Amazing the amount of peoples who cant make up the difference between F2P and P2P.  Did you expect to be able to play the game for free and have all the goodies you had when you were paying a fee ?   Pay a monthly and you'll get everything you had before.  F2P only mean you can play the game for free but with limitation, if you pay the monthly like you did before you get everything.

You can still buy the game off best buy shelves for $5 now and get 30days.

In the meantime, Champions Online is unwilling to accept my 174,99 euros.

Must be allergic for money.

Originally posted by Aguitha

Amazing the amount of peoples who cant make up the difference between F2P and P2P.  Did you expect to be able to play the game for free and have all the goodies you had when you were paying a fee ?   Pay a monthly and you'll get everything you had before.  F2P only mean you can play the game for free but with limitation, if you pay the monthly like you did before you get everything.

I guess its just that people hate the XY game for the sake of hating. According to what i read from forums and site, at least free players dont get area/quest/level restrictions unlike LotrO (some will probably say that you can grind for acessing content, but that is a not acceptable for me). Only Bigger problem i can see is with customizing class or w/e but if you sub like in normal b2p game, that is not limited either.

F2p is never f2p, and it will never be. At least its free to download and try it out, and that is exactly i am about to do. If i dont like it ill uninstall it, and thats not a big problem.

I can't say that I agree 100% with the model that they used, and tried to argue for some way to retain or purchase a free form "unlock" on a per character basis.  My thought was to friends who used to play the game, and how if they decided to come back as a Silver player that there would simply be no way for them to duplicate their characters.  Some powersets just are not even closely represented in the archtypes, such as Celestail, Gadgets, Power Armor, etc.  While I'm sure that eventually there will be archtypes, I couldn't imagine people who had left the game before coming back for free and getting hooked again if they couldn't even play something close to the character that they had before.  Ubfortunatly, my suggestion wasn't taken, and even ran into some outright hostility from some of the more rabid CO players, who tend to freak out more personally and defensively if you say that you don't love everything about CO than they would if you insulted a loved one.

But anyway...

That was in the past, and it's really not productive to keep carrying the torch.  The system that is now is the system that we have, and if you control and change the way that you think, you can maked the system work.  If you let your account slide and want to come back as a Silver player, than you need to think of it as "starting over" in some respects.  You can convert a character over, or you can create a new Silver "version" of your character or even a new one.  You can play the entire game minus the Adventure packs for free.  Yes you are limited.  Can you make it work?  Sure.  You still have 4 travel powers to choose from, which is pretty much what CoH has and more than DC has, and they work fine.  All of the other are essentially travel power "skins" anyway. 

So I understand feeling like you cannot access what you have already paid for, however you if can change your thinking just a bit it may diminish some of the rage.  Before, unless you subbed, you could not access anything that you had paid for.  Now you can access it all if you sub (ie go "Gold), or you can create a new Silver character if you can find a archtype that works for you and play everything except for the 2 Adventure Packs (and you aren't missing much there).  Ok so you have limited bag space... honestly this game is not very loot based anyway, at least as far as I am concerned.  Of all of the games I have played, I probably have the most unused bank/bag space here.

One very very important nte for everyone now.  If you convert a formerly freeform character to a archtype (or put another way go from a Gold account to a Silver and convert a character) it is a one way process.  If you later decide to go back Gold you CANNOT convert back to a freeform model.  I think that this is a oversight and hope that it is corrected soon, but in the meantime I would suggest NOT converting and making a new "Silver" version of a character if you go Silver, unless your character just fits perfectly into the archtype mode

I can understand the OP, and I am in the same boat. I paid the box and almost 1 year monthly fees, and now I get the same reduced experience as those who started today and paid zilch. After I "invested" a considerable amount of money I thought I would be able at least to keep my old existent chars from the paid days. But no, I have to make a new char all over with the powers and costume pieces severly reduced to usually only the trash pieces.

WTF!

Really, I tried it today, but it really was such a letdown, I pass. It's just ridiculous, and given how damn expensive the parts and powers are in their shop, it's outright robbery.

Everyone supporting this dreadful so called f2p + item shop games must be braindead.

I agree that there needs to be a better, much better actually, way to convert/use your existing characters if you come back.  I tried to argue this, but it just never went anywhere, and I had CO fanbois flip out at the mere suggestion.  These same players just didn't seem to understand that their friend's list was not going to suddenly light up like a Christmas Tree as everyone who had left before came back and fell in love with the game again.  The free archtypes simply do not cover a very wide range of character concepts, and in many cases are simply not compatiable.

Let's be honest here, the majority of players who left CO did it because they were unhappy with the game in some way, not because they couldn't afford $15 a month.  Now a lot of time players may use that excuse when they quit playing because they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, hell I have played that card in the past.  In reality players leave because they are dissatisfied, bored, or have found something else.  The way the Silver access is setup is more likely to drive a returning player away BECAUSE they get pissed that they can't use the characters that they have invested time into and become attached to, or are forced to convert to a archtype that does not work (try converting a Power Armor character to a Archtype).  Most likely, as I argued, these players are much more likely to get angry and not come back.

The Silver system is clearly built with the new player in mind.  Now that doesn't mean that a old player cannot return and make a new character and really make due, if you look at what Silver Players get as opposed to what they do not you can really play the vast majority of the game without spending a dime.  However I think that Cryptic has alineated a lot of returning players with this model, and also missed out onn the full potential of $ the F2P could make.  If the system was more freindly to returning players, they may be more encouraged to make some purchases or even resub.  Cryptic has never been really good at looking at the big picture though.

There is no reason for Cryptic to do anything beyond what they've already done.
* Former subscribers already received everything they paid for.
* Former subscribers already decided the game wasn't worth paying for. Hence they are now former subscribers, not current subscribers.

There's no reason for Cryptic to give former subscribers anything beyond what they are giving all the other people who aren't paying them money.

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

you know if you just pay the sub as normal you get all that stuff back right...

^This   Pay your montly fee again and all is well in heaven and on earth.

All the western P2P -> F2P conversions are focused on subs. And CO will not get returning players  to resub, not now, they can sort it later after DCUO stops being new. Now they are figuring out classes erm archetypes.

To OP: the stuff you bought in the box is still there, you just have to sub to acess it, like ever, they did not take anything away. People were saying it before it went F2P, they will have trouble making pieces to sell so they cannot afford to give out selected pieces for free even to their valued customers.

BtW, this game has really terrible download (skipped the official downloader, completely useless) and now patching. It is one of very few games I am hard pressed to even bother starting up.

What the OP describes doesn't sound all that unusual or unfair.  The box price is for the client and (typically) a month of game play.  The subscription is for continuing to receive that level of service, including all those nifty perqs you get as a paying player.  If you want to play the game for free, you're basically agreeing to play by the service level associated with that payment model. 

You've already received the product and services associated with buying the box.  That's done.  Now it's your choice as to how many goodies you're willing to do without and how much you're willing to put out to get what you do want.

It's the same thing with DDO.  I was a VIP before I quit for a while.  When I came back, many of those nice VIP goodies I had before were no longer active because they came with a paid subscription and I was playing for free.  Once I'd resubscribed, I got everything back again.  Sounds pretty fair -- you get what you pay for.   Nothing new here.

On the other hand, it sounds like this particular program makes it impossible to recover your pay-to-play goodies once you choose to play for free.  If that's true, that's idiotic.  I would have been ticked off too if I'd returned to DDO and discovered that because I played for free for a while, I'd forever given up all the paid goodies I had from when I was a VIP.  Even if it was clearly disclosed that this was how the program operated, and it was completely my fault for overlooking that detail, it's still a retarded idea.

It amazes me how many posts I have seen similar to this. Its not like they didnt tell you. They have had a matrix of what you get and what you dont get since before they implemented the system. Also, when you choose "Convert" in character selection screen a box shows up and warns you that there will be limitations. Right there should ring a bell to check the site and see what the changes are.

http://www.champions-online.com/f2p_matrix

basically, its not "completly free"

Originally posted by Joshua69

basically, its not "completly free"

Nor did they advertise as so. Free 2 play simply means play as long as you want with out a monthly subcription or a cut off date. They always have said content and items will be available in the store. But because people see the word free they assume the government will pay for it. :)

Originally posted by Strafingmir

Originally posted by Gormok

Boy i see alot of whine and cry posts about something thats free. Sure you dont get all the cool stuff that are open to gold members, but hell you can basically play the game from 1-40 and all of the content for free. Excluding the adventure packs, you dont have to spend a dime in the C-store to enjoy the game which is a plus. If look at LoTRO, you really cant enjoy that game unless you spend some dough in their CS. After Lone Lands the rest of the content is locked to free players, sure you can unlock it if your willing to buy the quests packs or grind your ass off completing deeds and whatnot.

 

I play CO as a free player and im really enjoying it, hell i dont even have a problem with the archtypes since i never played the game before anyways. So i dont miss what i never had, but if you had a sub before and miss all the perks than resub. I think thats the whole point of the f2p model, i myself am going to sub to see what all the hub bub is all about with the free forms. I just hope it can hold me over until SWTOR releases, but listening to all this crying about a free game without all the perks, is like listening to homeless person crying about a free hamburger without all the condiments.

You're missing the point that I paid for content and actively paid for content for 6 months for this game. I am raging but rightfully so. I'm being treated the same way as people that did not purchase copies of game. I bought three, and i was and probably still is a great game. I have no problem with switching to the Archtype system on some of my characters, and I do have a support ticket out with Atari/Cryptic involving this right now. It was less raged than my post here.

Let my explain more rationally why i was angry. I purchased this game, certain features were included in that purchase including access to the content, i continued to pay for the game for 6 Months on three different accounts. I cancelled my subscriptions because we got bored as there is no endgame in CO unfortunately. So yes I'm no longer a paying subscriber, However i do believe that i deserve some compensation for purchasing the game. I don't believe that it's right for me to have to re-purchase features because I'm chosing to use a free account, I don't feel I should have to repurchase character slots to use my other characters, not only that I doesn't appear my C-Store purchased extra character slots from before are usable. Like I said I believe we as former subscribers who purchased the game deserve something for that., maybe not all the features as a gold membership, but still something. Silver Plus or something for having a CD Key registered on your account. I'd be more than willing to Resub if it wasn't for the fact instead of adding better endgame content to the game they did a f2p system. Which I think is a great idea as it opens the game to a wider audience. I just feel cheated for buying the game. 

No.  ALL YOU BOUGHT with that box was ACCESS to the content, IF YOU ALSO PAY FOR THE SUB.  That's it.  Nothing else.  You did not, in any way, shape, or form, buy CONTENT.

You might have noticed, that before F2P, if you tried to log on when you didn't have a sub, YOU COULDN'T ACCESS THE CONTENT.  Did you need any more evidence that you DID NOT BUY CONTENT?

Sure, I'd agree that it would have been good business to give ex-players SOMETHING extra, like Turbine did with DDO and LotRO.  But Turbine was in no way obligated to do so, and neither is Cryptic, here.  I personally think limiting the archtypes, and thus, freezing ex-players from using their old characters is a dumb idea.  But it's still well within the realm of fairness for them to do so.

I think that will be their move to F2P's biggest mistake; the fact that you can't buy any gold member feature content.  Can't buy custom power capability, etc.  That's why Turbines model works and theirs probably won't.

Either way, your head is completely wrong in this.  Cryptic owes you nothing.  It's yet another case of you getting gameplay for free, yet still somehow complaining that you got ripped off.

Please don't say the system is the same as Lotro. Is the Lotro system better? For some. I fall into the class of people who like the Lotro system much better and I'll explain why.

I have been playing Lotro since beta (so I may be a bit biased). I had 4 main characters on my account when Lotro went F2P. The Lotro model only allows for 2 character slots as well HOWEVER they allowed me to keep all my characters since I had done so prior to the F2P switch. This included all items, bags, abilities, virtues etc. The new character I then created was limited to a few things but I was ok with that since I made him after the switch. I also got to keep the riding skill and horses on old characters even though the riding skill now has to be purchased for F2P players. Lotro also allowed me to keep all the expansions I had paid for in the past. Lucky for me they had a sale on Points so for about $50 I unlocked ALL the quest packs and still had money left over to buy other things such as extra vault space.

Now we were restricted to using slow travel as swift travel was only for paying subs but they even changed that recently too and all previous subbers now get swift travel as F2P members.

Now you tell me that the Champions system is similar or better to that..

Some may like the Champs system and thats fine too. I liked Champs when I was subbed but same as Lotro I don't have the time to play it enough now to sub to either. However, the Lotro system didn't screw old players like the Champs system does. Neither game actually owes the old players ANYTHING, but one system does treat them better.

I can understand the OP, he have invested alot of money in this game and as a thank you from the company he gets nothing.

If they where not totaly ahats they would reward theyr old subs with something.

I never playd CO just tryd it now when it went free for all and im quite happy with the game and my archtype, im a blade and it is truly powerfull i would say to powerfull as i run around one shotting the henchmens it almost gets boreing just almost though.

My biggest wish is that they would enable chat with a one time fee option, like 15$ or something.

The way they handle Sub/CS i have an issue with, as it stand now i wont spend a dime on this game. Ill stick with silver until im bored and move on.

All other f2p models have managed to trick money out of me one way or another but this game wont manage it as it stand atm.

Originally posted by Shukano

Please don't say the system is the same as Lotro. Is the Lotro system better? For some. I fall into the class of people who like the Lotro system much better and I'll explain why.

I have been playing Lotro since beta (so I may be a bit biased). I had 4 main characters on my account when Lotro went F2P. The Lotro model only allows for 2 character slots as well HOWEVER they allowed me to keep all my characters since I had done so prior to the F2P switch. This included all items, bags, abilities, virtues etc. The new character I then created was limited to a few things but I was ok with that since I made him after the switch. I also got to keep the riding skill and horses on old characters even though the riding skill now has to be purchased for F2P players. Lotro also allowed me to keep all the expansions I had paid for in the past. Lucky for me they had a sale on Points so for about $50 I unlocked ALL the quest packs and still had money left over to buy other things such as extra vault space.

Now we were restricted to using slow travel as swift travel was only for paying subs but they even changed that recently too and all previous subbers now get swift travel as F2P members.

Now you tell me that the Champions system is similar or better to that..

Some may like the Champs system and thats fine too. I liked Champs when I was subbed but same as Lotro I don't have the time to play it enough now to sub to either. However, the Lotro system didn't screw old players like the Champs system does. Neither game actually owes the old players ANYTHING, but one system does treat them better.

Man I don't know about you, but I had two main classes in lotro before it went free to play. When I logged into my old account though. All my old characters were gone. So you must have me lucky or something.

Originally posted by Strafingmir I guess I'll give DC Universe a try, though I've been screwed by Sony way more than Cryptic in the past. 

< PrequelDarthVaderVoice > NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo11!!1!12 < / PrequelDarthVaderVoice >

Just say NO to SOE, kids.

I don't play any of these superhero games, as they just don't excite me at all.  That being said, the concept here is quite simple.  This is a MMO.  In MMO's, the initial purchase of the game gives you the client software.  A monthly fee is required to gain access to the content.  Some games, like this one, gives you an option of either paying a monthly subscription, or you can play for free.  Paying the subscription unlocks all of the goodies.  Not paying the subscription means that you are going to get screwed unless you shell out some cash in the shops.

In other words, it doesn't matter if you purchased the client for the game 500 times.  It doesn't matter that you were a past subscriber.  You do not pay a subscription right now, so that means you cannot unlock the content that you once had.  Do you think that just because you subscribed to a cable internet service at one time in the past, that you are now entitled to getting that same service for free at some point in the future?  That's not how the world works man, I'm really sorry to break it to you. 

Instead of making a long winded complaint in a forum that has no control over what happens, why don't you e-mail or call customer support to see if they can help you in same way.  I don't really understand why you have a problem with the way things work.  I mean... pay for a subscription dude, you wouldn't have any more issues.