Base payment teleportation option

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It is kind of like a subscription, you subscribe you enjoy the features of what you're subscribing to, you unsubscribe you loose all benefits until you feel like paying the subscription again.

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Here's the thing - I'm already paying a subscription that allows me access to the servers in the first place. Why am I paying an in-game subscription for an in-game thing? I thought games were supposed to be fun, and I'd be very surprised if someone told me they ENJOYED paying upkeep. I've heard from a lot of people who DON'T MIND, but not minding is not a reason for having it. At best, it's a reason for not bothering to remove it.

What I can't get through my head is who thought that this was a good idea in the first place and what was he thinking?

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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... which, if your base has the power shut off, is rather *unhelpful,* wouldn't you agree? That is, in fact, the very situation that prompted me to post the idea in the first place.

Imagine that.

As for the rest of your post? Completely irrelevant. I don't pay rent on my costume or have it go away. None of the other things you mention have a similar impact on the game - the trainers are in nearly every zone in the game.

Perhaps you should think through your "counterpoints" a bit more.

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I'm saying if you think waiting until 2 weeks AFTER the rent was due saves you so much prestige than there is where your base powers down. You fail to see that the price of saving that oh so small amount of prestige is your base powering down making it unable to use to teleport to Port Oaks, Atlas or Galaxy.

Maybe if you tried paying on time sometime then you would notice the base being up when you went to pay it.

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Here's the thing - I'm already paying a subscription that allows me access to the servers in the first place. Why am I paying an in-game subscription for an in-game thing? I thought games were supposed to be fun, and I'd be very surprised if someone told me they ENJOYED paying upkeep. I've heard from a lot of people who DON'T MIND, but not minding is not a reason for having it. At best, it's a reason for not bothering to remove it.

What I can't get through my head is who thought that this was a good idea in the first place and what was he thinking?

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You paying the subscription only gives you access to the servers, no where does it say you won't need to work to get things you want in-game. The point of this game is to progress, not to pay someone to have god mode in a virtual world, the game would have failed if that was what it were about.

Basically you're wanting something in-game because you pay your sub, if everyone did get something for paying the sub what would the game be? City of OMG-I-Just-Got-Everything-I-Was-Grinding-For-Now-I'm-Bored-I-Quit?

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... which, if your base has the power shut off, is rather *unhelpful,* wouldn't you agree? That is, in fact, the very situation that prompted me to post the idea in the first place.

Imagine that.

As for the rest of your post? Completely irrelevant. I don't pay rent on my costume or have it go away. None of the other things you mention have a similar impact on the game - the trainers are in nearly every zone in the game.

Perhaps you should think through your "counterpoints" a bit more.

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I'm saying if you think waiting until 2 weeks AFTER the rent was due saves you so much prestige than there is where your base powers down. You fail to see that the price of saving that oh so small amount of prestige is your base powering down making it unable to use to teleport to Port Oaks, Atlas or Galaxy.

Maybe if you tried paying on time sometime then you would notice the base being up when you went to pay it.


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The point is this -

no matter when you choose to payment, making it easier to MAKE the payments would be nice, period. The reason for the suggestion to begin with is to make it easier for everyone, paying early, paying late, coming back after a six month break.

Again, just like other little QOL touches like letting people pick from a list of destinations on the train instead of forcing them to go from one station to another, marking stores on the map, or being able to name dual builds, this is to make things easier for everyone.

You, by the way, are making a big assumption that I deliberately wait. And your assumption is wrong. Want the full story?

My "main" VG has a branch office on another server. We don't play there as frequently - in fact, I hadn't been on those particular characters in over 30 days. (35-37, as I recall, for my two characters.) I got the urge to get my MM there from 30-32. She was, at the time, the lowest rank. Both of my characters, being in the same range (my other is 32) were in Nerva. Rent wasn't due the last time the characters were on.

With me so far?

First character travels from nerva, via ferry to Cap, hops across cap, ferry to Oakes, gets to registrar... no option to pay. Check permissions and, for whatever reason, there is no permission for the lowest tier characters to pay rent at this point. (And I'm 90% sure I've paid rent with that same character pre-Big Red Star.)

Log out, log into another character, who IS higher ranking, and do the *exact same trek.*

Think that might be a bit annoying?

As far as "You should pay it on time," this is a QOL suggestion to make it easier to pay - whether it's early, on time, or late. It has nothing to do with when I pay, how often I pay (and I *do* typically pay on time.) It's there to make paying EASIER and less of a chore. Hell, some of my SGs, I've created a character who never moves from the registrar's desk. Their sole purpose is... paying rent.

In the real world, do you drive to the billing/collections office for each of your bills and hand them cash, or do you mail the payments in, take them to a nice local branch office, or even pay them online/automatically? I tend to appreciate the convenience of being able to send in payments from any mailbox or computer. Why would I not want similar convenience for a "chore" function in something I do for entertainment - whether it's this, making it payable at any trainer or other "official" available in any zone, or something similar?

Edited to (a) remove some return-fire snark, no matter how much it's deserved for the attitude being thrown by BW about this, and (b) let him see EXACTLY why making assumptions is a bad thing.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I really don't see why it is such a pain to travel. I mean, seriously. Not only do we have all of these methods of teleportation (Ouroboros, Pocket D, etc.) we have the fastest and koolest travel powers of all the MMO games... ever. Why is it that we seem to never want to use them?

Maybe they should add a Supergroup Registrar, Respec Contact, Tailor and Trainer to every AE building? Then we could just park our butts in there and never have to use our travel powers at all. Woo hoo! [/sarcasm]

I'm not really against making it easier to pay rent, but I don't see traveling in this game to be any kind of hardship.

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I really don't see why it is such a pain to travel. I mean, seriously. Not only do we have all of these methods of teleportation (Ouroboros, Pocket D, etc.) we have the fastest and koolest travel powers of all the MMO games... ever. Why is it that we seem to never want to use them?

Maybe they should add a Supergroup Registrar, Respec Contact, Tailor and Trainer to every AE building? Then we could just park our butts in there and never have to use our travel powers at all. Woo hoo! [/sarcasm]

I'm not really against making it easier to pay rent, but I don't see traveling in this game to be any kind of hardship.



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I kinda do that as it is anyway! lol

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You paying the subscription only gives you access to the servers, no where does it say you won't need to work to get things you want in-game. The point of this game is to progress, not to pay someone to have god mode in a virtual world, the game would have failed if that was what it were about.

Basically you're wanting something in-game because you pay your sub, if everyone did get something for paying the sub what would the game be? City of OMG-I-Just-Got-Everything-I-Was-Grinding-For-Now-I'm-Bored-I-Quit?

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False to an extreme. I'm not asking that anything be handed to me. I still have to gather prestige, pay for my base, craft the stuff I can't buy and so on and so forth. What I'm asking for is that things not be TAKEN AWAY from me. Think really long and really hard and give me ONE other example in the ENTIRE game where anything, anything at all, requires upkeep or it is taken away from you. I'm interested to hear about it. Because this game has a very, very strong tradition of never bringing a player back, not even by a little, and at best only slowing them down. I can die 50 times in a row and I will never lose a single point of experience. Any experience I gain after that will STILL move me forward. Rent simply does not work that way.

And yes, I'm well aware what my subscription pays for. I'm also aware that I'm not going to waste my time with an activity that is not just a constant drain on my prestige, but a hit on my Inf gains, as well. I'm not going to bother, and I don't. They peddled them as the next step after the costume creator, but they are so, so much worse than that that it's not even worth bothering with. I can travel just fine without base teleporters and it doesn't cost me a dime.

It's funny to me how every time I mention that something isn't worth the cost and that working shouldn't be part of a GAME, people immediately accuse me of being spoiled and selfish. And all that while STILL slyly avoiding addressing the fact that there is no good reason why there has to be rent in the first place. There simply isn't one, but there is rent regardless, so there it is. Circular logic then takes over and it's here and it's not so bad so that's the reason for its existence. So, in essence, we have rent because we have rent. Not good enough.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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False to an extreme. I'm not asking that anything be handed to me. I still have to gather prestige, pay for my base, craft the stuff I can't buy and so on and so forth. What I'm asking for is that things not be TAKEN AWAY from me. Think really long and really hard and give me ONE other example in the ENTIRE game where anything, anything at all, requires upkeep or it is taken away from you. I'm interested to hear about it. Because this game has a very, very strong tradition of never bringing a player back, not even by a little, and at best only slowing them down. I can die 50 times in a row and I will never lose a single point of experience. Any experience I gain after that will STILL move me forward. Rent simply does not work that way.

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Didn't have to think long or hard at all to come up with two.

Toon names - You quit and it's been 90 days, any toon below 6 has the risk of losing their name. Now this sounds week because level 6 is easy to get too, but so does your complaint about having to pay a maximum of 3,600 prestige and how if you don't your base will go away/power down. 3,600 is chump prestige.

Badges - I earned over 100 of the AE badges when i14 came out. Now my badges that I earned honestly are being taken from me in i15.

Also I just woke up, want me to come up with another example in 15 seconds, just tell me.

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And yes, I'm well aware what my subscription pays for. I'm also aware that I'm not going to waste my time with an activity that is not just a constant drain on my prestige, but a hit on my Inf gains, as well. I'm not going to bother, and I don't. They peddled them as the next step after the costume creator, but they are so, so much worse than that that it's not even worth bothering with. I can travel just fine without base teleporters and it doesn't cost me a dime.

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Apparently you're all alone in this, others suggest and support things with a rent system.

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It's funny to me how every time I mention that something isn't worth the cost and that working shouldn't be part of a GAME, people immediately accuse me of being spoiled and selfish.

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Maybe if you explained yourself, but you still fail to show me your point, if you want god mode go play Sims and use cheats.

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And all that while STILL slyly avoiding addressing the fact that there is no good reason why there has to be rent in the first place. There simply isn't one, but there is rent regardless, so there it is. Circular logic then takes over and it's here and it's not so bad so that's the reason for its existence. So, in essence, we have rent because we have rent. Not good enough.

[/ QUOTE ] Well um you know this is a MMORPG right? RPG stands for Roleplaying Game. From a roleplaying stand point it make a lot of sense, like much other things in this game do when you understand the story behind it.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> You're a hero, but thing aren't going to come to you free just because you save lives
(look at firefighters they don't get stuff just handed to them, they get appreciation)
You have to pay the city or Freedom Phalanx rent for space
because handing you over building space would make them go broke.</pre><hr />

Same can apply for villains, just with a bit more evil in there.

Why can't they just allow folks to add a terminal of some kind that allows payments to be submitted directly from the base?

Requiring folks to travel multiple zones to submit payment is lame.

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Why can't they just allow folks to add a terminal of some kind that allows payments to be submitted directly from the base?

Requiring folks to travel multiple zones to submit payment is lame.

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Well....if you've been away and nobody has paid rent....You cant go in your base to pay it!

Course....If it were that convenient.... I would have paid my 300 rent already roflz!

Bad_Wonka broke the display. Bad_Wonka, fix it! You don't need to use "code" there, "quote" works just fine.

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Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

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Toon names - You quit and it's been 90 days, any toon below 6 has the risk of losing their name. Now this sounds week because level 6 is easy to get too, but so does your complaint about having to pay a maximum of 3,600 prestige and how if you don't your base will go away/power down. 3,600 is chump prestige.
Badges - I earned over 100 of the AE badges when i14 came out. Now my badges that I earned honestly are being taken from me in i15.

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Erm... I meant in-game upkeep, and I should have specified. Yes, not paying for the service for which I've already admitted to paying upkeep, I stand to lose things. Mostly access to the servers. The thing, though, is that that's all tidy and neatly tucked away in the real-life portion of the game, which is billing and support. If I had to, say, log a character in every 30 days or risk losing the name, then I would very much agree you have a point. I would also be very, very majorly pissed off. The fact that people have suggested that and it has not come to pass brings me no small amount of satisfaction that I won't one day wake up and suddenly have to play catch-up on THAT, too.

As for badges, that doesn't qualify as upkeep in the slightest, not any more than Instant Healing going from a toggle to a click does, or any more so than the servers crashing does, though I suppose the latter would be failure in upkeep on the part of PlayNC. Badges were removed as an executive decision, and nothing we could have done would have changed that. This isn't upkeep, it's a straight-up change. It's not like if we did the grind for them twice as much, we would have been able to keep them twice as long.

I'd have to say, then, that yes, I would very much like a few more examples. The thing is, bringing in real-life money into the game is guaranteed to invoke this. The 30-day jetpack you have to keep buying over and over again, for instance, is a clear example of this, but the idea behind this is clear - make more money. In fact, depending on how you regard these things, replenishable temporary powers like the ones from the Inventions system or the Vanguart ones also count, as do Shivan and Nuke runs. Frankly, I find all of them to be bad design that encourages grinding and boring play, and at least to an extent the developers agree. The justification is that those things are so powerful they have to be hard to get, but the result isn't always pretty.

I still maintain that this is not good design, and I STILL don't see a good reason for it. I can see a few BAD reasons for it, like time sinks and extra costs for the kitty, but I cannot, for the life of me, think of a good one.

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Apparently you're all alone in this, others suggest and support things with a rent system.

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People suggest all manner of things. Just because one person suggests something I find to be despicable does not mean I'm alone.

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Maybe if you explained yourself, but you still fail to show me your point, if you want god mode go play Sims and use cheats.

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Err... What? Could you possibly clarify how my dislike for paying a continuous rent that shuts down my base if I happen to go play a character not in the given SG and constantly drains my resources unless I constantly replenish them equates to god mode. Is having a working base without paying rent somehow giving me game-breaking powers, whereas having a base I pay for isn't? I guess I should really envy all the people with bases that have no rent, then, right? I mean, they must have found the god mode. Right?

Or we can stick to reality and not rely on ludicrous hyperbole to emphasise a point. I don't find a process by which I can fall behind and LOSE resources to be good game design. Ever. In any game. I'm perfectly fine with a process that slows me down as debt does, even slows me down a lot, just as long as everything I do causes progress. It may be expensive, it may be slow, but it is ALWAYS getting closer, never farther away. Rent, by its very nature, does not work that way. Rent is a constant drain irrespective of income, an income I may not always have. The reasons for not having any income aren't restricted to not playing the game, either. Turning off SG mode also has the same effect and, surprising as it may seem, some people actually do.

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Well um you know this is a MMORPG right? RPG stands for Roleplaying Game. From a roleplaying stand point it make a lot of sense, like much other things in this game do when you understand the story behind it.

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You do realise that, because this is a Roleplaying Game, I can come up with JUST as convincing a rationale why we never have to pay for anything at all, right? I mean, we save the city every day. Without us, Paragon City would go to the dogs in a heartbeat. They owe us their lives, but since we're not evil, we can't take that. Instead, we take all the support, gear, land and supplies we ever need.

Wait, no... That's not how it works... Why didn't my roleplaying justification work? Because, and this is a fact with all roleplaying justifications, everyone can make up whatever they want for why things are the way they are. A roleplaying justification is never a reason for bad design, though very often it is an excuse for bad design.

Why do we need to wait until level 20 to get our capes, after all? Because we have to honour Hero 1? Well, why doesn't this happen at level 10? Or at level 30? Or at level 50? Why is that the only way to gain a cape, when we have so many capes gained otherwise? You can weave all the excuses you can come up with, but the ACTUAL reason is quite simple - because Jack says so.

Or, are you seriously going to tell me that the reason the developers implemented Powerset Proliferation was because Dr. Brainstorm did whatever the hell he did in his lab? Or are we going to accept it happened because that's what players wanted and it made good business sense to give it to them? What business sense, then, does rent make? Apart from a money and time sink, obviously. Because if a sink is all it is, that is the very definition of bad design, at least in my eyes.

I can ask "why do we have rent?" the same way I can as "why do we have travel powers?" or "why do we have archetypes?" Roleplaying isn't the reason why, it's the the in-game explanation of a done deal AFTER the reason why has come into play.

Let me ask you a different way, then - what does having rent add to the game? I'm really curious to know.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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Wait, no... That's not how it works... Why didn't my roleplaying justification work? Because, and this is a fact with all roleplaying justifications, everyone can make up whatever they want for why things are the way they are. A roleplaying justification is never a reason for bad design, though very often it is an excuse for bad design.

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That applies to life as well.

I'm not gonna pay base upkeep. I don't have to. I'M RICK JAMES!!