New efforts!

[UruzSix]

I didn't mean gated behind a paywall. I meant how you had to do certain trials to progress certain incarnate tiers.

Honestly, the free to play model of CoH Freedom is probably too generous for a fresh relaunch of the game.

Freedom launched at a time when everyone was still experimenting with F2P and not really knowing what worked. Sadly, I don't think a lot of what went into Freedom did, though I suspect a lot of that was because of the limitations of the engine. Inability to earn Paragon Points in game, Paragon Packs having to be bought instead of random drops that need unlock keys, locking Incarnate Content behind a subscription instead of, say, a one-time Paragon Point purchase for each issue, going F2P instead of B2P... I'm not sure if all that could've saved CoH, but it might've done a better job of improving the income statement.

[MaxEternal]

Freedom launched at a time when everyone was still experimenting with F2P and not really knowing what worked. Sadly, I don't think a lot of what went into Freedom did, though I suspect a lot of that was because of the limitations of the engine. Inability to earn Paragon Points in game, Paragon Packs having to be bought instead of random drops that need unlock keys, locking Incarnate Content behind a subscription instead of, say, a one-time Paragon Point purchase for each issue, going F2P instead of B2P... I'm not sure if all that could've saved CoH, but it might've done a better job of improving the income statement.

Anytime I get a lockbox for a drop I come one step closer to the quit button.  For CO, that time came real fast.

I hope no successor of coh have these in game.

[BadWolf]

I enjoy the Big Bang theory also known in the bible as in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth.

The reality is no one can even postulate the triggering event that would cause a huge amount of matter to suddenly be flung into an ever expanding nearly infinite space. When you read the bible (not a christian here but I still study it) you see this:

The Creation of Light
Genesis 1

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

If you wanted to explain the start of the universe in a short manner - this is about as good an attempt as you could make. God could be replaced by the source of creation - for something caused the event, hence was the source.

The thing is, though, that a scientific explanation is testable. That is to say, the Big Bang theory is a set of postulates--if the universe formed like this, then we should see that, that and that happening--which you can then test by looking for that, that and that to see if it's happening. If it's not, then the Big Bang theory needs to be revised to account for those events, or replaced altogether with a new set of postulates that better fits the observed evidence. Those postulates are then tested again to see if they accurately predict new observations.

Whereas the Book of Genesis is a testament of faith. It is not tested by facts, nor is it revised to account for new developments. It's a statement of belief, a story that speaks to our hearts and not one that attempts to account for specific physical phenomena. I don't want to speak to what anyone "should" believe, but simply because the Big Bang sounds a lot like the description in Genesis doesn't mean the two should be conflated.

[JanessaVR]

Freedom launched at a time when everyone was still experimenting with F2P and not really knowing what worked. Sadly, I don't think a lot of what went into Freedom did, though I suspect a lot of that was because of the limitations of the engine. Inability to earn Paragon Points in game, Paragon Packs having to be bought instead of random drops that need unlock keys, locking Incarnate Content behind a subscription instead of, say, a one-time Paragon Point purchase for each issue, going F2P instead of B2P... I'm not sure if all that could've saved CoH, but it might've done a better job of improving the income statement.

If anything, as I understand it, income was way up for CoH since Freedom launched.  I personally thought they were mostly doing it right.  And if you have a cash shop, you need some form of in-game currency that translates to real world dollars - Paragon Points was it.  We already had other in-game currencies in the form of INF, Reward Merits, Astral Merits and Empyrean Merits that could be earned just by playing; there needed to be one that was pegged to real cash.

[Arcana]

I enjoy the Big Bang theory also known in the bible as in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth.

The reality is no one can even postulate the triggering event that would cause a huge amount of matter to suddenly be flung into an ever expanding nearly infinite space. When you read the bible (not a christian here but I still study it) you see this:

The Creation of Light
Genesis 1

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

If you wanted to explain the start of the universe in a short manner - this is about as good an attempt as you could make. God could be replaced by the source of creation - for something caused the event, hence was the source.

If you're sufficiently vague, you can make anything sound like anything.  Maybe the Fourth day was about God trying to tell ancient people about the instant of photon decoupling where hydrogen atoms deionized and generated the cosmic microwave background radiation, and they better get cracking on making radio telescopes to detect it.  Or maybe since most creation stories start with nothing and then have something and the universe currently has something and we speculate it originally started from nothing most creation stories will sound at least something like our current understanding.  Because its going to be hard to explain why God said he created the Earth before the rest of the universe and yet still tried to drop cosmology hints.

Incidentally if it turns out that the universe has a closed geometry, the story of Genesis will diverge from modern cosmology in at least one respect: there was no beginning for God to have created anything.  Some creation stories sound closer to that than biblical Genesis does, for example some versions of Buddhism.  And if you believe in vacuum genesis (the theory of quantum fluctuations creating an inflating space) then the Hindu creation story starts not with light, but with a sound.  You could say that the notion of the universe beginning with a sound that filled all of space sounds a lot like quantum inflaton theory, or even string theories of cosmological creation.

[Arcana]

Freedom launched at a time when everyone was still experimenting with F2P and not really knowing what worked. Sadly, I don't think a lot of what went into Freedom did, though I suspect a lot of that was because of the limitations of the engine. Inability to earn Paragon Points in game, Paragon Packs having to be bought instead of random drops that need unlock keys, locking Incarnate Content behind a subscription instead of, say, a one-time Paragon Point purchase for each issue, going F2P instead of B2P... I'm not sure if all that could've saved CoH, but it might've done a better job of improving the income statement.

There were a lot of issues with Freedom, but if you ask me I think the most critical one was that someone insisted on outsourcing the Freedom store to a seriously incompetent developer that specialized in "monetization" but apparently not in writing software.  What they sold and what it cost and where you got this point or that point could all be addressed in time.  But the fact that the store was horrible broken and lacked even trivial integration with the rest of the game meant it would likely be a clumsy appendage to the game for an indefinite period of time.  And that was going to hamper the devs ability to make the Freedom store as much a part of the game as, say, the invention system markets.

I really genuinely believe, and would stake my professional reputation on the assertion that I could have done better with a bunch of PHP scripts and a weekend to assemble them, and I'm not even particularly great at it.  Whatever Paragon paid for that mess, it was too much. 

If I could go back in time and fix it, I probably would have told the devs to just sub Codewalker to write it.  Not only would we have had a much better store, when we weren't buying things from it we could just hit CONTROL-U and it would take all the stuff we bought and make an optimal build for us and save it to Mids format.

[Aggelakis]

If I could go back in time and fix it, I probably would have told the devs to just sub Codewalker to write it.  Not only would we have had a much better store, when we weren't buying things from it we could just hit CONTROL-U and it would take all the stuff we bought and make an optimal build for us and save it to Mids format.

...I'll be in my bunk.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.cheese-magnet.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F07%2Ffirefly-war-stories-jayne-kaylee-ill-be-in-my-bunk.jpg

[Baja]

One thing I still haven't understood about Freedom, why is it that even though I paid a sub fee I did not have access to all of the power sets? I hated having to spend my monthly pp on powers, it was such a kick in the teeth. I get forcing f2p players into buying power sets but if I'm paying a sub aren't I paying for the privilege to access this stuff, including costumes?

It just seemed very poorly thought out and as if NCsoft was just experimenting with overly greedy systems to see if we'd bite based on our dedication to the game. That is entirely just a theory however and holds no weight when it comes to the reality of this conversation as it's absolutely speculative.

Hopefully if/when CoH is relaunched, they stick to subscription fee's. I'd much rather pay a small amount per month if it gave me access to everything.

[Remaugen]

One thing I still haven't understood about Freedom, why is it that even though I paid a sub fee I did not have access to all of the power sets? I hated having to spend my monthly pp on powers, it was such a kick in the teeth. I get forcing f2p players into buying power sets but if I'm paying a sub aren't I paying for the privilege to access this stuff, including costumes?
. . . . <Snip!> . . . .
Hopefully if/when CoH is relaunched, they stick to subscription fee's. I'd much rather pay a small amount per month if it gave me access to everything.

I agree whole heartedly, with a very small exception, I can understand selling individual items, powersets and costume sets in the store for the "Freemiums", but subscribers should have gotten it all the powersets and costume set automatically as reward for their subscription, with a few exceptions. . .

Things like stupid booster Card/Item Pack Thingies (Forgot what they were called???), well those should remain a store staple, though they should certainly toss a few free packs to the subscribers now and then and perhaps give a few away at cons and online events as prizes. But otherwise, those packs were like bread and butter to the store. One of my friends routinely spent $50 a month or more on them, on top of his four paid accounts. And I can justifiably see some things like a few rare exclusive untradeable (Account specific) enhancements, costume parts, unique powers or durable weapons which might ONLY be obtained through the packs, and not available in any other way, but they should not be pay to win type items. Because of random assortment the subscribers could just as easily end up with those items in their free packs.

Having to buy keys for lock boxes though would be completely unacceptable!

Edited for stupidity:  Super Packs?

[Teikiatsu]

I guess I've been lucky enough to not play any games that have 'lock boxes' because I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

[MM3squints]

I guess I've been lucky enough to not play any games that have 'lock boxes' because I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

Basically they are random rewards that drop and expires in X amount of days. The only way to get the reward in the lock boxes is to buy a key (DCUO calls them prometheus keys) The problem with this system the items are not always that great and usually crappy fillers. I pay $2.49 (that is the cost of 250 points) and get a crappy item I probably  have because it is a duplicate of from the last time I paid $2.49. In a part you are paying to have a chance to get the item that you want, but more than likely won't get, however, you will never know unless you buy a key to open it within the X amount of days. It is in a sense like gambling, but unlike gambling where a person feel bad from loosing due to a miscalculated risk, lock boxes are something that makes that person feel worse by just playing with a person's head unless they open it and when they do open it, they feel crappier for opening it and wasting money. Of course the player can just not open them and play the game.

[UruzSix]

There were a lot of issues with Freedom, but if you ask me I think the most critical one was that someone insisted on outsourcing the Freedom store to a seriously incompetent developer that specialized in "monetization" but apparently not in writing software.  What they sold and what it cost and where you got this point or that point could all be addressed in time.  But the fact that the store was horrible broken and lacked even trivial integration with the rest of the game meant it would likely be a clumsy appendage to the game for an indefinite period of time.  And that was going to hamper the devs ability to make the Freedom store as much a part of the game as, say, the invention system markets.

I really genuinely believe, and would stake my professional reputation on the assertion that I could have done better with a bunch of PHP scripts and a weekend to assemble them, and I'm not even particularly great at it.  Whatever Paragon paid for that mess, it was too much. 

If I could go back in time and fix it, I probably would have told the devs to just sub Codewalker to write it.  Not only would we have had a much better store, when we weren't buying things from it we could just hit CONTROL-U and it would take all the stuff we bought and make an optimal build for us and save it to Mids format.

I forgot about how much of a mess the store actually was. Yeah, that's the root of the problem right there.

[JanessaVR]

Basically they are random rewards that drop and expires in X amount of days. The only way to get the reward in the lock boxes is to buy a key (DCUO calls them prometheus keys) The problem with this system the items are not always that great and usually crappy fillers. I pay $2.49 (that is the cost of 250 points) and get a crappy item I probably  have because it is a duplicate of from the last time I paid $2.49. In a part you are paying to have a chance to get the item that you want, but more than likely won't get, however, you will never know unless you buy a key to open it within the X amount of days. It is in a sense like gambling, but unlike gambling where a person feel bad from loosing due to a miscalculated risk, lock boxes are something that makes that person feel worse by just playing with a person's head unless they open it and when they do open it, they feel crappier for opening it and wasting money. Of course the player can just not open them and play the game.

Honestly, I think the best action would be to avoid the random element and just say: "Ok, here's the cash shop.  You can buy essentially anything here, no "gambling" involved, and here are the prices.  Costumes, emotes, recipes, salvage, enhancements, "convenience" powers like Remote Market/Vault Access, etc. - it's all here.  Some of it you can earn in-game, or you can have it any of it right now if you give us some cash."

If they would have just let me buy rare recipes and/or salvage outright, I would have, many times.  Call it not necessarily "Pay to Win," but more like "Pay to Avoid Grinding."

[Noyjitat]

Honestly, I think the best action would be to avoid the random element and just say: "Ok, here's the cash shop.  You can buy essentially anything here, no "gambling" involved, and here are the prices.  Costumes, emotes, recipes, salvage, enhancements, "convenience" powers like Remote Market/Vault Access, etc. - it's all here.  Some of it you can earn in-game, or you can have it any of it right now if you give us some cash."

If they would have just let me buy rare recipes and/or salvage outright, I would have, many times.  Call it not necessarily "Pay to Win," but more like "Pay to Avoid Grinding."

Didn't we start getting purple enhancements on the paragon market near the end? I think they were either account bound or something.

[MM3squints]

Didn't we start getting purple enhancements on the paragon market near the end? I think they were either account bound or something.

Yup

[JanessaVR]

Yup

Yes, but I seem to recall some controversy that they were gimped or something compared to the "real" ones.  It made me leery of them and so I just gave my friend / personal farmer some cash to get them for me.  I called that option "my other cash shop."  ;D

[darkgob]

Arcana, I just way to say that I appreciate and respect your knowledge-slamming in this thread, because every time I see someone saying something as hilariously wrong as "we don't really know that relativity is correct" I just want to slam my head against my desk until I lose consciousness; even without severe self-inflicted cranial trauma, I couldn't hope to respond to something like that with the eloquence you do.

[Brigadine]

I guess I've been lucky enough to not play any games that have 'lock boxes' because I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

Star Trek Online has them out the butt. You have to buy keys to open them.

[Artillerie]

Basically they are random rewards that drop and expires in X amount of days. The only way to get the reward in the lock boxes is to buy a key (DCUO calls them prometheus keys) The problem with this system the items are not always that great and usually crappy fillers. I pay $2.49 (that is the cost of 250 points) and get a crappy item I probably  have because it is a duplicate of from the last time I paid $2.49. In a part you are paying to have a chance to get the item that you want, but more than likely won't get, however, you will never know unless you buy a key to open it within the X amount of days. It is in a sense like gambling, but unlike gambling where a person feel bad from loosing due to a miscalculated risk, lock boxes are something that makes that person feel worse by just playing with a person's head unless they open it and when they do open it, they feel crappier for opening it and wasting money. Of course the player can just not open them and play the game.

Also, some studies indicate that a certain percentage of people find this kind of thing very difficult to resist.

[Noyjitat]

I guess I've been lucky enough to not play any games that have 'lock boxes' because I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

They are like our superpacks only with mostly useless junk. Anything useful, or valuable has such a low chance to drop (costumes, high tier mods, vehicles) that its a gambling system to get anything good. Atleast with our superpacks you were guaranteed something truly valuable and useful. I remember getting something like 100 - 200 merits per pack and the lovely enhancement boosters and converters.