CoH Freedom Mini-Review

Hi all,

I plan to release a mini-review of the new Freedom release to one or two game websites that I read.

Would anyone care to check my review for correctness, as well as grammar and spelling? Thanks bunches to anyone who can help!!

Here without further ado:

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City of Heroes Launches Freedom Head Start

City of Heroes kicked off their new hybrid “freemium” payment model this week with a head start for VIPs (monthly subscribers). The new free and premium accounts are not enabled yet; the City of Heroes developers, Paragon Studios, have stated that they want to shake all the bugs out of the launch before opening things up to all new and returning players. While there were a few launch snags, things over all were pretty good and you can expect the servers to be opened up to all comers within a week or two.

Click on the link to read the rest of the review.

So what is the new payment model? It's a little complicated so let me try to boil it down to essentials.

Basically, there's going to be three methods of payment, with a twist.

On the bottom is the Free player. This is your basic non-paying scrub, and the account has some pretty severe restrictions. The most notable restriction prevents Free players from using any chat channel other than local, team (group), and the friends channel. This is a hold-over from the free trials which prevents most real-money scammers from spamming up broadcast (yell), private tells and the in-game email with their unwelcome advertisements.

On the plus side the Free account gets access to all fifty levels of game play, all legacy content, as well as some specially designated new content for newbies (more on this later). Overall this is not a bad deal for paying nothing at all, although the chat restrictions are pretty darn annoying.

The next rung up the ladder is the Premium player. A Premium player is one who has bought anything at all, at any time in their career. This automatically includes all returning players who ever bought any copy of the game at retail or online, or bought even one month's subscription at any time in the past.

What do Premium players get? Well, anything they've purchased. So any costumes, rewards, special items, boosters, etc. They can also use any and all chat channels(*). As long as the account is in good standing (i.e., you didn't get your *** banned), you've got it all. And you can play all fifty levels and all previous legacy content for free.

(*) (The very first Tier of Premium, which can be had for a one time purchase of $5 of anything at all, allows you additionally use /tell (whisper), super group (guild) chat, and the in-game email, among other things. Full access to all chat channels happens at Tier 2, which is a three month subscription or the equivalent purchase in the store. Both of these rewards are retroactive to existing accounts. So returning players will have them automatically if they qualify.)

The third and last method of payment is the VIP member. These are monthly subscribers. They get the most content, including the newish post-level-50 content, called “Incarnate,” which is available exclusively to them. Not all content will be available for free to VIPs, but it seems most content that's sold to Premium players will be available to VIPs at no extra cost. For example, the new signature stories as well as the new zone, First Ward, is available to VIPs at no extra cost.

Well, OK, that seems pretty standard so far. What's the twist?

There are two.

First, Paragon Rewards are a special reward mechanism for both Premium and VIP players. Paragon Rewards are awarded for store purchases or monthly (VIP) subscriptions. You get one reward per month of subscription, or the equivalent purchase ($15) in the store.

These Paragon rewards allow you to receive not only in game items like powers boosters and teleport powers, but also permanent rewards on your account that allow you to play without having to pay for à la carte content. For example, Premium players normally will have to pay a monthly fee of $2 to use the auction house, or a $2 fee to use the Invention (crafting) system, or $4 for both. Basically, that's selling the monthly subscription in small pieces.

However, at Tier 4 Rewards for the Auction House, and Tier 7 for the Invention system, these systems become permanent on the account. Thus, Premium players wouldn't have to pay any more for them, and VIP players could cancel their subscription and drop back to Premium, and not have to pay either. Essentially this is a lifetime subscription that accrues to all players who buy things from the store or who have a monthly subscription.

How do I feel about this? It's great for players. Many current subscribers have talked about dropping back down to premium and playing for free. That last part might be a bit of a worry for Paragon Studios. The rewards seem almost too good and I wonder if Paragon Studios has given away too much here.

There are some exceptions to the Paragon Rewards however. For example, as mentioned, there's the Incarnate post-50 content which is only available to subscribers. And new content will continue to be released, and available to buy for those who do cancel their subscriptions to go Premium. So Paragon Studios hasn't given away everything. Perhaps it will be enough to keep the game and Paragon Studios going.

There is also another reward mechanism elusively for VIP players. It's kind of a rip-off to take a monthly subscription and yet still charge for stuff in the store, dontcha think? Well, VIP subscribers get 400 Paragon Points each month to spend. (400 Paragon Points is $5). And the Paragon Points are permanent, so you can let them accrue and save up to buy more expensive items.

So while Premium seems a very good deal, VIPs will be able to purchase anything that is a store exclusive without having to spend additional money. As part of the head start launch, Paragon Studios back dated this reward for all active accounts through July of 2011, so all of us had 1600 points to spend when we logged in. I personally bought the new Beam Weapon power set (a futuristic laser rifle) and a rocket board, which let's me fly starting at level 2. I still have 360 points which I'm saving for later.

Add the Paragon Points to the Reward Points the VIPs get automatically, and the effective monthly discount for buying 3, 6 or 12 months in advance, and the VIP option becomes very very attractive for the serious player.

In summary, I'm not an expert on freemium MMORPGs and their payment models, but this seems like a unique and worthwhile hybrid. I'm not aware of anyone doing anything like the Reward Points, which can effectively give you pay-for content for no charge after enough purchases. I think time will tell whether these options are valued by players and remunerative for Paragon Studios. At least Paragon Studios didn't just copy their competition, or simply divide the game into free and pay-for halves. They're thinking, and trying to provide value to players and differentiate themselves from the other guys.

Besides the new payment models, there's all new content for all players including Free for levels 1-15, and a brand new shiny starting zone (also for all players). I'll review those later once I've had time to see how the new content flows into the old, and once I've had time to take some decent screen shots.

Keep an eye on City of Heroes. They seem to have the ability to reinvent themselves, and for a seven and a half year old game, things are looking pretty good.

Everything here seems to be in order, except for "brand new shinny" -> "brand new shiny".

Doh! Thanks for pointing that out.

I only have a few comments:

Quote:

Originally Posted by gameboy1234 City of Heroes kicked off their new hybrid “freemium” payment model this week with a head start for VIPs (monthly subscribers). The new free and premium accounts were not enabled yet; the City of Heroes developers, Paragon Studios, has stated that they want to shake all the bugs out of the launch before opening things up to all new and returning players. However, while there were a few snafu's, things overall were pretty good and you can expect the servers to be opened up to all comers within a week or two.

The yellow parts here concern me. The first one effectively says "the developers has stated," when that should have "the developers have stated[/b] as "developers" is plural. I'd say even organisations should be addressed in plural, but in this case, "Paragon Studios" is a describer for "developers," which is plural.

Also, while "snafu" may not be a real word, it should still be subject to proper pluralisation, and so show up as "snafus." Firefox even recognises the spelling. I'm sure this is just a typo, but I still want to justify it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gameboy1234 Basically, there's going to be three tiers of payment methods, with a twist.

The yellow text here should say "there are," because it's referring to three tiers of payment methods, which constitutes multiple items requiring a plural form of address. I know "there's lots of things" is often accepted colloquially, but I still feel that you need a plural descriptor here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gameboy1234 The next rung up the latter is the Premium player. A Premium player is one who has bought anything at all, at any time in their career. This automatically includes all returning players who ever bought any copy of the game at retail or online, or bought even one month subscription at any time in the past.

I think there's something missing in the yellow text here. This should probably read either "one month's subscription" or "a one-month subscription." Otherwise the construct feels incomplete.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gameboy1234 So while Premium seems a very good deal, the VIPs will be able to purchase anything that is a store exclusive without having to spend additional money. As part of the head start launch, Paragon Studios back dated this reward for all active accounts through July of 2011, so all of us had 1600 points to spend when we logged in. I personally bought the new Beam Weapon power set (a futuristic laser rifle) and a rocket board, which let's me fly starting at level 2. I still have 360 points which I'm saving for later.

That's not entirely accurate. There's a HELL of a lot more stuff in the Market than your 400 free points can cover, which is kind of the point - your subscription gets you some ways into the Market, but there will always be things you need to pay in order to get, especially if the development team gets content out as fast as they seem to be hoping to. The VIP stipend helps, but it does not make the market "free," especially with the many consumables it has, so representing it as such is highly misleading, and has been the cause of many a flamewar here.

Also, I'm not sure if the 1200 (more, actually) grandfathered Paragon Points are relevant enough to include in a review. The people who will be earning them are already subscribing and should be aware of this, and the people who aren't subscribing and so unaware won't be getting the points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gameboy1234 In summary, I'm not an expert on freemium MMORPGs, but this seems like a unique and worthwhile hybrid payment model. I'm not aware of anyone doing anything like the Reward Points, which can effectively give you pay-for content for no charge after time. I think time will tell whether these options are valued by players and remunerative for Paragon Studios. At least Paragon Studios didn't just copy their competition, or divide the game into free and pay-for halves. They're thinking, and trying to provide value to players and differentiate themselves from the other guys.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that Paragon Rewards can give Premium players pay-for rewards without having to pay for them? Because I understood that the only way for Premium players to earn Paragon Rewards is via store purchases. And if we're talking about VIP subscribers, those guys are already paying in the form of their subscription. It's possible I'm wrong or misreading, however.

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A lot of my corrections are minor nit-picks, but you did ask for them, did you not?

Quote:

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.

I presume you mean rung up the ladder rather than latter.

Ayup. Doh #2. Thanks.

I think "Snafu" could be changed to "Snags" and still get the point across. Snafu as I read it sounds more disastrous in it's meaning whereas snags could refer more to the unseen in the process.

Also I missed it mentioned in the description of the premium accounts where returning players will be relegated to two global slots only as I understand how that works. If this is the case a returning player with dozens of characters across multiple servers will be in severe shock to find they can only play two existing characters or two new ones if the have the slots. (or mix and match).

I would reclarify the wording on the Paragon Rewards. The granting of the things like the AE, Invention, and Market licenses are based on Reward Levels. The Tiers are what grants powers and rewards from the old Vet Rewards system. Might not seem all that important, but you never can tell where a misunderstanding can happen. Especially since you need just a number of Reward Tokens to complete a Reward Level.

Also...

@Travlr (Main) / @Tymers Realm (Test)

Yet more fixes in, reviewing the last three posts. TY again for taking the time to comment on this.

One last issue I neglected to mention: You speak about "reward tiers" but give no explanation what those constitute. This can be very confusing to new players - and is confusing to me, actually, since I don't know the Tier mechanics - unless you specifically mention what number of points constitute which tier. You can do this in parenthesis, such as "Tier 4 (XX Reward Points)" so you don't have to enter more exposition.

I like the review so far, honestly

Quote:

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.

I just wanted to pop in to say that I think it's wonderful that Samuel_Tow has the grammatical corrections down exactly right.

Good job for someone who doesn't have English as a primary language - but then, that's unfortunately pretty typical that someone who formally learned a language has a better grip on grammar and punctuation (plus, of course, that seems to be Sam's style - "get it right!")

With the edits already supplied - looks pretty good, Gameboy!

Thank you I always worry when I speak about grammar or spelling as to whether I'm not just getting it wrong or if I'm not trying to apply deprecated British spelling to colloquial American English, things like "colour" and "centre." Still, if I could help, I'm happy

Quote:

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.

Not sure if this was caught already but:

The review is up!

There front page is here (my review is currently the second one down.):

http://evilavatar.com

A direct link is here:

http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=153466

Thanks to all who helped!!

Every time I get a brand new shiny, I do a brand new shimmy.

WARNING: I bold names.