baron_inferno

Actually, it's not quite that simple. It's really dependent on which data and what methods are used in its collection. If it is a program that is being used to collect data (which in this case is almost unavoidable) in relation to the operation of their game then sure, they *could* have a legal justification for it based on the verbiage of this EULA. However, if they collect (even accidentally) other information which is unrelated to the operation of the game then it is an entirely another story. Evidence of misusing that data for criminal purposes is not required. Anyways, an action of that sort could qualify the software involved as spyware, which some State AGs have used "Trespass to Chattels" laws to prosecute.

Also, the EULA doesn't offer much legal protection if it conflicts with the Uniform Commercial Code, contract law or other general consumer privacy laws. This is despite our lack of comprehensive internet privacy specific laws. Many previous cases have already ruled against the software company with regards to that. In fact, "Contracts of Adhesion" (take it or leave it) and "Unconscionability" (excessive unfairness to one party involved) are two contract law terminologies that are most commonly cited as the reasons behind such rulings.

Internet Privacy Act *is* a hoax because there were no bills introduced in congress with that name. None of the links you provided suggested otherwise. It was started by websites engaged in illegal activities using it as a disclaimer in an attempt to thwart/fool law enforcement agents. Acts of that nature have been submitted many times in the past, none made it past the legislature. And it isn't just the internet giants that are lobbying against them. Many large corporations are also trying to kill them so they can retain the legal right to monitor their employees online activities.

The Federal Internet Privacy Protection Act of 1997 you showed in another link was eventualy referred to the subcommittee on government management, information and technology. It never came back out. The same goes for the Consumer Internet Privacy Protection Act of 1997 which didn't even get referred to a committee after its introduction.

As for the Data Privacy Act of 1997, it did a little better and actually made it to a hearing conducted by the subcommittee on telecommunications, trade, and consumer protection in 1998. Still, that was the end of it.

Finally we come to the last link you posted which is really just an internet attorney giving his opinion on a website. It cites a few Amendments of the Constitution and two individual cases regarding jurisdiction but it makes no mention of any specific laws regarding internet privacy.

Look, I work for one of the top three financial firm in the country which happens to be obsessed about compliance so I have to deal with consumer privacy in all shapes and forms on a daily basis. That includes electronic communications which includes my own internet/email activities. I am also subjected to no less than three different regulatory authorities (Feds/SEC, State Administrators, FINRA) when it comes to consumer privacy protection. Research and knowledge on the subject is not lacking on this end despite your empty accusation.

The ER where they will be admitted. Jeez we want them to live to make more Mids updates later, not kick the bucket after the i21 one.

Actually that is a hoax. Clinton never signed such an Act because it didn't exist. Even now the courts are relying on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 which is obsolete and woefully inadequate when it comes to all forms of communication over the internet.

The U.S. is behind a lot of other developed nations in this respect.

Indeed. The only perscription for these folks would be to get out into the real world more and see for themselves how things really are. The whole concept of heroic or "being the good guys" is one big grandiose delusion in the real world. More often than not it is just a convenient excuse for someone to be self righteous.

I don't believe this is an accurate statement, at least the context of farming in general. There have been farms in the past where those characteristics you described are quite true (bruiser, monkey, etc). Those farms were labeled as exploitative and were fixed by the devs in short order. However, in other farm maps whether it is TV farm, Liberate farm, or Fire farm, the possibility of being defeated is very real. Of course, there are builds and strategies one can employ to make themselves *nearly* unbeatable but then again, that is no different from the approaches one can take toward any other piece of game content. I can take a Electric Armor brute into LGTF and plow through the entire TF without so much as breaking a sweat. I can take a a Shield Defense or Invulnerability brute into ITF and do the same. In essence, the "exploitative nature" to farming you mentioned is in fact not restricted to farming at all. It is also prevalent in most other game content, most of which designed by the devs to be that way.

Truth be told, the concept of "fair fight" is somewhat romantic if not a bit naive. In reality, few things are completely fair, even in an artificial environment that is a computer game. Now mind you, this does not equate to the practice of cheating. Instead I'm pointing out the fact that whether it is in war, competition, sports or just a game, mismatches often exist and there is nothing wrong with exploiting your opponent's weakness. In fact, it is recommended if not required if one wishes to experience success. While I commend you for your chivalrous thoughts on this matter, I must also remain unapologetic about my pragmatic approach in taking advantage of my opponent's weaknesses.

I agree. Yeah, the heroes certainly don't have everything else handed to them on a silver platter already.

Well, only four years here but I more or less stopped relying on regular content to level new characters after year one. I'm only referring to the paper and story arc missions so it does not include TFs. Heck, with the way most TFs are run these days, we may as well just face reality and call them farming runs anyways. While some people may think farming the same content over and over is boring, I on the other hand believe that it is no more boring than normal content. Essentially, my choices are between "content that nets me faster progress" or "content that nets me slower progress". The choice is obvious.

Lastly, do take note that I'm a content-neutral player and the primary satisfaction I get out of this game is the sheer variety of alts it offers as well as the progress these characters are making, culminating in a "finished" build, so to speak. This is what separates CoH from many other MMOs and this is why I believe that a lot of people stick around, despite the fact that they choose to PL/farm most of the time.

Au Contraire. Raid farming has been around since the days of EQ. It was quite common to see guilds of 20-100 players camping a section of a raid zone for hours if not days by utilizing rotating shifts. In the process they would kill the same 10 spawns (named or otherwise) dozens if not hundreds of times to farm for gear, crafting components or quest items. FFXI was the same way but those are the more extreme examples and things started to change a bit in recent years as more MMOs started to move toward instanced raids. Despite that, people still farmed the same raids over and over for loot. In WoW or DDO for example, guilds would wait for specific raid timer/dates to reset and clean them out right after. It's quite similar to people repeating the same CoH raid/trial over and over in order to obtain components/merits.

I disagree. Obscene is a better word choice.

Let's recap (without naming names).

• It would also open the door to a lot more noobs, who can't be removed through petitioning.

• My problem is that I have no desire to see the game flooded with leeches... and in my experience, they make up a significant fraction of the people who keep asking for it.

• To prevent abuse and inflicting a massive influx of nitwits and exploit hounds on the paying playerbase there would have to be some kind of wall between the F2P players and "real" players.

• In a "free" game, it's often trivially easy for a player who's been muted or banned to simply create a new account and continue their misbehavior under a whole new name.

Just go ahead and tell me that these aren't assumptive comments directed at the F2P community at large. I found these just by spending 5 quick minutes scanning the posts within this thread. If I were to expand my search to the entire forum, I'm sure I can find many more similar comments directed at the WoW player base as well. Then there's....

as someone who has actively played some of those "subscription converted to freemium" MMORPG games, I find most of the hyperbole about "lol, newb" and "Beware the gold farmers!" and whatever that boils down to "anybody who doesn't pay a sub is an undesirable low-quality community member" to be inaccurate when it isn't outright offensive.

I guess I'm not the only one who has noticed that type of mentality.

I didn't ask whether the opinion is wrong or not. I asked whether it is valid. There is a big difference there. Per Websters:

Definition of VALID
2a : well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful <a valid theory>
2b : logically correct <a valid argument> <valid inference>

I will maintain that an opinion that is formulate after just one negative experience is not a valid one. It is neither well-grounded, justifiable or logically correct due to its extremely narrow scope and biased point of view. To summarize, people are entitled to their opinions which are neither right or wrong. However, due to the lack of proper justification and logic behind its formulation, I can choose to dismiss such opinions as invalid.

And pessimism often grows into full blown depression, sometimes causing people to off themselves. I suppose that's not a problem either.

Also, if one were to apply that sort of pessimistic view on incoming F2P accounts in order to justify the imposition of an absurd amount of restrictions, it would be akin to assuming that everyone is a bad apple until proven otherwise. Sorry but I will never accept that kind of flawed "guilty until proven innocent" logic.

Why automatically assume that there will be a negative impact? This is precisely why I'm saying the potential for a negative impact caused by a few F2P bad apples is overstated and overblown.

Some yes, just like any other game. I'm not disputing this. The generalization I'm referring to is the assumption that a change to F2P will attact nothing but hordes of obnoxious douchebags. That's one heck of an assumption, bordering on schizophrenic paranoia.

Would that be a valid opinion? Especially one that is so heavily slanted towards one end of the extreme spectrum? Always assuming the worst because of one bad experience is an awfully pessimistic path to take in life.

Unless of course, we are talking about flourescent light bulbs, halogen light bulbs, or LED light bulbs. This example you used is the perfect reason why such opinions or generalizations hold little water. What we presume to know as the "truth" at one point often becomes "less true" with the passage of time. MMOs and its community also evolve over time and from my own 11+ years of experience with MMOs/online gaming, obnoxious players are becoming the outcast, not the norm.

Let me be clear on this. *If* CoH converts to F2P, we probably will attract more jerks to this game. However on the flip side of that, we will also attract far more solid players. I personally do not believe that the few bad elements will ruin the current CoH community because we've already had to deal with them from day one, like any other MMO. Again, this is *if* CoH goes F2P, a transition which I have absolutely no preference over.

Your analysis of the human psyche is correct but there is one important thing you are forgetting. Recollecting previous unpleasant situations would involve having accumulated that experience in the first place. In other words, for your analysis to apply, anyone who has made generalizations about other game communities has to have actually played and experienced those game communities first hand. Otherwise it is all just hearsay and speculation with no factual basis. Think about the last time you heard someone claim that they heard a rumor from a friend who has a friend who heard it first hand. Would you base your opinion on something as fleeting as that? I personally wouldn't and I would smack anyone who would upside the head but that's just me.

Now, is it plausible that *everyone* who has ever made negative generalizations about the WoW population has played it before? Possible but doubtful. What about in the case of negative generalizations about the F2P population? Given the downright disdain (if not hatred) some people have shown towards F2P games, it is not hard to imagine that the vast majority of them have never tried it themselves.

This type of ignorant behavior has gone far beyond the rational explanations of the human condition I'm afraid.

Should have read some of the threads about LFG and booting extras then. Some people (though few) were up at arms over how people are going to get excluded if private leagues were ever implemented. That and how LFG is working as intended and league leaders shouldn't be able boot extras, etc etc. It was all quite amusing.

And the whole point of a transition to a F2P model would be to attract new customers that are previously untapped. Whether the existing customer base stays or not is of little consequence to the company as long as the influx of "new money" increases over all revenue. Also, I think it is a bit presumptuous to assume to that most existing subscriber would simply quit if CoH went F2P. That scenario is especially doubtful if you consider the possibility of a hybrid system (Turbine method) which has minimal impact on current subscription customers. I personally wouldn't leave.

Moving on to your comment about financiers not backing the F2P model, this is incorrect. To simplify the break down, there are two main types of investors. First there are insitutional investors (banks, mutal funds, hedge funds, insurance companies, pension/trust funds, accredited individuals, etc). They are the ones that pours hundreds of millions (if not billions) into IPOs, dividend paying blue chip common stocks, CDOs, Treasury securities, etc. Some of them may be risk averse while others are not. Still, you could say that as a whole, how they invest is based on the combination two important factors. History of performance and long term outlook (whether it is for growth or stability). These guys aren't so likely to throw money at a concept product with a short and unproven history behind it such as F2P. Well, not that they could anyways because many types of insitutional investors have to abide by financial regulations which limits what they can invest in but I digress.

Nextly, there are the venture capitalists (VCs). These guys are not at all risk averse as they specialize in funding highly volatile start-ups armed with nothing but promising conceptual ideas or products. Unlike institutional investors, VCs don't place much weight on performance history because there are none. Instead they are primarily fixated on the potential for growth aspect of investing which could result in an eventual IPO. A typical scenario would be, a VC invests into five different start-up companies by forking over a million to buy a 50% stake in each of them (a total of 5 million). Subsequently, four of them fails (loss of 4 million) but the lone survivor ends up going IPO and raises 20 million in the market. With a 50% stake in the company the VC would then walk away with a 5 million dollar profit after you subtract the original total investment. Not every VC deal works like this nor are they all profitable but you get the general idea behind it.

With all of that in mind, currently VCs are the ones that are funding many of the bigger F2P online gaming companies. For example, F2P companies such as Zynga or Jagex are financed almost exclusively by venture capital. In the case of Zynga, there is speculation that they may go IPO later this year which could result in a big pay day for the VCs. That is, assuming no additional legal hurdles pop up such as the ongoing user privacy issues. To summerize in layman's terms, VCs are primarily involved in funding a pre-IPO company while institutional investors get in the game at the IPO and after. Then there are the private equity firms that straddle the fence but they are the exception, not the rule. Finally, at last place (generally the least profitable place) comes the public investors which are your everyday e-traders, etc.

In conclusion, investors in general do not care about ideology, only the potential for capital growth. Whether it is F2P, subscribe-to-play or sacrifice-your-kitten-to-play does not matter to them so long the potential for profitability is there. As nascent as the F2P industry is, this is very reason why there is still a significant amount of financial backing available to it. As that business model matures and refines itself, that pool of funding will only grow larger, not smaller.

Sigh, did we really have to go there? Many MMOs since the days of EQ has had a sizable international subscriber base. EQ and FFXI have a ton of Japanese and Koreans. CoH and LOTRO have quite a few Europeans. Aion and Lineage do have subscribers outside of Asia you know.

It probably wasn't your intent but let's not single out one portion of the global population and suggesting that they enjoy the grind in order to differentiate them from us somehow. After all, it was EQ, UO and AC that wrote the book on grind and all of them were American games dominated by American players. Then there's also the fact that WoW being immensely popular in Asia despite the fact that there really isn't much grind to speak of, other than end game content.

Lastly, there's a very specific reason why CoH isn't popular in Asia. It is the same reason as why DDO isn't popular there and it has little to do with game play. The theme behind these MMOs are distinctly American and Asians did not grow up with it. If roles were reversed and some company makes a manga/anime themed MMO here, do you think any American who has never had any exposure to that aspect of Asian culture would be remotely interested in it? They can make the game play completely similar to CoH and it will probably shut down in a year too.

I wouldn't be so quick to call CoH an A-list MMO. First you got the true A-listers (1+ million subscribers) such as the 800 lb Gorilla of MMO as well as NCSoft's Aion. If we lower the A-list bar to say, 250-500k or more subscribers then we can add NCSoft's own Lineage series to the list as well as a couple of other ones. Moving downwards to the 100-249k subscribers range, we got about half a dozen MMOs jockeying for position which is what I consider to be the B-lister games. CoH is firmly entrenched in this segment, hovering at about 100k-150k subscribers for several years now. Last but not least, we have the C-listers which includes MMOs that rarely, if ever, breaks the 100k mark.

http://www.mmodata.net/