Oh yes the content that allowed you to get all the omega outfit stuffs with the achievements. Some of them are void because they no longer exist. Thus parts of honor guard and maco are missing or are they there? Did they change it or are those parts missing still?
I'm sure many miss the times when Factions got their own content and missions. I understand they can't do that now because of how limited they are. Reason why everything is just Alliance now. But there was once a thriving pvp community and Greed was a large factor in ruining the pvp of the game and ruining it to the point they stopped producing content for some of the factions going mainly with a federation bias for quite a while. They really do need to re balance everything and I mean everything. Maybe a restored Pvp community could maybe help bring back factions and players who will play those factions again. I do think they need to follow more with Genes Vision I really don't think he would even allow Sto to be how it is now if he was still alive or still holder of the ip. To him Star Trek was a Vision where humanity and the fictional races moved past the worst viceful impulses of society to become progressive enlightened society free from the worst of Vices we humans have including greed. Yes they do need to make profits, but they should do it where it isn't just a cash grab and cash grab is not always the focus they would do a lot more to Honor Genes Legacy this way. What would help sto if their was regulations putting restrictions on cash shop and gambling box devices not where they are forced to remove them but limit how many items ships or outfits they can make that require real life money to buy or large grinding time. As without it they are just doing whatever they want to at the expense of the player base and fan base.
sniped for brevity
This was an nice read and i am glade hope is still alive i fear i don't have your level of hope.
I to look forward to a return to a better STO than what we have now i miss a lot that has been pulled and removed for one reason or the other.
I do hope for many more happy years of playing sto and look forward to seeing every one in game.
They're at their structural limit right now, most of the things KDF and other minority groups complain about, are the way that they are, because Cryptic doesn't have the resources to do anything else.
They are, in fact, doing the best they physically can.
[/quote]
What you say may in fact be the truth or not. Greed happens to be a major factor in most choices company's make these days. Software company's are no exception to this and if anything have more of a predilection to these type of actions.
Of all the listed cost you made that the company need cover people seam to forget the possible sources of income they can make with little to no out of pocket cost but refuse to do so. The shear amount of items, event give away promotions, And cut content that simply sits around unused is staggering.
Many specialty bridge officers and promo give away officers can find there way to the c store they have the tab already but wont use it. TOS holo bridge crew, Holo leeta, breen, Reman, and also in game ones such as the android and i forget the name of the one you get if you had the overabundance of marks when the conversion took place.
Event items we have one set of weapons in the c store yet several weapons in game once a limited time offer and grind x days for a item. Make use of the space and add them.
Combat pets there are several but you only have 2 horta in the store expand it.
Limited promo ships one off events and even the yearly event ships all available yet not in the store.
The preorder items from first launch tr116a, cronodynamic armor, the tactical consoles, more clothing options all in game still.
For that matter the foundry could provide income by making access to asset packs using in game assets even those from removed missions or revamped spaces. Selling additional features making the foundry closer to what the devs use such as preserving objectives over map transfers. I do not use the foundry and have not bothered to look at it for some time but the potential for making money is sitting there at the fingertips but not taken.
There are more than i care to list this is just a few different items of the top of my head. Exclusivity is not even the reason of them not being in store if that was the case the EXCLUSIVE RMC and the borg engineer as just 2 items to point out would never been made available in the store a promotion and the phoenix box. The captains table opened to vets as well was an EXCLUSIVE to lifetime players only. Regardless if anyone used it or not it was a EXCLUSIVE that was opened. I use caps to make it very plan for any one arguing that they have exclusivity of a item, promo, or event reward is only exclusive so long as the devs think it is not what the player thinks is some indefinite feature just for them.
The precedent has been set and the tos players agree to says that they can do as they like with anything even what you have in your bank on the toons ships your whole account in fact.
The only reason not to make these items in to a income is saying there is no market for it and given the lack of understanding just what a micro transaction is in the whole of the gaming industry. If you place a item not worth 2 plug nickels in to a store and say you want 3$ for it Tribbles spring to mind then no its not going to sell and you can use that to say see the metrics say its not worth it. I happen to have all the tribbles and even the horta's so i can say from my experience that they are not worth the asking price.
Place items in for 50 cents worth per item and make it worth the price and you have a actual micro transaction that people will buy and buy for several toons if something is worth the price. But greed in overpricing items and skewing value of something is a common practice in the gaming software industry.
Sorry for the long read i tend to type a lot in posts even when i try to keep it short.
Of all the listed cost you made that the company need cover people seam to forget the possible sources of income they can make with little to no out of pocket cost but refuse to do so. The shear amount of items, event give away promotions, And cut content that simply sits around unused is staggering.
Generally speaking, most of that has to do with CBS mandates then anything else.
Like, if you notice,
-All ships the player can get via leveling, or via the C-Store, are ships that were made by the player factions, in or before 2409
-Lockbox ships are all enemy faction ships like Undine, Tholians, Mirror Universe, etc. etc.
-R&D promo ships are super special ships like the Ent-J, or a T6 Connie
The reason why this is this way is because CBS has weird rules on just how often they want players flying ships. Like, the main reason it took so long for a T6 Connie was because CBS didn't want players to be able to get it normally since the Connie was supposed to be an old ship, and thus, not as powerful. But they were ok with it as long as it was made really rare via an R&D pack.
CBS's rules are also why proposed systems like being able to promote bridge officers into playable captains was also dropped. CBS said certain Boffs like the Andorid Boff wouldn't be allowable to be made into playable captains, since Data was supposed to be unique in his position. This is also why we didn't get playable Kelpians in AoD, CBS said no because Saru was the only one of his kind in Starfleet.
I would suspect many of these one time items like the holo BOFFs fall under these rules, as CBS doesn't want everyone walking around with them.
For that matter the foundry could provide income by making access to asset packs using in game assets even those from removed missions or revamped spaces. Selling additional features making the foundry closer to what the devs use such as preserving objectives over map transfers. I do not use the foundry and have not bothered to look at it for some time but the potential for making money is sitting there at the fingertips but not taken.
I suspect this is due to cost analysis then anything else. Things like the Foundry, or modding in Bethesda games, are always used by a fairly small amount of players, and it would likely cost Cryptic more to get a team set up to convert all these things into Foundry usable content then they would make back from people actually buying it.
You may be right on the cbs wanting rarity. How ever that tends to not hold any water when you look at just what is in game. I some how don't think placing the ds9 holo bridge crew as a double random gamble open a lock box get a random box then open that box for a random boxed bridge crew member that then hits the exchange as some mandate by cbs. Or how about the outfits in the lobi store new ones come out there not the store is cbs also demanding such a action to cause rarity? Or is it a case of greed making the outfits cost over $40 each and cant place something like that in the c store?
Setting aside the cbs rarity the point still remains the possibility of little to no work still stands as how hard is it to make a bridge officer, weapon, assorted trinkets, pets, doffs, ect. The only limit i can see is in creativity either the devs have it or they don't. I could be wrong and some how it takes tremendous undertaking to place a item in game. But i would call that a failure in forward looking during the creation of the system.
In any case i don't intend to argue with you or any one else it simply is derailing this thread and off topic.
I miss the few missions that had Q in them, even if they felt a bit small. Should have been a larger mission that really showed us the power of Q as he twists reality for us.
One thing I don't miss however is the old "reward" system for the STFs.. gawd that was awful back then. So happy they added the reputation system.
"Please, Captain, not in front of the Klingons." Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
I miss when Science was powerful and more unique, before Tac players got it nerfed, and nerfed, and then nerfed again.
I miss when Gravity Well didn't need a ton of control expertise (graviton generators) just to be able to actually hold anything when they aren't even using using any kind of movement or hold breaking abilities.
I miss when Omega Kinetic Shearing was actually pretty decent, before it got nerfed for no reason.
one more to add: Factions having an identity beyond "THis faction gets less stuff and is looted for features to give to that faction because we aren't going to beta-test features on our majority if we can grab stuff that works from our in-built minority (who aren't profitable anyway)."
I'm sure many miss the times when Factions got their own content and missions. I understand they can't do that now because of how limited they are. Reason why everything is just Alliance now. But there was once a thriving pvp community and Greed was a large factor in ruining the pvp of the game and ruining it to the point they stopped producing content for some of the factions going mainly with a federation bias for quite a while. They really do need to re balance everything and I mean everything. Maybe a restored Pvp community could maybe help bring back factions and players who will play those factions again. I do think they need to follow more with Genes Vision I really don't think he would even allow Sto to be how it is now if he was still alive or still holder of the ip. To him Star Trek was a Vision where humanity and the fictional races moved past the worst viceful impulses of society to become progressive enlightened society free from the worst of Vices we humans have including greed. Yes they do need to make profits, but they should do it where it isn't just a cash grab and cash grab is not always the focus they would do a lot more to Honor Genes Legacy this way. What would help sto if their was regulations putting restrictions on cash shop and gambling box devices not where they are forced to remove them but limit how many items ships or outfits they can make that require real life money to buy or large grinding time. As without it they are just doing whatever they want to at the expense of the player base and fan base.
The greed factor is so great, they focus more on that instead of the quality of the game. So main focus maybe the next lobi and lockbox and Cstore ship instead of other things fans of startrek might want like outfits, clothes and general startrek nostalgia The Need for Cash Grab compels them to make outfits and nostalgia they do release into the lobistore or lockbox. To get players to open up their lock boxes. I do not blame the Developers for this, its more of a very high corporate decision by those who own the star trek ip and the companies that own Cryptic. Its how they make their millions or billions. While not giving enough for Cryptic to hire more developers. They seem to be a very small company and yet they don't have the resources to do a lot more content if those companies would allow cryptic to expand and hire a lot more people. I am hoping one day things will change big time. Till then they will make alliance missions, continue making ships placing them into zen store or lobi zen or the worst way in a duty officer pack rng gamble. Then focus on missions and other content for the whales then off time work on content for the nonwhales.
At least they do have events where they release free ships and outfits. So that is a plus, I will spend zen if I want to buy something. Does not mean I support all their practices and hope they will move away from this is just a cash cow farm and put effort in making it so much more. I think maybe dil ships could be something they can work into the game once again. Whens the last time they just made ships that you could just buy with dil or energy credits to buy said ship. Some ships they do like new factions they give them maybe one or two I think using the ingame dil currency. But every other ship they make is bought with real life money or a long long grind to get the zen for the ship or a long time of saving up or spending thousands of dollars for a chance of a ship players really want to get their hands on.
If they could hire more Devs then they could basically do a lot redo missions, add in more content for everyone. Expand upon each of the factions storylines add back in updated missions which they have removed. They would have a lot more people to make expansions that could have the as many episodes or more then those released when they released Legacy of Romulus. There is so much they could do hire even the most expensive of voice actors if they had the money to do it. From the shows. Well here is to hope one day they will be able to do all that again. To hope Cryptic will be able to expand and get the resources it needs for the future and to have the man power it use to have and to hope the game will last for many generations including the next generations and the next generations after those generations.
the game is nine years old vampinator, there isn't enough market out there at this point to start even considering rebuilding PvP, because after nine years, the market's 'stabilized' where it's going to be.
A similar problem exists wrt the KDF faction; even if there were interest in the studio, the metrics say there's no money to be made there. Remember: "KDF IS UNPROFITABLE"-you're partially right, 'greed' has something to do with it, but it's not necessarily 'Greed as a vice' so much as 'How do we keep the bills paid and the servers up?'
Gamblebox and Grindfest are necessary evils; see, back in the day *(2010 to 2012) Cryptic tried to operate on a subscription model, and almost went broke-actually, they went broke, the PWE buyout saved the studio from being auctioned off in pieces.
As much as I do bash the devs, the fact is that they're following the lowest-risk behaviour, because the studio simply doesn't keep that much of what they make.
There are:
1. the License Fees paid to CBS
2. Perfect World's cut
3. loan payments to PWI (the parent company) for the bailout
4. still have to pay Cogent and rent the server farm.
5. office expenses and overhead
6. do you like voice-acting? Cryptic has to pay union scale to get those voice-actors, and they get residuals. It ain't cheap.
7. California's mandatory insurance
8. still have to keep a two month buffer in case the company goes under (California law)
9. Wages
10. Taxes (They're in CALIFORNIA, taxes? oh TRIBBLE yes. LOTS of taxes...)
11. Marketing and Promotion. Those banner ads? yeah, they're not free, and they're the CHEAPEST forms of advertising Cryptic engages in.
12. promotion at conventions (STLV isn't free.)
13. Rights payments to Paramount for Paramount properties (The Kelvin ships in particular, but also the Khan uniform, the TMP era uniforms, the Soveriegn...)
It ain't cheap, and nothing I've seen suggests that Cryptic is any better at negotiation than, say, the labor negotiators for Boeing.
Financially, Cryptic's in a position where taking what amounts to major risks is simply not doable, they're also a very small shop (smaller than most contemporary developers with established properties), and they're spread thin (STO has to cover three major platforms, and pay royalties to two of them for the privilege-another cost).
They're at their structural limit right now, most of the things KDF and other minority groups complain about, are the way that they are, because Cryptic doesn't have the resources to do anything else.
They are, in fact, doing the best they physically can.
Well that might be the case before they started making new Star Trek Shows. Now with New Shows in the Works. There will be more Star Trek Fans coming. This allows them to get more canon ship and new content. There is a new show runner or developer Runing Sto who I was told played all the missions and wanted some of them redone which is why we are seeing changes and removal of several federation missions the overhaul so far I really liked for them. Made them funer to me. I would really like to see a overhaul of the House always wins for the Kdf. I'm thinking things have gotten better personally. With the new shows in the works, this gives them an opportunity to expand, it might be nine years old but look at how long Wow has been around. With age of Discovery they will focus most likely on Federation, Klingon and Mirror Content. I think we have more mirror content incoming. They would be wise to cash in on the klingon outfits seen in the show as well as the mirror outfits those outfits could add to the C-store For Kdf and Federation respectively .
Long gone fleet mates (Q Intelligence, now 7th Order Intel) and other in-game friends.
That and the fun we had are things that even the best ships and gear, or the latest missions with the coolest new mechanisms cannot replace.
Formerly known as Risian4. Risian6 is my new PS4-account. Fleetcaptain5 is my main PC account. I hope to actively play again on PC in a few months.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
Oh yes the content that allowed you to get all the omega outfit stuffs with the achievements. Some of them are void because they no longer exist. Thus parts of honor guard and maco are missing or are they there? Did they change it or are those parts missing still?
They (Kael if I remember correctly) said a couple of months ago that they were looking into those uniforms.
My guess is that they will be brought back for some event, sometime. Old stuff that disappeared from the game (TR rifle) or was not playable yet (most of the Voth stuff) tends to come back that way.
Formerly known as Risian4. Risian6 is my new PS4-account. Fleetcaptain5 is my main PC account. I hope to actively play again on PC in a few months.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
I miss the days when they had 40 peoeple instances on places like ds9. At least Risa still has it. Also that is good to hear. About the Omega Uniforms.
Yeah, this game has turned into some sort of endless "quest" for resources and tokens....hasn't it?
Yes, it has...it's definitely a Perfect World...
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I miss the few missions that had Q in them, even if they felt a bit small. Should have been a larger mission that really showed us the power of Q as he twists reality for us.
One thing I don't miss however is the old "reward" system for the STFs.. gawd that was awful back then. So happy they added the reputation system.
Still, the idea was a good one. It wouldn't hurt if some stuff in this game were not automatically granted to everyone who fills up a bar often enough.
Stuff would be more unique if getting it depended more on luck every now and then.
Maybe they shouldn't bring back that bit of randomness for actual gear, but for cosmetic effects or things like vanity pets it wouldn't be such a bad idea. Players have proven that space barbie is more important to them than one might think. So the willingness to go for it and accept that bit of randomness, exists.
If it doesn't influence players' ability to play the content too much (by just reintroducing the system for cosmetic/pets/etc) there would be almost no downside to it as not participating wouldn't hurt anyone. (Indeed, it might even encourage some others to participate more because the stuff becomes more exclusive.)
Formerly known as Risian4. Risian6 is my new PS4-account. Fleetcaptain5 is my main PC account. I hope to actively play again on PC in a few months.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
I miss the old sector speed skill. The one that did more to increase speed. Also I find it odd the bonus is not in the engineering section. As Warp core and all that seems to be more engineering in nature.
I miss the original STF's before Free 2 Play. The missions actually required team coordination to complete, now some people can solo the STF's even on elite.
"Live Long and Prosper but always carry a fully charged phaser, just in case!". Arrr'ow
Comments
This was an nice read and i am glade hope is still alive i fear i don't have your level of hope.
I to look forward to a return to a better STO than what we have now i miss a lot that has been pulled and removed for one reason or the other.
I do hope for many more happy years of playing sto and look forward to seeing every one in game.
They're at their structural limit right now, most of the things KDF and other minority groups complain about, are the way that they are, because Cryptic doesn't have the resources to do anything else.
They are, in fact, doing the best they physically can.
[/quote]
What you say may in fact be the truth or not. Greed happens to be a major factor in most choices company's make these days. Software company's are no exception to this and if anything have more of a predilection to these type of actions.
Of all the listed cost you made that the company need cover people seam to forget the possible sources of income they can make with little to no out of pocket cost but refuse to do so. The shear amount of items, event give away promotions, And cut content that simply sits around unused is staggering.
Many specialty bridge officers and promo give away officers can find there way to the c store they have the tab already but wont use it. TOS holo bridge crew, Holo leeta, breen, Reman, and also in game ones such as the android and i forget the name of the one you get if you had the overabundance of marks when the conversion took place.
Event items we have one set of weapons in the c store yet several weapons in game once a limited time offer and grind x days for a item. Make use of the space and add them.
Combat pets there are several but you only have 2 horta in the store expand it.
Limited promo ships one off events and even the yearly event ships all available yet not in the store.
The preorder items from first launch tr116a, cronodynamic armor, the tactical consoles, more clothing options all in game still.
For that matter the foundry could provide income by making access to asset packs using in game assets even those from removed missions or revamped spaces. Selling additional features making the foundry closer to what the devs use such as preserving objectives over map transfers. I do not use the foundry and have not bothered to look at it for some time but the potential for making money is sitting there at the fingertips but not taken.
There are more than i care to list this is just a few different items of the top of my head. Exclusivity is not even the reason of them not being in store if that was the case the EXCLUSIVE RMC and the borg engineer as just 2 items to point out would never been made available in the store a promotion and the phoenix box. The captains table opened to vets as well was an EXCLUSIVE to lifetime players only. Regardless if anyone used it or not it was a EXCLUSIVE that was opened. I use caps to make it very plan for any one arguing that they have exclusivity of a item, promo, or event reward is only exclusive so long as the devs think it is not what the player thinks is some indefinite feature just for them.
The precedent has been set and the tos players agree to says that they can do as they like with anything even what you have in your bank on the toons ships your whole account in fact.
The only reason not to make these items in to a income is saying there is no market for it and given the lack of understanding just what a micro transaction is in the whole of the gaming industry. If you place a item not worth 2 plug nickels in to a store and say you want 3$ for it Tribbles spring to mind then no its not going to sell and you can use that to say see the metrics say its not worth it. I happen to have all the tribbles and even the horta's so i can say from my experience that they are not worth the asking price.
Place items in for 50 cents worth per item and make it worth the price and you have a actual micro transaction that people will buy and buy for several toons if something is worth the price. But greed in overpricing items and skewing value of something is a common practice in the gaming software industry.
Sorry for the long read i tend to type a lot in posts even when i try to keep it short.
And the OLD PVPs. It was fun running and killing real players rather than just pixels and NPCs.
You may be right on the cbs wanting rarity. How ever that tends to not hold any water when you look at just what is in game. I some how don't think placing the ds9 holo bridge crew as a double random gamble open a lock box get a random box then open that box for a random boxed bridge crew member that then hits the exchange as some mandate by cbs. Or how about the outfits in the lobi store new ones come out there not the store is cbs also demanding such a action to cause rarity? Or is it a case of greed making the outfits cost over $40 each and cant place something like that in the c store?
Setting aside the cbs rarity the point still remains the possibility of little to no work still stands as how hard is it to make a bridge officer, weapon, assorted trinkets, pets, doffs, ect. The only limit i can see is in creativity either the devs have it or they don't. I could be wrong and some how it takes tremendous undertaking to place a item in game. But i would call that a failure in forward looking during the creation of the system.
In any case i don't intend to argue with you or any one else it simply is derailing this thread and off topic.
Back on topic i miss actual team work.
One thing I don't miss however is the old "reward" system for the STFs.. gawd that was awful back then. So happy they added the reputation system.
Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
I miss when Gravity Well didn't need a ton of control expertise (graviton generators) just to be able to actually hold anything when they aren't even using using any kind of movement or hold breaking abilities.
I miss when Omega Kinetic Shearing was actually pretty decent, before it got nerfed for no reason.
Well that might be the case before they started making new Star Trek Shows. Now with New Shows in the Works. There will be more Star Trek Fans coming. This allows them to get more canon ship and new content. There is a new show runner or developer Runing Sto who I was told played all the missions and wanted some of them redone which is why we are seeing changes and removal of several federation missions the overhaul so far I really liked for them. Made them funer to me. I would really like to see a overhaul of the House always wins for the Kdf. I'm thinking things have gotten better personally. With the new shows in the works, this gives them an opportunity to expand, it might be nine years old but look at how long Wow has been around. With age of Discovery they will focus most likely on Federation, Klingon and Mirror Content. I think we have more mirror content incoming. They would be wise to cash in on the klingon outfits seen in the show as well as the mirror outfits those outfits could add to the C-store For Kdf and Federation respectively .
That and the fun we had are things that even the best ships and gear, or the latest missions with the coolest new mechanisms cannot replace.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
They (Kael if I remember correctly) said a couple of months ago that they were looking into those uniforms.
My guess is that they will be brought back for some event, sometime. Old stuff that disappeared from the game (TR rifle) or was not playable yet (most of the Voth stuff) tends to come back that way.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
Yes, it has...it's definitely a Perfect World...
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Still, the idea was a good one. It wouldn't hurt if some stuff in this game were not automatically granted to everyone who fills up a bar often enough.
Stuff would be more unique if getting it depended more on luck every now and then.
Maybe they shouldn't bring back that bit of randomness for actual gear, but for cosmetic effects or things like vanity pets it wouldn't be such a bad idea. Players have proven that space barbie is more important to them than one might think. So the willingness to go for it and accept that bit of randomness, exists.
If it doesn't influence players' ability to play the content too much (by just reintroducing the system for cosmetic/pets/etc) there would be almost no downside to it as not participating wouldn't hurt anyone. (Indeed, it might even encourage some others to participate more because the stuff becomes more exclusive.)
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
Co-Leader of Serenity's Grasp