Buying Power Sets...your thoughts?

If this is true then you also have more patience than about 98% of the typical MMO playerbase.

I'd only believe that figure if it were the relative mass of the MMO playerbase. Surely more than 2% of the population has greater patience than a 4 year old. There is an issue, however, that the largest 23% of the population accounts for 70% of its mass.

Also, 87% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Haetron and Dechs have basically already said everything that I say whenever this question comes up, but I'll reiterate as well:

Currently, we're getting an average of 2 free powersets every 18-24 months. If our options are to go on following that pattern or to get 1 free powerset every issue or every other issue with an assortment of additional ones added to the store in between, it's a no brainer.

EVERYBODY (read: subscriber) wins under the new model. We'll likely be averaging two free sets a year instead of 1½-2 years, with 4 or more additional powersets available in the store. You don't HAVE to buy the new sets, but you still get more for free than you ever did largely thanks to the money they're bringing in.

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

Street Justice will be available for all melee ATs, including Brutes.

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

Not really. This is basically identical to buying/unlocking classes in other Hybrid games.

My thoughts exactly. Beam Rifle sounds neat, but I just don't do ranged damage sets, so I'll probably wait until it either goes on sale or I have a massive pile of points and am otherwise bored.

I MIGHT make (and shortly thereafter, shelve) an evil Beam Rifle/Time Manip Corruptor or Defender, since I've actually got a concept using the two... but I guarantee she won't find a lot of play time amongst the rest of my stable of alts. I've even got a backstory for her--woman is sent back in time to stop what her people call "The Long-Passed Storm," but instead ignores her responsibilities to become a time-travelling criminal... until karma bites her in the ***, leaving her stranded in Galaxy City during the Shivan attack.

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

It's entirely serious, and I mean every word of it.

Current revenue streams are:
Subscriptions and Booster Packs

Future revenue streams are:
Subscriptions and Points

By giving everything away to VIP they remove the need for VIP players to buy points, especially if they make additional content -- that is the stuff that isn't given automatically to VIP players -- cheap to get for VIP players, as has been suggested in this (and many other) thread(s).

If the items sold in the store are too cheap the store won't make up for loss of revenue caused by fewer subs. And while subs may in fact go up -- I for one hope so -- I doubt it will be a huge increase.

Of course this makes no sense if you stick with the idea that VIP players somehow deserve everything for only the price of their subs. Something that hasn't ever been true. Once you consider that for the game to thrive it must make money then I for one can look at it in the light that 400-800 is very cheap for something that should be something people want to buy points for to achieve.

Further more:
It is currently said (by other people in many threads) that 800 points is around $10 in value. A months sub costs $15. (IIRC)

For that sub you get:
400 points ($5)
1 Transfer token @ 800 points ($10)
Origin Arcs @ 400 points ($5).
((http://www.cityofheroes.com/eu/uk-fr..._market_1.html))
Plus a whole load of other things that non-VIP players must pay for. 12 character slots, a free power set... etc etc etc.

Now my maths skills are crap but I get from that a total worth of at least $20/month but probably a lot more. Now tell me again that VIPs are being screwed over.

As long as it doesn't turn into "pay to win," it'll be ok. In other words, as long as the purchased sets aren't overpowered, then it's cool.

I probably won't buy any. There are just way too many power sets in game already for me to be concerned about it. About half of is in game I haven't played seriously yet. (Can you believe I have no Doms at all?) So there's still lots more to try out. Maybe one day I'll have to play one of the new ones, but it's not a priority yet.

They are simply calling them purchasable powersets since "premium" already has another meaning in this game.

And Recon - the powers that are purchasable and added to a character all are true temporary powers and granted (based on other glimpses of the system) only to a single character per purchase.

The purchasable POWERSETS will require you make a new character; they are purchasable because of extra time spent in the mechanics and arts departments - they will not be more powerful just because they are bought.

Yep. And, since I'm accustomed to spending an extra $40-50 per year on expansions/boosters/etc, I'll probably keep spending that much extra on other cool stuff.

There's a difference between powers and powersets. A powerset is picked at character creation from the ones that are available to you, and it defines what powers you earn as you level up.

Powersets were always player unlocked, whether by buying a game package (CoH came with hero powersets, CoV with villain powersets, GR with four new ones for various hero and villain archetypes) or by ingame actions (getting to level 50 or 20 to unlock Epic Archetypes and their powersets).

So, no, selling powerset unlocks is not really a new thing, and as long as the new powersets are balanced against the existing ones, it's not really comparable to buying powers.

This stance confuses me.

Your subscription AND 1 or 2 boosters per year is all you're willing to spend.

When Freedom hits, you will pay your subscription, and have the ability to get MORE than 1 or 2 boosters worth of stuff a year for FREE. As mentioned elsewhere, you get 4800 points per year with your subscription, or a $60 value. That's the cost of SIX booster packs. In the course of that year, you can obtain nearly every booster pack that has been released so far, without costing you a dime above your sub fee.

You get that with your normal subscription fee, it does not cost you anything extra. How is that NOT "more than just access to the servers and the odd story arc"? (which is what we get with our subscription now, basically just access to the servers and whatever content the devs are releasing at the moment)

People want to make noise about paying for power sets. I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting Street Justice for free the day it goes live. I'll have the 800 points necessary to unlock it built up by the time it's released. There's nothing else in there I particularly want, so I have no qualms with dropping 800 points on a power set, especially since those 800 points didn't cost me anything in the first place.

I have no use for a Beam Rifle, and I'm getting Time Manipulation for free like everyone else. I might get Titan Weapons, but I'm assuming it will be a few months before that's released, and I should have another 800 points saved up by then.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm still getting plenty of stuff for free. Free being defined as "it doesn't cost me any more than I'm already paying".

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Oh, one point that just occurred to me.
You don't earn the powersets at all. You get to pick from a huge list of available powersets during character creation. At that point, you haven't even finished the character yet, so you have done nothing to earn anything. Buying powersets just gives you a bigger list to choose from.