TrueGentleman

Although the piece isn't quite as positive as the initial reception of CoH Freedom, it nonetheless comes down in favor for the final "Free or Flee" summary.

The dude in question - the screenwriter of the superhero movie Chronicle and son of director John Landis - was playing the role of the hyperbollically ranting comics fan. Didn't the bottle of alcohol at his side tip you off that it's not meant entierly seriously? ("The Death of Superman didn't kill Superman - it killed death!")

Parodic though the short film is, he does make some good points in a very broad fashion. Stick around for Simon Pegg as John Landis toward the end.

As the mechanics of those systems are entirely different from the Super Packs, the term "exploitation" can be employed only as loosely as some are arguing about "addiction" or "gambling".

Extending that reductive logic, virtually every activity that stimulates our brains' reward center is "addictive".

There's a spectrum of addictive risk that must take into account both the individual's propensities and the system's enticements (the reward is surprisingly less relevant just as long as there's that dopamine rush). While Paragon Studios doesn't really have any control over the latter besides banning players who have fallen into a full-blown addiction spiral like something out of Dostoyevsky, they certainly make the final decision over how their game is marketed and sold. In this case, they've added a game of chance on top of the MMO, which they're marketing as something fun to play in itself, complete with virtual "cards" in shiny, bright colors.

Some people enjoy taking risks, and some people enjoy paying extra for rarities. The Super Pack zeroes in on the overlap of those two groups and monetizes the hell out of their predilections. Paragon Studios has tweaked the odds and results so that it's less exploitative than those in some game studios. Nevertheless, it's on their end of the spectrum in the broad perspective, something the old CoH never was.

Heaven forefend that some posters can't get the last word in a thread.

Saints preserve us from those unable to recognize rhetorical questions.

If nothing else, the Super Packs are presenting an opportunity for presumably well-meant advice about how everyone should now be playing City of Heroes.

They're already having that discussion for the cameras, from the TV crew to AMC's sizable post-Walking Dead audience. That's a lot of total strangers who are listening to their fantasies about Power Girl, et al. How would having a female cast member put them in any less comfortable a position?

So comfortable that three minutes into the show we're presented with their discussion about which superheroine they'd like to have sex with. Yes, having a woman in that conversation might make them feel less comfortable.

There's no question that this show is set up on so many levels that the audience is supposed to be laughing at these guys under the pretense of laughing with them.

Argued from what position? I haven't patronized a comic book store in decades that didn't have female employees - including, yes, cute ones. A shop that hired only males would have, well, issues in more than one sense.

Smith seems to be deliberately setting up a retrograde image with his "reality" TV show for mainstream consumption. (And Durakken, if he was misquoted, then he's probably already begun an epic Twitter campaign against the Observer.)

What the hell? Paragon has access to _server logs_, and they want GMs to cross-examine players who are trying to be helpful by filing petitions?

In another MMO I've been playing much more regularity because of all the problems with CoH Freedom, when I've filed petitions, I've received polite and professional acknowledgements from GMs, not the Spammish Inquisition.

It's hardly active deception, but letting Paragon Studios off the hook with "let the buyer beware" is just handwaving.

If the Super Packs are going to be discussed properly, then it will be necessary to introduce such fascinating topics as risk-reward ratios in probability distribution, The Coupon Collector's Problem, The Gambler's Fallacy, The Sunk Cost Fallacy, etc., etc. (to say nothing of the psychological roots of compulsive attraction in games of chance). There's a reason the Lotto is sometimes called "the tax on the innumerate".

Since I don't have either the mathematical background or the hard data to analyze the Super Packs in their current form, there's no way I'm going to spend money on playing the odds on top of spending money to play City of Heroes.

The important thing is that Harris states unambiguously: "Its creator owned, so the Artist will OWN 50 % of the property." (Just because a title is "creator owned" doesn't eliminate copyright issues.)

And given Harris's superb work on Starman and Ex Machina, I'm intrigued by this project.

The Mann Supply Co. Crate "mystery box" system is one of the most grossly exploitative MTX options in mainstream gaming. It makes this gag ring look innocent.

At least some player are having (expensive) fun with it:

Valve seems to be treating this as a gag, but a hundred bucks is still pretty expensive for a stunt. Gave Newell must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Interesting.

Since you raise that question, how did they imply that?

Not really. The only ambiguity was whether or not they mentioned that to the NDA-bound focus group, since you brought it up.

At what point did the devs reveal that CoH Freedom would have exclusive but randomly awarded items for sale on the Paragon Market?

Precisely, and that's why instead I bought the Gunslinger Pack for its upcoming redesigns* (thanks, Dink!) along with a medium-sized batch of points, that is, the equivalent of a 24-pack of Super Pack cards. That's not much compared to the number that some players have to invest in order to get the items they want, but then again, that's why such are so very popular with F2P gaming studios. (There's no use in further objecting to the introducing a random-drawing transaction model into CoH Freedom's MTX-subscription hybrid system - that ship has sailed, and I'm not swimming after it.) The best we can do after voting with our wallets is offer the devs positive feedback for the things they do well.

* If the Marketing Department is on the ball, they'll promote the redesigns here in News, Events & Announcements and on the CoH game launcher when they go live.

Or Paragon Studios could simply offer vanity pets along the lines of the Black Wolf at reasonable prices in the market (who knows what they'd then have to include as rare prizes in the Super Packs, though?).

Bra...vo.

For the sake of comparison, may I draw your attention to a thread on the same topic from a less happy and less lucky customer? (That one was locked, no doubt because it overlapped somehow with this one.)