Monetary value of new powersets...
By
Amy_Amp,
Posted on: 2011-07-25 12:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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You very clearly have no clue what you are talking about.
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Originally Posted by Lucky666
Wowzer that's a lot of design review. Pardon my ignorance but, Is design review what it sounds like it is? Just reviewing the design of the set shouldn't the design of the set kinda be their from day one? Color my confused but that just sounds no better then typical government bureaucracy from like say Futurama where nothing gets done unless you got someone like Hermys on your side. It just seems like way to much design review lol.
If it really cost Paragon studies that much money and time to design a set that all I gotta say is cudos my hat is off from them and obviously their Korean overlords are too. With the amount of content they have pumped out since GR released and now freedom **** I wonder where they get the time or maybe they had a new staff influx. Just as I type this It made a light bulb go off in my head all those job openings maybe they where for the Freedom launch and NCsoft has some real good feeling about this, well all I gotta say is them and I both. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm sure Television's eyeballs bugged out of his head when he found out he should be making $100/hour in salary and benefits, but even at more conservative industry standard estimates a powerset is bound to cost between $30k and $50k to implement, if not more.
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Right, so I'll be getting these at $10 then and not crying too much.
Hopefully the costume temps (heard these are being released) are 60-100 points or so.
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One thing I am interest in.. will buff sets cost the same as say an assault set.
Its an interesting question to ask because as players certain powersets are going to offer more bang for the buck then other powersets simply because of the number of ATs which use that powerset.
Take Ray Gun for example. Its used by corruptors, Defenders, and Blasters. At a 10 dollar value that isn't to bad, we're paying about 3.33 (1/3) each Archtype.
Titan weapons.. Tanks, Scrappers, Brutes, Stalkers.. about 2.50 for each AT use that powerset.
If they came out with Time Control for sale.. only two ATs can use that powerset so suddenly we are paying 5 bucks for those two ATs to use those powersets. Not the greatest of deals verses ray guns or titan weapons.
Time Assault comes out.. only one AT in the game can use that powerset. Suddenly we are paying 10 bucks for that singular AT. This is a horrible "deal" on behalf of the customers.
Then when you start pairing Primary/secondary matches it gets even more interesting. The biggest winners there are Buff, and Ranged as they are used by not only the widest varity of characters, but also the widest varities of playstyles. Buff alone offers the defender, corruptor, controller and masterminds each with very different playstyles so IMO will always be a good set to buy, then if you mix a new Buff set with a new Ranged set you are adding defenders and corruptors again as well as now adding blasters to the mix.
If you purchase Melee and Defense sets we are only effecting the four ATs that use that sets. So its pretty much a wash as its a similiar playstyle offering.
When you are talking about Control, Assault, Support, Henchmen sets it becomes much less cost effective, especially in the case of Dominators as overall they would have the worst cost to AT ratio as the Control and Assault are two of the least used power sets in the game.
So value wise players would be better off to purchase sets that can be used by the most ATs rather then sets that can only be used by only one or two ATs. Some sets are just worth more bang for your buck at the end of the day and its something that should be kept in mind when they start selling powersets.
Now I know that they could impliment new ATs which is great for the Control, Assault and Henchmen powersets.. but support is so far across the board it can't really work with any other sets simply because it ranges from Devices to Fire Manipulation. To many powers are reused for melee or for Defense, and imagine trying to play an Empathy/Devices character.
Gotta just pop in and lend my voice to the likes of Arcanaville and policewoman.
Given the time and energy *I* would see going into creating each powerset, and assuming that there are few, if any, ported over animations and/or effects, I'm not one bit surprised at the prices tossed about. They do have to recover their development costs and make a reasonable enough profit that it doesn't just make sense to invest that $$ somewhere else that could promise a better return on the investment.
Given how in a free market economy its not the "price it costs to produce" that matters, but the "price the market will bear" I'm rather surprised the powersets aren't MORE expensive. Players in many hybrid models have proven more than willing to throw more money after things with less value than in one of our powersets. I'm pleased the devs haven't tried to leverage more for their efforts.
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care to explain or just trolling the late night forums? Everything I said common sense pointed me towards.
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Originally Posted by Smersh
You very clearly have no clue what you are talking about.
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This seems like a ridiculous argument to me. Do most people go into a computer store, realize they can't buy one of everything, and vow to never shop there again? There needs to be a tremendous assortment of things for sale. If most players immediately buy everything, that means there wasn't enough stuff and NCSoft is leaving money on the table.
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Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
However, the fact remains that having so many things to buy with costs being a certain amount over what they're willing/capable of... Can very easily turn people away form the game entirely.
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A computer store isn't a place of membership that customers have had a long history with where they spend a ton of their free time for happy fun play time.|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
This seems like a ridiculous argument to me. Do most people go into a computer store, realize they can't buy one of everything, and vow to never shop there again? There needs to be a tremendous assortment of things for sale. If most players immediately buy everything, that means there wasn't enough stuff and NCSoft is leaving money on the table.
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You may not feel the ways that I expressed and you may not care about people who do, but it is not a "ridiculous argument".
Some people do not want to hang around a high-priced restaurant just to get the cheap meal.
I mean, can you really not understand the simple psychology of someone being turned off by seeing the disparity between their budget and that of others?
Seems obvious to me.
I don't really care. Just seems like something that will take place.
I already knew that most people don't care, but it doesn't make it untrue nor ridiculous.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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while smersh is being, well smersh, his point is true. "common sense" of a laymen who doesnt work in the industry really is unable to account for the realities of how video games are made or what resources are required. he could have put it in a more civilized fashion, but you really dont know the processes as well as arcanavill(who has worked in the industry) and that really compromises your ability to make a cogent point. games are really really expensive to make, this is a constant you find going through several developers blogs, and thats the stuff they can share, "common sense" has nothing to do with an intricate and technical industry.
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Originally Posted by Lucky666
care to explain or just trolling the late night forums? Everything I said common sense pointed me towards.
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as for the topic at hand. well, i can see why some are balking at it, but 10 bucks does seem fair to me. i maintain that we really will not be able to judge how comparable the amount of content after freedom with additional transactions stacks up with the amount of content we had before freedom with only subs, expansions and the occasional booster. i arbitrarily set the time to tell at 6 months, but i'm suspecting that the difference will be apparent pretty fast, and we will merely be judging pace and consistency.
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Agreed. I've been thinking the same!
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Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
... i maintain that we really will not be able to judge how comparable the amount of content after freedom with additional transactions stacks up with the amount of content we had before freedom with only subs, expansions and the occasional booster. i arbitrarily set the time to tell at 6 months, but i'm suspecting that the difference will be apparent pretty fast, and we will merely be judging pace and consistency.
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@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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E-K: Do you play any freemium games? I ask because this disparity that concerns you is an unavoidable one that exists in every game, yet those games go rolling merrily along in spite of it.|
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
I mean, can you really not understand the simple psychology of someone being turned off by seeing the disparity between their budget and that of others?
Seems obvious to me. I don't really care. Just seems like something that will take place. I already knew that most people don't care, but it doesn't make it untrue nor ridiculous. |
It exists in our game as it stands now. I own every expansion and every booster pack except the party pack. My daughter owns CoH, CoV, and GR - the latter only because I made the effort to buy it for her. She has one booster pack - the magic pack. In contrast to me or, indeed, to the majority of subscribers currently playing the game, she has a huge disparity in her available content and she has no budget at all to speak of. (She wisely saves every penny for college.)
By your lights, this should be making her feel negative in some fashion and destroying her feng shui, game-wise.
In fact, the opposite is true. She pays little to no attention to what others have because she's having too much fun playing with the stuff that she has. I do not believe that she represents some kind of edge case. I believe that she is typical, rather.
I have some experience with a half-dozen or so freemium MMO's and while I don't claim special expertise, I do know this - I've rarely met anyone who was envious of another person's "toys". Oh, there are always the people who say "Subscriptions aren't fair. EVERYTHING should be free and nobody should have to pay for anything, ever, and the devs should give me a pony and a vorpal blade while they're at it."
It goes without saying that those people are not your target audience.
I HAVE found the situation where the store was considered to be too empty, where some store items were considered to be too expensive, and where there was a feeling that the store was the be-all end-all and that full-members (whatever that meant) were not being given enough consideration.
None of those things had to do with one person being unhappy about being deprived of something that another person had. In the cases where the players felt they were being forced into joining a higher tier of membership in order to have a complete game experience, they balked and said "We'll quit playing instead" and they did just that, forcing the devs to change their rules to hold onto their free players.
In short - there are many things to be concerned about, but the one you've stated, "being turned off by seeing the disparity between their budget and that of others", is NOT one of those concerns in my experience, at least not in any game that wasn't already committing the folly of "pay to win".
Since our devs are not going down that road, I don't see a problem in that regard.
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Haha, I actually thought this was a lowball estimate on my part. You'll note I described this $100/hr figure as "cost", not "salary", which is not exactly the same thing. Though for what it's worth, I would be surprised if they did the level of design review and QA testing that Arcanaville describes; small companies almost always cut corners on that sort of thing.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm sure Television's eyeballs bugged out of his head when he found out he should be making $100/hour in salary and benefits
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But the basic point is the same. If it costs $30,000 (warning: still a made up number) to make a new powerset, at $10 per sale they need to make 3000 sales just to break even - more than that to make an actual profit (which is what they're in business to do). And with their a la carte method, it would be pretty easy for any given user to say, "No, I'm not interested in Time Manipulation, so no sale on that....I'll spend my $10 on Titan Weapons instead" -- but the developers are still obliged to invest the development effort on both sets, just so we can pick and choose between them.
So for my part, I think charging $10 is totally reasonable for a powerset; a bargain, even.
But it's worth noting that what people are willing to pay for something doesn't always line up with what it cost to make it. Paragon Studios is taking the gamble that
(# of sales) * (sale price) > (cost to develop)
for each of the features they develop. They basically need to set (sale price) to maximize the total number on the left, to make it worthwhile to invest the number on the right. To cut the sale price from $10 to $2.50, they would need to more than quadruple the number of sales to make it a good decision on their part -- i.e. sales would need to increase from 3000 to 12,000 to justify that. I don't know their marketing numbers, but I have a hard time seeing that happen.
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For boosters, I can see from the screenshots whether I will like the costumes or not. Sure, there is a chance I won't like the mini-powers but I know what I am getting into with the costumes. Now, I love the mini-travel powers. Ninja Run is probably in my top ten for game additions.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If not this it would have been more booster packs and boxed expansions. Those were the only two real options for game expansion.
How did you deal with this problem in the past with booster packs and boxed expansions, because once again if not this it would have been more of those. |
For content, I will probably enjoy playing through it once. If it is great content, I will get a lot of replay value yes. But I will enjoy even less enjoyable content the first time if only as an exploratory exercise. And honestly, once I don't trust the devs to produce content I will enjoy at least once then I will move onto other games.
New sets are a completely different beast. They only have value if I will enjoy a character with that set. When they are essentially free or part of a content pack which I will buy anyway there is nothing lost if I buy them. If I pay for them explicitly I have no way of checking out their awesomeness unless I use the test server. Actually a test server with the level to 50 option available would work for that purpose.
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Your problems really seem to be problems directly associated with unbundling. Those may be intractable, because the vast overwhelming majority of people are likely to appreciate unbundling and prefer it. The all in one mentality is really the first permanent casualty of City of Heroes:Freedom. Theoretically speaking, they could make a VIP+ subscription that had certain things automatically included like powersets and signature story arcs or something. But since everyone is likely to have different ideas about what should be included in such a system and what it should cost, that wouldn't really address the problem except in a lucky tiny minority of cases that just happened to coincide with that package's constraints. Which is not to say that at some point down the road, a VIP+ subscription option might not be in our future if enough players ask for it, and they can come to some median consensus as to what to include with it. But since people are currently still getting confused between Paragon Points and Reward Tokens, any expansion in options is highly unlikely. Its more likely to be on the table when the initial launch settles down. |
I don't want to overstate the issue. I am not raging or threatening to quit. But I have to admit when I heard that I would, as a subscriber, have to pay for new powersets I had a negative reactive to it.
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Funny, I saw pretty much the opposite. I know we can't compare and contrast here, but I sampled 4 formerly-subscription MMO's that went hybrid in the past 2 years, and ALL of them have|
Originally Posted by Moonlighter
I think one problem I have is that all the other F2P games I play basically include all core functionality in the subscription price. Micro transactions can purchase cosmetics, or temporary buffs and powers but I am not shut of out content or mechanics if I maintain a subscription. I understand CoH answers this by giving a stipend. Using that stipend for core functionality just seems wrong to me. But my expectation of value has been set by the F2P games that came before CoH. I don't want to overstate the issue. I am not raging or threatening to quit. But I have to admit when I heard that I would, as a subscriber, have to pay for new powersets I had a negative reactive to it. |
- races you must pay to unlock
- classes (with unique mechanics) you must pay to unlock.
- content you must pay to unlock
- market limits applied to you that you must pay to unlock.
- critical advantages (like alternate advancement, broader power/spell selection, ability to use higher-quality loot, etc) that you must pay to access.
In fact, if anything, CoH Freedom is showing a broader range of selection available to all "free" players than any of these.
Can't go into more detail here, based on forum rules, but if you're curious which ones I mean, PM me and exchange ideas on what's available. I'm always interested in broadening my understanding of the genre.
It does become a kind of chicken and egg question though.
If they could not make money from this powersets...would they have been made in the first place?
I mean if we look at the powersets we've got coming that are confirmed, Beam weapons, Time manipulation, Street Justice and Titan weapons PLUS we've got the rumoured Staff melee set (which if not fake, the animations for could be used as both staff and spear melee).
The only time you saw that amount of powersets was in a paid for expansion which we got once every couple of years OR they were spaced out over a period of many years but free.
So if they couldn't make money, half of these sets probably would have never been made.
Though I have my conspiracy theories on why the sudden switch to the Free 2 Play model (Going Rogue failed to bring in subscriber numbers NCsoft hoped etc.) I won't go into them in great detail here.
The key thing they're going to have to do is to make it so they can make money without appearing to nickle and dime the subscribers, getting this balance right is very delicate.
I'm personally still not sure on the whole Free 2 play thing, I can't decide whether it's a good thing or a bad thing at the moment, I just don't have the data to decide and only time will really tell, as is the way with all things.
Though at this stage I suspect it has become a case of go free 2 play or die within two years mandate came down from NCsoft.
CoH is NCsofts least profitable MMO due to a lack of a Korean audience and in a world where other big MMOs are being released all the time or heck, normal multiplayer games are taking the MMO levelling mechanic, it's a hard fought space to justify the existence of a less than 100,000 sub MMO to a big company like NCsoft who have MMOs with 3 million subscribers or more.
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I have seen this mentioned a few times now and I want to address this concept of the Test server specifically.|
Originally Posted by Moonlighter
If I pay for them explicitly I have no way of checking out their awesomeness unless I use the test server. Actually a test server with the level to 50 option available would work for that purpose.
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The test sever must NOT allow for free purchases from the store as it currently does. 36 free character slots where we can also have all the options for free does not seem like a good idea to offer to anyone. Maybe I am wrong, but free stuff on test worked in the past, but does not seem workable to me in the future.
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Originally Posted by Dr_MechanoEU
Though I have my conspiracy theories on why the sudden switch to the Free 2 Play model (Going Rogue failed to bring in subscriber numbers NCsoft hoped etc.) I won't go into them in great detail here.
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All the F2P games I subscribe to (which granted is only 3 not including CoH) have all those included. To be clear, I am talking about the case where people are paying subscriptions. The only caveat is some of the games have core functionality that has to be earned in game (like Warshades, Capes and Auras) that can be unlocked prematurely with MTX.
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Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Funny, I saw pretty much the opposite. I know we can't compare and contrast here, but I sampled 4 formerly-subscription MMO's that went hybrid in the past 2 years, and ALL of them have
- races you must pay to unlock - classes (with unique mechanics) you must pay to unlock. - content you must pay to unlock - market limits applied to you that you must pay to unlock. - critical advantages (like alternate advancement, broader power/spell selection, ability to use higher-quality loot, etc) that you must pay to access. In fact, if anything, CoH Freedom is showing a broader range of selection available to all "free" players than any of these. Can't go into more detail here, based on forum rules, but if you're curious which ones I mean, PM me and exchange ideas on what's available. I'm always interested in broadening my understanding of the genre. |
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
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Ah, understood.
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Originally Posted by Moonlighter
All the F2P games I subscribe to (which granted is only 3 not including CoH) have all those included. To be clear, I am talking about the case where people are paying subscriptions. The only caveat is some of the games have core functionality that has to be earned in game (like Warshades, Capes and Auras) that can be unlocked prematurely with MTX.
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DOOM is all I see lately with the $10 price on powersets, while I agree $10 is kinda steep for a powerset what fails to be considered is that the current prices on the market are PLACEHOLDERS!!! War Witch and Black Scorp made this a point when I spoke with them at Comic Con.
Even if they are $10 you do not need to buy them. Hell I would have never purchased dual pistols or demon summoning if they didn't come with GR. If you don't like melee you aren't forced to buy street justice or Titan. If you hate ranged then save your points and don't get beam rifle. (though I will say the animation on street justice is nice, and the guns for beam are slick)
That being said I will call DOOM if I have to pay for dark control or illusion for Doms
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Also note that it had been mentioned that some powersets that don't require new mechanics or a lot of new animations (like proliferated ones) may be free to subscribers. It won't be EVERY powerset that's pricy.
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Originally Posted by NeoGenesis
DOOM is all I see lately with the $10 price on powersets, while I agree $10 is kinda steep for a powerset what fails to be considered is that the current prices on the market are PLACEHOLDERS!!! War Witch and Black Scorp made this a point when I spoke with them at Comic Con.
Even if they are $10 you do not need to buy them. Hell I would have never purchased dual pistols or demon summoning if they didn't come with GR. If you don't like melee you aren't forced to buy street justice or Titan. If you hate ranged then save your points and don't get beam rifle. (though I will say the animation on street justice is nice, and the guns for beam are slick) That being said I will call DOOM if I have to pay for dark control or illusion for Doms |
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It would have had to have been a "go free 2 play or die within four years" mandate since CoH: Freedom has been in the planning stages for over two years now. Which would be a rather strange mandate. No one on their last legs gives the dev team a couple of years to execute their last ditch effort.|
Originally Posted by Dr_MechanoEU
Though at this stage I suspect it has become a case of go free 2 play or die within two years mandate came down from NCsoft.
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Here's how far back I can push City of Heroes: Freedom, and in the process dispel many of the theories surrounding it that the change was some sort of desperation move.
I learned about the focus group preview back in April of 2011. It had been in development for quite some time before then, which means City of Heroes Freedom had to be well underway in January of 2011. Any theory that says Freedom is a sudden last ditch effort by Paragon Studios is false on its face.
I learned a while ago that the devs actually did something which I can't share, but which was related to City of Heroes Freedom and occurred at a time when it could not possibly have been influenced by Going Rogue's launch or numbers. So City of Heroes Freedom must have been already in development when Going Rogue released in August 2010. Any theory that says Freedom is a response to Going Rogue cannot be correct for this reason.
The Strike Teams that Paragon Studios says were integral to Freedom's development model were being formed at least as far back as March 2009. Freedom's genesis has to date from around that time period, coincident with the development reorganization.
The people at the focus group preview were told in May that Freedom had been in development for "over two years" which also implies a genesis date of early 2009. Also, by May of 2009 Black Scorpion referred to his position within Paragon Studios (at least to me) as no longer the "powers dude" but "in charge of more stuff." Without going into the details, what he said sounds like the moment when he became the Live and End Game lead (more or less) which would imply that was around when War Witch became the lead for the introductory game, which must have been approximately when things like the tutorial and the early level experience updates were being formulated, both of which are closely coupled to City of Heroes Freedom. So any theory claiming that NCSoft gave Paragon Studios an ultimatum to switch to an F2P model has to account for them making that ultimatum years ago, and giving Paragon Studios years to execute it.
Also, any theory claiming Paragon Studios is only doing this because other companies have done it and proven successful would also have to account for the timeline when those other companies launched their Hybrid F2P transitions and then reported on their numbers.
My educated guess is that the genesis of the City of Heroes: Freedom model dates back to around March-April 2009. I am almost absolutely certain it happened some time between late 2008 and summer 2009. That puts a bit of a crimp in most of the theories out there as to why Paragon Studios has decided to launch City of Heroes Freedom, besides the obvious one the devs have basically articulated. Namely that the game was doing fine but was probably on a very slow decline overall, and this was the strategy they felt offered the best long term opportunity to strengthen and improve the game. They felt it was the best option, but one that did not need to be rushed (well, rushed on a time frame of years: I'm sure they felt rushed all two and approaching three years of it).
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I first learned of CoHF in June 2011. The decision to go F2P was probably made about two minutes before. That would put the NCSoft ultimatum about ten minutes before *that*. I don't have any hard data, but that's just what seems most likely.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I learned about the focus group preview back in April of 2011. It had been in development for quite some time before then, which means City of Heroes Freedom had to be well underway in January of 2011. Any theory that says Freedom is a sudden last ditch effort by Paragon Studios is false on its face.
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Character index
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Do you think it is likely they had originally intended to launch the new monetization model with Going Rogue? In hindsight, a lot of the way they handled the marketing for GR implies that possibility.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
My educated guess is that the genesis of the City of Heroes: Freedom model dates back to around March-April 2009. I am almost absolutely certain it happened some time between late 2008 and summer 2009.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
A new powerset doesn't always involve programmers: that's only if it has new mechanics. It does involve power designers, who are not programmers: they are "data designers." They deal in Excel, not C. From brainstorming to initial design it could take dozens of hours just to get the basics down. And I doubt even the first cut at a powerset takes only 60 hours.
Separate from that, and the artwork time to make animations, effects, and other visual elements of the powers, there's also Q&A testing time, design reviews, design reviews, mechanics testing, design reviews, balance passes, design reviews, beta testing, design reviews, and post live support. I would be surprised if there exists a post-launch powerset with less than five hundred man-hours of effort within it, and I'd probably budget 1000 total man-hours for a powerset given what I know about the process (which is incomplete) for design, implementation, testing, and process overhead.
I'm sure Television's eyeballs bugged out of his head when he found out he should be making $100/hour in salary and benefits, but even at more conservative industry standard estimates a powerset is bound to cost between $30k and $50k to implement, if not more.
If it really cost Paragon studies that much money and time to design a set that all I gotta say is cudos my hat is off from them and obviously their Korean overlords are too. With the amount of content they have pumped out since GR released and now freedom **** I wonder where they get the time or maybe they had a new staff influx. Just as I type this It made a light bulb go off in my head all those job openings maybe they where for the Freedom launch and NCsoft has some real good feeling about this, well all I gotta say is them and I both.