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apathycurve
Posts: 2 Arc User
So I come back after 3 1/2 years and find that there is no monthly subscription and my 12 freeform characters are locked behind a paywall of either 36,000 ZEN or a $250 lifetime subscription to unlock them. That's called extortion and I'll not be party to it. Goodbye.
You should be deeply ashamed of yourselves, Cryptic.
You should be deeply ashamed of yourselves, Cryptic.
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-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
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- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Other games I play are giving returning players (and long-term subscribers) some rewards, maybe some bonus premium time, because it's a once in a life time opportunity to reconnect with old players.... and while CO is giving people bonus XP, the lock out of all those old Gold subscribers suddenly - like quite a few things in this crazy 'ol world - looks like a bad, short term, idea.
Swords and Shields!
Plant Abilities!
They're not any more locked out than they were in the past. The only thing that changed is how they're expected to open the lock.
Solution: FF slot sale.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I know how I can get about a favorite character, but try this method first. Otherwise, buy one Freeform slot for one character.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
Now you are left with other choices. OP decided to rant. Forum players told of alternatives. Not much else anyone can do except exposition.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
That's what I said s( U 3 U )z
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I thought about it before it was a pandemic.
wait ... wut?
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
This thread is now way past cool
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
There's a slight difference between being asked to pay whatever it was for a monthly subscription and forking over $200. Maybe you're rich enough where paying that kind of cash for a video game ain't no big deal, but for most folks that's a pretty substantial paywall. I mean ultimately this isn't something you need to live, this isn't a drug company cranking up drug prices, but you put time and effort into making characters, you spend time playing them, and you come back to a game for nostalgia and now you can't even access those characters without paying a significant amount of money . . . well I suspect you're going to be justifiably mad. The problem isn't that they weren't willing to pay money the problem is they're not willing to pay that large amount of money.
The thing is CO has been around for 10 years, they might have been a loyal customer for 6 and a half years, 2/3 of a decade, but hasn't been playing for the last 3 and a half. I got no idea, but they were willing to give Cryptic money in the past but now the two options to play their old characters are pretty steep. Again I'm not seeing why people think this dude shouldn't be upset. Maybe Cryptic didn't have a choice in the mater and PWE forced their hands, but that still doesn't mean this guy's got no right to be upset.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
I know you can convert silver characters into gold, but I don't know if you can do that the other way around, and I'm fairly certain that they might lose costume parts, bags, and other perks they had as a gold player. I remember someone from earlier in the year saying that they couldn't even look at their old characters. I've had a LTS from fairly early on and never had a subscription to CO so I have no idea how it used to work never mind how it works now. Personally though I like making new characters so the advise from earlier where someone said make a new toon and see if you like the changes seemed like the best advise to me, but the free options might not have the power sets you liked or maybe they didn't have any open character slots and didn't even have the option of making a new silver character on their account? I don't know. I just think it's a bad situation all around and I don't like shitting on the dude for being rightfully upset.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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But they're not being asked to fork over 200 dollars... you even acknowledge that in your next post .-. why does this claim persist despite never having been true?
Pretty sure I've seen it mentioned repeatedly that you can turn goldy FFs into free ATs for free. Like I'm pretty sure within the past two weeks a returning player was talking about how he accidentally chose a bad AT for the gear their toon had or something?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
What? Past loyalty is nice and all but companies should only care if you're currently paying them?
Well it's nice that the player base is sharing this information when the email former subscribers/customers got regarding their previous subscriptions explaining the changes got lost or accidentally deleted.
This kit is automatically applied to your account? Or is this something that you'd have to know about? Because if I'm a returning player and I need to do research on the forums to find out how to get my stuff back I'm thinking my reaction is gonna be the same as the OPs
Cryptic can use this for marketing if they want ^_^
As far as I'm aware converting subby toons to ATs has been a thing since ATs existed. ATs were added to the game more than 3 1/2 years ago, ye? I'm just goin on what I heard so if someone has better info please do mention o3o
People who don't do anything to inform themselves and just react without knowing anything often have these sorts of reactions. We are getting many examples of that lately in the world o3o it's kind of a problem for the human race, people getting upset and going nuts before they have all the facts. Here in the states those kinds of people have an entire news network devoted to them `D`
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Seems like that's a problem for a company but a advantage to a political party. It might not have been Cryptic's idea to end subscriptions but getting out ahead of the change and explaining the options players had if their subscriptions lapsed is the job of the company and making that information easy to find and keeping it accessible for their customers to see is what should happen. Now maybe all current and the former subscribers were emailed about the changes, and maybe this page exists somewhere in the Champion's site, but seeing as nobody has linked this page or mentioned the emails warning of the change I have to assume that this might not have happened. If a costumer has to search though forums and rely on fellow customers to relay information than maybe that company doesn't deserve the business and the former customers are justifiably right to be angry IMO.
Let's see here, freeform with zen is 3000, which is about $30 per character, times 12 characters, and that $360. You are correct buying freeforms way isn't going to cost $200. I stand corrected.
I don't get why this is so difficult. If I don't go into a Burger King for three and a half years, the day I darken their door once more doesn't mean they're going to run in the back and make me one of those sub-like burgers they were making about three years ago, even if I complain that they'll "lose me as a customer".
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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If I were CO I'd certainly want to let past players know how they can access old characters again, be it buying some FF slots or by converting them to ATs, and I'd want that information on the first page they see after they start the game. I don't think expecting past players to try to hunt up some such information on their own sends the right "We missed you. Welcome back. There have been some changes and here's what you need know" kind of message that might lure a player back in. Putting the onus on the player to find that information by digging through old forum posts could suggest that the game owners really don't care about trying to win back customers. It may take a little time/effort up front, but, after that initial investment in setting up the information page, they don't have to mess with it again (unless the change how to access the game again).
As an analogy, there are big box stores that I hate to go to because it is hard to find an employee to assist me. If there is another store with similar product and better staffing I will always go to that store, even if it might take me a bit longer to get there because the service is better. If someone is thinking about trying out an old game again, but can't easily find the information they need, they may just move on to a more user-friendly product.
They don't have to search through forums or depend on fellow customers. They can just log into the game and look at the Z-shop. And yes, logging into a game and looking at stuff is an acceptable, common, and the primary way that people find things out about online video games. If someone isn't even willing to do that before they complain and say "goodbye forever!" then I can't even imagine how someone could describe them as a "loyal customer"... especially, as jon points out, after not even having looked at the game for three and a half years. That's the kind of stretch that could enable travel between galaxies.
The word "questionite" is literally in the picture.
Don't mind if I do!
When I go shopping I walk around the store and find what I need myself.
That's it, that's my analogy o3o
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
That's not the problem though Jon, in your analogy you're trying to buy a whopper, something Burger King still sells, something still prominently up on the menu, but to get that whopper now you now have to join the whopper club, which costs more. I'm not talking about a slight price change over 3 and a half years, I'm talking a full added price hike of double if you want one whopper, or 14 to 15 times there price for a lifetime membership to the whopper club. If you walked into Burger King looking for just a whopper and discovered this price hike maybe you'd be fine with it, I probably wouldn't, but that's why we're arguing now. We're clearly very different sorts of people.
Sure, that's what? Only 2025 alert missions or 675 days of doing alerts. Seems perfectly reasonable to expect someone who used to be a full access gold member to grind the 1 350 000 to unlock one of their old characters. It's why I didn't give it serious consideration. If you're a silver player, someone that's currently playing the game, this might be something worth your time but if you just want to play your old characters for a month or two, grinding for over a year to access one isn't a reasonable solution to a normal human being.
EEEEAAAAAAKSHEEEWAAALLLYYYYY
That analogy is bad. Here's a better one.
So I had a tenant that was renting a house from me three and a half years ago. They moved out, and I haven't heard from them for three and a half years. About a year or two ago I decided I no longer want to rent my houses, I now only sell houses. So today that tenant shows up and yells at me because they went to the office where they used to pay their rent and were told that renting my houses is no longer a thing, and they can't rent their old house. They decided to yell at me, say having to pay to buy a house is uncool, then stormed off.
Unfortunate for them, because they don't know that I'm the whackiest real estate mogul ever because I have wild-n-wacky ways for you to buy my houses. One way is that you can buy my houses one room at a time, and when you buy that room you own it forever. The other way is even more insane. See I have this apartment building called "Archetype Apartments" where I let people stay for free, and if you stay there for free and play video games, you can earn rooms in my houses just by doing that, no money involved - I will even provide the video games!
I guess maybe you can criticize me because I made it so you actually have to go to any of my buildings where I have a little thing set up with a sign that has this information, so my marketing isn't super great ( but I've been in business for ten years and my marketing has been kinda bad that entire time, so the person who used to rent from me knew that already ). But I mean when people wanna buy or rent a house they go there and look at the inside usually so I don't that's too terrible.
Oh yeah and all my houses are across the street from a burger king where they sell those sub whoppers that Jon used to eat. Yummo.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.