Quote:
um...what exactly was I wrong about? |
Originally Posted by BadBad_Girl
Wrong! They had an Mission Architect Box for sale when it was released.. This was a big selling point as stated... Did you need to purchase to play AE??? No it was given to us... But nonetheless there was a box for the release... I do think there were couple perks in there that you were given (Magic or science booster pack) and 1 month sub to boot
|
-there hasn't been a box release since 2006 with Good vs. Evil, that contained both games and up to Issue 7 plus a bunch of additional goodies
-considering how many content updates we had, it would be a pain in the *** for new subscribers to start from scratch or the GvE CD
Just to add, the AE box wasn't out when i14 went live and yes, the perk was a redeemable code for either a cyborg or magic booster pack.
Anyhow, all the details for it
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Architect_Edition
Quote:
That url is the unsupported, malware-infested site that is NOT the Paragon Wiki, BTW.|
Originally Posted by Mr. DJ
|
Better website:
www.paragonwiki.com
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
>.> my bad, nothing bad popped up on my end *shrug*
Quote:
Well, if it was a bug it'd be difficult to report as such.
|
Originally Posted by Texas Justice
Actually, during Beta when the account status was set as non-VIP you weren't allowed to send a /petition or a /bug report. It gave errors in the chat window when you tried.
I never did get confirmation of whether that was WAI or a bug. |
Quote:
|
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. |
Quote:
So what if they did release a boxed edition. As you pointed out you also got a free month of game time $15 dollar value and a free booster with a $10 dollar value. |
Originally Posted by BadBad_Girl
Wrong! They had an Mission Architect Box for sale when it was released.. This was a big selling point as stated... Did you need to purchase to play AE??? No it was given to us... But nonetheless there was a box for the release... I do think there were couple perks in there that you were given (Magic or science booster pack) and 1 month sub to boot
|
The edition only cost $20 bucks. People that bought it came out $5 bucks ahead on that deal.
Quote:
Now I'm curious to find out. |
Originally Posted by Texas Justice
Actually, during Beta when the account status was set as non-VIP you weren't allowed to send a /petition or a /bug report. It gave errors in the chat window when you tried.
I never did get confirmation of whether that was WAI or a bug. |
Quote:
I'm pretty sure if you have enough vet/paragon rewards you'll have those restricted AT's unlocked.
|
Originally Posted by Nyx
So sad and funny at the same time. My main is a Grav/FF/Psi Controller. Rift-Dancer, and she is my oldest toon. She also won the global CC contest for the custom AE arch, and now, she is or will be locked.
I dunno... I know I am just echoing my frustration or concern, but hopefully people can understand why. I'm not like having a tantrum here, Im just hoping that the frustration it's self does not turn me off. It's to early to tell really, and I wont jump the gun, but I will admit that Im getting a touch sour in the mouth. Although you all have been really helpfull. Im just glad I went from having 12 controllers to having a decent mix. |
Quote:
This is the part that I really don't understand about some of the complaints about Freedom.|
Originally Posted by Nyx
It's to early to tell really, and I wont jump the gun, but I will admit that Im getting a touch sour in the mouth.
|
Before Freedom, if you dropped your sub you got NOTHING. The game was gone, completely inaccessible. Now, you can pay not one cent to NCSoft, and still have access to a basic version of the game. How, in any sense at all, are you worse off now than you were before?
Anyway, regarding specific issues:
Assuming that you've been subscribed since your forum joining date of August 2010, Paragonwiki says that you will enter Freedom with 7 Reward Tokens (that's 4 per vet badge + 1 anniversary Token + 1 for having an account + 1 for applying a retail code). That will immediately put you at level 3, and 1 Token away from completing level 4.
You will therefore have access to ALL chat channels. So no worries, there.
The inf cap for level 3 is 1 billion inf, so unless you have significant funds washing around, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. You can always e-mail your inf to yourself, and then claim it on the characters you decide to unlock.
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
Quote:
It's just a matter of expectations management. When you can't play the game without paying, you accept that. When you expect to be able to play the game but in practice the limitations make it impractical, you're disappointed.|
Originally Posted by Grouchybeast
This is the part that I really don't understand about some of the complaints about Freedom.
Before Freedom, if you dropped your sub you got NOTHING. The game was gone, completely inaccessible. Now, you can pay not one cent to NCSoft, and still have access to a basic version of the game. How, in any sense at all, are you worse off now than you were before? |
People tend to be optimistic. When limitations aren't mentioned specifically, they'll imagine a version that would work for their purposes. The Freedom site has little real information, which will lead practically everyone to imagine a version that's better than it really is. Playing their existing characters is an important thing to veterans of the game, and Premium limits that enough that in most cases it's impossible to play the character without at least extra work or paying a small monthly sum. Nobody expects that, and since it's the one thing most people want, it's bound to disappoint.
Freedom is a good thing, it's just the combination of letting players play their old characters while limiting them significantly, without even specifying the particulars on the site, that makes it disappointing to people when they finally learn the particulars.
Exactly. When I 1st heard about Freedom I instantly sent a text to my rl friend that used to play with me. He quit playing when he became a father since $ was tight.
We got all excited at the prospect of playing again. He was looking forward to spending a bit here and there in the store to buy some extras and powersets etc. When I found out about the restrictions on Premiums I sent him a text letting him know he might not have access to chat among other things.
Even though he played for over 2 years and would probably be at a high enough tier to not worry about it. His response was he could've started a free trial at any time and to h*** with it. Wasn't worth his time. He decided to stay with his current F2P MMO that doesn't charge for the game, only for the bling.
Sadly, the more and more people I contacted. Old friends from here and other games. All said no thanks once they found out they'd be better off not bothering, rather than have to spend $$ they'd intended to use on costume fluff. They'd have to spend months buying back the core parts of the game. Big turn off for them.
This isn't a whine.
This isn't a 'I want it all free NAO' post (I'm going to be a ViP til they shut em down)
This is a problem of perception.
If returning/new players feel so isolated. If they feel overly punished for not paying a sub. They aren't likely to pump money into the store... For anything.
I understand that the focus is on ViP's but the way to do that is to make great content that is only avail to us. Not by locking away the core functions of the game.
Alas, ship has sailed. Time to cross fingers.
One last thing. The whole "If you stopped paying before Freedom you couldn't even play" excuse has to stop now. It's irrelevant past Freedom's launch.
Maestro Mavius - Infinity
Capt. Biohazrd - PCSAR
Talsor Tech - Talsorian Guard
Keep Calm & Chive On!
Quote:
I disagree.|
Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
One last thing. The whole "If you stopped paying before Freedom you couldn't even play" excuse has to stop now. It's irrelevant past Freedom's launch.
|
The relevance of that "excuse" is bound up in the fact that it underlies the entire design of Freedom.
Freedom was designed to be a vast improvement in every way over the I20 world and it succeeds at that. Let me repeat: it does what it was designed to do.
What is less clear is whether it was designed to be an improvement over a certain Tolkien-inspired games' design, and if so, whether it succeeds at that.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Quote:
Agreed. It's the whole freaking point.
|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I disagree.
The relevance of that "excuse" is bound up in the fact that it underlies the entire design of Freedom. Freedom was designed to be a vast improvement in every way over the I20 world and it succeeds at that. Let me repeat: it does what it was designed to do. What is less clear is whether it was designed to be an improvement over a certain Tolkien-inspired games' design, and if so, whether it succeeds at that. |
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Quote:
I worry that you are correct; I'm just not sure what could have been done about it. As much info as has been given, people are still confused, mis-interpreting and in many cases, misquoting.|
Originally Posted by Dark Sweater
It's just a matter of expectations management.
|
I myself have fallen victime to using the phrase "Free to play" to my friends before going back and correcting myself.
Historically, this game has often given people what they wanted, only to see many of them say "Yeah, whatever, but what about all of this other stuff you didn't give us?"
Hopefully, this will not be one of those times.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Quote:
/ditto
|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Agreed. It's the whole freaking point.
|
Quote:
This. I think one issue I do have is that alot of the info hasn't been consistent across all channels for long enough. For some time some of the earliest info on the COH Freedom pages on the homepage had a few unclear things.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I worry that you are correct; I'm just not sure what could have been done about it. As much info as has been given, people are still confused, mis-interpreting and in many cases, misquoting.
I myself have fallen victime to using the phrase "Free to play" to my friends before going back and correcting myself. Historically, this game has often given people what they wanted, only to see many of them say "Yeah, whatever, but what about all of this other stuff you didn't give us?" Hopefully, this will not be one of those times. |
I think it would have been better if there was a pdf or document that they could share across all pages (homepage, GR page, facebook, twitter account) that folks could download so that there was a consistent message. Comm Reps and Devs could also refer to this when discussing COH Freedom.
But hindsight is 20/20 and all that. (I know I got that saying wrong. LOL)
EDIT: Also a lot of stuff simply wasn't clear at all. Like what they meant by "Incarnate Content". Did they meant he trials will be locked out? Is it the slots that will be grayed out? Will you still be able to get incarnate xp and unlock the slots and not slot anything in them? Etc, etc.
Things like that should have been clearly written within Paragon Studios BEFORE putting it public. No one is perfect, and from managing a community team recently, I get why some stuff isn't that clear before and after it goes out.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Quote:
The design of Freedom isn't to benefit the players. It's to benefit the developers by increasing profits. We don't know if it does what it is designed to do unless the game closes down or the developers are open with profit figures.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I disagree.
The relevance of that "excuse" is bound up in the fact that it underlies the entire design of Freedom. Freedom was designed to be a vast improvement in every way over the I20 world and it succeeds at that. Let me repeat: it does what it was designed to do. What is less clear is whether it was designed to be an improvement over a certain Tolkien-inspired games' design, and if so, whether it succeeds at that. |
I personally think the profit from new/returning player traffic will be relatively low but that the current subscribers will make up for that by spending in the store. Basically the whole model seems designed to make people subscribers and then get them spending extra in the store, in effect increasing your subscription without actually increasing it.
Quote:
Not really. There was a whole section of the Beta forums devoted to Bug reports. |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Quote:
|
Also, at the time this was happening, several of the QA people were talking to us in the game, including Alpha Wolf.
So no, it wasn't difficult to report it as a bug. Getting a definitive answer as to whether or not it was actually a bug was what I was unable to get confirmation on.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
Quote:
Or in effect allow you to play the game for free and pick and choose what you want to pay extra for.|
Originally Posted by Death_Badger
The design of Freedom isn't to benefit the players. It's to benefit the developers by increasing profits. We don't know if it does what it is designed to do unless the game closes down or the developers are open with profit figures.
I personally think the profit from new/returning player traffic will be relatively low but that the current subscribers will make up for that by spending in the store. Basically the whole model seems designed to make people subscribers and then get them spending extra in the store, in effect increasing your subscription without actually increasing it. |
You have the choice to pay $0.00.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Quote:
I beleive that the design of Freedom is intended to both benefit the players and the developers. No dilemna present.
|
Originally Posted by Death_Badger
The design of Freedom isn't to benefit the players. It's to benefit the developers by increasing profits.
|
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
I think they want new players to pay for VIP access, or use premium to get a taste, and for higher end players who quit playing to come back since they get a lot of the features VIP players get.
I don't have any real opinion on this since it won't be changing how I play, really... if I'm interested in CoH, I will buy a subscription, if not, it will be premium and I doubt I will be playing it.
I enjoy CoH a lot right now, though, so I can't see myself dropping VIP any time soon!
While I can't know what was really discussed at Paragon Studios, it looks to me like the devs did intend to address all potential customers, subscribers, new and returning players. The solution just missed the mark a little.
I blame the shrubbery. A typical hybrid F2P game has two, three, maybe four tiers of play (free, premium, subscription is typical). CoH Freedom has like twenty of them (ten major plus a few minor). Eight reward tiers, VIP, VIP tier 9, and powers and costume pieces which are only available via the shrubbery. This complexity means that colleges will be giving Freedom 101 courses just to help people prepare for the game. That was why the release date was aimed at September.
Joking aside, this kind of complexity requires in depth documentation and comprehensive FAQ's. Even simpler games rarely manage to make every term clear on their tier tables, but for Freedom it's probably impossible to create a comprehensive table that won't cover a full desk.
So I agree with an idea posted here: devs, make a PDF document with all the details. You can print a few hard cover copies for collectors. Add a FAQ to the site specifically detailing the changes existing characters will experience when going to Premium.
Quote:
Ok..I need to clarify my point a little further.|
Originally Posted by Grouchybeast
This is the part that I really don't understand about some of the complaints about Freedom.
Before Freedom, if you dropped your sub you got NOTHING. The game was gone, completely inaccessible. Now, you can pay not one cent to NCSoft, and still have access to a basic version of the game. How, in any sense at all, are you worse off now than you were before? Anyway, regarding specific issues: Assuming that you've been subscribed since your forum joining date of August 2010, Paragonwiki says that you will enter Freedom with 7 Reward Tokens (that's 4 per vet badge + 1 anniversary Token + 1 for having an account + 1 for applying a retail code). That will immediately put you at level 3, and 1 Token away from completing level 4. You will therefore have access to ALL chat channels. So no worries, there. The inf cap for level 3 is 1 billion inf, so unless you have significant funds washing around, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. You can always e-mail your inf to yourself, and then claim it on the characters you decide to unlock. |
I am...and have absolutely no desire to quit, drop the game, unsub, not be a VIP! I know the alternative would have been not playing at all! I was prepared for that considdering I knew I would be in surgery and recovery during that time. Then...I found out freedom was coming out.
First, I need to explain a previous situation in which I was playing another Superhero styled game. That game went free to play. Thats fine and well and good I guess. What occured was that I came back to CoX and was playing that as well as a sub.
Upon returning to that game to check out the free model my high level toons were not locked, but instead actually destroyed by forced AT's/Classes.
I was concerned this would happen if I logged into my CoX account if I had to leave for a 2 month period oe I would lose things that made the game fun. It sounds as though It maybe ok.
I was just hopeing that Freedom would be a way that during recovery, and some financial hardship that can sometimes come about, that it would still be a valid way to play the game.
So I have my concerns, but not being VIP is actually not the way I intend to play...which is I guess good because the goal is to get people to sub and not lose them.
I was just worried that in losing my stuff, I would eventually lose interest in the game
Quote:
To the best of my knowledge, there are no circumstances in which under Freedom any player has any chance of permanently losing anything anywhere during any conversion from one type of player to another. The only things that happen during changes from VIP to Premium is that things entitled to subscribers and not to Premium players will be locked unless a specific unlock was purchased or otherwise earned for that thing.|
Originally Posted by Nyx
Ok..I need to clarify my point a little further.
I am...and have absolutely no desire to quit, drop the game, unsub, not be a VIP! I know the alternative would have been not playing at all! I was prepared for that considdering I knew I would be in surgery and recovery during that time. Then...I found out freedom was coming out. First, I need to explain a previous situation in which I was playing another Superhero styled game. That game went free to play. Thats fine and well and good I guess. What occured was that I came back to CoX and was playing that as well as a sub. Upon returning to that game to check out the free model my high level toons were not locked, but instead actually destroyed by forced AT's/Classes. I was concerned this would happen if I logged into my CoX account if I had to leave for a 2 month period oe I would lose things that made the game fun. It sounds as though It maybe ok. I was just hopeing that Freedom would be a way that during recovery, and some financial hardship that can sometimes come about, that it would still be a valid way to play the game. So I have my concerns, but not being VIP is actually not the way I intend to play...which is I guess good because the goal is to get people to sub and not lose them. I was just worried that in losing my stuff, I would eventually lose interest in the game |
So if you downgrade from VIP to Premium:
1. Characters on Exalted get locked and you can't play them until you resub. But they are still there.
2. Inventions slotted in characters stop working, but they are still there and will reactivate if you resub, or buy a temporary invention license.
3. Characters created with archetypes Premium players do not get automatically will be locked and unplayable until those archetypes are unlocked, or you resub. But the characters remain intact until then, just locked.
4. Incarnate powers disable until you resub. But they remain there.
5. I believe even things like alignment merits remain if you downshift, its just that you cannot spend them (unless you buy the alignment system unlock).
And so on. If you make something as a subscriber, then downshift to premium, those things may be locked, but in no case whatsoever am I aware of the game either deleting, or altering your characters to fit your subscription. If that does happen at any time, I believe it to be a bug, and not Freedom policy.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
I really hope that the website will be updated with more details soon, because there's really not enough there to provide an understanding of what going Premium would mean for a subscriber or returning player. Which means that you read what's there, try to read into it and guess what it means, construct a vision in your mind of what you'll be able to do, and then it all gets shattered when you learn the real limitations. That's a lot more frustrating than if you knew up front what to expect.