Since I have been reading and commenting in a couple of the threads geared toward CoT making money. I asked a question of "What was wrong with the COX hybrid model?" No replies hoping to get some to this thread vs a post that might get buried under another conversation.
From my understanding the COX hybrid model was profitable for COX. It was the parent company that decided it had to end.
If the hybrid model was profitable, why is it not being discussed or considered?
My biggest concern with some of the money talk is that the game will fall into the trap of "we need money, cstore items are now more important then content."
The game has not even gone to Alpha, had a great response in kickstarter and built in players already chomping at the bit to play.
I truly believe the best way for this game to be profitable is by marketing and word of mouth, not by some monetary wizardry to open your wallet.
I had no problems paying for COX (even when not playing for a month or 2) because it was enjoyable to be apart of a game like it and wanted to support it.
Hoping lightning gets caught in a bottle a second time.
I don't have time to find and link to references, but I think the devs ARE leaning toward a hybrid model like CoH... they just haven't worked out all the details yet or, at least, haven't made them public.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
What do you mean?
What is a Hybrid model?
As opposed to what?
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To my understanding of the hybrid model COH used. You have a sub that you pay for like normal, nothing changed for you, you get a token to add to a tree for vet goodies.
F2P had to purchase certain AT's, certain power sets and incarnate access but once purchased never had to again. Also they broke up costume items, if you liked a hat but nothing else, you could purchase the hat and nothing else.
From my perspective, you have a community support base in subs but get cash infusion from F2P. I know it was discussed doing a GW2 model of B2P, buy 2 play (buy the game then free access till server shut down) but they have been discussing star stuff in other threads that Segev has commented on that would act like other F2P games that moves away from the COH hybrid.
In CoH you could keep playing as a premium subscriber for $15/month (along with all of the perks), play for free or go "Freemium" ... no monthly sub but making cash store purchases to unlock features.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
The City of Heroes financial situation was relatively stable and operating in the black. NC$oft was disappointed that they couldn't use the profits from Paragon Studios to subsidize the losses NC$oft had incurred elsewhere due to bad decisions made by executives in Korea. So Paragon Studios got murdered because NC$oft didn't want their quarterly financial report to be as miserable as it actually was. They basically pawned off Paragon Studios to make a quick buck, with no intention of ever getting Paragon Studios out of hock.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I, too, was under the impression that CoT would be going with a hybrid model similar to that of CoX -- with the exception that the game itself will have to be purchased, so technically there will be no f2p players. Everyone will be b2p, but may choose to sub or not to sub.
To answer the original question, despite my initial doubts at the time and my preference for subscriptions, I thought the hybrid model worked well for CoX. The only flaw I saw was when they committed themselves to having a new special in the store every week and then seemed to scramble sometimes to come up with one, often generating bad reactions amongst the player base when the offering was less than stellar. My hope would be that MWM never commit themselves to a regular release schedule, and instead make stuff available 'when it's ready.'
Spurn all ye kindle.
Yeah, the "managing expectations" side of things was not done all that well by Paragon Studios. They were starting to fall into the bad habit of needing to release a new hat every week (ala Valve). They probably would have been better off trying to shuffle things around every 2 weeks instead of every week, if only so as to slow the pace of needing to "churn" things for sale so often.
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You will have to buy the game - Confirmed by DoctorTyche
CoT will have a subscription model - Confirmed by Warcabbit
CoT will have a cash shoppe using a hybrid currency (currently named * or Stars) - Confirmed by DoctorTyche, Warcabbit, and Segev
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There is discussion of a "micro-subscription model" that has gained traction.. the terms of the model have not been molded.
There is discussion of how the hybrid currency will be exchanged both game to player and player to player.
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Being Profitable does not always mean being fiscally successful.
Example: Last week my client's credit card terminal went down and it cost $100 to replace it. I spoke to the manager at Intuit Merchant Center and let them know I will NOT be paying for their equipment failure on top of the client's lost sales. They instead will clear the merchant fees ($15/month) for 7 months. That's a $5 "profit" over 7 months.. definitely in the black but not a business worth continuing.
Thesis:
City of Heroes was not generating the kind of revenue it needed to survive. Sure they could have laid off more people and kept it afloat or cut expenses somewhere else to make the venture worth continuing but just because it wasn't "losing" money doesn't mean it was healthy.
More-so City of Heroes' transition to Hybrid model came much later than another superhero game from Cryptic Studios (Champions Online) had already made the transition and made money.. but AGAIN.. Champions Online is "profitable" but it's not "healthy". The competitors are sprinting and they are limping. Yes they're moving forward but watching it is pity-worthy.
I think another Superhero trying the "Hybrid Model" as these two previous games did on the same terms is a mistake. Are there other reasons for the GAME that failed, sure.. but if the money was there the game could always improve.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Also keep in mind, they *converted* to hybrid. They had years of previous sub's they needed to validate, which means that they had a lot of limitations in place to work around. We are designing for our model from day 1, which means not everything they did would make sense for us.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I think we have learned that lesson ourselves with promising meaningful updates weekly during and after the KS. We really, really , really want you guys to know everything going on, but we also know we can't take time away from our already packed schedules (dev and RL-wise) to do the updates not to mention the fact that some weeks are just not that exciting. I mean if we did an entire update on the a new scarf design by our talented artists for the week someone would enjoy it, but it would probably be better saved for a group of art pieces (or when it was hanging on an avatar in-game!). Better to have quality feedback on quality updates than shoving out whatever we had at the moment just to say "look! We did this today.) I am sure we will take this with us into updates of the actual game as well as offers/specials.
We will most likely have the customary XP weekends, days of GM/Boss mayhem and other such ingame goodness, however. That's not counting dev foolishness at random. ;)
[color=#ff0000]Sound Lead, Bullpen Writer[/color]
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My hope, is that by the time CoT is ready to be released there will be a different model to be used than what is currently being used. The most common model is the F2P with in game purchases or Cash Store purchases. This has led many people to feel that they are being nickel and dimed to death for these games and that most people now believe it's a quick Cash Grab until they can make enough money to start up their next big Cash Grab project and place the old one into a maintenance format. What that model will be, I don't know. Subscriptions were the old format, and that worked for a while. The problem with that was after a while you lost player retention due to burnout and then your profits slowly started drying up. Now Free to Play is the current format, but again it's starting to show it's ugly side as well. I'm hoping we can find some kind of middle ground between the Subscriptions and F2P.
I believe MWM is trying to bridge that gap and break through that frontier to do just that. I have my doubts about some of the proposed ways they are wanting to implement it, I'm not going to repeat them all here if you don't already know and desire to know it shouldn't be too hard to look up a few monetization threads and find them. However, I am trying to be optimistic about their approach and hope that they succeed in their plans. I think they are on the right track, I trust that they will do what is best for them and everybody who wishes to support them.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Understood and thank everyone for the discussion. Just a lowly consumer in waiting with no developer or business background wanting to understand the monetary pushing threads out there.
Here's to a fun and successful future game.
please cite reference for this? I have seen you mention the financial status of CoH before...but everything I read regarding CoH was that it was completely runnin in the "black" (although probably no as much as ncsoft would have liked to see). additionally, everything I read for the closure was not financially linked, in regards to the profitability of CoH.
I would love to read up on where your getting your info...if there is none, then we should perhaps refrain from using CoH as a "failed" financial business model as you are implying.
...and of course, I could be completely wrong....but that is why I am asking for the link reference.
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I don't think anybody really knows what happened when it came down to deciding to shut down CoH. Well, NCSoft knows but somehow I doubt they would be willing to tell. At most, it's just a lot of speculation and guess work.
According to some sources CoH and Paragon Studios was in the black and making money. According to some, NCSoft didn't feel like it was making enough of a profit to be sustainable. That the profits were slowly dwindling down and before too long it was going to end up in the red. So to free up some money to dump into other projects like Blade and Soul, Guild Wars 2, and Wildstar they shut down CoH. According to some, NCSoft wanted to stick closer to home and didn't want to have an overseas company.
I doubt you'll get a 100% accurate answer to that question.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
The only people who know why CoX was shut down are not talking about it, which is to be expected. Anyone putting forward a "why" is either guessing or deducing.
The quarterly reports from NC Soft are all available on their website. There were many quarters when CoX was their only profitable product outside Korea. It baffles me that they would shut it down when the company was so obviously struggling to find the cash to buy back stocks and fight off half a dozen hostile takeovers. But they did. I don't know why. No one outside the top folks at Paragon and the decision makers in Seoul really knows why.
I could speculate all day long, but all it would be is speculation.
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As others have pointed out, Freedom was a good move for CoH. With that change Paragon Studios were able to create and release more content than they had been able to do with the subscription-only approach.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
It was cancelled so we could be here waiting for a game instead of playing the one we enjoyed.
You're right when you say that most of what we're all talking about here is speculation. But I'll add my two cents on the matter based on the various little nuggets of factual information.
As others have said I suspect that CoH was operating "in the black" but wasn't making huge amounts of excess profit. Basically it was self-sufficient but not the "mega money maker" NCsoft would've liked. Once NCsoft found itself in general financial trouble it had to do something to look like it was trying to "do something" to fix the problem. It decided to axe Paragon Studios because A) it wasn't big enough to help them bail out their other games financially and B) it was probably seen as "expendable" precisely because it was to them a smallish foreign operation. It was an obvious scapegoat to sacrifice in order to make their shareholders happy.
I strongly suspect that CoH days were numbered even if NCsoft had not become desperate for cash when it did. As a mature 8.5 year old game its technology was arguably becoming dated and the Devs had already pushed the system about as far as it could have gone in terms of updates/additions. Even in a perfect world I seriously doubt CoH would've lasted more than say 2-3 more years anyway. Sure it would've been nice to have been able to play during those sunset years, but at this point I think NCsoft would've been trying to unload it by now regardless.
So faced with looming questions about the long term viability of the game CoH unfortunately became the perfect sacrificial lamb at the very moment when NCsoft needed to look like they were doing something to solve their crisis. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I don't know. Plenty of people still play games that have become dated, but yeah, really nothing one can do about it.
There also the possibility that with DC and Marvel getting ready to have their MMOs go out. NCsoft didn't want to wait for the double whammy. If that would have happened who knows but I can see the logic. A simple look at how many members left after CO went live, with it not a major Franchise, then hearing both major Comics putting out MMOs.
Basically I have the feeling they gone chicken and folded before those two big superhero franchises entered the Superhero MMO Game.
That and all you said Lothic.
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Yeah that's another point: Maybe NCsoft decided to pull the plug when they did as a calculated face-saving measure.
Perhaps they assumed enough CoHers would jump ship to the newer superhero games that it would make them look bad from a public relations point of view for having a "washed up game" that everyone was leaving for something new. Faced with that possibility maybe they decided it would be the lesser of two evils to just preemptively shut down while the playerbase was still more or less intact instead of doing it when (as they assumed) everyone would be fleeing in droves.
No game company wants to have a title where there's a bunch of negative buzz going on about how it's rapidly becoming a "ghost town" with no one playing. It could then be argued whether or not NCsoft pulled the trigger on CoH a bit too early, but like Brand X implied it's all water under the bridge at this point.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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For me, the down side to the CoH Hybrid model was just with a few small aspects of it.
1) Veteran players could avoid some/most of the limitations just due to having played the game longer. They no longer had to pay for IO licenses, AH licenses, etc etc. This was one aspect of the money earning that was "not fair" to the newbie player.
I have no problem with there being three tiers, (F2P/B2P players... former subscribers/those who spent money at the store and current subscribers). But as soon as you start doing a fine grain differentiation just due to "how much you have spent" you will introduce the have/have not complex.
However, I have no problem with account level "system unlocks" (ie IO system in CoX, AH in COX) being available on the store. I just feel that stuff like this shouldn't be rewarded due to how much you paid over a period of time. And definitely not towards the high end of the scale. Make these semi realistic "low level fruit".
side note: Nice cheap way of earning cartel coins for SWTOR is by having the authenticator on your account. You get 100 coins free a month for just that. Even if you don't log in/play the account.
2) The downsides to *not* subscribing almost held your characters hostage. If you had slotted IO's whilst subscribing as a new player to *continue* using that character you had to either destroy your entire build (with a respec), get another build and reslot it.. or pay money to continue using IO's.
The thing is, it was NOT made clear to the new player to the game that *stopping* subscribing would penalise your character. For all the flack that SWTOR gets, at least it didn't trash your purple quality items. Sure you couldn't equip *NEW* items... but at least you could still use what you had equipped.
NC$oft stopped allowing it to live.
/thread
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I'm having trouble seeing what was unfair about this. Why should someone who paid hundreds of dollars to Paragon over the years (and probably bought ay least one box in addition) not get more stuff in return than someone who just downloaded the game for free and paid for a couple feature licenses? Especially since Freedom even allowed players to earn Reward Tokens through spending, so it wasn't like newer players were blocked by time played from getting the veteran perqs.
These perqs were not earned "due to having played the game longer" -- they were earned due to having paid more for the game.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Yes SWTOR may not take you stuff currently equipped but it does penalize you for being eve a freemium player. Hide head slot, match color armor, reduced XP and only have 2 characters unlocked. That was a big shift when I let my sub run out and then jumped back in for a free play weekend, the only thing I had was the current equip stuff. COH did not have that big a hit to long time subs. When my COH sub lapsed I was a vet that kept IO's and AH access. Why do some people feel they are entitled to the same stuff that someone else has even though that other person put more into it? Not looking for an argument just not comprehending the lack of the value of investment and appreciation of hard earned rewards. Being jealous of someone who has been around longer and has more investment is a waste of mental ability.
My 2 IGC
Good point, Cinnder. After trying other systems since the closure, I really miss the CoH hybrid system. I'm enjoying Marvel Heroes at the moment and they have a perk system based on time but even then I don't see it as unfair. You are rewarded for what you put into the game as it should be. CoH went further(to cover people like Gangrel) and gave you the option to catch up.
[b][color=red]Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.[/color][/b]
City of heroes also locked you to 2 characters (unless you bought more character slots).
To permanently unlock IO's in CoX it was 27 tokens.
That was either: 66 months of subbing pre freedom or the nice "low" price of $405.
Then again, I have played Eve Online where I was not jealous at all of those who had been playing for longer. I knew that in that game skill points was not the be all and end all (80% effectiveness for 20% of the invested time).
The thing is though is this: If I had subscribed I wouldn't have lost any real effectiveness in the game. I coped well enough with the lose of my incarnate abilities. What I was not happy about was having to destroy 4 years of work getting an IO build sorted out and then being effectively told "Sorry, doesn't work any more..."
I couldn't even *replace* those IO's. My only option was to *Destroy* them just so I could reuse them. I didn't have any respec trials left, and I coudln't afford to buy any off the market.
What else was I supposed to do when the game has *Crippled* my character just because I had money troubles for the month? And whilst it was nice being able to login to the game to *talk* to people... it sucked as I was really unable to do anything else, unless i wanted to destroy work I had spent building that character.
Granted. I understand what you are saying and went through. Do you see yourself going through something similar again with a game you will be starting out at from ground zero or just bringing an issue of an established game not finding a solid way of transition? On that note, as a simple exercise in curiosity how would your solution have gone?
My thought on that Gangrel, was at least in that F2P model you got to log in. Before that, if you stopped subbing you didn't log in.
But yes, something like that could've been better handled.
My solution? IO's would have at least lost their Set bonus. They would have also quite possibly been downpowered so SO levels.
The downside to the "IO's become useless" level was that you got NO benefit from them. And let me tell you, a level 50 with NO enhancements become dead weight. It becomes VERY hard for some AT's to defeat -1x0 level mobs.
We might laugh at how weak some of the Temp powers were at level 50... Now imagine that for ALL your abilities.
It was also compounded by the fact that respecs were limited in how many times you could earn them (3 via trial), and that mobs that were too low level compared to you gave no loot/currency.
The thing is, that even though the *set bonus* made some of the classes work "ideally", the normal SO bonus would have made a difference. At least you could then solo.
I just felt that this change made it a case of "Hey you can look, but you be screwed if you want to actually *PLAY* the game in any shape or form".
So sure, when it wasn't F2P I *KNEW* that when I wanted to play, I had to pay. Which made me think twice about resubbing. However when a game is F2P, I *EXPECT* to be able to log in and *play* the game.
I don't expect to be *screwed* over by the game and effectively told "Well, you can log in.... that is it though". Because unless I could get a team together to help me earn inf, I was just standing around unable to do anything.
The thing is though, sure I could grind the level 48 mobs for currency. It takes quite a few of them though to even *afford* a single SO.
Now try a complete set for level 50....
If anything, there wasn't enough of it. I had the equovalent of a 6-year badge, and had pretty much all I wanted from the rewards tree, the only things remaining being "exotic" armor pieces I didn't want (had the celestial set tho) and the end grab-all of powerful consumables.
I was pissed at vet badge removal -- they could have kept it and still done the token thing.
On the other hand, this is the first I've heard of the draconian requirements to unlock IOs on F2P accounts. That sucks. There should be some unlock requirement to prevent F2P instant friend-based ubers, but what's described here sounds awful.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
If you spent $5.00 you could purchase 400 Paragon Points which would have allowed you 2 months of IO usage by purchasing an Invention License from the Paragon Store for 160 Paragon Points.
Every 1200 Paragon Points awarded you with 1 Token.
Eventually you might have been able to completely unlock IO's for free just by spending about $2.50 per month so you could keep them unlocked to still be able to play with.
I'm just pointing this out, not trying to say anything negative.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Yes, there was the licenses that you could buy... and to be honest, you really had to purchase both the AH and the IO license to be able to acquire enough usable Enhancements fast enough.
But even so, it was still holding my character hostage for real money.
But then again from a group of players who hate "maintenance costs" on their level 50 characters of any shape or form, because it would "affect their earning ability" I am surprised that so many are thinking that it is fine to go for a monthly fee for players who have stuff slotted should have to pay RL money to keep them running.
But then again, I guess that MWM could keep IO level Enhancements as a micro sub option, so that you could only use them if you had the license, whilst SO style would be "free".
F2P means you get to play for free. It doesn't mean you get to play well for free. They need some sort of incentive for people to spend money on the game. The point of the game is for them to make money and pay those employees.
So does that include the inducement of getting people to play with the full thing, and then taking away their ability to NOT play that character?
To me, this was basically equivalent of removing all enhancement slots on that character. Over 2300 hours of gameplay.
Just wasted.
Now maybe it was due to how CoX had implemented its enhancement system, and there being no real inf sink in the game which prevented them from really going any other way.
But I am sure that you would have complained as well if they had turned around and made your *ALREADY* level 50 character level 40 unless you paid more money towards them.
Because that is how it felt to me. They made my level 50 character as weak as a level 40 character. Quite possibly *worse* off.
They let me get so far... The thing is, they didn't even treat the entire player base the same.
The thing is, if you are going to "erase" players hard work towards something, something that they have INVESTED in, then surely it would be appropos to make sure that you don't spite them.
Hell, some of us give NCsoft flack for what happened with CoX.... but Paragon Studios get a free pass with their methods?
I know of quite a few EU veterans who logged back into the game, saw their characters all locked away/castrated in terms of ability unless they coughed up real money that they logged back out *never* to return. Sure, anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but if that is anything similar to how Paragon Studios felt about *former* players... then I think I feel entitled to say that it was a money grab.
Sometimes, just sometimes, thinking about former players is useful. And thinking about *FUTURE* players as well.
The thing is, I can understand the thinking behind it, but the execution of it felt crippled? Why didn't they introduce a RL money SG base fee?
Why didn't they introduce a "global chat channel license"?
There were other things that that they could have monetised, but for all their "smarts" they decided to monetize something that actually *affected* gameplay.
Something that they *INDUCED* a subscriber to use... and something that held your character hostage, because they NEVER told you about "what would be lost" if you stopped subscribing.
Maybe they didn't say what would be lost due to how complicated the reward tree was... then that is their own fault.
The thing is, I still logged into the game. But only to talk. I couldn't do anything else apart from being carried in missions anyway.
One more thing to comment on this. You could also have two builds. I know several people that had one build that was fully IO'd out while the other was fully SO'd out. That way they could switch back and forth between the two, just in case.
I know a lot of people forgot about the second build, but I still think you could switch between the two if you were free or not. So if you had enough INF you could have switched over to the second build and kitted it out with SO enhancements and still kept all of your IOs until you were able to pay again to unlock them.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I dunno Gangrel. In the end I think it comes back to what I've seen in every MMO I've played with a F2P option. F2P bitching about not having every single option available to them.
TERA's answer to it seemed to be charge a whole lot for costume options, vanity mounts and have random loot bags. Of course, the subs gets a few things like better xp and a few random things, but it's not really much of an incentive to sub for those who just want a free game to play.
Or you could have started a new character and had the leveling experience again. If you were carried in the missions, could have used the drops to fund your SO's. I understand what you went through but there were non payable ways to enjoy the game after it went F2P. Since this topic has become the hot issue here, let me pose this question. Do you see this problem occurring in the first year of CoT? To solve a potential problem in the future to ensure no one goes through what you went through, would you be advocating no IO's? So people don't become dependent on them. Curious to know your mindset about your past situation as applied to the future CoT.
Would have been ideal if I hadn't already utilised my builds and made them IO only...
I couldn't have unless I deleted a character slot or paid for another character slot. So whilst it would have been possible to do it, it would have been a very hard choice. I couldn't afford the new character slot anyway at that point in time.
I think the problems though can be avoided IF they are planned around in the first place. So for example, I would quite possibly do something like SWTOR does with their "gear problem".
If you are subbed and then stop subbing, you don't lose your gear. You are prevented from equipping PURPLE quality gear, but if you are wearing purple quality gear it still works for you. You can also replace the gear. But because their system is a BOE/replacement system instead of BOE/Destruction based system, I could still keep my purple items around if I wanted to.
They do also sell licenses out there (on a character/account level) for those players who want to use the gear as you level up, but you are NOT gimped logging in and discovering that you couldn't kill anything because all your gear was disabled.
I could also suggest a solution of that mobs (no matter the level) give SOME reward (currency/drops) even if they are "grey to me".
As long as systems are up front in terms of how they work, what the limitations would have been... ESPECIALLY for returning players then you will have more incentive for former players to come back.
Could I see it being a problem for CoT in its first year?
Quite possibly. I could actually see it happening where for *whatever* reason, peoples effectiveness suddenly gets reduced due to their sub dropping/license expiring and their Enhancements disabling themselves automatically.
This is why in general I am "against" time licenses. I prefer stuff where it gives you X number of uses. It avoids the messiness of what happens when your times runs out.
Some people might turn around and say "F2P players want everything". but this situation ONLY occured with those who had already paid money. I couldn't have used IO's unless I was a subscriber or a "premium" level player. I had thrown in 1000's of hours towards the game, mostly on one character. I made that character as powerful as possible, all before F2P landed.
The thing is, is that this is *incredibly* similar to when you go back to an old game and you have to spend time reslotting your ability points due to a system/skill change.
The more work you put in for the returning player, the harder it is for them to stick around. It is even worse if you tell them that they can return for FREE. There are a number of people I have heard of that they went back to a game, logged in and saw all the work ahead of them to just be able to *play* the game just logged back out. And this was with no upfront cost to return.
Which is totally different to "be level 50 and have no slots".
So whilst I do admit it was my fault for "building as powerful as could be", it was whilst the game was subscription only.
People complained about the slow feeling of combat and the weakness that they feel in other MMO's with their characters... well that was the feeling that I got logging in and discovering that my "IO'd but not working builds" were the "norm" for me.
Especially after having to use one of my *limited* unlock slots to even get *into* the game.
But I do hope that MWM come up with systems that work, and not work as a disincentive to "not subscribe". The systems should work as an *incentive* to subscribe.
So instead of "Enhancements stop working", maybe it should be "set bonuses are a sub only perk". Sure, it could *SUCK* for some builds to lose those set bonuses, and there were probably a few edge cases where they fell apart so fast without that set bonus, but they were more than likely still able to defeat mobs and earn loot.
But their combat effectiveness is not directly reduced to a "sub player" though is it? And that is what the problem with the IO limitation was.
I was able to slot them, so I did. I then discovered that I couldn't *USE* what I had already slotted, so I logged back out due to a crappy unfair system.
I know that companies need to make money, and we complain about other companies "nickle and diming" other players... but here was a system that did exactly that. It FORCED you to pay to continue to use semi permanent choices.
Once you had slotted an IO, the only way you could remove it was to destroy it or use a respec. There were unslotters. They cost real money money though. How would you have felt if you had paid real money for the AT Enhancements, and then discovered that they only worked if you paid for an additional monthly fee on top?
That I will grant you, once slotted they should be useable, you just couldn't put new ones in.
As for the AT Enhancements, those worked all the time and didn't count as IOs, BECAUSE you did pay money for them. Store bought enhancements weren't IOs even if we called them IOs.
Finally you get where I was coming from. And this was the whole crux of it. I had no problem if I couldn't slot new ones. It was the fact that I HAD them slotted and it was a lot of work and effort and time invested (something that CoX players complained to NCsoft about, the time that they had "invested" in their own characters and with the company counting for nothing) getting the character one way, just to discover that whilst I could log in on him, he actually couldn't do anything effective.
And this is one thing that I wouldn't want in the first place, another "real money" cost just to use something that you had already bought with "real money".[1]
[1] Real money is in quotes because even though MWM will be using Stars, all Stars will have to come from another player one way or another, so there can indeed be a situation where a player has all the ingame currency and no way to get stars. You need a way to guarantee that this doesn't happen. Even if it means going a similar route of PWE with their Zen -> C-points/Astral Diamonds conversion system
You could get some of the Store bought IOs ont he CoH AH as well. Maybe even all of them, but I don't recall. I know the AT Specific ones could be at any rate.
When we say "you don't lose what you've bought" we mean it. So, if we have a "buy an inventions license" options, it would be for the creation and upgrading of inventions, but any you already had would be locked in as/is.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I don't know. $15/month is nothing to a person with a job, who isn't struggling. That's about one movie and a drink a month, or one dinner out.
Are most players college or HS, whose main income is Grandma's Christmas card? Or "NEETs"?
What fraction of players are in that boat?
For that matter, what fraction are people with a job who want to play for free free and get bent out of shape?
How do these people think the game will have money to continue?
Eh, at the end I had one 6+ year and one 2+ year account, both subscribed, so I could twobox.
I just don't get the complaints from people who can afford it. It's the cheapest entertainment you can get.
Well, Ok, Netflix online-only, at $8/mo. is a lil' cheaper, but hardcore Walking Dead binging barely shows up on radar, hours-wise, compared to an MMO!
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Average age of an MMO player is 26. That seems to be about the age one tends to have a job.
2300 hours of gameplay and you didn't pay enough in that entire time to unlock IOs? Considering the Paragon reward tree, it sounds like you were getting a lot for a pittance. Unless I'm off and that is nothing compared to a vet that unlocked Tier 7. I never really payed attention to the hours I played total. Either way it is a game and is far removed from the necessities of life so I don't relate well to complaints about paying for entertainment. Since it is obvious you didn't unlock Tier 7, what was the highest tier you did unlock?
[b][color=red]Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.[/color][/b]
Tier 6 was my highest unlock, and I was a few bars into that.
The thing to remember though, is that MOST of my gametime was spent in the first few years of the games life. So about 24 months subscribed at the start (I racked up over 700 hours inside the first 3months of gameplay on one character), with more time when Going Rogue and Incarnates landed as well.
I then took a long break as I was out of work at the time and actually unable to afford to play the game... I moved and became a full time carer. Which only just increased the amount of money I had available to spend. I then had someone pay for a few months here and there via transferring paypal money over, which helped a little bit (EU players could use paypal to pay sub fees at one point) so I could log in and play.
But when Freedom landed I was at 23 tokens IIRC (which would have put me just short of 5 years subbed)... and still 4 tokens short of a permanent unlock.
It did feel kinda strange though, seeing something like that go "yep... er nope. Thanks but no thanks".
I don't have a comment on the rest of this thread, but this argument looks misleading. They aren't "giving" you the full thing. The only way you'd ever get IO bonuses is by either renting, owning, or being an active subscriber.
The premise of IO's is you get IO's if you pay for them, in one fashion or another. So when you stop paying, you might lose them, right?
That isn't "inducement," that's getting the benefits of something you were entitled to. Then not getting it when you aren't. (Even if you feel you should be.)
I do agree they should have lost the set bonuses rather than being useless. (Or at the worst, come down to SO levels as you said. Although that seems like doing the numbers might be tricky.)
But I disagree a little with the comment quoted.
I can see why City of Titans is going a different route.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
I will forever fight this tide, but $15/mo. is nothing for a hobby you spend dozens to hundreds of hours a month doing.
There's some meme out there teaching you you are supposed to feel outraged over this. It makes no sense.
You did pay for a game. You did not pay for servers to be running a year from now. Any corporation that tells you otherwise is engaging in fraud. The money is spent and long gone already.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
50¢ a day.
Go find a vending machine that will sell you ANYTHING for 50¢ these days ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yeah, what Gorgon said.
What's that thing that's become fashionable in this parts? Oh, right.
+1
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I am in complete agreement but companies have found out they can make more money by nickel and diming everything. just take a peak at some of the threads floating about even here for some examples.
I miss no-nonsense subscriptions. :/
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I'm with you folks in preferring a subscription. Sadly, it seems whatever meme it is out there has a strong influence on many people and companies.
Spurn all ye kindle.
You get those willing to pay a sub and then pay more. You get those who are willing to be nickled and dimed because they think it's cheaper (and wrong) than a sub. Then you have the ones who will suffer with any drawbacks but hey, they make the game look more populated.
Company gets the win, while those just looking to pay a sub and be done get screwed :p
subscriptions (as defined in the past) give unlimited access at a monetary cap. Companies today are simply trying to remove that spending cap and let people spend as much as they want to.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
They have to be careful -- Tera Online went this way, but made a fatal mistake in doing so. They got rid of cheap week and permanent dyes and forced you to buy them with massive in-game currency.
If they had started that way, that would be one thing. But they got rid of cheap dyes, most importantly, for those of us who continued to P2P.
All we had was 1-day dyes, which made it incredibly irritating as you had to re-dye everything every day, or pay a buttload to get the new dye process.
I quit very shortly thereafter.
The moral of the story: Do not kick P2P people in the nuts when going F2P, especially over cosmetic stuff.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Believe they've put the permanent dyes back in with ways to obtain without spending real money (federation bills) for the subs, but last I read TERA was doing quite well still, so they're doing something right.
In North America or in Korea? The two markets are quite distinctly different ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
In NA.