Sneaky Addition to PTS - You turned on global notification of lockbox drops - hate hate hate this. With a single person opening boxes on pts it was almost impossible to carry on a conversation without turning off system channel in chat options. We also need the same ability STO has to filter these messages out (and the fly in text which is equally annoying and distracting).
So basically we will be spammed with "<player name> got a <item name> from a <name of lockbox> lockbox!"
Welp.
Now I know what straw is going to break this camel's back. Time to start saving costumes and preparing to uninstall, unless somebody with a gold title can explain to me what future development is going to justify how painful this summer has been around here.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Not necessarily, short term yes. But using that strategy only works for so long.
Short-term is the way business works these days, though.
To be fair, a friend of mine who is a producer and dev for another company predicted that CO would be run into the ground by PWE and closed in a year or two. So, from that perspective, the game has done quite well.
Still, this lockbox has the capacity to annoy or anger many of the veteran players left. I wonder what effects that will have. I guess we'll try it out and see what happens. Right, Arkayne?
Not necessarily, short term yes. But using that strategy only works for so long.
Short-term is the way business works these days, though.
Successful businesses also have a long term plan in place. Sometimes made up of many short term plans, but those plans do eventually lead to something long term.
Not necessarily, short term yes. But using that strategy only works for so long.
Short-term is the way business works these days, though.
Successful businesses also have a long term plan in place. Sometimes made up of many short term plans, but those plans do eventually lead to something long term.
But Champions is just one of several games. It possibly is just one of the short term plans now.
Give it a try. If it goes over well, we'll keep providing you more. If not, we won't.
Hey Arkayne, could I please get a clarification on this particular point? Does it mean If this doesn't go over well we won't be providing more powers or just powers delivered via lockboxes? It could, honestly, be taken either way.
Also, if this is the "Alternate Ultimate Power" then when does the Primary Force Ultimate Power show up? When I think of "Alternate" in these kinds of settings I'm expecting "A Copy of the power you have now with different graphics which has no actual bearing on the power balance of the game and is not P2Win." So...does this mean there's a "Gravity Bombardment(making up a name here)" which will be avaliable to Gold/LTS/Freeforms that just has different graphics?
Oh, and thanks for the communication. The effort is appreciated.
There also hasn't been a single instance of mass refunds with CO that is publicly known to us...
Acually....there was a brief time for LTS Refunds back in 2009. I know a few people who actually took advantage of it and, yeah, the majority of them no longer play(1 of them does rarely from time to time).
There's been lot of cheap heat and dirty sniping going on in here lately over the perceived apathy of Cryptic toward CO. If that were really the case, we'd be talking about Maintenance Mode, not Cryptic moving development back to the home office and putting a veteran with deep experience in CO's foundations in charge. I would take issue with the instability that has come from stripping the dev team bare, shipping the game off to a satellite office, dealing with their growing pains, then shipping the game back to the home office. The past few months have demonstrated that it can wreak havoc on quality control. Those aren't the actions of a management that doesn't care if the game lives or dies, though.
Well...
1. That "Veteran Team" is Arkayne(Original Dev), Splosions(On Alert Era Dev moves to NW and now back), Gadfly(Worked in ??? on STO), Totally new Costume Guy, and the occasional cameo by Crush(Lead Power Balance and PvP Dev for NW). There may be more....there may not.
2. Actually, the "Sattelite Office" had better Quality Control from my observatoins and, pure speculation on my part, that may very well be why we no longer have them around.
Now I know what straw is going to break this camel's back. Time to start saving costumes and preparing to uninstall, unless somebody with a gold title can explain to me what future development is going to justify how painful this summer has been around here.
I agree with this mostly. This type of bad news/ideas/practices might have been just a tad more palatable had it been sandwhiched on one side with a good 2015 track record and on the other with some kind of positive permanent content addition of a decent size/replayability. This is more like being asked to put your head on the chopping block and being told the executioner isn't going to behead you. He's just going to take a little practice swing to see how it would feel to decapitate you. Trust him...you'll be fine.
Sneaky Addition to PTS - You turned on global notification of lockbox drops - hate hate hate this. With a single person opening boxes on pts it was almost impossible to carry on a conversation without turning off system channel in chat options. We also need the same ability STO has to filter these messages out (and the fly in text which is equally annoying and distracting).
Ya know<sighs>, once upon a time I used to joke that Cryptic North were X-Pirates and they should go loot and plunder our neighbors because they had nice stuff we could use. This isn't one of those nice things. This is like hitting the beach, picking up the treasure chest, dumping out the treasure, and heading back to the ship because,"Hey, it's a very useful chest!" .....ughhhhh.
Considering all the bad jokes I've heard in CO over the last few years about this bad idea and that one and how now it seems to be turning into "Champions Online 2015: Who's Laughing Now?" in that regard because they're coming true...I'm getting to the point where I'm becoming apprehensive of humor in this game because...it could turn out to be true. I even had a joke thought up about a certain very bad idea they actually do in NW but....yeah...I'm not going to write that out now because it could, potentially, become a reality here.
If for some reason after Gravity Driver they stop putting powers in lockboxes entirely then it'd be a sure-sign of it being a bad idea with the general game populace.
If it doesn't, the items involved will be lost forever and not become available in some other way.
Give it a try. If it goes over well, we'll keep providing you more. If not, we won't. In the mean time, all we ask is to keep an open mind.
So what happens when having a new power goes over well but that it being in a lock box doesn't? You'll stop giving us new powers? Lock boxes not selling says that putting powers in them doesn't work. But what if its because the costume set in it sucks?
Isn't seeing subscriptions, freeform and archetype purchases enough to say that players like new powers? This is certainly more concrete information to how new powers effects the game. Isn't that enough to just add them to the game without having to buy an unlock to increase the quality of those purchases, to encourage players to keep maintaining those purchases?
Sneaky Addition to PTS - You turned on global notification of lockbox drops - hate hate hate this. With a single person opening boxes on pts it was almost impossible to carry on a conversation without turning off system channel in chat options. We also need the same ability STO has to filter these messages out (and the fly in text which is equally annoying and distracting).
So basically we will be spammed with "<player name> got a <item name> from a <name of lockbox> lockbox!"
Also a device that's a Sonic Boom Generator reskin with a stun will be in the box. So not only powers limited in lockboxes but also new devices that should just be more powers added to the trainers.
They're very desperate to make this lock box work.
Checking in after a few months, hoping for some interesting news about the game, and it's disappointing what a trainwreck it has become. This was Cryptic Los Gatos' modus operandi when they were last in charge of the game's development: add overpowered pay-to-win items to lockboxes. Perhaps nerf them 6 months or so after release. No real surprise that they are back to the old tricks, only even more blatantly now, with powers instead of vehicles. It's lame and IMHO it's unethical.
My suggestion to those who are understandingly upset about recent developments: cut the cord. Take a break from the game, replace it with other hobbies, and see if you feel the urge to come back and play after a few months. See if you still feel like making half-hearted defenses of the developers just for the sake of maintaining internal consistency with your play behavior. I expect you'll feel better, and the aggregated negative response metrics to these initiatives is probably the only thing they'll pay attention to at this point.
On the bright side, these terrible new forums will quickly discourage you from even trying to stay up to date on the game via the forums. What used to be one or two clicks is now..too many.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
On the bright side, these terrible new forums will quickly discourage you from even trying to stay up to date on the game via the forums. What used to be one or two clicks is now..too many.
I would just be happy if I didn't have to scroll up to the top of the page in order to go to the next page of a discussion. The interface on Vanilla stinks, and no, I am not going to simply add a script, etc., etc.
I agree with 95% of what Cyber says. Once it starts it's too late. That being said even though I wholly disagree with Biff I think he's earned enough of our trust to not be labelled a shill. That being said:
Do not give out the names of @handles that win prizes. Yes I went crazy on lockboxes in CO and STO. If I won something in CO i thought it was cool. Same in STO, until I won something everyone bloody wanted and was bombarded by so many pm's asking to purchase I felt weird about the whole thing and logged out.
Funny how players are explicitly NOT allowed to post other players @handles, but the entire thing about the company being sooo caring about people's privacy goes through window with lockboxes, isn't it?
Funny how players are explicitly NOT allowed to post other players @handles, but the entire thing about the company being sooo caring about people's privacy goes through window with lockboxes, isn't it?
Assuming I get something of worth in these boxes...if I get bombarded by PM's and people don't respect my replies...my ignore list is gonna grow.
Conversely, this whole "YOLOSWAGDAWG123 got X from [Lockbox]" may lead to YOLOSWAGDAWG123 being put on people's ignore in the hope that will stop the messages.
Funny how players are explicitly NOT allowed to post other players @handles, but the entire thing about the company being sooo caring about people's privacy goes through window with lockboxes, isn't it?
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
At least allocate the lockbox messages to their very own global channel like "Lockbox Notifications" or whatever so that we have the option to hide them if we want to, like we can with every other channel currently.
i just created a character called Whitelisted and turned them all on. I'll use them to open boxes, transfer then wipe. Anyone using my handle to locate will get told politely no, then get put on ignore at the second attempt.
Actually, I'll think I'll have him in Anon when I open, just to make sure they can't use my handle
They don't want you to be able to hide them, its so they can ram it in your face. Same as the ads you get form using arc, this game is on special/sale.
Soo... Day one, Gravity Driver is selling on auction for 500g, in-person for 300g, and I've heard some people even got it for about 100g. That's me saying that with m' straightface!
Yup, I said it would be tolerable if the prices were affordable.
Remember when costumes were the common drop from lockboxes, and then that switched because they figured out we wanted them more? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I saw this working as it is, too, because the idea is you get people used to the idea of them being in a box, then you slowly dial back the rarity. I CANNOT BE THE ONLY PERSON HERE TO HAVE PLAYED EASTERN MMOS. We call that an operant conditioning chamber. Start you out giving you a pellet of food every other time you push the button. Then, slowly dial back the amount of times you get food per button press, with the idea that you're already conditioned to get the food, so you'll keep trying because you remember that reward. It's why you win more often on the nickel slots, and it's incredibly basic psychology.
Yes, it's affordable now. It'd be patently foolish to assume that they won't follow the same pattern they have in the past and slowly adjust that number until the popular thing is the rare one. As you've said, this *is* a ploy to make more money. More keys to unlock the power = more money. Know why I know they'll eventually do it? If I were seeking money, it's exactly how I'd do this.
Oh, and Hey Farva. What's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy **** on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
You mean Shenanigan's? You guys are talking about Shenanigan's, right?
Yeah I'm well aware of how it's likely going to go, but the point is that most costume sets I've acquired from lockboxes since they were made rare were acquired using in-game currency. I know it's not affordable to all, but like I said, my tune will change if the powers become the ultra-rare chase prize, because I want everyone to be able to get it. I did vote with my wallet on this one. My protesting it here would not have changed a thing.
Also, unless I'm misremembering, you're wrong about them slowly dialing the costumes back. They went from common Dino Suits that you can't even give away these days, to the super-rare stuff. Remember the Sharkfin set? Wow what a disaster. I still only own one piece of that. They saw how badly that worked out and started putting whole sets in a single package inside the box. I'd say that was a step in the opposite direction, an example of them tuning things to appease the players.
If this goes as usual, when the event ends I'm going to have a metric buttload of these things in my bank. Give me a holler after that and I'll send you a few.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I was able to get the costume set, the blaster, and the power for under 2000g total at the AH
I was happy
That doesn't change the fact that I don't like powers in lockboxes though.
I was lucky that I got the Ravenswood costume set from that 1 and only Lockbox I opened for the Bonus card stamp... Too bad it's a Horrible Set this is the first time I get something useful in 1 lockbox, it's a shame that the Costume set doesn't make sense at all
Got the Blaster as a Freebie from another player, and Gravity Driver from a Trade
and Lol there are still GD in AH in 1000+ Gs prices
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
>Remember the Sharkfin set? Wow what a disaster. I still only own one piece of that.
Heck, I have people giving me pieces and I still don't have that set. I was more talking about the full set thing. Remember when vehicles were more rare? I kinda prefer it that way, since they're the collector items. Costumes should be a tad more available. I literally only got the power from this pack because a friend gave it to me.
I'd point out how much selling them can screw over silvers, but I'm sure you've had to play proxy for a friend from time to time. I'm like the designated guy among my circle, because I try to be trustworthy. Even with the G-cap increase this is bad for silvers. And they're *exactly* who we should cater to.
I wanna hope you're right, smacky. I really do. This isn't doom saying so much as pointing out past patterns. And seriously hoping they learned from them.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
successfully handed out 4 powers and 4 costumes. Have had good luck so far, zero vehicles.
need more keys.
one person hasn't found out yet, since his computer is playing up again. His laptop has it in for him.
Comments
Welp.
Now I know what straw is going to break this camel's back. Time to start saving costumes and preparing to uninstall, unless somebody with a gold title can explain to me what future development is going to justify how painful this summer has been around here.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Short-term is the way business works these days, though.
To be fair, a friend of mine who is a producer and dev for another company predicted that CO would be run into the ground by PWE and closed in a year or two. So, from that perspective, the game has done quite well.
Still, this lockbox has the capacity to annoy or anger many of the veteran players left. I wonder what effects that will have. I guess we'll try it out and see what happens. Right, Arkayne?
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Successful businesses also have a long term plan in place. Sometimes made up of many short term plans, but those plans do eventually lead to something long term.
But Champions is just one of several games. It possibly is just one of the short term plans now.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Also, if this is the "Alternate Ultimate Power" then when does the Primary Force Ultimate Power show up? When I think of "Alternate" in these kinds of settings I'm expecting "A Copy of the power you have now with different graphics which has no actual bearing on the power balance of the game and is not P2Win." So...does this mean there's a "Gravity Bombardment(making up a name here)" which will be avaliable to Gold/LTS/Freeforms that just has different graphics?
Oh, and thanks for the communication. The effort is appreciated.
Acually....there was a brief time for LTS Refunds back in 2009. I know a few people who actually took advantage of it and, yeah, the majority of them no longer play(1 of them does rarely from time to time).
Well...
1. That "Veteran Team" is Arkayne(Original Dev), Splosions(On Alert Era Dev moves to NW and now back), Gadfly(Worked in ??? on STO), Totally new Costume Guy, and the occasional cameo by Crush(Lead Power Balance and PvP Dev for NW). There may be more....there may not.
2. Actually, the "Sattelite Office" had better Quality Control from my observatoins and, pure speculation on my part, that may very well be why we no longer have them around.
I agree with this mostly. This type of bad news/ideas/practices might have been just a tad more palatable had it been sandwhiched on one side with a good 2015 track record and on the other with some kind of positive permanent content addition of a decent size/replayability. This is more like being asked to put your head on the chopping block and being told the executioner isn't going to behead you. He's just going to take a little practice swing to see how it would feel to decapitate you. Trust him...you'll be fine.
Ya know<sighs>, once upon a time I used to joke that Cryptic North were X-Pirates and they should go loot and plunder our neighbors because they had nice stuff we could use. This isn't one of those nice things. This is like hitting the beach, picking up the treasure chest, dumping out the treasure, and heading back to the ship because,"Hey, it's a very useful chest!" .....ughhhhh.
Considering all the bad jokes I've heard in CO over the last few years about this bad idea and that one and how now it seems to be turning into "Champions Online 2015: Who's Laughing Now?" in that regard because they're coming true...I'm getting to the point where I'm becoming apprehensive of humor in this game because...it could turn out to be true. I even had a joke thought up about a certain very bad idea they actually do in NW but....yeah...I'm not going to write that out now because it could, potentially, become a reality here.
I...I just don't know.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
If it doesn't, the items involved will be lost forever and not become available in some other way.
So what happens when having a new power goes over well but that it being in a lock box doesn't? You'll stop giving us new powers? Lock boxes not selling says that putting powers in them doesn't work. But what if its because the costume set in it sucks?
Isn't seeing subscriptions, freeform and archetype purchases enough to say that players like new powers? This is certainly more concrete information to how new powers effects the game. Isn't that enough to just add them to the game without having to buy an unlock to increase the quality of those purchases, to encourage players to keep maintaining those purchases?
They're very desperate to make this lock box work.
My suggestion to those who are understandingly upset about recent developments: cut the cord. Take a break from the game, replace it with other hobbies, and see if you feel the urge to come back and play after a few months. See if you still feel like making half-hearted defenses of the developers just for the sake of maintaining internal consistency with your play behavior. I expect you'll feel better, and the aggregated negative response metrics to these initiatives is probably the only thing they'll pay attention to at this point.
On the bright side, these terrible new forums will quickly discourage you from even trying to stay up to date on the game via the forums. What used to be one or two clicks is now..too many.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
I would just be happy if I didn't have to scroll up to the top of the page in order to go to the next page of a discussion. The interface on Vanilla stinks, and no, I am not going to simply add a script, etc., etc.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Do not give out the names of @handles that win prizes. Yes I went crazy on lockboxes in CO and STO. If I won something in CO i thought it was cool. Same in STO, until I won something everyone bloody wanted and was bombarded by so many pm's asking to purchase I felt weird about the whole thing and logged out.
Don't put that nonsense here.
#sadlarious
*sigh*
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Thanks PWE! You made quitting you too easy on this one.
Conversely, this whole "YOLOSWAGDAWG123 got X from [Lockbox]" may lead to YOLOSWAGDAWG123 being put on people's ignore in the hope that will stop the messages.
My Characters on PRIMUS
[#]WeNeedHeroicFashion - <Aura Suggestions> - <CO Wiki (WIP)> - <Crowd Control Discussion> - <Telepathy in Champions Online> - How to review The Force Power Set - Join the Champions Online: On Alert Discord!
I am @RavenForce in game
__________________________
*sigh*
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Actually, I'll think I'll have him in Anon when I open, just to make sure they can't use my handle
They don't want you to be able to hide them, its so they can ram it in your face. Same as the ads you get form using arc, this game is on special/sale.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
oh and the power being in a lockbox is trash. customization items are fine imo but selling power(I heard it's stronk) is just not ok
And hey, you traded something worth ~100g for it.
Yay! Powers in lockboxes is super successful and now they'll have much reason to do it again and again, perhaps even put more things in lockboxes!
...wait... what exactly are you celebrating? ...was being right about one aspect of the situation really worth all the rest of the implications?
Well, go ahead and pop your champagne... once you get it out of the champagne lockbox
All right then. Try to keep that smile going for as long as you can.
Server Announcement: Biffsmackwell won [Being Right On The Internet Once] out of the [Portent Of Things To Come] Lockbox!
I saw this working as it is, too, because the idea is you get people used to the idea of them being in a box, then you slowly dial back the rarity. I CANNOT BE THE ONLY PERSON HERE TO HAVE PLAYED EASTERN MMOS. We call that an operant conditioning chamber. Start you out giving you a pellet of food every other time you push the button. Then, slowly dial back the amount of times you get food per button press, with the idea that you're already conditioned to get the food, so you'll keep trying because you remember that reward. It's why you win more often on the nickel slots, and it's incredibly basic psychology.
Yes, it's affordable now. It'd be patently foolish to assume that they won't follow the same pattern they have in the past and slowly adjust that number until the popular thing is the rare one. As you've said, this *is* a ploy to make more money. More keys to unlock the power = more money. Know why I know they'll eventually do it? If I were seeking money, it's exactly how I'd do this.
Oh, and Hey Farva. What's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy **** on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
RIP Caine
Yeah I'm well aware of how it's likely going to go, but the point is that most costume sets I've acquired from lockboxes since they were made rare were acquired using in-game currency. I know it's not affordable to all, but like I said, my tune will change if the powers become the ultra-rare chase prize, because I want everyone to be able to get it. I did vote with my wallet on this one. My protesting it here would not have changed a thing.
Also, unless I'm misremembering, you're wrong about them slowly dialing the costumes back. They went from common Dino Suits that you can't even give away these days, to the super-rare stuff. Remember the Sharkfin set? Wow what a disaster. I still only own one piece of that. They saw how badly that worked out and started putting whole sets in a single package inside the box. I'd say that was a step in the opposite direction, an example of them tuning things to appease the players.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
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Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
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I was happy
That doesn't change the fact that I don't like powers in lockboxes though.
Got the Blaster as a Freebie from another player, and Gravity Driver from a Trade
and Lol there are still GD in AH in 1000+ Gs prices
Currently, there are multiple GDs in the auction house for 300 G. Price will likely drop a little more in the coming week, and then maybe rise a bit.
Expensive, but not too bad. More than I was hoping for.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Heck, I have people giving me pieces and I still don't have that set. I was more talking about the full set thing. Remember when vehicles were more rare? I kinda prefer it that way, since they're the collector items. Costumes should be a tad more available. I literally only got the power from this pack because a friend gave it to me.
I'd point out how much selling them can screw over silvers, but I'm sure you've had to play proxy for a friend from time to time. I'm like the designated guy among my circle, because I try to be trustworthy. Even with the G-cap increase this is bad for silvers. And they're *exactly* who we should cater to.
I wanna hope you're right, smacky. I really do. This isn't doom saying so much as pointing out past patterns. And seriously hoping they learned from them.
RIP Caine
need more keys.
one person hasn't found out yet, since his computer is playing up again. His laptop has it in for him.
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