Heroic Fetus

So I thought I'd log a final entry into this thread.


My friends and I bought CoH during the Freedom sale. Some of us are returning players, some are new. We have been playing the **** out of CoH for the past couple weeks. At $1.99 to pick up the game, plus a free month, it has been totally worth it. We were looking forward to continuing to play as Freedom launched, until the details of the F2P system were announced.

We will not be playing after Freedom officially launches. In fact, we won't be playing after the 20th (or so) of this month. VIP isn't worth it. The graphics & gameplay mechanics are FAR too dated to justify a $14.99/mo price-point (unless, of course, you've already been playing the game for 4-7 years).

The F2P is even MORE not worth it. Things like inventory caps, monetary caps, auction house slots, costume slots, costumes, NEW power sets (not EXISTING CONTENT), etc... these are the things that ANY F2P model I have every played make their bank on. Paragon is locking out the most basic features of any MMO, and calling it "hybridized." If they mean a free trial, hybridized to a free trial, then they are absolutely correct.

Freedom is a desperate grasp for money by people who have no real concept of what a F2P system should look like.

The people I joined up with this past month, we would have all continued playing into Freedom. We would have used the **** out of the Paragon store, because we're whores for the kind of cool EXTRAS that end up on F2P marketplaces. But we will not pay out the nose just to buy the pieces of the game itself. We're not going to buy the games code back, one line at a time.

If Paragon drops the script to a more reasonable (5-10 bucks a month at most), reworks the F2P/Premium system so as to make it actually desirable, reworks the shop so it contains the things we want to buy, not the things we NEED TO ACTUALLY PLAY.... we may swing in. Otherwise, we're done in a week or two.




In all seriousness, I called all of my friends (who bought CoH with me) and told them what the new systems were going to be like. When I asked them if they wanted to play F2P, pay for VIP, or just quit... they laughed. And laughed. Because it was a rhetorical question, a joke if you like, and they all knew it.

I have a bit of a thought here (which may've been covered in the past 20+ pages, not sure).

It seems a lot of the folks who plan on staying VIP don't disagree with much on the new F2P system, while a lot of other folks think that the F2P variant doesn't offer enough.

So, would it make sense to everyone if the monthly fee on CoH were reduced?

The prevailing argument seems to be that Paragon is using a hybrid F2P model, which is meant to incentivize the concept of swapping to a VIP status, while still allowing players to access the game (for free) and get a taste of what it's like.

Now, this wouldn't take the sting off of the vital features that Paragon has chosen to lock away from F2P'ers (rather than locking players out of more of the optional bits), but it would lessen the hurt for any Free/Premium player who decided to go VIP.

With the age this game is at, plus the imminent switch to a Hybridized VIP system looming, a price drop to 9.99/mo would probably encourage a lot of players to take a look at the F2P side, and ultimately help in the decision to shell out some monthly cash to Paragon.

Edit - Plus, this way everyone wins.

So I was telling my roommate (who plays a ******** of F2P MMO's) about the CoH F2P & Premium models. Without any preamble, she described it the same way I've been thinking of it; "Oh, so it's a Free Trial with a perk system?"

I lawled.

I think October 12th (next full moon after Sept 12) is more likely.

Why? Because this gives NCSoft time to roll out the head-start (probably near October 1st), provide ample notice (as promised), and gives time for the free months to roll off that tons of people (likely) picked up during the Freedom sale, when CoH was only 2 bucks and came with a free month script.

Speaking as one of those incoming freebies, it makes sense for them to try and eek out at least 1 month's subscription cost out of us before they give us the option to go F2P, or continue paying.

Plus, that would put the release on a Wednesday, giving them ample time to fix any major ****-ups before the weekend.

I find it interesting that, of all things, Firefox didn't try to auto-correct "****-ups."

I thought I'd weigh in, as a new player (returning after 4 years, but same thing). Myself (and the 4 people I brought into CoH w/ me) all started off blue-side. After a few days, we decided to bring up some Vils and "go red," as it were.

After spending equal time on both sides we unanimously agreed that red was, in our opinion, better. As far as leveling through mishes goes (and only the first 20-30 levels), we've had way more fun red-side. We all feel like the progression (character AND story) is way smoother on red. Missions flow better, the contacts are better, the end-of-mission rewards are much more satisfying.

The "villainous" plots are more watered-down than a Disney/Pixar flick, but oh well. We have had way more fun leveling toons on red.

However, we'll be swapping most (or all) of our reds to blue, as soon as we all pick up GR (probably when i21 releases).

Why? We wanna go where the people are. With the exception of people camping the Black Market, red zones seem post-apocalyptically vacant. There's a tangible emptiness to the city streets. I don't know if the zones are just designed better, so you run into friendly players less, or if they're just that empty. It's eerie as **** though.



Also, somebody mentioned respec TF's earlier this thread. Off-topic by now, but the blue-side one we tried to run (multiple times) was a ******* atrocious mess. We couldn't even get one of the midway mishes to complete, no matter how many times we did it.

If there is one thing to hate about CoH, it's that respec'ing is treated like some kind of goddamned privilege, meant for only the hardiest (or wealthiest) of players.

The servers are back up. Wasn't sure if you folks were aware. They've been up since like... midnight.