Let's talk about Free players

Now that Premium and Free-to-Play is officially live, what experiences have you had with the non-subscribers?

Mine have been only negative, unfortunately.

First, a friend came back to his T3 Premium account. We looked into the Incarnate content, found out he couldn't access it, so we began new characters in Atlas with the intent of doing the new Sewer Trial. Well, apparently Premiums can't use the LFG tab... For some reason. No idea why.

I formed up a mid-30s team in Cap Au Diable to do some missions, and then we decided we would do the Signature Story Arc. After trying to start it and being unable to do so, I had to ask if anyone was on a free account. Someone was, so as I was typing, "Okay, well we can just go to St. Martial and do some Paper missions," they beat me and typed, "Okay, thanks for team," and quit. I felt bad, as by their perspective, I basically forced them off of the team.

Then just yesterday, a player formed up an Incarnate Trial in RWZ, got us all ready to go... And couldn't begin the queue because he was Free.

So, what have your experiences been like? I've gotta think there are some positive experiences out there - It seems like there is a larger population from the Server Select screen - It's medium load consistently, and it's getting there earlier in the day than usual, but I haven't seen where the boom is happening. Is Atlas booming?

Doesn't sound like the players are the problem. The restrictive nature of F2P seems like the irritant here.

Maybe a more descriptive title is in order. "Let's talk about the Free/VIP Experience"?

I had some fun counter-trolling trolls. They didn't like logic.

its been like this as far as I can tell.

If you have an old friend coming back to play, you can't really do any of the fun stuff in the game with them other than the core missions and TFs. They will have to respec into a build just for SO's, as they can't use the invention system. You won't be able to run any of the trials with them. Basically, the F2P is just a reason to make you download the game and start playing, and then realize if you really want to enjoy the game you used to know, your gonna have to pay some money.

Now, for new people, I've seen some good things. I've run into a lot of people from other MMO's (across all the servers I play on now. Sadly, Infinity isn't the only one) who came to check it out. They are enjoying it, basically because they don't know what they are missing out on. Hopefully this will bring an influx of new blood who really enjoy the game and are willing to spend some cash on upgrading to really get into the content.

I look at the new Free system like this.

They are, essentially starting the game at the same place I did 6-7 years ago. They will have the same experience I did, because back then, there were no IO, there was no Incarnate, actually when I started there were no radio missions and there was no LFG and very few global channels. There was no City of Villians, There were no masterminds, No plant trollers, no super dooper spiffy outfits, we had just gotten capes.

So they get to start Old School.

The most frustrating thing to me is that they have no access to global channels and tells. It would make it much easier to team with them as a VIP if they at least had this ability.

I would like them to have tells and at least one global LFG channel. Maybe called FREEM LFG

They do in a sense, they have local broadcast and the Help channel.

I'm personally feeling very segregated... for me, the fun content is what they've locked off from the Free players, which means I'm either seeing the "Sorry, you can't join us for the BAF", or I'm not seeing the new players except in flyover, because they are playing in zones I'm not spending much time in.

The most bitter pill is the IO system issue--I once had three paid accounts, before I decided playing CoH 24/7 was not how I wanted to spend all my time and dropped down to two, then one. I used to visit those characters on reactivation weekends. Now I can pull those characters up again anytime, but they are useless--as they were purpled and IO'ed out in every slot, and are unplayable flat. And no, I am not going to make them paid VIP accounts again--I'm much more likely to cancel the remaining subscription and have done with it.

So, essentially, there is now resentment settling slowly over everything like smog--the world of haves and have nots, rigorously enforced in code, has greatly curdled my excitement for the "renewed" game. I can't play with old friends willing to try out the game again, as we're locked into different zones away from the interesting post-50 content they have heard me going on about (and their characters need a respec right away); I can't play my old characters on other accounts; and I feel really, really weird about telling people they can't be on my team: the one true strength of this game--that just about any team could play together and succeed, feels very broken.

You can play with them - You just have to play stuff that you got tired of three years ago.

The fact that we're left to police our own teams, telling people that they can't join the teams because they're not of a certain status, is my biggest complaint.

Also, what you lose dropping from VIP to Premium ensures that I'll only be playing the game when my account is paid for, but I'm fine with that. I don't need to play it all of the time anyway.

I wanted to post some positives on this train of thought -

Some of you may have seen a character or two of mine around - I've been playing on and off for a long time. Send a wave to Shatter Skitt (50 Rogue Brute) or Lutari (32 Hero Corruptor) if you happen to see me in game, I've never really posted much in the forums

Here's the thing. I'm a night owl - I play late, and I've always played late. Like.. quite late.

So the things everyone got "tired of" I never actually -got- to do. Until now.

Lusca? Forget it. No VIP player wants to do it. It's long, difficult and they've done it 300 times. Free to play people: OO, giant monster! Can we kill it!?

Low level TF's can be easier (though I think some of those can be signature arcs) simply because there are more lower level players now.

I don't always just want to do trials and such at 50.

Sporadic players like me missed out on some of the fun things everyone got tired of and doesn't do anymore. It's nice to be able to kill a GM at 2 in the morning and get that badge I never got.

Young blood does this, glad to have some around.


Cheers everyone!

Heh, my play time has been cut in half from free/new players...

But I blame Help and me actually monitoring and then responding to questions in it... oft times going FAR deeper than the questioner expected. *recently detailed out the difference in AT Damage Mods, which then developed into Damage Buffing...*

Still, it is nifty to find the "Ooh, new shiney!!!" reaction again.