini-game that will directly bring in dollars to fund development on the center stage.

So go ahead, pack lovers! Spend!

Now if only there was some way to monetize gladiators, arenas or even PvP in general...

Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven

How about now? Can you feel the love now? We're all just one big happy family of CoH players. That's what they say about us and this board, right?

rotflmao

Originally Posted by Miuramir

My understanding is that the current legal definitions of gambling have a series of tests, and that one of the required criteria is that there is a chance of output of either cash, or something that is readily converted to cash.

There was a fascinating story on NPR a while back about an online casino game site that was doing very well, and had successfully avoided all the legal problems that other sites have had lately, because they had a brilliant idea: they never pay out. You get some initial chips for signing up, a certain number of chips per day added to your account, and you can pay real money any time you want for more chips. There were a variety of games you can play against various combinations of computer and live opponents... but there was no way to convert your chips back to real money, or get them out of the system. Therefore, not gambling.

CoH's situation seems similar; there is no legal, supported, or easy way to convert your randomized card draws back into real money. (This is unlike a physical CCG, where that Alpha Mox could pay your real rent for the month fairly easily.) You're paying to play a game, but it's not gambling; there's no situation in which you can end up with more real money than what you started with.

From a moral standpoint, however... anyone who has self-control issues with actual gambling and a limited budget should not play this, as it's likely to trigger some of the same excitement/risk/reward centers in your head. (On the other hand, it's far more limited than a casino or certain Korean games... chances are most folks aren't going to need to drop more than a few hundred even if they obsess over the pet and get unlucky. I've been involved with testing for other MMOs where it was not unusual for people to have to drop four figures to have a decent chance of getting the rare mount; the odds on the rarest item were at least an order of magnitude less than here, and possibly more like two.)

TL;DR: IMO it's not gambling, and significantly less dangerous than most common things that are. But if you have medical or moral issues with even small amounts of gambling, it's probably close enough to trigger related issues.

Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei

You do realize that there are some people that don't gamble, are personally against gambling (for themselves), but don't have ANY issue with 'you" or anyone else gambling if they choose too AND they don't think the gamblers are ebil sinners etc... right?

Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven

You tell me. If he doesn't think gambling is bad then why does he even care in the first place? Let alone the fact that CCGs or anything like them (like Super Packs) really are not even in the first place.

Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven

Well then I guess I was wrong. You think that all gambling of any sort is bad, then? Why?