Here's my feedback. If you ever attempt to make your badly programmed, glorified spyware mandatory, you can consider me lost as a paying customer.
And before you say "Can I haz ur stuff?", read that again. I'll still be playing the game. I just won't be paying for it.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Part of the clutter feeling is the news section feels all over the place and not really as friendly to lower res screens. It took me a moment to realize that the tiles seem a bit out of order. S8 dev blog 34 looked out of place with it being the only new item then to a video box with a trailer. http://i.imgur.com/qBzdmfO.jpg
Personally i find the ARC site a bit confusing TBH. Especially for someone who just wants to play one single game (STO in my case).
What i also do not like is how long it takes to load. I don't know why but it took almost a minute to start.
Mere's my feedback concerning the text parts:
Become Part of Star Trek?
In Star Trek Online, the Star Trek universe appears for the first time on a truly massive scale.
In this free-to-play massively multiplayer online game from Cryptic Studios, players can pioneer their own destiny as Captain of a Federation starship. Or they can become a Klingon Warlord and expand the Empire to the far reaches of the galaxy. With our latest expansion, players can work to rebuild the Romulan legacy as a member of the Romulan Republic.
Players will have the opportunity to visit iconic locations from the popular Star Trek fiction, reach out to unexplored star systems and make contact with new alien species. With Episode Missions, every moment spent playing Star Trek Online will feel like a new Star Trek episode in which you are the star.
Immerse yourself in the future of the Trek universe as it moves into the 25th century: a time of shifting alliances and new discoveries.
Download the game now to beam up and join the action!
This is somehow misleading IMO.
A player cannot become part of Star Trek, since STO isn't canon nor it is even close to canon.
A player cannot "pioneer their own destiny as captain of a federation Starship". This is wrong for several reasons imo.
First story and missions are the same for everyone. The above statement would be true if Exploration mechanics would work and would have been expanded, so each players game would have been a bit different.
Second we aren't captains, we are (vice) admirals. Maybe that insignificant for you devs but for me this is important. It is part of the immersion to be called "captain", but instead we are being called Vice Admiral all the time. I don't know about other people, but the main reason for me to play a computer game is immersion.
If i want to do sports or compete with other people i go and DO real sports (which i frequently do). What i want is a immersive Star Trek experience, but this is where STO clearly needs a lot more work.
Star Trek Online Season 8 STO MMORPG F2P Sci-Fi MMO Game Legacy of Romulus
Adventure in the Final Frontier
Explore strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations in a vast, expanding universe.
Establish contact with new races, discover resources and uncover mysteries that will influence Star Trek's future. Set in 2409, Star Trek Online exists in a timeframe beyond even the latest movies, so everything you experience will be brand new, but still based on all the fiction you love.
Is this really how you see STO?
What most other people see are space battles in all kinds and shapes, but no exploration or sense of wonder which this text is suggesting.
There is no final frontier if someone who wants to leave a sector block get the traffic control message "you are not allowed to proceed further" (or something like that).
That's the exact opposite to the final frontier, it's more like driving inside a big city.
You Are The Captain
Star Trek Online is the first AAA MMO to feature space and ground combat at launch.
Missions take you and your friends into the depths of space, across exotic planets and even inside starships! As the Captain of your very own ship, it's up to you to lead your crew on missions that span a number of locations. You call the shots, no matter where you are.
When you're in space, you direct the action - be it in the middle of a high-tension battle, where you can maneuver in 3-D space and fire a vast array of weaponry at your enemies, or as you enter warp to explore parts of the galaxy never before documented.
On the ground, you lead your away team across exciting terrain, interacting with allies and battling enemies. Every Captain commands four subordinates on the ground, all of which can be directed to act in any manner you choose. Can you lead them safely through dangerous locales?
No, a player is NOT the Captain (admiral btw.) we cannot decide anything, since the results will be in 99% of the time the same. This text is suggesting a more freeform of playing imo, STO is not even nearly like that.
It is also misleading since starship interior is really not very developed. So advertising it like a big feature could result in dissappointed customers.
Total Customization
Using Cryptic?s Total Customization technology, every ship you command can be customized by you, from its color to its construction.
Your ship will retain a Star Trek "feel," but it will also represent your style. What?s more, anyone can create their own species in Star Trek Online, meaning you can tell your own story about how you came to be in the galaxy. Leave your mark on the Star Trek universe!
I'd like to seriously disagree with that. Not just because ship customization is most of the times very limited, newer ships feature almost NO alternative ship parts to speak of. Older ships (made several years ago) offer much more freedom to customize. But if you look at the Odyssey or Avenger, your statement is just plain wrong. Althrough both are new ship and the Odyssey is the new enterprise none of them have alternative ship parts, the oddyssey does not even hav forward swept pylons, something that could be done in just a couple of minutes. But obviously customization is NOT one of your priorities.
(Not to speak of the various KDF and Rom ships that lack good ship parts.)
The other thing is character customization. Tbh. i have never seen a more bugged game mode in any AAA title.
And no we cannot leave a Mark on the Star Trek universe, since our actions (even less a individual players) do NOT change anything.
The Foundry
I have way too little experience with the foundry to comment it.
Built by Veterans With You in Mind
Star Trek Online is developed by Cryptic Studios, creators of the massively successful City of Heroes and City of Villains. It?s built on the Cryptic Engine, a core technology that means our designers can focus less on a game?s nuts and bolts and more on creating a game that captures Star Trek?s essence, guaranteeing that both longtime fans of Star Trek and people new to the universe will feel at home.
Join us in Star Trek Online, and boldly go where no one has gone before!
Wasn't city of heros and city of villians shut down?
What does " It?s built on the Cryptic Engine, a core technology that means our designers can focus less on a game?s nuts and bolts and more on creating a game ...", mean?
Do you want to imply that bugfixing isn't neccessary? :eek:
"...and more on creating a game that captures Star Trek?s essence, guaranteeing that both longtime fans of Star Trek and people new to the universe will feel at home."
I can't even start to explain on how many level this is utterly wrong.
Starting from ships being pressed into totally wrong "roles" over the ship mechanics in general, Carriers and spacefighters, the imbalance toward everything that remotely sounds tactical to the total LACK of Star Trek feeling.
Let me assure you, long time Star Trek fans do not play STO because of its immersion, the reason most of us haven't already gone is because we care about Star Trek (maybe more than you do) and keep the little hope that STO could become a bit more Star Trekkish one day.
STO does not capture the Star Trek essence, if you really believe that, i am very sorry for you. I hope the above is just the casual marketing stuff.
Amongst other things Star Trek (yes, there is more than DS9 ) is not about war. It is about exploration on many levels, sense of wonder and mystery-solving. My impression of STO is that you devs had something more like Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars in mind.
(both are good Sci Fi universes on their own, but Star Trek is very different.)
I'll continue later, maybe.
About ARC, my concerns about it are purely about it being spyware. I think i am not alone with that.
It's very simple: I do not want being spied on while playing STO (i do not want to be spied on AT ALL!).
I do not care because it is a new kind of software and i want to keep the old one. I couldn't care less.
I also do not care about the commercials or other stuff. My concerns are purely about ARC being a spyware software.
-> I do not, i repeat I DO NOT want to install spyware on purpose on my computer. <-
Maybe some people do not care about this but for e this is a very sensitive matter. And i would be glad if Cryptic would acknowledge this and make STO a good game not a spyware that watches me and collects information about me all the time. I do not want that! (and i hope this is not legal in the first place and will be challenged from all over the world, becaus this trend to spy people MUST END)
I'm serious when i say i will uninstall STO the day this spyware is the only way for me to play STO.
I try to avoid Steam whenever possible, installing ARC would be even worse.
I know Cryptic does not care about us or our wishes, but at least this time you should listen.
Star Trek online: 2010-2014 R.I.P. (for me at least)
Btw:
Sorry for typos
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Wow, its like they sucked all the life and charm out of the website.
Agreed. The design of that website makes me feel like I'm back in the 90s.
Seriously, did you guys hire a high school kid to design that? (No offense to high school kids who I'm fairly certain could actually do a better job).
*Edit*
Now I've had time to do some side-by-side comparisons here's what I don't like about the new website:
1) It's gray, oh so gray. The current website has a nice background image to liven things up the new one looks like it came from Orwell's 1984, it's so bland.
2) The current site has the nice animated news box at the top, so I can see what's new at a glance. The new site has an animated box of wallpapers with the news hidden so far down I have to scroll to find it.
3) The current site keeps thing visually clean and appealing by putting things in the nice boxes. The new site has stuff just dumped on the screen, leaving it unbalanced. The top is too crowded and once you scroll a little way down it's more gray blandness.
4) Getting to the forums involves going through yet another soul sucking page of gray blandness. With the current site, one click on a drop down menu and I'm there (Bring back the drop down menus).
5) Did I mention the gray blandness? Seriously the more time I spend looking at the new site, the more I feel my will to live being sucked away.
6) Is it really necessary for game info to take up so much of the front page?
7) What's with the tacky looking bar of other games at the top? I'm already on the STO page, you know, the one I actually wanted. Do I really need links to other games plastered across the top of the page?
Overall, I find it quite nice actually. It fits on my phone browser very well, and is easy to read. The only nitpick I have is the news. While I see it's on the far right side on the main landing page, I think that the images up top instead of being just random screenshots/wallpapers should be major news articles. This is what is going to be the most interesting for new and current players.
PS - I tried adding other non PWE games to my library and was quite surprised I was able too (considering it was Star Wars :P). So that's a plus to me!
Otherwise keep up the good work.
Yes, I'm that Askray@Batbayer in game. Yes, I still play. No, I don't care. Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker. Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
Unnecessary change for the sake of change. I fail to see why we need a client to run the game when the current system worked since launch.
How does it benefit me? What do I get out of it? Does it enhance that experience somehow? Upgrading the site to a new third-party does what exactly? Will it do something for me in-game? As it is I only use these forums and twitter. The rest of the site means very little to me.
I suspect that it's a form of intrusionware at it's heart. It's scanning your processes looking for "bootleg" or "suspect" programs running. It's monitoring what you run for advertising analysis and market processing... and of course you'll be expecting us to host and torrent content. It'll want to tie into Facebook. It'll integrate itself into your browser, and it'll generate mysterious conflicts with the competing products.
Worst part is it'll be always on. With the new OSes out there you don't have the ability to kill processes quite the same way you do on the old. No matter how you shut it down some piece of it will be active, watching everything you do and sending data back to the mothership.
All the integrated functions will end up dead-ended or abandoned... just like Gateway. In other words... all that money spent on a total waste of time and effort for zero gameplay enhancement, a butt-load of inconvenient nonsense and forgotten in two seasons when the next thing comes down the pipe.
Of course... some honesty from Cryptic on this would be appreciated... or from PWE. We're forced to speculate based on prior bad experiences. The silence is deafening -- I need answers, as do we all.
Come forward with the information, that's all we ask.
As soon as it can be confirmed that it spies on the computer and sends private data back to China, it will be canned by one agency or another. Doing so is not legal, no matter what BS is claimed in the 'user agreement'. (most of those are basically a load of bull anyway, and would not stand in any court)
As far as the Cryptic devs go, even if the others can't understand it, I fear I can far too well. They're under a gag order from PWE and/or their slavemasters over in Communist China to not respond to such things, since they know any response they give could be implied as saying one way or the other and used as evidence later on.
If they responded to any of the negative posts, it would likely cost them their jobs and livelihoods. I feel bad for them, being stuck in this economy under the yoke of oppression from the same people who slaughtered innocent civilians in Tianenmen Square twenty four years ago.
As soon as it can be confirmed that it spies on the computer and sends private data back to China
PWE has no reason to put it on arc where something of that nature is easier to spot. They already are on your computer. It is called star trek online. It is easier to hide that kinda traffic there since sto already access the hdd and network like crazy. Needle in the haystack approach. As long as you have any mmo on your computer that is in control by pwe then they are already on your computer. They don't need arc to spy. They need arc to advertise their other games.
Please take a look and let us know what you think. You can post feedback here in this thread, or follow the feedback instructions listed in the blog.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
-Dezstravus
As far as the website:
a) Seems cluttered. I'm not sure why, but it just seems like there's a lot going on... most of which I don't care about in the slightest. Once you pare down to the STO area it's not quite so bad, though the heavy use of tiles and limited use of separate pages makes it feel like a massive "wall-of-tiles" that lacks the artistry of a mosaic.
The News section is especially cluttered, with it endlessly adding more tiles to the bottom of the page every time you get there... I actually felt my interest slip away as more and more pictures and snippets appeared ad nauseam.
You might consider making the News tab appear more like the results of your Search function, with thumbnail images of approximately the same height of each result entry currently displayed and retaining the separation into pages that occurs when you Search. The current Search could use options as to how to sort the results as well, but it at looks neater than the full News section.
b) The Guides section doesn't really have any guides, not even the Dilithium 101 article that pops up in the News now and again. I was hoping for something that actually discussed gameplay, how to play, how the game rules are set up, what equipment is available and what it does, etc. Instead it's a link to the Dev Blogs and other "important" News items, something that could simply be a "Sticky" on the Forums. Referring folks to the "community driven Wiki linked above" doesn't help as much as it once would have, now that the wiki has fallen further out-of-date following change of management.
It really would benefit us to have at least a basic rundown of how the game's rules are designed (we know certain things are bugged; write the guide with how they are intended to work). Basics of ship statistics, character design, and so on would be nice too. Go find a video game instruction booklet from the time when such things were actually written well enough to be useful (maybe the 1990's?), then give us at least that much information.
What do Accuracy and Defense do, how do they interact? Why don't my Damage Resistance % stats ever seem to match what my consoles say they give me in Damage Resistance Magnitude? Why do I do less damage when I fire all my energy weapons at once, and why do beams drain more than cannons... what exactly is weapon power drain? What traits are available to what species (since I can't actually see that in character creation)? What ship category are the various craft (Q said I was getting a "Breen Cruiser"), and what difference does this make?
There are a ton of things that Guides could actually provide a guide to...
As far as the Arc Client:
I don't want or need it, since it provides no functionality that I don't already have in another form. It's like adding a standard Cloaking Device to a B'Rel Retrofit in addition to the Enhanced Battle Cloak; sure it's something added on, but what does it actually accomplish? The resources spent on its development could be better allocated to fixing the bugs we see in the game, even if you have "a core technology that means our designers can focus less on a game's nuts and bolts"...
Security and privacy are both concerns as well. You see that hyperlink above? You can follow those in Arc as well as in your standard browser... has Arc added the convenient little banner down there that displays the target, and do you have access to your various security plugins within the overlay's web browser? Do my privacy settings from my current web browser apply to the Arc web browser (not the Arc privacy settings, but the privacy settings that apply when visiting other sites)?
I tried Arc the first time it became available for testing... it supposedly had unique offers and promotions for Arc users, but they never appeared. The cake is a lie :P
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
I know you won't kill this thing, you've set your minds on it.
But for the love of humanity don't make it mandatory!
What we want is a choice, most of the negativity will go away if we just get a choice.
Forcing this on people who don't want it will end badly, like what SOE did to SWG.
I know you won't kill this thing, you've set your minds on it.
But for the love of humanity don't make it mandatory!
What we want is a choice, most of the negativity will go away if we just get a choice.
Forcing this on people who don't want it will end badly, like what SOE did to SWG.
While I agree with you that I personally don't want arc I cannot see it changing anything. There were a lot of people who were upset about their cryptic accounts being merged and the forum cut over. Yet no matter the rage of the user base the game kept moving forward and many who swore they would quit kept playing.
To ease the blow they tried a promotion. I'm okay if people hold out.
PWE has repeatedly said that Arc does NOT have P2P functionality or spyware installed in it. Unless somebody has proof to back up their claim, they should stop contradicting the Devs on this point.
with all due respect but they can repeat as much as they like, but until it's independently verified by a few reputable sources (which will not happen most probably), its our word against pwe's. so i can not retract any statements to the contrary until it's proven that it is not a spy programme or acting in a malicious way.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I'm not saying it's a bad program, I'm not saying it's not well made.
I'm saying I don't have any need for it. And I'm pretty sure the VAASSSST majority of the playerbase won't need it either, why would they? Steam does everything we need, and much more. X Fire even does what we need, hell - you don't need any of those programs to play STO. What ever happened with PWE's love affair with Raptr? We got a bunch of incentives for trying that as well, guess that's all over and done with now eh?
But wait, we won't get to find out about other shoddy games PWE have three fingers and a thumb inside? Well that's too bad, if only there weren't already PWE websites advertising it's other games and placing links to such sites on ST... oh, wait.
If you want Arc to flourish, give us a reason to use it, because right now it's of no use to me what-so-ever. Those incentives you keep mention had better be FANTASTIC. An ingame title and another worthless tribble won't cut it.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] @Aquitaine985 Lag Industries STO PvP Fleet - Executive
A Sad Panda of Industrial calibre. 2010: This is Cryptic PvP. Please hold the line, your call is very important to us...
Point of interest; This topic is not for general hating of Arc.
So it seems this new piece of software will be replacing the launcher for Star Trek Online. And if half the comments concerning this development are to go by, not one player has come forth in support of this.
So, playing this game will require us the players to either use Arc or Steam to launch the game.
Now here is the question;
What is our incentive to use Arc over Steam for playing Star Trek Online? What do we, the playerbase, get out of this arrangement?
Time is a funny thing; There is always too much of it. Except when you need it the most, then there is never enough.
PWE has repeatedly said that Arc does NOT have P2P functionality or spyware installed in it. Unless somebody has proof to back up their claim, they should stop contradicting the Devs on this point.
I honestly don't believe them.
A few years ago, EA said the same exact thing with Origin, until some German journalists exposed it. And then EA changed their EULA that said they program accesses your computer files.
And with ARC, we had someone from the community discover ARC did have it, and we are waiting to see if it still does. Then there is the matter of fact they could easily change the EULA just like EA did and add it without our knowledge.
You don't want to use it, don't use it. But stop frightening everybody else into thinking Arc is the end of STO.
And when it becomes mandatory? Then what?
If Cryptic thinks this is a vocal minority thing, they got another thing coming. Mention ARC in WW or ESD and you will see people aren't happy about it either.
PWI should just leave well enough alone, than go forking such programming on people. Especially how everyone is really sensitive of how X and Y is spying on people lately, anything that even smells of such programming is not welcome.
PWE get the chance to push their limited range of games to you, rather than the large range of games available on Steam.
You also get access to all the blogs that PWE publish. Which I'm guessing you can also get to via your web browser. The same with the News.
They may only publish the Guides through Arc, who knows.
They make may it so that we can only redeem Game Codes via Arc, removing that functionality from the web site. So that would be a "bonus" to using Arc.
So the short answer is that the advantage over Steam will be that you will have access to all the functions you currently have access too after they remove them from the web site.
I also expect them to add in a chat client to Arc at some point. Because I already running Lync, Messenger, Team Speak 3, Skype and Steam. How can I exist with only this meagre selection chat clients? I must have another tied to a single game publisher.
That new website (I finally looked at it) doesn't look at all appealing... it looks like a cluttered POS. Honestly. To me it's so unorganized, unpretty, and it forces more ads for games down our throats. If I wanted to play other PWE games I'd do so. The only thing I'm glad about is that the forums have been at least left alone.
EDIT: I am sure I could make something more appealing looking myself on a weekend with webs.com... because I have before.
while i do find the interface for arc to be interresting, its laggy, wont show i play sto, though shows other games I play like neverwinter. But what I hate sofar, really hate is that I keep crashing when trying to play trek, loaded up with out arc on NO! problems, game was not lagging on me. When on game with arc on my cpu usage almost doubles from what STO normaly does.
Sofar its not worth using.
Space is vast, it's wonderful and maddening. Yet in that madness is some of the greatest beauty I have ever seen.
PWE get the chance to push their limited range of games to you, rather than the large range of games available on Steam.
You also get access to all the blogs that PWE publish. Which I'm guessing you can also get to via your web browser. The same with the News.
They may only publish the Guides through Arc, who knows.
They make may it so that we can only redeem Game Codes via Arc, removing that functionality from the web site. So that would be a "bonus" to using Arc.
So the short answer is that the advantage over Steam will be that you will have access to all the functions you currently have access too after they remove them from the web site.
I also expect them to add in a chat client to Arc at some point. Because I already running Lync, Messenger, Team Speak 3, Skype and Steam. How can I exist with only this meagre selection chat clients? I must have another tied to a single game publisher.
I'm sorry but most STO players are happy with just the launcher and don't care about the bells and whistles that ARC has.
Most don't care about the other PWE games. Those who do, might benefit, but not those who are here who only want to play STO.
Nobody wants to use the ARC web browser since its not proven to be safe, compared to other browsers that clearly have a long history of security.
Nobody really cares about PWE blogs, most only care about STO Development and Event blogs.
Steam is more reliable than ARC by a mile and it has far better performance that doesn't even lag programs. Not to mention there is no questionable history with it.
As for ARC itself (looking at you PWI), I personally don't trust ARC. If you give us to Opt-Out, that would be great.
Absolutely no perf difference on my box running ARC at approx. 20-25% CPU usage at ESD orbit, and similar memory usage for both.
I find it useful to not have to remember my PWE password...
More concerned about the "mini" browser that is in this thing, it doesn't seem use the default operating system browser, so I assume its one you have written yourself... what are you doing to keep the browser secure from common attacks, how will you be updating it etc...
Guess the news about steam never got around PWE.
Why would they need it when they have steam to sell and advertise their games? PLus people have all their games on that already.Head explodes when you try to understand the hidden marketing reasons.
I've had ARC in for ages, had no problems with it.
Never use the features of it however, I load ARC to load STO or NWO. Once I finish playing I also exit ARC. No real problem, it takes what, a second extra to load it? and another to exit it? It has not made any difference to my "game experience" at all.
Steam be my saviour and save me from having to download a steam clone .
One is more than enough thank you.
Wish games developers never came up with this stuff, and games would still need only Windows to run, not a host of secondary applications of little use.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
Guess the news about steam never got around PWE.
Why would they need it when they have steam to sell and advertise their games? PLus people have all their games on that already.Head explodes when you try to understand the hidden marketing reasons.
Steam also takes a cut of any Zen sold through Steam, PWE wants to cut out the middle man so to speak.
A few years ago, EA said the same exact thing with Origin, until some German journalists exposed it. And then EA changed their EULA that said they program accesses your computer files.
A bit like Steam, except Steam never tried to lie about that, it was in the EULA from the start.
As for ARC, sorry, thanks but no thanks, I already have Origin for BF3, Steam for many games (sadly), I already have enough spyware.
I appreciate those of you who have had a chance to check out the STO website side of Arc at http://games.arcgames.com/en/prod/star-trek-online. This is currently planned to become the new website for startrekonline.com in the not-too-distant, so you feedback is crucial.
Noel, Trevor and I are very interested in hearing concise and constructive feedback on the following sections of the site, as we have control over the content displayed there (but not the UI flow, see below regarding UI feedback as it's very important to us too!):
*Please also feel free to look at these pages in fullscreen mode, as well as on mobile devices and tablets.
Please let us know what you think about the displayed content (text, imagery, format, etc.). For example, it was pointed out that the Gateway was missing from the Guides section -- we'll be able to add this in soon as we control this displayed content.
Feel free to also leave your feedback about the UI and/or UI flow and we'll be happy to pass it along. For example, it was pointed out that some would like to see improvements to the way news is displayed -- this is feedback we can pass along for consideration.
Known issue:
There is no link to the Tribble character transfer page.
This will be added as a "guide" in the future.
Thanks again, and we look forward to your feedback.
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
Just from my initial looks at the new website, it looks very cluttered and dated.
Reminds me of sites that used to be around in the 90's. If that was the look PWE was going for, then they nailed it.
Not sure why you need to hide everything behind other pages when the old system of a dropdown box sufficed..
Wont have any real impact on me as I never visit the website, thankfully.
Please let us know if your system provided any context for the warning. Did a specific behavior or element of the software trigger the warning? Please feel free to post it here or send the info to arc_feedback@perfectworld.com and we'll be happy to look into it.
Thanks!
Noel
Uhmmm...I had issues with the active ARC process. I kept getting messages saying that my Malwarebytes and Avira were blocking outgoing messages from the program. When I used Windows task manager to close all ARC processes, there were two other processes that disappeared from the list of active processes when I closed all active ARC processes.
I know that you guys wouldn't do something as customer-repelling as actively adding spyware; have you considered that ARC may have been TRIBBLE?
Comments
And before you say "Can I haz ur stuff?", read that again. I'll still be playing the game. I just won't be paying for it.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Part of the clutter feeling is the news section feels all over the place and not really as friendly to lower res screens. It took me a moment to realize that the tiles seem a bit out of order. S8 dev blog 34 looked out of place with it being the only new item then to a video box with a trailer.
http://i.imgur.com/qBzdmfO.jpg
It doesn't seem to be better zoomed out.
@devs here's my feedback.
Personally i find the ARC site a bit confusing TBH. Especially for someone who just wants to play one single game (STO in my case).
What i also do not like is how long it takes to load. I don't know why but it took almost a minute to start.
Mere's my feedback concerning the text parts:
This is somehow misleading IMO.
A player cannot become part of Star Trek, since STO isn't canon nor it is even close to canon.
A player cannot "pioneer their own destiny as captain of a federation Starship". This is wrong for several reasons imo.
First story and missions are the same for everyone. The above statement would be true if Exploration mechanics would work and would have been expanded, so each players game would have been a bit different.
Second we aren't captains, we are (vice) admirals. Maybe that insignificant for you devs but for me this is important. It is part of the immersion to be called "captain", but instead we are being called Vice Admiral all the time. I don't know about other people, but the main reason for me to play a computer game is immersion.
If i want to do sports or compete with other people i go and DO real sports (which i frequently do). What i want is a immersive Star Trek experience, but this is where STO clearly needs a lot more work.
Is this really how you see STO?
What most other people see are space battles in all kinds and shapes, but no exploration or sense of wonder which this text is suggesting.
There is no final frontier if someone who wants to leave a sector block get the traffic control message "you are not allowed to proceed further" (or something like that).
That's the exact opposite to the final frontier, it's more like driving inside a big city.
No, a player is NOT the Captain (admiral btw.) we cannot decide anything, since the results will be in 99% of the time the same. This text is suggesting a more freeform of playing imo, STO is not even nearly like that.
It is also misleading since starship interior is really not very developed. So advertising it like a big feature could result in dissappointed customers.
I'd like to seriously disagree with that. Not just because ship customization is most of the times very limited, newer ships feature almost NO alternative ship parts to speak of. Older ships (made several years ago) offer much more freedom to customize. But if you look at the Odyssey or Avenger, your statement is just plain wrong. Althrough both are new ship and the Odyssey is the new enterprise none of them have alternative ship parts, the oddyssey does not even hav forward swept pylons, something that could be done in just a couple of minutes. But obviously customization is NOT one of your priorities.
(Not to speak of the various KDF and Rom ships that lack good ship parts.)
The other thing is character customization. Tbh. i have never seen a more bugged game mode in any AAA title.
And no we cannot leave a Mark on the Star Trek universe, since our actions (even less a individual players) do NOT change anything.
I have way too little experience with the foundry to comment it.
Wasn't city of heros and city of villians shut down?
What does " It?s built on the Cryptic Engine, a core technology that means our designers can focus less on a game?s nuts and bolts and more on creating a game ...", mean?
Do you want to imply that bugfixing isn't neccessary? :eek:
"...and more on creating a game that captures Star Trek?s essence, guaranteeing that both longtime fans of Star Trek and people new to the universe will feel at home."
I can't even start to explain on how many level this is utterly wrong.
Starting from ships being pressed into totally wrong "roles" over the ship mechanics in general, Carriers and spacefighters, the imbalance toward everything that remotely sounds tactical to the total LACK of Star Trek feeling.
Let me assure you, long time Star Trek fans do not play STO because of its immersion, the reason most of us haven't already gone is because we care about Star Trek (maybe more than you do) and keep the little hope that STO could become a bit more Star Trekkish one day.
STO does not capture the Star Trek essence, if you really believe that, i am very sorry for you. I hope the above is just the casual marketing stuff.
Amongst other things Star Trek (yes, there is more than DS9
(both are good Sci Fi universes on their own, but Star Trek is very different.)
I'll continue later, maybe.
About ARC, my concerns about it are purely about it being spyware. I think i am not alone with that.
It's very simple: I do not want being spied on while playing STO (i do not want to be spied on AT ALL!).
I do not care because it is a new kind of software and i want to keep the old one. I couldn't care less.
I also do not care about the commercials or other stuff. My concerns are purely about ARC being a spyware software.
Maybe some people do not care about this but for e this is a very sensitive matter. And i would be glad if Cryptic would acknowledge this and make STO a good game not a spyware that watches me and collects information about me all the time. I do not want that! (and i hope this is not legal in the first place and will be challenged from all over the world, becaus this trend to spy people MUST END)
I'm serious when i say i will uninstall STO the day this spyware is the only way for me to play STO.
I try to avoid Steam whenever possible, installing ARC would be even worse.
I know Cryptic does not care about us or our wishes, but at least this time you should listen.
Star Trek online: 2010-2014 R.I.P.
(for me at least)
Btw:
Sorry for typos
Agreed. The design of that website makes me feel like I'm back in the 90s.
Seriously, did you guys hire a high school kid to design that? (No offense to high school kids who I'm fairly certain could actually do a better job).
*Edit*
Now I've had time to do some side-by-side comparisons here's what I don't like about the new website:
1) It's gray, oh so gray. The current website has a nice background image to liven things up the new one looks like it came from Orwell's 1984, it's so bland.
2) The current site has the nice animated news box at the top, so I can see what's new at a glance. The new site has an animated box of wallpapers with the news hidden so far down I have to scroll to find it.
3) The current site keeps thing visually clean and appealing by putting things in the nice boxes. The new site has stuff just dumped on the screen, leaving it unbalanced. The top is too crowded and once you scroll a little way down it's more gray blandness.
4) Getting to the forums involves going through yet another soul sucking page of gray blandness. With the current site, one click on a drop down menu and I'm there (Bring back the drop down menus).
5) Did I mention the gray blandness? Seriously the more time I spend looking at the new site, the more I feel my will to live being sucked away.
6) Is it really necessary for game info to take up so much of the front page?
7) What's with the tacky looking bar of other games at the top? I'm already on the STO page, you know, the one I actually wanted. Do I really need links to other games plastered across the top of the page?
PS - I tried adding other non PWE games to my library and was quite surprised I was able too (considering it was Star Wars :P). So that's a plus to me!
Otherwise keep up the good work.
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
How does it benefit me? What do I get out of it? Does it enhance that experience somehow? Upgrading the site to a new third-party does what exactly? Will it do something for me in-game? As it is I only use these forums and twitter. The rest of the site means very little to me.
I suspect that it's a form of intrusionware at it's heart. It's scanning your processes looking for "bootleg" or "suspect" programs running. It's monitoring what you run for advertising analysis and market processing... and of course you'll be expecting us to host and torrent content. It'll want to tie into Facebook. It'll integrate itself into your browser, and it'll generate mysterious conflicts with the competing products.
Worst part is it'll be always on. With the new OSes out there you don't have the ability to kill processes quite the same way you do on the old. No matter how you shut it down some piece of it will be active, watching everything you do and sending data back to the mothership.
All the integrated functions will end up dead-ended or abandoned... just like Gateway. In other words... all that money spent on a total waste of time and effort for zero gameplay enhancement, a butt-load of inconvenient nonsense and forgotten in two seasons when the next thing comes down the pipe.
Of course... some honesty from Cryptic on this would be appreciated... or from PWE. We're forced to speculate based on prior bad experiences. The silence is deafening -- I need answers, as do we all.
Come forward with the information, that's all we ask.
As far as the Cryptic devs go, even if the others can't understand it, I fear I can far too well. They're under a gag order from PWE and/or their slavemasters over in Communist China to not respond to such things, since they know any response they give could be implied as saying one way or the other and used as evidence later on.
If they responded to any of the negative posts, it would likely cost them their jobs and livelihoods. I feel bad for them, being stuck in this economy under the yoke of oppression from the same people who slaughtered innocent civilians in Tianenmen Square twenty four years ago.
PWE has no reason to put it on arc where something of that nature is easier to spot. They already are on your computer. It is called star trek online. It is easier to hide that kinda traffic there since sto already access the hdd and network like crazy. Needle in the haystack approach. As long as you have any mmo on your computer that is in control by pwe then they are already on your computer. They don't need arc to spy. They need arc to advertise their other games.
As far as the website:
a) Seems cluttered. I'm not sure why, but it just seems like there's a lot going on... most of which I don't care about in the slightest. Once you pare down to the STO area it's not quite so bad, though the heavy use of tiles and limited use of separate pages makes it feel like a massive "wall-of-tiles" that lacks the artistry of a mosaic.
The News section is especially cluttered, with it endlessly adding more tiles to the bottom of the page every time you get there... I actually felt my interest slip away as more and more pictures and snippets appeared ad nauseam.
You might consider making the News tab appear more like the results of your Search function, with thumbnail images of approximately the same height of each result entry currently displayed and retaining the separation into pages that occurs when you Search. The current Search could use options as to how to sort the results as well, but it at looks neater than the full News section.
b) The Guides section doesn't really have any guides, not even the Dilithium 101 article that pops up in the News now and again. I was hoping for something that actually discussed gameplay, how to play, how the game rules are set up, what equipment is available and what it does, etc. Instead it's a link to the Dev Blogs and other "important" News items, something that could simply be a "Sticky" on the Forums. Referring folks to the "community driven Wiki linked above" doesn't help as much as it once would have, now that the wiki has fallen further out-of-date following change of management.
It really would benefit us to have at least a basic rundown of how the game's rules are designed (we know certain things are bugged; write the guide with how they are intended to work). Basics of ship statistics, character design, and so on would be nice too. Go find a video game instruction booklet from the time when such things were actually written well enough to be useful (maybe the 1990's?), then give us at least that much information.
What do Accuracy and Defense do, how do they interact? Why don't my Damage Resistance % stats ever seem to match what my consoles say they give me in Damage Resistance Magnitude? Why do I do less damage when I fire all my energy weapons at once, and why do beams drain more than cannons... what exactly is weapon power drain? What traits are available to what species (since I can't actually see that in character creation)? What ship category are the various craft (Q said I was getting a "Breen Cruiser"), and what difference does this make?
There are a ton of things that Guides could actually provide a guide to...
As far as the Arc Client:
I don't want or need it, since it provides no functionality that I don't already have in another form. It's like adding a standard Cloaking Device to a B'Rel Retrofit in addition to the Enhanced Battle Cloak; sure it's something added on, but what does it actually accomplish? The resources spent on its development could be better allocated to fixing the bugs we see in the game, even if you have "a core technology that means our designers can focus less on a game's nuts and bolts"...
Security and privacy are both concerns as well. You see that hyperlink above? You can follow those in Arc as well as in your standard browser... has Arc added the convenient little banner down there that displays the target, and do you have access to your various security plugins within the overlay's web browser? Do my privacy settings from my current web browser apply to the Arc web browser (not the Arc privacy settings, but the privacy settings that apply when visiting other sites)?
I tried Arc the first time it became available for testing... it supposedly had unique offers and promotions for Arc users, but they never appeared. The cake is a lie :P
But for the love of humanity don't make it mandatory!
What we want is a choice, most of the negativity will go away if we just get a choice.
Forcing this on people who don't want it will end badly, like what SOE did to SWG.
While I agree with you that I personally don't want arc I cannot see it changing anything. There were a lot of people who were upset about their cryptic accounts being merged and the forum cut over. Yet no matter the rage of the user base the game kept moving forward and many who swore they would quit kept playing.
To ease the blow they tried a promotion. I'm okay if people hold out.
with all due respect but they can repeat as much as they like, but until it's independently verified by a few reputable sources (which will not happen most probably), its our word against pwe's. so i can not retract any statements to the contrary until it's proven that it is not a spy programme or acting in a malicious way.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I still have no reason to use Arc.
I'm not saying it's a bad program, I'm not saying it's not well made.
I'm saying I don't have any need for it. And I'm pretty sure the VAASSSST majority of the playerbase won't need it either, why would they? Steam does everything we need, and much more. X Fire even does what we need, hell - you don't need any of those programs to play STO. What ever happened with PWE's love affair with Raptr? We got a bunch of incentives for trying that as well, guess that's all over and done with now eh?
But wait, we won't get to find out about other shoddy games PWE have three fingers and a thumb inside? Well that's too bad, if only there weren't already PWE websites advertising it's other games and placing links to such sites on ST... oh, wait.
If you want Arc to flourish, give us a reason to use it, because right now it's of no use to me what-so-ever. Those incentives you keep mention had better be FANTASTIC. An ingame title and another worthless tribble won't cut it.
@Aquitaine985
Lag Industries STO PvP Fleet - Executive
A Sad Panda of Industrial calibre.
2010: This is Cryptic PvP. Please hold the line, your call is very important to us...
So it seems this new piece of software will be replacing the launcher for Star Trek Online. And if half the comments concerning this development are to go by, not one player has come forth in support of this.
So, playing this game will require us the players to either use Arc or Steam to launch the game.
Now here is the question;
What is our incentive to use Arc over Steam for playing Star Trek Online? What do we, the playerbase, get out of this arrangement?
I honestly don't believe them.
A few years ago, EA said the same exact thing with Origin, until some German journalists exposed it. And then EA changed their EULA that said they program accesses your computer files.
And with ARC, we had someone from the community discover ARC did have it, and we are waiting to see if it still does. Then there is the matter of fact they could easily change the EULA just like EA did and add it without our knowledge.
And when it becomes mandatory? Then what?
If Cryptic thinks this is a vocal minority thing, they got another thing coming. Mention ARC in WW or ESD and you will see people aren't happy about it either.
PWI should just leave well enough alone, than go forking such programming on people. Especially how everyone is really sensitive of how X and Y is spying on people lately, anything that even smells of such programming is not welcome.
PWE get the chance to push their limited range of games to you, rather than the large range of games available on Steam.
You also get access to all the blogs that PWE publish. Which I'm guessing you can also get to via your web browser. The same with the News.
They may only publish the Guides through Arc, who knows.
They make may it so that we can only redeem Game Codes via Arc, removing that functionality from the web site. So that would be a "bonus" to using Arc.
So the short answer is that the advantage over Steam will be that you will have access to all the functions you currently have access too after they remove them from the web site.
I also expect them to add in a chat client to Arc at some point. Because I already running Lync, Messenger, Team Speak 3, Skype and Steam. How can I exist with only this meagre selection chat clients? I must have another tied to a single game publisher.
EDIT: I am sure I could make something more appealing looking myself on a weekend with webs.com... because I have before.
Sofar its not worth using.
I'm sorry but most STO players are happy with just the launcher and don't care about the bells and whistles that ARC has.
Most don't care about the other PWE games. Those who do, might benefit, but not those who are here who only want to play STO.
Nobody wants to use the ARC web browser since its not proven to be safe, compared to other browsers that clearly have a long history of security.
Nobody really cares about PWE blogs, most only care about STO Development and Event blogs.
Steam is more reliable than ARC by a mile and it has far better performance that doesn't even lag programs. Not to mention there is no questionable history with it.
As for ARC itself (looking at you PWI), I personally don't trust ARC. If you give us to Opt-Out, that would be great.
I find it useful to not have to remember my PWE password...
More concerned about the "mini" browser that is in this thing, it doesn't seem use the default operating system browser, so I assume its one you have written yourself... what are you doing to keep the browser secure from common attacks, how will you be updating it etc...
Why would they need it when they have steam to sell and advertise their games? PLus people have all their games on that already.Head explodes when you try to understand the hidden marketing reasons.
Never use the features of it however, I load ARC to load STO or NWO. Once I finish playing I also exit ARC. No real problem, it takes what, a second extra to load it? and another to exit it? It has not made any difference to my "game experience" at all.
One is more than enough thank you.
Wish games developers never came up with this stuff, and games would still need only Windows to run, not a host of secondary applications of little use.
Steam also takes a cut of any Zen sold through Steam, PWE wants to cut out the middle man so to speak.
So far I've been able to circumvent it. Should that at some point no longer be possible I'll be part of the players you loose.
As for ARC, sorry, thanks but no thanks, I already have Origin for BF3, Steam for many games (sadly), I already have enough spyware.
Just from my initial looks at the new website, it looks very cluttered and dated.
Reminds me of sites that used to be around in the 90's. If that was the look PWE was going for, then they nailed it.
Not sure why you need to hide everything behind other pages when the old system of a dropdown box sufficed..
Wont have any real impact on me as I never visit the website, thankfully.
Uhmmm...I had issues with the active ARC process. I kept getting messages saying that my Malwarebytes and Avira were blocking outgoing messages from the program. When I used Windows task manager to close all ARC processes, there were two other processes that disappeared from the list of active processes when I closed all active ARC processes.
I know that you guys wouldn't do something as customer-repelling as actively adding spyware; have you considered that ARC may have been TRIBBLE?
Worffan101