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Yeah. This makes it a lot easier for houses with kids (or multiple kids).

It allows the kids to have a couple characters of THEIR OWN without filling up mom or dad's account. The ability to purchase more character slots (up to 48 per server now), gives you something to hold over them as "reward" too.

What I might suggest doing though.

Instead of sticking with the "standard" account. Buy a 1 month subscription up front. It allows them to play initially as a VIP player. Then, when they go back to F2P, they're a premium player (with elevated rights).

To see the differences, in tiers, go here:
http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/freedom/player_cho.php#tabs-4

Premium players, while they can't START supergroups (guilds) themselves, can join (and even lead) one.

Also, they're allowed to send whispers (private tells to people) rather than being limited to local and team channels only.

They'll also be able to use the in-game mail system (once their toon gets to level 10 IIRC). This allows you to send them stuff (enhancements, salvage, recipes, in-game currency), offline, in the game.

It'll also give them limited access to the invention and auction house systems without having to pay for it the way base F2P players do.

Also, the month of subscription gets them their first Paragon Reward (vet) token and 400 points ($5) they can spend in the store on whatever the heck they want.

Also, if the expense is a problem for staying subbed, take a look here as well.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/R_M's_Guide_to_Getting_Cheap_Months.

CoH's engine may not be as pretty as CO's is (kinda stands to reason since the CO engine is essentially a second generation of the same one in CoH).

Still, CoH has 7 years of content built. And it's fairly evenly spaced all along the leveling path. They even have stuff to do once you hit max level (Incarnates).
They have over 50 zones. 4 PVP, 5-co-op.
They have alignment shifting, so you can play as hero, villain, or two intermediary alignments.
CoH has made attempts to balance their ATs. So nothing is "clearly superior" to play. With the enhancement and invention systems, just about ANY toon can eventually become ridiculously powerful if you have a mind to make them so.
Also, the devs and art team keep pushing further and further with how much detail and such that they can wring from the current engine.
The development team is fairly involved with the community as well. Not as much as they were in the early days, but it's still REALLY common to see devs and artists replying in threads other than "official announcement" type things.
Their current Community Manager is also quite active. Every Wednesday there's a live video stream put on as well as he drags various and sundry members of the development staff from their caves and into the light.
Roughly 2 weeks ago, they just upgraded their servers for better performance.
Last week they launched Issue 21, which has the F2P component in and we're in the VIP (subscriber) head start right now. The new store is a bit...crude. But it mostly functions. And I expect it to eventually get a lot better. Usually their initial implementations on new UI stuff are somewhere between horrific and "WTF!?!?". But after a couple revs they tend to get a lot more usable as they get more and better feedback.
It really IS a micro-transaction system. You buy points in blocks of 400 (which is roughly $5). And most individual items are between 20 and 120 points. Sets of items, like complete costume sets are 3-800 points.
Also, VIPs (subscribers) get a dole of 400-550 (based on veteran status) points a month for free. Since monthly price for a sub is about $11 (can be $9.50 if you buy NCSoft 60-day time cards online), you're getting nearly half your sub back in points every month.
There's also the updated rewards program. Previously it was the veteran program. But they've put so much cool stuff into it in the last 7 years, it wasn't fair to expect new players to come in and wait ANOTHER 7 years before they saw it. Now vets start out just about where they were in terms of rewards BEFORE the switch-over, but usually are slightly higher. The rewards are now in 10 (#10 is only open to VIP players though) tiers. You have to fill up an entire tier before you move to the next, but while in that tier, you can prioritize which rewards in that tier you select first. Also, buying blocks of market points rewards you with extra reward tokens, moving you up faster. If you don't spend ANY money, you can move into Tier 9 (what would be 6-7 years of rewards) in about 3-4 years. If you want to get there SOONER, you can buy points. And none of the rewards or stuff on the market are game-breaking "sell power" type of things. But lots of them are DAMN nice to have (team teleporters, remote access to the auction house, remote access to personal vault (off-character) storage, etc). Tier 9 and VIP Tier 9 are a rotating rewards setup. Certain rewards will occupy these slots for a while then rotate out. And new rewards will replace them. The toons who claimed them don't LOSE them. They just get the opportunity to get NEW stuff so they don't hit cap and have nothing to do with their reward tokens.

You can hit the City of Heroes site to learn more about it.
http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/freedom/freedom_overview.php

Or you can hit the Paragon Wiki.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/City_of_Heroes_Freedo

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Broad sword and Katana powersets, or if hacking is more your style over slashing, Battle Axe or War Mace. Wait, what's that? You want a longsword? A scimitar? Or one of the 31 other types of swords? Or could we even interest you in two swords?

Don't forget your shield.

Killed by "phantom pirates".

Ooooh -- sounds like a game I'd like to buy!

You already can. All you have to do is get City of Heroes.

How many variations of go to X and kill/collect Y of Z are there, I wonder?

Well, there aren't really that many variations of 'go to X and kill/collect Y of Z', but there are more possible goals than just 'go to X and kill/collect Y of Z'. For the basic mission goals available in CoX, see Tutorial 104, for more advanced goals see the 200 series of tutorials.
 
There's also some deeper tricks you can play - like chaining goals. (Goal 'y' won't spawn until goal 'x' is accomplished.) If you have a 'boss fight' goal, you can arrange it such that he gets reinforcements as his hit points decrease. For 'rescue a hostage' goals, the hostage can be someone who must be escorted out (and survive) or simply killing his guards may suffice. Or maybe he becomes an ally (an NPC who fights alongside you), or betrays you (leads you into a trap).
 
 

Granted, I remember a long time ago playing user created campaigns in NWN, and they weren't half bad, but even professional designers seem to have difficulty putting together compelling mssions in MMOs... color me skeptical.

Sure, mission arcs published via the Architect are subject to Sturgeon's Law much like anything else. But that is what the rating system is for, filtering out the 90%, and mostly it works.

How many variations of go to X and kill/collect Y of Z are there, I wonder?

Well, there aren't really that many variations of 'go to X and kill/collect Y of Z', but there are more possible goals than just 'go to X and kill/collect Y of Z'. For the basic mission goals available in CoX, see Tutorial 104, for more advanced goals see the 200 series of tutorials.
 
There's also some deeper tricks you can play - like chaining goals. (Goal 'y' won't spawn until goal 'x' is accomplished.) If you have a 'boss fight' goal, you can arrange it such that he gets reinforcements as his hit points decrease. For 'rescue a hostage' goals, the hostage can be someone who must be escorted out (and survive) or simply killing his guards may suffice. Or maybe he becomes an ally (an NPC who fights alongside you), or betrays you (leads you into a trap).
 
 

Granted, I remember a long time ago playing user created campaigns in NWN, and they weren't half bad, but even professional designers seem to have difficulty putting together compelling mssions in MMOs... color me skeptical.

Sure, mission arcs published via the Architect are subject to Sturgeon's Law much like anything else. But that is what the rating system is for, filtering out the 90%, and mostly it works.

Seriously, this isn't necessarily some huge, game-breaking thing.

Their previous product, City of Heroes, has been doing this for over a year now with Super Boosters.

What these boosters deliver are a few extra costume options, some extra emotes and what is usually a neat, but relatively useless power.

The first, though not officially a "super booster" was the Wedding Pack

SuperBooster I: Cyborg

SuperBooster II: Magic

SuperBooster III: Superscience

The only thing that has me worried...well, not worried, but apprehensive is that it sounds like they're going to allow the purchase of actual, game-changing items.

If that's ACTUALLY the case, then you DO have something to worry about other than the lousy play mechanics in the game.

Seriously, this isn't necessarily some huge, game-breaking thing.

Their previous product, City of Heroes, has been doing this for over a year now with Super Boosters.

What these boosters deliver are a few extra costume options, some extra emotes and what is usually a neat, but relatively useless power.

The first, though not officially a "super booster" was the Wedding Pack

SuperBooster I: Cyborg

SuperBooster II: Magic

SuperBooster III: Superscience

The only thing that has me worried...well, not worried, but apprehensive is that it sounds like they're going to allow the purchase of actual, game-changing items.

If that's ACTUALLY the case, then you DO have something to worry about other than the lousy play mechanics in the game.

Seriously, this isn't necessarily some huge, game-breaking thing.

Their previous product, City of Heroes, has been doing this for over a year now with Super Boosters.

What these boosters deliver are a few extra costume options, some extra emotes and what is usually a neat, but relatively useless power.

The first, though not officially a "super booster" was the Wedding Pack

SuperBooster I: Cyborg

SuperBooster II: Magic

SuperBooster III: Superscience

The only thing that has me worried...well, not worried, but apprehensive is that it sounds like they're going to allow the purchase of actual, game-changing items.

If that's ACTUALLY the case, then you DO have something to worry about other than the lousy play mechanics in the game.

Seriously, this isn't necessarily some huge, game-breaking thing.

Their previous product, City of Heroes, has been doing this for over a year now with Super Boosters.

What these boosters deliver are a few extra costume options, some extra emotes and what is usually a neat, but relatively useless power.

The first, though not officially a "super booster" was the Wedding Pack

SuperBooster I: Cyborg

SuperBooster II: Magic

SuperBooster III: Superscience

The only thing that has me worried...well, not worried, but apprehensive is that it sounds like they're going to allow the purchase of actual, game-changing items.

If that's ACTUALLY the case, then you DO have something to worry about other than the lousy play mechanics in the game.

Got ya covered: Mez

Most games these days have wikis associated with them, either administered by the game company or created by fans in absence of game company assistance. You don't imagine that tiny rule book/guide that came with the game would actually tell you enough about the game to do more than get you started, do you?

Some portions of the game are puzzles. You can work them out for yourself, or find someone who has solved the puzzle and ask them. Wikis cover that. Some portions have lots of choices, like character customization. Some are more effective than others. Wikis cover that too. And before wikis were database sites (which still have their utility, make no mistake).

Your complaints about jargon in CoH applies to every other MMORG I've played. And in most of those, the jargon does get in the way ... but not fatally. If you've a mind to learn the jargon.

The "sounding dumb" thing goes hand in hand with the "friendliness to new players" social issue. One game I've seen that handled that well was one where new players were segregated from the general population while they "learned the ropes", and there were incentives for "mentors" to actually help out new players. City of Heroes has a "Help" chat channel. I've seen *almost* no "loludumb" sorts of responses on that channel. I don't know of a similar thing in WoW, though.

I've been with City of Heroes since open beta 3.5 years ago (just missed the closed beta). I've seen several posts here on /. saying basically "Been to CoH, didn't like it, left the game" and I'd like to say a little about how the game has matured since then.

Today's CoX (so abbreviated since both City of Heroes and City of Villains is really the same game) has changed massively during those 3.5 years. There's City of Villains, 2 years old as of last week, which nearly doubled the number of playable archetypes (think classes). There's tons of new zones (over 30 now) to play in. There's different mission types - rescuing hostages, destroying or defending the urban landscape - than the original "beat up all the bad guys". And there's Inventions, which is the CoX crafting system, a fairly new system that's still growing.

Bad things have happened too. Enhancement Diversification, unfortunately abbreviated ED, upset a lot of people by basically capping the amount by which you could improve your powers. Just over 2 years ago, there was a massive nerf to defense that made melee archetypes much squishier. And plenty of the little nerfs that every MMORPG gets along the way.

One thing that has not changed in the entire 3.5 years is the dedication of the CoX team to the community. The faces have changed - we've had several community representatives, the original lead designers for both CoH and CoV are gone - but the team has continued and has been very open with us about how the game is doing and their plans. Sure, they don't tell us everything, just as I wouldn't tell my clients everything about how I run my consulting business - but they're very open with everything they're allowed to share. And we get new updates (called issues) typically once every 3 months or so, which is great for keeping the game fresh even for us old-timers.

Another thing that continues to grow is the player community. Sites like http://www.paragonwiki.com/, http://www.cohtitan.com/, http://coh.redtomax.com/data/ and http://www.badge-hunter.com/ are continually adding more support for players.

This NCSoft acquisition is a good thing for the game, in my opinion. The developers will no longer have to worry about two masters (Cryptic and NCSoft) - even when both your bosses are in agreement, red tape can cause problems, much less when they don't agree. That issue is gone. NCSoft has shown their commitment to maintaining the game through their offers of employment to practically the entire development and support team, as well as the creation of the NorCal studio. Personally I won't get much out of the in-game gifts, but it says a lot about NCSoft that they're reaching out to the community in this way.

Okay, now that everyone's in a tizzy, let's bring some reason back to the discussion.

First of all, almost every game out there, including Guild Wars, states in its terms of service that you can use their game content for non-commercial purposes. However, the content remains the property of the game company. That means that if, for example, you post an article in a wiki that contains verbatim descriptions of things found in-game or in documentation otherwise produced by the game company, which most articles are, you have absolutely no right whatsoever to make a DMCA claim because the content is not yours to begin with. If, and that's a huge if, anyone has a right to serve a takedown notice, it would be NCsoft, the owner of the IP for Guild Wars.

Second of all, I too own a popular gaming wiki for City of Heroes, and I too am in the process of moving said wiki over to Wikia. There are many reasons, but among the top ones is the fact that the wiki is become too popular and is overloading my server. Response times are going down, pages aren't loading, and I'm already paying a decent sum of money every month out of my own pocket for a site that has clearly exceeded the capacity of a hobbyist site. At this point, I have one of three options:

• Put ads on the wiki myself.
• Transfer the site to someone else who will run ads.
• Shut the site down.

Regarding option 1, I am not a salesman, nor do I ever want to be. Plus, I just want to concentrate on making the wiki a quality resource for the game's players, not making templates for ads and dealing with money transfers and all. Plus, as you can tell from the submitter's blurb, I don't want to have to deal with people accusing me of doing it for profit. Regarding option 3, I guess some might argue that it would be better to have the information lost forever or dispersed to the winds of the Internet so that it's a lot harder to find, but I don't think that making information less available is in the spirit of what the CC license is about, or the GFDL that the Paragon Wiki uses.

Third of all, all wikis are commercial at some point in the chain. For example, the hosting provider I'm currently using to host the Paragon Wiki isn't free. Could it be argued that because someone (i.e. my hosting provider) is making money off the wiki, it is therefore a commercial endeavor and must be removed? No, that's stupid. If you must, think of this change as the Paragon Wiki, and GuildWiki for that matter, simply changing hosting providers. Instead of me paying a hosting provider money, though, they are getting it through Google ads. I know some folks are going to be saying, "But he got paid and is getting company stock!" And I got paid, too. However, I think you're grossly overestimating the amount. In my talks with Wikia, they told me that they were going to reimburse me retroactively for my hosting costs for the wiki, to give me the money back that I sunk into it for the past couple of years. I did the math. Their number is actually slightly lower than the actual cost, but it's pretty close. I don't know the details (and don't care to) of how much Gravewit got for moving his sites over, but I strongly suspect that he's been paying more in hosting costs than I have, and that it was a similar arrangement, with the money plus the stock value being around the same as his retroactive hosting costs.

Fourth of all, the submitter's summary really portrays Wikia in a needlessly negative light. Can we please acknowledge that they are providing a valuable service here? They could pick and choose only sites that will make them millions in ad revenue to host, but that's not what they're doing. Anyone who wants to can start a new wiki on any topic that they think would build a community, whether that's a community of a billion people or a community of a hundred. They provide gr