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I still don't consider the i20 TFs to be non-Incarnate, but I'm eating my crow here, so have your yucks. It's my last day anyway.
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Originally Posted by TrueMetal
there was in Issue 20 (mid level TFs)
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Really? You're saying level 20-40 characters are doing incarnate content? That's.... an interesting take on it.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I still don't consider the i20 TFs to be non-Incarnate, but I'm eating my crow here, so have your yucks. It's my last day anyway.
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"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
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Quote:
Both stories are intimately tied to the Incarnate storyline, and the Strike Force even returns Incarnate rewards.
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Originally Posted by Zubenelgenubi
Really? You're saying level 20-40 characters are doing incarnate content? That's.... an interesting take on it.
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Yes. They are engaged in content that is part of the giant, overarching, mythos-flattening (crushing, even), Incarnate storyline.
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Originally Posted by Zubenelgenubi
Really? You're saying level 20-40 characters are doing incarnate content? That's.... an interesting take on it.
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Oh..now I am excited!!! So basically if I still subscribe, I should get the same level of gaming PLUS 400 extra points to spend. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think you misunderstand. I hope that my subscription buys at least as much game as it did before if not more, period. I expect my subscription to provide at least the same level of game as it has previously, and as a practical matter it should be at least minimally better.
Totally separate from that, the 400 points should buy me something nice, but it should be all gravy. If that gravy is a hearty wine reduction with garlic and shalots, fantastic. If its peppercorns and pan scrapings, its still all good. The real purpose to the 400 points isn't a cash back reward. Its that actually, buying things ala carte can be fun, engaging, and empowering all its own. The 400 points is to ensure that VIP subscribers *also* have at least some access to that side of the house for no extra cost: that they can play with the house's chips as it were, to get them involved with the system. This is a form of empowerment that the premium players get automatically as part of satisfying their need to buy many parts of the game we VIPers get for free. But the devs want to get us involved as well - and to be honest hope we decide we *want* to buy some of the new shinies as well - so they comp us some chips to see what happens. If you can exercise self-control, the 400 points will be free money. if not, it might be the loss-leader that gets players spending even more money. But either way, the choice is the players to decide what to do with it. But it is *not* supposed to buy what your subscription used to buy. Your subscription plus the 400 points should net to what you're getting now *combined* at the very least, and for this model to be truly successful your subscription alone, without even counting the 400 points, should continue to deliver $14.95 of content. The 400 points isn't supposed to be delivering $14.95 of content on top of the $14.95 you're supposed to be getting with your subscription, and it would be amazing bordering on ludicrous if it did. |
Well, judging from what you've described, it sounds like a good plan to me. One thing I don't like about buying Booster Packs is that sometimes I only want one of the pieces. I may just want to spend $5 on Ninja Run but I don't care much for the costume pieces. So instead of paying $10 for the whole pack, I only need to spend up to $5 worth of points for Ninja Run and specific emote.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
One thing I think the dev needs to clear up is that the game isn't on its "last leg" and trying to gamble on F2P model.
I hear that rants a lot in the game last night. People were guessing, suspecting and even worried that the game is failing and the dev is just trying to pull one "last trick".
I've noticed some decline in # of players after Going Rogue but I've also noticed player population is not evenly "spread out". You can see whole bunch of people in Cap, Altas, RWZ or Pocket D and when you go to Port Oaks, you see nobody is there. That may give some people an impression that the game has fewer number of players.
I tried to explain to my friends that switching to F2P doesn't mean the game is on its last leg. I used to play Lord of Ring Online and if I remember correctly, it was ranked #3 in terms of the number of players but in the end, they still switched to F2P and even gained more profits from the model.
City Of is still the BEST Super Hero game on the market. If CoX fails somehow, then I am afraid the whole Super Hero genre is dying.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that Business needs to adapt. More and more games are using F2P model and the new generation of "gamers" are expecting to play the game "for free" and only "pay when they want to". I run a pretty successful online store myself and if that's what the market wants, then my business needs to change, adapt and cater to the new customers. This doesn't mean my business is failing when I switch away from "membership only".
And honestly, would you rather have this game fail in the end and get closed down, or would you rather have this game do something to make it better?
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Brian Clayton addressed this to a certain extent in his letter to the community and the ustreams touched on this as well, but the sign that this isn't a last ditch effort to save the game is that this has been in motion for a very long time. No one plans last ditch efforts that take over a year to implement. If they thought the game was on its last legs, taking a year to develop Freedom would have been too long: the game wouldn't be around or healthy enough to matter.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
One thing I think the dev needs to clear up is that the game isn't on its "last leg" and trying to gamble on F2P model.
I hear that rants a lot in the game last night. People were guessing, suspecting and even worried that the game is failing and the dev is just trying to pull one "last trick". |
Second Measure mentions that Paragon Studios performed significant changes to their development structures to streamline themselves for the ramp up to Freedom, including the creation of strike teams internal to the company that were designed to focus on particular areas of the game. I know for a fact that was happening at the beginning of 2010 because I heard the term "strike team" that far back. So the seeds of Freedom go back at least that far.
With a launch date that is probably out in the September/October timeframe, that will mean that when City of Heroes Freedom launches, it will have been in development for about two years. Does that sound like an act of desperation?
There's no question that this is an attempt to grow the game. The devs have admitted as much that its hard for a seven year old game to grab mindshare and attract newer players. What we can do is retain existing ones with our seven years of content and depth of gameplay. So they see Freedom as a way to bridge that gap: get people interested in the game again and get people playing with a minimal barrier to entry. That's why free to play. That's why the game client will launch within a couple minutes of starting the installer - the idea is to get them in the game, quickly. Once here, the hope is the game will sell itself. Some will play for free forever. But I doubt many will. Many will become premium players, playing the game ala carte and coming and going casually because there's no money on the line if they take a break for a week, a month, or a year. Some will become VIP subscribers, and some of them will become long-term veteran players.
So its not like Paragon doesn't need Freedom to succeed. It does. I think they realize that something dramatic like this was the only way to grow and evolve the game. But the game doesn't need to have been *failing* for Paragon Studios to want to grow and expand the game. We don't even *consider* for one instant that Catalysm was a desperation move on the part of Blizzard, because we all know their Mr. T budget is probably higher than Paragon Studios' office lease. Most MMOs continuously try to push the boundaries of what they do, constantly try to figure out ways to attract new players to their game, and figure out ways to deliver newer and more interesting content. For some companies, and not just NCSoft, the Hybrid model is part of that overall strategy.
I think many people are operating under a curious fallacy. That fallacy is that either City of Heroes was successful, so Freedom wasn't necessary, or Freedom was necessary, so City of Heroes wasn't successful. In other words the only reason to transition to a Hybrid model is at the end of a gun. But that's very wrong. If you're going to do this, the time to start, and the time to launch, is when you are still strong. If you're weak when you launch, you may be too weak for the model to help you any more. And if you're weak when you start development, you'll be rushed to launch too early, before you have all the structures necessary to make it work, before you have a well thought out plan for what to sell, before you've stocked your shelves, before you figure out how to compensate your VIPs, and before you've generated enough related content to launch big, and loud, and in a way people will notice, and be attracted to actually try the game whether its free or not. Its no coincidence that Issue 21 is designed to be a very large issue, designed to update the introductory content from the tutorial through the low level mission. Its no coincidence the devs forced the NCSoft launcher on us, so that they could eventually move to the quickstart launcher that can get a new player in the game in a couple minutes. They aren't just opening the doors to free players, they are giving new players an experience worth trying out the game.
Why now, if this is not a desperation move? It was only a few years ago when some big names made this transition to the hybrid model of freemium buttressing the subscription model. Its taken that long for other companies to see the results of that transition, and try to learn what works and what doesn't. And now you're seeing the second wave of companies try to apply those lessons to their own games. NCSoft is one of them, but not the only one. Its happening now because to be honest, others have shown it can work. The trick for Paragon Studios is to make it work with their own unique circumstances and in their own way.
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I hope the doomsayers read your post and really mull it over. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think many people are operating under a curious fallacy. That fallacy is that either City of Heroes was successful, so Freedom wasn't necessary, or Freedom was necessary, so City of Heroes wasn't successful. In other words the only reason to transition to a Hybrid model is at the end of a gun. But that's very wrong. If you're going to do this, the time to start, and the time to launch, is when you are still strong.
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Changes this big will inevitably involve a few missteps and they'll have to tweak and adjust as they go along. Paragon seems to have studied other games' business models and is trying to incorporate what has worked for others while trying to avoid some of the pitfalls. Time will tell but I think this bodes well for CoH.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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I agree, but I think it might be more than that.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
There's no question that this is an attempt to grow the game.
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The economy is still in recovery for people who aren't making six figure salaries. Austerity measures are the call of the day. Cable companies are worried because cable is a luxury. I see no reason why City of Heroes can't be similarly concerned.
Cable companies require lots of subscribers, but they don't suffer cascading failure the same way that MMOs do. It doesn't matter if all my friends stop paying for cable, it does not effect my television viewing experience (it could actually improve it; my friends might come over to watch television with me). If all my friends stop playing because they can't afford it anymore it negatively impacts my City of Heroes experience. I have less incentive to continue playing.
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They should post this in the announcement section of the launch screen!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Brian Clayton addressed this to a certain extent in his letter to the community and the ustreams touched on this as well, but the sign that this isn't a last ditch effort to save the game is that this has been in motion for a very long time. No one plans last ditch efforts that take over a year to implement. If they thought the game was on its last legs, taking a year to develop Freedom would have been too long: the game wouldn't be around or healthy enough to matter.
Second Measure mentions that Paragon Studios performed significant changes to their development structures to streamline themselves for the ramp up to Freedom, including the creation of strike teams internal to the company that were designed to focus on particular areas of the game. I know for a fact that was happening at the beginning of 2010 because I heard the term "strike team" that far back. So the seeds of Freedom go back at least that far. With a launch date that is probably out in the September/October timeframe, that will mean that when City of Heroes Freedom launches, it will have been in development for about two years. Does that sound like an act of desperation? There's no question that this is an attempt to grow the game. The devs have admitted as much that its hard for a seven year old game to grab mindshare and attract newer players. What we can do is retain existing ones with our seven years of content and depth of gameplay. So they see Freedom as a way to bridge that gap: get people interested in the game again and get people playing with a minimal barrier to entry. That's why free to play. That's why the game client will launch within a couple minutes of starting the installer - the idea is to get them in the game, quickly. Once here, the hope is the game will sell itself. Some will play for free forever. But I doubt many will. Many will become premium players, playing the game ala carte and coming and going casually because there's no money on the line if they take a break for a week, a month, or a year. Some will become VIP subscribers, and some of them will become long-term veteran players. So its not like Paragon doesn't need Freedom to succeed. It does. I think they realize that something dramatic like this was the only way to grow and evolve the game. But the game doesn't need to have been *failing* for Paragon Studios to want to grow and expand the game. We don't even *consider* for one instant that Catalysm was a desperation move on the part of Blizzard, because we all know their Mr. T budget is probably higher than Paragon Studios' office lease. Most MMOs continuously try to push the boundaries of what they do, constantly try to figure out ways to attract new players to their game, and figure out ways to deliver newer and more interesting content. For some companies, and not just NCSoft, the Hybrid model is part of that overall strategy. I think many people are operating under a curious fallacy. That fallacy is that either City of Heroes was successful, so Freedom wasn't necessary, or Freedom was necessary, so City of Heroes wasn't successful. In other words the only reason to transition to a Hybrid model is at the end of a gun. But that's very wrong. If you're going to do this, the time to start, and the time to launch, is when you are still strong. If you're weak when you launch, you may be too weak for the model to help you any more. And if you're weak when you start development, you'll be rushed to launch too early, before you have all the structures necessary to make it work, before you have a well thought out plan for what to sell, before you've stocked your shelves, before you figure out how to compensate your VIPs, and before you've generated enough related content to launch big, and loud, and in a way people will notice, and be attracted to actually try the game whether its free or not. Its no coincidence that Issue 21 is designed to be a very large issue, designed to update the introductory content from the tutorial through the low level mission. Its no coincidence the devs forced the NCSoft launcher on us, so that they could eventually move to the quickstart launcher that can get a new player in the game in a couple minutes. They aren't just opening the doors to free players, they are giving new players an experience worth trying out the game. Why now, if this is not a desperation move? It was only a few years ago when some big names made this transition to the hybrid model of freemium buttressing the subscription model. Its taken that long for other companies to see the results of that transition, and try to learn what works and what doesn't. And now you're seeing the second wave of companies try to apply those lessons to their own games. NCSoft is one of them, but not the only one. Its happening now because to be honest, others have shown it can work. The trick for Paragon Studios is to make it work with their own unique circumstances and in their own way. |
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Quote:
Must make it very hard to set the thermostat in your home. Do the two of you change it when you think the other isn't looking ?|
Originally Posted by Silver Gale
My husband and I have vastly different ideas of what is a "comfortable" temperature. What he considers about right I consider too cold, what I consider about right he considers too hot.
We are not going to agree on a "open the window" estimate of the weather - either I'll say it's too cold or he'll say it's too warm. However, if we look at an objective measurement like temperature, and see yesterday was 18 Celcius while today is 16 C, we will both agree that today is colder than yesterday (even if I would consider today "too cold" and he "chilly but bearable"). |
Anyway if you think about it and look at the things the devs have been doing over the past 6-9 months, a good portion of it seems to be testing how grind sensitive the playerbase as a whole is. CoP, Apex, Tin Mage, first round Itrials.
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Still not hearing the magic words: "Hey, VIPs! We're not discontinuing or raising the rates on any of our current subscription plans! You can still buy 12 months of CoH in advance for only $11.99/month!" Seriously, if the rates don't stay the same, I'm likely to be gone for a nice long while exploring Champions Online F2P.
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Originally Posted by Second Measure
From the beginning, our primary goal has always been to add more value for our subscribers....We've got more people working to ensure not just that we add greater and greater value to your subscription....
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They have stated in UStream that our subscription cost will not, at the least, go up.
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Originally Posted by Ice_Wall
Let me say this, as my own persona add-on to what Arcanaville is saying..
The Dev's took time out of their day on a saturday to bring in a couple dozen players and get our feedback. And when I say took some time, I mean a whole saturday. Fed us, gave us breaks and most of us were there for most of the day. It wasn't just a couple either. People from marketing, design , production, and the community relations team were there, getting feedback on a lot of the stuff coming in CoH:Freedom. They took notes, they listened to what we said, they responded to feedback they spent a day picking our brains. Not just old hands either, they had a nice cross section of players, older, newer etc. A few times when one of us said we had concerns about an option or a proposed idea, they immediately started throwing other options or variations of the idea at us to see if something else would be better. They took it very seriously, and I wasn't thrilled about the idea of F2P to start, but I left thinking that they had a great handle on it, and that these people are dedicated to this game, they love it, they are passionate about it and they very much want to keep their fans. Conversations I had with a number of them told me that, not because they said it, but because everything they said pointed to it. Yes, there will be some people that will always be unhappy. But honestly I think if people keep an open mind to what's coming they will see this could be a great thing for the game and a lot of cool stuff could be coming our way. |
This is how I think games should be designed and upgraded. Ask the players what they think. If something is out of reach for now...say so. Most of us are big kids...we can take it. If something we want is already in the pipeline...tell us so but don't elaborate. No sense spoiling Christmas after all. When the players ask for something that is just too hard to implement or desired by too small of a community...tell us that too. Like I said...we can take it.
Reading this makes me happy. I like the idea of buying Rewards ala cart. I've complained for a while now that some of the Rewards, especially early ones (like Anime costume pieces) were of no use to me. If I can buy what I want and skip the rest then yay.
Still hoping for some Base luv but everything that I've read makes me more positive than ever we'll get it.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
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Yeah, I was probably concerned over nothing. My concern was based in the fact that I never saw it mentioned on any of the pages I'd reviewed of Champions Online that their subscription fee was anything other than a standard $14.99/month plan, but I just now checked the "Upgrade to Gold" page, and they at least have a $12.99*6/6 months plan. So, worst-case I could see CoH dropping the $11.99*12/12 months plan, but I hope they don't.|
Originally Posted by ShadowWings
They have stated in UStream that our subscription cost will not, at the least, go up.
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I wonder if CoH will offer a lifetime subscription? Champions charges $300 for a lifetime subscription, which is roughly the same as paying 2 years in advance. If I ever decided to go Gold on Champions, I'd probably just plunk down for lifetime instead, but right now I'm having a hard time figuring out the benefit of Gold vs. F2P there. Yeah, I know that I'm limited with power customization, costume customization, number of characters I can create, all that stuff, but aside from the Adventure Pack content, inventory bags, and extra character slots, there hasn't been a whole lot of stuff that has leaped out at me. Now, on CoH, of course, I've already got so much stuff that would be considered VIP that I would need to stay VIP upon the startup of CoH Freedom to continue enjoying the game as I used to, so if CoH offers a lifetime subscription at around the same price, I'd take it for sure.
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Indeed. Zwillinger stated in the Off the Cape podcast that there is currently no plan to offer a lifetime subscription and he felt it was highly unlikely in the near future.
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Originally Posted by NewScrapper
Now, on CoH, of course, I've already got so much stuff that would be considered VIP that I would need to stay VIP upon the startup of CoH Freedom to continue enjoying the game as I used to, so if CoH offers a lifetime subscription at around the same price, I'd take it for sure.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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Makes sense to me. Players have been willing for 7 years to fork over around $150/year to play regularly. No sense in limiting your cash flow if you don't have to.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Indeed. Zwillinger stated in the Off the Cape podcast that there is currently no plan to offer a lifetime subscription and he felt it was highly unlikely in the near future.
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Reminds me of how I was first shocked to find that Champions Online doesn't offer any real package deals for Atari tokens. You buy 5000 tokens all at once, and it's the same cost as buying 500 tokens ten times. But I guess if you're going to buy the tokens, you're going to buy the tokens, and that's the long and short of it. I spent $6.25 to get 500 tokens when Champions was doing an 80% off sale on Adventure Pack content -- now I've got 420 tokens left, waiting for another good sale on something I want. Still it seems Champions would have done better to give me even a *slight* discount on buying 5000 tokens, because then they'd have, say, $60 from me, and I'd have 4920 tokens sitting around, waiting for the next good sale -- the point being they'd have $60 right now to invest in more programming rather than just $6.25. I don't know...would the positive influx of $60 upfront not outweigh the long-run loss of $2.50? Apparently not, since they're not offering discounts. Just wondering if CoH Freedom will take the same tack.
Quote:
We don't have a thermostat. Just a tiny apartment with gas heating.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Must make it very hard to set the thermostat in your home. Do the two of you change it when you think the other isn't looking ?
Anyway if you think about it and look at the things the devs have been doing over the past 6-9 months, a good portion of it seems to be testing how grind sensitive the playerbase as a whole is. CoP, Apex, Tin Mage, first round Itrials. |
Apex, Tin Mage and CoP are grindy now? They each take less than two hours and there's very little incentive to repeat them. They give nothing that you can't get elsewhere in about the same time. Sure, people run them a lot because they're new, and short, and quite fun, but I dunno how that makes them grind.
The Trials, yeah, they're pretty grindy, but by all accounts we'll be getting more Trials before we get more slots, so that's actually going to get less grindy by the end of this year.
Character index
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Both stories are intimately tied to the invasion story line. The only thing incarnate involved in these two TF's is that the guy who ordered the invasion (who we don't ever see) is an incarnate. |
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Both stories are intimately tied to the Incarnate storyline, and the Strike Force even returns Incarnate rewards.
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And ALL TF's in the game give incarnate rewards now, don't they? Are you saying that Positron's TF is "incarnate content" now because of this?
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
Quote:
Give it up. They made up their mind.
|
Originally Posted by Zubenelgenubi
Both stories are intimately tied to the invasion story line. The only thing incarnate involved in these two TF's is that the guy who ordered the invasion (who we don't ever see) is an incarnate.
And ALL TF's in the game give incarnate rewards now, don't they? Are you saying that Positron's TF is "incarnate content" now because of this? |
"If you build it, they will run you over with it."-RPG Designers Mantra
Working on: YotZ Legends: Even Heroes Die (First Round Edit)
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If I had to guess (which I pretty much do) I'd say he's rewriting it to address the CoT redesign issue.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
So where's the July letter then?
 |
----- Union's finest underachiever -----
Farewell CITY of HEROES
The First, the Last, the One.
Union: @ominousvoice2059
He was also very busy at SDCC, which would have taken up a bit of time.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Can we please get the July and August producer letters as well as the release of I21 and Freedom in the next two weeks?
Thanks!
Now, extra base items and stuff (statues of your characters anyone?) is something that has limited appeal to some if not most and a lot of appeal to others. Because of it's limited appeal I imagine that stuff like that isn't high on the priority list, so it doesn't fit into the regular issue budget. So it would make more sense as gravy.
Always remember, we were Heroes.