I don't feel VIP at all

I still want a new travel power that lets us click on a Freebie/Premium players and forces their characters to give VIP's piggy back rides to our mission entrances.

I'm T9, and DEFINITELY don't. And I've bought several slots already. It would cost me a crap ton to replace all the slots that I wouldn't have as a Premium... and that's ignoring that VIPs have a much higher cap-per-server than Preems.

Why do people keep making such statements, claiming that 'everybody only wants X!!!!!' when their evidence really amounts to 'I only want X!!!!'? Some people will be happy with just 2 character slots. Some people with the number they'd have as T9. Some people would be happy with the amount they get as a VIP. Some people aren't happy with the amount they get as a VIP that has paid for every single unlock on all the servers. People are all different, with different wants, needs, and desires.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Originally Posted by ShadowNate ;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

This.

I like it better now because of the amount of new power sets we get. Also as a VIP my points accumulate till I am ready to spend them.

Then we'll definitely need a whip melee powerset...

In a healthy business relationship, one side provides a product or service and needs to feel adequately compensated for it. The other side needs to feel that he or she is getting good value for the money spent. And on both sides, it's a matter of perception. (Someone with a bad back may be more than willing to pay someone to do yard work while the next person may think it a waste of money and do it without help. One business might be used to 15% profit while another wants no less than 30%) If you don't feel that your current arrangement is providing you with good value, then you need to step away from the table. I think any form of financial advice will say the same thing.

It's commendable that you feel strongly about the well-being of the game. But if that's in direct conflict with other priorities (fiscal responsibility and all that), then you need to decide which is more important. This game is not a charity. It's a business.

No, that isn't the goal.

The goal is for Paragon Studios to maximize profit.
The bottom line doesn't care about subs per se, it cares about taking in more $$$ whatever the source.

Which the current system seems to be doing a bang-up job of.

Step 1: Create an MMO.

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Big Profits!

Unpossible. i've been subscribed since May of 2004, and after Freedom went live i... stayed subscribed and was very pleased to see how much more i'm getting now.

Now if anyone else who's been playing CoH to the point of tier 9 feels that the additional perks of being a VIP are no longer worth it they are welcome to drop down to Premium and contimue playing. Personally i'd rather not because i consider the additional perks worth it and i enjoy the game enough to want to support it as much as is practical. But if that's how someone feels then they should do whatever makes them happier/less disgruntled. Expecting Paragon Studios to cater to all your specific demands or even just give you automatic everything because you're a VIP is silly and somewhat unrealistic.

I'm quite okay if they never introduce another powerset for 5 more years.
But, that's just me. And even without freedom, they'd be sure to come up with something.

Would it be good for the game? Well, good is a relative term. I'm okay with just about anything that will increase the number of subscribers - but not okay with things that increase the number of players.
I want server consolidation or an increase in the number of vip players per server (or cross server teaming as a consolation prize).

I don't like to team with free players because they can't join in the incarnate fun - or would have to pay extra for IOs. (and let's face facts - at level 30, IOs outshine SOs. They simply do. So if all other things are the same, I want to team with the player with IOs, not SOs. )
And, near as I can tell, CoH:Freedom has not increased the number of subscribers that play on a regular basis. It may very well have increased the number of free players -but those don't do anyone any good when looking for incarnate trial players.

Premium players I'm just fine with - because even though some will just have the weaker SOs, they still have a wealth of experience (well, some of them do) to fall back on. But, I'd rather they just subscribe, and I'd love it if CoH went back to the old model so we'd have more folks available for incarnate content. Because, as it is - some folks won't subscribe because they don't have to - they already get the milk for free, why marry the cow? I just wish they liked more milk.

Precisely. Having stuff that VIPs have to pay for means that those VIPs who have extra money and are willing to spend it on CoH can spend more while those who don't can use their monthly stipend to purchase the bits that they really care about. So long as the general rate of free to VIP stuff plus the value of the stipend is greater than the rate that stuff was produced at before Freedom then VIPs aren't getting ripped off.

I was absent for a year due to childrearing eroding my playtime down to a nub, I returned because hey, it's free, why not?

Now as a Tier 9 my premium experience was as good as it gets- IOs, remote market UI, the works. As someone who doesn't have much interest in hopping on the Incarnate treadmill this was a terrific deal! Basically the whole game for free.

But after playing for a while, the discontents of life as a Freemium became manifest, chiefly NOT ENOUGH SLOTS. As a confirmed alt-o-holic with several full servers, the limitations seemed positively draconian. And every time I logged in one of my unlocked characters, I had to look at all of the ones I couldn't visit.

And then there's the base rent.
All of my established characters have their private bases, and I've grown so used to them over the years that losing access was a serious problem. Not so much for the zone teleporters- in the modern era a full suite of teleporters isn't the necessity it once was- but I found it hard to live without my copious BASE STORAGE. My villain base is fairly typical, with full zone TP access, rows of inspiration storage collectors packed to the brim with Large & Present inspirations and more rows of IO storage packed with various expensive junk for resale plus lots of the sort of thing I like to equip new alts with- Miracle uniques, -KB IOs, +Acc, stealth IOs.

Sure I could get a VIP pal to do me a solid, join my sg and pay my base rent for me, but that's just annoying for me and for them.

And after re-VIP'ing I decided to check out DA.
Which is terrific, not even for the incarnate stuff, but just as a zone full of really fun missions. I'm playing through on my fire/ice blaster, my only character I bothered unlocking the alpha slot on, and having a great time. Maybe after I've run through it I'll do some of the trials, who knows.

And I've also enjoyed the SSAs that I've played through.

And as noted being a VIP has saved me money, as it prevents me from financially imprudent binges on the Paragon Market. As a premium player I knew I wasn't getting any points, so when stuff appeared that I wanted I would just buy points and get it. Now, I have an incentive to be just slightly patient.

So, while max tier Freemium is a really, really good deal and I could totally live with it if for some reason I found myself completely destitute, VIP is a terrific value. For the same sub fee I paid for six years I'm getting WAY more content in the form of story arcs, TFs and trials, costume bundles & new powersets.

Max tier premium is a great deal, but so is VIP...it's that rare WIN/WIN situation.

Fixed that for ya.

This, my friends, is a City bigot. It's kind of sad.

Ukaserex: if you didn't look at my /info window, you would never know that two of my four 50s have HOs/SOs/generic IOs (the only set IO I have is a single karma -kb). I can hold my own in pretty much any content that doesn't involve dogpiles of enemies (really rare in this game outside of farming). And yet you'd rather team with someone else.

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.

I'm sorry but this makes no sense to me. If people don't care about Incarnate content enough to subscribe, what makes you think they'd suddenly be interested if they were forced to sub.

Hell I voluntarily sub and I refuse to do any Incarnate content.

Well you are also a gurl, and gurl's have cooties.

Cross-server teaming is where it's at - although a serverless environment would be epic.
Until we get either of those, you could always try out Exalted

Me either, aside from running one character through DA to see the new missions.

That was never the stated goal in any public statement or conversation I had with Paragon. The belief was that many new players who tried the game as a premium or free player would eventually subscribe, but there was no specific intent to retain subscribers as subscribers.

The only intent was to retain them as players. But the system was *explicitly* designed to allow players who had been subscribers to drop down to premium status if they felt that provided more value. And in fact the system explicitly makes that easier by providing long-term players with an increasing set of rewards that unlock things premiums would normally have to pay for, in effect making it easier to drop to premium.

That's the *reward* for being a long-term customer: at some point you no longer have to pay for certain things. For some players, that means its cheaper to play ala carte, because the content VIPs are entitled to are not the things they want, and the things most premiums have to pay for they no longer have to. But the system isn't specifically *encouraging* players to unsubscribe any more than trade schools encourage people to drop out of college. Its just making an option available.


The fact that the rest of your post seems to suggest unsubscribing is tantamount to leaving the game means you really just don't understand the current system at all. I know people that have asked me point blank why they should continue to subscribe given their circumstances, and after listening to those circumstances, I tell them to unsubscribe. They still play the game. Unsubscribing hasn't hurt their ability to play the game as they want to at all. That's the rational decision. In the system we have, that will always be the right decision for some people. That's not a loss any more than it would be a gain if McDonalds forced all its customers to pay a monthly fee to eat there.

VIP customers will pay something premiums won't pay - the subscription. In exchange, they will get a bucket of stuff. That bucket of stuff won't always be judged to be worth the subscription by all players. That's 100% unavoidable: different people will judge things differently. For those people, subscriptions may not be the optimal choice. That is also 100% unavoidable. If you happen to be one of those people, that doesn't mean the system is broken. There have to exist such people.

That statement is self-contradictory. And I'm a tier 9 vet that wishes I could use reward tokens to buy character slots because I keep running out.

Exactly. i'm constantly making new characters. Sometimes they're on new servers because some friends are playing on that server and i decide to join them. Most often it's because i have a new combo/concept i want to play and i don't want to delete existing characters. i have 40+ slots unlocked on one server, 36+ on another, and 16+ on at least two others. i haven't done the math, but i do have some niggling doubts that i could access over 108 characters if i dropped to Premium, not counting the new alts i make every time a new set is released.

I am at 4 year 10 month paid time there is still two month for my annual and since I canceled my subs earlier 10 sept will be last day for my vip days so it can't be an early annual one either.

Well, you're spreading misinformation - and you're wrong. You should contact support if you're confused about your tokens.

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.

Actually, it could be an early annual one.

There have been inconsistencies as to when people have received some rewards, dating back to before the introduction of Freedom.

I know of players that had been awarded Veterans Rewards long before they should have received them, annual awards before they should have received them and even annual character slots awarded before they should have received them.

I've seen reports of players paying a monthly sub receiving annual badges (after the release of Freedom) 2 months early. I've seen reports of players paying a monthly sub receiving the extra annual token early.

It's quite possible that this is why you are seeing an extra token.

So in other words powerset grow on trees and are made from thin air.

Glad to see you're as rational as ever.

no he/she really isn't.

I understand the system, I just don't agree with how it is set up. I subscribed because I liked the game and I wanted to reward the developers. If I unsubscribe because I no longer enjoy the game, why would I continue playing?

I'm sure the concept of playing for free works for some psychologies, but not for me. I have money, I don't mind spending it. My time is much more valuable and I'm much stingier with that.