Bloodwynd

I don't disagree with their model for the most part and the fact that they want to give me the ability to possible resub is great. However, the point that I will contend to is that the Controller and Mastermind were part of boxed sets and part of those boxed sets included features in and of which that were already paid for by purchasing said box sets.

I really don't care that you think that I am ungrateful at such a wonderful gift that the Devs have seems to deem was important to give to us the playerbase. Cause you know, the Devs are so brilliant that this idea to go to this kind of model was invented by Statesman himself before he left.

Are you really frickin' serious??? This is a gift???? This is a business decision to attempt to attract more money into their business model. Nothing more. But their system is a bit flawed all things considered. You can argue with me all you like and I will disagree with you all you want. I disagree with the stand that you take. And the really funny part about it all...I have over 36 months as a veteran so this whole MM and Troller arguement really has no bearing on me. Go figure.

Be grateful for having my already purchased material taken away???? But based on your knowledge of other current hybrid F2P models....how is this not a free to play game now when Freedom goes live??

I can make the assumption that you have absolutely NO experience with a hybrid Free to Play system based on what you are saying in your posts. Can you name a game that went to a similar system as to what CoH is proposing. I can name 3 quickly and easily off the top of my head and if you go inviestigate their respective websites, you will find a roughly similar model with some minor differences based upon game. That being said...CoH is no different at this time and can make whatever changes it wants to their respective model and at the end of the day regardless of what happens, I have to abide by their decision on how to best make money for their game. I know of another BIG BIG MMO that just annouced it was going F2P for up to level 20 and then have you purchase from there. A differeny model but one that exists. Different strokes for different folks as the case might be as that BIG BIG MMO doesn't have premium level stuff as far as I can tell.

So that being said, no I don't know you. Could care less if I ran into you on the street. You are being obtuse and pointless because you cannot validate your point without evidence of other models out there. I can reference other models and I can reference on the success of those same models.

I am simply pointing out that in those other Hybrid F2P models that once you purchase the box set or digitally the mission/quest pack you are allowed to continue to play them without having anything taken away from you in terms of content. They may take some functionality from you but that is about it and they might limit access to Auction House or Arena for PvP but content is allowed to continue if you already made the commitment to whatever company previously.

Please, go do some research because you aren't helping your case by not doing so.

You are being naive because you have no clue about other hybrid F2P models that are being used currently. Look at a few of them and get back to me before you decide to try and blast me for knowing what I am talking about. Go ahead...go check out a few of the F2P models that are out there.

Play for Free

As a new free City of Heroes Freedom player, you can:
Play as a Hero or Villain for up to Level 50.
Play in 45 different game zones.
Select from 8 character archetypes and 105 power sets.
Create costumes for up to 2 characters from billions of combinations.
Buy anything you'd like from the in-game store.

Very little to complain with with this option. The only issue I would say is that they should probably limit SF or TF to paid content that is purchasable. For instance the Posi TF or Manticore TF would be a purchasable item since they are entering the game for free. Now, that being said, I would also probably limit the access to CoV to them and not allow them to play that unless they buy a Mission quest pack per zone for those areas. Microtransactions is the key here. You nickel and dime them to death.

Furthermore, they can read the forums but not allowed to post. Access to servers but can be booted for a VIP or Premium player. Limited Character Slots. Limited AT access. No in game support. Not all badges available to them. They cannot craft any IO's period. These are new players that have never played the game a day in their lives. These are the ones you want to buy more into the game.

Returning Players Become Premium Players

We honor your commitment and experience! If you used to play City of Heroes, you will automatically become a Premium Player. New free players can become Premium Players by buying any amount of Paragon Points.

Get everything that Free players get.
Retain nearly everything you already purchased or unlocked, including Super Boosters, expansions, and directly purchased character slots.
Retain all the Veteran Rewards you earned.

The only difference here is that if the premium player has already bought the boxed sets, then access is granted to those areas. Now, if a player has not bought Going Rogue - he gets no access to the bonuses that are afforded in that set. Period. I would never argue that. So you can nickel and dime them the same way, give them the opportunity to buy GR and give them the bonuses from that.

Limit Auction House usuage. VIP can boot them off server for priority access. They retain all previous rewards but unable to earn Paragon Points. They have limited global chat functionality. They can read and post to the forums thus reconnecting with old friends increasing likelyhood that they might resubscribe. They get no ingmae support. They can use IO's but cannot craft Set IO's.

VIPs get everything.

Now, with that being said...VIPs continue to receive free updates every few months. Premium and Free players have to purchase the same content.

It is that easy. But this game is going to annoy enough with this bogus F2P model that they are attempting to create without thinking it through and alienate former players looking to come back and have nothing to capture new players.

Then the system that NCSoft and CoH are developing is going to be far far far from a F2P system. If I buy the content in other games, I get access to said content regardless of who much a month I pay. I get limited in other areas that are inconvient but doable.

This game is going to the realm that if you don't pay a monthly fee, go on with your bad self because you don't deserve the content you paid for already with purchases of the boxed sets.

The system as it is is currently very flawed and very much not Freedom to Play like they are trying to sell the user base.

By virtue of the link that you posted....

Incarnates was a built in feature of Going Rogue

Elitists are those that think that they have more privledge to a game because they have played it longer or have a greater number of badges. Badgers can be lumped into this category but not all badgers fit into this.

Loyalists are those that believe that the Devs can do no wrong and will defend the utter mention of Dev criticism with anger and rudeness....see your above post.

As far as being Modsmacked....heh....won't be the first time that has occurred to me.

I am not making a big deal about the incarnate system although I see that argument as I did buy Going Rogue and won't have access to a boxed feature. But as I have bought most boxed content for this game, having the Devs (who can be almightier than thou with their opinions and lack of listening to the player base....see Statesman and Positron for perfect examples of this) tell me that because I no longer sub to the game but bought all the boxed stuff that they put out that I am not entitled to stuff I have already paid for is idiotic. Look, what is the difference in me paying for the box and getting a troller or paying a small fee later...I am being double charged for the same goods. You yourself have stated several times in this thread that by virture of me purchasing something after Freedom is launched that I own that for life on my account. Well why the hell do I not own the same material now????

Like I said, give me what I already purchased.

Someone is now finally getting crass. According to the website for Going Rogue...Incarnates is a built in system to that Expansion that people bought and paid for.

Limitation of the system is not Freedom it is holding it hostage even if someone bought the $30.00 expansion.

Give me what I bought and already paid for and quit being an Elitist of you are a VIP and no one should get what you have.

A returning player being premium can ONLY unlock a Mastermind or controller after they have basically played initially for 3 years. So anything that I bought in the original Retail, the Dvd and CoV is not full outright being given to me but only given to me with conditions which is what I am saying is the problem.

They are taking away items given to premium players that were purchased in the original box sets.


Now if a premium player did not purchase Going Rogue...I have little problem with that material being locked from them until they purchase it which includes all the add-ons for it.

Nice new things are fine. Holding back the Incarnate system really doesn't irk me as much as attempting to hold back the Mastermind and Controller sets. Holding back certain areas and quests would be fine. But to downright take everything that was included into boxed sets is bad for business.

If you want to have incentives for VIPs, then by god...start putting out content. But you can't simply remove what was already purchased. That really is not good.

#1 I have never pulled my punches when it came to the Devs. I was critical of them for 8 straight issues of regen nerfs largely based on PvP balancing and I was critical of the slowness that they exhibited for the first few years of the game claiming that they were going to give us 3-4 issues a year which dwindled to 1-2 per year. I have been especially critical of Jack and Matt because I have felt for several years that this game suffered under their lack of leadership and willingness to listen to the player base.

#2 I am not here to garner sympathy from anyone. I am simple stating that they way they have designed all of this was poorly implemented and quite frankly smacks of desperation. Look at it this way

You don't sound crass at all and you have a valid point. The reason that I will return is because this was my first MMO and part of me truly misses the characters I created. So to have the ability to run a character from level 1-50 again on either villain or hero side for free appeals to me.

That being said, I see problems with the implemenation of their system. For instance...LOTRO has 7 classes that you are able to play and 2 more that are purchasable. Now...if I were to let my current subscription lapse for whatever reason, anything that I bought up to this point which is everything, I get. I get all the quests for all the zones. I am only limited in certain aspects of crafting guilds and in game support. EVERYTHING THAT I ALREADY PURCHASED IS STILL MINE TO PLAY.

Now...in the case of CoH. Even though I bought original retail, DVD edition, CoV and Going Rogue, I have to have played for 3 years to get free access to MM and Controllers??? Now granted for me, that truly isn't a problem but if they were going to limit play on characters, then those characters should have been the Epics and Veats. So essentially what CoH is telling me is that they don't really care how long you were gone that unless you did 3 years with them, then you can't play all the toons that you most likely purchased with I1 and I6 respectively. There is no "Freedom" to play if they set those limitations based on server capability. To me, what they are saying is that these cause problems for the server which makes me ponder how well the systems are to begin with.

Look each zone can have a maximum number of players of 50. Explain to me how well the equipment is going to handle 10K free players. Now I know there is no way to predict how many players will actually come try the game with F2P. I really cannot say. But I do know that even during the good ole days, total subs were only in the low 100K level. I would not imagine much more than 20% new player rate here even for a free game. Especially a free game that is now 7 years old with a 10 year old engine and servers that can't handle more than 50 players per zone.

Yes the supergroup transfers are a form of passive server consolidation. Who doesn't want to take their supergroup to a bigger server where it can particpate more. The VIP server is the same way. There are far fewer those who want to help than those who want the elitist part of having the most badges. The VIP server will become a badgers epeen measuring server.

F2P can be a great thing to generate revenue for games. It did wonders for the revenue stream in LOTRO during some very hard times. However, I will contend that CoH needed to have done this years ago probably around I9 for the greatest impact. Now this game is going to be an lazy day afterthought with the likes of WoW, LOTRO and TOR out there.

Well I am glad to see that the devs still seem to still have their respective heads buried in the sand. (I did have a not quite so political analogy there but I am going to try and be nice to a degree here.)

Now, I was a long time player who left after I9. I had serious doubts then with the direction of the game and honestly, having come back for a brief time frame now, I am very impressed with what has been done to the game in the last year or so. However, I will admit that these additions to the game are approximately 4 years behind here. As I recall, many of the systems that are being added now were discussed in some form back at the launch of CoV. But that is a minor point to my rant.

The main point here thought that I want to vent about how poorly F2P is going to be implemented. Now granted, I have been playing other MMO's and one that I am currently playing has a F2P model and it has been very successful. More on that after I break down Posi on his points.

But the problem with just disabling it, it might make the already crappy boards crappier which pushes people further away from the forums and the game thus decreasing subs and dropping the enjoyment value on this game.

Besides....since when have the devs ever really listened to us when we point out a known problem....Acrobatics anyone????

You do know what they say....

Every good woman is a dirty old man.

Trust no one.

Still.....

these forums suck

Disregard my opinion there. At the end of the day...it wasn't worth speaking.

New boards = epic fail

However, that being said, you should be cool to one another for the most part. But, going to the teacher to tattle on someone calling you names....meh I wouldn't have done it. But then again, I don't much worry about what others think of me.

Look, sure the offense is removed and things look better, but...most importantly, it never really mattered in the long run. Those who think highly of you still do. Those that trolled you will find new and interesting ways of trolling you. This is after all the interwebz.

Smile people....life is good and this is just only a game.