Freeform character slots are now 3000 ZEN (from 5000)
Added a 3 pack of Freeform character slots for 6000 ZEN.
A single character slot is now 100 ZEN (from 700).
Retired the 2 character slot item.
Added a 5 pack of character slots for 400 ZEN.
Added a 10 pack of character slots for 700 ZEN.
If the idea is to make money to keep the game going, why reduce the price so drastically? You really think quantity is going to make up the difference?
- - - - -
SIGNATURE:
Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
Yeah, the way the whole thing was worded is rather unfortunate, but a comment I read elsewhere struck me.
It's a bug, because it's a feature that should have been removed last patch.
Keep in mind that we already knew the feature of getting a new character slot for level-capping a character was going away with the introduction of the Premium Pack and related business model changes. Even though the Pack's been delayed or put under review or whatever, they still had the intent of removing the feature to address the "bug" it caused (allowing players to circumvent the character slot cap).
But again, how it was communicated, and now implemented, isn't doing any favors.
Well, I am in the same boat, but, this just means I have to actually play my 172 toons (out of the 182 slots I have). And I get where you are coming form. I just guess our way of thinking is different in the aspect of what could be fun to do with older toons. For example, I am currently using the days to activally redo builds on cahracters that have not been touched in a long time. This will take me a while. Playing around with different ideas that work better for the themes of old toons I have that is. I actually find it fun. How do I make a build that fits the theme, without making it bad? It is easier to do than one would think. But, it is still fun to see how many different builds I can build. In a form, giving an older character a new build is akin to making a new character, even if they are the same old character. It is just costly to redo all the mods...XD
Different play styles. It's cool though, I'm glad other people have reasons to stick around, I don't want to see the game fail, but I think this is the end of the line for me as far as gaming goes.
"I'm never going to use any of these 100 chracters ever again, they're useless to me, there's no reason to play them ever, these are effectively 100 dead slots. That's why I can't delete any of the characters in them."
Some real winners being whipped up today.
Hey if that's what you think I said than that's on you, not on me.
@guyhumual can you convert some to alternative costumes on other alts or recreate some on another account?
I've never tried making a new account but that'd only give me two characters to start and I wouldn't have a lot of the costume unlocks, emotes, or resources that I've collected over the years on my account. What I loved doing was making new characters but I think that's a bit out of my price range now. I got a LTS because I realized it was cheaper to buy that than continue playing as I'd been playing as a silver.
> @morigosa said:
> I'll just toss in one more voice here: trying to re-brand a long-standing feature as a 'bug' is the only part of this that makes me angry. I don't like being lied to. If you have to take features away or make things more expensive, then say so. Don't claim you're "fixing bugs" or "making costume slots cheaper" or whatever when you're provably doing nothing of the sort.
>
This is my point too. If they had been honest about what they were doing and why, I may have grumbled but more likely I would have shrugged and moved on. It's the Newspeak that makes me angry. I have been told too many lies by too many people to be willing to just let it pass, especially when it is so easy to prove that it is lies.
Toss my voice in this too. This was a long advertised feature. To now claim it's a bug is nothing but lying, and I am a person who does not like being lied to. Just flat out say, "We don't wish to offer this feature anymore." Be honest about it. Don't lie and claim it was just a bug you are trying to fix up. Lying like this makes me reconsider if I really should stay subbed or not.
A new account would require regrinding and unlocking everything, and with a lot of things going character specific. For me, that's not going to happen. I played through the content over and over again for the character slot. That was the carrot on the stick that kept me playing. That's what kept me spending money for in game items. Now that the carrot has fallen off the stick, there's nothing motivating me to keep going. Deleting characters means deleting character bound items, that's also not happening. I'd rather just go spend my time and money elsewhere.
Well, I did not mention anything about creating a new account (no way would i do that myself).
@guyhumual can you convert some to alternative costumes on other alts or recreate some on another account?
I've never tried making a new account but that'd only give me two characters to start and I wouldn't have a lot of the costume unlocks, emotes, or resources that I've collected over the years on my account. What I loved doing was making new characters but I think that's a bit out of my price range now. I got a LTS because I realized it was cheaper to buy that than continue playing as I'd been playing as a silver.
Well, in someways, it might be fun to try playing the game as if you had unlocked nothing to begin with. Kinda like starting a game you've never played for the first time. This time though, you'd have a little knowledge of how to proceed. But, I guess that is basically the only "advantage" that would give. Otherwise, not having my favorite costumes...would suck.
"I'm never going to use any of these 100 chracters ever again, they're useless to me, there's no reason to play them ever, these are effectively 100 dead slots. That's why I can't delete any of the characters in them."
Some real winners being whipped up today.
Wait a sec:
Here's what you said regarding people speaking for themselves and expressing what exactly they mean/why they think the way the do, "Best to just let them speak for themselves." This is from the thread linked below. I believe what you said here goes against that principle because well...quite frankly, that's not what he said.
So I played level 40s to farm events to get costume unlocks for new characters. I used level 40s to farm missions and existing content to get costume unlocks for new characters. I used Gs to buy costume unlocks from the AH to make new characters. I leveled characters to get Gs and new character slots to make new characters. That's how I played the game. I'm well over the cap. I can't even buy character slots now. The game is over for me. Like I said before I might be able to RP with some friends but the thing I liked was making new characters and I can't do that anymore.
He is, using your direct words, speaking for himself. I normally wouldn't do this but I've seen you do this to biff as well in the aforementioned thread and felt that if I were to be helpful and point out this mistake, you'd be able to adjust yourself to follow what you've previously stated.
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
A lot of this doesn't affect me b/c I'm silver--the cost reduction on FF slots is cool.
One thing that does affect me is when someone insults my intelligence, or the intelligence of my fellow players. I've always understood that gold/LT would get a new slot upon reaching 40. To call that a "bug" and claim it was "never intended" is such an unnecessary lie. As some have already pointed out, it's their game, and they can change it as they please, so what's with the insulting untruth?
Well, I'm not going to quit the game for a single lie, however ridiculous it is, but I'm now worried that more lies are coming. Hopefully, I'm just succumbing to my "intriguing paranoia".
At any rate, such an insulting statement has somewhat reduced my respect for the developers, Cryptic, etc., because kaizerin was representing them all.
The Licensing Agreement and Terms of Service stipulate they have the ability to change anything and everything... for F2Ps, subscribers, or LTS purchasers; at their discretion.
The Licensing Agreement and Terms of Service stipulate they have the ability to change anything and everything... for F2Ps, subscribers, or LTS purchasers; at their discretion.
"We've decided, after a year of debates, to establish a set character cap for [insert valid reason here] for Gold and LTS players. To offset this new change, we've reduced the prices of FF slots, as well as character slots."
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
Every single time they post about a LTS sale, they link the features page from 2014. And the most recent time was just last month's LTS sale. So to say this was a bug and it was a feature just last month's sale also shows the blatant lying.
The Licensing Agreement and Terms of Service stipulate they have the ability to change anything and everything... for F2Ps, subscribers, or LTS purchasers; at their discretion.
The fact that they're allowed to make this change doesn't make them less scummy for actually doing it. They could do a full server wipe on a whim if they wanted to.
My god this thread has been entertaining. They lied, period, they were caught lying with archived proof, period. And yet as always the Dev has their cheerleaders in the forums trying to help deflect from the fact they lied. And this lie was made purely as a way to try to force LTers and Gold vets to spend more money as the majority of the game's population is these veterans. This is one of the many reasons I stopped spending money on CO years ago with LT being my last major purchase. Why would I spend money to support a team that treats the product I spend money on as their own private kingdom?
Lets be real here people, if these changes are being made to make the game more profitable WHY isn't it already profitable enough? Simple really, because CO has one of the lowest player populations of any MMO still in active development. On any given day, weekday or weekend or holiday or event does not matter, literally just the Earth Space Dock instances of STO has a larger population then the entire game of CO. Let that sink in, 1 area of one game has more players in it at any given time then the ENTIRETY of the other game.
So why does CO have a population of only a few hundred players? Because of things like this, Devs lying to players, Devs changing the game to help out personal friends that play the game( Dev tokens exchanged for Questionite that then turns into Zen anyone? Only removed because someone sent screen shots to the parent company who forbids that practice), groups of players purposefully brown nosing the Devs to get changes made purely to screw with other players( surely I'm not the only one that recalls the "PvP Wars" and how literally every week there were factions on the old forums screaming about "OP" builds purely to get players that beat them in PvP nerfed as revenge for their lose). Frankly if PWE were smart they would clean house at Cryptic and replace the entire CO team with new people completely unconnected to the game and community, the team as it stands now is too tainted to be trusted by the general player population and honestly if left in place will be the eventual death of the game.
~I'm a figment of your imagination, a mass hallucination, only real because you feel I am~
The Licensing Agreement and Terms of Service stipulate they have the ability to change anything and everything... for F2Ps, subscribers, or LTS purchasers; at their discretion.
The fact that they're allowed to make this change doesn't make them less scummy for actually doing it. They could do a full server wipe on a whim if they wanted to.
If, they managed to actually give a REALLY good reason for a server wipe...well, still wouldn't be happy, but, if there was something drastic enough to need a server wipe, I'd just have to hope they at least do not wipe what we unlocked or is in our account banks.
My god this thread has been entertaining. They lied, period, they were caught lying with archived proof, period. And yet as always the Dev has their cheerleaders in the forums trying to help deflect from the fact they lied. And this lie was made purely as a way to try to force LTers and Gold vets to spend more money as the majority of the game's population is these veterans. This is one of the many reasons I stopped spending money on CO years ago with LT being my last major purchase. Why would I spend money to support a team that treats the product I spend money on as their own private kingdom?
Lets be real here people, if these changes are being made to make the game more profitable WHY isn't it already profitable enough? Simple really, because CO has one of the lowest player populations of any MMO still in active development. On any given day, weekday or weekend or holiday or event does not matter, literally just the Earth Space Dock instances of STO has a larger population then the entire game of CO. Let that sink in, 1 area of one game has more players in it at any given time then the ENTIRETY of the other game.
So why does CO have a population of only a few hundred players? Because of things like this, Devs lying to players, Devs changing the game to help out personal friends that play the game( Dev tokens exchanged for Questionite that then turns into Zen anyone? Only removed because someone sent screen shots to the parent company who forbids that practice), groups of players purposefully brown nosing the Devs to get changes made purely to screw with other players( surely I'm not the only one that recalls the "PvP Wars" and how literally every week there were factions on the old forums screaming about "OP" builds purely to get players that beat them in PvP nerfed as revenge for their lose). Frankly if PWE were smart they would clean house at Cryptic and replace the entire CO team with new people completely unconnected to the game and community, the team as it stands now is too tainted to be trusted by the general player population and honestly if left in place will be the eventual death of the game.
A few hundred active players? No, there are more. Otherwise, CO being PWE's 5th most played game on a weekly basis wouldn't be true...at least, they wouldn't make that claim ont heir website....
My god this thread has been entertaining. They lied, period, they were caught lying with archived proof, period. And yet as always the Dev has their cheerleaders in the forums trying to help deflect from the fact they lied. And this lie was made purely as a way to try to force LTers and Gold vets to spend more money as the majority of the game's population is these veterans. This is one of the many reasons I stopped spending money on CO years ago with LT being my last major purchase. Why would I spend money to support a team that treats the product I spend money on as their own private kingdom?
Lets be real here people, if these changes are being made to make the game more profitable WHY isn't it already profitable enough? Simple really, because CO has one of the lowest player populations of any MMO still in active development. On any given day, weekday or weekend or holiday or event does not matter, literally just the Earth Space Dock instances of STO has a larger population then the entire game of CO. Let that sink in, 1 area of one game has more players in it at any given time then the ENTIRETY of the other game.
So why does CO have a population of only a few hundred players? Because of things like this, Devs lying to players, Devs changing the game to help out personal friends that play the game( Dev tokens exchanged for Questionite that then turns into Zen anyone? Only removed because someone sent screen shots to the parent company who forbids that practice), groups of players purposefully brown nosing the Devs to get changes made purely to screw with other players( surely I'm not the only one that recalls the "PvP Wars" and how literally every week there were factions on the old forums screaming about "OP" builds purely to get players that beat them in PvP nerfed as revenge for their lose). Frankly if PWE were smart they would clean house at Cryptic and replace the entire CO team with new people completely unconnected to the game and community, the team as it stands now is too tainted to be trusted by the general player population and honestly if left in place will be the eventual death of the game.
A few hundred active players? No, there are more. Otherwise, CO being PWE's 5th most played game on a weekly basis wouldn't be true...at least, they wouldn't make that claim ont heir website....
But the website people and the devs are completely different groups that don't communicate.
My god this thread has been entertaining. They lied, period, they were caught lying with archived proof, period. And yet as always the Dev has their cheerleaders in the forums trying to help deflect from the fact they lied. And this lie was made purely as a way to try to force LTers and Gold vets to spend more money as the majority of the game's population is these veterans. This is one of the many reasons I stopped spending money on CO years ago with LT being my last major purchase. Why would I spend money to support a team that treats the product I spend money on as their own private kingdom?
Lets be real here people, if these changes are being made to make the game more profitable WHY isn't it already profitable enough? Simple really, because CO has one of the lowest player populations of any MMO still in active development. On any given day, weekday or weekend or holiday or event does not matter, literally just the Earth Space Dock instances of STO has a larger population then the entire game of CO. Let that sink in, 1 area of one game has more players in it at any given time then the ENTIRETY of the other game.
So why does CO have a population of only a few hundred players? Because of things like this, Devs lying to players, Devs changing the game to help out personal friends that play the game( Dev tokens exchanged for Questionite that then turns into Zen anyone? Only removed because someone sent screen shots to the parent company who forbids that practice), groups of players purposefully brown nosing the Devs to get changes made purely to screw with other players( surely I'm not the only one that recalls the "PvP Wars" and how literally every week there were factions on the old forums screaming about "OP" builds purely to get players that beat them in PvP nerfed as revenge for their lose). Frankly if PWE were smart they would clean house at Cryptic and replace the entire CO team with new people completely unconnected to the game and community, the team as it stands now is too tainted to be trusted by the general player population and honestly if left in place will be the eventual death of the game.
A few hundred active players? No, there are more. Otherwise, CO being PWE's 5th most played game on a weekly basis wouldn't be true...at least, they wouldn't make that claim ont heir website....
But the website people and the devs are completely different groups that don't communicate.
My god this thread has been entertaining. They lied, period, they were caught lying with archived proof, period. And yet as always the Dev has their cheerleaders in the forums trying to help deflect from the fact they lied. And this lie was made purely as a way to try to force LTers and Gold vets to spend more money as the majority of the game's population is these veterans. This is one of the many reasons I stopped spending money on CO years ago with LT being my last major purchase. Why would I spend money to support a team that treats the product I spend money on as their own private kingdom?
Lets be real here people, if these changes are being made to make the game more profitable WHY isn't it already profitable enough? Simple really, because CO has one of the lowest player populations of any MMO still in active development. On any given day, weekday or weekend or holiday or event does not matter, literally just the Earth Space Dock instances of STO has a larger population then the entire game of CO. Let that sink in, 1 area of one game has more players in it at any given time then the ENTIRETY of the other game.
So why does CO have a population of only a few hundred players? Because of things like this, Devs lying to players, Devs changing the game to help out personal friends that play the game( Dev tokens exchanged for Questionite that then turns into Zen anyone? Only removed because someone sent screen shots to the parent company who forbids that practice), groups of players purposefully brown nosing the Devs to get changes made purely to screw with other players( surely I'm not the only one that recalls the "PvP Wars" and how literally every week there were factions on the old forums screaming about "OP" builds purely to get players that beat them in PvP nerfed as revenge for their lose). Frankly if PWE were smart they would clean house at Cryptic and replace the entire CO team with new people completely unconnected to the game and community, the team as it stands now is too tainted to be trusted by the general player population and honestly if left in place will be the eventual death of the game.
A few hundred active players? No, there are more. Otherwise, CO being PWE's 5th most played game on a weekly basis wouldn't be true...at least, they wouldn't make that claim ont heir website....
Or those other games don't have very many players in them either. Though it wouldn't be the first time someone lied on the internet. It's not like they release numbers for anyone to verify.
@guyhumual can you convert some to alternative costumes on other alts or recreate some on another account?
I've never tried making a new account but that'd only give me two characters to start and I wouldn't have a lot of the costume unlocks, emotes, or resources that I've collected over the years on my account. What I loved doing was making new characters but I think that's a bit out of my price range now. I got a LTS because I realized it was cheaper to buy that than continue playing as I'd been playing as a silver.
Well, in someways, it might be fun to try playing the game as if you had unlocked nothing to begin with. Kinda like starting a game you've never played for the first time. This time though, you'd have a little knowledge of how to proceed. But, I guess that is basically the only "advantage" that would give. Otherwise, not having my favorite costumes...would suck.
Yes, it's kind of my feelings as well, so it's not likely to happen. I'll miss playing the game, it's been my favorite time waster for the better part of 8 years, but like I said I'll probably stick around RPing with folks for a little while yet.
My god this thread has been entertaining. They lied, period, they were caught lying with archived proof, period. And yet as always the Dev has their cheerleaders in the forums trying to help deflect from the fact they lied. And this lie was made purely as a way to try to force LTers and Gold vets to spend more money as the majority of the game's population is these veterans. This is one of the many reasons I stopped spending money on CO years ago with LT being my last major purchase. Why would I spend money to support a team that treats the product I spend money on as their own private kingdom?
Lets be real here people, if these changes are being made to make the game more profitable WHY isn't it already profitable enough? Simple really, because CO has one of the lowest player populations of any MMO still in active development. On any given day, weekday or weekend or holiday or event does not matter, literally just the Earth Space Dock instances of STO has a larger population then the entire game of CO. Let that sink in, 1 area of one game has more players in it at any given time then the ENTIRETY of the other game.
So why does CO have a population of only a few hundred players? Because of things like this, Devs lying to players, Devs changing the game to help out personal friends that play the game( Dev tokens exchanged for Questionite that then turns into Zen anyone? Only removed because someone sent screen shots to the parent company who forbids that practice), groups of players purposefully brown nosing the Devs to get changes made purely to screw with other players( surely I'm not the only one that recalls the "PvP Wars" and how literally every week there were factions on the old forums screaming about "OP" builds purely to get players that beat them in PvP nerfed as revenge for their lose). Frankly if PWE were smart they would clean house at Cryptic and replace the entire CO team with new people completely unconnected to the game and community, the team as it stands now is too tainted to be trusted by the general player population and honestly if left in place will be the eventual death of the game.
A few hundred active players? No, there are more. Otherwise, CO being PWE's 5th most played game on a weekly basis wouldn't be true...at least, they wouldn't make that claim ont heir website....
Or those other games don't have very many players in them either. Though it wouldn't be the first time someone lied on the internet. It's not like they release numbers for anyone to verify.
Well, STO is at the top, followed by Neverwinter, followed by PWI, followed by Forsaken World (and the times I'm in that game it does have a hefty number of players in it), followed by CO. So, looking at the top four, there is some truth there.
If, they managed to actually give a REALLY good reason for a server wipe...well, still wouldn't be happy, but, if there was something drastic enough to need a server wipe, I'd just have to hope they at least do not wipe what we unlocked or is in our account banks.
That's why I said "on a whim". And that's kind of the point. While I disapproved of the original plan to remove the free slot at 40 back when they announced the premium pack, I didn't speak up about it at the time. It's the dishonesty that's what's really bothering me now.
Level 30 power up packs are now 500 ZEN (from 2000).
Character
Addressed a bug where characters continued to get free level-ups for earning XP. It was intended that characters were able to receive free level-ups up to level 6, but not any more after.
If, they managed to actually give a REALLY good reason for a server wipe...well, still wouldn't be happy, but, if there was something drastic enough to need a server wipe, I'd just have to hope they at least do not wipe what we unlocked or is in our account banks.
That's why I said "on a whim". And that's kind of the point. While I disapproved of the original plan to remove the free slot at 40 back when they announced the premium pack, I didn't speak up about it at the time. It's the dishonesty that's what's really bothering me now.
Same here, it is the fact they turned it into a lie.
This isn't exactly right, Caelach. You never received a freeform slot for reaching 40, you received a character slot. They "seemed" like freeform slots because obviously at the time you hit 40 to get the free slot, you were a gold member (otherwise you wouldn't get the slot). A gold member's character slots can all hold freeform characters as long as they remain a subscriber. These character slots have now been reduced to 100 zen apiece. So you're really getting "ripped off" for those $38, but less if you buy the 5 or 10 packs.
It sucks that we now have to pay to unlock what used to be free (whether it was a bug or not) but in good faith they drastically reduced the price of character slots for everyone.
You are telling me that if the devs had gone and said "Yo we are removing this feature cause we want to make more money to mantain this game"
You would all have been "Oh, cool, I'm ok with that" and not QQed at all about said changes?
Am I understanding correctly that the problem here that fired a 6 page discussion is the possibility that senpai lied to me?
How about if they said, "Hey, Champs. We are ending the 1 slot each time you hit level 40 feature. With the new, heavily reduced price of character slots, this change made sense to us."
Of course folks would still have been peeved, but not as many, and not for such an avoidable reason as "you lied".
Just a suggestion for the folks who've topped the 100 slots (I myself have only just hit page 4 of characters, so I'm a long way off): maybe if you can free-up or re-name a character slot to something very generic (e.g. something like 'NPC' if you need the slot to role-play NPCs) and give them one of the more 'generic' power sets, you could assign a different character 'concept' to each costume slot? You could consider each costume a different 'character' - the name and details of which you could get across in conversation. Maybe there's even some placeholder you can get in as the character's 'name' so that it appears to have no name at all floating above it (not sure what the game allows for that sort of thing)?
I guess what I'm suggesting is that it may be possible to separate character concept/background from game system power set. I realise that there's likely a huge number of specific power combinations available in the game, but realistically many of them are so sub-par that even the most dedicated role-players are unlikely to select them, and anyway, role-played characters tend to have quite tight power concepts. 100 character slots should be able to cover any actual build most people would be likely to use, I'd imagine.
Generic names could be stuff like 'Mysterious Stranger', 'Local Hero', 'NPC' or 'Player Character'.
Honestly engaging your community and telling us "Hey we can't keep doing this, we need you guys to buy these now, so how about we lower the cost" is what Perfectworld should be doing here.
How about if they said, "Hey, Champs. We are ending the 1 slot each time you hit level 40 feature. With the new, heavily reduced price of character slots, this change made sense to us."
Of course folks would still have been peeved, but not as many, and not for such an avoidable reason as "you lied".
^ Either of those would be preferable statements to suddenly describing a long standing feature/bonus as a bug.
To add to the screen shots, it wasn't a "bug" either 1 month ago with the proposed sub changes, it was a feature/bonus that would be removed. In comparison the extra (over 100) slots it gave was specifically said to be a bug.
SO wait
You would all have been "Oh, cool, I'm ok with that" and not QQed at all about said changes?
If they had been honest, I'd be but cool, cause $1 for a character is basically free. Instead now they've got us ridiculing them every time they change something with a bug or changing the feature matrix and lost all trust with their blatant stupidity.
Worse to come, I find the $1 option very curious and am waiting for more "per character" fees to drop (see costume slot charge changes, auras, costume animations). I've already picked out 2-3 game features that will likely be placed in the bug category for monetization or just dissapear.
As a side note, this isn't the first time PW/Crytpic has pulled the "It's a bug" feature swap, STO tried to stealth change how the overflow bag worked, ended up borking players inventories. Played the 'meya culpa it's a bug', then 'nope feature change' later. Again caught lying to the player base, and worse leaving them to clean up their mess. The change wasn't big, the lying and breaking things were (and giving no notice on change, or help on how to fix the mess)
I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
Like the powerframe revamp-rebalance schedule wasn't slow already...
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 synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
Wait, I still don't understand why significantly lowering the price on something is going to make them more money? They just gave a huge benefit to the freebie players. Is this to try to attract more players?
- - - - -
SIGNATURE:
Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
I'm glad people are making a stink about this. I paid for my free slots at 40 (through the nose), and now I have to pay for them again. The pretext given has been revealed to be a lie. And, on top of it all, the deception was executed in a sloppy and offhand manner.
I think anyone defending this move has a questionable set of priorities.
Yeah it sucks no more free slots at level 40 boo boo.
BUT
Now you can get a new character slot for $1 (one) dollar. Or at current Q prices, 2 Cosmic rotations.
Aka, you can get a new character slot up to 100 every 4 hours by playing a total amount of 30-40 minutes total if the raid is good.
Meanwhile to get a new character slot before you had to play non stop for 4 hours IF you had 2x Exp and stacked a lot of exp buff or double that amount if you didn't.
To me that's a huge QoL improvement.
And let's not even bring stipend and Vigilance into the equation. If anything now it's a lot easier to hit the max character cap than before.
It's always DOOM in the Champions Online forums ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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 synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
The only people who this really burns is are those that already have over 100 characters or those who are planning on having over 100 characters... for them this really is a grim change and the apparent dishonesty about the reasons for this change make it much worse.
For the rest of us it isn't so bad and actually might be an improvement... getting 100z from exchanging questionite is probably going to be a lot faster than leveling a new character to lvl 40. Now it might still kinda suck for some who used the incentive of getting a new slot as the driving force for them to level up their current characters... now they are going to have to farm for Q instead.
for them this really is a grim change and the apparent dishonesty about the reasons for this change make it much worse.
But the character cap being 59 was not dishonesty but a fact. Someone digged up the post where what some people considered to be The Dev Of Truth said so a couple of years ago.
Other players have even provided proof as to why having a bucketjillion of characters with a truckzillion of costumes can impact your game's performance.
The part that was dishonest was the part where they said that you were not meant to get more than 1 character slot upon hitting 40, but they gave us a much more faster and better way to get new character slots, so I'd say this was a good lie if it was cause it benefits everyone greatly \o/
for them this really is a grim change and the apparent dishonesty about the reasons for this change make it much worse.
The part that was dishonest was the part where they said that you were not meant to get more than 1 character slot upon hitting 40, but they gave us a much more faster and better way to get new character slots, so I'd say this was a good lie if it was cause it benefits everyone greatly \o/
There is no such thing as a good lie.
ALL lies:
erode the trust of the listener
tell the listener that the one telling the lie believes he or she is too stupid to catch it.
And in this particular case, this particular lie also:
gives many players cause for concern, as the lie indirectly accuses them of behavior (exploiting a known bug) that would get them banned on many games.
Will Cryptic begin coming after people who used this advertised feature to acquire new characters, now that they've Newspeaked it into a bug?
--
Coffee, chocolate, bacon, and phasers. What more do I need?
Comments
SIGNATURE:
Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
Keep in mind that we already knew the feature of getting a new character slot for level-capping a character was going away with the introduction of the Premium Pack and related business model changes. Even though the Pack's been delayed or put under review or whatever, they still had the intent of removing the feature to address the "bug" it caused (allowing players to circumvent the character slot cap).
But again, how it was communicated, and now implemented, isn't doing any favors.
Heroic Roleplayer @epelesker | PRIMUS Database Moderator | Brigade Advocate
Different play styles. It's cool though, I'm glad other people have reasons to stick around, I don't want to see the game fail, but I think this is the end of the line for me as far as gaming goes.
Hey if that's what you think I said than that's on you, not on me.
I've never tried making a new account but that'd only give me two characters to start and I wouldn't have a lot of the costume unlocks, emotes, or resources that I've collected over the years on my account. What I loved doing was making new characters but I think that's a bit out of my price range now. I got a LTS because I realized it was cheaper to buy that than continue playing as I'd been playing as a silver.
Toss my voice in this too. This was a long advertised feature. To now claim it's a bug is nothing but lying, and I am a person who does not like being lied to. Just flat out say, "We don't wish to offer this feature anymore." Be honest about it. Don't lie and claim it was just a bug you are trying to fix up. Lying like this makes me reconsider if I really should stay subbed or not.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Well, I did not mention anything about creating a new account (no way would i do that myself).
Well, in someways, it might be fun to try playing the game as if you had unlocked nothing to begin with. Kinda like starting a game you've never played for the first time. This time though, you'd have a little knowledge of how to proceed. But, I guess that is basically the only "advantage" that would give. Otherwise, not having my favorite costumes...would suck.
Wait a sec:
Here's what you said regarding people speaking for themselves and expressing what exactly they mean/why they think the way the do, "Best to just let them speak for themselves." This is from the thread linked below. I believe what you said here goes against that principle because well...quite frankly, that's not what he said.
Here, because you forgot:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline/#/discussion/1211361/any-news-regarding-the-premium-pack-yet/p3
This is their rationale.
Rationale(ra-tion-ale): noun
noun: rationale; plural noun: rationales
a set of reasons or a logical basis for a course of action or a particular belief.
"he explained the rationale behind the change"
He is, using your direct words, speaking for himself. I normally wouldn't do this but I've seen you do this to biff as well in the aforementioned thread and felt that if I were to be helpful and point out this mistake, you'd be able to adjust yourself to follow what you've previously stated.
42 40s, LTSer.
One thing that does affect me is when someone insults my intelligence, or the intelligence of my fellow players. I've always understood that gold/LT would get a new slot upon reaching 40. To call that a "bug" and claim it was "never intended" is such an unnecessary lie. As some have already pointed out, it's their game, and they can change it as they please, so what's with the insulting untruth?
Well, I'm not going to quit the game for a single lie, however ridiculous it is, but I'm now worried that more lies are coming. Hopefully, I'm just succumbing to my "intriguing paranoia".
At any rate, such an insulting statement has somewhat reduced my respect for the developers, Cryptic, etc., because kaizerin was representing them all.
That was already established multiple times in the various threads and isn't the issue here. It's them trying to pass a clear feature of subbing:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110207211957/www.champions-online.com/f2p_matrix, as a bug, lying. A quick statement that could have fixed this:
"We've decided, after a year of debates, to establish a set character cap for [insert valid reason here] for Gold and LTS players. To offset this new change, we've reduced the prices of FF slots, as well as character slots."
42 40s, LTSer.
Neat. Your point?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
The fact that they're allowed to make this change doesn't make them less scummy for actually doing it. They could do a full server wipe on a whim if they wanted to.
Lets be real here people, if these changes are being made to make the game more profitable WHY isn't it already profitable enough? Simple really, because CO has one of the lowest player populations of any MMO still in active development. On any given day, weekday or weekend or holiday or event does not matter, literally just the Earth Space Dock instances of STO has a larger population then the entire game of CO. Let that sink in, 1 area of one game has more players in it at any given time then the ENTIRETY of the other game.
So why does CO have a population of only a few hundred players? Because of things like this, Devs lying to players, Devs changing the game to help out personal friends that play the game( Dev tokens exchanged for Questionite that then turns into Zen anyone? Only removed because someone sent screen shots to the parent company who forbids that practice), groups of players purposefully brown nosing the Devs to get changes made purely to screw with other players( surely I'm not the only one that recalls the "PvP Wars" and how literally every week there were factions on the old forums screaming about "OP" builds purely to get players that beat them in PvP nerfed as revenge for their lose). Frankly if PWE were smart they would clean house at Cryptic and replace the entire CO team with new people completely unconnected to the game and community, the team as it stands now is too tainted to be trusted by the general player population and honestly if left in place will be the eventual death of the game.
If, they managed to actually give a REALLY good reason for a server wipe...well, still wouldn't be happy, but, if there was something drastic enough to need a server wipe, I'd just have to hope they at least do not wipe what we unlocked or is in our account banks.
A few hundred active players? No, there are more. Otherwise, CO being PWE's 5th most played game on a weekly basis wouldn't be true...at least, they wouldn't make that claim ont heir website....
But the website people and the devs are completely different groups that don't communicate.
Obviously. lol
Or those other games don't have very many players in them either. Though it wouldn't be the first time someone lied on the internet. It's not like they release numbers for anyone to verify.
I think they were only trying to show you're a dishonest actor Spinny.
Yes, it's kind of my feelings as well, so it's not likely to happen. I'll miss playing the game, it's been my favorite time waster for the better part of 8 years, but like I said I'll probably stick around RPing with folks for a little while yet.
Well, STO is at the top, followed by Neverwinter, followed by PWI, followed by Forsaken World (and the times I'm in that game it does have a hefty number of players in it), followed by CO. So, looking at the top four, there is some truth there.
That's why I said "on a whim". And that's kind of the point. While I disapproved of the original plan to remove the free slot at 40 back when they announced the premium pack, I didn't speak up about it at the time. It's the dishonesty that's what's really bothering me now.
Same here, it is the fact they turned it into a lie.
I've caught up to like 6 pages of this thread
You are telling me that if the devs had gone and said "Yo we are removing this feature cause we want to make more money to mantain this game"
You would all have been "Oh, cool, I'm ok with that" and not QQed at all about said changes?
Am I understanding correctly that the problem here that fired a 6 page discussion is the possibility that senpai lied to me?
They removed a feature AND lied about why. Not complicated.
People are basically saying they'd be less mad if they did not lie. Not that they would be 100% cool with it.
It sucks that we now have to pay to unlock what used to be free (whether it was a bug or not) but in good faith they drastically reduced the price of character slots for everyone.
How about if they said, "Hey, Champs. We are ending the 1 slot each time you hit level 40 feature. With the new, heavily reduced price of character slots, this change made sense to us."
Of course folks would still have been peeved, but not as many, and not for such an avoidable reason as "you lied".
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
I guess what I'm suggesting is that it may be possible to separate character concept/background from game system power set. I realise that there's likely a huge number of specific power combinations available in the game, but realistically many of them are so sub-par that even the most dedicated role-players are unlikely to select them, and anyway, role-played characters tend to have quite tight power concepts. 100 character slots should be able to cover any actual build most people would be likely to use, I'd imagine.
Generic names could be stuff like 'Mysterious Stranger', 'Local Hero', 'NPC' or 'Player Character'.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
^ Either of those would be preferable statements to suddenly describing a long standing feature/bonus as a bug.
To add to the screen shots, it wasn't a "bug" either 1 month ago with the proposed sub changes, it was a feature/bonus that would be removed. In comparison the extra (over 100) slots it gave was specifically said to be a bug.
If they had been honest, I'd be
Worse to come, I find the $1 option very curious and am waiting for more "per character" fees to drop (see costume slot charge changes, auras, costume animations). I've already picked out 2-3 game features that will likely be placed in the bug category for monetization or just dissapear.
As a side note, this isn't the first time PW/Crytpic has pulled the "It's a bug" feature swap, STO tried to stealth change how the overflow bag worked, ended up borking players inventories. Played the 'meya culpa it's a bug', then 'nope feature change' later. Again caught lying to the player base, and worse leaving them to clean up their mess. The change wasn't big, the lying and breaking things were (and giving no notice on change, or help on how to fix the mess)
I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
Then it was further postponed when they had to start working on the sub changes and alternatives to make it more palatable
Once they manage to quell down the whole DOOMDEATHDESPAIR they'll probably go back to work on it again.
SIGNATURE:
Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
I think anyone defending this move has a questionable set of priorities.
Yeah it sucks no more free slots at level 40 boo boo.
BUT
Now you can get a new character slot for $1 (one) dollar. Or at current Q prices, 2 Cosmic rotations.
Aka, you can get a new character slot up to 100 every 4 hours by playing a total amount of 30-40 minutes total if the raid is good.
Meanwhile to get a new character slot before you had to play non stop for 4 hours IF you had 2x Exp and stacked a lot of exp buff or double that amount if you didn't.
To me that's a huge QoL improvement.
And let's not even bring stipend and Vigilance into the equation. If anything now it's a lot easier to hit the max character cap than before.
For the rest of us it isn't so bad and actually might be an improvement... getting 100z from exchanging questionite is probably going to be a lot faster than leveling a new character to lvl 40. Now it might still kinda suck for some who used the incentive of getting a new slot as the driving force for them to level up their current characters... now they are going to have to farm for Q instead.
But the character cap being 59 was not dishonesty but a fact. Someone digged up the post where what some people considered to be The Dev Of Truth said so a couple of years ago.
Other players have even provided proof as to why having a bucketjillion of characters with a truckzillion of costumes can impact your game's performance.
The part that was dishonest was the part where they said that you were not meant to get more than 1 character slot upon hitting 40, but they gave us a much more faster and better way to get new character slots, so I'd say this was a good lie if it was cause it benefits everyone greatly \o/
There is no such thing as a good lie.
ALL lies:
- erode the trust of the listener
- tell the listener that the one telling the lie believes he or she is too stupid to catch it.
And in this particular case, this particular lie also:- gives many players cause for concern, as the lie indirectly accuses them of behavior (exploiting a known bug) that would get them banned on many games.
Will Cryptic begin coming after people who used this advertised feature to acquire new characters, now that they've Newspeaked it into a bug?Coffee, chocolate, bacon, and phasers. What more do I need?