And as for the foundry spotlight, they need to put a NPC in every social hub who offers the mission that is currently in the spotlight to those who speak to them.
fantastic idea...maybe even add some reward that is a limited time reward. nothing fancy...just a pet, tribble, doff, or something. Just making them worth playing, appart from the story itself.
In a recent post on their official site, the RedShirt Army Podcast announced that it is dumping STO as its primary focus and suggested that the player base is dying off. They do not cite any credible numbers other than the Steam player population.
This is the second podcast to make this claim as they shifted their focus away from STO (the first being the original STOked podcast, which ended its run earlier this year), but neither cited any sources to back up their claims. Is there somewhere that these numbers can be independently verified, or are the aforementioned podcasts just taking a couple of rage-fueled shots at the game as they head for the exits?
Based on my own completely casual observation of the population in STO, I do not feel like the servers are any less-full than they've ever been.
i have not been around long enough to say if the community has died out, but in the time i have seen, the majority of the community tend to congregate around Qo'nos, Drozana, K7, ESD and DS9, but then i always see comments about race filled hate, religious attacks and gender orientation, i mean anything negative goes. it seems like the majority of players state nothing which lends to the idea of a community that is dying.
Grabbing numbers off Steam is not that factual either, it would be like stating that rain falls and there is no rain as you only have half the facts in hand.
there is an element of truth to what they are getting at, but i do not share it because there is an abundant amount of players on this game all the time. who is the say most of these players are not automatically talking to their fleet mates all the time or friends in other fleets?
Have no Fear Cohas is still Here!!!! yes everyone i am still playing STO not as much as i did, but i do still log in. I have been very busy with a toddler and working very long hours. what time i do play any game at all here more so then any has been GW2 its also free to play. now those are the reasons why i have not been on the air as much as i want too but im still here. check out my raptr profile!! http://raptr.com/Cohas/wall. RSA is not Dying in anyway just that we all have different scheduling times, we are hammering that out as we speak. So don't count me out im still here, and still don't have any pants!!!!!
I would say the difference is that one is written and then vetted by CBS and the other is just written. That vetting adds an aire of validity, which is important to some people.
I am not arguing against the Foundry: I like the Foundry. I am simply saying that in game missions there is a sense of canon: a sense that things will make logical sense within the Star Trek universe when we go to play them. In a Foundry mission we have no idea what we are going to get. It could be a dimensional travel mission to a Star Trek universe where Picard and Spock are TRIBBLE lovers, Westley is married to Guinan, and the new Enterprise F is a miranda class. Foundry authors are not bound by canon or continuity like STO's writer is. A lot of people do not want to have to pick and hope it makes sense.
I don't think CBS really plays a role. I mean there are missions where enemies beam to your ship after you blow their ship up. What self-respecting CBS overlord would let some of these things pass the smell test? They probably approve the overall ideas behind some stuff and the concept art behind ships and costumes. But in the past 3 years, CBS has adopted a very hands off approach, whether dealing with merchandise at cafe press or dealing with UGC.
I would personally argue that I get a lot more canon out of UGC. And, unlike most Cryptic content, it doesn't end on random cliff-hangers with no real resolution. Hands down there is far more story in UGC than in 80% of the "official" content for this game. We give you a story behind kill 5/5 ships. They give you starbase grinding with no story, beyond the very seldom told story. Some great stories in those FEs, but those FEs don't generate Zen. Story-less grinding does.
Sure there are some crazy fan missions. I played one where I punched and killed Admiral Janeway. But I also played a Cryptic mission where I felt like I was killing innocent babies. Somehow punching Janeway felt better to me.
Personally speaking, I really don't see the continuity in logic, story, or canon in this game. It's a 17 front war that, for the most part, either does or does not give you a hare-brained excuse to go here, kill that, go there, push that. And how many, many missions... we're just carrying around the stupid ball most of the time.
I don't think CBS really plays a role. I mean there are missions where enemies beam to your ship after you blow their ship up. What self-respecting CBS overlord would let some of these things pass the smell test? They probably approve the overall ideas behind some stuff and the concept art behind ships and costumes. But in the past 3 years, CBS has adopted a very hands off approach, whether dealing with merchandise at cafe press or dealing with UGC.
I have seen you make this agument before, and I still consider it invalid. We are talking about the same CBS which had a Romulan beam onto the Enterprise in the guise of a Vulcan ambassador. The DNA sequenceer on the transporter would easily have recognized the differences between Vulcan and Romulan physiology. The surgical prostetics would only fool the eyes, not the sensors. Star Trek is littered with such tropes that make no sense when held to a logical accountability. The idea that the game would not also use such story tropes is foolish to believe.
You are affectively trying to hold the game to a higher standard then the source material it is based up.
Ofc the community is dying off. What did you expect. Cryptic manages to focus on things that even this community wich is fractured, and holds varied ideas on how to solve problems dislikes.... Only a crazy small group keeps cheering them on.
Ive said this a billion times, ill say it a billions times more. Exploration is the key component to Star Trek. And its been ignored since the launch. Here is a potential system that could provide decent randomized content (not on par with featured episodes mind you) but good enough for people to roleplay their beloved crew, wichever series they might love the most. And instead of this, wich touches everybody who plays this game. They decided, oh lets ignore over half the population of the game (before the starbase update less then half the people were in fleets) and focus on Starbases. Im sorry but that just idotic. Not to mention that they KEEP yammering on about it.... Or worse, Lockboxes ... a frikkin GAMBLING system in a universe that proclaims to have evolved past currency. That stands for opening the mind up to new ideas and visions on things. Respect and principles.... Things that the guys making this game dont share? They never have. Actions speak louder then words, and for all the pride they have in their ST ship collections and so forth, their actions are shameful.
There is no respect coming from either Cryptic or PWE to what ST stands for, what the community for the most part stands for. For people looking for the true embodiment of ST the only sollution is to keep searching. And only come back from time to time, hoping in vain that things have progressed in the right direction.
IIn a Foundry mission we have no idea what we are going to get.
Honesty, I think this statement is far more accurate for official content in your mission journal, especially for new players. It's not until you've been playing awhile that you discover: "Wow all these explorations and patrols are TRIBBLE!" By contrast, the Foundry has a ratings system where (some) of the best of the best float to the top of "top rated."
You have to learn what Cryptic content is bad and what is good. Even then, a lot of the main missions of the game are a gamble. I'm lvling a new toon for the first time in ages. Some of the story missions are great. Others are terrible or just bland. There is no way to know until I play it.
I wonder what the average player rating of an official mission would be, if players got to rate everything, including cluster, patrols, stfs, and FEs?
Apparently this doesn't really matter considering that aside from TOS and TNG, the general concensus is that the rest of the written-and-vetted materisl, aka canon, sucks.
I would certainly love to see this 'general concensus' you site. I am on many Star Trek sites, boards, and groups, and I don't see anything approaching a concensus as to what sucks or does not suck.
I happen to love DS9 and like Enterprise quite a bit. I would have enjoyed Voyager far more if it has been set within the primary Star Trek universe rather then trying to do entirely different things in its own quadarant. I am sure there are thousand of people who feel likewise.
You should not try and push your own opinions as being a concensus. .
hmm... I really have no comment to this. Those people have far more respect for missions where they killed bar patrons, Romulan scientists, etc. than they do for an awesome sequel to an actual episode seen on TV.
To each their own. I'd say they're missing out.
By the way, did you ever get around to reviewing the Cryptic Fed mission called 'Treasure Trading Station?' A few of us have been waiting a while to hear your insights on THAT gem.
I have seen you make this agument before, and I still consider it invalid. We are talking about the same CBS which had a Romulan beam onto the Enterprise in the guise of a Vulcan ambassador. The DNA sequenceer on the transporter would easily have recognized the differences between Vulcan and Romulan physiology. The surgical prostetics would only fool the eyes, not the sensors. Star Trek is littered with such tropes that make no sense when held to a logical accountability. The idea that the game would not also use such story tropes is foolish to believe.
You are affectively trying to hold the game to a higher standard then the source material it is based up.
yeah ok, that's a fair and valid point. I concede that argument to you, as I think about ST: Enterprise.
By the way, did you ever get around to reviewing the Cryptic Fed mission called 'Treasure Trading Station?' A few of us have been waiting a while to hear your insights on THAT gem.
I wonder what the average player rating of an official mission would be, if players got to rate everything, including cluster, patrols, stfs, and FEs?
Clusters and patrols were not designed to be 'good' missions. They were random missions designed by the genesis system to help you fill the grinding curve. Prior to ftp, and how experience was set up, the game did not have enough mission content to reach end-game. Grinding patrols and clusters, or deep space encounters, was the only way to get enough experience to advance to the required mission levels. They were never supposed to grand experiences. They were grind points to keep you advancing in rank so that you would not be fighing in missions one to five levels above you.
Clusters and patrols were not designed to be 'good' missions.
LOL. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm dealing with a MMO. I'm trying to think of a different product where a developer or producer could proudly make this claim.
I guess it might apply to some malt liquors that just designed to get you tanked. I don't think they're designed to taste good.
And then there was the old VW Bug which was promoted as "Hey, it's ugly, but it gets you there."
The clusters are missions in our logs and they're no longer required to get to VA at Warp 11. But they are still there. The patrols are still in sectors.
The official STO universe is full of stuff that was not designed to be "good."
LOL. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm dealing with a MMO. I'm trying to think of a different product where a developer or producer could proudly make this claim.
I guess it might apply to some malt liquors that just designed to get you tanked. I don't think they're designed to taste good.
And then there was the old VW Bug which was promoted as "Hey, it's ugly, but it gets you there."
The clusters are missions in our logs and they're no longer required to get to VA at Warp 11. But they are still there. The patrols are still in sectors.
The official STO universe is full of stuff that was not designed to be "good."
Well, you do need to keep thinking about it in MMO terms. The clusters, patrols, and deep space encounters are still there now to offer alternate ways to advance. Thanks to the current experience point levels a player has advancement choices. Prior to ftp you had to do everything to get to end-game. Now you can choose to skip patrols, clusters and deep space enounters and just do story missions. Or you can choose to skip story missions and just do patrols, clusters, and deep space encounters. Or you can choose to skip both and just advance doing Doff mission. Or you can mix and match all the above.
Whether you like a particular story type or not I think it is difficult to argue that more ways to level is worse then less ways.
Whether you like a particular story type or not I think it is difficult to argue that more ways to level is worse then less ways.
I'm not claiming different ways to lvl are bad. I'm claiming that the "official" content related to those alternative ways to lvl is bad, compared to a ton of UGC.
Thankfully, players will get yet another alternative path to lvl if timer-based foundry rewards are introduced. More content and more ways to proceed up the game.
It got really messed up with the forum conversion. These fancy new forums can't deal with mircrosoft word 2004.
LOL, I know exactly what you mean.
And thanks for the link. Great review, although I must admit you were a bit more merciful on the mission's review than I might have been. Still a fun read. Thanks again. Been waiting for that one.
Ofc the community is dying off. What did you expect. Cryptic manages to focus on things that even this community wich is fractured, and holds varied ideas on how to solve problems dislikes.... Only a crazy small group keeps cheering them on.
Ive said this a billion times, ill say it a billions times more. Exploration is the key component to Star Trek. And its been ignored since the launch. Here is a potential system that could provide decent randomized content (not on par with featured episodes mind you) but good enough for people to roleplay their beloved crew, wichever series they might love the most. And instead of this, wich touches everybody who plays this game. They decided, oh lets ignore over half the population of the game (before the starbase update less then half the people were in fleets) and focus on Starbases. Im sorry but that just idotic. Not to mention that they KEEP yammering on about it.... Or worse, Lockboxes ... a frikkin GAMBLING system in a universe that proclaims to have evolved past currency. That stands for opening the mind up to new ideas and visions on things. Respect and principles.... Things that the guys making this game dont share? They never have. Actions speak louder then words, and for all the pride they have in their ST ship collections and so forth, their actions are shameful.
There is no respect coming from either Cryptic or PWE to what ST stands for, what the community for the most part stands for. For people looking for the true embodiment of ST the only sollution is to keep searching. And only come back from time to time, hoping in vain that things have progressed in the right direction.
Okay hold on. You're pulling numbers way out of the air that have 0 basis in reality. I'd like to see where you got your numbers that over half of the population weren't in fleets. I'd also like to know where you got the idea that this universe proclaims to have evolved past currency. Watch anything TNG and above, you'll see currency is quite ripe in the universe. (Latinum, selling weapons etc).
And actually? The community isn't dying off. Sure the forums are maybe a LITTLE bit quieter than before, but not by much. the community is still live and thriving. I find new people to talk to everyday, not just the same old people that have been around since I joined the forums 3 years ago. The activity is there if you're willing to look. If not, then you will never see it and assume it's dying.
Yes, I'm that Askray@Batbayer in game. Yes, I still play. No, I don't care. Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker. Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
I love that a thread made to bring attention to RSA's "dumping" of STO (whether or not that's the actual case) is mostly about the old STOked video podcast and the Foundry, with not a whole lot of people commenting on or about RSA.
I frankly don't see any usable stats anywhere. Using Google I tried to piece together some Steam stats myself, assuming that the bulk of players who don't use Steam to log in would be proportionally consistent, but there's not enough. Steam doesn't seem to keep records that long, and posted stats here on forum center around the first few months of the game, and go up and down between 500 and 4000, (2100 currently on Steam) so it's not really possible to identify any trends, let alone any recent trends.
Meaning I don't see anything meaningfull being discussed here at all.
As for RSA 'rebranding'... don't care. STO's got too many podcasts as it is. We can spare one. And considering the last podcast of RSA's I heard (involuntarily, on SSR, the one where the community that's dieing seemed to be their own, as they were left with just two hosts) I can't imagine I'd miss them. That was really awful. And I'm only saying that so Cryptic can see I'm not just mean to them.
Okay hold on. You're pulling numbers way out of the air that have 0 basis in reality. I'd like to see where you got your numbers that over half of the population weren't in fleets. I'd also like to know where you got the idea that this universe proclaims to have evolved past currency. Watch anything TNG and above, you'll see currency is quite ripe in the universe. (Latinum, selling weapons etc)..
Starfleet has no use for monetary items like latinum bricks or energy credits. you only started seeing things like these when the Ferengi which is a heavily economy driven race and the federation come into contact on a personal level. it is stated that the Federation is past the point of currency because it would lead self destruction as a human race that has overcome this thing in order to join a larger community. since when have you seen Data pay for items? Picard selling things, Bashir at the Dabo table or even Chakotay bartering for provisions with currency? the only way voyager survived was with Neelix, the only way DS9 survived is with Quark.
I love that a thread made to bring attention to RSA's "dumping" of STO (whether or not that's the actual case) is mostly about the old STOked video podcast and the Foundry, with not a whole lot of people commenting on or about RSA.
Yes, that is my fault. Sorry for derailing a thread. It is fun debate though.
Some of the story missions are great. Others are terrible or just bland. There is no way to know until I play it.
Yeah that's because they mixed the missions from Featured Episodes into the old storylines. And the old storylines are abysmally bad, especially in direct contrast to the FEs. The Reman series for example is mixed in with the boring Romulan arc and the Dominion FE is mixed into the horrible "Kill 5 galors, beam to planet, kill 5 patrols, beam out and kill 5 more galors" Cardi arc.
For a new player this is pretty confusing and I think it hurts the game. There is a streak from about level 5 to 30 that mostly ancient TRIBBLE content, many new players could be scared off right there. On the Fed side there would be enough good content so they could drop some of the old and crappy stuff and still have enough missions to comfortably get a toon to 50 purely with story missions. They'd just have to scale down some later ones a bit, the Breen, Borg and Undine stuff is all only starting at 48 or so, when most players already started STFs and have no longer interest in story quests.
Starfleet has no use for monetary items like latinum bricks or energy credits. you only started seeing things like these when the Ferengi which is a heavily economy driven race and the federation come into contact on a personal level. it is stated that the Federation is past the point of currency because it would lead self destruction as a human race that has overcome this thing in order to join a larger community. since when have you seen Data pay for items? Picard selling things, Bashir at the Dabo table or even Chakotay bartering for provisions with currency? the only way voyager survived was with Neelix, the only way DS9 survived is with Quark.
While Starfleet has no currency, there's no reason to assume they don't have some form of bartering. Surely they have some way to exchange goods and services, particularly with other races and civilisations.
While Starfleet has no currency, there's no reason to assume they don't have some form of bartering. Surely they have some way to exchange goods and services, particularly with other races and civilisations.
As this subject seems to get brought up a lot, the same replies exist: Star Trek is littered with examples of characters buying things with currency. In the first episode of TNG, where Roddenberry was still producing, Dr. Crusher 'buys" cloth from a merchant at Farpoint by having it billed to her account. In the first episode of Voyager Kim is almost suckered into buying worthless stones at Quarks. In the TNG episode 'The Price' the Federation is attempting to negotiate exclusive access to a stable wormhole from the Barzan, which included a hefty payment. Kirk buys many things in TOS, including Dilithium from miners.
The idea that there is no currency in Star Trek is just a pipedream which some people seem to have.
You know what? The only reliable "stat" you're going to get is your experience.
If you log in and feel like there aren't many people to play with, or that space suddenly feels empty, then the game is losing people. In the same breath, if you log in and you feel like sector space is busting at the seams and ESD is a mall on Black Friday, then the game is doing very well.
Why? Because it doesn't matter what a piece of paper or a fan on the air has to say when compared to how the game makes you feel; if you like it, you'll play it.
SWTOR suffered from the same kind of guessing-game where players were scouring different sources to find out how the numbers were doing. When it came down to it, most people felt (and reported) that the servers were quickly losing people, and those players turned out to be right.
As to comments made by Chris over at STOked, I get the feeling he was talking about concurrent users and not subscribers or active accounts (how do you measure those anymore?).
You know what? The only reliable "stat" you're going to get is your experience.
If you log in and feel like there aren't many people to play with, or that space suddenly feels empty, then the game is losing people. In the same breath, if you log in and you feel like sector space is busting at the seams and ESD is a mall on Black Friday, then the game is doing very well.
As to comments made by Chris over at STOked, I get the feeling he was talking about concurrent users and not subscribers or active accounts (how do you measure those anymore?).
Snipped a bit, but it's fair comment that I login and see less members of my fleet on. Does that mean the game community's dying? No, it means my fleet numbers are, I see the rest of the game and it's still buzzing
That said it would be an easy conclusion to draw from limited viewpoints, I suspect it's more that certain communities will die off, and others take their place. Nothing to see, move along
Snipped a bit, but it's fair comment that I login and see less members of my fleet on. Does that mean the game community's dying? No, it means my fleet numbers are, I see the rest of the game and it's still buzzing
That said it would be an easy conclusion to draw from limited viewpoints, I suspect it's more that certain communities will die off, and others take their place. Nothing to see, move along
That's precisely my point; if I log in and catch fewer and fewer of my fellow fleeties online, one of a few things is happening: concurrent usage time has shifted or changed, there are fewer concurrent users, or it could be they've left the game entirely. The only conclusion to draw is that something has changed, but the question becomes "Does this impact my gameplay?"
I'll use the SWTOR example again; many of those who were pointing out drops in population were countered, unsuccessfully in the end, by others who wanted to argue that the game was doing fine and following the launch, concurrent use had dropped (which was a fair point). But those who were worried were worried not because of what some site or webcast reported, but by what they themselves experienced in the game.
In your case, your experience is that there are plenty of people (while you make no comment on whether you've observed a decline or increase of players) and so you are unaffected by any mythical decline in players. So continue enjoying the game!
If someone feels like the population is declining because their experience leads them to feel that way (right or wrong), then they'll stop playing.
And even further, if there truly is a legitimate growing concern about population numbers (substantiated or not), then it falls to Cryptic to address it either through incentives for new players if there is indeed a drop going on, or to better bring players together in the case that there isn't a drop. BioWare, going back to my previous example, did little to quell concerns either way and so the tide of players continued to flood out--not in.
Either way, your experience of the game should be what informs your opinion--not what others have to say.
The difference between the TOR example and the STO example is the companies, themselves. The various game sites are litered with the knowledge of Bioware's layoffs on the TOR team and of their consolidation of servers since their launch last December. On the other side STO's team has more then doubled over the last year; with recent news that even more new people have been added to the team from the layoffs at 38 and Paragon Studios.
It is really the tale of two entirely different companies: one laying off and the other hiring. Cryptic would not be hiring for STO if it were losing subscribers at a noticeable rate. What most people are seeing is the standard fall decline as children go back to school and spend less time chatting on forums.
Comments
fantastic idea...maybe even add some reward that is a limited time reward. nothing fancy...just a pet, tribble, doff, or something. Just making them worth playing, appart from the story itself.
i have not been around long enough to say if the community has died out, but in the time i have seen, the majority of the community tend to congregate around Qo'nos, Drozana, K7, ESD and DS9, but then i always see comments about race filled hate, religious attacks and gender orientation, i mean anything negative goes. it seems like the majority of players state nothing which lends to the idea of a community that is dying.
Grabbing numbers off Steam is not that factual either, it would be like stating that rain falls and there is no rain as you only have half the facts in hand.
there is an element of truth to what they are getting at, but i do not share it because there is an abundant amount of players on this game all the time. who is the say most of these players are not automatically talking to their fleet mates all the time or friends in other fleets?
Cohas
I don't think CBS really plays a role. I mean there are missions where enemies beam to your ship after you blow their ship up. What self-respecting CBS overlord would let some of these things pass the smell test? They probably approve the overall ideas behind some stuff and the concept art behind ships and costumes. But in the past 3 years, CBS has adopted a very hands off approach, whether dealing with merchandise at cafe press or dealing with UGC.
I would personally argue that I get a lot more canon out of UGC. And, unlike most Cryptic content, it doesn't end on random cliff-hangers with no real resolution. Hands down there is far more story in UGC than in 80% of the "official" content for this game. We give you a story behind kill 5/5 ships. They give you starbase grinding with no story, beyond the very seldom told story. Some great stories in those FEs, but those FEs don't generate Zen. Story-less grinding does.
Sure there are some crazy fan missions. I played one where I punched and killed Admiral Janeway. But I also played a Cryptic mission where I felt like I was killing innocent babies. Somehow punching Janeway felt better to me.
Personally speaking, I really don't see the continuity in logic, story, or canon in this game. It's a 17 front war that, for the most part, either does or does not give you a hare-brained excuse to go here, kill that, go there, push that. And how many, many missions... we're just carrying around the stupid ball most of the time.
You are affectively trying to hold the game to a higher standard then the source material it is based up.
Ive said this a billion times, ill say it a billions times more. Exploration is the key component to Star Trek. And its been ignored since the launch. Here is a potential system that could provide decent randomized content (not on par with featured episodes mind you) but good enough for people to roleplay their beloved crew, wichever series they might love the most. And instead of this, wich touches everybody who plays this game. They decided, oh lets ignore over half the population of the game (before the starbase update less then half the people were in fleets) and focus on Starbases. Im sorry but that just idotic. Not to mention that they KEEP yammering on about it.... Or worse, Lockboxes ... a frikkin GAMBLING system in a universe that proclaims to have evolved past currency. That stands for opening the mind up to new ideas and visions on things. Respect and principles.... Things that the guys making this game dont share? They never have. Actions speak louder then words, and for all the pride they have in their ST ship collections and so forth, their actions are shameful.
There is no respect coming from either Cryptic or PWE to what ST stands for, what the community for the most part stands for. For people looking for the true embodiment of ST the only sollution is to keep searching. And only come back from time to time, hoping in vain that things have progressed in the right direction.
Honesty, I think this statement is far more accurate for official content in your mission journal, especially for new players. It's not until you've been playing awhile that you discover: "Wow all these explorations and patrols are TRIBBLE!" By contrast, the Foundry has a ratings system where (some) of the best of the best float to the top of "top rated."
You have to learn what Cryptic content is bad and what is good. Even then, a lot of the main missions of the game are a gamble. I'm lvling a new toon for the first time in ages. Some of the story missions are great. Others are terrible or just bland. There is no way to know until I play it.
I wonder what the average player rating of an official mission would be, if players got to rate everything, including cluster, patrols, stfs, and FEs?
I happen to love DS9 and like Enterprise quite a bit. I would have enjoyed Voyager far more if it has been set within the primary Star Trek universe rather then trying to do entirely different things in its own quadarant. I am sure there are thousand of people who feel likewise.
You should not try and push your own opinions as being a concensus. .
By the way, did you ever get around to reviewing the Cryptic Fed mission called 'Treasure Trading Station?' A few of us have been waiting a while to hear your insights on THAT gem.
yeah ok, that's a fair and valid point. I concede that argument to you, as I think about ST: Enterprise.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=269483&highlight=review+treasure+trading+station
It got really messed up with the forum conversion. These fancy new forums can't deal with mircrosoft word 2004.
LOL. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm dealing with a MMO. I'm trying to think of a different product where a developer or producer could proudly make this claim.
I guess it might apply to some malt liquors that just designed to get you tanked. I don't think they're designed to taste good.
And then there was the old VW Bug which was promoted as "Hey, it's ugly, but it gets you there."
The clusters are missions in our logs and they're no longer required to get to VA at Warp 11. But they are still there. The patrols are still in sectors.
The official STO universe is full of stuff that was not designed to be "good."
Whether you like a particular story type or not I think it is difficult to argue that more ways to level is worse then less ways.
I'm not claiming different ways to lvl are bad. I'm claiming that the "official" content related to those alternative ways to lvl is bad, compared to a ton of UGC.
Thankfully, players will get yet another alternative path to lvl if timer-based foundry rewards are introduced. More content and more ways to proceed up the game.
LOL, I know exactly what you mean.
And thanks for the link. Great review, although I must admit you were a bit more merciful on the mission's review than I might have been. Still a fun read. Thanks again. Been waiting for that one.
Okay hold on. You're pulling numbers way out of the air that have 0 basis in reality. I'd like to see where you got your numbers that over half of the population weren't in fleets. I'd also like to know where you got the idea that this universe proclaims to have evolved past currency. Watch anything TNG and above, you'll see currency is quite ripe in the universe. (Latinum, selling weapons etc).
And actually? The community isn't dying off. Sure the forums are maybe a LITTLE bit quieter than before, but not by much. the community is still live and thriving. I find new people to talk to everyday, not just the same old people that have been around since I joined the forums 3 years ago. The activity is there if you're willing to look. If not, then you will never see it and assume it's dying.
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Meaning I don't see anything meaningfull being discussed here at all.
As for RSA 'rebranding'... don't care. STO's got too many podcasts as it is. We can spare one. And considering the last podcast of RSA's I heard (involuntarily, on SSR, the one where the community that's dieing seemed to be their own, as they were left with just two hosts) I can't imagine I'd miss them. That was really awful. And I'm only saying that so Cryptic can see I'm not just mean to them.
Starfleet has no use for monetary items like latinum bricks or energy credits. you only started seeing things like these when the Ferengi which is a heavily economy driven race and the federation come into contact on a personal level. it is stated that the Federation is past the point of currency because it would lead self destruction as a human race that has overcome this thing in order to join a larger community. since when have you seen Data pay for items? Picard selling things, Bashir at the Dabo table or even Chakotay bartering for provisions with currency? the only way voyager survived was with Neelix, the only way DS9 survived is with Quark.
Yes, that is my fault. Sorry for derailing a thread. It is fun debate though.
Yeah that's because they mixed the missions from Featured Episodes into the old storylines. And the old storylines are abysmally bad, especially in direct contrast to the FEs. The Reman series for example is mixed in with the boring Romulan arc and the Dominion FE is mixed into the horrible "Kill 5 galors, beam to planet, kill 5 patrols, beam out and kill 5 more galors" Cardi arc.
For a new player this is pretty confusing and I think it hurts the game. There is a streak from about level 5 to 30 that mostly ancient TRIBBLE content, many new players could be scared off right there. On the Fed side there would be enough good content so they could drop some of the old and crappy stuff and still have enough missions to comfortably get a toon to 50 purely with story missions. They'd just have to scale down some later ones a bit, the Breen, Borg and Undine stuff is all only starting at 48 or so, when most players already started STFs and have no longer interest in story quests.
While Starfleet has no currency, there's no reason to assume they don't have some form of bartering. Surely they have some way to exchange goods and services, particularly with other races and civilisations.
The idea that there is no currency in Star Trek is just a pipedream which some people seem to have.
If you log in and feel like there aren't many people to play with, or that space suddenly feels empty, then the game is losing people. In the same breath, if you log in and you feel like sector space is busting at the seams and ESD is a mall on Black Friday, then the game is doing very well.
Why? Because it doesn't matter what a piece of paper or a fan on the air has to say when compared to how the game makes you feel; if you like it, you'll play it.
SWTOR suffered from the same kind of guessing-game where players were scouring different sources to find out how the numbers were doing. When it came down to it, most people felt (and reported) that the servers were quickly losing people, and those players turned out to be right.
As to comments made by Chris over at STOked, I get the feeling he was talking about concurrent users and not subscribers or active accounts (how do you measure those anymore?).
Snipped a bit, but it's fair comment that I login and see less members of my fleet on. Does that mean the game community's dying? No, it means my fleet numbers are, I see the rest of the game and it's still buzzing
That said it would be an easy conclusion to draw from limited viewpoints, I suspect it's more that certain communities will die off, and others take their place. Nothing to see, move along
That's precisely my point; if I log in and catch fewer and fewer of my fellow fleeties online, one of a few things is happening: concurrent usage time has shifted or changed, there are fewer concurrent users, or it could be they've left the game entirely. The only conclusion to draw is that something has changed, but the question becomes "Does this impact my gameplay?"
I'll use the SWTOR example again; many of those who were pointing out drops in population were countered, unsuccessfully in the end, by others who wanted to argue that the game was doing fine and following the launch, concurrent use had dropped (which was a fair point). But those who were worried were worried not because of what some site or webcast reported, but by what they themselves experienced in the game.
In your case, your experience is that there are plenty of people (while you make no comment on whether you've observed a decline or increase of players) and so you are unaffected by any mythical decline in players. So continue enjoying the game!
If someone feels like the population is declining because their experience leads them to feel that way (right or wrong), then they'll stop playing.
And even further, if there truly is a legitimate growing concern about population numbers (substantiated or not), then it falls to Cryptic to address it either through incentives for new players if there is indeed a drop going on, or to better bring players together in the case that there isn't a drop. BioWare, going back to my previous example, did little to quell concerns either way and so the tide of players continued to flood out--not in.
Either way, your experience of the game should be what informs your opinion--not what others have to say.
It is really the tale of two entirely different companies: one laying off and the other hiring. Cryptic would not be hiring for STO if it were losing subscribers at a noticeable rate. What most people are seeing is the standard fall decline as children go back to school and spend less time chatting on forums.