I hate what super boosters have done to the community

I wouldn't worry. It's a valid concern had you held it, and you did phrase it hypothetically. I just wanted to go off on the tangent because I feel there's a bit to be said on the matter.

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 disagree. Changes to existing powers should not be part of a booster and I think it would generate more problems for them than it would solve.

And that's my point. Namely, your addendum about 'not purchasing new content'. The EULA does not stipulate this. It merely states that we're paying to access the service. Nowhere in that document does it detail the specifics of what the service is, or what we can (or cannot) reasonably expect from said service. You're arguing that the statement, 'You're paying for access to the game, as opposed to ownership rights for the character and inventory data stored on our servers' is the same as, 'You're paying for access to the game. Any money we receive from you as payment will be applied solely to maintaining the server infrastructure, and not used to develop additional content.'

As long as our subscription fees are being used to underwrite development costs, we are paying for continued development of this game.


So they're paying the CS department out of somebody's trust fund, then? Customer service is a standard operating expense for a business like this, and you'd be naive to think that our sub fees don't help underwrite that, along with everything else. You're exuding this attitude of, 'We should thank our lucky stars that NCSoft, in their infinite generosity, deigns to offer us any sort of customer support at all! They don't have to do it, you know!' Whether or not they have to, any reputable company will - that's a perfectly reasonable expectation, it doesn't reek of 'entitlement', and it's not something that anyone should be especially grateful for.

I think Activision would be a better example than EA these days.

I think the devs are trying to make a living just like the rest of us, though I also think that many of them are fortunate enough to be doing what they love. The problem is, I suspect the devs don't have the last word when it comes to things like what's going to be sold as a booster vs. what's sold separately. (The Party Emote Pack, for example, strikes me as a case where word was handed down from on high at NCSoft rather than the developers deciding that this was a good idea. I think they know the community better than that, personally.)

Oh, I agree. I'm just worried that since the parent company's an MMO outfit based in Korea, and microtransaction-based models for MMO's are the norm there (and are apparently quite profitable), the higher-ups there might think they could squeeze more revenue out of this game by pushing the microtransaction angle harder.

It would be unbalancing if only certain players had access to Inherent Fitness and not others. That's the same reason that the temp powers included in the booster packs aren't game-breakingly powerful. Selling something like that might be good for business in the short term, since people would feel forced to buy it in order for their characters to remain viable, but there would be a strong (and completely justified) backlash from the playerbase. I think the Powers That Be are aware of this.


To be honest, people like you scare me. Providing a product that your customers are willing to pay for is the cornerstone of any good business. You're treating that like some huge act of magnanimity that we should all be grateful for, because they don't have to do it. No, they don't have to; on the other hand, we don't have to buy their product! And I seriously doubt that the devs sit around saying things like, 'Wow, our subscribers are such great people. I'm so thankful they're doing us the favor of paying to play this game.' So it's a little silly to expect consumers to be any different.

That doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the amount of work the devs put into this game. It's a labor of love for them, I think, and it shows. I respect that. But as long as they're selling me a subscription to a service - as long as it's being offered as a product - I'm going to treat it like one.

Because you insist on twisting the intent of the portion of the EULA you quoted to fit your argument, and it doesn't.

Let me run this down again (twice in the same post, even - I hope it gets through this time):

The EULA states the monthly fee we pay entitles us to access the game servers and our account data (characters, inventory, etc.) on those servers ('the service'), but does not grant us ownership rights to that data.

However, at no point does the EULA define what 'the service' is. It says nothing about what the end user can or can't expect. That includes the question of whether or not the service will be periodically updated with new content. It doesn't say. This means that they're under no legal obligation to do so, since they make no claim that they will. It also means that there's no reason for subscribers to expect them not to, since a) they haven't explicitly stated that they won't, and b) in the years the business has been running, this has been their operating model, so there's substantial precedent for it. So it's not unreasonable to expect this, and someone who does so isn't suffering from an undue sense of entitlement. You're wrong about that.

The EULA also explicitly fails to state that the monthly subscriber fee will not be used to underwrite further development of the game. Given how businesses are known to operate, it's reasonable to assume that the subscription fees NCSoft collects from its customers are indeed being used to underwrite continued development of this game. So yes, when we pay the sub fee, we're paying for continued development.

The sad thing is, I think you know all this already. It seems like you're just hell-bent on quibbling over technicalities because the notion of consumers holding companies to a certain standard when paying for their services has your nose all out of joint. Why this is, I don't know, but the fact that you're bent out of shape over this supposed 'sense of entitlement' people have for expecting some of the new content to be provided to customers at no additional charge as part of their subscriptions - when they've already been doing this for years, and people are just expecting them to continue with a well-established policy - is pretty telling.

and shields, don't forget shields

Plus temp power boots, capes [but i admit we havent had any "free" since they were introduced iirc], new faces, auras [halos count too!], veteran outfits such as the anime and boxer set, vines and ulterior from 2/3 issues ago, tails, new hairstyles such as the barbarian and thats all i can think of at the moment

Though while its not been anyway near what people would generally say counts a costume piece, they are quite important in the cosmetics i feel. Then again i really want a street fighting kind of costume set [warrior/fire set comes kind of close to what i want], but more basic and stereotypical hero/villain pieces would be nice

I'm pretty sure shields count as "weapons" for the purposes of costume design.

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.

they added quite a few capes at some point I seem to recall, although maybe that was just CoV. I don't remember having any of the ones with transparancies when they were first introduced.

Actually that's not really true at all. I've been following gaming for a long time and I can tell you that I've seen some screwed-up crap happen with developers and their 'word'. Even up to very recently.

And my sentence stated that I wasn't sure how it translated into faster content for a specific area.

In any case, my statement was more to illustrate that I don't feel very comfortable when members of a forum community tell me that a supposedly well-established and solid MMO is holding me to ransom as it were by saying: 'Look what you got for buying that booster pack! Now if you want even more stuff faster, continue to buy more packs!'

I've never seen Valve say that to its TF2 customers and they patch and add to that game like crazy. Yeah, its not an MMO and they don't get paid monthly fees for it by their community.

Anyway, this brings me to my last point. A booster pack is a one time buy. If content delivery is gong to hinge on money made, then getting more customers into(and staying with) the game is worth a whole lot more than good sales on a single booster pack. Those people are going to continue to give you $15 a month for as long as they stay.

But, You can bet someone somewhere is working on this.

Probably Nemesis

This is one of the main things I agree with in this thread.

I think I19 will do ALOT more for this game than ANY booster past or present.

Except for the part where it defines what the service is:

Basically:

• The Service is the Game(s), which, since you seem to like overlooking things, is defined in section 1(a) as "City of Heroes," "City of Heroes Going Rogue" and/or "City of Villains"
• The Service requires a subscription.
• Additional fee-based features to the Service include, but are not limited to, cetain content, additional character slots and Super Boosters.

Section 2 goes on to specify that the Web Site is part of the Service and that use of the forums is tied to your account status. Afterwards it goes into the specifics of the NCcoin.

Section 4(d), which I quoted last time, specifies that any payment by charge or by NCcoin that we make is for access to the Service or to purchase Additional Features as defined in the excerpt of section 2 that I quoted above.

Things that are NOT included in the Service (as explicitly shown by their absence from the description of the service in section 2) are customer support, server maintenance and continued development. These are things NCsoft chooses to do on their end, most likely using money from our payments, but are not included in the terms of the User Agreement.

My point? We don't get content in exchange for our payment; it's not what we're paying for. Your argument? We do and the User Agreement doesn't say one way or the other. The User Agreement? It says one way or the other and it happens to agree with my point.


Here's another link to the User Agreement. Read it this time:

http://us.ncsoft.com/en/legal/user-a...agreement.html


In a literal sense, yes. We're also paying for the continued development of all the other games NCsoft owns, their custodian's salaries, who knows how many mortgages and auto loans, and eventually Uncle Sam gets his cut. That's all beyond the scope of the User Agreement--the definition of the fee that we pay--and to assert that the one is necessarily connected to the other is faulty reasoning, let alone saying that we're entitled to such a connection.

Oh, yeah? Stop paying. See how much content you get.

If he bought a month of game time every time a issue was released, and only when issues were released, he'd get all the same content as the rest of us paying all year. What he'd lose would be access to the game in-between issue releases.

That fact alone proves that we're not paying for content and development, because the only thing we lose out on by not paying all year is access to the game.

Okay.

If everyone did the same thing - only paid for a month whenever a new issue was released - what would happen?

They'd release one issue a month.

And they would be niggling, petty issues.

I think they'd release Pages instead of Issues.

"Welcome to Page 12! In this exciting content patch we only give you part of the new story arc we're introducing!

There will be no QoL, costume, bug fixes, or other additions in this upcoming Page."

• Because they're worried the idea probably won't get made unless it's in a booster?

• Because if it's in a booster then they can enjoy a sense of superiority by having it while the poor people don't?

• Because they prefer the illusion of choice?

• Because they think Paragon Studios doesn't have enough booster ideas already?

• Because they believe that if that one idea they really like gets in a super booster then that booster will probably have more stuff like it?

I said that what 'the Service' actually consists of wasn't explicitly defined in the EULA. That thoroughly undermines your contention that no subscriber should feel entitled to receive additional content as a subscriber to said Service. And now you come back at me with this? Really? All you've established is that the EULA defines 'the service' as 'City of Heroes', 'City of Heroes: Going Rogue', and/or 'City of Villains'. Good job. Now show me where the EULA defines what any of those terms actually mean. You can't, because it's not there! Where is the 'certain content' they mentioned ever described? How about content that doesn't fall into the 'fee-based features' category? Where is that defined? It's not.

No, the EULA doesn't agree with your point. It never specifies whether the content updates that aren't offered as separate products should be considered part and parcel of 'the Service'. In fact, it doesn't appear to address the question of updates at all. My previous point stands - namely, the EULA never explicitly defines what 'the Service' (that is, 'City of Heroes', 'City of Heroes: Going Rogue', and/or 'City of Villains') actually consists of. We don't know if content pushed to clients in Issue updates is considered part of the games themselves (thus making it part of 'the Service'), or something else entirely.

To put this to you as simply as possible:

MMO subscribers have the reasonable expectation that the service they're subscribing to will receive periodic content updates at no additional cost, over and above any paid expansion content.

This expectation on the part of the consumer is a reasonable one because a) there are well-established precedents for it when it comes to MMO's in general, and b) there is also a longstanding precedent for it in this specific game.

The EULA does not state whether new content provided to users at no additional cost should be regarded as part of 'the Service'.

Nowhere in the EULA does it state that such content is not a part of the service, or that the end user is not entitled to upgrades.

If NCSoft had no intention of providing content updates outside of the boosters they sell, it's safe to assume the EULA would have said so in no uncertain terms. (They were quite emphatic about declaring that users don't own their character data, for instance.)

The EULA did not explicitly rule out such updates.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that it's reasonable for customers to expect the Service they're paying for to be updated periodically, because this is standard practice for both MMO's in general and for this one in particular. NCSoft is presumably aware of this, and the EULA makes no statement to suggest otherwise.

I read it the first time. Maybe you ought to go back over it. Try understanding what it actually means this time, rather than cherry-picking and quibbling over semantics.

Periodic content updates for an MMO you're paying to play? Customer support for said MMO? Those are reasonable expectations based on well-established precedent. It's not presumptuous of people to expect these things from any P2P MMO, which is what you seem to be arguing against here. That's the bottom line. You keep trying to dance around the point with semantic nitpicking and attempts at obfuscation. If you're going to bother replying to anything in this post, either address that point, or just let the debate drop already.

Arguing about what the subscription technically grants or entitles you to get is pointless. The first passage you quoted from the EULA does not state what you've argued it does. It makes a distinction between access to the service and ownership of your characters. The statement is there to divert potential legal entanglements over intellectual property and pixellated assets; it's not there to describe what costs your subscription fee covers.

The second passage you quoted from EULA is a catch-all disclaimer that your access to the service (including, but not limited to, the web site) ends when you stop paying your subscription. It also disclaims by implication that certain aspects of the service (which aren't explicitly defined) may be subject to additional fees. It is not an itemized description of what your subscription covers.

This BaB quote, supplied by another poster, seems to back up your position, but it doesn't establish your position as relevant. Technically, yes, of course: NCSoft has the right to do whatever the heck it wants with your subscription fee once paid, but that's a truism -- a superficially accurate, but nonetheless frivolous observation. BaBs wasn't saying that we should all bow down and thank the NCSoft gods for whatever crumbs are thrown our way (cuz man, that'd be PR suicide); he was saying that there isn't any explicit guarantee with respect to where our money goes at any given time. As long as the game's profitable, you have to assume that NCSoft will divert some of that extra revenue to other projects, but if the game is profitable, then by definition it is paying its own costs -- including whatever content the devs think the game needs to stay competitive, including customer service, including developer salaries, equipment, utilities.

More specifically:

• Any computer-related business that wants to compete has to provide some amount of customer service, even if it's a token effort. Customer service is a core cost; if you can't expect to be able to cover that cost, then you don't open up shop in the first place.
  
  
• It's also safe to say that Paragon has to continue to develop content if it wants to remain competitive. That goes for free content. It goes for paid content too. Subscription revenue is almost certainly used for all of the above -- both for free content to sweeten the pot for existing subscribers, and as starting capital to fund new projects. At the very least, subscription fees are meant to cover day-to-day costs while the wizards at Paragon work on the next big thing. Whether our subscription fees are sufficient to do that is another question entirely.

There is no useful purpose in trying to place artificial limitations on this-or-that revenue stream based on some bizarre authoritarian interpretation of the EULA or Developer commentary. NCSoft uses whatever revenue, from whatever source, to try to retain customers. A crystal ball didn't tell me that. It's the way the world works.

Customers learn what is and isn't reasonable to expect based on industry trends in general and on a company or service's track record in particular. In CoX's case, happily, that track record is pretty darn good. If a customer no longer finds a service worthy of his subscription fee, then he will cancel. If a business can't retain enough customers, then the business folds. Very simple. Paragon/NCSoft is not running a charity, and we are not their helpless supplicants. They seem like good people who like their work, and we are naturally appreciative of that work, but there's a difference between an appreciative customer and what you seem to be describing.

To make the game good is to make the game sell. Those are not mutually exclusive goals.

Inherent Fitness for free does make sense from a business perspective. You have to realize that raising prices doesn't always result in increased revenue; there's obviously a point after which whatever you gain in increased per-sale profit is overshadowed by the decrease in sales' volume. By the same token, CoH can't just take the sexiest, most powerful gameplay advantages and throw a booster-pack price tag on them. Inherent Fitness falls squarely in that transparent-and-cynical-money-grab category that the devs have taken obvious pains to avoid thus far. The potential revenue from an Inherent-Fitness booster pack just isn't worth the risk of driving away a large proportion of the existing subscriber base.

Not everything added "for free" to an existing service is a favor or a gift. There's a profit motive in there too. We can and should be grateful for the good work the devs do, but we also have a right -- and if we truly love the game as much as many of us claim to do, even an obligation -- to point out what we'd like to see for our dollar. Making the game the best it can be is in everyone's best interest, here.

Sorry for the ramble. This entitlement-versus-customer-loyalty debate never fails to confuse me.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I like to think of it similarly: Let's say you have a friend who is also a mechanic. And let's say you actually pay him to do work on your car occasionally. Now let's say he comes up with a new additive that makes your car run better. Would you say to this friend, "Hey, You should give this stuff away for free!" Or would you say, "Hey, you should sell this stuff, it's worth money to some people!" That's my way of looking at it - NCSoft provides us a fun game, and is kind enough to actually make it better occasionally for no money - they are entitled to charge for some of the improvements.

I didn't buy the party pack, but I'm not whining about not having the seet guitar emote, or the funny disco dance emote - which I saw someone use to great effect in a costume contest just this weekend. So someone got some value out of it.

I still hold to my argument: If you don't want it, can't afford it, don't think it's worth it, or are totally against the thought of paying extra for some of the content, Don't Buy It.