DKellis

He's not in any dire financial straits; he can afford fifteen US dollars a month, and probably the GR Complete Collection purchase. (If he buys now, likely he'll get the Architect Edition on Steam.) I asked him about this specifically.

It's just that he's a lot more fiscally responsible than I am; he's not going to pay anything above a couple of Singapore dollars (works out to be one dollar twenty cents or something US?) sight unseen. He's not miserly, just cautious; if he likes it, he'll buy it.

He also just bought a PS3 and FFXIII, so he's wary about spending big lump sums of money in the immediate future.

Anyway, based on responses in this thread, I'll probably tell him to wait until Ultra Mode is in, and then see what he says about it.

I may be misrepresenting him unintentionally.

All these questions he's asking me are not because he's "hemming and hawing". It's because he knows almost nothing about City of Heroes.

For example, he didn't know that CoH and CoV are now available to all players. He didn't know about customization. He didn't know how combat even works in CoH.

This is because there is nothing available about CoH here by way of advertising. Store presence is limited to old copies of the CoV box. (Not GvE or anything; CoV.) Up until I mentioned CoH to him, he had no reason to even think about the game.

Now that he knows about the game, he wants to know about it, before committing bandwidth and time to downloading the client. Hence all the questions.

Firstly, whatever powerset I haven't tried before, and which I know can be soloed easily. I usually come up with the concept from there. Last time it was concept first, but after a string of characters I quickly got bored with, I found I did better when I made up silly puns and injokes for characters.

For individual powers, apart from the Absolute Essentials, whatever I think I'll need later. I've noticed that when I try to ask for advice, the power I end up picking based on that doesn't fit my playstyle. However, picking what I think I'll need later is not a spur-of-the-moment thing either; often I have to wait five to ten levels before I can actually choose that power, since there are so many others I wanted to pick first.

Technically, this being Rikti, it's still not zero-risk for people with stealth: Rikti Drones are kind of annoying like that.

One of the reasons that mission is problematic in my viewpoint is that there is no real way, without prior knowledge, to know that you'll need stealth. Or, and I've accomplished the mission like this on my non-stealth characters, using a travel power to sort of exploit the NPC AI: they might notice you, but they won't actually attack for a few seconds.

A temporary stealth power would be very useful for that mission, and still keep the idea of not attacking the critters. I don't know why one is not offered (or at least hasn't been offered the last time I did the mission). After all, there's a mission villainside which sends you into St. Martial to deliver something when you're below that level, but gives you a Phase Shift temp power to accomplish that task.

Recently I was trying to convince a friend of mine to try out City of Heroes. Normally he wouldn't even consider paying a monthly subscription fee, but another friend was lured into World of Warcraft (so much that the rest of us are seriously considering some sort of intervention), and for some reason this made him receptive to the idea of fifteen US dollars a month (working out to be over twenty Singapore dollars).

I don't know, it's some sort of socio-psychological thing.

There was some iffy-ness about the restrictions on trial accounts. I don't agree with the implementations, but I understand why they were put in place regarding the whole RMT spam thing. It's not a very good introduction to the game for a new player, though. In fact, it's pretty terrible.

One thing he seemed interested in was the weapon customizations, specifically for Dual Pistols. Are those available for all players, he wondered.

Only with the expansion pack pre-purchase, I answered. In other words, he'd have to buy the game, then buy (or pre-buy) the expansion pack. Remember the exchange rate between US and Singapore dollars: even if the actual price is objectively the same, there's this odd psychological reaction to seeing the bigger numbers. (Also I think the relative cost of living is slightly different, and the price comparisons are usually with local examples.)

He was willing to at least consider it, in any case. But the hurdle of getting the game just got higher.

"What about side-switching?" he asked. (I'd previously explained that despite the game being City of Heroes, he'd also have access to City of Villains.) I told him it was coming with the expansion, but no amount of pre-purchasing would make it arrive sooner.

"What about the graphics?" he asked. "They look kind of old." I told him about Ultra Mode.

His response: "So why should I get the game now when there's all these good things coming soon? Why not get it later?"

Why indeed? Extending that argument, since CoH is an actively-developed MMOG, there will always be good things coming soon. Should there be a point where a prospective player goes "this is where I will jump in and play"? Why should this point be right now?

As the person trying to convince him to join this game, I think it has to be now, or at least very soon, because there's competition. He's interested in CoH now; he might not be as interested by the time Ultra Mode comes around. I'm not the only friend trying to convince him to play a MMOG; the aforementioned WoW friend is also dangling a buddy trial offer.

(Tangentially, I'm the only one in my group of friends, and indeed among anyone I know, who plays CoH. Whereas it seems like everyone who has ever paid a monthly subscription fee for a MMOG before has played WoW, currently or lapsed, including me. There's an obvious shared topic of conversational options here.)

Should I push my friend harder to try CoH right now, while he's still interested? Should I wait until Ultra Mode or Going Rogue, when his interest may have cooled? Or should I not push at all, and simply leave CoH open as an option, passively waiting?

Has anyone encountered this sort of problem before?

UPDATE: Response arrived within two days, stating that they were escalating the issue. Today, I received an email stating that they fixed it, and I'm eligible for the 63-month award.

That means City Traveller, and the Reveal Map power.

*dances*

Thanks to GM Roland. And thanks to everyone for their advice.

I know there's a bug going around for it, but I just wanted to reconfirm a few things.

Firstly, I'm almost sure I got hit by that bug (I only noticed because I was looking forward to City Traveller, and was puzzled when I hadn't gotten it), but the "Total Paid Time" and "Veteran Rewards Time" fields are confusing. I subscribed to this game in December 2004, and I don't think I had a lapse of more than a week back in 2007, but I could be misremembering. The Total Paid Time says 4 years 7 months (which would bring it to June 2009, at about the time of my 54-month reward), and Veteran Rewards Time says 4 years 10 months (September 2009, the time of my 57-month reward). I've paid for one month, back in September 2007, by a time card (the time of said lapse).

In-game, I've only gotten my 57-month reward. The last veteran reward entry on my accounts page is the 57-month reward, in September 2009. By my calculations I should have at least the 60-month reward, but I am not absolutely sure. I was hoping the weirdness on the account page would make it more certain.

Secondly, I tried logging into a character I haven't logged in on in 103 days. I did not get a veteran badge awarded announcement on that character. I am also hoping that is further confirmation that it's bugged.

Finally, I am uncertain about whether I need to submit my account name at any part of the process of contacting support. I know I will never need to reveal my password (and will indeed treat requests for such with suspicion), but account name I'm less certain about. If I send an in-game /petition about this issue, will it include my account details automatically?

I don't like the mood/atmosphere of villainside, so I think most of my villains are going blueside, at the very least to Rogue level, probably to Vigilante level, and possibly all the way to Hero. Certainly the ones created later, after I got tired of all the red-and-black of Grandville.

At least one, my Night Widow, is staying villainside, since I'm not sure if EATs are allowed to side-switch (I know this was mentioned sometime, but I forget what the answer was), and it'll feel weird to bring her heroside anyway. Probably another character, my EM/DA Brute, is staying villainside, since I've pretty much abandoned that character because I dislike Dark Armour. (Yes, this is despite playing the EM/DA to 50. I'm stubborn.)

I might leave another villain character I like playing (either my Bots/Dark MM or Thugs/Poison MM) villainside, to see what the reward is for "staying true".

I don't have any plans to side-switch any of my heroic characters. Maybe I might move over one of those I don't play much anymore, just to see what it's like, but I doubt I'll have the time, what with the new content.

Brand new characters are most likely to start in Praetoria for the New Shiny factor. First one in Loyalists, and subsequent ones possibly in Resistance to see what it's like. I know the Loyalists are supposed to be the Evil faction (as much as there's Good vs Evil in Praetoria, anyway), but more importantly to me they're the more Lawful (in D&D terms) faction. After that, I don't see any of them going villainside, although the Praetoria content might change my mind.