T_Immortalus

I wish all the other pets and secondaries were as good as bots and force field together. It would make more options better.

I also wish we had more pet options, like angels(definitely, yes please) and ghosts and other things.

As does Insulation Shield(or the other one) from Force Field. :P

Edit:
Well, it does give recovery debuff resistance as well as endurance drain resistance, last I checked.

Actually, I just want to be able to solo AVs/GMs because everything else is easier if you can work at that level.

Also, it's just fun sometimes to have an epic one on one fight with one of the toughest enemies around and take him down.



The giant monster Eochai actually got me hooked on this game during Halloween of my first month of play ever. I fought him as a dark melee/electric brute or something at level 7 and had so much fun.

Still all assumptions, supposition and conspiracy theories that have no basis in canon....yet.

In fact, there is no proof(and probably no mention as far as I can tell) of some desire of his to "conquer the multiverse".

He has good reason to attack Primal Earth because they attacked first(a few times according to canon) and they will attack again, especially Arachnos.


I haven't seen any proof in game, or in the official bio(which is perhaps biased to throw people off with later stories that make Cole seem very heroic; it makes sense), that he wants to "conquer the multiverse".
Every official source that I can think of in game indicates that he is perfectly fine with his own world and only attacks Primal Earth to prevent them from attacking after they opened the dimensional barrier to his world and stole stuff and attacked already.


Cole isn't looking very evil, either by dev design or dev mistake in making his actions too justifiable.

1) The US has a very lenient criminal punishment system. They get parole quickly, especially with good behavior.
If it was actually mandatory to serve the full time then people would likely be less willing to commit crimes, with less repeat offenses and less time on the outside for criminals to associate with other people and influence them to commit crimes, making it seem "so cool".
Violent crimes are the worst. You can attempt to murder someone and serve less than 10 years despite severely hurting them.

2) What would you have them do other than punishment and deterrence?
Would you have them figure out a "thought police" program?
Oh wait, Mother Mayhem did that and you hate it and she is enslaving people.



If you want freedom, you need to work for it and to ensure it.

This is why I don't see Cole as outright evil.

1) Primal Earth attacked several times before Cole attacked. They asked for military action which any country would do against any other country that attacked.

2) You give people the absolute freedom that the Resistance supposedly wants and you get Primal Earth. You get a lot of people that think "I have the freedom to hurt others" which is never a freedom that anyone should have.

You think we would allow evil in our own world if we had the means to prevent it?


Cole is right in one way.
There are certain "freedoms" that people should not have because they are not freedoms at all; they are anarchy and evil.

Without laws to deter, punish and even prevent crime then crime will happen unchecked.

Do you think legalizing murder would make people stop murdering others?
Do you think eliminating all laws would prevent people from doing the things that would have broken those laws?



You have all been corrupted by propaganda of our own society and authors of books like 1984 and Brave New World.

I read those books and understood them and their warning.
Praetoria has some similarities, but Praetoria is also much better than the societies of those books.


Sure, the people of Praetoria have no control over their world, but is that any different than us electing leaders and just hoping they do what we want?
They're protected, happy and can pursue whatever work or ideas they want, so long as they don't lead to others being harmed(and yet they also have enough freedom to harm).

In our real world, people suffer every day and have to take what they can get; people don't have robots doing all the manual labor that sucks to do; people are far from safe, even in the most "civilized" country, from their fellow citizens and their murderous desires.


I can see exactly why the people of Praetoria elected Cole and continue to support him.
Sure, Mother Mayhem and her seer slavery program need to go, but the rest of the governmental system isn't bad.

And even with the seer program and some sort of "happy pill" in the water....I would probably like to live in Praetoria if it were real.

I would gladly trade "the freedom to murder" for safety and happiness.






Really, what freedoms are the people of Praetoria actually losing?
What freedoms are the Resistance members willing to destroy a whole working and relatively safe society for?

If they have the essential freedoms, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"(liberty actually means freedom from persecution without cause such as being a criminal), then how is that not good?

How is Praetoria a horrible nightmare society if people have the very freedoms the foundling fathers of the USA said every person deserves?


Those are the freedoms that matter, not the freedom to kill other people which isn't freedom at all; it's psychopathic selfishness.

For one, I would gladly trade the "right to bear(right word?) arms" for the "right to not be killed by a person with a gun".




You see, there are some things people just can't do.
They can't, as individuals, stop another individual from killing them.

Praetoria saw the US president nuking their world, causing countless civilian deaths just to try to keep the Devouring Earth from other population centers.

Do they use nukes anymore? Nope. now they actually have working fences and a stronger smarter military that is actually not willing to sacrifice everyone else just so that their little group can survive.



People need to band together to protect each other, always through electing/appointing a leader and group of protectors.

We in the real world have our leaders and military controlled by those leaders. Praetoria has Emperor Cole and a much more effective military despite a much more dangerous constant enemy.





If you want to compare Praetoria to the real world then Praetoria really is a utopia by comparison, despite the bad things about Praetoria.
At least the people there are free to do anythign that doesn't harm others, are fed, are clothed, can choose what work they want to do or no work and are happy.

Those that dissent in Praetoria do so for only one or two reasons:

1) They know the lessons of "power corrupts" and think "Cole will go too far" so they want to preemptively take him out rather than ensure the system doesn't become corrupt from the inside(and cut out the corruption already there).
They would sacrifice a working system and safety and happiness just so they don't have a risk of corruption, but every system can be corrupt so all they would be choosing is a small group of more evil Tyrants instead of one Tyrant that is apparently not that bad.

They would open the world up to civil war and would-be conquerors rather than the Emperor they elected.

2) They just don't like anybody having power but themselves.
This is the primary motivator for all power struggles, including the Resistance of Praetoria. More of the Resistance is evil and just after power than those that are out to "protect the people" because they sure don't "protect the people" and always claim "we are freedom fighters trying to give people freedom" without ever saying what freedoms or how other than "taking down Cole" who is actually protecting people.

They're trying to "protect the people" by taking out the one group that is already "protecting the people" and has proven themselves better at it than any other group in history with a much happier and more comfortable world created by them.






By the way, there are plenty of examples of "freedom fighters" in our own real world history who were actually after nothing but power and ended up much worse than the government they overthrew shortly after gaining power.

Emperor Cole is right. You do need to protect people from other people, what is easily at least part of what he meant by "protect people from themselves".

Many people will eagerly hurt others for their own gains, even if the gains are as small and insignificant and stupid as a bottle of alcohol in exchange for the store owner's life.







Cole is only as "evil" as others force him to be and show him is required.
Yes, Mother Mayhem is evil and earns Cole "guilt by association" for "aiding and abetting", but even her program may not be completely evil, especially if it was changed to only use volunteers who retained individuality.

Cole used to be considered the savior of the people, elected Emperor by 99% of the people(according to canon).

So what do you think caused Cole to think he needs to "protect people from themselves" and perform a lot of arguably "necessary evils"?

Something tells me that 1% of the population didn't have all "altruistic" motivations and some of the other 99% probably are "bad weather fans"/"criminals asking for their victims' help" that returned to greed and desires for undeserved/unearned power after their lives were no longer in imminent peril from Hamidon and the Devouring Earth.


I don't see Cole as anything less than "lawful good"(to use a D&D term) even if he allows/does many things we consider morally wrong.
After all, somebody has to punish a murderer for committing murder, to prevent future murders and as a deterrent to others who may consider doing the same action.

Also, if someone could prevent murders then what price would they feel is worth paying to prevent that most heinous act?



Sure, some of the things in Praetoria are wrong, but I find it very hard to make a long list.
The things that are wrong:

1) The seer program is involuntary slavery.
This could be made right by making it a volunteer only force and not controlling the volunteer's minds while limiting them to "empathic sensing" only instead of keying off ordinary citizen's innocent thoughts. This would preserve the benefit of a seer surveillance network to alert police to crimes.

2) A few scientific experiments are not right.
Neuron's ghoul creations should never have happened. The scientific experiments need to be monitored and policed, especially when they affect people who would otherwise be healthy and fine.

3) Feeding the destroyers fixadine is wrong.
Dominatrix needs to be taken down a peg for stirring up crime while people cure the addicts so they don't require it anymore.

(Edit: Weigh those against a lot of the Resistance's methods, killing innocent civilians and blowing up water treatment facilities that prevent Devouring Earth spores from infecting people through the water and all sorts of other morally dubious acts, and it looks like both sides are at least evenly matched for evil, with the Resistance pulling ahead to more evil because they want to overthrow a government that protects the people and works relatively well, and most people are happy with and elected into power. The Resistance weren't elected, and I bet any vote on whether they should be listened to, even without drugged people, would be majority against them. The Resistance are no better than the perpetrators of 9/11.)


Other than that, Cole and his administration seems fairly justified in most actions, barring corrupt individuals that need some sort of "internal affairs" investigation.
Even the war with Primal earth is justified given the facts that Primal Earth attacked Praetoria first, several groups and several times, and really is a threat to Praetoria as Arachnos has proven by trying to blow away half of Praetoria with one of Anti-matter's reactors.




It seems to me you people just "believe what you are told" without question(remind you of your opinion of the Praetorian people?) and don't examine the evidence.
If you did, you wouldn't write Cole off as evil just yet, though you may not be happy from the perspective of "a super from Primal Earth that he has declared war against".


Are you analyzing this from the perspective of an outside objective observer or from a subjective position and possibly from a "Paragon City has always been heroes, anybody who opposes them is EVIL!"(how very totalitarian of you, and like you think Cole views things)?

You really do seem a lot more like Cole than you think.

Because those are not moral descriptors. They are just descriptors of a type of government that becomes bad if the dictator does the wrong things because they let themselves succumb to the corrupting temptation of the power they have.

That is why there are phrases such as "evil dictator" because "dictator" doesn't mean evil. A dictator can still listen to the people and do what the people want, just without needing a vote.



Honestly, I think things through, and use proper meanings, a lot more than most people.
I can easily see the moral gray of Praetoria.


By the way, Britain used to be a monarchy for a very long time, which is a dictatorship, but they had good times in that history where the people liked it. There are still countries in the world with monarchies that aren't horrible.




I don't like Emperor Cole, FYI, but only because he is too extreme. He makes choices I would not immediately make because I would give Primal Earth a chance to accept my help in pacifying the threats on their planet instead of just conquering saying "they would never change".
He doesn't seem as wise or patient as he probably should be as a leader. Thus, I don't like him.

I don't think he is definitely a villain yet though. He's a vigilante for sure, but not quite a villain yet. That can and will change as more story is revealed, likely.

1) Those aren't in game canon, even the ones that appear to be are possibly from a biased source(written from the perspective of Resistance for one).

2) The developers did a crappy job then.
I seriously don't see Emperor Cole as a villain and certainly not all the Loyalist moral choices as villainous.

In fact, there are quite a few moral choice options that point to the Resistance choice clearly being evil and the Loyalist choice clearly being far better.

Take the choice to kill Cleopatra or Interrogator Washington for example. She tries to have your character killed, after you just kept trying to prevent crimes and brign in criminals, and your choice is "let the person who just tried to kill you go free and kill the witness"(Resistance side) or "give her the death penalty for murdering that PPD officer and attempting to murder you"(Loyalist option).

Obviously, that choice makes the Resistance look like the evil group.


therefore, the developers either did a horrible job or maybe you and many of them are misled to believe that the Resistance are "absolute good" and Loyalists are "absolute evil"(when they also said Praetoria was all moral gray)....

....or maybe they just say what you quoted to mislead people so they are surprised by future story twists, like the story that started this thread.





The devs are messing with your mind. They ARE Nemesis.(not even joking)

His plans are, as far as canon, "to wipe out the threat of Primal Earth with as few civilian casualties as possible".

That doesn't sound very evil, even if war is inherently evil.


Was the American and British side of World War 2 evil for trying to stop Germany with an invasion?

It's no different than Cole's Invasion, especially since America only had one attack made against it, but Praetoria has had several before Cole even acted.





Emperor Cole is very much justified in all his actions, though his actions are a bit extreme and his motivations are a bit extreme(though starting from good intentions).

Emperor Cole is almost as evil as Statesman. He is just a little more evil than statesman.

Emperor Cole is a leader which is why he does more evil. Statesman is not a leader so he doesn't have the burden of doing what is necessary even if it is morally questionable, like ordering soldiers to their deaths in war.


All Statesman has to consider is sacrificing himself, but Emperor Cole has to consider asking others to make the sacrifice when necessary because he commands the military of Praetoria. He can't do ti alone and the responsibility was placed on his shoulders by the people, when they were not drugged.

1) The old Maria Jenkins version of Tyrant was retconned out with Goign Rogue. He is now not "blatantly enslaving his people in a broken shell fo a world form atop a throne of human bones" like he was portrayed as first.

It's not "goatee Statesman" anymore.


2) He is not enslaving people. They have clockwork robots for that. They do all the manual and dirty labor and even fight the wars.

Or did you forget that the invasion forces in the Tin Mage and Apex TFs were almost entirely robots and the forces in the trials are mostly robots and highly trained soldiers who volunteered for missions such as they are in?

Sure, the seers are enslaved, but that is psycho Mother Mayhem's doing.




Everywhere you turn, you can't write off Emperor Cole as "pure evil" but you can call him "a strong leader" and "a protector of the people" even if he is leaning evil because he has twisted "protector of the people to add "....from themselves" as well as outside threats.


If he is "pure evil" then so are you Golden Girl, because you seem plenty willing to absolutely "HATE" him without acknowledging his motivations, that his actions may often be necessary and that he does some good.
All you do is look for conspiracy theories, non-canon theories, and want to write him off as "an evil alien" just because he is from a world that works differently than our own.

Do you think the royal family of Britain is evil because they're still the royal family?
Do you think all foreigners are "pure evil" just because their values differe slightly and morals there permit what we may consider barbaric criminal punishment and different social norms?




Go ahead, continue writing off Emperor Cole as evil. I'll just write you off as prejudiced for no good reason then.

Then why are we meant to empathize with him?
It does not make sense if he is "pure evil", plus he sure doesn't seem pure evil like Lord Recluse or Nemesis or even Hamidon.

Oh come on!?!
What about all the loyalist scientists who are not part of the Resistance, having no shielding and still drink Enriche?

You can't, CAN NOT, have a stable system of government or scientific advances, especially one able to stand against a supposedly free-thinking opposing force, when the people that make those scientific advances and police/govern the people are mindless idiots.


You can't tell me that all independent thinkers, or even most, are helped by Vanessa DeVore when many of them are working against her, obviously against her, and her Resistance friends.



1) We're unsure how big the uprising is. All we see if the capitol city of an entire planet where the Resistance is very likely focusing most of their efforts while the other side has to spread efforts over an entire planet.

2) They are safe under the protection of Emperor Cole/tyrant. They have the sonic fencing and First Ward's "Seed of Hamidon" proves that Hamidon is out there and a huge threat, not to mention all the other references to the Devouring Earth and Hamidon such as the tentacle you can see from Praetoria past the zone boundaries in a certain place.

3) You quote canon background about Marcus Cole to use against him, but then you ignore the same canon that says he really did save the people of Praetoria and keeps them safe.
Ironic?

4) It's not in question that he protects the people. The issue is "how" he protects them.
He protects them through questionable methods, though he does protect them.


1) Primal Earth is still pretty corrupt in the newer stories, rather than the old "PPD are saints and the heroes are beneficent deities" stories.

2) There are plenty of villains in Primal Earth, one even controls a nation the size of Praetoria and treats the people a lot worse. Lord Recluse ring a bell?

3) Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx don't need to set up a dictatorship. They already have practically free reign, without the public scrutiny of being at the top. They're legally sanctioned hero groups that can get away with things such as invading sovereign nations to depose the leader(STF anyone?).





And as for canon, Praetoria is, and is supposed to be, a moral gray area.
That is why Emperor Cole is in power, as of the retcon with Going Rogue.

He is now forced to do the things the people need to survive and thrive as much as possible.


Do you think it is not morally questionable to go to war?
Do you think it is better to just let yourself be conquered rather than send soldiers to their deaths to ensure the safety of as many people in your country as possible?

War is sometimes a "necessary evil" but it is always "evil" because people die on both sides, all while the leader is safe behind fortifications and distance from the front lines.





Cole is a leader. He is forced to make hard decisions, as a vigilante, because that is the burden of leadership.

He literally can not do the "epitome of heroism" types of acts that the heroes in Paragon City do because they don't even work on the small scale in Paragon City.
Every arrested criminal of any higher stature is out of jail fast and at the same crimes again. They never ever do what is necessary to protect people forever.

Seriously, the heroes of Paragon City are never execute anyone. They always have to be like the Doctor in Doctor Who and either hope the enemies end themselves or trick them into doing so.
Or, they just arrest them and turn them over to a completely inept police force and legal system.



So, if Emperor Cole was as "heroic" as the "heroes" of Paragon City then Hamidon would have won and the world would have burned in nuclear fire.
All because he would have been too much of a wuss to stand up and say "ENOUGH!" and end the clearly repeating and absolutely evil threats that his world has to face.


After all, Paragon City sure has a lot of "the world is going to end" crises compared to Praetoria, which is remarkably stable.
It sure looks like Cole is doing a better job than Primal Earth could ever do.

They gave me the perfectly valid, by design, choice to unsubscribe.

Also, that doesn't really apply to the new players who start because of the "no subscription" option.



So, do you want to try to appear more elitist or more like a snob?
Or, would you like to finally admit that they need to treat all customers like their money is worthwhile and like they matter so that maybe they will "want to subscribe"?



You don't get people to want something by restricting them from it. They just resent the restriction and leave if they have a choice.

Good luck getting people to become VIP just for forums access, especially with all the types of "grumpy old man" posts saying things like "deal with it" and "subscribe or GTFO".

LOL
I'm done with this little argument.
They need to give at least some limited forum posting access for free players or they can kiss a lot of money goodbye.

LOL

How CAN you communicate with the developers if you can't post on the official forums which are the only sure place to be heard, and have no ability to use petitions to suggest things in game due to the new system as well?


They CAN'T listen because they made sure you have no avenue to communicate, other than not buying anything which doesn't send so much of a signal anymore without an "account cancellation" anymore.

What is the point of becoming a VIP if they don't listen to your suggestions that would make you want to be a VIP?



"I'm only going to listen to my current customers and hope new customers want to become my customers, but I will never ever listen to those potential customers because they aren't already paying me. I don't care that they would pay for this thing I could sell them; I'm not listening to them."

It is stupid to ignore potential sources of income.

If they completely cut off free players from forum access, players who obviously didn't think CoH was worth subscribing to, then they just have to hope and pray they get lucky putting what they want in the store, while subscribed players don't want to buy it in the store and argue for it to be included in the subscription price(meaning less money for the company).


How do they know how to entice free players into spending some and more if they never see any feedback from them?

How do you know how any "voters" feel if they can't communicate? You just have to hope you come up with a good idea that they "vote yes" to rather than a "vote no" with infinite possible reasons why and no clue which reason they had.



Seriously, no feedback is never good for business.

I believe we get to start spending right away, barring downtime and bugs and the servers overloading and burning. :P

Actually, they would be absolutely stupid to not at least have a F2P forum section where free players can post to make themselves heard and ask questions, and probably allow them in suggestions.


It's not a smart business decision to only allow communication from the customers who pay the most and most reliable while not listening to those saying "I would pay more for this" because you never see that if they can't post.

If they want more customers paying more then they need to listen to the reasons they have for paying money and what they want to see that they would pay money for.


Also, the "fanboys" tend to be subscribers and won't provide good objective feedback. You need some "cheapskate" type free players in the mix to balance out the "devs can do no wrong" people.

It all depends on whether you find the exclusives worth it or not.


I personally have a hard time justifying the exclusives, as well as I like not having a recurring payment so I can control my finances better.
Also, I don't like paying $5 more for content I may or may not like. I like to pay for good content.

I didn't call you an idiot either.

Honestly, would you rather he makes his dissent private so nobody gets the message "don't kill civilians"?

The "public" display doesn't point to either option. There is a reason criminal punishment used to be, and still is relatively, a public affair.

Deterrents don't work in secret.

You meet Cole in the Power storyline as well. He gets around.

I'm inclined to believe it was him, "surveying the battlefield".

And there lay the question:

"Is what Cole is doing necessary or unnecessary?"

"Is it evil and necessary or evil and unnecessary?"



Obviously, controlling people is morally wrong, but it brings up several questions that make it the right or wrong choice.

Examples:

1) How much is he controlling people? Is he just putting them on "happy pills" so they do the same things they always would except the evil ones? Is he making them mindless?

Apparently, Praetoria is still full of independent thinkers and those who still choose questionable acts so either the mind control isn't working for most people or it isn't strong and is more like "hypnotic suggestion" to do good things.

2) Is the drugging and such really necessary? Are the people of Praetoria prone to violence?

Can we judge that based on the "close cousin" Primal earth and all the evil and corruption there? If we do then maybe Cole is right. If Praetoria were to be like Primal Earth then it certainly would be worse off with many more dangers than just the Devouring Earth that ended up "top dog" in Praetoria.

Honestly whether you believe in a soul or not, having your mind changed to that of somebody/something else is "dying", especially without any reversing method/cure.

Hamidon IS death for them.

Also, do you think Hamidon will keep him soldiers alive once he has cleansed the earth? Or, will he have finally reached his apparently mindlessly obsessive goal then destroy the last remnants of humanity(the transformed ones) and slumber the sleep of a hard worker after a "job well done" until a new threat to the earth/Hamidon possibly arises?



The people want to keep both their minds and bodies intact, and Emperor Cole does that a lot better and more than the human leaders before Cole's empire or the Devouring Earth and Hamidon.

It's all a question of perspective and majority leaning of actions.





Edit:
After reading the rest of your post, you are jumping to conclusions LIGHT YEARS ahead of the canon story or any NPC subjective story.

Don't count your conspiracies before they become true.

Morality is, by definition, subjective, therefore it is always "calling ones own morality absolute" when you call a person evil.




"Good and evil do not exist except in the minds of men."
(I'm pretty sure somebody said that as a quoted phrase from the past. If not then it should be quoted from me.)

The universe doesn't give one rap about good and evil. It just works as is with all the miracles, like life on Earth, and disasters, like landslides on earth and dying stars and black holes sucking up planets and light.

Life and death are intrinsically linked. Morality is applied to the human control of such and depends on the person applying the moral judgement.



Some believe murdering people is justified, while others believe no murder is justified, and still more believe murder is wrong but justifiable against murderers(as in the death penalty).



It's all subjective.







As far as the universe is concerned, Emperor Cole is neither good nor evil, but if the universe dose favor order and survival then Emperor Cole is more on that side than the side of chaos and death.

Exactly.


You have two optimal financial choices(which is important since money is important):

1) If you plan to stop subscribing, losing the subscription benefits, then it is best to never subscribe and spend your money on things you will always keep.

2) If you plan to subscribe then keep subscribing.
If your subscription lapses then you lose what makes your money feel worth more than option 1 above. BUT, this means you have to continue paying forever $15 monthly in order to prevent that feeling of loss and measurable factual disadvantage.



Honestly, paying piecemeal is always cheaper, and a better deal when subs are unnecessary, than subscribing in the long run.

Subscriptions are for those who are willing to pay extra for benefits that are highly subjective and factually small in the grand scheme of things.
They're for people willing to pay for private golf instead of public and free golf, just for the intangible and limited benefit of being "better than others".

Paying for content and not subscribing is for frugal people and those who don't care for the elitism of a special club they can't guarantee always being a member of(for whatever reason).






It's all a matter of opinion.

Pay less because you want to pay less and still get almost the same benefits.
Or, pay more for the bragging rights and slight benefit that is actually outweighed by the frugal person's savings.



It's like a person who has money shopping at a specialty foods store, paying for brand names and marketing, while another gets more food of the same quality from a bargain grocer.

You choose whether you can afford and want the brand name stuff or want to get more/save money.

If I accept it, is it fear?

I'm not afraid of it nor do I begrudge them money.


But, I am well within my rights to try to get the most value from them with the least amount paid.

That is how economics works.
They try to charge as much as they can get me to pay.
Both sides have to agree on a price.





I'm just being smarter than:

company - "Give us this much money for this."
customer - "Ok, here you go."

....and saying:

company - "Give us this much money for this."
customer - "Hmm, that price looks a little high, will you take this much?"
company - "We need this much."
customer - "Be honest now. You're going to make a huge profit on that original price. Profit is after everyone, even the top guy, gets paid, so you don't need that much extra profit."
company - "We're still charging what we charge."
customer - "Well, I'm not willing to pay that much, but I am willing to pay lower while you still get a profit. Do you accept?"
company - "Well, costs will still be covered and some profit is better than costs not being covered....Ok, I'll take it."

This "bargaining" is especially influential and present with unnecessary products, such as games.



Honestly, it's stupid to just pay what they ask, which is why subscription games have a lot less customers than other subscription games that apparently give more value for the same price, and all have less customers than fully F2P games(which is why all the F2P conversions are happening, for ore sales and more money).




So, don't accuse me of being afraid when I'm just being smarter than a broken ATM that spits out dollars to those who don't haven't earned those dollars.



Edit:
(Sarcasm)"Long live impulse subscriptions! ....with impulse cash shop purchases on top! Long live throwing money at the company just for the fun of throwing money!(Sarcasm Off)

True.

But, almost every example you cited still supports being mainly premium and temporarily subscribing for VIP stuff.
The only example that supports being premium only temporary is the "new low level alt/return VIP for incarnates" idea.


In most situations and most of the time, it is better to be mainly premium, non-subscription, because they get a better value for their money that doesn't get worse over time due to recurring payments "just to maintain" what they have.

Street Justice and Titan Weapons will be later added to the cash shop, for extra price even for subscribers.

Time Manipulation is free for subscribers, but they lose access to the toons they make that use it if their sub lapses.

Beam Rifle is in the cash shop, available for extra beyond the subscription.

Yes, they add up, but they add up to cheaper than the extra subscription cost and end up being permanently unlocked through purchasing cash shop points that award reward tokens anyway.


In the long run, not subscribing is the better deal by far.
You get almost all the same benefits(obviously the exclusives are the exception) but at a much lower cost with more content to show for your payments.



The only option where subscriptions come out ahead is when someone values the exclusives so much more than everything else in the game that they plan to permanently subscribe, even while having to make purchases in the cash shop on top.
(Edit: This is why a lifetime subscription option is not being offered and why subscriptions don't cover all content access, requiring some cash shop purchases at least then. If they offered a lifetime subscription then they would obviously get less money out of the "I have to subscribe forever and I don't care what the overall cost is" type of person. -"Caveat emptor", buyer beware.)

Even then, they're only ahead int eh perception of that individual as financially the subscription is much more expensive than premium membership, because of the sub price adding up over time as a recurring payment just to maintain your "standard of living(play)".