Snow Globe

Like I said, you are turning off a lot of people that you don't need to turn off. More to the point, you are turning off more people than you are winning over.

As for the NON UNIQUE code situation, why aren't you talking to your market vendor about a clear lack of functionality?

As with all the other exclusives, the problem is that they don't cease to be exclusive. As far back as the Collector's Edition to new "exclusives", people get upset over permanently exclusive items when they fail to become available eventually.

Or the Soup Guy from Sienfield. "No soup for you!"

Actually I'd modify that slightly so that it would be almost fully automated in the following manner:

Post a message on twitter to go to X site on the NCsoft/City hosting servers, give a time-limited password in the tweet.
The contest site asks for that password, and if successful (ie. during the timeframe), gives a code for whatever you are giving out.

This can be easily automated.

I would say that is next to impossible to do. A code has to be applied to be won. Any account being caught petitioning for the code to be removed and sold will likely be flagged with the possibility for the account to be closed.

No, it favors people with fast internet connections and fast typers. It is not in the least a fair "contest". Previous community reps got blasted for doing this type of promotion every single time they did it. Why? It is because for every "winner" there are many more people that did not win.

As to merging the EU and NA codes, did you even think for a minute that because there are less EU players that means you have a wider window to get the codes? Obviously not, given your post.

I actually get why they want traffic going to Twitter. I really do. They don't want to sell to outside players via twitter (though that would be a bonus perk), they want to inform their current players about stuff that is happening in game, like costume contests or building customer relations.

However, that is where players are having the issue. "Contests" like this serve the exact opposite of what they are trying to do. For every player that they establish a positive relation with these codes, they are ticking off far more players. What will happen will be exactly what has happened in the past. Instead of driving people to the social network, the opposite will happen: people will avoid both the contest and twitter.

Way to go heroes.

I suggested a way to do that. See Zwillinger's response (below). Apparently someone hasn't read the manual for the Paragon Market software.

And yet they attempt the same stunt every few years. There are a couple apt quotes for this behavior:
Yep, we've had several community reps get burned by this ploy. And I doubt that the current community team will be the last to suffer from this ploy.
Sadly, they are learning. Just not very fast.

Is someone feeding you a line? I'm sorry, but I'm finding this claim specially hard to believe. All a promocode does is apply a discount to an item in the store or gives a bonus to the customer. The market already applies the same code (it is an account code that has a SKU that is applied to an account). Now I could understand your team not knowing how to use that, but doesn't your market vendor have tech support? Isn't that why Paragon Studios bought an outside market interface for?

I realize that. However I don't think you fully realize what this contest is costing you.

It is costing you followers on twitter.
It is costing you public relations.

Actually, thanks to Playspan, you do.

It is called a promocode.



Paragon Studios enables the promo code announced on Twitter for 5-10 minutes, during which time anyone can get the item. No need for a single-use code. Not only that, you might get people that were turned off the last "contest" of this type (Coralax code).

And I'll also point out that the 12 Days of Coralax costume code has never been seen since for sale.

No, you don't. You "create" these promotions, like previous attempts using these methods, in blind disregard of feedback on previous attempts at these same promotions.

Yes, but how intentional is it when the company has been told repeatedly that the customer base doesn't like this type of promotion and you go ahead and do it anyways?

Take a look at the feedback for the Coralax codes given away by twitter/facebook/the forums in this format:
Discussion: The 12 days of Coralax!

Here is some of the comments in the first 20 posts:
This is one of the very few examples of positive feedback in the thread.

Pretty much the entire thread goes the same.

With feedback like that, why in the world could you possibly think that it would generate positive feedback for people to use twitter?

At least with the facepalm emote codes, it got people to sign up to Facebook so that they could get one of the 30/60 thousand codes knowing that they at least have a chance to get the code. Promotions like these 1-use codes only develops ill-will.

Black Pebble, at the very least, should have warned the community team about this. He was around for the last feeble attempt at this type of "promotion". I really have to question the community team's, the marketing team's, and the business team's planning if they insist on going through this every couple years.

You don't win customers by ticking them off.

Edit:
And I say this having got a Coralax costume code from the Forum portion.

By the way, it has not been that long since the uproar over the Coralax costume giveaway (and other similar "giveaways") that the community team should have forgot this type of promotion ticks off players to no end.

I don't think you have the slightest clue how hard it is to get people to participate at all on some servers.
This is typical, and varies from one night to the next (sometimes from one trial to the next). I can't tell people it is for the completely lackluster rewards, and I'm seeing fewer and fewer long-term VIP players doing this.

It also again goes to my point that if this is supposed to be the hardest trial to date, that the future trials are going to be even harder. Why? That is because the people already b*tching about how easy this trial is will be demanding an even tougher trial next time due to having more incarnate slots. Then again, these people already got their rewards, likely due to the lightning bug.

I meant the lore pet nerf. If groups were getting the Really Hard Way badge with the exploit of the lightning, then that is even MORE ammunition for those that have said since beta that the trial favored some groups more than others.

I know the badge groups on Triumph have been doing the trial with most, if not all, players on the ground. I also know that we've at times barely succeeded the trial with the lore pets buffed by the wells.

Again, this is another prime example of the developers overreacting. I also don't expect this change to be reversed. So the people that screamed that the trial was too easy and using the exploit will now get a harder trial while the players that just wanted to succeed without hand-picking groups will be up the creek.

Bravo devs, bravo.

As others have said, it won't affect that badge. It will affect "The hard way" badge as people count on that DPS to actually combat the obscene regen rate he has between 40% and 15%. I can see a lot more failures with pickup groups because of this.

Edit:
I wonder if the developers seen the effects of the flight bug then decided to punish everyone else for using lore pets.

Seems to be par for the course for the the development team to make gross adjustments without thinking through the consequences of the changes.

Some leagues need shifted lore pets to overcome Tyrant's ridiculous regeneration rate.

Then may I suggest that the developers work on keeping the following active beyond the defeat of the player using them:

• Ultimate Inspirations (lasts 3 minutes or much less because of defeat).
• Lore pets. Supposedly balanced by an extreme recharged, but either they die (by not being level shifted) or the player gets defeated and they are then without the power for 10-15 minutes.

Edit:
It is also extremely hard to find this thread by going to the News, Events & Announcement Discussion section given all the other stickied threads/patch notes.

Well I did say that I only gave it a few minutes thought.

I always thought that the comics and the Hanna-Barbara cartoon limited the concept. Well that and the Wonder Twins being the Jar-Jar Binks of the super hero world.

Yeah, Sandman from the Spiderman comics couldn't possibly be a good example of a themed water blast set.

Sorry, I need to reset my sarcasm meter. At any rate, directed at Doctor Roswell, not you.

Nanomite blast!
Oooh, Ectoplasm blast!

Liquid accelerant blast.

Yes, all we're missing now is:





I thought you were avoiding making bets you were not 100% positive about.

As in free for the customer, yes.

No, I'm not privy to financial records of either company. Also when a developer signs up to have their game sold by a digital distribution service they also sign a non-disclosure agreement saying that they won’t reveal the details of the deal publicly. So you are just as much in the dark about this as everyone else here is.

I'm sure the super hero MMO on Steam has announced their partnership with Steam and has Steam achievements so Valve is getting something out of the deal (if only publicity). Steam has got free advertising at that game's community.

Hyperbole much? Every single developer? Give me a break. That is like someone saying that every CoH player hates X feature.

Given the game that Jack built had a store with micro-transactions -before- joining Steam, and Steam doesn't have any means to buy currency in that game, I'm not sure where you are getting -your- information from.

I'm sure there are usage clauses that some developers don't like. You can say the same about free apps on the iTunes Store. Steam could have been demanding exclusive Steam DLC that Paragon Studios didn't want. However, given all the outside evidence I see, the main reason that CoH is no longer on Steam is the NCsoft Launcher. NCsoft pretty much ceased Steam operations the moment they fully switched to the Launcher.

The sad thing about this conversation is that we're both speculating as to motives of groups we don't belong to.

I'll end my time in this thread with the following quote from another (not competitor) MMO game developer's blog (game's name hidden):

Wait till October?

Okay, how about we take a look at how this set can be used (beyond juvenile humor):

• Water blast (obvious)
• Milk blast
• Glue blast (Captain Mucilage from the Tick )
• Soda blast (pick any number of them)
• Juice blast (again pick any type of juice)
• Poison blast (seems obvious)
• Blood blast (sick, but villains or vampires)
• Liquid Metal blast
• Paint Blast (have each blast a different color)

And that is with just a few minutes of thought.

Oh, and Zan had water powers in both the tv and comic book versions of the Superfriends in the 70s.

Now you seem to be ignoring the (edit: one) direct competitor to this game on Steam. Both are F2P with micro-transactions not tied into Steam.

In the end I have to ask myself which is the most likely scenario:

• Steam doesn't want F2P games on its service, even if they aren't getting a piece of the micro-transaction pie.
• NCsoft wanting to push its own launcher.

Personally, I think the second is the true reason.

Nope, got those, but you don't seem to understand the concept of a "loss leader" in marketing.

I have several games that I play, including City of Heroes and several games I've got through other "game portals" (Valve, EA) and even a couple flash games and solitaire on my iPod classic. I'm pretty sure that both of the main competitors to this game are available on Steam. The only difference is that the parent company to this game (NCsoft) has dictated that Paragon Studios use their game portal (the NCsoft Launcher *) instead.

I'm sure Steam would love to be able to still showcase City of Heroes in their store. They do so for this game's competitors. I think the major hurdle is NCsoft, not Valve.

Or the parent company want to make their own attempt at a games portal (the NCsoft Launcher *) like EA or Valve has done.

Actually, I bought City of Heroes: Going Rogue for my 2nd account via Steam:

Going Rogue: Complete Collection Sale on Steam! (one day only, July 15, 2011)

And there were other Steam deals:
Weeklong Steam sale: Going Rogue Complete Collection 50% off (May 23, 2011)

They had City of Heroes available through Steam. I'm assuming that either Paragon Studios or NCsoft decided that they didn't want to sell on Steam for undisclosed reasons (any number of reasons, but at a guess NCsoft wanted their own excuse for a portal, aka the NCsoft Launcher *). I doubt we'll ever know why. Then again, we don't need to know.

* I still don't like that piece of garbage, but we're stuck with it.

Their "cut" in the case of F2P games tends to be the same as say, Google. They want to be the de-facto game portal people use. Why? So people will view their store and buy stuff. It doesn't cost Valve to list a F2P MMO, but if a player opens steam to play CoH then they have a chance to make a transaction for another game/purchase.

If you know the name of the temp power, you can bind a key to it.

Example:

/bind ctrl+1 powexecname Pacification Grenade
/bind ctrl+2 powexecname Molecular Acid

I really wouldn't recommend binding them to the same key to prevent accidents.

Curiously enough, on a pre-formed group on Triumph last night: One person on my team DC'd during the acceptance dialogue, the turnstyle didn't allow us to start as we were "one member short", then instantly re-queued with a pick-up player. The DC'd person was willing to wait until we finished that run so we ran with the random person.

Is anyone else a bit spooked that Black Pebble appears in both the Developer Digest and the Community Digest?

You'd only get one chance to do so on one of my badge leagues... ever.

I generally don't mind people like this, as long as they cooperate with the team.

You are better informed then than some other players I've dealt with during my time with this game.

Maybe, but I tend to limit my badge running to Triumph, and I generally know everyone in Triumph's badge community.

I've been able to jump into leagues on Triumph, so I can say that it does happen.