Paragon Points Clarification

Case in point:

We know, given the first post in this thread, that it will cost 400 Paragon Points ($5) to buy all the costume pieces in a good-sized booster pack. The rest of this is thirdhand... I heard it from someone who claimed to have heard it on a Ustream chat, which I can't listen to at work, so I'm taking it at face value...

Prior to this announcement, it was said that 400 points would be about equivalent to one of the booster temp powers, like Ninja Run. And also that 400 points would net you all the emotes from a booster.

Again, before anyone goes nuts, I can't verify this and even if true now, it could still change before launch.

That's $5 for costumes, $5 for new emotes, and $5 for temp powers. That means the price of one booster pack adds up to $15. (Other threads I've seen have it estimated at around $12.)

Now, VIPs will get $5 credit back per month just for subscribing. They can choose to spend it however they want. If you want the new booster pack, you can use your $5 monthly credit and pay $10 more for it, which means you're still only paying $10 out of pocket for it--the same price you pay to buy a booster pack today.

Or, you could buy the costume pieces now, wait and buy the temp power next month, and then pick up the emotes the month after that, and never pay a dime beyond your subscription fees.

... Or, you could blow your entire $5 stipend on double XP consumeables and choose to pay $15 out of pocket for it.

The point is, we'll have more control than we ever have before over what our money is going towards, but we'll also have more pitfalls as a result. If you "gotta have it nao," then you're going to pay more money than someone who's willing to bide their time and pick things up piecemeal or when they go on sale. It's a good thing, but it also makes us more responsible for our own accounts and expenditures, and some people may be (understandably) wary of that.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

I think that's a very optimistic point of view. Maybe overly optimistic. The business model is designed to make more money in a less obvious way. This of course allows those using this model to adjust it to make sure players are spending more. Not to understand this is like not understanding that a marketing department is a lot like the CIA. They can tell you they have your interests in mind but in the end they serve the interests of the company first.

In the end, what serves the interest of the company greatest is having people keep paying the $15/mo subscription fee as long as possible. If you cheat your customers too much--and we have got some serious math ninjas who post on these boards, so I don't expect that to become an issue--then you may get a big windfall of cash up front with nothing to use as a nest egg later.

I'm pretty sure their end goal is to keep the game running as long as possible, because that means they get to keep earning paychecks. Having more microtransactions will enable this to run smoother in the long run.

I read an interesting thread on the boards earlier about another game that's offering a $70 (real cash moneys!) monocle for their avatar to wear. I don't foresee that becoming an issue with City of Heroes Freedom--especially since they give example pricing of costume options in the first post on this very thread, the highest being $1.25 for an Origins Pack cape.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Wow that's a lot of tinfoil....

It is indeed a sophisticated form of psychological warfare that is specifically designed to extract more money out of an existing group of people and as a mere side effect increases the amount of people they end up extracting it from. It would be far easier to attempt to increase the number of people you're making money off of and hope to have the side effect of the existing ones paying more voluntarily, but Paragon Studios has never done things the easy way.

As I am a student of such activity, I intend to be taking lots of notes. If they succeed, its a skill I intend to replicate.


Incidentally, how do we know you have the best interests of the game at heart. Maybe you're specifically attempting to sabotage the game enough to reduce its subscriber base and increase your proportional influence over the future development in the game. Shouldn't everyone else presume that this is a zero-sum game and whatever is in your best interests is by definition not in theirs? Whatever you want us to think and believe, we should believe the opposite.

Unless you know we're going to think that, and that is what you want us to believe. Now are you the sort of man that would tell us what you want us to think, or tell us what you don't want us to think. A clever man would tell us what he doesn't want us to think because...

I'd have to say charging more for an existing product by breaking it into components and charging ever so slightly more is shady at best.

As its been if you wanted one or two things from a booster you would be paying $10 for very little. How is that any better?

On top of that? Those prices aren't finalized yet, are they?

No you're right they could be MUCH more expensive...

Or less, or about the same.

I think we've now discussed, or at least touched on the two possible extremes of this model.

Can we buy a Developer to work on bases with Paragon Points???

Lisa raises hand. I have bought them and I can see myself doing so again.

I'm a 'glass half empty but whats left is battery acid' kinda guy.

Been burned before, I assume. I can understand it; Paragon and NCSoft will have to work a lot harder to earn your dollar, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I hope they, in time, at least meet your expectations for good buniess practices.

Explain to me why I should just be happy to pay more for the same thing.

While I think that this system could be used either to make more money responsibly, or to make more money by taking advantage of their customers, I personally don't feel like we even need to get into whether they're unscrupulous enough to do the latter. Years and years ago when Cryptic Studios was still involved with City of Heroes, I think that the way the developers treated the community came pretty close to killing the game and really damaged community relations. My impression has been that since NCsoft took full control of development they've spent years trying to rebuild that trust. I think the developers learned their lesson back then. Maybe they burn the community sometimes, but I think they learned very well back then that burning the community more than a little isn't worth it. I don't think it matters whether it would be good for them (or easy) in the short run for them to abuse this system; I think they know that it wouldn't be worth it in the long run. I trust by how I've seen them run the game since the whole fiasco with Statesman that they won't do something major to undermine their relationship with the player base.

A business transaction should be win/win, benefitting both sides. For some players they do not feel that Paragon has presented sufficient reason that this is the case, and thus view it as win/lose at their expense.

We can't define win/win for them, nor case we really speak for Paragon. The burden of showing this as win/win falls on Paragon. If the players feel it is win/lose then the player ought opt for "no deal," which arguably is lose/lose.

In what scenario are you doing that, exactly?

Subscription cost is staying at $15/mo monthly (and keeping the same discounts for extended subscriptions). You aren't going to be charged anything additional to use the stuff that you've already got.

Worst case scenario, something you want is more expensive that you're willing to pay for it, so you go without. If you REALLY want it, you save up your monthly stipend of Paragon Points and pick it up a month or two down the road.

And that means you're paying the same thing for more stuff than you're getting now, no matter how you slice it.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Because you're not paying more for the same thing. You're paying to get more things for the same price you've been paying every month. You're also not wasting real money on parts of Booster packs that you either don't need or don't like. Everyone that's ever bought a booster just for one costume, or one power, or a couple of emotes, and could take or leave the rest of it, should be ecstatic about this model.

Pessimism and looking for conspiracies won't serve you well in the long run. Everyone who thinks the boogeyman is out there will eventually find one, usually after making one up just to be right, or making a mountain out of a mole hill.

And yet your not. I think paragon might be to generous to us subscribers. They are under no oblagation to be so. They could have left us vip people with the same content as we get now.