Discussion: Party Pack Now Available In The NCsoft Store!

I bought one copy. I have 2 accounts -- not sure when or if I'll pick it up for the other account. But I just wanted to say that my purchase does not in any way indicate that I really think it's worth the price.

For one thing, it's really not even a party pack. You get three dances. Three. Of those, the Pop dance is clearly superior and I like that one quite a bit -- the other two, while you'd have to say they are likely better than any of the dance emotes currently in the game (most of which have been here since the very beginning), are still not very good. As someone who's played with a lot of dance emotes in Second Life and other games (for an example other than the the obvious, AO had a very nice ballet emote when it came out many years ago... for female toons. Male toons lumbered around when they selected the same emote ), I really expect something that grabs my attention. Pop does that, Disco and Karate not very much. (I don't even know why it's called Karate anyway -- where's the high kicks or leaps then?)

Air Guitar is fun for what it is. I'm sure I'll get use out of it. Both the basketball and soccer emotes are well done, but they don't scream "party" to me. The open gift emote -- come on, that's virtually a recycle of an emote that's been in the game for a long while. And the pool is not terrible but not that interesting without a pool table. (I can't remember -- do we have pool tables in the game anywhere?)

I would have liked to see a few flashy disco costumes (at the very least, what about tossing in those psychadelic pants that a few people got by accident years ago?) or even basketball/soccer shorts and jersey. Or I would have liked to see a couple more dance moves on par with the very nice Pop dance. As someone suggested, a /DJ emote would get a lot of use I'm sure. ^_^

So in the end I like Pop, Basketball, and Soccer. And Air Guitar too, not because it's an amazing emote but just because it's situationally fun. That's it. Even if I liked all eight I doubt I could recommend people buy it for this price, but as is you're not even getting eight good emotes.

Also I want to say, for all of those people who complained that "extra" packs for purchase were a bad idea and would lead to more attempts to get people to buy things that might otherwise have been added to the game for free -- that we were stepping out onto a slippery slope -- and I was one of the ones that laughed at these people -- well, NCsoft is pretty much confirming everything these people said with this pack. Whether these were really ever planned to be a part of GR or not, whether these would ever have been created if not for the extra money to be made from selling them in a pack -- just the high price for such a limited number of items (really I'd call it 7 emotes, I don't think the present one should even count) destroys a lot of credibility on NCsoft's part.

I keep thinking this is the middle of a "bet" between marketing and the devs and once the number of people who bought it is weighed, marketing loses :P

yanno I jumped at all the other packs.. got em all.. they all have somehting that I like and Im glad that I got them.. this time guys.. Meh.

What's next? $8 for an emote pack and the only emote you get is /em ragequit?

I kid, but I'll definitely be passing on this one. I *could* be tempted to buy an all emote pack, but the price would have to be a lot better.

Didn't most of you that have been complaining about the content of this Pack do the same in the previous thread that announced the pack's contents?

Why do we need two threads of kvetching? How about we stick to complaints about things like not being able to buy the pack in the store, or bugs. The content of this pack is set in stone, not going to change. Either buy it or don't. I think they heard every complaint there is to hear in the last thread.

The next pack that makes 100% of the people happy will be the first.

I have no issues with specially targetted booster packs although I do think this one has way too little for way too much.

What I do have an issue with though is:

NCsoft pulling things that were part of the GR beta and selling them seperately. It is dangerously close to bait and switch.

I'm also starting to feel like the company is starting to think of us as a cash cow. We are all paying $15 a month which is to cover server maintenance and ongoing development of the game. Well it's now starting to feel like most of what they are producing is getting charged to us as "extras". If my subs are paying the wages of the developers for them to make additions why was I asked for more to actually use it?

I'm fairly sure it doesn't cost $2+ million per month to maintain a couple of dozen servers so if we are paying for ongoing development of the game out of that money aren't you getting a bit greedy asking for us to pay for it a second time?

One last point. Not taking the time to address all these concerns just makes you look like you don't care what we think. Either that or you really can't think of a way to justify all this.

I'm an RPer , and I really wanted to want this pack. New emotes always interest me, but at $1 per emote, and with many of these moves being recycles of material already in the game in one form or another, I just do not see any way to justify it. And I'm one of those losers that buys costumes codes on eBay!

I am confused...why would i want to purchase this pack?

too bad the present emote wasnt a power that the player could use once every 15 minutes to get some random inspiration.

oh well....and too bad there wasn't some party costume pieces....or sports ones to accompany the emotes.

i disagree with some people who think this is a great pack.....i find the cost for what it offers a bit too steep...

And i find myself thinking it might be too weird to do some of those emotes with out the appropriate costume..i might feel different if i could interact with npcs via mini games and actualy play soccer or basketball...

But even role playing wise....i just cant seam to get motivated with this pack.

I guess...i just cant decide if i will get this pack or not...maybe i will...and maybe not....
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I had to edit this in to clarify something to some people

I noticed someone pointing out that nothing was done when people got upset in the previous pack thread....
And that people wont have their voices heard.....

But that is a misconception.....you see it doesnt matter what the develoeprs read....it matters what other players and potential buyers read.....if they see alot of people are unhappy...they will most likely understand and skip this pack....sending a clear message after a while of people not purchasing things that the company might not get people paying money for much longer if they keep up a bad trend...after all this isnt the only super hero game out there....it does have its good points...but if too many bad things are done or too many bad points are incorporated.....then like many games...players will let their walking do the talking.

I'm with almost everyone else on this: Not buying this one, and I've bought EVERY other booster pack.

This is the start of a slippery slope, and I don't like it one bit. It is really starting to feel like any good costumes made for us are going to be in booster packs, and we're only going to get scraps in the free issue releases. Actually, it already feels like we're getting scraps in non-booster costume additions...

With this booster being $8, its making me nervous that if this sells well, the next booster with actual costume pieces and such in it is going to be set at a much higher price than what they had been set at before.

Bad idea to start getting bad PR right before a competent rival is about to become fierce competition...

Just my 2 cents.

Like many others who have posted, I am greatly underwhelmed by this pack.

The emotes are very nice in themselves... smooth animations and pretty cool as emotes go. Unlike many others I did actually buy this, entirely because I've wanted the airguitar emote for many years now.

I think this would have been more than twice as popular at half the price. For that matter, if there were an in-game "store" interface for microtransactions (like DDO), you could probably get away with selling these piecemeal for 99¢ each, like many .mp3 sellers.

Marketing issues aside, this really should have had more content in it. Maybe some more street/party appropriate "mundane" clothes for costume options, like some more jackets and shirts, sports shorts, and some nicely detailed "High-top" shoes, preferably with a couple pattern options and colorable. There should also have been a breakdance emote in the mix... seems appropriate to the theme, and would have fit nicely... far better than /e opengift :/ A "turntable" emote where you have a dj booth pop up in front of the character and you start working it would also have been nice (as a boombox variant preferably, so it would have music). Another thing that would have fit well would be to add a Pool Cue as a custom weapon for Mace users. That would probably have gotten sales all by itself.

On the subject of /e pool, the emote looks good and all, but it mostly just looks like you're talkin' smack while holding a cue... would have been better if there were a second one to go with it that actually looked like shooting pool. For that matter, it seems like the basketball one should have had a finger spin in the mix. Another pair of emotes that would have fit nicely with the sports theme would have been swinging a golf club (one for driving, one for putting), along with also unlocking golf clubs as custom mace weapons. (for those thinking I'm hung up on the Mace thing, yes, I do have a Mace toon, but he's not sports themed or anything, I just can't think of a "good" way to use golf clubs in Dual Pistols or AR)

A neat power to have seen in it would have been throwing a disco ball up in the air above an area and have shiny lights beam down, giving a small chance to stun, confuse, or immobilize foes in the area for a while. (Low endurance toggle, targeted aoe, 5% chance for each proc every 5 seconds with a mez duration of 4 seconds each, minimal recharge time... allowing it's use as a RP tool as well. Have it play some disco music as a part of the power fx).

This *could* have been a very cool theme pack. As is, it's not. Individually, the emotes are great, but as a pack it was severely lacking.

I understand there isn't a lot in the pack. You guys also need to consider the time it takes to animate/add the objects/sound to this. I have animated it's takes time to line up to do a repeat animation not to mention how long some of the animations are. If you want it bad enough you will buy it if you don't like the price, don't want the emotes don't buy it. But come other then monthly payments. How are they going to make the money to pay for the team to keep making the free updates? I haven't bought it yet but I'm willing to dish out the cash when I have it cause I don't mind paying for the Devs time

Only problem I have with the pack is that a majority of them don't currently work with MM pets. Think we could get a fix for that? Whole group of air guitaring demons would totally rock!