Why not make Freedom and Virtue VIP too?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2011-07-09 09:37 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Yes, we are. |
Originally Posted by Narkor
Free transfers? Aren't we talking about new players coming in for the first time?
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And just like when free transfers were offered, there was this HUGE assumption that, gee, nobody's going to want to stay anywhere else.
It was wrong then. And the assumption people will only, or primarily, want to start on Freedoom - can't say it's right, either, given the *new* players I see on my not-Freedom-or-Virtue servers.
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| On the other hand, new players? New players don't want a half-dead server. |
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| I'm pretty sure everyone can be quite guilty of that. Just try a free to play game. Pick one, any of them, as long as it has multiple servers. Which server would you choose? The one that only had a single bub out of three? Isn't that server less likely to have players running around, forming groups and providing help than the one who has two or three bubs out of three? |
All reasons I *started* on Pinnacle, for instance.
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| The main reason behind a new player's server selection is generally the population of said server. |
Don't forget that free players will get booted off a server to make room for subs if the server is close to capacity - so quite a few frees might decide to use other servers that don't have the same risk of reaching the limit.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Yes, the exact same server I've been on for... seven years now. What does that have to do with anything? I'm not afraid of the freebies, I have no intention of xferring to the VIP server whether or not Virtue because one. This is about logistics and lag.|
Originally Posted by Acemace
And you *just happen* to play on which server..
..ah, yeah. . . . |
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
What? Do something intelligent rather than going off half-cocked and spewing nerd-rage? You must be new to the internet.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I don't think there's a satisfactory solution to that problem. People will gravitate to the high pop servers anyway. Making Freedom and Virtue VIP will destroy all the existing communities that will have members that drop to premium status, and that will cause more harm than good.
Maybe the devs could make Virtue and Freedom Premium servers so existing communities would remain intact. |
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The official announcement covers only "priority queuing" for VIP players, which typically means in F2P systems that subscribers are promoted ahead of F2Pers when logging on to a server. Since the idea of F2Pers actually getting booted off capacity servers has come up before in other threads, could you please cite a dev on this? (And if not, could a red name please clarify the issue?)|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Don't forget that free players will get booted off a server to make room for subs if the server is close to capacity - so quite a few frees might decide to use other servers that don't have the same risk of reaching the limit.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Maybe the devs could make Virtue and Freedom Premium servers so existing communities would remain intact.
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The devs could be counting on F2Pers being able to have a shot at joining the largest population servers in order to intermingle with their communities (which, in the marketing department's highest hopes, would lead to their becoming P2Pers of some sort). And if access to those potentially overburdened servers is de facto "VIP only", then that's just another incentive to entice F2Pers to pay up.
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Heh, I used the first and only server transfer I've ever bought to pull the character I created on Freedom for the stress test off of it when the stress test was over. Because I liked the character and didn't want to abandon the poor fellow to Freedom.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Yes, we are.
And just like when free transfers were offered, there was this HUGE assumption that, gee, nobody's going to want to stay anywhere else. It was wrong then. And the assumption people will only, or primarily, want to start on Freedoom - can't say it's right, either, given the *new* players I see on my not-Freedom-or-Virtue servers. ... ... ... And "Bigger is better" isn't always true. |
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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There is a solution, the queue/lock out method. While folks want to play on populated servers. They also want to be able to play their characters.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
What? Do something intelligent rather than going off half-cocked and spewing nerd-rage? You must be new to the internet.
I don't think there's a satisfactory solution to that problem. People will gravitate to the high pop servers anyway. Making Freedom and Virtue VIP will destroy all the existing communities that will have members that drop to premium status, and that will cause more harm than good. Maybe the devs could make Virtue and Freedom Premium servers so existing communities would remain intact. Or the devs could do something similar to what they did with GR and require new free accounts make their first character on any server other than Freedom and Virtue. Once they do that then they are free to make a character on Freedom and Virtue. |
Something to remember with the Freedom incident is that they specifically disabled the queue for the event as well.
Let's Dance!
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New players don't know anything about the servers.|
Originally Posted by Narkor
On the other hand, new players? New players don't want a half-dead server.
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| I'm pretty sure everyone can be quite guilty of that. Just try a free to play game. Pick one, any of them, as long as it has multiple servers. Which server would you choose? The one that only had a single bub out of three? |
Green means A-Ok
Yellow means caution &
Red means danger.
So today I'd be logging onto the green servers just like I did 7 years ago when I first started playing.
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| Isn't that server less likely to have players running around, forming groups and providing help than the one who has two or three bubs out of three? |
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| The main reason behind a new player's server selection is generally the population of said server. Since, really, there isn't anything else that the new player can base himself on. |
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| It really feels like CoX:Freedom will be relying on the returning players to boost up the population on the low-pop servers and make them attracting to new players. |
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Yeah it's totally inconceivable that most people simply look at the new VIP server as another 12 free slots with the option to buy another 36. No they are all elitists that look down on F2P customers. |
Originally Posted by Tokyo
I have a better idea. How about we DON'T have a VIP server at all. Dividing the community further is a stupid idea and the devs are stupid to implement it. Instead why not implement cross-server instancing for platinum or VIP members and a VIP/platinum only channel for the elitists to chew the fat.
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Someones bigotry is showing.
I've been concerned about the most populous servers as well. One solution to this would be to simply have a "suggested server" pop up when a new player logs in for the first time. Set it to always recommend servers randomly selected from those who do not have a certain threshold of activity, and a lot of new players will simply join the recommended server, spreading the new players primarily among the less populated servers. Any of those who want to ignore it and join Freedom or Virtue anyways, such as because they have friends playing on those severs, still can.
A few points
- The Anniversary event was a great test of the server capability and pointed out where we need to make some adjustments. Any sort of "lag" (said in quotes because it's a generic term that players use to describe a number of things) wasn't necessarily on the server itself. There's a lot of technical mumbo jumbo that explains it, but I'm not the guy to do so. We're actually going to be raising the queue numbers significantly (as we did with the Freedom anniversary event), again, because the server itself is very capable of handling it.
- To designate Freedom, Virtue, Union or any existing server would be unfair to the other servers.
- To designate an existing server as a VIP server would be counter productive to one of the stated goals of City of Heroes Freedom, which is to allow former players the opportunity to come back and play with their friends either as VIP (preferable
) or Premium.
which is just fine by us.We are not giving any sort of special incentive to playing on the VIP server, it's simply there as an option, if you so chose to exercise it
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Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
Zwill said it better than I did.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
Aside from any other issues (Why not VIP Justice? What about Freemiums with characters on Virtue/Freedom? and etc.) There's the fact that, from a marketing perspective, they most likely really *want* to put Freebs on crowded servers full of subscribing players. I know that this is a big part of the plan with that other supers game. They NEED to get people to buy stuff, and that's more likely to happen if the Freebs can see it working. They want the Freebs to see a Demon Summoning Mastermind with the Ascension armor and T4 in all ten Incarnate slots, so that they will say "dang. I need to get some of that."
Anyway, if a free player doesn't have a preference, the game currently defaults to showing them the lowest load server at the top of the list. So yes, "old hands" Freebs from another game may or may not look for the more populated servers. New players will tend to get shuffled onto the other servers though.
I guess Everquest did the opposite: They herded all the new Freebs onto one server, thinking *well, they'll spread out later if they decide to upgrade." Only... they don't. If they decide to upgrade, they just stay on the free server, because that's where all their friends are. Including people who are still free players. So the Free server is now the most active, most populated server, and the "VIP" servers are slowly dying, because they aren't getting any new players. (Or so I've heard, I've never played EQ personally.)
I'm of the opinion that the queuing system will take care of most of the headaches in this regard. People tired of getting in queues will migrate to other servers.
That said I am just waiting for a server community to unite and designate itself as "THE F2P Home". I know someone will do it eventually, we have a heck of a lot of great and charitable people in our gaming community.
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What about Forbin's suggestion of a Premium server?
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
To designate an existing server as a VIP server would be counter productive to one of the stated goals of City of Heroes Freedom, which is to allow former players the opportunity to come back and play with their friends either as VIP (preferable
) or Premium. |
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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I'll be sure to pass that suggestion along, however we do not intend to create Premium+ servers at this time |
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
What about Forbin's suggestion of a Premium server?
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Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
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Who says we NEED a bigger population?|
Originally Posted by Feycat
I just think that spreading the new influx of players to servers that NEED more players, instead of two that are already stuff to the gills, would be a GOOD thing.
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Some of us chose a smaller server BECAUSE it was smaller.
I oppose this suggestion with a fiery passion that actually ignites dry materials within 10 feet of me.
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We NEED a bigger population because more people paying subscriptions and/or making Paragon Store purchases means more cash in Paragon Studios' kitty, which in turn means more goodies for us to spend our money on. When this system works, it's heaven on earth and everybody wins. We get what we want and the developers get paid for their work.
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Originally Posted by Sooner
Who says we NEED a bigger population?
Some of us chose a smaller server BECAUSE it was smaller. |
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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.
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Now reply in context. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
We NEED a bigger population because more people paying subscriptions and/or making Paragon Store purchases means more cash in Paragon Studios' kitty, which in turn means more goodies for us to spend our money on. When this system works, it's heaven on earth and everybody wins. We get what we want and the developers get paid for their work.
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What you replied to was in turn a reply to the suggestion that the smaller servers are somehow having problems because, essentially, they're not freedumb. Not that the game's population as a whole should never rise.
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Powerleveling catgirls who roleplay in semi-literate AoL-speak?
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Originally Posted by Verene
Don't worry, I'm sure the VIP server will feel like a hybrid of freedom and virtue.
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Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
We can only hope
I actually have no issue with Virtue having it's access in or out capped, escape from new york style. I'm at a loss as to what we'd miss.
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I really don't think you havr anything to worry about when it comes to the F2P gathering on Freedom and Virtue. I think they'll end up spreading around and likely filling up the other servers.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Yeah it's totally inconceivable that most people simply look at the new VIP server as another 12 free slots with the option to buy another 36.
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It'll be the na/eu merge all over again for some people. By which I mean: it'll be wonderful.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
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Maybe in your time zone, but we don't all live in your time zone. In mine (PST), the above is rarely if ever true.|
Originally Posted by Feycat
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not posting this because I fear the freebies, and I'm not posting this because I don't feel like moving my characters to the Freem server, or whatnot.
I'm posting this because, every night, Freedom and Virtue have three red bubbles through most of the evening. |
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| Those servers already have issues dealing with the lag (not all the time, certainly) and places like WW, train stations, RWZ and Oro are already crowded and lagtastic. |
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| Thoughts? |
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
It'll even out as VIP's get reserved server slots on the non-VIP servers.
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
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