Im not so sure about thier F2P model so far.  

Even with thier little adventure packs and the addition of Vibora Bay, CO is still extremely content thin.  Its only real selling point has always been the customization of powers.  And they are going to take that away unless you pay them $15 bucks a month.

I quit playing CO because it didnt have enough content to warrant paying $15 bucks a month.   There is no way I would pay a premium sub just to have acces to one feature and still have the game be anorexically puny in regards to content.

I figured this was going to happen.   Especially since Turbine claims to have had a 300% increase in thier player base since going F2P.

Like many others, I always thought CO should have been F2P from the start.   Its a good little game but doesnt have the content or retention power for a game that requires a premium monthly subscription.

Originally posted by spyder2k5

 

---

Originally posted by dhayes68
In those types of situations you usually get the beta/headstart as a reward for buying the lifetime sub, so again, how could you know you're going to like it? I could see if they came out with lifetime subs 6 months out, but its just silly at or before launch.
And even if you got into beta before buying your lifetime, its still silly because its beta. There is no community and no guarantee that what you're playing in beta is what you'll get at launch.

---

 
Some things in beta change correct, however another thing is usually they do not change much that close to launch. Oh and the whole buy the game to get beta thing? You can pre order it, get into beta try it, if you don't like it cancel your pre order. It is really that simple. Ample time to check the game out is there, also lifetime for these games don't end at launch, matter of fact you can still get lifetime for STO, LoTRO etc... So you would have had 2 weeks to play STO and decide is lifetime is good for you. Your argument is void and falls flat, in all merits.

 

Ok those are some good points.   But what if the game changes unfavorably in 4 months?   Or even 6 months?

Since this thread has become a topic about Lifetime Subscriptions, I would like to add my two cents.

Its always smart for a consumer to look for bargains.   Like buying items in bulk at a reduced price.   Wich is basicly what buying a Lifetime Sub is. 

But the problem with Lifetime Subs in an MMO is that the product you paid for may not be the same product in 6 months.  Or even at Launch.   Even if you played Beta and decided you liked the game and bought a Lifetime Sub, there is no guarentee that the game wont change in an unfavorable way a week after launch.   And they can do that because they are protected by thier EULA.   Wich leaves the paying customer screwed.   The best a customer can do is suspend thier account untill they feel the game is back to thier likeing if it even survives.

CO is a prime example of all of these.   The day the game launched they put in a launch day xp nerf wich reduced xp gains.   It made it so if a player missed some missions, they would hit a leveling gap and couldnt go on any further without spending hours and hours trying to hunt down missed missions, or grind repeatable missions untill they reached a level that they could go on.  They changed the way the game worked on day One.

Then over the next three months CO seen 4 (I think it was 4.  dont remember now) rounds of nerfs and power set rebalancing.   Still changing the game even more. 

I could go on, but I think thats enough....

Now here we are 5 months into CO's life and its a mess.  They have pissed off so many people that the game is Tanking and its not even 6 months old yet.   The Lifers are all pissed and with good reason because this is not the game or service they thought they were buying, and they cant get thier money back.

So even if you played the beta of an MMO and liked it, you are still taking a gamble with your money because you never know wich direction an MMO will take.

Personally, I would rather pay month to month and if the game takes a turn for the worse, I can just simply stop paying and walk away with the option to still be able to come back any time in the future if I choose.

I dont play anymore so I cant say from expierence that the game is dying.

But I still keep in contact with my old Guild and from the looks of it CO is doing poorly.   They went from being so big and active that they had to make a seperate Guild because thier member cap of 250(cant remeber if thats the exact number) member had been reached.   They had a total of around 300 to 400 members between the two guilds.  Very active with weekly meetings and all that.

But now they say that even with 300 to 400 members there are maybe 3 or 4 people on during peak gameing times.   The leaders are trying to recruit more people but there is next to nobody to recruit except for regular players leaving thier dying guilds to find more active ones.

Again, I dont play so I dont know exactly how true this is but from what I am told CO is tanking pretty bad.   For the sake of CO's future, I hope they are exaggerating.

I am surprised yet relieved they did this.   Even though its still not enough to make me want to resub atleast they are pointing in the right direction.

Someone on the official forums speculated that this expansion may not be the Vibora Bay that they were talking about, but instead it is a replacement for it.  Something else they may have been working on.    Time will tell if this is the case ofcourse, but it was an interesting speculation.

As for the new Tier 4 powers, Cryptic had said something about adding new Tier 4 powers into the power sets that were power set specific.   They were going to try and make Thematic builds more appealing.

I'll be keeping an eye on CO in the coming months hopeing the game does actually improve.   CO had so much potential and yet did a full face plant right after launch.   Hopefully Cryptic can rally and pull the game through.  Although it may be too late.

This is exactly why use game cards.   Last I heard though, was that Cryptic isnt making game cards for CO anymore.

Originally posted by Xeroshadow

If you want a good laugh, read this thread where this guy tries to tell us we should pony up more cash due to Financial Realities.

forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php

All I'm getting is Cryptic did not make a good game, keep paying a sub and buying microtransactions(fluff or content updates) until it is.

I like how some of those people are trying to figure out Cryptics finances.  X amount of money from monthly subs = X amount of monthly money, minus X amount for.....  Blah blah blah blah.

As a (former) paying customer I could give two turds about Cryptics financial situation.  All I care about is the expected quality and service that I should be getting for paying a premium monthly subscription.   Nobody (Cryptic or anyone else) should expect me to fork over more cash above my monthly subscription so that Cryptic can make the game better, much less actually fix it.

Cryptics financial situation, good or bad, is thier own problem.  If they cant meet thier obgligations as a service provider without price gouging thier customers then people will just move on.   Like so many already have, and many more will if they keep it up.

This so called 'Expansion',  Vibora Bay ( or whatever its called) will be a deal breaker for a whole lot of people.  If they actually continue with thier plan to charge thier customers for such a shabby excuse of an expansion they will see alot of really ticked off people.   And ticked off people wont give you money.

Great write up.   I would also like to add my bit about end game content.

End game in CO actually does exist.  There is plenty to do at the level cap.  You can do the 5 man instance (although there are only a few), Craft, PvP, Collect Perks for Costume Pieces, Collect Lore Perks, UNITY Missions, and fight your Nemesis's.   Lots of things to do really at the level cap.

But the problem with all of them is that the high end rewards are junk.  You have to spend alot of time to get those items/rewards, wether it be farming instances over and over, collecting mats for crafting, doing UNITY mission after UNITY mission, and Nemesis mission after Nemesis mission.  Or killing 5000 mobs over and over again for the costume pieces. 

All that time spent doing those things for practically nothing.  The gear and items you have on are probably just as good as those high end items, and in some cases even better.  Wich makes doing End game content not worth the effort.  People only do these things to justify paying a monthly sub, and even then, people are getting very bored very quickly and leaving the game.

Add those problems with the already known fact that there is very little leveling content in the game, and you have a very hollow game.  One single leveling path with nothing meaningfull to gain at the level cap.   It simply dead ends when it comes to furthering your character progression.   Pretty hard to keep people playing a game that dead ends much less keep paying to play a game that dead ends.

CO's costume creator is more fun and satifying than doing End Game content.  People spend more time at the tailor messing with thier costume that out farming for anything.   The Tailor is more interesting.

And now they finally come up with some much needed content diversity, and they expect people to pay extra money for it?   Bad move.   A really really bad move.

Originally posted by Christopher8

 Daeke is now locking threads for anyone asking about the content, VB, or why it isn't free. This was the dev reply:

http://forums.champions-online.com/showpost.php?p=1455094&postcount=79

Unfucking believable.

This is Daeks response to people complaining that the expansion should be free..

Daek: This argument is logically flawed. Champions also got free updates 45 days after launch, and continues to do so to this day.

What free update is he talking about?  They gave one new power set around Holloween.   The rest of the additions have just been mostly repeatable missions because on the day the game launched, they nerfed xp so that the existing missions didnt give enough xp wich created points in the game where some of the players could hit leveling gaps.

Sure the new power set could qualify as an update, but the rest of it is just trying to fix the game.

Dont get me wrong.  Paying for an expansion is pretty normal these days.   But when we the players think of an expansion, we are thinking of an expansion like WoW, or LotR.   Massive amounts of new content with lots of new areas to explore and even new classes and races and more levels.   Practicly a new game all on its own.   Something worthy of paying the price.

But Cryptic is trying to get people to pay for a Single new zone.  No new powers.  No new levels.  Nothing at all is being added to the game besides a change of scenery for a few levels.

IMO it doesnt qualify as an expansion.  Its just an update to add content to an already content starved game.   People shouldnt be paying for something that just fixes the content problem.  And this little update still doesnt fix the content problem, but it does help.

Im glad I quit this game months ago. 

I was tempted to resub a few weeks ago but it seems that Cryptic stopped selling Game Cards.   The guy at Gamestop told me that CO's subs were dropping so fast that Cryptic stopped manufacturing the game cards because it would cost more to make them then what they would probably sell.

I have no idea how true that is, but with business practices like this it seems believeable.

Originally posted by Manchine

Ignoring all the haters.  This game is still one of the best games out there.  IF not the best.

No doubt its a good game.  It has alot of very inovatve stuff.   But it lacks the ability to keep players interested long enough to keep paying monthly subs.  Even thier forums have slowed down to a crawl compared to even two or three weeks ago.  People are leaving.

End game rewards lack severely.  Cryptic has stated that end game rewards (Item rewards, drops, craftable items) will always have only marginal benefits.  They dont want CO to be a game that is gear driven like WoW.   Wich is fine, but without meaningfull end game rewards, it makes doing end game content not even worth the effort.   Because once you hit the level cap, you super hero is already about as good as its ever going to get.  Even taking the time to get those pretty purple end game items wont do much.  So once you hit level 40...  you basicly beat the game.   Nothing meaningfull left to do in the way of meaningfull character progression.   And its not like CO has alot of End Game content to do anyway. 

And since there is very little End Game content, people can always roll alts.  But as someone above me said, the content is really thin.   In order to reach the level cap, you have to do the almost all of the missions/quests in the entire game.   Its like playing CoD single player over and over.   The exact same missions/quests in practically the exact same order.  Even the Alt-O-holics are getting bored of it.

As Ive said before..  Its a good game with alot of potential.  But for now its just a filler game.  Something different to play if you need a break from your current mmo, or untill something better comes along.

CO is a good game with alot of potential.  Its real draw is the diversity of powers you can put together.  But thats about where the benefits stop for me.  It has too many other bigger problems wich is why I let my sub run out.

One of the major problems for me was the end game content.   The content is there, but the rewards (drops/gear) are lacking.   The nice high end Purple stuff you can craft, pick up, or gain as rewards are only slightly better than the Blues and in some cases even considered worse.   Wich makes putting in the time and effort to get the high end gear is not really worth it when the blues you have are just as good as the Purples.   It makes doing the end game content boring and not worth the effort.   All stick and no carrot.

PvP is pretty bad.  I dont PvP, but I hear that the matches are dominated by FoTM builds.   People trying to play concept characters like Spider-Man, Bat-Man, or any other get decimated by those people only using a mosh posh of only the most over powerd powers.

One of the other problems is the lack of content it takes to get from level 1 to level 40.   The day the game launched, Cryptic nerfed xp rewards for completeing missions.  Wich meant suddenly you had to complete almost ALL of the missions in the entire game to get to level 40.  I'd say about 70% to 80% of all the missions in the game.  If you missed missions or skipped anything, you would hit a leveling gap at around level 28.    Wich alot of people did, and were searching everywhere for missions they may have missed.   Its a little better now since Cryptic added in some new repeatable missions, but you still have to complete the majority of the missions in the entire game or you wont hit level 40.

One of the other problems with leveling content is that since you already have to complete the majority of the missions to get to level 40, if you roll an alt to level up, you have to do all the exact same missions.   There is no leveling diversity. No different starting areas.  No different leveling paths.  All the exact same missions in pretty much the exact same order.  Rolling alts is like playing a single player game over and over.

There is plenty more I could say, but for now I'll just finish by saying that the game is good and probably worth it if you are just looking for a filler game untill something else comes out, or just need a break from your current MMO.   But if youre looking for a long term diverse game with lots of end game content/rewards, you wont find it in CO.   Atleast not yet.   Maybe in 6 months.

I had all of my best gaming expierences in SWG CU and Pre CU.   But the time when a roll back would have brought me back to SWG has long passed.

SOE spat in the faces of thier paying dedicated customers with the CU.   They pushed it live despite the huge protest from thier player base.  Wich turned out to not be the CU they said they were going to put out anyway.

SOE spat in the faces of thier paying dedicated customers with the NGE.  They pushed it live despite the huge protest from thier player base.

Twice within 6 months they told thier player base to go get bent.  They actually came out and said that with the NGE they were willing to lose thier existing player base in order to draw in new ones.  Hopefully more.

Yet now suddenly with SW:TOR Beta getting ready to come out, SOE is willing to entertain the idea of classic servers?

Nope.  Not for me.  They had thier chance to make amends with the community they gladly slapped aside.  Too little to late for me.

Originally posted by Daedalus732

As someone who played SWG until the NGE, I'm deeply dissapointed, though not surprised by any means, by the direction Bioware seems to be taking this game. To me, it looks like a single player MMO with a few instances that will require grouping with other people. Thus I have to ask:

"Should we really consider this game an MMO?"

I'm pretty cynical anymore when it comes to MMOs, particularly since I seem to be one of the few people who can recognize the rehashing of the same concept with a different skin that has repeatedly dogged the MMO experience for me. So it looks to me like Bioware is just trying to cash in on the whole MMORPG market using their previous successes as a foundation. It's like someone suggested one day:

"Lets make our next KOTOR game an MMORPG so we have a continuous flow of cash"

When I look at SWTOR's website, I see no mention of guild content, PVP, player cities, or anything that should drive people to play an MMO. Why, after all, should someone pay a monthly fee to play what is basically a single player game? 

I must confess that I didn't like any of the KOTOR games because to me, the time spent on developing a character and taking them through the game world amounted to nothing because all the time you put into the character ultimately meant nothing. The advent of the MMO allows people to continuously develop their character, and lets be honest, show off our achievements. Most important is the comradery and competition between guilds. How many stories and experiences do we best recall from our MMOs that stem only from single player content? Probably not too many.

As an SWG vet, I'm not going to hold my breath on this one. I'm done with the cookie cutter hand holding that companies are using to attract their market. 

I don't want someone to tell me a story, I want to tell other people MY story.

well as far as the single player thing, there is an interview that can be seen here http://www.massively.com/2008/10/23/swtor-overview-part-2/  where a dev is talking about instances and mentions something about it.

here is the quote:

Rich: Yes, there is going to be a form of instancing. That's very important to a lot of different things – being able to do storytelling, being able to do experiences that aren't disrupted in public areas ... they are a part of our game. We do have both though, and we want to make sure you don't feel like you are in a single-player game.

There are also a couple of interviews (which I am too lazy to go find right now) where the devs talk about how pvp will be introduced to players very early on in their character developement and how there will definately be crafting.

Now to what extent any of this will be implemented I have no idea.  I dont think anyone here does at this point.  They could do it all in an amazing way or they could completely botch the entire thing.   Time will tell, and we'll be watching.

Originally posted by CasualMaker

Originally posted by Gutboy

Actually if SOE really cared about money they would roll back to Pre-CU, since they do not it shows they care more about the current subscriber then ever before in game.

 

I agree, and since I don't subscribe to the "it's pride pride all about pride!" view (at least on SOE's part, since I think they really are "all about the money"), this is one of the strongest underpinnings to my belief that such a decision is completely out of SOE's hands. They couldn't (ie. are not allowed to) do a roll-back or classic server if they wanted to.

I agree with you on the part about a rollback not being in SoE's hands.  Ive always believed that if they could rollback they would.  But are not allowed for some reason or another.  I could go on and on with my little conspiracy theory but we'll just leave it at that.  :)

Originally posted by Hegron

They have no idea what star trek was about, community, interaction with others, and what’s this captain crap... my advice would be to at least sit down and watch... ONE! Star trek episode... but sadly... once gain, even after a dev change, they get it in their heads about what they think this license is all about, cutting off the very thing that made start trek great... exploration... adventure new worlds new life. Solving mysteries... engaging environments... lol star ship captains for all....

 

 

No offense, but this game is suppose to have all of that

Copy Paste:

Adventure in the Final Frontier: Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations in an expanding vast universe. Make contact with alien races, discover resources and uncover mysteries that will change the future of the Star Trek universe.

And as far as the everyone is a captain thing goes, I was like you at first.  I didnt really agree with it.  But after I thought about it, it made sense to do it like that for game play reasons.

Can you imagine a game where every position on your bridge had to be filled by an actual player?  There would be alot of problems because people have lives and jobs that would conflict with play times.  Who's going to nagivate the ship if you Helmsman had to work late?  Or fix the warp drive if the engineer is stuck baby sitting?

I know it takes away from the fantasy, but to me it makes sense for game play reasons

cheers :)

Originally posted by PapaLazarou

Bria is packed in Mos Eisley there must be over 50 people just here and going to places all over the planets I see alot of people too. Not as packed as it was in 2003 but seems more busy than its been in years.

No offense but its pretty sad that 50 people is considered to be 'packing' ME.

Looks like they had it at Pizza Hut

Originally posted by Krayzjoel

Wow will diminish in time. The new expansion pack coming out will bring lots back to the fold but not long. maybe in couple years wow will decline, but im sure blizzard will have World of starcraft  working to keep its money flow going.

Wow isnt going anywhere right now. I dont play it anymore due to various reasons but its still a great game.  Ppl mainly continue to play due to the fact that there are alot of ppl still playing that can help with quests.

The real question is.....If  WOW does begin to decline what will happen to the 25-40 man raid instances?

 

WoW is a good game.  I like it.  But I grow tired of the leveling,  and the constand grind for gear.  Running the same instances over and over and over just hopeing for that piece to drop.  Or living day in and day out in BG's for gear.    Wich doesnt make much sense right now to me because once the expansion comes out, the greens that you get in the first area will be just as good as any blues and maybe some epics you get from OL.   Just like when TBC went live.

So even though WoW is a great game, and I know the expansion will be done great...  I just dont have that kind of drive anymore.

On Topic:  WoW isnt going anywhere.  Its way too big, and way too popular.   The new games coming out might put a ding in thier sub numbers, but  WoW  is many peoples first MMO.  They will leave to try out the new games, but eventually they will go back to where they feel comfortable and Blizzard will be there waiting with open arms.   

I have no doubt  WoW  will one day die.  But not for a long while to come.

/cheers