The_Prismist

For me it's going to be even worse with new weapon sets as they come out. With Titan Weapons or Staff fighting I would really love to see what the weapons look like as well as the powers before I know if it is what I'm looking for.

No it doesn't. I'm talking about allowing it so you can go to the power customization window before choosing to buy it. At least for me (and I assume the developers are picking me out to torture :P), how it works is it will let me choose the costume pieces and see them by themselves, but it will not let me go to the power customization window until I have purchased the pieces.

As I say this would be nice just to see what the powers would look like with your costume and weapons before you decide to buy them.

By that logic then the F2P system in general is a significant erosion of the exclusive benefits of VIP subscribers. I don't think that you are saying that the system is bad, but rather pointing out that erosion of VIP exclusive benefits are not needed so long as buying those out are sufficiently costly. It is a similar argument to buying s lifetime subscription only without the ability to access all future content.

If I were to suggest lifetime subscriptions for $300 then there wouldn't be an argument of eroding subscriber exclusive rights because lifetime subscription models are equivalent to subscriptions in people's minds. There may be other arguments for/against it, but none would say that lifetime subscribers are eroding exclusive rights. However, if I say you should be able to buy the incarnate system for $300 then the idea of exclusive rights comes up even if it is the same price for less benefit. This is where I feel flustered by the arguments. If I pay $300 for a lifetime account I am putting my money up for the right to play the game for as long as it lives. If I pay $300 for incarnate I am paying for the right to use incarnates as long as the game lives. There is no need for subscribers to have exclusive rights in order to maintain value. Value comes from getting access to all of these features and future features for $15 a month instead of $300+ dollars once and payment as new content comes out.

In fact this sort of system makes the idea of "lifetime subs" a much more viable option for developers. Instead of lifetime subscriptions the players can pay a lot of money for access to everything (which is equivalent to a lifetime sub at time of purchase), but still have them pay for large updates so that the developers still gain money from them.

Well they are also examples of games that increased revenues by many times after the change which I am certain is not counter to the goals of Paragon Studios. However, since my point was to counter the absolute nonsensical argument that allowing people to buy the incarnate system would make it so no one would subscribe any more, I think my examples proving that this is not true works fine.

Right now there are two ways of looking at that argument. You can look at other games which have allowed people to buy into the end game and have succeeded or there is talking about conjecture and assumption. I prefer to take the approach of looking at facts rather than whatever I want to believe.

That being said, I do personally think that being able to buy the incarnate system is a good idea for the overall health and growth of the game. I believe that buying the incarnate slots (and access* to the tier one powers within them) for $15 per slot and then to buy the higher tier access* at $10 per tier would be both fair to subscribers and would allow for people who didn't want to subscribe a way to buy into the end game. Keeping in mind that to buy the entirety of the incarnate system under this would cost $450 and that this is just one of the things subscribers have access to for their $15 a month.

I really can not understand in the slightest the idea that the ability to pay $450 one time and then $5 a month (for the story arcs) and another $5 a month (to make up for the TP from subscribing if you want to buy powersets or costumes in the future) and also pay for future zone content (as with first ward) would somehow make it so everyone would stop subbing. Especially since you would need to pay a lot more than $450 that one time in order to keep the character slots, epic arc types and other benefits if you were to stop subbing. If someone wants to explain this point of view to me then I would be more than happy to hear it.

If you want I can also cite how lifetime subs also don't end up making it so no one subs even though they cost a lot less than what I proposed above.


*Access meaning, of course, the ability to earn those within the game not automatically gaining those abilities.

They are examples of games that continue to hold many subscribers and have gained subscribers even if you may not feel the need to subscribe. They maintain subscribers because they offer plenty of things freely to subscribers much like CoH does. Even though you can buy out there are still lots of people who would rather pay per month because of the benefits they get.

So yes holding these up as good examples is a good idea because they have worked regardless of your feelings about them.

Yet again, nonsense. You are making wild assumptions based on your own feelings while ignoring every single other game that has switched to the F2P model that CoH is basing its own off of. In DnDO or LotRO or EQ2 or any other game that has done this I can play in every way and compete in every way with anyone else without being a subscriber. If there is a piece of "epic" gear there is a way I can use it and if there is a legendary ability there is a way I can get it. In fact the only one I know of that holds things behind a sub wall and won't let you buy out is Champions Online and they haven't exactly made a killing after going F2P compared to other games.

However, it is costly, and it is inconvienient to get all of those things. In addition if I do "buy out" then I am not getting access to all future content without paying for it. As of right now a subcriber of CoH gets a powerset, a monthly story arc, 400 TP, a free server transfer a month, free access to an expansion, a veteran reward token, a ton of character slots and many more things each month for $15 a month. There is no need to make it impossible to buy the incarnate system for premium players.

People would most certainly still subscribe because the value of subscribing is worth it to them. Perhaps you wouldn't still subscribe and there are people like that as well. However, looking at how other games have handled the situation (you know, real data instead of made up conjecture) it is simple to see that they did not die because they didn't hide content behind a subscriber wall.

I don't think it was a prediction as much as pointing out the flaw in the logic behind "Don't try and get anything changed, just quit if you don't like it."

You were never told you wouldn't lose anything you had purchased in the past *if* you stopped subscribing to the game. In fact until recently if you stopped subbing you would lose access to everything unless you began paying again. Now that's just true about certain features.

Fully knowing that if you stopped paying you would lose access to them until you began playing again.

And it seems fair to me to allow them to buy access to each slot for $15 and for it to come with the first tier power access only (with the option to buy the higher tiers). The thing I am saying is we should be talking about it from a perspective other than saying we should get it because we're used to it.

When I bought City of Heroes there were Kheldions. Should I get those for free? When player X bought City of Heroes there was a mission architect, should they get that for free?

Quoted because this is really important for people to read. Even if you could somehow prove that you were promised incarnates with GR it doesn't matter since Freedom only says that you will retain access to most of the things you had.

The important thing is to discuss what is actually happening and to discuss why they should/should not provide a system for premium players to access incarnates based on the player experience and development needs, not pretend (or even if not pretending talk about in general) that you were promised anything more than you have received so far.

It may be easier, but in the end they would probably make a lot more money by charging a bit of money per a slot and per a tier of power within those slots and it would almost certainly make a lot more people happy as they would be able to have fun in the end game with their friends even if they are premium.

Let's pretend here for a second. Let's say each slot costs $15 to unlock and comes with the first tier within that. Then add $5-10 per tier, per slot (let's say $5 for the first two and $10 for the last two).

That's $150 to unlock all of the slots and $300 more to get all of the slots filled to top tier. Are you saying that people should not be allowed to pay $450 to get full access to the system because you think everyone would stop subbing keeping in mind all of the other things subscribers get?

Did you read anything else I wrote? As I said, this is one aspect of the game that subscribers get. It is not everything they get by a longshot. That monthly stipend is just enough to cover buying the monthly story arcs that are being released in order to retain access to them after you leave. So if you want to be a free VIP we can just take both the story arcs and stipend out of our equations and see what's left. I still see a server (the only thing I don't think you should be able to buy out of), a lot of character slots, greater inf space and inventory space, a powerset, an expansion, free access to the full incarnate system (all 10 slots and all levels of power within those slots) and access to a zone's worth of stuff as of right now. And since you don't have to spend your monthly stipend on those story arcs in order to keep them once you're gone you also get free money towards new powersets, travel powers and costumes.

In addition you are assuming that Incarnate would be bought in a single shot whereas there are numerous ways that it could work without gating behind a subscription. The invention license is of course one model of this. As is EQ2s model of not allowing certain rarity of equipment unless you pay for unlockers for each piece (in this case paying to unlock each paragon slot as well as each level of incarnate powers would suffice).

As I said, yes some people would buy out of subscriptions, but that doesn't mean that they will not be paying a large sum of money to do so and won't have to continue to pay afterwards in order to get all of the things VIPs get. Personally I do think its a travesty that VIPs are not receiving future powersets for free and I think this should be added to the VIP list of things they get for free. However, there are still a ton of reasons to subscribe.

I try and stay out of these arguments because, as a person who typically plays as a premium member, I feel that I am happy with what I am able to do. However, this is just nonsense. Every MMO that has adopted this F2P model have done similar things. They have slight variations, but what it normally comes down to is you can't access XYZ which will allow you to participate in the higher end content unless you are a VIP OR you pay us.

This is the difference here. Obviously it would be ridiculous to give everyone access to everything for free. However, the assertion that allowing access to everything at a price would cause all subs to disappear is completely unfounded. In fact we have seen numerous times that MMOs that have adopted this model have continued to hold subscriptions quite well.

VIPs would still subscribe because of character slots, limits on inf and inventory, free points and free access to story arcs and powersets. They would still sub because they get numerous perks. Now yes, there would be some people who would pay a large sum of money in order to keep everything they have now and play for "free", but this is akin to the way lifetime subscriptions work (although more limited in that they would have to buy future content).

There is absolutely no reason to assume that just because access to the high end gameplay is allowed to be bought means that the game would collapse with people leaving. And as I said earlier there are many reasons to assume it wouldn't.

Yep. It was posted a whole 11.5 hours before they actually took the servers down to change it. That's the warning we get after being told it would extend until the end of the head start.