Two-handed weapon set

Bartender, pass that player another of whatever they're drinking on me.

I will point that the 3 new zones, 1-20 content, costumes (with Alpha and Omega being an additional paid for benefit if you pre-ordered), side switching were all part of the paid expansion which was...£20 in English money.

So if we're getting a boxed Expansions worth of content plus the boosters you're looking at what..an additional £50.

So looking at an additional £4 (roughly) every month ontop of your sub price, which equates to just under 1 booster packs worth of goods every month.

Still while I'm not as pessimistic as I was (if the powersets ARE 400 points as others have suggested while cosmetic stuff remains the 'buy points to get' it seems to balance out...still not happy about that situation though, considering 1 vet power costs 400 points was used as an example, it seems unlikely), I still think its a poor way to do things.

VIPs should get powersets free, make the Freeks and Premiums pay for them instead if you want the cash for them would be my personal take on what they should do.

Another thought that comes to mind...

If they make powersets so quickly that it becomes a financial burden, god bless them.

Here's a catch-22.

We've been clamoring for 'X' for a number of years. 'X' can be anything from the Staff fighting set to the MoonBase zone as long as it's something big.

A year from now 'X' is announced as coming, but it'll cost PP for everyone, including ViP's.

My knee jerk reaction would be the same as quite a few. I wouldn't tolerate it. Then I got to pondering.

What if the reason we never got 'X' before was simply a lack of funds. With the influx of cash from the store they were finally able to create it, however in order to create the next 'X' they'll need to charge us for it.


Would we accept this? If the fact was that we Never would have seen it under the old model?
Or in other words, is it worth it to pay for it if it would never be created otherwise?

The comment from Zwill during the Ustream about having
"Lot's more reasons to keep creating alts"
has me wondering if he's alluding to tons of new costumes items in the store, perhaps even some of the signature NPC items we've all craved for years. Or rather cosmetics + quite a few powersets they've been holding onto.

AS mentioned above it's all but confirmed that they will be charging for entire power sets. The mild mannered article goes so far as to say;

"One of the really cool elements that was shown off was something I inadvertently alluded to a few weeks back: two-handed melee weapons. It turns out that isn't coming in a Super Booster but in the new store. It also promises to change the dynamic of the weapon sets to reward a slightly different playstyle, emphasizing repeated weapon strikes in quick succession. Interesting stuff, to be sure, although I was told that it won't quite be ready for the store's launch. But hey, you have to leave something for further on down the line."

While I can see the reasoning for this as I stated above I do have to wonder if it's the best approach. We're wanting to lure the freebers into subscribing. Seeing the ViP's running around with freshly launched powersets could be just that kind of motivation. Then again, the new sets would be more enticing to those of use already familiar with what's live, so we'd be the market for them...

The Power Set being cited as being "in the store" could just be for Premiums/Free... Where as VIP could get them automatically (just like MMs and Controllers).
It could also be a mistake, but that probably would have been corrected with an official statement by now.

Another thing...
If the points make things free for VIPs, how would they make money off of VIPs in order to increase revenue? Just from some players buying things because they want it NAO instead of gradually collecting it all through points?
Impulse purchases?
I understand that they hope to get more funds in from Free/Premium players... And that, theoretically, the Booster Pack expenses we've had the option to buy will be achieved through the store by providing more items than we can afford with just in-game points...
But to think that they'll be able to kick out a noticeable amount of content greater than before, due to incoming revenue, I think that is only possible if VIPs are paying for it (other than the simple increase through Free Players becoming VIPs = more subscriptions... but we'll see if that happens. We could end up with less paid subscribers... *shrugs*).

Good point about the Set being in the store for Freebers/Prems. Surprised that didn't occur to me.

I don't expect an increase in the amount they can create. Rather I believe they've been 'ramping up' for this all year long. Probaly one of the reasons why the past few issues have seemed like we were headed in an 'All Incarnate all the time' direction was simply because that was the content they needed in place before this.

The comments from Zwill and Jay seem to indicate they are withholding a plethora of goodies specifically for the purpose of fleshing out the store and enticing us ViP's into rapidly spending our points.

So yes, I do expect a flood of content to be forthcoming, not because I think they can suddenly create tons more but rather because they've all but told us they've already got it made!

Understood, and logical, MaestroMavius.
And, just for the record, the things in my post were not directed solely at you.
I've seen people expecting/anticipating/hoping-for more content/goodies throughout the forums.

And I am certainly not saying that it won't happen. It might!
It may happen just because they've got a good-sized team, have come up with more efficient ways to do more things and/or they've decided to commit more time and resources on adding more stuff! The team is still vastly bigger than it was before Going Rogue, right? And Going Rogue ate up a lot of time and resources. If they've been toying around and holding things back... the regular flow of things in the future could be greater than we've seen so far (see? Now I am one of the people talking about expecting/hoping for more bang for my buck).
And... hey, I hope that this new business model does bring in more money and that pays for them making more stuff and they can keep right on making more awesome stuff and so on and so forth.
I absolutely feel the same way as Arcanaville... in that they are going to be watched with wary eyes from their existing customerbase and if they try and pull more money out of us or give us less stuff with our basic subscription, it will be noticed and will cause much havoc, hehe.

They'd be crazy to pull that and it'd be fantastic to get a bit more for our money... but we'll see.
I'm optimistic that this could happen, but also have the same opinions as BillZ about corporate interests being completely counter to that (and untrustworthy).

Well maybe we, as the community, need to set a low-water line so the Devs know how much stuff we expect to be able to get for our subscription (However it comes, either just as VIP only or with accumulated points.

How about we pick a year as a base and enumerate costumes/powersets/zones/arcs/[T/S]Fs/Weapons/features that we'd expect?

Even if Paragon don't want to talk about costs yet, we might get a "Yes you'll get more than that" out of them.

I mean we can't claim "You must give VIPs all the new power sets without points cost" if they produce a powerset every month but if we're expecting 2-ish a year and some proliferation then I think we should get those whole cloth without points, again, depending on the cost of the other stuff.

Personally I see the points as the most valuable for discrete costume parts, I'm sick of getting those in bundles as there are lots of parts in the boosters I have no interest in. This also encourages the gfx artist to not take shortcuts with costume options as each piece would have to stand up well on their own.

A few points:

1. If they had indeed created all that content, but intentionally held it back so they can put it in the store, giving me "lite" issues for coming on an entire year, that will not reflect positively on my attitude going into Freedom. Negatively impacting the rate at which I, as a subscriber, get things so that they have more stuff to peddle in the store is not cool.

2. "A month's stipend" is far, far, FAR too expensive for what should be in a regular Issue and, as such, I as a subscriber should be entitled to for the price of my subscription. If we end up having to pay real money for things like zones, powersets or enhancements, I'm going to start asking what my $15 is going into.

3. To stick to the topic, a two-handed "weapon" set has been a long time coming. I kind of hope it has something to do with weapon customization rather than a brand new set, but at this point that's not very likely. An emphasis on repeated strikes sounds like something I've suggested in the past, where a polearm weapon would have an extra "wind up" and "wind down" animation every time you have to start attacking from a dead stop and every time you go to a dead stop, meaning you can attack faster if you queue up attacks one after the other, rather than if you leave gaps in your attack chain.

4. It's high time they finish BABs work and remove weapon draw when an attack is applicable to be used, leaving it in only if you attempt to activate an attack with nothing or a friendly targeted, while being out of range, out of line of sight, out of energy or otherwise unable to execute said attack. This would allow me to mix weapon and non-weapon attacks, such as Broadsword with Fighting powers, without feeling like a fool for doing so.

5. If this is part of I21 and the Freedom launch, then they're starting very strong. Between this, the First Ward, the revamps of Galaxy City, Atlas Park and Mercy Island and the costumes they've promised, things look a lot less grim than they might otherwise. It all comes down to how much of that stuff I, as a subscriber, am going to end up paying extra for, and which content in particular that will be.

Quote:

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.

Anyone else have the sinking suspicion that the Paragon points will be about as useful as AMEX points?