Answering some Freedom Questions
By
A Man In Black,
Posted on: 2011-06-23 16:34 in Developers' Corner
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Somehow, I have a feeling that the general response to your postings will have little impact on attracting new and former subscribers, if for no other reason than only a small percentage of players ever read or post on the forums.|
Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
Yet another reason that attracting new and former subscribers will be difficult....The Community that just got done attacking every word I said. You might not have agreed with me but at no time did I become rude or hateful to any single poster. At the same time, I have seen nothing but rudeness and disrespect for my opinion directed my way.
You wonder why people leave and don't want to pay?? Look in the mirrors. |
That's completely separate from the fact that I still haven't seen a coherent point being made. You seem to have a bunch of contradictory foundational ideas that you're leveraging to justify whatever it is your preferences happen to be, under the guise of them having an objective benefit to the game as a whole. It is apparently not enough to some people to simply say "I would prefer X; I have no specific justification for that preference other than I would prefer it." They have to believe that their preferences have some objective net benefit in all cases and will manufacture such when its not obviously so.
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Originally Posted by Genson
People are angry because you don't seem to unders'tand that you never paid for these things. You paid for the ability for your game client to support these things while you were renting them. If you pay a microtransaction you will have paid for these things.
Please stop saying they are taking what you paid for. When you bought that box it never said you were paying for the right to access those things. You were not under the impression when you bought that box that anything in this game was yours to access. That box gives you the ability to rent things for a sub or buy them with a microtransaction. It never included ownership to any of the items you claim it did. |
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Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
You do not now nor can you ever OWN anything within the game world.
Paying for the box allows you to RENT the AT's, the game world, etc. That is all. |
When the devs put out a statement that amounts to "You'll always keep what you buy," but then it's followed by "Well, except for this, and this, and this," and the exceptions have to be explained by a convoluted process involving heavy use of the words "Well, technically..." it kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Personally, I would much rather they had not made the statement at all - it would have been more palatable and certainly easier to understand if they had just said, "Free players get A and B and C, and in addition, to thank you for your previous patronage, Premium members will enjoy access to D through J!"
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I'm sorry you feel that way. It seems like a somewhat unfair characterization of the community's response to you, which seems to have evolved from attempts to explain the system to a frustration with what some would perceive as circular logic.|
Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
Yet another reason that attracting new and former subscribers will be difficult....The Community that just got done attacking every word I said. You might not have agreed with me but at no time did I become rude or hateful to any single poster. At the same time, I have seen nothing but rudeness and disrespect for my opinion directed my way.
You wonder why people leave and don't want to pay?? Look in the mirrors. |
To provide a specific example, you state that you know people who don't want to resub because of the AT restrictions. However, if they actually re-subbed, they would have no restrictions on AT availability. I understand that what you probably meant was, "So they won't come back and play for free," but if the issue really is, "You can't get everything a subscribing player has when you play for free as a returning player," then I'm afraid I can't say I feel much sympathy for the position. There ought to be restrictions on both levels of free accounts, else why would anyone bother paying a subscription at all?
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
I'll apologize now for being harsh.
But as was stated by the poster above me, Bloodwynd's "logic" was just so frustrating to make sense of it was just maddening trying to understand it in a business sense.
Again I apologize.
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I think in this particular case (AT restrictions) the rationale is that maintaining a degree of goodwill will make non-subscribers who are on the fence more likely to subscribe.|
Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
I understand that what you probably meant was, "So they won't come back and play for free," but if the issue really is, "You can't get everything a subscribing player has when you play for free as a returning player," then I'm afraid I can't say I feel much sympathy for the position. There ought to be restrictions on both levels of free accounts, else why would anyone bother paying a subscription at all?
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I'm kind of on the fence right now - I have two accounts, one with around 5 1/2 years of vet status and one with around 4. My primary account is currently active, but has been off-and-on since around January; the secondary has been inactive since then. My inactivity has been due to a confluence of financial instability, dissatisfaction with the current focus on end-game "raid" content and its effects on overall game balance, and the fact that nearly all of my friends have already left, mostly due to boredom.
If I choose to continue my primary account subscription, it will be primarily for access to my Alpha incarnate slots. I enjoy running a trial every so often, but I certainly don't enjoy them enough to grind them over and over for rewards. My second account will likely stay at the Premium level. Even though 4 years of vet status means I should have enough time in to unlock Controllers and MMs automatically, I just don't like the way the announcement of "Keep everything you bought" was handled.
It's like being told "Everyone gets free cake!" and finding out a little down the line that free cake doesn't actually include the frosting, or the filling, or the plate. But hey, we'll throw in this fork!
It's not like you can get mad at free cake - it's free, after all - but it's certainly not everything you were led to expect. It feels disingenuous. I certainly don't think the devs are out to screw anyone (and for the most part, they're probably not the ones making decisions on which features are included with which subscription level, anyway) but there are probably people for whom the announcement was a deliberate attempt at a bait-and-switch. Players who feel like they've been intentionally tricked in order to get at their wallets are going to leave on principle, even if there are enough desirable perks in the VIP package that they would otherwise subscribe.
Personally, I just think the devs should be far more careful when making blanket statements of this kind. I also wish that there were some consistency to what features will be included or excluded from the rule. It's a bit irritating to have to follow every thread on the subject so closely, because otherwise you'll miss clarification on exactly why you'll still have feature X but not feature Y. Slots are rented, except when they're purchased; so are powersets, even if you can't use them because you've only rented the associated archetype. You need Going Rogue to access incarnate content, but you'll still be locked out of it if you drop to Premium. Note that I'm not necessarily arguing the specifics of *which* features will be available - I'm just bemoaning the fact that we practically need a roadmap to figure it all out.
Which has been what I have been trying to say. The Devs state that once you buy something in Freedom it is yours. I am stating that boxed sets were already purchased and therefore the content within are yours. I could actually even make the argument that since people bought GR that all of GR should be available including incarnates by the same logic.
It won't happen but the argument is still there.
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Here's the problem with that idea and it's written right in your post.|
Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
Which has been what I have been trying to say. The Devs state that once you buy something in Freedom it is yours. I am stating that boxed sets were already purchased and therefore the content within are yours. I could actually even make the argument that since people bought GR that all of GR should be available including incarnates by the same logic.
It won't happen but the argument is still there. |
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| The Devs state that once you buy something in Freedom it is yours. |
Also consider this... the box sets grant you nothing except access to content WHILE YOU HAVE AN ACTIVE SUBSCRIPTION. This doesn't change when Freedom launches however much you wish it would.
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You have no idea how often I warn the devs that saying anything other than the absolute minimum irreducible truth is likely to be misinterpreted, often deliberately, by a possibly large number of people, and its something they should avoid whenever possible.|
Originally Posted by Selina_H
Personally, I just think the devs should be far more careful when making blanket statements of this kind.
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But either way, its blatantly obvious that we as customers bought boxed editions and booster packs that included content AND we pay a subscription that entitles us to access that content. NO ONE has ever bought access rights to anything explicitly because only subscriptions grant access to any part of the game. Anyone who thinks they "bought" access to anything in this game is essentially saying their subscription dollars are just a donation that don't buy anything.
The more I hear the "logic" behind the argument that all the content in boxed editions is "bought" and therefore should be "owned" by players whether they pay a subscription or not, the less I think its a good idea to even entertain the notion. Its a sense of entitlement I increasingly think isn't just nonsensical and safe to ignore, but rather dangerous and should be actively quashed by the game's structure itself.
Or to put it more directly, the more this argument is made, the more I find myself less thinking its not a good idea, and more thinking its an increasingly bad idea, because the logic behind it is completely untenable. The number of people who believe also becomes increasingly irrelevant the less reasonable it increasingly appears to be. That's the hallmark of an incredibly toxic idea.
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That is no where near blatantly obvious, nor true.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
But either way, its blatantly obvious that we as customers bought boxed editions and booster packs that included content AND we pay a subscription that entitles us to access that content. NO ONE has ever bought access rights to anything explicitly because only subscriptions grant access to any part of the game. Anyone who thinks they "bought" access to anything in this game is essentially saying their subscription dollars are just a donation that don't buy anything.
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As I posted before, there is a portion (I predict a large portion) of MMO players that hold the perception (I'm not even touching on if it is a correct perception) that they purchase the content, and the subscription price is renting time on the servers.
I think this is so engrained, that should someone find a way to mirror a CoX server and offer subscriptions for $7.99 a month, people would flock to it - never even considering anything illegal might be happening.
Right or wrong, consumers have had centuries to develop the belief that they own what they purchase (so much so, I've known people who believe they have the right to do anything they want with things they rent because they are "paying money for it").
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Some people believe the Earth is flat also.|
Originally Posted by Morgan Reed
That is no where near blatantly obvious, nor true.
As I posted before, there is a portion (I predict a large portion) of MMO players that hold the perception (I'm not even touching on if it is a correct perception) that they purchase the content, and the subscription price is renting time on the servers. I think this is so engrained, that should someone find a way to mirror a CoX server and offer subscriptions for $7.99 a month, people would flock to it - never even considering anything illegal might be happening. Right or wrong, consumers have had centuries to develop the belief that they own what they purchase (so much so, I've known people who believe they have the right to do anything they want with things they rent because they are "paying money for it"). |
This has nothing to do with situations like restrictive EULAs. This is really simple. If you believe you have purchased access rights to the content in Going Rogue, then you believe if you stop subscribing you should still have that access. If you believe you've purchased access rights to *all* the content released up to this point, then you should believe subscribing is itself meaningless, since it purchases no benefit (at least as it pertains to accessing the game).
If you believe that your subscription buys access to the game and that's why you subscribe, but you also believe you bought access to the content permanently by buying the boxed editions of the game, then you are in fact an idiot.
As to people who think using an unauthorized server to play the game not thinking that was illegal (which is different from knowing its illegal and doing it anyway), see flat Earth above.
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Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
. I could actually even make the argument that since people bought GR that all of GR should be available including incarnates by the same logic.
It won't happen but the argument is still there. |
And that particular argument is still wrong. GR did not include Incarnates. We got Incarnates with the launch of Issue 19. Yes, GR was required to be able to access the Incarnate system, but Incarnates were not included with the launch of Going Rogue.
It's very similar to when CoV launched. There were base portals everywhere, but unless you had applied CoV to your account, people that had bought CoH had no access to bases even though they could see the portals. CoV was required for CoH accounts to be able to access bases. Period.
So, even if you go strictly by your previous definition that you should have access to whatever content was included when you bought the box, that would leave out the Incarnate content since it wasn't included in the GR box.
GR and Issue 18 (for those that didn't purchase GR)released on August 16, 2010. Issue 19 released on November 30, 2010. That's slightly over 3 months between release dates. Well outside the timeframe of "included with the box purchase".
EDIT: Yes, I'm well aware that the Incarnate content was at one time planned to be a part of GR. I'm also aware that there was going to be a preview of the Alpha Slot as part of GR. It didn't make the cut, so it wasn't included. There goes the "included in the box" or even "it was supposed to be included in the box but was pulled". At one time, Origins were supposed to matter. Things change.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
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Yes I agree things change....
I remember the Catherdral of Pain was an I6 boxed feature....that went live when???
Just sayin...
The devs are going to have a hard time convincing some premium people they own what they purchase after Freedom when people bought everything prior to Freedom and VIPs only will get to keep it.
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When you bought a CoH or CoV box? You bought one thing:|
Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
Yes I agree things change....
I remember the Catherdral of Pain was an I6 boxed feature....that went live when??? Just sayin... The devs are going to have a hard time convincing some premium people they own what they purchase after Freedom when people bought everything prior to Freedom and VIPs only will get to keep it. |
You bought an ACCOUNT.
You may have bought a CoH account, you may have bought a CoV account, you may have used a box to add a feature to an account you already had..
But all you bought was an account. Everything else? Was provided through your PAID ACCESS. You know. That subscription thing.
So. Congratulations. You are getting what you claim you're asking for.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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By each of yours own admission, the Devs have stated that if you buy then you have earned it when Freedom launches. That being said, VIPs are ******** because I am stating that I bought everything up to this point and that I believe I am being robbed of already purchased features.
You are arguing that I have my hand out saying give me give me give me.
That is not the case. And this is ultimately how I believe the Premium tier is not nearly functional as it should be since the players have added value and purchased the content.
Now a few of you are stating that I am simply purchasing access to the servers. Ok, so if you didn't purchase GR, would you have not had access to that same material? No you wouldn't have. So you in essence bought material already as well. The difference is that you are paying NCSoft and that gives you a sense of eltistism as if I didn't go purchase the same material. I did purchase it as I purchased CoH and CoV separately. I still think if you bought it, you should get to utilize it fully.
If they are saying that we are keeping everything that we have as vets. Then the question is by exactly do they mean. If it means ever power that I unlocked as temporary stays and still have access to the vetran tabs and the paragon rewards. Then technically we have not lost anything.
If it means that the old characters get to keep thier old vetran rewards and get the new paragon rewards. I want a ingame npc alert to tell me about this and a dev anouncement. At least the legacy charcters will have something special, Two Mission teleporters two Instances of an undead slaying axe. Even if this means new charcters We create dont get this legacy benifit. It would mean that new characters are just stuck with paragon rewards.
If it means all the power we selected gets wiped out. Then we have started to loose. We loose the way our power trays are set up, we also loose time. Its possible that some of the caclutions may be incorect and we wont be able to get everything we onc had.
The question is what exactly do they mean we wont loose anything? Vetran players realy want to know the exact details. There are too many definitions and we really want to nail things down so we dont say idiotic things.
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How are VIP's (whatever that is you said that is too profane for the forums)? VIP's lose nothing compared to what they have now. They actually gain new things in Freedom that we didn't have before. Free monthly sig arcs, 400 Paragon Points per month, a free server transfer per month.
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Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
By each of yours own admission, the Devs have stated that if you buy then you have earned it when Freedom launches. That being said, VIPs are ******** because I am stating that I bought everything up to this point and that I believe I am being robbed of already purchased features.
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If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
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Wow...you certainly do gain by continuing to pay there. You also get exclusive access to a VIP only server so you don't have to deal with us little people. You get exlusive access to the forums so you don't have to talk to the little people. And you stay in good graces with all the paying costumers that have not a clue how this is going to work at the end of the day.|
Originally Posted by Texas Justice
How are VIP's (whatever that is you said that is too profane for the forums)? VIP's lose nothing compared to what they have now. They actually gain new things in Freedom that we didn't have before. Free monthly sig arcs, 400 Paragon Points per month, a free server transfer per month.
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And for the new low cost of nothing...I get almost all that and no bill and I still can level up 1-50, play my MM and my controller, get 7 slots per server and call it a day. Wow, I am telling you, that 15 bucks you are shelling out is really worth it at the end of the day.
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That part is sounding better and better.
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Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
You get exlusive access to the forums so you don't have to talk to the little people.
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<:[ shark goes nom nom nom ]:>
[QUOTE=theOcho;3409811]As to the REAL reason I'll be leaving, I'm afraid it is indeed because Tamaki Revolution dc'd on me during a RSF.[/QUOTE]
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Actually, what they've said is that if you've purchased or earned something on your account, it won't be taken away. Feel free to go look it up. I'm amazed you don't have a link to one of the multiple posts with that language in your signature by now.|
Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
By each of yours own admission, the Devs have stated that if you buy then you have earned it when Freedom launches.
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| That being said, VIPs are ******** because I am stating that I bought everything up to this point and that I believe I am being robbed of already purchased features. |
I'm more frustrated by your hyperbole and apparent lack of willingness to hear other perspectives than I am what you're saying in specific. I think you deserve most of the heat you've gotten.
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You are arguing that I have my hand out saying give me give me give me. That is not the case. |
I've "paid for" everything so far. Therefore, when Freedom launches, I should get everything I've had for the last seven years for free.
That is so clearly inconsistent with the way the Freedom system has been described that there is no way to reconcile the viewpoint with the reality of what they have announced as the plan. None. It is feeling more and more like you're just ignoring everything that's said to you and pushing a viewpoint that happens to be getting you attention.
So, yes. What you're saying actually does sound an awful lot like, "give me give me give me".
I'm sorry you are confused by what seems like a pretty reasonable system, from a business perspective. However, stomping and shouting isn't going to change the fact that the phrase "anything you purchased or earned" (ref. the I21 thread for this specific language, multiple times, from Posi and Zwill) was never intended to include powersets, else they would not have announced the restriction on powersets for free/premium accounts BEFORE they made the repeated statements about "purchased or earned".
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
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Nope you haven't bought everything. You instead are trying to steal more benefits than you have purchased and are screaming that you are robbed when you find out that the benefit you want to claim really isn't yours.|
Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
By each of yours own admission, the Devs have stated that if you buy then you have earned it when Freedom launches. That being said, VIPs are ******** because I am stating that I bought everything up to this point and that I believe I am being robbed of already purchased features.
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| You are arguing that I have my hand out saying give me give me give me. |
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| That is not the case. And this is ultimately how I believe the Premium tier is not nearly functional as it should be since the players have added value and purchased the content. |
Where exactly is the problem with this? The goal of Freedom isn't to have everyone be Premium and buying things. It is instead to have as many people as they can signup for VIP. So again this is bad? Why?
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Let me see if I get this straight...
Before freedom:
pay monthly fee, have access to everything.
stop paying monthly fee and you have access to nothing.
After freedom:
buy game, pay monthly fee, have access to everything.
stop paying monthly fee have access to most everything.
never paid monthly fee have limited access.
I fail to see the problem
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Actually that last part is:|
Originally Posted by nytflyr
Let me see if I get this straight...
Before freedom: pay monthly fee, have access to everything. stop paying monthly fee and you have access to nothing. After freedom: buy game, pay monthly fee, have access to everything. stop paying monthly fee have access to most everything. never paid monthly fee have limited access. I fail to see the problem |
pay monthly fee, have access to everything.
stop paying monthly fee have access to most everything.
never paid monthly fee have limited access.
No need to buy the game (no more box sets) after freedom launches. You can simply log in and play without ever spending a penny.
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Not VIPs. Just you. Maybe a handful of other players.|
Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
By each of yours own admission, the Devs have stated that if you buy then you have earned it when Freedom launches. That being said, VIPs are ******** because I am stating that I bought everything up to this point and that I believe I am being robbed of already purchased features.
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| Now a few of you are stating that I am simply purchasing access to the servers. Ok, so if you didn't purchase GR, would you have not had access to that same material? No you wouldn't have. So you in essence bought material already as well. |
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Originally Posted by Bloodwynd
Wow...you certainly do gain by continuing to pay there. You also get exclusive access to a VIP only server so you don't have to deal with us little people. You get exlusive access to the forums so you don't have to talk to the little people. And you stay in good graces with all the paying costumers that have not a clue how this is going to work at the end of the day.
And for the new low cost of nothing...I get almost all that and no bill and I still can level up 1-50, play my MM and my controller, get 7 slots per server and call it a day. Wow, I am telling you, that 15 bucks you are shelling out is really worth it at the end of the day. |
$15 a month 30 days a month=$0.50 a day.
So almost nothing to not only support a game I like but get the best benifits. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
The only thing about Freedom being announced is make me want to give Paragon Studios more of my money and I wish it was already here. Ever since GR was released and I was super mad about basically only lowbie content being released(and I did unsub for months) Paragon studios have done nothing but surprise me in a good way since.
That's not true by any means--I certainly didn't attack or insult you, nor did Arcanaville or several other posters who have popped in and out of this discussion. But not everyone is interested in discussion--there are those who get their kicks out of making someone "QQ".
In short, you're having an argument on the internet; no matter what community you're having a discussion with, someone is going to result to personal insults and rude language. I can guarantee you that I'd find the same on the message boards for that F2P MMO whose model you find superior to the proposed model that CoH will take.
Replying to ad hominem attacks with more ad hominem attacks isn't going to get anyone anywhere, either.
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