There's no topic hotter on the Champions Online forums right now than the issue of their cryptic payment model.

And it's apparently too hot to handle.

After breaking more than 15000 views and almost 800 posts, a thread titled "Microtransactions=NoSale" was mysteriously moved to a German section of the forums.

http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=22320

Several private messages to moderators on this issue have gone unanswered.

CO will have monthly fee AND microtransactions. You will have to pay extra for specially cool costume parts, and many powers. But I am sure the fanbois will find good reasons for that, too.

It is the Cryptic way of handling everything. I had posted something in STO forums, saying the decision to make everyone Captain was a bad decision.

They delete every critical thread, and no critical question in the CO beta has EVER been answered by Cryptic. And there is enough questionable at the state of the game, but everything vanished mysteriously. It doesn't make you feel like Cryptic has a sense of standing above critic. *shrug*

But in the eyes of fanbois, every deleted thread must have been evil. You are suspect guilty and must proof your innocense. Which is kinda impossible with a thread gone. Evil, but apparently it works. Cryptic is a no-go company for me.

CO will have a rude awakeing, when it goes the way of PotBS, VG and the like. And I am going to enjoy every single moment of their deserved demise.

Originally posted by Elikal

You will have to pay extra for (...) many powers.

[citation needed]

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Originally posted by zarzu

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Originally posted by Elikal

You will have to pay extra for (...) many powers.

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[citation needed]

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Don't mind him. He's just angry that Cryptic made him change his openly offensive character name.

Has there ever been a game which has both RMT and a monthly sub? It seems like game suicide to me that such a decision would be made. Perhaps it will simply be cosmetic items, or like guild wars where you can buy adventure or skill packs?

This is an extremely bad decision. Sure the RMT stuff will be cosmetic but man that stuff should be in the game through patches etc, thats what you pay a sub for! Unless the sub is at a reduced cost this is just an awful decision. The game isn't even great either, a very play for the first free month then cancel kind of experience from what I've played so far due to feeling completely been there done that.

Originally posted by jimsmith08

Has there ever been a game which has both RMT and a monthly sub? It seems like game suicide to me that such a decision would be made. Perhaps it will simply be cosmetic items, or like guild wars where you can buy adventure or skill packs?

eq2 does, also cox has additional packages you can buy which only contain clothing and fun powers.

Originally posted by zarzu

Originally posted by jimsmith08

Has there ever been a game which has both RMT and a monthly sub? It seems like game suicide to me that such a decision would be made. Perhaps it will simply be cosmetic items, or like guild wars where you can buy adventure or skill packs?

 

eq2 does, also cox has additional packages you can buy which only contain clothing and fun powers.

LOL, I will never forget in cov, a bubble guy came up and has his big bubble surrounding everyone at the arbiter. I started shouting, AHHHHHHH, It burns, It burns... get it off me... Oh no, everyone run for your lives, I am going to explode... Then I activated the self destruct I got in one of those packs. everyone was like WTF????  then I got a tell from the bubble guy asking how his bubble was able to hurt me. best 5 bucks I ever spent!

The thread was finally moved back to its home.

No moderator deigned to comment on it, of course.

I really wish MMO development wasn't so damn "step-by-step informative". Just make them like all the other Non-MMOs are made. Beta should be exclusively closed until a few weeks prior to release and then all they have to worry about is popping up a few good tv ads. None of this 2-4 years development time with daily or weekly updates about everything from concept art to subscription options.

And they take another swing!

After some bad behaviour from a few posters in this thread, rather than moderating the bad posters and posts, a dev threatens to close down this thread and all new ones on the topic.

http://forums.champions-online.com/showpost.php?p=567724&postcount=1443

Guys, I am starting to be a little upset.
And no, not because of the topic, not because of what is being said here.

The HOW of things has started to turn your discussion into a flame war. If some of you (and you know who you are I am sure) cannot play nice, this thread and all new ones who come will be closed.

We encourage you to talk about all things CO on these forums, but this has gone past what should happen.
You are all fans of the game. If you feel too angry about a topic to deal with it in a polite manner, then you force the moderators and us to step in. You don't want that and we don't want that.

I can only confirm once more what StormShade said:
We know you really would like answers. Once we have answers, we will bring them out to you.

In the meantime, as always, feel free to chat. But stop the name-calling and similar unpleasantness.

Originally posted by green13

And they take another swing!

After some bad behaviour from a few posters in this thread, rather than moderating the bad posters and posts, a dev threatens to close down this thread and all new ones on the topic.

http://forums.champions-online.com/showpost.php?p=567724&postcount=1443

Guys, I am starting to be a little upset.
And no, not because of the topic, not because of what is being said here.

The HOW of things has started to turn your discussion into a flame war. If some of you (and you know who you are I am sure) cannot play nice, this thread and all new ones who come will be closed.

We encourage you to talk about all things CO on these forums, but this has gone past what should happen.
You are all fans of the game. If you feel too angry about a topic to deal with it in a polite manner, then you force the moderators and us to step in. You don't want that and we don't want that.

I can only confirm once more what StormShade said:
We know you really would like answers. Once we have answers, we will bring them out to you.

In the meantime, as always, feel free to chat. But stop the name-calling and similar unpleasantness.

Sorry, I agree with the moderator on this one.

Originally posted by DragonShark

Sorry, I agree with the moderator on this one.

Yeah, I suppose I can see what you mean.

They tried to shut the thread down by hiding it, and that didn't work, so not moderating and then threatening to close it and all future threads on what is clearly an uncomfortable topic down makes sense.

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by DragonShark

Sorry, I agree with the moderator on this one.

 

Yeah, I suppose I can see what you mean.

They tried to shut the thread down by hiding it, and that didn't work, so not moderating and then threatening to close it and all future threads on what is clearly an uncomfortable topic down makes sense.

 

I would have told the Dev to man up.... these are the interwebs.... if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

But hey, its their forums, they get to do what they want there.

Of course, we can do what we want, which is to ignore their game. 

Originally posted by zarzu

Originally posted by jimsmith08

Has there ever been a game which has both RMT and a monthly sub? It seems like game suicide to me that such a decision would be made. Perhaps it will simply be cosmetic items, or like guild wars where you can buy adventure or skill packs?

 

eq2 does, also cox has additional packages you can buy which only contain clothing and fun powers.

DDO will, also Bloodymare (not that this one is known/popular)

DDO (if I understood correctly) will have an either/or kind of model. Either you're a full subscriber, so cash shop doesn't apply to you or you playing for free and then you can buy adventures etc.

cash shop will be available to all, with subscribers getting 500g(or 5k?)/month.

Like in many other things in life, you pay for the adds that are not included in the base price :)

Originally posted by Elikal

CO will have monthly fee AND microtransactions. You will have to pay extra for specially cool costume parts, and many powers. But I am sure the fanbois will find good reasons for that, too.

The costumes is one thing, that is just a copy from SOE, cheap and low of the company but not a really big issue.

But powers is truly upsetting and something not even Smedley would do to a game.

I do understand why they want to keep this thing quit, and I hope they don't plan on the same stupid thing for Neverwinter nights online. Hopefully will most players avoid this junk and play DCU instead so they understand the point and stop mixing P2P games with a F2P games cashshop, it is the worst of two worlds. If they also take money for getting the game they mix all 3 pay systems and takes as much money as possible from all their players.

The only question is if this is Cryptics stupid desicion or Ataris.

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by DragonShark

Sorry, I agree with the moderator on this one.

 

Yeah, I suppose I can see what you mean.

They tried to shut the thread down by hiding it, and that didn't work, so not moderating and then threatening to close it and all future threads on what is clearly an uncomfortable topic down makes sense.

 

The moderators probably moved it temporarily until they could get some higher ups to make a decision on what to do with it. That they only threatened to close it, but didn't actually do it right then, should tell you that they're trying to allow the topic to continue.

I guess the issue is too hot to simple be locked and deleted off the map.

After all, they're trying something new, and we aren't talking about gameplay mechanics here, but commercial model on day one. They are trying to push a new degree of MMO monetizing down our throats, and that is obviously generating a lot of heat.

I won't be surprised if a few months after release CO drops off the retail cost and monthly subscriptions to go full item mall and with some kind of premium subscription.

The same will probably be applied to STO, because all this Mythic Bucks thing also applies for STO.

Originally posted by EricDanie

The same will probably be applied to STO, because all this Mythic Bucks thing also applies for STO.

I can't imagine how they're going to sell this model to the trekkies, what, with the Federation being an egalitarian wet-dream where money doesn't even exist...

Originally posted by jimsmith08

Has there ever been a game which has both RMT and a monthly sub? It seems like game suicide to me that such a decision would be made. Perhaps it will simply be cosmetic items, or like guild wars where you can buy adventure or skill packs?

Another poster mentioned several games that do this, but left out an important one: FreeRealms. SOE is conditioning the next generation of online gamers to accept the subscription/micropayment model as the standard. The primary target for that game is the 10-14 age bracket, and FreeRealms will be the first MMO for nearly all of them. I'm sure most regular posters have seen enough "Was your first MMO your favorite?" posts to realize that someone's first MMO experience typically has a large influence on how they perceive the genre from that point forward. If FreeRealms is as successful as SOE believes it's going to be, the gamers it's producing will shape the western marketplace in 4-8 years. It kind of scares the bejeezus out of me.

Originally posted by Jenuviel

Originally posted by jimsmith08

Has there ever been a game which has both RMT and a monthly sub? It seems like game suicide to me that such a decision would be made. Perhaps it will simply be cosmetic items, or like guild wars where you can buy adventure or skill packs?

 Another poster mentioned several games that do this, but left out an important one: FreeRealms.....

And SOE just laid off 5% of their staff.

I doubt they'd have done that if Free Realms was pulling in the kind of cash they'd hoped for.