gameboy1234

Welcome back!

Be sure to check out shiny new Atlas Park, with all new content, new content in Mercy (!), and the new low level (1+) Trial, Death From Below.

I've done both Signature arcs now (red and blue), and I've taken at least one brute through level 20 in Praetoria.

With the signature arcs, I found one person on the global channel to team with, right away. I'm happy to have the company, and first time through I don't mind having someone else to point out any details I might miss.

We did both arcs without problems. The first mish I think I did with a controller (or maybe defender?), while I was on my Fort. Redside I took my Fire/Dark corr, and teamed up with a second Fire/Dark, quite by accident. I'm not sure why you had issues. It wasn't much different than, say, some of the newer level 20-30 content, or tip mishes.

Obviously, a low level blaster will have a tough time with many things, but "bring a friend" is a pretty obvious solution in an MMORPG. Otherwise, it'd just be an RPG. It weirds me out a bit that some folks seem to equate teaming with failure, as if we were supposed to be solo capable for all ATs.

I vote for "confusing." It happens when you join "First available" when you are less than level 50. Since you aren't eligible for most of the trials like BAF and Lambda, it says you're not eligible and puts you in the queue for the one you are eligible -- DFB.

If you specifically join the DFB queue, not the "First available" one, you won't get the message.

What that means as a 50 though is if you join the "First available" you might end up on a DFB. I think some level ranges or filters would help here. Devs are you listening?

The review is up!

There front page is here (my review is currently the second one down.):

http://evilavatar.com

A direct link is here:

http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=153466

Thanks to all who helped!!

You can always test this stuff out on test/beta server if you really need to know.

I'd love to help, but considering that the launcher only launches the game and doesn't have anything to do with the password verification later... I very much doubt it's the issue.

How about viruses and malware? Have you scanned? You might also have to reinstall the game. Are you having issues with other software?

Yet more fixes in, reviewing the last three posts. TY again for taking the time to comment on this.

Ayup. Doh #2. Thanks.

Doh! Thanks for pointing that out.

Hi all,

I plan to release a mini-review of the new Freedom release to one or two game websites that I read.

Would anyone care to check my review for correctness, as well as grammar and spelling? Thanks bunches to anyone who can help!!

Here without further ado:

* * *

City of Heroes Launches Freedom Head Start

City of Heroes kicked off their new hybrid “freemium” payment model this week with a head start for VIPs (monthly subscribers). The new free and premium accounts are not enabled yet; the City of Heroes developers, Paragon Studios, have stated that they want to shake all the bugs out of the launch before opening things up to all new and returning players. While there were a few launch snags, things over all were pretty good and you can expect the servers to be opened up to all comers within a week or two.

Click on the link to read the rest of the review.

So what is the new payment model? It's a little complicated so let me try to boil it down to essentials.

Basically, there's going to be three methods of payment, with a twist.

On the bottom is the Free player. This is your basic non-paying scrub, and the account has some pretty severe restrictions. The most notable restriction prevents Free players from using any chat channel other than local, team (group), and the friends channel. This is a hold-over from the free trials which prevents most real-money scammers from spamming up broadcast (yell), private tells and the in-game email with their unwelcome advertisements.

On the plus side the Free account gets access to all fifty levels of game play, all legacy content, as well as some specially designated new content for newbies (more on this later). Overall this is not a bad deal for paying nothing at all, although the chat restrictions are pretty darn annoying.

The next rung up the ladder is the Premium player. A Premium player is one who has bought anything at all, at any time in their career. This automatically includes all returning players who ever bought any copy of the game at retail or online, or bought even one month's subscription at any time in the past.

What do Premium players get? Well, anything they've purchased. So any costumes, rewards, special items, boosters, etc. They can also use any and all chat channels(*). As long as the account is in good standing (i.e., you didn't get your *** banned), you've got it all. And you can play all fifty levels and all previous legacy content for free.

(*) (The very first Tier of Premium, which can be had for a one time purchase of $5 of anything at all, allows you additionally use /tell (whisper), super group (guild) chat, and the in-game email, among other things. Full access to all chat channels happens at Tier 2, which is a three month subscription or the equivalent purchase in the store. Both of these rewards are retroactive to existing accounts. So returning players will have them automatically if they qualify.)

The third and last method of payment is the VIP member. These are monthly subscribers. They get the most content, including the newish post-level-50 content, called “Incarnate,” which is available exclusively to them. Not all content will be available for free to VIPs, but it seems most content that's sold to Premium players will be available to VIPs at no extra cost. For example, the new signature stories as well as the new zone, First Ward, is available to VIPs at no extra cost.

Well, OK, that seems pretty standard so far. What's the twist?

There are two.

First, Paragon Rewards are a special reward mechanism for both Premium and VIP players. Paragon Rewards are awarded for store purchases or monthly (VIP) subscriptions. You get one reward per month of subscription, or the equivalent purchase ($15) in the store.

These Paragon rewards allow you to receive not only in game items like powers boosters and teleport powers, but also permanent rewards on your account that allow you to play without having to pay for à la carte content. For example, Premium players normally will have to pay a monthly fee of $2 to use the auction house, or a $2 fee to use the Invention (crafting) system, or $4 for both. Basically, that's selling the monthly subscription in small pieces.

However, at Tier 4 Rewards for the Auction House, and Tier 7 for the Invention system, these systems become permanent on the account. Thus, Premium players wouldn't have to pay any more for them, and VIP players could cancel their subscription and drop back to Premium, and not have to pay either. Essentially this is a lifetime subscription that accrues to all players who buy things from the store or who have a monthly subscription.

How do I feel about this? It's great for players. Many current subscribers have talked about dropping back down to premium and playing for free. That last part might be a bit of a worry for Paragon Studios. The rewards seem almost too good and I wonder if Paragon Studios has given away too much here.

There are some exceptions to the Paragon Rewards however. For example, as mentioned, there's the Incarnate post-50 content which is only available to subscribers. And new content will continue to be released, and available to buy for those who do cancel their subscriptions to go Premium. So Paragon Studios hasn't given away everything. Perhaps it will be enough to keep the game and Paragon Studios going.

There is also another reward mechanism elusively for VIP players. It's kind of a rip-off to take a monthly subscription and yet still charge for stuff in the store, dontcha think? Well, VIP subscribers get 400 Paragon Points each month to spend. (400 Paragon Points is $5). And the Paragon Points are permanent, so you can let them accrue and save up to buy more expensive items.

So while Premium seems a very good deal, VIPs will be able to purchase anything that is a store exclusive without having to spend additional money. As part of the head start launch, Paragon Studios back dated this reward for all active accounts through July of 2011, so all of us had 1600 points to spend when we logged in. I personally bought the new Beam Weapon power set (a futuristic laser rifle) and a rocket board, which let's me fly starting at level 2. I still have 360 points which I'm saving for later.

Add the Paragon Points to the Reward Points the VIPs get automatically, and the effective monthly discount for buying 3, 6 or 12 months in advance, and the VIP option becomes very very attractive for the serious player.

In summary, I'm not an expert on freemium MMORPGs and their payment models, but this seems like a unique and worthwhile hybrid. I'm not aware of anyone doing anything like the Reward Points, which can effectively give you pay-for content for no charge after enough purchases. I think time will tell whether these options are valued by players and remunerative for Paragon Studios. At least Paragon Studios didn't just copy their competition, or simply divide the game into free and pay-for halves. They're thinking, and trying to provide value to players and differentiate themselves from the other guys.

Besides the new payment models, there's all new content for all players including Free for levels 1-15, and a brand new shiny starting zone (also for all players). I'll review those later once I've had time to see how the new content flows into the old, and once I've had time to take some decent screen shots.

Keep an eye on City of Heroes. They seem to have the ability to reinvent themselves, and for a seven and a half year old game, things are looking pretty good.

Help channel works too.

I appreciate the thought, but have to disagree. There are many areas of mathematics when an "average" is not a good value to use as representative of a sample. Just because it took 10 minutes on average during peak play time to find a trial doesn't do anything for a person playing well after peak play time.

Wait times in the queue are highly variable and dependent on lots of factors, none of which an average expresses very well. I can't think of a single number value that does. Some kind of Poisson distribution might, but that's not very intuitive. I just think showing exactly how many folks are waiting is a better and more accurate indication of your chances of getting a trial soon.