Freedom? Hardly

I have to agree with the OP. If I was looking for a F2P game and saw that if I wanted to play CoH for free that meant no guilds, no crafting, no auction house, no trading, practically no ability to communicate I'd be looking elsewhere.

It doesn't have to be this bad. I know they are being extra cautious in order to placate the existing user base but for a new player coming in it's just too restrictive.

Just my 2inf.

Here's your perspective problem, OP:

You think City of Heroes: Freedom is meant for Free players, and because you take that view, it's understandable how you'd come to the conclusions you have.

The reality is this: Freedom is really what Premium players experience. You have the freedom to experience the game as much or as little as you want to pay for. Monthly subscribers (VIPs) will still get the same game experience they've always received, so there's not much really changing for them. Free players are still very limited in their experience, just like previous free players (Trial players) have been experiencing, but they do get to take characters to max level, which is a big bonus, and they can add parts to the game via Points purchasing that no current trial player could without subscribing to the entire game. The true dynamic part of Freedom lies within the Premium level. Former paying accounts can now play the game without resubbing. They retain the level of vet rewards they earned before they stopped paying, they don't lose any characters (just access to some if they have more than their status allows, but they can also buy tokens to unlock them again). They can still be in chat channels and SGs if they choose. They can still play their Epic ATs if they've unlocked them. If they don't care about Incarnates or Praetoria, they don't have to pay extra for it, and they can continue to play the majority of the game sub-free.

How is that not Freedom? We're going from either paying completely and having access to everything, or not paying and having zero access, to having three ways to play the game, and only one requires a monthly sub.

What I am seeing here is that some people do not understand that Freedom will not turn City of Heroes into a free-to-play game - precisely as intended. What it is intended to do, and what it will do, is allow people to try a significant chunk of the game at no cost indefinitely, and then allow them to unlock another significant chunk of the game in perpetuity with a single one-time purchase if they prefer to do so, or subscribe and receive even more access.

Think carefully: if a free player knows that certain privileges are locked behind a one time payment, and those privileges are important to them, and they choose not to pay for them but rather to stop playing the game, what precisely has been lost? Not a customer, because they weren't willing to pay for things they wanted.

If you don't think this business model will work, that is a prediction which will or will not be borne out by subsequent events - but if you think that the developers were trying for a different business model and happened to stumble into this one through poor implementation, then you don't understand what Freedom was designed to be.

Once you eliminate IOs then there's no need for recipes and salvage or a big bank.

No MA. You are trying to get F2P to play the game enough that they would be willing to go VIP or start buying and spending PP to get access to more things. What would leveling to 50 in a day or two accomplish toward that goal.

Subscribe for just one month or buy (not spend) 1200PP and you unlocks joining SG, player trading, mail, more comm channels (tells, global friends, SG, Coalition), allows you to play MA but for no tickets, 20x your bank and unlocks the trenchcoat (which was a 3 month vet reward so $30 plus the cost of the game).

You have to make that jump from free to premium very attractive for the cost and I think they have.

You don't need IOs to play the game, at least at 1x/+0. Sure you can't be an unhittable death machine soloing at 8x/+3 but what fun is that. It makes the game pre-market/IOs. That's not bad for free.

Reading this post reminded me of a little in-game feature I had forgotten about because it didn't seem to have much utility, but if enabled for free accounts will probably start getting a lot more use: The 'Friends' chat option, which will send a message to everyone on your friends list (not global). This, if available to free players, will be a pretty decent substitute for tells/broadcast.

Let's just hope it doesn't get abused and taken away. That's hoping for a lot, I know.

Speaking as someone who has actually played the Freem game I feel qualified to talk about this topic.

The long and short of it is that the game is not really that restrictive; especially if you're a true newbie and you don't know anything about inventions or architects or consignment houses.

The most limiting aspect of the free version of the game is the inability to chat outside of Help and Team/League. The second most limiting thing is that DO/SO drops are very limited. Other than those two items, the free game is really pretty much just City of Heroes pre-Issue 8.

Prior to level 20, there is a shortage of contacts. Post level 20 there are a lot of contacts, as well as tip missions (but no morality missions). At level 25 Ouroboros starts offering missions, and the typical progression continues with the other zones as you'd expect.

Considering what some other games offer as their free experience, it's a pretty good offering, frankly.

Influence (and presumably Infamy) is at a bit of a premium, but tip missions give a pretty sizable reward and the new sewer trial gives some pretty significant inf and enhancement rewards. Basically, a free player should have few problems aside from communicating with other players.

I think the experience compares favorably with, say, being a Bronze member in Everquest 2. It's been a long time since I played LOTRO, but I have a feeling that you'd find that it also compares favorably with the free member version of that game.

I think it makes a lot more sense to do it this way than to take the "unending trial" approach of WAR and WoW, where a player might get those inventions but be limited to max level 20.

Moreover, if Matt's past statement about "any purchase gets you to reward tier 2" holds true then the five dollar cost to become Premium and gain access to chat channels and supergroups is so nominal that I would consider it a no-brainer for anyone who isn't burdened with six kids who all want to play the game.

You don't actually NEED inventions to enjoy the game. You don't actually NEED Architect. You don't NEED the consignment house. You don't NEED incarantes. You don't NEED morality missions. You can play the game just fine without them. They're enhancements to the basic game, but none of them is a defining feature of the game.

Yes chat limitations are a pain in the butt, but again - a $5 purchase of 400 paragon points seems like a small price to pay in order to remove that limitation if it truly is causing you grief.

After living the free member life for a couple of weeks, I feel that it is, in fact, not nearly as onerous as a lot of vets imagine it will be; especially from the standpoint of a newbie who won't know what he's missing, anyway.

While we certainly appreciate your feedback, I offer the following points of consideration:

- All PVE content that Premium/Free players will have access to is easily doable without IO's. One of the main reasons that non incarnate content can be challenging is difficulty sliders. Players are able to customize their experience to be something that is on par with with they're capable of handling. Additionally, these players will be able to team with players that are "geared" better than they are, allowing them to participate as well.

- All someone has to do is make a minimum investment (1 Reward Token) to have access to Private Tells. We do not feel that this is unreasonable, and it will serve as a necessary barrier of entry to prevent players from being flooded with RMT spam. 1 tier up, and they have access to ALL global chat channels. Again, we don't feel this is unreasonable.

- Our team has spent the last 12 months with the singular goal of providing the best overall experience for VIPs, Premium and Free players possible. Free players will have access to an extremely robust experience, hours upon hours of content to play though, the *most* robust character creation system and the City of Heroes Community. Premium players will have all of this, plus some amazing perks granted, just for having been a subscriber in the past. VIP players will have more than *what they have now* with features such as the Signature Story Arcs, free server transfers, more frequent updates and more content than we've been able to produce in the past.

What we've put together is a very robust free to play offering, and we're confident that players, both returning and new, will enjoy their free experience while the cornerstone of our business, the VIP player, will continue to enjoy an outstanding City of Heroes experience.

As has been said in the past, repeatedly, this isn't a fire and forget type of thing. We'll be closely watching how the different levels of players interact with each other and making improvements along the way .

Honestly, I feel like every time someone posts about not liking the free/premium model, their issues stem entirely from gross misunderstandings.

Give it time to run - Paragon may change some of the free bits as time goes on.