City of Heroes: Freedom Notes
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-07-24 24:17 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Those are all things they can pay money separately for, and still not have a regular subscription if they wish. The system has already addressed those concerns.
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Originally Posted by Daemodand
As a long time proponent of the game going F2P, CoH:F is a welcome and exciting change for the game.
That said there are a few things I think would make the model even more of a success: Forum Access for All Every F2P game I've ever tried allows read/write access to their forums. Why? Because they know getting involved with the community gets people to stick around, and people who stick around spend money. The fear I suppose is gold spam getting posted. But go look at the forums for any given F2P title: how much spam do you see? Supergroup Memebership for Free Players Getting involved with the community is very important in MMO retention, and retention is very important in F2P MMOs to get people to spend money. A free player who is allowed to join a Supergroup is much more likely to stick around, and therefore much more likely to spend money. This also improves the game experience for VIP players as they have a larger pool of Supergroup mates to team up with. Consignment House Access for All The more people involved in an economy, the better that economy is for all involved. By allowing free players access to the Consignment House, they get a better game experience and VIP players get a better game experience as well as the economy is improved by the participation of a larger pool of players. Mission Architect Play Access for All Though I agree Arc creation should be limited to VIP/Vet Premium players, the ability to play Mission Architect arcs improves the game experience for VIP players who create MA arcs as one of the biggest issues with MA is getting your arcs played. With more people able to play, VIP MA authors get a better experience than they otherwise would. City of Heroes: Freedom is looking to be a great success, but with these changes I feel that it could be even more successful and improve the game experience for all involved. |
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
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The MA for all is a bad idea until the devs can nuke the fire farm that is currently up before Freedom's launch. We do NOT need free players getting their levels THAT fast or free. It is a bad way to get introduced to the game and leaves us with more 50s who don't know how to play. If the freems don't have access to the MA, the farms can be avoided until they can stuff down the current fave farm...or until the freem gets access by buying access.
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Originally Posted by Daemodand
As a long time proponent of the game going F2P, CoH:F is a welcome and exciting change for the game.
That said there are a few things I think would make the model even more of a success: Forum Access for All Every F2P game I've ever tried allows read/write access to their forums. Why? Because they know getting involved with the community gets people to stick around, and people who stick around spend money. The fear I suppose is gold spam getting posted. But go look at the forums for any given F2P title: how much spam do you see? Supergroup Memebership for Free Players Getting involved with the community is very important in MMO retention, and retention is very important in F2P MMOs to get people to spend money. A free player who is allowed to join a Supergroup is much more likely to stick around, and therefore much more likely to spend money. This also improves the game experience for VIP players as they have a larger pool of Supergroup mates to team up with. Consignment House Access for All The more people involved in an economy, the better that economy is for all involved. By allowing free players access to the Consignment House, they get a better game experience and VIP players get a better game experience as well as the economy is improved by the participation of a larger pool of players. Mission Architect Play Access for All Though I agree Arc creation should be limited to VIP/Vet Premium players, the ability to play Mission Architect arcs improves the game experience for VIP players who create MA arcs as one of the biggest issues with MA is getting your arcs played. With more people able to play, VIP MA authors get a better experience than they otherwise would. City of Heroes: Freedom is looking to be a great success, but with these changes I feel that it could be even more successful and improve the game experience for all involved. |
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Keeping out gold spammers pales in comparison to keeping out trolls. Free access to the forums is a terrible idea.
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Originally Posted by Daemodand
Forum Access for All
Every F2P game I've ever tried allows read/write access to their forums. Why? Because they know getting involved with the community gets people to stick around, and people who stick around spend money. The fear I suppose is gold spam getting posted. But go look at the forums for any given F2P title: how much spam do you see? |
@Demobot
Also on Steam
If everything is free what possible incentive is there for me to pay?
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based on my experience with another superhero game that went f2p, they did not originally allow free players access for this very reason, that has only recently changed.
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Originally Posted by Demobot
Keeping out gold spammers pales in comparison to keeping out trolls. Free access to the forums is a terrible idea.
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Dealt with by someone else, but gold spam isn't what concerns me so much as the hit the "signal to noise ratio" will take if free accounts get full posting rights.|
Originally Posted by Daemodand
As a long time proponent of the game going F2P, CoH:F is a welcome and exciting change for the game.
That said there are a few things I think would make the model even more of a success: Forum Access for All Every F2P game I've ever tried allows read/write access to their forums. Why? Because they know getting involved with the community gets people to stick around, and people who stick around spend money. The fear I suppose is gold spam getting posted. But go look at the forums for any given F2P title: how much spam do you see? |
I'd support their ability to post a limited # of messages per day in tech forums, though, to help with legitimate issues. Maybe a separate tech forum, though, just in case...
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Supergroup Memebership for Free Players Getting involved with the community is very important in MMO retention, and retention is very important in F2P MMOs to get people to spend money. A free player who is allowed to join a Supergroup is much more likely to stick around, and therefore much more likely to spend money. This also improves the game experience for VIP players as they have a larger pool of Supergroup mates to team up with. |
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Consignment House Access for All The more people involved in an economy, the better that economy is for all involved. By allowing free players access to the Consignment House, they get a better game experience and VIP players get a better game experience as well as the economy is improved by the participation of a larger pool of players. |
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Mission Architect Play Access for All Though I agree Arc creation should be limited to VIP/Vet Premium players, the ability to play Mission Architect arcs improves the game experience for VIP players who create MA arcs as one of the biggest issues with MA is getting your arcs played. With more people able to play, VIP MA authors get a better experience than they otherwise would. |
Further, ending up on a team with level 50 freebies who were PL'd thru the MA and who have no investment in the game in no way improves the game experience for VIPs.
Let me be perfectly clear on this: I want the new players, even and especially the free players, that CoHF is going to bring. I want to play the game with them and help them find the same enjoyment that's kept me here for the past six years. But I don't want to sacrifice the community that already exists to do that. The decisions that have been made are for the good of the community (though again, I agree with you on the SG thing...), and I understand the logic. Players who really want to take part in those things are welcome to invest in the game to get them. It's the players who don't want to invest anything and who show up to be disruptive that my comments are generally meant to apply to.
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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They won't. It's not an exploit. (Compared to, say, the monkey, comm officer, etc. other farms that were talked about.) Those are what they smack down - hopefully quickly.
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Originally Posted by ShadowWings
The MA for all is a bad idea until the devs can nuke the fire farm that is currently up before Freedom's launch.
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+1.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
They won't. It's not an exploit. (Compared to, say, the monkey, comm officer, etc. other farms that were talked about.) Those are what they smack down - hopefully quickly.
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i would prefer if forum posting rights were not free for all, but required at least being a Premium customer of one of the lower tiers.
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Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
based on my experience with another superhero game that went f2p, they did not originally allow free players access for this very reason, that has only recently changed.
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Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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As others have said there are general concerns with trolling and such if F2Pers get access to the forums. I'd like to see them get limited forum access however espeically for tech support. A F2P section would seem like a suitable compromise.|
Originally Posted by Daemodand
Forum Access for All
Every F2P game I've ever tried allows read/write access to their forums. Why? Because they know getting involved with the community gets people to stick around, and people who stick around spend money. The fear I suppose is gold spam getting posted. But go look at the forums for any given F2P title: how much spam do you see? |
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Supergroup Memebership for Free Players Getting involved with the community is very important in MMO retention, and retention is very important in F2P MMOs to get people to spend money. A free player who is allowed to join a Supergroup is much more likely to stick around, and therefore much more likely to spend money. This also improves the game experience for VIP players as they have a larger pool of Supergroup mates to team up with. |
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Consignment House Access for All The more people involved in an economy, the better that economy is for all involved. By allowing free players access to the Consignment House, they get a better game experience and VIP players get a better game experience as well as the economy is improved by the participation of a larger pool of players. |
So why do I say premium only and not F2Pers? Largely for the same reason I suspect the devs have restricted it: gold farmers. The market is an extremely useful tool for gold farmers looking to launder inf before selling it. Allowing F2P accounts full access is going to make that problem worse. Allowing Premium players access will still have some issues but it should not be as bad. I do think that Premium players should get access though.
[edit]Another thought occurred to me. The consignment house fee is (from what I can tell) the primary inf sink in the game. Encouraging off-market transactions decreases the value of that sink.[/quote]
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Mission Architect Play Access for All Though I agree Arc creation should be limited to VIP/Vet Premium players, the ability to play Mission Architect arcs improves the game experience for VIP players who create MA arcs as one of the biggest issues with MA is getting your arcs played. With more people able to play, VIP MA authors get a better experience than they otherwise would. |
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I don't think I would worry too much about that. Free accounts only get two characters. You'd need to make 96 free accounts in order to equal the number of free character slots that a single subscribing account gets, not counting vet awards etc.|
Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
If you want to see the market go terribly, horribly, awfully wrong, then by all means allow people to make unlimited numbers of free accounts and give them full access to it. It would be a griefer's paradise. Sure, it'd cost inf to create artificial shortages, but inf is easy to come by and unlimited market slots are unlimited.
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I think anyone who cares so much about griefing the CoX market that they'd keep track of dozens of different accounts probably cares enough to sub to do it.
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
Forum Access for All
Every F2P game I've ever tried allows read/write access to their forums. Why? Because they know getting involved with the community gets people to stick around, and people who stick around spend money.
The fear I suppose is gold spam getting posted. But go look at the forums for any given F2P title: how much spam do you see?
I think that Free players should at least be able to access technical forums and the like because of the things that can go wrong in-game that may prevent you from playing or playing enjoyably. Maybe even allow Premium players to access more of the forums or all of it.
Supergroup Memebership for Free Players
Getting involved with the community is very important in MMO retention, and retention is very important in F2P MMOs to get people to spend money. A free player who is allowed to join a Supergroup is much more likely to stick around, and therefore much more likely to spend money.
This also improves the game experience for VIP players as they have a larger pool of Supergroup mates to team up with.
Yeah, I think this would also work as well, most supergroups tend to be very welcoming to newcomers and there's bound to be at least one helper who'll help guide a newbie free player to how the game works and answer their questions.
Consignment House Access for All
The more people involved in an economy, the better that economy is for all involved. By allowing free players access to the Consignment House, they get a better game experience and VIP players get a better game experience as well as the economy is improved by the participation of a larger pool of players.
I'd say it would be best if the Auction house were restricted to Premium and VIPs only, if only to prevent the aforementioned Gold farmers and ease of market griefing.
Mission Architect Play Access for All
Though I agree Arc creation should be limited to VIP/Vet Premium players, the ability to play Mission Architect arcs improves the game experience for VIP players who create MA arcs as one of the biggest issues with MA is getting your arcs played. With more people able to play, VIP MA authors get a better experience than they otherwise would.
Once again, I wouldn't players lower than Premium to get access to AE because I don't particularly like the idea of a AEBabies sequel.
Home server: Victory
Characters on: Victory & Virtue
My first 50(0)! 18/11/11
@Oneirohero
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Congratulations. Another couple of empty posts like this and you'll have OVER 9000!!!|
Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
+1.
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On topic: I'm surprised the OP hasn't mentioned what I see as the elephant in the living room, which is the ability of Free players to team with at least other Free players. Recently, I played a game that required me to have "premium status" to form teams. I ended up buying a few days of premium status so I could play with a friend of mine I got into the game. Now my premium status has expired, we can no longer team together and chances are we'll never be back there again. Not for long, anyway.
I get having to pay for extra items. I get having to pay for customer support. I get having to pay for exclusive content. But, contrary to my reputation here, if I out an out CANNOT team with other people, then why the funnybone am I playing an MMO? Why would you make an MMO where people have to pay to team or never team at all? Why would you want to deny a free player's ability to promote your MMO to his friends by bringing them in to team with them? The ability to team with other free players you bring into the game should be the cornerstone of any F2P MMO, so why are we still preventing Free players from inviting at least each other to a team?
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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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I agree that certain other items should be added to the Free Player experience, but I disagree with some of the ones you suggested for various reasons.
I think more retention would be achieved if they added :
1- Global channel per server or 1 global channel across all servers in the default start up window tabs,besides 'Help' and with a larger max population limit, geared toward players LFT. CoX is still an instanced game an I think the Free player experience is too limited wrt in game communication, as stated in current plans.
2-I can't remember if Free players have access to Broadcast, but if not, they should at least get that, except in Pocket D and those of us who are afraid what that would mean, ask yourselves how much you use Broadcast now and if you know how to put folks on ignore. IMO it's a risk vs reward thing for the game.
3- I agree with regards to Supergroup membership, to a certain extent, they should be able to join and use the items in the base, except for storage. They gotta pay for something.
Pinnacle & Virtue:
A bunch of Heroes - Alpha Team, Legion of Order.
A bunch of Villains -Black Citadel , Pinnache.
about the AE, freebie players CAN use the AE, but they get 0 rewards (no info, no tickets, no nothing) from all AE mishs
if they pay for access to it then they can start earning rewards, i do think mish creation is only for VIPs
so freebies are NOT being blocked from AE entirely, they would however be wasting their time running any and all mishs from the AE
about the other points, i think most other posters covered my thoughts, however i do agree completely with sg access to all
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Are you suggesting the only reason to do AE missions is for the drops |
Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
so freebies are NOT being blocked from AE entirely, they would however be wasting their time running any and all mishs from the AE
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This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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hehe, i see what you did there lol|
Originally Posted by Jagged
Are you suggesting the only reason to do AE missions is for the drops
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well i guess if your looking for drops then its not a favorable environment either lol, if your interested in tickets and straight inf gain then yes it would be more favorable lol
i was merely saying that freebies arent gonna be blocked 100% from the ae buildings, but they cant get anything from the mishs, no xp, no inf, no tickets, which is even less than we can normally get lol
My 2c...
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I think some sections of the forum should be made accessible for all to post in. Premium players should have access to forums...at least to most if not all sections. |
Originally Posted by Daemodand
Forum Access for All
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| Supergroup Memebership for Free Players |
Besides Tells, I'd like the "help" channel, "LFG" channel to be made accessible to Free players too. For Premium, maybe limited acccess to global channels, or global channel access that can be purchased?
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| Consignment House Access for All |
However, I want consignment house access to be *purchasable*. (I guess the logic goes by if someone wants to abuse it, then they'll have to invest some capital first
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| Mission Architect Play Access for All |
"Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty." -- Plato
Playing Gods (51106) - Heroic Lvl 5-20
What Rough Beast (255143) - Villainous Lvl 40-50
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/facepalm|
Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
hehe, i see what you did there lol
well i guess if your looking for drops then its not a favorable environment either lol, if your interested in tickets and straight inf gain then yes it would be more favorable lol i was merely saying that freebies arent gonna be blocked 100% from the ae buildings, but they cant get anything from the mishs, no xp, no inf, no tickets, which is even less than we can normally get lol |
Because nobody plays MA arcs for the story, right?
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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As a long time proponent of the game going F2P, CoH:F is a welcome and exciting change for the game.
That said there are a few things I think would make the model even more of a success:
Forum Access for All
Every F2P game I've ever tried allows read/write access to their forums. Why? Because they know getting involved with the community gets people to stick around, and people who stick around spend money.
The fear I suppose is gold spam getting posted. But go look at the forums for any given F2P title: how much spam do you see?
Supergroup Memebership for Free Players
Getting involved with the community is very important in MMO retention, and retention is very important in F2P MMOs to get people to spend money. A free player who is allowed to join a Supergroup is much more likely to stick around, and therefore much more likely to spend money.
This also improves the game experience for VIP players as they have a larger pool of Supergroup mates to team up with.
Consignment House Access for All
The more people involved in an economy, the better that economy is for all involved. By allowing free players access to the Consignment House, they get a better game experience and VIP players get a better game experience as well as the economy is improved by the participation of a larger pool of players.
Mission Architect Play Access for All
Though I agree Arc creation should be limited to VIP/Vet Premium players, the ability to play Mission Architect arcs improves the game experience for VIP players who create MA arcs as one of the biggest issues with MA is getting your arcs played. With more people able to play, VIP MA authors get a better experience than they otherwise would.
City of Heroes: Freedom is looking to be a great success, but with these changes I feel that it could be even more successful and improve the game experience for all involved.
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