Will CoX ever become free?
By
Captain_Solaris,
Posted on: 2008-09-17 17:24 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Guild Wars has a large community, yes. But have you stood around in Ascalon and listened to the chatter, or the stuff that comes from Team mates? It makes Atlas Broadcast seem respectable... Heck, it makes Barren's Chat seem full of intellect and humour.
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Freedom to cross servers
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Has the same name issues as a server merge, and several big ones around totally rewriting the database access code.
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CoX becomes subs free
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No more free expansions. GW by works bringing out paid expansions regularly. Not saying that's emphatically bad, just a comment. And I doubt it would necessarily raise player numbers.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
they could make it free, and make the expansions bigger.
so let's say you normally have issue 13 and a few months later issue 14, but when it's free they could make issue 13 14 and 15 in one pack so they can get some money from it at one time.
it does take a bit more time to make that, but i do think that when they do this, they will eventually get more money from it then currently, how odd it may sound.
i know a good friend who would be very happy to be able to play COX, but because of finance problems, he isn't able to pay the fee.
but if it would be like GW and have paid expansions instead of a monthly fee, he would play it and buy the expansions.
and there is a sime reason for it, instead of paying every month a fee, he can keep some money to buy the expansion.
and i don't think he is the only one within this situation, there are some young kids that can't play because there parents don't wanna spent money every month on a game.
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But have you stood around in Ascalon and listened to the chatter, or the stuff that comes from Team mates?
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it's the same as in COX, only then with more choice and hero's and henchmen to go with if no one is interested.(it's also an entire different game design, you can't compare it)
I'd play less if it was free.
By paying for it, I feel guilty when I don't :P
Not that I can see it becoming free anytime soon. They claim they're investing a lot of time and effort into making the upcoming issues sock-blowing-off worthy. At least, to compete with the other MMOs on the way 
Edit: Woo, my 128th post!
Two small points:
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there are some young kids that can't play because there parents don't wanna spent money every month on a game.
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CoX is now a 16+ rated game. Kids that young should not be playing it.
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it's the same as in COX, only then with more choice and hero's and henchmen to go with if no one is interested.(it's also an entire different game design, you can't compare it)
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I realise English isn't your primary language, but what Zortel was specifically saying was that GW chat is worse than anything you will find in CoX. You cannot then say CoX is the same.
You also seem to think that making a super hero game free2play will be the same as a free2play fantasy PvP game. That is an assumption almost certain to be entirely invalid.
Most of the gameplay in GW (as I understand it) comes from PvP, which means that there is absolutely no need for content updates. The 'fun' comes from ganking your fellow players.
CoX is a PvE-based game and it needs that content regularly updated. Make it free2play and reduce the amount of times the content gets updated, and you'll see the servers empty entirely for about 6 months of the year, perhaps longer. It easily takes a year to develop content which the players can bash through in one or two months and what's the point in playing the game if you have done everything?
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
Going to a GW model of free to play would IMO kill COH. Its the regular issues that keep people coming back for more and also advance the over all story. If you were to make it free2play and cut the issue release down to one a year the game would become stagnant and only have any real level of activity when a new issue was up for sale.
If the dev's really wanted to take the game down the Free2play road, they would have to redesign the hole game and introduce a lot more post lvl 50 content. Most of which would have to revolve around some form of PvP encounters.
This game is fully worth the subs we pay and with my next income payment I will definately be buying the cyborg pack firstly because the stuff looks cool secondly it will up the income for NCNC thirdly for £5.99 its pretty good value for what you are getting.
As for dwindling numbers the influx from I12 and the future incoming numbers resulting from I13 are better than I would have expected I already know of 7 friends returning just for architect alone. they are resubbing for halloween though just because of zombie invasion.
How cool are our Devs that they really want to give us what we are asking for while still avoiding destroying the game.
*edit - I would also like to say that 2 of my older children (13 and 11) do have their own accounts and I do monitor their activity online making sure their profanity filters are on etc. Their subs are paid for as a good substitution for a portion of their pocket money and one they are willing to make.
They also let their younger siblings play around with the costume creator and messing about on the test server. (which I have to add from 3 years old to 9 years they all love to do)
Sapphire Maiden lvl 50 Eng/Eng/Flame Blaster
Misstrix lvl 50 Fire/Rad/Ice Controller
Foundations Claw lvl 50 Fire/Fire/Flame Tank
Lord Viscera lvl 36 Necro/Dark MM/Flame Mastery
Kestrell lvl 50 Rad/Kin/Soul Corr
I'd say it would be highly unlikely that CoX could switch to a subs-free game unless it was already nearly dead. Annual income from a subscriber is 12 x £8.99 = £107.88. (Obviously I'm simplifying here, as some people use block payments and some use Timecards.)
So, if there was no increase in player numbers, a yearly expansion would have to cost £100 to maintain annual income at an equivilant level.
If they doubled the players, it would have to cost £50.
Only if they tripled the number of players could they release an annual update at a reasonable anount and still keep up the level of income. And as much as I like CoH, it's pretty much a niche game and I can't see even going free-to-play achieving that.
However, it turned out that Smith was not a time-travelling Terminator
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CoX is a PvE-based game and it needs that content regularly updated. Make it free2play and reduce the amount of times the content gets updated, and you'll see the servers empty entirely for about 6 months of the year, perhaps longer. It easily takes a year to develop content which the players can bash through in one or two months and what's the point in playing the game if you have done everything?
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Just a wild idea I had while reading this thread.
What if there was a paid content pack say, once a year, that contained 3 current free issues but once players had bought the packs and applied them to their accounts, they only had the first issue upon activation and the other 2 would be activated at points during the next year until the release of the next paid content pack by the Dev team. Kind of like what they do now with pre-downloading issues.
Not that I'd want that, I like how the game is at the moment. I just think the game needs more/better marketing, which hopefully we'll see soon enough.
People are almost certainly not going to pay up front for something they will not see the fruits of for eight or nine months.
You certainly aren't going triple the playerbase on that principle, so do you want to pay £100 in advance for three content updates a year?
Hell, for around £100, I can get a lifetime subscription to LotRO!
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
Am I the only one that finds the idea bitterly ironic given the recent staff cuts at NC?
That aside - it's not a foolish suggestion, but you are suggesting a radical paradigm shift in both development cycle and payment structure. That's not a reason to not discuss the idea, but it's a little more complex than "merge/traverse servers, works for guildwars", which is a somewhat unforgiving boiling down of the OP on my part.
I see CoX as a game in it's Autumn - the playerbase is unlikely to grow significantly on the dated core technology, but the existing community is solid, new content and features continue to be provided, and CoH still provides the best character customisation and mentoring system I know of. I see Winter (server merging, abandoning subscription) still someway off as long as impressive issues and regular patches continue. The Mission Creator may reignite greater (new subscriber) interest as it evolves, though I see that more as a tool to consolidate the existing playerbase unless it turns out to be something truly spectacular in the history of Gaming.
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Two small points:
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there are some young kids that can't play because there parents don't wanna spent money every month on a game.
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CoX is now a 16+ rated game. Kids that young should not be playing it.
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and does a 16 year old man not count as a kid?, by Europe standard you are no kid after you turn 18
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it's the same as in COX, only then with more choice and hero's and henchmen to go with if no one is interested.(it's also an entire different game design, you can't compare it)
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I realise English isn't your primary language, but what Zortel was specifically saying was that GW chat is worse than anything you will find in CoX. You cannot then say CoX is the same.
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it is, someone 30 year old can have just as bad english as one of 12 year old.
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You also seem to think that making a super hero game free2play will be the same as a free2play fantasy PvP game. That is an assumption almost certain to be entirely invalid.
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never stated that, aslo it would be better then a F2P fantasy game, since there are no F2P super hero MMO's
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Most of the gameplay in GW (as I understand it) comes from PvP, which means that there is absolutely no need for content updates. The 'fun' comes from ganking your fellow players.
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that's funny, around 60% of all GW is PVE player, 30% is pvp and pve and the small 20% only does PVP.
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CoX is a PvE-based game and it needs that content regularly updated. Make it free2play and reduce the amount of times the content gets updated, and you'll see the servers empty entirely for about 6 months of the year, perhaps longer. It easily takes a year to develop content which the players can bash through in one or two months and what's the point in playing the game if you have done everything?
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GW is at a halt for over a year without any new content, and it's still very active, get your facts straight.
where it all boils down to, if COX would be F2P with the concept of having every 6 months a new addition, COX would grow from a small 20.000 players to around the 5 mill players.
even if the game is 16+, it doesn't stop the grow at all..heck, it would only give ppl more interest because there are no 12 year old kids to keep track.
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COX would grow from a small 20.000 players to around the 5 mill players.
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That's some crazy stat there - can I ask how you came to that conclusion? Because I don't think there's a single instance where a paid MMO became f2p that you could draw that kind of conclusion from - especially since COH has approximately 135 thousand players right now.
"Idealism is such a wonderful thing. All you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use." - Kerr Avon
Myopic Aardvark on Twitter
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there are some young kids that can't play because there parents don't wanna spent money every month on a game.
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CoX is now a 16+ rated game. Kids that young should not be playing it.
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and does a 16 year old man not count as a kid?, by Europe standard you are no kid after you turn 18
[/ QUOTE ] They'd count as a child, but not as a "young kid". Read the original quote before you comment on something.
FWIW though, the 16+ is a recommendation, not a restriction.
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Most of the gameplay in GW (as I understand it) comes from PvP, which means that there is absolutely no need for content updates. The 'fun' comes from ganking your fellow players.
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that's funny, around 60% of all GW is PVE player, 30% is pvp and pve and the small 20% only does PVP.
[/ QUOTE ]Nothing shows you're making up statistics like percentages adding up to 110%
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COX would grow from a small 20.000 players to around the 5 mill players.
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That's some crazy stat there - can I ask how you came to that conclusion?
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Seconded. I fail to see how a paid-MMO suddenly becoming F2P means it'd get more subscribers.
1. It'd ring alarm bells in many peoples heads, suggesting that it's not WORTH paying for.
2. People who've paid for the X amount of time they've already played will feel more than a little cheated.
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COX would grow from a small 20.000 players to around the 5 mill players.
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That's some crazy stat there - can I ask how you came to that conclusion? Because I don't think there's a single instance where a paid MMO became f2p that you could draw that kind of conclusion from - especially since COH has approximately 135 thousand players right now.
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if you actually read what i said, there is no free super hero F2P MMO, so the amount of players who are interested would grow as i stated.
also, the 20.000 is just an estimation per server, nothing actual. 
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COX would grow from a small 20.000 players to around the 5 mill players.
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also, the 20.000 is just an estimation per server, nothing actual.
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I am confused now; does this mean that each server will have 5 million people on it? 
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COX would grow from a small 20.000 players to around the 5 mill players.
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That's some crazy stat there - can I ask how you came to that conclusion?
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Presumably you make a guess for the first figure, even though (as you say) actual numbers are available, then another - far more arbitrary, given the lack of anything remotely similar happening in the past - to get your second figure, and there you go!
How can anyone fail to be convinced by the strength of this argument.
@Sorudo: Not only do you not understand anything I write, but you make figures up off the top of your head. Now, I know I'm writing English, so I can only assume you don't understand it.
But you are very funny. Please keep up the glorious joke posts.
From The Guild Wars Wiki - Player vs Player page:
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Guild Wars itself in its origin has been very much focused on the ability to play against other players. (Hence also the "War between Guilds".) To this end, Arena.Net chose a relatively easy to reach level cap of 20.
There is no particular advantage to either PvP or PvE characters in PvP play, except that it may be harder for PvE characters to obtain perfect equipment, and Arena Net also has elected to "sell" a full set of skills for PVP purposes which allows a player to quickly "reroll" their PVP character with different professions, upgrades, and skills.
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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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Guild Wars has a large community, yes. But have you stood around in Ascalon and listened to the chatter, or the stuff that comes from Team mates? It makes Atlas Broadcast seem respectable... Heck, it makes Barren's Chat seem full of intellect and humour.
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you mean pre-searing, surely? 
GW being free of subscription fees is one game you don't have to budget out of your life because of an impending job loss or recession etc. There and then it wins.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
But it is based around PvP. There and then it looses.
I really should do something about this signature.
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But it is based around PvP. There and then it looses.
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It isn't, actually. GW has a strong PvP side to it, but the whole idea that it was designed for PvP is a myth.
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Am I the only one that finds the idea bitterly ironic given the recent staff cuts at NC?
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no not at all. To say this thread suffers unfortunate timing is something of an understatement IMO
However I think the majority of the posters in this thread are pro-sub and as such I consider that to be pretty good evidence of how solid the game is.
No maybe it's not going to take over the world in its current incarnation but I feel pretty sure that the challenges ahead aren't going to be life threatening and it should remain in good shape.
Thelonious Monk
I began playing CoH since EU release...over three years ago now. I do enjoy playing the game and have friends who still play the game. Some who have been here as long as I have.
Sadly, we can't deny that the numbers are dwindling. So what can the developers do to bolster the dwindling numbers?
A number of ideas come to mind...
Merging the Defiant & Union
Although may not help bring in new players in so much, but it would certainly allow current players to be able to find more people to team. The number of players online sometimes feels as if it would fit one SG! However, this would most likely take a lot of work, especially with hero names.
Freedom to cross servers
Possibly give heroes the accessability to every server whenever they want and not having to pay...á la Guild Wars.
CoX becomes subs free
Guild Wars is testament to this. The number of players in that game is huge in comparison even after so long.
For me, the latter would be the most ideal, however would this be possible with a game such as CoX? I'm not sure. But maybe one of the Devs might be able to answer this.
@Captain Solaris
Guild of Extreme Heroes "Strength is in Unity"