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costume parts

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Grimfox
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I said I was done with this

I said I was done with this discussion hoping that we could agree to disagree. However, I can't stand aside while you pass off a rose tinted version of history that is logically inaccurate.

Quote:

CoH provided probably 98% or 99% of all costume items they ever had in the game for free in its costume creator. That's a fact.

That is not a fact. That is a misinterpretation of the truth. For the most part COH was a subscription game. Some of the subscription money went to paying various developers to run the servers, some went to the community managers, some went to the content developers, and a little went to the costume developer. So the costumes were not free. You paid for them by buying the box and by paying the subscription. After the switch to FTP there may have been a few pieces that were released that were not included in costume packs in the store. These were the only truly free costume parts. So the reality is that the vast majority of costume parts were paid for by the players. Just because you didn't get an itemized receipt of where your subscription fee was going each month does not make this one aspect of game development free.

If you (hypothetically) joined the game after it went free to play there were a lot of costume parts that were free to you but those parts had been subsidized by the players who came before and had paid a subscription. You paid for their "free" parts Lothic.

What exactly do you, Lothic, expect the cash shop to sell? Story content? IIRC you are firmly against locking content behind a paywall too. Potions? What's the point of buying potions if you are constantly building reserves? Power sets? Animation sets? Power sets are nearly equivocal to story content and animation sets are nearly equivocal to costume pieces. About the only thing left to them after ruling all that out would be graphical and UI upgrades. Would you pay to increase the resolution of game textures or unlock a 1080p screen resolution? Or would you rather pay to have a second power bar? What about a damage boost or XP boost? I'm sure you've seen many of the arguments against all these options or perhaps you have argued against them yourself.

All I'm saying is that the money to keep this game running will have to come from somewhere and costume parts are the most logical and socially acceptable place for that to happen.

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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

For the most part COH was a subscription game. Some of the subscription money went to paying various developers to run the servers, some went to the community managers, some went to the content developers, and a little went to the costume developer. So the costumes were not free. You paid for them by buying the box and by paying the subscription. After the switch to FTP there may have been a few pieces that were released that were not included in costume packs in the store. These were the only truly free costume parts. So the reality is that the vast majority of costume parts were paid for by the players. Just because you didn't get an itemized receipt of where your subscription fee was going each month does not make this one aspect of game development free.
If you (hypothetically) joined the game after it went free to play there were a lot of costume parts that were free to you but those parts had been subsidized by the players who came before and had paid a subscription. You paid for their "free" parts Lothic.

I think I speak for us all when I say that when we have said "free" in this context, we mean free with the rest of the game. If you don't need to pay any additional money for access to the costumes than anyone else who is playing the game, then those costumes are free with the game.
So when everyone who is playing is paying a subscription to play then all the costumes in the game are free with the game. If we are paying a subscription to play the game and have to pay additional IGC or real money for a costume then it is not free with the game. If we are paying a subscription option for a free to play game and we get access to costumes with that subscription that the F2P have to pay for, then those costumes are not free either.

That is what we mean by free. We mean free with the rest of the game.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I'm of the opinion that

I'm of the opinion that whatever makes the game money is good. That said, from what people keep saying on forums, no monetization model is acceptable across the board to everyone. So as I've said before, someone's going to be disappointed somewhere.

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Halae wrote:
Halae wrote:

Lothic wrote:
I still maintain it sounds too much like my D&D character XYZ finding a +5 Holy Avenger and then getting to say that every other character I just happen to have created on an arbitrary account that has nothing to do with what I do in the game automatically claim to have their own +5 Holy Avengers. Unless you can convince me that getting to have unearned things on characters who don't deserve them is actually justified I will stick to my character-centric mindset that practically every RPG has been based on for decades. *shrugs*
This is a completely different scenario, though. A "+5 Holy Avenger" is a weapon that's enchanted to the nines to be the bestest thing available as a weapon for a paladin. Meanwhile, we're talking about costume pieces, which have no intrinsic value beyond cosmetic. A scarf or a gun skin that come out are not the same thing, because it's not a boost the character - it'll make them look better, sure, but that's it. There's no mechanical upgrade due to aesthetic decoupling.

You could easily replace the "+5 Holy Avenger" in my example above with anything unique that one character finds/earns and my point would still stand. Let's say the D&D character in my example saves a village from a group of rampaging goblins and the poor farmers of the village give my character a necklace with smooth blueish stone that you could only find from a local riverbed as a souvenir. Now that necklace might only be worth a gold piece or two in the big city, but because it reminds you of the village you saved you keep it as a nice memento of your heroism.

Now arguably that necklace is only a COSMETIC item that your character earned. But how on any of gods' green earths could I justify that any other D&D characters I play would automagicly get to wear that same necklace? If you want costume items that are automatically unlocked for all your characters then buy them from the cash store. Awards you earn while playing a character in a game should only ever benefit that specific character (or a based on what Huckleberry said a SINGLE character if the game allows you to transfer a costume item award from one character to another).

Halae wrote:

I could understand a mechanical boost being restricted - you have to work for that stuff. But cosmetics? That just feels bad. Even games with a pretty heavy focus on gear (Such as WoW and GW2) are stepping away from that and into the free wardrobe system.

It doesn't really convince me that all RPG games should start relaxing the boundaries between what individual characters earn in a game just because there are some examples out there that are getting lazy about it. If you want to play games where individual characters don't technically matter and just serve more as "player avatars" then there are plenty of console/FPS/arcade type games out there.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

Lothic
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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

I said I was done with this discussion hoping that we could agree to disagree. However, I can't stand aside while you pass off a rose tinted version of history that is logically inaccurate.
Quote:
CoH provided probably 98% or 99% of all costume items they ever had in the game for free in its costume creator. That's a fact.
That is not a fact. That is a misinterpretation of the truth. For the most part COH was a subscription game. Some of the subscription money went to paying various developers to run the servers, some went to the community managers, some went to the content developers, and a little went to the costume developer. So the costumes were not free. You paid for them by buying the box and by paying the subscription. After the switch to FTP there may have been a few pieces that were released that were not included in costume packs in the store. These were the only truly free costume parts. So the reality is that the vast majority of costume parts were paid for by the players. Just because you didn't get an itemized receipt of where your subscription fee was going each month does not make this one aspect of game development free.
If you (hypothetically) joined the game after it went free to play there were a lot of costume parts that were free to you but those parts had been subsidized by the players who came before and had paid a subscription. You paid for their "free" parts Lothic.

What Huckleberry said.

Grimfox wrote:

What exactly do you, Lothic, expect the cash shop to sell? Story content? IIRC you are firmly against locking content behind a paywall too. Potions? What's the point of buying potions if you are constantly building reserves? Power sets? Animation sets? Power sets are nearly equivocal to story content and animation sets are nearly equivocal to costume pieces. About the only thing left to them after ruling all that out would be graphical and UI upgrades. Would you pay to increase the resolution of game textures or unlock a 1080p screen resolution? Or would you rather pay to have a second power bar? What about a damage boost or XP boost? I'm sure you've seen many of the arguments against all these options or perhaps you have argued against them yourself.
All I'm saying is that the money to keep this game running will have to come from somewhere and costume parts are the most logical and socially acceptable place for that to happen.

I have never said the cash store of CoT should NOT sell costume items. For what it's worth I believe I bought practically every costume item CoH ever offered for sale. In fact I'm pretty sure I was "dumb" enough to buy at least one of every upgrade/item CoH ever sold. Based on that alone your assumption that I am generally "anti-cash store" is a grave misreading of my position here.

I just don't think costume items will be the primary source of income for this game even if they end up locking an overwhelming majority of every costume item in the entire game behind the cash store. I offer no speculation about where MWM will in end making most of their money from - I just don't think selling costume items will be their main "solution" to everything here.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

I just don't think costume items will be the primary source of income for this game even if they end up locking an overwhelming majority of every costume item in the entire game behind the cash store. I offer no speculation about where MWM will in end making most of their money from - I just don't think selling costume items will be their main "solution" to everything here.

It will probably be from a combination of things like character options (new power sets) and vanity items (costumes, power animations, base items), with some admin stuff. I have no idea if they are planning on sectioning off content like zones and missions, but I would be wary of this as it tends to split the playerbase. But the point is I don't think you can point at any one thing and say "that THERE is the cash cow!" - it will be likely different for each individual player's tastes (though if I were a betting man - I'd go with new power sets having the potential of attracting the most cash).

All of this probably won't be much of an issue for subscribers - unless things have changed regarding the stipend, subs should be able to get pretty much everything anyways. Maybe not right this instant, but eventually. And if you really do want it "right this instant", you can still drop a couple bucks on it for convenience. A lot of the stuff will probably be attainable by "free" players as well, eventually at least, and maybe even with a little grind.

Personally, during CoH's run, I did purchase a few costume packs with cash money, bought CoV when it was released (though I didn't like how it split the playerbase initially). And after they released the cash shop and went F2P I happily maintained my sub to get the new goodies as they came out. Hell - I even re-purchased the game when Going Rogue was released - although that was more out of convenience - patching the original 2004 edition was a royal pain in the ass.

Giving players a reason to sub will be important, but at the same time you don't want to screw the free player either (they have value in just their mere presence - keeping the game populated and "busy"). The challenge is finding the right balance - if that is even possible.

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I'm willing to participate in

I'm willing to participate in whatever monetization they use. That said, I think the general MMO gaming public hates all forms of monetization except the up-front purchase. You can sell people a game once. Any subscription or microtransaction after that feels bad. The sub feels like you got recruited into a cult and you have to pay for membership, the microtransactions feel like you're getting nickel and dimed to death. People try to avoid both.

As a compromise, I think it might be best to just lower the subscription price to like $7.99 per month and leave it as "sub to play, and you get some amount of sub time included with the initial purchase".

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Sounds like you want a few

Sounds like we want a few different subscription plans to offer different levels.

Freemium being 0.00/mo that provides 1/8 th of the costume/cosmetic pieces free at Character Creation time.
Basic being 7.99/mo that provides 1/3 rd of the costume/cosmetic pieces free at Character Creation time.
Regular being 12.99/mo that provides 2/3 rd's of the costume/cosmetic pieces free at Character Creation time.
Pro being 16.99/mo that provides 3/3 rd's of the costume/cosmetic pieces free at Character Creation time.

If these turn out to be Sub Packs, meaning you can pick and choose Modular packs for a subscription, some Modular packs need to be limited to a certain subscription plans.

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

Sounds like we want a few different subscription plans to offer different levels.
Freemium being 0.00/mo that provides 1/8 th of the costume/cosmetic pieces free at Character Creation time.
Basic being 7.99/mo that provides 1/3 rd of the costume/cosmetic pieces free at Character Creation time.
Regular being 12.99/mo that provides 2/3 rd's of the costume/cosmetic pieces free at Character Creation time.
Pro being 16.99/mo that provides 3/3 rd's of the costume/cosmetic pieces free at Character Creation time.
If these turn out to be Sub Packs, meaning you can pick and choose Modular packs for a subscription, some Modular packs need to be limited to a certain subscription plans.

I understand a suggestion like this might provide a wider range of choices for each player to select exactly how much they want to spend per month. On the other hand it would greatly increase the difficulty for the Devs in figuring out which level(s) each costume item should go in and the inevitable bickering and arguing amongst the players when it comes people not agreeing that costume items X, Y or Z are set on the right subscription levels.

I'm not necessarily against having different "cost categories" for costume items because naturally some items are going to be more valuable/desirable than others. I'm just not sure having multiple fixed price subscription levels is the right way to organize the game to account for that. Still seems like we should just have either "Freemium" or "Subscription" players and then have a cash store open to all players. Regardless of the percentage of the total number of costume items available to either Freemium or Subscription players the cash store would be the great equalizer. So for a hypothetical example the Freemium player would get say 40-50% of the total "for free" and be able to buy the other 50-60% in the store. The Subscription player would get say 85-90% of the total "for free" and be able to buy the other 10-15% in the store. The key is that the only way ANY player could have EVERYTHING would be to have to purchase at least a few items in the store. That was effectively the way CoH operated - a few costume items were locked until purchased. Obviously anything purchased in the cash store would be permanently unlocked so if someone wanted to pay like $1,000 to unlock everything on Day One then remain a Freemium player forever after that they should be able to do that. That same player would probably lose out on any other benefits you'd get as a Subscribed player but that'd be their choice. *shrugs*

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I think a better option would

I think a better option would be to provide more stars with a each subscription tier and then let the user decide which parts are most important to them. So a player that pays nothing would pay as they want for what they want. Someone who pays 7.99 would get 300 stars per month. Someone who pays 12.99 a month would get 500 stars and so on. This allows maximum flexibility.

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I'm not sure different tiers

I'm not sure different tiers of sub are a good idea. Could lead to confusion - probably best to just keep it simple: Free and Sub. Maybe a premium/lifetime sub option - but while there is short-term benefit there could be long-term loss.

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I think some unique costume

I think some unique costume pieces that are:

A) earned from the completion of certain missions should be in
B) Ones earned from having reputation with certain factions/groups
C) gained from defeating normal enemies being rare loot
D) Unique limited to a certain number of players from Bosses (these could act as markers for the first players to do content etc)

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I think they (Doc T?) already

I think they (Doc T?) already stated that costumes as random drops is not going to happen.

As far as having one sub or different tiers, I think if you leave it at one and only one type of sub, in the "freemium" model, then the subscriber is liable to think or expect that they ought to get everything with the sub fee, as they are a subscriber. "If I don't get ALL the bells and whistles with my $10 per month, then why am I paying it at all?" they'd complain. If you have at least two different tiers of subscription, BOTH of which don't cover absolutely everything, the subscribers would at least have to have read the fine print and know what their sub provides and what it doesn't, thus they'd not expect what was not promised. So I can see some use in having at least 2 types of sub. Even if one of them goes largely unused, it causes people to compare the two of them to "free" and decide what they want to do, and thus they'll be less likely to complain about things not included in the sub they chose.

That said, I don't know what the different subscriptions will and will not cover. Frankly, I haven't been able to really find a thing that a sub would give the subscriber that I personally would pay $10 per month for that other people wouldn't demand were provided for free to the non-subs. The non-sub reaction to literally everything that might come with a sub is always "You can't charge for that! We play this game too, and we want it for free! You're creating two classes of players, Haves and Havenots! That's unfair!" which always completely ignores the fact that the Haves have something that the Havenots don't have because they (the Haves) are paying money that that Havenot's are NOT paying, EVERY MONTH. The arguments that keep coming back over that are:

1) "Thou shalt not take away anything when I let my sub lapse." taken to the extreme, this argument amounts to having one's cake and eating it too. Under this system, you pay for like ONE month of sub, then never again, clearly, and since the up-front purchase probably comes with some sub time, you basically just buy the game once and never sub after that. You might have to buy an expansion later though when new stuff rolls out. See 3 below for why that's not really possible either.

2) "Thou shalt not divide the player base." In other words, anything that would be off-limits to people who didn't pay for it (sub or otherwise) cannot be off limits. Everything must be available to the person who paid the least, which is zero. Therefore everything must be free, therefore there is no reason to pay a sub.

3) "Thou shalt not heighten the entry cost barrier." New people will be less likely to buy the game 3 years after it comes out if they find out at that time that they have to buy like 3 expansions along with the main game in order to do all the fun stuff that people are doing. Thus, you cannot charge one-time fees for expansions and upgrades. Even if you give the newbies a discount, you're "ripping off" the people who paid full price when the thing first was released, which screws your most loyal customers.

4) "Thou shalt not Pay to Win." Anything that provides any kind of competitive advantage, even if it's just ,making your toon better against PvE mobs, is morally wrong and a blatant grab for cash and will result in many many altruistic free players quitting on the general principle that they don't want to participate in a system that forces them to pay money in order to be as powerful as the other person. Never mind the fact that you generally don't fight against other players at all, and even when you do you could place restrictions on how many such items are allowed, etc.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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My personal response to 1, by

My personal response to 1, by the way, is this:

You can define almost anything in a MMORPG game as a "thing" that you own forever once you've purchased it. As such, you could then demand that it not be taken away when you let your sub lapse. You could also structure the cost of almost anything such that accessing it is a "service" that you have "active" when on a paid sub and "deactivated" when your sub lapses. We, the future players, are generally okay with the idea of losing access to services when we let our sub lapse, but then once we've established that, we immediately want to define EVERYTHING as a purchased item, not an ongoing service. I think there comes a point where you have to allow some "things" to be "for rent" or else nobody will every have a reason to pay a sub. And then the directive of never taking away people's stuff still can be invoked by someone later and they'll be like "We said we weren't doing this, I thought? What gives?" at which point you sound like a snake-oil salesman making excuses.

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For the record, even I don't

For the record, even I don't think costume unlocks ought to be temporary or "rented" at all, just because turning such access off is a pain and causes people's toons to look weird and so forth. You end up having to save a given toon's look and then a default to revert back to in the event of the sub lapsing, which is too much overhead and a pain, I think. So I'm okay with "buy it once, own it forever" costume pieces, but then that automatically means they're not a subscriber perk, in my mind, either. You probably give subscribers Stars, and they can probably use those to buy costume pieces, but I would leave it at that. No free costume parts for subscribers, at all. Maybe a free unlock here and there as a subbed-time veteran reward, and by that I mean the vet reward would be "when you pay for 6 months of sub time, at the end of that time you get a token that can be exchanged for a costume item of your choice in the shop" NOT "You have to wait 6 months of sub time to unblock the trenchcoat like everyone else, as it cannot actually be bought." Like everything should be purchasable, costume part wise, I think. In the case of stuff that can be unlocked, people will try to unlock all of it and not pay for any of it, in most cases, which is fine, as long as were talking about one hat here and one set of boots there, not like the entire wardrobe. If you want to make the costume tokens drop at random as Very Rare drops, akin to purples in CoX, I would be fine with that. That way, all of it is THEORETICALLY unlockable, but not easy to get quickly. Whether or not you make those free costume tokens a thing that can be sold on the auction house is another story. Probably not, I don't know.

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I would suggest if cosmetics

I would suggest if cosmetics are given for subbing they are given for every X months you have been subscribed, these can then remain with the char even after they end their sub.

I would however want to see cosmetics being earned from being first to complete a important challenge or from completing certain chains of events, for example in a game called helldivers there is constant galactic campaigns and after serving in one after it ends you get a cosmetic set.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

As far as having one sub or different tiers, I think if you leave it at one and only one type of sub, in the "freemium" model, then the subscriber is liable to think or expect that they ought to get everything with the sub fee, as they are a subscriber. "If I don't get ALL the bells and whistles with my $10 per month, then why am I paying it at all?" they'd complain. If you have at least two different tiers of subscription, BOTH of which don't cover absolutely everything, the subscribers would at least have to have read the fine print and know what their sub provides and what it doesn't, thus they'd not expect what was not promised. So I can see some use in having at least 2 types of sub. Even if one of them goes largely unused, it causes people to compare the two of them to "free" and decide what they want to do, and thus they'll be less likely to complain about things not included in the sub they chose.

The thing is that those who expect everything if there is a single sub will also expect everything if there are several subs but at different prices. Heck having several different subs at different prices will most likely increase the expectation that the most expensive one includes everything. Only way it will work the way you imagine it is if the subs have the same price but different things in them.

Quote:

1) "Thou shalt not take away anything when I let my sub lapse." taken to the extreme, this argument amounts to having one's cake and eating it too. Under this system, you pay for like ONE month of sub, then never again, clearly, and since the up-front purchase probably comes with some sub time, you basically just buy the game once and never sub after that. You might have to buy an expansion later though when new stuff rolls out. See 3 below for why that's not really possible either.

When taken to such extremes then yes you are correct, but I'm sure MWM won't take it to that extreme. It's much more likely that they, f.ex, won't make you redo costumes because you used "premium parts" in it, but you can't create new ones with those parts.

Quote:

2) "Thou shalt not divide the player base." In other words, anything that would be off-limits to people who didn't pay for it (sub or otherwise) cannot be off limits. Everything must be available to the person who paid the least, which is zero. Therefore everything must be free, therefore there is no reason to pay a sub.

When they talk about this it is almost exclusively in relation to playable content, which means that things like the UGC editor would be an acceptable candidate for this since not all would really care about creating content. Playing, or "consuming", UGC should be a base part of the game though. I'm sure there are other things that wouldn't "divide" the player base in this regard.

Quote:

3) "Thou shalt not heighten the entry cost barrier." New people will be less likely to buy the game 3 years after it comes out if they find out at that time that they have to buy like 3 expansions along with the main game in order to do all the fun stuff that people are doing. Thus, you cannot charge one-time fees for expansions and upgrades. Even if you give the newbies a discount, you're "ripping off" the people who paid full price when the thing first was released, which screws your most loyal customers.

Personally I have never felt "ripped off" when an MMO (or other game) sells a bundle that includes most, if not all, expansions and the base for the same or lower price as the base when it first launched. To me it feels like a pretty basic part of economics.

Quote:

4) "Thou shalt not Pay to Win." Anything that provides any kind of competitive advantage, even if it's just ,making your toon better against PvE mobs, is morally wrong and a blatant grab for cash and will result in many many altruistic free players quitting on the general principle that they don't want to participate in a system that forces them to pay money in order to be as powerful as the other person. Never mind the fact that you generally don't fight against other players at all, and even when you do you could place restrictions on how many such items are allowed, etc.

If the most powerful items/gear/equipment is only attainable by paying RL money then even allowing one single item in PvP gives who pay an advantage. Also my in-game "performance potential" should not be dictated by if I spend money on the game or not.

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@Blacke4dawn, I agree with

@Blacke4dawn, I agree with you on every point. I know, I know, the world is ending.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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And if you bought, ahhh, i

And if you bought, ahhh, i meant to say LEASED a costume part that was in a higher tier Subscription Plan.. say Gold... and downgraded to Silver, you have 10 days to outright Buy the Costume Part.

So, 3 states for some Costume Parts?
Free, Leased / Subscriptionid, Bought.

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My initial thoughts on the

My initial thoughts on the sub tiers were simpler. No one gets anything with a sub. The amount you pay in a sub fee is converted into stars. There could be a bonus for paying for higher fee subs. To reward and encourage a steadier income for MWM. In example the tiers could be as follows:

Free: no stars per month.
FREEMium: all sound effects replaced with large card board cut outs with sound effects written on them. /s
$5/month: $5 in stars awarded every month, can pay extra to get more stars when they want.
$10/month: $10 in stars awarded every month, can pay extra to get more stars when they want. 1$ in bonus stars*.
$15/month: $15 in stars awarded every month, can pay extra to get more stars when they want. 3$ in bonus stars*.

Stars could also be awarded for signing up for longer term payments. Pay your sub for the full year and get a 10% bonus in stars immediately. As a free player there is no restriction. If you want that temp power that turns you into the cutest little wombat, you can pay for the stars and get that temp power. You could spend 1000 dollars a month as a free player and you could do it as a sub player too. Bonuses could be awarded for bulk stars purchases as well. Buy $20 in stars and get 10% more free.

I could see a lot of people using it as a way to budget their spending. If they can only budget 10/month to gaming, they can sign up for the $10/month and be happy to get a little more for free while also knowing that they aren't going to put any more than that into the game.

If the devs really wanted to go nuts they could create a sliding scale for the bonus so if someone wanted to pay 7.50 a month they would get a small bonus in stars every month over someone paying 5. Similarly someone paying 12.50 would get a few more per month than someone paying 10. It's kind of that "pay what you want" mentality. With a little math you reward proportionally. Though you'd have to cap the bonus at 20% or something cause if someone paid 1000 for a 1 month sub, that could be quite the deal, at least based on the numbers I've laid out above, which are all wholly hypothetical and just for illustrative porpoises. (How is "Illustrative Porpoises" not a meme? *tosses papers up and the air and huffs out*)

*Bonus stars are the same as regular stars but for "free."

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For the record, CoX had

For the record, CoX had special IO Enhcnacment recipes you could get out of the Superpacks that could be bought and sold on the AH, but could not be otherwise created ex nihilo. I have no problem with that. Was it too "Pay to Win" for anyone here? I mean, even if you got rid of the Superpacks (which add a gambling element that people dislike, I get that) and made it a straight-up "you can buy this IO recipe for money", is the Pay to Win factor crossing the line then? I have no problem with it. I have no problem with Superpacks, actually. I personally don't get why, in a PvE-centric game like this, you feel you have to have the absolute best possible gear for free, or you just quit outright. If other people have better gear than you, they maybe could up their difficulty setting higher than yours (depending on other factors, class, spec, build, etc) and that's about all that does. They likely can carve up a map full of goons faster and will gain IGC at a faster rate because of this. Why is that bad or in some way a problem for you? If and when you team up with that person, them being more powerful HELPS you, doesn't it? And if they want to spend a little real money to get a little more IGC out of the game over time, so what?

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Pay to win isn't about

Pay to win isn't about comparing your character to others, its about creating a division in the game between those who have pay to win stuff and those who don't. Depending on the disparity between free gear and purchased gear (or abilities or power or whatever), you can see the haves dismissing the have nots from any advanced difficulty team content like raids.

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Okay, but it can also be done

Okay, but it can also be done such that those sort of things don't happen. CoX sold rare recipes in the store and then had the superpacks on top of that and nobody ever asked me what IO sets I was using in CoX as a way of vetting me for a team or TF or anything like that. So it seems to me that the main issue there is that the devs not crank up the base difficulty such that you NEED those store-bought items in order to be able to contribute meaningfully to a team. That, I think, is what allowed CoX to avoid that problem, ultimately. Since this game, CoT, is supposed to be a spiritual successor, I would expect the same type of design i.e. one that doesn't demand store bought items to make one's character effective.

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I usually don't like even

I usually don't even like "vague hints" of pay-to-win and the rare recipes in the CoH store got pretty close to that. On the other hand I'll have to admit that I also was never asked (even once) what IO sets any of my characters were ever using to "vet" me for inclusion to a team. Could this mean that as long as the effects of pay-to-win remain unseen they aren't that much of a problem?

In most games people worry about pay-to-win because if you show up with a big super-sword or super-gun that you bought and I don't have that then maybe I'll feel envious of that because presumably you'll be able to fight better than I can. But since a game like CoT doesn't really have "gear" in the traditional sense the idea of pay-to-win ironically shifts more towards costume items. In CoT if you show up to the battle wearing a super shiny cape that you bought then that becomes the divide between the "haves" and "have nots" in this game.

Is costume item based pay-to-win just as legitimate a "problem" as gear based pay-to-win? I don't know. From a RP perspective you can have some characters like Batman who are (as part of their backstory) billionaires so shouldn't their capes technically be cooler than most other characters' capes? Should a player who wants to play a "rich" character have to pay extra real life money to allow his/her character to wear expensive/fancy clothes?

Clearly there are a lot of interrelated issues to all this.

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Lets kill this whole pay-to

Lets kill this whole pay-to-win conversation in a thread about costumes.

Pay-to-win means, by definition, that people can pay to have a competitive advantage over people who don't pay. There is nothing about costumes related to competitive advantage in the game.

Now, if we are talking about rocket boots, then maybe we could be talking about something because of the rocketing capability they offer; but otherwise put a nail in this coffin.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I'll admit that it's a bit

I'll admit that it's a bit too easy to expand the traditional pay-to-win controversy into the realm of cosmetic items, especially with a game like this where costume items are going to be a huge part of the game. Many people already hate the idea of pay-to-win so if they can EQUATE the idea of having to buy costume items in the store to having to buy gear that makes them more powerful in combat then the supposed hope is that people will come to hate having to buy costume items.

But we must be clear about this: Satisfying a character concept is NOT the same thing as having a super gun that can kill MOBs twice as fast. You might decide that you need the extra shiny belt that can only be bought in the game store to complete the "look" of your character but as long as that belt gives you absolutely no combat advantage then having to buy it in the store is NOT pay-to-win, period.

Now we can bicker and argue about what percentage of the total overall number of costume items in the game should be locked in the store. That's a legitimate point of discussion - should it be 5%, 25%, 90% or whatever. But the extreme notion that it should be 0% is simply unreasonable and unrealistic. There is nothing "wrong" with having some percentage of the costume items be locked in the store. We just need to determine the percentage that most of us can live with.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I would be okay with having a

I would be okay with having a basic set of tac-ops, spandex, street clothes, and techy armor for the base game, included with game purchase, then make everything else either bought with Stars or unlocked in-game. If they're serious about making every costume piece that's purchasable also unlockable in-game, I personally would make those unlocks pretty hard to actually get with any real rapidity. I think a dev mentioned on this thread or another one that they don't like the idea of randomized costume parts dropping like Rare IO Recipes did in CoX or whatever, so I'm not sure what that leaves in terms of making all costume parts unlockable while still preserving their value to the customer in the sense that someone might actually buy them for Stars to skip the hard work.

On the other hand, if all costume parts are available for Stars and players can acquire Stars by selling their IGC or items to whales like me on subs, then they technically can get costume parts without they, the recipients of the costume parts, actually paying any real money. They just grind for IGC and valuable in-game items, sell it to me for Stars, then use those to buy costumes. Therefore, if you have the ability to sell Stars on the AH for IGC, all you have to do is offer costume parts for Stars and you're done. That way, every costume part is for sale and also unlockable, plus you get the basic game ones up front.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Now we can bicker and argue about what percentage of the total overall number of costume items in the game should be locked in the store. That's a legitimate point of discussion - should it be 5%, 25%, 90% or whatever. But the extreme notion that it should be 0% is simply unreasonable and unrealistic. There is nothing "wrong" with having some percentage of the costume items be locked in the store. We just need to determine the percentage that most of us can live with.

I understand when you mention percentage, you aren't actually speaking of an actual percentage, but are rather discussing the general concept of 'some' costumes behind a pay barrier.

If the lore supports a costume not being available at creation, I can support that. But if a costume is behind a pay barrier for no discernable reason, then it will be interpreted as a cash grab. Before you argue, a cash grab may be a term loaded with negative perception; and while it is neither good nor bad in this case, I use that term specifically because the negative perception of a cash grab is a very real thing.

How much is going to be available to the players when they log in for the first time? Are they going to get a vanilla assortment that says 'meh? (like DCUO) or are they going to have the full assortment that makes them want to spend hours in character creator? Or will it be somewhere in between. Which brings us back the question of what 'some' is. That's a decision MWM will have to make, I guess. Here's what it really comes down to:

A character's look is as integral a part of who they are as their name and their powers.

So the worst thing we can do in this game is not allow them to see the character they want to be when they are designing him or her or it.

If the game is going to be free to play, then we need to make sure that even the free to players can create the character they want. Creating a pay barrier on day one is not a good idea.

If we do end up establishing pay barriers for costumes, then there is only one acceptable solution to me:
Show all the costume options at character creation, no matter whether they are behind a pay barrier or an achievement barrier. (lore permitting) Then let the player know somehow what would be needed to actually get that costume piece. Either they have to earn it in game or purchase it from the store. Then, at least the starting player can still design the character they want to eventually be, and integrate that design with their powers and name. They can then set themselves up with an alternate costume until they can pay for and/or unlock the complete ensemble.

On the subject of future additions of costume pieces, if we want to keep a revenue stream for the effort to design new costumes, I'd much rather see costumes being introduced into the game as part of paid-for game updates, or other forms of paid content. The emphasis here being that the costumes are free WITH the content, but not paid-for items by themselves.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huck, there are a number of

Huck, there are a number of places where I disagree with your last post. I numbered them to structure things a bit.

1. The statement, in bold, "A character's look is as integral a part of who they are as their name and their powers." is not something I would disagree with but it sounds like the next thing you're going to say is "..and therefore all costume pieces should be free." To be clear, you didn't say that, but it's still the logical conclusion I arrive at from that line of reasoning. While I can agree that we'd all like to have all the bells and whistles in the game included in the up-front purchase, in the ideal scenario, it's also true that in the ideal scenario is never possible in reality, and in any event that same ideal scenario should still include the fact that the company would have a revenue stream of some kind gotten from selling the game to people for money in various ways. Since it stands to reason that costume pieces are, individually, small parts of the overall game that are mostly not 100% necessary to have and could be considered "extras", I think they ought to be fair game for stuff that one might buy in the cash shop, if there is one. I mean, we all want everything for free. Second place to that idea is to get everything for just the up-front price of the game. The distant third place runner up, in most people's minds, is an undefinable system where everyone gets the things they assign high value to for free, and they only agree to letting the game sell other stuff, which they deem less necessary and generally don't care about. In other words, when we, the future players of the game, get hold of the price-tag gun, we label everything we personally want at "$0.00" and then proceed to take all of it. This is the MMO game equivalent of a drug dealer "getting high of their own supply". You and I can't be the ones setting prices, for this exact reason, that we'll give ourselves, and by extension, everyone, all the freebies we personally want and in so doing rob the place blind and run the company out of business. If we genuinely try to put ourselves in the pace of programmers and designers who need to be making like $50,000 a year each from this game, you need to find a way to actually get money coming into the company so that those programmer's can pay rent and buy food. I seriously doubt costumes alone can do that, but I'm not against doing it and getting the money from it anyway.

2. In response to your last paragraph "On the subject of future..." I think that restricting new costumes to ONLY be included as part of larger package deals for new zones etc only puts those costume parts OUT of reach of more people. The person who doesn't want to buy the $25 expansion pack might still want the $1 cape or robot arm or whatever. Why are we not going to allow those people to buy those items they want in that case? If you're a game company and there's a demand for that robotic arm, you ought to be selling robotic arms to meet demand, in my opinion. When I bought the car I drive now, I wanted a built-in GPS system, but to get that I would have needed to get the $2000 off-road package. So I took the stock Jeep and then went to Best Buy and got a $200 Garmin instead. I don't see any reason to package costume pieces up in larger content and then NOT offer the costumes "a la carte" too. People can OPT not to buy stuff that's for sale, they can't buy things that are NOT for sale. It seems like you're SO averse to the idea of ever having to pay for a costume part that you literally want to NOT make them available for sale off the rack even when they're otherwise not available AT ALL outside some much larger purchase. That's totally against the spirit of making the costume parts cheaper to buy, if that's all you want is one costume part.

3. I have no problem with showing players all the possible costume parts they might want in the character creator, with the proper labeling of what is free, what needs to be bought. I would think of that as advertising the costume parts to some extent, really. Maybe you even have some graphics telling the costume creator what's currently on sale in the shop, the old price, the current sale price, etc. I could see people wanting to be able to filter out parts they don't own, I'm not sure how they'd try to accomplish that. You could let people always SEE the parts they don't own, but not let them hit "Done!" when there are parts on the toon that aren't purchased yet. You might even want the character creator and/or costume editor software to be able to interact with the store such that you can buy it at time of character creation if you have the Stars to afford it.

4. As far as what comes with the game and what you have to buy, I would have the basic spandex, tac-ops, tech armor, and street clothes as included with the purchase of the game. I would then make special stuff like Wild West, Steampunk, and Formalwear all in-store purchases, as well as the various faction costume parts that might be available. So like, you start out with no Carnie Jester hat, but can buy it or somehow unlock it later, probably by racking up enough IGC to buy enough Stars to buy it off the cash shop.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Huck, there are a number of places where I disagree with your last post. I numbered them to structure things a bit.
1. The statement, in bold, "A character's look is as integral a part of who they are as their name and their powers." is not something I would disagree with but it sounds like the next thing you're going to say is "..and therefore all costume pieces should be free." To be clear, you didn't say that, but it's still the logical conclusion I arrive at from that line of reasoning.

You are correct. In my mind, the next statement is and should be that the costumes are all free. We can look to other means to generate revenue. But I also realize that we all have to compromise, and you picked up on that. That's why I double-emphasized the word "if" in the next paragraph.

Especially when it comes to seasonal costumes and event-related costumes and special purpose costumes like for weddings. Those kinds of costumes are perfect fodder for a cash shop.

Radiac wrote:

2. In response to your last paragraph "On the subject of future..." I think that restricting new costumes to ONLY be included as part of larger package deals for new zones etc only puts those costume parts OUT of reach of more people. The person who doesn't want to buy the $25 expansion pack might still want the $1 cape or robot arm or whatever. Why are we not going to allow those people to buy those items they want in that case?

I'm sure you don't need me to answer your own question. The reason is simple: Create a demand for the larger purchase.

Besides, you don't want to make someone pay twice for the same thing. So if they buy the Steamwurkz expansion, but they had already purchased the Steampunk costume items, should they get a discount on the Steamwurkz expansion?

Radiac wrote:

4. As far as what comes with the game and what you have to buy, I would have the basic spandex, tac-ops, tech armor, and street clothes as included with the purchase of the game. I would then make special stuff like Wild West, Steampunk, and Formalwear all in-store purchases, as well as the various faction costume parts that might be available. So like, you start out with no Carnie Jester hat, but can buy it or somehow unlock it later, probably by racking up enough IGC to buy enough Stars to buy it off the cash shop.

Here is where you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree. It sounds like you want to build DCUO again where the only options at character creation are less than overwhelming. In my mind the spriritual successor to City of Heroes needs, must needs, to be so much more. From what I've read, I think the developers agree and I believe the majority of other players do as well.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

I understand when you mention percentage, you aren't actually speaking of an actual percentage, but are rather discussing the general concept of 'some' costumes behind a pay barrier.

Yeah I'm not implying that there should be an exact specific percentage. I'm using that term metaphorically to discuss whether CoT should be more like CoH (where almost every costume item that ever existed in the game for PCs were available unlocked by default) or more like DCUO (where a large portion of the costume items have to be unlocked from the cash store).

My simple take on all this is that CoT should provide at least one basic unlocked version of every type of costume item in the game, period. Mind that I said "at least" one version - there's no reason there couldn't be 50 free versions AS WELL AS any others that would have to be unlocked in other ways.

So for example let's say the Devs decide to make cowboy hats. As a bare minimum there should be at least one basic/plain version of a cowboy hat that's unlocked in the costume creator. There might be other versions of cowboy hats in the game: Some of those might ONLY be obtainable in the cash store, some might ONLY be obtainable via missions, some might be both in the cash store AND from a mission, and so on. There might end up being 100 different kinds of cowboy hats with all sorts of thresholds/restrictions for getting each of them. Regardless of all those other 99 potentially fancy/unique hats there will always be that one generic/plain version freely available to EVERYONE.

The reason for this is clear: No one should be able to claim "I need such-in-such costume item to complete my costume but I can't because of X, Y, or Z." All players will always have at least one generic version of EVERY KIND of costume item the game supports. If you actually don't like the plain version then at least you can use it as a placeholder until you can earn/buy the special version you actually want.

The quintessential scenario highlighting the need for this is when CoH created the Roman Armor but then made the only way to get it a level 35 trial. That was the one case where people began to complain that "I want to make a Roman based character but I can't because I have to wait until level 35 to complete my costume". If CoH had been smart enough from the beginning to release a "plain" version of that armor for free and then lock a fancy version of that armor behind the level 35 trial I suspect much of the "outrage" over that whole debacle would have been minimal.

By following the "any type of costume item must have at least one free unlocked version" principle the cash store could then sell as many or as few "alternate" versions of anything they wanted. In the long run they might even sell like 5 or 10 alternates of every single item type in the game. The bottomline would be that no player would be REQUIRED to buy anything extra if they chose not to because they would always be able to stick with whatever they could earn in the game or the generic unlocked default.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Did CoH Devs resolve that

Did CoH Devs resolve that Roman costume piece issue by making it available from the In-Game Store?
If so, issue isn't so much that you had to pay, it was because such a reward wasn't unlocked account wide for use when rolling new toon? I'm oblivious to this issue. :p

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Here's another story. I just

Here's another story. I just went to the comicbook store. I had to drive like an hour to get there, because the one in my home town doesn't sell Magic cards. I got there, went on their in-store computer and started looking up and listing all the cards I wanted to buy, then once that list was compiled, I hit "Buy this" and it sent my list to the cashier and I paid for my stuff and waited for them to pull it for me. Most of the cards I bought were less than a dollar each, with a few big ticket items being like $10 per card. I had a list, I typed it all up and it added up to like $180 at the end.

Individually, none of those cards seemed like they were breaking the bank on me, and if I had bought them over the course of a few days from a local place instead of all at once from a place I had to drive an hour to get to, it would have felt like even less of a hit to my wallet. The brain sees small price tags and thinks "not a lot of money", it sees one large pricetag and thinks "hmmmm.... is what I get REALLY worth that much?".

If they had had a package deal for like $200 that included all the cards I just bought plus a bunch I didn't care about, I would have bought the laundry list cards piecemeal because that way I'm not being forced to buy stuff I don't want in order to get stuff I do want.

I personally don't believe that making a new hat, or even a whole new ensemble of costume pieces exclusive to an expansion set is going to get more people to buy the expansion set. Dedicated fans of the game will buy expansions, casual players will not. MOST people I know can go without the PERFECT costume piece here and there if it means not having to spend like $25 to get it. If you have to spend $25 and accept a bunch of stuff for that price that you don't really care for or actively want to avoid, it becomes a deal breaker. People get sticker shock. I think casual players will probably buy more individual items than anything like a sub or a full expansion. Subs and expansions are a major investment, and those players are all about NOT making that investment. If, on the other hand, you see an "impulse buy" item you want, you might pony up the $1 for it.

My response to the problem of buying a costume piece, then buying the whole expansion after would be to give the buyer bonus Stars equal to the Stars they spent on the costume part off the rack when and if they buy the full expansion. No cash or credit refunds, but you get more Stars to play with.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

Did CoH Devs resolve that Roman costume piece issue by making it available from the In-Game Store?
If so, issue isn't so much that you had to pay, it was because such a reward wasn't unlocked account wide for use when rolling new toon? I'm oblivious to this issue. :p

Yes they eventually put the Roman stuff in the cash store like a full SEVERAL YEARS after they first offered it in the trial. So by the end you still either had to pay for an account-wide unlock or earn it per-character in the trial. They never had a generic/plain/free version of the armor that anyone could use when creating a new character.

All I'm suggesting in this case is that there could have been a plain version of the armor in the character creator that anyone could use then there could still be a fancy version of the armor that would have been locked behind the trial and/or in the cash store. It makes perfect sense to me - anyone could have a grunt solider's version of armor but you'd have to do something "special" to get the fancy emperor's version (in this case "special" would be either buying it or earning it).

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I would suggest that

I would suggest that depending on how much their artists etc are working on new content, they could offer to do costume parts for a fair sum which would remain unique to that account for a period before it goes avaliable on the open cash shop market.

I would suggest such a thing would have to cost a few hundred quid (pounds being my currency) at the very minimum, but Im sure you would have those who would be interested in getting certain gear ingame, dependant on legality/copyrights etc.

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Deathwatch101 wrote:
Deathwatch101 wrote:

I would suggest that depending on how much their artists etc are working on new content, they could offer to do costume parts for a fair sum which would remain unique to that account for a period before it goes avaliable on the open cash shop market.
I would suggest such a thing would have to cost a few hundred quid (pounds being my currency) at the very minimum, but Im sure you would have those who would be interested in getting certain gear ingame, dependant on legality/copyrights etc.

Yeah this idea is a variation of what MWM already offered as a kickstarter perk. It's been suggested/discussed several times over the years since.

I wouldn't have a problem with it assuming the Devs wanted to entertain the idea. By making such a "service" as expensive as you suggest it would naturally limit the number of people who'd want it thus keeping it from becoming too much of a burden on the art department. If they could eventually handle say 5 or 10 such special requests per month that would provide a few extra thousand dollars to their income per month.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I vote for Morph Targets for

I vote for Morph Targets for sleeves on shirts and most other cosmetic pieces. When I drag the slider all the way down for the sleeves, the shirt becomes sleeveless. No need for a separate shirt that's sleeveless now. ;D

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On the subject of expansions.

On the subject of expansions. There is an easy solution, I think. That is creating a couple different bundles. Bundle A) expansion only. Bundle B) expansion plus one costume set expansion token. This expansion set token is redeemable for one full costume, crown to toe, from a list of costumes sets associated with the new expansion. Bundle C) expansion plus multiple costume set expansion tokens. Bundle D) expansion plus multiple costume set tokens and some amount of stars. Individual costume parts would be purchasable from the store but IMO should carry a expansion pre-requisite. Meaning that you have to get the expansion before you can use these parts. Ideally each bundle would represent a better value. So maybe the default expansion costs 39.99 but getting bundle B would provide a 10% savings compared to buying the expansion and costume pieces as discreet purchases. Each successive bundle would offer a greater savings compared to buying each item as a discreet purchase. This is very similar to how GW2 handled their HOT expansion. Yes the super deluxe bundle was 100 bucks or something but when you added up the cost of each item discreetly it was something like $125 value. Plus there were some exclusive items in there which have yet to be offered on the cash shop, to my knowledge.

This is all getting ahead of ourselves, we don't have a base game yet.

Radiac
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In the recent past, Cards

In the recent past, Cards Against Humanity has done a number of crowdfunded stunts that raised like $50,000+ in the name of basically pointless jokes. They had a Black Friday thing this year where they dug a giant hole for as long as the funding lasted. They got like $100,000 for that from donations.

It makes me wonder if MWM would make more money on costume parts if they crowdfunded the efforts beforehand as opposed to delivering the goods and then charging for them after. So like you could have a thing up on the website where MWM would list the various costume ensemble ideas they currently have in mind, and you could donate money to get them made. Once a thing reaches it's desired monetary goal, you'd close the crowdfunding window and then start making it. When it comes out, the people who paid for the crowdfunding get it automatically, and everyone else has to buy it. You could simplify the crowdfunding to the point of you only option being "Donate $5" and if you do, you get the costume when it finally arrives, and if your costume project fails to meet funding needs, you never have to pay the money.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

Izzy
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I like it. Crowdfunding a

I like it. Crowdfunding a costume pack, might be ideal though.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

It makes me wonder if MWM would make more money on costume parts if they crowdfunded the efforts beforehand as opposed to delivering the goods and then charging for them after. So like you could have a thing up on the website where MWM would list the various costume ensemble ideas they currently have in mind, and you could donate money to get them made. Once a thing reaches it's desired monetary goal, you'd close the crowdfunding window and then start making it. When it comes out, the people who paid for the crowdfunding get it automatically, and everyone else has to buy it. You could simplify the crowdfunding to the point of you only option being "Donate $5" and if you do, you get the costume when it finally arrives, and if your costume project fails to meet funding needs, you never have to pay the money.

Let's be honest. MWM is not a normal studio, packed with full-time people recruited by the HR department. Until such a time as they become a fully viable money-making enterprise, I would support this crowdfunding idea entirely.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Fireheart wrote:
As long as any costume parts, regardless of how they're earned, are unlocked account-wide
I suppose I'll never understand the mindset that just because I, the player, manage to unlock something on one of my characters that it should automagically be available to ALL of my characters. I call it a "console mentality" where you get lazy enough to think that all of your "characters" are just different skins you as a player wear without thinking that each of your characters are actually unique people who may (or critically may NOT) actually know each other in the game world.
For instance let's say I play two different characters. One is a teenaged tech-wiz nerd-girl who creates gadgets to fire electrical blasts at bad guys. The other is a 5,000 year old demi-god demon who's trapped on this planet and vows revenge for that by killing as many people as possible. Now if I'm playing the game and one of those characters manages to unlock a purple-plaid scarf from a mission what's the realistic chance that either one of those characters are actually going to SHARE that scarf with the other? I'd say maybe 0.000001% give or take.
I'm sorry but I just grew up playing far too many table top RPGs where characters never "shared" things between each other unless I literally RP'd that one character was the other character's sister or some-such. I probably wouldn't avoid playing CoT if it truly becomes an "account-based" game like you guys are suggesting here. But frankly I will continue to hope that CoT (like CoH before it) will remain as much of a "character-based" game as possible.
P.S. To be completely clear (since people never seem to be able to tell the simple difference) if I were to buy a costume item from the game store then naturally I'd expect that to be unlocked account-wide because that's something I'm buying as THE PLAYER, not while playing as an individual character in-game. If you really can't see the vast difference between those two things then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this subject. *shrugs*

Is everything ever available to the player in a F2P game? DC Certainly does not allow any old Joe to get the best gear or style sets, neither does Champions Online. I am leaning towards your thinking but I despise F2P.

I don't think they should go F2P tbh. I think CoT should go F2P until a certain level which lures the player into paying say $8 a month. What if players do not buy costumes? What if they choose to go free the entire way and not the premium account route? P2P guarantees money from the players, F2P is inviting costumers in for free samples until you are eventually cleaned out. They will be F2P so I will focus on this.

A lot of money is in the sidekick system or mastermind whatever you want to call it. The ability to customized your crew is not a necessity, but it is for the hero. I think players should have to dish out cash to use this system. The unique minions are premium; you can tell who is dishing out money and who is not. players that are not premium cannot use it. They cannot making a living off costumes. We got into a big discussion about this after a friend of mine was banned for getting into it with DC developers. I can see their side of it though, why styles are not a main priority because there is no guarantee everyone likes anime styles, creatures, and so on. Players can live without styles, there is usually more than enough free costumes to warrant players not to buy from cash shops.

The same players that want everything free are the same ones who will blame MWM for CoT's demise. Where is the money going to come from?

As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.

Radiac
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There are advantages and

There are advantages and disadvantages to F2P systems vs subscription-only systems.

In the subscription model, which is seen as an old monetization model and probably going to raise an eyebrow at this point if they do it as the only way to play, you get a sub fee out of every player you've got every month. This sounds good, in theory, but then when they run out of stuff to do, people start leaving, then they only come back when there's new stuff to do, or maybe they still stay gone at that point. The worst part is, you never get any MORE than the sub fee out of each player every month, so that represents an upper limit on people's spending on your game.

In the F2P model, you get to play for free, but then they try to entice you with extras and luxury items designed to get you to spend money. This has the advantage that people will hopefully keep playing, and thus create a positive atmosphere in the game world by populating it and giving the payers someone to play with. It also has no upper limit on how much money people can spend, or to restate that better, the only upper limit is how much stuff you can put up for sale on the cash shop.

Frankly, people HATE to have to pay money, period. I think if you have a really big player base, like GW2 has, you can afford to do F2P with the cash shop. This game, I'm not so sure about. It might be necessary to just make it sub-only and give people like 3 months of sub time free with purchase. I don't know what percentage of the player base will actually open up their wallets, but it's not like this game can monetize like Magic Online does. That model only works because Magic the card game was sold like that.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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