Don't go Free to Play(F2P), COH

I do have an agenda. Very much so and I militate as and when I feel it is a) necessary and b) when it has at least a minimal chance some good. But I have pretty well clearly stated what my objective is and I do my best to pro-actively support the game, although I have huge issues with how the community is managed and the game is marketed.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

People can post from cell phones, from work, internet cafes, etc. so it isn't that hard. The thing that people don't consider is did they create completely new master accounts with each coh account or are they linked thru one NC master account.

Most people don't go to the trouble of creating seperate master accounts, nor do they go to the extremes of paying for each account with different payment methods. That's usually where they get caught account hopping to avoid moderation.

I recall back when people were foaming at the mouth the first time the devs fixed the AE exploits. One person in particular claimed the mods couldn't shut her up because she had 5 more accounts (she implied that 2-3 of them had been modded). After that post we never heard from her again, and there were no subsequent posts claiming to be her on another account.

So, what's the other one?

I'm guessing you will say PvP.

Heh, i can understand that. That's sort of similar to my philosophy. That's why i keep up on the quarterlies...IF something's going to happen, it's better to see it from afar instead of getting blindsided.

What i can't understand is the evasive manner of your replies though. Nothing wrong with trying to discuss the state of the game through numbers if done with proper decorum.

I'm not that cute when I'm mad. Pity I wish I was.

AE

My only real concern is that from seeing what has happened in other F2P models (Is that vague enough Mighty Ocho? ) we might be expected to pay for some features that we currently get for free. I gave a few examples previously.

That is a key balancing act, and I'd prefer that they use caution in meeting those expectations. Sometimes this is more about perception than reality, but perceptions matter.

Take, for example, a system where a subscription gets you about the same featureset you have now, plus 1000 "free credits" per month. Every three months, a new Issue is released, but it's essentially just a bunch of new features that you can buy. Add them all up, and it comes to... say... 4000 credits.

You as a player may be very upset-- you'd normally get that stuff for FREE but even if you spent all your credits there, you'd have to buy another 1000 credits to get it all. They're shortchanging you!

Me, as a player, look at that issue, see the 2 task forces I'd never play & a costume set that would never meet my characters and realize I can buy JUST what I want from that issue for 2000 credits and have 1000 extra that I can spend on a booster that I'd otherwise have to pay for.

So, have the devs ripped off subscribers by not giving them enough to get everything they'd normally have gotten for free, or has the "buffet style" selection added enough value to make up for it?



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Also, keep in mind that this game's what... 6 1/2 years old? The subscription's never increased. There aren't many things that can say they cost the same as they did over a half-decade ago. Sooner or later, the devs will have to face either a price increase or reduce what's given for that price (kinda like how a candy bar price may remain stable, but the candy itself shrinks in size).

One of the concerns, though, is the... umm... difference in culture between F2P and free players. ( Not everyone, mind you... I've enjoyed trying the F2P games out, and I hardly behave differently there than here... though some mods may wish I did)

The subscription in an mmo has a tendency to keep certain types at bay... or at least cull their numbers. Habitual griefer organizations enjoy harassing people, but don't enjoy spending $15 when they know they'll get banned quickly. With no startup costs & getting around the banstick being relatively easy, the F2P games are lower-hanging fruit. Similarly, younger brats that sneak onto the net when mom & dad aren't looking can sign up for F2P games much easier than they could make a paid subscription.

So, while F2P might mean new players, it could also mean a larger population of griefer jerks, n00bsp3@k3rs , and immature brats.


At least... that's the concerns that others have mentioned. I haven't seen it on my tours around various places. Of course, I spend most of my fleeting free time here & don't get too involved in those communities... and I'm pretty good a filtering out idiots, so I just might not have noticed.

Some might argue that's happening now: New costume options are included in booster packs and the GR expansion, as are the "fluff" powers, such as Ninja Run and Shadowy Presence.

I personally don't subscribe to that theory but I accept there's an element of validity to it, but it could be argued that an F2P model may well bring other benefits, or woes.

For now, unless we hear otherwise, this is purely speculative brought on by other games making recent changes to this model. Simply because they have doesn't mean CoH will

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

As afr as new stuff is concerned I look at it the way you do. My concerns are about things we already get for free that they might decide to charge us for.

For example we currently have a inf cap of 2 billion, but it's been known to happen when a game goes F2P that they put a lower cap on a characters wealth and make subscribers pay to have it removed.

We currently have unlimited market transactions, A cap could be put on them as well that we'd have to pay to remove.

Subscribers could find out that they aren't entitled to customer support unless they buy NCCoins.

Subscribers may be told they have to pay to unlock Epic AT's.

Subscribers may be told they have to buy a Super Group Charter before they can form one.

They may tell us we have to buy a base permit.

They may put a time limit on certain base features and charge us a rental fee to keep them active. Like 200 NCCoins for teleport access for a month.

They may charge a fee for additional base storage. Get 1 of each bin for free but charge for each additional bin.

They may decide to sell IO's for cash. IO's that are bound to the character and cannot be sold or traded to other players/characters. We already have this in the game. The Gamestop Pre-Order bonus IO's are bound to the character.

And these are just a few examples of things we could lose if we went F2P.

I don't think there's even much of a shadow of validity to that. As others have noted in some detailed analysis of past issues, we have not seen any decrease of new "free" costumes with issues... they've always been in very limited quantity as freebies to the general population. We've also never seen free fluff powers added to the game... so nothing that's ever really been taken away from us...

... and the history of boosters giving us powers and costumes goes pretty far back.... to the GvE edition booster pack, IIRC

And every time someone tries that argument another person posts proof that we've always paid for extra stuff in this game. We paid for the extra costumes all the way back to CoV's release. It was at least a year or so before they merged both games and gave everyone that hadn't bought both games access to all the goodies in one package. The same will eventually happen with the GR stuff if we don't switch over to an F2P model.

Or... they could keep the thresholds where they are, but charge you to
... lift the 2bln inf cap...
... raise the cap of teleporters allowed in the base...
... access the new base items pack
... get more market slots

But yeah, they could look at establishing new caps on certain things that they want to discourage. Like if they see issues with certain types of market monopolies, they might try imposing a cap of X market transactions per player per day.

I've only dabbled around, but in a generally-broad-industrywide-sense it seemed that the goal was to make the subscriber get essentially what they were used to. In a very general, non-other-game-specific sense, has this kind of problem been prevalent?--- setting new thresholds that are notably lower than prior thresholds subscribers would encounter?

In the unnamed unidentified totally ambiguous but nonhypothetical examplesyou can draw upon , would you say that these new ceilings were grossly less (say... under half) than what subscribers previously were allowed... or something that most subscribers never hit, so only peak users (say... the top 20%) would be affected? Anything like, (in CoH terms) finding that you only get 6 characters per server as a subscriber instead of 12, like you used to?

People keep saying this. When the devs came out with the I18 rundown, didn't it include all five of the costume sets we got? I know the dances got pulled for that party pack, but did the costume get moved to the paid portion as well?

I have a friend who has an active account, yet hasn't gotten GR, but I keep forgetting to get him to log in to see for myself.

According to Paragonwiki, Issue 18 gave everyone "combat mode" auras, but only purchasers of the expansion got the costume sets.

That's sad to hear.

That's the assumption that F2P is done to offset the "sinking ship" syndrome... which isn't 100% the case. For several years, many academics studying MMO trends have been pointing to the microtransaction models in Asia and their profitability, compared to subscription service models. Stateside, we saw social network "games" making fistfuls of money (from ads and microtransactions) for their "free" games full of micro transactions (and selling your information). Heck, even in console games- with their online stores selling anything from music tracks to expansions to skimpier costumes... I've read industry estimates that predict that in as little as two years, developers will see more revenue from downloadable content than they see from the new game sales through the boutique stores (especially considering the cut the boutique stores get... plus used game sales).

There's plenty of this evidence emerging -- pointing to the idea that the microtransaction model might not be the poor-cousin of the subscription model... it *might* just turn out to be the more profitable model over the long haul... and heck, might make the intellectual property you're using even more valuable by making it recognizable to a wider range of people. That means broadening the IP to other media will be more profitable, increasing your overall portfolio.

Granted, I *DO* think that the model would work best on a game built from the ground-up with it in mind, but don't sell the retrofits short just yet...

Additionally, 2.5 other costume sets and 2 auras were put into a purchase-only pack off to the side, or were sold with the "complete" edition. Quite a few of us who'd pre-ordered GR to show our support were pretty gobsmacked that we had to lay out EXTRA in order to get everything.

I don't see why. They told everyone months in advance of the GR pre-purchase release that all we would get was early access to Dual Pistols and Demon Summoning and that the rest would be sold as an item pack when GR went live.

Only the people that didn't read what they were buying and made assumptions not based on the facts provided were shocked.

... Ya know. I'm getting really tired of this complete and utter non-sense.

Let me smack you around with a timeline.

• HeroCon 2009: Developers state there is a pre-order.
• March 2nd 2010: Marketing states there is not going to be pre-order. There is a pre-purchase and a retail package. The Retail package will not be available for pre-order: http://goingrogue.na.cityofheroes.co...ing-rogue.html :: http://goingrogue.na.cityofheroes.co...-purchase.html :: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2632296
• March 2nd 2010: the differences between the pre-purchase and the retail package are made abundantly clear on the City of Heroes Website, the City of Heroes Forums, and the City of Heroes Going Rogue Webpage, complete with a F.A.Q. page detailing the differences: http://goingrogue.na.cityofheroes.co...-info/faq.html
• May 28th 2010: Marketing announces collaborative deal with Gamestop and Razer: http://goingrogue.na.cityofheroes.co...promotion.html

Let me repeat the pertinent details since they went over your head:

• There was nearly a 3 month difference between the marketing department saying there was not going to be a pre-order and the announcement of the Gamestop / Razer Deal
• You Do not have anything to be gob-smacked over. You were not gob-smacked. You have, however, been called out for trying to be antagonistic. You. Failed.
• Everybody who bought the Going Rogue PRE-PURCHASE had ample information on which to make their purchasing decision, and most of those decisions were made long before Gamestop/Razer ever entered the picture.

Logic and facts, the two worst enemies of the I've got some nonsense and I think I can get away with it.

Or the people who didn't think they would use intentional deceptive language in thier advertising it wasn't a clear cut case of being able to read it was a case of being able to read lawyer talk as it was something like 'there are no incentives to prepurchase ' and then they added the prepurchase bonuses.

(posted by iPhone please excuse formatting)