Nethergoat

Gee thanks! =P

Well, I'm sure I will eventually...but at present I'm rather vainly attempting to husband my points as I know I'll be grabbing Bio Armor & I'll also be picking up a 25 count of the new Super Packs whenever they come out for the new costume bits.


I have a plant/something controller on a random server who I don't play anymore but don't delete because I *love* their costume. I could easily jack it for a new Nature Affinity character. I'm with you on how gorgeous it is- the fact that it is generally acclaimed as 'good' is just icing on the cake. Whenever they dropped that oasis power, it actually made me happy.

Decisions, decisions. =P



My connection *finally* got its pancake together last night, so I was able to do a little gaming this AM before my son woke up. I don't know what's up with AT&T lately, but the quality of their service has gotten measurably worse at the same time they've been increasing their rates. Look guys, I know it sucks that people are wising up to your whole cable teevee racket and leaving in droves, but trying to squeeze me is the wrong call. As much as I hate change, I'm going back to Charter. They're expensive, but never gave me any problems at my old address. And right now they aren't *that* much more than AT&T. I'll gladly pay a few bucks more on a connection that doesn't spontaneously stop working for three days every month or so.

Hopped in to check Ray's sales- moved a few more purples, but prices have dropped while recipe prices have stayed high, so I'm going to be socking away future wins in my base waiting for the inevitable rebound once 'the masses' figure out they aren't currently the most efficient use for converters.

I'd filled up his tip bar a while back on that team I joined, and he was really close to 42, so I ran his morality mish, which sent me to PI.

It was weird going back there- I haven't since returning to the game. I used to spend *so* much time in that zone back in the day- herding Nemesis around the docks with my regen scrapper, running portal farms with my emp. It was kind of weird seeing it so deserted- there were a few people hanging out in the courtyard, it looked like they were running Tina McIntyres arc, but nobody was mowing the CoT in the parking lot, nobody at the docks, nobody hanging out by Ghost Falcon.

Which I suppose is good for the game- Atlas makes much more sense as 'the hub' zone, and it's good for new players to exit the tutorial and see a big crowd buzzing in the plaza.

But I kinda missed how it used to be.

So, ran the mish, which was pretty easy, dinged 42 and picked up another hero merit. Not sure what I'll be doing with them while my purple converting biz is on hiatus- maybe I'll just roll random rare recipes and see how that goes.

Ray has gotten very capable indeed over the last few levels- he still sufferers from the Squishy Disease of mez, even worse than some because if his toggles drop it's *all over*. Running on +3/x2 right now, which is eminently do-able if I'm careful with my clumping and take care to keep my anchor alive, but if Radiation Infection drops I'm basically dead before I can do anything about it.

He's a pure delight on teams, where I can just blast away. He's completely depleted his supply of merits, so I'm hoping to catch on with a couple of TFs in the next few days.

My son still wasn't up, so I ran a quick newspaper- Defeat Archon Rossi & Guards. Good 'ol Rossi, I hadn't seen him in a LONG time.

Of course It'd been so long I forgot that high level council missions are nothing but vampires and wolves....ugh!

Stealthed to the end, popped a couple of defenses and a preventative break free, and cleared the room without much trouble. Picked up my Slayer badge, which I'd somehow managed not to get during that Moonfire a while ago.


My son finally toddled out looking for breakfast, so I logged out.

The listen quite closely to the player community about things that matter to the bottom line.

Powers, missions, y'know, gameplay stuff.


Nobody hangs around an MMO because of the story, they hang around because it's fun to play.


'Lore' is window dressing- important to the appeal of the final product, yes, but basically ephemeral. If the game is a house, lore is the paint and the landscaping that gives it curb appeal. It's nice to have, but it isn't actually all that important to the overall value of the property.

The trim around the window was painted blue, but NOW they painted it a slightly lighter shade of blue?

OMG!!!11

JUST LOOK AT THIS PICTURE I TOOK WHEN I RENTED MY ROOM! You can CLEARLY SEE that the trim is a DARKER BLUE! I've been BETRAYED! This is UNCONSCIONABLE!


c'mon, now.

An amusing sentiment, giving the vivisecting you received from several other posters down-thread.

Protip: when you don't know what you're talking about, leave your keyboard idle.

inability to pay base rent, along with limited server slots, was my great in-game discontent with being Freemium.

that's very helpful, but it is an annoyance for both parties.

You can't pay rent, which is a giant PITA if like me you have several personal bases. I could care less about having access to other people's bases if I can't keep the lights on in my own.

Wait, so a capitalist enterprise is engaging in profit seeking behavior & utilizeing MARKETING PLOYS to promote their offerings?!?


Quick, Captain Socialist, to the fainting couch!

-Neil Armstrong, 1930-2012

Yeah, mine is retired because I dislike the newschool clicky clicky click! gameplay, not because he isn't extremely survivable and competent.

paging Samuriko!

=D

Me either, aside from running one character through DA to see the new missions.

I was absent for a year due to childrearing eroding my playtime down to a nub, I returned because hey, it's free, why not?

Now as a Tier 9 my premium experience was as good as it gets- IOs, remote market UI, the works. As someone who doesn't have much interest in hopping on the Incarnate treadmill this was a terrific deal! Basically the whole game for free.

But after playing for a while, the discontents of life as a Freemium became manifest, chiefly NOT ENOUGH SLOTS. As a confirmed alt-o-holic with several full servers, the limitations seemed positively draconian. And every time I logged in one of my unlocked characters, I had to look at all of the ones I couldn't visit.

And then there's the base rent.
All of my established characters have their private bases, and I've grown so used to them over the years that losing access was a serious problem. Not so much for the zone teleporters- in the modern era a full suite of teleporters isn't the necessity it once was- but I found it hard to live without my copious BASE STORAGE. My villain base is fairly typical, with full zone TP access, rows of inspiration storage collectors packed to the brim with Large & Present inspirations and more rows of IO storage packed with various expensive junk for resale plus lots of the sort of thing I like to equip new alts with- Miracle uniques, -KB IOs, +Acc, stealth IOs.

Sure I could get a VIP pal to do me a solid, join my sg and pay my base rent for me, but that's just annoying for me and for them.

And after re-VIP'ing I decided to check out DA.
Which is terrific, not even for the incarnate stuff, but just as a zone full of really fun missions. I'm playing through on my fire/ice blaster, my only character I bothered unlocking the alpha slot on, and having a great time. Maybe after I've run through it I'll do some of the trials, who knows.

And I've also enjoyed the SSAs that I've played through.

And as noted being a VIP has saved me money, as it prevents me from financially imprudent binges on the Paragon Market. As a premium player I knew I wasn't getting any points, so when stuff appeared that I wanted I would just buy points and get it. Now, I have an incentive to be just slightly patient.

So, while max tier Freemium is a really, really good deal and I could totally live with it if for some reason I found myself completely destitute, VIP is a terrific value. For the same sub fee I paid for six years I'm getting WAY more content in the form of story arcs, TFs and trials, costume bundles & new powersets.

Max tier premium is a great deal, but so is VIP...it's that rare WIN/WIN situation.

No, that isn't the goal.

The goal is for Paragon Studios to maximize profit.
The bottom line doesn't care about subs per se, it cares about taking in more $$$ whatever the source.

Which the current system seems to be doing a bang-up job of.

I don't know where you're getting your assumptions about premium players spending habits, but they don't seem very realistic.

And as a reality check, premium players "get" ZERO points compared to however many VIPs get as their stipend. They have to buy every point they want to spend (which is why re-subbing as a VIP has actually saved me money...)

You've established nothing other than the fact that your own bizarre view of reality has little in common with the bulk of the playerbase.

If the VIP is "not interested in that stuff", then they can presumably go premium and save themselves some money, right?

I'm not seeing how that's a problem for anyone, except maybe Paragon if enough players find inventions, the market, incarnate content, tons of server slots & SSAs undesirable and decide to go Premium and buy power sets and costume bits ala carte.

Paragon seems happy with the status quo and they have the only vote that matters.

A sub gets you a huge amount of functionality for 'free': bases, incarnates, inventions, market, SSAs, slots.

Not having to spend points on this stuff means you can blow them all on goodies- power sets, costume bundles, etc.

Point cost is the same for everyone- your "non VIPs getting stuff cheaper" is unsupported by the reality of the game.