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The C-Store is making me bitter and cynical.
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
At least in regards to STO.
Let me preface this with the following, since if I don't, my annoyance might be taken as something more severe than it is, in fact, intended to be.
1) I like STO. Seriously - I've been here since Closed Beta (last wave), I'm a lifetime subscriber (and don't regret it), and while I have at times been sorely annoyed at the game being pushed out too soon - I've generally blamed the business side of things for that.
2) I like the developers; at least the ones who come on the forum. (Obviously we don't know the ones who don't.) - They're usually interesting to talk to; they have useful information about the game and the industry, and I feel they're creative and competent in equal measure.
So needless to say - the game itself I'm genuinely happy with.
However:
The C-Store is starting to hack me off in a big way. It started back with the Excelsior - a brand new ship being released solely via C-Store.* Then they just kept adding more - to the point where now a good chunk of the top end ships in the game require you to pay up if you want them.** Quite frankly, this is irritating.
It would be acceptable in a free-to-play game; but I (and many others) paid a large amount of money up front, with the understanding that except for a few cosmetic additions here and there, we'd have free and full access to the game. Likewise, there are a lot of people paying their subscription fees each month with the same expectation.
However we have a situation right now where the number of free uniform pieces is actually equaled by the number you need to spend money on. We have a situation where the ships you can get for free is sorely limited once you hit the end-game; at least without a truly astounding quantity of work.
This here is the rub:
My options, if I want these ships, is to either:
A) Shell out 15 dollars - an entire month's subscription fee
or
Spend a month or two grinding for 3 or more hours a day.
If it were just one ship? Okay. If it were just once in awhile? Sure. A major C-Store release every 3-months? That's fine. However it seems to be just about every new ship added to the game - which leads me to ask "What did I pay for in the first place?"
Yes yes, I can access the game - you know what? I can pay for other games, get the same access - AND get access to all the items in those games via just playing. And no, this 500 emblem grind nonsense is not 'just playing'.
The Emblem Grind
This is what I think finally caused me to make this post. I don't feel this is necessarily a dev-based idea, so I'm not bashing them for this; but I want to point out how utterly ludicrous this grind really is.
You can get 19 Emblems per-day if you do every daily activity that grants an emblem. However this includes PVP - which can be extremely slow and extremely obnoxious*** - it also includes Fleet Actions, which can take hours to complete; particularly the ground-based ones like Big Dig. Even when things go smoothly you're talking about 3-5 hours of work to pull in those 19 emblems.
3-5 hours of work; and you need to keep it up for around 27 days in order to get your ship. That's every. Single. Day. To top this off, while buying it will net it for every character on your account; this enormous emblem grind is only for the character who did it; meaning if you ever want that ship on another character? Yeah, waste another month of your life.
Now let me be clear here what my problems are here:
1) At 3 hours per day (the fastest I've ever managed to pull in all the emblems you can get; this requires a lot of things going for you without any bad luck) - you're looking at a dead-minimum of 81 hours of work.
81 hours. That's 2 full weeks of work at your full-time job. Again, this is assuming you're pretty darn fast and things go well for you. If you AREN'T that fast, it'll take you even longer.
2) This isn't just playing the game either; and this is what REALLY sets me off about this; If emblem acquisition was something that didn't require you doing the same content over and over and over and over and over and over, if it were something embedded into episodes and such like that so you could be building emblems while having a good time - then maybe that would be acceptable. But it's not - all that time you're spending gathering Emblems?
You aren't playing the rest of STO. Ya know... the fun parts.
To really hammer my point home here; let me look over at Champions Online, the other Cryptic game. I play it too, and it also has a C-Store. Why am I not annoyed at the CO C-store? It was there at the beginning, even when the game was Pay-to-Play... so what's different here?
1) CO C-Store releases tended to be well spaced out. You didn't have a new one coming at you at a constant clip; though they do sometimes come in spurts.
2) They really are almost all cosmetic. (Excepting new F2P-centric things like XP-boosters, which I frankly don't care about.) - Even the new purchasable travel power is cosmetic, since it's just Super Speed with a new skin. There's none of this "Buy a starship with unique abilities" TRIBBLE.
3) Price; I think this also is particularly annoying to me - I'm OK with dropping five bucks here and there; but 15 dollars for a ship? Let me restate that this is the same amount of money one would spend on a subscription. To another game. As much as I like STO; there are other games I'd like to play too, and if I felt I could justify the extra 15 a month, guess where it'd be going? Not to a starship. CO's purchasable items tend to be significantly cheaper - mostly in the 3-5 dollar range.
4) Free Stuff - CO has added many, many costume pieces since the game launched, completely for free. First there were a ton in Vibora Bay (themed around the various enemy groups) - They were grindy; and still are to a point - but you can get lucky and one will drop right in your lap. You can also just buy them on the auction house, since other people can sell the ones they get that they don't want.
Then there were those added for the Adventure Packs - you have to buy them with Tokens, gained by doing said adventure packs. However:
a) The adventure packs are at least fun. (Particularly Demonflame - Serpent Lantern is kind of obnoxious I admit. While it is the same content again and again; it's enjoyable content, rather than the same damn patrol missions over and over. There is, at least ,a story.
b) You get enough tokens that after one run, you can almost always buy at last one costume piece. Even the most expensive only require 2 runs. In other words, you are progressing, visibly - you get a reward almost every time.
c) Even to get an entire set, it doesn't take an entire month of constant playing.
Again, these are free - you can't even buy them if you want to.
Then they've gone and added a bonanza of additional costume pieces that are free for subscribers with the new Free to Play release.
The worst unlock grind in the entire game, the 5,000 kill perks, still only take 6-8 hours to do (sometimes less, sometimes more, depending, but still, it's the kind of thing you spend a week doing, not a month. And even then it's not a constant - you can knock it out in one day if you really want.) - These I will add ARE available in the C-Store, and at a reasonable price that includes multiple unlocks.
5) Account-unlocks, not character-unlocks. Did I mention this is all account-wide? Once you unlock this stuff, it yours for good; no matter what character you play. So if you put in your 8 hours for a costume piece, you will always have it no matter what character you're on. You can unlock it with your max-level character and then start a new character with that costume piece that was essential to their look.
So how do we fix this?
Well, I actually have a few small-ish solutions that I feel would help the issue.
Obviously we can't reduce the price at this point - too many people who spent their money would feel cheated. That's not fair to them. (Maybe a ways down the road, as in another year or so out) - however what we can do is:
1) Account wide unlocks for emblem purchased ships.
The idea here is this: If you put in the month's worth of effort to unlock a ship, then you can play it on any character you have that is eligible for that ship type. Maybe make it so that once unlocked in this fashion, you need to spend energy credits to get it.**** - Obviously this shouldn't apply to ships you got via plaque; only the ones you actually spent Emblems to acquire.
2) More dailies available.
Just keep adding additional emblem sources. The purpose here is this: While the actual time-played requirement would not be lessened, this does allow someone who has say... a free weekend, to gather a great many emblems all at once; since a lot of people have jobs and/or lives outside of the game and, during the week, probably can't/won't devote 3-5 hours a night to emblem grinding.
3) More full-size free ships.
This is the big one: Start releasing ships for free. It's one thing if there are occasionally ships you need to purchase; but when it's practically every new ship it becomes onerous. So going forward, think about adding more non-shuttle ships available without having to grind like crazy or paying real money.
As to uniforms: since we have no idea how that's going to play out yet, allow me to add some suggestions on how maybe it should play out:
1) Consider making it possible to unlock pieces of a uniform package one by one instead of the whole package at once for a large sum. This way a player is constantly feeling rewarded as they work toward their goal.
2) Make sure that the grind fits the price-tag of the item. a 5 dollar uniform pack shouldn't take 20 hours of grinding to achieve. Sure it might mean more people will hand over the five bucks; but it also means more people becoming crankier and more ikely to eventually throw up their hands and quit playing altogether - which you probably don't want long term.
======================================================================
So that's my C-Store rant.
I hope that the information above is actually useful, rather than being written off as just an angry diatribe. If you've come this far - thank you for reading.
*Yes, I know, you can get it for Emblems now. This is nice, but it's not enough; I'll explain that further on.
**Or you can farm; however again, I don't feel this is adequate, and this will be expanded on below.
***Depends wildly on the players involved of course, not all PVP is such; but it happens enough that I simply don't bother. It's not worth it.
****For the sake of verisimilitude; since your characters probably don't know each other.
Let me preface this with the following, since if I don't, my annoyance might be taken as something more severe than it is, in fact, intended to be.
1) I like STO. Seriously - I've been here since Closed Beta (last wave), I'm a lifetime subscriber (and don't regret it), and while I have at times been sorely annoyed at the game being pushed out too soon - I've generally blamed the business side of things for that.
2) I like the developers; at least the ones who come on the forum. (Obviously we don't know the ones who don't.) - They're usually interesting to talk to; they have useful information about the game and the industry, and I feel they're creative and competent in equal measure.
So needless to say - the game itself I'm genuinely happy with.
However:
The C-Store is starting to hack me off in a big way. It started back with the Excelsior - a brand new ship being released solely via C-Store.* Then they just kept adding more - to the point where now a good chunk of the top end ships in the game require you to pay up if you want them.** Quite frankly, this is irritating.
It would be acceptable in a free-to-play game; but I (and many others) paid a large amount of money up front, with the understanding that except for a few cosmetic additions here and there, we'd have free and full access to the game. Likewise, there are a lot of people paying their subscription fees each month with the same expectation.
However we have a situation right now where the number of free uniform pieces is actually equaled by the number you need to spend money on. We have a situation where the ships you can get for free is sorely limited once you hit the end-game; at least without a truly astounding quantity of work.
This here is the rub:
My options, if I want these ships, is to either:
A) Shell out 15 dollars - an entire month's subscription fee
or
Spend a month or two grinding for 3 or more hours a day.If it were just one ship? Okay. If it were just once in awhile? Sure. A major C-Store release every 3-months? That's fine. However it seems to be just about every new ship added to the game - which leads me to ask "What did I pay for in the first place?"
Yes yes, I can access the game - you know what? I can pay for other games, get the same access - AND get access to all the items in those games via just playing. And no, this 500 emblem grind nonsense is not 'just playing'.
The Emblem Grind
This is what I think finally caused me to make this post. I don't feel this is necessarily a dev-based idea, so I'm not bashing them for this; but I want to point out how utterly ludicrous this grind really is.
You can get 19 Emblems per-day if you do every daily activity that grants an emblem. However this includes PVP - which can be extremely slow and extremely obnoxious*** - it also includes Fleet Actions, which can take hours to complete; particularly the ground-based ones like Big Dig. Even when things go smoothly you're talking about 3-5 hours of work to pull in those 19 emblems.
3-5 hours of work; and you need to keep it up for around 27 days in order to get your ship. That's every. Single. Day. To top this off, while buying it will net it for every character on your account; this enormous emblem grind is only for the character who did it; meaning if you ever want that ship on another character? Yeah, waste another month of your life.
Now let me be clear here what my problems are here:
1) At 3 hours per day (the fastest I've ever managed to pull in all the emblems you can get; this requires a lot of things going for you without any bad luck) - you're looking at a dead-minimum of 81 hours of work.
81 hours. That's 2 full weeks of work at your full-time job. Again, this is assuming you're pretty darn fast and things go well for you. If you AREN'T that fast, it'll take you even longer.
2) This isn't just playing the game either; and this is what REALLY sets me off about this; If emblem acquisition was something that didn't require you doing the same content over and over and over and over and over and over, if it were something embedded into episodes and such like that so you could be building emblems while having a good time - then maybe that would be acceptable. But it's not - all that time you're spending gathering Emblems?
You aren't playing the rest of STO. Ya know... the fun parts.
To really hammer my point home here; let me look over at Champions Online, the other Cryptic game. I play it too, and it also has a C-Store. Why am I not annoyed at the CO C-store? It was there at the beginning, even when the game was Pay-to-Play... so what's different here?
1) CO C-Store releases tended to be well spaced out. You didn't have a new one coming at you at a constant clip; though they do sometimes come in spurts.
2) They really are almost all cosmetic. (Excepting new F2P-centric things like XP-boosters, which I frankly don't care about.) - Even the new purchasable travel power is cosmetic, since it's just Super Speed with a new skin. There's none of this "Buy a starship with unique abilities" TRIBBLE.
3) Price; I think this also is particularly annoying to me - I'm OK with dropping five bucks here and there; but 15 dollars for a ship? Let me restate that this is the same amount of money one would spend on a subscription. To another game. As much as I like STO; there are other games I'd like to play too, and if I felt I could justify the extra 15 a month, guess where it'd be going? Not to a starship. CO's purchasable items tend to be significantly cheaper - mostly in the 3-5 dollar range.
4) Free Stuff - CO has added many, many costume pieces since the game launched, completely for free. First there were a ton in Vibora Bay (themed around the various enemy groups) - They were grindy; and still are to a point - but you can get lucky and one will drop right in your lap. You can also just buy them on the auction house, since other people can sell the ones they get that they don't want.
Then there were those added for the Adventure Packs - you have to buy them with Tokens, gained by doing said adventure packs. However:
a) The adventure packs are at least fun. (Particularly Demonflame - Serpent Lantern is kind of obnoxious I admit. While it is the same content again and again; it's enjoyable content, rather than the same damn patrol missions over and over. There is, at least ,a story.
b) You get enough tokens that after one run, you can almost always buy at last one costume piece. Even the most expensive only require 2 runs. In other words, you are progressing, visibly - you get a reward almost every time.
c) Even to get an entire set, it doesn't take an entire month of constant playing.
Again, these are free - you can't even buy them if you want to.
Then they've gone and added a bonanza of additional costume pieces that are free for subscribers with the new Free to Play release.
The worst unlock grind in the entire game, the 5,000 kill perks, still only take 6-8 hours to do (sometimes less, sometimes more, depending, but still, it's the kind of thing you spend a week doing, not a month. And even then it's not a constant - you can knock it out in one day if you really want.) - These I will add ARE available in the C-Store, and at a reasonable price that includes multiple unlocks.
5) Account-unlocks, not character-unlocks. Did I mention this is all account-wide? Once you unlock this stuff, it yours for good; no matter what character you play. So if you put in your 8 hours for a costume piece, you will always have it no matter what character you're on. You can unlock it with your max-level character and then start a new character with that costume piece that was essential to their look.
So how do we fix this?
Well, I actually have a few small-ish solutions that I feel would help the issue.
Obviously we can't reduce the price at this point - too many people who spent their money would feel cheated. That's not fair to them. (Maybe a ways down the road, as in another year or so out) - however what we can do is:
1) Account wide unlocks for emblem purchased ships.
The idea here is this: If you put in the month's worth of effort to unlock a ship, then you can play it on any character you have that is eligible for that ship type. Maybe make it so that once unlocked in this fashion, you need to spend energy credits to get it.**** - Obviously this shouldn't apply to ships you got via plaque; only the ones you actually spent Emblems to acquire.
2) More dailies available.
Just keep adding additional emblem sources. The purpose here is this: While the actual time-played requirement would not be lessened, this does allow someone who has say... a free weekend, to gather a great many emblems all at once; since a lot of people have jobs and/or lives outside of the game and, during the week, probably can't/won't devote 3-5 hours a night to emblem grinding.
3) More full-size free ships.
This is the big one: Start releasing ships for free. It's one thing if there are occasionally ships you need to purchase; but when it's practically every new ship it becomes onerous. So going forward, think about adding more non-shuttle ships available without having to grind like crazy or paying real money.
As to uniforms: since we have no idea how that's going to play out yet, allow me to add some suggestions on how maybe it should play out:
1) Consider making it possible to unlock pieces of a uniform package one by one instead of the whole package at once for a large sum. This way a player is constantly feeling rewarded as they work toward their goal.
2) Make sure that the grind fits the price-tag of the item. a 5 dollar uniform pack shouldn't take 20 hours of grinding to achieve. Sure it might mean more people will hand over the five bucks; but it also means more people becoming crankier and more ikely to eventually throw up their hands and quit playing altogether - which you probably don't want long term.
======================================================================
So that's my C-Store rant.
I hope that the information above is actually useful, rather than being written off as just an angry diatribe. If you've come this far - thank you for reading.
*Yes, I know, you can get it for Emblems now. This is nice, but it's not enough; I'll explain that further on.
**Or you can farm; however again, I don't feel this is adequate, and this will be expanded on below.
***Depends wildly on the players involved of course, not all PVP is such; but it happens enough that I simply don't bother. It's not worth it.
****For the sake of verisimilitude; since your characters probably don't know each other.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
if they made the 500 emblem ships character wide it would cut down on a lot of negative feeling towards the cstore in one simple stroke,or reduce the amount of emblems down to 200 like the nebula was.
i grinded the nebula and 200 marks was boring enough.
i realise they put it up to 500 to "encourage" people to pay for them but the price for each ship is still too high for what they are,they have to maximise profits i realise, if they lowered the price surely they would make more money ? just ask valve how much money they make on steam weekend deals.
ideally i would like the ships back to 200 emblems or the cstore prices halved, i won't buy them at full price,but i would at half of what they cost now....imagine how many other people feel the same way.
The prices are too high, but they're going to remain that high as long as people are buying those items. And people are buying those items.
Remember the big Galaxy-X thing? A lot of people got a Galaxy-X by signing up 5 new accounts themselves. That means they purchased 5 boxes and then also purchased 5 months of subscriptions. That's $250 for the 5 boxes and $75 for the 1 month subscription per new account. And a lot of people did this.
Finally, you need to just get used to the C-Store, because it isn't ever going to go away. Some of the prices may come down a bit, but the constant addition of new items to the C-Store isn't ever going to change.
I've seen the devs change course about in-game decisions because of complaints on the forums. I've also seen literally hundreds of C-Store complaint threads. Know how many things in the C-Store have changed because of our complaints?
None.
The bean-counters that run the C-Store simply aren't going to let go of the C-Store as long as people keep spending money on it.
Whether I like it or not, every MMO out there does the microtransaction thing - I just feel STO has crossed (or rather, leaped, danced and sung) over a line between "fun stuff you can get if you pay a little more" and "stupidly expensive game that's asking for more than it gives".
I mean; I guess what it boils down to is, if I bought every ship on the C-Store right now, if my count is accurate, I'd be spending 170 dollars. This is getting into the same territory as stuff like miniature wargaming or hardcore Magic The Gathering stuff.
I guess really though my point is: I like that they're trying to provide ways to get stuff in-game without having to pay... but the current method is not at all good; and I want them to beef that method up; either by making it a smaller grind or by making it an account-wide unlock for having completed the huge grind. Either way - make it worth my time to at least consider it.
>.< I apologize if I'm repeating myself; I haven't slept lately - if this is more incoherent than I think it is; blame Mr. Ins Omnia - he's being a jackass again.
I mean what does it really cost to make the c-store items? Time, well fine, but it doesn't take that much time, the game would be a lot funner if they were made available for a cheaper fee, I mean I understand its a business, but I feel like I am getting rapped everytime I spend more then $5 on something....
I have dished out over $300 for this game and still play it less then TF2 (if you dont know what it is, your missing a good game) which is sad if you ask me.
Please make this right for us!
James
You know how if you buy your subscription in 3, 6 or 12 month blocks it is cheaper when compared to buying the equivalent amount of time in 1 month chunks. The thing is, why don't they do that for the Atari Tokens? If they looked at the straight F2P games, they would see that those game currencies do include a discount when bought in larger chunks... and Item store currency purchases are their ONLY source of income, unlike STO.
The current rate for Atari Tokens is 1 Token = $.0125
1000 Tokens - $12.50 ($.0125 per token)
Now, look at how much 2000 Tokens cost:
2000 Tokens - $25.00 ($.0125 per token)
As you can see, both cost exactly the same... now watch what happens at the 5000 Token Level:
5000 Tokens = $62.50 ($.0125 per token)
That's right... the more you buy costs you the same as buying lower amounts. Which begs to ask the question: If they can discount subscriptions, why can't they discount larger Atari Token amounts?
I suggest something like this (especially since these are being used to buy virtual items, there is no need to hard lock pricing):
1000 Tokens = $12.50 ($.0125 per token)
2000 Tokens = $20.00 ($.01 per token)
5000 Tokens = $45.00 ($.009 per token)
This would be an incentive for more people to purchase more Atari Tokens in larger chunks therefore balancing out the lost revenue with the current price scheme; it is a simple shift in the marginal utility curve for the consumer that would then increase quantity purchased of the larger block of Tokens.
A good example of them pushing cstore stuff is with the Delta Flyer. It was good timing to put it in there at the same time they put out a new feature episode that requires a shuttle craft to do it. Now if they had put the craftable one out at the same time as the cstore one, it wouldn't be a problem. They knew that lots of players wanted the flyer & would fork out the money to buy it for the feature mission that requires a shuttle. True that you can do the mission without it & use the other shuttles ingame. I did on 2 of my alts & had no problems finishing the mission. It's the fact that it was the Delta Flyer that made people want it so bad. Sad thing is they don't give klinks much of anything like the feds get. Poor little klinks
Bottom line, while the ideas you gave would be great, they will never happen. Sad but true. It would take a mass quitting of players to change the cstore stuff. I think that probably within the next year or two, this game will go the way of CO & be f2p. You can only TRIBBLE people so much before they get mad enough to quit.
**Side Note: I have bought most of the ship skins, ships, some species, & other stuff from the store. Sadly, after buying them & actually playing, I didn't like most of them. Gal-X, Explore Refit, Excel, Guramba, Varanus, Maurader, Nebula refit, NX replica I didn't like. Only ones I got that I actually play on is the Interpid refit & the Defiant refit.
Paying for extra cosmetic stuff? Fine. Paying for renames and character slots? Okay. Paying for unique ships and game-impacting items? That gives me a bad vibe. It may not be pay-to-win right now, though I'm sure someone might argue that it is, but this feels like a slippery slope kind of thing.
Also, the price. $15 for a ship is rather shocking and depressing. I like STO, but the C-Store is a disappointment.
C-Store complaints have been beaten to death. I know it isn't going away, but I really do not like it. Nothing else I can do but voice my discontent, so here it is.
/signed
Also what MAJORLY bugs me: Tier 1/0 Ships should be free. I'm sorry but I feel that it's just silly to have a ship that will be obsolete so soon in the game.
Everyone can start with a light cruiser sure, but lets say you actually want to take a different ship (such as a tactical captain playing in the light escort nx-01)
On that note...new tutorial that allows us to pick and change ships?
I'm more cynical to peoples attitudes, with those expecting and assuming that everything should be their's with minimal effort. I would love all the ships yet i'm not greedy and understand that just like life, you have to put the time in or front the money to get something back. Ever played World of Warcraft? The Argent Tournament, to obtain all the cute pets, mounts, tabards, etc was months and months of work, plus if you had a few toons, was such a boring grind after a while, add the Sunwell Plateau, Cooking/Fishing Dailys, the PvP Honor grind, raiding, special achievements and so on, and yes, people complained about having to put the time in, that only a select few would ever get certain mounts. You have different people at different ends of the spectrum, the ones that do grind and just get on with it because its the nature of the beast and the ones that want and assume they are owed this and more because they pay with their hard earned cash. News flash, we all pay. The grind mentality is to ensure we play more over a longer period of time than a few months subs and all of a sudden we have obtained everything.
I have to disagree with this thread, perhaps on a Devils Advocate level and also for the sake that although i like the shiny purple pixels, i know that obtaining them should be a grind, a sense of achievement and a time consuming affair. Just like my Degree is right now, i know the hours i put in should and will be a lot and i'm under no illusion either. Just because i pay to study, does that mean i should have instant term grades and the course length should be less of a grind?
The fact that we have these options to earn ships ingame is a blessing, but i knew there would be people picking at the straws after this announcement. Everything i buy in the C-Store i buy during the sales, and even though i want a Gurumba, a D'ykr, and a few other things, i am happy there is an option to ease further spending with ingame methods. Yes i want everything, but i know i will be playing for years and eventually in time i will get everything i want.
But anyway, i've brought an LTS, i've brought 5000 Atari Points, surely by now i should not have to grind any more and each and every week all this and more should be mailed to me with thanks, signed, Cryptic.
Maybe i'm just cynical at the cynical people that are shocked by a little or a lot of work. Welcome to life i'm afraid, where even games dictate and mirror that you can't have everything, regardless if you believe the world revolves around you or you believe you've paid enough already.
I'm asking for the grind to be made a bit more reasonable via additional daily missions so that a player who invests the time can knock out a larger chunk on the weekend. - Remember that at a dead minimum you are likely to put in 80 hours of work to unlock the ship for one character. If you work minimum wage, you can make the money to buy the ship in 2 hours, and it unlocks for every character on the account.
40x the amount of effort for less reward is not reasonable.
The other option I present is to make the unlocks account wide - if you have to grind for 80+ hours; enough time to beat Dragon Age while going over every detail with a fine toothed comb (and, I will add, having much more fun than grinding) - then you had damned well better get your time's worth.
There is no 'minimal effort' being asked for here, and that your post suggests as much shows you did not read or did not understand what I said. I will not address anything else in your post until you at least comprehend what my post is about before commenting.
I did read your post, as i did with everyone elses in this thread and countless others i've come across in the past regarding this issue, so before we get all trumped up about who said what and who didn't listen, understand that i am not just looking at you, but the collective here that feels somewhat the same. I do often dislike the 'i'm not talking to you no more until you agree with everything i'm saying' attitude because you fail to see where i'm coming from. A little arrogant i feel.
Regardless, more dailys will likely appear after this weekly series has finished, as i feel it would be a shame to not see some of these stunning environments used to further our gameplay. I'm not discounting the fact that of course there needs to be more, yet we are not at some sort of Cataclysm level of content here, nor should we be with just over a year of STO life on the table. But thats it isn't it? You want things now but can't see where we are currently at. Clearly some of the posts i've read in the past few months about how they have done everything to death now, and there is no content, i assume people a while ago have saved some magical number of Medals so everyone in that boat should be able to afford a new ship now? Though before you do get a little jumpy, note that this again was not solely aimed at you. Generalising is a beautiful thing i and so many of us do.
Though i will agree with you about some kind of account bound system set up. Prehaps this would ease the 'grind' that is mentioned somewhat, and providing it is not abused in some way (prehaps a daily cap on each toon?), i could see this being quite welcome to many players.
It's extremely unrealistic for them to "take the grind" out of the game to get ships from the c-store. Because then whats the point of buying them in the c-store if you can get them extremely fast in game?
Let me state this unequivocally - When you make a generalization about a group of people (In this case, everyone who complains about the C-Store*) - then people who fall into that group are going to feel that you are addressing them, personally; and when they see your generalization and the inaccuracy thereof pertaining to them - they are going to call you out on it.
In other words: What we have here is your failure to communicate. Specifically you are making a broad point that is irrelevant to the thread without even clarifying that you are making a broad point; thus appearing that you are responding to myself.
As to your contention that my attitude is in any way shape or form related to " 'i'm not talking to you no more until you agree with everything i'm saying" is just flatly incorrect. I stated that I was not going to discuss it further because your broad generalization clearly showed a failure to comprehend what I was talking about to begin with.
It's not a question of "You must agree" - it is a question of "You need to at least know what I'm saying so we can have an intelligent conversation". Because you decided to generalize your statement to everyone, without even clarifying that point, it appeared you hadn't the faintest idea what I was talking about. What precisely should I do in that circumstance? It was my belief that you had not read my post beyond maybe the first few sentences, and as such could not carry on a competent argument about it. Nor was I going to waste my time diving any deeper into your post, since I felt you had not read mine.
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Now to hit the rest of it:
Paragraph 2, Post 1 -
I want to note that I broke this apart into two paragraphs for easier reading. This is still otherwise unaltered.
Point 1 - This is not WoW. Thank heavens for that because yes - I did play it; and I loathe that game deeply. This game should not try to be WoW either - STO is it's own animal and should be treated as such. It has more in common with Champions Online and City of Heroes' - Cryptic's previous work, than it does with WoW.
Point 2 - Why is the fact that there is boring grind in other games an excuse for boring grind here? It's not. STO is, in fact, in gameplay terms, turning away from that in rather beautiful fashion. See the latest Feature Episode for example - chock full of story; it treats the game more like an mmoRPG, rather than an MMOrpg.
Point 3 - The items in question are not merely cosmetic - they have powers and abilities all their own. It's not like a mount where the only difference is visual, or maybe a 20% speed bonus - this is a ship with varying qualities that one cannot acquire except by paying or grinding 80+ hours. Note that said grind is for just one of the ships for just one character. They introduce new ships faster than anyone could acquire them even on a singular character, let alone if you have alts.
Point 4 - I'm not even certain what your point is here. Yes, the grind in most MMOs is to ensure we keep on paying - this isn't most MMOs. STO has (or rather, is developing toward), a better method of customer retention - a consistent stream of high quality content. This isn't to say that there shouldn't be some grind - that's kind of the nature of the beast. My point is that the grind as presented is excessive even for that beast, and the reward to small for the amount spent.
Paragraph 3 Post 1 -
Point 1 - Apples to oranges. Success in college gets you a higher income for the rest of your life, barring massive failure in some other capacity or extremely poor economic luck. (Bad luck is, unfortunately, always a possibility.) - This is 4 years, where you still have some free time, compared to the rest of your entire life.
On the STO grind as presented for these ships is an entire month OF your free time for a reward that will only persist so long as the game does. (May it be a long time) - Even if the game somehow lasts forever, it is a reward that ultimately only matters until you play an alt. There really just isn't any comparison here.
Point 2 - No one is asking to remove the shiny. We've been over that already though and this post was made as a generalization - still; I wanted to point out again that this is not what is being asked for.
Paragraph 4, Post 1 -
Point 1 - Yes, it is nice we can earn them. The point is that currently you're looking at paying (requiring roughly 2 hours of work at a minimum wage job), or 80+ hours - likely more - of grinding. This is not merely slightly slanted in favor of purchase - this is a near vertical cliff wall.
Point 2 - Again, we already pay for this game. It would be fundamentally different if there were no subscription fee - I wholly expect; and even desire, that Cryptic should make money. However what is being done here is asking people to pay for things that in other games could be accomplished faster, and in the vast majority of cases could quite simply not be bought at any cost; as most MMO companies don't put this kind of thing up in their stores at all.
Point 3 - I realize this is still part of your generalized argument, but this is an enormous strawman. No one is saying we shouldn't have at least some work to do, or that we should never pay for anything beyond our subs - well, some might; but that's not what I'm arguing since I understand that the money brought through the C-Store does help fund development.
My point is that we either have spent a great deal of money up front when the game was uncertain of it's future; or we have paid to play as we go; either way Cryptic is already making money and yet, they develop things that have in-game effects and require purchase. Then, when the complaints finally grow too loud, the method of acquisition is so incredibly draconian that purchase appears to be the only real option.
Note that if the grind ended with you getting an account-wide unlock, this would be a lot less onerous, because you'd be essentially paying for (in time spent) what someone else did in dollars. However that's not the case at present.
Closing Paragraph, Post 1
Point 1 -
This is - at minimum, someone playing quite fast - two-weeks of full-time employment worth of work. That isn't a 'little' amount of work to put into a game. It's not bad if it's actually your job - but you get paid to do that. So there is no way to characterize this as anything other than " a lot" of work.
Point 2 -
Videogames aren't life. People can simply decide they don't want to deal with the grind and leave. You can't do that with life. Also, in life, when things get too hard, that's when rebellions break out; in video games that just means people walk away and the game dies.
So yes, life is hard - but games should not emulate that facet of life. I would add that we should really do a lot more to make life less hard in-general. Just because it is doesn't mean it should be. That however is another discussion entirely.
====================
I'll address Post 2 in a second post of my own, as I suspect I'm near the character limit.
*The complaint - in it's broadest form - being "The C-Store in it's present state is unfair". Now how unfair it is, how to rectify that unfairness, and a myriad other questions, are all unadressed by this statement; but that is the only real tie between everyone complaining about the C-Store. As such your general response was doomed from the beginning.
**I did mention in the original post that I do rather like the game.
As before I have split the paragraph into two so it is easier to read. No other alterations were made.
Point 1 - Will likely appear and will in fact appear are different things. Part of the purpose of this post is to light a fire to make certain they do, in fact, appear.
Point 2 - Once again you misunderstand. No, I do not want things now. I want to make sure things do occur. I am a fairly patient person - I've been here since closed beta and in many cases have vigorously defended this game; especially during launch when there was nothing but doom and gloom on the forums. I am not those people.
Point 3 - No, generalizing is a terrible thing in most contexts - especially debate. In generalizing you leave yourself looking either ignorant of the person you are actually talking to, or render yourself unable to see their point by virtue of confusing their point with the point of others.
Post 2, Closing Paragraph -
This is really the entire point of the exercise. I'm not saying "less work" - I'm saying "equal reward for work". If we're going to grind 80 hours; then the reward should be worthy of that time spent. Account wide unlocks would make that workable. More dailies would not in fact reduce the number of hours spent, merely allow those with jobs to grind on the weekends when they have time to spend 8 hours at the computer if they're too busy through the week.
we could then work towards our exploration accolades and earn marks of exploration at the same time,therefore earning our 500 emblems for the ship without it feeling "uber" grindy.
however i would like to see an amount of marks for account wide and amount of marks for character only.
hey i can wish can't i ?
Yes i am aware that life and gaming is two different things, yet similarities with both can be seen, if you can accept a change in words and meaning. For instance, i would love a new car, yet i know i can not right now afford one. I could save up over the next so-many-months or i could get a loan and effectively get it now. In some ways, again if you can distance yourself from the obvious words and meanings, you could see this as the C-Store. A place where you can have 90% of (ships) whats offered immediately for a price, or work and save towards getting it with other means.
Unfortunately your patronising method of post addressing has clearly got the better of you. A forum is a place for opinions, and whether you agree with mine or not, to assume i didn't read something just because i didn't either quote or follow your thoughts to an exact, instead to formulate my opinions in a manner whereby playing Devils Advocate to some extent clearly shows your belittling attitude to a subject you will never see how i am seeing. If you don't like what i say, fine, but to say i don't get it is, well, need i continue with that? You can't accept Cryptic has to make further money from such avenues. I only point this out because of the way you have addressed the reason i decided to generalise, which is technically what people do when viewing the C-Store. Apparently we all don't like it, right? Lowering the current scale of Marks will effectively have an impact on the C-Store, so where is the benefit for them? I know where the benefit for us is in that sense, but if we continue to think solely about ourselves, we may as well prepare for the worst with this fantastic game. A middle ground needs to be met, and we have to accept a level of financial responsibility, just as do Cryptic.
Like you, i don't play WoW any more. After 5 years or so, the same thing with a different skin tends to get old. I prefer STO because as equipment and gear may change, my character and their officers etc continue to develop a story. Because of this i see myself playing for a very long time indeed, enough time to acquire a lot of this gear which will be a grind but i wouldn't have it any other way.
You mention these ships have unique abilities, yet you don't mention they also lose other abilities, like console slots for example. To me this represents balance, or at least balance to a certain degree, as balance issues and MMO's continue on for their entire life span it seems. There is nothing 'i win' in the C-Store and i believe this will never happen, unless it does go F2P. But having played many F2P MMO's, i do not like the way they operate or the riff-raff they quickly bring in.
We are likely to agree to disagree on many areas, i just never understand the need for further C-Store threads when the answer is as simple as its always been. If you don't like it, do not use it. And since Cryptic have given further methods to obtain, we should see this as a step in the right direction. It may not be exactly what some may want, but would you rather go back to how it was?
no need here.
i have 8 chars so far and every one has another goal for his endgame ship.
why would my Engineer want to fly an Intrepid, he is skilled for Attack Cruisers and that is where he will stay, so the only ship he might want is the Excelsior.
My Sci will go for the Intrepid Retrofit, which is avaible for a free token AFAIK, and then may grind for the Nebula just to have it (no other char of mine would want the Nebula anyway).
I have no Vulcan so there is no need for the Vulcan ship to begin with, i may start another char another time for that, but for now i have enough chars to level up anyway.
My Gorn could grind for the Gorn ship... but he is a tactical char and the ship is a Sci one... so uuuhm no need there either.
I think about what Ship every char is aiming for before i even start him, so no i do not need an account wide unlock, i don't want to fly the same ship on 2 chars anyway.
I don't believe I ever said they shouldn't make money. I want them to continue to make money so they can continue to provide me with more stuff - this is not an issue. More to the point, even if they dropped it to 20 hours of work to get a ship, people would still buy it. 80 hours is beyond excessive.
However regardless of that, I did not ask for them to reduce the amount of hours to begin with. The bitterness and cynicism come from the fact that I can play almost any other game out there and not have to pay for things that are actual in-game items; and even the long grinds tend not to be this long. Keep in mind it only takes 40 hours roughly to cap out in STO - getting one ship takes double that.
To prove my point about the continued viability of the C-Store even if it were drastically reduced: People buy, routinely, costume packs in CO that one can acquire the pieces from by grinding. The grind for those pieces is only about 8 hours (dependent on character type). Nevertheless, people buy them. You don't think they do the same here?
I think you're missing my point here - You're trying to compare a very apples-and-oranges situation. Cars are an investment - if you have a car you can go to work and make more money; you can get your kids to school or soccer practice, you can go to the doctor or even drive off on vacation. Buying a new car is difficult and requires saving up - yes - but unless you've either got loads of cash, have terrible luck, or are incredibly bad with money; you only need to buy a car once in awhile; and that car will last you if you continue to put in money for maintenance.
STO is not an investment like that - it's a game; one that someday will fade away and we - the players, will be left with nothing but memories for it. It will not have helped us pick up groceries from the store nor will it have carried us on long vacations, or gotten us to work. It's entertainment, like any game; and while that does certainly have value, it is not a necessity of modern life like a vehicle is. (In the US anyway; I know there are places where it's not needed at all)
Let me put this in a more apples-to-apples context here - video-game to video-game.
Normal (non-MMO) video games sometimes charge for content, equipment and bonus features (DLC) - why is this OK when I find it distasteful in an MMO? Simple, I don't need to pay a subscription fee to play a normal game.
I pay my money, I get my game, and it's mine forever (at least, as long as I keep the key handy or, buy on Steam like I usually do). If I want the extra features and content I can pay for them or not; but never once do I have to pay them any other money. The same is true in F2P games - I don't mind buying stuff in those because that's how they make their money. I'm not paying them anything other than for those items.
STO isn't like that - STO already made money off of me in a big way; and continues to make money off of every subscriber. Even at that I don't mind paying for cosmetic items or what I'd call 'tool' items (character renames, character slots, costume slots, etc...) - these are perfectly fine.
However when you start charging for things that alter game play while I am also paying you a subscription fee (or have paid the lifetime equivalent thereof) - then yes, I get a little testy. Frankly I should have said this way back when the Excelsior was first proposed, but I bit my tongue then and I regret doing it.
As for ignoring the meaning of your words: I am not. You are attempting to use a metaphor, drawing from real life to a video game; however your metaphor is inapt*. As such I am pulling apart why your metaphor is faulty - this isn't ignoring it at all though. This is why I'm presenting alternate comparisons - things that actually line up with what we're talking about here.
I'm not patronizing you. I don't patronize people at all - if I felt you were beneath my notice and worthy of being talked down to, I wouldn't talk to you at all. I respect your right to your opinion, you do not seem to respect that I have the right to disagree with that opinion vigorously. I am stating my case against your own - that's how serious discussions go.**
I am, however, typing in a more formal style because I do feel this is an important issue and I wish to be taken seriously. As such my communication must be as impeccable as possible. I normally do not use my full breadth and depth of vocabulary because it is generally unnecessary. I will not however, bring the metaphorical knife to a gunfight - nor will I imply my usual goofy persona and occasional slips into redneck drawl in a situation where a more formal academic style is useful.
You'll note I have not corrected your grammar, I have not told you that you are misspelling things or missed capitalizations - I don't care about that. I have split a few of your paragraphs because they're hard to read in wall-of-text form, but I have not actually tried to give you any grief for that.
Your opinion is respected - it is however being disagreed with.
That you tried to engage in a massive generalization at the outset, I believe, is why this conversation is so rocky to begin with. I didn't ask you not to formulate your own opinion - I'm asking you to, if addressing my post, to actually address the post rather than to conflate it with other posts you have seen. In other words: If we want to have a reasonable discussion about this, then lets actually discuss what each other is talking about.
Otherwise we're just talking around each other, and that's not going to do much good for anyone.
Why does Cryptic have to make additional money from these avenues? Can you point to actual evidence that says it must be done this way? Can you show me or anyone at all that this is the only way to keep STO alive and productive? If you can sure, I'll accept it; but I don't think you can. Most MMOs get by fine without selling game-altering items that to acquire in game take double the amount of time it takes to reach cap to get.
Let me state this again just to be clear: Champions Online, a game that was until it went Free to Play, in dire straits, managed to release no less than 5 full sets of free, mostly non-purchasable costume pieces. That's male and female versions of each for most pieces. STO is not in dire straits.
Also, once again - I did not ask for marks to be reduced. I mentioned I would like it done, but I also acknowledged at the same time that it would not likely happen and thus proposed alternatives.
As for thinking about myself: Do remember, this is a game - entertainment - fun - it's not our job to make Cryptic money. It's their job to keep us happy and thus willing to give them money. This is our leisure time; our responsibilities are to our own jobs, families and the like, not to an entertainment company.***
Now I want to make clear here: I'm not saying "The customer is always right" - I've worked retail, that statement is BS. I am however saying that it is not the customer's job to make the company money - the company has to earn it. I don't want the game to die any more than you do - believe me; if I were in any way displeased with the game itself, I would not be posting here. I'd be doing something else entirely.
However, I'll say this again - I am the customer, not the company - it is not my job to keep them in business; that's their responsibility. That said I do not mind giving them money where I feel justified in doing so. Ship costumes? Absolutely. Regular Costumes? Sure. Although in both cases I feel they've been rather overboard with the shear quantity of both that have to be purchased.
That's another big part of the problem: If the quantity of ships on offer were less - say they'd given us half of the ships you currently have to buy - then this post might be less frustrated or even non-existent. And no, Plaques don't count, yes they're nice, but if you capped out before you knew ships would be getting added later, you probably spent your plaque on the refits. I'm not saying they should be available for energy credits either really, but I'd much prefer some kind of "epic quest" to grinding away for weeks.
(Note, post too long, please read next post as contiguous to the first.)
Except you seem to forget that they'll keep adding more stuff. You will never keep pace. By the time you get everything you want now, there will be ten more things you want. It's a treadmill, and I'm trying to turn it from Speed 6 to Speed 4. I know MMOs too well to say 'turn it off' heh; they're all treadmills to a point.
First - I don't care that they're balanced. I never said they were 'better' - merely unique. That they lose abilities is irrelevant - they make available officer configurations that are not otherwise possible, enable abilities you would never otherwise have, and of course, allow you to fly your favorite Star Trek ships. This was never about "I win" - this is about "I have fun".
And I'm not a big fan of full F2P myself. I actually prefer a sub fee - because until STO paying a sub fee meant "I get whatever they add to the game, except the occasional expansion pack". Though I'll note that the average MMO player can be quite the piece of work themselves. (Or maybe it's just the loud ones?) Still, I'm not arguing STO shoudl be F2P by any stretch - I'm simply saying that right now they're running a F2P level item shop in a P2P game. One of those things ought to change, at least to an extent.
There will be complaints so long as there are problems.
I will add that I did say it was a step in the right direction - my point was that it's a very small step, and they should not stop at that. I'm not asking them to go back to how it was - I'm asking them to do more.
Let me lay out my proposal one last time before I go do something else for a bit:
1) Make ships account wide if you unlock via emblems. This allows a player who puts in the work to get the same benefit, rather than getting significantly less.
2) More dailies so that people who work through the week and can't play, can grind more heavily on the weekends. Again, the actual time requirement does not change here, this merely makes it fairer to those with lives who have spare time here and there, rather than 3 hours+ every day.
3) For costume pieces, consider allowing us to unlock them piecemeal.
... That's really it honestly.
*note inept, inapt; meaning that it's not accurate, rather than that it's poorly done. I wanted to point that out because while you may very well know the word; some people would misinterpret that as an insult, and I want to be clear that I'm not insulting you. I'm disagreeing vociferously.
**I say 'serious' but really I mean "stuff that's beyond the realm of "Who wins in a fight, Superman or Batman?". Because ultimately STO is just a game and I don't want to overstate the case here. I'm irritated, even a little angry; but there's a limit to how much I can care about a videogame. That said: I'm making the argument this way because I do feel it is important.
***That said, I am a big fan of Cryptic. I own COH/V, CO (Lifetime) and STO (Lifetime) and will probably get Neverwinter when it comes out. This is a studio I genuinely like and respect. I feel Dstahl in particular has done a fantastic job turning STO around. I say this because I want it to be absolutely clear that I don't bear them any ill will. I just happen to see this as a serious problem and am proposing solutions to remedy it.
While I certainly can understand this viewpoint; do understand that your perspective isn't everyone else's.
For me, my main flies Cruisers. In-general. While I've been primarily an Assault Cruiser captain for ages, I suspect there are ships on the horizon I'd rather use, and yet my character has been capped since February of last year. (Well, VA1 shortly after that was released, but you get my meaning.)
Okay, I'm gonna shut up for a bit.
Believe it or not, it's pretty exhausting doing all this typing!
It's really hard to make sense of the C-store, when most MMOs operate largely on the either/or principle when it comes to microtransactions and subscriptions. I've allowed myself to be told that this is about to become normal for MMOs across the board, as they get more expensive to develop (just think what Bioware is sinking into SWTOR) and maintain, but yeah...
This month, the C-store released the Delta Flyer (400 AT), the D'Kyr (1200 AT) and upcoming still the open jacket uniform (likely going to be 240 AT). Add those up and you come up with a number than represents considerably more money than the fee for being allowed to play the game this month at all...
But as has been pointed out, as long as we're buying it, they're going to keep doing it. A lot of people (yours truly included) realized they were likely shooting themselves in the foot when they bought their lifetime subscriptions at launch, knowing that the longterm savings we were imagining were probably going to go straight into all sorts of useless items in the C-store. And in my case it certainly did. I still from time to time bring up a partial refund button for the C-store to get rid of those things I bought that I never use. (Like the 7 of 9, Troi and pre-TNG uniforms.) Tried to bait them with the idea that if they give me back half my AT, and I ever have a change of heart, I'd have to pay full price again, but they're not falling for it.
I'm thinking it'd be more interesting if instead of granting an XP gain bonus, the veteran awards were to grant a stacking C-store discount, making the C-store less expensive over time. Or they maintain the 1200 AT price for newly released ships, but drop it to 800 or so after three months.
So I want to add three things before I bow out of the thread for good.
1) I am sorry if at any point it seemed I was insulting anyone - this includes perhaps demeaning behavior on my part. It wasn't intended, but as I am painfully aware - intention doesn't always equate with the end result.
So, if I inadvertently insulted anyone - I am sorry. Was not what I was after.
2) I'd like to reiterate that the whole reason I made this post is because I do, in fact, really like this game. That's largely why the C-Store weighs rather heavily on me - because I enjoy the game yet, due to circusmstances beyond my control, I am stuck on the extremely slow path to acquiring things I want. I'm grateful to have that path available, but it feels like bread crumbs when I really could use a sandwich - especially since I feel like I paid for a sandwich to begin with.
3) I'm tired. I intended to stick around and debate if more people were to come into the thread; but quite frankly I have worn myself out. This is of course due to my failure to keep my emotions in check. It's an issue I care about, perhaps more than I really should, and in letting myself get so passionate I have become extremely tired. So I'm going to bow out.
I feel like my opinion has been made known, the thread is here if the developers and business people care to read it; and I think I'm going to take a vacation from the forums. I've been too hot under the collar here for awhile now and I think it's time to step back a bit.
Note: My point is not being retracted; I am however somewhat regretful for the fashion in which I presented that opinion.
So for what it's worth, I am sorry for being rather... heated. And now I'm off to try to relax - not healthy to get so worked up over a game.
No you did a great job stating your point of view and the issue you have with the C-Store. Just except the fact that there are fanboys that think STO is the best MMO ever. I'm sure they will still believe that STO is the best ever MMO in a few more months when only a hundred or less are still playing STO and the rest of the current player base has moved on to Old Republic, Rift, or some other MMO.
As for the C-Store I believe they are setting the stage to go Free to Play with STO within the year as the new games like Old Republic get released. All you need to do it look at the past to see where they are going with the C-Store. I expect the new multi-vector assault mode Prometheus will be something that you need to purchase from the C-Store for no less that 1800 tokes. I think any new equipment, ships, uniforms, etc will be released only thru the C-Store from this point on.
So yes, I agree with pretty much everything mistformsquirrel said in the opening post. I've not read much of the rest of the thread because for some reason I'm having trouble focusing on reading large posts at the moment so I kinda just skimmed. I remember the STO C-Store being told it'd be cosmetic....but when you say "Spend 10 dollars to get something for all of your characters, or months to get it on one" it's no choice at all. It's saying either get this non-cosmetic thing on the C-Store, or not at all. Which is not how it was advertised.
Therefore, transitioning to a more micro-transaction based (seemingly facilitated by c-store) mechanic is a viable business plan.
I read someplace that the higher-ups like this model.
I have been meaning to vent about this for some time, but I see too many fanboys shooting down posts which show concern for the game's well-being. Don't get me wrong, I think an open world Star Trek game is the way to go, it screams of an awesome concept, but so far Cryptic have ruined that concept and have done nothing more than deliver false hope and promises whilst selling out with the C-Store. It only gets worse when certain Items one purchases from the C-Store don't work as intended. Lately attempts from Cryptic to make any sort of what they seem to view as improvements to the game have been nothing more than embarrassing, from the broken "1 year anniversary", to the useless oversized shuttles, then not to mention the constant server downtime which we are apparently paying monthly fees for.