Discussion: Announcing the City of Heroes Freedom VIP Head Start! September 13, 2011

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.

Are you playing on a Mac? And do you mind if I ask you what version of the OS you are on?

The situation you are describing is not what I see reported in the majority of the posts on the Mac forum and elsewhere. And it is certainly not my own experience. Any information you can share about your set-up might really be helpful in solving this.

Thanks.

I am judging by posts in the beta forums, not the mac forums. The majority of the complainants have stated a huge improvement with the last couple patches. The biggest complaint I've seen lately is the lack of font, which is not a show-stopping bug and will be kludge-fixed (before being actually fixed).

Yes, there are still people having crashing issues, a lot of them unrelated to the store (which was beyond the scope of my post). Yes, there are still some people unable to access the store reliably.

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.

Ahhh, too bad, I had hoped you had a solution that worked.

If you check over on the Mac forums, you may find somewhat different posts than in the beta forums. We mostly stayed over there with that issue, because we had Zwillinger's ear, who was in contact with the engineers of the Transgaming client as well as the in-house Devs.

In short, at this point the font issue seems to exist under Leopard and Lion (OS names, just in case), and if you can't read most of the content of the store (including how many points you have) it makes shopping pretty interesting. I think the judgement is still out about how stable the store itself is for all Mac users. Extended use seems to crash it for many if not most. And lastly, if you access the store, the launcher is still unable to start the game back up unless you trash your preferences (which includes your finely tuned graphics settings).

I consider this a pretty unsatisfactory situation. And even though we were assured that Freedom would not go live with this problem unresolved, I understand that there are other pressures. It just sucks for us.

But thanks for your interest.

More time to update your newbie comic ( ' ;

You'll get one of the new tokens, which can go into any of the available rewards you have.

Ya I remember the whole server consolidation screen-wise, but I didn't realize it was locality-wise too.

The locality consolidation happened some time before the server list merge, but wasn't as widely mentioned since it didn't really affect most players very much. Germany's data infrastructure is bad enough that moving the EU servers to the US actually improved latency for many EU players.

I think I'll just watch the forums on Tuesday...I'm guessing the servers will be a bit spotty with stability...I'll jump in full fledged Thursday.

And here I thought Red Bull was responsible for giving wings.

Then you've never played that big fantasy game with 11 million subscribers. Firbolg reputation grinding took well over 240 hours just to get the ability to craft a few items. And that was just one faction out of literally dozens. Incarnate trials are nothing by comparison. Or that british free flash fantasy MMO with a name about runes. It has no levels, all skills are grinding out the same action over and over and over. check out what's required to get the ability to burn the highest level of wood. Or to mine the top ore. Then notice there are only 4 spawns for the top ore on each server, and they replenish once per 6 hours (unless it's been changed since I last played) and you need about 30 of them to make anything significant. And prayer is even worse. Try getting a couple million experience at a rate of 100 exp per action or less.

iTrials are barely grindy at all compared to any other MMO I have ever played going back to MUDs in the '90s. And unlike any other MMO I am aware of, you have the option (I agree it is a terrible option that should be avoided but it still exists) to get all of your slots unlocked and all powers crafted using shards gathered from doing any action you want in any area and at any level of game play. Again, bad choice, but it does exist.

the thing is, all of that same end-game still exists in COH. You can choose to keep playing it or not. The main reason not to, is if you feel the need to compete with other people in an ePeen contest. I'm not saying that's your reason, just saying it is the most common I see. Everyone is afraid they'll be too weak if they don't. That's one of the reasons I love having Memphis Bill around to inject a voice of reason and perspective on the powerscale in COH.

I agree with you 100% on the perspective of companies about grind vs fun and do wish they would do more that is fun and bears repeating vs grinding. Posi clearly understands the difference per a blog post of his about gated content. But seems that grindy is easier.

I understand that a few people were able to solo AVs back in the days of SOs. Are you aware that Elite Bosses are supposed to be more powerful than a single player can handle and require grouping to defeat?

Have you seen the damage that fully Tier-4'd incarnates can put out?

Have you seen how many people not only solo AVs, but solo the most difficult AVs and GMs and even solo entire task forces. Hell, some have solo'd the Lord Recluse Taskforce, including taking down over 8 AVs at once in that final battle. And anyone who solos the ITF is defeating not just Romulus but 4 AV-class nictus plus all the ambushes. I've seen 2-man Rikti Mothership raids including spawning and killing Ukon Grai.

We already have teams of 4 people completing the Apex and Tin Mage taskforces, and teams of 2 completing the Lamda trial.

Have you been on a Cathedral of Pain post i20? I've seen a single group of 6 pull it off. According to them it's easier because fewer people to screw up the timing.

Is that not epic enough for you?

Are you unable to project forward into time?

With a few more incarnate slots people will be soloing the content that currently takes teams. Sure it takes 14 poorly or average built i20 characters to beat Siege and Nightstar. It'll only take 1 or 2 poorly built i23 characters and it already only takes 2 well built ones.

Power is a progression. The leading edge is always were things are hardest. But even so, the best of the best are definitely getting more and more powerful and doing things that are more and more impressive. a team of two taking down marauder in the Lamda or a single villain taking out the whole freedom phalanx in the Lord Recluse Strike Force is a significant jump in power from previous issues.

I do agree that the league function can make things appear weaker. And I do agree that a bit more focus on solo play would let us feel more powerful more often. Those are things that I really do hope the devs take into consideration.

I do love that fight also. And while your rant was a tangent, it is an important one because it really hits the perceived value of some of the most important new content. Without which new players and returning players both would have less reason to pay using either method.

Just to pitnit Going Rogue is included in the VIP subscription.

And if you don't own it already and don't want to pay a sub you'll have to buy it ad-hoc... isn't that the whole point of Freedom?

Free Players - That is those that have never dropped any money in any form on the game should (and I'd guess will) have the ability to read the forums, but shouldn't have the ability to post spam - which you can be sure some would.
Premium Players - That is those that have made some form of investment into the game - Should have somewhere to post on the forums.

But even if they don't I doubt the devs will lose either much sleep or money over them not having the ability.
Open mouth insert foot.

They don't plan on providing access to free players to a)Cut down on data overheads for people not paying for the game and b)To prevent people who have no reason to accept a ban from posting spam.

If you post <insert link to pancake enlargement> currently and get a ban you have wasted at least $15, plus whatever amount of previously paid fees. If you haven't paid anything for the game but gain access to the forums you get to post anything you want including <insert link to pancake enlargement> without the devs being able to punish you.

A section where premium players can post and chat with VIP players would be a good idea (IMO). A section just for premium players where VIPs cannot post is stupid. Yes some VIPs will slap premiums down, most won't and they would be the best people to help newbies among the premiums.

Apologies, was mainly quoting from the top of my head.

No problem. I just didn't want to see any more complaints from people that looked at the Paragon Market.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Amen to that, couldn't add anything that stated better my feelings aout the game; I'm also remaining a subscriber, after all I've been paying for 6 years, so paying more time is not that big issue in my economy. And having more rewards for that is also cool

I believe that all old accounts are made active. Don't quote me on that, though.

I won't actually be updating that one - timeline-wise, it was done before the Atlas Park revamp, or the destruction of Glaxy City, or the first Praetorian invasion - but my 2nd comic, which I also started before any of those events, and which should be finished pretty soon, does actually have a little bit of I21 content in it

I was waiting for the massive prefetch. Does the new updater not do that any more?

As I said, IMO it's mainly a matter of personal preference. Some people have no problem budgeting $15 a month for a game, and choose to subscribe because they feel it's convenient to not have to buy everything separately, or that the extras are worth it for them, or they just love the game and feel they support it better that way. Other people prefer to feel ownership, that they can buy stuff and not just rent it, that they don't feel like they're losing money if they play only a little during a month.

The bottom line is, far from being purely about dollar cost, this is about psychology and feeling. People who do care more about money and what they get for it are likely to gravitate towards Premium. That doesn't mean that VIP isn't worth it, just that it's not worth it for them.

The only way to truly judge the worth of a subscription is see how many people stay subscribed and how many new subscriptions the game gets once Freedom launches.