CoH = $15 a month (cool) CoV = $15 a month (BAD!)
By
776th_Sentinal3,
Posted on: 2004-11-02 15:33 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Well it would be logical to maybe offer a deal of some sorts for both CoH and CoV like $20.00 a month. That would be cool.
I mean how many people would support this? I would do this. But only to one of my accounts. If the wifey or kids want to play CoV, they can do it on the same account.
My original intent was to make a thread where people would /yes or /no their support on if CoV was an additional $15.00 a month, and how many people would pay that kinda double fee to experience being a Villain is all.
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To try to lay this thread to rest (again), here's what can be currently said.
1. CoH is not required to play CoV. You can buy CoH and play it, buy CoV and play it, or have both.
2. Pricing is something NCSoft will announce. They have not made any announcement yet. Please rest assured, they are very aware of your opinions and concerns.
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The only thing missing from this post is to LOCK THE THREAD!
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Yeah, they should, since most of the trollers won't read past the OP or topic.
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Randum ruM0rz sez C0V for 10,0000 billion million!
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OMG! 100,000120120,,1040140,00..12.132.. For CoV?!?! What is Cryptic thinking? I for 1 won't pay 142092u34545whtr45754 dollars extra a month. I can't believe they would post repeatedly that CoV is going to cost an extra 532537533585 dollars. That, and all the reputable press agencies reporting that the new defecit from CoV will be 120412305857gieg5 dollars only fuels my complete and total belief in this.
I'm going to just have to beat my forehead against baby seals until they change their mind. I already pay 15.00 a month, and wild rikti monkeys won't pull another fifty 1 two kagillion smackeroos from me. DAMN THEM! DAMN THEM ALL! Come here little seal...
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Well it would be logical to maybe offer a deal of some sorts for both CoH and CoV like $20.00 a month. That would be cool.
I mean how many people would support this? I would do this. But only to one of my accounts. If the wifey or kids want to play CoV, they can do it on the same account.
My original intent was to make a thread where people would /yes or /no their support on if CoV was an additional $15.00 a month, and how many people would pay that kinda double fee to experience being a Villain is all.
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Based on that, I'll chime in. No, I wouldn't pay an extra 5, 10, 15, etc dollars a month. And yes, I would leave the game. Expansions should not require more money to play them (aside from the initial cost). If NC Soft goes this route, seriously, how many customers will they lose? $30 bucks a month to experience the whole game, or $15 to play a competitors full product.
No contest, at least for me. The cheaper one wins out. And just because I would find the marketing scheme distasteful and offensive, I would quit the game. It reminds me of D&D 3rd edition when they switced to D&D 3.5 only 2 years after the new edition was released. No, you don't have to buy 3.5, but every new publication (i.e. expansion) from here on out is based on it, so enjoy your old books cuz their ain't any new ones coming out. That made me quit D&D in a split second.
This would too.
I know that this is a business first, game second, but abject greed is different than making a nice profit.
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Is there any wonder why this man got my vote?
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Statesman, Positron '04
hehe i had to
So even though you would continue getting the free regular 'expansions' to CoH that would not be available to villains, be able to set up SG bases and indulge in Hero vs. Villian PvP, and you (I assume) enjoy playing CoH, You would still dump CoH on principle if they wanted to charge an extra $5/mo to run CoV concurrently with CoH? I can see electing to NOT buy CoV, but to wash your hands entirely of it all? Interesting.
The intresting thing I see here is at one point it was mentioned and verified that CoH and CoV will be 2 diffrent games. It is entirely possible that you will playing either CoH (as is no pvp but the forth coming arena) Cov ( which is CoH with pvp (the first 2 i dont expect but is possible)) or CoH/CoV where thre charecter you play is either a hero or a villain and never both hence why the rate wont go up you jsut have to by the expansion for an as of yet undetermined price)
But thats my thoughts...
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To try to lay this thread to rest (again), here's what can be currently said.
1. CoH is not required to play CoV. You can buy CoH and play it, buy CoV and play it, or have both.
2. Pricing is something NCSoft will announce. They have not made any announcement yet. Please rest assured, they are very aware of your opinions and concerns.
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You realize he just said "Yeah, we know you won't like it, but we're still considering charging you 30 bucks a month to play both. Will we be doing this? We'll tell you when we feel like it."
How about we change the upcoming release to "City of profiteers"? Maybe City of Capitalists? Perhaps, City of Debt, because that's precisely what's going to happen. You won't need to read the forums in order to find out they expect you to shell out 100 bucks to play the both of them, and then an additional 30 bucks per month for it. People are going to drift away.
Already people reach 50 a lot faster because there's simply no diversion to the grind. Seriously, there's absolutely nothing else to do. So they reach 50...and they make an alt, and then another alt, and another, and another until they just leave.
City of Villians would keep those people around wtihout expecting them to shell out an additional 15 bucks.
I'd like to see some heroism from the NCSoft Crew, all I see from them is people reaching for my wallet.
{Note: I started this hours ago, but got interrupted by RL and I don't want to have to cut and paste this again if someone else hasn't stepped up with links and quotes. If this is repetitious, please don't think I intend to be pedantic. 
}
It is my understanding (looking around for the quotes) that Hero bases and Hero vs. Villain PvP will be available to CoH without purchase of CoV - the purchase of CoV opening access to Villain PvE adventuring in The Fallen Isles and Villain vs. Hero PvP, with Villain bases and likely some sort of Villain vs. Villain PvP as well.
I realize that the confusion as what "expansion" means in relation to CoV is where a lot of confusion and misunderstandings are coming from.
An early design blurb for E3 dated 5/17/04
pertinent quote:
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City of Villains, the first pay expansion slated for a 2005 release (there are unconfirmed rumors are circulating that October 2005 is the date), brings a brand new style of play to the table and some exciting twists to the current CoH formula. As is obvious from the title, players now get to experience how the other half lives. Player villains dont start out with fully functional power sets as their heroic counterparts, but instead must work their way up from being a common thug in order to prove their worth as a criminal and be recruited by a member of an NPC villain organization. An example of one such organization that players can be a part of is S.P.I.D.E.R. (Second Phase Infiltration to Destroy Empires Resistance). All villains start out on Fallen Isle, a remote island similar to Bermuda. Once the player villain proves his worth and becomes part of a NPC villain group, the villain group empowers the thug with superhuman powers. The player then is able to choose an archetype/origin. The available powersets for villains are planned to be similar to those available to heroes currently. City of Villains also introduces optional PvP elements to the game. Jack firmly believes that players should never be forced to do anything in the game that they dont want to do. He feels the method by which PvP is incorporated in the expansion is a fun, fair choice. Additionally, headquarters functionality will been added for both hero and villain groups, and an even more interesting feature that Jack shared with me was the addition of great cosmic and supernatural power items that supergroups can acquire to either protect or use for more sinister purposes. Groups that have these items leave themselves open to attack from opposing forces who wish to relocate the item.
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CoV quotes from a pre-Update 2 interview
pertinent quote:
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GD: There's also the City of Villains expansion...
JE: That's due out next year. Obviously, you get to be the bad guy, and it's going to be when we introduce PvP (player versus player) on a large scale in the city. We'll probably be introducing it in an arena sooner than you think... but basically, it's where players get to be a supervillain.
GD: Is it an entirely different game?
JE: This is one for the business guys, but let me tell you how I want to design it: It's going to be a standalone game, so you can buy City of Villains and play it and interact with the players in City of Heroes, but you just can't be a hero -- you can't build a hero and you can't go through the hero track. It's one subscription fee -- $14.95 a month regardless of whether you have City of Heroes, City of Villains, or both.
GD: And that'll all be in the same world?
JE: We'll be opening up new areas of the world that you won't be able to get to unless you own City of Villains.
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Here's the quote that people will use to correct me when I said somewhat confidently that Hero bases will be available even if one doesn't buy CoV:
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Highlights from Statesman Radio interveiw at this web site.
http://mmoradio.gameamp.com/news/viewNews/390.php
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[Inhibitor] And you're not fooling me, you just wanted to make sure the Infinity Gauntlet ended up in the game. But, and I've got a million questions coming in, but I do want to clarify something you just said there. You did say that starting with City of Villains, we would have the Supergroup headquarters, which sound like they're going to be a very integral part. Is that going to be specifically associated with City of Villains? In other words, are you going to have to buy the box in order to get an HQ?
[Statesman] That's kind of a business question, which I'm not sure I can answer at this moment. But certainly it's a feature that we know that we want in that box set. As for whether it would be available to heroes even if they never bought City of Villains, I couldn't tell you right now. I just don't know the answer to that.
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So I may be overreaching on the bases being available to Heroes sans CoV, but you've got some info that demonstrates where several of us are coming from when we seem unjustifiably trollish to wild suppositions and doomsayers. There is a record of the dribs and drabs of info. It just gets harder to find as time goes by.
Or he could be saying "I'm almost positive it's going to be 15 for both, but I'm not 100% sure so I'm not going to tell everybody till it's written in stone."
It's a non issue as far as I'm concerned. They make it 30 per month, they lose players just on principle. Never mind the others who may not be able to afford 30 a month.
Silly for them to even hedge this bet. Just turns people of principle (I count myself one) off quik.
Similarly WoW is toying with it's subscriber base with letting beta players keep there char when it goes live. Again, just plain assnine.
And yes, I would quit on principle. In either case.
Maybe I am wrong and there are a large enough group of people out there who would want to play just a villain oriented game so they can market CoV as a stand alone, do not need CoH game. That also means they do not get to go to any part of the existing game world and only whatever new areas are added ( that is only fair if people who don't buy it can't get to the new areas it introduces ) That said I see many groups targeting CoV as promoting a criminal life no matter how ridiculous that sounds they will do it and it will get bad press, then there will be parents cutting their kids off. Remember just today we learned that just about the most ignorant man to ever be President of the United States got re-elected because the major driving concern for voters was Moral Values... the economy sucks, massive job loss, health care is non-existent for many and we are in a war we had no right to start and have no real plan for getting out of and they were concerned most about moral values.... how do you think a game with CoV's premise will be received in such an environment??
I like the idea of being able to play a villain, but even in a lets make it fun frame of mind I don't see being able to maintain a player base for a game like that for an extended period of time. How long could any of you play evil and nothing else. I guess there are people that can ask the same of us playing good and nothing else. The two games SHOULD NOT be marketed as stand alones they belong together as one game.
I want to be able to play both sides and I want to fight player villains as a player hero not have some tidbit thrown out allowing hero vs hero PvP. I would pay a little more to play the two combined, but I see no reason to have them be seperate in the first place. This should be a non-issue. I have to say I personally feel Statesman is dropping the ball on this one by designing it this way. CoV should just be the normal very large boxed expansion to CoH that every MMORPG has roughly a year after the original game comes out. I would love to see marketing research or whatever other figures they cn show me that prove me wrong, but I just don't think CoV will survive as a stand alone game and if NCSoft opts to charge the same fee to play each game and then has to merge them later I think it would be the death of both games.
Devs please release some of the info you have been letting out in interviews to the official site for CoV. It has nothing ther but the same old info that has been in place since the site was set up. Everything I saw quoted in other posts on this thread was completely new to me, but should not have been because it should be getting added to the oficial site on a regular basis.
Maybe I will get lucky enough to be in the CoV beta and I will change my mind on the servivability of the game as a stand alone game. I am going to be playing EQ2, but also staying in CoH and for that I have no problem paying two seperate fees a month as I am single, but I would not be able to pay a 3rd one to have acces to the game content I should get to have with CoV as a CoH player.
I can only hope NCSoft will be as generous here with this situation as they are being with making Guild Wars free to play.
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Besides, $30 a month usually isn't in the budget of most people who play this game. .(those that get their parents to pay or young working people paying for themselves.)
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Who commissioned the poll that told you that?
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It's called common sense. The age range for most people that play this game are kids to young adults, with a minority in adult customers. Parents aren't going to pay $30 a month just so their kids could waste their time playing some time consuming MMO when they could be studying or doing something else constructive to their development. I certainly wouldn't even pay the $15 for my kids to play MMOs, knowing the addictive qualities and detrimental side effects of it firsthand, if I had kids that is.
If you really want to be anal about it we could find online polls for this I'm sure. There are many studies done on the nature of MMOs and its subscribers.
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Erm...yes....and the result is that the average age is way higher than 20....at least of those i know of.
MMo players are usually no kids, they are mainly adults. My online guild has an average age of 30 and none of my friends whom i play CoH with is younger than 30. The oldest is Grandpa himself, playing together with his son and grandson.
There are young kids in MMos for sure but i kinda doubt they are the majority. And even to young kids it wouldnt matter at all if its 15$ or 30$.....they spend double that amount of money on mobile phones each month so what?
And the older ones? Who of them cares if its 15$ or 30$? Most i know play at least 2 games anyways, so they already pay for 2 accounts.
Making it 30$ would start flame for sure, and lead to some ppl leaving the game.....but it would not make it die.
And you can be damn sure that at this very moment there are some ProductManagers sitting together analysing the market and calculating if its an option to raise 30$ or not....cause thats what those guys are paid for.
*posting only because my 2 cents has not been given on this issue yet*
If I was charged 'anything' extra to play CoV I would not buy it. Heck, the only reason I would buy it would be for all the extra's because I certainly would not play PvP, at least not as my main gameplay style. I would probably use whatever form of dueling they had as something different from the everyday thing, but not PvP as a rule.
That being said, if they charged extra for CoV, and as a result, I wouldn't buy it, I would feel like I wasn't getting an opportunity to play the entire game, and would seriously consider switching to a different game.
Everyone I was re-reading one of the interview excerpts quoted in a previous post and I think I finally get what Statesman is saying. He basically is saying you can buy CoV and add it to CoH for the new related content it will contain such as the bases for groups and everything else. Without having to have both games player heroes and villains can PvP and interact ( although I think it is unfair they would get to come to all the zones in CoH, but we would not get to see any of the new zones in CoV without having it... unless they plan to patch them in later fr us ) So if all you want is PvP you have to pay nothing extra, not even the price to buy CoV in the store, if you want PvP and the bases and other stuff you have to buy CoV, but do not need to purchase a seperate account, and finally if you want to play the game both ways you have to buy CoV and MAY have to pay a second fee IF the executives at NCSoft go that way, but the Cryptic team is fighting against it and they will let us know as soon as they can.
I hope that helped make things a little clearer to some of you. I feel a bit dense for not figuring out what he meant sooner.
I dont mind paying to buy COV initially, but, if I am asked to pay more than what I pay now, I am afraid I will be forced to quit... budget is stretched as it is.... 
Ok for those of you who do not know City of Villans is an expantion and a full game. how you ask. the expantion pack will add to City of Heros. no it will not be two different packages but how it's said to work is the CoV cd will update your info on your pc and add the CoV side of things thus adding all the new elements. NOW if you have city of heros, City of Villans will be just an addon and no money extra in playing BUT if you just want City of VIllans you will be charged the $15 a month to play it and i see that as fair. Cryptic will not screw it's players over like others in my opinion and i hope that i am proven right. when details come out everyone will know so relax, sit back and enjoy the game.
Can't wait for update 3!
~OMG BURN STINKS I'M DELETING MY FIRE TANK!~
Learn the play your fire tank without using Burn.
~WTF FIRE TANKS ARE SCREWED, DELETING IT!~
I made mine work. NOOB!
They work. figure out how to use them the right way.
I agree that I'd hate to pay $30 to play the same game, but in a sense I can understand the need for the seperate charge. Many people tend not to realize the amount of manpowers needed to maintain a mmorg game as well as updating it regularly with new contents. Programmers are not cheap. There are also the cost for QA. The cost for advertising. The cost for music & art development ... etc etc. All of which cost $$$.
The way I see it, either the old team for the CoH will need to split their workload between CoH and CoV ... and we'll see a sharp decline in the overall progress... or they can have another team devoted specically for CoV. Hence the need for the extra $15.
From the development point of view the price hike may be unavoidable... even tho we as costumers will probably hate it. Hopefully they'll have a compromise for it. Such as $15 for each Coh or CoV individually. Or $20 dollar for both together. I can swallow $20, but $30 is just going to make me seriously reconsider playing the game.
Wong Bing lvl 50 Katana/SR scrapper. Freedom
I really hope that this is a rumor, why would they anger, not just the forum people, but EVERYONE who wants cov too. I can see $15 if you don't play CoH already though. Since we've already played coh for so long $30 (I think?) for the software isn't bad, as long as we don't have to pay another fee. LR didn't say either way specifically though, he just said they are aware...well EQ is aware they rip people off too.
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I really hope that this is a rumor, why would they anger, not just the forum people, but EVERYONE who wants cov too. I can see $15 if you don't play CoH already though. Since we've already played coh for so long $30 (I think?) for the software isn't bad, as long as we don't have to pay another fee. LR didn't say either way specifically though, he just said they are aware...well EQ is aware they rip people off too.
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Well its not a rumor, but there is no conformation either. Just like the Lord Recluse reply on this thread had stated, Jack or Statesman does not want to charge us more, but it is in NCSoft's hands.
Alot of speculation is that they will cut us a deal, and if we have an active CoH account, havng both would only cost about $5.00 more or around $20.00 a month.
They are hopefully relaying our concerns to NCSoft and I am sure this debate between Cryptic and NCSoft will not be a short one. I am sure the costs involved to bring a whole nother game to fruition will be costly, but we will have to wait and see what happens. I just hope this thread is used to show some of the concerns when they start talking about this, as I am sure with CoV Beta happening soon, it cant be far off from discussion, and more than likely in discussions now.
We will see. 
Exact billing is still TBD (COV is a while off). However, it will -not- be $15 a month for COH and another $15 for COV if you're playing both.
It'd be nice to charge a bit more per month for the COH+COV combo (like the $15+$5 mentioned above) but in practice, if you can only play one character (regardless of it being a hero or villlain) online at a time...but it'd be tough to justify. Our bandwidth or support costs wouldn't go up as long as it's still one player with both games enabled...though it'd be nice to financially support the extra content development needed to be increasing the content of both COH and COV. And we like money. The question is, would we not really just be incentivizing most players to turn off whatever game they were not playing for most of the month...which would be a) annoying to users and b) not make us more money - not exactly win-win.
However, the exact model is TBD - or, if it's decided, I haven't heard the final decision. Thoughts welcome.
-jg
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Jeremy Gaffney
VP Product Development, NCsoft
After a year running I think an increase to the base fee of between $2.50 and $5 would not be out of the question. Despite being a ways off CoV should arrive around that time. A subscription fee of $17.50 that covered one game or both games (if you buy both products of course) doesn't seem extreme to me.
Why wasn't Gaffer running for the CoH Presidential Elections? Third party?
Is it too late to change my vote?
I really dont think that double charge will happen. If it does everyone will leave the game. No ones gonna pay that much for a monthly game. I think 15 dollars is to much away, so Im sure not gonna pay 30 dollars a month. For 15 dollars a month we should be gettin alot more content in our updates than we are.
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Besides, $30 a month usually isn't in the budget of most people who play this game. .(those that get their parents to pay or young working people paying for themselves.)
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Who commissioned the poll that told you that?
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It's called common sense. The age range for most people that play this game are kids to young adults, with a minority in adult customers. Parents aren't going to pay $30 a month just so their kids could waste their time playing some time consuming MMO when they could be studying or doing something else constructive to their development. I certainly wouldn't even pay the $15 for my kids to play MMOs, knowing the addictive qualities and detrimental side effects of it firsthand, if I had kids that is.
If you really want to be anal about it we could find online polls for this I'm sure. There are many studies done on the nature of MMOs and its subscribers.
Either way the point of this post is moot, it has been explicitly stated that you won't have to pay extra for CoV, end of discussion.
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Heh. The average age may be trending lower now, but the biggest demographic that bought into the game at launch was comic book fans and they trend much older than most MMO's. You'll find that the majority of first-round CoV beta invites go to a 24 to 54 age range.
I agree that discussion of the monthly fee is moot at this early date, but there is nothing more than an 'intent' stated by Statesman to not raise the fee to play both CoH and CoV. There's a lot of wiggle room there, and when the time is right people should express themselves rationally.