Where is the outrage? Buying Vet Rewards

Tell the forumites that you PVP.... that should work.

I did say maybe.

Going by your forum reg date you've been playing this game for years now.
The idea that you've been effectively paying all this time for relatively buggy/unfinished product is news to you?
Why do you think you've been getting patches to this game every several weeks or so for the last 7+ years?

Doesn't change the fact that this is still a live beta to try and fix the final game crashing bugs that never get caught on the test servers involving all subscribers before they launch the free/Premium accounts. So deal with it.

Actually in the last UStream they specifically addressed that by saying, no, HEADSTART is NOT a beta test.

Take that for what you will.

From VK's notes today:

So all those people saying the devs never hid the fact that HEADSTART was a beta test . . . errr, absolutely incorrect.

Now if anyone wants to say it FEELS like one I won't argue.

But to say that the devs claimed it was a beta test or pretended like a beta test was headstart is just FALSE.

The fact you were right and they were wrong should be reward enough. Just like my saying the game could and should go f2p, and that the market shouldn't delete your stuff every 60 days (yes, there actually were people defending the idea of the 60 day deletion. I'm sure they'd happily admit they were very wrong on that one).

I think my head just asploded.

You are correct that using the term beta is wrong on our part. It is not a "Beta". That doesn't change the fact that they are using the Headstart to make sure as much as possible is working before they launch the Free/Premium accounts so those players will hopefully endure as few problems as humanly possible.

Exactly. By their very nature, MMOs are nearly perpetual "beta" games even if the beta moniker is technically inappropriate. Even when it's stable, it's still a vastly different beast than other types of multi-user connectivity systems. Content is always shifting, resource demands are always shifting, and player expectations are always shifting.

The real trick for MMO developers is to hide the beta-esque aspects of the game after pushing it live to the point where it affects as few people as possible. Sometimes that goal is really easy. Sometimes it's not.

Which is why I said I won't argue if you say it FEELS like a beta.

But they weren't wrong. People argued that players shouldn't be allowed to buy vet rewards under the old system. The devs never allowed that to happen. Instead they completely discarded the old system and created a new reward system.

As I recall people mainly argued that if the game were to go F2P it wouldn't be "in the next 6 months" like some kept claiming whenever they proclaimed doom. It took 7 1/2 years to happen.

I don't remember anyone saying it shouldn't be removed. I do remember people saying that if you lost something to the 60 day rule you had no one to blame but yourself for not logging in to reset the timer. The information on the rule was available to anyone that took the time to read the pop up window the market contact gave them. Willful ignorance is not a defense.

I know. I was just demonstrating that I can admit when I'm wrong, like calling the Headstart a Beta.


Edit: Not implying that you can't. Others have a hard time doing it.

Sure I'll admit that trying to strictly equate the term "headstart" with "beta test" may be pushing the point a bit.

But I'd have to argue that a full TWO WEEKS for a "headstart" (something that in software terms usually only amounts to a few days at most) is also pushing the notion that this particular headstart is not also doubling as a "final beta test" to the breaking point.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

You're either a genius at sarcasm, or completely nuts, Infernus. I really hope it's the sarcasm one.

I don't?

Because heaven forbid things ever be different from Test to Live, and that the Devs are also doing hardware changes/upgrades and server moves...

Owait.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

While I don't know that I posted in your original thread, let alone flamed you, I have never been a big fan of letting people buy what used to be "Vet Rewards", but I have no problem with it now.

Why? Because the whole system has changed. Before, CoH was almost purely a subscription game, with only occasional expansions and things like costume packs. Vet Rewards were couched specifically as a reward for longevity in subscription time.

Now, two things have changed fairly dramatically. CoH is no longer basically only about what a subscription will buy. It has far more a-la-carte features now. So from that perspective, everything is up for grabs. Secondly, and as the red names themselves have described as their motivation for the new Paragon Rewards program, the Vet Rewards paradigm of rewarding longevity specifically doesn't make as much sense. They could have left it in place, but they recognized that this was as good a time as any to add it (to a degree) to the a-la-carte system.

But they didn't really add it to the a-la-carte system. They attached progress in the new system to spending the equivalent of $15 dollars in the store. So if someone is really buying their way far up the progress track of vet rewards, they're paying a lot of money to NCSoft to do so. That's them throwing funding at a game I like playing. That works for me. At the same time, it's not trivial money, so I am pretty sure not everyone is going to run out and max out their Paragon Rewards (not if they weren't close already).

I imagine most of them would have a greater problem with the hybrid model itself. And well, if not, there's also the realization that the hybrid model is different from a traditional subscription model.

You realize, they still won't be able to have as many badges as you. They can get all of the Reward Token badges, but there are still badges associated with how long you have been subscribed. And they only count time passed, not pre-paid subscriptions. So as along as you keep paying your subscription, they can't catch you.

Yeah, and to get from new player to the tier 8 rewards is still a pretty epic outlay of cash. It's not going to be very common, if it happens ever.