600,000 Super Packs

Thats a lot of astrals

Compared to the number of empyreans, even moreso. I'm assuming Uberguy burned a lot of empyreans crafting very rares or something, but kept his astrals mostly untouched altogether.

Well, that's from enough trials to earn:

T4 Reactive Interface
T4 Pyronic Judgement
T4 Lore Phantasms
T3 Lore WarWorks
T4 Clarion Destiny
T4 Rebirth Destiny
T4 Barrier Destiny
T3 Ageless Destiny

Plus I ran enough iTrials beyond that to get six Catalyst drops for this character's set of ATEs. (I did solo in DA some also, but didn't get a Catalyst there until after I was "done" with this character.)

You probably don't want to see her Incarnate Salvage tab.

I spent 60 of them on a PvP +3% Defense IO, quite a while before Converters were on VIP beta. (I don't regret it.)

In a completely unrelated note, Positron bought a new Prius. And hired a chauffeur.

Unfortunately for Positron, his attempt to embezzle those points ran into a problem when he discovered there was no way to convert them back into cash, and in an ironic twist the only thing he could spend them on was super packs.

What?! No Incandescence Destiny?!



Yeah, if I only played 1 toon I'd have that many astrals/emps on my main EI.

Although EI does have 2 t4 destinies (rebirth and clarion).

Too many toons to just stockpile emps/astrals on one toon!

What, only two Lore pets?

I'm going to craft them all and then lobby for Omega to let me cast them all simultaneously. Because that's going to be a big honking can of Omega on whatever I unleash that on.

Clearly, there was a new mechanic being tested - the delivery of random rewards for bought packs. I don't think it's difficult to know that players want new costume pieces, etc. There was (and still is) substantial controversy over players wanting a random rewards system in the Store. By offering the costume elements both ways, the Dev team could have gauged one against the other, which might have given them a better idea of how well random rewards would go over in general.

Well, at least one redname was directly asked this during beta, and replied that there were no plans to release to EO set through any other mechanisms.
Until or unless I hear otherwise, I'm going to go with what the redname said.

For the life of me, I cannot find where I said it was unfair, or anything similar. I said it was a missed marketing oppoutinity, and one that would likely tend to continue exclusive content to ensure further Super Pack success. (And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a teaser for the next Super Pack-exclusive costume set shown at the Pummit?)

There was a totally new, completely unique (I have no idea where 'utopian' came from) mechanic in offering random rewards in the Store. When purchasing the Barbarian Costume Set, you didn't get a certain chance of random pieces. When purchasing the Valkyrie Set, you didn't get a certain chance of random pieces. When attempting to purchase the EO Set, all you could get was a certain chance of random pieces. In what way is that not a new mechanic?
Many things are available in the Store that can be earned in other ways, and yet they still presumably sell. Many individual parts of other Sets can be purchased individually, and presumably they sell in both ways.

Either the Super Packs would have sold well without the exclusive items - in which case, why make them exclusive? - or they wouldn't have - which would suggest that people didn't like the way they were structured, and further Super Pack-exclusive content will continue to be unpopular.

Remember, this is just ONE of his ELEVEN level 50 characters. I'm not sure how many non-50's Uber has, but I suspect it is more than one.

I'm also fairly sure that he's not just sitting around playing the same small handful of characters all the time. He can swap to whichever character is needed most for particular activities are being run or whichever one he needs the rewards most from what particular activities are being run.

Plus all of the time he spends testing on Beta and posting on the forums.

I'm not sure when he finds time to hold down a full-time job.

Or they could compare the sales of Super Packs to other Freedom costume sets like Barbarian or Imperial Dynasty.

Or they could have sold six hundred thousand Super Packs with the exclusive costume sets.

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

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

And this would be apples to apples because there wasn't else anything offered in the Super Packs.

...right?

And it would be apples to apples because no-one was unhappy with the random nature of the Packs as opposed to the one-and-done nature of everything else.

...right?

Mostly, academic.

I don't see this having any relevance to my comment.

There's nothing new about anything they've done with the market- it's all based on standardized, tried and true methods they know work great.

It's like when they added inventions and the in-game market. It may have been new to CoH, but the model was as old as the genre and a proven winner.



They can say whatever, but when I look at the history of the game I see gated costume bits eventually becoming more generally available.
Maybe this time it'll be different, I guess.


It's neither new nor unique.
It is a novelty in this game, but that's all.


You write in a very confused, confusing way.
Last comment, it isn't an either/or situation.

My guess is they'd have sold well minus the costume bits, or with something else substituted for the costume bits, but the devs anticipated that they'd sell much better WITH them.

You don't like costumes being part of the packs- fine.
They are part of the packs, and a tremendously successful one.
The end.

Except people aren't robots who follow simple logical rules.

There are many many people who enjoy obtaining things randomly but, if presented with both the random way and a deterministic way, feel obliged to take the deterministic way out of principle, even though it ultimately results in less enjoyment for them.

To apply this to the super packs, there are people who enjoyed getting the costume set randomly, but would have bought it as a pack on its own if it was available that way and, then, because the super packs no longer contained the costume they wanted, wouldn't have bought as many, or possibly none at all, even though they might well have still enjoyed them.
Those people would have then both spent less points and had less fun. A lose-lose situation for NCSoft and the customer.

Its apples to apples because you're comparing straight-up costume sets to costume sets plus. The straight-up costume sets get you the baseline.

And if Paragon based any of their sales decisions on the basis of 100% customer satisfaction or bust, then there wouldn't be a Paragon Studios.

Some players didn't like the Super Packs. Some players loathed them. They still sold 600,000 of them.

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

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

The truth is summed up in a couple of points:

• I play my existing 50s way, way more than I think most people do. My lowbie alts, who are somewhat numerous (but not as many as I suspect a lot of forum regulars have), have in some cases literally languished for years without gaining a level. My 11th 50 hit that level in April, was level 25 in March of this year, and had been level 25 for five years.
• I'm single with a very comfortable income, which almost certainly lets me goof off more than most. I still put in my 8-hour days, and a lot of times I don't play that much on weekends or Friday nights, since that's usually when I socialize or do stuff around the house. But other than that, I'm free to play games. And this is the only game I play.

And trust me, as I get more 50s, I'll either have to get faster at earning rewards or earn less per character.

I actually don't spend tons of time on beta. I used to, but I eventually started to be more focused about it, because it's my live characters I enjoy achieving things on. I don't have enough time for both.

Well, being able to post while on the clock helps. Sometimes, I just don't have that much to add to teleconferences I need to attend, and it's usually easier to post than to write (working) code or (correctly) reconfigure systems while listening to a call with one ear.

Leet raidz = leet lewt.

In fact, synergy is a very real possibility. Had Super Packs had nothing exclusive, they might have only sold 200,000 packs and 200,000 EO sets.

I can't say how probable this would have been, only that it's a possibility.

Except that they weren't the same Costume Set, with the same appeal.

Comparing the same costume set to the same costume set plus would have given a very good baseline for the popularity of plus, right?

Better than costume set 1 vs. costume set 2 vs. costume set 3, plus, yes?

And a good way of determining this would have been to have done just that.
Had that happened, none of us - including the Devs - would be wondering. We'd know.

Now, if you want to make the argument that that knowledge is less valuable to the Dev team than the extra sales (if any) they made by offering Super Pack exclusive stuff instead of pack with separate purchase, then I'm all ears.
But I don't think that's a slam dunk case.

This is interesting.
I'm not certain I'd presume a large number of people would do this - although I certainly would think some would.

The question is if they would have made enough of a difference to make the Packs by themselves less successful than the Packs plus separate sales. With the baseline established for exclusive content, I wonder if we'll ever know.

Anyway, I'm clearly being boring on this topic, so I apologize and I'll shut up now.
Sorry for the derail.

Why? The way I see it, if all you want is the costume set, super packs are like a Booster Pack+...it cost a bit more but comes with a *slew* of rewards that can make leveling new characters far more enjoyable. From the XP boosts, to the merits and the enhancement boosters, merits and inspirations...where a Booster is basically just a costume + a power and/or emote you may not use and has practically nil effect on gameplay, Super Packs are a bit the same + stuff that *does* have an affect on your gameplay.

No need to sell the costume seperate, just buy 24 packs and you'll have it + more.

I still have some rewards from the 36(?) packs I bought...mainly ally rezzes, some ATOs and prestige boosters (lol most of my alts aren't in SGs!). Doing this (claiming the rewards on the characters that need them) spread over around 6 alts (Dark/Thorns dom, Stj/Inv brute, DM/WP stalker, Staff/Inv brute, DP/Fire blaster, Grav/Time controller) has boosted them anywhere from lvl 1 up to the mid 30s (and higher for those that I had already started up) with far more ease than normal...and I'm one of those players that *hates* easy mode.

Super Packs are fine...but if people still think they're 'Gamble Packs' maybe the devs need to implement some *real* gambling into them. I'd have loved the chance, after opening a set of 5 cards, to swap back cards I didn't want for a chance at 1 card returned that wasn't the same as any of the cards returned.

Example: if I got a 25x merit card, a prestige booster card, 2 ally rez cards and Kheld ATO, I'd have liked the opportunity to flip back the prestige booster, an ally rez and the merit card(3 cards) and given 1 new one that automatically wasn't either a prestige booster, merit card or ally rez. Let me *really* gamble!

...Sorry, what?

You do realize that I'm comparing selling the Super Packs with exclusives to the hypothetical situation of selling Super Packs without exclusives, right? And that, as such, these two situations are mutually exclusive? And that, as such, if one happens the other must necessarily be a hypothetical? And that, as such, if Super Packs were sold without exclusives, we would not in fact KNOW because then we wouldn't have the data for Super Packs with exclusives.

In short, while we would know Packs sold 200,000 and EO sold 200,000, we would not then know that Packs with EO would sell for 600,000.