Stephen D'Angelo is purrhaps more suitable for PWE management because he's listening to their orders more willingly than Daniel Stahl. They needed a puppet to transmit all the Asian grindfest news in a most hidden and polite way. Dan Stahl probably knew where the game was heading, and that might have been the reason why he switched cumpanies.
I didn't think of this first, but it's getting there more and more, I have to admit it.
number of logged in players (we all remember empty sector blocks on holodeck some months ago, right?)
So, i definitely agree with all these changes and personally I would make dilithium prices even higher, for both crafted and non-crafted items..
Then you shall enjoy this game with the revolving door of Silvers that only make it to say Captain 7 and the few lifers that bother to log on to see if Cryptic has changed things back. You may like it, but you are really in the vast minority and unless you plan on paying enough into the game to support the dev team, well... congratulations, they have made an MMO that suits only a few.
The point is they are trying to fix past mistakes that they cannot fix without upsetting everything that has happened in the last 18 months. They cannot do that. Honestly, here is my suggestion on what SHOULD have been done for the economy not the fiasco that is rapidly happening.
Now let's take some facts:
Uncommon, Rare, Very rare gear were meant to be harder to obtain.
There is very little practical benefit from using either uncommon, rare, very rare gear
Players want top end gear (min/max) regardless if the top end offers only a small amount of benefit
There were way too many currencies in game
Crafting allowed you an alternate means of obtaining gear besides running strict content (exploration missions etc...)
F2P means there needs to be an increased emphasis on the cash shop
Now they are trying to solve all those issues with dilithium and it will not work. Why? Well simply the problems have gone on in game for far to long, but rather than be creative and add, they are falling into the pitfall of taking away. Never take away from players in an MMO when you can add unless it is a severe balance issue, broken mechanic, faulty code, or exploit.
What they should have done is:
Add in two new qualities of in game gear let's call them Elite and Legendary
Add items across the board at the dilithium vendor and crafting station for these items.
Keep all current items on the dilithium vendor as is
Only charge a dilithium surcharge for crafting Elite and Legendary items at the crafting station
Provide, at the onset, many many avenues to obtain dilithium, even for all repeatable missions such as exploration, secures, patrols, story-arc missions, etc...
Up the daily dilithium cap or remove it, I think even D'Angelo said their data suggested it wasn't even necessary yet it is still there.
What this has done in effect is give you new carrots to chase and a variety of gameplay styles to get them. Not forcing you to chase long distances for the same old carrot (Just look at the new STF or Doff system for good examples of chasing new carrots - Gozer and Heretic have the right idea everyone else has it wrong). This more simplified change would have allowed them to focus on what really needed to be done in preperation for the "hoards" of silvers they are expecting. Things such as:
Fixing and polishing exploration so it is a better, more fun, rewarding, and enjoyable aspect of gameplay that players WANT to repeate not feel they have to.
Create additional missions to flesh out the story arcs, such as additional Breen, Undine, and Borg Missions.
Finally flesh out the Klingon content side so they don't have to start at a higher level, what they did for a lack of a better term was the lazy/easy approach. It needs to be a priority.
Add additional fun PvP maps or PvP maps with different goals objectives etc... to keep that content fresh.
Add in another arc of STFs, a set of FEs, Fleet Actions etc...
Polish and fix crafting so it is more like crafting rather than another type of currency/trade system.
For the last 18 months we have been told time and time again these things are coming, they are coming, we have loads of things coming. Well, now they have the opportunity for an excellent "second launch". Little of that list of things that we have been told "is coming" and all is needed. Even some of it is needed for a successful F2P launch. Now the time crunch is here and we have what:
Major changes to gameplay and an additional grind
Forced mission progression that does not make any sense
Forced daily requirements to get gear we already have or could get other ways
Gaited and unrewarding repeatable content (exploration and sector defenses)
The same old missions, with a few actually good re-masters by Gozer
An excellent Doff system, which is deep and highly replayable at end-game.
Good long needed changes to the STF/Raids to make them fun and rewarding
An even worse and more broken economy
Little distinction between Gold (guranteed income) customers and Silver (ephmereal income) customers
I am not the only one that sees this is a receipe for disaster. The communication lockdown at this very critical juncture impacts the entire community, is not a good idea, and is only wasteing valuable, time critical resources.
I am not the only one that sees this is a receipe for disaster. I will even go on to say that I vote for Heretic to be the new EP, he seems to understand things, is more communicative, and listens to feedback before he makes a change.
If Heretic was a lousy developer, I'd agree with you, but as it is, he's doing far too much good work to merit a promotion. This is the curse of competence; never making it to "management" because you're too good at getting actual important work done. It is amazing how quickly and closely Heretic listens to what people say about how systems are working on the ground, finds problems, figures out elegant fixes, and rolls them out to production. When you start seeing the things players have posted showing up as "FIXED" in patch notes a week later, you know someone is unusually good at their job.
Many of you that still are in Blah blah land and Fairy land need to visit PWI forums and take some time reading and you will see how many players on those other games complain about the same thing we are complining here, of course PWI has its goons who immediately go on a save PWI mission by bashing and trashing those who complain, it is the way China operates in their country and on the internet. :mad:
300+ posts and counting of people who think this is a terrible idea.
I don't think there's been a single post that has defended this change.
The closest I've seen are a few apathetic posts that say "I don't care," or "This doesn't affect me."
Do you have any idea how rare it is to see a unanimous consensus on a forum, after that many posts ?
Extremely.
....
I think it's becoming more and more common as more F2P blogs and release notes get put up on these forums... -_-;
PWE's business model works extremely well in this market and that's how they were able to buy Cryptic. Cryptic's "business model" well, it's a joke.
PWE's business model works in Asia,not here.And I must remind PWE that we did not choose to play a PW game,they just happen to buy a company that developed a game we are playing (and still paying for I might add)....we are not PWE customers by choice.
You know, to add some levity...I wonder if when they tell Stormy, "Hey we are gonna annouce this." if he just does not go back to his desk, open the drawer and chug a bottle of Pepto before laying his head down on his keyboard.
PWE's business model works in Asia,not here.[/COLOR].
On the PWI server I was on there was at least three full factions (so 600 people) paying thousands of dollars a month to keep in gear for the Territory Wars... and this was a PvE server. I don't want to know how much was spent on the PvP servers. And this was just one server, there were five when I left.
As much as I absolutely detest Perfect World and was utterly dismayed that they bought the game I went to in order to get away from them, their model does indeed work very well in the Eastern market despite what people who have never played their games think.
If what we are seeing is PWI's model, then I have to say no.
This crafting thing is no-where near PWE's model in PWI, PWI's model is pretty much the same as current Holodeck crafting with the addition of refining which you could spend money on to have a better chance at successfully +1ing your gear. The gear grind you can safely argue is roughly the same, but that's roughly the same in any Asian MMO. This insane model is completely new.
You know, to add some levity...I wonder if when they tell Stormy, "Hey we are gonna annouce this." if he just does not go back to his desk, open the drawer and chug a bottle of Pepto before laying his head down on his keyboard.
More like Milk of Magnesia I would imagine, he probably has crates of the stuff underneath the nerf boomstick.
My son asked this morning if Cryptic was getting paid by Bioware to sabotage STO to drive other players over to TOR. He's only 14 and even he can see the greed and insanity in this change. Lest someone call me out for trolling, I will say this--I know that PW/Cryptic have to make a profit to stay in business. I have no issue with them doing things that make money. But when that means making the game a huge grindfest instead of a fun activity, that's just plain wrong.
Yeah, I thought about trying out Neverwinter, being a huge NWN fan. After all this, however, I can see how the f2p is going to work there, too. No thanks.
Ok, so I'm going to make a post in support of the developers here and it would seem, I haven't made all that many of them, lately.
I doubt that any of these specific developers are waking up in the morning, saying to themselves, "Hey, let's further destroy STO today". I had the chance to talk to several of SOE's NGE developers, some in person, some in email, and pms and that's not what they were thinking when they set out to do the infamous CU, NGE, or C6CD. Jeff Freeman, before his death was quite apoligetic about the entire thing. Dan Rubinfield, while still believeing that it was not the CHANGES themselves realised that CHANGING an existing game (the status-quo) to whatever your looking for model was/is not the way to go for an existing playerbase. These guys, however, had the excuse (which really is a good one) that all this had never been tried before so they were hitting new ground not fully knowing or realising where it would take them. Teesquared told me in a pm " the game had some problems but didn't need or require a total re-make". Many others have said about the same.
One of the things you tend to do in my profession is look for the motive(s). Why would some1 want to do something? These Cryptic developers full well know about NGE as they've discussed it on these very forums at S-4 ground revamp and stated they went out and specificaly tried NOT to do an NGE there. Even before launch of STO, they made a "dig" at SOE and the NGE with "Star Trek Babies Online" (April fools joke) and the "dumbing down" of SWG. So why exactly would they take this risk of so many CHANGES at one time, totaly CHANGING gameplay on an existing MMO that is mildly sucessful? (100K + subs if not a dead MMO by any means)
I would assume (and we all know what assuming is) that PW is now in direct control and making some CHANGES based on that control. They have a totaly different buisness model than any western MMO has. It works for them in THEIR market. They admit they have little to no experience with the westerm model and bought Cryptic to gain access to that market. However, I would believe they think they know what works, how to make money, and where this should go, altho they are installing a model that no other developer has tried in the US. There are reasons why PWs market in not sucessful (thru the internet, we all have access to their market, we just chose not to go there) in the US/Europe, customers generaly like the way US/Euro market is set up and grown to be used to it. Dstahl's departure lends itself to that line of thinking now also.
OR:
It could just be "SOE syndrome" of making some needed and asked for CHANGES that are now snowballing out of control into CHANGES never anticipated at the 1st conception. In SOE's NGE, the loss of 32 profs was not the main reason for the CHANGE it was an afterthought. It started with just a combat CHANGE, then, they thought about how hard 32 prof were to balance and added that into the model also, etc etc etc. Developers have their list of CHANGES they want to see right along with players, maybe for different reasoning, but they have their list none-the-less.
They could of looked at the CO F2P experience and thought that it turned out rather well, however this is really a totaly different game with a totally different set of circumstances applied. CO had basicly NO playerbase when they did this. Very few lost anything because of it. STO has a rabid, dedicated to the IP, playerbase just like SWG had in the orginal NGE. That is a major facter to consider here. That "rabid" playerbase, in SWG, due the CHANGED game they had shoved down their throats, where some even went out to kill what was left of SWG, which wasn't all that much after 3 different CHANGES anyway. Already seen a few posts above this one that states that they are activly using "word of mouth" advertising for STO in the way that Cryptic certainly would not like as an end result. (same happened with SWG only it got worse as time went on with websites, forums set up specificly for SWG disgruntled "vets", etc etc etc)
Maybe it a combination of all these 3 reasonings and/or more.
I would imagine that Cryptic has told their new Owners that this has a chance of not coming out so good but have gotten over-ruled. Jack is not dumb from the things I've read about and from him. The sad fact here is, that in order to teach whoever is making these decisions a lesson in western MMOs and what this specific market will bear, It very well could destroy another great IP based MMO as it did with Star Wars Galaxies.
You know, to add some levity...I wonder if when they tell Stormy, "Hey we are gonna annouce this." if he just does not go back to his desk, open the drawer and chug a bottle of Pepto before laying his head down on his keyboard.
What he needs is a stiff drink......and I'll buy him one.
On the PWI server I was on there was at least three full factions (so 600 people) paying thousands of dollars a month to keep in gear for the Territory Wars... and this was a PvE server. I don't want to know how much was spent on the PvP servers. And this was just one server, there were five when I left.
Chump change compared to the revenue generated by their Asian servers.....Asian players are far more willing to spend money on a P2W game,and they spend a lot more too.
Yeah, I thought about trying out Neverwinter, being a huge NWN fan. After all this, however, I can see how the f2p is going to work there, too. No thanks.
This is what torques me off the most! I can't in good conscience go play NWN if this is the sort of thing that's in store for me. And it annoys me to no end because I played the hell out of NWN1 on persistent/RP servers and I have some characters I want to play in that setting again! Sight.
I don't normally complain, but this takes the cake. Like everyone else has said before, you are killing crafting. I am a crafter and I will not be crafting on this system until you get rid of the whole dilitheum with it. Do something else with crafting, but leave Dilitheum out of the equation.
Chump change compared to the revenue generated by their Asian servers.....Asian players are far more willing to spend money on a P2W game,and they spend a lot more too.
Okay, I'm sure it's true that Asian players spend a lot more, but American's (Continent, not country) and European's are willing to pay far more than what Cryptic is making now. They may not get as rich off of us as they would Westerners but they will still be richer than a subscription based system and PWE (The US Subsidiary of PW Co. Ltd) has proven this.
This is what torques me off the most! I can't in good conscience go play NWN if this is the sort of thing that's in store for me. And it annoys me to no end because I played the hell out of NWN1 on persistent/RP servers and I have some characters I want to play in that setting again! Sight.
I was going to check out Neverwinter until Cryptic was bought by PWE, I will ride out STO and CO for as much enjoyment as I can, which is getting less and less, but will never play another Cryptic game while they are under PWE control. All the recent changes in the STO F2P model only further cements that fact in my mind.
What he needs is a stiff drink......and I'll buy him one.
Hell, I'd send him a pizza if I knew where he worked. I get the impression it isn't with the Cryptic dev team in CA.
I really can't blame Stormshade a bit. He's got a bloody thankless job at this point and I'm trying my best not to get any of my vitriol on him. He's just the guy who gets handed TRIBBLE from us and from management, and management tells him to make the stinking piles smell like truffles.
Mm, truffles.... *snarf*
Anyway, yeah. Stormy's got a tough job on this and I don't blame him if he's pushing back at management, telling someone above his pay grade that, no, THEY have to explain this mess to us, and not him.
I certainly can't blame CapnLogan, Heretic, or Gozer for this. And I can't even blame Stephen. I think Stephen's been pulled out of the decision loop. I don't even know if Jack Emmert still has anything to do with this.
But then we get commentary from folks like CrimsonSpot who say that this is NOT PWI's typical crafting model and then I don't know WHAT to believe.
... Except that I do believe that I will not be enjoying this game for much longer.
I do think that making crafting cost EC is better than Dilithium. If they do need to make a sink, make it with rare particle traces. Hell, make varying levels/qualities of schematics, and that might work better, too.
Edited: Probably sounded a bit too chummy. Also added suggestions
I'm not even going to bother trudging through thirty pages of what must be nothing but vitriolic comment after vitriolic comment. The first four were depressing enough.
With that said, here are my thoughts. I do like the idea of being able to purchase some schematics. It fits with other games' crafting systems. I have no problem with that. However, I DO have a problem with having to spend Dilithium, particularly if it's a lot (I haven't logged in to see the prices yet, but I'm certain that it's not cheap). If it's a pittance, then I don't have much of an argument.
I do see this as a potential death knell for crafting, as Dilithium cannot be traded except for CP. With this idea in mind, either everyone is FORCED to do the crafting grind for good gear, spend real world moneys to get the RD needed for the items, or have no recourse but to find other avenues of getting gear.
Now, this is not quite a deal breaker for me as I don't craft much, and I have planned on having a main crafter on each side (one Fed, one Klingon), but what happens to my alts? Will I be able to send RD to my crafters so that they can build the items that they want? From my understanding, RD will be transferable only one way. This means that I either have to continue to do the grind on my mains or have to grind crafting XP on every single alt I have (and I have a bad case of altitis).
Not to mention that practically every thing else worth buying is bought with REFINED DILITHIUM, which is CAPPED to 8k a day! Whatever happened to all of the EC sinks being talked about? Crafting would be a perfect choice for this.
I might still try to trudge on through the rest of the thread, but I fear for my sanity...or what's left of it. :eek:
My son asked this morning if Cryptic was getting paid by Bioware to sabotage STO to drive other players over to TOR. He's only 14 and even he can see the greed and insanity in this change.
Ok, so I'm going to make a post in support of the developers here and it would seem, I haven't made all that many of them, lately.
I doubt that any of these specific developers are waking up in the morning, saying to themselves, "Hey, let's further destroy STO today".
Well, my son was saying that tongue in cheek. I did chuckle.
I doubt the devs woke up this morning and said "hey, let's further destroy STO today", either. They woke up and said "How can I add in more incentive for people to use real money in game to make PW a profit?"
Until Cryptic can figure out how to do that in a way that is fun for players and not a giant grind machine, however, it will not be the success they hope for. I don't mind paying money for fun activities. I do mind paying for something I used to have for free and having to do it in a manner that isn't even fun.
Im sure this has been said many times in may places, but the short of it is that the game has too many dilithium demands and too few dilithium sources. This just adds another dilithium demand without increasing its supply.
It should not be the case where if you make a decision to craft an item you need to do so at the expense of a new ship, purchased gear, and everything else you need dilithium for. By the same token, If I wish to buy a new ship, I have to make the decision that I cannot fit that ship with gear for possibly several weeks, and if I choose to pursue that route, I cannot do anything in the next few weeks that does not result in dilithium, nor can I spend any dilithium.
As a monthly subscriber, this feels a lot like Im being denied the product that I pay to use. The clock continues to tick on my subscription, yet I cant really do anything...
Long time lurker, I don't usually post and I'm very unhappy with the change to the crafting system. I'm not gonna say "I'm gonna quit if this is implemented omg!!!1" but I will be highly uninterested in crafting. A lot of changes, not just this one, almost make me sad I bought a lifetime account. I'm for charging EC instead of DC and upping the amount of particles needed. Don't change crafting, I just got into it!
Wow. I think I read almost every post here, except for repeat posters. So it seems that a dilithium cost for crafting is a bad idea. So Cryptic/Perfect World decided to change something and try it out on the TEST server. So I wonder how that's going? Any updates or information on this idea Cryptic? Just wanna know how things are going. My personal opinion, just to maybe balance it all out is to maybe allow us to sell the crafted items for unrefined dilithium....maybe just a thought.
Anyways I am a monthly subber so I pay the 15 bucks a month and I respect and have faith that this game will come out on top. I am not religious so when I say "have faith" I'm not just throwing it around like I say it everyday.
So Cryptic/Perfect World, thank you for trying to change and evolve the game and please don't lose touch.
I don't normally complain, but this takes the cake. Like everyone else has said before, you are killing crafting. I am a crafter and I will not be crafting on this system until you get rid of the whole dilitheum with it. Do something else with crafting, but leave Dilitheum out of the equation.
No need to avoid crafting. If this concept in any shape or form goes live, I will simply not use the dilithium exchange, I will not sell my dilithium, nor will I buy C-points. And if I have a standard gold account, convert to silver. As I would advice anyone to do to voice your displeasure.
If Enough Gold members converted to silver or the LTS just never invested any thing in the C-store other then their stipend, and never bought Dilithium on the exchange... it would start to get the point across that we hate something. But given all the negative feed back, I seriously do not think that this idea will make it to live server.
I will tell you exactly what the devs will say.... "we appreciate the comunitys feedback and we will take everything said on board and we will look at the data we have and we will have a meeting to discuss what to do and get back to you"......
And then a week later in the next tribble patch the dilithium cost will be dropped somewhere to around a half to 1/4 the cost it currently is.... then a good chunk of the forum posters will be placated and give up rioting and then we are left stuck in screwed town !
Precisely, if you demand a mile when all you really want is a hundred yards, you look reasonable and most of the people who were against your taking the mile will leap to your defense when people object against the hundred yards.
It's a classic bargaining technique, demand higher than you really want, then scale back and get everything you really want anyway.
And the sad part is, in spite of the multiple posters pointing it out, the majority of the player-base will be duped by it anyway.
Well, my son was saying that tongue in cheek. I did chuckle.
I doubt the devs woke up this morning and said "hey, let's further destroy STO today", either. They woke up and said "How can I add in more incentive for people to use real money in game to make PW a profit?"
Until Cryptic can figure out how to do that in a way that is fun for players and not a giant grind machine, however, it will not be the success they hope for. I don't mind paying money for fun activities. I do mind paying for something I used to have for free and having to do it in a manner that isn't even fun.
I'm certainly not a fan of any of this either. I did the original NGE and came back to SWG after a rather long hiatus as I couldn't find anything to replace it with. So I seen this all before and do not wish to repeat that experience. It was not fun watching a MMO basicly die.
With SWG, there were no sandbox MMOs out there to replace it with. That's why they got my sub back. However, this a themepark, story-based, MMO, with a major IP. There are plenty to replace it with and 1 coming on Dec 20th that has content galore and that major IP, all in the subscription model that ev1 is used to. (been in the beta) So, I doubt I'll stick around just cause I can't replace it again.
It's really already started in my way of thinking. Last night, I had a choice of playing STO or something else. I re-started KoToR.
Comments
I didn't think of this first, but it's getting there more and more, I have to admit it.
Improve the crafting with more variety and more unique items!!!!
Incredible badly that are doing it!!!!
Sorry for my poor English.
Mala idea. La peor de todas, a
Then you shall enjoy this game with the revolving door of Silvers that only make it to say Captain 7 and the few lifers that bother to log on to see if Cryptic has changed things back. You may like it, but you are really in the vast minority and unless you plan on paying enough into the game to support the dev team, well... congratulations, they have made an MMO that suits only a few.
The point is they are trying to fix past mistakes that they cannot fix without upsetting everything that has happened in the last 18 months. They cannot do that. Honestly, here is my suggestion on what SHOULD have been done for the economy not the fiasco that is rapidly happening.
Now let's take some facts:
Now they are trying to solve all those issues with dilithium and it will not work. Why? Well simply the problems have gone on in game for far to long, but rather than be creative and add, they are falling into the pitfall of taking away. Never take away from players in an MMO when you can add unless it is a severe balance issue, broken mechanic, faulty code, or exploit.
What they should have done is:
What this has done in effect is give you new carrots to chase and a variety of gameplay styles to get them. Not forcing you to chase long distances for the same old carrot (Just look at the new STF or Doff system for good examples of chasing new carrots - Gozer and Heretic have the right idea everyone else has it wrong). This more simplified change would have allowed them to focus on what really needed to be done in preperation for the "hoards" of silvers they are expecting. Things such as:
For the last 18 months we have been told time and time again these things are coming, they are coming, we have loads of things coming. Well, now they have the opportunity for an excellent "second launch". Little of that list of things that we have been told "is coming" and all is needed. Even some of it is needed for a successful F2P launch. Now the time crunch is here and we have what:
I am not the only one that sees this is a receipe for disaster. The communication lockdown at this very critical juncture impacts the entire community, is not a good idea, and is only wasteing valuable, time critical resources.
Is the question then what type players a Star Trek MMO appeals to and if the PWI business model appeals to them / us?
If what we are seeing is PWI's model, then I have to say no.
I think it's becoming more and more common as more F2P blogs and release notes get put up on these forums... -_-;
PWE's business model works in Asia,not here.And I must remind PWE that we did not choose to play a PW game,they just happen to buy a company that developed a game we are playing (and still paying for I might add)....we are not PWE customers by choice.
On the PWI server I was on there was at least three full factions (so 600 people) paying thousands of dollars a month to keep in gear for the Territory Wars... and this was a PvE server. I don't want to know how much was spent on the PvP servers. And this was just one server, there were five when I left.
As much as I absolutely detest Perfect World and was utterly dismayed that they bought the game I went to in order to get away from them, their model does indeed work very well in the Eastern market despite what people who have never played their games think.
This crafting thing is no-where near PWE's model in PWI, PWI's model is pretty much the same as current Holodeck crafting with the addition of refining which you could spend money on to have a better chance at successfully +1ing your gear. The gear grind you can safely argue is roughly the same, but that's roughly the same in any Asian MMO. This insane model is completely new.
More like Milk of Magnesia I would imagine, he probably has crates of the stuff underneath the nerf boomstick.
Ok, so I'm going to make a post in support of the developers here and it would seem, I haven't made all that many of them, lately.
I doubt that any of these specific developers are waking up in the morning, saying to themselves, "Hey, let's further destroy STO today". I had the chance to talk to several of SOE's NGE developers, some in person, some in email, and pms and that's not what they were thinking when they set out to do the infamous CU, NGE, or C6CD. Jeff Freeman, before his death was quite apoligetic about the entire thing. Dan Rubinfield, while still believeing that it was not the CHANGES themselves realised that CHANGING an existing game (the status-quo) to whatever your looking for model was/is not the way to go for an existing playerbase. These guys, however, had the excuse (which really is a good one) that all this had never been tried before so they were hitting new ground not fully knowing or realising where it would take them. Teesquared told me in a pm " the game had some problems but didn't need or require a total re-make". Many others have said about the same.
One of the things you tend to do in my profession is look for the motive(s). Why would some1 want to do something? These Cryptic developers full well know about NGE as they've discussed it on these very forums at S-4 ground revamp and stated they went out and specificaly tried NOT to do an NGE there. Even before launch of STO, they made a "dig" at SOE and the NGE with "Star Trek Babies Online" (April fools joke) and the "dumbing down" of SWG. So why exactly would they take this risk of so many CHANGES at one time, totaly CHANGING gameplay on an existing MMO that is mildly sucessful? (100K + subs if not a dead MMO by any means)
I would assume (and we all know what assuming is) that PW is now in direct control and making some CHANGES based on that control. They have a totaly different buisness model than any western MMO has. It works for them in THEIR market. They admit they have little to no experience with the westerm model and bought Cryptic to gain access to that market. However, I would believe they think they know what works, how to make money, and where this should go, altho they are installing a model that no other developer has tried in the US. There are reasons why PWs market in not sucessful (thru the internet, we all have access to their market, we just chose not to go there) in the US/Europe, customers generaly like the way US/Euro market is set up and grown to be used to it. Dstahl's departure lends itself to that line of thinking now also.
OR:
It could just be "SOE syndrome" of making some needed and asked for CHANGES that are now snowballing out of control into CHANGES never anticipated at the 1st conception. In SOE's NGE, the loss of 32 profs was not the main reason for the CHANGE it was an afterthought. It started with just a combat CHANGE, then, they thought about how hard 32 prof were to balance and added that into the model also, etc etc etc. Developers have their list of CHANGES they want to see right along with players, maybe for different reasoning, but they have their list none-the-less.
They could of looked at the CO F2P experience and thought that it turned out rather well, however this is really a totaly different game with a totally different set of circumstances applied. CO had basicly NO playerbase when they did this. Very few lost anything because of it. STO has a rabid, dedicated to the IP, playerbase just like SWG had in the orginal NGE. That is a major facter to consider here. That "rabid" playerbase, in SWG, due the CHANGED game they had shoved down their throats, where some even went out to kill what was left of SWG, which wasn't all that much after 3 different CHANGES anyway. Already seen a few posts above this one that states that they are activly using "word of mouth" advertising for STO in the way that Cryptic certainly would not like as an end result. (same happened with SWG only it got worse as time went on with websites, forums set up specificly for SWG disgruntled "vets", etc etc etc)
Maybe it a combination of all these 3 reasonings and/or more.
I would imagine that Cryptic has told their new Owners that this has a chance of not coming out so good but have gotten over-ruled. Jack is not dumb from the things I've read about and from him. The sad fact here is, that in order to teach whoever is making these decisions a lesson in western MMOs and what this specific market will bear, It very well could destroy another great IP based MMO as it did with Star Wars Galaxies.
What he needs is a stiff drink......and I'll buy him one.
Chump change compared to the revenue generated by their Asian servers.....Asian players are far more willing to spend money on a P2W game,and they spend a lot more too.
This is what torques me off the most! I can't in good conscience go play NWN if this is the sort of thing that's in store for me. And it annoys me to no end because I played the hell out of NWN1 on persistent/RP servers and I have some characters I want to play in that setting again! Sight.
Okay, I'm sure it's true that Asian players spend a lot more, but American's (Continent, not country) and European's are willing to pay far more than what Cryptic is making now. They may not get as rich off of us as they would Westerners but they will still be richer than a subscription based system and PWE (The US Subsidiary of PW Co. Ltd) has proven this.
I was going to check out Neverwinter until Cryptic was bought by PWE, I will ride out STO and CO for as much enjoyment as I can, which is getting less and less, but will never play another Cryptic game while they are under PWE control. All the recent changes in the STO F2P model only further cements that fact in my mind.
Hell, I'd send him a pizza if I knew where he worked. I get the impression it isn't with the Cryptic dev team in CA.
I really can't blame Stormshade a bit. He's got a bloody thankless job at this point and I'm trying my best not to get any of my vitriol on him. He's just the guy who gets handed TRIBBLE from us and from management, and management tells him to make the stinking piles smell like truffles.
Mm, truffles.... *snarf*
Anyway, yeah. Stormy's got a tough job on this and I don't blame him if he's pushing back at management, telling someone above his pay grade that, no, THEY have to explain this mess to us, and not him.
I certainly can't blame CapnLogan, Heretic, or Gozer for this. And I can't even blame Stephen. I think Stephen's been pulled out of the decision loop. I don't even know if Jack Emmert still has anything to do with this.
But then we get commentary from folks like CrimsonSpot who say that this is NOT PWI's typical crafting model and then I don't know WHAT to believe.
... Except that I do believe that I will not be enjoying this game for much longer.
I do think that making crafting cost EC is better than Dilithium. If they do need to make a sink, make it with rare particle traces. Hell, make varying levels/qualities of schematics, and that might work better, too.
Edited: Probably sounded a bit too chummy.
With that said, here are my thoughts. I do like the idea of being able to purchase some schematics. It fits with other games' crafting systems. I have no problem with that. However, I DO have a problem with having to spend Dilithium, particularly if it's a lot (I haven't logged in to see the prices yet, but I'm certain that it's not cheap). If it's a pittance, then I don't have much of an argument.
I do see this as a potential death knell for crafting, as Dilithium cannot be traded except for CP. With this idea in mind, either everyone is FORCED to do the crafting grind for good gear, spend real world moneys to get the RD needed for the items, or have no recourse but to find other avenues of getting gear.
Now, this is not quite a deal breaker for me as I don't craft much, and I have planned on having a main crafter on each side (one Fed, one Klingon), but what happens to my alts? Will I be able to send RD to my crafters so that they can build the items that they want? From my understanding, RD will be transferable only one way. This means that I either have to continue to do the grind on my mains or have to grind crafting XP on every single alt I have (and I have a bad case of altitis).
Not to mention that practically every thing else worth buying is bought with REFINED DILITHIUM, which is CAPPED to 8k a day! Whatever happened to all of the EC sinks being talked about? Crafting would be a perfect choice for this.
I might still try to trudge on through the rest of the thread, but I fear for my sanity...or what's left of it. :eek:
Well, my son was saying that tongue in cheek. I did chuckle.
I doubt the devs woke up this morning and said "hey, let's further destroy STO today", either. They woke up and said "How can I add in more incentive for people to use real money in game to make PW a profit?"
Until Cryptic can figure out how to do that in a way that is fun for players and not a giant grind machine, however, it will not be the success they hope for. I don't mind paying money for fun activities. I do mind paying for something I used to have for free and having to do it in a manner that isn't even fun.
I did write up some suggestions on how Cryptic can create even more Dilithium sinks here.
It should not be the case where if you make a decision to craft an item you need to do so at the expense of a new ship, purchased gear, and everything else you need dilithium for. By the same token, If I wish to buy a new ship, I have to make the decision that I cannot fit that ship with gear for possibly several weeks, and if I choose to pursue that route, I cannot do anything in the next few weeks that does not result in dilithium, nor can I spend any dilithium.
As a monthly subscriber, this feels a lot like Im being denied the product that I pay to use. The clock continues to tick on my subscription, yet I cant really do anything...
Anyways I am a monthly subber so I pay the 15 bucks a month and I respect and have faith that this game will come out on top. I am not religious so when I say "have faith" I'm not just throwing it around like I say it everyday.
So Cryptic/Perfect World, thank you for trying to change and evolve the game and please don't lose touch.
No need to avoid crafting. If this concept in any shape or form goes live, I will simply not use the dilithium exchange, I will not sell my dilithium, nor will I buy C-points. And if I have a standard gold account, convert to silver. As I would advice anyone to do to voice your displeasure.
If Enough Gold members converted to silver or the LTS just never invested any thing in the C-store other then their stipend, and never bought Dilithium on the exchange... it would start to get the point across that we hate something. But given all the negative feed back, I seriously do not think that this idea will make it to live server.
After 30 pages, we have:
1 Positive response (for speculative reasons)
A couple Neutral/Indifferent reponses
But mostly negative responses...
Is that basically "feedback"?
And it's past 10:30 PST and not a single Dev posting anywhere...
Edit: Heretic posted while posting this, but that was a response to a Doff question...
Precisely, if you demand a mile when all you really want is a hundred yards, you look reasonable and most of the people who were against your taking the mile will leap to your defense when people object against the hundred yards.
It's a classic bargaining technique, demand higher than you really want, then scale back and get everything you really want anyway.
And the sad part is, in spite of the multiple posters pointing it out, the majority of the player-base will be duped by it anyway.
I'm certainly not a fan of any of this either. I did the original NGE and came back to SWG after a rather long hiatus as I couldn't find anything to replace it with. So I seen this all before and do not wish to repeat that experience. It was not fun watching a MMO basicly die.
With SWG, there were no sandbox MMOs out there to replace it with. That's why they got my sub back. However, this a themepark, story-based, MMO, with a major IP. There are plenty to replace it with and 1 coming on Dec 20th that has content galore and that major IP, all in the subscription model that ev1 is used to. (been in the beta) So, I doubt I'll stick around just cause I can't replace it again.
It's really already started in my way of thinking. Last night, I had a choice of playing STO or something else. I re-started KoToR.
Touche!
/10char