Guys, I think we're dangerously close to breaking Arcanaville on this subject.
Do you really want to be the one responsible for the entire universe dividing itself by zero if that happens? No? Good, let's stop talking about F2P models.
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The true state of things was there, but you failed to read or understand it? That's your fault, not theirs.|
Originally Posted by Silver Gale
But if you skim an advertisement and form a complete idea of what the thing is they're selling based on whatever words are in the biggest font, and then you go and see it is *not* the thing you were expecting, isn't that totally the fault of the company?
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Originally Posted by Silver Gale
There's the word FREEDOM and my account is called Free. Clearly that means everything in the game is available for free except some XP potions.
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Originally Posted by Silver Gale
So it's Paragon Studios' responsibility to make FREEDOM match my expectations, otherwise it's totally a bait and switch scam.
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'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.
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As I said in my earlier post, $5.00 gets a free player: Ablity to join Supergroups, Access to Tell, Supergroup, and Coalition Communication Channels, Mail System Access, Player-to-Player Trading, Increased Inf cap of 500 million per character, Play stories within the Mission Architect (no rewards) |
Originally Posted by Obsidius
* Edit: what reward tier allows access to /tells? I don't know. But if I'm a new player, the first thing I want to do is look at a big spreadsheet to see what sort of things I can and can't do
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Originally Posted by Diggis
Bit late on this Tony but I believe that the $2 is a monthly fee for IO's. And I think the Auction House is the same. You 'rent' the use really.
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Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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I believe that Arcanaville has put it...aptly, however to reiterate:
The cornerstone of our business is still going to be the VIP subscriber. Yes, we are offering both a Free and an Ala Carte experience, both being very robust, however our priority continues to be on delivering an amazing experience for our loyal Community.
Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
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Where's that image of Fry demanding you take my money?
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
I believe that Arcanaville has put it...aptly, however to reiterate:
The cornerstone of our business is still going to be the VIP subscriber. Yes, we are offering both a Free and an Ala Carte experience, both being very robust, however our priority continues to be on delivering an amazing experience for our loyal Community. |
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Originally Posted by SwellGuy
Where's that image of Fry demanding you take my money?
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(not a very good picture but I literally LOL'd when I saw it in google image results)
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Heh.
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I will agree that that marketing hasn't done a very good job with the pages that describe the system. Then again it's Marketing, so what do you expect. |
Originally Posted by Obsidius
Alright, it's time for me to put my serious face on
Part of the problem is that the uninitiated have to do a bit of research in order to understand a direct comparison between CoH: Freedom and other games. As can be seen above, I can't even allude to other games. It's against the forum policy. So new players who want to have a true understanding as to why CoH: Freedoms system is better than someone else's will have to do a lot of research on their own. Digging through feature matrices, spreadsheets, comparing web pages, etc. Marketing may have already done plenty of research, but are they doing a good enough job of stating that their Paragon Rewards system is superior to similar MMOs in the genre? On the Freedom page they do a fine job of comparing it against the current Vet Rewards system, which means nothing to a new player shopping around. It's a tricky avenue for Marketing, but even just stating that the Paragon Rewards system is a unique system to City of Heroes for permanently unlocking game features for Premium and VIP players alike would help emphasize it's importance without having to do a direct comparison to competing MMOs. |
(and no I'm not sorry Black Pebble
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This is SECOND time today I have lol'd at work and my co-workers are looking at me funny.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That makes this observation about as relevant as saying a successful barbeque attempts to infuse smoke into the meat. |
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!
So, this is the thread we discuss this stuff in now? 
Okay, after pouring through all of the posts, empirical data, opinions, feedback, theories, debates, other options...
I have one important bit of personal feedback to offer:
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This made my insides cringe.|
Originally Posted by Lost Ninja
...
I never played LotRO because I'm not a huge fan of the films... |
(I'm not really harping on you Lost Ninja, haha... I can understand how this happens, but I just find it so odd to think of the Lord Of The Rings saga as films first, haha... it makes my heart shed tears!)
@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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I just decided to use bigger words to make my point. Admittedly, that's not the usual way I employ bigger words, but I think its still effective.
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Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
Guys, I think we're dangerously close to breaking Arcanaville on this subject.
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Oh good, I'm not alone.
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Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
I have one important bit of personal feedback to offer:
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Character index
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
This game is not attempting to execute the conventional F2P model.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
I believe that Arcanaville has put it...aptly, however to reiterate:
The cornerstone of our business is still going to be the VIP subscriber. Yes, we are offering both a Free and an Ala Carte experience, both being very robust, however our priority continues to be on delivering an amazing experience for our loyal Community. |
Just sayin'...market perception is everything...
Slightly more on topic...
1) I do believe we are past the point of such feedback having any impact.
2) I am fine with what they are planning and I will wait and see and pay and play... I'm not putting energy into figuring out what may or may not happen. Not that there's anything wrong with anyone doing, that if they so like, but I'm simply not doing it over this stuff.
3) At first, I was a little wary of this new business model. Mainly due to being somewhat of a completionist combined with me being someone who is not planning to spend more money on this game than I have been over the past few years. That was a bad combination (looking ahead), so I dropped my concerns about it. Some friends and some posters voiced some thoughts that helped me see it a little more positively and I'm not worried about it at all now.
4) I am a bit upset about the awesome Tier 9 rewards and the fact that I'll be over a year away from them, while a new player would be there within the time I have already paid and played this game. The conversion of the old vet system to the new rewards system was set up to prevent longtime vets from having an enormous overabundance of tokens to not be able to spend... The flip side of that is that the mid-tier of current vet status are set back (only compared to the time it would take under the new system... they are indeed coming out ahead if compared to the old system). This is not a huge complaint... it is just a personal bit of disappointment... what can ya do... **** happens!
5) I can agree with some people's concerns with returning/premium players logging in and having no enhancements, having to respec, rebuild, make a purchase just to get started.
I am in-no-way saying that I think it is wrong to deny them of the IO enhancements... My only feedback is that it might be clever to have some sort of process to allow such users a more seamless reintroduction into the game.
How to do that, though... I really don't know. Perhaps the best idea is a free 10 days of VIP status upon "reactivation". Give them a taste of the old game... And provide a pop-up that the IOs' bonuses will shut off without that Tier Reward accomplished or paid for.
Short of that... just supplying some sort of automatic clean-slate alternate build for that character... so, at least, all they'd need to do is fill up the enhancement slots... but that doesn't really prevent the stalling problem.
I'd just like to see them be able to jump in and get their feet wet in the great fun that this game offers in its action.
Regardless... none of that is a deal-breaker, in my eyes.
I just would agree that making some moves to counter a slow, respec-filled, "What?? They're holding my IOs as hostage for TWO stinkin' DOLLARS?? CHEAPSKATES!!!" initial experience/reaction.
As far as... "If that's the returning player's attitude and stance... so be it and good riddance..." response to any of that... Hey, I'm not going to shed any tears nor argue about it either. I just figure, if it is at all possible to prevent and/or cushion that particular scenario... it could be worth doing so.
@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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Because if a guy walks into your store with his own idea of what you're selling based on skimming the words in your ad that were in the biggest font, the right thing to do is to adjust your entire store to suit that guy, and forget your loyal customers.
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Originally Posted by Manoa
Then you guys might want to give the good folks over at MMORPG.com, PCgamer.com, G4TV.com, Gamepro.com and all of those other industry/gamer websites who are mislabeling the model as "free-to-play" to set the record straight that's it's actually a HYBRID model. And while you're at it, you may want to give a call to that other company who does hybrid models (not to mention every other company that offers a tiered model) and tell them their marketing their products wrong by calling it "free-to-play."
Just sayin'...market perception is everything... |
Character index
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If people are already calling the free to play people 'freepers,' then it already sounds pretty divisive. Calling a group of people by a name that sounds a lot like 'creepers' probably isn't going to make them feel welcome or like they're in a community they want to be a part of.
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Originally Posted by SwellGuy
Premium:
A) former subscribers: Somewhat limited access to limited characters or for small payments much less than the subscription total access for a limited number of characters. B) Freepers who buy something: more experience of the game at far less than paying for all of it. Freepers: Can experience most of the powers and ATs for free. |
~Missi
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Miss Informed in 2016! She can't be worse than all those other guys!
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No. I am the sort of player that would love it if the entire game world was reset occasionally.|
Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
While not intrinsically hard per se. If you logged in tomorrow and every single character you'd ever made was gone, all those years of alts and TF's and SG events and badges and et al just vanished, wouldn't you feel like 'all your hard work' was gone?
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NONE of what I do in CoH do I consider work, ever. It is super-powered-happy-fun-time for me. I have to do actual work and playing this game simply is not work in any way shape or form, to me.
I like playing the game. I have been told on more than one occasion that means I like to 'grind', that I am a 'fanboi' and that I am an 'idiot' for allowing myself to be 'taken', simply because I enjoy playing the game, rather than making it a chore.
To me, losing everything would pretty much just be like losing that last life in Asteroids at the arcade and having to put in another quarter.
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I think that's the case, too. And a one-time nominal fee vs a monthly nominal fee is the difference between feeling like something is a great value and feeling nickle and dimed. I think there's monthly fee for crafting, but that might be included in the fee for the IO bonuses.
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Originally Posted by Diggis
Bit late on this Tony but I believe that the $2 is a monthly fee for IO's. And I think the Auction House is the same. You 'rent' the use really.
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~Missi
http://tinyurl.com/yhy333s
Miss Informed in 2016! She can't be worse than all those other guys!
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No|
Originally Posted by Silver Gale
But if you skim an advertisement and form a complete idea of what the thing is they're selling based on whatever words are in the biggest font, and then you go and see it is *not* the thing you were expecting, isn't that totally the fault of the company?
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If you skim something, and form an inaccurate picture, then it's not their fault so long as the advertisement was able to give a full ACCURATE picture (thus things like "See inside for details", etc on window ads and such - to inform you there is more).
Take a fast food ad. Say a coupon that says "FREE CHICKEN TENDERS" in large print. but right under it, in small print, it says "with purchase" or some similar line, and you skim the coupon/mailer/ad and miss that, the food vendor isn't guild of false advertising or bait and switch.
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Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
So basically F2P players get everything that existed when the game went live, and more? And this is bad?
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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Both IOs (everything to do with them, crafting/slotting/using) and the Consignment House have monthly licenses. Mastermind and Controller Unlocks are the two permanent licenses.
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Originally Posted by MissInformed
I think that's the case, too. And a one-time nominal fee vs a monthly nominal fee is the difference between feeling like something is a great value and feeling nickle and dimed. I think there's monthly fee for crafting, but that might be included in the fee for the IO bonuses.
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Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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My argument above relates specifically to the labeling of the proposed model. Some say a hybrid model isn't really a F2P model...others (including myself) argue that a hybrid model is indeed a F2P model, just one of a slightly different flavor than the others that are out there. |
Originally Posted by Silver Gale
Because if a guy walks into your store with his own idea of what you're selling based on skimming the words in your ad that were in the biggest font, the right thing to do is to adjust your entire store to suit that guy, and forget your loyal customers.
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Plus, whoever made the argument that Paragon Studios should forget their loyal playerbase in labeling the hybrid model a F2P model? I certainly don't believe as such and never argued against the VIP tier as it is proposed. And I don't think anyone else who has argued against the current system have argued as such either. My arguments against the proposed system only relate on how it relates to returning players (more specifically, my opinion is that the current Premium Tier Perks doesn't treat returning Premium players right...the vet badge thresholds for key elements that returning layers will be looking at are beyond the scope of reasonableness).
Giving returning premium players more access to (what they view) as a fully functioning game doesn't water down the VIP experience in any way, shape or form. There's plenty of other incentives that comes with a VIP subscription that makes the subscription worth paying for (like incarnates, access to new content, Going Rogue, bonus Paragon Points, server transfers etc). Whatever flavor you decide to call the flavor of model, the term doesn't impact loyal customers.
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I just checked out 3 of the hybrid MMOs out there on MMORPG.com|
Originally Posted by Manoa
Then you guys might want to give the good folks over at MMORPG.com, PCgamer.com, G4TV.com, Gamepro.com and all of those other industry/gamer websites who are mislabeling the model as "free-to-play" to set the record straight that's it's actually a HYBRID model. And while you're at it, you may want to give a call to that other company who does hybrid models (not to mention every other company that offers a tiered model) and tell them their marketing their products wrong by calling it "free-to-play."
Just sayin'...market perception is everything... |
One is listed as Subscription (had a pretty succesful movie franchise), the other is Free2Play (has had 2 pretty lousy films based on them).
The other Superhero game out there... that is listed as N/A for subscription.
All of them are hybrid.....
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It's hybrid when talking to current subscribers; F2P when talking to everyone else.|
Originally Posted by Manoa
Then you guys might want to give the good folks over at MMORPG.com, PCgamer.com, G4TV.com, Gamepro.com and all of those other industry/gamer websites who are mislabeling the model as "free-to-play" to set the record straight that's it's actually a HYBRID model. And while you're at it, you may want to give a call to that other company who does hybrid models (not to mention every other company that offers a tiered model) and tell them their marketing their products wrong by calling it "free-to-play."
Just sayin'...market perception is everything... |
Between the attitudes presented towards free players and the overwhelming feeling that we're going to be nickle-and-dimed, I doubt I'll be around much longer.
That makes this observation about as relevant as saying a successful barbeque attempts to infuse smoke into the meat.
In the conventional F2P model, it doesn't matter how much stuff you give away, all that matters is how much stuff you intend to entice people to buy. As long as you have a pipeline of stuff on a sufficiently deep treadmill, its completely irrelevant what you give away. Its a numbers game of trying to get as many players as possible under circumstances where a sufficiently high percentage will buy something, and that percentage can be low.
But in a hybrid model with VIP subscribers, it *does* matter how much stuff you give away, and what stuff it is, because the more you give away and the higher a percentage of the core stuff you give away, the more you devalue subscriptions relative to ala carte purchases and freemium play. That's why no on subscribes to Farmville.
People can debate whether this is or is not a free to play game based on silly semantics, but this isn't about labels. This is about whether this game intends to focus first on its subscriber base, and then create a free/ala carte game from a subset of the subscriber game that is not an identically complete experience so that VIP subscribers always have an advantage in their breadth and quality of gameplay.
If you're a VIP player, City of Heroes Freedom is as much about you as the current game is now. If you are an ala carte Premium player the game is offering you the ability to play less game for less money, where you get to choose what you want to get and what you can afford to give up. If you are a completely free player, then this game is offering you a look around. Have fun, but don't complain about what you get for free. Or complain, but know that you're complaining about what you get for free, and make note of the fact we don't allow you to complain somewhere the rest of the players have to see.
Oh, and just in case I wasn't clear the first time:
This game is not attempting to execute the conventional F2P model.
You'd think this was both obvious, given how many people manage to successfully *prove* Paragon Studios isn't actually doing what you'd expect if they were attempting to execute the conventional F2P model.
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