I'd love that too, but I suspect it'd make Cryptic/PWE's customer service department quit over the thoughts of TRIBBLE/fraudulent charges.
Of course, i wish I had the money to do that too! I could afford it, but it'd be unwise
Perhaps they could go through a 3rd party like playspan or shattered crystal? Or maybe they could make it something you could buy for someone only after you have given them security information. I would not mind giving them ID hoping that it would also afford my account some protection if i got TRIBBLE in the future. anyway where there is a will there is a way...
If a person wants to it is easy to earn massive amounts of dilth per account
lets take a person that creates 40 characters - they keep all these characters at STA
every day they log on and do the lore and the investigate officers report
480+1440 dilth = 1920 per toon x 40 = 76,800 dilth per day or 500 Zen
logging in and out of each toon and time to do it take about 4 min x 40 = 160 min
so in less that 3 hrs you can get 500 zen per day
cheap labour as this works out to $1.70 per hour or about the hourly wage of someone working at the Apple plant in China
And what has that to do with zen?
Zen is paid with real world money.For cryptic is not important who worked for the money (Im sure some people here would want proof of purchase for zen and some kind of finger print ID) and who grinded dilithium..the zen is already paid.
Zen is bought (and by the time that chinese gets it is already paid) with real world money ...who uses it is not important.
If a person wants to it is easy to earn massive amounts of dilth per account
lets take a person that creates 40 characters - they keep all these characters at STA
every day they log on and do the lore and the investigate officers report
480+1440 dilth = 1920 per toon x 40 = 76,800 dilth per day or 500 Zen
logging in and out of each toon and time to do it take about 4 min x 40 = 160 min
so in less that 3 hrs you can get 500 zen per day
cheap labour as this works out to $1.70 per hour or about the hourly wage of someone working at the Apple plant in China
Trick being, however, is getting the 40 characters. At 1065 Zen for 4, or 625 for 2? You've already spent well over $100 in Zen, regardless of how you got it (cash or dilithium). Plus, you'll have to spend time getting all those characters up to level 7.
How do you get that much dilithium in 4 minutes? Is that by the "quickie" Foundry missions my friend told me about? Sounds like that will get nerfed or something at some point.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays http://samonmaui.blogspot.com As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
If a person wants to it is easy to earn massive amounts of dilth per account
lets take a person that creates 40 characters - they keep all these characters at STA
every day they log on and do the lore and the investigate officers report
480+1440 dilth = 1920 per toon x 40 = 76,800 dilth per day or 500 Zen
logging in and out of each toon and time to do it take about 4 min x 40 = 160 min
so in less that 3 hrs you can get 500 zen per day
cheap labour as this works out to $1.70 per hour or about the hourly wage of someone working at the Apple plant in China
I find that a drag. I have about 16 toons on my first 2 LTS and just got a 3rd LTS but have just the one toon on that so far. Sure i get a bit of dilithium that way and more importantly fleet marks; but that is work not play. I prefer to do more enjoyable things with the short amount of time i actually have to play these days. So, let people in China have work im happy to help subsidize their jobs. The more financial bonds there are between the USA and China the better. It makes them more partners than rivals. Heck, i should get a Nobel peace prize as should anyone else that buys dilithium with zen!!!
Trick being, however, is getting the 40 characters. At 1065 Zen for 4, or 625 for 2? You've already spent well over $100 in Zen, regardless of how you got it (cash or dilithium). Plus, you'll have to spend time getting all those characters up to level 7.
How do you get that much dilithium in 4 minutes? Is that by the "quickie" Foundry missions my friend told me about? Sounds like that will get nerfed or something at some point.
Did you get your D'Kora yet? I think i have an extra one someplace...
Wait, so if you subscribe for one month, then you've unlocked all of Gold's features (except the stipend and VRs), even if you drop to Silver the following month? Then what's the point of a subscription at all? I'm a bit confused...
There IS no point. That's the point.
This is why there was so much hoopla when the F2P beta came 'round and this fact came to light. Essentially a one time fifteen dollar investment buys something that pretty closely mirrors an LTS minus the stipend and the Vet Reward bonus items. There is no real reason to keep subscribing monthly, and anyone who is doing so should have stopped the moment F2P came about.
That's the value of the subscription; fifteen bucks.
Why do you think they're running an LTS sale right now and added the 1000 Day/Day 1 Perk? Because ultimately that's what the LTS is... it's a really bad deal on a fifteen dollar product, a skimpy package of "bonus items" and a meager stipend that will be years before it pays off, and this in a game with pretty heavy churn (which just about any social player can attest to thanks to Friends List rollover). They're doing this because, really, it's going to pay off for them. And they know this.
It would take an absolute miracle for Cryptic to lose out with LTSes.
Albeit, to be fair in regards to monthly subbing, you only keep the benefits that you achieved while Gold. Though you DO unlock them retroactively. So when they raise the level cap, after you've leveled your characters to cap again you'd have to subscribe for another single month to get and keep the additional rewards for your character(s). Of course, they've have to raise the level cap MONTHLY to make subbing a monthly a good idea with that in mind... and they obviously aren't doing that. Oh, and you'd also have to do this if you decide to create a new alt... except of course there's little reason to create alts anymore since they tweaked the skill trees...
Which is why I think LTS is currently cash only. That's an actual revenue input into the system.
You're missing it; there's NO free lunches.
Promotional Points gained through "Free" Zen offers net PWE money. Stipend points are still bought with each subscription. There's NO free Zen. PWE/Cryptic ALWAYS get paid. That's the "beauty" of the Dilithium/Zen system. That's why it exists and we can't circumvent them getting paid anymore with Emblems like we used to be able to.
If you farm a tonne of Dilithium and sell it for Zen, whether YOU bought that Zen or not, PWE still got money for it one way or another.
And, while we're dealing with a digital service, keep in mind that *services* have overhead. Staffing, hosting, maintenance, royalties, etc. all have to be paid...
The overhead is relatively static (barring perhaps some overtime pay), which ultimately means it's all about return on investment. And none of this is effected by stipends. Whether someone buys $25 worth of Zen directly, or buys a subscription with a $300 lump sum which nets them $5 worth of Zen a month, that Zen is still paid for. And when you consider the average lifespans of MMOs these days, and the effect of churn (especially in a F2P game)... ultimately it becomes almost impossible to get $300 worth of Zen from that $300 investment, and when the F2P changeover occurred they made it abundantly clear that was what the LTS was buying you; a stipend and some bonus items, because reoccurring subscriptions were made, essentially, valueless. That's why we have a stipend...
Trick being, however, is getting the 40 characters. At 1065 Zen for 4, or 625 for 2? You've already spent well over $100 in Zen, regardless of how you got it (cash or dilithium). Plus, you'll have to spend time getting all those characters up to level 7.
How do you get that much dilithium in 4 minutes? Is that by the "quickie" Foundry missions my friend told me about? Sounds like that will get nerfed or something at some point.
Yes by doing the investgate officer daily report with console quickie's - which I had heard Cryptic planned to do away with so I created this thread:
The overhead is relatively static (barring perhaps some overtime pay), which ultimately means it's all about return on investment. And none of this is effected by stipends. Whether someone buys $25 worth of Zen directly, or buys a subscription with a $300 lump sum which nets them $5 worth of Zen a month, that Zen is still paid for. And when you consider the average lifespans of MMOs these days, and the effect of churn (especially in a F2P game)... ultimately it becomes almost impossible to get $300 worth of Zen from that $300 investment, and when the F2P changeover occurred they made it abundantly clear that was what the LTS was buying you; a stipend and some bonus items, because reoccurring subscriptions were made, essentially, valueless. That's why we have a stipend...
To get a LTS from C store with zen and then get zen stipend is IMO stupid.If they will ever sell LTS or normal subs in c store they need to remove the monthly zen from offer ...I mean you pay zen for zen
I don't 100% agree with you, but that does change things up a bit. Of course, the LTS had a different value proposition when I got it last year, and for my friends who bought it out of the gate.
So, a subscriber/LTS basically "only" gets:
Free respec tokens
Veteran Rewards
Priority Login (theoretically)
Voice chat with no ads
Stipend
Better customer service (theoretically)
Do Silver players lose Foundry Creation access? Or is that retained?
Primarily curious here.
edit: I should note that LTS seems to be "whale food," something for high-spenders. And, certainly, as someone whose only really gotten into the forums recently, this is all news to me. I suspect, if STO is like other MMOs, the majority of players will never come here. Hell, some of the folks I know actively avoid any official forums, feeling they're unhelpful and toxic.
edit2: Is CO's subscription/LTS similarly flawed?
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays http://samonmaui.blogspot.com As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
I don't 100% agree with you, but that does change things up a bit. Of course, the LTS had a different value proposition when I got it last year, and for my friends who bought it out of the gate.
So, a subscriber/LTS basically "only" gets:
Free respec tokens
Veteran Rewards
Priority Login (theoretically)
Voice chat with no ads
Stipend
Better customer service (theoretically)
Do Silver players lose Foundry Creation access? Or is that retained?
Primarily curious here.
here's my $.02
I bought my LTS during the beta offer from Atari which also came with something like 2k Cstore points (the pre-zen, zen) (in the nature of full disclosure, I'll also admit that I had bought like 4 pre-order copies for their various bonus's.) - I played STO for 3 month's or so, then switched to play Champions Online as a silver player, and did buy some stuff in that game with cash as well.
I come and go with the game, not because I don't enjoy it, but because of work (before that school) I only have enough time in a day to play one game (currently GW2) - Since I have a LTS to this game, I lurk these forums daily, occasionally releasing my bad spelling and grammar upon them in replies as well.
there is a big draw for LTS that most people over look, Playable Borg Captain. - true the abilities arn't supper spectacular, but that's what keep's this from being a pay to win game - which I think is a good thing.
(just a random thought about pay to win in general - I've got most of the goodies that are out there to get got, and decent silver players still get the best of me from time to time in PvP. A reason subbing might not seem like you get a lot, is because it doesn't give you an instant win button, just little mostly cosmetic bonus' )
edit - we also get extra character, ship, bank slots - and bank access in the captains ready room - as well.
As to Priority Login, I have never had to wait to get into the game, unless I have to download a patch on this slow TRIBBLE DSL first. Also - I have read silvers complaining about waiting on day's that I had no problems logging in and out all day.
On topic to this thread -
O.P. - you already have the ability to earn an LTS, it's called working. - taking a min wage job (dishwasher, floor sweeper, etc) and doing 10-12 hours a week will easily earn you the money to buy a LTS in a month - after that, quit. (wait staff in most of the restaurants and bars that i have worked can net that in a weekend just in tips).. - -that's what I did - as a second job, while full time in school.
not trying to be disrespectful or condescending, just factual. Why get yourself into a huff and waste your time (and breath) yelling at Cryptic, when you can just go get it done yourself?
Do Silver players lose Foundry Creation access? Or is that retained?
I would assume a Gold-to-Silver player would keep their access to the Foundry Creator considering that's something Silvers can unlock anyway.
RE thread topic: If I want a LTS that bad, it would take less time to save a little money each month until I had enough to buy it. Plus I wouldn't have to worry about dilithium market fluctuations.
Since we are adding more currency to the game, can we get a Zen to LTS credit system so we can earn Dilithium to buy Zen to convert to credit to buy a LTS?
Nah. That won't happen. LTS is about cash money and avoiding paying $15 a month, so allowing you to grind to avoid that fee is HIGHLY unlikely.
If a person wants to it is easy to earn massive amounts of dilth per account
lets take a person that creates 40 characters - they keep all these characters at STA
every day they log on and do the lore and the investigate officers report
480+1440 dilth = 1920 per toon x 40 = 76,800 dilth per day or 500 Zen
logging in and out of each toon and time to do it take about 4 min x 40 = 160 min
so in less that 3 hrs you can get 500 zen per day
cheap labour as this works out to $1.70 per hour or about the hourly wage of someone working at the Apple plant in China
So much this. I've done this so much though to get that 200K for that one person star base, that I've burned myself out on this daily mission. Haven't done it for more than one character in over 2 weeks.
An LTS purchasable with Dilithium/Zen? It would be hilarious if they did this. The option of grinding alts mercilessly to eventually buy an LTS (which pays YOU back forever, and is the equivalent of real money) would be both ironic and irrational.
Ha ha ha. So very true. It would be the ULTIMATE promotion of this game being about grinding over all else.
It's 8k refinement cap for everyone but, yeah... Now, sure, they could buy ZEN on sale or they could do surveys and free offers for $50 or so of the total. But every one of those gets PWE cash.
PWE gets cash when people buy ZEN to sell. PWE gets cash from third parties when you do marketing offers.
PWE still gets $300. There is no issue.
This is like being upset that someone else bought their sub with a Mastercard as opposed to a VISA or with birthday money instead of a paycheck.
How DARE anyone use freebie birthday money instead of hard work & grit to get my LTS rewards. :P
Nah. That won't happen. LTS is about cash money and avoiding paying $15 a month, so allowing you to grind to avoid that fee is HIGHLY unlikely.
I agree, but I think it's not entirely about the money.
They could theorethically do this. Cryptic doesn't need to care where the money is coming from. With every zen in the game having been paid for by someone, somewhere, they could sell an LTS for 30,000 zen, and monthly subs (sans stipend) for 1,000, and still make the same amount of money. Theorethically.
In practice, though, in particular in the case of a monthly variant, F2Pers who now have to buy subscription benefits piecemail can do the math and get them for a fraction of the grind, and by extension, a fraction of the income to Cryptic as they're not encouraging other players to buy zen to sell on the exchange. If you're going for that, Cryptic'd much rather have your credit card number, get ten extra bucks out of you and let you spend your stipend and someone else's dilithium-exchanged zen on a ship. So a C-store sub probably ought to be more expensive, if there's going to be one.
The LTS represents a sufficiently greater sum of zen to make that concern fade, somewhat. It's become a threshold thing. But there there is another concern: At the current exchange rate, $300 dollars is 30,000 zen, which in turn (presently) represents 4,800,000 refined dilithium. To grind that on one character costs a minimum of 600 days. 300 if both an F2Per's character slots max out their daily dilithium refinement, and nothing else is bought. It may be wise to buy two extra character slots with a couple of days worth of ground zen, to halve that number again, to a mere 5 months, but then you'd have to pretty much play this game full-time. And even a dayjob gives you the weekends off.
Worse yet, it may even be considered morally dubious. MMOs are traditionally notorious for their tendency to swallow up large swaths of the lives of people who, often, weren't doing that great in the social life department anyway. And this game has quite a few people chasing that dilithium dragon already. (That should totally be a non-combat pet, by the way.) Something like this could get some very concerned parents involved, and all the people they drag in along with them, and could burn out players, so I think putting 30,000 zen items on the Z-store might just be crossing a few more lines than even PWE is comfortable with.
Besides, the only reason we still have subs at all is cause they sold LTSes before F2P, and they didn't want to rile up the people who bought them, which was never that hard to do. If there'd never been LTSes, subs would've been done away with completely. (Strictly speaking, STO is not F2P, STO is essentially Freemium. And I don't know, but I don't think any other PWE games use that model.)
I'd love that too, but I suspect it'd make Cryptic/PWE's customer service department quit over the thoughts of TRIBBLE/fraudulent charges.
Of course, i wish I had the money to do that too! I could afford it, but it'd be unwise
Yeah, I agree on this point. It's likely why we will never see a gift system and must just deal with the exchange, mail and fleet systems to send other's gifts but never dilithium.
Which has nothing to do with the fact that someone still has to buy the zen that is being traded for dilithium.
People forget that each zen is bought with real world money and someone who grinds will only get zen already bought with real world money.Grinding only removes the zen from the market which creates a demand ....so it only helps cyrptic making money from sellin zen :rolleyes:
Real life companies must have real money or negotiables to operate. Developers, admin staff, techs, every Cryptic employee needs an income to live, eat, have shelter, etc.
Zen is not money. Lobi is not money. Energy credits are not money. Outside the game none of these have any value. Pixels and graphics aren't put in your pocket to bring to show and tell. This is why the Free to play model is so broke. Paying for a sub means the staff get their cookies and milk. They then can keep the game supported. Paying a little cash for some extras means we get some more content and maybe hire some more Taco Heads to make pretty s'plosions. Buying an LTS with real money means it has value.
F2p means a free ride using what others pay to increase player numbers while generating a fluctuating less dependable amount of capitol. Buying an LTS with make believe money is no different that using counterfeit bills to pay the bills.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
People forget that each zen is bought with real world money and someone who grinds will only get zen already bought with real world money.Grinding only removes the zen from the market which creates a demand ....so it only helps cyrptic making money from sellin zen :rolleyes:
People forget that each zen is bought with real world money and someone who grinds will only get zen already bought with real world money.Grinding only removes the zen from the market which creates a demand ....so it only helps cyrptic making money from sellin zen :rolleyes:
aside from buying Dil for starbase projects, there's no real point for a sane person to buy zen just to trade - and that need will dry up eventually. the bulk of Zen available on the market is most likely coming from lifers, and other gold members getting rid of their excess stipened - which doesn't bring in more money for cryptic.
Real life companies must have real money or negotiables to operate. Developers, admin staff, techs, every Cryptic employee needs an income to live, eat, have shelter, etc.
Zen is not money. Lobi is not money. Energy credits are not money. Outside the game none of these have any value. Pixels and graphics aren't put in your pocket to bring to show and tell. This is why the Free to play model is so broke. Paying for a sub means the staff get their cookies and milk. They then can keep the game supported. Paying a little cash for some extras means we get some more content and maybe hire some more Taco Heads to make pretty s'plosions. Buying an LTS with real money means it has value.
F2p means a free ride using what others pay to increase player numbers while generating a fluctuating less dependable amount of capitol. Buying an LTS with make believe money is no different that using counterfeit bills to pay the bills.
Tell that to Linden Labs : they became a multi-million $$ company due to the value of a virtual currency in 2nd life. There is no such thing as "real "and "unreal " money , everything is based on what folks agree has value . If all people decided overnight one peanut = 1 million $ it would be so .
aside from buying Dil for starbase projects, there's no real point for a sane person to buy zen just to trade - and that need will dry up eventually. the bulk of Zen available on the market is most likely coming from lifers, and other gold members getting rid of their excess stipened - which doesn't bring in more money for cryptic.
They told us a while back that the majority of stipends are used to purchase lock box keys, so that kills your theory that they are "the bulk" of what is available on the market for trade.
aside from buying Dil for starbase projects, there's no real point for a sane person to buy zen just to trade - and that need will dry up eventually. the bulk of Zen available on the market is most likely coming from lifers, and other gold members getting rid of their excess stipened - which doesn't bring in more money for cryptic.
Perhaps you have better ways of doing things, but I'd wager there's enough players out there who don't that will keep the Dilithium Exchange moving along. Also, while any player might be able to earn enough Dilithium to buy things with Dilithium costs, not every player wants to. If their time is more valuable to them than their money, putting down $5-$10 to buy Zen to exchange for Dilithium isn't exactly a horrible proposition.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays http://samonmaui.blogspot.com As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
my suspicion is ( given how I perceive things ) is that a lot of folks use the dil exchange for buying character slots at first and once they have alts the likelihood of them buying zen eventually for one of those alts increases dramatically ( which is exactly the point for PWE/Cryptic ) . But it all boils down to what folks think of as "reasonable " in the end . How much do you get for your cash is the most important question . I'm thinking 45 euro for 5000 zen is excessive : you don't get a "full game " that never expires for your cash , you get cosmetics ( for example : a full price retail title game like GW 2 costs 45 euro as well but that is in effect a lifetime subscription)
Comments
Perhaps they could go through a 3rd party like playspan or shattered crystal? Or maybe they could make it something you could buy for someone only after you have given them security information. I would not mind giving them ID hoping that it would also afford my account some protection if i got TRIBBLE in the future. anyway where there is a will there is a way...
lets take a person that creates 40 characters - they keep all these characters at STA
every day they log on and do the lore and the investigate officers report
480+1440 dilth = 1920 per toon x 40 = 76,800 dilth per day or 500 Zen
logging in and out of each toon and time to do it take about 4 min x 40 = 160 min
so in less that 3 hrs you can get 500 zen per day
cheap labour as this works out to $1.70 per hour or about the hourly wage of someone working at the Apple plant in China
And what has that to do with zen?
Zen is paid with real world money.For cryptic is not important who worked for the money (Im sure some people here would want proof of purchase for zen and some kind of finger print ID) and who grinded dilithium..the zen is already paid.
Zen is bought (and by the time that chinese gets it is already paid) with real world money ...who uses it is not important.
Trick being, however, is getting the 40 characters. At 1065 Zen for 4, or 625 for 2? You've already spent well over $100 in Zen, regardless of how you got it (cash or dilithium). Plus, you'll have to spend time getting all those characters up to level 7.
How do you get that much dilithium in 4 minutes? Is that by the "quickie" Foundry missions my friend told me about? Sounds like that will get nerfed or something at some point.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
I find that a drag. I have about 16 toons on my first 2 LTS and just got a 3rd LTS but have just the one toon on that so far. Sure i get a bit of dilithium that way and more importantly fleet marks; but that is work not play. I prefer to do more enjoyable things with the short amount of time i actually have to play these days. So, let people in China have work im happy to help subsidize their jobs. The more financial bonds there are between the USA and China the better. It makes them more partners than rivals. Heck, i should get a Nobel peace prize as should anyone else that buys dilithium with zen!!!
Did you get your D'Kora yet? I think i have an extra one someplace...
There IS no point. That's the point.
This is why there was so much hoopla when the F2P beta came 'round and this fact came to light. Essentially a one time fifteen dollar investment buys something that pretty closely mirrors an LTS minus the stipend and the Vet Reward bonus items. There is no real reason to keep subscribing monthly, and anyone who is doing so should have stopped the moment F2P came about.
That's the value of the subscription; fifteen bucks.
Why do you think they're running an LTS sale right now and added the 1000 Day/Day 1 Perk? Because ultimately that's what the LTS is... it's a really bad deal on a fifteen dollar product, a skimpy package of "bonus items" and a meager stipend that will be years before it pays off, and this in a game with pretty heavy churn (which just about any social player can attest to thanks to Friends List rollover). They're doing this because, really, it's going to pay off for them. And they know this.
It would take an absolute miracle for Cryptic to lose out with LTSes.
Albeit, to be fair in regards to monthly subbing, you only keep the benefits that you achieved while Gold. Though you DO unlock them retroactively. So when they raise the level cap, after you've leveled your characters to cap again you'd have to subscribe for another single month to get and keep the additional rewards for your character(s). Of course, they've have to raise the level cap MONTHLY to make subbing a monthly a good idea with that in mind... and they obviously aren't doing that. Oh, and you'd also have to do this if you decide to create a new alt... except of course there's little reason to create alts anymore since they tweaked the skill trees...
You're missing it; there's NO free lunches.
Promotional Points gained through "Free" Zen offers net PWE money. Stipend points are still bought with each subscription. There's NO free Zen. PWE/Cryptic ALWAYS get paid. That's the "beauty" of the Dilithium/Zen system. That's why it exists and we can't circumvent them getting paid anymore with Emblems like we used to be able to.
If you farm a tonne of Dilithium and sell it for Zen, whether YOU bought that Zen or not, PWE still got money for it one way or another.
The overhead is relatively static (barring perhaps some overtime pay), which ultimately means it's all about return on investment. And none of this is effected by stipends. Whether someone buys $25 worth of Zen directly, or buys a subscription with a $300 lump sum which nets them $5 worth of Zen a month, that Zen is still paid for. And when you consider the average lifespans of MMOs these days, and the effect of churn (especially in a F2P game)... ultimately it becomes almost impossible to get $300 worth of Zen from that $300 investment, and when the F2P changeover occurred they made it abundantly clear that was what the LTS was buying you; a stipend and some bonus items, because reoccurring subscriptions were made, essentially, valueless. That's why we have a stipend...
Yes by doing the investgate officer daily report with console quickie's - which I had heard Cryptic planned to do away with so I created this thread:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=414341
The last post in the thread was by branflakes where he denies that this will happen then he closed the thread.
To get a LTS from C store with zen and then get zen stipend is IMO stupid.If they will ever sell LTS or normal subs in c store they need to remove the monthly zen from offer ...I mean you pay zen for zen
Okay, I understand now. Interesting...
I don't 100% agree with you, but that does change things up a bit. Of course, the LTS had a different value proposition when I got it last year, and for my friends who bought it out of the gate.
So, a subscriber/LTS basically "only" gets:
Do Silver players lose Foundry Creation access? Or is that retained?
Primarily curious here.
edit: I should note that LTS seems to be "whale food," something for high-spenders. And, certainly, as someone whose only really gotten into the forums recently, this is all news to me. I suspect, if STO is like other MMOs, the majority of players will never come here. Hell, some of the folks I know actively avoid any official forums, feeling they're unhelpful and toxic.
edit2: Is CO's subscription/LTS similarly flawed?
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
here's my $.02
I bought my LTS during the beta offer from Atari which also came with something like 2k Cstore points (the pre-zen, zen) (in the nature of full disclosure, I'll also admit that I had bought like 4 pre-order copies for their various bonus's.) - I played STO for 3 month's or so, then switched to play Champions Online as a silver player, and did buy some stuff in that game with cash as well.
I come and go with the game, not because I don't enjoy it, but because of work (before that school) I only have enough time in a day to play one game (currently GW2) - Since I have a LTS to this game, I lurk these forums daily, occasionally releasing my bad spelling and grammar upon them in replies as well.
there is a big draw for LTS that most people over look, Playable Borg Captain. - true the abilities arn't supper spectacular, but that's what keep's this from being a pay to win game - which I think is a good thing.
(just a random thought about pay to win in general - I've got most of the goodies that are out there to get got, and decent silver players still get the best of me from time to time in PvP. A reason subbing might not seem like you get a lot, is because it doesn't give you an instant win button, just little mostly cosmetic bonus' )
edit - we also get extra character, ship, bank slots - and bank access in the captains ready room - as well.
As to Priority Login, I have never had to wait to get into the game, unless I have to download a patch on this slow TRIBBLE DSL first. Also - I have read silvers complaining about waiting on day's that I had no problems logging in and out all day.
On topic to this thread -
O.P. - you already have the ability to earn an LTS, it's called working. - taking a min wage job (dishwasher, floor sweeper, etc) and doing 10-12 hours a week will easily earn you the money to buy a LTS in a month - after that, quit. (wait staff in most of the restaurants and bars that i have worked can net that in a weekend just in tips).. - -that's what I did - as a second job, while full time in school.
not trying to be disrespectful or condescending, just factual. Why get yourself into a huff and waste your time (and breath) yelling at Cryptic, when you can just go get it done yourself?
Me playing UT2k4 (red guy) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz0DnP7wXnU
I would assume a Gold-to-Silver player would keep their access to the Foundry Creator considering that's something Silvers can unlock anyway.
RE thread topic: If I want a LTS that bad, it would take less time to save a little money each month until I had enough to buy it. Plus I wouldn't have to worry about dilithium market fluctuations.
But I don't feel the game is worth the $300. :P
Nah. That won't happen. LTS is about cash money and avoiding paying $15 a month, so allowing you to grind to avoid that fee is HIGHLY unlikely.
So much this. I've done this so much though to get that 200K for that one person star base, that I've burned myself out on this daily mission. Haven't done it for more than one character in over 2 weeks.
Ha ha ha. So very true. It would be the ULTIMATE promotion of this game being about grinding over all else.
Which has nothing to do with the fact that someone still has to buy the zen that is being traded for dilithium.
How DARE anyone use freebie birthday money instead of hard work & grit to get my LTS rewards. :P
I agree, but I think it's not entirely about the money.
They could theorethically do this. Cryptic doesn't need to care where the money is coming from. With every zen in the game having been paid for by someone, somewhere, they could sell an LTS for 30,000 zen, and monthly subs (sans stipend) for 1,000, and still make the same amount of money. Theorethically.
In practice, though, in particular in the case of a monthly variant, F2Pers who now have to buy subscription benefits piecemail can do the math and get them for a fraction of the grind, and by extension, a fraction of the income to Cryptic as they're not encouraging other players to buy zen to sell on the exchange. If you're going for that, Cryptic'd much rather have your credit card number, get ten extra bucks out of you and let you spend your stipend and someone else's dilithium-exchanged zen on a ship. So a C-store sub probably ought to be more expensive, if there's going to be one.
The LTS represents a sufficiently greater sum of zen to make that concern fade, somewhat. It's become a threshold thing. But there there is another concern: At the current exchange rate, $300 dollars is 30,000 zen, which in turn (presently) represents 4,800,000 refined dilithium. To grind that on one character costs a minimum of 600 days. 300 if both an F2Per's character slots max out their daily dilithium refinement, and nothing else is bought. It may be wise to buy two extra character slots with a couple of days worth of ground zen, to halve that number again, to a mere 5 months, but then you'd have to pretty much play this game full-time. And even a dayjob gives you the weekends off.
Worse yet, it may even be considered morally dubious. MMOs are traditionally notorious for their tendency to swallow up large swaths of the lives of people who, often, weren't doing that great in the social life department anyway. And this game has quite a few people chasing that dilithium dragon already. (That should totally be a non-combat pet, by the way.) Something like this could get some very concerned parents involved, and all the people they drag in along with them, and could burn out players, so I think putting 30,000 zen items on the Z-store might just be crossing a few more lines than even PWE is comfortable with.
Besides, the only reason we still have subs at all is cause they sold LTSes before F2P, and they didn't want to rile up the people who bought them, which was never that hard to do. If there'd never been LTSes, subs would've been done away with completely. (Strictly speaking, STO is not F2P, STO is essentially Freemium. And I don't know, but I don't think any other PWE games use that model.)
Yeah, I agree on this point. It's likely why we will never see a gift system and must just deal with the exchange, mail and fleet systems to send other's gifts but never dilithium.
People forget that each zen is bought with real world money and someone who grinds will only get zen already bought with real world money.Grinding only removes the zen from the market which creates a demand ....so it only helps cyrptic making money from sellin zen :rolleyes:
Zen is not money. Lobi is not money. Energy credits are not money. Outside the game none of these have any value. Pixels and graphics aren't put in your pocket to bring to show and tell. This is why the Free to play model is so broke. Paying for a sub means the staff get their cookies and milk. They then can keep the game supported. Paying a little cash for some extras means we get some more content and maybe hire some more Taco Heads to make pretty s'plosions. Buying an LTS with real money means it has value.
F2p means a free ride using what others pay to increase player numbers while generating a fluctuating less dependable amount of capitol. Buying an LTS with make believe money is no different that using counterfeit bills to pay the bills.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
Common sense is not as common as they claim.
No kidding
http://www.principalspage.com/theblog/wp-content/uploads//2008/02/commonsense.jpg
http://talkradiox.com/files/images/Common%20Sense.jpg
aside from buying Dil for starbase projects, there's no real point for a sane person to buy zen just to trade - and that need will dry up eventually. the bulk of Zen available on the market is most likely coming from lifers, and other gold members getting rid of their excess stipened - which doesn't bring in more money for cryptic.
Me playing UT2k4 (red guy) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz0DnP7wXnU
Tell that to Linden Labs : they became a multi-million $$ company due to the value of a virtual currency in 2nd life. There is no such thing as "real "and "unreal " money , everything is based on what folks agree has value . If all people decided overnight one peanut = 1 million $ it would be so .
They told us a while back that the majority of stipends are used to purchase lock box keys, so that kills your theory that they are "the bulk" of what is available on the market for trade.
http://www.stowiki.org/Dilithium#Redemption
Perhaps you have better ways of doing things, but I'd wager there's enough players out there who don't that will keep the Dilithium Exchange moving along. Also, while any player might be able to earn enough Dilithium to buy things with Dilithium costs, not every player wants to. If their time is more valuable to them than their money, putting down $5-$10 to buy Zen to exchange for Dilithium isn't exactly a horrible proposition.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.