One way CoH should not be like Champions

My request is this: Don't microtransact costume pieces to the level that Champions is doing.

Let me be clear: The current system of "Booster packs" where you get whole theme outfits is fine, the system of invention receipes is fine, even the whole Candy Cane bit is okay (even though I wish you could move the candy keeper elf to the pocket D so we could at least use the shop year-round)

What I don't want CoH/V/GR to turn into is where you become like Itunes charging .99 cents (real money) for every individual costume piece.

As it is Champions has something like 5 different pre-order deals with varying costume widget. I know that also happened with CoV pre-orders, but didn't care for them back then, and at least they became vet rewards. So they were obtainable long after the pre-order disks disappeared.

This is something that will most likely never happen. You have to remember that City of Heroes has one of the few developer teams that does everything they can do to make the players happy. Our devs are very down-to-earth with us, unlike some companies where the devs are like almighty gods that can never be reached. They wouldn't go and make a ton of people mad by making costume pieces $.99 each. $4.99 is a very reasonable price for a boatload of costume pieces, plus extra emotes powers and mechanics. (By mechanics, I mean the tech pack introduced combat auras, the magic pack costume-change emotes, and the science pack body changing.)

Also, Champions Online has Jack Emmert for a producer. 'nuff said.

Eh, let's not diss Emmert too much. Things only started to pick up after Posi took the reins, true, but States still led the groundwork that Posi subsequently built and expanded on.

An open letter to NCsoft

Another way CoH should not be like Champions is to have so many costume pieces that make me say "who the heck thought I'd put that on a character?", but that's a discussion for another thread.

Yeah, I don't think purchased costume bits will move past the Super Booster setup. I really don't think the Champ-O system will work out well.

One thing to bring to attention is that I believe the correct approach is to go with a finite system of purchasable costumes. Currently, we have half a dozen Booster Packs (I'm including things like Wedding and GvE in the term) with a few costume sets and a few weapons. Potentially, a person can get them all, and I'd even like to see an "Everything" pack sold from time to time for those who don't want to buy six things, one thing per day. This is finite, because there are relatively few things for sale and they all come in even fewer large packs. This means that, while I may not like the Valkyrie belt, for example, I still get that belt even though all I wanted out of the Valkyrie pack was the boots. I still found use for a lot of the other items.

What I don't want to see is practically infinite purchasable items, where you buy each one separately and have to sit in a shop and thing "Hmm... Do I want this?" I HATE being given seven lists of individual items to buy off of with real money. In the end, I look for a while and then turn around and buy nothing. As was mentioned last time, I HATE the Sims model of buying things, even back when they were just endless expansions. I want to mix my games and my budget as little as possible, doing so once in a long while OUT of the game and then not having to think about real-world finances from there on.

I'm not as much an opponent of Booster Packs as I used to be, because they are few, far in-between and relatively big, but I AM a very big opponent to per-piece transactions.

And, yeah, half of those pieces in question had sitting down, saying "What the hell, man! What the hell!" out loud.

Quote:

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.

I don't see this happening anyway - the ridiculously overengineered character customization system is one of CoH's claims to fame, I honestly doubt they'd abandon it in favor of micropayments.

An open letter to NCsoft