A new experience is launching for City of Heroes -- Freedom

by Eliot Lefebvre on Jun 21st 2011 9:00AM

Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Business Models, Patches, Previews, News Items, Free-to-Play

The world of City of Heroes is changing. Players in the game now face an invasion from another dimension and a staggering host of new threats. But there's an even bigger change on the horizon, one that will shake the game to its very fundamentals. That change is City of Heroes Freedom, a combination of a new hybrid business model for the game that will add a plethora of new rewards, subscription option, and content for all players of the game. The fact that it will open the game up to a free-to-play model is almost incidental considering the other sweeping changes coming to the game as a whole.

The longstanding Veteran Rewards system will be getting overhauled into a new Paragon Rewards system, which will offer all of the extant rewards along with a huge number of additional bonuses on a monthly basis. Subscribers will be upgraded to VIP Players, gaining access not only to priority queues and a special VIP-only server but to an exclusive signature story arc every month, allowing characters to experience ongoing stories alongside the important lore characters of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. VIP players will also be gaining a free monthly stipend of Paragon Points for the game's new cash store, which will allow players access to new costumes, new power sets, and even new weapon and usage styles for existing sets. City of Heroes players should take a look at the official site and get ready for the newest upgrade to the game -- a solid dose of old-school freedom.

Source: City of Heroes Freedom

Reader Comments (82)

YAY! Finally. Love you Paragon Studios. Lets do lunch.

@Tempes Magus

As near as I can tell - I'll try to get a more official confirmation - everything previous subscribers had will be available subsequently. You won't be able to make a new spider, but you won't be locked out of playing ones that have already been made. It also appears that most features that aren't included can be purchased for a one-time fee, or opened up via subscription.

@Tempes Magus

That's already been answered. If you bought Going Rogue, you have access to Going Rogue. It doesn't matter if you bought it before or after Freedom went live.

Hmm. Both of the links 404 and theres no mention of this anywhere on their site. Are you sure this is real? XP

@WonderPenguin Links are borked for me, too. Did Massively jump the gun?

@WonderPenguin

They are missing the .com

Here: http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/freedom/

Ten p2p games, sitting on a wall.
Ten p2p games, sitting on a wall.
And if one p2p game, should go f2p,
There'll be nine p2p games, sitting on a wall.

Nine p2p games, sitting on a wall.
Nine p2p games, sitting on a wall.
And if one p2p game, should go f2p,
Then all the rest will follow, because they're just trying to join the latest money-grabbing bandwagon for a game that was, for all intents and purposes, not actually doing badly in the grand scheme of MMO subscriptions.

No p2p games, sitting on a wall.
No p2p games, sitting on a wall.
And if one f2p game, should start to charge some more
Then we're all price-gouged, and happy evermore.

@Dril

I like f2p. it allows me to play 3 or 4 games a month for $15. I am responsible with my money and can't justify more than that on a video game.

@Yellowdancer

Great for you.

I like to play one or at most (when I have literally nothing to do all day) two games in the same month. This means I play those games a lot. This means I advance at a fairly rapid rate.

With a f2p, I'd end up paying far more than $15 just to get the bare essentials of the game, not to mention anything extra. In fact, I'd probably hit a pay-wall, or a pay-slope at some point, where I'd end up paying far more than sub just to be able to advance at a reasonable rate. Oh, and let's not even get started on games like ROM and Allods which require a significant cash investment to even be competitive at end-game.

F2P is great fantastic if you look at MMOs as throw-away games to entertain you, nothing more. If you want to immersed in and spend a lot of time in a world, f2p has simply not been viable in any game.

@Dril

Yah, I'm just not the kind of person who is going to pay more that $15 a month. I'll just quit and move on. I can't stand CO's model because it pushes you into paying more than $15 a month. Conversely, I can play EQ2X and just mine nodes and sparklies all day. They want me to pay more by popping up that Go Gold signage. I just laugh and go work on my collections some more.

@Dril
Ok, so continue to pay the $15 a month for your one game and enjoy the extra perks that come with VIP status. What changes for you except potentially more people to group with and stuff you can buy from the store with free points you're getting for being VIP?

In fact, if CoHF is your game of choice then you can even play on a VIP-only server so that you're not dealing with the free players at all if you don't want to.

I'm sorry, but I can't see where your complaints have any basis.

@aurickle There's no free lunch, subscribers are going to lose something with the changeover.

@Dril

People keep claiming that F2P games are more expensive than $15 a month, but I've yet to ever experience it myself. Maybe if people lack the self control to resist impulse buying then burn themselves out of the game after a month, but you can't really blame that on the payment model.

You can limit yourself to spending only $15 a month in a F2P game and be perfectly "competitive." Or, in the case of hybrid models, you can just keep subscribing and get to enjoy the benefits you do currently plus getting credit to spend in the ingame shop.

@Furdinand
How so? And why?

They didn't with LotRO, DDO or even EQ2. In fact, with every freemium model I've seen they've taken great care to make the subscription into the best value for a regular player.

If CoX was going to a totally f2p system your assertion would probably have merit. But they're keeping subscriptions and in the case of CoH they're actually going to be giving subscribers even more than is available to them now because they'll be the only ones with access to those monthly special content releases.

@Dril

then pay the VIP $15 a month plan.

@Dril

"Then all the rest will follow, because they're just trying to join the latest money-grabbing bandwagon for a game that was, for all intents and purposes, not actually doing badly in the grand scheme of MMO subscriptions. "

But they're not do that spetacular either. They have reached a threshold that going Freemium becomes a win-win situation. Though that does lend to your views that the gaming compnaies are going to this money grubbing option. But keep in mind, no new triple A game goes F2P when released (Save GW2...but they're use a B2P model, so they really don't count). So there is still obvious room for P2P games.

...not to mention, like all fads and trends, Dril...this will too likely have it's backlash and/or something else that is new will come and replace it. Just saying.

@Yellowdancer

Heh, I don't like EQ2 anyway, but gratz on enjoying it. I wish I could love EQ2, there's so much content, but the game just never did it for me.

@aurickle

The fact is, things are going to be made store-exclusive. I don't like that, especially when I'm paying a sub for a "f2p" game. Either subs include everything, or you still have to pay extra, which isn't good in my book.

@Ehra

ROM? Allods? They explicitly charge for gear upgrades that are massive and absolutely required. Either you don't spend cash for power, or you're handicapped. And some of that costs a lot of money, so it's not hard to see how the dedicated could quickly wind up spending a lot just to be able to keep doing their chosen activity.

Again: how much do you play? Competitive is not being able to do 5-mans or solo quests with reasonable success. I mean high-end activities like raiding and that. If you don't pay, you're gimped. Far be it a lack of self-control, it's a desire to actually be powerful.

@jslim

Not every f2p has sub. But go ahead and mouth off because you have nothing better to say.

@jslim419 You seem upset...

@Ehra
I direct yout o Need for speed World.

Online Racing MMO...

new Car $5-$14 (sometimes $40 BOOST purchase required for "special" cars)
You need parts for that car... with a 0.004% drop rate per part per track that part can possibly drop from... grind your face off or Buy card packs that give 1-3 RANDOM parts across 3 tiers of cars and 3 tiers of quality
You want to customize your ride?
$3 for tinted windows...$50 for neons. ($2-$5 for licence plate, no you dotn get to choose. thier prefabbed)
Yes you CAN play it for FREE, but you CANNOT compete for free....its great if you just like cruising around with no purpose, but if your goal is to race, you'd better fork over the cash...and a LOT of it.

@Dril
Yes, there will undoubtedly be store-exclusive items. But they're also giving subscribers 400 points per month to use in the store, as a part of your subscription. This means that anything that's in the store is available to you as a part of your subscription. Some things may need you to save a month or two, but you can still get them without paying one dime above your subscription fee.

So that part of your argument is moot.

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A new experience is launching for City of Heroes -- Freedom

Reader Comments (82)

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 9:06AM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 11:08PM Eliot Lefebvre said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 11:36PM Eliot Lefebvre said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 9:07AM WonderPenguin said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 9:21AM j1083 said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 12:37PM Zantom said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 9:08AM Dril said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 9:24AM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 9:47AM Dril said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 10:15AM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 10:32AM aurickle said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 11:18AM Furdinand said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 11:22AM Ehra said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 11:42AM aurickle said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 12:44PM jslim419 said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 3:13PM Utakata said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 3:14PM Dril said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 3:43PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 5:12PM Skyydragonn said

Posted: Jun 21st 2011 5:24PM aurickle said

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