T_Immortalus

Cars cost a lot of money and time. Oprah took a huge loss(with future gain due t more people watching and paying to be in the audience) to give those.

The consumables didn't cost the company much at all for this game, maybe about the same as they cost to purchase 25 or so.
They have a huge profit.

It's like a metal fastener production company giving away a single nut and bolt that costs them a pittance to make and they normally make 500% profit on while their main business is huge bulk orders or hundreds of thousands of nuts and bolts.
"You'll come back for bulk orders once you see what this one bolt and nut can do for you!"
Nope.



Edit:
I'm not mad, just unimpressed and disappointed.

Even a 3g, supposedly 1Mbps download, connection would be better than what I have.
Sadly, I don't know if it is available, or supported anyway, in my area yet.

I also can't really afford the price and the data cap would be too low.



Honestly, I don't know why they have such a stupidly low cap, other than greed. The cap should be set by the download speed. That caps your usage a lot more effectively than "oops, we let you use too much now we're going to charge you extra and then some".

That really sucks.

Not only do free players have to spend more INF on DOs and SOs(because they expire and need combining to make last), but anybody below tier 8 also doesn't get the best inspirations they likely need for their weaker characters more than anybody who does have access to better drops.


This game really seems rather backwards, like a lot of other MMOs.
You start out really weak with the weakest "consumables" and "gear" at the time when you need the latter the most due to having the least amount of options.

It would be better design to start out with the best effectiveness consumables(since they're percentage based and thus scale with level) at least so that they can work their way up to not using them as much when they more options and better gear. They should probably get better gear earlier as well, at least SOs, to compensate for the lack of options.



I just think it is not surprising that people have a hard time even trying or sticking with MMOs, and end up hating low levels, because they are forced to be weak at low levels. There is no way effort can overcome a designed severe weakness in this game or others designed such that the computer has absolute control.



Anyway, the wings all cost real money, in some way, to get. You either need invention access, which costs money, or reward tokens from spending certain amounts of money or to buy some wings directly from the cash shop.





Edit:
That is another thing. Some things scale with level while other things don't.
Endurance cost and accuracy and recharge time don't scale with level, so they always suck. Inspirations do scale with level so they always have the same effectiveness, but you don't get the stronger ones, even from low level bosses, until higher level so they suck in a way as well.

This game is definitely not consistent so that it makes low levels such a pain that it is obvious why people power-level. Being low level in this game is not fun. You have to wait for the fun, way too long a time.
No wonder this is a more niche game than others despite much better customization and more freedom of team composition than other more successful games.

First, I probably should have added:
"Let free players start there too."
Obviously, that is the biggest reason all the action is in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.

Second, the mission content in those zones is not free to anybody but VIP.

Third, you need people who already have the missions for exemplar and have to leave their team every so many missions while they do certain missions alone.

Honestly, it seems to be made to keep people apart.
It has "single player" missions in almost every arc. It can't be done through Ouroboros. You need to buy every mission, or stay subscribed or level the absolute slowest way by "street-sweeping"(if you had free zone access).


And still, "you can't join any of your friends anywhere else for any content until after you hit level 20 and do a specific mission".


It's like a single player game in the middle of an MMO, that is more difficult to solo that the MMO content. No wonder people avoid it.

Maybe more people would spend more time there if....

1) ....they weren't locked there until 20 with nothing to do after 20.

2) ....the missions weren't so annoying with their all too short timers and enemies that have too many tricks compared to the older content, including "solo only" 2 elite boss fights(Wu Yin and Tub Ci Tang).

3) ....Praetoria actually had more effort put into making it a unique and believable place instead of the same "enemy on every street corner" chaos that they supposedly don't have because such a thing makes it as bad as Primal Earth that is supposedly "a lot worse".

4) ....they actually made a lot more interesting vehicles and buildings than plain old skyscrapers and gas-powered cars the same or similar to Primal Earth. They could have flying cars that look futuristic and buildings that look more like they were in an architectural design contest.

5) ....they could put an AE(under another name and story) in Praetoria and every other thing people like that Atlas has access to. They would need to put the stuff in Nova Praetoria though, rather than in a higher level zone like across Imperial City for the CDEC and Studio 55.

(Edit:
6) ....they made it go all the way to 50 right away.
The worst part about Praetoria is the fact that it is so much more of a pain during the time when characters are the weakest and spend the least time.
It needs to have some reason for mid and high level players to gather.)



Honestly, they built Praetoria to be a "temporary story pass through".
They didn't build it to be some place that people wanted to stick around, so people don't stick around.




Edit 2:
FYI, the post you quoted of mine was a perfect response to the poster I quoted in that post.
It was stupid to call this thread silly when the thread is about the fact that the "Praetorian Chaser" is silly if you take the story of Praetoria even remotely seriously(meaning if you take it as seriously as which breakfast cereal to have, which is not very serious and you don't even think about it for long).

For one, Longbow have had the chasers for much longer, obviously. They would certainly know them better than the Praetorians could, including weaknesses. The Praetorians using a repainted and unmodified Longbow Chaser would be an absolutely stupid tactical failure.

That doesn't even take into account the questions it would bring up within the Praetorian ranks about why the vehicles are identical. They would begin to question their leaders or at least have a difficult time distinguishing friend from foe if the only thing that tells them apart is an easily faked paint job.



Seriously, the whole story element of "it's a recolored Longbow Chaser so that visitors from Primal Earth can go unnoticed in Praetoria" is absolutely stupid because Praetoria doesn't have any flying vehicles, let alone Longbow Chasers recolored.

You don't go bringing pine boughs as camouflage in the jungle. You use the plants found there to look as much like you belong there as possible.

You don't bring your own vehicle, repainted, into enemy territory if you want to go unnoticed. You use one of their vehicles, or a really good fake.

"Lag" means "internet slow", not "frame rate slowdown". Usually, when somebody is experiencing graphics issues they type something like "slideshow" and "lag" is reserved for high ping, as shown on the netgraph.


Frame rate slowdown is tolerable because I can still activate powers and stay alive. Internet slowdown is not tolerable.
I actually have a really good computer so frame rate is not a problem most of the time, even though these invasions even push that to the limit.

Actually, the Rikti Invasion was first, and it also had the short time before you could attack.

I imagine it was intended to give players a chance to see and target enemies, despite lag, before they were already defeated.
That does not work as intended because they may be "untargetable" but they are not invulnerable to splash AoE damage or pet targeting and damage.

It is a failure in design though.

1) They are boring and lagtastic for me as well.

2) Even if #1 wasn't true, they still die too fast(or wipe the floor with my characters due to being low level and buggy....I swear this invasion drains health faster than anything, even on a willpower brute) for me to do much.

3) They possibly did make it perform better, but, with all the incarnate powers and ability for everyone to use a lot more powers more often(due to IOs mostly), there is just so much spam of information across the internet that it even causes server lag.
They just haven't worked on minimizing the information transfer, possibly reworking how toggles work or changing powers to be more "MMO infrastructure friendly".

It will only get worse with new incarnate slots, and whatever comes after that....

sings...
"It's raining Nemesis! Hellelujah, it's raining Nemssis"
LOL

(yes, it doesn't fit the tune, but it's funny)

It's as silly as thinking that an alternate world with many differences wouldn't have one more difference instead of using the same exact technology as developed by a group that doesn't exist on the other world....

Your "it's silly" comment was wrong the second they told us Praetoria was a different world with an alternate history for the past 40+ years.



They really NEED different technology.

The "Praetorian Chaser" just looks like they stole a longbow chaser and called it their own(never considering that there would be questions and confusion if longbow ever brought their chasers through the portal), or Praetorian authorities are stupid enough to think that it is their own simply by giving it a different coat of paint when it is really completely an enemy vehicle.
It's more silly to imagine reasons for it to be the same as the longbow version with a different coat of paint.



Also, Praetoria is severely lacking in any vehicles, especially ones that make sense.
The only vehicles there are the cars that are all the same as Primal earth, the same old tanks and the same old fighter jets and helicopters in that one room in certain mission maps. None of those vehicles fit the "Praetorian theme and style". The helicopters and fighter jets and tanks don't even have a Praetorian Loyalist color scheme or logo(not sure whether the tanks have a logo or not).

It's just....wrong.




Edit:
I mean, just look at the Rogue Isles and Arachnos. That's very different from Paragon City. You can look at the Sky Raiders for another example.
It's rather obvious that Praetoria could, and likely should, have very different vehicles designs and aesthetics.

That is not what I meant. Of course, you can't use them as an ATM card because they are not an ATM card, but how do you think the store you use them at gets the money?
Obviously, the card works like a debit card in certain situations.

I don't see why it would not let you "pay somebody" with the card, so long as they can process it like it needs to be processed, even if that somebody is you and your checking account receiving the money.

Anyway, it was just an idea that I don't think most people have even tried. The other ideas posted by others here work well though.

You still keep your Loyalist or Resistance badge as well, from your original choice.