Also keep in mind that games that can do that, and not have content rolled out as much as sto has, has alot of content for you to enjoy.
Only if you haven't been playing those games all along. WoW, for example, I cleared all the content added in Cataclysm within a month. I cleared all the 81-85 content in less than a week. And all they're adding in the patch that hasn't come out yet, much later, are two (recycled) five-mans and an end-game raid. Can you imagine the hew and cry here if STO released literally nothing for 4 months, and then all they released were two revised STFs and a new, 10-man STF?
Its similar in other games. Sure, if you started playing WoW or LotRO or EVE or Age of Conan or whathaveyou today, and you'd never played it before, it would take you a long while to notice the slow release of content, because there's a lot already there. But eventually, when you caught up, you'd see that its much worse than this 'drought' on a regular basis.
I still maintain that this is Cryptic moving from their hyper-release schedule of the last year to a more reasonable, standard MMO pace of releasing content.
Foundry c'mon? We need more real missions, playing foundry missions is as pointless as reading the Star Trek books or fan fic because it's not canon.
The purpose of reading a book or playing a game is entertainment. Whether it is canon or not has nothing to do with being entertained. That said, the real reason your argument fails is because even the official missions in STO are not canon. If CBS decides they want to make another Star Trek show and set it in the same year that STO takes place in, they can completely ignore all the stories in STO if they want to.
What irritates me is that there's simple, easy things they could organize/arrange to keep people interested that require little if any resources on the part of Cryptic:
1) Have the Borg invade Sol system again: This could be random, but something to the effect of "The Borg are expected to arrive sometime between 10:00 am and 4 pm pst" lol
2) Set aside an instance or two where an iconic gate opens up between Chronos and ESD...open pvp for those that desire.
3) Let the GMs have random fun by creating random spawns.
4) Have Lord British give out swords of Ruin.....oh wait...
I actually have a better answer than the one I wrote before:
Dailies: I have got to do a TON of dailies. earn as much emblems as possible for all the stuff I may need. Exploration: Vito'D, Crimto, they aint got nothin on me. I will chart each and every cluster as if I was catching all the pokemon.
PVP!: My fleet has become VERY pvp focus'ed lately with the arrival of a old friend. We got builds workin out. Planning to do, We even have our own Teamspeak all set up and ready Mission Replay: I have a feeling I am going to use this a lot. I love going through old missions. collecting kill accolades or ones that I have missed before.
Accolade Hunting: Yup. I got a nice list of ones I should have done eventually: Legendary, Scourge of Terran Empire, Scourge Of Starfleet, Order Of The Bat'leth. Poloran Emitter, Invoker.
I wish I could enjoy replaying the same missions over and over, I really do. After I read a book, it takes years before I can enjoy reading it again because the story is still too fresh in my mind if I try sooner. Likewise, it will probably be quite some time before I can enjoy playing the same missions that I have already played again, and that includes dailies since they are the same as replaying a mission. I guess thats why the Foundry is my fave addition to this game since the featured episodes
What irritates me is that there's simple, easy things they could organize/arrange to keep people interestedthta require little if any resources on the part of Cryptic:
3) Let the GMs have random fun by creating random spawns.
I really hope they do that. Just set the GMs loose on a weekend with instructions to have fun. It either turns out well or awesomely bad. Either way, much fun is had.
Pretty much this. I have personally unsuscribed until season 4 ships. I support cryptic but I am not exactly an alt kind of player - so I will wait for new content to release.
I don't plan on playing much during the drought. I have tons of other games to play, including lifetime subs to LOTRO and DCUO. Once foundry hits tho, i might spend some time creating a mission or two. I have a couple ideas lurking around in my brain. (ripoffs from star trek episodes obviously)
Lets keep in mind, this horrible 'drought' in content is actually shorter than the 'drought' in most other MMO's I play/have played, and they haven't had horrible results. WoW, for example, released an expansion in early December, and hasn't had any new content since. Same goes for other games. We've just gotten spoiled by the constant stream of content, fixes, and changes we've had here since this game was released. Now that its slowing down to normal MMO levels, it seems slow.
Thats kind of like saying the people who lose their jobs and homes in the US dont have it as bad as the people in 3rd world countries. That may be true, but simply saying that doesnt actually make the situation any better.
might try and work out how to use the foundry and maybe lvl a klingon. altho i'm currently burned right out on the lvling front atm.
but i'd still like to get the cure done and so on so i have a few things to keep me busy.
but i'm sure the drought can't last that long. cryptic and atari would be crazy to starve us!! lol
foundry wise i have to say altho the idea is great. in my experience of playing games where they add the ability to make player made missions, it actually flops big time and never plugs the content gap.
sorry but it's true. players want alots of dev created content. having an amazing feature ep to play is actually something to really look forward to. i hope we get alot more of them sooner rather than later.
i hope the foundry don't disappoint, i fear it will because it's been hyped up way too much. i hope it dosen't become another chronicles......
Continue playing all the content I haven't seen yet. I'm a preorder player whose highest level character is Commander 4. No dought here. There's lots of content left for me.
I do play a wide variety of characters, depending on whether I'm soloing or who I'm teaming with (wife, daughter, brother, or any combination thereof). We level our teams together, so that in itself leads to a number of alts.
We also play other games (gasp!) and do other things. My wife and I are founders and lifetimers in LOTRO and still haven't hit the level cap (same reasons as above); we did surpass 50, but by that point they had moved the level cap.
For us the journey is the fun part; we're in no rush.
I'm definitely looking forward to the foundry coming to holodeck. That's pretty much what I plan on spending time in STO on in addition to grinding out emblems.
Hopefully some day they'll finally get around to releasing to gorram new ships, too! That's mainly what I've been waiting for for the last several months.
Play SWG. Even after 7 years of daily play, there's still plenty I haven't done. They update content and add new things every 3 months. Luckily I still have tons to do between updates.
On a side note, the necessity of this limit is also a guarantee that if STO ever goes F2P that free players will not be able to create Foundry missions. The reason is because you can create unlimited free accounts, so anybody could create multiple free accounts and create unlimited Foundry missions.
I wouldn't be so sure about this.
I'm positive that they wouldn't give free accounts many slots, but they could certainly still allow access to the Foundry tools.
Essentially the reason you suggest they won't is the same reason we are limited in the number of characters we can create per account (the standard subs only get three). Free accounts could, theoretically, create unlimited accounts in order to have as many characters as they wish. I don't however think this going to stop Cryptic from allowing free accounts from creating characters. They just have to do what they've done with Champions Online and create associated account purchases in order to make people want to stick with a single account.
They'll could very well do this with the foundry, basically restrict it in some way with locked content that must be purchased from the C-Store or unlocked with an active subscription. Perhaps a free account only allows for limited customization of NPCs, maybe the size of the missions maps and the number of usable maps per mission is capped. They could cap the number of placeables per map. Even restrict the types of maps and placeables available and sell the rest in packs (want to make a nice romulan base? Better buy the Romulan Pack with it's D'deridex interiors and romulan architecture and objects!).
There are ways they could allow access to free accounts, it would just mean they'd have to monetize the Foundry in some way, which really doesn't seem that difficult.
This isn't a content drought, even if it is its not a great one. Another game (Table top) I play used to bring out the equivalent of a featured episode every month, sometimes more than one.
They've not brought out anything like that for a couple of years, in fact they're pulling the old ones off their site. They have of course brought out expansion books which you need to pay for.
That would be what I call a Great Content Drought, not a couple of months with out a new featured episode.
Well the featured series 3 was alot of fun, but with that over it will now be several months before Season 4 and Cryptic has said that the next featured series probably wont be coming out until then as well. That means we're in for several months of no new official content except for C-store updates. What do you play to do to stay busy and entertained during the Great Content Drought?
Continue the pew pew, get my remaining 4/6 chars max level, complete all the stfs on the 5/6 remaining, and continue the pew pew (pew pewing internet spaceships is what I like so I felt id mention it twice).
I'm positive that they wouldn't give free accounts many slots, but they could certainly still allow access to the Foundry tools.
Essentially the reason you suggest they won't is the same reason we are limited in the number of characters we can create per account (the standard subs only get three). Free accounts could, theoretically, create unlimited accounts in order to have as many characters as they wish. I don't however think this going to stop Cryptic from allowing free accounts from creating characters. They just have to do what they've done with Champions Online and create associated account purchases in order to make people want to stick with a single account.
They'll could very well do this with the foundry, basically restrict it in some way with locked content that must be purchased from the C-Store or unlocked with an active subscription. Perhaps a free account only allows for limited customization of NPCs, maybe the size of the missions maps and the number of usable maps per mission is capped. They could cap the number of placeables per map. Even restrict the types of maps and placeables available and sell the rest in packs (want to make a nice romulan base? Better buy the Romulan Pack with it's D'deridex interiors and romulan architecture and objects!).
There are ways they could allow access to free accounts, it would just mean they'd have to monetize the Foundry in some way, which really doesn't seem that difficult.
The major problem I see with that idea is that limiting what a free player can do with the Foundry doesnt really effect THAT person, it effects the experience of the people PLAYING the mission, and those people include paid subscribers. So allowing free players to created "restricted" Foundry missions will not likely result in a high quality experience for the people PLAYING those missions.
Play SWG. Even after 7 years of daily play, there's still plenty I haven't done. They update content and add new things every 3 months. Luckily I still have tons to do between updates.
I havent played that game in quite some time, though I'm still tempted to reactivate my sub every now and then just to run around in my suit of Mando. It seems like such a shame to have spent all the time to get that and now have it sit on an inactive account(same goes for my elder Jedi I suppose), but I just cant quite make myself do it. Has anything new or exciting happened lately?
Well they already said it would not be a drought, but just no FEs. They said they will be doing some Foundry stuff, (I SO hope it gets on holodeck) some remastered episodes (Very VERY much them to redo Klingon content), and Series reruns.
So to answer your question. The foundry, on either holodeck or tribble.
I just canceled my sub again. Ill check back again perhaps in a few months to see if they have finally improved the early game and fixed the bugs in place since Beta. The game still needs a huge amount of work, and right now I think their priorities are not in the right place.
When its release ready (probably another year) Ill subscribe then. Until then they do not deserve my subscription IMO.
That does not mean they havent done incredible work, especially considering the amount of time they had. But this game needed a 3 to 4 year development cycle and it didnt get that. As a result it almost fell flat on its face, and has as of yet to pick itself up.
If the Foundry isn't on Holodeck soon, I'll probably just take a break. There's nothing for me to do other than grind, and grinding makes me hate games.
So ... I'll be dropping my subscription for a few months.
(This is why I want the territory control system, if they do it right it'll be all the content I'll ever need.)
If the Foundry isn't on Holodeck soon, I'll probably just take a break. There's nothing for me to do other than grind, and grinding makes me hate games.
So ... I'll be dropping my subscription for a few months.
(This is why I want the territory control system, if they do it right it'll be all the content I'll ever need.)
Thats kind of like saying the people who lose their jobs and homes in the US dont have it as bad as the people in 3rd world countries. That may be true, but simply saying that doesnt actually make the situation any better.
I think a better analogy might be, your favorite all you can eat buffet just got rid of the buffet, so now for what you used to pay for all you could eat, you're now going to get a plate of food, comparable to the meal you'd get at every other restaurant in town.
If you'd never had the buffet, you wouldn't have an issue. But because you're now getting less than you used to, it feels like you're kinda getting screwed, even though you're getting the same deal every other restaurant in town already offered.
Comments
Only if you haven't been playing those games all along. WoW, for example, I cleared all the content added in Cataclysm within a month. I cleared all the 81-85 content in less than a week. And all they're adding in the patch that hasn't come out yet, much later, are two (recycled) five-mans and an end-game raid. Can you imagine the hew and cry here if STO released literally nothing for 4 months, and then all they released were two revised STFs and a new, 10-man STF?
Its similar in other games. Sure, if you started playing WoW or LotRO or EVE or Age of Conan or whathaveyou today, and you'd never played it before, it would take you a long while to notice the slow release of content, because there's a lot already there. But eventually, when you caught up, you'd see that its much worse than this 'drought' on a regular basis.
I still maintain that this is Cryptic moving from their hyper-release schedule of the last year to a more reasonable, standard MMO pace of releasing content.
Also, have a Feddie Sci toon that needs some run throughs as well.
Other than that, wait for a really dark, awesome thunderstorm night, and rerun that Devidian mission we had at Halloween ! :eek:
2) Work on Foundry
3) Work on my fleet
4) XBox
The purpose of reading a book or playing a game is entertainment. Whether it is canon or not has nothing to do with being entertained. That said, the real reason your argument fails is because even the official missions in STO are not canon. If CBS decides they want to make another Star Trek show and set it in the same year that STO takes place in, they can completely ignore all the stories in STO if they want to.
1) Have the Borg invade Sol system again: This could be random, but something to the effect of "The Borg are expected to arrive sometime between 10:00 am and 4 pm pst" lol
2) Set aside an instance or two where an iconic gate opens up between Chronos and ESD...open pvp for those that desire.
3) Let the GMs have random fun by creating random spawns.
4) Have Lord British give out swords of Ruin.....oh wait...
I wish I could enjoy replaying the same missions over and over, I really do. After I read a book, it takes years before I can enjoy reading it again because the story is still too fresh in my mind if I try sooner. Likewise, it will probably be quite some time before I can enjoy playing the same missions that I have already played again, and that includes dailies since they are the same as replaying a mission. I guess thats why the Foundry is my fave addition to this game since the featured episodes
I really hope they do that. Just set the GMs loose on a weekend with instructions to have fun. It either turns out well or awesomely bad. Either way, much fun is had.
Pretty much this. I have personally unsuscribed until season 4 ships. I support cryptic but I am not exactly an alt kind of player - so I will wait for new content to release.
Thats kind of like saying the people who lose their jobs and homes in the US dont have it as bad as the people in 3rd world countries. That may be true, but simply saying that doesnt actually make the situation any better.
but i'd still like to get the cure done and so on so i have a few things to keep me busy.
but i'm sure the drought can't last that long. cryptic and atari would be crazy to starve us!! lol
foundry wise i have to say altho the idea is great. in my experience of playing games where they add the ability to make player made missions, it actually flops big time and never plugs the content gap.
sorry but it's true. players want alots of dev created content. having an amazing feature ep to play is actually something to really look forward to. i hope we get alot more of them sooner rather than later.
i hope the foundry don't disappoint, i fear it will because it's been hyped up way too much. i hope it dosen't become another chronicles......
I do play a wide variety of characters, depending on whether I'm soloing or who I'm teaming with (wife, daughter, brother, or any combination thereof). We level our teams together, so that in itself leads to a number of alts.
We also play other games (gasp!) and do other things. My wife and I are founders and lifetimers in LOTRO and still haven't hit the level cap (same reasons as above); we did surpass 50, but by that point they had moved the level cap.
For us the journey is the fun part; we're in no rush.
You're making a Foundry tutorial? That's awesome,it really needs one.:p
Double post.....sorry bout that.:o
I wouldn't be so sure about this.
I'm positive that they wouldn't give free accounts many slots, but they could certainly still allow access to the Foundry tools.
Essentially the reason you suggest they won't is the same reason we are limited in the number of characters we can create per account (the standard subs only get three). Free accounts could, theoretically, create unlimited accounts in order to have as many characters as they wish. I don't however think this going to stop Cryptic from allowing free accounts from creating characters. They just have to do what they've done with Champions Online and create associated account purchases in order to make people want to stick with a single account.
They'll could very well do this with the foundry, basically restrict it in some way with locked content that must be purchased from the C-Store or unlocked with an active subscription. Perhaps a free account only allows for limited customization of NPCs, maybe the size of the missions maps and the number of usable maps per mission is capped. They could cap the number of placeables per map. Even restrict the types of maps and placeables available and sell the rest in packs (want to make a nice romulan base? Better buy the Romulan Pack with it's D'deridex interiors and romulan architecture and objects!).
There are ways they could allow access to free accounts, it would just mean they'd have to monetize the Foundry in some way, which really doesn't seem that difficult.
They've not brought out anything like that for a couple of years, in fact they're pulling the old ones off their site. They have of course brought out expansion books which you need to pay for.
That would be what I call a Great Content Drought, not a couple of months with out a new featured episode.
Continue the pew pew, get my remaining 4/6 chars max level, complete all the stfs on the 5/6 remaining, and continue the pew pew (pew pewing internet spaceships is what I like so I felt id mention it twice).
Sounds like many hours of gameplay and fun to me.
The major problem I see with that idea is that limiting what a free player can do with the Foundry doesnt really effect THAT person, it effects the experience of the people PLAYING the mission, and those people include paid subscribers. So allowing free players to created "restricted" Foundry missions will not likely result in a high quality experience for the people PLAYING those missions.
I havent played that game in quite some time, though I'm still tempted to reactivate my sub every now and then just to run around in my suit of Mando. It seems like such a shame to have spent all the time to get that and now have it sit on an inactive account(same goes for my elder Jedi I suppose), but I just cant quite make myself do it. Has anything new or exciting happened lately?
So to answer your question. The foundry, on either holodeck or tribble.
When its release ready (probably another year) Ill subscribe then. Until then they do not deserve my subscription IMO.
That does not mean they havent done incredible work, especially considering the amount of time they had. But this game needed a 3 to 4 year development cycle and it didnt get that. As a result it almost fell flat on its face, and has as of yet to pick itself up.
Its come a long way. Still a ways to go IMO.
So ... I'll be dropping my subscription for a few months.
(This is why I want the territory control system, if they do it right it'll be all the content I'll ever need.)
It is scheduled to go live this month. We'll see.
I think a better analogy might be, your favorite all you can eat buffet just got rid of the buffet, so now for what you used to pay for all you could eat, you're now going to get a plate of food, comparable to the meal you'd get at every other restaurant in town.
If you'd never had the buffet, you wouldn't have an issue. But because you're now getting less than you used to, it feels like you're kinda getting screwed, even though you're getting the same deal every other restaurant in town already offered.