The devs have explained their position already. I doubt they'll change their minds on this.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
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As we've stated, the cornerstone of CoH has always been, and will continue to be, our veteran Community. |
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
The good thing is that Global Channel access will be a privilege earned through the Paragon Rewards Program, so if you have a friend who decides to return, and they've been with the game for X number of months, they will have access to Globals.
This helps prevent RMT'rs and other unsavory's from flooding globals, while at the same time allowing you to reconnect with old friends who may have wandered astray from Paragon City (or the Rogue Isles  ) |
The proposal addresses both those design goals.
It moves chat traffic away from server Help channels, which are completely vulnerable to spam, to player moderated global channels, which are well protected from spam by allowing F2P accounts to join with an invite only.
It retains a significant global channel reward at reward level 3 for paying players.
I'm sure that, like the rest of the Paragon Rewards and Tier structure, this was not a snap decision and where to place those rewards was discussed rather extensively.
I believe the Devs have made a pretty fair set of decisions with where things unlock and how much investment into the game each Tier requires.
They are giving enough away for little to no investment by a player. I see no need to lower the bar and give them more rewards for less.
If the players want access to those systems the currently priced entry point is rather modest.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
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Chat access is quite low on the reward token tree...if it truly bothers a free player then they have options available to them.
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Originally Posted by Texas Justice
I'm sure that, like the rest of the Paragon Rewards and Tier structure, this was not a snap decision and where to place those rewards was discussed rather extensively.
I believe the Devs have made a pretty fair set of decisions with where things unlock and how much investment into the game each Tier requires. They are giving enough away for little to no investment by a player. I see no need to lower the bar and give them more rewards for less. If the players want access to those systems the currently priced entry point is rather modest. |
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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And so does the design the devs decided to implement.|
Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
The proposal addresses both those design goals.
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| It moves chat traffic away from server Help channels, which are completely vulnerable to spam |
It was getting so bad that I had to isolate Help under it's own tab.
I do not object to an F2P channel. Really I have no objection to F2Pers getting full chat access. I just report and then ignore spammers.
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I started doing that about a month after they added the /help channel.
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Originally Posted by Remaugen
It was getting so bad that I had to isolate Help under it's own tab.
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Sorry, I should've been more clear. By "spam" I mean only RMT spam, not all potentially unwanted chat. RMT spam is the only potentially unwanted chat I can realistically say Help chat is vulnerable to, but invite-only global channels are not vulnerable to. I mentioned RMT spam not to claim the proposal eliminates RMT spam (it certainly doesn't), but only to show that the proposal does not spread RMT spam to global channels, which would be invite-only to F2Ps. RMT spam is not a good reason to reject this proposal.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Do you think the devs weren't aware that [/help channel spam] would happen? The devs didn't pick that channel at random. When Freedom launched lots of things changed in the game. What the /help channel gets used for was one of them.
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"The devs already thought of it" is not an argument I give any weight to. It's absurd to claim, without evidence, that they already thought of the idea of splitting global channel privileges over two different reward levels, accurately predicted that outcome, then rejected it. It's absurd to claim, without evidence, the devs knew in advance that restricting global channels to level 3 would make Help chat exactly what it is today, and preferred this outcome to all possible alternatives, which they also knew in advance. What suggestion could not be shot down with unsubstantiated "they already thought of everything and knew this way is better" speculation?
"Players should pay for privileges" is a good point. I stress that my proposal reserves full global channel privileges to tier 3 Premium players and VIPs. This is about improving chat, not giving it away for free. Only the minimum global channel privileges are given to F2Ps to achieve the purpose of directing chat off Help and to more appropriate channels. Perhaps, as further compromise, F2P accounts could be allowed to join only a certain number of global channels at once? Everyone used to be limited to five; the code to enforce this kind of restriction might still be in there somewhere.
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And the devs have made it crystal clear that the motivation behind chat restrictions is to prevent spam by RMTr's and other unsavory's.|
Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
Sorry, I should've been more clear. By "spam" I mean only RMT spam, not all potentially unwanted chat.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger  Quote:
As we've stated, the cornerstone of CoH has always been, and will continue to be, our veteran Community. |
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger The good thing is that Global Channel access will be a privilege earned through the Paragon Rewards Program, so if you have a friend who decides to return, and they've been with the game for X number of months, they will have access to Globals. This helps prevent RMT'rs and other unsavory's from flooding globals, while at the same time allowing you to reconnect with old friends who may have wandered astray from Paragon City (or the Rogue Isles )
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RMTr's and other unsavory's may very well be willing to spend $5 bucks on the game if they could get access to global channels. They aren't willing to do it for the price of 5 reward tokens. Whereas legitimate players will aquire 5 token in no time.
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| RMT spam is not a good reason to reject this proposal. |
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| "The devs already thought of it" is not an argument I give any weight to. |
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger In the interest of protecting our existing Community which has always been so loyal, we've chosen to err on the side of curtailing the free players ability to grief. |
You can argue with us until you are blue in the face, but the devs have already decided this issue, told us the reasons why. The best response you can hope to get from a dev on this is the standard "we'll pass it along" to mollify you and then they'll forget about it because it goes against their policy to protect their legitimate customers.
You aren't the first person to suggest the devs change the restrictions on F2P accounts. People have been arguing for change before Freedom ever launched.
Create a new global channel called Free Talk that all players from all servers can opt into.
DO NOT open up the existing global channels to Rmt spam.
I don't give a flying **** about HELP cannel. It can go rot.
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I think you mean a server wide channel. The problem with doing that with a global channel is that |
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Create a new global channel called Free Talk that all players from all servers can opt into.
DO NOT open up the existing global channels to Rmt spam. I don't give a flying **** about HELP cannel. It can go rot. |
1. Global channels cover all servers/factions and F2P/Prem players will get frustrated that they can't team with many of the people on it because they only have access to specific servers/factions due to their limited character slots.
2. Global channels have a limited membership.
I've found that the most effective way to remove spam in the help channel is to actually be helpful to the people who are asking questions and to ignore (but not /ignore) those who are chatting.
It only takes a few minutes of illustrating how futile it is to troll you, before they go away.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but this is a remarkably tolerant and tolerable game, and its channels are just as noteworthy and for the same reasons.
If you really have trouble with the spam in the help channel, you might try another server, or, I dunno, a recent game that rhymes with Guyrim. Though who knows! Maybe someone's made a mod that replicates the experience of spammers!
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Only problem with trying the help channel on another server is that F2P and Prem players don't have the choice of checking out the different servers. They have to permanently assign a character slot to a server before logging in.
Paragon Reward Level 1: Add access to existing global channels with a chan_invite.
Paragon Reward Level 3: Delete access to global channels (moved to level 1). Add permission to create global channels, become global channel operators, and join public global channels without a chan_invite.
Rationale: Moves LFT/LFM and other off-topic chat traffic off [Help] to player moderated channels. Eliminates need for a F2P accessible, thus spam-vulnerable, LFG server channel. Invite-only access to player moderated channels would not be very vulnerable to spam. Retains a reward at level 3 for Premiums who reach that level.