Thread: CoH/V going freemium route

I think this is brilliant!!
I honestly don't think it sounds the death knell. I mean Freedom and Union are pretty full every day - and the vasy majority of the usual suspects are still there.

I think that this is a great model, that will give people who can't afford or don't want to pay for an MMO to be able to play COH. It's brilliant! Plus free stuff for me, as a VIP! Yay!

like i said over on mygaming. i'm holding onto hope that this will make it grow more

Well at the very least, you and me can play again, together, and knowing Shrike he'll probably pop in... and it means everyone we use to play with can pop in and say whazzup!
I am on a 6 month sub, auto-renewing. What's awesome is that for you Tank, as a returning player, even if you don't sub, you get:

Returning Players Become Premium Players

We honor your commitment and experience! If you used to play City of Heroes, you will automatically become a Premium Player. New free players can become Premium Players by buying any amount of Paragon Points.
Get everything that Free players get.
Retain nearly everything you already purchased or unlocked, including Super Boosters, expansions, and directly purchased character slots.
Retain all the Veteran Rewards you earned.

That's pretty awesome.

yeah win/win

will definately pop in again. the incarnate stuff looks a bit daunting though

it has been for me, so far I've only unlocked my Alpha slot - there is still so much that I need to unlock.
I like that VIP's get 1 free server transfer a month - it means i can move one of my toons to Freedom to see if it's more active.

It is not happening CoH, Phalen.
The players who were previous subscribers will get all characters, slots, veteran rewards etc that they had.
Paragon studios have gone to great lengths to tell that to the world.

So ja - Paragon - yet again - WINNING!

They are the best Dev team ever.

Originally Posted by phalen

i dont know if you guys have noticed, but when an mmo goes free to play - you dont get access to your original account. it happened to me on lotr when it switched, and on EQ2, and on champions online now. to get access to my existing champs account - that i had long before the free to play move - i must re-sub.

just thought i should point that out - dont know if anyone else has picked up on this.

Nah must only be you. My original LOTRO account with all my chars were right there when they went F2P. The classes/expansions were unlocked and all [which i bought back in the day when it was still a sub game] . Likewise with Champions, my chars were all still there, had no issues logging in etc.

Everquest 2 is different though, they intentionally split the servers so the subbed guys stay on one server and the freebies on another server. Your original account will remain a "subscription" account. So for all intends and purposes EQ2:Extended is a different version of EQ2.

Anyway i have a CoX account too, so i might dig it up if i'm bored to tears ....and MMO-land is pretty boring lately.

Yeah, MMO land is a bit boring lately. Every one is waiting for the big releases coming soon.... (TM).

gonna be fun to go back to Paragon city

/em crack knuckles

also new stuff!

June Producer's Letter | City of Heroes

this bit pops out!

An all-new tutorial will introduce new players to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles like never before, and lets heroes and villains choose their archetype independently of their alignment. Atlas Park gets a tremendous visual makeover, and both Atlas Park and Mercy Island have all new mission content to give great reasons to create a character for veteran and new players alike. In addition, a new low level Sewers Trial for both heroes and villains lets you team up with other starting characters to take the fight below street level. First Ward is a visually stunning new zone that blends Primal Earth into Praetoria, tells the story of what happened to Magic under Cole's regime, and builds the Praetorian storyline towards its conclusion with some of our favorite missions ever. The Underground Incarnate Trial is the best endgame event yet. And it doesn't end there: there are new costumes, new powers, new characters, new villains, and a whole lot more.

It's funny that after seven years I still get excited about new content in this game... I don't know what these guys do but they do it right.
I wonder what they can do to make the game continue to be relevant, from a functionality and graphics point of view.

I mean the game is brilliant in my opinion - perhaps more presistent content. But graphically, I don't know what they could do.

Well they can do a lot of development on increasing poly counts, bumpmapping and texturing. Of course it will mean a totally new graphic engine, which is an insane amount of development.

Never gonna happen.

so you telling me, when this goes free to play, I can hop in on my old characters no problemo? that's pretty dam cool.

with champs, my chars are there, but have to pay a gold sub to play them.

with this one, you don't pay nothing, just use your old log in detail as far as i know... kiff hey

What a cool video.

Issue 21 launch trailer.

I gotta say, I'm excited!

I'll wAtch it when i get off shift tomorrow morning

Tank do you still have your Blade email address? I've sent you a referal.... so you play for free for a couple of weeks.

Cheers brew.

Originally Posted by Tank

Freedom Overview | City of Heroes

bold move from Ncsoft... although i have to wonder if this isn't signaling the death knel of one of my favorite mmo's

Just a comment on your original post Tank, with the recent demise of Star Wars Galaxies, thd question was asked of Sony and Lucas Arts, why not go the freemium route, and SOE's response is quite telling. "where this game is in its life cycle, it would cost too much to develop a free to play offering." (basically the gist of what was said).

I think that bodes well for CoH, the cost of developing premium content, and the mechanisms for the free to play stuff, it means that NCSoft believe that CoH is still in the middle or towards the end of the middle of its life cycle. Going freemium now might actually prolong its life a lot longer than if it had stayed tradtional.

The plans and developments are awesome, and more and more I'm wondering what they could do better the the graphics department...

As for the overall free-to-play vs. subscription model, it turns out that GW's won the arguement, I mean people said that Arena Net were mad to go free-to-play. But after having shifted 7 million boxes of GW's and no telling how much vanity content through their in game store, I think GW was a massive financial success for the pioneer of free to play MMO's. I acknowledge that WoW has had more subscriptions but as we'll never know how many of the 12 million subs were concurrently active, it is difficult to know how much better financially WoW did than every other MMO out there.