Not sure we can solely lay this at sdeangelo's feet, there's simply too much here for that timespan - no, this one has dstahl written all over it.
I'm actually beginning, as terrifying as it is, to agree with the conspiracy theorists that Stahl left because he saw this coming and would not preside over it in good conscience.
I would *love* nothing more than to be proven *wrong* but the timing on this is just far too close for it to be coincidence.
I lost faith in cryptic months ago, this sorry excuse for an mmo will go belly up by the end of the year!
I first welcomed the news the PWE was buying cryptic, even though we new it was happening months before they finally "anounced" it...
The sad thing is they are trying to milk us like the citizens in their own comunist country.
Well, lots of new names, and those outside of the "usual" naysayers. Not a good sign.
I can honestly say I've been a pretty big fanboy. I've had complaints about some delays, but I let them slide, even through a major content drought due to them being sold and such.
But ever since the announcement of F2P and the slow roll-out of their new policies regarding it, its just hard to ignore the absolute change in philosophy going on there.
So many things are opposite of Dan Stahl's stated goals, I can't help but feel that this "new plan" from Perfect World drove him off.
The game is changing at its very core. Its the same engine and art assets, but the play style, the payment method, the advancement scheme, and the amount of value you get out of your money is all radically different, and radically swinging towards the asian-style grind fest. It really seems that the claims that Perfect World knows how to run a western game were false.
New, bad things:
Static, levelesss story progression; Every player with progress through the exact same story in the exact same order (unless they just mindlessly grind, I guess)
Small amounts of playtime are far less valuable - This game was extremely casual, since you could come play for an hour and get something done, earn some cool stuff. Playing that way now will basically mean you can't earn anything
Subscribers are completely devalued - They had a pretty dedicated fanbase for this game; We love Trek and we were willing to accept a lot of sub-optimal things because of that. But they are getting next to no value from their sub. Then heir gameplay is changing, with ultra-grinds and poor currency conversions and removed rewards. Its hard not to see your investment of close to 2 years as wasted due to the changes.
Klingons are hosed - Kicked while they were down. Sorry guys
The economy is... a mess. Grinds within grinds on top of grinds. You only get currency from repeatable missions: Grind. You can only refine so much per day (a small amount): Grind - You need 10 to 20+ days of playing for single items. A single set of unremarkable ship gear takes months. -- All of that adds up to the game being remade into virtually requiring people to supplement their "time currency" with real, actual currency.
I could go on.. but I don't think I need to.
This game needs an ambassador right now, badly. There is MUCH to answer for and explain. The slow updates and vague, non-specific blog posts are hurting you, not helping. We need direct interaction and explanation - not of specific systems but of the sweeping changes to the nature of the game.
Maybe Mr D'Angelo isn't comfortable in doing that like Dan did, and that is fine. But we have a Community Rep that is pretty darned good at his job when his hands aren't tied by trying to keep some ultra-secret plan under wraps. Get him some positive answers about some REAL changes we're asking for, and get him out here. Or let Heretic do it; that guy has been a super-star among you guys lately, he is hitting a home-run with his Doff system, and its a shame that its buried under this mess of a F2P conversion.
The clock is ticking; We need to hear back. Some claim that you're not worried about subscribers, that we're a drain on you.
Well, without some action, that drain won't be around much longer, just don't expect any customer loyalty for your company any longer.
12-20 approaches quickly. If THIS is the last impression most of us are left with, many of us aren't likely to ever come back.
Wait until a bug cripples -- I mean DESTROYS their forced story progression. And we know how they bring in bugs.
Whoever thought of the forced story progression should have a thing over his/her head that says the first bug that puts forced story progression to its knees should resign from Cryptic. No, not be fired. Resign! That way they can't then go and collect unemployment.
i lost faith in cryptic a long time ago..... But recent events have made my jaw drop with all the PR blunders and TRIBBLE jobs they are doing to STO..... It almost makes me think that cryptic is purposely trying to sink the game so they can focus on other projects !!!! But that sounds way to paranoid and tinfoil hat like to be possibly true !!!!
+1 with 100% loss of trust / faith here in Cryptic; the F2P conversion was the last straw for me.
Very nearly ditto'd from me here. I have an LTS, but I may go play games that actually feel rewarding when this one goes FTP. Maybe PotBS. Sure its F2P, but I don't feel gouged all the time by that dev team.
Sadly, all we have left is CapnLogan and his epicly awesome ship creation skillz/
Very nearly ditto'd from me here. I have an LTS, but I may go play games that actually feel rewarding when this one goes FTP. Maybe PotBS. Sure its F2P, but I don't feel gouged all the time by that dev team.
Sadly, all we have left is CapnLogan and his epicly awesome ship creation skillz/
CapnLogan and Heretic (The guy who made the Doff System, which I thought it was awesome) It's a shame the doff system probably came too late. v.v
I'm going to reserve judgement until F2P actually launches, and even then I may stick around if only to keep playing some of the Excellent foundry missions I see.
I seriously hope they listen to feedback by players.
Like a few others in this thread, I haven't had much faith in Cryptic for some time... That isn't to say that I don't value the contributions some of the devs have put into the game particularly that of Matt, Kestrel and even CapnLogan. They've all done awesome work and KNOW what this game is supposed to be about. I will even go so far as to say that for what it's worth Stahl was doing his absolute best to steer the broken car that is STO in the correct path.
I have a lifetime subscription (which I regret buying now) and I play STO once in a blue moon. I have two maxed out characters and to me I just feel as if there's nothing else for me to do in the game. I don't feel like waiting around to do the STFs and the PVP simply just doesn't interest me. We were promised on a few occasions (and are being promised such things once more once the game goes F2P) that we are going to get FE Series regularly. Why are they even promising such things when they didn't really deliver that the first time around? We got three really good FE Series and that was it for a very, very long time. Yes, other things had to be worked on... other systems needed to be fixed... but how much of this are we actually supposed to believe? Are they actually going to deliver on their promises or is something going to suddenly appear that causes them to work on other things?
For me, Star Trek Online has left such a horrible and sour taste in my mouth. I'm a huge Trek fan.. I've seen all the movies.. all the episodes. I love it all. STO, however, has really demoralized me... and has even made me doubt my love for a franchise I hold dear to my heart. It's like.. I want to do something Trek related.. and then STO pops in my head.. and I just feel really... really... dirty.
I am just incredibly disappointed with what we got for Star Trek Online. It just doesn't hold many ideals in the gameplay that make Star Trek so great. I would have liked to see a bigger open galaxy for us to do stuff in.. more things that are familiar to us in the Star Trek Universe, moral choices for the things we do instead of going into a system and simply obliterating ten enemies. I think overall I just would have liked things to be a little different.. for things to have a little bit more meaning.
I think in some ways I wish that it would be more evident that not some, but all the people working on this game care about what they are doing. I know that some of them do. But when you have some things that people are overly against but still get put into the game... or art things, like the signs in ESD that have different fonts for absolutely no reason. Where is the Quality Control? Things like that, amongst other things just looks really bad visually (of course that's just my opinion).
I don't want to put the blame on the current dev team.. but I think the root of the problem stems on how the game was initially designed. The company is working on three games (maybe four?). For the size of Cryptic Studios and for the quality that we as Star Trek fans are demanding they are simply spread too thinly. I just really wish that when initially designing Star Trek Online, that this would have been considered.. instead we got too much at once.. and much of it has either had to be redesigned or changed (ground combat, crafting, UI, interiors, etc)... or left to be unfinished and in limbo (Klingons).
I do wish Cryptic luck with STO, and their other properties, though. I know that I won't be recommending any of them to anyone I know.
I just got an email from EVE online directing me to a public apology from CCP's CEO for not listening to the players, and vowing to turn the ship around and look to their concerns. It was interesting to see some of the parallels between both games.
Where this game goes from here Is hard to say, Star Wars Galaxies had many threads quite similar to this at it's turning point.
There seems to be a sadness in this thread that moves beyond the normal anger, and that worries me.
I think we shouldn't give up hope just yet, and we also need to remember that we are part of a much larger collective, we are Star Trek fans.
In the past when Star Trek was up against a wall and threatened by interests that seemed to ignore and walk on the values it idealized the fans came together and made their voice heard. Perhaps it's time for the players of STO to look past the borders of this game and out to the general voice of Star Trek fans and ask for help in getting this on the right track.
There seems to be a sadness in this thread that moves beyond the normal anger, and that worries me.
Worse still, there is almost no-one left defending Cryptic.
This is the first time thats happened and it's a very bad sign.
Whats more worrisome still; the devs can't *possibly* be blind to this level of negativity.
Its the highest I've ever seen it, and I was here since open beta.
So either they don't care, their hands are tied, or they are having a hard time with their PR skills.
I'd like to hope its the last one.... but at this point I think its a combination of the first and second.
Anyone else notice that 100% of the new content since the Romulan FE series is delayed until F2P? Even many of the bug fixes are delayed.
There is literally nothing to do on live, and has not been for some time. If you want to enjoy STO, you're only chance is on Tribble. It's the only place anything is new or interesting.
All the paid subscribers from March(?) to F2P launch are literally only financing the transition and testing of F2P.
Naturally Cryptic probably did not intend for things to turn out this way, but it is the most logical reading of the events from the consumer's side.
Edit: I should add that this feeling is a stark contrast from the beginning of August when I was relaying to a friend at WotC how excited I was that Cryptic had the D&D license. Now I'm not so sure. At a certain point, patience wears out when your wallet is draining and time is flying by.
You know I loved this game at the start. Getting a new ship when I leveled was the best thing, in my opinion. I enjoyed having something to look forward to. Now you have to wonder if you have enouh money to buy it and who wants to grind for a ship you will have for a short while. I finally see what all the complaints are about. The only downside I saw to this game was lack of content. Well that list is increasing. When SWTOR comes out I might just uninstall this game and not look back. If that happens I will probably not buy another Cryptic game.
Worse still, there is almost no-one left defending Cryptic.
This is the first time thats happened and it's a very bad sign.
Whats more worrisome still; the devs can't *possibly* be blind to this level of negativity.
Its the highest I've ever seen it, and I was here since open beta.
So either they don't care, their hands are tied, or they are having a hard time with their PR skills.
I'd like to hope its the last one.... but at this point I think its a combination of the first and second.
And that its not the crazy "Cryptic sucks at everything, so much fail" crowd being negative, but a lot of the longtime fans who liked the game as it was, even if it wasn't perfect. If you're losing your loyalists with this much uniformity.. something is wrong.
Wow, lots of bile inhere. Im holding my breath untill it actually comes out on holodeck. Very concerned with having to BUY ships when you lvl up (even if its partially) ... i dont remember anybody calling the current lvling up tokens bad in any way, why fix something thats not broken?
Im also a bit worried that our freedom in playing STO like we want to is going to be limited by forcing people to do mission in the order that the Devs want us to do them in, and not when/how and in wich order we desire. (Another thing that doesnt need fixing realy?) And also refinement caps on dilithium that are apparently to low.
Aside from that im still in the grey area as to making up my mind about this game. Even if it doesnt realy matter since im a lifetimer (wich i still dont regret tbh)
Obviously its distressing to see them "fix" things that dont need fixing, when there still is a content drought (even if gozer (who otherwise seems to be a good man) does not agree with that statement).
One can only sigh, facepalm and blindly hope for the best. We are all (well most of us) very much into Star Trek. And to keep it alive in an MMO is just to good for words. Worth chewing trough content droughts while a dev says there is no drought, worth hoping they will learn when they do stupid things. And hoping the issues we have will get adress in the future somewhere.
Ps: Please dont TRIBBLE over crafting (read about only uneven number items being able to get crafted and an aegis nerf
PsPs: Can we please get a RETRAIT in the C-store instead of the endless supply of ships wich well they do look awesome, but in essence bring barely anything new to the game? It would make me able to play my Fed ton again without frowning upon the stupid choices i made back in the day when i bought this game. (with a long cooldown as to avoid abuse)
And that its not the crazy "Cryptic sucks at everything, so much fail" crowd being negative, but a lot of the longtime fans who liked the game as it was, even if it wasn't perfect. If you're losing your loyalists with this much uniformity.. something is wrong.
Yep, I went from die-hard Cryptic apologist, to "I don't think I'm ever going to play again" over the course of two or three days.
I have supported Cryptic through so many chances with this game. Sure I am a late bloomer of only having my sub since the first FE series but I have gave them a lot of slack. Supported them through this or that. Sat down and pretty much played EVERY part of the game. But 4.1 feels like I hit a brick wall with a Lamborghini Gallardo.
Its just the way it seems they are going about it. It seems like "they" believe their is a base of players locked into the game that for worse or worser wont leave. So they are concentrating on the other potentially great base that woill be coming in when F2P goes live. I am starting to loose faith here too.
And that its not the crazy "Cryptic sucks at everything, so much fail" crowd being negative, but a lot of the longtime fans who liked the game as it was, even if it wasn't perfect. If you're losing your loyalists with this much uniformity.. something is wrong.
This ^
I used to defend STO and Cryptic almost any time someone said something negative about the game.
But now... Now i have arrived at the point where i SPIT at Cryptic in complete revulsion.
Sorry Cryptic. But if something isn't done. I'm going to have to abandon a whole community I built[My Fleet] and pre-order and wait for Phantasy Star Online 2.
I believe the OP's analogy of an NGE is probably a good one. SOE went after a playerbase they didn't have, by CHANGING SWG throughout at the expense of the playerbase they did have. It seems history is repeating itself, now via Cryptic. This could very well be known as STO's NGE when it's all said and done.
Even Rubinfield, SWG NGE Developer, in his blog who defended the CHANGES, itself, stated that they now knew the fact that massively CHANGING a game mid-stream is what caused the problem. His solution was to kill the game and re-launch if your going to make this amount of gameplay CHANGES. People, existing customers, remember how it "used to be" and are NEVER quite satified with the specific CHANGES or the shear amount of them. Then, they move on to other games taking their playtime and money right along with them. This sets up a steamroller of sorts. The loss of playerbase hits what playerbase stayed thru the CHANGES, groups are harder to find, PVP suffers greatly, PVE becomes few and far between, and the game untimatly ends up on life support, and then finaly, "uhhh, death". SWG had 2 main developers for the last several years as that was just about all the very small playerbase could support financialy. This in turn keeps content very few and far between making the existing playerbase even smaller. (case in point, the large time gap we have seen in STO due to F2P CHANGES that took the time for additional content in this last year) It is a vicious cycle that seems not to end except for a timely rollback (see WoWs add real names to their forums CHANGE that didn't quite come to pass and was rolled back rather quickly)
With TOR's launch coming so quickly, Cryptic couldn't have chosen a worse time for this. There will be another option on Dec 20th (expecialy for the 15 a month crowd which we all are to this date) and not depending on a cash grab store nor Pay to Win to make full gameplay (PVP) even possible, even if your a monthly sub, lifetimer, or not.
This F2P is really different than Champs. Champs really did not have much of a playerbase at all before the CHANGE. Not very many lost in the transition. STO however, does have an existing playerbase and the people that are disgruntled due to these CHANGES can make life, for a CHANGED game, extreamly hard, at times. Ask SOE. Word of mouth does have an effect.
As in SWG's case, the "other" playerbase they were looking for NEVER showed up. With the launch of TOR coinciding with about the time of these STO CHANGES, I doubt very much that this playerbase Cryptic is looking for shows up either. I have seen TOR 1st hand and I was planning NOT to go to TOR when it came out and stay in STO. But due to nothing more than this version of NGE, I am now planning to move all my gameplay over there as soon as it's possible, lifetime or not, before Dec 20th as I've now preordered the 150 package. See Cryptic, people will spend money on a subscription game and with this specific person, you have now made that possible for Bioware.
I just can't believe that another gaming company would even consider such a thing as this, again. But, oh well, they will in all probability learn the exact same lesson that SOE learned as well. Was a sad day for SWG and will be yet another sad day for STO. At least SOE had the excuse of "it had never been done" to fall back on.
Yep, I went from die-hard Cryptic apologist, to "I don't think I'm ever going to play again" over the course of two or three days.
My story is not unique here.
If anything there are only three kinds of people;
*"I told you sos' maybe a bit pre-mature, but starting to look more and more correct every day.
*People like you and me who were fans but are not so much anymore.
*Two subcategories; those like me who remain optimistic (if only just a bit)
*And those who are resigned already
*People who are still being fans (but they're rarer than hens teeth)
One can only sigh, facepalm and blindly hope for the best. We are all (well most of us) very much into Star Trek. And to keep it alive in an MMO is just to good for words. Worth chewing trough content droughts while a dev says there is no drought, worth hoping they will learn when they do stupid things. And hoping the issues we have will get adress in the future somewhere.
Ps: Please dont TRIBBLE over crafting (read about only uneven number items being able to get crafted and an aegis nerf
PsPs: Can we please get a RETRAIT in the C-store instead of the endless supply of ships wich well they do look awesome, but in essence bring barely anything new to the game? It would make me able to play my Fed ton again without frowning upon the stupid choices i made back in the day when i bought this game. (with a long cooldown as to avoid abuse)
Thx all!
STO hasn't been Star Trek for a looong time. This is the Terran Empire...actually the Terrans were probably better than Cryptic. :rolleyes:
This game/company is everything Star Trek isn't....unless there are some morals / ethics hidden somewhere.
I lost faith along time ago. I lost faith on broken promises and missing features announced and never delivered.
This free to play is just the icing on the cake. The force progression on the stories is not good at all.
While the new interface looks nice forcing players to do them is not a good thing. I leveled up new alts during the new featured episodes and found it refreshing to do it in a certain order and skip ones I did not like.
Under the new system now I have to play all the boring ones and still not get access to them untill I complete the stories before them.
Comments
I'm actually beginning, as terrifying as it is, to agree with the conspiracy theorists that Stahl left because he saw this coming and would not preside over it in good conscience.
I would *love* nothing more than to be proven *wrong* but the timing on this is just far too close for it to be coincidence.
Wake up cryptic, games can die, and there are other games coming out.
I first welcomed the news the PWE was buying cryptic, even though we new it was happening months before they finally "anounced" it...
The sad thing is they are trying to milk us like the citizens in their own comunist country.
While I had some hope for F2P, I kind of saw this coming. No surprise. But I'm willing to wait and see what comes of this.
What's this?
I can honestly say I've been a pretty big fanboy. I've had complaints about some delays, but I let them slide, even through a major content drought due to them being sold and such.
But ever since the announcement of F2P and the slow roll-out of their new policies regarding it, its just hard to ignore the absolute change in philosophy going on there.
So many things are opposite of Dan Stahl's stated goals, I can't help but feel that this "new plan" from Perfect World drove him off.
The game is changing at its very core. Its the same engine and art assets, but the play style, the payment method, the advancement scheme, and the amount of value you get out of your money is all radically different, and radically swinging towards the asian-style grind fest. It really seems that the claims that Perfect World knows how to run a western game were false.
New, bad things:
Static, levelesss story progression; Every player with progress through the exact same story in the exact same order (unless they just mindlessly grind, I guess)
Small amounts of playtime are far less valuable - This game was extremely casual, since you could come play for an hour and get something done, earn some cool stuff. Playing that way now will basically mean you can't earn anything
Subscribers are completely devalued - They had a pretty dedicated fanbase for this game; We love Trek and we were willing to accept a lot of sub-optimal things because of that. But they are getting next to no value from their sub. Then heir gameplay is changing, with ultra-grinds and poor currency conversions and removed rewards. Its hard not to see your investment of close to 2 years as wasted due to the changes.
Klingons are hosed - Kicked while they were down. Sorry guys
The economy is... a mess. Grinds within grinds on top of grinds. You only get currency from repeatable missions: Grind. You can only refine so much per day (a small amount): Grind - You need 10 to 20+ days of playing for single items. A single set of unremarkable ship gear takes months. -- All of that adds up to the game being remade into virtually requiring people to supplement their "time currency" with real, actual currency.
I could go on.. but I don't think I need to.
This game needs an ambassador right now, badly. There is MUCH to answer for and explain. The slow updates and vague, non-specific blog posts are hurting you, not helping. We need direct interaction and explanation - not of specific systems but of the sweeping changes to the nature of the game.
Maybe Mr D'Angelo isn't comfortable in doing that like Dan did, and that is fine. But we have a Community Rep that is pretty darned good at his job when his hands aren't tied by trying to keep some ultra-secret plan under wraps. Get him some positive answers about some REAL changes we're asking for, and get him out here. Or let Heretic do it; that guy has been a super-star among you guys lately, he is hitting a home-run with his Doff system, and its a shame that its buried under this mess of a F2P conversion.
The clock is ticking; We need to hear back. Some claim that you're not worried about subscribers, that we're a drain on you.
Well, without some action, that drain won't be around much longer, just don't expect any customer loyalty for your company any longer.
12-20 approaches quickly. If THIS is the last impression most of us are left with, many of us aren't likely to ever come back.
Whoever thought of the forced story progression should have a thing over his/her head that says the first bug that puts forced story progression to its knees should resign from Cryptic. No, not be fired. Resign! That way they can't then go and collect unemployment.
Very nearly ditto'd from me here. I have an LTS, but I may go play games that actually feel rewarding when this one goes FTP. Maybe PotBS. Sure its F2P, but I don't feel gouged all the time by that dev team.
Sadly, all we have left is CapnLogan and his epicly awesome ship creation skillz/
CapnLogan and Heretic (The guy who made the Doff System, which I thought it was awesome) It's a shame the doff system probably came too late. v.v
I seriously hope they listen to feedback by players.
I have a lifetime subscription (which I regret buying now) and I play STO once in a blue moon. I have two maxed out characters and to me I just feel as if there's nothing else for me to do in the game. I don't feel like waiting around to do the STFs and the PVP simply just doesn't interest me. We were promised on a few occasions (and are being promised such things once more once the game goes F2P) that we are going to get FE Series regularly. Why are they even promising such things when they didn't really deliver that the first time around? We got three really good FE Series and that was it for a very, very long time. Yes, other things had to be worked on... other systems needed to be fixed... but how much of this are we actually supposed to believe? Are they actually going to deliver on their promises or is something going to suddenly appear that causes them to work on other things?
For me, Star Trek Online has left such a horrible and sour taste in my mouth. I'm a huge Trek fan.. I've seen all the movies.. all the episodes. I love it all. STO, however, has really demoralized me... and has even made me doubt my love for a franchise I hold dear to my heart. It's like.. I want to do something Trek related.. and then STO pops in my head.. and I just feel really... really... dirty.
I am just incredibly disappointed with what we got for Star Trek Online. It just doesn't hold many ideals in the gameplay that make Star Trek so great. I would have liked to see a bigger open galaxy for us to do stuff in.. more things that are familiar to us in the Star Trek Universe, moral choices for the things we do instead of going into a system and simply obliterating ten enemies. I think overall I just would have liked things to be a little different.. for things to have a little bit more meaning.
I think in some ways I wish that it would be more evident that not some, but all the people working on this game care about what they are doing. I know that some of them do. But when you have some things that people are overly against but still get put into the game... or art things, like the signs in ESD that have different fonts for absolutely no reason. Where is the Quality Control? Things like that, amongst other things just looks really bad visually (of course that's just my opinion).
I don't want to put the blame on the current dev team.. but I think the root of the problem stems on how the game was initially designed. The company is working on three games (maybe four?). For the size of Cryptic Studios and for the quality that we as Star Trek fans are demanding they are simply spread too thinly. I just really wish that when initially designing Star Trek Online, that this would have been considered.. instead we got too much at once.. and much of it has either had to be redesigned or changed (ground combat, crafting, UI, interiors, etc)... or left to be unfinished and in limbo (Klingons).
I do wish Cryptic luck with STO, and their other properties, though. I know that I won't be recommending any of them to anyone I know.
Where this game goes from here Is hard to say, Star Wars Galaxies had many threads quite similar to this at it's turning point.
There seems to be a sadness in this thread that moves beyond the normal anger, and that worries me.
I think we shouldn't give up hope just yet, and we also need to remember that we are part of a much larger collective, we are Star Trek fans.
In the past when Star Trek was up against a wall and threatened by interests that seemed to ignore and walk on the values it idealized the fans came together and made their voice heard. Perhaps it's time for the players of STO to look past the borders of this game and out to the general voice of Star Trek fans and ask for help in getting this on the right track.
Worse still, there is almost no-one left defending Cryptic.
This is the first time thats happened and it's a very bad sign.
Whats more worrisome still; the devs can't *possibly* be blind to this level of negativity.
Its the highest I've ever seen it, and I was here since open beta.
So either they don't care, their hands are tied, or they are having a hard time with their PR skills.
I'd like to hope its the last one.... but at this point I think its a combination of the first and second.
There is literally nothing to do on live, and has not been for some time. If you want to enjoy STO, you're only chance is on Tribble. It's the only place anything is new or interesting.
All the paid subscribers from March(?) to F2P launch are literally only financing the transition and testing of F2P.
Naturally Cryptic probably did not intend for things to turn out this way, but it is the most logical reading of the events from the consumer's side.
Edit: I should add that this feeling is a stark contrast from the beginning of August when I was relaying to a friend at WotC how excited I was that Cryptic had the D&D license. Now I'm not so sure. At a certain point, patience wears out when your wallet is draining and time is flying by.
And that its not the crazy "Cryptic sucks at everything, so much fail" crowd being negative, but a lot of the longtime fans who liked the game as it was, even if it wasn't perfect. If you're losing your loyalists with this much uniformity.. something is wrong.
Im also a bit worried that our freedom in playing STO like we want to is going to be limited by forcing people to do mission in the order that the Devs want us to do them in, and not when/how and in wich order we desire. (Another thing that doesnt need fixing realy?) And also refinement caps on dilithium that are apparently to low.
Aside from that im still in the grey area as to making up my mind about this game. Even if it doesnt realy matter since im a lifetimer (wich i still dont regret tbh)
Obviously its distressing to see them "fix" things that dont need fixing, when there still is a content drought (even if gozer (who otherwise seems to be a good man) does not agree with that statement).
One can only sigh, facepalm and blindly hope for the best. We are all (well most of us) very much into Star Trek. And to keep it alive in an MMO is just to good for words. Worth chewing trough content droughts while a dev says there is no drought, worth hoping they will learn when they do stupid things. And hoping the issues we have will get adress in the future somewhere.
Ps: Please dont TRIBBLE over crafting (read about only uneven number items being able to get crafted and an aegis nerf
PsPs: Can we please get a RETRAIT in the C-store instead of the endless supply of ships wich well they do look awesome, but in essence bring barely anything new to the game? It would make me able to play my Fed ton again without frowning upon the stupid choices i made back in the day when i bought this game. (with a long cooldown as to avoid abuse)
Thx all!
Yep, I went from die-hard Cryptic apologist, to "I don't think I'm ever going to play again" over the course of two or three days.
My story is not unique here.
This ^
I used to defend STO and Cryptic almost any time someone said something negative about the game.
But now... Now i have arrived at the point where i SPIT at Cryptic in complete revulsion.
Oddly enough this isn't the first Comparison to the SOE/LA Epic Fail that was the NGE
Even Rubinfield, SWG NGE Developer, in his blog who defended the CHANGES, itself, stated that they now knew the fact that massively CHANGING a game mid-stream is what caused the problem. His solution was to kill the game and re-launch if your going to make this amount of gameplay CHANGES. People, existing customers, remember how it "used to be" and are NEVER quite satified with the specific CHANGES or the shear amount of them. Then, they move on to other games taking their playtime and money right along with them. This sets up a steamroller of sorts. The loss of playerbase hits what playerbase stayed thru the CHANGES, groups are harder to find, PVP suffers greatly, PVE becomes few and far between, and the game untimatly ends up on life support, and then finaly, "uhhh, death". SWG had 2 main developers for the last several years as that was just about all the very small playerbase could support financialy. This in turn keeps content very few and far between making the existing playerbase even smaller. (case in point, the large time gap we have seen in STO due to F2P CHANGES that took the time for additional content in this last year) It is a vicious cycle that seems not to end except for a timely rollback (see WoWs add real names to their forums CHANGE that didn't quite come to pass and was rolled back rather quickly)
With TOR's launch coming so quickly, Cryptic couldn't have chosen a worse time for this. There will be another option on Dec 20th (expecialy for the 15 a month crowd which we all are to this date) and not depending on a cash grab store nor Pay to Win to make full gameplay (PVP) even possible, even if your a monthly sub, lifetimer, or not.
This F2P is really different than Champs. Champs really did not have much of a playerbase at all before the CHANGE. Not very many lost in the transition. STO however, does have an existing playerbase and the people that are disgruntled due to these CHANGES can make life, for a CHANGED game, extreamly hard, at times. Ask SOE. Word of mouth does have an effect.
As in SWG's case, the "other" playerbase they were looking for NEVER showed up. With the launch of TOR coinciding with about the time of these STO CHANGES, I doubt very much that this playerbase Cryptic is looking for shows up either. I have seen TOR 1st hand and I was planning NOT to go to TOR when it came out and stay in STO. But due to nothing more than this version of NGE, I am now planning to move all my gameplay over there as soon as it's possible, lifetime or not, before Dec 20th as I've now preordered the 150 package. See Cryptic, people will spend money on a subscription game and with this specific person, you have now made that possible for Bioware.
I just can't believe that another gaming company would even consider such a thing as this, again. But, oh well, they will in all probability learn the exact same lesson that SOE learned as well. Was a sad day for SWG and will be yet another sad day for STO. At least SOE had the excuse of "it had never been done" to fall back on.
If anything there are only three kinds of people;
*"I told you sos' maybe a bit pre-mature, but starting to look more and more correct every day.
*People like you and me who were fans but are not so much anymore.
*Two subcategories; those like me who remain optimistic (if only just a bit)
*And those who are resigned already
*People who are still being fans (but they're rarer than hens teeth)
I'll be around to turn the lights out and take the flag down...
So much for the dream of a playable Romulan faction. :mad:
STO hasn't been Star Trek for a looong time. This is the Terran Empire...actually the Terrans were probably better than Cryptic. :rolleyes:
This game/company is everything Star Trek isn't....unless there are some morals / ethics hidden somewhere.
This free to play is just the icing on the cake. The force progression on the stories is not good at all.
While the new interface looks nice forcing players to do them is not a good thing. I leveled up new alts during the new featured episodes and found it refreshing to do it in a certain order and skip ones I did not like.
Under the new system now I have to play all the boring ones and still not get access to them untill I complete the stories before them.