Why should VIPs pay for anything?

As well as the free 400/550 points a month. And access to Exalted. It might not be worth much to you, but to someone like myself I like having those and the free SSAs around.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

And can you tell me how much of that stuff is free to someone who HASN'T been playing the game for seven years and spent hundreds of dollars on subscription fees?

Lets look at your list again and see what a VIP who only subscribes for one month gets for free when they unsubscribe.

-Inventions - nope

-The Market Place - assuming you mean the Paragon Market, well that's kind of the centerpiece of the game now.

-Mission Architect - nope

-Global Chat Channels - nope

-All my old characters.
- New players keep TWO

-All Pre-I21 City of Villains Content - yep

-All Pre-I21 City of Heroes Content - yep

-Praetoria access - nope

-Going Rogue - nope

-Praetorian Character Creation - nope

-All Going Rogue Power Sets: Dual Pistols, Kinetic Melee, Electric Control, and Demon Summoning - nope
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-New tutorial

-IDF Costume Set - unsure, maybe

-Updated Character Creator Interface

-Atlas Park Revamped

-New mission content added to AP and Mercy

-New powers added to Leaping, Flight, Speed, Transportation

-Power Set Proliferation - 17 power sets proliferated to other AT's - yes, but 2 of them are locked unless you pay

-Ancillary and Patron Power Pools now unlock at 35

-Tailors added to Mercy and Atlas Park

-Trainers also alter costumes

-Ouroboros now accessed at level 14

-Travel Powers unlocked at level 4

-Total Revamp of the Vet Reward System

This part is free to everyone. The top part of your list is free to YOU. And that's only because you're a long term veteran. If you had started your account last month, you would have to pay to keep everything above my underline. Their subscripion is what gets them all that stuff without paying extra.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Since you are one of the only people to actually address the point of the topic, I'll respond even though you may not be actually trying to make a point. I can't tell.

Firstly, it's a question. A valid response would be an answer to the question. It can be a business reason, an ethical reason I suppose, a fairness between parties reason, etc. No one has one as far as I can tell. They will defend the devs no matter what, and using things like what VIPs get that premiums don't, but that just doesn't answer the question.

Is this game really more valuable than other subscription based games that in order to get everything it should cost more than 15 a month? It's a different question admittedly, but I imagine the answer has to be yes to this in order to justify the current system.

This is patently false.
Now, you may feel that subscribers don't get enough MORE than free players to make the subscription worthwhile. This is a value judgement. However, to say we get less than we used to is flat-out incorrect.

It's already been stated but if you have enough invested that what you like about the game is now covered by your tier then going premium might make more sense for you. There is no reason to stay VIP if the extra perks don't suit you. Go premium and buy points when something hits the store you want. That's the point of Freedom, you pay for what you value and keep on playing.

Oh here we go, anyone that doesn't agree with him is defending the devs.

/This.

Agreed

Basically, because there's more stuff than there was before. We get as much as we've ever gotten for our subscription (indeed, we're getting more), but there's extra stuff on top of that - it's the extra stuff we're having to pay, well, extra for. There's only so much extra you're going to get for free before it looks bad on the business's books.

So you can either not pay anything else and get what you were getting before, or you can pay more and get more. Previously we just had the first choice.

Bingo.

--NT

I have become the voice of logic! This thread has no hope! MUHAHAHAHAHA!

It's easy to say that any subscription game should give you everything for the price of the subscription, but in practice it's a meaningless standard. Is everything a lot or a little? Would you rather have less content, all of it free with your subscription, or more content from which you can pick and choose what you want with your subscription (and/or buy on top of your subscription)?

I'll always be in the latter group, until and unless the devs push the game into obvious pay-to-win territory. You seem to be in the former group, which is fine, but your reasoning for being in the former group isn't clear. Contrary to your assertion in the above-quoted post, you didn't ask a substantive question: "Why should VIPs pay for anything," is no more reasonable a starting point to a discussion than, "Why shouldn't VIPs pay for anything?"

What's more interesting is why you think it's a valid question to ask in the first place. By definition, anyone paying a subscription fee should never have to pay anything extra? Clearly that's not true even by your own reasoning, because every MMO I've ever heard of eventually comes out with some sort of supplemental for-pay content (be it expansion or what-have-you), unless of course it fails before it can get to that point. More to the point, CoH had for-pay content over and above the subscription fee even before Freedom's release. Was that wrong too?

Please explain your reasoning if you truly wish the discussion to advance. If not, by all means, continue to act as if any and all disagreement with your undefined premise signals irrational knee-jerkism.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Fair points all around and I can't say I disagree with them. But given the large amount of long-time subscribers this game has, I honestly don't think i'm as isolated a case as certain people in this thread are making out.

And I don't necessarily disagree with you there. I've wondered myself whether it's good for the game that long-time vets get so much for free. It sure does seem like most everyone I see has been around for several years.

But whether it's a good business decision or not to give us long-timers all of that free access, it's hard to get worked up about the fairness of the business model; in principle, subscribers get so much more than Joe Premium it isn't even a comparison. It's only when you compare subscribers to Joe-already-spent-hundreds-on-the-game that you can even begin to argue that subscribers are disadvantaged, and even then only if you don't care about Incarnate content.

From a new player's perspective, it's clear that the subscription is a good deal. For you, that may not be the case, but if that's true, then isn't it a good thing for you? Before Freedom, you would have gotten zilch if you'd dropped your sub. Now you get far more game, for free, than we ever dreamt of getting at any price back when the game first launched.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Your not alone...most of my crew had a similar discussion about this subject last nite in game...all longtime vets and not a one of them posts on these boards and rarely use them. As ive been told on numerous occasions the boards represent a minority of the in game community.

I love the game and enjoy the board community/family...however much like life there are members of this community/family that i do not plan on visiting at their home-in a van-down by the river! they could say the same about me except i dont live by a river ...however i digress and yes u are not alone.

No one has addressed this statement but I wanted to pull it out. This is a bad assumption you are making here. VIPs are not necessarily the people who have been here since day 1. Someone can, today, go out and buy a subscription and be a VIP, and they'll have been here all of 4 hours. You need to separate your VIP viewpoint from that of a brand new VIP.

I think this needs to start getting auto-included in every new post made. This is the whole point of the new model and a disturbingly large majority of people seem to be completely missing this simple fact.

No one said you were an isolated case. Lots of people have entitlement issues to some degree. I have some myself.

Paragon Studios outlined explicitly what VIP players get for their subscription fees, and what premium players get for buying and spending Paragon Points, and what free players get for free. This forms a kind of contract between players and the business.

PS never said VIP players get everything for the price of the subscription. VIP players and free players have the same option that premium players have to buy and spend paragon points in the online store. Free players become premium players by doing so. VIP players become VIP players with more stuff by doing so.

This is a carefully spelled out business transaction. That is the beginning and end of it. Like any other business transaction, if you don't like the terms, don't buy. If enough other people don't like the terms, the business fails. But that is no concern of yours. Buy or don't buy.

It's a business. The prices aren't subject to negotiation. Nor the terms.

Players never 'supported' CoH. CoH isn't a charity. Players purchased a service. When they didn't want the service, they suspended their subscriptions. Value given for value received.

Nothing is free.

Are you actually saying that the value of subscribing is low, because of the perks you get for subscribing?

I will stipulate this as a given: every time the devs give me something as a subscriber that I get to keep whether I continue subscribing or not, they are in effect diluting the value of future subscription. That's what happens when they decide to reward my loyalty by giving me something with no strings attached. However I think personally that this is not a problem. I presume that, over time, they will also continue to *add* things that are free for subscribers, and I'm ok with them not being able to catch up with seven years of veteran perks with one month of Freedom release.

They can't add seven years of content instantly to counterbalance the seven years of perks I've earned as a long time subscriber, so they only way to equalize this situation would be to take perks away from me. Thank you, no: I'm fine with this imbalance existing for very long term subscribers, speaking as a very long term subscriber.

Like new systems?

I don't know what you're missing, all I know is that I'm getting more for my money than I was getting before, that this is provably true in trivial ways, and that's all I care about when it comes to subscription value. If I'm getting more than before, and I was happy before, I'm going to be fine now.

The impression I got from the focus group was that the main concern was whether the devs were actually able to deliver on the feature set they previewed, which they did maybe 95% of. From that day until Freedom launch and past launch until today most of the people I've talked to in-game have been mostly positive about what they get in Freedom, by a very wide margin. All evidence available to me is that the people who think they are being in some way cheated as VIP subscribers is an extremely low minority. So given the fact they aren't cheating the VIPs of value and few people perceive that they are being cheated, I don't see the problem.

In all seriousness, I actually hope not too many of those. But I'm certain we're going to continue to get some new powersets for free, new costumes for free, new content for free (as in included with subscription). I'm guessing they will continue to expand on the small consumable perks, like signature summons. And yeah, probably a new system or two.


And although I consider the argument mostly invalid, there's also the simple fact that in incremental terms I don't pay very much at all for my subscription. Using the same line of thought that is often used to claim VIPs pay a lot and get little, I actually pay only $11.95 per month for my subscription, since I pay annually, and I get 550 points per month not 400 which has a face value of $6.88. That means I only pay $5.08 per month for my subscription separate from my point stipend. That's a trivial amount for what I get for it.

As I said, I don't buy that sort of valuation argument, but even if I did, its not a particularly good one anyway.

Ditto.

Just because you CAN buy extra stuff doesn't mean you HAVE to buy extra stuff.

No matter how much the OP wants that to be true to justify his rage quit.

Which has been stated over and over again, yet some how doesn't seem to get through to people like the OP

Right now, we're looking to be getting more, if you know how to save your points. Freedom was a good idea ont he Devs part.

Before, the Booster Packs were an easy "OH I need to spend more money, I can just skip them" item for a lot of people.

Now, those same people are looking at things going "Oh I can get all this stuff free with these free points" instead of realizing, those free points are to cover those things they would of gotten free before, while slowly gaining extra points here and there, if they knew how to wait it out (like 8 points free...wait for a sale on the powerset)

I thought a couple of people responded to your question.

Anyway. It should be noted that for the subscription fee of $15 a month VIPs don't get anything less than what I've seen in any of the other subscription-based games out there and when compared to some games we get significantly more for our $15. That's not including any of the things that go up for sale on the market by the way, including the Signature Story Arcs.

Now, if you were to give all the VIPs every single thing that went up on the market for free then you'd push what CoH players get for their $15 far beyond what any other game I've ever played gives for their $15. It's not that CoH is more valuable than other games. It isn't. None of the big-name MMOs that have in-game virtual shops are more 'valuable' than games without one.

Just like in so many other games we can pay our $15 and get a fun, full-featured game. As a matter of fact from what I can tell we haven't lost anything from our subscription at all since Freedom launched (we've arguably gained from it). The stuff in the shop is quite simply 'extra', along the lines of DLC content in non-MMO games.

Why shouldn't we pay for extras?

What very mild sarcasm? I'm confused what in that was offensive?