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[Ankhammon]

i agree that for free CoH was well worth playing. You could still hit 50 as I recall, no IO's, no incarnate powers and a cap on how many characters you could have and how much INF each one could have (way below 2 billion as I recall)

What some players also may have forgotten is that back in issue 1 to 8 you could still make tough characters with only SO's.  Maybe not quite at the beloved defense caps that we enjoyed, but still tough characters.  Yes you could purchase an invention license but I think that was for 30days.

The real power as it were went to those that subscribed. IO's, incarnate powers: stronger characters.

But free players could still run all the content except for incarnate arcs and trials and could still have powerful characters.

I completely agree you could build very nice characters for 1-50 pve without going down the IO road.

I had a character that I never put a penny into for IOs and he was regarded as a very good and strong character whenever I played him. that was my sonic/sonic fender. He was pretty close to perfect for team play with just SOs.

Course the only reason I never put any IOs into him was because I could never make up my mind what direction I wanted to take with the build. :)

[Pyromantic]

I started playing around I6 so had plenty of experience playing without IOs.  While it was easy to get used to the extra potential that came about with inventions, the game was certainly very playable with SOs.  I know many people just stuck with SOs intentionally until 50 (or, in at least one case I know, after 50, as he had no interest in figuring out IO slotting.)  That being said, there's no question that a character with a fully-developed IO + incarnate build could be dramatically more powerful.  Personally I kept a reserve of mid-20 sets in storage for frankenslotting.  Definitely saw the benefit in overall enhancement values and I didn't have to worry about buying new SOs every 5 levels.

One of the reasons I won't mind starting from scratch is that it will be an opportunity to level some of my earlier characters while enjoying the many developments the game included over the years.  I have several new builds I want to try also.  But even if it takes a while to build a bank roll and/or for the markets to be seeded, I'll be quite content to play with SOs in the mean time.

[Sinistar]

I started playing around I6 so had plenty of experience playing without IOs.  While it was easy to get used to the extra potential that came about with inventions, the game was certainly very playable with SOs.  I know many people just stuck with SOs intentionally until 50 (or, in at least one case I know, after 50, as he had no interest in figuring out IO slotting.)  That being said, there's no question that a character with a fully-developed IO + incarnate build could be dramatically more powerful.  Personally I kept a reserve of mid-20 sets in storage for frankenslotting.  Definitely saw the benefit in overall enhancement values and I didn't have to worry about buying new SOs every 5 levels.

One of the reasons I won't mind starting from scratch is that it will be an opportunity to level some of my earlier characters while enjoying the many developments the game included over the years.  I have several new builds I want to try also.  But even if it takes a while to build a bank roll and/or for the markets to be seeded, I'll be quite content to play with SOs in the mean time.

Quite correct. The main thing about IO's was all the set bonuses and things like recovery/regen and of course the holy grail known as defense capping.  I honestly do NOT recall any character with SO being at the defense cap but then again I never tried making such a build in Mids, and I suspect few AT/powersets could achieve it with only SO.

IO/def cap on the other hand made a character more optimum for +4+8 farms and of course made them more able to handle the assorted TF/SF/Trials

Becoming an incarnate much less with all available incarnate powers slotted with T4's was both gravy and icing on the cake :)

[Thunder Glove]

A level 50 with no INF to gear up will be hella gimped, and have no unlocked contacts to grab missions from!

You could unlock contacts from the Find Contacts button, as I recall. (I think they added that with Freedom, as part of the attempt to make the game easier for new players to get into)  You didn't always need to go through newspaper/radio missions for them anymore.  Even so, it would be easy enough to get a newspaper or radio.  Even a completely un-enhanced Level 50 shouldn't have any trouble with King's Row or Port Oakes.

Then they can run a few missions at x1/-1 with Bosses turned off, and should get enough Inf and drops (particularly level 50 basic IO recipes, which sell for ~100k each at NPC shops) for basic SOs.

For O-Portals at level 50, you can just get one of three exploration badges in Recluse's Victory to unlock Entrusted With The Secret, so it wouldn't be long before there were enough players able to give each other O-Portals.

All that said, I doubt there will be an Insta-50 service in the reopened game.

[Auroxis]

You have no idea what pay2win means. Do you honestly think you're entitled a complete game for free?

First off, please calm your tone and stop referring to me like I'm leeching off your game. The game is dead (for now) and as I've stated in a later post, I stayed subscribed during the game's last several months hoping it would keep it afloat.

Now as for "entitled to a complete game for free"? I paid several years worth of subscription fees in which I built my characters meticulously, that already takes "for free" out of the window. For a brief period of time, I wasn't playing as much and all I did was log on once or twice a week to revisit my favorite characters. That's not worth $15 a month in my book. If I could've paid to get access to just my incarnate powers and IO set bonuses I would've done so. Regardless, there are lots of other features to the game that remained purchasable only which made sense (costume pieces, character slots) so Incarnate Powers + IO set bonuses isn't exactly a complete game either.

As for having no idea what "pay2win" means I think Arcanaville did a good job of describing it. P2W isn't really a well defined term, but in my eyes I was paying $15 a month just to gain access to something that makes my characters way more powerful as they were already incarnate and IO'd out. To me that's Pay2Win as while you're not obligated to be super powerful to win, the power increase is definitely impactful and meaningful if you're a character builder.

[Aggelakis]

If I could've paid to get access to just my incarnate powers and IO set bonuses I would've done so.

First: You could buy a monthly, total-use IO license for $2/mo. You can find that on the ground in the time it takes for your current license to expire.

Or you got it for free, forever, if you had 27 Reward Tokens. This meant being a five and a half year vet at time of conversion to Freedom model, or less than that if you bought points (1200 points equaled a token) and/or continued to subscribe after Freedom (one token per month).

Second: Incarnates was sub-only because *something* has to be sub-only in a hybrid game, otherwise the only people who would sub are the hardcore people who would be there no matter what happened (see: those of us still active on Titan an in the "survivor" groups). Compared to everything in the game that non-subs had access to (free or ala carte purchase), there was *very* little that was restricted to subscribers:
- the top tier rewards costume pieces (super packs were available to purchase ala carte)
- the VIP server (which was a ghost town weekdays and fluctuated a lot on the weekends)
- creating/moderating global chat (but anyone with 5 reward tokens could join & talk)
- the SG registrar (including paying rent - easy enough to find a subscriber to join, pay rent, and leave)
- incarnates.

Not putting your end game behind a subscription means a huge amount of the reason many, many people subscribed suddenly disappeared. I can endgame for free? Heck, what's left to subscribers? An e-peen server? Paying rent? *eyes roll so hard they fall out of her head*

[Auroxis]

Don't remember that IO set bonus license. It gave access to all your set bonuses including purples?

Being a sub also gave you tons of paragon points, and in time veteran badges. Yes you could get a lot of VIP (sub) stuff as a Premium (mtx) player, but VIP gave a little bit extra outside of incarnate+IO set bonuses, and IIRC didn't flood me with enough paragon points to make it feel redundant.

[Aggelakis]

Don't remember that IO set bonus license. It gave access to all your set bonuses including purples?

There's only one thing that means. It means total-use. It was not a set bonus license. It was an inventions license.

Being a sub also gave you tons of paragon points, and in time veteran badges.

Sub gave you 400pp per month. I wouldn't call that a ton. That's $5 worth of points ala carte (or less if you bought pp in bulk). Not much.

You got one token per month as a sub. You could do that ala carte with $15 (1200pp). (veteran badges were tied to token acquisition which was tied to pp acquisition).

[Auroxis]

Sub gave you 400pp per month. I wouldn't call that a ton. That's $5 worth of points ala carte (or less if you bought pp in bulk). Not much.

You got one token per month as a sub. You could do that ala carte with $15 (1200pp). (veteran badges were tied to token acquisition which was tied to pp acquisition).

400PP is very good considering all the other content you get unlocked (even without incarnate). All the powersets and archetypes, lots of character slots, full invention+market+architect access, a token and a bunch of other stuff which ends up worth quite a bit in PP.

Oh and there's also forum posting privileges which was VIP restricted, that's actually one of the reasons I stayed subscribed.

[Aggelakis]

Preemies could post in the most important places: tech help, questions, "city life" (general CoX talk), & suggestions.

[brothermutant]

I can't imagine that they would start the game back as a F2P model, at least not for a few months anyway. Think about it, for those of us that know how to play the game, we can get many of our toons to 50 (or close) easily enough and THEN start paying to get access to the level 50 stuff. Not a great idea for a model that hopes to make enough money to keep the server(s) running.

I would advertise the hell out of it, get people reviewing it online ASAP, and get the old clientele back (as many as possible) for a SMALL monthly subscription (say anywhere between $5-10 a month...remember, this game will NEVER get any upgrades or get any better). Then get the "market" back up for the purchasable stuff (outfits, unlockable power sets, etc). Get the name of the game out there and get as many new and old customers as possible for the eventual turnover to the new game. And for god's sake, make sure you advertise the NEW game too. Would hate to think people will think this is ALL CoX has to offer.

[Vee]

I'll be subbing no doubt, but I hope the sub includes a lot of the stuff we all had from vet badges and different packs. would be rough to go back to leveling lowbies without sands of mu, nem staff, ninja run, mish tp, etc.

[Minotaur]

Leveling up is about 1% of the fun to me.   ;)   I enjoyed the lvl 50 game the most.

Leveling and alting was 80% of the fun for me, any game that wants to be successful in being a spiritual successor to CoH needs to cater to both of us.

[rebel 1812]

I can't imagine that they would start the game back as a F2P model, at least not for a few months anyway. Think about it, for those of us that know how to play the game, we can get many of our toons to 50 (or close) easily enough and THEN start paying to get access to the level 50 stuff. Not a great idea for a model that hopes to make enough money to keep the server(s) running.

I would advertise the hell out of it, get people reviewing it online ASAP, and get the old clientele back (as many as possible) for a SMALL monthly subscription (say anywhere between $5-10 a month...remember, this game will NEVER get any upgrades or get any better). Then get the "market" back up for the purchasable stuff (outfits, unlockable power sets, etc). Get the name of the game out there and get as many new and old customers as possible for the eventual turnover to the new game. And for god's sake, make sure you advertise the NEW game too. Would hate to think people will think this is ALL CoX has to offer.

On the contrary, they will need any revenue they can get their hands on.  F2P isn't free.  Free apps on your smart phone aren't free either.  Its a way for the company to advertise stuff to you.  Eventually you'll pay  for something.

[Safehouse]

On the contrary, they will need any revenue they can get their hands on.  F2P isn't free.  Free apps on your smart phone aren't free either.  Its a way for the company to advertise stuff to you.  Eventually you'll pay  for something.

That's a good point. Even while I was subbing, I remember sinking quite a bit of money into the shop for things that I looked at and thought "oooo me likey." I can imagine that, even if I hadn't been a subber the whole time I played, I would have purchased more than enough at the cash shop.

[Pyromantic]

I recall it being said that when City went F2P that it actually generated quite a bit more revenue.  So, there would be a certain logic to saying that it should go F2P if the deal goes through also.  It's a complicated question.  There may be technical issues involved in how much freedom they have to tailor the model to their liking.  The particulars may be different because of the reboot (such as the fact it will take a while for level 50 content to really get rolling--though I suspect not that long.)  And there's the somewhat sticky question of asking people to buy things again that they likely bought once before.

Personally I'd like to see a fairly generous inclusion of vet rewards and such, perhaps for anyone willing to commit to a reasonable subscription cost.  Since the deal requires some investment, and one would think investors would like to know how revenue is going to be generated, I expect this question is already being asked and answered by those on the inside.

[Pyromantic]

You could always set the difficulty to -1 and only fight council on normal difficulty to start slotting.  It'd certainly be shameful though.  Radio missions or newspaper would be vital.  You'd also have to run away after the first fight with that limited inf supply to grab a bunch of inspirations to make up for that "Miss miss miss" to-hit/accuracy ratting, blues, and maybe greens due to just being such a weak character.

Course if the build was horrible from being an AE baby or a classic n00b(not learning anything and thinking your role/function is to be over-specialized to a point of uselessness solo) then yeah, you'd be screwed.  Weak as hell and useless solo = useless to teams, especially if your short sighted enough to never ever get enhancements and they notice it.

While I can't say I ever tried it, I really don't think it would take that long to get a level 50 into SOs starting without any enhancements or inf.  You aren't going to miss that much or have to run away constantly against even-level enemies.  You can also use certain builds that have self-buffs to make up for the loss, such as a fire/kin with tactics (that will have plenty of accuracy, endurance and damage to handle default difficulty.)  A far cry from a fully tricked-out build to be sure, but whites were pretty trivial at that level.  It would certainly take a lot less time than levelling from 1 to 50.

That being said, I doubt this particular issue would come about.

[Ankhammon]

I'll be subbing no doubt, but I hope the sub includes a lot of the stuff we all had from vet badges and different packs. would be rough to go back to leveling lowbies without sands of mu, nem staff, ninja run, mish tp, etc.

Particularly if you were leveling up a tank or defender. The very low levels were harsh on their offenses.

[Blackgrue]

Really, the only Vet reward I'll be pissed that i don't get at start is trenchcoats (requirement for my main toon). Other then that, I'll be annoyed if I have to go to vanilla... but not devastated.

[goeritz]

There's really only a few ways of having a vet reward system again. 1. Is to just start it from scratch. 2. Is to have to pay to get rewards and 3. If it's possible, to somehow atleast be able to get the old subscribers purchased time from NC. But I'm sure that would be near impossible. 2. Would be the most logical answer since just about all vet players would pay to have their status and rewards again.