So I want to return but...

Now that it serves me correctly, I remember that a lot of my resubs in the past coincided with reactivation weekend events. Whether you never unsubbed or not, you have to admit those were always awesome. If you were subbed, all your friends would show back up and could show them, first hand without any restrictions, just how awesome things were now than they used to be. If you weren't subbed, you can log in and play as if you had never left and see, quite clearly, whether the game was something to invest time and money into again. Combine this with the 20-day trials someone else mentioned and the invite backs giving 15 days free, pre-Freedom felt rather welcoming to returning players, as if the game was saying "Hey, welcome back! We're so glad to see you again, we hope you stay!"

Which, now that I think about it, is probably a big reason why Freedom feels so unwelcoming to a returning player unless they're high tiered on the rewards. There's none of the excitement of reactivation weekends, there's none of the freedom of being able to see all that is new, there's none of the "Hey, we want you back, so here, have this!" attitude that was so present pre-Freedom (2XP with reactivations, the trials, the half a month free, etc). Instead, it just feels like "Oh, it's you again. Here's some of your junk, try to have fun with it. If not, I'll sell you the rest of it."

Yeah, I hear the "but you had to sub to get anything" argument thrown around a lot. Yeah... no. Sure, unsubbed players didn't get to play the game every day, but they did get please come back trials, extra time for resubbing, and reactivation weekends, all with unhindered play. You can't call that negligible or trivial at all. In all honesty, I think I'd rather have a reactivation weekend than "premium access" all the time. Yeah, I can't log in whenever I feel like it with the former, but dang if those two days didn't feel totally awesome regardless of whether I was subbed or not at the time.

For trivia on the other reasons I would ever resub, the big chunk of the remainder was friends telling me, in detail, all that had happened and begging me to come back. But, that won't happen anymore since all the friends I have contact with outside the game don't play anymore since they wanted to play City of Heroes, not City of Gods (their reason, not mine). The other bit was having to unsub for small amounts of time, like a week, and my first sub after playing the Mac Open Beta.


Edit:

Nobody is really unhappy at the prospect that new characters are locked out of IOs, or as you return to leveling characters, the new powers and new slots are limited to SOs. Use the invention system as a carrot for your new characters - and without access to the Incarnate system, there's a limit how much someone will want to play their level 50 character.

The problem is when a player is returning to the game and wants to play an existing character (and particularly if they're just back checking it and deciding if they want to return full time). Even assuming they have complete knowledge of all the changes in City of Heroes and so don't try taking them out on a TF before realizing their powers are weakened to near uselessness, the steps involved in making that character playable are somewhat long and boring. For those who have already decided they're back to play, it's an annoyance. For those who are deciding whether to stay or not, it could tip the decision into "yeah, this game isn't as fun as I remembered".

You didn't click on the link there did you. It's to an 80s movie that two dollars is a running joke.

The question is simple business. How much would NCSoft lose in subscriptions or license fees if IO system access was made available for free versus how much money they will make on returning players either resubscribing or choosing to buy Paragon Points for other purchases because the IO system access is free.

I think they wisely concluded that if everyone had free IO system access that they would loose subscribers and have fewer new or returning players ever spend any money to play this game. That's bad, if it's not obvious to you, since the game will quickly close because it's not a sustainable business model.

Yea! Another quote for an early Cusack movie.

I don't understand why more companies do not produce content for people who are not willing to pay anything for it.

What I share a concern for is the welcoming experience for returning players in the sense that it could negatively impact reviews in the gaming press. I'm not thinking in terms of individual people and their complaints; I thought I was at first, but now I realize I'm thinking more in terms of collective feedback that we always ought to have our ears open to. For anyone reading along, I mentioned this earlier in the thread, much more briefly. But to explain further, Twilight Phoenix (the OP) represents something in this case that is larger than himself. For every one person who complains, I wonder if dozens could have turned away silently. When there are spikes in the number of people who are complaining, that wonder almost becomes paranoia.

I'm a VIP with no plans to unsubscribe. Even when I take a short break--usually once or twice a year for a month or two--I stay subscribed. So you might think I've got no personal investment in the Free or Premium experience. You might think the same of yourself. As VIPs, many of us probably take for granted that our game's lifeblood is its existing subscriber base. Click around on different peoples badges and you'll see so many 6, 7, 8-year veterans in this game, it's crazy. That's unique for the genre. "Don't like it? Don't play." That's what we like to say around here. Right? I don't think that's a good thing to do, and I'm not simply getting at politeness. I'm getting at self-preservation.

Because it's not so simple. We're all part of the same system. A system that brings VIP players new content and better features. The Free and Premium experience are links in that chain. If and when those links are weak, or even just when they suffer the appearance of being weak in the gaming media, the VIP experience suffers to some degree or another. That degree is measured not just in dollars and cents, but retention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ironblade I would submit that someone who is not willing to shell out even $2 per month is not a customer that NCSoft should be eagerly pursuing.

And then you have this morsel of wisdom. Everything I typed above needs to be tempered against this. I don't spend much time in newbie-centric channels like the Help channel, and I spend far less time in Atlas Park these days. But in the past year, I've tried out two other MMOs (each managed to keep me for a month or less ) and a handful of non-MMO multiplayer titles. Lurking in the newbie-centric areas for those titles, I discovered a completely new type of gamer. They pay for nothing, and their friends lists are not in-game, but programs like X-Fire and ICQ. They're nomadic and play several MMOs across the course of a day, teaming up for free missions in various games. The entire F2P market represents a single diverse game to them. They have no brand loyalty. They're a significant resource cost and part of the gaming experience for them is finding and sharing tips on where and how to find the most free content. The impression I received over the course of those two months was that this is a scarily large crowd of people, and we gain few benefits from their participation.

At the same time, that doesn't describe most MMO players, who are just looking for fun (no nefarious scheming there). But still, brand loyalty is often not simply bought into from a point of sale on the purchaser's end. Sometimes, it's the other way around. TV, radio, soft drink corporations, internet browsers can all attest to this reality. A free player today might be a paid player tomorrow. In this way, a significant portion of free players are worth investing in. They're exactly that: investments. Tomorrow often doesn't come immediately, but the goal is to keep them here until it does. I can't count the number of times I've met someone in City of Heroes who picked it up on a trial or F2P basis because they were penniless, unemployed and playing a free game. I also can't count the number of times I've used this as a way to cheer someone up about their job search, so that they could subscribe for the benefits.

TL;DR, there are layers of considerations here. This is not a black and white subject.

In essence, Samuel, I do agree with everything you say here. There are a couple of things though that I have a problem with.

Firstly, I'm sure you're well aware that there are players that will "leave the game angry" no matter what you do for them. They are usually very vocal, and usually also expect more than they can ever realistically hope to have. I'm sure you don't expect us, the community, to bend over backwards to back them up.

Secondly, I think the biggest problem with the whole F2P model that Paragon have adopted is really the Premium one. If you think about it the other two cater for their intended audiences fairly well; if you're a paid up subscriber, happy days. If you're a brand new player and you play with a free account you have pretty much everything you need to get you started for absolutely nothing. IOs, certain AT's and the like aren't necessary for someone that's never played the game before, and so it's right that those restrictions are applied. You can still "have fun", "try the game" and all the things the supporters of the OP are advocating without alienating the player. Most reasonable people will understand that you don't actually get much for free and if they enjoy the experience the free model offers, they'll be happy to subscribe.

The trouble comes if you're previously a subscriber and you want to play under the "Premium" system. Those restrictions mean that you won't be able to play all of your old characters, their IO's won't work and a whole load of other stuff that you used to have, you now won't have. The point is, are those restrictions REALLY all that bad when it comes down to it? Why should someone who doesn't pay a monthly fee have anything like the same access to the ones that do, just because they USED to subscribe? It's worth remembering that before F2P, if you didn't subscribe you couldn't play at all, so I'm less than sympathetic when people who did subscribe who now don't (or won't) complain when certain stuff isn't available.

It's worth mentioning too that if you give too much stuff to Premium players that would normally be available to regular subscribers, your regular subscribers could say "hang on a mo, if I get all this stuff when I'm not subscribing, why do I need to bother subscribing at all?"

Once instant snipe solution hits live, yes IO system should be open to all.

Why? Just team with buffers or stock up on yellow inspirations or take a self buffing power like build up or aim or total focus if you want to play army of one.