Dark Sweater

As I said, IMO it's mainly a matter of personal preference. Some people have no problem budgeting $15 a month for a game, and choose to subscribe because they feel it's convenient to not have to buy everything separately, or that the extras are worth it for them, or they just love the game and feel they support it better that way. Other people prefer to feel ownership, that they can buy stuff and not just rent it, that they don't feel like they're losing money if they play only a little during a month.

The bottom line is, far from being purely about dollar cost, this is about psychology and feeling. People who do care more about money and what they get for it are likely to gravitate towards Premium. That doesn't mean that VIP isn't worth it, just that it's not worth it for them.

The only way to truly judge the worth of a subscription is see how many people stay subscribed and how many new subscriptions the game gets once Freedom launches.

Thanks a lot for that post. Even though I wasn't worried, I must say that an official word on this is helpful.

It's a common misconception that Freedom was designed purely to showcase the game to promote subscription. If that was the case, there would be no need for reward levels. It's clear that Freedom is designed to allow the players who have paid most over time to gracefully degrade to Premium, getting many of the features for free. A player at the highest tier is getting a full game for free, equivalent to what was available before Going Rogue, which IMO is unheard of in F2P games.

I think those won't be a problem, because year counting will continue where it left off.

My guess is that we'll get a token for a partial month (and whatever full months you have left). I think this was alluded to in an answer on a previous Freedom Friday when it was said that the $2 account would have 3 tokens: one free, one for the box and one for the month. That would only work if the 3rd token is awarded when Freedom launches. In that case someone with 2 days left would still get a token, but it will be for their first month on Freedom instead of for the 3 months.

It would still be nice to get official confirmation on this.

Show me one of these folks, please. Nobody expects to get everything for free. It's just a turn of phrase some people (like you) use to make it sound as if giving free players a little more is a terrible thing which only the lowest scum would want.

Edit: Actually I seem to remember an "I want everything for Premium" guy. I think that went with "if you don't give me everything for free then I'll stop playing" (ooh, now they're shaking). Still these will be a tiny minority. Most people just want a little more and aren't adverse to paying. By ignoring them and talking only about the folks who want everything for free you're weakening your argument, because you're implicitly telling us that only by taking the issue to an extreme you can show a real problem with it.

I apologised for having used the wrong term. I also had a typo in the last post, posting "mean" instead of "meant".

I know about this option, and I agree it's not a lot of money. I think my problem with it comes from the psychological pressure of "play or you lose your money". Not rational, I know, but it would still be a problem for me.

Thanks. I know that. When I said "tier" I mean "reward level". That account will be reward level 6 (only just) and will require 7 reward tokens to get to reward level 7. That's $105 or 7 months of subscription. I can envision this happening over the years.

Customer: one that purchases a commodity or service

Just saying.

The whole point of the "free to play" model is that "free" players, as a whole, pay, and pay a lot. Some of them pay nothing, but others pay more than a subscription would cost.

Thanks for these tips. I never considered dropping difficulty (mainly because most of the time I played it was 5 fixed levels).

Just to pick a nit, currently subscribers don't get Praetoria or anything from Going Rogue (including Incarnate stuff) unless they've bought the expansion. After Freedom launches every VIP subscriber will get all this content. Granted most current subscribers are likely to have GR, but those who don't or new players won't even be able to buy Going Rogue, but will have to buy all its parts separately (if they want it all), at a higher total cost (at current prices $40 for the powersets, $15 for the alignment system, $15 to create a Praetorian, ...). So although from the point of view of someone who already has GR this might not be worth much, for someone just starting to play the game it will be significant.

As for the issue itself, Freedom was designed deliberately to offer long time subscribers the option of dropping to Premium without losing much, while stiff providing value and exclusive content for VIP's. The more someone has invested in the game, the less VIP will offer over Premium. This gives veteran players the choice of continuing the subscription if they feel it's worth it, or dropping to Premium if they don't, as well as alternating between them.

If you feel that the subscription isn't worth the price, you have the choice of going Premium. If you don't want to go Premium then obviously the subscription has enough value for you. I can understand the wish to get more than you already get (it's only natural), but arguing that you're not getting enough value is only affirming that the devs have done a good job providing a smooth downgrade path for the subscription.

I shouldn't be forced to go through an entire shoddily written arc (possibly so difficult to win that it would be hard for any non-uber character to go through) just to rate it as bad.

That's what "purchasable" means, and that's listed for free players. Therefore "limited" can't mean that. I think it would be good to listen to some wise words posted here: "Limited could mean lots of things, but when you're not sure, you're not supposed to assume it means what you want it to mean".

That's a great move by the devs, I'd say. It's a game; "work for it" doesn't fit. The generation of players who don't want to work hard at their games already exists. Make the game a better fit for them and you'll get more players and more money. If you can do that while still maintaining a high enough difficulty for those who want it, you're golden.

(Forum logout ate my reply, so here goes again.)

Thank you. "Sorry, we're fresh out of limited IO's, but here's an invention license for only $2 a month." And you know what's that called.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not really saying that this is bait and switch. That would imply that Paragon is doing it deliberately, and I don't believe that. I just hitched a ride on that term when someone posted it because that's what I think some people will feel.

"Limited" is not at all descriptive in this case. I assume it's meant to tell that there's a tier at which you get the system, but it doesn't do that. It's just confusing, because if the invention system is "purchasable" for free players and "limited" for Premium, this implies that there are parts of it you don't need to pay for, not that at some point you'll get the system for free.

By the way, "purchasable" is also confusing in this context. Players won't expect to rent systems, they'd expect to unlock them or buy limited number of uses for them. That's how it goes in other games and that's what "purchasable" means in other parts of the table (such as Going Rogue access).

To a large extent, yes. People might still be disappointed, but they'll have time to digest it. There's real need for expectation management here. As I said before, I was very excited about going back to my characters when Freedom was announced, then disappointed when I read about the IO's, then came to terms with it. I'm still disappointed, but I changed my plans to fit the situation (play new characters instead of old), so that I'll still be happy with Freedom. If I only found that out when I started to play, my reaction would likely have been much stronger.

Knowledge helps people prepare. Add more details, add a specific section to the FAQ about going back to play old characters, what limitations will be on them, and what solutions (get to tier 5 or buy MM and Controller, get to tier 7 or license inventions, perhaps even add the suggestion to use a second build).


I still think the concept itself (renting a system) doesn't fit a "free to play" game (don't argue that it's hybrid, please). I think that limiting the invention system could be done better, and I discussed elsewhere the benefits I see in letting players continue to use IO's (one of these benefits, IMO, is that it would make more money for Paragon). But yes, providing more information would IMO do wonders to prepare people for the game. There's a lot of information on these forums (in particular the beta forum) which isn't available on the site, and I think it should be there. Hopefully it will appear there some time before Freedom.

No, I'm claiming I didn't know that "limited" meant "all your IO's are disabled".