A question for Premium players

Alright, so I've been thinking about this a little...

Premium players, did you stop paying your sub and keep playing the game because you had already earned everything else but Incarnates through vet rewards?

Did you stop playing the game regularly?

What could have gotten you to keep subscribing that you weren't already getting for free, aside from end game stuff?

The reason I'm wondering about this is that it dawned on me that the Premium option was probably a bad idea. I mean, if we stuck with "Payers and Non-Payers," I feel like the game could've earned more money.

The problem with an old game like this going F2P with such generous offers for vets to play and stop paying is that we essentially banked all of our hopes on the end game system, which though I enjoyed it, many criticized.

Maybe if there was no option for Premium, no free IO licenses and free AT access through scaling vet rewards, we could've seen COH making more money.

...


I don't know, it probably wouldn't have made a difference. I'm just in "angry mode," probably part of the steps of acceptance or whatever it's called.

But right now as someone who subscribed every single month and bought a bunch of extra points outside my free VIP stipend, the concept of Premium players is just annoying me, and I wanna put them on the spot. Nothing personal or anything.

If NCSoft is prepared to axe not noly one of their best known and longest running games but also an entire studio and the next gen MMO project it was working on, then I don't think the Premium/VIP difference would have changed anything.

Well, personally, I just relied on the Premium to allow me to rp and keep in touch with my SG for those weeks or months that I couldn't afford my sub. I'm not the sort who has a ton of spare cash, but I paid when I could and bought a bunch of extra powersets and points. Not to mention costume sets, emoticons, and all that good stuff.

I had enough vet power to be Tier 8+ but frankly I have over 120+ toons and 4 accounts worth on Protector alone, I wanted to be able to access ALL my characters, and that was worth any amount of money I could scrape together.

I was so pissed to see the limitations they'd set on folks with fewer months, honestly. Since those 4 accounts vary in length from <-- join date to just a few months worth of paid time a couple years back, I got a look at how all the levels might work, and frankly it was just... worth my money.

I love this game, and if I had been able to afford to keep all 4 accounts ACTIVE at the same time, all this time? I would have. No job = no money. Unfortunately, no job = plenty of TIME.

I had everything as a Preemie. I logged out one day, mad about something, stayed away until I came back to help test the solo incarnate path, got mad about something, been gone from even the forums since April it seems.

I'm finding that I'll probably load the client up just to be logged in when they pull the switch because I always said I'd be here when they did.

Didn't expect it to go down like it has, though.

I had unsubbed because I was busy with RL stuff. (When you get to be my age, you have to start doing things like fly across country to take care of your elderly in-laws and make arrangements with lawyers and stuff.) I couldn't devote time to the game, or any game, really. The only game I've played this year was Mass Effect 3, and that was a terrible experience. Once my summer settled down I re-upped to CoH. (And have apparently lost all the money I paid a few weeks ago. Well, that's what lawyers are for.)

I've always been an on/off subscriber, though at times I had two accounts running at the same time. I'd have likely stayed Premium - at times I'd only play a few hours in a month, and so it made sense to me.

Across my two accounts I'd paid a couple of years worth of subs prior to F2P. That didn't give me MMs or Controllers, or IOs, or more than a fragment of my character roster. When my cashflow was good for a short time following the implementation of Freedom I'd paid to unlock Masterminds, and some extra character slots, and IF my personal situation had allowed I'd have unlocked more of them over time, as well as the newer powersets, costumes etc.

When CoH went FTP, I hadn't played in about 2 years (due to WoW taking up my gaming time, mostly). I leveled up a brute to 50 as premium (reward level 7 I think) and had fun, subbed for about 3 months to do incarnate stuff and experience the VIP content, then I decided to take a break until I saw today's news while browsing the Steam forums. If not for the premium status and having access to most content, I doubt I would've subscribed for those three months.

Don't blame players for the game's shut down, blame NCSoft. After all, if people hadn't been purchasing subscriptions and stuff off the Paragon market, the devs wouldn't have been pumping out stuff for it.

I don't see how premiums "hurt the game". If anything they bought more stuff from the market over time. I recently came back after about 2 and a half years. I originally had 2 accounts with subscriptions. I left due to financial reasons, but when I heard it was f2p and had some time this summer I came back.

I didn't have everything unlocked and really I only played on my main account due to having it unlocked to tier4, which my other was only unlocked to tier2 barely. I kept buying IO licenses and was about to buy lots of character slots so that I could play old characters and start new ones since I filled my 5 slots fast. I thought about resubscribing, but didn't because I could just buy what I wanted and the VIP content didn't appeal to me.

Don't take that as not spending money though because like I said I did on powersets, IO licenses, and also other items. I just liked not having the commitment to $15 every month seeing how I am a college student and like to spend money I can.

Burn out BURN out. I hadn't played it the last 3 months or so and was waiting for some new incarnate tiers to open wanted to see everything up to omega was going to be. Guess that aint gonna happen now. My friend even said he might go vip again next week which usually gets me to re up.

My personnel opinion they spent to much money on updating the graphics in the first place can't even remember what they call it ultra mode or something idk the game was over half a decade old people aint playing for the stunning visuals that's what the xbox360 is for. Going Rogue an expansion focusing on low level of the game that people blow threw super fast like in a day not smart actually extremely short sighted. Look at Preatoria it's a ghost town with tumbleweeds blowing at every street corner.

Anyway no matter what decisions I thought were dumb this game had a great many talented people working on it and I hope them the best in future endeavors.

I ended up a Premium player on Wednesday, and was actually planning on resubbing my VIP status sometime in the next week. For me, what really hurt in the last month and a half or so is that NCSoft actually changed the nature of the cards they put into Gamestop stores. I purposely don't have a credit card, so I was relying on time cards for my VIP, and PayPal is a hassle I generally don't like dealing with, so using that for CoH has left me hesitant. That said though, even though I had all the non-repeating Reward Token perks, I was still subbing regularly, and spent money on power sets, costumes and super packs.

That said about my end, we players still posting here and trying to figure out a way to save the game aren't the problem by a long shot. The problem is NCSoft spent a ton more than it made earlier this year and CoH looked like the easiest thing to lop off to try and stop hemorrhaging profit. Thing is, I really think they didn't take the community here into account.

I went premium for primarily one cumulative reason: the many dreadful design decisions that catered to a small group of current subscribers and failed to excite the interest of and attract new users in sufficient numbers to sustain the game long term.

The creativity stopped with Going Rogue expansion. When they could have used that stepping stone as a means to move into other areas (into outer space and beyond to other worlds) and expanded skill levels (60, 70, 100 anyone?), they started the abysmally divisive Incarnate system which split the community into the haves and have nots; raiders versus solo/small teamers; min/maxers versus casual players. The Incarnate System failed miserably at giving players reasons to use the store more frequently and signaled to all that it was the end of end game planning.

Like it or not, it was poor design decisions that were the doom that kept this game from attracting the larger audience it needed to sustain itself for the future. and it is the poor design decisions that will forever haunt the memories of the studio leaders who now see the results of their actions upon the employees who depended on their direction as a means of providing income for themselves and their families.

When I finally tired of fighting the battle against what Paragon Studies was doing, I had no choice but to move on to another game more conscious of what is needed to sustain itself long term. I will miss what CoH used to be but not what it had become and was becoming.