Vet Costume Unlocks

To be honest, I couldn't give a flying s*** about costumes. I rarely spend more than three minutes on a costume. I just like having special rewards. It's the one thing I have in the game over the farmers that they will never beat me in. I guess it wouldnt be a big deal to get rid of the costume parts but leave me the fancy powers. (Yes, I know the thread is about costumes but the conversation has kind of gravitated towards veteran unlocks.)

I'll agree that if the devs want to give out basic shorts, boxing gloves, wings, what not to all players that's fine by me. They should be basic and the ones in the vet rewards should be fancy that can only be achieved via the vet rewards. I'm sure that would just recreate this exact same argument, but maybe not. Heck give all the players exactly what we have in the vet reward system and give the vets even more stylized versions of what's in there now, really make them stand out.

I agree with Dalantia. This is a retention system that keeps the churn down and slows down the players that only come in for new issues and events and then leave for several months at a time. For some people it's about the powers, for others it's the costumes, for others it's the freespecs, tokens, badges, merits, base items, whatever. Granted I would not have quit, I'm a loyalist to CoX, nor would I just because the vets went away, but I do agree with the system and think it should stay as is.

Changing or doing away with too many things leads to it in other areas. If you get rid of the vets how long before people complain about the booster packs because they don't have money in hard economic times to buy them? Or complain about the $19.99 price tag on the extras from the Good vs Evil, Architect Edition, Mac Edition, whichever version they didn't buy because it came out after they started playing. For the record I've bought most of them.

It's hard to change something like this, at any level, because as they devs had said you can't please everyone and there are people that like things just they way they are. The vet system adds something to the game that you don't get in most other games, and that is the loyalty program, retention program, reward program, whatever you want to think of it as.

It's a good system. And for the sake of the OP the costume pieces stop before the 36 month mark, which most people here agree that with GR coming out CoH is good for at least another 18 - 36 month mark. Meaning if you pay to play the game for that period odds are you'll get all those rewards. And the more people that pay to play during that time frame the longer that time frame will be. Show your loyalty, pay to play, get others to play, stick around and don't just jump ship because the game is between issues and it'll last that long.

Yes, the vet reward system is stacked against anyone who wasn't here from the beginning. Just as the ability to purple out enhancements is stacked against non farmers. Just as task forces are stacked against people that don't have 4 hours on average to devote to them, just as the Hami raid is stacked against toons not over 45 who can't get together in massive groups and spend the hours it takes to stop Hami. There are parts of the game stacked against non farmers, non hardcore, casual, whatever type gamers. You can't get everything in the game, that's the way it's meant to be and the way it should be. Nothing that is "unavailable" is game breaking. It's not like you can't get millions of other costume choices, or get general enhancements, or run regular missions, or AV missions. There is something for everyone and everyone should have that niche that they fit into and be allowed to preserve that uniqueness imho.

I suppose as a compromise, they could simply give the same 30 months worth of veteran's reward time to every account for that period where there were no veteran's rewards - May 04 to Nov 06 - that the longest playing veterans received, whether they actually had an active account for that time or not. This would unlock virtually all veteran costume pieces for all players, as well as virtually all base items and other customisation-based rewards (and put the last costume reward, the boxing set in question, at just nine months in).

Then rewards could continue to accrue for continuing veterans, allowing them to retain the incentive of keeping transient players for the veteran rewards, while giving most of the important choices - particularly costumes - to all players, thus ensuring that newer players don't feel that the system excludes them or locks the "best" items away from them for arbitrarily long periods of time.

No one would lose anything with this solution (except, perhaps, the feeling of exclusion they get from large numbers of rewards being inaccessible to people), while even many long-time veterans would likely gain several months of veteran's time out of it.

I'll stand by my earlier statement: I simply cannot fathom the need to make sure other people don't get things you have - especially when they are things with no cost.

We agree to disagree. I simply cannot fathom the need to demand things simply because they are in the game and you feel entitled to them. The vet system is fair as it's accumulated evenly for all players, hardcore, casual, occassional, whatever. If you stick around long enough you'll get the awards you're seeking. Especially when said items are only cosmetic in nature and affect the game in no other way. As you say, they cost nothing.

A simple quote will suffice for Energyman,

"All good things, must come to a end."
CoX will NOT be here forever (though it would be nice wouldn't it? EQ has managed for quite awhile but its slowly dwindling). Cox may be here for a long time to come but still, will not be here forever. I believe this is the thought train most people have when they state when CoX goes offline.

And as well, I say that there should be, respecs, free tailor sessions, more base items, special prestige powers...
Heck, How about a Vet reward that lets you pick ONE set of IO's that are non-tradeable and usable only on the character that earned the reward (Like the selection window after completing a TF)

What actually keeps my faith in CoX's continuity is "The Matrix Online" Yeah odd isn't it?

But think of it this way. It's a DEAD game... Yet its still available for play. and by dead, I mean dead. I played the trial, the full 14 days and I didn't see another living soul anywhere, not in chat, not running past me, nothing of the sort. Yet it still exists. Genre games Never truly die. And I don't believe that Cox will anytime within the next 5 years.

I'll give you the Samurai Armor and Boxing Gloves, but the Baron coat from the Magic Booster can substitute for the Trenchcoat, and the Valkyrie wings from the Valkyrie pack are arguably better than the Angel wings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eiko-chan Some vet costumes - the wings, the boxing set, the samurai set - mean that certain concepts that require a certain look are only available to veterans. The craftable wings, for the record, do not substitute for the angel and demon wings. Just to cut that off here. It's not like I'm proposing only newbies get the extra time. Everyone gets it. Every account simply will flag in the system as having been active from Apr 04 to Nov 06, regardless of when they were created or whether they actually were active. The only people that gain nothing from this are the small subset that actually were active from the very beginning of the game. Everyone else will gain some amount of veteran's time. Thus we completely eliminate the "everyone else had to wait" effect. And thus we also reward players that have kept their account active since the Veteran's Rewards program was started just as much as we reward people that were playing before the program. Everyone that came in at the ground floor of the program - November of 2006 - will receive the same rewards for the same amount of time. No more preferential treatment for folks that managed to meet invisible criteria before they were made public.

So instead of "preferential" treatment of Vet players who've kept an active subscription for X months (and/or stuck around from the beginning, which seems to be a sticking point for you), now we have preferential treatment for new players who've only had a subscription for Y months.

good luck D.B.B.

Well said stever.