put full forum access in Paragon Marketplace

It makes perfect sense. People who ain't subscribing don't get access to the same stuff subscribers get.

If they want full access they can pay for it.


Or the devs can go back to the pre-Freedom forum access where the nonsubscribers get any access to the forums. It won't bother me either way.

Well, my point is that 5-odd years of continuous subscription got me a bunch of meaningful in-game performance enhancements & neat costume stuff. The devs clearly see the value in rewarding longtime supporters of the game with a superior 'premium' game experience.

What's the point of excluding forum access from that list?
Especially given that players with a long history of subscription are likely to be valuable community assets.

If the forum restriction is an arbitrary one (and other than possible technical limitations I haven't seen a compelling argument otherwise), the community inside the gate suffers more from it than those being excluded.

Me either.
The internet is full of places to post, as many longtime regulars discovered following the silly ban on game chat in the culture forum.

But "this is how it is, so it shouldn't be changed" isn't a compelling defense, and forums rarely benefit from excluding informed, motivated contributors.

The exact same argument can be made about non subscribers asking for more access. Just because the devs were gracious enough to give non subscribers an inch (partial access for free) doesn't mean they are entitled to a mile (more access for free).

Wanting more access for free because they got partial access for free just isn't a compelling argument.

Within the confines of the game world, where developers do all the work & players enjoy the result, yes, by all means impose restraints- it's a business & the bills have to be paid. Of course, I'm finding myself continually surprised by how few in game restrictions I encounter as a max tier vet- the entire panorama of CoH is spread before me, aside from some end-game content that did not fully engage my interest when I was a paying customer.

But forums are not the game, they're an adjunct to the game. And unlike the in-game environment, the forums are 'created' by the players. Experienced, motivated players participating in forums are a resource for the game & its players, VIP and otherwise.

In game, I'm a total leech.
I enjoy (nearly) all the environment has to offer for free- aside from the dearth of character slots & incarnate stuff I haven't noticed any difference from my days as a paying customer, other than I'm not paying anything.

Here, on the forums, I am a resource. Left to my own devices I instigate discussions, I help people out with advice where appropriate, I participate in discussions. Even people who don't like me would mostly admit that on balance I'm 'good' for forums.

It doesn't make sense to me that I'm given free run of the game, the thing they deserve to be paid for, while being denied free run of the forums, where they could be taking advantage of my content creating largesse.

What. What.

Talk about hypocritical.

You say preemies with high vet status would find the market useful. You're on board with that suggestion. But apparently it stops there for you.

How would anyone not find the archetype forums useful? After all, in order to play the game you have to select an archetype.

How would anyone not find the server forums useful? After all, in order to play the game you have to select a server.

Preemies can PVP, how come they can't access the PVP forum? Preemies can play AE, how come they can't access the AE forum? Preemies have opinions, why can't they access the official news discussion forum or the developers' corner discussion forum? Badges, bases, Mac users... Preemies can get or use all of those. Preemies come from both Europe and Oceanic areas. They roleplay. They make fan media. They are likely aware of comic culture and pop culture and science news and boobs (Comic Culture is an amazing place btw, and not just because of the last one). Preemies play forum games.

I can see restricting things that actually are VIP only, such as Training Room, Exalted, ........that's about it.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Now there's a solid argument that even the most devoted of opponents will find difficult to refute. Good work. It's the type of thing even cynical jacktards like myself can get behind and support.

Nope. I don't personally care if non subscribers get no access, partial access, or unrestricted access.

I can see the logic behind the devs decision and it makes sense. I can also understand peoples desire fore more access.

However I'm not going to support a request for more free access just because a nonsubscriber was given partial access.

Now Goat has given us a beautiful argument that I think even the most determined opponent will find difficult to refute and I applaud his efforts.

On the forum end, they'd just have to create another user group.
On the back-end in the customer database they'd probably have to change the data type that indicates paid/VIP status to something non-boolean.

Instead of

VIP_Status: True/False

They'd have to have something like:

1=VIP
2=Free/Premium
3=Paid-Premium

The first part, adding another group to VBulletin is relatively easy.
The second? Dunno.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

UBB? Ewww. Think about migrating it to something that doesn't eat between 5 and 10 times the bandwidth and CPU it needs to just to server pages.

The main problem is the NCSoft web team that works on this stuff. Cheap, fast, good. Pick one, so long as it isn't fast or good.

It's probably not that they're totally incompetent. It's just that, compared to some of NCSoft's Triple A games, CoH is small potatoes, and gets blocks of work time allotted as such.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

The basic gist of it is, that they'd have to devote some full time staffing to forum moderation. Think about it. You're allowing people to log into a forum in a completely ungated manner.

Yes, it's all dreadfully manual and probably would be a ***** to script auto-signups for. But would YOU want to have to comb through 60-70 individual forums looking to root out malicious spammers, in addition to having to do your REAL job during the day?

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

It's pretty stinky, but the previous owner got a deal on it way back when and the new managment isn't interested in putting money into something that's still working. And of course the prevelance of social media have undermined the whole rationale behind dedicated forums.

More manpower is a real argument, as is the technical stuff which I don't know much about.

But the access would be gated behind the 'teir' system. If it could be made to work, they'd be granting access to long-time veterans with established track records. Not saying there aren't a few people like that who're total PITA's, but that's what the ban stick is for.

The idea isn't to just hand forum access to everyone online, just long-time vets who are more likely to be community assets than community problems.

Yes.

Not necessarily.

There are a great number of VERY long-term vets with no (or next to no) history on the forums. I know of at least three, personally.

Moreover, EULA aside, I'm certain there have been "account sales".

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Paid subscriptions pay for forum moderation. Your forum contribution doesn't come close to paying for free access. If you wish to contribute to the forums in the sections for paid subscribers, then you can subscribe. If you choose not to subscribe, then you are limited to the all access sections. The developers could choose to go back to the setup they had before Issue 21 where if you stopped subscribing, you couldn't access the forums except to read them.

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Hey look, it's someone making a bunch of points I've already addressed!

Allowing some access rather than none was a smart move.
Further liberalizing access would be an even smarter move, provided the technical hurdles are fairly low.

Whatever. I expressed my feelings about it rather than just /jranger.

No, it wouldn't be a smarter move. A more costly move? Yes, but not smarter. It would also be a more beneficial move for the players that aren't paying for the game. There is little to no benefit for Paragon Studios or NCsoft to do that however. If you want an open access forums, there are several dedicated to the game where you don't have to pay for forum access.

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Expressing a badly considered opinion poorly is no improvement on a simple 'unsigned'.


How, more costly?
Either people would be paying hard cash for forum access, as per my original suggestion, or would be long-serving veteran players who've already provided substantial material support for the game over the years, who'd bring veteran experience and passion to the larger forum community and who would require little in the way of active moderation.

True, and I'm making use of them.
But I'd prefer to use my energy in the service of the official forums.

Considering that the opinion you are saying is "badly considered" directly opposes your's, I'll go with "hit a nerve" instead. It is a valid point of view and likely one that you don't want to consider because that would mean that the suggestion will fail.

Most players would balk at paying the true cost of forum moderation, so it would cost resources that Paragon Studios doesn't have to service a few players. This game is already the bottom of the heap of the NCsoft priority for web development, and you are talking about wasting the precious amount of time they do get to appeal to a tiny fraction of 1% of the players.

The European players have a stronger position than you do (after all they are paying for subscriptions), and they are losing complete sections of the forums.

Two words come to mind after reading this: "Yeah, right." The more passionate the player usually means more active moderation is required. Also there have been plenty of examples of long time players that continually need to be moderated over the years. At its most basic level, this quote has no basis in reality.

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Those few people who do buy the forum access license wouldn't really increase the moderation requirements by much... probably about commensurate to how much they pay monthly for the license. I'd put it at $5/mo, so mods could spend twenty minutes to half an hour extra, per month, per person, modding these schmoes... and the likelihood that someone who puts forth money SPECIFICALLY to access the forum would jeopardize their right to using that license is rather miniscule. The likelihood that someone who buys a forum license (not one who has it included "for free" with their subscription) would require more than half an hour A YEAR of moderation time is still rather small. I've gotten four finger-shakes in the six-plus years I've been here and collectively they've probably taken someone a minute, total, all four, to scold me.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

All that still doesn't account for the Web Team developing the system for however many players that would potentially buy access. Those costs would also have to be included in any proposal to change how things work currently.

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Mildly annoyed that you failed to read the thread and note that your points had already been addressed. The validity of your opinion I leave to the judgment of the readers, having already clearly stated my own.

Forum moderation is already in place, imposing whatever "true cost" you're imagining on the groaning backs of the playerbase.

Adding a "tiny fraction of 1% of the players" (your words) to the existing population would present an insignificant increase in workload for the mods.

They need their own mods, which isn't the same thing at all.
That really does impose a significant extra cost to running the forums.


The quality of your logic is consistent, if nothing else.

If it goes in the store as per my initial suggestion, price it accordingly.

If it is instead added to the 'tier' system as a reward for longterm subscribers, those players have already provided the game with literal years of material support.

Considering by my suggestion, someone would be paying $60/yr, and really all that would be needed is to create another user group (add Premium+Forum to the existing user group list, which takes 1 to 15 minutes - we'll be generous and give them a full hour!) and another link between the accounts and forums (the forums already check to see if you subscribe, they can add a similar check for a forum license...and most of that code would already be written for the VIP check - this would take between one day and...let's be generous...a month of non-dedicated coding and testing).

At my suggested $5/mo, even if only 100 users buy it the first month, that's still enough to pay for it outright and then any repeat buyers are pretty much pure profit because those actively paying for a license (versus passively gaining a license through subscription) aren't going to jeopardize their use of it - and the thing's already paid for.


EDIT: I will say, though, that my faith in the NCsoft web team is pretty much nothing at this point, so I will put that as a point in favor of not doing it at all.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Hah!

At last, an irrefutable point.
=P

Given the current NCsoft web team, I would say that you are giving them far more credit in how much time it would take than can be reasonably assumed.

Not only that, I think that you are grossly underestimating how much it would cost for their pay, not to mention managing them. Web developers are paid around $20-$30/hour. A team of 4 of them, not to mention management and testers (a joke with these guys, I know) would add up to significantly more. Then multiply all those expenses with planning, meeting times, testing, QA, and roll-out. You will get a time that is significantly longer to develop than you are stating. So at least a month. I'd say that this would work out to significantly more than $10,000 for the minimum costs needed.

At $5/month that would take 2,000 subscribers for the first month, or almost two years for those 100 users to pay for the system (if the price tag was $10,000).

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