TrueGentleman

For thanking them for listening to us and working with our suggestions? Just because some of us still disagree with elements of the redesign doesn't mean we're adversarial about it. On the contrary, since the devs have responded positively to our feedback, there's every reason to submit more for them.

If you'd care to revisit the original 70-page thread, you might discover that people were complaining about both the spandex elements and the generic modern fantasy ones since the SDCC redesign featured both. Now that we've thankfully lost the former, we can critique the latter more closely.

Since this is ultimately an aesthetic discussion, there's no way to "win" or "lose". The only things either side can do is articulate their opinions and supply clear reasons for them. That's the way that constructive criticism results in mutually acceptable compromise.

Rebrand themselves as Carnival of McFarlane?

Good lord, was Baron Zoria ever part of the Aesthete circle of Oscar Wilde and William Morris or the like? Even the Yellow Book was more of a mustard color than stop-light lemon.

The Circle of Thorns would better fit the stories of Arthur ("The White People") Machen or Robert W. ("The King in Yellow") Chambers than anything from Swinburne or Wilde.

The idea that CoT needs a "modern take" may be the premilinary misstep that sent the redesign in to the wrong direction. As many players pointed out in the earlier thread, the CoT are first presented as having their routes in the late-Victorian magik scene (Theosophy, Aleister Crowley, etc.) and then revealed to have their origins in a mystical lost civilization - none of which counts even remotely as "modern".

The spikey elements in this redesign still resemble the style of plated armor that has been adopted as standard issue in many other games (going back to the Warhammer tabletop games of the 80s). The original CoT spines looked otherworldly and unnatural as they protruded from the cultists' robes. There was no way to tell if they were part of their costume or if they were somehow part of their skeletons.

These are all welcome changes and steps in the right direction. These basic adjustments have improved the quality of the redesign several times over.
Thanks again to the art team for these redesigns - we're grateful that our criticisms have been taken constructively.

I'd be down for that kind of marketing for Paragon Points, at least theoretically. The CoH player base would still be made demographically available to advertisers, but that wouldn't affect the game.

As for the prospect of CoH players running/flying/jumping around in game in logo-branded clothing or with movie/tv tie-in items only becomes more distasteful as I contemplate it.

I dislike it, instinctively. And in-game prizes (typically of the "free t-shirt" variety) tend to break immersion. I'd much rather the devs come up with genuine CoH content than spend any time adapting so-called sponsored content for the game.

Besides, advertising means another business relationship for Paragon/NC Soft to worry about in addition to subscribers (i.e. us). That's proved tricky in the cases of tv and magazines, and there's no indication it wouldn't be similarly corrupting for games.

Or Groucho and Chico or Eccles and Bluebottle or George and Gracie or, well, just about any classic radio comedy duo. This is great stuff. Many thanks for the link.

The $70 monocle will go down as either the high water-mark of MTX overreach or an unfortunate precedent. Either way, it's an all too real example of how actual costs for virtual items can be inflated after converting actual money for in-game currency.

That at least is a case of a discount for a bulk purchase, but it looks as though the preliminary announcements are still in flux (or I'm confused about the difference between an account-wide "Character Costume Slot" and a "Costume Slot").
As always, clarification from a red name would be most appreciated.

That would be encouraging. Do you have a link to the exact quote or some kind of citation. At this stage, it's probably too much to hope for seeing a complete schedule for where the breaks for price discounts lie, but maybe we can get some idea.

That's only for each 1200 PP purchased at the store, though, not accrued as a VIP subscriber. At that rate, the additional Reward Tokens make only a fractional discount when applied against the new veteran rewards.

Quite so. The a la carte system just kills off bargain-hunting by buying in bulk - unless of course the Paragon Marketplace does wind up offering bundled special sales. The soundest method for dealing with the system is to set a budget once the final prices and selections have been announced and make purchases on that basis. (I've been mentally amortizing the Boosters I've picked up and budgeting my subscription accordingly for ages.)

After the recent $70 monocle debacle in another MMO, most game studios have been cautioned against price-gouging virutal goods, at least one would hope (social network games continue to set a horrendously bad example).

I've failed either to see the resemblance or detect the sarcasm.

Since we've seen no details about special sales deals at the Paragon Marketplace, there's no compelling reason to suggest that CoH's MTX model will be uniquely adjusted to "make the same amount of money as before". Traditionally, special sales on individual items are loss leaders intended to stimulate purchases across the whole store or are fire sale or clearance specials, which aren't really relevant in terms of virtual goods (except maybe to get a fast injection of cash).

Like most games' item shops, CoH Freedom's a la carte market place is designed to make more money overall from players than the prix fixe-style Boosters, not the same (or less). This is just one reason why MTX-supported F2P game models wind up costing regular players more, even the VIP subscribers.

The real problem is when devs get greedy and charge $70 for a monocle or become desperate and start offering play-to-win services.

Extrapolating from the announced individual prices of full costumes, emotes, and extra powers suggests that this will almost certainly be the case. Perhaps the Paragon Marketplace will have occasional sales on bundled sets of individual items, but it's clear from Positron's suggestion to buy the Boosters now that they are not going to have an equivalent in CoH Freedom.

That is of course exactly how an a la carte menu is supposed to work. Making more money off the most dedicated customers is similarly explicit in the business model. For those who want prix fixe, reservations at Le Périgord should be made well in advance.

Naturally an all-around excellent Booster Pack such as the Steampunk one was a no-brainer as a purchase for me. The Animal one is conceptually unappealing to me (come on, not even a Monkey headpiece?), so picking up one or two of its emotes from the Paragon Market makes perfect sense. In between those, the Mutant one has a few costume elements that I've seen put to very creative use, even though the overall costume design is not to my taste, so the question becomes whether or not to stock up in case the other features might come in handy (I don't think I want the organic sword now, but it's possible that in the future I might come up with a costume concept where it would fit perfectly).

Estimating distribution on a power law graph to determine the median, in this case for players' purchase totals across the population, is a tricky business, but that's not really the issue. On one hand, there are the proponents of the new "Long Tail" model that suggest a large enough population can provide a nice income for a business if there's enough variety. On the other, there's the conventional Pareto Principle that states, to broadly simplify, that a minority of the population is responsible for the majority of the results. The beauty of an a la carte marketplace is that while it's better suited for the former than a bulk sale venue, it makes a ton of money in the latter model as well (essentially, big spenders wind up spending even more).

The real test will be how many players CoH Freedom attracts. If a massive influx of new F2Pers wind up buying a few items here and there, then the Long Tail may hold true. If the population shakes down to VIPers and returning Premiums, then the Paragon Market will cater to them according to a Pareto split.

Sad to say, that's the way a la carte purchasing works. Think of the Booster as an "economy size" costume/emote/power bundle, the virtual equivalent of buying in bulk from a price club. CoH Freedom's Paragon Market, on the other hand, is more of a boutique. The former works out well when there's a sufficently large and stable population; the latter for a fluctuating one, both in terms of size and commitment. Since F2P players provide less reliable income streams than paying subscribers, breaking up the bulk items (whether Booster packs or expansions) and lowering the individual elements' price points is the best strategy for making money off them.

Nice to have that absolutely confirmed. I've been mulling over where the pricepoint breaks on how many items in a given Booster it takes to exceed "a la carte" purchasing. Since it looks as though a complete costume set by itself will be half the price of a booster, adding a travel/custom power and a few emotes to that seems to be enough.

Deleting the expletive completely alters the anecdote. Instead of a cautionary but ultimately uplifting tale about judging a newbie by a first (crude) impression, it becomes an unremarkable feel-good account of bland gaming. Surely some kind of substitution could have been made instead of removing the language that made this story worth posting on the forums.

It's like our fargin' rights have been violated.

Thanks - this running tally is very useful. (I'm beginning to think that although I'm not overly taken with the Mutant Booster, it might be better value for money to buy the whole thing now for ten bucks rather than potentially pick it up piecemeal in the future.)

An ongoing TV series would a great medium for the character if Marvel wanted to spin off (ha!) the Ultimate version. The great thing about the original Lee-Ditko run was how Peter Parker's dual life was just one thing after another, constantly testing him on every front from the personal to the superheroic. Building that sort of narrative is challenging in film, to say nothing of the standard three-act summer blockbuster genre, but it's something television can do almost as well as comics.

Naturally the mainstream media is all over that angle. It's potentially more interesting for the series's new character since the Spider-Man costume prevents anyone from being able to tell at all.

Except that must also include potential critics in order to avoid it turning into an echo chamber. If not, then the risk is that previews may receive an unexpectedly negative reaction with little time for the devs to make adjustments.