VIP server = one consolidated server
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-06-21 10:11 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Exactly. This is no different than the complaints about PvP. There is a small but obnoxious number of PvP players that gets their jollies acting like d-bags. Everyone knows they don't represent the whole PvP population but PvE players will avoid PvP zones altogether rather than risk encountering one of the jerks.|
Originally Posted by Beef_Cake
In my opinion, the devs were thinking about the Vet players. I'm not sure how many of you have ever played F2P games, but it seems that many games that are F2P is more likely to pick up a bunch of "not so liked" players that cause problems. So to me at least the VIP server is a way to get away from those "not so liked" new players and play with other Vet players without the hassle of the new noobs
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There's little to no elitism or snobbery going on, just people wanting to avoid D-bags.
My whole contact with the VIP Server will be:
Getting inside, creating my main name there (reserving my global) and then never ever touching it again.
But probably the people there will have a new costume piece... a chest detail of a swastika.
But dont worry... i will cross to the other side of the street to keep your way clean from my contaminated presence...
** Guardian�s Crazy Catgirl **
************* 22 XxX 10 *************
Yes. I can get lost on a straight-line map.
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Amazingly enough, if you ignore a D-bag long enough, they either stop being D-bags so they can join the crowd, or they leave. No switching of servers is necessary.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Exactly. This is no different than the complaints about PvP. There is a small but obnoxious number of PvP players that gets their jollies acting like d-bags. Everyone knows they don't represent the whole PvP population but PvE players will avoid PvP zones altogether rather than risk encountering one of the jerks.
There's little to no elitism or snobbery going on, just people wanting to avoid D-bags. |
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
All I have to say is, 12 brand new shiny slots on the VIP server x 2 active accounts = WEEEEEE! More Alts!
�Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!� - Thomas Gray
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Not disagreeing with you but honestly how many people have the patience to do wait it out. I predict that there will be a very tiny portion of players that will choose to play solely on the VIP server.|
Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
Amazingly enough, if you ignore a D-bag long enough, they either stop being D-bags so they can join the crowd, or they leave. No switching of servers is necessary.
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But we've had people like that in the game for years. They are only hurting themselves by doing it. Remember when Freedom used to get locked down from population overload during special events like 2xp weekends and the one server crowd on Freedom would come here and whine because they couldn't logon?
Same thing will happen here. We will tell them they can still play on any one of the other 15 servers and if they refuse we will once again laugh at them, tell them to cry moar, and deal with it.
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Wise words from the bot as always. |
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
The 'VIP' servers, to my mind, are the escape for all the Elitists and down-their-nose lookers who would just alienate genuine nice players and others and stop them adding to the game.
Good riddance, I say. I'll be waiting on Union to welcome the next batch of RPers. |
In the few gaming communities I follow, people expressed interest about these news. Many plan to give the game a shot once it goes F2P. Ok, people saying things on the Internet doesn't mean they do it, and for those who actually come back most will likely wander off again in a few days/weeks, but I have good hopes that this'll bring back some people (for example, those who liked the game in 2004 but complained about lack of loot or economy) as well as some new folks.
From what they were saying in the livestream yesterday, all the VIP players would have to do to to get away from freebies is play missions in MA.
No server changes neccessary.
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Justice for me, and just folks to smash missions with, but yeah! |
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I'll be waiting on Union to welcome the next batch of RPers.
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This.
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Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
The VIP server is optional and like hell I'm moving.
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I doubt that many people will really move. Some servers like Virtue have very dedicated communities, and it will not be worth reestablishing those communities just to get away from free players.
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Plus, brand new server = server with zero names taken on it on day one. That alone is going to lead to some interesting developments, I think. I have a few names taken by apparently-inactive players that I can finally snatch up in this new land.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
One thing that I'll be intensely interested in is to see how the new VIP server community develops over time. We've never had a single server spring into existence like this from scratch. There will be representatives from all the other servers, some of whom have been playing for years but never actually met in-game, finally being part of the same groups. Everyone there will be new, something that hasn't happened since the European launch in 2005. I seriously doubt that it will be made up only of elitist snobs, any more than any of the servers are today; it will be just average schmoes who have been playing all along and want somewhere new to try out. I'm pretty sure they have no intention of letting people move supergroups and/or bases over to the VIP server, that they will be forcing everyone who wants to play there to start from scratch. I really like that idea, because we'll all be starting from scratch, and I think it will be really fresh and interesting to see how it plays out.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Exactly. This is no different than the complaints about PvP. There is a small but obnoxious number of PvP players that gets their jollies acting like d-bags. Everyone knows they don't represent the whole PvP population but PvE players will avoid PvP zones altogether rather than risk encountering one of the jerks.
There's little to no elitism or snobbery going on, just people wanting to avoid D-bags. |
(Myself, I'm gonna stake some claims on the VIP server for a few characters I'd like to play, in case it develops a population. My current characters will be staying on Virtue until I've assessed the impact for a couple of weeks.)
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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There's nothing in the CoHF2P FAQ about how either the existing "Refer a friend" or "Invite back a friend" offers will be updated for the new system. These kinds of recruitment bonuses are standard in marketing since a friend will always be a more sympathetic salesman to a potential customer than any company hire - it's a way to make peer pressure work for the company. Without naming names (thanks to the short-sighted new forum rules), there is an MMO that changed its referral system after converting to a similar F2P hybrid. It's just a Google search away for "Referral Program"+points+friends.|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
I'm not even sure how to respond to that except to ask, "Where did you come up with an idea like that?"
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
Seriously, this. All of the 'well, I hope you VIP guys enjoy polishing your monocles in between ordering your butler to kick F2P players' talk is getting on my nerves.
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| so I can get on board with calling them Cynics, but Elitists is getting old. |
So, cynic that I am, I expect to create some characters on the VIP server at launch as an escape route (besides, I try to have at least a few characters on each of the servers and like to lock in the names of some of my favorite existing characters). If the communities on any of these suffer after F2P is launched, I'll transfer my characters as necessary.
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It wouldn't matter what it was called. The simple fact that it is going to restrict access to active accounts means it is going to garner backlash.
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Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
The phenomenon is called reverse snobbery (and is closely related to envy). Paragon was just asking for a backlash by employing the term "VIP", which some people evidently have a congenital aversion to.
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Indeed. This is just the kind of Have's vs. Have-Not's split that I've seen on other games that have introduced an F2P component.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
It wouldn't matter what it was called. The simple fact that it is going to restrict access to active accounts means it is going to garner backlash.
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Still, for some people, the term "VIP" immediately conjures up the idea that there are "unimportant people". All those hours of stewing resentment behind a velvet rope of one sort or another as other people get into that ever-so-exclusive club come flooding back.
When another game company created a freemium version of one of their flagship games, they polled the current subscribers about mixing F2P players with the subscription players. The current subscribers answered with a resounding "No Way!"
That game company thusly created a single server just for the F2P players. Within a month, and pretty much steadily since launch, the subscribers from the flagship game have been copying over to the freemium server and setting up shop there.
The end result is that integration is happening on its own because the subscription-paying players discovered that the game was more fun with a larger population than it was being sequestered away from the F2P players.
As far as I know, the studio has never had any sort of segregation between subscribers and F2P players and I'm unaware of any major difficulties they've had as a result.
The VIP server is Paragon Studios giving the nod to the fact that some people simply won't mix with outsiders but that most of us either don't mind or will adjust quickly enough to the advantages of "mixing it up" that they'll regret having been sequestered.
If some folks really, really, want to be segregated, this allows them the option while the rest of us get on with playing the game with more people and a big flood of newbies to introduce to things like costume contests and learning to travel across the Hollows and the joys of discovering the world of Paragon City for the first time.
The only actual global benefit I can see coming from a VIP server is that CoH:Freedom becomes so wildly popular that every server has horrible lag and the VIP server is the one place to get away from it. If that actually happened, I trust that Paragon Studios would find a way to rectify the situation.
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I don't necessarily have a problem with this new Freemium announcement, but there is one thing that is really worrying me.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
The 'VIP' servers, to my mind, are the escape for all the Elitists and down-their-nose lookers who would just alienate genuine nice players and others and stop them adding to the game.
Good riddance, I say. I'll be waiting on Union to welcome the next batch of RPers. |
RMT Spambots.
What's going to keep them from setting up in popular areas and flooding local or broadcast with advertisements at five lines a second?
(Yes, I have seen this. In multiple MMOs. I am NOT exaggerating.)
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Um, no.|
Originally Posted by Darej
Not about to read through 29+ pages of the other thread so if its been discussed sorry.
Why does it feel like the VIP server is just a sneaky way to get consolidate the server lists without actually merging them all into one? Next step is to eventually remove the old non VIP servers. And you have one left. Then its all gone. Doom? |
The VIP sever Roger is there to allow VIPs one more server than everyone else, to run away and hide from the premium and free players, and to try and grab names that might be locked on others servers. Thats about it as far as I can tell.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
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That's a much better way of handling an F2P transition. Here's hoping that Paragon Studios will poll their player base to determine whether we'd prefer "VIP" servers or F2P servers to be launched with COH Freedom.|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
When another game company created a freemium version of one of their flagship games, they polled the current subscribers about mixing F2P players with the subscription players. The current subscribers answered with a resounding "No Way!"
That game company thusly created a single server just for the F2P players. Within a month, and pretty much steadily since launch, the subscribers from the flagship game have been copying over to the freemium server and setting up shop there. The end result is that integration is happening on its own because the subscription-paying players discovered that the game was more fun with a larger population than it was being sequestered away from the F2P players. |
The other benefit of this approach is that it leaves the decision up to P2P players about when to move to an F2P community instead of everything happening all at once. Conversely, it would be fair to allow F2P players to spend their Paragon/Reward Points to move to P2P servers. And in either case, actively committing to a given server psychologically encourages players to be good community members instead of taking things for granted.
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Frankly I'm completely confused over why you are all bent out of shape over the 1 lone single VIP server that is completely optional to use. I mean really its an optional thing that you can safely ignore with no consequence.
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Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
That's a much better way of handling an F2P transition. Here's hoping that Paragon Studios will poll their player base to determine whether we'd prefer "VIP" servers or F2P servers to be launched with COH Freedom.
The other benefit of this approach is that it leaves the decision up to P2P players about when to move to an F2P community instead of everything happening all at once. Conversely, it would be fair to allow F2P players to spend their Paragon/Reward Points to move to P2P servers. And in either case, actively committing to a given server psychologically encourages players to be good community members instead of taking things for granted. |
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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Well, they can't broadcast unless they spend money, so there's that. I'd expect it'll stay confined to /local.
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Originally Posted by LittleDavid
RMT Spambots.
What's going to keep them from setting up in popular areas and flooding local or broadcast with advertisements at five lines a second? (Yes, I have seen this. In multiple MMOs. I am NOT exaggerating.) |
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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I'm confused why you'd (mis)characterize my post you quoted or even my straightforward statement about my own plans for the "VIP" server and my general preference for F2P servers - which many players on the forums share - as being "bent out of shape" (or why the numeral "1" should be seven times larger than the rest of the text).
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Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
Frankly I'm completely confused over why you are all bent out of shape over the 1 lone single VIP server that is completely optional to use.
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Because you are going on in several spots where I have seen you seemingly annoyed, aggravated, not happy with the existence of the VIP server. Something that frankly since I never plan to play on it I'm not worried about the existence of. |
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
I'm confused why you'd (mis)characterize my post you quoted or even my straightforward statement about my own plans for the "VIP" server and my general preference for F2P servers - which many players on the forums share - as being "bent out of shape" (or why the numeral "1" should be seven times larger than the rest of the text).
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perhaps I am misinterpreting your concern but that is how it comes across to me. This is probably just the artifact of the text based discussion where if I had verbal and body language cues I might have an entirely different impression of your concerns.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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Perhaps. The semiotics of a top hat and monocle in my avatar do seem to have drawn charges of elitism from the start when the forums began discussing CoH F2P (The accusation of xenophobia does annoy me greatly, and I do not appreciate being baited.)|
Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
perhaps I am misinterpreting your concern but that is how it comes across to me.
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As an aside, the great irony is that I have no interest in being a "VIP". "VIP" is often marketing code for "charging extra for things that should come with normal service". Instead, I wish only to be treated as a paying customer, which includes not having literally game-changing new policies issued by surprise and being consulted in some form about preferences for the game's future.
I'm surprised, and disappointed, that SOE extended the latter courtesy to their players when Paragon has not.
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Because the free accounts only have access to local and team channels, nothing else. The local channel can simply be dropped from your chatbox and you'll never see any spam. If you invite an RMTer to your team and he starts spamming then kick him.
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Originally Posted by LittleDavid
I don't necessarily have a problem with this new Freemium announcement, but there is one thing that is really worrying me.
RMT Spambots. What's going to keep them from setting up in popular areas and flooding local or broadcast with advertisements at five lines a second? (Yes, I have seen this. In multiple MMOs. I am NOT exaggerating.) |
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