Say, P2W comes back. What would you most NOT want to see as a Microtransaction?

[mechahamham]

I don't think we're in danger of microtransactions ever coming back because it's widely assumed that Homecoming CAN'T make a profit off of CoH (or even break even) by reason of their license and NCSoft WON'T because that would be admitting wrong or even wrongdoing.

 

However, I think the discussion itself has merit, if for no other reason than to find out, 'Wow, other people would seriously pay for that.'

 

Lootboxes: We did that with Superpacks during the Live era. Now that they're part of the in-game economy rather than the real-world economy, I do every so often spend a sum on them simply to burn off excess influence. I don't even resell the contents. The primary source of funding of my characters comes from crafting. Some characters I want to pay their own way, so they have to craft up from 0 influence and buy their own ATOs. I wouldn't be horrified if another kind of loot box somehow arrived, but I would take it as a symptom of something very wrong happening with the game's balance.

 

Costumes: This would be something that would be very difficult for me, personally, to say no to. I bought all the costume packs that came out during the live era. I don't want to go back to that, where you either had to grind for or pay for new costume pieces. I think that having all the costume pieces unlocked at character creation is a vastly good thing... but that's another discussion entirely.

 

Max Level/Prestige Characters: This is my 'not just no, but HAYULL NO' button. Do not want. Very no. /jranger

 

Some time ago, I heard something that stuck with me. It was a player recruiting on Excel for players to join their Brainstorm SG, which seemed bizarre to me at the time. After some time, the recruiter admitted what was really happening. They were frustrated with grinding and didn't want to do that any more. Brainstorm has the Freebies menu, but no real population and very few teaming opportunities. They were trying to build a group of players to team with on Brainstorm's relaxed testing rules. (Did they try farming? I dunno. It never entered the conversation that I heard, surprisingly enough.)

 

I think if max level, or decently kitted characters were offered as a microtransaction, there would be a market for them from people like this.

 

However, in the real world, we've seen that this is the 'last gasp' of other F2P games. It snowballs to the point to where if you make a new character, they will have absolutely no one to group with until they're max level.

 

I personally feel that if you're not enjoying that basic game loop of 'Defeat enemies in interesting ways, gain even more interesting ways to defeat enemies', you're playing the wrong game. However, I can't in good conscience tell others what parts of the game they should enjoy or not. I don't EVER want the low- and mid-level game to die out, and microtransaction characters is the surest, quickest way to make exactly that happen. That would kill CoH for me far deader than any corporate-mandated shutdown ever did.

[Lunar Ronin]

No thank you.  The other MMORPG I play is DC Universe Online, and holy crap.  The former Star Trek Online developers took over the game last year, and the DCUO monetization is now wild.  Two or more FOMO timed events every single month that you have to either seriously grind or shell out $$ every month (each)... and they contain permanent very strong powers or NPC companions.  If you happen to miss one of those timed events?  Tough luck.  You may never be able to get those permanent powers or NPC companions again.  Then they started adding meta-changing and defining permanent powers to lockboxes.  If you want to be in the meta, you have to pay $200 to $400 per character, per power.  It's insane.  Oh, and like the FOMO timed events, once those lockboxes are cycled out for new lockboxes?  Good luck.

 

I miss the days of when MMORPGs just had a subscription and that was it.  "Free-to-play" is a joke.

[Glacier Peak]

[mechahamham]

1 hour ago, Lunar Ronin said:

If you want to be in the meta, you have to pay $200 to $400 per character, per power.  It's insane.  Oh, and like the FOMO timed events, once those lockboxes are cycled out for new lockboxes?  Good luck.

 

This is AMAZINGLY horrifying!

[Lunar Ronin]

1 minute ago, mechahamham said:

 

This is AMAZINGLY horrifying!

 

Thankfully, I don't care about playing meta characters (in any game).  I just really like how a couple of power sets there play, the travel powers are awesome, and being virtually "in" the DC Universe setting and flying around Metropolis and such after reading DC Comics comic books for 45 years is great.  So I don't get to do elite raids.  Big whoop.

 

But it sets a terrible precedent, and it makes it much harder to onboard new players.  I'd really hate to see anything like that come to City of Heroes, (which it won't, thankfully).

[Scarlet Shocker]

TL;DR

 

/jranger

 

 

[Skyhawke]

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, mechahamham said:

it's widely assumed that Homecoming CAN'T make a profit off of CoH (or even break even)

 

Of course, Homecoming "break even" every month due to donations ... it seems like not by your help.

 

If you like microtransactions so much then try to get in early and help pay to keep servers running when the donation window opens every month. You can pretend it is a microtransaction.

 

I don't really understand this outbreak of late of people wanting to return to a subscription model ... or even worse .. microtransactions!?

 

I sense a Nemesis plot.
 

 

Edited 37 minutes ago by UltraAlt

[UltraAlt]

7 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

The former Star Trek Online developers took over the game last year

 

Yeah, Star Trek Online was another Cryptic game.

 

Oh, Jack has been involved with Daybreak as a whole since On June 8, 2016. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

"...He designed the MMORPGs City of Heroes and City of Villains.[2] Emmert was the chief creative officer and directed the design of all games from Cryptic Studios, and was involved in the development of Marvel Universe Online.[2] He and Cryptic later decided that Champions would be a suitable replacement for the Marvel Comics IP that they had lost, thus Cryptic purchased the rights for the Champions game and its universe from Hero Games in 2008.[1]: 153  Emmert was the online producer for Star Trek Online.[3]... " - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

Yeah. that "Jack".

 

"... On June 8, 2016, Emmert was made CEO of Daybreak Game Company, a studio in Austin, Texas. He was in charge of the Daybreak Games studio that was responsible for DC Universe Online, and he oversaw all development while reporting to Daybreak headquarters located in San Diego..." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

"The leader of Dimensional Ink Games is Jack Emmert, who serves as the CEO and is a well-known MMORPG designer." - Google AI search response

 

But, yeah, Andre Emerson and Al Rivera were part of the team that worked on Star Trek online as well. Jack is in leadership above them.