TonyV

*epic eyeroll...

Man, talk about complainers.

Look, it's really simple. When you sign up for the game, you have to understand that there will be times during which they do regular maintenance and you won't be able to play. There will be times during which they do extended maintenance for special purposes and you won't be able to play.

You most certainly do not pay for "30 days of service" (in a 30-day month). You pay for 30 days, minus scheduled and unscheduled downtime. If you honestly thought that your 15 bucks entitled you to a full 30 days of service without any sort of downtime whatsoever, or even that it entitled you to 30 days of service with a guarantee of just one or two hours a week, you were wrong, not NCsoft or Paragon Studios. They never promised you anything else, it's not bad customer service as it's standard industry practice, and you're going to have to just suck it up and get over it.

Hopefully, confronted with this new* truth, you'll get on with your life and continue having fun in the game like every other normal person would. If you find it simply intolerable, then cancel your subscription. Personally, I think it's kind of dumb to do so, but it's certainly your prerogative.

*I don't buy for a second that you honestly expected the game not to have downtime, even extended downtime around issue releases. That's just dumb. It sounds to me like you're just trying to get something (Paragon Points, credited time, whatever) for nothing, while deliberately neglecting all of the something we have gotten for nothing specifically because of the downtime associated with the issue release. Nice try, it didn't hurt to ask, but it didn't work. Give it up already, because this thread had degenerated from, "Hey, that would be nice..." to people coming across as petulant whiners.

In Gone with the Wind, there is a male character named Ashley played by a male actor named Leslie.

I'm not going to say that you're spending too much, because I want to encourage people to send money to Paragon Studios. Also, a few hundred bucks is beans to drop on a hobby when I compare it to what some of my friends spend on, for example, golf or woodworking.

Still, I just have to say... Wow. Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't include a "shocked" smilie.



Now, that having been said, thanks for your investment in the game. Now I don't feel so weird for paying a lot of money for our Titan Network/Paragon Wiki web server.

My end game content was creating a wiki site and, eventually, joining the Titan Network. I'm still not finished.

Am I the only person looking at this thread and thinking that Exalted is pretty much going to be a cesspool?

Weirdly enough, I was able to get both TonyV and Tony V locked. Not that I think it's such a nifty keen name, it's actually one that I honestly think is generic enough that it shouldn't be "reservable." But since I'm an administrator of several popular CoH-related web sites, I don't want people impersonating me. If some other TonyV is running around out there doing missions and whatever, more power to them. If they're trying to get users' information on the Titan Network, that's a problem, and I'll pull out whatever stops I can to get them smacked down.

Name-squatting non-generic names is griefing, plain and simple. I certainly hope that the moderation department come down hard and fast on people taking names of well-known people. And yes, it most certainly is possible to draw that line, they do it all the time for infringing names or costumes.

Until/unless they do, not to put too fine a point on it, I'll be avoiding Exalted. For all the talk how awesome the CoH user base is, these types of incidents remind us how scummy some among our ranks are, not a good sign as CoH:Freedom is launching. I think it's altogether telling that as people have been wary about the potential negative impact that "freepers" will have on the game, this is going on on the so-called "VIP" server during the head start, when there aren't even any "freeper" accounts on yet.

So although I hope that the GMs will come down hard on this practice, I think it's really pathetic that it's even an issue.

<QR>

'sokay. We're cool.

So I guess that marketing and the community reps are probably jumping with glee right now. Looking over this thread, it sounds like the whole "Freedom" concept is nailed down really well.

- Some people are dropping a wad of cash to get just about everything.
- Some people are spending some money to get the things they really want now, with the intention of using the points they'll accrue later to buy new stuff as it's released.
- Some people are using the points they've accrued but otherwise holding tightly onto their wallets, maybe in case a have-to-have hits later. At some point in the future, once they've accrued a few more points, maybe they'll get some of the nice-to-haves.
- Some people are willing to drop points on some stuff they want, but it's too expensive right now. That's okay; eventually the price will come down or it will go on sale, and they'll snag it then.

So everyone is getting stuff that is within their means and willingness to do so. And people are getting what they want--some people are getting lots of extra costume slots; some people are getting extra inventory; some people are picking up odds and ends that have, until now, only been available in bundled "packs;" some people are picking up convenient doo-dads like unslotters and such. In spite of a few glitches here and there, it sounds like a really successful launch of a new era in City of Heroes!

Guys, DON'T PANIC.

They know what people are and aren't buying. If the price is too high, they'll lower it.

You have to understand, it's MUCH easier to start out a little high and lower prices or have sales than it is to start out too low and convince your players that you need to raise prices--especially so since there are no production costs for the products you're selling!

Also, you have to consider that they're going to be giving away the financial equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of Paragon Points each month to the VIP subscribers. Yes, they could lower the prices of everything to one or two hundred Paragon Points, but then where is the incentive for you to spend any money at all if you can just wait three or four months and have everything in the store for free?

The idea isn't for you to drop hundreds of dollars on the store today. (Though if you want to, I'm almost certain they won't object!) The idea is that each month, you'll drop a few bucks here and there that, added with the allotment you get with your VIP subscription, will allow you to slowly build up your inventory of acquired stuff.

It's interesting to see human psychology at work like it is in these types of situations. The same thing happened when the Incarnate account unlockables were pushed out. People took a look at the list, did some mental calculations, and freaked out because ZOMG it will take me forever to earn all this stuff! Now, it's several months later, most people have unlocked almost all of the unlockables, and you just don't see that much complaining any more because it doesn't seem so bad when you realize that pretty soon, you'll have everything and don't have to worry about it any more.

Similarly, people see a store chock full of some stuff they don't have and think ZOMG I'll have to spend hundreds of dollars to get all of this stuff! Well, 1) you don't have to buy all of this stuff, 2) you get a lot of it for free in time, 3) you'll have plenty of opportunity over time to get the stuff on the cheap with sales, 4) prices of a lot of this stuff will inevitably come down over the course of time as new shinies come on the market that they want to sell as premium products, 5) over the course of a year (which is a scary short amount of time once you suddenly realized it's passed), you get between 4,800 and 6,600 points for doing friggin' nothing except keeping your subscription active, and 6) once you buy something like inventory additions, it's yours forever, across your entire account, never to have to be purchased again!

More DOOOOM!-crying happens in this place because people totally blow off the concept of earning stuff over time and only think in terms of having it all right this second. So don't worry. Be happy. Give it a little time.

Edit: F-pazzin'! (Or, if you prefer, FPAZN.)

Oh, wow. I haven't spent anything yet. I will, but probably not on that order of magnitude. I won't lie, I want everything right this second. But like the Incarnate rewards, I'm perfectly content with building it all up over time.

I get the vibe that they plan on offering this functionality Soon™. Of course, that's speculation, so take it worth a grain of sand. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if in the not-too-distant future we see it happen.

I'm amused that people attribute something they don't like to one person.

Last I checked, they had these things called "meetings," where a bunch of developers--including Matt Miller and Melissa Bianco--get together, toss around ideas, hone them into implementable solutions, and drive them to be rolled out. It's not like Matt Miller comes in to work and tells all the other devs, "I'm Positron, dammit, this is the way it will be done. Make it so!"

I will say that he probably champions certain ideas that he personally likes, but it will probably be nigh impossible to tell which ideas those were. As I recall, the Mission Architect wasn't his baby, it was someone else's, so trying to lay any perceived woes with it at his doorstep is kind of silly.

I've never had any particular axes to grind with any member of the development team, even when things were run by Jack Emmert. I think it's kind of sad, though, how some people feel the incessant need to go blaming people for some 3% of the game they don't like and completely ignoring the 97% that is <bleep!>ing awesome.

In the Ustream this morning, they said it would launch when it launches. Basically, they want to make sure everything is running smoothly in the head start and iron out any nasty hiccups, then they'll unleash it upon the unsuspecting population.

"...so I was at the party when Dave says, 'Hey Mike, did you get the package that your sister sent?' I told him that I did, but when I opened it, she had forgotten to put the—"

BAM! YOU'RE A HERO NOW! GO SAVE PEOPLE!

At least, that's how I like to imagine it will take place.