Gemini_2099

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

I could go on forever.

This game has been a special one for me, and whatever happens in the future, it will always have a special place in my memories. As an MMO, as a game design, as a software implementation, it got practically everything wrong. Everything the players saw, and so much the players didn't see: so many errors, mistakes, failures of design. Fundamentally, it really got only one thing right, but its a thing virtually all other MMOs get wrong. It let us play the way we wanted to. Not always in every detail, and not always to the same degree we wanted, but we could look like what we wanted to look it, go where we wanted to go, see what we wanted to see, be who we wanted to be in the game. This is still something most MMO designers believe you simply cannot do and make a good game. They are all wrong, in a way they will never understand, and possibly will never learn. But we know better.

I've mostly said what needed to be said about the dev team in the many threads that have sprouted up since the shutdown announcement, but as with the game itself I think its important to state that none of them were perfect, in fact many of them were very flawed. I still think some didn't know how to add. But I think they all collectively believed not just in the game, but in we the players of the game. They believed we always deserved more than we were getting and tried to get us more. They believed we deserved to participate, to the extent they could allow, in the direction of the game. Until the day comes when an open source MMO springs to life, City of Heroes will be the example of a dev team and a playerbase working together to shepherd the development of a first-rate MMO. And I think in the final analysis, we did a pretty good job there.

I've played many MMOs since the release of City of Heroes, and I've seen the forums of every one of them. Compared to us, they are cavepeople with stone knives and bear skins. The collective community of players that over time played, investigated, tested, analyzed, and deconstructed the game and then educated the playerbase has been far and away the best, period. Only the spreadsheet jockeys in Eve Online compare analytically, and no game anywhere compares to the overall effort to analyze what is actually one of the most complex MMOs out there in terms of game mechanics. I'm very proud to be a part of that community that stretches all the way back to beta and all the way to the present day.

I'm not going to get all sappy with the goodbyes. And in fact, I'll probably become more active on other forums like the Titan Forums after the holidays. For those asking, I honestly don't know where I'll be next. I wouldn't have even predicted being here back when I first started playing: I thought this would be a nice couple month distraction when I rolled that first alt. I have lifetime subs to Champions Online and Star Trek Online, and with some of the devs moving to Cryptic I'll probably at least try those out again. A lot of people are strongly suggesting Secret World to me, and I did play some in the beta so I might go that route. But to be honest, its hard to imagine a game taking up my time and attention like City of Heroes. In the final analysis, I was here as much for you as for me. I liked playing the game, but I also liked contributing to this community, and that's not a role I see myself leaping into again soon.


As to the shut down itself. I wish the whole entire truth about the shutdown was public knowledge. It sucks knowing it was not inevitable, and yet also probably unavoidable. What I will say is this: this game was not a failure. This game did not have to end. This game could have been completely self-sufficient. The game, our developers, and our playerbase could have continued on indefinitely. There are no *real* numbers that charts to an inevitable demise at any future date. This game did not die: this game was killed.

I can't prove it of course, like many things over the years I've asked people to trust me when I've said them. So some people will reject this as being baseless, and some will reject it just because its me saying it. But for the rest of you, this is the straight truth: we did not need to die. We were not even close to death, or projected to die. The game you loved and the game I loved did everything it needed to do to succeed except to avoid falling into the crosshairs of idiots. Our game was a good game, good enough to be a commercial success. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They are wrong.


Lastly, I will just say that I've been working on something for the past couple of weeks with a couple of other players, and I still don't know if I can pull it off reasonably, but enough pieces are in place for me to at least make an attempt. Some time next week, if everything goes well, I'm going to try to pull off an end of game event run by the players for the players on the beta server. There are limits to what I can do there, but those limits aren't necessarily what you think. I have a story I've written up** that encapsulates (what I hope to be) the backstory of the event: its my take on The Last City of Heroes Story. Confession: I work with numbers and analysis every day. But what I actually enjoy doing is writing. I've simply never had the time given the work I did on the analysis side of the game to work on fanfiction. I thought the AE would provide an outlet for that, but the honest truth is that all the patching and breaking of arcs permanently damaged my enthusiasm for writing in the AE. Outside of those early AE attempts, this will be my first, and possibly last, actual City of Heroes story in writing. I hope you like it.

So start copying characters to beta, and install the beta client if you haven't done so yet. If we pull this off, this can and will only happen on beta.


I wish I could go on forever.





** Part one, The Immortal Game, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=4426369

Originally Posted by RemusShepherd

No.

My argument is, "I used to love this game, and I subscribed for seven years because of it. I want to continue subscribing, but I feel I am no longer getting my money's worth. Please make the game better, or at least give me the same rewards as those players who have not been so loyal."

This is my semi-annual rant in an attempt to change the direction the game is taking. That's all. I want to help them improve, so I'm giving feedback about how I feel I'm being treated as a subscriber.

I have no indication that anyone listens, but a man's gotta try. Especially when I've sunk my heart into a game for so long -- it would be wrong to walk away without at least trying to explain why and under what conditions I would have stayed.

Originally Posted by RemusShepherd

Try to keep up, Nethergoat. For the same amount of money, Premium players get 13560 points compared to VIPs 6600 points per year. Premium effectively pays 50% of what VIPs do for things available on the store.

What balances VIP is the stuff that isn't available on the store -- incarnates, bases, some other things I don't use and have forgotten. But if the VIP is not interested in that free stuff, they are getting screwed compared to Premium players. We've already established that earlier in the thread.

Originally Posted by Schismatrix

SG memberships are hardly useless to Free and Premium players unless they're the only ones in it. The only restriction is the ability to interact with the SG registrar, which is only important when creating the SG or if the base is large enough to require rent. Having any VIP members at all basically removes the rent payment issue.

Last week i helped a returning Premium set up their own solo SG. He said he was planning to return to full VIP soon, but i told him that if he needed help paying the rent in the future to just contact me. Once the SG was created and the base started he was otherwise good to go.

Originally Posted by RemusShepherd

I don't care if CoH takes my recommendations, I only care if the game is fun. I feel they're going in the wrong direction. But that's another issue -- right now let's focus on the original question, about whether VIP status is 'worth it' or not.

Look at the analyses earlier in this thread. There are 8 pay-for powersets, including Bio Armor which is coming soon. There are another 7 powersets given free to VIPs.

If you buy those 8 powersets as a Tier-9 VIP it will cost you 6400 points, out of the 6600 you get over the course of a year. 200 points left over; go buy yourself a few costume scraps.

If you buy all 15 powersets as a Premium player it will cost you 12000 points. If the Premium player spends the same amount of money as the VIP they will have 13560 points -- 1560 left over. That's almost two more powersets, or at least two costume sets, or I don't know how many SSA arcs. The Premium player makes out like a bandit.

What balances VIP status is the monthly tokens, Incarnate content, SSAs and superbases. But after Tier 9 the monthly tokens no longer matter. I still haven't spent all of mine, and I don't feel like gambling on sketchy 'super packs'. If Incarnate content does not appeal to you then VIP status gives you nothing. (You can purchase the SSAs off the additional points you get from going Premium.) Superbases are the only thing I treasure as a VIP, and I can't even invite my own characters into a super group; as useful as it is, it's a bad and abandoned system.

If they truly valued VIPs, they'd even up the rewards a little. Doubling the PP stipend would bring them in line with Premium, but even a 50% raise would be more fair. *Or* give more of the powersets to VIPs for free -- no, they shouldn't get all powersets for free, but they darn well should get more than half.

Right now VIPs get about half as much purchasable content as Premium players do for the same amount of money, plus some fixed content that may or may not appeal to them. That's a terrible deal. For those who have been loyal to this game for years, it's downright insulting.

If they're trying to entice people to become VIP, they're doing it wrong.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU

Freespec is already confirmed.

Originally Posted by Aggelakis

"One power being helped by IOs" != "the game is balanced around IOs". Solo stuff doesn't count; the devs see this as an MMO, with the "massively" part being emphasized here. Two people can easily get each other to instasnipe. All instasnipe means is that Leadership>Tactics is going to get infinitely more common.

Originally Posted by Father Xmas

You are upset that you won't be able to insta-snipe while soloing due to not having your IOs? Who the heck cares about insta-snipe? If you don't have enough buff snipes work exactly as they always have, that isn't changing.

You think that players who didn't bother with snipe due to the interrupt delay will respect their characters to include it because with IOs? Are you simply looking for another reason that returning short haul premiums NEED their IOs. I'm guessing you are one who wouldn't be satisfied with downgraded IOs so you at least get some of the lost enhancement bonuses. It's all or nothing for you. You are sounding a whole lot like "I won't come back and pay no money to play this game unless I get my IOs".

Originally Posted by Mazey

I do:
Stop turning returning players away from the game before they even have a chance of considering paying anything towards it.

And that applies to both the Invention Licence issues and how the existing player base reacts to anyone having issues with it.

Obsessing over "who's right" and "who's entitled" does absolutely nothing to help Paragon Studios make money. If anything, it harms their ability to do so, as players who feel upset, no matter how justified they are in feeling that way, come to the community and just get abused, resulting in someone who is never ever going to pay money towards the game again.

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

Question for you.

If you are leasing a car and stop making your payments, do you get to keep it?

If you are renting an apartment and stop paying your rent, do you get to keep living there?

You did not BUY those characters....you were renting them. You have not in any way paid in full for those characters by having maintained a subscription in the past.

If you stop making your car payment or paying your rent, the dealership or landlord damn well will take your car back or kick you out. What Paragon Studios has done here is the equivalent of a landlord letting you stay in your apartment for free....but shutting off the cable and air conditioning. And he offered you a deal that lets you have those things on a conditional basis for a fee that was less than your rent used to be.