Well, if it is truly economics that is preventing Cryptic from creating Klingon content and only 16% of players on the KDF side, then it is 16% of revenue they won't make.
Assuming there are 150K players, then 24K are KDF. At $50 USD per ship bundle (assuming all purchased), comes to $1.2 million that Cryptic doesn't want.
I do support Cryptic. I have a Dekora, Tuffli, bug ship, and I have purchased the last three ship bundles. Yes, I did purchase the Vesta bundle, but I did it more for Cryptic than a want for the ship. I said I would stop purchasing Fed content unless it had a KDF equivalent vessel, but I hadn't purchased anything in a while it was an impulse buy. I also own 85-90% of the C-Store.
I would gladly (read: happily) invest just as much into KDF only content if it were available.
So anyway, not putting Klingon content isn't hurting my bottom line as it doesn't cost me anything to come on the forum tell them what I want. The Money has been sitting here waiting for them since 2010.
That's not really how it works.
Let's pretend a ship costs $5,000 and ignore that things like bugfixes need to be subsized by ship sales too. That's less than my previous estimate by a LOT.
Economic cost is determined by the sum of the cost of a decision and the opportunity cost of what isn't made with those same resources.
Let's say there are 200,000 players and 10% of those spend money. So you have 20,000 spenders. And let's say they all buy every ship you make that they can use. And that's all being very generous because I know I spend a lot and buy less than one fifth of the ships released.
That's 3,200 Klingon spenders and 16,800 Fed spenders. And for the sake of this calculation, we'll pretend they buy one in five ships because for a cost calculation, it winds up being more generous regarding the cost of a Klingon ship.
At $25 a ship... That's 640 Klingon sales and 3360 Fed sales.
Making a Fed ship has an economic cost of $21,000. ($16,000 in lost Klingon sales and a $5,000 cost to make.)
Making a Klingon ship has an economic cost of $89,000. ($84,000 in lost Federation sales and a $5,000 cost to make.)
Meaning they're down $68,000 every time they make a Klingon ship with resources that could have gone into a Fed ship. (There are hidden costs and benefits here but they can't be precisely calculated. Stipends also matter but they mainly just make Cryptic's costs higher since they have to be recorded on the books as a liability under GAAP since gift cards and promotional store credit generally have to be.)
Napkin math says they're down over $200k every time they do anything other than a lockbox ship, assuming they thought lockbox sales were sustainable. So one might argue they should only do lockbox ships. But the obvious answer there is that they DON'T see lockbox ships as a sustainable and constant revenue driver when compared to regular ships. Which is why they do non-lockbox ships at all.
But unless there's some reason why Fed players are less sustainable as customers than Klingon players and by a pretty dramatic margin, Fed ships make more economic sense. If anything, I'd wager Klingon players are less sustainable... and that's mainly do to mishandling on Cryptic's part perhaps but I think we're possibly at a point where a pure numbers perspective to say that fixing that is more trouble than it's worth.
And there's really only one big counter-argument to that, financially: PvP. Which is theoretically cheaper to support than PvE in an MMO. (I have grave doubts about this.)
So you need some kind of financial gamechanger to make the KDF financially worth supporting with new releases, even in the C-Store.
And running down the list, these boil down to:
- Enhancing PvP.
- Enhancing PvE cooperation.
- Providing a superior Klingon product with unique incentives to play Klingon.
- Trying to shift the focus of the game away from ship sales. If they can make the same or better money without a focus on new ships, the whole "which ship has the lowest economic cost" argument becomes moot. If ships are a smaller piece of the pie or less desirable to make on the whole, KDF can get more equal footing.
- Increasing the size of the KDF playerbase through promotion... but only once the faction is on par.
- Taking the risk out of KDF ship development or ship development in general. This is where pledge systems can be beneficial. And ideally, you do it in such a way that people who don't play Klingon have incentives to subsidize Klingon players getting ships.
- Reducing barriers to purchase. Maybe for example allowing all tier ships at any level. Also, possibly eliminating faction restrictions on ships through some mechanism. (For example: if Diplomacy allowed use of any C-Store KDF ships you owned on Fed alts and Marauding allowed use of any Fed ships you own on Klingons.) (Or, heck, just making the consoles all work cross faction.) Also in here: reducing leveling. As-in, maybe allowing people to opt into skipping it after having done it once.
- Increasing mutually shared burden of purchase. For example, have Klingon ships unlocked by Federation friends by allowing Fed and KDF fleets to link up and share progress. Something like a mega-holding, a Fed/KDF embassy with double the requirements of a starbase. Effectively get Feds to underwrite KDF players somehow.
No your not the only one.
Though I am no longer shocked. This is the same old story for KDF fans and why many fan clubs have not bothered with STO after the KDF where first rolled under the bus before release.
Why do you have an obvious lie or misleading - no hope in hell - Dan Stahl statement in your sig? Or did Mr Stahl just make a typo and he ment 2018??
Using stoleviathan99 number of $5000 being the cost to build a ship:
Lets say they sell $6000 from KDF ships and $26,000 from Fed ships. Sure they made more money off the Fed ships but they also made money off the KDF ships. They should build be building both ships. To say that building KDF ships doesn't make money is what most of us just don't believe. We can probably guess which ships they've lost money on but that's probably because the ships didn't appeal the the KDF players, that's on them and not on us. But if they eventually sell enough of these ships they will break even and should not be considered a loss.
There are intangibles that can't be calculated when it comes to building the KDF. Better KDF content will lead to more dedicated KDF players. Lets say you convert 100 die hard, anti KDF fed fans (a really really low number) and they buy 3 ships each.** That's 600000Z, which should be enough to warrant some time spent developing the KDF.
** 100 is a pretty low number compared to how much people play STO, and the KDF easily has more then 3 ships worth buying.
If they don't bite the bullet soon and stop with their downright lies and false excuses this game will probably be dead within a year. Why? Because there are other MMO's coming that are F2P and will bleed away at this games playerbase just by providing simple things such as distinct factions, pvp rewards, exploration and better gameplay mechanics.
If they don't bite the bullet soon and stop with their downright lies and false excuses this game will probably be dead within a year. Why? Because there are other MMO's coming that are F2P and will bleed away at this games playerbase just by providing simple things such as distinct factions, pvp rewards, exploration and better gameplay mechanics.
Those exist already, it doesn't make a difference. People play this games cause its Star Trek.
If they don't bite the bullet soon and stop with their downright lies and false excuses this game will probably be dead within a year. Why? Because there are other MMO's coming that are F2P and will bleed away at this games playerbase just by providing simple things such as distinct factions, pvp rewards, exploration and better gameplay mechanics.
Funny, I've heard that about once a month since the game launched. It's still here and if anything the update cadence is quicker.
The reason why the Feds outnumber the KDF is because there wasn't much KDF content to begin with.
Cryptic: "We'll make more KDF content when there are more players on that side"
Players: "We'll make more KDF characters when there's more content on that side"
You know the old saying.....THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!
I started playing end of September 2012 and when I unlocked the character slot and was able to make a KDF toon I was excited. 2 days later I was bored as hell with it. My Klink is basically just for doff assignments for whatever Dilithium I can get and maybe a little contraband here and there. Only once every couple weeks I might go out and do some dailies to hit my Dil cap but I don't even want to do that anymore. It's a damn shame too because I love my Klingon toon.
To hell with the "only 16% of the people at Star Trek conventions are dressed like Klingons". Those people might not even play STO. What we have is a very vocal GAMING community wanting more KDF content. Not a bunch of basement dwellers going to Star Trek conventions. Harcore fans like that are pretty adamant about canon and such. If they don't think something is correct they won't even bother with it, such as playing STO. Just my 2 energy credits.
Is it possible the whole reason we ain't getting new KDF stuff is because maybe the copyright/trademark holders of the Star Trek franchise don't want us to? If that is the case I wish dstahl would just come out and say it (but he's probably under an NDA about it or something, either that or he is a habitual liar).
You know the old saying.....THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!
I'm not disagreeing with the rest of your post, but those words make we wanna puke. The vast majority of the time the customer is an idiot or simply trying to weasel their way out of something. Or both :mad:
Lynis, Orion Engineer, main Rrezeth, Gorn Tactical, primary alt Nari, Orion Science, secondary alt
Lets say they sell $6000 from KDF ships and $26,000 from Fed ships. Sure they made more money off the Fed ships but they also made money off the KDF ships. They should build be building both ships. To say that building KDF ships doesn't make money is what most of us just don't believe. We can probably guess which ships they've lost money on but that's probably becaus
Belief is irrelevant. In order to justify that decision on an economic basis, designing that Fed ship would need to cost $20k in hidden expenses over the longrun (more because of lost interest), the KDF would need to generate $20k in longrun sales (the better possibility, if it can be shown that ship access retains players or lack of ship access in a faction causes them to quit at an unexpected rate -- and more because of lost interest, again), or the whole thing needs to have some kind of priority to make up the difference. For example, if the rate of market saturation for Fed ships is determined to be 8 ships a year (looking at marginal demand), then making the 9th ship Klingon might be worth it.
However, I don't see where an arbitrary notion of fairness is something to demand or expect from a company like Cryptic without the economics backing up why fairness is a good thing. At a certain point, yes, I'd imagine a reputation for unfairness has costs and for fairness has benefits. But the reverse can also be true. It mainly marginalizes PvP if a developer decides that fairness and honoring rules or past plans doesn't matter. I think by and large, outside of PvP and high end achievement gaming, fairness and even honor are probably pretty low as a motivating factor among MMO gamers when choosing a developer, provided the game is not frustrating for them to actually play. But that probably just suggests that bug fixes are more important than game balance, if true.
I'm not disagreeing with the rest of your post, but those words make we wanna puke. The vast majority of the time the customer is an idiot or simply trying to weasel their way out of something. Or both :mad:
Yeah, I agree. That policy just BEGS to be exploited.
Then there's the issue of what happens when your customers disagree with each other.... like on the forums.....
As I see it, speaking of KDF ship losses, the reason for it is the way the KDF is layed out:
Start at Commander level 20. While that doesn't affect C-Store ships, it does make a number of in game ships obsolete including the B'rel and the K'tanco
The amount of XP you get at the commander level is RIDICULOUS... do the tutorial, and the LtC and Commander story missions and you are already at captain.
Now, granted some of them have decent consoles, but if we're talking about the "average" player, they're not going to want to spend $10-15 on Commander level ships to use for maybe 3-4 hours of game time before they become useless.
VADM William "Darkshadow" Shadow | Join Date: Apr 2009 | USS Immortal NX-93608-F (Oddyssey Tactical Cruiser) VADM RogueshadowIRW Kirino Kosaka (Valdore Retrofit) LT General MorboIKS Karac (Bortasqu War Cruiser) LT General PosuIKS Saya Takagi (Chel Grett Warship)
The same is true for the low ranked Fed ships. Thunderchild becomes obsolete very quickly... But the console does not.
Honestly, if the was no tier system, or every ship had a T5 variant, that would make a lot of people very happy, and a lot of things more economically viable.
Cryptic needs to take a break from the ship madness for a while, and start cranking out other stuff.
Sure, the stars of the game are the ships, but if there's nothing you can do with them, then there's really no point now is there?
As I see it, speaking of KDF ship losses, the reason for it is the way the KDF is layed out:
Start at Commander level 20. While that doesn't affect C-Store ships, it does make a number of in game ships obsolete including the B'rel and the K'tanco
The amount of XP you get at the commander level is RIDICULOUS... do the tutorial, and the LtC and Commander story missions and you are already at captain.
Now, granted some of them have decent consoles, but if we're talking about the "average" player, they're not going to want to spend $10-15 on Commander level ships to use for maybe 3-4 hours of game time before they become useless.
You can't EVER say the B'Rel is obsolete.
NEVER
if THIS ship wasn't here, i would no longer play the game.
The B'rel is the alpha and omega of KDF. The Defiant is a joke. So are all teh cruisers.
There are some nice sci ships on the FED side.. but the B'Rel is the most elegant and enjoyable ship in the game. Take 5000 Hull of it, i would still fly it.
I'm flying it as a TAC , and i am killing stuff as a SCI, being the second or third in dmg in PVP matches with 0 to 1 deaths/match.
another lower KDF ships? i have most of them, for the consoles or just for fun while lvling alts. You don't buy low ships cause you NEED them, you buy them cause you WANT them.
The only next ship i would buy (except Romulan ships, which i would buy ALL) is a KDF sci ship with turn 17+ or a new/refit BOP with enhanced BC. /imagine the whining on the blue side/
Everything else is just a waste.
edit:
if cryptic ever implements romulans, i do expect ships which are CLEAR in what they are supposed to do.
Cruiser? Engi heavy and tanky
Sci ship? 3x sci, 2x Tac, 15 turn rate
Tac? yeah, defiant 2
BOP? B'rel without hull, without shields, enhanced BC, one more console. GREEN PLEASE
if THIS ship wasn't here, i would no longer play the game.
The B'rel is the alpha and omega of KDF. The Defiant is a joke. So are all teh cruisers.
There are some nice sci ships on the FED side.. but the B'Rel is the most elegant and enjoyable ship in the game. Take 5000 Hull of it, i would still fly it.
I stand corrected ;-)
another lower KDF ships? i have most of them, for the consoles or just for fun while lvling alts. You don't buy low ships cause you NEED them, you buy them cause you WANT them.
While I agree here (being an altaholic myself), that is the point though, buying them because you WANT them. Again, a casual player, someone likely to only run 1 or 2 KDF chars will not have any need (or want) for these ships because they don't care about the consoles, and with the way XP is given out, you're not in them long enough to be seen. If you only run 1 or 2 KDF, are you going to spend $15 on a ship you will only be in for at most 1 day?
edit:
if cryptic ever implements romulans, i do expect ships which are CLEAR in what they are supposed to do.
Cruiser? Engi heavy and tanky
Sci ship? 3x sci, 2x Tac, 15 turn rate
Tac? yeah, defiant 2
BOP? B'rel without hull, without shields, enhanced BC, one more console. GREEN PLEASE
As far as the normal Romy ships we see in the game, I don't think they have a defined sci ship do they? Cruisers, escorts and BoP's are all I see (like KDF before the Gorn ships) because Cryptic doesn't believe that anyone but the Fed's know about science ;-)
All I am saying is, back off the XP gain (or you know, FLESH OUT THE FACTION), so that it's worth getting into Commander/Captain level ships, because as it stands now, there's no point in even flying them if it only takes an hour or 2 to level them. I personally own all 3 Orion cruisers, and I LOVE the look of the Decoit and the Corsair, and HATE the "Steam Iron" for Generals... would love ot see more people in them.
VADM William "Darkshadow" Shadow | Join Date: Apr 2009 | USS Immortal NX-93608-F (Oddyssey Tactical Cruiser) VADM RogueshadowIRW Kirino Kosaka (Valdore Retrofit) LT General MorboIKS Karac (Bortasqu War Cruiser) LT General PosuIKS Saya Takagi (Chel Grett Warship)
The same is true for the low ranked Fed ships. Thunderchild becomes obsolete very quickly... But the console does not.
That's true, though not QUITE as fast as KDF at commander level... Hell, by the time you are done the tutorial on the KDF side, you are already 3 levels into Commander, and that's before you even ever leave the ground. Add the Lt Commander and Commander Story missions and your first "explore" and "defend" and you are done.
Sure they did it to make up for the lack of content, but they are shooting themselves in the foot trying to sell lower tier ships, because nobody needs them.
I have levelled a character under each system:
The no-content/pvp system, the 1 or 2 mission episodes at each rank, and the "start at 20 and here's tons of XP" system. While the first system was hard, it was quite a bit more satisfying... earning your ranks instead of practically being handed them.
VADM William "Darkshadow" Shadow | Join Date: Apr 2009 | USS Immortal NX-93608-F (Oddyssey Tactical Cruiser) VADM RogueshadowIRW Kirino Kosaka (Valdore Retrofit) LT General MorboIKS Karac (Bortasqu War Cruiser) LT General PosuIKS Saya Takagi (Chel Grett Warship)
if THIS ship wasn't here, i would no longer play the game.
The B'rel is the alpha and omega of KDF. The Defiant is a joke. So are all teh cruisers.
There are some nice sci ships on the FED side.. but the B'Rel is the most elegant and enjoyable ship in the game. Take 5000 Hull of it, i would still fly it.
I'm flying it as a TAC , and i am killing stuff as a SCI, being the second or third in dmg in PVP matches with 0 to 1 deaths/match.
another lower KDF ships? i have most of them, for the consoles or just for fun while lvling alts. You don't buy low ships cause you NEED them, you buy them cause you WANT them.
The only next ship i would buy (except Romulan ships, which i would buy ALL) is a KDF sci ship with turn 17+ or a new/refit BOP with enhanced BC. /imagine the whining on the blue side/
Everything else is just a waste.
edit:
if cryptic ever implements romulans, i do expect ships which are CLEAR in what they are supposed to do.
Cruiser? Engi heavy and tanky
Sci ship? 3x sci, 2x Tac, 15 turn rate
Tac? yeah, defiant 2
BOP? B'rel without hull, without shields, enhanced BC, one more console. GREEN PLEASE
What about a fleet B'rel - I want that - it would be a big seller at tier 3 shipyard - same as fleet defiant
That's true, though not QUITE as fast as KDF at commander level... Hell, by the time you are done the tutorial on the KDF side, you are already 3 levels into Commander, and that's before you even ever leave the ground. Add the Lt Commander and Commander Story missions and your first "explore" and "defend" and you are done.
Sure they did it to make up for the lack of content, but they are shooting themselves in the foot trying to sell lower tier ships, because nobody needs them.
Agreed. If Cryptic took some steps to finishing KDF, I think a lot of people would at least consider giving it and its stuff a try.
Comments
That's not really how it works.
Let's pretend a ship costs $5,000 and ignore that things like bugfixes need to be subsized by ship sales too. That's less than my previous estimate by a LOT.
Economic cost is determined by the sum of the cost of a decision and the opportunity cost of what isn't made with those same resources.
Let's say there are 200,000 players and 10% of those spend money. So you have 20,000 spenders. And let's say they all buy every ship you make that they can use. And that's all being very generous because I know I spend a lot and buy less than one fifth of the ships released.
That's 3,200 Klingon spenders and 16,800 Fed spenders. And for the sake of this calculation, we'll pretend they buy one in five ships because for a cost calculation, it winds up being more generous regarding the cost of a Klingon ship.
At $25 a ship... That's 640 Klingon sales and 3360 Fed sales.
Making a Fed ship has an economic cost of $21,000. ($16,000 in lost Klingon sales and a $5,000 cost to make.)
Making a Klingon ship has an economic cost of $89,000. ($84,000 in lost Federation sales and a $5,000 cost to make.)
Meaning they're down $68,000 every time they make a Klingon ship with resources that could have gone into a Fed ship. (There are hidden costs and benefits here but they can't be precisely calculated. Stipends also matter but they mainly just make Cryptic's costs higher since they have to be recorded on the books as a liability under GAAP since gift cards and promotional store credit generally have to be.)
Napkin math says they're down over $200k every time they do anything other than a lockbox ship, assuming they thought lockbox sales were sustainable. So one might argue they should only do lockbox ships. But the obvious answer there is that they DON'T see lockbox ships as a sustainable and constant revenue driver when compared to regular ships. Which is why they do non-lockbox ships at all.
But unless there's some reason why Fed players are less sustainable as customers than Klingon players and by a pretty dramatic margin, Fed ships make more economic sense. If anything, I'd wager Klingon players are less sustainable... and that's mainly do to mishandling on Cryptic's part perhaps but I think we're possibly at a point where a pure numbers perspective to say that fixing that is more trouble than it's worth.
And there's really only one big counter-argument to that, financially: PvP. Which is theoretically cheaper to support than PvE in an MMO. (I have grave doubts about this.)
So you need some kind of financial gamechanger to make the KDF financially worth supporting with new releases, even in the C-Store.
And running down the list, these boil down to:
- Enhancing PvP.
- Enhancing PvE cooperation.
- Providing a superior Klingon product with unique incentives to play Klingon.
- Trying to shift the focus of the game away from ship sales. If they can make the same or better money without a focus on new ships, the whole "which ship has the lowest economic cost" argument becomes moot. If ships are a smaller piece of the pie or less desirable to make on the whole, KDF can get more equal footing.
- Increasing the size of the KDF playerbase through promotion... but only once the faction is on par.
- Taking the risk out of KDF ship development or ship development in general. This is where pledge systems can be beneficial. And ideally, you do it in such a way that people who don't play Klingon have incentives to subsidize Klingon players getting ships.
- Reducing barriers to purchase. Maybe for example allowing all tier ships at any level. Also, possibly eliminating faction restrictions on ships through some mechanism. (For example: if Diplomacy allowed use of any C-Store KDF ships you owned on Fed alts and Marauding allowed use of any Fed ships you own on Klingons.) (Or, heck, just making the consoles all work cross faction.) Also in here: reducing leveling. As-in, maybe allowing people to opt into skipping it after having done it once.
- Increasing mutually shared burden of purchase. For example, have Klingon ships unlocked by Federation friends by allowing Fed and KDF fleets to link up and share progress. Something like a mega-holding, a Fed/KDF embassy with double the requirements of a starbase. Effectively get Feds to underwrite KDF players somehow.
That's all just off the top of my head.
Why do you have an obvious lie or misleading - no hope in hell - Dan Stahl statement in your sig? Or did Mr Stahl just make a typo and he ment 2018??
Lets say they sell $6000 from KDF ships and $26,000 from Fed ships. Sure they made more money off the Fed ships but they also made money off the KDF ships. They should build be building both ships. To say that building KDF ships doesn't make money is what most of us just don't believe. We can probably guess which ships they've lost money on but that's probably because the ships didn't appeal the the KDF players, that's on them and not on us. But if they eventually sell enough of these ships they will break even and should not be considered a loss.
There are intangibles that can't be calculated when it comes to building the KDF. Better KDF content will lead to more dedicated KDF players. Lets say you convert 100 die hard, anti KDF fed fans (a really really low number) and they buy 3 ships each.** That's 600000Z, which should be enough to warrant some time spent developing the KDF.
** 100 is a pretty low number compared to how much people play STO, and the KDF easily has more then 3 ships worth buying.
What Cryptic should consider before releasing anything.
Those exist already, it doesn't make a difference. People play this games cause its Star Trek.
Funny, I've heard that about once a month since the game launched. It's still here and if anything the update cadence is quicker.
The reason why the Feds outnumber the KDF is because there wasn't much KDF content to begin with.
Cryptic: "We'll make more KDF content when there are more players on that side"
Players: "We'll make more KDF characters when there's more content on that side"
You know the old saying.....THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!
I started playing end of September 2012 and when I unlocked the character slot and was able to make a KDF toon I was excited. 2 days later I was bored as hell with it. My Klink is basically just for doff assignments for whatever Dilithium I can get and maybe a little contraband here and there. Only once every couple weeks I might go out and do some dailies to hit my Dil cap but I don't even want to do that anymore. It's a damn shame too because I love my Klingon toon.
To hell with the "only 16% of the people at Star Trek conventions are dressed like Klingons". Those people might not even play STO. What we have is a very vocal GAMING community wanting more KDF content. Not a bunch of basement dwellers going to Star Trek conventions. Harcore fans like that are pretty adamant about canon and such. If they don't think something is correct they won't even bother with it, such as playing STO. Just my 2 energy credits.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=6778101&postcount=67
User hawks3052 posted a link about the history of the KDF content being promised 1 thing, told later it was something else, and so on http://www.stowiki.org/User:Peregrine_Falcon#The_History_Of_The_Klingon_Empire_With_Cryptic_Studios
Is it possible the whole reason we ain't getting new KDF stuff is because maybe the copyright/trademark holders of the Star Trek franchise don't want us to? If that is the case I wish dstahl would just come out and say it (but he's probably under an NDA about it or something, either that or he is a habitual liar).
I'm not disagreeing with the rest of your post, but those words make we wanna puke. The vast majority of the time the customer is an idiot or simply trying to weasel their way out of something. Or both :mad:
Rrezeth, Gorn Tactical, primary alt
Nari, Orion Science, secondary alt
Belief is irrelevant. In order to justify that decision on an economic basis, designing that Fed ship would need to cost $20k in hidden expenses over the longrun (more because of lost interest), the KDF would need to generate $20k in longrun sales (the better possibility, if it can be shown that ship access retains players or lack of ship access in a faction causes them to quit at an unexpected rate -- and more because of lost interest, again), or the whole thing needs to have some kind of priority to make up the difference. For example, if the rate of market saturation for Fed ships is determined to be 8 ships a year (looking at marginal demand), then making the 9th ship Klingon might be worth it.
However, I don't see where an arbitrary notion of fairness is something to demand or expect from a company like Cryptic without the economics backing up why fairness is a good thing. At a certain point, yes, I'd imagine a reputation for unfairness has costs and for fairness has benefits. But the reverse can also be true. It mainly marginalizes PvP if a developer decides that fairness and honoring rules or past plans doesn't matter. I think by and large, outside of PvP and high end achievement gaming, fairness and even honor are probably pretty low as a motivating factor among MMO gamers when choosing a developer, provided the game is not frustrating for them to actually play. But that probably just suggests that bug fixes are more important than game balance, if true.
There is a point where it no longer makes financial sense to court the customer you let down.
I think this is a discussion worth having but a fruitless one without Cryptic's metrics. We don't know if we're at that point or have been for months.
C-Store items are not content. Content is not C-Store items.
Just because one of those may be economically out doesn't mean the other is.
Then there's the issue of what happens when your customers disagree with each other.... like on the forums.....
My character Tsin'xing
Start at Commander level 20. While that doesn't affect C-Store ships, it does make a number of in game ships obsolete including the B'rel and the K'tanco
The amount of XP you get at the commander level is RIDICULOUS... do the tutorial, and the LtC and Commander story missions and you are already at captain.
That renders a TON of ships obsolete:
Dacoit FLight Deck
Koro't'inga Cruiser
Ning'Tao BoP
Phalanx Science
Qorgh Raptor
Vandal Destroyer
Now, granted some of them have decent consoles, but if we're talking about the "average" player, they're not going to want to spend $10-15 on Commander level ships to use for maybe 3-4 hours of game time before they become useless.
USS Immortal NX-93608-F (Oddyssey Tactical Cruiser)
VADM Rogueshadow IRW Kirino Kosaka (Valdore Retrofit)
LT General Morbo IKS Karac (Bortasqu War Cruiser)
LT General Posu IKS Saya Takagi (Chel Grett Warship)
My character Tsin'xing
Honestly, if the was no tier system, or every ship had a T5 variant, that would make a lot of people very happy, and a lot of things more economically viable.
Cryptic needs to take a break from the ship madness for a while, and start cranking out other stuff.
Sure, the stars of the game are the ships, but if there's nothing you can do with them, then there's really no point now is there?
You can't EVER say the B'Rel is obsolete.
NEVER
if THIS ship wasn't here, i would no longer play the game.
The B'rel is the alpha and omega of KDF. The Defiant is a joke. So are all teh cruisers.
There are some nice sci ships on the FED side.. but the B'Rel is the most elegant and enjoyable ship in the game. Take 5000 Hull of it, i would still fly it.
I'm flying it as a TAC , and i am killing stuff as a SCI, being the second or third in dmg in PVP matches with 0 to 1 deaths/match.
another lower KDF ships? i have most of them, for the consoles or just for fun while lvling alts. You don't buy low ships cause you NEED them, you buy them cause you WANT them.
The only next ship i would buy (except Romulan ships, which i would buy ALL) is a KDF sci ship with turn 17+ or a new/refit BOP with enhanced BC. /imagine the whining on the blue side/
Everything else is just a waste.
edit:
if cryptic ever implements romulans, i do expect ships which are CLEAR in what they are supposed to do.
Cruiser? Engi heavy and tanky
Sci ship? 3x sci, 2x Tac, 15 turn rate
Tac? yeah, defiant 2
BOP? B'rel without hull, without shields, enhanced BC, one more console. GREEN PLEASE
I stand corrected ;-)
While I agree here (being an altaholic myself), that is the point though, buying them because you WANT them. Again, a casual player, someone likely to only run 1 or 2 KDF chars will not have any need (or want) for these ships because they don't care about the consoles, and with the way XP is given out, you're not in them long enough to be seen. If you only run 1 or 2 KDF, are you going to spend $15 on a ship you will only be in for at most 1 day?
As far as the normal Romy ships we see in the game, I don't think they have a defined sci ship do they? Cruisers, escorts and BoP's are all I see (like KDF before the Gorn ships) because Cryptic doesn't believe that anyone but the Fed's know about science ;-)
All I am saying is, back off the XP gain (or you know, FLESH OUT THE FACTION), so that it's worth getting into Commander/Captain level ships, because as it stands now, there's no point in even flying them if it only takes an hour or 2 to level them. I personally own all 3 Orion cruisers, and I LOVE the look of the Decoit and the Corsair, and HATE the "Steam Iron" for Generals... would love ot see more people in them.
USS Immortal NX-93608-F (Oddyssey Tactical Cruiser)
VADM Rogueshadow IRW Kirino Kosaka (Valdore Retrofit)
LT General Morbo IKS Karac (Bortasqu War Cruiser)
LT General Posu IKS Saya Takagi (Chel Grett Warship)
Its a qoute that I was curiuos how long would remain valid before "something" arose that may invalidate it in the future.
R.I.P
That's true, though not QUITE as fast as KDF at commander level... Hell, by the time you are done the tutorial on the KDF side, you are already 3 levels into Commander, and that's before you even ever leave the ground. Add the Lt Commander and Commander Story missions and your first "explore" and "defend" and you are done.
Sure they did it to make up for the lack of content, but they are shooting themselves in the foot trying to sell lower tier ships, because nobody needs them.
I have levelled a character under each system:
The no-content/pvp system, the 1 or 2 mission episodes at each rank, and the "start at 20 and here's tons of XP" system. While the first system was hard, it was quite a bit more satisfying... earning your ranks instead of practically being handed them.
USS Immortal NX-93608-F (Oddyssey Tactical Cruiser)
VADM Rogueshadow IRW Kirino Kosaka (Valdore Retrofit)
LT General Morbo IKS Karac (Bortasqu War Cruiser)
LT General Posu IKS Saya Takagi (Chel Grett Warship)
What about a fleet B'rel - I want that - it would be a big seller at tier 3 shipyard - same as fleet defiant
Agreed. If Cryptic took some steps to finishing KDF, I think a lot of people would at least consider giving it and its stuff a try.