A prudent player who spends a sum of money on the game might have had the foresight to see congestion on or around the launch of a major update, and might have paid for a month or two of subscription time to at least get around the queue. I guess this assumes that a player would be smart enough to have such foresight in the first place.
Dumping hundreds or thousands of bucks into STO and not getting a sub around Season 8 launch? That's pretty unwise. It's like not taking an alternate toll route during busy holiday traffic, and then complaining about the traffic.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
Never ever seen queues like these. I've played a lot of mmos over the past 10 years and I've experienced queues on launch day and the days after. From experience a 20 to 30 minute wait is normal and when they show numbers 600 was pretty much a daily launch figure. So to try to log on and see the number 24,443 (now at 25263) it shocked me. Been waiting 20 minutes and I am at 21,555. That'd be hours and hours to wait to log on. That's absolutely ridiculous for any game that I've ever played. I should be incredibly annoyed and ranting and raving.
BUT
I've been playing this game for the last couple of months and have been enjoying the space combat (ground not so much but this isn't the place). Always a long time Star Trek fan it's been great to play the space missions, get new ships and generally pretend I'm on that world. As I said I've played a lot of mmos and they've all had plus points as well as negatives but most of sto is generally fun. Now I said BUT. And it's a big one. All the previous mmos (except a few weeks with terra) have been with subscription based mmos (all the way back to ultima online). When an expansion comes out they have an idea of how many people will be playing because of they bought the expansion and everyone is a paying customer. So the cost per user to hire server space is very small. They can predict that extra capacity to a good degree and still make money on the initial launch.
This isn't the same with a FTP launch. No one knew that i wanted to play tonight because I didn't buy an expansion. I don't have a subscription so they can not count me with that method. Yes I bought some zen the other day so I could get a few master keys, but ?5 doesn't mean I'm going to log on over the launch. So it's incredibly difficult to estimate what capacity they need. Next comes the cost. As there are a large amount of people who do not buy a subscription or who Arnt likely to buy any zen in the next week or two, the price per user to hire server space becomes a lot more expensive. Its simple profit vs loss vs investment.
Log in times and people staying around post launch? For returning players or new players I'd say that long waiting times will put them off. With waiting times being over an hour (or multiple) new players would see this as maybe being an exaggerated norm. I'm British and used to queuing according to stereotypes but I work in a shop that's one of the busiest in the south of England. There is only so long people wait before sighing loudly and leaving. They mostly won't return to our shop (game) because they think that's normal and go to another outlet of ours (different game). I'd say the same for returning players. They left for a reason (bored, no new content, not enjoying endgame, got caught up by the latest mmo). If they have to wait for hours they will go back to whatever mmo or other haunt they've found and maybe never come back again.
Again those who love this game will stick around and give them more money. That's good. It's the fore community that really creates an mmo.
Still. I'd love to know how close to the line money/budget wise they've cut this server issue. I think even for a FTP game more servers should have been hired. A couple of hours wait is never going to attract new customers and that's a shame. End this with being number 16684 on the queue and I started reading this thread 45 minutes ago lol. I'll come back at the weekend when I can wait hours lol.
Ps anyone know why captain Pacard was always shown as coming from France but had a perfect English accent?? (Other than sir Patrick Stuart being English and absolutely awesome.)
Not sure this works for potential new customers. Those who've never played STO before may want to "try before they buy". Being halted behind a login queue isn't going to help them.
That's the nature of F2P - long queues. It's not much different from any other F2P game, so F2P players who don't put down for a month sub, especially after a major launch, are going to get similar experiences elsewhere.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
I have the LTS, and I bought the Legacy Pack (mostly for the Rihannsu title...), and I am happy I did so.
This is an exquisite game that starts to be the ultimate Star Trek experience. I gave my money to Cryptic, and I am confident they will use it to further develop this amazing game.
Yup - I'm a fanboy... it's impossible to even try to hide it .
That's the nature of F2P - long queues. It's not much different from any other F2P game, so F2P players who don't put down for a month sub, especially after a major launch, are going to get similar experiences elsewhere.
What kind of moron would drop $ on a game they've never played just to jump a few slots in a quene? Your argument is only valid if PWE/Cryptic does not want to increase market share by enticing new players to try it out.
Not resolved for me even though it's stated otherwise. So being halted as a lifetime member, before even being able to get a que, hell being able to login... totally defeats blah whatever... igu lol
Of course the population drops down after two weeks when the majority of people trying to play can't get into the game. LOL Get the servers to support the new population and maybe people will stick around and then they WILL need the larger server capacity.
You definitely are not Vulcan with logic like yours.
Here's a thought. If you can't support the mass influx of returning and new players when you drop a new expansion then DON'T ADVERTISE THE HELL OUT OF IT!!!! If they had spend half as much getting the game ready for release as they had on the advertising and marketing there wouldn't be any problems at all.
What kind of moron would drop $ on a game they've never played just to jump a few slots in a quene?
People who want to play WoW.
People who really like Romulans.
But seriously, up until a few years ago, anyone who wanted to try any game had to put down a month sub (or in the case of Guild Wars, buy a box) just to try out a game, because F2P wasn't the norm.
$15 is still cheaper than getting a $60 console game on launch.
Is $15 a large sum of money? I dunno. I guess it depends on the age of a person, their income, etc. It's all relative. But it's the only Star Trek MMO in town, and if you don't want to wait 30+ mins to wait in line, you can buy the FastPass for $15 / month. That doesn't seem very moronic.
As for petulant players who want to play for free but don't want queues... sometimes there are customers a company doesn't need. Especially customers who want everything for nothing.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
That's the nature of F2P - long queues. It's not much different from any other F2P game, so F2P players who don't put down for a month sub, especially after a major launch, are going to get similar experiences elsewhere.
Not really, I play 5 other F2P MMOs not 1 has ever had me in a login queue. They have had expansions and game updates not once did I ever have to wait. Now lag and loading problems, yeah they had those. Such is the nature of MMOs, but when you have to wait in a queue and then still have lag and loading problems....it is time to make some changes to the process.
People who want to play WoW.
People who really like Romulans.
But seriously, up until a few years ago, anyone who wanted to try any game had to put down a month sub (or in the case of Guild Wars, buy a box) just to try out a game, because there F2P wasn't the norm.
$15 is still cheaper than getting a $60 console game on launch.
Is $15 a large sum of money? I dunno. I guess it depends on the age of a person, their income, etc. It's all relative. But it's the only Star Trek MMO in town, and if you don't want to wait 30+ mins to wait in line, you can buy the FastPass for $15 / month. That doesn't seem very moronic.
As for petulant players who want to play for free but don't want queues... sometimes there are customers a company doesn't need. Especially customers who want everything for nothing.
It's attitudes like this that are not at all helpful. You seem to forget that Cryptic/PWE made the conscious decision to go F2P not out of the goodness of their heart, but because they likely did some analysis that the subscription-only model was going to fail or at least that F2P would ultimately be more profitable for them. The network effect is critical to MMOs, and alienating large portions of your potential playerbase reduces the number of players that will exist to interact with each other. Let's not forget that many of those supposed "petulant" players are still dumping money into the game in the form of Zen purchases, even if they never sub for a single month. That was another point of going F2P, as studies have shown that players will often spend more in a microtransaction model than they would in a sub model. Sure, you'll have your masochistic die-hards, but that can only carry you so far. The whole point of an expansion is to bring in new players. It is a completely self-defeating strategy to advertise and hype an expansion and then fail to have the infrastructure, even if just temporarily leased, to support the very influx of players you planned to receive.
Edit: As an example of the detrimental nature of this lack of planning, I and most of my fleet come from a rather large gaming forum, and none of us can even bring ourselves to create a new thread to hype LoR there as the current situation is just bloody embarrassing.
Not really, I play 5 other F2P MMOs not 1 has ever had me in a login queue. They have had expansions and game updates not once did I ever have to wait. Now lag and loading problems, yeah they had those. Such is the nature of MMOs, but when you have to wait in a queue and then still have lag and loading problems....it is time to make some changes to the process.
I'm not even going to pretend to understand STO's data center infrastructure, but I will concede that perhaps there are things that could be done to shorten the queue. The real question is: how many of these players is PWE expecting to stay on after the first month or two? Is the cost-to-benefit ration worth messing with sometimes-fickle infrastructure (and the man-hours it would take to accomplish it)?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
Dont make excuses for them. They know that it is ALWAYS better to have more servers than needed when you release new content like this. Now if this was just the regular "season" then sure. Deal with it. But this is supposed to be an expansion. Adding a third faction. Their is no reasonable excuse for having these issues. It shows that cryptic and perfect world and second rate game developers and publishers. And will probably always be second rate.
Dont make excuses for them. They know that it is ALWAYS better to have more servers than needed when you release new content like this. Now if this was just the regular "season" then sure. Deal with it. But this is supposed to be an expansion. Adding a third faction. Their is no reasonable excuse for having these issues. It shows that cryptic and perfect world and second rate game developers and publishers. And will probably always be second rate.
I'm hardly making excuses. I completely understand their viewpoint. It's just a matter of how many petulant, selfish players will stay on after they romp through 50 levels, get bored, and go elsewhere to supposedly greener grass.
A lot of expansions have churns. Look at what happened to WoW after their last expansion; they lost millions of subscribers after only a few months.
Why invest on infrastructure upgrades if a slew of fickle players are just going to uproot in a couple of months? It wouldn't be very wise to waste time, money, and resources on those players, possibly at the expense of subscribers or long-term, loyal customers.
If you had a finite budget where you could look at the long term, or pander to players who will only stick around for a month, what would you do? Personally, I'd invest in the long term and wait for the chaff to fall off.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
Here's a thought. If you can't support the mass influx of returning and new players when you drop a new expansion then DON'T ADVERTISE THE HELL OUT OF IT!!!! If they had spend half as much getting the game ready for release as they had on the advertising and marketing there wouldn't be any problems at all.
I have to disagree here. Advertizing no matter how large is always a good thing for a MMO..
What is really important for a heavily advertised expansion? new fresh customers who hasnt already done the grind and bought a good ship. ones who will throw money down once they decide they enjoy the game.
When those fresh new customers have to wait in a qeue just to see if they even want to play what do they do? they walk away and never look back. That is a lost customer they cannot get back, that is lost revenue they cannot get back.
LTS and old customers returning are not important on launch day because they know those customers will run through the new content maybe buy for the new faction then leave again. there is less revenue generated from returning because those already filled out the other 2 factions. But same issue, they got bored and left now they get to wait in line and many will turn and walk believing the new content couldnt be wiorth the wait. Again lost revenue.
No qeue should be over an hour at peak times and could generate some anticipation if under an hour as you watch your position get closer and closer. after an hour that anticipation buildup wanes frustration sets in. when frustration from the wait is set then the smallest of issues in the game become huge. "I WAITED 4 HOURS FOR THIS!!!!". They turn and walk away never looking back. Lost revenue.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Still not an incentive to pay money before trying.
Risk vs. reward, or a way to gate potentially good customers from those who will bog a company down. Interested players will either wait out the queue or sub for a month to bypass it. Else, they might not be worth the company's time. It might be F2P, but it ain't the March of Dimes.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
I have to disagree here. Advertizing no matter how large is always a good thing for a MMO..
While that should usually be the case, all it has done here is draw in probably thousands to tens of thousands of potential new players who are going to see the queue and be done with it, and who will spread negative word of mouth. There will have been a massive loss of goodwill by the time this is all over.
1) Stop QQ
2) Stop freeloading, development and maintenance of the game is not free
3) The game will still be here tomorrow, wait for the Queue problem to be solved. This problem was predicted weeks ago.
4) Stop QQ
5) Stop QQ.
Risk vs. reward, or a way to gate potentially good customers from those who will bog a company down. Interested players will either wait out the queue or sub for a month to bypass it. Else, they might not be worth the company's time. It might be F2P, but it ain't the March of Dimes.
lol so every mmo that offer free trials are doing it wrong? Maybe you should tell them.
1) Stop QQ
2) Stop freeloading, development and maintenance of the game is not free
3) The game will still be here tomorrow, wait for the Queue problem to be solved. This problem was predicted weeks ago.
4) Stop QQ
5) Stop QQ.
1,4,5) Ah, such hilarious Internet slang, that will surely counter any arguments.
2) Many LTSers and subbers are also complaining about this situation, and quite a lot of free players ultimately spend as much or more on Zen purchases than they would have on a subscription (not that I endorse such behavior) so you can hardly say that it's only freeloaders complaining. And what is the point of this maintenance you mentioned if it was barely keeping the servers stable in the weeks preceding the expansion's launch?
3) If the problem was predicted weeks ago then why was seemingly nothing done to mitigate it?
I've spent hundreds of dollars on this game. The life time sub, zen for c-store stuff, zen to indirectly convert to EC, the steam pack. I even bought a majority of the pre-orders (at discounted rates) to get the pre order items......
I don't feel cheated in the slightest, I expected these few days to be rough. If you didn't you are woefully mis-informed about everything. This is NOT WoW, this is not a Tripple A mmo. WoW has data centers all over the world managed by AT&T. These guys have a data center in their building and that's it.
I never spent my money with the concern that the game would be available all the time. I never bought an SLA from the C-store... I never spent my money thinking every launch would be flawless. I never spent my money thinking I would never see bunch of bugs after a major patch or things that didn't quite work out the way everyone thought they would.
I spent my money for items and for fun. I spent my money expecting that major bugs would be fixed as time allows and features would be added. I spent my money with the expectation that the game would be kept running for a significant period of time.
join Date: Sep 2009 - I want my changeling lava lamp!
I'm hardly making excuses. I completely understand their viewpoint. It's just a matter of how many petulant, selfish players will stay on after they romp through 50 levels, get bored, and go elsewhere to supposedly greener grass.
A lot of expansions have churns. Look at what happened to WoW after their last expansion; they lost millions of subscribers after only a few months.
Why invest on infrastructure upgrades if a slew of fickle players are just going to uproot in a couple of months? It wouldn't be very wise to waste time, money, and resources on those players, possibly at the expense of subscribers or long-term, loyal customers.
If you had a finite budget where you could look at the long term, or pander to players who will only stick around for a month, what would you do? Personally, I'd invest in the long term and wait for the chaff to fall off.
I understand what you are saying and dont let the join date fool you this is the first reason i've felt any need what so ever to post. But... It is stupid to not get more capacity when you release an expansion BECAUSE all you are doing is practically guaranteeing that no one outside of the loyal few is going to stick around.
They want more money. Every company wants more money. To get more money they need more players. They release an expansion to satisfy the loyal few and bring in more players. Great idea. Lets forget to rent some extra server space which yes is an investment but is cheaper than taking the chance on purchasing the infrastructure and it being a waste.
The point is they ****ed up. They screwed up. THEY as in cryptic and pwe forgot the about the FIRST thing they should have done when the launched this expansion. They forgot to pull their heads out of their a$$es.
I came back to this game about 2 weeks ago. I played beta. I bought the game. I subbed for 3 months and quit. Came back and i've ALREADY spent $50. Give it another couple months and id probably have spent enough to buy a lifetime sub plus some. But now... They will be lucky if i spend much more because i will probably reach my limit much faster and move on.
To all those complaining that they bought a legacy pack or lifetime subscription etc... Hopefully you learn your lesson next time before giving your money to a company so easily.
You all work hard for your money and shouldn't be willing to throw it away so easily! I for one am glad I never poured a ton of money into this game for these very reasons!
I was very skeptical of the competence of cryptic and perfect world entertainment... IMO they have to earn my money by giving excellent customer service and a good product! They clearly didn't earn it here. They really FUBARD by not providing more servers ahead of time for this new expansion launch.
Then again perfect world entertainment is a cheap chinese company so what do you expect? I don't know who is in charge of servers whether its cryptic or PWE but whoever is in charge clearly doesn't care about they're customers and you all got screwed.
The best thing to do now is be cautious with your wallet and who you give your money too...
That is the only thing these companies understand. Once they see they're profit margins dropping significantly they will do something about it to fix it trust me.
Until then I say boycott any more purchases into this game with your wallet until you see action is taken to fix these issues promptly. That's the only way this will get resolved anytime soon...
I couldnt agree more. This company makes in excess of 50-60 mil $ and they cant afford to upgrade their servers ?. Greedy piggies ?
To all those complaining that they bought a legacy pack or lifetime subscription etc... Hopefully you learn your lesson next time before giving your money to a company so easily.
You all work hard for your money and shouldn't be willing to throw it away so easily! I for one am glad I never poured a ton of money into this game for these very reasons!
I was very skeptical of the competence of cryptic and perfect world entertainment... IMO they have to earn my money by giving excellent customer service and a good product! They clearly didn't earn it here. They really FUBARD by not providing more servers ahead of time for this new expansion launch.
Then again perfect world entertainment is a cheap chinese company so what do you expect? I don't know who is in charge of servers whether its cryptic or PWE but whoever is in charge clearly doesn't care about they're customers and you all got screwed.
The best thing to do now is be cautious with your wallet and who you give your money too...
That is the only thing these companies understand. Once they see they're profit margins dropping significantly they will do something about it to fix it trust me.
Until then I say boycott any more purchases into this game with your wallet until you see action is taken to fix these issues promptly. That's the only way this will get resolved anytime soon...
I do agree with yo on the customer serviec side. I have had zero satifaction having anything solved for me in game. But the developers do fix stuff when if effects lots of players. They have to. Or to many of us will just never play this game again. I do give kudos to the develpoers on this expansion however. the new UI is well worth the wait. Th rest of the content is great except for some of the voice overs just don't sound Romulan in any way. The customer service side however leaves way to much to be desired. Mostly because they realy do not care about us. This is the most true statment in this post and thread. Rather than talk about their failures. I will talk about what if. WI customer service was great. They got back to you about your issue within 24 hours. And it was an actual response from a person empathizng and understanding your problem. Giving you a human response. Not exactly holding your hand or anything. Just sorry about your issue. Informatiuon is being directed to the right developlment team to resolve as many plroblems as possible. And shile your problem may be unique it may not be solved over night. We will contact you if there is a resolution and enjoy your game. And also please refere to this thread or document for further reference to similar issues like yours. SOmthing like that that is from a person and not a machine. If something even close to theis were available for STO. I would certainly feel more loyal and comiited to buying stuff in game and supporting a great product. WHile the product is great conflict resolution and customer service is not on par with the quality of the game . Etc etc. in conclusion STO would be a ltmore profitable from loyal customers. And with us sining thier praise rather than complain about service. Even more customers would be drawn to the product. Good customer service is every bit as important as the product quality. STO customer service fails this in every catagory!!
I do apoligize for the bad spelling. I am just not in the mood to correct that many mistakes!
It takes money to make money so spend money to buy or rent servers so they can make money from having more players playing the game and spending money.
Happy customers spend more money unhappy customers don't spend money right now their are a lot of unhappy people who are not going to spend money.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Please learn from past history and stop failing to have enough servers for a anticipated update that draws in a lot of players.
First impressions are important and right now a lot of peoples first impressions of the game are bad thanks to all the bugs and very long queue.
Comments
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
Dumping hundreds or thousands of bucks into STO and not getting a sub around Season 8 launch? That's pretty unwise. It's like not taking an alternate toll route during busy holiday traffic, and then complaining about the traffic.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
BUT
I've been playing this game for the last couple of months and have been enjoying the space combat (ground not so much but this isn't the place). Always a long time Star Trek fan it's been great to play the space missions, get new ships and generally pretend I'm on that world. As I said I've played a lot of mmos and they've all had plus points as well as negatives but most of sto is generally fun. Now I said BUT. And it's a big one. All the previous mmos (except a few weeks with terra) have been with subscription based mmos (all the way back to ultima online). When an expansion comes out they have an idea of how many people will be playing because of they bought the expansion and everyone is a paying customer. So the cost per user to hire server space is very small. They can predict that extra capacity to a good degree and still make money on the initial launch.
This isn't the same with a FTP launch. No one knew that i wanted to play tonight because I didn't buy an expansion. I don't have a subscription so they can not count me with that method. Yes I bought some zen the other day so I could get a few master keys, but ?5 doesn't mean I'm going to log on over the launch. So it's incredibly difficult to estimate what capacity they need. Next comes the cost. As there are a large amount of people who do not buy a subscription or who Arnt likely to buy any zen in the next week or two, the price per user to hire server space becomes a lot more expensive. Its simple profit vs loss vs investment.
Log in times and people staying around post launch? For returning players or new players I'd say that long waiting times will put them off. With waiting times being over an hour (or multiple) new players would see this as maybe being an exaggerated norm. I'm British and used to queuing according to stereotypes but I work in a shop that's one of the busiest in the south of England. There is only so long people wait before sighing loudly and leaving. They mostly won't return to our shop (game) because they think that's normal and go to another outlet of ours (different game). I'd say the same for returning players. They left for a reason (bored, no new content, not enjoying endgame, got caught up by the latest mmo). If they have to wait for hours they will go back to whatever mmo or other haunt they've found and maybe never come back again.
Again those who love this game will stick around and give them more money. That's good. It's the fore community that really creates an mmo.
Still. I'd love to know how close to the line money/budget wise they've cut this server issue. I think even for a FTP game more servers should have been hired. A couple of hours wait is never going to attract new customers and that's a shame. End this with being number 16684 on the queue and I started reading this thread 45 minutes ago lol. I'll come back at the weekend when I can wait hours lol.
Ps anyone know why captain Pacard was always shown as coming from France but had a perfect English accent?? (Other than sir Patrick Stuart being English and absolutely awesome.)
Sure if you are pissed you can go to several other mmo's - but if you want a Star Trek fix - then you have no other options.
If you are a star trek fan you can walkaway if cryptic makes you mad - by you know - and they know: "you'll be back!!"(at some point)
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
This is an exquisite game that starts to be the ultimate Star Trek experience. I gave my money to Cryptic, and I am confident they will use it to further develop this amazing game.
Yup - I'm a fanboy... it's impossible to even try to hide it
What kind of moron would drop $ on a game they've never played just to jump a few slots in a quene? Your argument is only valid if PWE/Cryptic does not want to increase market share by enticing new players to try it out.
"Login failed for unknown reason" error
Not resolved for me even though it's stated otherwise. So being halted as a lifetime member, before even being able to get a que, hell being able to login... totally defeats blah whatever... igu lol
Chillax. No Ego. No Drama.
Like my alien? Watch THE VIDEO
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a big +1 to that
Chillax. No Ego. No Drama.
Like my alien? Watch THE VIDEO
Need custom graphics for you or your fleet? Click HERE
People who really like Romulans.
But seriously, up until a few years ago, anyone who wanted to try any game had to put down a month sub (or in the case of Guild Wars, buy a box) just to try out a game, because F2P wasn't the norm.
$15 is still cheaper than getting a $60 console game on launch.
Is $15 a large sum of money? I dunno. I guess it depends on the age of a person, their income, etc. It's all relative. But it's the only Star Trek MMO in town, and if you don't want to wait 30+ mins to wait in line, you can buy the FastPass for $15 / month. That doesn't seem very moronic.
As for petulant players who want to play for free but don't want queues... sometimes there are customers a company doesn't need. Especially customers who want everything for nothing.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
Not really, I play 5 other F2P MMOs not 1 has ever had me in a login queue. They have had expansions and game updates not once did I ever have to wait. Now lag and loading problems, yeah they had those. Such is the nature of MMOs, but when you have to wait in a queue and then still have lag and loading problems....it is time to make some changes to the process.
It's attitudes like this that are not at all helpful. You seem to forget that Cryptic/PWE made the conscious decision to go F2P not out of the goodness of their heart, but because they likely did some analysis that the subscription-only model was going to fail or at least that F2P would ultimately be more profitable for them. The network effect is critical to MMOs, and alienating large portions of your potential playerbase reduces the number of players that will exist to interact with each other. Let's not forget that many of those supposed "petulant" players are still dumping money into the game in the form of Zen purchases, even if they never sub for a single month. That was another point of going F2P, as studies have shown that players will often spend more in a microtransaction model than they would in a sub model. Sure, you'll have your masochistic die-hards, but that can only carry you so far. The whole point of an expansion is to bring in new players. It is a completely self-defeating strategy to advertise and hype an expansion and then fail to have the infrastructure, even if just temporarily leased, to support the very influx of players you planned to receive.
Edit: As an example of the detrimental nature of this lack of planning, I and most of my fleet come from a rather large gaming forum, and none of us can even bring ourselves to create a new thread to hype LoR there as the current situation is just bloody embarrassing.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
A lot of expansions have churns. Look at what happened to WoW after their last expansion; they lost millions of subscribers after only a few months.
Why invest on infrastructure upgrades if a slew of fickle players are just going to uproot in a couple of months? It wouldn't be very wise to waste time, money, and resources on those players, possibly at the expense of subscribers or long-term, loyal customers.
If you had a finite budget where you could look at the long term, or pander to players who will only stick around for a month, what would you do? Personally, I'd invest in the long term and wait for the chaff to fall off.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
I have to disagree here. Advertizing no matter how large is always a good thing for a MMO..
SamaraKnight :: Sage Seeker :: retired
When those fresh new customers have to wait in a qeue just to see if they even want to play what do they do? they walk away and never look back. That is a lost customer they cannot get back, that is lost revenue they cannot get back.
LTS and old customers returning are not important on launch day because they know those customers will run through the new content maybe buy for the new faction then leave again. there is less revenue generated from returning because those already filled out the other 2 factions. But same issue, they got bored and left now they get to wait in line and many will turn and walk believing the new content couldnt be wiorth the wait. Again lost revenue.
No qeue should be over an hour at peak times and could generate some anticipation if under an hour as you watch your position get closer and closer. after an hour that anticipation buildup wanes frustration sets in. when frustration from the wait is set then the smallest of issues in the game become huge. "I WAITED 4 HOURS FOR THIS!!!!". They turn and walk away never looking back. Lost revenue.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Risk vs. reward, or a way to gate potentially good customers from those who will bog a company down. Interested players will either wait out the queue or sub for a month to bypass it. Else, they might not be worth the company's time. It might be F2P, but it ain't the March of Dimes.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
While that should usually be the case, all it has done here is draw in probably thousands to tens of thousands of potential new players who are going to see the queue and be done with it, and who will spread negative word of mouth. There will have been a massive loss of goodwill by the time this is all over.
Only if it actually drives increased revenue, if you only break even or net only a small profit, you have no investor gild nor exec bonuses.
2) Stop freeloading, development and maintenance of the game is not free
3) The game will still be here tomorrow, wait for the Queue problem to be solved. This problem was predicted weeks ago.
4) Stop QQ
5) Stop QQ.
lol so every mmo that offer free trials are doing it wrong? Maybe you should tell them.
1,4,5) Ah, such hilarious Internet slang, that will surely counter any arguments.
2) Many LTSers and subbers are also complaining about this situation, and quite a lot of free players ultimately spend as much or more on Zen purchases than they would have on a subscription (not that I endorse such behavior) so you can hardly say that it's only freeloaders complaining. And what is the point of this maintenance you mentioned if it was barely keeping the servers stable in the weeks preceding the expansion's launch?
3) If the problem was predicted weeks ago then why was seemingly nothing done to mitigate it?
I don't feel cheated in the slightest, I expected these few days to be rough. If you didn't you are woefully mis-informed about everything. This is NOT WoW, this is not a Tripple A mmo. WoW has data centers all over the world managed by AT&T. These guys have a data center in their building and that's it.
I never spent my money with the concern that the game would be available all the time. I never bought an SLA from the C-store... I never spent my money thinking every launch would be flawless. I never spent my money thinking I would never see bunch of bugs after a major patch or things that didn't quite work out the way everyone thought they would.
I spent my money for items and for fun. I spent my money expecting that major bugs would be fixed as time allows and features would be added. I spent my money with the expectation that the game would be kept running for a significant period of time.
I understand what you are saying and dont let the join date fool you this is the first reason i've felt any need what so ever to post. But... It is stupid to not get more capacity when you release an expansion BECAUSE all you are doing is practically guaranteeing that no one outside of the loyal few is going to stick around.
They want more money. Every company wants more money. To get more money they need more players. They release an expansion to satisfy the loyal few and bring in more players. Great idea. Lets forget to rent some extra server space which yes is an investment but is cheaper than taking the chance on purchasing the infrastructure and it being a waste.
The point is they ****ed up. They screwed up. THEY as in cryptic and pwe forgot the about the FIRST thing they should have done when the launched this expansion. They forgot to pull their heads out of their a$$es.
I came back to this game about 2 weeks ago. I played beta. I bought the game. I subbed for 3 months and quit. Came back and i've ALREADY spent $50. Give it another couple months and id probably have spent enough to buy a lifetime sub plus some. But now... They will be lucky if i spend much more because i will probably reach my limit much faster and move on.
I couldnt agree more. This company makes in excess of 50-60 mil $ and they cant afford to upgrade their servers ?. Greedy piggies ?
I do agree with yo on the customer serviec side. I have had zero satifaction having anything solved for me in game. But the developers do fix stuff when if effects lots of players. They have to. Or to many of us will just never play this game again. I do give kudos to the develpoers on this expansion however. the new UI is well worth the wait. Th rest of the content is great except for some of the voice overs just don't sound Romulan in any way. The customer service side however leaves way to much to be desired. Mostly because they realy do not care about us. This is the most true statment in this post and thread. Rather than talk about their failures. I will talk about what if. WI customer service was great. They got back to you about your issue within 24 hours. And it was an actual response from a person empathizng and understanding your problem. Giving you a human response. Not exactly holding your hand or anything. Just sorry about your issue. Informatiuon is being directed to the right developlment team to resolve as many plroblems as possible. And shile your problem may be unique it may not be solved over night. We will contact you if there is a resolution and enjoy your game. And also please refere to this thread or document for further reference to similar issues like yours. SOmthing like that that is from a person and not a machine. If something even close to theis were available for STO. I would certainly feel more loyal and comiited to buying stuff in game and supporting a great product. WHile the product is great conflict resolution and customer service is not on par with the quality of the game . Etc etc. in conclusion STO would be a ltmore profitable from loyal customers. And with us sining thier praise rather than complain about service. Even more customers would be drawn to the product. Good customer service is every bit as important as the product quality. STO customer service fails this in every catagory!!
I do apoligize for the bad spelling. I am just not in the mood to correct that many mistakes!
TY!
Happy customers spend more money unhappy customers don't spend money right now their are a lot of unhappy people who are not going to spend money.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Please learn from past history and stop failing to have enough servers for a anticipated update that draws in a lot of players.
First impressions are important and right now a lot of peoples first impressions of the game are bad thanks to all the bugs and very long queue.