Discussion: Valentine's Day

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I just want to know, how long will this update will be avaliable for purchase?

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Indefinitely.

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Cool I was hoping that would be the case ... I don't get paid until tomorrow and I would hate to think it was only avaliable untill the end of V-day.

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Leech drooled:
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Don't forget, Cambios is the person that was upset NCSoft wasn't keeping City of on the 125% uptime standards of the telecommunications industry. Basically comparing a video game to 911 (or equiv) service.

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1) LOL @ you.

2) Please find and post a citation of this "125%" number.

3) Since NCSoft has taken over, they have proven me right on the issue of maintenance. They cut it from 5 days to 2, and they moved the time earlier. In other words, the two things I always said needed to be done, they've done.

That means on the issue of server maintenance, I won.

You can keep bringing it up, but honestly, that is an issue where "my side" won a glorious victory. NCSoft agreed with us, not you.

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Jakkai wrote:
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Oh NO! A game that gives us free expansion packs (which is not at all typical of the competition)

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1) There are no free expansion packs. We pay $15 a month for continued content development.

2) Every other successful MMO in current existence does this (releases new content periodically, for no cost beyond the monthly fee).

Conclusion: You failed.

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Leech drooled:
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Don't forget, Cambios is the person that was upset NCSoft wasn't keeping City of on the 125% uptime standards of the telecommunications industry. Basically comparing a video game to 911 (or equiv) service.

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1) LOL @ you.

2) Please find and post a citation of this "125%" number.

3) Since NCSoft has taken over, they have proven me right on the issue of maintenance. They cut it from 5 days to 2, and they moved the time earlier. In other words, the two things I always said needed to be done, they've done.

That means on the issue of server maintenance, I won.

You can keep bringing it up, but honestly, that is an issue where "my side" won a glorious victory. NCSoft agreed with us, not you.

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Aren't you above personal assaults, lest a slapping contest ensue?

As far as maintenance goes, I don't thin anyone "won" per se. I think they got more efficient.

Besides, taking care of MMOs isn't easy. I don't know anything about it personally, but I found this article very enlightening. Considering the amount of infrastructure for games like EQ2 (and presumably CoX), yet alone something like WoW, I'm surprised more maintenance time isn't needed.

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Obdidius wrote:
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That's one perspective. IMHO, I don't mind paying for extra perks like the DVD items or the GvE stuff, but I'll admit (and have already posted as much) that compared to GvE, this was a little steep for price vs. content. Count me in with the crowd that thinks that $4.99 would have been a better deal for this "mini-pack".


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I should state up front that I have absolutely no beef with the concept of microtransactions or pay-for-perks. We actually use that system heavily in my company.

My problem is that CoX is renowned in the gaming market as being extremely lacking in gameplay variety. All we have is "run missions", and the map design is exceedingly repetitive. Where other games have hundreds if not thousands of unique maps and environments, CoX uses a handful of tilesets each with only 5-10 different configurations. That's a problem.

So until they get their lack of gameplay variety situation fixed, they really aren't in a position to start selling "extra" stuff. There isn't enough BASE content for anything to really be considered extra, in my view.


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Obdidius wrote:
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Systems? Inventions are a step in the right direction. I'm hoping (and almost betting) that the base system will get some attention real soon. But I've got to wait until Issue 12 to see where things are headed in that vein and other possibilities.

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I agree completely with both points. Inventions are awesome. The invention system actually brought me back to the game after a 6 month break. That is the type of new content they need to be adding every few months. I don't mean something as game altering as IOs, but something that involves at least that much development time and effort.

Bases have an awesome foundation. They need to run with that, expand it, make them DO something, and open them up to everyone via lairs.

Then they need to find entirely new ways to play the game. I already listed some in this thread, and listing more is outside the subject matter here.

The point is:

Until CoX has a more acceptable amount of varied content, it is really inappropriate to be selling anything as "extra." You guys have a lot of catching up to do before then.

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Aren't you above personal assaults, lest a slapping contest ensue?


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For $9.99, I'll /em slap anyone you wish. That's about equal to the value of this VD pack, no?

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Jakkai wrote:
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Oh NO! A game that gives us free expansion packs (which is not at all typical of the competition)

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1) There are no free expansion packs. We pay $15 a month for continued content development.

2) Every other successful MMO in current existence does this (releases new content periodically, for no cost beyond the monthly fee).

Conclusion: You failed.

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I'm not so sure of that conclusion:

EQ2 add-ons

SWO - Jump to Lightspeed

WoW - Burning Crusades

Add-on sales are still existing and viable sales models. The only real question is price per content. That's debatable for sure, but the concept of buying extra add-ons beyond the subscription fee is not foreign to other games, wether it's a digital key or a physical box.

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Aren't you above personal assaults, lest a slapping contest ensue?


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For $9.99, I'll /em slap anyone you wish. That's about equal to the value of this VD pack, no?

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I will agree with you there sir; selling new animations is a but "funky", for lack of better words.

Admittedly, I am starting to enjoy our little debates. Just less snark, if you could. Thanks in advance.

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Add-on sales are still existing and viable sales models. The only real question is price per content. That's debatable for sure, but the concept of buying extra add-ons beyond the subscription fee is not foreign to other games, wether it's a digital key or a physical box.

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Burning Crusade costs $30, or three times as much as this VD pack. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it has more than three times as much content. Comparing to WoW is a loser's gambit. They add new content constantly, and the variety is enormous. I put my time in on WoW, and I'm not wanting them to make CoX like WoW, but when the issue is content that comes with your subscription fee, CoX looks even worse when compared to WoW (or pretty much every game out there).

And I'll say it again: CoX has about 3 years worth of catch up to do. Since release, CoX has received AT BEST about one year's worth of real content additions. The game needs an enormous amount of gameplay variety added to it.

Before they can start calling anything extra, they have TONS of catching up to do.

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The debate on should we pay or shouldn't we is not the real issue here. We have real things that people would love to have like base fixes, or if we are talking costume pieces quivers for archers, jetpacks etc... but to have the devs spend time on this wedding event is fine and cute for the holiday. But lets get to what not just what a small group of people want ie: jester outfits and wedding gear and get back to the greater good. how long have base fixes/items and epic villain etc been brought up on the boards. this is an event they cooked up and are charging us for their time. Most of the outfit parts are very old and need help if your going to spend time on cute little bumps and not on the real things that are in real need of dev love then be ready for a mass loss of players many games have fallen for the same reason (no names here) but people who are fed up with getting jerked around by devs just leave and never come back just think about it in the brain storming meeting once and say "what does the game NEED not what would be a cute event"

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Whatever else you do, make sure Samuraiko is there! Even if you have to make a special place for her!

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Let me guess... someone thinks I should be the videographer?

*imagines her toon bustling around the wedding, telling people where to stand, what to do, and shoving a videocamera in everyone's face*

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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Well, to be fair, they haven't announced much about I12 yet, so it may be that the things that you're waiting for (like base fixes, for example) are already in the works. Don't worry; many of us feel the same way. I know Ex started a bawse feedback thread in August, which would be right about the time they would start work on Issue 12 (that's all conjuncture admittedly, but based off of War Witch's WarCry interviews discussing development cycles).

I know what the event is like and can say that gobs of time wasn't spent on it. I don't want to give alot away, but besides the new costume pieces and the RP, it uses existing zones and such. So it probably didn't take way from the important stuff that many players are waiting for.

That's my 2 Inf anyhow. It's a wait and see mentality for sure, but I've been pretty good at guessing lately

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And the hammidon and lusca should be able to marry.

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My god, man! Think of the offspring! A giant, jello-tentacled monster with irresitable damage, that no one wants to fight, that's nearly impossible to beat, and that spawns every five minutes?

I'm cringing just imagining it.

And what of the wedding night? Oh god, I just pictured that. I think I have to go lie down now.

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"Oh no, worst nightmare of Sushigirls everywhere!
AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Excuse me a moment.

[Shoots a tranq dart at Kosuki and wrests the keyboard from her hands.]

Sorry about that, she's getting really jumpy as she inches closer and closer to level 20.

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Global: @All-American Teen
70 toons across 11 servers.

Top hero -All-American Teen lvl 50 eng/invul Tanker (01:10 EST; 1/24/09)
Top villian -Poisoned Plum lvl 30 robots/devices Mastermind

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quick reply:

I'm not a fan of paying for so little content. A few costumes and emotes is not much for the money. If it was $1.99, I might buy it, but not at the price of $9.99.

I don't like microtransactions and don't play games that use them extensively. I'm all for monthly fees and paid boxed expansions, but those expansions better have some decent content, not just a few costume pieces.

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It actually just occurred to me that this may have something to do with credit-card negotiations and minimum payments.

Some shops refuse to run a credit card for less than $5, as their Visa/Mastercard fees eat them alive if they do.

I know that there are some ways around it, but it might not be available for so few transactions.

So this may not be entirely NCSoft's decision, but a limitation on their current contract for running credit cards.

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Nope NCSoft store has things as cheap as $5.99 for other games... so this is not the case.

As to the other BS about paying a subscription so expansion are suppose to be free... Look I came from GuildWars and WoW. I left WoW after the 1st month of play because quite frankly the game was not worth paying a continual subscription to participate in . So I now play it on illegal free servers... Which magically get huge free updates all the time. Illegally of course.

I also played GW from teh early Betas, and continue to play it today because it is a Free to play MMO, with Paid Expansions... Thats its model...

WoW, had Expansions and every word I ever heard on both of them was that they were a huge waste. Not so on GW. Every expansion in GW was a Huge success. Simply because each one had enough added content, Even the least successful of which still drew in millions of players each time.

Now I come to CoV. And I have to say I respect the idea of expansions. Indeed I would easily pay 29.99 for a HUGE campaign like expansion for CoX. Like a Space addon or whatever in the tradition of EQ2 going to the moon... But such a paid expansion I would expect a significant boost upgrade for my dollar... Higher level caps, More storage, Or real account storage. Some NEW instanced mission maps (not just the 5 or so we have now reskinned), and a large explorable persistent area. (IE New towns)

Now some of the issues in the past were hardly what I would call a expansion equivalent. maybe 3 or 4 of them put together... Essentially each issue were small little updates to the overall game design as I see it. And yes those would be what I would expect from a subscription based game for free... The last 3 together; 9, 10, and 11; could have easily been an expansion. I would have paid for those easily on top of subscription.

If they want to go to that model OK , but be straight with us. Dont dinker with us with stupid addons that only a moron with no sence of any value to money would purchase... A paid addon for a subscription based game MUST be of real value to be deserved. Indeed it would be just as easy for moders to take this engine and make illegal free to play servers for this game as well. But it has not happened... why? because the developers have treated their players as loyal customers.. and have provided content that has been worth the monthly subscription fee with the ongoing issue development...

But out of the blue having this has really shocked this community it seems. It makes us all look like idiots for doing business with NCSoft at all, as they throw what can only be called an insulting slap in the face at the community and just expect us all to pay up and shut the hell up, and be happy you got anything at all, paid for or otherwise.

I detest Pay to play games. Always have, always will. But I do pay for this one, because I felt welcome here, and have a very good group of friends online in a successful Villain SG and large coalition. I am proud of that. They are what keeps me here. Cause trust me if they were NOT here, I would be back in Guildwars in a heartbeat.

The point is up until this day. CoX was a good place to enjoy wasting a little money and have a good feeling that it is going to make things better for everyone in the paying of it... This paid addon with so little in it is a step towards a trend... that MUST not be allowed to happen to this game... Cause if it does we will all find ourselves paying extra for Every little thing, and suddenly our Subscriptions are meaningless costs with no value given to them by a player or the company.

That is what we all fear NCSoft will do to this previously successful game. Sure it lost some profitability in the last year. what game hasn't? Even the mighty WoW has lower numbers and they have 2 full expansions in that last year... That just goes to show that the people playing these games VALUE what they pay for and if they do not see that Value in the paying of it they move on. This is fact!!!!

The One thing a Company does NOT want to do is Drive them away by starting to charge even more for even less. and that is the possible trend we all see with this addon if it is repeated with somethign else equally as undervalued... Its just not worth the price. nothing in it is... and to expect the community to just pay up and be happy with it. Its insulting... And quite frankly I am starting to feel like I would have rather Cryptic just had said, it was a good run folks. were closing the doors now, instead of selling out to NCSoft and leaving all the loyal customers to the wolves.

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I'm not paying for costumes with real money. I already pay to play the game, I'm not paying more to cloth the characters. This should've been part of the Usher mission awards or something like all the special costumes in the past were.

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I don't know if anyone's even mentioned it, but I wouldn't be surprised if after the event there's a wedding video of the wedding event put up for those who couldn't make it.

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"The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open"
"Sometimes we risk taking things too far to see how far we can really go."
Interwebz Hoard is now at: 33 Interwebz
{Peoples who have Contributed to the Hoard:: (30) & (2)}
Now available in a wide range of flavours!

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I'm not paying for costumes with real money. I already pay to play the game, I'm not paying more to cloth the characters. This should've been part of the Usher mission awards or something like all the special costumes in the past were.

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All?

You mean, noone had to pay extra for the Justice and Sinister parts and pieces obtained with the Good versus Evil pack, or online code?

And noone paid extra money to get the CoH DVD edtion, which gives the Cape of the Four Winds ...?

And noone paid extra money to buy the CoV Colelctor's Edition, which gives access to the Arachnos chest emblem and Arachnos cape?

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Son, we've been paying extra for costume pieces almost since Launch Day.

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I don't know if anyone's even mentioned it, but I wouldn't be surprised if after the event there's a wedding video of the wedding event put up for those who couldn't make it.

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Ex has said they'll be recording the Events and putting up a video afterward, yes. ^_^

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Like the RWZ Rikti maps through the caves? Those totally unique maps?

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Unfortunately, those are barely more than a reskin. There is nothing FUNCTIONALLY different about them at all. There are no power plants you can destroy to shut down their power grids or force fields. [... blah blah blah ...]

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What you're asking for, here, is not "new map tilesets", but raher, "new types of gameplay". Call a spade a spade, rather than lieing through your teeth, please.

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But I will say, at least RWZ did have that one small cosmetic change - the first one in a long, long time. The vast majority of RWZ uses the same tilsets we have been seeing for years.

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... *sigh* ... never done the Faultline arc, have you? There's a reskin of the High-Tech Lab tileset that includes new pieces (collapsed ceilings and such). That was I8, IIRC.

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Like the RWZ Rikti maps through the caves? Those totally unique maps?

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Unfortunately, those are barely more than a reskin. There is nothing FUNCTIONALLY different about them at all. There are no power plants you can destroy to shut down their power grids or force fields. There are no storage pods that hold rikti who will spawn if you don't smash them or turn them off. There are no laser fields that damage you, or damage rikti if you knock them through them. In other words, they are just a reskin.

But I will say, at least RWZ did have that one small cosmetic change - the first one in a long, long time. The vast majority of RWZ uses the same tilsets we have been seeing for years.

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You confused place-ables with maps. Any of those things, if created, could be set to be used on any map.

The actual *map* of the RWZ with the high-tech look, was brand new (and required quite a bit of de-bugging to fix too.)

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Still here, even after all this time!

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Nope NCSoft store has things as cheap as $5.99 for other games... so this is not the case.

As to the other BS about paying a subscription so expansion are suppose to be free... Look I came from GuildWars and WoW. I left WoW after the 1st month of play because quite frankly the game was not worth paying a continual subscription to participate in . So I now play it on illegal free servers... Which magically get huge free updates all the time. Illegally of course.

I also played GW from teh early Betas, and continue to play it today because it is a Free to play MMO, with Paid Expansions... Thats its model...

WoW, had Expansions and every word I ever heard on both of them was that they were a huge waste. Not so on GW. Every expansion in GW was a Huge success. Simply because each one had enough added content, Even the least successful of which still drew in millions of players each time.

Now I come to CoV. And I have to say I respect the idea of expansions. Indeed I would easily pay 29.99 for a HUGE campaign like expansion for CoX. Like a Space addon or whatever in the tradition of EQ2 going to the moon... But such a paid expansion I would expect a significant boost upgrade for my dollar... Higher level caps, More storage, Or real account storage. Some NEW instanced mission maps (not just the 5 or so we have now reskinned), and a large explorable persistent area. (IE New towns)

Now some of the issues in the past were hardly what I would call a expansion equivalent. maybe 3 or 4 of them put together... Essentially each issue were small little updates to the overall game design as I see it. And yes those would be what I would expect from a subscription based game for free... The last 3 together; 9, 10, and 11; could have easily been an expansion. I would have paid for those easily on top of subscription.

If they want to go to that model OK , but be straight with us. Dont dinker with us with stupid addons that only a moron with no sence of any value to money would purchase... A paid addon for a subscription based game MUST be of real value to be deserved. Indeed it would be just as easy for moders to take this engine and make illegal free to play servers for this game as well. But it has not happened... why? because the developers have treated their players as loyal customers.. and have provided content that has been worth the monthly subscription fee with the ongoing issue development...

But out of the blue having this has really shocked this community it seems. It makes us all look like idiots for doing business with NCSoft at all, as they throw what can only be called an insulting slap in the face at the community and just expect us all to pay up and shut the hell up, and be happy you got anything at all, paid for or otherwise.

I detest Pay to play games. Always have, always will. But I do pay for this one, because I felt welcome here, and have a very good group of friends online in a successful Villain SG and large coalition. I am proud of that. They are what keeps me here. Cause trust me if they were NOT here, I would be back in Guildwars in a heartbeat.

The point is up until this day. CoX was a good place to enjoy wasting a little money and have a good feeling that it is going to make things better for everyone in the paying of it... This paid addon with so little in it is a step towards a trend... that MUST not be allowed to happen to this game... Cause if it does we will all find ourselves paying extra for Every little thing, and suddenly our Subscriptions are meaningless costs with no value given to them by a player or the company.

That is what we all fear NCSoft will do to this previously successful game. Sure it lost some profitability in the last year. what game hasn't? Even the mighty WoW has lower numbers and they have 2 full expansions in that last year... That just goes to show that the people playing these games VALUE what they pay for and if they do not see that Value in the paying of it they move on. This is fact!!!!

The One thing a Company does NOT want to do is Drive them away by starting to charge even more for even less. and that is the possible trend we all see with this addon if it is repeated with somethign else equally as undervalued... Its just not worth the price. nothing in it is... and to expect the community to just pay up and be happy with it. Its insulting... And quite frankly I am starting to feel like I would have rather Cryptic just had said, it was a good run folks. were closing the doors now, instead of selling out to NCSoft and leaving all the loyal customers to the wolves.

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Thanks for the more information. When I first saw it, I thought that it should have been for about $5.99 or $4.99 too, actually.

But I do want to continue supporting the City of Heroes franchise, but I do think that they need to be aware that they may have over-priced this a bit.

That doesn't mean I think they are evil, but probably didn't consider all of the ramifications.

It may have just boiled down to 'let's try $10 because that's pretty disposable amount' instead of thinking that $5 would get more than twice as many sales.

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Still here, even after all this time!

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As far as maintenance goes, I don't thin anyone "won" per se. I think they got more efficient.

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Normally the servers were coming down twice per week, with extras for patchs and special event prep, and just after issue launches. (per LH comments and experience)

Now the schedule for that 2/week is set, and they announce the extras.

The new hardware hasn't been in place long enough to see if there is any chnage in the length/number of downtimes, its more a shift in the communication of them than anything else, which I think was a good move.

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@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617

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Note: Females using the new tuxedos and the veil apparently have *two* cape systems, something we've been told we couldn't have

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This may be the reason that it is priced relatively expensive. By limiting the number of purchases they limit the performance hit caused by it.

Or maybe it is just the developers trying to figure out what the 'acceptable' price is and they start high because it is easier to lower prices for later packs than it is to raise prices.


Nadira

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Personally, if they wanna tack on some extra options outside the already extensive stuff they already provide, and for less than the cost of a run to Taco Bell, then I'm all for it.

Chalk up a sale for me and my wife with an added "nice work" to the detailing on the pieces.

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Personally, if they wanna tack on some extra options outside the already extensive stuff they already provide, and for less than the cost of a run to Taco Bell, then I'm all for it.

Chalk up a sale for me and my wife with an added "nice work" to the detailing on the pieces.

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Signed.

I think that having an add-on pack like this is great. It gives those who would like the content the options and if you don't want them you don't need to purchase them.

Personally I think NCSoft has done a great job with this game and all the free stuff they have given in the past, Yeah i know i pay every month like everyone else but to have options like these expantion pack is a good thing in my book. (Yep I bought it for 2 accounts so far and 2 more to go)

Also I would like to thank the Devs and everyone at NCSoft for such a great game. Just keep it coming hehe.

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If your gonna play follow the leader just make sure the leader is taking you where you want to go.