Winterminal

I have to agree with that second part. The sooner I create a bio for a character, the more likely it is that they will remain in existence. Giving them a bio gives me a story to follow, and usually, an eventual goal in terms of abilities. And I've deleted a number of characters simply because I had gotten them to the late teens or early twenties, put them on hiatus, then forgotten why I had created them in the first place.

Seconded.

Most of my characters either started with a background story or concept that I wanted to come to life, or as a power set combination that I wanted to try. One or two started with a cool costume idea and were built from there.

I will say this: I have never started the character creation process with an idea for a name. In fact, the name is usually the last thing on which I decide (and ironically, usually takes the longest to find).

You're right, I had forgotten that we get it in Soul Mastery (guess that's a testament to how much I play on red side ).

To be fair, we are getting a "new" power with the set (Umbral Torrent), but that's just me picking apart semantics, since I doubt there will be a new animation for the power, but rather just different effects. I'm banking on Torrent's animation since, as you said, we already get Night Fall in Soul Mastery, and it would be fairly strange to include 2 powers with the same animation but different effects on the same character.

*sigh* I'll say it again: this topic is NOT a complaint about the fact that, come launch day, if I let my subscription lapse, I won't be able to play everything that I had while subscribed. Hell, I agree with ShadowNate on that particular issue.

The topic I am attempting to discuss is: What should or should not be offered to Free and Premium players in order to positively encourage the most upgrades to subscriptions?

The undeniable fact is that the F2P players will be second-class citizens simply because there will be certain things that they are not allowed to have. But there is still time to ensure that those things which they cannot access will inspire a positive, ambitious reaction (hopefully leading to payment) rather than a negative reaction leading to them leaving the game.

I think back to the days of level restrictions on hazard zones and the old version of side-kicking. In those days, if I had my lighly DO'd level 28 blaster side-kicked with a level 50 IO'd Controller, you better believe I felt weak. But the important thing was that I knew that I could be that powerful eventually (i.e. level 50 with stronger enhancements). However, when that team suddenly had a mission in a zone with a level restriction higher than my level, I could not go with them to the next mission and had to leave the team, which made me feel far worse than being weaker than my teammates.

A similar situation could easily arise when Freedom launches, because while F2P players will have access to a ton of content (just like my old lower-level character in the aforementioned example), there will be situations where they will be excluded from participating in something. Perhaps it is just my view point, but it seems to me that it would be a hell of a lot easier to explain to a Free player that they cannot be as strong as a paying player, rather than trying to explain that they cannot team up with a paying player because they don't (or haven't) paid.

Again, one of my favorite quotes from that video is: "Your players are the content." We already have the VIP server as "the special place where only VIPs can go." And as far as I'm concerned, the Incarnate trials can stay VIP exclusive (both participation and rewards). We should not be excluding any Free/Premium players from interacting nor teaming with VIP characters in any place from level 1-50.

The things that should be unobtainable by Free/Premium players are the higher power rewards: things like IOs and/or IO sets and, as I said before, Incarnate abilities. The reason is two-fold. First, you provide good incentive for your paying customers to remain VIPs. After all, someone who spent a lot of time and inf getting, crafting, and slotting IO sets certainly wouldn't want to lose access to them. Second, you provide a higher tier of power for VIP players that Free players will see in action when teamed, and hopefully want to obtain (by becoming subscribers).

Now, I promised I would keep this diplomatic, and coming at it from the other side, the argument could be made that we would be selling power at that point (a condemnable offense). However, IOs, IO sets, and Incarnate abilities would not be purchasable through the Paragon Market (if such a system that I suggested were to be implemented). Therefore, the "haves vs. have nots" scenario would be avoided when comparing one Free player to another.

When everything is said and done, this is an RPG, and RPGs are based around motivating players to advance their characters in power. Why not embrace that format and organize the stuff available to Free players with that in mind?

It's hard to judge. I am betting Abyssal Gaze's damage will be on par with Freeze Ray (very minor) and then Life Drain's damage will be "Moderate." Personally, I would have preferred they kept Night Fall, got rid of Torrent, and added a third ST target blast instead. But alas...

Probably

It is the biggest flaw with the Incarnate system in my opinion, because the fact is, as you say, there will be people with large stockpiles, and the easiest way to keep those people from getting T4s as soon as they unlock the newest slots (without causing a whole lot of rage) will be to introduce another new form of currency.

I agree with that. In fact, it is downright justified. My one concern was that eventually the amount of Incarnate content would be so great that players would spend most of their time post-50 as opposed to on alts (like a certain other game out there). Granted, that's "eventually," and I am sure that it will get to a point where people will have to start choosing which powers they would like to focus on, simply because of the amount of work/time it will take a character to get a rare/very rare power in each and every slot. I merely wanted to point out a potential problem before it actually became an issue, a preemptive strike if you will. Of course, that may just be my cautious nature.

You may have mis-read. I understand, and am indeed behind, the philosophy of "Before, if you lapsed, you got nothing, and something is better than nothing." In fact, it does not split any of the currently paying customers, and if some of the current subscriber base decides to go Premium in a few months, odds are they know what they will be missing and are okay with that. The split to which I was referring was the ability of a VIP character to make a level 1 Praetorian, while a Free player (or a Premium player who never purchased Going Rogue) has no opportunity to team up with that Praetorian character as long as they are in Praetoria. That scenario can create a sense of resentment which may be counter-productive to our goal of gaining more VIP players.

Admittedly, I was not around when that happened, (I did not start playing until about a month after Issue 9 went live, and the two games had been conjoined). But you raise a very good point, one that may debunk my argument already (Oh no! haha). I imagine it would have been a similar situation, leaving a lot of players feeling that they were missing out on opportunities by not having purchased CoV which, in turn, compels them to buy CoV. That is, after all, the end goal of this new business model: to leave players wanting all the stuff, compelling them to fork over the dough.

Yeah...wow, I honestly don't think I have a worthwhile rebuttal for that. While I still wish it were different and Free players had a chance to visit Praetoria, I suppose I would have felt the same back when CoV was originally released.

/thread? It may just be that I've had a long day, but that point of view hadn't occurred to me!

That is straight from the video, and unfortunately seems to be exactly what is going to happen with access to Going Rogue, which includes access to all of Praetoria, the entire Incarnate system, and all of the missions in First Ward.

Now, arguably, Praetoria will have been around for over a year by the time CoHF is released, so it may not split the community that much in terms of "players in Praetoria vs. players in Paragon City / the Rogue Isles." Most VIP players have experienced Praetoria, and most if not all of its arcs, already, so there will not necessarily be a surplus of new toons starting in Praetoria rather than "red" or "blue" side (particularly since we will have a new red/blue side tutorial). However, the Incarnate system certainly will split people up. Already there has been an increase in the ratio of players playing 50s as opposed to players playing lower level alts. It is absolutely not exclusive, and there are plenty of lower-level teams running around, so I am not crying doom saying that there are no pre-level-50 teams. The simple fact is that a search in the team finder will currently yield a higher number of level 50 characters online than if you had run that same search prior to Issues 19 and 20.

Freedom launches with i21, which brings the new Underground Incarnate Trial. Within 6 months of the launch, there is a good chance that the VIP players will receive further incentive for continued play of the Trials, such as further rewards from Astral Christy and Empyrean Michael, and/or expansion of our existing Incarnate powers like how Lore was expanded with Issue 20.5. Then of course, the next 5 Incarnate powers have to be released some time. The Incarnate content is going to keep coming, even if it is in lighter installments (i.e. i21's Incarnate content load vs. i20's). As long as it keeps coming, we will have a player base playing (very repeatedly, in some cases) an amount of content to which Free/Premium players have zero access. That effectively splits the community. While it is the end-game, and therefore only a fraction of the available content, it is an undeniable scenario where a VIP player will not be able to team up with Free/Premium friends because said player wants to focus his attention on advancing his level 50 characters.

Having said that, the Devs are being smart with their release of Issue 21/Freedom. They are launching a new mid-level range zone with a bunch of new stories, proliferating a lot of new power sets, and introducing a brand new way to start a character (which includes side-switching from level 1), all of which provide good incentive for playing lower level characters. Indeed, I expect to see a large amount of our long-withstanding VIP players rolling new alts, not only because they want to experience the proliferated (or in the case of Time Manipulation, new) power sets, but also because they wish to team up with and help the influx of new Free players and returning Premium players. That kind of initiative has earned CoH a great reputation over the years, and new players will hopefully form friendships with veteran players who will make them feel welcome. Introducing a bunch of reasons to get VIP players rolling new characters alongside the Free players' new characters is a valiant effort to integrate the "player tiers" immediately. That said, the gap still exists.

In summary...

Free/Premium players have to purchase access to Going Rogue, which means they have to pay to play with any VIP players who decide to create new characters in Praetoria. Free/Premium players also have absolutely no opportunity to team up for Incarnate content, the amount of which will only increase. True enough, there should be some incentive for Free/Premium players to become VIP players, and limiting access to archetypes is a perfect example. However, creating any situation where one player cannot play with another player is bad for the community. That problem was a big factor in the decision to remove level-restricted access to hazard zones and the implementation of super-sidekicking, and once those two things were done, players were overjoyed that they could now team with any friend or fellow SG member anywhere in the game. If the Free/Premium players are expected to stick around, maybe even end up as VIP players, they need at least a taste of what they are missing by not paying. It is very easy to team up with your Mastermind and show Free players all the cool things they can do, or demonstrate the awesome spawn-wiping power of Judgment, and have that be the subliminal "advertising plug" to become a VIP. However, there is no way to effectively share the experience of Praetoria's main city nor the Incarnate trials.

I am not crying doom, and I'll repeat myself saying that there needs to be incentive for Free players to become VIPs, but limiting access to certain parts of the game is not the way.

In this particular case, I actually want to be proven wrong, and I welcome any responses that attempt to do so. I only ask (for whatever that is worth) that you approach it objectively and avoid outlier examples and/or what-if situations. As this is is a massive multiplayer online community, I am referring to the general majority of the player base.

That's just a list, there is no published order yet. Based on most of the other blaster primaries, it will probably look something like this:
-Dark Blast
-Gloom
-Tenebrous Tentacles
-Aim
-Moonbeam
-Abyssal Gaze
-Umbral Torrent
-Life Drain
-Blackstar

It should be noted that Hover has no drift to it, only Fly drifts.

To Airhammer: you can use it, but like many have said, I don't know why you would, unless you intend to keep Combat Jumping on all the time, and use it in conjunction with Fly. Though, even then, Fly does not usually need a Stealth component.

I assume the above order is not correct, and that Umbral Torrent will be in the T7 spot, leaving Blackstar at T9?

As for Dark Manipulation... first off, I bet that they won't get rid of Dark Pit. Assuming that Penumbral Grasp is the stereotypical ranged ST immobilization found in most Blaster secondaries, every other power is close range except for Dark Pit. Seven close range powers is the largest number of close range powers in any other Blaster secondary (counting Location PBAoEs like Ice Patch and Burn). On an archetype with a ranged primary, I cannot see them conceivably exceeding that number.

I am not too pleased with that list. I prefer to keep my blasters at actual range, as opposed to "blapping," so seeing a bunch of close range powers is annoying. Admittedly, I was hoping for more stuff from Dark Miasma (like Fearsome Stare or Petrifying Gaze). I am especially disappointed to see Soul Drain as opposed to typical Build Up. I get that it already exists and is a cool "dark" variation of the stereotype, but I always enjoyed the fact that I could activate Build Up whenever I wanted, i.e. that I didn't need enemies around me to do it.

Like-themed sets do not necessarily have a history of having synergy. After all, Fire Blast is completely ranged while Fire Manipulation is mostly close-range powers (7/9, including Burn). The difference is, though, that I can make a completely ranged Fire/Fire blaster and still utilize Build Up. A completely ranged Dark/Dark blaster would not have the same advantage. If the set is to remain close-range centric, that is fine since many of the powers will be quite useful, but I think the "build up" power should be usable independently of enemies.

Great link Samuel_Tow. There were actually a number of things in that video that I had not thought of but, upon hearing them explained, are BIG pitfalls. Worst yet, I see some of them as prospective features in CoH Freedom, namely the "giving paying players access to areas/content that free players do not get to access." I certainly hope the Devs see that video, maybe already have, and that they make adjustments accordingly.

As per Zwillinger in this thread.
If you start your yearly subscription on (say for example) July 26th, then you get 400 points on the 26th of every subsequent month.

As for Titan Weapons, we have indeed been told that it will come after Issue 21 goes live. What we have to hope is that it comes as a free update and not (as some, including myself, are fearing) as a purchasable power set that everyone must pay for.

This is because the electricity aura, like most of the other path auras, seems to be anchored a the bottom of your character's render box (or whatever the technical word is for the digital space in which your character exists), not your character's feet. So when you are in flight, while your character is creating an emote, your character's "render box" stays put, as opposed to rotating with your character's direction. In other words, even if you are inverted and flying straight toward the ground, the bottom of the render box will remain the bottom regardless.

My totally uneducated guess would be that the Rainbow path aura is anchored somewhere else, somewhere similar to where the Vaporous aura is anchored. When running, both auras leave a trail equal in height to the height to of the character, but when flying and performing a fly pose, they condense into a single stream. This could also explain why, in the character creation screen, the Rainbow path aura is really the only that is hardly visible until you actually exit the screen and move around.