TrueGentleman

Hear, hear! (Although this thread got derailed onto the F2P topic long ago.)

Nice find! And here are all Gaiman's answers on one page.

(Sorry, that's my own shorthand term, to distinguish such games from the social-casual kind mentioned in the Gamesutra article. It's not a question of the number of players, it's the state of play as a state of mind. "Hardcore" or "major league" might be applicable. too. Really, I think of an A-list game as a gamer's game, one that puts the player in that special zone that a casual one never can. I could go on, but I'd have to start naming examples...)

I'd be quite happy to see an existing zone only partially redesigned for another era, say, Victorian Mercy Island or 1920s Kings Row. The devs don't have to start again from scratch necessarily.

Thank you for the articles - I'll make sure to read them later (although the one from freetoplay.org may be ... partisan).

I have read the Gamesutra piece since it features the redoubtable Raph Koster and certainly recommend it. The games under discussion in it are ones that are on my case study watch list. Without getting into them, however, I'd like to note that they are object lessons of why successful F2P games operate under different principles than A-list MMOs, which make them inapplicable to CoH and its community.

The implicit argument for F2P is that the current revenue model isn't viable for the future, therefore DOOOOM!!!!!

Costumed adventuring by gaslight, absolutely!

The Midnighter's Club is one of CoH's most underused locations. I'd love to see it reworked as a staging area for more content, be it end-game trials or expansion zones. Besides, Pocket D could use some competition as a cross-faction gathering spot.

Here's a quick question for the doomsayers: Does the developer comment “Subscriber levels have decreased faster than previous expansions” apply to the OP's chart or ... another leading MMORPG entirely? Only Google can say for sure.

In all seriousness, in the grand scheme of things NCSoft/Paragon Studies are doing all right for themselves.

{citation needed}

Likewise there are "indications" that F2P will choke up the market with mediocrity and desperation, and quality MMOs will be able to continue using subscription models by way of distinguishing themselves from their "you get what you pay for" competition.

(There are also very ugly signs that less than scrupulous companies will try to monetize players' personal information, but that privacy rights debate is for another derail. I mention it as an aside because some of the most prominent examples are F2P.)

I take your point, although I'd still stress the conditional aspect. One of the many problems about this F2P discussion is that the proponents believe it's a teleological one.

My own interpretation of Paragon's behavior is that they've decided that "boosted subscriptions" are the way to go for CoH's foreseeable future, hence the devs' openness to suggestions and feedback when it comes to art (hi, Noble Savage! hi, Tunnel Rat!). It's entirely likely that if Paragon hadn't set this model up early on, they'd now be feeling far more pressure to switch to a F2P one of some sort, even though they and the community would be less prepared for it.

Which is why reading these particular tea leaves is such a murky task. Although the earnings graph spells DOOOM to a lot of posters here, I'm more encouraged that NCSoft is earning a better profit on "flat" YOY revenues, which is as good as one can hope in this economic climate. We've already seen NCSoft do some housekeeping with layoffs and shuttering servers on truly old games, so presumably they've made the obvious cuts and saw an improvement to their bottom line (I wish we had some idea of their overhead and costs of doing business). We'll see where things stand in another year, especially if, say, a major competitor were to emerge in the niche with an F2P model. That might convince NCSoft/Paragon either to go F2P themselves or, no less likely, to maintain the current system in order to preserve CoH's distinctiveness.

Well, more like seeing a movie release a several months later.

That presupposes that there's a natural progression from a subscription game (of some kind) to F2P, whereas there are more than a few game as old or older than CoH that continute to existed in their original subscription forms. CoH's model, let's call it "boosted subscriptions", has been in place since 2006 when the first item pack was made available and has been going strong ever since.

Money talks, and my $15/month speaks louder to Paragon Studios/NCsoft right now than a purely hypothetical F2P community of any size. In tough economic times, I sympathize with those having to tighten their belts, having been there before, but my own experience with F2P in some games and observations of conversion to it in others do not suggest it would be worth the attendant headaches to convert the playerbase in hopes of attracting new or returning players.

I would, however, support more "welcome back" offers for free periods, extended even to trial accounts and held for longer periods. (I receive these kinds of offers from other games I quit for CoH on a regular basis.) I'm baffled that there hasn't been anything for CoH's anniversary or the "stress test" on Freedom.

Adapting the "Time Code" subscription model of exchanging in-game currencies for playing time could be feasible if (a) players didn't mind yet another type or (b) the devs fix the regular Inf. market (good luck with either). Or Paragon Studios/NCSoft could consider either cheaper subscriptions for either shorter durations or pay-per-hour models.

The fact is, Paragon Studios/NCSoft have a model that they appear to be satisfied with. Persuading them to change to another one - which has at best a very mixed record - would be difficult under ordinary circumstances and will be harder still in tough economic times like these.

Someone is going to have to put together a similar one for F2P threads since they always devolve to the same arguments.

The value that such players add in F2P MMOs is population volume, which makes a real difference in those that have either wide-scale economies (which CoH doesn't) or large-scale conflicts (and CoH's League system isn't nearly in this category).

Bigger doesn't always mean better when it comes to gaming communities.

Bitterly, yes. F2P evangelists rarely talk about the have/have-not divisions that invariably crop up in some form, especially with games that convert over to that model.

{Citation needed.}

Or at least define "significant" if you don't have any market studies available for CoH. Because I can guarantee you that NCSoft and Paragon have studied this and have yet to convert any of their games to it (in fact, they'd rather shut down the servers of one long-standing title than convert it to F2P).

Honestly, though, this thread might as well be closed at this point. No-one is examining the Q1 2011 financials any more, and the perennial F2P argument is hamstrung since nobody can cite concrete examples, which leaves us arguing about hypotheticals, generalizations, and case histories with the serial numbers filed off.

"What If" works for Marvel Comics only because it's a non-canon series.

Honestly, we might just as easily, and usefully, debate what we think CoH should do if NCSoft decided to make the code open source.

That word is telling, not to mention entirely typical, of the division that sets in with many so-called F2P systems.

It's been my own experience in some games, and the experience of friends in others, that creating a culture of haves and have-nots (or pays and don't-pays) is bad for the community overall. Paying players grow quick to resent requests from F2Pers, which seem like unentitled demands. On the other hand, F2Pers, when not in a state of grievance, often slip into petty trolling and griefing - and that's nothing compared to the increased incidence of gold-farming and RMT spamming, counterintuitive as that may seem in an F2P system.

The real issue is why NCSoft's overall quarterly earnings demand changes in any of their games' payment structures. Compared to some *hem hem* the company is doing quite well as it is.

A quick Google search for doctor+who+mmo will reveal that this is a real project in the works.

Pours out a libation in memory of Back Alley Brawler and the Laid-off Eight.

The Magic and Science boosters are no-brainers for playing mix-and-match with Steampunk. I'm also hoping for serendipity with at least a few pieces, the way some from Going Rogue have become go-to items in their categories (e.g. the clockwork chestpiece)

Or at least it can be. One can trot out the counter-example of a struggling but well-received MMORPG that successfully went F2P shortly before the one you didn't mention by name after its parent company had a good experience with another of its MMORPGs switching subscription methods, but that's not the point since we don't have anywhere near the necessary financial information in those cases or, for that matter, CoH's. (Just as we're forbidden to discuss other games on these forums, we are not able to cite the truly germane statistics in this case either.)

On a tangential note, whatever the longterm feasibility of F2P as a model for MMOs, nobody can say yet how it affects player community, surely a more important factor for us. Anecdotally, I've seen opinions about this from players in newly F2P games that range from negative to indifferent, but never especially positive. If some posters on these forums are advocating F2P as a way of increasing the size of the community (and not because they're secretly misers), it's worth reflecting that more does not necessarily mean better - and sometimes it means worse.

In any case, as long as NCSoft is posting a profit, the devs are adding content and fixing bugs, and CoH's community is one of the best among MMORPGs, I'm content.

Very well designed ensemble! I particularly like the way the witch boots from the magic pack complement the steampunk wings. (I'd like to think that the art devs take into consideration how elements from the booster packs can be intermingled.)

Hardly. My imperfect score notwithstanding, your post had more substance. Your methodology was sound, and anyone taking the test cold could use it to beat the odds. The other tactic that might help is speaking the lines aloud since although the contemporary Batman sound bites are naturalistic, as you noted, the Shakespearean ones usually have an internal rhythm that lends themselves to recital, even when not blank verse. (One quibble - It's not that Shakespeare doesn't use contractions, it's that he uses Elizabethan ones, e.g. 'tis, e'er, o'er. But really, he'd shorten any word if he thought it would improve the line.)

Also, I got tripped up on Titus Andronicus, too. Worst. Shakespeare. Play. Ever. (Also, debatably, his first.)

And, significantly, overall NCSoft is showing profits are up, even if they're only maintaining their revenue in the current economic climate.
Doom is spelled a "discontinued operation".