Why I Can't Convince My Friends to Play CoX
By
Acanous_Quietus,
Posted on: 2008-03-05 24:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I kinda understand where ur comin from as some of my friends love CoH and some dont. I played SWG and LoTRO before comin here so i understand the way missions and stuff works in MMORPGs. Ive only been playin CoH for 6 months so theres still alot i dont know how to do. When i got my first missions way over in that corner, well i instinctively trained throu the NPCs to get to the mission door. I didnt know about the temp-power jetpacks and stuff either. However it doesnt take long to find out when any team u join from pretty much lvl 2 - 10 talks alot about radio missions and bank missions and gettin there travel temp-power. Providing u join a team that is.
Vet rewards are also somethin that shouldnt be given out to just anyone. They are just what there are called, Veteran Rewards, given to players who have been playin for long periods of time as a reward. I understand that some people are jealous of vet rewards. In SWG players would complain all the time about them and elder jedi stuff. But people will complain about anythin, even thou the vet rewards here are not game-breakin.
All this stuff is just part of the learnin curve of MMOs from my experience. People either get into it and like it or they go play x-box and PS3. Myself i love CoH and its been one of the easiest played MMOs for me. As in pre-NGE SWG u were just dropped into the world and had basically no story arcs to send u on ur way or linear game play. CoH is perfect to me, just complicated enough to be interestin and easy enough to have fun fast.
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SWG vet rewards.
I played MUDs that didn't have vet rewards but they did have preferred membership where those that paid more each month got access to more in game. I'd rather have vet rewards.
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Thanks, when I tested SWG years ago they didn't have such a thing 
[/ QUOTE ]you know, i was surprised to find that that one mmo dosent have vet rewards, but apparently it causes some consternation on their forums even, but ultima online, tabula rasa, star wars galaxies, guild wars, and eq2 all have vet rewards. so yeah as i have been saying, it is a thing in the industry.
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SWG vet rewards.
I played MUDs that didn't have vet rewards but they did have preferred membership where those that paid more each month got access to more in game. I'd rather have vet rewards.
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Thanks, when I tested SWG years ago they didn't have such a thing
[/ QUOTE ]you know, i was surprised to find that that one mmo dosent have vet rewards, but apparently it causes some consternation on their forums even, but ultima online, tabula rasa, star wars galaxies, guild wars, and eq2 all have vet rewards. so yeah as i have been saying, it is a thing in the industry.
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To be fair, HOW you do the vet rewards can have some weight. In SWG, IIRC, you qualified to select from a "pool" of veteran rewards for every X months. That makes the "uber awesome ultra vet reward" feel much less far off.
To put it in context. Imagine if every 3 months, you got a freespec and costume change, every 6 month veteran reward was a "costume token" you could redeem for ANY of the costumes (wings, boxer, chest emblems, etc) in the veteran reward pool. Every 12 month one was a "power token" and you could select from ANY of the powers available in the pool (call pet, blackwand, sands of mu, etc).
When you do this, that ultrauber vet reward doesn't seem so far off. You don't have to wait FOUR YEARS to get it, just one. You just have to be selective in what you take.
gee, maybe they could introduce a system based on a vet token, that way you can pick the one you want(with certain gated exceptions like the staves and axe.) wonder why nobody ever suggested that before...in this thread even...
and my counterpoint is, coh has more vet milestones every 3 months, eq2 and ultima online break down to years after the first year, so we get more "hits" to keep us going, as opposed to their very bare schedual of reinforcement. and as for the swg vets, which also are on a 3 month schedual, yeah there is a little lateral movement but if people really are upset about vets having cool things they cant, thats still there. the instant transport, the headset, those take 3 and 4 years, respectively, those are cool, and if i singned on now, i wouldnt get those for that frame of time, so i could be upset the same way the op is.
now, swg dodges a lot of this by making most of the rewards home based, and less visable in day to day play. but the home system in swg isnt really directly comparable to the one in coh, so comparing them directly might lead to some false weighting of comparisons, buuut, when you look at it, its still cosmetic bonuses, similar to what both costumes and base items have been here.
so i dunno, in all fairness i dont see much difference in the "uber" nature of coh/v's and that of the other games, we get some neat cosmetics, but they arent really game changing, id of course love to see the vet token system inplemented, if only for my ego's sake, though im thinking the programming to do that at this date would be non-trivial. but some people will always feel slighted if they dont have everything, and it virges on unrealistic to think that any system, no matter how well concieved isnt going to generate some threads of"i want it now" because thats the nature of humans and we would be freakish if we didnt feel that way.
Yes, the point ChaseArcanum makes is huge. Being able to choose from a pool like this would be huge relief for me, personally. It would still allow the Veteran Rewards program to exist and grow, keeping an incentive for existing players. And in turn, newer players have options to make the most out of their gaming/character experience, and it makes the current "4-year gap" (which will only continue to grow) far less intimidating.
Would having an option like this be such a bad thing?
I agree with a lot of what Aidalyn (OP) said. I've felt some of the very same emotions when faced with similar problems. One gripe, in particular, for me involves the Vet rewards. I cam into this game a week or two after I3 launched and immediately loved it. But time, money, and other life issues kept my subscriptions somewhat sporadic. Then came the Def changes, aggro caps, ED, and the change to burn (which was my main's only real offense and he didn't have respecs at the time) and it was jst too much for me. I quit, and moved to WoW. Turns out, WoW pissed me off on a daily basis more than CoH ever did. If I hadn't left I'd likely have at least 20 months, or more, and some shiny vet rewards when I'm still trying to get up to 9.
My real difficulty getting friends to join also lies in the fact that most of my friends who would be interested in this game played it before I actually did. Two of them simply preferred other games and moved on, I can respect that. One tried playing in I1 and, to this day, rants about things that were fixed by the time I joined and refuses to play. One played for a really long time but eventually was also lured by WoW's promises of raiding glory. Now he works too much to play anything other than his Wii.
But I have good news!
When I reactivated a couple weeks ago I got to talking with another friend. He'd heard all our great wars stories of the gam ebut only glimpsed it a couple times on someone's screen and never played so I hooked him up with a trial and devoted myself to giving him as much of an experience as I could. I knew he'd love the character creator to bits, since he's an altaholic if there ever was one, and the customization to be found in powers was also something that piqued his interest. We managed to get his main up to almost lvl 30 and have created a number of duos that sit in the teens. When the trial expired he was as upset as I'd hoped he'd be and, once he gets some stuff out of the way, he's coming back with his own subscription. He might subscribe sporadically, as I did, or he might be hooked and stick around for a good while. I dunno, but I got someone to join at least.
As for me, I'm staying for as long as I can afford it.
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gee, maybe they could introduce a system based on a vet token, that way you can pick the one you want(with certain gated exceptions like the staves and axe.) wonder why nobody ever suggested that before...in this thread even...
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Right, but people don't read threads, they tack on to whatever's at the end, so it's important to re-state the core good idea every now and then.
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Yes, the point ChaseArcanum makes is huge. Being able to choose from a pool like this would be huge relief for me, personally. It would still allow the Veteran Rewards program to exist and grow, keeping an incentive for existing players. And in turn, newer players have options to make the most out of their gaming/character experience, and it makes the current "4-year gap" (which will only continue to grow) far less intimidating.
Would having an option like this be such a bad thing?
[/ QUOTE ]i suggested it pages ago 
and no, the idea wouldnt be bad at all, it MAY be a significant investement of manpower programming wise though, dont know, some reports were that the vet system was what held issue 8 up, and changing that may add even more stress on a already full schedual for the devs. So it would be definitly good, a work of genius even 
, just might not be practical.
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gee, maybe they could introduce a system based on a vet token, that way you can pick the one you want(with certain gated exceptions like the staves and axe.) wonder why nobody ever suggested that before...in this thread even...
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Right, but people don't read threads, they tack on to whatever's at the end, so it's important to re-state the core good idea every now and then.
[/ QUOTE ]/egotrip well, if they want the good ideas,they can just follow my post history /egotrip
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Yes, the point ChaseArcanum makes is huge. Being able to choose from a pool like this would be huge relief for me, personally. It would still allow the Veteran Rewards program to exist and grow, keeping an incentive for existing players. And in turn, newer players have options to make the most out of their gaming/character experience, and it makes the current "4-year gap" (which will only continue to grow) far less intimidating.
Would having an option like this be such a bad thing?
[/ QUOTE ]i suggested it pages ago and no, the idea wouldnt be bad at all, it MAY be a significant investement of manpower programming wise though, dont know, some reports were that the vet system was what held issue 8 up, and changing that may add even more stress on a already full schedual for the devs. So it would be definitly good, a work of genius even , just might not be practical.
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They listen to me because your icon is too fancy. It distracts them from what you say :P
My first night playing, I got frustrated. Utterly. I'd honestly say, angry, at how difficult it was for me. I stopped playing for several days, vowing it wasn't worth the effort.
This is my first MMO, so I'm used to point and click movement of other PC type games, NOT keyboard movement and button click power selection, etc. Having to suddenly learn this defied me. I couldn't jump onto anything to save my life, couldn't run with the arrow keys without weaving all over the place and getting stuck. (Add to this, my friend kept speed boosting me and.... oi. Bad news... 'Hello Wall and Angry Mob!!' )
My friend convinced me to try again though, and I took it slower and took the time to street sweep some Smellions to learn the movement keys and how best to manage. Eventually I remapped all my keys so my left hand is in the typing 'home' position. This makes everything so much more intuitive for me, thus... WIN.
The Hollows... ouch. I HATED the Hollows with a passion on my first charrie, but I did solo Frostfire, on an Emp/Sonic Defender no less. D: How I did that, I'll NEVER know because I was so hopeless and clueless.
Now, I adore the Hollows and solo all the missions on all my new alts. Hollows mishes get me to Level 15 in speedy fashion and I like the stories. I even have plenty of leveling time to run a few other contact arcs as well, and pick up my raptor pack with a quick Safeguard.
The game can be confusing at first and the lack of documentation outside the forum and wiki is lamentable to me, but the game is learned very quickly as I found. I'm an almost exclusive solo-er and enjoy all aspects of the game. The challenge to me is figuring out how to deal with enemies without backup. 
Especially since I was told so many times how X or Y AT couldn't solo. I decided to prove that wrong and have fun doing that.
Best thing is, I got all three of my kids playing with me. Very much win.
I agree that many of the OPs and other new CoH players difficulties could be eased somewhat by reworking the early game. But until that is done I might suggest that concerned veteran players such as those here individually or as part of a server/group effort form a CoH Greeter Corps that would stand near the Hero spawn points in AP and GC and local chat all new characters. These Greeters would offer hints and answer questions about early game play using local and Help Chat channels.
This would be kind of a community service thing to help new players get past the initial learning curve. We used to have Taxibot service in the Hollows to help out and this would be something similar.
I think I will dedicate an hour a week to greeting new characters and helping folks by answering the early questions that crop up.
Another thing that the veterans here could do is when you start a new character offer to team up with other new characters that seem to be 'lost'. Don't just join a Sewer Team and blast to level 7 to get your Raptor Pack every time. Pay it forward by helping some one out.
Just a thought.
Protector Server
Woeful Knight (BS/Regen/Body Scrapper)
Kevin Christian (MC/FF/Primal Controller)
SilverCybernaut (Eng/Dev/Munitions Blaster)
Apixie OhNo (Fire/Fire/Pyre Tanker)
Y'ru Glowen (Rad/Rad/Psy Defender)
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To be fair, HOW you do the vet rewards can have some weight. In SWG, IIRC, you qualified to select from a "pool" of veteran rewards for every X months. That makes the "uber awesome ultra vet reward" feel much less far off.
To put it in context. Imagine if every 3 months, you got a freespec and costume change, every 6 month veteran reward was a "costume token" you could redeem for ANY of the costumes (wings, boxer, chest emblems, etc) in the veteran reward pool. Every 12 month one was a "power token" and you could select from ANY of the powers available in the pool (call pet, blackwand, sands of mu, etc).
When you do this, that ultrauber vet reward doesn't seem so far off. You don't have to wait FOUR YEARS to get it, just one. You just have to be selective in what you take.
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Except, that's not how SWG vet rewards work. A six-month vet cannot pick a reward from the 36 or 48 month pool of rewards. They can only pick from the six-month pool.
Edited for a correction: SWG vets can pick rewards from their current pool or an earlier pool. My original point still stands, that they cannot select rewards from milestones they have not reached.
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Yes, the point ChaseArcanum makes is huge. Being able to choose from a pool like this would be huge relief for me, personally. It would still allow the Veteran Rewards program to exist and grow, keeping an incentive for existing players. And in turn, newer players have options to make the most out of their gaming/character experience, and it makes the current "4-year gap" (which will only continue to grow) far less intimidating.
Would having an option like this be such a bad thing?
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It would not be inherently bad, but it would defeat the purpose of veteran rewards. Veteran rewards are not gifts, they're incentives for people to keep their subscriptions active. If you got the pieces you want, whenever you want, the incentive to not let your subscription lapse would be removed.
dont agree wth that. people should never play for the vets. if wings or samurai armor are all that keeps you playing, you are not having fun. and the useful rewards still would be timelocked(i do disagree with chase on the power-token, the staves are too overwhelmingly good and everyone would pick them first, and that really would somewhat defeat the purpose). but the cosmetics, i dont think it hurts the system if its a bag of goodies you can pick from. unlike the powers, there is nothing inherently more valuabe in samurai armor or boxing clothes, so it really isnt that you get a better reward for staying on long enough for the boxing vurses anime armor or kilts, just a different one, so i dont think that if there is no qualitative difference that it would devalue the rewards to have them be pickable form a pool of options, it just makes new players who want to make boxers or anime warriors less screwed.
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dont agree wth that. people should never play for the vets. if wings or samurai armor are all that keeps you playing, you are not having fun.
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I've said basically the same thing earlier in this thread: play because you enjoy the game, not because you want the cheap veteran rewards.
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and the useful rewards still would be timelocked(i do disagree with chase on the power-token, the staves are too overwhelmingly good and everyone would pick them first, and that really would somewhat defeat the purpose). but the cosmetics, i dont think it hurts the system if its a bag of goodies you can pick from. unlike the powers, there is nothing inherently more valuabe in samurai armor or boxing clothes, so it really isnt that you get a better reward for staying on long enough for the boxing vurses anime armor or kilts, just a different one, so i dont think that if there is no qualitative difference that it would devalue the rewards to have them be pickable form a pool of options, it just makes new players who want to make boxers or anime warriors less screwed.
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Letting people select from a master list of rewards defeats the incentive to continue subscribing, even if you remove what some feel are the "best" items from that master list.
No one is "screwed". Everyone will get the rewards in time, if they keep their subscription active.
Okay, I've added my first half of ideas to the suggestions forum here: Revamping CoH Early-Game to Attract New Players
I will write up a suggestion for a Veteran Rewards compromise earlier. I know it's a commonly suggested topic, but I'm hoping to channel some of the constructive energy I've found here into some useful, positive feedback.
Once again, I want to say a big "thank you" to everyone who's contributed ideas and experiences to this discussion.
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Letting people select from a master list of rewards defeats the incentive to continue subscribing, even if you remove what some feel are the "best" items from that master list.
No one is "screwed". Everyone will get the rewards in time, if they keep their subscription active.
[/ QUOTE ]but thats the thing, i dont see them as incentive to keep playing, you and i have apparently agreed that people should play for the game,and i think thats a safe place to start. they are thank yous for playing. its like if your long term girlfiend gets you a blue DS, you werent staying with her for the ds, you werent thinking of the ds when you met her, and if she never gave you the ds, you wouldnt have been bothered, but getting it was a nice little gift from someone who you stay with for other reasons, not an incentive to stay with her. And to continue the metaphore,if she asked you what you wanted and you really wanted a psp instead, you would be much happier if she had asked and got you the psp you wanted rather than the ds you are ambivilant towards, thats what we are talking about, not staying for something, but if they are getting you soemthing anyhow, might as well be something you want.
I don't pay my girlfriend a monthly fee.
of the 400 or so funny responses i could think of, after removing the ones that would get me banned or painted as a misogynist im left with...uh oh.
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I don't pay my girlfriend a monthly fee.
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Sure you do, it's just not labeled that way.
I wish I knew the exact words the [Censored] tells Andrew McCarthy's character in St. Elmo's Fire about it.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
Free Respec & Costume Tokens = Rewards/Gifts
Costume Peices & Perma-Temp Powers & Base Decorations = Incentive/Bribe
If you need incentives to keep people playing, it is time to re-evaluate your game.
I think the problem with vet rewards isnt the actual power of them, just the perception of new players that they are more powerful than they really are.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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Free Respec & Costume Tokens = Rewards/Gifts
Costume Peices & Perma-Temp Powers & Base Decorations = Incentive/Bribe
If you need incentives to keep people playing, it is time to re-evaluate your game.
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They are rewards not bribes or incentives. If they work as bribes or incentives for some people that does not mean that is the intention of them.
I take them as a reward for being a long term loyal customer.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
to the OP
you should've just come out and said "why i'm bitter about not getting the 48 month vet reward"
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A few times now, I've tried to tell my friends and co-workers something new I've discovered about this game only to realize how dumb it actually sounds after I've said it out loud.
"Hey, guess what? City of Heroes has a new expansion pack out. It's only $10! It looks like it features.... a wedding dress. And a tux. And a couple redesigns of pre-existing costumes. Umm... and an emote to throw rice at people?"
"Oh, it looks like City of Heroes just released a new pet that buffs you. To get it.... you have to keep playing the game for four years."
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So instead, why don't you tell them "you get to create your own superhero character, pick up powers from a wide variety of choices, and design a costume that can be spandex, armor, an alien race, anything you like, and then you beat up bad guys just like in the comics"?
Yes, it's not a new thing to *you*, but it's a new thing to *them*.
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