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I just tested this on the beta server. Currently, a free player *cannot* be gifted with inspirations, enhancements or event salvage. Neither drag-and-drop nor target/right-clicking works; you just get a "character does not have access to trade" message.
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Originally Posted by Giant2005
Free players can't trade but can they still be gifted to?
If I have an enhancement and right click it and to to the option "Give to" will it let me give it to them? |
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Wow. Talk about persona non grata. I suppose that will prevent F2Pers begging for inf. and enhancements, but it's still pretty draconian.
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Originally Posted by Selina_H
I just tested this on the beta server. Currently, a free player *cannot* be gifted with inspirations, enhancements or event salvage. Neither drag-and-drop nor target/right-clicking works; you just get a "character does not have access to trade" message.
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I don't have any interest in the community maintaining a "tradition" of looking down its collective nose at PuGs. That said, I will almost certainly continue to avoid PuGs and ignrore blind tells/invites.|
Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
IF we don't alter certain 'Paragon traditions' then we will be in for a world of misery. If we keep treating blind invites the same as tradition suggests it's going to be a very un-fun enviroment for the new blood. We have to adapt, such is life. I'm not bemoaning that, just looking for other Meta things that could/should be affected.
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I'm not a mean person. I do actually enjoy helping people. However, I am not in a mood to help people all the time. I am not in a mood to socialize all the time. Playing at the pace and efficiency that many PuGs play at isn't what I enjoy, and so I tend not to join them. Forming and then maintaining my own PuG teams is sometimes stressful, and so I tend not to form them unless I am forming them from people I know and trust not to stress me. Ultimately, I'm going to do what is fun for me, and PuGs are unfun for me often enough that they aren't my preferred way to play.
If the CoH community is made up of enough people that are not like me, then that's great for the new folks - they'll have plenty of veterans willing to play with them. But if not, I know I'm not going to ask people to do things they think are unfun out of some sense of obligation to bettering the community. This is a videogame - something we all do to relax. If PuG play is fun and relaxing for (the generic) you, then rock on. If it's not ... I just see that as the shakes.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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It bears repeating that a designated free player has literally made *zero* investment in this game, and it takes only the minimum purchase of points to become premium.|
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Wow. Talk about persona non grata. I suppose that will prevent F2Pers begging for inf. and enhancements, but it's still pretty draconian.
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City of Heroes Freedom is not, I repeat NOT becoming a pure F2P game where the priorities of NCSoft is to rack up as many nameless faceless bodies as humanly possible and steal a quarter from them. It is to *add* to the *existing community of City of Heroes players* an option to play the game for free that is limited, with a path to either an ala carte gaming option or a VIP subscription.
We should keep in mind that while we have an obligation to integrate the new players that arrive with Freedom, we have no obligation to hand the game to them.
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I expect that Free players will be marked as such in Team Search, which will give me a good enough reason to be snobbish towards blind invites anyway. That said, I spend the bulk of my time in instances where I can't be invited anyway.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
That said, I will almost certainly continue to avoid PuGs and ignrore blind tells/invites.
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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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Some of you people really need to stop acting like you speak for everyone. I've never really cared if an invite was 'blind' or not. Some people just like teaming. I accept invites I get, talk for a minute, then decide if i want to stay or not. Your preferences are NOT automatically everyone else's.
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Originally Posted by Feycat
This is not going to change. Getting a blind invite - especially from people who spam them over and over - will never be welcome.
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My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
Not being able to drop Inspirations on a free player seems like a harsher limitation than we really need. You can give them to current Trial players, and that really comes in handy when you're showing a completely new player the ropes and trying to convince them that the game is fun.
They're going to jump into fights they can't handle.
They're going to make mistakes.
They're going to go through their own supplies faster than they get them.
Sure, they can just hit the hospital... but it's much quicker to hand off an Awaken, and you don't have to worry about them making it back across the zone to the door. 
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
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Some don't, and some have higher expectations for teaming, in which case the question of whether the team leader takes the time to /t first is a good indicator of the experience.|
Originally Posted by ItsJustJake
Some of you people really need to stop acting like you speak for everyone. I've never really cared if an invite was 'blind' or not. Some people just like teaming.
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The OP's point, however, is that the introduction of F2Per with CoH Freedom is going to change community standards to such an extent that player preferences won't matter. Blind tells will be what all team leaders will wind up using by default.
Either that, or players in the /search window will be labelled F2P, Premium, and VIP (something that might promote stratification in the community). Perhaps someone on the beta could confirm if players are flagged by status in some fashion.
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The devs need to redo their math. Free players have exactly one communication option as things stand, and that's the Help channel. Unless it's moderated to the point of making what little else the free players get look generous, that channel is going to end up being about anything BUT Help.|
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
The devs have been clear that their decision to limit freeps' communication options was to curtail spam, RMT advertising, and griefing, which they felt was an adequate tradeoff.
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Yeah, freeloaders should have their options limited (speaking as someone who's been said freeloader in the past). But as I said above, that doesn't excuse cutting them off from mechanics the game is designed and balanced around. Basic chat options and trade are part of minimum functionality for enjoyment of the game.
If my first experience with CoX had denied me interactive options that have been baseline in online gaming since before the first MMO hit the shelves, I wouldn't have stuck around long enough to pay my first month.
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I chose to quote this point, but really I meant to quote everything you wrote...|
Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
Freeloaders can see tells sent to them and they can read Broadcast. They can't send to Broadcast and they can't send tells.
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You make no sense!
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CC's as rude is a pretty far stetch... however, the notion that they will be less fun is sound. |
Originally Posted by Mental_Giant
The idea that a costume contest would be considered rude because not everyone has the same options and/or cannot accept payment is incomprehensible to me. I'm reminded of the Vonnegut short Harrison Bergeron.
Should everyone go around in monochromatic unitards and not use /tells to communicate since not everyone can do that? This is not Sparta... this is madness. |
Being dubbed the best costume isn't much of an incentive for standing around for 10-20 minutes. As the CoH economy has grown so have CC prizes, demonstrating that one must offer something worthwhile in exchange for others' time. For free players, the incentive to participate is greatly decreased. For the judges the frustration is increased when they see a really nice costume and have little means to reward that creativity.
If they'd lift the rather harsh limitations on inspirations, I would at least fill up a freebie winner with lots of super inspirations or holiday ones.
My concern only, and has always been insps...because frankly people die, or people need something. This halts the progress of free players, and old players alike. If my tank can't get up, or the blaster keeps dying, then I am in a situation of "City of No Game Play" waiting for people to come back from the hospital.
Not being able to trade insps would be the games downfall. Especially Red Side, which needs love. It also then creates and issue of either herding paying people to the VIP (Of which we all don't want to go) where the mentality is the same as it always was.
I was hoping that Red Side would be populated more with the creation of freedom, but there is no point on playing if the team dies and no one can trade even common insps. Which completely ruins a possible flux of new red players.
To me it's completely backwords thinking.
Im not concerned about CC's etc, considdering that is part of our culture but not as important as game mechanics.
Not being able to send mail is also not important. Not being able to trade salvage is not important, and not being able to give recipes is not important. Those are frill things that don't hinder the fluid progression of a mission. Not being able to provide insps to people just means downtime, lingering in missions and waiting for people...which is not fun for new people (Who we are hoping sub REMEMBER!) or old people who might not mind working with new people.
It's Game breaking! It's staggering to what we know and love about the game, and frankly, other than making a heal based character with a rez on high recharge absolutely needed (Again this goes against what we always talk about when reffering to the trinity) just in order to ensure a decent flow of game play is completely baffling.
The other stuff is workable. What is not workable is a mechanic neccesary to ensure flow of the game being taken out by free players, when the drawbacks effect all players in the same annoying way.
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For people for whom chat and trade are the minimum functionality necessary to test drive a game they are getting to play for free, City of Heroes will not initially be the game for them. There are many, many people for whom that is not true.|
Originally Posted by Black Zot
The devs need to redo their math. Free players have exactly one communication option as things stand, and that's the Help channel. Unless it's moderated to the point of making what little else the free players get look generous, that channel is going to end up being about anything BUT Help.
Yeah, freeloaders should have their options limited (speaking as someone who's been said freeloader in the past). But as I said above, that doesn't excuse cutting them off from mechanics the game is designed and balanced around. Basic chat options and trade are part of minimum functionality for enjoyment of the game. |
I didn't use chat or trade in any significant manner for nearly the first 30 days of my game play. People who can test drive through soloing will have no problems. People who can work within the strict limits of teaming will have no problems. People who can spend five bucks on discretionary entertainment will have no problems. Lets get all of them first before extending our reach to all the people who will refuse to try a free game because you can't collect the prize of a costume contest.
The goal of City of Heroes Freedom is to get more customers. Not all of them.
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Good riddance to this very stupid piece of this game's culture. "You invited me to a team in a multiplayer game! How rude!" always struck me as very WTF. I do put teams together when the mood strikes, and this cultural quirk always made it much more work than it had to be. Just join the dern group, if you're not into what we're doing, just say so and part ways amicably. It isn't hard. With this aspect of the game's culture dead or curtailed, I just might put teams together more often rather than soloing so much.
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Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
Blind invites being rude/not a team worth playing with.
This might be an easy adjustment to make, then again it may prove to be such an ingrained idea for the vets that we don't shake it that quickly. Fact is though, come Freedom, blind invites will be the only way to roll for the majority of players. Free players won't be able to communicate with us and vice versa. It ceases to be 'rude' when it's the only option. |
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If you can't be arsed to send a short, simple message telling me level, location and activity, I'm not going to put myself to the trouble of joining your team to find out whether you're doing something I might actually want to participate in.|
Originally Posted by Daemodand
Good riddance to this very stupid piece of this game's culture. "You invited me to a team in a multiplayer game! How rude!" always struck me as very WTF. I do put teams together when the mood strikes, and this cultural quirk always made it much more work than it had to be. Just join the dern group, if you're not into what we're doing, just say so and part ways amicably. It isn't hard. With this aspect of the game's culture dead or curtailed, I just might put teams together more often rather than soloing so much.
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Like you said, it isn't hard.
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Pet peeve. I never really liked CCs just because the quality of the look was vastly in part related to how much a vet the player was. A 1 month player most likely isn't going to have the equal skill of a 5 year player. I thought doing CCs based on vet status was much better.
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Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
Costume Contests could be considered rude.
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I don't think there are going to be very many free players to worry about. They are very very limited in this game and will either have to quit or upgrade. They won't stay free.
[QUOTE=MaestroMavius;3829649]
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a) I don't see what makes you think anything is going to change. The people who do what you don't like now have absolutely no new motivation to act differently once CoH:F arrives.|
Originally Posted by Daemodand
Good riddance to this very stupid piece of this game's culture. "You invited me to a team in a multiplayer game! How rude!" always struck me as very WTF. I do put teams together when the mood strikes, and this cultural quirk always made it much more work than it had to be. Just join the dern group, if you're not into what we're doing, just say so and part ways amicably. It isn't hard. With this aspect of the game's culture dead or curtailed, I just might put teams together more often rather than soloing so much.
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b) What makes you so special that it's OK for you to shift the responsibility to communicate onto those you invite, anyway? If you can't be bothered to communicate initially, why should they be bothered to accept?
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I think there will be a very fast conversion from Free to Premium. I really don't think people will stay at the Free status very long at all.
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Originally Posted by Giant2005
I don't think there are going to be very many free players to worry about. They are very very limited in this game and will either have to quit or upgrade. They won't stay free.
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Types of Swords
My Portfolio
Blind Invites are, to me, lumped in the same category as Spam Mail and Telemarketing. None of them have ever been or will ever be welcome by me. Unwelcome, unwanted, 100% impolite.
Ideally, there would be a way to gift a Free player who won a CC some Paragon Points so they can make the jump to Premium. Sure, its real cash, but think of it as an investment to the community.
But I think Giant and Zypoid are right, I don't think Free players will stay Free for long.
Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader
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I'm a 7+ year vet & my costume creation skills SUCK!
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Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
A 1 month player most likely isn't going to have the equal skill of a 5 year player. I thought doing CCs based on vet status was much better.
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@Spawn of Santa
SoS thuggin' bio
The Gang's All Here
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Originally Posted by ItsJustJake
Some of you people really need to stop acting like you speak for everyone. I've never really cared if an invite was 'blind' or not. Some people just like teaming. I accept invites I get, talk for a minute, then decide if i want to stay or not. Your preferences are NOT automatically everyone else's.
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Originally Posted by Daemodand
Good riddance to this very stupid piece of this game's culture. "You invited me to a team in a multiplayer game! How rude!" always struck me as very WTF. I do put teams together when the mood strikes, and this cultural quirk always made it much more work than it had to be. Just join the dern group, if you're not into what we're doing, just say so and part ways amicably. It isn't hard. With this aspect of the game's culture dead or curtailed, I just might put teams together more often rather than soloing so much.
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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 think I'll stick to my same policy on blind invites as always. If I'm not otherwise occupied, I'll accept them.
... Then stand in the doorway, and get XP/inf/drops until someone boots me.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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I will continue treating blind invites as I always have:
- If I can/want to team, I will accept the invite, and if they are doing something in which I have no interest, I will politely excuse myself.
- If I cannot or do not want to team, I will decline the invite and send a tell as to why I do not wish to team at present.
Since Free players will be able to receive tells, there shouldn't be a problem with that.CCs are tough. I do not wish to alienate any of the incoming players. These will just have to be dealt with delicately. Considering they are completely player-sanctioned events, there is little room for consternation. The contest manager should make it clear that any free players entering the contest will be unable to claim their prize should they win. At that point, any negative feelings can only be directed at the developer-imposed game restrictions, rather than the player(s) running the costume contest. And if a free player is going to get indignant about not being able to claim contest winnings, and refuse to make a one-time $5 purchase for 400 PPs to enable the ability to claim similar rewards, well... do we really want that player sticking around anyway?
As for other things to be aware of:
While I can only speak for myself, I have become fairly reliant on global channels to find/form teams, and I have to constantly remind myself that many players do not use them. So every time I open up the teammate finder window, I usually manage to pull in a couple more people. That is probably something we will want to put to better use, since I am sure many free players will mark themselves as "Looking for Any" on that list.
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