They gave out some news on the upcoming issue last weekend.
Highlights that I remember:
Dark Astoria is being revamped into a 50+ co op zone with Solo/Small Team incarnate content.
Dark Control is coming for Doms and Controllers.
Stalkers are being buffed. Assassin strike will be uninterruptable outside of Hide to make it more useful plus some other changes.
Titan Weapon comes out December 6th.
And some not so cool news:
They are adding an item that you can buy in the Market where you get 5 random things. Not so terrible but one of the random things you might get is one of two exclusive costume sets (Fire and Ice Armour as I recall). So basically if you want those sets you have to gamble with real money.
This mindset is why my playing has tapered off to about zero with the whole F2P cash shop thing. I saw it at first with the Celestial “VIP but not really VIP unless you buy a ton of tokens” armor and it’s since turned into this. Yeah, they’re a company and in the business to make money but it’s never been so naked before.
I e-mailed asking about mine because I also didn’t receive them and I found that my billing date is the 30th so I will be getting my points at the end of the month. You may want to e-mail support.
See, this and the rest of the outcry about the super pack makes me think that folks were only willing to accept City adopting certain F2P practices as long as they didn’t actually adopt certain F2P practices.
I probably shouldn’t snark too much, as there’s things developers have done to games that leave a bad taste in my mouth; I basically lost all interest in WoW once Blizzard pushed through the RealID crap, even after they rescinded the worst of the privacy violations. It just kind of baffles me that a company, which is trying to make money, trying the booster pack deal, which is a proven money-maker in other markets, via a single product in the market should engender such ill will. As much as I like IOs and new costumes, I don’t consider it my right as a player to have access to a costume set they choose to sell in a way in which I don’t want to buy.
For that matter, powersets which even VIPs have to buy are obvious naked money grabs too, but I haven’t heard nearly the outcry for those that I’ve heard for these super packs. I just hear about people dying for Titan Weapons to come out so they can buy it and play it.
To an extent, yeah. I want to pay my $15 a month and have my experience be identical to where it was before the F2P conversion. That’s the point of my paying $15 a month. This includes things like being able to drop ten bucks and buy a new costume booster right out the door on costume set launch day without a bunch of ridiculous crap like special VIP tokens or “random booster packs”.
They certainly have their right to change that and I have my right to think “this sucks and I dislike these changes” and react accordingly.
Sure, but is it your right to have every single costume set like that? Even as they’re planning the super packs, they’re also working on releasing the Gunslinger pack. I have to admit the pack has its problems, and frankly they annoy me more than the super packs themselves, but it’s evidence that they’re not going to hide every costume pack behind BS like the super packs or the VIP rewards.
I dunno. You don’t like what you don’t like, of course. It just seems so weird to me that people should leave the game over a small, non-fundamental experiment.
No, who said it was? That’s just silly. I’m not talking about “rights” or things I’m “owed” or whatever else. Heck, I don’t even feel insulted. I’m talking about what I want to see as a consumer paying $15 when a company changes business models. If I don’t like it, I stop paying $15. I don’t like the way the company is using its F2P model to extract extra money from legacy VIP subscription-paying customers. I didn’t like it when it launched with the Celestial token-locked “VIP” stuff and them deciding this now just shows me that it’s going to get worse instead of getting better.
I was pre-paid into December so, when this F2P thing started I figured I’d wait it out and see if I liked it. From what I’m seeing now that my subscription is coming to an end, I don’t like it.
I think the anger about having to buy powersets was real but the ship sailed so people just accept it now. Plus you can rationalize it by saying that VIPs can get them for free if they just save up their free points. This seems different to me. In theory, you can spend every point you have an never get something you want because it is random. Also making it random just seems very manipulative to me. I hope I don’t like the costume sets so I can ignore the entire thing.
I really shouldn’t just respond with snark, my bad.
But see, this wording makes it sound like you have an expectation that you should have the costume set. Nobody’s being forced to pay out, nobody’s money or points are being ‘extracted’. You can ignore the super packs and not have your current gameplay hurt at all. Nobody’s making you buy it.
I should probably leave this alone, both here and on the City boards. It really just comes down to a difference of opinion and priorities, which aren’t easily swayable. I just can’t help poking at it like a sore tooth.
Case in point:
And super packs don’t cost anything if you pay for them with your free points either. Nothing different about it.
It’s about as manipulative as making a powerset, or even a game, desirable to play and therefore purchase. It just takes a different tack.
I have a hunch that the costume pieces will be made tradeable, though. The IOs are already confirmed to be. The catalysts that bump the IOs to Very Rare will probably remain exclusive, but I think, I hope, most people can live with that.
I know the Star Pony mess didn’t draw me into renewing my Blizzard subscription. Even the knowledge that I didn’t really care for the Star Pony failed to stop the annoyance I saw lowbies running around on them.
That’s true. No one is making me pay a subscription or buy things in the cash shop or anything else for that matter. I need to be encouraged to do so via business practices I’m happy with. I was happy with the old practices and am less so with the new ones.
My costume set expectations are based on the business model prior to the F2P conversion and cash shop. Then, they’d release a booster and I’d drop $10 for it if I wanted it and that was that. This is no longer the case and they no longer meet the expectations they once set. As they changed their model, I changed my spending habits to not include CoH.
It’s fifteen dollars. It’s not overkill in any direction, it’s just how I decide to spend my leisure dollars. No one’s canceling multimillion dollar contracts here.
Again, fair enough. I’ve been spending too much time in the relevant threads on the game’s forums, which do act like each sub is a multimillion dollar contract. It’s been a little…well, psychotic, to put it gently.
To be honest all my gaming time has been split between SWTOR and Skyrim but Issue 22 is on beta. Some Highlights:
Dark Astoria has been revamped into solo/small team Incarnate content. You now have a path (albeit slower) without having to do trials.
Dark control has been added (with new powers) plus new Dark secondaries for both Doms and Controllers with tweaked proliferated powers.
Stalkers revamped: When using Assassin strike outside of hide, it will work differently and can’t be interrupted so it can be a part of your attack chain.
New midlevel story arcs for both heroes and villains.
The whole selling randomized stuff “Super Pack” thing.
I’m looking forward to Incarnate content for small teams. Dangerosa and I mostly play as a duo, and have not been eager to go after Incarnate content with a PUG.
It’s available in the VIP beta now, if you want to check it out. I won’t go into details while it’s still officially closed, but I don’t think you will be disappointed.