On June 7th - PWE forces all players to pay up or lose your FFs.

diggot · June 2018

Yeah that right.

Any FF you currently have that is gained by gold-status, will be locked and unaccessable for all players that misses a single payment to PWE, and your only option will be to turn them into an AT - thereby taking away the thing that CO stood for - BUILDING YOUR OWN HERO.

We are either forced to continue to pay our subscriptions WITHOUT FAIL, or pay LTS.. or lose all our FF-characters we've worked on.

Players will also have to pay up 50$ for each FF-slot they want to add to their account, thats more money than full retail on a PC-game these days.. for a character-slot.

theravenforce · June 2018

I think you need to sit down and read the entire news article before posting dramatically like this.

They have said:

"We are looking into the possibility of creating a purchasable item to convert silver slots into freeform slots."

^ This is something they should DEFINITELY look at and actually do. Because circumstances change and sometimes you'll have to allow your sub to lapse.

I will admit this is an odd direction to go in. I do wonder if this is meant to be beneficial in the long run or something...?

diggot · June 2018

Don't count on it. On June 7th these changes are IN EFFECT. Despite players disapproving.
And yea... "Purchasable item" .. you're gonna have to pay for each and every FF-hero that
you want to save.. and i'm betting that's gonna be about 20$ per.

beezeeze · June 2018

nevermind I found what you are talking about here, not sure what to make of it just yet..but it probably isn't as bad as all that I hope.

theravenforce · June 2018

diggot wrote: »

Don't count on it. On June 7th these changes are IN EFFECT. Despite players disapproving.

They reserve the right to change their service, they'll know soon enough if it needs to be revised, if players leave or stop subbing or something.

As an LTSer, it doesn't particularly affect me, but, it shouldn't be too hard to make something which converts existing characters into gold, since we have something like that already when you re-sub.

I'd like to think this wasn't a snap decision but that someone (preferably a group of someones) has run the numbers and seen that [insert w/e is going on now] isn't working so well.

I'd be surprised if this was direct sabotage after all the work that has gone into CO recently (and that still goes in).

I think everyone should take time to dissect the article and ask questions which aren't covered there.

theravenforce · June 2018

diggot wrote: »

And yea... "Purchasable item" .. you're gonna have to pay for each and every FF-hero that
you want to save.. and i'm betting that's gonna be about 20$ per.

Well I wouldn't be surprised. Did you read how much is being given with the 1.5k Zen purchase?!

"Access to Several Services:
Adds 6 Character Slots on Your Account
Adds 1 Costume Slot on Your Account
Adds 40 Auction Slots on Your Account
Adds 3 Inventory Bag Slots on Your Account
A Resource Limit of 200,000 G
The Ability to Change the Colors of your Powers
Emanation points and pet selections on powers that support those features will also be included in this pack
One Free Retcon at Level 40"

^ That alone is quite impressive for 1.5k Zen.

You can't even get one Rank 8-9 catalyst for that price.

soulforger · June 2018

beezeeze wrote: »

So are you saying that if you stop paying for a sub you will never be able to re-subscribe ever again and all your characters will be locked out forever? Where did you come by this information?

The news you see on the launcher...it explains the premium pack. They are actually getting rid of monthly subs. I'm not sure that it will be possible to resub if you have an auto-sub going though. From what how it reads, you keep your CURRENT sub, but will not be able to sub after that is over. Not sure how that works though.

This is, in my opinion, a very horrible thing to do. Same with what they are doing to costume slot purchases. Sure, the one cosutme slot for one toon option goes from 175 zen to 100 zen for two costume slots for one toon. But, the two costume slots for your account that costs 565 zen becoming a five costume slots for ONE toon for 300 zen...is horrible. I understand why they are doing it, they want more money. But, still a bad move.

beezeeze · June 2018

soulforger wrote: »

beezeeze wrote: »

So are you saying that if you stop paying for a sub you will never be able to re-subscribe ever again and all your characters will be locked out forever? Where did you come by this information?

The news you see on the launcher...it explains the premium pack. They are actually getting rid of monthly subs. I'm not sure that it will be possible to resub if you have an auto-sub going though. From what how it reads, you keep your CURRENT sub, but will not be able to sub after that is over. Not sure how that works though.

This is, in my opinion, a very horrible thing to do. Same with what they are doing to costume slot purchases. Sure, the one cosutme slot for one toon option goes from 175 zen to 100 zen for two costume slots for one toon. But, the two costume slots for your account that costs 565 zen becoming a five costume slots for ONE toon for 300 zen...is horrible. I understand why they are doing it, they want more money. But, still a bad move.

Yes I saw that and edited my original post, Not really sure what this all means yet but it is very clear that a lot of people are unhappy at the moment.

riverocean · June 2018

I'm on the fence. I'm NOT a lifetime sub. This also occurred at a time when I don't have a spare $200 bucks lying around to spend. OTOH I'm assuming this was done for financial reasons. I've said it before no other game gives away as much for free as CO does. Am I happy that I have to say goodbye to my FF's forever..... nope. I'm really sad about it. By the time I have extra money available, the sale will be over. Which means I'll have to pay full price for a lifetime sub. Or patiently wait for another sale.

And i did the math. If those new tokens are $20 to $25 dollars each, the economical choice for me, will be purchasing lifetime. I have 20+ FF's I made over the years. So for those people who flipped from sub to non-sub frequently, this change sucks. LTS are still sitting pretty and getting their moneys worth however. Though a few are upset that they aren't getting free character slots anymore.

*shrugs* It is what it is.

nbkxs · June 2018

I think it will actually be a good thing for many. It will hopefully stop all of those people from just dumpster alt spamming, and make characters that are really decent, and built up properly, and geared properly. So that they can actually contribute to the battles, rather than leeching all the time.

beezeeze · June 2018

I want to say that (as usual) a lot of people are overacting to this and I think that is largely due to lack of detail... but I'm afraid we will just have to wait and see. I feel that people who already have a gold account should be allowed to keep everything they have currently unlocked even if their sub lapses and they have to buy a premium pack... just make the pack also unlock everything they had access to when they were subbed. I think that would go along way toward fixing what a lot of people seem to have issues with... but I am not sure that is the way it is going to happen. For brand new players or for existing silver players this is probably a good thing, allowing people to buy what they want when they want it and not have to worry about a monthly fee.

theravenforce · June 2018

Yeah, I don't want to imagine that "THEY" would just say "lolnope" to people who have been playing on sub for years.

The token to convert characters should be free for all characters made before a certain date, but a convert all token would cost a certain amount if your sub lapses or something.

diggot · June 2018

I'm NOT putting up 200$ on a game that has had serious bugs exist for 4+ years.. simple as that.

magpieuk2014 · June 2018

They reserve the right to change their service, they'll know soon enough if it needs to be revised, if players leave or stop subbing or something.

Ah, well, if you're in the EU, they can reserve away. If they make a material change to the nature of the service on an LTS then you can close your account and get a full refund, regardless of what they've put in the EULA or whatever they post on here. It's a bit like Netflix offering a one-time all-you-can-watch subscription and then changing their mind, saying you can watch old shows but no new ones. Nope. £££, please.

theravenforce · June 2018

diggot wrote: »

I'm NOT putting up 200$ on a game that has had serious bugs exist for 4+ years.. simple as that.

That's your right not to do so. I do think they need to publish more information about this. It's pretty damn late to say "Beeteedubz, next week Thursday we're changing your world, kthxbye".

It might be worth asking the right questions in a reasonable way, in order to obtain a response, rather than blowing your top (as it appears here).

Not saying it's not okay to be unhappy with this, but there are better ways to put your displeasure across.

diggot · June 2018

nbkxs wrote: »

I think it will actually be a good thing for many. It will hopefully stop all of those people from just dumpster alt spamming, and make characters that are really decent, and built up properly, and geared properly. So that they can actually contribute to the battles, rather than leeching all the time.

Someone told me in a thread not too long ago that PWE WANTS you to make new alts, it's the reason for the insanely costly respeccing of characters.. 550 Gold for a single full respec.. or buy Zen for 20$.

So they have to make up their mind.. do they want us to create alts, or respec our characters.. Trick question, they want more of your money.

theravenforce · June 2018

lezard21 wrote: »

Swordsman Online shuts down June 5th
Jade Dynasty shuts down June 5th
Premium Pack live June 6th

^ This is something which I hadn't realized actually...could this mean that CO's Dev team will suddenly get bigger?

biffsmackwell · June 2018

beezeeze wrote: »

I want to say that (as usual) a lot of people are overacting to this and I think that is largely due to lack of detail... but I'm afraid we will just have to wait and see.

Personally this is going to affect my enjoyment of the game. Ever since launch, this game has kept my attention (longer than any other MMO I ever played) mainly because I could create so many characters. There are other factors but being able to create characters (and so many of them) has been huge. I started with 16 character slots (lifetime since before launch) and before I even had a single 40 I think I had doubled that amount of slots. I bought a bunch of character slots because that's what I liked. Getting a free one at 40 was great too.

Unfortunately, with this coming update all accounts will have a hard cap on how many characters you can make. I understand that I won't lose any characters or slots already gained, but being no longer able to create a new character without trashing another (or creating a new account with no unlocks) is going to radically change the game for me.

There's a chance that they'll be increasing the character cap, but until that happens, as one of the game's longest supporters, I'm not going to be able to do one of the things I enjoyed most with this game. I'm not gonna panic and say the game is doomed, but this is 100% a change that is not at all positive for me.

jonesing4 · June 2018

What Biff said.

guyhumual · June 2018

Yep, so long making new characters. This might be the end of the game for me.

Unknown · June 2018

This content has been removed.

diggot · June 2018

Also consider this.
Now you will have to pay up 50$ per FF-slot

. And 4 FF-slots = LTS.. Can you see the $$$ that PWE wants ?.

Being able to create your OWN HERO that way you want... is CO's greatest strength.
No more free char-slots and freeform.. RIP.

draogn · June 2018

This change is a pretty big middle finger to LTS/Gold Subscribers owners and those who've been supporting them from the beginning through the highs and lows. Getting a new character slot after leveling to 40 was the only reason some have kept playing for this long. Being able to make alts was the reason to keep grinding through missions that haven't changed much since the beginning or the reason why players queuing for grabs.

Now, once at the cap there is nothing to motivate someone to keep going.

diggot · June 2018

Ye.. All my main chars are full Endgame gear now..
So when we can't create new alts anymore.. wtf are we suppose to do ?.

jasinblaze · June 2018

I do think that it will be hard to get new players to spend $50 to try freeform. I dont see ATs as fun enough to keep the majority of new players.

diggot · June 2018

jasinblaze wrote: »

I do think that it will be hard to get new players to spend $50 to try freeform. I dont see ATs as fun enough to keep the majority of new players.

Champions Online isn't even about AT's. Like i stated previously, CO's strength has always been the freedom of creation.

jasinblaze · June 2018

diggot wrote: »

jasinblaze wrote: »

I do think that it will be hard to get new players to spend $50 to try freeform. I dont see ATs as fun enough to keep the majority of new players.

Champions Online isn't even about AT's. Like i stated previously, CO's strength has always been the freedom of creation.

agreed, but a new players cheapest path to ff will be $50

vylma · June 2018

theravenforce wrote: »

They have said:

"We are looking into the possibility of creating a purchasable item to convert silver slots into freeform slots."

^ This is something they should DEFINITELY look at and actually do. Because circumstances change and sometimes you'll have to allow your sub to lapse.

This is clearly not a solution, what we need is a mean to unlock our GOLD characters. Gold characters are already freeform. And you can't use freeform tokens to get back a locked gold character.

The only solution right now to recover your locked gold characters is to get a sub before the 7th and never ever cancel it, or go for a lifetime sub for 200€... this is absurd.

spinnytop · June 2018

diggot wrote: »

Players will also have to pay up 50$ for each FF-slot they want to add to their account, thats more money than full retail on a PC-game these days.. for a character-slot.

People generally pay 25$ for those. Less if they're willing to farm up some questionite.

lezard21 · June 2018

theravenforce wrote: »

lezard21 wrote: »

Swordsman Online shuts down June 5th
Jade Dynasty shuts down June 5th
Premium Pack live June 6th

^ This is something which I hadn't realized actually...could this mean that CO's Dev team will suddenly get bigger?

Lol no. Neither Jade Dynasty nor Swordsman has had a dev for over a year now if what the community says is true (which, hey, I'm willing to believe them seeing PWI's ethical record)

If anything it means that CO better start making up the money difference they have from losing the money influx (however small it might have been) that Swordsman and Jade Dynasty provided, or they gonna start working on finding a way to axe CO without shitting on STO/NW in the process.

pantagruel01 · June 2018

lezard21 wrote: »

If anything it means that CO better start making up the money difference they have from losing the money influx (however small it might have been) that Swordsman and Jade Dynasty provided, or they gonna start working on finding a way to axe CO without shitting on STO/NW in the process.

There's a respectable chance that that amount of money was zero -- keeping servers up at minimal support isn't terribly expensive, but it isn't free either.

soulforger · June 2018

riverocean wrote: »

I'm on the fence. I'm NOT a lifetime sub. This also occurred at a time when I don't have a spare $200 bucks lying around to spend. OTOH I'm assuming this was done for financial reasons. I've said it before no other game gives away as much for free as CO does. Am I happy that I have to say goodbye to my FF's forever..... nope. I'm really sad about it. By the time I have extra money available, the sale will be over. Which means I'll have to pay full price for a lifetime sub. Or patiently wait for another sale.

And i did the math. If those new tokens are $20 to $25 dollars each, the economical choice for me, will be purchasing lifetime. I have 20+ FF's I made over the years. So for those people who flipped from sub to non-sub frequently, this change sucks. LTS are still sitting pretty and getting their moneys worth however. Though a few are upset that they aren't getting free character slots anymore.

*shrugs* It is what it is.

Yeah, people like you are affected the most, not ltsers like me. It sucks, really really sucks. I just hope they come up with something for people that are not ltsers to turn silver toons into gold toons.

somebob · June 2018

lezard21 wrote: »

If anything it means that CO better start making up the money difference they have from losing the money influx (however small it might have been) that Swordsman and Jade Dynasty provided, or they gonna start working on finding a way to axe CO without shitting on STO/NW in the process.

Keep in mind though that CO costs practically nothing to keep around as long as STO or NW are still running.

The game servers are on the same box. The chat server is on the same box. Cryptic owns the license itself to CO so that costs nothing (unlike STO and NW). The biggest expenses are development time, and I'm guessing a lot of that is shared between the three titles.

stealthrider · June 2018

diggot wrote: »

Yeah that right.

Any FF you currently have that is gained by gold-status, will be locked and unaccessable for all players that misses a single payment to PWE, and your only option will be to turn them into an AT - thereby taking away the thing that CO stood for - BUILDING YOUR OWN HERO.

We are either forced to continue to pay our subscriptions WITHOUT FAIL, or pay LTS.. or lose all our FF-characters we've worked on.

Players will also have to pay up 50$ for each FF-slot they want to add to their account, thats more money than full retail on a PC-game these days.. for a character-slot.

Now all of you know what it felt like to preorder the game and sub, only to see your characters locked when the game went F2P.

Don't expect that to change. Cryptic and intelligent decisions don't go hand in hand.

mrlunkovich · June 2018

Time to remind Cryptic they have people above them: parent company Perfect World International overseas relations department global@wanmei.com , employee complaint department wubijubao@wanmei.com

Remind them that this is not their private little plaything but a product we pay for and they are employed to provide.

silvergryph · June 2018

vylma wrote: »

theravenforce wrote: »

They have said:

"We are looking into the possibility of creating a purchasable item to convert silver slots into freeform slots."

^ This is something they should DEFINITELY look at and actually do. Because circumstances change and sometimes you'll have to allow your sub to lapse.

This is clearly not a solution, what we need is a mean to unlock our GOLD characters. Gold characters are already freeform. And you can't use freeform tokens to get back a locked gold character.

The only solution right now to recover your locked gold characters is to get a sub before the 7th and never ever cancel it, or go for a lifetime sub for 200€... this is absurd.

No, that is what they say they are working on. Right now if you buy a FF slot it is just that: an additional slot you can make a new character in. They are working on a token that will convert a Silver slot into a Gold slot and the character already in the slot would stay FF. They should have seen the need and worked that out before announcing this change.

silvergryph · June 2018

If I am right, there is something that complicates matters a little. I am thinking there are actually at least 3 types of character slots. There's your basic Silver (AT Only) slot, your purchased $50 Freeform slot, and then there are basic slots that inherit a Gold/LT attribute from the account which allows them to hold a Freeform character. So, to make these new tokens they have to apply that attribute to a slot individually rather than on an account level. That could be harder than it sounds and break other things like new slots added to LTS and Gold accounts after the fact.

gerberatetra · June 2018

mrlunkovich wrote: »

Time to remind Cryptic they have people above them: parent company Perfect World International overseas relations department global@wanmei.com , employee complaint department wubijubao@wanmei.com

Remind them that this is not their private little plaything but a product we pay for and they are employed to provide.

Thanks for the contact info.

Sadly the track record of Cryptic and PW shows how little they give a flying farkle about customer feedback but it can't hurt to try.

aesica · June 2018

theravenforce wrote: »

lezard21 wrote: »

Swordsman Online shuts down June 5th
Jade Dynasty shuts down June 5th
Premium Pack live June 6th

^ This is something which I hadn't realized actually...could this mean that CO's Dev team will suddenly get bigger?

No, it's more likely that Jade Dynasty and Swordsman Online were on life support already. When I last looked around on Jade Dynasty (thanks arc points system!) there was almost no one else logged on. I suspect those games had a skeleton crew, or 1-2 guys from other, more active games keeping the lights on, but little else beyond that. In the off chance they had a proper dev team, they could potentially be assigned anywhere. I'd bet on the bigger, more active games though.

flyingfinn · June 2018

I don't have to pay up or lose my ffs.
Oh, it's diggot again. nvm.

mrlunkovich · June 2018

gerberatetra wrote: »

mrlunkovich wrote: »

Time to remind Cryptic they have people above them: parent company Perfect World International overseas relations department global@wanmei.com , employee complaint department wubijubao@wanmei.com

Remind them that this is not their private little plaything but a product we pay for and they are employed to provide.

Thanks for the contact info.

Sadly the track record of Cryptic and PW shows how little they give a flying farkle about customer feedback but it can't hurt to try.

That is the info for the parent company, NOT Cryptic/PWE's customer support, but rather the people that OWN them. This is to reach Cryptic's bosses' bosses, and they take costumer feed back pretty serious, as I noted the second e-mail is for the head of Fraud/Employee complaint department, it is specifically for filing claims/complaints against their employees.

If we really truly want to put a stop to this we need to all contact the parent company, through both departments, and make them aware of what is going on.

diggot · June 2018

flyingfinn wrote: »

I don't have to pay up or lose my ffs.
Oh, it's diggot again. nvm.

Yes you do. If you miss a single payment to your subscription, all your gold-FF's will be locked
and you'll be forced to turn them into AT's in order to unlock them.. which is pointless because
that hero will be useless.

The only way to prevent your gold-FF's from being permanently lost, is to keep paying and never miss a payment,
or pay the extortionransom of 200$, which is stupid for a game that has no active support in terms of
content developtment and bugfixing.

riverocean · June 2018

mrlunkovich wrote: »

Time to remind Cryptic they have people above them: parent company Perfect World International overseas relations department global@wanmei.com , employee complaint department wubijubao@wanmei.com

Remind them that this is not their private little plaything but a product we pay for and they are employed to provide.

Do you honestly believe CO made this decision without PWI's instruction and direction? PWI is closing two of it's non-cryptic games (Jade Dynasty & Swordsman) within days of these new changes to CO. Also, look at the recent changes on STO regarding subscriptions. This is obviously a coordinated effort.

iamynaught · June 2018

theravenforce wrote: »

^ This is something which I hadn't realized actually...could this mean that CO's Dev team will suddenly get bigger?

Absolutely not. Cryptic only has 3 games, CO, STO and NW. There will be no increase to the Cryptic dev team from the closure of those 2 games.

nbkxs wrote: »

I think it will actually be a good thing for many. It will hopefully stop all of those people from just dumpster alt spamming, and make characters that are really decent, and built up properly, and geared properly. So that they can actually contribute to the battles, rather than leeching all the time.

Well, for me and many others, it will be a bad thing. I personally don't team much if at all in CO, outside of my friends and SG anyway. I hate alerts and as a result, I don't run them. The 'endgame' cosmic stuff holds zero interest to me. The zone and holiday events are scaled so that anyone can contribute, but even then I rarely participate in them.

I make alts to express my creativity. The fun of the game is in leveling, once I get to 40, I make a new alt. That is how I play.

I'm sorry that not everyone plays the way you want them to. Perhaps if you'd be willing to pay for those folks to play the way you'd like them to play, everyone's problems could be solved.

As for me, I'm LTS and I'll keep playing until I can no longer make new alts.

flyingfinn · June 2018

diggot wrote: »

flyingfinn wrote: »

I don't have to pay up or lose my ffs.
Oh, it's diggot again. nvm.

Yes you do. If you miss a single payment to your subscription, all your gold-FF's will be locked
and you'll be forced to turn them into AT's in order to unlock them.. which is pointless because
that hero will be useless.

The only way to prevent your gold-FF's from being permanently lost, is to keep paying and never miss a payment,
or pay the extortionransom of 200$, which is stupid for a game that has no active support in terms of
content developtment and bugfixing.

Lifetimer, boiii. Yo.

canadascott · June 2018

I'm doing my best not to get hysterical.

But the discontinuation of the monthly reward does not inspire confidence.

xcelsior41 · June 2018

flyingfinn wrote: »

diggot wrote: »

flyingfinn wrote: »

I don't have to pay up or lose my ffs.
Oh, it's diggot again. nvm.

Yes you do. If you miss a single payment to your subscription, all your gold-FF's will be locked
and you'll be forced to turn them into AT's in order to unlock them.. which is pointless because
that hero will be useless.

The only way to prevent your gold-FF's from being permanently lost, is to keep paying and never miss a payment,
or pay the extortionransom of 200$, which is stupid for a game that has no active support in terms of
content developtment and bugfixing.

Lifetimer, boiii. Yo.

I honestly cannot and will not ever recommend to anyone to get a LTS. It's too steep a cost for this game. I got mine 2 years ago as a future-proof, plain and simple. Based on the premise of getting a new slot at every 40, and being able to not play the game for half a year regularly and still get zen. However, I firmly believe that shouldn't be the ONLY option for new players.

spinnytop · June 2018

FF Slots are future-proof too, so LTS isn't the only option for new players.

diggot · June 2018

Here's a question.

Why should we pay 200$ LTS for a game that isn't properly supported and ran on a skeletoncrew,
and with a game engine so old and complex that everytime we ask for something to get fixed or
implemented, we're told that it can't be done because of the old engine...

And the fact that we have to pay 50$ per FF-slot from now on.. adds salt in the wound.

spinnytop · June 2018

diggot wrote: »

Why should we

Because you want to. If that's not the case, then don't.

diggot · June 2018

spinnytop wrote: »

diggot wrote: »

Why should we

Because you want to. If that's not the case, then don't.

That question wasn't directed to you, because in your eyes, PWE can do no wrong.

The question was directed towards PWE or any devs reading these forumsthreads.

On June 7th - PWE forces all players to pay up or lose your FFs.

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