Super Packs Update 2/13/2012 - The Numbers

Either you're saying a different thing or you're saying the wrong thing, because Kyriani is saying that the rule of five only allows you to have the five *highest* bonuses for a particular attribute, which is not correct. I've underlined the significant and incorrect aspects of that first statement.

I'm sorry, did I miss something? I know Zwill said it wouldn't happen "in the immediate future," but that's not quite the same as "never." Was there something in a Ustream I don't have the time to listen to?

I fully expect them to discount the packs first, after 6 months. Even then the discount will be 20% off. I seriously don't think they will ever have the costume parts or pet outside of these packs, no matter how much players disagree with that choice.

Why? It is because of the players who "held their nose" and bought the packs anyway to get the costume parts.

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

I guess we'll see. I'd rather been assuming that if you only want the costume pieces and "hold your nose" to get them by buying the packs, you're paying the equivalent of an early-adopter penalty, and that the exclusives will eventually become non-exclusive. But they have no reason to tell us that up front, because then no one will buy the packs just for the costume bits.

The company has more of a track record for taking exclusives and making them non-exclusive, when it comes to in-game items, than they do with keeping items impossible to get after a restrictive release. If that actually *has* changed, then that's not something I'll be particularly sanguine about - but I'm willing to wait and see.

That early adopter penalty is what will keep these exclusive.

• VIP/Destined One Badge
• Prestige Power Slide
• Cape of the Four Winds
• Arachnos Chest Symbol
• Arachnos Cape
• Account wide Hellenic Sandals
• Account wide Victory Laurel

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

Why don't you also list out the items that started out exclusives and later became available? You and I both know it's way longer than what you just provided.

If you really want to stick your head in the sand by listing out seven items (two of which can be earned by anybody in-game on a per-character basis, which to me keeps them from being "exclusive" in any meaningful sense) that do nothing to disprove my general statement about the track record, that's of course your right. I find that method of argument just as sleazy and intellectually dishonest as you're accusing the devs of being with your "morally bankrupt" statements, but you're clearly arguing from emotion at this point and expecting you to adopt any kind of reasonable position was probably just wishful thinking on my part.

Let's see.

• Good Vs. Evil Edition. (once a wal-mart exclusive)
  • Edit: I meant the full retail package. For 6 months it was exclusive to Wal-Mart, after that it was widely available and available from the NCsoft store.
  • Curiously enough, the costume items (Justice and Sinister) are no longer available for separate purchase since Issue 21.
  • Pocket D VIP power
  • Pocket D VIP badge
  • Good vs Evil Jumpjet.
• Pre-Order sprints
  • Edit: 4 Sprints.
• Pre-Order Arachnos Helmets
  • Edit: 4 Helmets, +1 color shifted helmet.
• Going Rogue Pre-Order Enhancements.
  • Edit: 5 enhancements.

Yup, a lot of exclusives became available later.

The account wide unlock of the Hellenic Sandals and Victory Laurel actually was introduced at the same time, and for 1 month later. The fact that you can unlock them on an individual basis (for 2 weeks of the year, if you don't have access to the missions) doesn't negate the fact the account unlock is exclusive to those few players that convinced someone else to subscribe that one Valentine's Event.

Care to provide a list of exclusives that were made available at a later date? I don't count the previous booster packs as exclusive as they were never marketed that way. Same goes for the Valkyrie set.

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

This is a great example of more intellectual dishonesty in the way you're presenting your arguments. You split out the VIP/Destined One badge, the Cape of the Four Winds, and the Prestige Power Slide as three separate items that were not released, even though they were all part of the same offering. You do the same thing with the Arachnos chest symbol and cape (one offering) and the account-wide VDay items (one offering).

Then you make the GVE one item when in fact it included the Jump Pack, the Pocket D teleporter, the Pocket D gold club VIP badge, and two full costume sets, all of which were originally GVE exclusive if memory serves. If you get to break out everything in the individual offerings that hasn't been made available again to support your count, failing to do so for all of the other things you list seems a lot like selective counting.

And that's independent of things like the con-specific costume codes, some of which remain exclusive, but which we have every reason to believe should all make their way to the market (at least for a limited time) eventually.

I don't believe that it's meaningful to include in the discussion, because even if it's only 2 weeks out of a year I can earn those on anyone I want, but I'm willing to agree to disagree on this.

Because, frankly, I don't believe that you have any intention of looking at the overall balance of information and giving anyone the benefit of a doubt on this.

I tried, with you, to do that. I'm done now.

I was talking about the Retail package itself. A player could not buy the package outside of Wal-Mart for 6 months. As to the contents, those were available as a separate purchase after the Wal-Mart exclusive period. Funny you mention the costumes though, as they are no longer available (ie. not in the market).

That wasn't my intention, but fine. I've edited my 2nd post with a breakdown.

And I didn't mention them in either post. Though if I had, I'd put the ones that are still exclusive in one post and those that were made available in the other.

Good, because it is clear that we have different definitions of "exclusivity" and "made available".

Contrary to your opinion, I do look at both sides. I also look at bias of the poster, but I don't let that change my opinion either way.

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

Until you claim that NCSoft can get in legal trouble. That's when you have to switch to the actual legal definition of gambling, and there is one which the Super Packs do not satisfy.


Properly defining "win" isn't a nit-pick, because the phrase "pay to win" doesn't just refer to "paying for rewards" in most discussions surrounding the term. Most people opposed to "pay to win" as a concept are not opposed to pay for rewards in general, the issue is the specific kind of rewards.


Probably a nit-pick to you, but no one is allowed to out bid me on the Paragon Store, because its not a highest-bidder situation.


Getting back to your assertion about defining "winning" as a nit-pick, a far larger number of people are complaining about the two exclusive rewards in the packs both of which are not performance enhancing items - the wolf pet and the elemental costume set. Neither would *ever* be called "pay to win" items normally, but in this game I could see people making the case that since this game focuses on replay and alts, cosmetic options are potentially just as important as performance items and by extension unlocking them is a form of "winning." I personally would not make that argument, but its not an invalid argument to me, and it specifically relies on opening for discussion something you dismiss as nit-picky: asking the valid question of what is "winning" and what is a "reward" in this game within the context of what should and should not be sold in the stores or gated behind exclusive pathways.

I have a particular opinion, and its not the opinion of the majority of people complaining about the items, but I don't think the discussion itself is nit-picky: it goes to the heart of what this game is and is supposed to be. And there are no straight forward answers to those questions.

New to the forums ?

Edit: At least you haven't gotten the indignant insults from pointing out S/He is out of their depth.

Well, it is kind of hard to argue with the literal definition of the word itself. Oh well folks will just turn it from the literal meaning into the legal standard and start trying to wind you up about that.....

I was thinking more along the lines of a picture of a guy sitting down in front of a slot machine.

You mean what Arcanaville did...?

Sadly yes.

That has got to be the worst defense ever - "it's not illegal, so it can't be that bad".

No, the defense is "its not illegal, so people claiming its illegal are wrong."

As Darth and I both stated, I wasn't talking about what we all think of daily as gambling. As in a casino or with Uncle Charlie's gambling habits or even fantasy football. The reason those types of activities are considered, and therefore referred to as, gambling in such a casual manner is only because money is of such importance in society that those are the only ones we consider to be overly controversial. There is a moral dilemma involved when betting one's life savings away in a weekend, for example. It can be ruinous to a human's personal well-being. My point is, we are also dealing with real money here but in a way in which, though different in the sense that you can't win money in the real world, you are winning currency in a virtual world that people obviously care, to varying degrees, about. The same reason you, I and everyone else posting is spending our time doing so.

Properly defining winning isn't even what we're talking about though. The "PAY to win" vs the "PLAY to win" concept is. The money as a mechanic is. The greased-palm-manner shortcut to the same rewards as in-game successes grant you. When you start arguing over a particular phrase by taking one of the words in the phrase and warping it with the clear intention just to take the opposite stance for the overall argument, that's nit-picking. We all (should) know that there is no true "winning" in CoX or any MMO for that matter. So, it's a given that what we mean is completing X and being rewarded with Y where Y = feeling of momentary satisfaction and personal gratification of a momentary success. But there are successes and accompanying rewards. Hence the phrase "pay to win" is the most obvious corollary to what we are really talking about. If you start arguing over the fact that this or that isn't really winning or there is no winning etc, you derail the conversation.

Again, not what I meant. In the many years since this game has, thankfully, existed everyone paid their $15/month to play and had the same chances and opportunities to spend time playing the game and earning rewards for said spent time as everyone else who paid the same $15/month had opportunity to do. Shift to today where we have this new mechanic, The Market, which allows folks who have more disposable income to throw at it than others to be more successful, if you will since you don't like the term win, and I see a highest bidder situation. Money becomes a factor where it never was before. It is clear, to me at least, that if Player A, who is possibly on a fixed and/or lower income and Player B who can literally spend hundreds of dollars without batting an eye are playing the same game but one person is now "ahead", to any degree, insofar as rewards and in-game wealth and success, there is a problem. My personal income didn't used to matter. Now it does. Thanks for the limits on how far I can go. Thanks for handing those with more money than time to actually earn their rewards (like the rest of us have to) the shortcut to additional in-game prosperity. So, actually, you ARE being outbid in The Market because it's now partially about money spent and how much luck demands you spend to get something of valued rarity.

Something fundamental has changed here and for those who either don't have the extra bread just lying around burning holes in our pockets and/or just plain don't like the gamble of random packs of rewards directly exchanged for real money (a la CCGs or 'paper crack'), this is bad news now and a really bad omen for where we are possibly headed. No longer are we rewarded solely for our in-game efforts where we were all once equal. Today we have those who are more financially successful in their private lives than others being allowed to translate that success into the game. It opens the possibility of bringing one's real life concerns into their favorite escape from these concerns.

But that's what you're doing when you say pay to win is synonymous with pay for rewards, because that's not what that debate has ever centered on in general. Pay to win has never meant pay to get what other people earn in-game. It has specifically meant pay to reach the highest levels of performance, or pay for essentially unlimited progress.

The issue is devaluement, and there is a recognition in debates regarding pay to win that certain kinds of rewards are much more critical when it comes to devaluement. In this game, for example, no one would consider selling standard inspirations to be pay to win, because standard inspirations can't be devalued: they are already considered too trivial to acquire to have any exchange value. And yet they have significant performance value.

If you want to assert that pay for rewards of any kind is objectionable, its disingenuous to even bring up pay to win, because it implies you think they are related, and if you do you should be prepared to defend that association. Saying its a semantic irrelevancy is something you can only do if you don't bring it up first. Since you do bring it up first, I feel compelled to respond to that association.

And the moment City of Heroes Freedom offered a free to play option, they became a pay for rewards game. Because VIPs that pay a subscription get stuff as part of their subscription, including things that can be considered rewards. They pay for those things, while other players do not.


For every one of you there are others for whom the exact opposite is true. People who perhaps had difficulty paying the subscription regularly. People who can now continue to play the game even if they have a lapse in subscription. People who can play and pay nothing, but pay less than $15/month for a limited set of extras. People who didn't measure up to your standard for what everyone should pay and what everyone should equally get for that pay.

We now have the option to pay more and get more. We also have the option to pay less and get less - but still play. And subsidizing it all are the people willing to pay more, and are not actually getting a commensurately higher gaming experience. They get more, but they don't get a proportionately bigger game. They get less than that, because someone has to subsidize the players paying less and getting less, because the devs don't save money on the players getting less most of the time: the cost is in the making, not the using.

The folks without the extra bread lying around are getting more game than they would if they had to pay for it all by themselves, because the folks with the extra bread are willing to part with it for less than one hundred cents on the dollar. This is basic arithmetic. Take away the things that people spend extra money on, and the people who don't spend extra will get less game. There's no other possible way it can work: more money buys more game, less money buys less game, period.

Its a fundamental change, yes, but not one that only favors the people with more money. The people with less money are better off. The people with more money are better off. The only people not better off are the people who don't care how much they get, they only care if someone else gets anything more. They are not better off. And on the day Freedom was launched, I stated dispassionately but unambiguously that those people, the fixed cost completionists, were the one group of people that City of Heroes Freedom does not account for, does not concede to, and cannot and will not accommodate. Its unfortunate, but its not unfortunate in general that everyone else is better off. I wouldn't trade back and penalize everyone else just to make that one group happy again. Nor is it at this point even possible to do that.