SlickRiptide
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Nobody ever "worked for" vet rewards in the past. It was strictly a matter of the passage of time and of giving the company $15 every month.Originally Posted by Santorican
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.
Now, you give them the $15 whenever you feel like it. If you somehow feel compelled to give it to them in multiple-chunks at once, well, that's your choice now where you didn't have the choice before.
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.
Your problem is that most such examples (Like, for instance, buying the cape/aura unlock at level 1 for all of your characters) are not going to offend vets. The vets are going to say "I don't have to level up to 20 for the umpteenth time before getting a cape for my new hero? Hellz yeah! Sign me up!" -
Quote:I would have more sympathy for this position if there weren't web pages up with charts comparing the differences between the three membership tiers, as well as other pages that describe Paragon Rewards.Originally Posted by Dark Sweater
Not at all. Look it up. Bait and switch is a manner of false advertising. It's the seller getting the customer to the store on false pretenses then trying to sell them a product. It's not exactly what's happening here but it's close enough.
If people refuse to read about what they are joining up for then I can't see how the blame for that falls back on to Paragon Studios. -
Quote:The seedlings have a built-in game mechanic that grant's temporary group fly to someone who defeats one or many (they stack). Destroy the ground-dwelling seedlings, then go after the sky-dwellers and the Seed itself.Originally Posted by Lady_Sadako
So is Colonel Duray the jetpack hander-outer, then? Non-flying characters are going to have to get up to that Seed somehow!
On the other hand, in first ward at least, there are also merchants who sell the same power for a nominal charge.
ObStory:
That was a good read. Pump out some more of that and I might even start to think that Praetoria is worth involving myself with. -
Quote:Arcana is a mathemagician so she has a very precise idea of what the words "conventional f2p model" mean. For those of us who who are more lax about our language and who take the whole three-tiered "free" MMO system as the de facto standard for AAA MMO companies that embrace a free-to-play model, the specifics aren't all that important. It's all "freemium".Originally Posted by Sapphire7
If I had Mod Powers and this were my personal message board, I'd sticky this statement in its original size with a link to Arcanaville's post at the top of every forum. Since it's not my personal message board and I don't have Mod Powers, I'll have to settle for a link in my signature :P
I'm not saying that she's wrong. She's perfectly correct. (I'd like to see the day that I catch Arcanaville out on being wrong about something. I'll buy a lottery ticket.) I'm saying that the distinction is irrelevant from a marketing standpoint.
The hordes of unwashed who are about to invade our shores don't give a smeg about the fact that the devs whole-heartedly want them to subscribe and have stacked the deck in favor of subscriptions. They don't care about whether some people want to quibble about whether it's really "free to play" or if it's something different that still lets you play for free.
Those unwashed hordes only care about playing the game. They EXPECT the deck to be stacked in favor of subscriptions. In fact, if they come in with expectations born of playing games from other publishers, they're going to see the Paragon Rewards chart and figure out that Paragon Studios is a lot friendlier about their deck-stacking than most of those other game publishers.
You can call the game's business model whatever label you want to call it. Nobody who matters is going to care. If they can login and make a character and play the game, it's "free to play". If they can buy some stuff and get a better game experience, it's "freemium". That's simply the long and short of it.
And make no mistake, this game DOES have a "robust" free-to-play side. I know because I'm playing it currently in the beta. In the Live game, I've only dabbled in inventions when the urge took me (I'm a lazy bastich and inventions are work) and I've never bothered with incarnates at all. I can honestly say that the free game on Freedom is just about the same as the game I play on a regular basis on Live. As far as I'm concerned, it IS a "free to play" game. Insisting that a focus on converting freems and preems to VIP's, instead of throwing the whole kit and kaboole out for free and then filling the shop with a lot of attractive dross, somehow makes it something other than a "free to play" game is just a lot of semantic hand-waving, in my opinion.
I certainly respect the rights of others to hold differing opinions. I'll tell you this, though - when Freedom launches for real, the media isn't going to be calling it "free-to-play but with a hybrid focus on turning you into a subscriber so not REALLY free-to-play". The people asking about it on message boards and signing up for new accounts to try it out aren't going be blogging about its "hybrid" business model. They're going to be calling it either "f2p" or "freemium" or both at the same time.
That's just reality, from where I sit. Call it what you like. It's potAto/potAHto in the end. -
Quote:Er... when has the game ever been like that? What does "stripped... ripped and broken" even mean? Especially when you are talking about re-subbing to VIP when your surgery stint is over?Originally Posted by Nyx
But since I wont be home, I wont have the ability to sign on...which I also assume means that the things I already have will be stripped...ripped, and broken when I try and sub again.
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I just want to point out something - regardless of what you think "free to play" means, Freedom really IS free to play without cost. The free membership is not a "trial", unless you consider that the game you were paying $15/month for back in 2006 was a trial of some sort. The only difference between the free member game in Freedom and the game you played in 2006 is the chat restrictions, the reservation of "pet" archetypes, and the throttled-back enhancement loot drops that we have today in comparison to how they used to drop back then.
You can play the game from end-to-end without paying a dime and have a complete play experience. That's free-to-play. You even get two character slots so you can do it on both blueside and redside.
If you find the experience compelling enough to desire more, then there are more game systems and game content available for generally reasonable dollar costs. There are also more character slots and etc...
Waving your hands about dev intentions towards subscriptions doesn't change the fact that the new game very much IS designed to be a free-to-play game that hopes to entice some dollars out of you. In fact, I have to commend the devs for trying to really BE a hybrid game. I've said this many times before - one compelling reason that freemium games exist as a market is that there is a large group of game players who refuse on principle to take on a monthly subscription charge. They prefer to purchase ala carte EVEN IF IT APPEARS TO PUT THEM AT A DISADVANTAGE IN COMPARISON.
The Paragon Rewards program is exactly the kind of thing that will appeal to those people. I suspect that when enough of those people reach the upper-tiers of game ownership without showing any sign of joining the ranks of subscribers, that we'll eventually see the store sell an "incarnate voucher" that lets a premium player unlock incarnate on one character. Time will tell.
In any case - the free-player game is a complete game experience. It's not some kind of "trial" and thinking of it in those terms is missing the point. It's intended to be a complete game experience that hooks the player into wanting more of the same and becoming willing to part with five bucks here and ten bucks there for costumes and character slots and "Oh, another 400 points will get me to that next reward tier".
Do they want everyone to subscribe? Sure. Do they expect everyone to subscribe? No, and I think that they realize that the non-subscribers are going to greatly outnumber the subscribers as well as potentially generate more revenue than the subscribers over the long haul. -
Back in the early days, when the game was young and I was on my very first hero, an Ill/Rad controller, I took Superior Invisibility. Back then, Superior Inviz was the best stealth power going. (I think that only stalker stealth beats it today, but I could be out of date.)
I'm an explorer type, so when I figured out that I could stand next to a purple-con boss and /em dance in front of him, I set out exploring all of the higher-level zones just to see what they were like. My character's concept at the time was that he had no super travel powers, so I'd tell people that Sup Inviz was my "travel power". I didn't always get there fast, but I could go places that travel powers couldn't get you to all by themselves.
My explorations eventually took me Peregrine Island - a level 14 or so controller walking around in level 50 land. Sup Inviz had my back, though. As long as I steered clear of Rikti drones and didn't hang out too closely to bosses and such, I was fine. I'd even finally given in and taken hover because I was planning to get teleport. So, I'm put-putting around PI, serene in my "invulnerabilty".
*kzing* *BLAM*
I hit the go to hospital button thinking simultaneously - "What the heck was THAT?" and "How did it see me?"
So, I walk out of the hospital and walk around a little bit wondering what I did wrong when it happened again.
*kzing* *BLAM*
I clicked the hospital button again and went back through my combat log. That was when I learned that no matter how good your stealth is, it doesn't compare to the perception range of a Crey Sniper. Those guys are GOOD! I stopped hanging out in PI after that.
I eventually came up with a theory that Sup Inviz actually has a radius of effect and crey Snipers have a line of sight that puts them outside of it. I suspect now that the truth is simply that the snipers have a perception skill that puts any stealth power to shame. -
Quote:That is not my experience, though I haven't tested it rigorously or recently. When I first made my free-member hero, a fellow player told me that he attempted to drop an enhancement on me and it was rejected. Have you dropped something on a free member (not Premium) and they received it?Originally Posted by Aggelakis
You can't TRADE items, but you can still gift items. Just drop the insp on the freebie and it will show up in their inventory as normal. You just can't do it via the trade window. All accounts, regardless of type, are not restricted from gifts.
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Speaking as someone who has actually played the Freem game I feel qualified to talk about this topic.
The long and short of it is that the game is not really that restrictive; especially if you're a true newbie and you don't know anything about inventions or architects or consignment houses.
The most limiting aspect of the free version of the game is the inability to chat outside of Help and Team/League. The second most limiting thing is that DO/SO drops are very limited. Other than those two items, the free game is really pretty much just City of Heroes pre-Issue 8.
Prior to level 20, there is a shortage of contacts. Post level 20 there are a lot of contacts, as well as tip missions (but no morality missions). At level 25 Ouroboros starts offering missions, and the typical progression continues with the other zones as you'd expect.
Considering what some other games offer as their free experience, it's a pretty good offering, frankly.
Influence (and presumably Infamy) is at a bit of a premium, but tip missions give a pretty sizable reward and the new sewer trial gives some pretty significant inf and enhancement rewards. Basically, a free player should have few problems aside from communicating with other players.
I think the experience compares favorably with, say, being a Bronze member in Everquest 2. It's been a long time since I played LOTRO, but I have a feeling that you'd find that it also compares favorably with the free member version of that game.
I think it makes a lot more sense to do it this way than to take the "unending trial" approach of WAR and WoW, where a player might get those inventions but be limited to max level 20.
Moreover, if Matt's past statement about "any purchase gets you to reward tier 2" holds true then the five dollar cost to become Premium and gain access to chat channels and supergroups is so nominal that I would consider it a no-brainer for anyone who isn't burdened with six kids who all want to play the game.
You don't actually NEED inventions to enjoy the game. You don't actually NEED Architect. You don't NEED the consignment house. You don't NEED incarantes. You don't NEED morality missions. You can play the game just fine without them. They're enhancements to the basic game, but none of them is a defining feature of the game.
Yes chat limitations are a pain in the butt, but again - a $5 purchase of 400 paragon points seems like a small price to pay in order to remove that limitation if it truly is causing you grief.
After living the free member life for a couple of weeks, I feel that it is, in fact, not nearly as onerous as a lot of vets imagine it will be; especially from the standpoint of a newbie who won't know what he's missing, anyway. -
Quote:Hate is just the flip-side of love. They only punish you because they care about you so deeply.Originally Posted by Steelclaw
The alternative being: The devs have finally had enough of me poking fun at them and their game and this is how they're going to punish me directly.
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Honestly, if I want a game with reaction time I'll play a console game or a shooter. I don't look for that in my MMO's with the possible exception of outer space ship-to-ship combat, which pretty intrinsically falls into the "shooter" category anyway.
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Quote:You should search the forums for references to the Iron Eagles. They're a "No-Die" supergroup. I've seen at least one occasional poster on the forums who has a logo for them as his forum avatar. Sounds like a good support group for you and your friends.Originally Posted by Cosmic_Herald
Not to thread jack...
But in the same camp as really bad ideas.
I have convinced a couple of friends to build No-Die characters and level them to 50.
If you die, remake character and start over at level 1
Only veteran power allowed is Flight at level 6 (soon to be 4). -
Considering what they just did to Atlas Park and Galaxy City, I see no justifiable reason why the Security Chief should be exempt from a revamp. It's been a pointless annoyance since the dawn of the game. IMO, it's only reason for existence was to pad out the game content at a time when content was thin and street-sweeping was imagined to be the most important source of XP instead of the least important.
Down with the Security Chief! -
Quote:Umm... Sure, okay.Originally Posted by Irresponsible
Really? Cause it looks to me like it's impossible to tell from that picture just how wide the heel is at the base although the angle suggests it's narrow. It could be wide enough so that it's not a stiletto at all. Besides, what about all the barbarians fighting on frozen tundra? Being able to easily dig a heel into the ice might even be an advantage.
Honestly, I have no investment in arguing about it. The boots don't appeal to me. I'll invest my paragon points elsewhere. Done and done. That's about the total impact on my world and that's pretty much all of the feedback that Paragon Studios really needs to take away from the thread from my posts. heh. Your mileage may vary, as always.
Actually, I'd voice my support for more non-gender-specific gear but the devs have ignored requests along those lines for years so I take it as policy these days that women are sexy and men are buff and that's just that. I'd personally be perfectly satisfied if the upshot of this shoe discussion is that we got a good-looking, semi-authentic primitive skins/leather boot that was available for all three genders (male/female/huge). -
You could say that this time around, Stefan is Sisyphus and Marcus is the stone. heh.
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I am quite attached to Galaxy City but I don't assume that means that any of my characters are so attached. Most of them have a nebulous life outside of whatever their concept happens to be.
Now, I suppose that I could do some kind of RP where I have a hero who is doing his hero thing until the day that Lord Recluse assists Statesman into dropping that building on me, and then decide that "Hey, I've been backing Team Loser!" and make a "new" version who heads to the Isles in disillusionment.
Other than that, I don't really see any of my existing characters being too directly affected by the events in the tutorial. If we could actually take our existing chars into Galaxy City and fight the shivans, it would be different, but we can't do that.
As it stands, Galaxy City isn't nearly as ruined as you might expect if Twinshot's "Destroy the Meteors" mission is any indication. -
Quote:I'm from Seattle. Sandals and socks won't earn you a second glance out here. Especially after the summer (or lack of it) that we've had. Summer this year didn't really even get going until about a week before Pax. Heh.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
They said "style" on the same page as a picture of someone wearing socks with sandals. Ugly sandals too.
We even take pride in it.
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Quote:Mammarial protuberances and derriere respectively. I believe you have a good enough grasp of English to figure out which slang words to substitute for the "T" and the "A".Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
*edit*
I ask this as a foreign speaker of English, but what does "T&A" stand for?
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Quote:While you make a valid point, I also have to point out what I pointed out to RosaQuartz - This isn't some random regional game or comic book convention. It's Pax. It's a fair assumption that they'd be putting their best foot forward, no puns intended.Originally Posted by MTS
What I think is funny is that people are interpreting one out of focus screenshot from a teaser slide show as representing the ENTIRE range of options available for a costume set.
I'd wait for the official preview before spending all my energy writing long rants about it.
If that's what some marketing person considered the best foot, then I'd say they either need to get back to the drawing board (so that said marketing person has better options) or they need to consider someone else for the position (so that the game doesn't look ridiculous).
I'm perfectly content to wait and see if there are more options when the boots hit the market. Given the ala carte nature of the market, I'm also perfectly content to buy just the bits I like and save myself the trouble of spending a couple of quarters on silly boots, if that turns out to really be the one and only version of the boots. I always say to vote with your wallet.
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Quote:I don't think I've ever meant this more sincerely than now, when I say - LMFAO!Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Heh, if you want a fleeting laugh, check out these hiking heels
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As Sam points out, we're really talking stillettos. I hadn't felt it necessary to make the distinction between "high heels" and "stiletto heels" since they mean the same thing to me, even though I know that boots have raised heels as do assorted other sorts of shoes. (And now I know more about the history of shoes than I ever imagined I'd want to know *laugh*)
I jumped back to the first post in the thread just to verify. The "barbarian" in question is definitely wearing stilletto heels, albeit a bit thicker than typical pump heels because she's wearing boots.
They'd be impractical for the reasons that Sam states and they're fashionable today for the reasons I stated earlier. People wearing elevator shoes to avoid getting their togs dirty while sacrificing a bull doesn't really alter that basic fact. heh. I WAS surprised by the magazine article that (tongue-in-cheek) credited stilettos to Da Vinci. The man WAS a genius!
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Quote:I stand corrected. I guess that men everywhere can raise a beer in thanks to the Queen when we watch a high-heel workout tape.Originally Posted by Irresponsible
Also, apparently a woman, Queen Catherine de' Medici of France, seems to have come up with the design of the fashionable version or at least commissioned it.
Whatever the history, I'm going to stand by my stance that your average Hyborian woman would prefer something more practical to fight in. -
Quote:I'm the first to acknowledge my faulty memory but it feels pretty certain. I've seen LadySadako around recently. Maybe she'll see this and chime in.Originally Posted by IanTheM1
I'm fairly certain Sally always worked as she does currently.
BTW - I have no problem with anyone correcting my statements. The whole reason the original thread started was from discussions where five different people had five different versions of some event or had simply never heard of it at all. Getting the right info out there is the whole point. -
Yeah, and it's actually Statesman who drops a building on you, not the shivans.
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Quote:*shrug* If they do, or they are changed to such, I'll try them on for size and possibly reconsider.Originally Posted by RosaQuartz
How do you know that the boot doesn't come in the regular/large/spiked/stilleto/whatever versions that most of the boots come in?
A better question would be, "If they come in those variations then why go to the biggest gaming convention of the year and display the least authentic version of them?"
The only reasonable answer i can infer is that they don't come in those other flavors at the current time. I won't completely discount the possibility that those other varieties exist and the guy who put that presentation together just has a thing for girls in heels. I like to think that the marketing department is a bit more savvy or at least a bit more thorough than that.
The only other answer I can come up with is one that I don't care for - that someone upstream was correct and Paragon Studios is currently suffering from a serious case of group-think.