ACK! Must... click... Buy Now... button
By
Aisynia,
Posted on: 2008-02-12 19:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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To me.. it seems like a huge rip off.
$10 for some costumes that I doubt I'll ever use and four lowly emotes? No powers? No badge? $10 for something that I expect to see in most updates?
HUGE rip-off.
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HUGE rip-off, FOR YOU.
For me, HUGE value, because there are several female costume pieces in there that will be in heavy rotation over here. And the male tux coat is just one word: dazzlingly gorgeous - o wait that's two words, but you get my drift. it is elegant, it is beautiful, it flows like a dream. Looks great. Only just now I saw some guy come into the tailor in a costume that looked like a bad joke; comes out in a few minutes the very picture of elegance.
I have no complaints.
Will I use ALL of the pieces? Nope. Do I give a damn about the emotes? Not a bit.
Am I very pleased with these costume pieces? You betcha. My main gripe, if I really had one, would be that there are no "bridal" tights to go with the bridal corsets, but I'll survive.
If you don't like the pack, well you just saved yourself ten bucks. And that's ok. Some of us like new costume stuff though, and for us, this is a very happy day.
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Instead of giving the playerbase, which helps pay them regulerly, a gift they decided to charge additional.
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... Did they NOT just *give* us the Enforcer and Jester sets as a gift?! For free?!! SHEEEEESH!
Someone is being "greedy pure and simple"; not so sure its NCSoft. 
I saw the pics and had to have them. I picked the ones i liked for certain toons and the emotes are great fun. I throw a ton of rose petals at the feet of anyone who has superspeed and watch them turn into a grab-for-cash looking thing. So much fun. I got my $10 worth the 1st night of play. Its an option and not for everyone.
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Charging $10 for costume pieces and emotes is outragous. That is about 1/3rd the oriuce of an EQ expansion which, even now, do more than three times what this does easily.
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That is a perfectly valid opinion, one I share, actually.
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This is NCSoft being greedy pure and simple. Instead of giving the playerbase, which helps pay them regulerly, a gift they decided to charge additional.
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Ok, ONE pack of very optional stuff, compared to how many costumes, zones, updates, powersets, etc given for free? You and I apparently have very differing definitions of the word 'greedy'.
I don't consider $10 for the offered costumes and emotes to be greedy. Over-priced, sure. But not greedy.
Greedy would have been demanding free stuff on top of all the free stuff the playerbase has been given.
Oh, wait...
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Instead of giving the playerbase, which helps pay them regulerly, a gift they decided to charge additional.
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... Did they NOT just *give* us the Enforcer and Jester sets as a gift?! For free?!! SHEEEEESH!
Someone is being "greedy pure and simple"; not so sure its NCSoft.
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I agree they did just give us those for free. However, if this is succesful then what I am afraid of is that the next time they want to add a jester set or an enforcer set they will put it in a $10 box and sell it to us. There's no other MMO that would charge money for something so small except those that are based on that sort of economy (ex: Second Life).
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To me.. it seems like a huge rip off.
$10 for some costumes that I doubt I'll ever use and four lowly emotes? No powers? No badge? $10 for something that I expect to see in most updates?
HUGE rip-off.
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Think of it this way:
You will never use it so you don't buy it. EVEN
Other people suppliment development costs by buying them: WIN
So overall you win! 
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Unless it does so well that we get future packs with low VFM. How long until something people really want is in a $10 pack with little content? What if the Roman costume is released on it's own for $10? People will buy it, money goes into the NCsoft account. A lot of people lose then though.
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Wait, how do they "lose"? NCSoft offers a product. Some people pay for that product. Maybe enough people buy it to justify NCSoft trying such a thing in the future, maybe not.
Where do people lose again?
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Pack is a success. Future pack released. Item person wants included. High price for not a lot. Person doesn't buy it due to it costing too much. They lose.
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To say they have "lost" something presumes they have a fundamental right to it, that they're entitled to it simply because it exists.
That's a stance I cannot agree with.
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I never say they lost something, I said they lose. You haven't lost something if you want something and can't get it, but you lose.
** waits for bad_influence to finally call them by their proper name...buttcapes ** 
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Charging $10 for costume pieces and emotes is outragous. That is about 1/3rd the oriuce of an EQ expansion which, even now, do more than three times what this does easily.
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That is a perfectly valid opinion, one I share, actually.
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This is NCSoft being greedy pure and simple. Instead of giving the playerbase, which helps pay them regulerly, a gift they decided to charge additional.
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Ok, ONE pack of very optional stuff, compared to how many costumes, zones, updates, powersets, etc given for free? You and I apparently have very differing definitions of the word 'greedy'.
I don't consider $10 for the offered costumes and emotes to be greedy. Over-priced, sure. But not greedy.
Greedy would have been demanding free stuff on top of all the free stuff the playerbase has been given.
Oh, wait...
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Ok I'm projecting forward a bit here because I've played so many of these games and I feel like I know where this is going which I admit is not fair of me. What I am seeing is that this is just the first. It's a test to see how many people will pay $10 for very little. Not only that, but to judge the reactions of the players. At the way it's looking now the test might work well for them. What would that mean? What I see is that the next time there's a new set of costume options to add they don't put it in for free. Instead they charge $10 for it. Instead of adding new emotes the charge $10 for it. This is what I feel would be wrong.
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In fact, I don't know of a single game where anything other than a very minor addition/upgrade to the game is given away, except CoH.
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WoW.
Only one paid expansion, LOTS of content added since release, just like CoX.
And unlike CoX, they don't build for Alliance only.
When was the last such expansion pack they gave us? Wasn't it the Sinister/Justice costumes pack? And wasn't that over a year ago? If not, its got to be coming up on a year, fast.
I don't see an expansion pack every year or so as the end of the world. And while it is true that they could start throwing these packs out there every other month and stop the addition of all free emote and costume upgrades to the game, I have a hard time believing that will happen. They're not that stupid, for one thing.
From what I understand, we have it pretty good compared to other MMOs in regard to continually having to buy expansions. I just don't see this as a problem.
OK, said my say. *gets off soap-box* Wait, just one more thing:
ALL HAIL SEXY JAY!
NOW I am done.
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Ok I'm projecting forward a bit here because I've played so many of these games and I feel like I know where this is going which I admit is not fair of me. What I am seeing is that this is just the first. It's a test to see how many people will pay $10 for very little. Not only that, but to judge the reactions of the players. At the way it's looking now the test might work well for them. What would that mean? What I see is that the next time there's a new set of costume options to add they don't put it in for free. Instead they charge $10 for it. Instead of adding new emotes the charge $10 for it. This is what I feel would be wrong.
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Again, why is that wrong?
They make something new, something not required to play the game. They price it. They offer it for sale. Where's the "wrong" in that? You can play the game exactly as before without paying for the doo-dad they offer.
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In fact, I don't know of a single game where anything other than a very minor addition/upgrade to the game is given away, except CoH.
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WoW.
Only one paid expansion, LOTS of content added since release, just like CoX.
And unlike CoX, they don't build for Alliance only.
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Yes but an important difference is, WoW blows.
Sinister/Justice was not a costume pack.
They released a new, combined version of the game. They added some costume pieces and powers to the new version of the game. Similar to the collector's editions.
In order to make it accessible to people who already had the game, they made it possible to purchase the new content only at a reduced price.
*THAT* was a good way to handle it.
THIS pack is not. There's no new versions of the game that came with it. This is content that, before now, would have been given out as the holiday bonus. Now we have to pay for it.
BAD THING.
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Ok I'm projecting forward a bit here because I've played so many of these games and I feel like I know where this is going which I admit is not fair of me. What I am seeing is that this is just the first. It's a test to see how many people will pay $10 for very little. Not only that, but to judge the reactions of the players. At the way it's looking now the test might work well for them. What would that mean? What I see is that the next time there's a new set of costume options to add they don't put it in for free. Instead they charge $10 for it. Instead of adding new emotes the charge $10 for it. This is what I feel would be wrong.
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Again, why is that wrong?
They make something new, something not required to play the game. They price it. They offer it for sale. Where's the "wrong" in that? You can play the game exactly as before without paying for the doo-dad they offer.
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Because part of our monthly fee was already supposed to pay for that. Now, they're reducing the resources for those of us who just pay the monthly fee to produce for their "premium" customers, who are willing to pay through the nose for extras that before NC $oft we were already paying for, and receiving, with no additional price, or hassle.
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From what I understand, we have it pretty good compared to other MMOs in regard to continually having to buy expansions. I just don't see this as a problem.
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I wish we had paid expansions every 6-9 months. That's the model EQ1 used in it's early days and it was nice.
Paid expansions greatly expanded the game in virtually every way. They hugely expanded the play area (13-15 zones), character development and choices (adding new character races and/or classes), styles of play (each expansion added something new, like character levels or alternate advancement...or both. New abilities, etc).
Instead they took the planned paid expansion and gave it away for free to the playerbase. That sure sounds greedy to me...
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Ok I'm projecting forward a bit here because I've played so many of these games and I feel like I know where this is going which I admit is not fair of me. What I am seeing is that this is just the first. It's a test to see how many people will pay $10 for very little. Not only that, but to judge the reactions of the players. At the way it's looking now the test might work well for them. What would that mean? What I see is that the next time there's a new set of costume options to add they don't put it in for free. Instead they charge $10 for it. Instead of adding new emotes the charge $10 for it. This is what I feel would be wrong.
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Again, why is that wrong?
They make something new, something not required to play the game. They price it. They offer it for sale. Where's the "wrong" in that? You can play the game exactly as before without paying for the doo-dad they offer.
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Because part of our monthly fee was already supposed to pay for that. Now, they're reducing the resources for those of us who just pay the monthly fee to produce for their "premium" customers, who are willing to pay through the nose for extras that before NC $oft we were already paying for, and receiving, with no additional price, or hassle.
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Really? You have something that says the fees are supposed to go toward free costumes for the lifespan of the game?
When was the last time CoH raised it's fees? You think the cost of...well...everything hasn't gone up since then?
Yet you seem to believe you should be able to get everything free forever.
Which would you rather see, a fee increase or them offer thise packs for the people who want it?
And no, they didn't reduce any resources. You have exactly the same things you had available to you before the patch. Nothing was reduced.
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Confirmed. Females can use wings with the tuxes and males cannot.
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How about with capes? Like, oh, say, a scarf?
/e drools just a little at the thought of finally getting my Fourth Doctor homage costume right
34 heroes,
20 villains, Victory, Justice, Infinity, Virtue, Triumph, Exalted -- some more active than others
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Ok I'm projecting forward a bit here because I've played so many of these games and I feel like I know where this is going which I admit is not fair of me. What I am seeing is that this is just the first. It's a test to see how many people will pay $10 for very little. Not only that, but to judge the reactions of the players. At the way it's looking now the test might work well for them. What would that mean? What I see is that the next time there's a new set of costume options to add they don't put it in for free. Instead they charge $10 for it. Instead of adding new emotes the charge $10 for it. This is what I feel would be wrong.
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Again, why is that wrong?
They make something new, something not required to play the game. They price it. They offer it for sale. Where's the "wrong" in that? You can play the game exactly as before without paying for the doo-dad they offer.
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Because part of our monthly fee was already supposed to pay for that. Now, they're reducing the resources for those of us who just pay the monthly fee to produce for their "premium" customers, who are willing to pay through the nose for extras that before NC $oft we were already paying for, and receiving, with no additional price, or hassle.
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Come on man. It's 9.99. Whoppity dew.
Even if you have minimum wage working skills, it's just not a lot of money.
And if it IS a lot of money to you, then 14.99 a month must have you eating government cheese.
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THIS pack is not. There's no new versions of the game that came with it. This is content that, before now, would have been given out as the holiday bonus. Now we have to pay for it.
BAD THING.
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I really don't see the big difference regarding GvE. An updated DVD disc for both games versus my original copies of CoH and CoV, plus the $10 GvE goodie pack...why that makes a difference in what they can get away with, I'm not entirely sure.
I'm perfectly willing to agree that $10 is slightly too pricey (somewhere closer to $4.99 - $7.99 would've flown better), however.
I'm also alarmed, though not panicked by this concept. Again, they're most likely testing the waters and hopefully they'll realize that only 1 bonus pack a year is probably for the best.
I also hope that they'll think a bit harder about the composition of such packs. As was mentioned before, the tuxes scream magician, and I don't think it's entirely fair that a costume piece with that sort of extraneous use is pay-locked. (It's a similar complaint to that I have with the Cabal Hat and the theoretical possibility of the Roman set being pay-locked.)
Additionally, I think they goofed a bit in this case and underestimated how much of a clamor new costume parts, period, causes.
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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Additionally, I think they goofed a bit in this case and underestimated how much of a clamor new costume parts, period, causes.
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They knew this would happen and a vocal group would make there presence known*...they also know that there are those who would be willing to pay...the risk vs reward is stacked in their favor!
I bought mine and dont have an issue...now had it been 7.99 like you said i would'nt be sitting here thinking of upgrading my 2nd account... which i probally wont since i'm missing all the vet rewards a little fluff missing from those toons is ok with me!
*see every single vet reward post in the past 2yrs in regards to costume's tied to vet rewards!!
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Confirmed. Females can use wings with the tuxes and males cannot.
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How about with capes? Like, oh, say, a scarf?
/e drools just a little at the thought of finally getting my Fourth Doctor homage costume right
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When I was playing around with the new costumes last night, I was able to have a tux and cape at the same time on my female magician. Keep in mind though that it could be considered a bug and changed so capes are locked out like with the male models. There was a *lot* of clipping between the tux tails and cape.
Gothika (Grav/Kin) Marionette (Ill/Rad) Terra Firma (Earth/Storm) Alana Dale (Arch/Nrg)
Iceblink (Ice/Dark) Fantasia (Mind/Fire) Shadow Minx (Claws/Nin)
--Virtue
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Additionally, I think they goofed a bit in this case and underestimated how much of a clamor new costume parts, period, causes.
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They knew this would happen and a vocal group would make there presence known*...they also know that there are those who would be willing to pay...the risk vs reward is stacked in their favor!
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Well, I was under the impression one of the reasons for making it a bonus pack was to entice those who are going to actually use them for a wedding or other formal event in-game.
In other words, I don't think they entirely realized that not just love birds holding online parties were going to want it, but just about anybody who loves making costumes.
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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THIS pack is not. There's no new versions of the game that came with it. This is content that, before now, would have been given out as the holiday bonus. Now we have to pay for it.
BAD THING.
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Heh. I actually forgot to make my point.
The closest thing to a full costume set we've been given for a holiday event is the Laurels + Sandals + Toga combo, and originally that was exclusive too, but much more insipidly so, requiring you to get someone else to buy and join the game.
So my point is, I'd assume the dress was created specifically for Sister Psyche, at which point they decided to expand it into a player character option and add in the extra patterns (taken directly from Sexy Jay's suggestion list, by the way, which I'm not sure how I feel about) and tuxes.
Otherwise I personally don't think we would've gotten them without some Jay-begging, and another issue-long wait (or worse).
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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In fact, I don't know of a single game where anything other than a very minor addition/upgrade to the game is given away, except CoH.
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Asheron's Call 1. Free content updates every single month like clockwork.
I'm only ladylike when compared to my sister.
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To say they have "lost" something presumes they have a fundamental right to it, that they're entitled to it simply because it exists.
That's a stance I cannot agree with.
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And yours is a stance I can not agree with. The reason MMOs charge $15 a month is two-fold. The first reason is to maintain the servers. The second is to hire a development team to program free upgrades. If this is $10 package thing becomes standard then we are missing out on upgrades which should have been free in the first place.
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Well...that's not precisely so.
Honestly, CoH spoils it's players thoroughly. Every other MMO I've played (and that's fairly long list) would have charged for expansions for things CoH gives it's players for free. RWZ would likely have been a "bigger" update, for example, and been boxed up as an expansion for sale. Same with some of the other additions.
In the multiple years I played EQ, we got exactly 2 zones for free. There were precisely 2 holiday events (one of which ended up getting re-used for hallowe'en every year). There wasn't anything at all like costume slots.
In fact, I don't know of a single game where anything other than a very minor addition/upgrade to the game is given away, except CoH.
In the MMO model, the money you pay for subscriptions goes toward keeping the lights on and maintenance on the game itself. Future development is done in anticipation of dollars received from people buying the expansions.
The players haven't "lost" anything in the scenario presented, because it was never theirs to lose.
Before the patch, the players didn't have access to those costume pieces or emotes. Some, I'm sure, have not purchased the pack because they either can't, or won't. They haven't "lost" anything, because they never had it.
What has happened is they haven't gotten an extra for free, as they were used to doing.
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I'm not going to list all of the MMOs I've played and where they stand on updating because the list is too long. However, I will bring up one MMO for this argument. LotRO so far has added 2 (and soon to be three) very large expansions. The have added new zones and huge dungeons. New rule systems and things to do and overhauled the classes that weren't working well. They also released these patches about half a month to a month quicker than CoH does on average. Charging $10 for costume pieces and emotes is outragous. That is about 1/3rd the oriuce of an EQ expansion which, even now, do more than three times what this does easily. This is NCSoft being greedy pure and simple. Instead of giving the playerbase, which helps pay them regulerly, a gift they decided to charge additional.