So I want to return but...

I do think, and said so when Freedom first launched, that some sort of Free Trial to returning former-subscribers (Premiums) where they can play with all their toys would be best.

It could be rather tricky though... If they can't simply apply it to start the first time that account logs in post-Freedom.
If they can... Then give first-time-log-ins 15 days of unlimited access to their characters and IOs and such. Make sure there's a big TEXT WARNING along the lines of "These Things Will Go Away after a 15 day trial".

Sure, people would still complain, no doubt, but I think there'd be less of it and, more importantly, it'd give returning players a better welcome and a better idea of what they're missing by not sticking around.

I hope you do enjoy it back here.
As far as I'm concerned, the game is still going strong as ever... possibly better than ever in most categories.
And, for the record, I have spent less money since Freedom came along. I used to buy the Super Packs that would come out, but the VIP stipend has removed any need for me to spend any additional money.

Certainly one could go and spend money on getting anything and everything that they have for sale... but sticking to what I want and will use right away... I've not been running out of points.
So, as one wary customer after the announcement of Freedom... So far, I've gotten more for the same subscription price.

The people at Paragon Studios are still great as ever and keep delivering on things. Not everything is for everyone, but I have very few complaints.
And, most importantly... the game is still rocking fun for me.

Yes, that would be deciding that the game is worth returning to and worth spending $5 every two months for points for the IO license or for a VIP sub every month in the current situation.

Not being able to try out my unlocked characters as I used to play them considerably deters me from being able to make a proper decision to do so, especially with the default option being "go elsewhere" if I end up lacking sufficient information. Things they could do to improve that are mentioned here, but that doesn't solve anything right now and I doubt any staff are reading this topic anyway.

Rescinded post - ignore me - ranting doesn't belong, especially when it won't be listened to anyway because the OP has already made up their mind.

Quote:

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.

@Toast: Apologies, I missed that bit when the rest of your post kept saying stuff like "you wouldn't have a welcome experience" and "you are getting an experience many of us paid years for". That sort of made it come across as the post was targeting me specifically in a rather aggressive manner and made the (not you specifically) disclaimer in the middle of it easy to miss.

Anyway, mind, while there are those who may have spent "thousands" on the game, what they've spent in the past is their business and really has no bearing on the current state of affairs other than the free perks should they unsubscribe. I mean honestly, I find that mindset extremely aggravating because reality doesn't work that way the majority of the time. Say if you've been a long time shopper at a store who required membership to shop there and they suddenly allowed everyone to shop there one day, they're not going to give you a gold-plated shopping cart to use. You're going to get the same one as the new customers. Now you might get treated a bit better by the cashiers as they recognize you, but that'd be about it.

But yeah, however much anyone has spent on CoX before it went free to play is seriously irrelevant. If anything, it can easily be argued you got the massive perks of having 6+ years of exclusive access, possibly including stuff such as events that may never be repeated (like the Rularuu invasion) and able to provide feedback to help shape the direction of the game before Freedom launched. Free players don't have that and never will. And it's really besides the point regardless.

Let me ask you, as a (I assume) long time subscriber, how does being a bit more inviting to Premium players, former subscribers who may or may not have invested just as much or more time and money into the game as you have, harm you in any way shape or form? How much would it ruin your experience if they were offered a short, say five day, one-time VIP trial for free? Or if the characters they made were as usuable as always but had to obtain the necessary unlocks for any other characters of theirs to use those systems (say, can edit any MA arcs they had published while subbed but cannot publish new ones or republish it if they take it down)? I'm not saying "Hey, they should have MA access period!" or "Hey, everyone should have the VIP experience for free!" but rather dangle some incentives to make premium players stick around and want to either spend money in the store or resub. It frustrates people such as myself who've made multiple attempts to come back far less and it could generate more profit for the company. Like I said upthread, free samples can generate a heck of a lot of sales.

Also mind, money is only part of the issue . I'm also looking at time investment and opportunity cost, among other things. Will City of Heroes Freedom provide an acceptable amount of entertainment for the amount of time required to play it and for the cost of the other stuff I could be doing instead? In the past, this was true. Is it true now? I don't know, the sour experience I've had every time I've logged since Freedom launched has me rather unsure, but I've liked the game enough in the past I'm willing to try to get past that and see. But I don't want to spend any amount of money until I'm sure I'm making a sound investment. That might sound silly, but I'm tight with my wallet and I refuse to spend cash to try something without proper research. You may or may not be totally fine tossing $15 or $5 just to check something out to see if you like it or not. Me, not so much, especially with how much a game that transitions to a whole new payment model can change. I can tell CoX is quite a bit different since I last seriously played it and I need to know if I like the difference, but to do that I have to get over the demotivational issues (and, more importantly, the performance issues, if my Windows client ends up hating me too, I'm giving up regardless).


@Arcannavile: I'd pay for the same, similar enough, or better experience that I had from before. Vague, I know. If it helps, I do have things on my in-game store wishlist, I just forget what.

@Tenzhi and Biowraith: Understand when I originally made the topic, the issue of IOs and other such was particularly jabbing at me since I wasn't logged in long enough to really re-experience my performance issues (and was too annoyed at the other stuff) and didn't get to experience those in their full glory until I logged back in later to go try to do a Mayhem mission. IOs are an important point, sure, but one that can be overcame if enough other factors work out. It's also worth noting that I'm kind of annoyed at several people making posts as if I'm just saying "GIMMIE" and am also annoyed at myself for making this topic to begin with.

Edit: And the stupid NCLauncher seems to be ignoring that I installed all the assets from the disc and just needs to patch everything. I hate that stupid thing, but that's another, unrelated issue. At least it's not trying to force me to use PMB.

I don't see how they are asking you to fork your wallet over when the game originally was 15 dollars a month. You could pay the same 15 dollars a month and get that... OR you could buy a 30 day invention license which is like 2 dollars I believe? Maybe 5? So a third of the price.

Performance issues:
When I had to buy a new computer this year I did consider buying a mac. I decided to buy my current as I want to play games ( and in particular this game). I had read that the mac had some issue playing this game. Also it may be an issue with your computer that is causing the problems. I don't know.

Free, premium of VIP?
NcSoft is a business. They need to make money or they will go bankrupt. It is simple as that. When you were a player before you only had one option: sub and get almost everything to play. Or unsub and not be able to play anyhing at all. Due to whatever reasons you stopped playing and the business model changed in the meantime.

You can play this game absolutely for free, but you won't be able to use the IO system, Incarnates, controllers and masterminds and a lot of content. You can use previous gained tokens or money to get some of it back and become premium. Or you can become a sub like the old days and play most of the game. You will still have to buy some costume sets, and powersets if you want them, but you can use everything you did before at the exact same cost. Your choice. If you don't like those choices you have a fourth option: don't play the game it is entirely up to you.

So.. you were a subscriber and got a load of stuff included in the game. You then stopped subscribing and stopped playing. If you subscribe again you'll get the same stuff you had and a load more stuff that's been added since. If you don't subscribe you have to pay for some of the other stuff in a different way.

Seems to me that if the game didn't have an F2P model, you'd probably have resubbed to try it out for a month without a second thought, but because it's advertised as "Come back for free!" it's a big load of bumm'ation when you realise that actually you can't really - at least not in the same way that you could.

I'm amazed this thread has got as far as 3 pages in all honesty. If you're complaining that much you can't be that fussed about coming back, so my advice would be: Don't.

SteelRat, you assume TwilightPhoenix would have resubscribed, but she hadn't.

The F2P elements of CoH have two main advantages, convincing old players to come back and give it another try, and convincing new players to give it a try.

When an old player comes back, they start on a journey to two destinations. "Oh, yeah, I remember why I played this game, I'm back, cool (and I'll dump some money into the game as a subscription or buy points)" or "Oh, yeah, I remember why I quit this game, I'm outta here (and if anyone asks my opinion of the game, I'll explain why they should give it a pass)". It serves the dev's purposes and the other player's purposes for the returning player to end up at the "remember why they played".

In this journey, the making a decision, it's pretty simple. Fun stuff pushes you to staying, unfun/frustrating/boring stuff pushes you to leaving. If you have existing characters of a high level, the issue with IOs adds a bunch of unfun/frustating/boring parts to getting back to playing those characters. Even if we know "well, they could just create a second build and then go through all the levels of training and then find a store and buy SOs to slot it out and then have fun"... (a) the second builds aren't a highly promoted part of the game, externally or internally, and (b) it's a somewhat long process of not-fun even if they perfectly remember their old build of what they like and how to slot them.

Is the game DOOOOMMMEEED if this lousy out-of-box experience continues? No. But assuming we'd actually like to have a lot of people playing the game, things that turn people off are not good.

Respecs need to be more readily available because a returning player that doesn't have an SO build can't play.

It's as simple as that.