The Chinese Government is not a race or culture. Thank you for attempting to chill my speech.
My sincere apologies if you felt I was trying to silence your voice or keep you from expressing your opinions. That was not my intention. My intention was to provide examples where posters have potentially expressed a generalized bias toward a group of people (in this case, asians and chinese), and suggest that we as a forum should avoid this.
While you are technically correct that Governments are not races or cultures, for the purposes of the example, that distinction is irrelevant. A reader could (as I and others I have talked to) interpret that post as making a needless attack on a group of people completely unrelated to the issue at hand.
Whatever your thoughts are on the Chinese government, it is not reasonable to imply that every person in Chinese government unsrucuplous and profit hungry. In addition, a discussion of that sort really belongs somewhere other than a Star Trek forum, or at least other than this thread.
Regardless, I would like to reiterate my apology if you felt I was trying to silence you or if you were otherwise offended. That is never the intention of my posts on these forums. If you wish to discuss the topic further, I suggest you message me in private, so that we can keep this thread as "on topic" as possible.
good god! 7 days and your VA? and i was told i had no life for being RA/VA in a month!
thou it took me 3 weeks to hit that on test but thats test. they upped the skill points issued via quest complete by almost double. reason? well its simple they need you to test they stuff. in order to test some of it you need to be a VA. if i see or hear of anyone hitting VA in 7 days im calling them out and telling them to get out of they parents house... god son grow up please.
Lol I've hitted VA on tribble in 3 days with my first toon, 7 days was the average value of some people i know.
But most pvpers I know can level up a toon in no time, simply because they fully understood game mechanics.
AI does almost does not use abilities, so PVE players does not have incentives to fully understand the effects of the abilities that they are using. A pvp player can wipe a space or ground map of a mission in a few minutes, leveling very fast.
As a proof of this, yesterday I was doing an STF and a guy came up saying "don't use Fire at Will, you are dividing your damage among targets, fire only at the cube!!!". Lol.
Lol I've hitted VA on tribble in 3 days with my first toon, 7 days was the average value of some people i know.
But most pvpers I know can level up a toon in no time, simply because they fully understood game mechanics.
AI does almost does not use abilities, so PVE players does not have incentives to fully understand the effects of the abilities that they are using. A pvp player can wipe a space or ground map of a mission in a few minutes, leveling very fast.
As a proof of this, yesterday I was doing an STF and a guy came up saying "don't use Fire at Will, you are dividing your damage among targets, fire only at the cube!!!". Lol.
ive been trying pvp on the holodeck. either its been nerfed in leveling up, or im just not getting in them fast enough or both. im thinking both. im a Lt Cmdr KDF. and i might get a space arena once a hr. than i walk out with about 100 SP-300 SP.
now if people want to go about it that way that they look for the most fastest way to lvl up and not playing to have fun, than i find that quite sad. mmo's were designed for both social time and fun. aswell as a certain sense of pride.
ive heard stories and you may check this out. be in last yr alone over 100 marriages came out of the online game world of warcraft. thats right you read it right. over a 100 people got involved over a game.
anyways i still find it messed up that people go the fast route rather than playing the game. i guess thats why when it comes to these people asking in zone chat for help on a mission must be these people just looking for a fast in and out cause they dont want to read. they just used to the fast in and out ordeals. and not all PvE is like that.
According to the Wiki on Napoleans invasion of Russia, total losses for Napoleons Empire were around about 463K, while Russia lost about 210K, total losses from the conflict ending up at 673K, far less than one Million, and nowhere near the 20 Million lost in WWII when Mussolini and Hitler tried to take on the Soviet Union.
But this is off topic, so let's suffice it to say, if Hitler hadn't been such a moron and egotist, WWII would have ended very differently, but I doubt we'd be speaking German. It's more likely we would be speaking Russian.
ok so i was close to 650k that was a ball park.
however you missed that IF you compared the time periods of population. you would find that those numbers would come close to the millions lost in the 2nd world war.
you see times change. population back in the 1800 was not high as it was in the 1900's.
so given some numbers and dividing what the populations were you would find that in all likely hood you would end up seeing that the amount lost in 1800 is just as high as the amount lost in 1900. even thou the numbers are not the same. now i dont expect you to understand what i just said. this is for people that like math with they history.
and yes this is off topic i know. but whats wrong with a friendly discussion on history and math>
and 650k was just a mare ballpark. everyone rounds up or down. i knew i was above 600, but i knew it was below 700 so i said 650. to most historians and mathematical persons this conclusion would be a fair judgment.
I also cannot bring myself to log back in to Tribble. However, it's not so that I can power level crafting or getting more toons to VA/LG and gearing them out. As much as I'd love to log in to EITHER shard, the changes and silence are just too depressing to make me want to do anything other than finally play through my huge backlog of single-player games, particularly with DXHR: Missing Link out and Arkham City releasing for PC next month.
I haven't logged in to play either in ages, too, but it's not because of Cryptic's changes.
Rather, I'm utterly depressed at the entire vibe of the game, and the forum. Everything is rage, fire, and vitriol. What little upbeatness there is is quickly engulfed in flames as well when someone courageous enough to talk about what Cryptic has managed to fix or do right in this whole thing. The whole deal has simply turned me off of the game. I just wish this damned place could try, for once, to be positive. About something. Anything.
The only palette cleanser in this whole place is the DOff thread...
I know this is a drop in the ... well pool at this point, but I'm also not in favor of this crafting change. As for the lack of positive feedback (mentioned in the post before me) the DOFF system, the STF ques, and shorter STFs are mostly positive. I bet the long awaited additions to the klingon fleet are also welcome.
In a replied statement in blog #15, they are listening. What they're going to do with it (if anything) remains to be seen.
Ok, this is probably my first post ever on this forum. But I just have to add my voice to this. This idea must be the dumbest, lamest and most undesirable one I have ever heard from any dev in my long career as a MMO player (since 1997). No, no and NO! Ruin crafting and you will kill your MMO. And trust me, this plan will end crafting for STO and will be the first but definite nail in this MMO's coffin. Did this dumb idea come from your new Asian overlords who need to get their investment back quickly? Well, this is a solid way for them to LOSE their investment if they push through this idea.
Good thing the launch of SWTOR is around the corner because this MMO is sinking like the Titanic. I already pre-ordered my copy of SWTOR. :) All hands, ABANDON SHIP!!!! Rats and cowards first!
however you missed that IF you compared the time periods of population. you would find that those numbers would come close to the millions lost in the 2nd world war.
you see times change. population back in the 1800 was not high as it was in the 1900's.
so given some numbers and dividing what the populations were you would find that in all likely hood you would end up seeing that the amount lost in 1800 is just as high as the amount lost in 1900. even thou the numbers are not the same. now i dont expect you to understand what i just said. this is for people that like math with they history.
and yes this is off topic i know. but whats wrong with a friendly discussion on history and math>
and 650k was just a mare ballpark. everyone rounds up or down. i knew i was above 600, but i knew it was below 700 so i said 650. to most historians and mathematical persons this conclusion would be a fair judgment.
The Grand Armee was comprised of approximately 690,000 people. Only a few thousand made it back from russia.
Every now and then some farmer in Russia comes accross a mass grave of tens of thousands of Bonaparte's troops. To lose 7/10 of a million soldiers in Europe in the year 1812 was HUGE.
You were right, the Grand Armee lost at least 650k before it was all over.
The Grand Armee was comprised of approximately 690,000 people. Only a few thousand made it back from russia.
Every now and then some farmer in Russia comes accross a mass grave of tens of thousands of Bonaparte's troops. To lose 7/10 of a million soldiers in Europe in the year 1812 was HUGE.
You were right, the Grand Armee lost at least 650k before it was all over.
What does any of this have to do with the price of bloodwine on Qonos?
I haven't logged in to play either in ages, too, but it's not because of Cryptic's changes.
Rather, I'm utterly depressed at the entire vibe of the game, and the forum. Everything is rage, fire, and vitriol. What little upbeatness there is is quickly engulfed in flames as well when someone courageous enough to talk about what Cryptic has managed to fix or do right in this whole thing. The whole deal has simply turned me off of the game. I just wish this damned place could try, for once, to be positive. About something. Anything.
The only palette cleanser in this whole place is the DOff thread...
Rather than take a swipe at you, as thats the last thing you did with me, I'll just agree with you that the DOFF thread AND Doff System are wonderful.
Heretic keeps in touch with the community and doesn't blindside the players. When we have comments, he comments back. He take suggestions and even incorporates them into game systems.
Why has no other DEV done this? Because we aren't important enough for them to talk to when THEY ARE OFF THE CLOCK.
Say what you want about Dan Stahl, but as far as I am concerned, his comments at 3am, his dedication to the playerbase, and his commitment to ensure that we all didn't get raged too far, was NEARLY flawless. The only time I saw him choke and not respond very fast was August 2010 when they screwed up anomalies.
It truly is depressing to see so many people feel so slighted and abused. We the gaming community didn't TRIBBLE over Cryptic. We've shoveled money into their coffers and this is how we get treated.
"Don't worry team, these fanatics will buy or put up with anything just to play star trek!" may not exactly be the prevailing mindset over at Cryptic, it is however how they APPEAR to their fanbase when they decide to make such horrible changes, and provide such HORRIBLE feedback.
They brought it on themselves. I'm sorry to hear that you are frustrated at those who are raging, rather than the reason for the rage.
I haven't logged in to play either in ages, too, but it's not because of Cryptic's changes.
Rather, I'm utterly depressed at the entire vibe of the game, and the forum. Everything is rage, fire, and vitriol. What little upbeatness there is is quickly engulfed in flames as well when someone courageous enough to talk about what Cryptic has managed to fix or do right in this whole thing. The whole deal has simply turned me off of the game. I just wish this damned place could try, for once, to be positive. About something. Anything.
The only palette cleanser in this whole place is the DOff thread...
I do agree that the rampant negativity is depressing. However, we have a right to feel negative for most of the stuff being implemented, particularly with regards to the big economy revamp. Yes, there are things to be positive about, like the DOff system and PvE queue and UI revamp and STF changes.
It's hard to be positive about even the positive things because the negative far outnumber the positive. And I'm pretty positive that I'm not the only person thinking this negatively about the negative stuff.
I do agree that the rampant negativity is depressing. However, we have a right to feel negative for most of the stuff being implemented, particularly with regards to the big economy revamp. Yes, there are things to be positive about, like the DOff system and PvE queue and UI revamp and STF changes.
It's hard to be positive about even the positive things because the negative far outnumber the positive. And I'm pretty positive that I'm not the only person thinking this negatively about the negative stuff.
The main reason that most of us are still here is because of our love of Trek and wanting to see the game succeed. If we didn't care, we would have left long before the F2P announcement. We're fighting for a game that we believe has a lot of potential.
If Cryptic doesn't care about those who have supported the game for so long, telling others that the game is getting better, buying an LTS or paying a monthly sub, buying stuff off of the C-Store, etc. then that is their loss. We are the ones that they should care about because we're the ones who would (and HAVE) stayed during the rough times. They want us gone so badly, then they should TELL US instead of leading us along with ********** promises that they never intend to fulfill and bending us over a table and doing unspeakable things to our beloved franchise.
I've seen even the most diehard Cryptic supporters getting fed up with these latest practices and threatening to leave. That should tell people something.
No company could ever outright say "we don't want your business" and stay in business. But they CAN do everything possible to disincentivize certain people from patronizing their business. And that is EXACTLY what we're seeing here now.
I love Trek as much as all the rest of you. And Cryptic is capitalizing on that love BIG TIME. They are banking on Trek fans hanging around being gouged for more money, or simply walking away all together. I choose walking away then being gouged. But hey...that's my choice. If others choose to stay and be gouged, that's their choice.
Simply saying "I'm going to leave" doesn't do anything. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO IT. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY LEAVE. I haven't actually logged in to the game in weeks. And if this trend continues, I never will again. I'm playing Rift and having a fabulous time doing it.
Cryptic won't learn anything until the number of players drops SIGNIFICANTLY.
however you missed that IF you compared the time periods of population. you would find that those numbers would come close to the millions lost in the 2nd world war.
you see times change. population back in the 1800 was not high as it was in the 1900's.
so given some numbers and dividing what the populations were you would find that in all likely hood you would end up seeing that the amount lost in 1800 is just as high as the amount lost in 1900. even thou the numbers are not the same. now i dont expect you to understand what i just said. this is for people that like math with they history.
and yes this is off topic i know. but whats wrong with a friendly discussion on history and math>
and 650k was just a mare ballpark. everyone rounds up or down. i knew i was above 600, but i knew it was below 700 so i said 650. to most historians and mathematical persons this conclusion would be a fair judgment.
Actually, I don't so much care about my math as I was making a bit of a point, in that there have been some huge blunders in the past that were really, really bad (TM).
And then, to put this move into context, yes, I invoked the names of Richard Garriott and Derek Smart, although I can't remember the name of the devs that were fired from the first Master of Orion III development team, or should I just put all the blame on . . . Infogrames/Atari for that one?
Anyway. The 20 mil figure was WWII only, but the 600k number stated above is about right and is significant. But this is a game, and it should be fun. The changes the devs have made with the economy have made it LESS a GAME and more a JOB.
Especially when I see all the Dilithium that is required to #)*)$*#*ing craft! This is absolute horse!$#*.
Lemme tell ya something. They want you to buy extra bank slots so you can store all the ingredients for crafting (why would you need large amounts of storage if you don't craft??). Then they want you to buy C-credits so you can buy the dilthium to build the not-vanillia-consoles, cause they know that grinding as much as you would need to is so boring. They also want you to buy their special schematics for the uber pay-to-win golden phaser bank.
Greed. This isn't just profits, it's outright greed.
[I have removed my comments about Perfect World and how the People's Republic of China organizes its home grown industries, that I added to address a previous post about chinese business. I did so because it's impossible to determine just who the majority owner of Beijing Perfect World is. Being the single largest game company of it's kind in China, I find it hard to imagine that the Communist Party isn't a direct investor, but I cannot find any direct evidence of it one way or another. And thus I removed the comments.]
No company could ever outright say "we don't want your business" and stay in business. But they CAN do everything possible to disincentivize certain people from patronizing their business. And that is EXACTLY what we're seeing here now.
I love Trek as much as all the rest of you. And Cryptic is capitalizing on that love BIG TIME. They are banking on Trek fans hanging around being gouged for more money, or simply walking away all together. I choose walking away then being gouged. But hey...that's my choice. If others choose to stay and be gouged, that's their choice.
Simply saying "I'm going to leave" doesn't do anything. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO IT. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY LEAVE. I haven't actually logged in to the game in weeks. And if this trend continues, I never will again. I'm playing Rift and having a fabulous time doing it.
Cryptic won't learn anything until the number of players drops SIGNIFICANTLY.
I am willing to give Cryptic the "benefit of the doubt" in that this is still a beta version of the relaunch towards F2P, but I do have to admit that I am losing this faith rapidly with each passing dev blog. If none of the changes we're asking for happens, then I'll be right behind you. I do have TOR preordered and am looking at Secret World as another MMO to fall back on. Not to mention quality F2P games and a huge host of single-player games coming out over the next few months.
With my limited time, they have to fight for my attention. As it currently stands, my attention is elsewhere right now.
I am willing to give Cryptic the "benefit of the doubt" in that this is still a beta version of the relaunch towards F2P, but I do have to admit that I am losing this faith rapidly with each passing dev blog. If none of the changes we're asking for happens, then I'll be right behind you. I do have TOR preordered and am looking at Secret World as another MMO to fall back on. Not to mention quality F2P games and a huge host of single-player games coming out over the next few months.
With my limited time, they have to fight for my attention. As it currently stands, my attention is elsewhere right now.
You know, I really envy for you guys, I really do. For you, this is just another game, if this one craps out, you go on to another one.
But I only started playing MMOs when STO launched. I've tried other games, and non-Trek MMOs simply don't interest me.
If this game goes under, I'll likely just stop playing online games. I'll go back to my husbands PS3, and start hunting down all the games I've missed, I'll pay $40-$65 a pop for each one, and unless they put out another worthwhile Final Fantasy game on a console (I lost interest after FFX-2 majorly disappointed me), none of them will hold my interest for very long.
Or maybe, to go the money-less route, I'll dust off my old D&D character and join my husbands newest campaign.
Either way, the attitude of most of the posters who say "too bad, so sad, I'll just go play another MMO" is, well, frankly unrepresentative of me.
I VERY rarely post on the forums, but I'm going to today. This is just that upsetting to me as a subscriber and player of this great game. Recently STOked had an intervew at Cryptic with just about every one of the big names over there. One of the big things to come out of that was the 3 "currencies" in STO.
Cash Currency -- C-Store
Vender Currency -- Energy Credits, Ect.
Time currency --- Dilitium and its Refinement.
The idea was that Dilithium would replace badges, marks, emblems, ect. into one nice neat "Time" currency. It was a way to turn time played into currency. Things you do like Exploration or PVP or "daily missions" would essentially give you a single universal currency based on the time these things take to perform thus allowing you to bennefit from exploration OR pvp OR all of the above. Play the way you want, get the same reward as anyone else playing the way they want.
I think that in itself is kind of a great idea.
The problem with adding dilitium to crafting is that it takes huge amounts of time to get the components for crafting, especially those Rare Partical Traces. There for, Dil-Crafting is essentially a double "Time" cost.
In their own model this should strike someone as unbalanced.
I also agree with everyone else (all 50 some pages of you) that think this is a double bad idea because unlike the components, you can't trade dilithium. Thus the cost of crafting things for strangers goes up (which I think is what they want) but the cost of crafting for your alts or fleet-mates who don't typically "pay" for your services now becomes a net loss for you. I think this was an easy way to fix a problem and it just wasn't thought that extra step or two through. I hope this changes. I hope this changes in some very real and profound ways, because this is NOT an improvement as it stands.
I VERY rarely post on the forums, but I'm going to today. This is just that upsetting to me as a subscriber and player of this great game. Recently STOked had an intervew at Cryptic with just about every one of the big names over there. One of the big things to come out of that was the 3 "currencies" in STO.
Cash Currency -- C-Store
Vender Currency -- Energy Credits, Ect.
Time currency --- Dilitium and its Refinement.
The idea was that Dilithium would replace badges, marks, emblems, ect. into one nice neat "Time" currency. It was a way to turn time played into currency. Things you do like Exploration or PVP or "daily missions" would essentially give you a single universal currency based on the time these things take to perform thus allowing you to bennefit from exploration OR pvp OR all of the above. Play the way you want, get the same reward as anyone else playing the way they want.
I think that in itself is kind of a great idea.
The problem with adding dilitium to crafting is that it takes huge amounts of time to get the components for crafting, especially those Rare Partical Traces. There for, Dil-Crafting is essentially a double "Time" cost.
In their own model this should strike someone as unbalanced.
I also agree with everyone else (all 50 some pages of you) that think this is a double bad idea because unlike the components, you can't trade dilithium. Thus the cost of crafting things for strangers goes up (which I think is what they want) but the cost of crafting for your alts or fleet-mates who don't typically "pay" for your services now becomes a net loss for you. I think this was an easy way to fix a problem and it just wasn't thought that extra step or two through. I hope this changes. I hope this changes in some very real and profound ways, because this is NOT an improvement as it stands.
Don't forget about the different STF currencies as well. So the sum of currencies stays at a too large number still. And if a ship costs the same as equipping my BOffs with epic gear, then something is off. Not forgetting that the epic ship weapons and consoles will cost many times the cost of a ship. And when we got a ship we don't want to use any more, we can't get any dilitium back for it. So it is a one way transaction and not something that goes well with Star Trek where everything not used goes in to the Replicator for recycling. Nothing is wasted.
You know, I really envy for you guys, I really do. For you, this is just another game, if this one craps out, you go on to another one.
But I only started playing MMOs when STO launched. I've tried other games, and non-Trek MMOs simply don't interest me.
If this game goes under, I'll likely just stop playing online games. I'll go back to my husbands PS3, and start hunting down all the games I've missed, I'll pay $40-$65 a pop for each one, and unless they put out another worthwhile Final Fantasy game on a console (I lost interest after FFX-2 majorly disappointed me), none of them will hold my interest for very long.
Or maybe, to go the money-less route, I'll dust off my old D&D character and join my husbands newest campaign.
Either way, the attitude of most of the posters who say "too bad, so sad, I'll just go play another MMO" is, well, frankly unrepresentative of me.
STO isn't "just another game" for me, either. While I have played plenty other MMOs, I really wanted this one to be special. Because it fused together two loves of mine: Star Trek and online gaming. Star Trek is practically a way of life for me. When I found out that Perpetual had acquired the rights to make an MMO out of it I couldn't believe it and followed it since. I WANTED a Trek MMO ever since I started playing them with Dark Age of Camelot. Sadly, the one true attempt is being flushed down the toilet due to poor marketing decisions.
STO isn't "just another game" for me, either. While I have played plenty other MMOs, I really wanted this one to be special. Because it fused together two loves of mine: Star Trek and online gaming. Star Trek is practically a way of life for me. When I found out that Perpetual had acquired the rights to make an MMO out of it I couldn't believe it and followed it since. I WANTED a Trek MMO ever since I started playing them with Dark Age of Camelot. Sadly, the one true attempt is being flushed down the toilet due to poor marketing decisions. I don't WANT to leave, but I'm starting to feel like I have no choice but to for my own sanity.
STO is for a lot of people their first MMO,and the reason is Star Trek.Would I have played this game if it wasn't Trek?Hell no. And like you,I don't WANT to leave either......but Cryptic/PWE are driving me to that decision.
For companies that create and run MMO's,Cryptic and PWE don't seem to understand that a MMO is a long term investment with long term gains.Well,like Gump's momma used to say....Stupid is as Stupid does.
Actually, I don't so much care about my math as I was making a bit of a point, in that there have been some huge blunders in the past that were really, really bad (TM).
And then, to put this move into context, yes, I invoked the names of Richard Garriott and Derek Smart, although I can't remember the name of the devs that were fired from the first Master of Orion III development team, or should I just put all the blame on . . . Infogrames/Atari for that one?
Anyway. The 20 mil figure was WWII only, but the 600k number stated above is about right and is significant. But this is a game, and it should be fun. The changes the devs have made with the economy have made it LESS a GAME and more a JOB.
Especially when I see all the Dilithium that is required to #)*)$*#*ing craft! This is absolute horse!$#*.
Lemme tell ya something. They want you to buy extra bank slots so you can store all the ingredients for crafting (why would you need large amounts of storage if you don't craft??). Then they want you to buy C-credits so you can buy the dilthium to build the not-vanillia-consoles, cause they know that grinding as much as you would need to is so boring. They also want you to buy their special schematics for the uber pay-to-win golden phaser bank.
Greed. This isn't just profits, it's outright greed.
[I have removed my comments about Perfect World and how the People's Republic of China organizes its home grown industries, that I added to address a previous post about chinese business. I did so because it's impossible to determine just who the majority owner of Beijing Perfect World is. Being the single largest game company of it's kind in China, I find it hard to imagine that the Communist Party isn't a direct investor, but I cannot find any direct evidence of it one way or another. And thus I removed the comments.]
as much as it pains to to say it.... well bloody said!
ok this is going out to those that never played perfect world.
bascailly, there is no crafting tree in it. and what remains as one is outstandingly bullspitta. means its screwed up. they dont know how to run that section of it. the only reason why they have it is cause people wanted it. now the reason why they put dili into our crafting is cause lets face it. we were abusing it. we didnt have to do anything but farm mats, build and there we go, the best ship there is in a matter of 8 hrs or more. they just making sure we have to do some more than a days work to have a fully operational warship, and officer.
at the same time they should be made well aware that if they over priced SWTOR is 2 months away and you can bet your *** that people will leave to play that game. i know i will try the game out. and ill likely pop back here once and a while. but still, the dev's are cutting it close with rivals, and this much upset can incite a war they can not afford to lose.
I understand that the reason for including dilithium in crafting is that without more things to raise demand for dilithium, people won't spend c-points on dilithium and the whole economy will shut down, and time-players won't have access to c-store ships without paying directly. Lowering the non-=dilithium material component requirements some would allow crafting to take comparable, (or slightly longer) times, without reducing the demand for dilithium. It might even raise it, by lowering the bar for how long it takes before you have enough stuff that investing dilithium in crafting makes sense, rather than waiting for loot drops.
This may have been suggested, but one way to save fleet crafting, if not the rest of the crafting system, i to create a "craft for other" command or temporary bank or something. Player 1 (the client) sends a request to player 2 (the crafter). The client must already have all the required materials, the schematic and the dilithium. The crafter hits "craft for other" and the items vanish from the client's bank, and the item appears there. If cryptic really wants to limit things they could make it bind at that point.
Cryptic, I realize you are probably going to do what you want and justify it by claiming it is for the "silent majority," but when 100% of the posts in a long thread like this one are opposed to a change, it is a BAD IDEA.
I realize why you want to add a dilithium component to crafting: without it, crafting is an end-run around the dilithium economy. Crafters make high level gear available, via the exchange, for energy credits, and you clearly want to restrict the availability of such gear.
But circumventing the regular economy is the entire point of crafting in MMOs. There must be another solution.
Possibilities I can think of (these are just ideas):
1) Make particles and anomalies bound. This will force crafters to harvest materials themselves rather than buy them from the exchange. Downside: this is slightly annoying, and it still hurts the social aspect of crafting.
2) Make crafted objects bound on pickup. This will keep crafted gear off the exchange. Downside: still hurts the social aspect of crafting.
3) Make dilithium ore, instead of refined dilithium, a crafting component. This does circumvent the daily limit on refining, however, it's still a dilithium cost. But it is a much less annoying dilithium cost, since an industrious player can easily obtain more ore per day than he/she can refine- and a dedicated crafter is likely to be just the sort of player who does that. To retain the social aspect of crafting, make unrefined ore trade-able via the fleet bank.
I greatly prefer #3, but speaking as a crafter, any of those changes would be preferable to what you've done.
I think we could probably just go with a flat 100 DL charge every time you press enter in a chat window. Otherwise this sounds good. Don't forget 500 DL to log out, and 100 DL to log back in again (so make sure your balance is high enough before you quit for the day!).
And Don't forget, Retroactive charges. To charge us for everything we have done already to be charged as well.
Well ****, we've forgotten one sure fire way to tighten the vice around the skull of the customer; just include a dilithium charge for making a C-Store purchase. Is there a ****ing suggestion box here? Maybe they'll start giving out green Tribbles to players who suggest new ways to **** on subscribers.
Cryptic, I realize you are probably going to do what you want and justify it by claiming it is for the "silent majority," but when 100% of the posts in a long thread like this one are opposed to a change, it is a BAD IDEA.
I realize why you want to add a dilithium component to crafting: without it, crafting is an end-run around the dilithium economy. Crafters make high level gear available, via the exchange, for energy credits, and you clearly want to restrict the availability of such gear.
But circumventing the regular economy is the entire point of crafting in MMOs. There must be another solution.
Possibilities I can think of (these are just ideas):
1) Make particles and anomalies bound. This will force crafters to harvest materials themselves rather than buy them from the exchange. Downside: this is slightly annoying, and it still hurts the social aspect of crafting.
2) Make crafted objects bound on pickup. This will keep crafted gear off the exchange. Downside: still hurts the social aspect of crafting.
3) Make dilithium ore, instead of refined dilithium, a crafting component. This does circumvent the daily limit on refining, however, it's still a dilithium cost. But it is a much less annoying dilithium cost, since an industrious player can easily obtain more ore per day than he/she can refine- and a dedicated crafter is likely to be just the sort of player who does that. To retain the social aspect of crafting, make unrefined ore trade-able via the fleet bank.
I greatly prefer #3, but speaking as a crafter, any of those changes would be preferable to what you've done.
You're missing the point, as a fleet crafter, people spent their time and energy levelling up in Crafting, putting in effort that nobody else in the fleet was willing to do. Now, the quid-pro-quot was that the fleet mates are the ones who gather the materials, and the Fleet crafter does the crafting. Sort of a "I spent my time now you spend yours" deal. If the Fleet crafter is doing the work to grind up the Dilithium, and doing the crafting, there's no way for them to keep up with the demand.
If your fleet has, say 20 people, and five people need gear for their new VA ships post F2P, you, as the fleet crafter, have to grind and grind and grind for Dilithium to make gear for other people, and under this system, you get no real benefit from doing so other than their gratitude. Even if they get the anoms, you're still stuck with the Dilithium grind.
And since Dilithium isn't transferable, and it's being shoehorned into almost every aspect of the game, you've just taken a net loss in your own resources (as you could certainly have used that Dilithium yourself), time, and effort, with no real payday.
The primary hope of the penny-pinchers at PW, who are obviously behind the Dilithum-into-everything changes, is that people will be impatient, and rather than grind, they'll just cough up cash for C-Store points and trade for the Dilithium. It's an attempt to railroad people into the C-Store.
They think that by having the extra step of having other players be the ones producing the Dilithium, they can get away with having Dilithium sold for real-world cash.
Honestly? I hate the hypocrisy of it. I hate the false way they avoid it being an obvious Pay-for-in-game resources situation. I hate the quiet smirk I can almost hear in the texts of their posts and in their voices in interviews as they act all innocent about it.
At this point, I'd rather they at least be honest and just put Dilithium up for sale in the C-Store as well as grind-able in game. At least that way it would be blatant and apologists wouldn't keep trying to defend the Dilithium exchange as anything but Pay-for advantage/P2W it really is.
STO is for a lot of people their first MMO,and the reason is Star Trek.Would I have played this game if it wasn't Trek?Hell no. And like you,I don't WANT to leave either......but Cryptic/PWE are driving me to that decision. snip.
This is a really good point.
My most of my fleet is made up of people for whom STO was/is their first MMO. These aren't your hardcore WOW types. These aren't your grind & raid types. These are people whose social gaming experience before STO was playing Mario Kart, Rock Band, or the original social gaming - Cards and Board games.
This is definitely something for whoever from Cryptic is reading this to keep in mind and funnel up the chain. If you treat these people like hardcore gamers, you will lose them and their purchases.
For many of us the only reason we are here is because we like Star Trek. Don't forget that and don't abuse it.
Comments
My sincere apologies if you felt I was trying to silence your voice or keep you from expressing your opinions. That was not my intention.
While you are technically correct that Governments are not races or cultures, for the purposes of the example, that distinction is irrelevant. A reader could (as I and others I have talked to) interpret that post as making a needless attack on a group of people completely unrelated to the issue at hand.
Whatever your thoughts are on the Chinese government, it is not reasonable to imply that every person in Chinese government unsrucuplous and profit hungry. In addition, a discussion of that sort really belongs somewhere other than a Star Trek forum, or at least other than this thread.
Regardless, I would like to reiterate my apology if you felt I was trying to silence you or if you were otherwise offended. That is never the intention of my posts on these forums. If you wish to discuss the topic further, I suggest you message me in private, so that we can keep this thread as "on topic" as possible.
ok so i was close to 650k that was a ball park.
however you missed that IF you compared the time periods of population. you would find that those numbers would come close to the millions lost in the 2nd world war.
you see times change. population back in the 1800 was not high as it was in the 1900's.
so given some numbers and dividing what the populations were you would find that in all likely hood you would end up seeing that the amount lost in 1800 is just as high as the amount lost in 1900. even thou the numbers are not the same. now i dont expect you to understand what i just said. this is for people that like math with they history.
and yes this is off topic i know. but whats wrong with a friendly discussion on history and math>
and 650k was just a mare ballpark. everyone rounds up or down. i knew i was above 600, but i knew it was below 700 so i said 650. to most historians and mathematical persons this conclusion would be a fair judgment.
I haven't logged in to play either in ages, too, but it's not because of Cryptic's changes.
Rather, I'm utterly depressed at the entire vibe of the game, and the forum. Everything is rage, fire, and vitriol. What little upbeatness there is is quickly engulfed in flames as well when someone courageous enough to talk about what Cryptic has managed to fix or do right in this whole thing. The whole deal has simply turned me off of the game. I just wish this damned place could try, for once, to be positive. About something. Anything.
The only palette cleanser in this whole place is the DOff thread...
In a replied statement in blog #15, they are listening. What they're going to do with it (if anything) remains to be seen.
Sure... Here's an informative video describing how you can tell the difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1F0e6e-b50
Good thing the launch of SWTOR is around the corner because this MMO is sinking like the Titanic. I already pre-ordered my copy of SWTOR.
The Grand Armee was comprised of approximately 690,000 people. Only a few thousand made it back from russia.
Every now and then some farmer in Russia comes accross a mass grave of tens of thousands of Bonaparte's troops. To lose 7/10 of a million soldiers in Europe in the year 1812 was HUGE.
You were right, the Grand Armee lost at least 650k before it was all over.
What does any of this have to do with the price of bloodwine on Qonos?
Rather than take a swipe at you, as thats the last thing you did with me, I'll just agree with you that the DOFF thread AND Doff System are wonderful.
Heretic keeps in touch with the community and doesn't blindside the players. When we have comments, he comments back. He take suggestions and even incorporates them into game systems.
Why has no other DEV done this? Because we aren't important enough for them to talk to when THEY ARE OFF THE CLOCK.
Say what you want about Dan Stahl, but as far as I am concerned, his comments at 3am, his dedication to the playerbase, and his commitment to ensure that we all didn't get raged too far, was NEARLY flawless. The only time I saw him choke and not respond very fast was August 2010 when they screwed up anomalies.
It truly is depressing to see so many people feel so slighted and abused. We the gaming community didn't TRIBBLE over Cryptic. We've shoveled money into their coffers and this is how we get treated.
"Don't worry team, these fanatics will buy or put up with anything just to play star trek!" may not exactly be the prevailing mindset over at Cryptic, it is however how they APPEAR to their fanbase when they decide to make such horrible changes, and provide such HORRIBLE feedback.
They brought it on themselves. I'm sorry to hear that you are frustrated at those who are raging, rather than the reason for the rage.
I do agree that the rampant negativity is depressing. However, we have a right to feel negative for most of the stuff being implemented, particularly with regards to the big economy revamp. Yes, there are things to be positive about, like the DOff system and PvE queue and UI revamp and STF changes.
It's hard to be positive about even the positive things because the negative far outnumber the positive. And I'm pretty positive that I'm not the only person thinking this negatively about the negative stuff.
Well said,and sadly,very true.
No company could ever outright say "we don't want your business" and stay in business. But they CAN do everything possible to disincentivize certain people from patronizing their business. And that is EXACTLY what we're seeing here now.
I love Trek as much as all the rest of you. And Cryptic is capitalizing on that love BIG TIME. They are banking on Trek fans hanging around being gouged for more money, or simply walking away all together. I choose walking away then being gouged. But hey...that's my choice. If others choose to stay and be gouged, that's their choice.
Simply saying "I'm going to leave" doesn't do anything. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO IT. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY LEAVE. I haven't actually logged in to the game in weeks. And if this trend continues, I never will again. I'm playing Rift and having a fabulous time doing it.
Cryptic won't learn anything until the number of players drops SIGNIFICANTLY.
Actually, I don't so much care about my math as I was making a bit of a point, in that there have been some huge blunders in the past that were really, really bad (TM).
And then, to put this move into context, yes, I invoked the names of Richard Garriott and Derek Smart, although I can't remember the name of the devs that were fired from the first Master of Orion III development team, or should I just put all the blame on . . . Infogrames/Atari for that one?
Anyway. The 20 mil figure was WWII only, but the 600k number stated above is about right and is significant. But this is a game, and it should be fun. The changes the devs have made with the economy have made it LESS a GAME and more a JOB.
Especially when I see all the Dilithium that is required to #)*)$*#*ing craft! This is absolute horse!$#*.
Lemme tell ya something. They want you to buy extra bank slots so you can store all the ingredients for crafting (why would you need large amounts of storage if you don't craft??). Then they want you to buy C-credits so you can buy the dilthium to build the not-vanillia-consoles, cause they know that grinding as much as you would need to is so boring. They also want you to buy their special schematics for the uber pay-to-win golden phaser bank.
Greed. This isn't just profits, it's outright greed.
[I have removed my comments about Perfect World and how the People's Republic of China organizes its home grown industries, that I added to address a previous post about chinese business. I did so because it's impossible to determine just who the majority owner of Beijing Perfect World is. Being the single largest game company of it's kind in China, I find it hard to imagine that the Communist Party isn't a direct investor, but I cannot find any direct evidence of it one way or another. And thus I removed the comments.]
I am willing to give Cryptic the "benefit of the doubt" in that this is still a beta version of the relaunch towards F2P, but I do have to admit that I am losing this faith rapidly with each passing dev blog. If none of the changes we're asking for happens, then I'll be right behind you. I do have TOR preordered and am looking at Secret World as another MMO to fall back on. Not to mention quality F2P games and a huge host of single-player games coming out over the next few months.
With my limited time, they have to fight for my attention. As it currently stands, my attention is elsewhere right now.
You know, I really envy for you guys, I really do. For you, this is just another game, if this one craps out, you go on to another one.
But I only started playing MMOs when STO launched. I've tried other games, and non-Trek MMOs simply don't interest me.
If this game goes under, I'll likely just stop playing online games. I'll go back to my husbands PS3, and start hunting down all the games I've missed, I'll pay $40-$65 a pop for each one, and unless they put out another worthwhile Final Fantasy game on a console (I lost interest after FFX-2 majorly disappointed me), none of them will hold my interest for very long.
Or maybe, to go the money-less route, I'll dust off my old D&D character and join my husbands newest campaign.
Either way, the attitude of most of the posters who say "too bad, so sad, I'll just go play another MMO" is, well, frankly unrepresentative of me.
Cash Currency -- C-Store
Vender Currency -- Energy Credits, Ect.
Time currency --- Dilitium and its Refinement.
The idea was that Dilithium would replace badges, marks, emblems, ect. into one nice neat "Time" currency. It was a way to turn time played into currency. Things you do like Exploration or PVP or "daily missions" would essentially give you a single universal currency based on the time these things take to perform thus allowing you to bennefit from exploration OR pvp OR all of the above. Play the way you want, get the same reward as anyone else playing the way they want.
I think that in itself is kind of a great idea.
The problem with adding dilitium to crafting is that it takes huge amounts of time to get the components for crafting, especially those Rare Partical Traces. There for, Dil-Crafting is essentially a double "Time" cost.
In their own model this should strike someone as unbalanced.
I also agree with everyone else (all 50 some pages of you) that think this is a double bad idea because unlike the components, you can't trade dilithium. Thus the cost of crafting things for strangers goes up (which I think is what they want) but the cost of crafting for your alts or fleet-mates who don't typically "pay" for your services now becomes a net loss for you. I think this was an easy way to fix a problem and it just wasn't thought that extra step or two through. I hope this changes. I hope this changes in some very real and profound ways, because this is NOT an improvement as it stands.
Don't forget about the different STF currencies as well. So the sum of currencies stays at a too large number still. And if a ship costs the same as equipping my BOffs with epic gear, then something is off. Not forgetting that the epic ship weapons and consoles will cost many times the cost of a ship. And when we got a ship we don't want to use any more, we can't get any dilitium back for it. So it is a one way transaction and not something that goes well with Star Trek where everything not used goes in to the Replicator for recycling. Nothing is wasted.
STO isn't "just another game" for me, either. While I have played plenty other MMOs, I really wanted this one to be special. Because it fused together two loves of mine: Star Trek and online gaming. Star Trek is practically a way of life for me. When I found out that Perpetual had acquired the rights to make an MMO out of it I couldn't believe it and followed it since. I WANTED a Trek MMO ever since I started playing them with Dark Age of Camelot. Sadly, the one true attempt is being flushed down the toilet due to poor marketing decisions.
STO is for a lot of people their first MMO,and the reason is Star Trek.Would I have played this game if it wasn't Trek?Hell no. And like you,I don't WANT to leave either......but Cryptic/PWE are driving me to that decision.
For companies that create and run MMO's,Cryptic and PWE don't seem to understand that a MMO is a long term investment with long term gains.Well,like Gump's momma used to say....Stupid is as Stupid does.
as much as it pains to to say it.... well bloody said!
bascailly, there is no crafting tree in it. and what remains as one is outstandingly bullspitta. means its screwed up. they dont know how to run that section of it. the only reason why they have it is cause people wanted it. now the reason why they put dili into our crafting is cause lets face it. we were abusing it. we didnt have to do anything but farm mats, build and there we go, the best ship there is in a matter of 8 hrs or more. they just making sure we have to do some more than a days work to have a fully operational warship, and officer.
at the same time they should be made well aware that if they over priced SWTOR is 2 months away and you can bet your *** that people will leave to play that game. i know i will try the game out. and ill likely pop back here once and a while. but still, the dev's are cutting it close with rivals, and this much upset can incite a war they can not afford to lose.
This may have been suggested, but one way to save fleet crafting, if not the rest of the crafting system, i to create a "craft for other" command or temporary bank or something. Player 1 (the client) sends a request to player 2 (the crafter). The client must already have all the required materials, the schematic and the dilithium. The crafter hits "craft for other" and the items vanish from the client's bank, and the item appears there. If cryptic really wants to limit things they could make it bind at that point.
I realize why you want to add a dilithium component to crafting: without it, crafting is an end-run around the dilithium economy. Crafters make high level gear available, via the exchange, for energy credits, and you clearly want to restrict the availability of such gear.
But circumventing the regular economy is the entire point of crafting in MMOs. There must be another solution.
Possibilities I can think of (these are just ideas):
1) Make particles and anomalies bound. This will force crafters to harvest materials themselves rather than buy them from the exchange. Downside: this is slightly annoying, and it still hurts the social aspect of crafting.
2) Make crafted objects bound on pickup. This will keep crafted gear off the exchange. Downside: still hurts the social aspect of crafting.
3) Make dilithium ore, instead of refined dilithium, a crafting component. This does circumvent the daily limit on refining, however, it's still a dilithium cost. But it is a much less annoying dilithium cost, since an industrious player can easily obtain more ore per day than he/she can refine- and a dedicated crafter is likely to be just the sort of player who does that. To retain the social aspect of crafting, make unrefined ore trade-able via the fleet bank.
I greatly prefer #3, but speaking as a crafter, any of those changes would be preferable to what you've done.
And Don't forget, Retroactive charges. To charge us for everything we have done already to be charged as well.
You're missing the point, as a fleet crafter, people spent their time and energy levelling up in Crafting, putting in effort that nobody else in the fleet was willing to do. Now, the quid-pro-quot was that the fleet mates are the ones who gather the materials, and the Fleet crafter does the crafting. Sort of a "I spent my time now you spend yours" deal. If the Fleet crafter is doing the work to grind up the Dilithium, and doing the crafting, there's no way for them to keep up with the demand.
If your fleet has, say 20 people, and five people need gear for their new VA ships post F2P, you, as the fleet crafter, have to grind and grind and grind for Dilithium to make gear for other people, and under this system, you get no real benefit from doing so other than their gratitude. Even if they get the anoms, you're still stuck with the Dilithium grind.
And since Dilithium isn't transferable, and it's being shoehorned into almost every aspect of the game, you've just taken a net loss in your own resources (as you could certainly have used that Dilithium yourself), time, and effort, with no real payday.
The primary hope of the penny-pinchers at PW, who are obviously behind the Dilithum-into-everything changes, is that people will be impatient, and rather than grind, they'll just cough up cash for C-Store points and trade for the Dilithium. It's an attempt to railroad people into the C-Store.
They think that by having the extra step of having other players be the ones producing the Dilithium, they can get away with having Dilithium sold for real-world cash.
Honestly? I hate the hypocrisy of it. I hate the false way they avoid it being an obvious Pay-for-in-game resources situation. I hate the quiet smirk I can almost hear in the texts of their posts and in their voices in interviews as they act all innocent about it.
At this point, I'd rather they at least be honest and just put Dilithium up for sale in the C-Store as well as grind-able in game. At least that way it would be blatant and apologists wouldn't keep trying to defend the Dilithium exchange as anything but Pay-for advantage/P2W it really is.
This is a really good point.
My most of my fleet is made up of people for whom STO was/is their first MMO. These aren't your hardcore WOW types. These aren't your grind & raid types. These are people whose social gaming experience before STO was playing Mario Kart, Rock Band, or the original social gaming - Cards and Board games.
This is definitely something for whoever from Cryptic is reading this to keep in mind and funnel up the chain. If you treat these people like hardcore gamers, you will lose them and their purchases.
For many of us the only reason we are here is because we like Star Trek. Don't forget that and don't abuse it.