PeerlessGirl

You can bet that if NCSoft had actually made the CoH Pen and Paper themselves, we wouldn't be allowed to discuss any PnP games either. Honestly this whole this is bordering on rediculous. I honestly don't know of any other video game company forums where this rule is in force. But then again, they don't have anything to be afraid of, apparently NCSoft does. Somehow I suspect I know what specifically they *are* afraid of, the same thing everyone else in the industry is afraid of, except, oddly, the company I just mentioned. I wonder why that would be?

Seriously, give me my old forums back, stifling people and running your own little feifdom isn't going to help, if people want to discuss other things, they will, and if they want to leave they will, if they don't, they won't. Next we'll be told we can't discuss other games in the help channel, and maybe even tells, eventually..hmm..

I wasn't being serious about that (at least not tells..I hope) but seriously, it's silly.

That sounds like a cookie-related issue. While I'm sure you've tried this, have you cleared your browser's temp files and cookies (or at least any cookies relating to the CoH forums) from your home machine?

At the rate they've been going, I wouldn't be overly surprised if they were gone by next *week* :P

Yup. That's prime Virtue catgirl-shaggin' time...

Not that I would know. That's just what people tell me...

*Nod* I see. You see, I was unaware of how that all went down because I only really "knew" and "saw" the story from the one side. I came in on the tail end of i3, JUST before i4. I remember the launch of the Arena, and the patch/issue that added the shoulder kittens and the other anime-inspired costumes (all stuff they had ready for City of Hero that they ported over when it fell apart).

Now that makes a lot more sense, and yeah, it's true, I think maintenance annoys almost all of us at one time or another, regardless of when they set it for, and it has certainly been more annoying as of late, but in the end I'm sure the game will be better for it.

Yeah, the Enhances are a tad on the steep side, but the Recipie/Vault/Salvage increases are by far actually the worst offenders though, if you look at their cost versus how many are available, and what you really "get" for that cost. The Vault is probably the most reasonably priced *of the three* (made a little sweeter if you happen to have /vault, because it makes them more useful) but they're still far from reasonable. That may be exacerbated in my own personal view because my main has completed all the crafting badges and has more Salvage and Recipie slots already, thus making those look more unappealing than they might otherwise, and just got more when I hit tier 9. Definately need to be dropped, or wait for a good 25-50% off sale.

I'm honestly trying to understand this...I assume in some form or fashion you're talking about NCSoft or some branch of it, but I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean. The way I understood it (and could be wrong) CoH was/is an American-developed product released first in the US, and only later released in the EU on a different set of servers and a different 'game" entirely (so much so you had to buy the appropriate copy of the game to play on that server list).

I can't see how they'd need to kill any publisher to do that, but maybe I don't fully understand how it went down. Later after CoH was released in the US (and presumably the EU) (around issue 4) they attempted to market the game to Korea as "City of Hero" but it didn't end up taking off, and was cancelled just before it was to launch. That's also where the old "offline costume creator" (that was current up to i4) used to come from. It was designed and marketed to/for them, because so much of their internet use was from cafes, and this way someone could use a computer at home, and work on costumes and characters there. I used to have a copy of that creator before I lost my HDD, it was still useful up till about CoV.

Everyone else has already largely covered this. You're obviously out to "prove" your own inflated opinion of what you think your "time" or "past subscribership" is worth. PS is TELLING you what it's worth, in the Paragon Rewards tiering system. You WILL accept that reasoning, or you WILL quit. That's really all their is to it. Arcana already covered the "previous enjoyment" angle of all the expansions that come out, and others already covered the over-inflated since of entitlement you probably don't try to use on your cable company, your cell phone company, your insurance company, your grocery store, your gas station, or anyone else you pay for services. At least I hope you don't.

As for Tabula Rasa, that one's easy. They shut it down because it massively sucked; and Richard Garriot is more full of himself than most entitlists on the planet, lest I bring up what he tried to do to NCSoft afterward. Nothing he's made since Ultima and possibly UO have really had any relevance to society at all, but he still thinks he deserves everyone's respect and adulation.

The real problem with a lot of things is this entire generation of WEBs we've got growing up since about 1980 and up (and some from earlier who've decided to 'backslide').

WEB=Whiney Entitlement Baby.

This has little to do with the Beta build. I used the beta build, and it was more or less stable. The problem is, that has never entirely sticked for Cryptic OR Paragon when they push a build live, because there are micro differences between test and the live servers. Also, all of the live hardware was just recently upgraded to handle all the new stuff and new changes, and that hardware has not adequately been stress tested yet. *we* are that stress test, this IS the test, and they're doing what they have to to handle it. Get off your high horses and deal with it, or for the love of Pete, find something else to do for four hours. Might I suggest calming meditation. Or strong drugs.

Yeah, that. And dumping it on a well-known foreign power, no less, too.

While this would be nice for us, it's simply not realistic. Almost every solely subscription game (not that there are many left now, 90% of the ones I've played or know about have gone to a Hybrid Model) also have microtransactions, if you choose to take part in them. Heck even most non-sub single player games do this now. It's just a fact of the games industry these days.

This is pretty much exactly how I feel. Lothic hit this one on the head.

Also this. This is exactly pretty much how I feel about this. I bought the costume slots and enhancement trays I bought as a "thank you"/"tip" "support the devs with a new 'expansion pack' sort of mentality, really, and I'm happy with that. I spent about as much on points yesterday between my two accounts as I would buying a new console game ($65.00) and I'm ok with doing that, as in the long run I will get more enjoyment from these for longer (excepting some long single player RPGs perhaps).

I would posit that is why the system is called "Freedom" because *you/we* have the 'freedom' of choice as to which we spend our points on, or buy points for, and in what order we accquire these things. It basically allows us to create our own expansions however often we like to for (within reason) our own pricing structure.

You make several (eronious) assumptions here:

In my mind 5-10 sometimes even 15 bucks is definately "micro" in this day and age. When I can easy go to dinner at a "fast casual" restaurant by myself and spend 10-20 bucks on dinner, I consider that a fairly small amount of money. To someone older than me it's not. I'm not sure how people younger than me feel.

"Most of the stuff" is not in the $10-20 dollar range, just most of the stuff *you're looking at/interested in* is. Most of it is between 50 cents and 5 dollars.

You think they're "forcing free players to buy inconsequentials" but it's your *opinion* those things are inconsequential. Technically any virtual good is inconsequential.

Yes, for someone who isn't VIP it's CERTAINLY more economical to buy a subscription, and that's what Paragon wants, is more people subbing.

"They're essentially pricing themselves OUT of the F2P market" You're assuming they ever WERE/WANTED TO BE in the F2P market in the first place. It's not an F2P model, it's a Hybrid Model.

You said that once already, and I covered it.

There's indicators for some things, just not things we had before Freedom, you still can't re-buy them, so you can't accidently spend money on something you have. Zwill has covered this already.

Right, and that's valid, but many of the RPers on Virtue (myself included) have been begging and begging for more slots for years, and they kept saying it "wasn't in the code" and we said we'd pay for them, we'd buy an expansion, anything. They gave us what we asked for at the prices we asked for. They could easily have charged a buck a slot PER CHARACTER and many of us would do it. Just because *you* don't need/want more slots, doesn't mean others don't. Would I be upset if they were cheaper? Heck no (except I've bought about half of them). But I understand why they're priced as they are.

It has to take both into account, but I think it's *you* who is missing the point here. Paragon never said they were going F2P, they're going Hybrid, with strong emphasis still on subbing. What they want you to do is sub AND occasionally buy a few things (the packs we've always had). It's really no different, just more...free. But those who see that, see that, and those who have an ulterior motive to simply get cheaper prices will continue to keep trying.

Nope, it was $20 for 10 (not figuring "discounts" we get for being VIP or for bundles) since I was in Beta, which was when it went open.


Funny...I knew when I heard there were a total of 10 costume slots, that I would buy them at almost any price. I remember saying back when we all wanted more slots "if you just give them to us, we'll give you tons of money" and many of us said we'd "willingly pay the price of an expansion almost" just to get them. Well, that's what we got, and I'm actually damned happy about it. SEVEN costume slots at level 1, if you're willing to use Halloween Salvage. MORE slots at ONE than we've had through 50 to this point. I happily paid it. The enhancement tray was a bit steep, but i suspect there's some good reasons which I'll elaborate on below. I ended up spltting my initial 50 on 3 costume slots ("enough for now") and the one tray (would've liked both, but one is enough) Have no immedeate need for Beam rifle, so skipped it. Bought Barbarian costumes cause they seem neat. Still have enough points to get either another costume slot, OR a powerset at 800 if one comes out, not counting what I'll get from here on. It was also enough tokens to put me over into tier 9, and get me one of the celestial bits, and a signature summon for my main, so I'm happy there. I can round out the rest of celestial over the next 1.5 months, and from there it's gravy until it changes, so I'm pleased. I agree the trays should either be 400 less, or 4-800 less if "bundled". I won't likely buy Vault/Recipie/Salvage storage until/unless the price drops, or there is a sale. Not gonna dignify the "all Powersets should be free to VIPs" bit, has been covered repeatedly. They haven't been "free" since GR, if not a bit before.


Everyone's forgetting those "10 extra lousy enhancements" help marketers a lot. They ALSO mean you can potentially pull out THIRTY enhancements for the measly price of a respec, rendering those unslotters all but useless unless all you wanted to do was switch 1-2 things. *THAT* is exactly why they're so expensive. Makes respecs "just to get stuff out" a lot more worth doing.

As for the Links to the store. If you're a VIP you can disable the floating "Paragon Rewards" and "Store" links, if you're free/premium you cannot. At that point it shows up as a very discreet almost invisible "shop" button under your salvage window (handy IMO) and on the menu (which the the only place rewards shows up if you remove the button, aside from login). Other than the ones in the tailor/costume creator, which are needed if you want to look at a piece, then decide to buy it and equip it right there if you're making a character. It makes perfect sense to have those buttons at login as well.

That renders your complaints largely invalid on that front. As for "Free/Premium account holders should be able to disable the button too" No..really they shouldn't, that's something we as paying subscribers are allowed to do, and that's fair.

I'm aware of this, and as an extensive participant in the CO beta, I can tell you that by the amount they ignored our feedback, the game was almost dead by launch too :P not even counting the massive bait-and-switch they pulled with the launch-day (or a few days later) patch.

Re: LotRO, I respectfully disagree. I highly double Turbine regrets those decisions in the slightest, given where they are at the moment, and given how much COHF has taken from the DDO/LotRO model.

While I respect their choice. I highly doubt that "all other MMOs who had tried it regretted the move." I mean..sure I suspect LotRO wishes a bunch of us hadn't bought them, but on the other hand, if we hadn't they wouldn't be here now. For games like CO and DCUO it's obvious they're only doing it to milk what's obviously a dying product, I don't believe that was the case with LotRO, nor have I ever regretted my decision.

If a 'certain other space game' does it, I doubt they'll regret it either...or at least those who take the option won't.

Still, this falls in the "not news" category, since sadly, I never expected NC to offer it, boy do I wish they did when I started...

Now, I could be crazy, but unless the East Coast is in some sort of time warp where only an hour passes for 2 hours in the Pacific Timezone, what you meant to say was 5PM PDT (8PM EDT) to 7PM PDT (10PM EDT).

I think it was asked in the OTHER thread I'm watching (the ComiCon Reveals Thread) short answer, no, they told you it wouldn't be taken away, it won't. You'll land somewhere in tier 8, however, I think what ZombieMan's saying is, it's unlikely to ever happen *again* with the new system they're using from now on.

TLDR version: You'll end up keeping what you have now. My bet is, they'll read the NCSoft info one last time to properly copy your vet status in, or read from the badges you have, either way, it "looks" like you have more than you "do" so you'll end up with them still. It would likely be too much database work to correct it now, as it probably was then, or they'd have corrected it then.