It's been said never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity, but I think you might be underestimating malice here. Or
sneakiness, at any rate. Was the whole 'oh, we're all out of lifetime memberships' thing a horrible oversight, or was it a calculated publicity
stunt? I don't know, but I do know people who bought the lifetime membership when it was brought back who'd had no plans to do so before they 'ran
out' briefly.
So, a possible scenario:
Open Beta; defenses are overpowered, XP and loot rewards are set too high. Result? People playing the game think it's easier (or they're better at
playing it) than is actually going to be the case. Makes pre-order customers more likely to plunk down some money on a six month or lifetime membership,
especially given the discounts.
Opening day; survivability and the rate of advancement both take a hit, making the game much grindier (I henceforth declare grindier a word) and more in
keeping with Jack Emmet's idea of how hard the game should be. The people who bought lifetime or six-month subscriptions are already locked in. Anybody who
wasn't there for the pre-order/open beta probably won't care about the furor. MMOs are always being tweaked, and the tweaks always annoy people.
This annoys me. But when it comes right down to it, I would rather have them make drastic changes early, before I invest time in the game. I never even got to
the point where I had the uber-powerful passive defenses, so I really can't work up much outrage about the whole thing. The I6 tanker nerf? Still not cool.
The irony that Jack Emmet is responsible for both is not lost on me, I assure you.
It's been my opinion in the past that the competition between City of Heroes and Champions Online would likely make both of them better games than they
would be otherwise. I still think that's the case. But this did remind me that Jack Emmet being at the helm was one of my big reservations about Champions.
sneakiness, at any rate. Was the whole 'oh, we're all out of lifetime memberships' thing a horrible oversight, or was it a calculated publicity
stunt? I don't know, but I do know people who bought the lifetime membership when it was brought back who'd had no plans to do so before they 'ran
out' briefly.
So, a possible scenario:
Open Beta; defenses are overpowered, XP and loot rewards are set too high. Result? People playing the game think it's easier (or they're better at
playing it) than is actually going to be the case. Makes pre-order customers more likely to plunk down some money on a six month or lifetime membership,
especially given the discounts.
Opening day; survivability and the rate of advancement both take a hit, making the game much grindier (I henceforth declare grindier a word) and more in
keeping with Jack Emmet's idea of how hard the game should be. The people who bought lifetime or six-month subscriptions are already locked in. Anybody who
wasn't there for the pre-order/open beta probably won't care about the furor. MMOs are always being tweaked, and the tweaks always annoy people.
This annoys me. But when it comes right down to it, I would rather have them make drastic changes early, before I invest time in the game. I never even got to
the point where I had the uber-powerful passive defenses, so I really can't work up much outrage about the whole thing. The I6 tanker nerf? Still not cool.
The irony that Jack Emmet is responsible for both is not lost on me, I assure you.
It's been my opinion in the past that the competition between City of Heroes and Champions Online would likely make both of them better games than they
would be otherwise. I still think that's the case. But this did remind me that Jack Emmet being at the helm was one of my big reservations about Champions.