My comment here is more about the method of vet/loyalty reward I'd prefer NOT to see CoT. In general I absolutely hate any "one time" awards that are directly linked to a single event or period of time that will never happen again.

For instance CoH had a number of badges like the Anniversary badges that were tied directly to specific real world years/dates. This meant if you weren't playing the game during the month of May 2005 you'd never get the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Celebrant_Badge]Celebrant[/url] badge. Instead of this the game could have offered "player anniversary badges" that keyed off the anniversary of the PLAYER, not the game. With that subtle change ANY player could eventually get the "one year" badge as long as they kept playing for a full year or longer.

The key mindset here is to keep things that a future player could miss out on to an absolute minimum. I actually knew players of CoH who eventually gave up on the game (long before it shutdown) specifically because they had started playing so late that there were a dozen or more badges they'd never be able to get simply because they hadn't been playing since April 2004. Why penalize future players like that for something that was beyond their control when there's really no good reason for it? There's no rule/law that says that any reward has to be "one time" only - it's simply up to the Devs of any game to be clever enough to realize that.

Segev wrote:

I know that commemorative event souvenirs - coins, badges, pins, other gewgaws - are things that happen in real life. People go to an event, and get this item as a free door prize or the like. These cannot be obtained "new" ever again.
But people collect such things, nonetheless, and seek them to complete collections even if they were not at the event in question.
What if that were possible in CoT? What if people could trade event-specific badges and what-not on the market, for whatever they could get for them?

Perhaps... but you've pretty much opened up the key point I'm trying to make here: in REAL LIFE there are obviously things that can happen only once and collecting unique, one-time things from those events are perfectly valid. But in a MMO there's absolutely NOTHING that has to occur only once. Or more to the point there's nothing that happens in MMOs that require unique, one-time things be used to commemorate them.

For instance let's say the Devs decide to offer up a one time "Godzilla comes to destroy the city" event in CoT. Even if that event will never happen again the Devs could offer up a badge for it. But here's the key: That badge could be generically named something like "Savior of the City" instead of "Godzilla Destroyer". By keeping it generic the Devs could offer up the same exact badge next year when they run the one time "King Kong comes to destroy the city" event and players would have another chance to get the same badge.

Obviously the Devs could offer up other side rewards to entice people to want to kill King Kong if they've already killed Godzilla, but nothing REQUIRES those other rewards be unique one time only in nature. In fact one alternative is to allow something like my generic "Savior of the City" badge example be awarded multiple times - the precedent for that in real life militaries is well established. If the "Medal of Honor" was good enough for soldiers in WWI and WWII then a single generically named badge should be good enough for both Godzilla and King Kong in CoT.

Again the main point is that it doesn't take too much effort to ensure that "one time only" awards are kept to an absolute minimum, and I would even argue that a game could probably work quite nicely without having any of them at all.

Speaking as fan not dev here.

Awards for reaching a particular level simply encourages people to farm up to that level (checkout all the people that wanted a 50 to get a PB).

I also agree with Lothic, if you do for example the anniversary badge as one badge that replaces each year (so I have the 1 year badge which gets replaced by the 2 year badge etc) then the badge count stays the same.

Alternatively have some badges that go in a different tab and don't count towards your official badge count and sidle the older anniversary badges there as they're replaced.

Badges are out because the badge hunting crowd will cry bloody murder that someone was given a badge they weren't given, and that they're "behind" in a race that they cannot ever catch up in, theoretically.

Costume pieces are no good because as we saw with CoX, the people want their fly threads and will complain that someone else has a better pair of shoes than they do.

I'm not a huge fan of any kind of accumulating respecs or costume changes, because after a while you rack up so many of those that they become worthless on the market. I would like to see the game market actually be able to sell respecs and whatnot. If you are going to give away freespecs, they ought to have a finite window of opportunity on when you can cash them in before they expire, like a "limited time offer" type thing. Same with costume change tokens, or anything else you intend to sell in the market for real money (and this might include costume slots, character slots, expanded wallet space, etc).

Physical swag would be another idea, but one that costs a lot of money to produce and ship to people, and as such probably not worth the effort. I'm not saying I DON'T want the occasional Clix figure or jacket pin, just that I can live without it if the cost is too high. Magic: the Gathering used to have a program whereby if you registered yourself and signed up on their website, you got free promotional cards sent to your house every fiscal quarter, I think. I forget the particulars, but some of the cards were alternate art versions of stuff, etc and were pretty cool looking. They had to stop that when SO many people signed up for it that the shipping costs to manufacture, package, and ship that stuff to so many individual addresses got to be too much of a burden.

This is a tough problem, because you don't want to give out anything that makes the veteran's toons significantly more powerful, so that rules out "useful" veteran powers and relegates them to "pretty much not worth using, except for show" status, much like the ones we had in CoX. I don't have a problem with vet reward powers that aren't terribly powerful, but I can see where people would be underwhelmed by that. I also didn't love the fact that the vet reward powers, many of them, were villain-group themed and very often didn't match my toon's personal style or theme at all. The only thing those powers were good for really was breezing through the Isolator badge in Outbreak because you had more attacks to use. If this could be done in a way that you get to pick a thing that's generic enough to adapt to any toon, or at least doesn't have any one native factions logo on it, I would like it better. For example the black wand wasn't bad if you were a magic-origin toon, and the Crey CBX-9 freeze gun, though it was decidedly a Crey weapon (and gotten by doing Crey badges, not as a vet reward), could have been a more generic looking ray gun and would have been fine as a vet reward for a tech or science toon I think.

I personally am not in favor of making it anything you can trade away to others who didn't earn it themselves, just my opinion. I'd prefer it be non-collectible (so no badges, etc). I'd prefer it not be anything already for sale in the market for real money. I'm okay with non-combat "for show" pets, less than stellar powers like the ones CoX had, etc, just nothing specific to an in-game faction. If I want a Vanguard thingy, I should have to grind on Vanguard missions etc to get enough Vanguard merits to get that thingy. I would hope that any other such swag be generated by and purchased with faction-specific loots. So like the Crey CBX-9 which is unlocked by doing Crey content, THAT'S how you should get faction-specific stuff, not as generic vet rewards.

Hmm... why not have a separate category that shows Totals badges for Exploration, Defeats, etc... that does not include the one time Special Event type of badges?
So at least, the UI that shows the Totals isnt constantly Taunting them! ;D

*UI taunts player* "Hmm... Awww.. you suck, your Totals are One Less then that OTHER Guy/Gal. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA!" :)

Lothic wrote:

In theory by quarantining the two types of badges into separate tabs/GUIs the badge collectors might be willing to consider both "overall" totals and "character badge only" totals as two different stats. In practice of course the "overall" total will still be used for universal bragging rights...

This mirrors the sentiment we had when we discussed this very topic.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

I would like to suggest that a one year veteran be granted a secret Hide out for his characters
and that further veteran rewards should be mostly things that you put in your hide out.
Of course there should be a way to buy or earn decorations for your base in game
but the annual rewards could be things you couldn't buy
Characters that are in a Super Group, could add the same rewards to their SG HQ

What if not only getting a Badge, you get awarded a Physical 3D object (like a Certificate or a Trophy) that you can hang on your wall in the SG.... after an NPC Dialog calls you and it magically appears in your inventory. ;)

And if you click the button that says "Receive Key to City from Mayor ..." instead of the "FedEx to me", Roleplayers can have a Ball by seeing the NPCs cheering from below the Podium. ;D

The real threat I see in Vet Rewards, and City of Heroes did this, is the divide between the Haves and the Have Nots. There were quite a few Veteran Rewards added to City of Heroes that fundamentally altered how Players engaged the game. You can review a listing of them [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Veteran_Rewards]here[/url].

Perhaps the biggest "offenders" of Veteran Rewards were the Powers. Things like [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Veteran_Reward_Powers#Assemble_the_Team]Assemble the Team[/url] (always acronymed as "ATT" in chat) became something that over time made Travel more of a nuisance to be dispensed with and generated a sense of "leecher" entitlement in the community. [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Veteran_Reward_Powers#Reveal]Reveal[/url] was quite possibly an even more egregious offense to playing the game as it was intended, because it could be used to "reveal" everything on instance maps, making it child's play to skip past everything and go straight to the objective. Both of these Inherent Powers granted by the Veteran Rewards system were "convenience" Powers that were intended to be Quality of Life upgrades, but which actually degraded the quality of game play by encouraging a sense of entitlement and leeching (in the sense of "somebody do it so we can get this over with faster").

Something similar happened with the Costume Unlocks, where you again had a case of Haves vs Have Nots. It created resentment.

I would consider unlocks for additional character slots to be acceptable.

I am however quite leery of granting (pay for) services "for free" as Veteran Rewards, simply because doing so decreases the "value" of those services and the demand to actually pay for them (particularly if denominated in Stars).

ATT made for a big difference in many missions, someone stealths to the end, teleports everyone, beatdown commences. Usually teams would say if they were doing the mission speed-style or not, but it definitely altered the way those missions could be run.

Reveal was less troublesome for me, mainly because I didn't realize it was usable in missions for quite a while. Plus, it's not like the map revealed where the glowies were, so it was much more situation-dependent in its use. It was very useful on zone maps, though. No more single-pixel fog of war messing with your nice clean map.

Costume slots (not costume pieces) and character slots would make sense, although even those could be considered a 'have versus have not'. Frankly, anything that one person has that another does not would technically count. Speaking of costume pieces, rather than a 'you get this piece', perhaps a veteran reward might be a preview. Getting a costume set a month early or the like.

Lothic wrote:

My comment here is more about the method of vet/loyalty reward I'd prefer NOT to see CoT. In general I absolutely hate any "one time" awards that are directly linked to a single event or period of time that will never happen again.
For instance CoH had a number of badges like the Anniversary badges that were tied directly to specific real world years/dates. This meant if you weren't playing the game during the month of May 2005 you'd never get the Celebrant badge. Instead of this the game could have offered "player anniversary badges" that keyed off the anniversary of the PLAYER, not the game. With that subtle change ANY player could eventually get the "one year" badge as long as they kept playing for a full year or longer.
The key mindset here is to keep things that a future player could miss out on to an absolute minimum. I actually knew players of CoH who eventually gave up on the game (long before it shutdown) specifically because they had started playing so late that there were a dozen or more badges they'd never be able to get simply because they hadn't been playing since April 2004. Why penalize future players like that for something that was beyond their control when there's really no good reason for it? There's no rule/law that says that any reward has to be "one time" only - it's simply up to the Devs of any game to be clever enough to realize that.

I think it's fine that we have badges like anniversary badges. Anyone who quit over those were going to quit long before it shut down anyways. Especially when it was something that had no baring on character power or look. It was just a thing to say "I was there."

Now, costume pieces locked behind long amounts of time invested in the game is different. Costume pieces you can only get once and never again, is another bad idea.

No, never obtain these useless (or even useful) powers that might be concepty (who doesn't like a snowball power on an ice/ice character?).

I just noticed Radiac and Mendicant had mentioned costume slots as vet rewards
Hear Hear!

Brand X wrote:

Lothic wrote:
My comment here is more about the method of vet/loyalty reward I'd prefer NOT to see CoT. In general I absolutely hate any "one time" awards that are directly linked to a single event or period of time that will never happen again.
For instance CoH had a number of badges like the Anniversary badges that were tied directly to specific real world years/dates. This meant if you weren't playing the game during the month of May 2005 you'd never get the Celebrant badge. Instead of this the game could have offered "player anniversary badges" that keyed off the anniversary of the PLAYER, not the game. With that subtle change ANY player could eventually get the "one year" badge as long as they kept playing for a full year or longer.
The key mindset here is to keep things that a future player could miss out on to an absolute minimum. I actually knew players of CoH who eventually gave up on the game (long before it shutdown) specifically because they had started playing so late that there were a dozen or more badges they'd never be able to get simply because they hadn't been playing since April 2004. Why penalize future players like that for something that was beyond their control when there's really no good reason for it? There's no rule/law that says that any reward has to be "one time" only - it's simply up to the Devs of any game to be clever enough to realize that.

I think it's fine that we have badges like anniversary badges. Anyone who quit over those were going to quit long before it shut down anyways. Especially when it was something that had no baring on character power or look. It was just a thing to say "I was there."
Now, costume pieces locked behind long amounts of time invested in the game is different. Costume pieces you can only get once and never again, is another bad idea.
No, never obtain these useless (or even useful) powers that might be concepty (who doesn't like a snowball power on an ice/ice character?).

Anniversary badges are fine as long as they are player-centric rather than game-centric. I'd rather be rewarded for how many years my character has existed IN the game rather than if my character just happened to be around when a real life anniversary came by. How exactly do real life anniversaries affect and/or apply to fictional characters INSIDE a game anyway? ;)

Anyway I think it's interesting you have problems with "one-time" only awards of one kind (costume pieces) yet don't care about them in other cases (badges). Wouldn't it just be easier and ultimately more fair if the game didn't impose ANY one-time awards? Why favor one type of award over another in this situation?

Lothic wrote:

Radiac wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:
Lothic wrote:
In theory by quarantining the two types of badges into separate tabs/GUIs the badge collectors might be willing to consider both "overall" totals and "character badge only" totals as two different stats. In practice of course the "overall" total will still be used for universal bragging rights...

This mirrors the sentiment we had when we discussed this very topic.

For the record, and I'm not a badge hunter really, but my take on this is that the game should keep official track of all badge hunting stats and thereby sort all badges into two strict categories: "IS a badge, counts toward badge hunting" and "not TECHNICALLY a badge, but mechanically mimics one, but isn't counted for badge hunting" . That way the legit badge hunting hobby is the one tracked by the game itself, not biased third party websites, etc.

The problem with the game itself trying to suggest/dictate what is or isn't a badge is that CoH actually tried that already and it was an instantaneous failure.
In case you were not aware when Matt Miller (a.k.a. Positron) first introduced the Gladiator "badges" to CoH he specifically let it be known that he didn't want players to count them as badges in the traditional sense. He even directly mentioned your idea that even though they "mechanically mimic" normal badges that they really should be considered separately.
The badge collector community's reaction to Matt's "desire" on the matter was to instantly disregard his wishes. The Gladiator badges were summarily added to the overall badge totals maintained on the third party websites and Matt basically gave up talking about it.
So no I don't believe it would make a difference if the game tried to specifically define which badges "counted" or not because the playerbase is going to decide that regardless. What the game -can- do is something along the lines of my suggestion of dividing badges along "account wide versus character specific" lines. It probably still won't keep badgers from doing what they want anyway, but at least from a functional point of view the "account versus character" idea does offer certain organizational and QoL advantages. For instance at the very least we would no longer have to re-login every alt we own during events to get event participation badges on all of them because the badge in question would be account based instead of linked to every individual character.

I disagree in the sense that I think what Miller SHOULD have done if he wanted people to do as he asked was to make the badge hunting leader board and stats etc a function tracked by the game itself, or on the CoX website officially somewhere. I believe that the only way to really enforce what he wanted would have been to take over the official score keeping responsibilities and bring the badge hunting into the fold officially, ending the controversy once and for all. Apparently he didn't want to ruin all the work people had put into the third party websites that had sprung up so they didn't go that far.

Competitive people can disagree on what should or should not count as a badge, but if the official people in charge say "We, the game makers, officially have Person X currently ranked #1 in the world" that means that person X can respond to complaints about badges with "check the scoreboard, pal." Simply asking people to disregard certain badges was a nice gesture but they never backed that position up on paper (or website space, or game functionality) to the point where anyone cared. I mean, new badge hunting people didn't even hear that pronouncement by Miller if they started playing after he made it, and there the Gladiator badges are, staring you in the face. I don't expect anyone to just remember what Matt said and pass it along to the newbies as they come in. So the fact that they appear on the character's badge sheet makes them badges in people's hearts and minds visually before anyone ever tries to discount them on the basis of what someone said a long time ago.

Personally, I still believe that if the game devs make that an official thing in the game, then people will generally tend to abide by their rules and defer to them as the official authorities in charge to suss out what legitimately counts as a badge and who the true king of the hill is. I mean, pro tennis players might have differences of opinion about which tournaments are worth showing up for and who's really better than whom on their best day, but in the end they all abide by the ATP tour officials rulings and officially published player rankings, which are used to seed tournaments, etc. If the official, "where the rubber meets the road" badge rankings are tracked by the game itself, from day 1, then I believe the game itself can dictate the rules of engagement from then on.

We may agree to disagree on that, as I'm not a badge hunter anyway, but I doubt anyone will bother to make their own badge hunting webpage of the game already has an official one, and that alone kills the unofficial badges pretty nicely, IMO.

Agreed Lothic! I had no desire to log into every character to get them badges that should've just been account wide.

I agree with Lothic in the sense that I'm in favor of account-wide versus character-specific badges of that helps the badgers. And it WAS pretty clear that the CoX devs didn't foresee badge hunting getting competitive or completist like it did, given some of the badges they had were for finding bugs, absurd amounts of healing, etc. It was like the intended purpose of badges never really materialized and was quickly overshadowed by the competitive aspect of it. Like as if they were thinking "I bet we can sell people more of our delicious, chalk-flavored gum if we put some sweet pictures of baseball players in with it to give it a celebrity endorsement. Nobody will care about the baseball player cards in and of themselves, what they REALLY want is the chalk-flavored gum we're making."

I used to think, early on, that having a hard-to-get badge like Charmer might mean something to other people looking at my character. It went largely ignored by the vast majority of people. Everyone who knew what it was and how hard it was to get had it themselves and everyone else was totally oblivious to the whole thing. If that was ever the intended purpose of badges, it didn't work like it was supposed to.

Radiac wrote:

I agree with Lothic in the sense that I'm in favor of account-wide versus character-specific badges of that helps the badgers. And it WAS pretty clear that the CoX devs didn't foresee badge hunting getting competitive or completist like it did, given some of the badges they had were for finding bugs, absurd amounts of healing, etc. It was like the intended purpose of badges never really materialized and was quickly overshadowed by the competitive aspect of it. Like as if they were thinking "I bet we can sell people more of our delicious, chalk-flavored gum if we put some sweet pictures of baseball players in with it to give it a celebrity endorsement. Nobody will care about the baseball player cards in and of themselves, what they REALLY want is the chalk-flavored gum we're making."
I used to think, early on, that having a hard-to-get badge like Charmer might mean something to other people looking at my character. It went largely ignored by the vast majority of people. Everyone who knew what it was and how hard it was to get had it themselves and everyone else was totally oblivious to the whole thing. If that was ever the intended purpose of badges, it didn't work like it was supposed to.

One could easily argue whether or not badges should be a source of competition and/or completionism in a game like this. I'll leave the answer to that up to the opinions of the individual.

But the thing I did find rather annoying and bull-headed was the general inflexible attitude of the CoH Devs (and of Matt Miller in particular) when it came to acknowledging the way badges were enjoyed by the playerbase. Sure the Devs didn't have to like what the badge collectors wanted to do with them, but there was this unmistakable reluctance to support (and even disdain leveled against) us "evil badgers" and our attempts to play the game the "wrong" way. It was almost like the Devs hated the color orange but were totally surprised to realize that many of their players actually liked orange-colored things. Instead of going with the flow and making it easier for players to get orange-colored things the Devs buckled down and only very grudgingly let a few orange things leak from time to time and seemed to hate having to do it. Go figure.

Anyway hopefully the CoT Devs will learn from these lessons and be more willing to support all the different types of badge collecting (or non-collecting) activities.

Segev wrote:

To that, I can say, at least, that I have always tried to be an advocate for finding out what players are doing, and finding ways to empower it while directing it so that it becomes constructive to the game as a whole. If players are going to do something, we can't stop them. What we can do is try to cut a channel for that tendency to flow along which will make the consequences of their actions constructive to the game and to others' experience therein. It won't always be easy, but I think it will lead to the best, most enjoyed game we can make.

There is an obvious give and take here. I realize that players can't be allowed to get everything they want, especially if they start asking for very unreasonable things that would otherwise disrupt the game for everyone. But when it becomes obvious that a certain unforeseen in-game activity has become relatively popular it would behoove the Devs to at least acknowledge it and support it as best they can instead of trying to pretend it doesn't happen or somesuch.

Izzy wrote:

Gosh... if someone were to read this thread, they would think ALLOT of CoH/V players cared about getting every badge. But in reality I dont think it was more than 10%, maybe even LESS. :/
I hated having to collect Badges! >:( Especially when I was Forced to do so, to get one of those +5/+10% PermaBonuses for HP, END, etc... But I did them Cringing! >:(
I rather do an Eden trial to get my +5/+10% SemiPermaBonus that lasted 2 weeks instead of trying to get all the badges. :|

Your loss... *shrugs*

But seriously the badge collector community was just as significant as the PvPers, the RPers, the Raiders, the Alt-ers etc. It doesn't really matter what the exact percentages each of those subsets were does it? At least you could look at the third party CoH badge tracking websites and see the several thousands of characters listed there. Obviously there were more than the handful of badgers you're weirdly trying to imply. ;)

Segev wrote:

What might work better would be having the "one-time only" things be free one time only, and then sold in the Starmart as commemorative items people can pick up if they didn't or couldn't be at the event proper.

Works for me.

I gave up collecting badges when I had 398/405 or so and they introduced a vast number of ouro badges and the like that just felt like a time sink.

I then restricted myself to the useful accolades.

To encourage badge collecting, I feel we need to not make too many.

I wonder - and this is pure speculation - if it would change anything if MWM's policy was to never announce all of the badges. Some, sure, when we want people to flock to them for a specific reason, but not all. Just put them out there, waiting to be discovered. Would the ambiguity of how many exist change the perspective of people, or would it just make the badgers annoyed that they have to manually count all the badges that are known and that they could never know if they really "had them all?" Would it have positive effects? Would those be greater than any negative effects?

Segev wrote:

I wonder - and this is pure speculation - if it would change anything if MWM's policy was to never announce all of the badges. Some, sure, when we want people to flock to them for a specific reason, but not all. Just put them out there, waiting to be discovered. Would the ambiguity of how many exist change the perspective of people, or would it just make the badgers annoyed that they have to manually count all the badges that are known and that they could never know if they really "had them all?" Would it have positive effects? Would those be greater than any negative effects?

It would make me more annoyed. I remember how much of a boon it was to get an actual counter instead of just a progress bar. I remember having to manually count how many IOs I crafted of a given level while working on the crafting badges as to not waste my salvage. So yes, tell us how to get the badges in the badge tab.

Better yet, how about a Badge Finder, add it to our map

"Argh! It's glowing annoyingly bright again! Fine! I'll pick up the stupid badge! Just stop pinging at me!"

Segev wrote:

"Argh! It's glowing annoyingly bright again! Fine! I'll pick up the stupid badge! Just stop pinging at me!"

is that better than playing "Marco", "Pollo" with exploration badges?. ;)

Segev wrote:

I actually do understand the problem of "exclusive, one-time-only" things. I am just pondering if there are ways we could have our cake and eat it, too, but making them sell-able. It probably wouldn't work.
What might work better would be having the "one-time only" things be free one time only, and then sold in the Starmart as commemorative items people can pick up if they didn't or couldn't be at the event proper. Let people discuss amongst themselves whether they feel their particular Godzilla Head costume piece is superior because it was obtained when it could be gotten for free, or if it's equivalent in their estimation to the ones others have bought since then.

I agree about the be there for free, and buy with cash for those who collect. I think bonus powers or stat upgrades shouldn't be part of the veteran status or achieved by a badge combination. I think that items are better instead. Artwork, some made by players can be incorporated as a bonus source for addition to the game, with mention of designer would save the Devs time better spent on the more important issues. Some people love decorating, and, with a low personal budget irl that makes it enough of an incentive to be there for the events. Even if the item in question is bought, a mouse-over "Bought" and "Earned by [Character Name] on [Date]" will make a difference to some.
Limited Use Powers as a badge or veteran reward may be an option, but also, a pay for version of that power should probably be available, as a cash / influence purchase. Inspirations with a one use travel power like Assemble the Team or Reveal power is another possibility to consider.

Garrilon wrote:

Even if the item in question is bought, a mouse-over "Bought" and "Earned by [Character Name] on [Date]" will make a difference to some.

Hmmmm...this is an interesting idea for dealing with the problem of one-time-only, had-to-be-there badges.

I can't claim to understand badge-hunting mentality in general. If, by gathering all these do-dads together you get something tangible in-game, ok. But just getting it to say you got it? ::shrug::

I would say that badges awarded for a one-time, "must be present" type thing should be account-wide, certainly, but should also be restricted to being just a do-dad. Not something that benefits your play in any tangible way. I don't have a problem with it being exclusive in that way. All it does is mark you as having been present. Sellable? Why not? The same way a ticket stub from Woodstock can be auctioned off.

Anything that rewards you with actual game benefit, whether a costume piece or power improvement, should be something you have to earn. (And I consider maintaining a subscription to be earning, BTW.) And/or be available in the store.

What about differentiating between "badges" and "achievements" that way? Badges just say "I've been there", Achievements say "I did it!"

I would also think that the benefit should be commensurate with the amount of effort/time required to achieve something. That seems fairly elementary. "Just showing up" is a base line. If you have to actually DO something, you can be rewarded for your accomplishment. Then, whatever the benefit is, should be sellable. (Maybe not in the case of extra slots or what-have-you, dunno how that would work) So, the Achievement remains on record, but the benefit you received is sellable.

Brand X wrote:

Something to do for vet rewards is have a plan for them, but have them limited to 1-3 years. That would allow new players to feel they will at some point obtain all the vet rewards without the feeling that it's always out of reach.

At some point they will have a vet reward, but first they will have to become a vet.
CoT hasn't started yet, so they better jump on the band wagon, before they are left behind.

I saw no problem with the heal other badge and badges like it being character bound. That was the challenge in getting it. Something like the anniversary badge though, should be a log into one character and unlock for all forever.

Minotaur wrote:

IIRC people pigg dived for the badges, not sure if that exposed the locations as well, but vidiotmaps showed them and many people used that sort of overlay to find them.
I'm in two minds whether achievements should be account wide (I like the Diablo 3 system although not some of the actual achievements), in that you can have AT keyed achievements and get them all without it being ridiculously difficult for things like the tank to get the heal others badges.

I think Badges for actions directly attributable to the CHARACTER should be character specific - "I visited this location", "I completed this mission", "I was on this task force", etc. If anything it will encourage people with alts to want to keep doing those missions.

History/Lore and Veteran Badges like "I've been playing the game this long" should probably be account-wide.

Stat-tracking badges (damage, healing, defeats, etc) - hmm - I suppose I can see the case for both. That said I'm not overly concerned with making it easier for certain ATs to get certain badges. Though certain situations, like the Tank and Healing Badges example mentioned above, could be rendered moot depending on how the stat is recorded (what if it counted self-heals?).

I don't know about badges (never was a badge hunter), but as far as vet rewards go, I'd settle for some cool looking costume pieces. Maybe some special emblems we couldn't otherwise get? Something like that.

The badge system was fair. I think the anniversary badges/holiday badges, that you obtained just from logging in however, should have been global account unlocks, just because logging into every character was just annoying, and it wouldn't lock someone into their first character as their main, if they didn't want that (with an AT system that just may be the case).

The only problem with vet rewards, is that it could leave new players waiting forever for certain costume unlocks. It's why I suggest other things for vet rewards.

Greyhawk wrote:

Wow...
Um. Gosh.
I had no idea this was such a contentious issue.

I know what you mean. This first came up on a thread last year and I was quite surprised at how strongly some folks feel about it.

Greyhawk wrote:

But then again, I've never played any game with the sheer quantity of badges that CoX offered! How many badges were there in total? 700 or so?

If my math is correct, I get a total of 1461. But I don't think it was possible to get all of them, certainly not on a character that started outside of Praetoria. Cinnder had 1324, but there were many players who had characters with a lot more than that.

Theoretically, that might even be a Perk of having a subscription ... that the requirements for certain Badge Rewards are easier to obtain after the fact. Yet another one of those Preferential Treatment options to play with.