TrueGentleman

From these forums, Cap'n, the very horses' mouths. The board's search function is your friend, friendo.

Words fail me, so it's time for an image macro!

That's an enormous oversimplification that ignores everything from scaled betting in casinos and odds-making at race tracks to different varieties of Lotto tickets and Bingo prizes. It also misses the psychological point underscoring Ironik's posts - it's not the payoff that stimulates the brain, it's the anticipation. But that's for another thread.

Apparently some posters can't. It would be interesting to see how many of them have regularly played CCGs, purchased lottery tickets, gone to casinos, etc., etc.

My standpoint is that it's a purchasing issue. If I wish to buy an item, then I don't want random substitutes, nothing more. I'm fully aware of the business and marketing behind Super Packs and the like, so it's a little disappointing for Paragon Studios to be playing us like this.

When did I, or anyone in this thread apart from you, start talking about the legal definitions of gambling? I brought up the AGA precisely because that was the direction you were detouring this discussion with your objections over using the general term. Because of such reactions on the other side of the argument, I've taken to calling the Super Packs a "game of chance", which is a little euphemistic but at least is intended to avoid this kind of pedantic objection to describing the business model behind them. Painting your opponents as Gamblers Anonymous advocates is just handwaving.

That will be cold comfort to those unfortunate players who don't get a full costume set after two dozen or more Super Pack: The Gathering cards. Perhaps someone will crunch the numbers and determine statistically exactly how much.

Until there's either a guarantee of eventually getting the exclusive item one wants under the Super Pack system or an alternative is presented either in game or on the Paragon Market, this is just a game of chance on top of the game we're already playing.

And how about his predilection for corny (if not bawdy) jokes? This movie's producers missed a huge opportunity by not casting Jim Carey in the lead role.

What's your rationale for calling Super Packs, well, whatever you're calling them? They don't count as gambling because the cards don't physically exist in a casino? Because Magic: The Gathering isn't regulated by the American Gaming Association? (n.b. They also avoid using the word "gambling" despite being the trade association for casinos.)

The reaction from some quarters in these discussions when the general term gambling is legitimately used in this case tells a great deal about how contentious this issue really is, despite its virtual nature.

If there were any other way to earn Paragon Points than buying them with real money, calling them virtual currency wouldn't be a stretch. There are games out there that allow for their virtual currencies to be purchased or earned in-game, but CoH isn't one of them. Paragon Studios' conversion of our cash into their points only obscures their actual value, which is further blurred by introducing games of chance into the online store. This is an old marketing technique, so I'm not surprised to see it take root in MMOs.

The "bang for the buck" problem also affects regular subscriber models, but that's not the point (so to speak). The problem here is that the transaction - whether described as one involving virtual currency or cold cash - is a game of chance instead of a regular purchase. If there were either some guarantee with Super Packs that players could always expect to get what they wanted after a certain number or an alternative method of purchasing/earning the gated costume sets, then this debate would dial down several notches.

The devs' willingness to compromise on only some of the items in the Super Packs but not on others shows how much they have banked on this new transaction model paying off, even if it goes against the MTX-subscription hybrid that CoH Freedom was initially presented as.

This a steady stream of praise for taking the extra time with these long-requested costume pieces is the least we can do. The most is, of course, buying the Steampunk, Gunslinger and Magic Packs now that they're more complete. (Sorry this thread rekindled the idiosyncratic column a vs. column b debate, but if it were that simple, it could have been settled by Paragon Studios' accountants long ago.) Thanks again for your special efforts, and we look forward to them going live with Issue 22.

The problem is that there's no fixed schedule for this any more than there's a set number of tries players get at the Super Packs before they receive the items they want. If the devs had told us up front that the Elemental Order set will be gated for X months before being recycled as a Veterans Reward or put on sale at the regular Paragon Market, it would be a lot more encouraging. As it stands, the Super Packs are cash cows, except we're the ones getting milked.

And if we wanted to play those other MMOs with grab bags, mystery crates, etc., etc., we wouldn't be here on CoH. (For my part, I've been playing CoH a lot less since the Super Packs were announced, coincidentally or not.) And although Paragon Points are technically virtual currency, we're still paying real money to get them.

Oh for heaven's sake, players who wanted real variety with female costumes were "slighted" repeatedly with the Steampunk, Gunslinger and Magic Packs - which are only now being fixed. (And that's not taking into account similar problems with the recent Barbarian Pack.) When there's a comparable streak of problems for male costumes, then it's time to complain. Meanwhile, the devs have been listening to our feedback and are taking this into account for future packs (which has been repeatedly pointed out). Let's see what the Sci-Fi and Elemental Order Packs look like when they go live before complaining about being slighted.

Eh, if you really want to caricature the opposing argument, there are more suitable images:


"The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother. I call him Gamblor."

But where does that confidence arise from? What's the business incentive for Paragon Studios to ungate the costume pieces when they can profit from players shelling out 11,000 Points to get them?

For the present, Zwillinger has said only that they don't have plans to offer a secondary option for purchasing the Super Pack-exclusive costumes in "the immediate future". That's not even "soon™".

Yet it's more than that. There's a psychological aspect behind the randomness that we've touched on in other threads about Super Pack: The Gathering. It's fundamentally different from all the other business models that Paragon Studios has implemented, whether before or after the launch of CoH Freedom. It's enough that some players don't want to do business with a company that displays such an attitude toward their customers.

And when you paid for them, you always got the costumes you expected and never random items you didn't necessarily want. And of course costume bundles these days on the Paragon Market are around 400 points, or five bucks.

And if you're unlucky, you pay more and instead have a lot of items you didn't necessarily want.

Really, it's that simple.

You could even say that you had a "whale" of a good time.

Perhaps the devs will be more inclined to go back and revise previously released costume packs (in their own free time no less) if they receive positive reinforcement instead of us-vs.-them complaints and nostalgia for the status quo.

Consider the Sci-Fi and Elemental Order Packs as the direction that the devs are going. (Sets that have been in the works for a while behind the scenes, such as the Carnival of Lights, still need to catch up, though.) That's hardly a case of Paragon Studios not giving a crap about these things.

For my part, I'm going to pony up for the Gunslinger Pack now (since I already have Steam Punk and Magic) and buy some extra points on the Paragon Market for future costume packs. My mouth is big enough that I ought to put some money where it is.

So when a dev takes the extra time to correct an imbalance that players have complained about for ages - to say nothing of the questionable gender subtext going on in some of these packs - it's unfair because now the boys vs. girls columns don't add up? Would you genuinely prefer to stick to the status quo if that meant "parity"?

The devs have already promised us that they'll be more aware of these issues in future. To judge by the work going on with the Sci-Fi Pack and the Elemental Order Pack, they're genuinely trying.

That's an oversimplification, as you're well aware. There were plenty of people on the forums who defended the pack's gender division between gunslinger and saloon chippy as not a big deal.

But by all means, continue to scrutinize the dental work on this gift horse.

Congratulations, you lucky outlier.

That coincidence hasn't escaped my notice either. On the other hand, it does give everyone an opportunity to vote with their wallets. For those who don't want to play games of chance in the Paragon Market for exclusive costumes, spending points on the revised Steampunk, Gunslinger and Magic Packs sends a positive message to Paragon Studios about what players would like to pay for.

Besides, there's no reason we can't buy the new shinies and complain about the Super Pack-gated costume sets.

While this movie looks extraordinarily goofy, surely its fantasy world where American slavery is an unmitigated evil further exploited by bloodsucking undead is better than that of Gone With the Wind, where slavery was just the antebellum South's "peculiar institution". In that respect, vampires here are thematically more interesting than zombies in Jane Austen (what are Regency zombies supposed to be a metaphor for?).

By the same token, so is "strongly considering". In standard business-speak "immediate future" means "not for a long time" at best and "never" at worst. Paragon Studios isn't working with its own phrasebook when it comes to press release-style statements.

The players who go on a roll for the costume pieces they want without having to spend too many points on Super Packs obviously won't complain, but those who are unfortunate enough to have to spend several times the price costume pack to get them are (literally) out of luck.

Buying the revised Gunslinger Pack sends a much more positive message to Paragon Studios about the business-customer relationship than participating in games of chance on the Paragon Market.

The F2P business model comprises a wide array of purchasing options, not just random mystery box rewards. CoH Freedom was introduced to us as a hybrid of F2P, microtransactions, and subscriptions. The Super Packs are fundamentally different from this. It should be no surprise that many players reacted unfavorably to their announcement and are still dissatisfied with them after the devs compromised on a couple of points.

Implementing games of chance in the business plan only five months after CoH Freedom's launch suggests that early on Paragon Studios was planning how to maximize revenue from big spenders, what casinos call "whales". (The players who were consulted about pre-alpha Freedom have confirmed Super Packs were part of the program.) It has nothing to do with how profitable Freedom's launch was or how well Paragon Studios' fourth quarter performed.

As long as F2P is synonymous with "soaking the players" under the pretext of fiscal responsibility, the business model is going to have a bad reputation.

And the devs have ruled out an alternative purchase method for the costume for a while.
Reading between the lines, that says an alternative isn't going to be coming for a long time, if ever.