Obsidius

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  1. Obsidius

    Crisis Monitor

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tymers_Realm View Post
    Actually I usually add a specific 'Events' tab to one of my chat windows with the specific Side Event chat feed as the only feed in that tab. Works rather well, as far as I'm concerned.

    Thank you for the time...
    If the monster's been spawned for hours and I log in, I won't know it's there for me to smite. Adamaster could have spawned three days ago, but since I don't get a system message after it's already spawned... well, when a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it...

    Having some sort of toggle-able mini-window that shows zone events in progress or GMs that have spawned (with three collapsible selections for Paragon City, Rogue Isles, and Praetoria) would be dandy IMPO, and easier to keep tabs of as opposed to system messages.
  2. Also looking forward to Titan Weapons. I might have to roll a new gargoyle for that one

    As far as Freedom goes? Looking forward to being able to play for free if I can't subscribe. I just wish forum access were part of the Paragon Reward tree somewhere (like at tier 4 or 5).
  3. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Feycat View Post
    Manoa,

    I read your blog, I liked your blog, I thought it was full of interesting thoughts and linked it to this thread first thing.

    That said, could you address the question I threw out that it seems the original addressee will not answer?

    Previously, a returning vet had to plunk down $15 in order to play for a month, see their characters, have access to their loot, etc.

    Now, presuming they don't have enough accumulated vet rewards to have permanent access to IOs, they now have to plunk down $2 in order to access their loot for a month.

    How is that not a step up for the returning player?
    You know, after interjecting crassly into this thread, and then reading all of the arguments, I have to say that I agree. Even if I cannot afford to keep a subscription in the future, I can still keep playing the game without paying, due to the amount of money I've already invested in the game. Certainly, I won't be able to access everything I can access with a subscription, but I can still play if I want.

    Obviously, for returning players, the amount of access, especially to things like chat channels, inventory space, Inf cap, IOs, etc. wholly depends on how much they've invested in the game. That may chafe some, but in all honesty, you've got to pay to play, regardless of if that payment is a subscription or pay-as-you-go.

    IMPO, the Paragon Rewards system is superior to other F2P systems. This thread has shown me that. Ironically Mamoa, I would have never seen this thread if you hadn't complained about it via social networking
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Synergy View Post
    I'm confused. I thought Tyrant was the Well's champion. Why now is the Well suddenly trying to punish him?
    Was wondering the same. Is it because he's now trying to stop the Praetorian Devouring Earth from attacking Primal Earth?
  5. So here's the 411:

    Nike's made 1500 pairs of Nike Air Mags (sorry, they don't auto-lace, but they DO light up).

    They're being auctioned on eBay and cannot be directly purchased. The reason? All proceeds are going towards The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, which is definitely cool.

    If you have some disposable income, you might be able to snag a pair for around (currently) $5000.

    Source: KROQ
  6. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Santorican View Post
    Just because you drop a ton of money on something instantly does not mean you are dedicated. I know plenty of people who drop a ton of money into hobbies that last a few months and then drop them like a hot potato. Dedication means you've wholly and earnestly set yourself aside for a task or for a person. Where money comes into that has no bearing on being dedicated toward a game.

    What I am getting at that in their pursuit of chasing the dollar they've devalued the idea of what it means to be a dedicated player. No longer is there anything to set anyone apart. Now you can just buy your way toward vet rewards rather then having to work for it.
    From where I sit, the value of a dedicated player to any game studio is the amount of money one gives to them. Does it really matter if they give the studio a few hundred dollars only to leave the game a few months later? Not really, as long as there are enough players paying to keep the game going and enough money management by the studio to bank funds for lulls in revenue / subscribership.

    Mathematically speaking, ( $x / t) * t still equals $x, regardless of if t (time) is one day, six months, or one decade.

    If you want to "set yourself" apart in an MMO, do so through experience, through actions, and through "being a mensch". The value of a player is not measured in Vet Reward badges; I've known plenty of good players with few Vet Rewards and plenty of crappy players who have been around for years.

    What should a player "work towards" in an MMO? Having fun. Period. As long as it isn't at the expense of other players. Why should I care if someone dropped a boatload of money to get the Sands of Mu, so long as they're not kill stealing or griefing me?

    I have to agree with SlickRiptide:

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post

    If you want to talk about things that set people apart or that are somehow valuable because people had to "work for them" then you're going to have to come up with a better yardstick than vet rewards.
    Because right now, I can't see anything to your argument but elitism, especially with the game going F2P.

    Besides, if tenure were an accurate measurement, I have more of it, so according to your logic, my argument is better than yours
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
    (Off-topic rant occluded)
    Not even on topic

    <Throws the rail switch to stop thread from derailing>

    The AE is updated separately from other content, so if / when they'll add this armor set to the AE Tailor is a mystery :/
  8. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Machariel View Post
    Wait, do you mean the ability to purchase IO sets off the market / merit vendors per normal, or will people be able to generate them out of nowhere with the paragon store for $$$?
    Common and Uncomoon IO sets will be purchasable from the Paragon Market, but attuned to an account and only trade-able with other characters on the same account. This does NOT apply to Rare or Very Rare IO sets. See this link for details on which sets will be available.
  9. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dark Sweater View Post
    No, I'm claiming I didn't know that "limited" meant "all your IO's are disabled".
    Limited is a bit vague. In this case it means: pay $2 a month for an Invention License, or use 27 Reward Tokens for a lifetime license. Or purchase attuned IO sets from directly the store. Of course, that's all very wordy. Perhaps they can make a Knowledge Base article on this subject

    In any case, Limited does seem to imply some sort of limits
  10. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Santorican View Post
    Says who? You? How many people did it take to develop Vet Rew? How long did it take for each badge? What percentage of their work week was designated to designing them? What percentage of pay roll did they take up designing the entire system from start to finish? I can guarantee you that VR didn't take up much resources that it was the straw that would break accounting's back. Yes every little bit counts but its a catch 22 you make more money by making all of these rewards available at the cost of pissing off your large existing player base that spent the time it took to obtain these rewards.
    Let me ask this question: who's the more dedicated customer, the one who spends $15 over several years to equal $x, or the one who spends $x up front? Both are giving NCSoft the same amount of $x.

    Have I been against players being able to buy Vet Rewards in the past? Yes. But that was before the entire game switched to a F2P model. Arguably, with a F2P model, being able to purchase Vet Rewards with money makes sense. We're already monetizing everything else, after all, including access to things like /tells to Invention Licenses and purchasing entire IO sets outright. By all means, if someone wants to drop a few hundred dollars / euros in the Paragon Market to earn more Paragon Reward tokens, more power to them, IMPO.
  11. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Santorican View Post
    That's exactly what I mean. Rather than working for something the developers are giving impatient players a means to obtain something a lot of people have worked for. Instead of saying STFU and work for it they're enabling a generation of "instant gratification-ers."
    Well sure, for $15 for each Rewards token. To get a permanent Invention license at Premium level, for example, would be $15 * 27 = a "mere" $405. If that's "instant gratification," sure, let them have the reward if they want to shell that much money into a game. Especially if it's money going towards keeping the game running or developing cool new stuff.
  12. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aura_Familia View Post
    Right, but my point was that things like what is and isn't offerred in that other game are PRECISELY the kinds of things PS looked at when deciding options for Freedom.
    Alright, it's time for me to put my serious face on

    Part of the problem is that the uninitiated have to do a bit of research in order to understand a direct comparison between CoH: Freedom and other games. As can be seen above, I can't even allude to other games. It's against the forum policy. So new players who want to have a true understanding as to why CoH: Freedoms system is better than someone else's will have to do a lot of research on their own. Digging through feature matrices, spreadsheets, comparing web pages, etc.

    Marketing may have already done plenty of research, but are they doing a good enough job of stating that their Paragon Rewards system is superior to similar MMOs in the genre? On the Freedom page they do a fine job of comparing it against the current Vet Rewards system, which means nothing to a new player shopping around. It's a tricky avenue for Marketing, but even just stating that the Paragon Rewards system is a unique system to City of Heroes for permanently unlocking game features for Premium and VIP players alike would help emphasize it's importance without having to do a direct comparison to competing MMOs.
  13. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aura_Familia View Post
    A returning player who doesn't subscribe gets more than someone who is trying to play for free. They SHOULD NOT get anywhere near what a VIP has access to. I think that the options they are giving us are better than that other game.
    That's a great argument with some very fair points. (^^)=b
  14. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    TBH, IMPO, etc., etc., The Paragon Reward system is appealing towards new players, but leaves something to be desired for returning vets. It gives an edge vs that other MMO, but I'm not sure how much pull it's going ot have towards bringing former subscribers back, especially if they din't already invest X amount of time into the game previously just so they can use /tell when they return to Freedom.*

    I know it wasn't Aura's intent to say that NCSoft's market research nullifies any qualms we have about the system, but they way I read Lost Ninja's post, well, it's a poor rebuttal to Manoa's argument. I kinda feel the same way as Manoa does, personally.

    * Edit: what reward tier allows access to /tells? I don't know. But if I'm a new player, the first thing I want to do is look at a big spreadsheet to see what sort of things I can and can't do
  15. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aura_Familia View Post
    That's not what I got from his post. What I got is that NCSOFT/PS have done the research on various models, and thus based their decisions on what to gate behind that research.

    There's no guessing in knowing that. They've come out and flat out told us they did.
    Got it. OK everyone, that settles it! We can now end this debate and rest any qualms we have with this system knowing full well that any objections and negative observations have been fully nullified by NCSoft's thorough market research Debate over!
  16. Obsidius

    Freedom? Hardly

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lost Ninja View Post
    I'll bet they won't... But then what NCSoft has to do is base it's decisions on fact not on bets. You seem to think that this whole thing is hastily put together and without studying either the overall MMO market or their own player base. In any business when you are trying to implement something as wide ranging and potentially game (pun unintended) changing as this you do so with eyes wide open with all your facts to hand.
    Thanks for harping on Manoa for guessing on what NCSoft's goals are, and then guessing on what NCSoft's goals are. Brilliant! It's the battle of guesswork and empirical data!
  17. Sister Psyche: 20 + 1= 21
    Synapse: 2 - 1 = 1


    Statesman: Dead
    Citadel: Dead
    Numina: Dead
    Positron: Dead
    Manticore: Dead
    B.A.B.: Dead
  18. Obsidius

    Farm Reviews

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Doctor_Gemini View Post
    (Some text)
    We're not attacking farms per se Doc, we're attacking bad writing. Bad, horrible writing. I think it would be fun to see a "farm" mission that actually had some effort put into it. But given that the nature of farms is that the least amount of effort goes into the most rewards, seeing one of those would be akin to seeing a golden Ford Pinto.
  19. Forget that Minecraft stuff.

    I play Terraria
  20. Obsidius

    Farm Reviews

    This idea sounds epic, and I heartily approve. I might have to try this if I get bored

    Edit: subscribed to thread
  21. I'd support this as either standard Power Pools or APPs.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Johnny_Johnny View Post
    How do we 'repair the client'? I don't see an option for that in the launcher.

    Right-click on the button for "City of Heroes Subscriber Beta" on the left margin of the launcher and select Repair.

    Edit: beyond that, if that doesn't work, no idea, at work, can't access Launcher right now to help you out.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nightphall View Post
    It's either that or a Linkin Park song.....or that damned Bodies Hit the Floor.

    I really don't like when people on youtube do that.
    LOL, it sounds like every video game PvP video I've ever seen on the Internet.

    <video starts playing>
    <scrambles for the mute switch>

    As for the OP, I have mixed feelings, but I have faith in Cavill after seeing him in things like The Tudors and Stardust. As long as the script isn't complete crap, I think he can pull it off.
  24. There are some combos normal players will never have access to, that signature characters do. EX: Stone Armor / Earth Control (Faultline).