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

I'll ignore the rest of your unsupported opinions posing as fact, but this one is so dreadfully and obviously wrong I'm forced to call you out.

'millions' of inf is one 'okay' drop.
everyone gets 'okay' drops just by playing however they like to play.
and that's not even 'using' the market except as a place to dump your junk.

Using the market in the sense that you take a few minutes to figure out some basic principles and then apply them, you can rake in many, many millions in a very short amount of time.

This is nearly as ridiculous as your assertion that 99% of level 50 players struggle to afford SOs, or whatever the exact wording was.

You're a rare combination of total certainty combined with absolute wrongness. You should give up video games and go into politics, I have no doubt you'd go far.

Actually I find myself disagreeing with your conclusion.

I think the people who complain that the choice was confusing can't admit that they didn't even bother to read what they were buying. When they bought the pre-purchase in order to get access to DP and DS they assumed they'd be getting they'd be getting the extras and free month when GR went live. All they saw was early access and didn't bother to read any further.

And when the Gamestop preorder was announced they realized what they actually bought and had buyers remorse. Suddenly access to two new powersets 5 months early wasn't what they wanted but since it was a pre-purchase and not a pre-order they couldn't cancel it.

What it boils down to is that some people can't accept that if a mistake was made, they were the ones that made it, not NCSoft.

So don't bother talking about it if it's happening and don't bother talking about it if it's not happening. Got it.

Actually, the "point" is just to talk about the F2P model. I don't think anyone suspects that their voice is going to tip the scales or anything. Sometimes people just, you know, talk about stuff.

You'd think so, but no, it really does not.

I can remember having this driven home rather pointedly back in the day, when I was on a mailing list for a niche-subject CCG that had been taken over by a name-brand publisher. (This was long enough ago that the World Wide Web was not yet the de facto gathering place for communities.)

There was a lot of input from the players of the game under the old publisher, and debate and arguing, and when things became heated, the most vociferous folks put forward the theory that they were bound by principle to argue for their ideas because they represented the player base at large. They felt that, statistically, they were the "tip of the iceberg" that indicated a larger unrest and/or desire for the things that they were arguing for.

The community rep/story guy rather flatly informed them that all they represented was a self-selected group of people who are willing to discuss a game on a mailing list.

I wish I still had the original email so I could quote it verbatim. It opened my eyes to a reality that most of us forumites like to ignore or that we simply don't see.

We are NOT the tip of the iceberg. We are not a cross-section of the player base. Far from it, in fact. We are a tiny portion of the player base and we are a skewed cross-section, not a balanced cross-section.

What we represent is the portion of the player base that likes to participate in a community centered around the game. We are dwarfed by the chunk of the player base that does NOT care about being in a community.

We may sometimes echo the concerns of that "silent majority", but as often as not we have our own concerns that we just like to think are reflections of the concerns of those other people.

It's terrific that the devs at Paragon Studios give us as much influence as we have. However, don't make the mistake of believing that having some influence means that we have very much of it. When all is said and done, we forumites are just one small piece of a very large puzzle. We're useful for getting news out when it needs to be disseminated. We're useful for trotting out to press and investors as evidence that the game is thriving and generating interest. We're useful for the occasional good idea that one of actually has. We're useful because some of us turn out to be rational, thoughtful, and talented and thus helpful to them.

Beyond that, though, we don't have much influence at all, nor do we deserve it. Any decisions about major changes to the game have to be made by finding out what the silent majority wants and how to please them and their friends. Sometimes our interests coincide with theirs, but more often, our interests merely reflect OUR interests alone.

It sucks, but that's reality.

You know, I'm trying my best to figure out where you got that from, and I just don't see it. Sorry. I think you over-reacted.

You set the bar pretty low for "over reaction"

Heh. Okay, then, missed the forest for the trees.

It's a fact that many people will be made unhappy by a switch to freemium. Telling the Powers That Be what they already know doesn't serve any constructive purpose, even if it makes the poster feel a little better for having voiced his or her opinion.

A better use of the thread, in my opinion, is imagining what sorts of freemium models would work for City of Heroes. Especially, what sorts of freemium models could there be developed that would be uniquely suited to this game?

This was why I brought up the "pay by the zone" model used by another successful game company. It's a unique idea that builds upon the way that players progress through their game, while acknowledging that many players would never progress all the way through it. Those players get an option to "own" as much of the game as they would ever use, and the game publisher gets roughly the amount of revenue that they would have taken from that player if he'd subscribed for a few months and then quit because he was tired of paying for stuff that he never used.

I'd like to see some ideas for how City of Heroes could implement a freemium system that would take advantage of its strengths while being different from the typical tiered model.

Your mileage may vary, of course. I wouldn't tell anyone that they shouldn't sound off about what makes them unhappy. I just don't see it as very useful, unless there's a way to address it in some manner besides "don't change to freemium at all".

Again, I will ask for the citation for your interpretation of this redname saying that trading beyond the cap is abuse. Whomever can show this first I will give that person 2B+1 inf. Otherwise this is just plain wrong and should stop being spread as fact.

Easy evidence to the contrary are all the posts in the market forum requesting trades over the cap, without any reprisal from the moderators.

The only thing that was said was the inf cap was there because the original design of the game had never envisioned players hitting the cap. The word abuse was never used.

I'm not sure where you decided that market saturation was the only deciding factor in making F2P models successful over subscription models. I believe that those factors probably are multivariate in nature and not able to be summarized by one factor only.

This may be an interesting read for F2P conversions
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...ns-players.ars

I'm pretty sure all games compete for the player's dollar and attention, so narrowing the field to super hero MMOs isn't quite as reflective a model to the real world as you propose. Otherwise, this game could have set the subscription price at $100/month when it launched.

This is a lesson that I'd imagine our own devs have learned already, but it's a valuable one. Some F2P models involve starting with a very open game for the non-subscribers, and then retrenched after several months and broadened the free players access in one way while severely limiting it in a different way. The limitations become great enough that they amounted to taking away the F2P portion of the game and replacing it with a kind of trial account.

Needless to say, the players will find this displeasing and the complain and feel betrayed . The only saving grace is that they recently implemented a lifetime subscription at a price that makes it obviously a much better choice than a monthly subscription. Essentially, they've converted the game to the "buy once, play forever" model, while leaving a subscription and/or limited F2P access as an option for anyone who can't bring themselves to pony up the "purchase" price.

That makes the "trial membership" a better business decision that it otherwise had been.

It remains to be seen whether it will erase the bad feelings in the player base. So far, it doesn't look that way.

I'm sure that anybody developing a new freemium model is watching these sorts of experiment closely to see how they pan out.

*EDIT*
I thank I ran afoul of forum regs there. I'll leave it the way it is, and live with the choppiness. Thanks for not deleting outright.

Wait, what?

Seriously, did I miss a really weird discussion somewhere? That can't be right; I can't believe someone would assert that except out of context.


Also, I'm pretty sure off-market trades for influence exchanges above the inf cap are not considered "abuse". An undesirable side effect of the influence cap, perhaps, but not abuse. If there is a quote out there, I'd like to see it, because it contradicts my understanding of the situation.


As to the whole free to play discussion. I think if NC is thinking of heading that way, they should think it through very carefully. There's no one single free to play model, and each has advantages and risks. However, most of them do have the property that it's an all-in bet. If it fails, it's all over. You would do irreparable damage to the existing playerbase that wasn't recoverable if the model didn't infuse the game with a sufficient number of new players to create a sustainable environment.

My guess is that *eventually* some new financial model is likely to take over from the current one, but when that might happen or what that new model would look like exactly is an open question.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...97#post3250297

*looks*
Huh.
*double take*
Uh...
*triple take*
Yeah. i... i can't even really...
Yeaahhhhhhh...

Not sure why you wanted to give an example of irony in this thread.


Wait.

Let me ask you this simple question.

How much actual experience do you have with MMOs that utilize any variation of the free-to-play model?

d'oh! he only said 95%....my bad! =(


thanks for tracking down the post, I'm hopeless when it comes to searching!

Fixed that for you.

Hmm, well. For the record, that's very very false. Its also easy to demonstrate mathematically, but that's a bit off topic. I will say that that statement was only true for maybe a few weeks after Issue 1 was released. Before that, no level 50s. After that and before I2, XP and Inf adjustments were made that made the statement false.

Also, the problem was *never* really level 50. It was level 25 (technically, 22), and the mid levels up to about 40. At that point, the influence earning rate outstripped the SO replacement costs per level range. Today, its just about possible to earn enough influence from direct earning and basic selling (without even using the market) to buy a complete set of level 50 SOs just from leveling from level 46 to level 47 (when you can first slot level 50 SOs). Or, if you are in SG mode all the time, leveling from 44 to 47 should also do it with plenty of margin to spare.

A Rant? You call one sentence a rant? You know, just because someone disagrees with you, doesnt make it a rant. Though really I think you call it a rant as that makes it easy for you to avoid facts.

But as your post agrees, the facts are
1) NCSoft said "Nor are there any benefits for preording"
2) NCSoft offered incentives for preordering. (the special IOs plus gamer bling)

I think I can see where the deception is.

I have no idea why you would put screen shots of FAQs for after NCSoft changed the incentives excepts its smoke and mirrors to avoid facing the facts - much like calling my post a rant.

Thats just rubbish, and an example of people who would rather insult in passive/aggressive manner than discuss.
Wanting Paragon to describe the purchasing options and not change than months after people spend thier money is so not the same as your fantasy of having them come to house to explain.
Clearly you have no facts to support your case, or you wouldnt need to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule


They annoucend what you could get with your type of order for the game. Months later they changed that. Really I dont get how people dont understand that. Or post that that wasn't true.



Not the benefits of costumes and aura, that was upfront as I wish it all the purchase options were. But getting special IO procs was not mentioned until months afterwards.

Those options were not laid out side by side. How can you say that they were with a straight face?

I'm amazed that you had those options of preordering to gain special IOs plus bling when you were making your purchasing choice. It wasn't there when I was making my desicon.Did you time travel or just pretend you had the facts from the start?


Sooooo dont agree with me, must be slow in the head.
Still its not like you actually had a point or fact to offer. Insults are easier than demostarting if you are right, especially when the facts show you are not.



Again with insults over facts.

So, you really can say that on the day it came out people were debating whether to prepurchase to get early access to ATs or to wait and preorder and get the special IO's.

No wait - your options didnt even include all the options that anyone who can read simple English understands. Does that mean you dont understand simple English?

You clearly laid out options missed that choice 3, that there would be incentives for preordering. The Special IO's. No surprise you miss out the information.



More rubbish. A straw horse, that confirms to me you are more interested in belittling people than understanding what they are saying.
I also never said it was confusing - it must be easier to 'win points' when you put words into my mouth.

I'm not complaining about the free month or auras and what not. And never have complained about that. The difference between the complete edition and the prepurchase was clear.

Its not buyers remorse - lol - it's not having all the information presented.


Anyhow, if one sentence got me dogplied this much I'm dreading the follow up. I think I'll just ignore the posts with fingers in thier ears shouting "me so right - you so silly head' from now. So if I dont bother to reply to you, dont take it as how wonderful your debating skills were, and how well yor insults shut me up, but rather, you're not worth the time to reply to.


Afterall, this has been bounced around in the discussion thread for it months ago.

In short, the fact that the phrase Nor are there any incentives for preording it means no incentives for preordering.

This got changed.

This, most people in my experience would call deceptive.

Its not brain science, and it seems all people who claim otherwise can only present do is use insults and call fact rants, or post in total disacoiation to reallty claiming all the information was there from day one!

I dont understand how people within one post can say 'it was all clearly laid out' and in the same post then talk about how the gamestop was annoucned afterwards.

Most people, in my experience, recognize that marketing information cannot include information from the future. And a statement about the present is not a promise to preserve the status quo in the future.


Suppose I were to ask NCSoft if there was any disadvantage to subscribing for a year instead of monthly for a year, given the annual subscription rate is cheaper. Should they be forced to say:

At the moment there is no material advantage to subscribing for twelve individual months as opposed to a year at once given the rate savings, but that presumes subscription rates don't change in the future, you use all twelve months of the subscription, and some future opportunity doesn't arise which could place you at a disadvantage relative to someone who isn't locked into a longer subscription term, of which we may or may not currently forsee but which may involve advantages other than simple rate changes and encompass qualitative and quantitative differences in value proposition within that timespan, which should not be taken to presume that any such changes are currently foreseen or being pursued, nor should it be assumed that such changes are not currently being pursued, as it would be against policy to discuss such possibilities before they are finalized and we reserve the right to announce any such change in a manner which would imply that such changes were being contemplated at any time up to and including when this answer was drafted, as a result deferring the requisite decision to your best judgment given the information that is currently available, and with the full knowledge that such information may be necessarily incomplete.

or, alternatively, the answer most people would consider to be the reasonable one, which is:

No.

If that answer changes tomorrow, it changes. That's not deception, that's life. "There are no benefits to preordering" was true when the statement was made. It therefore cannot be deceptive by definition. Even if you think it was deceptive, there was no possible remedy, because it was impossible to mention a buying option that didn't exist at the time.

The problem is that some people assumed it was a promise not just a statement of fact. And that's an unreasonable expectation.

Well, I leveled a blaster at release, so influence was less of a problem for me. Back then, one of the ways to make sure you had enough influence to buy your enhancements was to solo a blaster and wear debt-bars like they were epaulets.

I recall it being a little bit tighter with my MA/SR. Probably because of the not being dead very often factor. And my Ill/Rad was even more so, probably because of the not being dead ever factor.

In fact, most user agreements include a "We can change this agreement at any time, and we will inform you when we do." clause in them. PayPal keep e-mailing me changes to their user agreement all the time. I believe the basic EULA we agree to every day has this, as well, but I haven't actually read it since 2005 so I don't know.

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.

kinda like inverse proportion to hair then

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

This. The three live examples of the Turbine model of F2P have turned out well. Two of those games while dealing with aging games were not unsuccessful like the most recent champion of online F2P .

I don't know if CoH is considering going F2P or not, but it's not something that can be ruled out because the game is doing OK.