You won't accept anything that can be offered as proof.
Prove to us it's not spyware.
In the same vein, you won't accept anything that can be offered as proof, either. In the age of Photoshop, I could sit here and give you all the screenshots of my anti-virus and anti-malware devices and you can do the same and we'd both be sitting here pulling or best Vreenak impersonation.
Better yet; prove to us why we need ARC - what it contributes to our gaming that something like Steam doesn't already.
In all honestly, not much, if anything. But, don't sit there and scream "AH-HA! I KNEW IT!" just yet. For all you know, there's more that could come down the line and change things. *shrugs* I have no idea, I'm just a guy who wants to play STO and I could care less if I have to download Arc or not.
Why are you for ARC?
Because it's there and I don't see any problem with it. As long as my anti-virus thing doesn't start screaming obscenities at me over something bad it can do, I'm fine with it.
Why should I change my mind about it? What does ARC give us that Steam is lacking?
Arc isn't a bad thing, per se. It's not the Devil Incarnate everyone wants to picture it as, it's not the malware device that people are trumpeting it as. It's just a program designed to play games. But, I feel that a lot of this won't work on you. People have had at least a good year to stir up fear and confusion about what Arc can and cannot do that people will sit here and scream to the heavens at how horrible it is.
Honestly, if you want to play with Steam, by all means, go ahead. I got Steam, too, but I rarely use it. I just use Arc so I can hop on and play STO. I don't want the standalone launcher and I don't want to hunt down copies of the game so I can have the cool stuff waiting for me. I'm happy with what I got.
Isn't that what it comes down to in the end? We all should be open-minded about all of our options, no matter what.
In the same vein, you won't accept anything that can be offered as proof, either. In the age of Photoshop, I could sit here and give you all the screenshots of my anti-virus and anti-malware devices and you can do the same and we'd both be sitting here pulling or best Vreenak impersonation.
In all honestly, not much, if anything. But, don't sit there and scream "AH-HA! I KNEW IT!" just yet. For all you know, there's more that could come down the line and change things. *shrugs* I have no idea, I'm just a guy who wants to play STO and I could care less if I have to download Arc or not.
Because it's there and I don't see any problem with it. As long as my anti-virus thing doesn't start screaming obscenities at me over something bad it can do, I'm fine with it.
Arc isn't a bad thing, per se. It's not the Devil Incarnate everyone wants to picture it as, it's not the malware device that people are trumpeting it as. It's just a program designed to play games. But, I feel that a lot of this won't work on you. People have had at least a good year to stir up fear and confusion about what Arc can and cannot do that people will sit here and scream to the heavens at how horrible it is.
Honestly, if you want to play with Steam, by all means, go ahead. I got Steam, too, but I rarely use it. I just use Arc so I can hop on and play STO. I don't want the standalone launcher and I don't want to hunt down copies of the game so I can have the cool stuff waiting for me. I'm happy with what I got.
Isn't that what it comes down to in the end? We all should be open-minded about all of our options, no matter what.
I decided to drop by for a min to see if the innocents where ever given relief, but unfortunately its as I imagined, ARC's letting its fan club do its dirty work for it still.
Ok, here it is once more for the thick headed, and once more I think you already know it your just slapping your heads like Rainman to avoid the bath water, because you might ACTUALLY have to publicly acknowledge your old buddy Cat is right all along, after flaming me and others about this for so long. (You know I bet Sparklesoft could tattoo it on some of your foreheads himself, and you would just break the mirror and say "what spywhere? There is no proof")
The proof is still there, I took the time to listen to (SParklesoft and BranFlakes) and know what they said about what it does...so here it is again!!! If you really wanted proof you would investigate instead trying to help destroy things for the other players! (yes im angry...incase your asking )
Post #1031 by SParklesoft
The guy put in charge of overseeing the ARC project...in case you ask, "why would he know?"
In all, we dont care if you like it or not, this isnt about you now that you have and like it, its an fight to avoid something designed to monitor you like the government in (Demolition Man) we have to deal with this enough in RL, cant players just enjoy the blasted game without you playing Gestapo? I cant figure why its so important for people in this world to dictate to one another, is the role of domination overtaken em so badly that they have to use law and their products to satisfy their sociopathic desires??
...just making friends and influencing people lol =^.^=
I decided to drop by for a min to see if the innocents where ever given relief, but unfortunately its as I imagined, ARC's letting its fan club do its dirty work for it still.
Ok, here it is once more for the think headed, and once more I think you already know it your just slapping your heads like Rainman to avoid the bath water, because you might ACTUALLY have to publicly acknowledge your old buddy Cat is right all along, after flaming me and others about this for so long. (You know I bet Sparklesoft could tattoo it on some of your foreheads himself, and you would just break the mirror and say "what spywhere? There is no proof")
The proof is still there, I took the time to listen to (SParklesoft and BranFlakes) and know what they said about what it does...so here it is again!!! If you really wanted proof you would investigate instead trying to help destroy things for the other players! (yes im angry...incase your asking )
Post #1031 by SParklesoft
The guy put in charge of overseeing the ARC project...in case you ask, "why would he know?"
In all, we dont care if you like it or not, this isnt about you now that you have and like it, its an fight to avoid something designed to monitor you like the government in (Demolition Man) we have to deal with this enough in RL, cant players just enjoy the blasted game without you playing Gestapo? I cant figure why its so important for people in this world to dictate to one another, is the role of domination overtaken em so badly that they have to use law and their products to satisfy their sociopathic desires??
...just making friends and influencing people lol =^.^=
1) It's sparkiesoft :P
2) I think you're not realizing something. Almost every MMO in existance has a system to monitor for cheat systems, even STO's system has some rudimentary system i'm sure without the ARC launcher however with the ARC launcher running constantly it can monitor it better.
They aren't dictating anything to you or trying to dominate. They are trying to make sure that no one exploits their games the best they can.
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
Arc sucks, in general. I've been playing STO for years, with hardly a problem--in-game, or in making purchases. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. There was nothing wrong with the way it was before. Since Arc, I've had nothing but problems, in making purchases, crashes, lag, etc. I run STO off my game file, it runs fine. Not sure how that works, but ok. Go back to PWE, you don't need Arc.
I would never recommend a friend to install ARC. I would tell them go through steam. At least steam doesn't run in the background and you can close it when you are done logging into the client.
um, that is not correct - Steam runs in exactly the same manner as Arc*, continues to run in the background while a game is playing, and in fact launches a (demonstrably unstable) interface layer whenever you launch a game (Arc does the same thing, but the Arc version doesn't seem to take an extra ten seconds to close after exiting a game, preventing you from immediately relaunching).
there's little to no difference between using either, and the complaints about Arc are exactly the same complaints that people made about Steam when it first appeared.
* in fact, it runs as a Service as well as a client, so is arguably using more resources than Arc.
Personnaly I don't like that Arc stuff.... When i've started play STO, I just had to launch the launcher...Now i've to launch Arc which anyway starts the launcher... Kinda like a box in a box... Useless and unpractical...
You can go into Windows Task Manager and under processes force 'Arc.exe 32*' to close by right clicking and selecting to 'End Process'. This will close Arc down. However, the 'ArcOSBrowser.exe 32*' will not close when you try to end the process. This means that no matter what, you are going to have the Arc overlay still functioning. While in game you will still be able to press 'Shift+Tab' (default) to bring up the Arc console so you can access the Arc web browser without minimizing the game.
For now if you have STO without Arc you can continue to use it like that. Eventually there will be only 2 choices: Arc or Steam. But having Arc mandatory isn't going to happen for a while.
Hmm. Accessing the Arc web browser through the Arc overlay in game I noticed a '+' button to the right of the tab and when clicking it a new tab opened up with the Arc homepage.
No idea when that was added, or if I just never noticed it before. Tabbed browsing makes the Arc browser more useful.
However, middle clicking (mouse wheel) and right clicking on a link in the Arc browser seems to do nothing.
In a normal web browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer I can middle click on a link and it will automatically open in a new tab. I can also right click a link and get a list of options pop up with 'Open in new tab' at the very top. Often times I end up opening multiple threads in separate tabs from the STO forums in Firefox by middle/right clicking the links.
I also don't see any way to bookmark/favorite web pages in the Arc broswer. It would make it even more useful if I could have STOAcademy bookmarked. Almost always when playing the game I have the STO forums open in 1 tab and STOAcademy open in another for the skill planner so I can look at my builds as I switch characters to see what's what and what needs changing if anything.
If they are already starting to force the PWE games to run through Arc, it is only a matter of time before that requirement makes its way to the Cryptic games as well.
-AoP- Warrior's Blood (KDF Armada) / -AoP- Qu' raD qulbo'Degh / -AoP- ProjectPhoenix Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
You hereby acknowledge and agree that:
(a) WHEN USING THE SERVICES, THE SOFTWARE MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) AND/OR CPU PROCESSES FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH THE SOFTWARE. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY "ADD-ON" OR "MOD," THAT IN PWE'S SOLE DETERMINATION: (i) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE; (ii) ALLOWS USERS TO MODIFY OR HACK THE SOFTWARE INTERFACE, ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY NOT EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED BY PWE; OR (iii) INTERCEPTS, "MINES," OR OTHERWISE COLLECTS INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH THE SOFTWARE. IN THE EVENT THAT THE SOFTWARE DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, IT MAY COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO PWE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM WAS DETECTED; AND/OR AND PERFECT WORLD ENTERTAINMNET MAY EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS SECTION OF THE AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER.
Sorry for caps, they're present in the source.
Sorry for caps, they're present in the source.
But that doc only talks about programs that are currently running - it doesn't say that it can scan your entire hard drive.
If they are already starting to force the PWE games to run through Arc, it is only a matter of time before that requirement makes its way to the Cryptic games as well.
They're not any happier than we are. I wonder if they're purposefully trying to get rid of players.
I like Arc but when it eventually becomes mandatory for all PWE games, if Arc goes down that most likely means that none of the games will be accessible.
Arc went down today. The Arc client couldn't connect, the Arc website gave an "internal error" message, the STO forums were down for a short while and when they came back up I just got a blank white webpage when trying to log in. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=16445211#post16445211
If they are already starting to force the PWE games to run through Arc, it is only a matter of time before that requirement makes its way to the Cryptic games as well.
I like Arc but when it eventually becomes mandatory for all PWE games, if Arc goes down that most likely means that none of the games will be accessible.
Arc went down today. The Arc client couldn't connect, the Arc website gave an "internal error" message, the STO forums were down for a short while and when they came back up I just got a blank white webpage when trying to log in. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=16445211#post16445211
A few posts above me
Mandatory Arc coming soon to STO?
Guys, this isn't a shocker. It's been said for pretty much a year ARC WILL become mandatory. No if's, and's or but's. Your only two options will be ARC and Steam.
So no one should be shocked by the fact that other PWE titles are going mandatory for ARC and asking if STO will. It's just a matter of time
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
If they are already starting to force the PWE games to run through Arc, it is only a matter of time before that requirement makes its way to the Cryptic games as well.
JD's side of things frustration is very legit. Arc is being forced on them against their will by PWE and the program itself is bugged and unfinished, which will directly affect their game play. Even one of the mods mentioned how unhappy he/she was about it.
At what point do you say, "this might not be a good idea based on feedback from multiple threads from multiple games from countless customers that they don't want it and could leave because of it, maybe we should leave it as an option instead"???
So why not just leave it as an option? If the answer is "probably because not a lot of customers will use it if we didn't" then that probably should be a hint that this isn't a program for a lot of people who plays your games and would want to continue to play your games regardless of how legit or bogus the reason for not wanting Arc might be.
If I was a possible consumer wanting to look in to or play one of PWE games, knowing that I would need to install this Arc to play them, I wouldn't bother and move on. Too much hassle while there are many other games available that don't need such programs.
Lastly, Arc isn't Steam and Steam isn't Arc. They are not the same. Still, I'm very confused as to why PWE just didn't use Steam instead. The idea behind Arc is to get customers to play their other games also, to have increased exposure, but if they used Steam, their exposure would be much greater and from a much wider market.
Apparently players from other games such as JD are working on a way to mod or bypass the Arc client already. This might get messy.
Edit: Happy to hear that for STO will still have the option to use Steam, I say we got off lucky compared to the others.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Guys, this isn't a shocker. It's been said for pretty much a year ARC WILL become mandatory. No if's, and's or but's. Your only two options will be ARC and Steam.
So no one should be shocked by the fact that other PWE titles are going mandatory for ARC and asking if STO will. It's just a matter of time
I wasn't asking if Arc was going to become mandatory. I was asking if it was going to become mandatory "soon".
I've also told others in the past on the forums here that the only options will be steam or Arc.
Edit: Happy to hear that for STO will still have the option to use Steam, I say we got off lucky compared to the others.
I think the main reason why STO (and other PWE games) are still gonna be playable on Steam is because they got stuff they sell on there. STO and Neverwinter have Steam Starter Packs (STOs containing the canon ship Steamrunner-class) - hell, STO's Starter Park is Number #2 in best selling items from PWE to Steam (#1 is Neverwinter's Hero of the North. Seems like that's their "Legacy of Romulus" pack). I don't think PWE would want to lose those players. Or that money.
Speaking of, I should pick up the Steamrunner. Just because.
However, I can see why JD players are throwing a fit: it's one of the seven games NOT on Steam (all three of Cryptic's games, plus Rusty Hearts, Blacklight: Retribution, Forsaken World and War of the Immortals are part of the Steam circle) and, thus, is easy to go ahead and slip into the ARC fold. They can't run to Steam or somewhere else. So, it's either circumvent, deal with it, or Rage Quit. And it seems like people are pushing for #1, but settling for #3 until #1 can happen.
Anyone else having difficulty accessing the earn zen page on the website? I keep getting an error page saying that I need to have an account at least 10 days old and a character at lvl 10 or more. Page was working for me up until I refreshed it earlier. Account is 20 days old and have a STO character at Vice Admiral.
Anyone else having difficulty accessing the earn zen page on the website? I keep getting an error page saying that I need to have an account at least 10 days old and a character at lvl 10 or more. Page was working for me up until I refreshed it earlier. Account is 20 days old and have a STO character at Vice Admiral.
No, I'm good. Might be a hiccup with the downtime. I think someone here might have a link that shoots to the old one?
I downloaded and tried ARC. I am glad I only let it install into the folder I created and kept my original STO launcher. It does not improve anything. The old STO game launcher is much better. It is simple. I click it, game launches, done. All ARC does is add another step to the process. There are no features in ARC I need. That is what the website is for. I do not need a custom browser that just happens to also launch the game launcher. Hmmm, in the dictonary under re-dundant it says see re-dundant. That is exactly what ARC is, not or no longer needed or useful. I would much rather go to the perfect world website through my regular browser than to use ARC. My browser does not have to be open in the background while the game runs.
i have nothing to add, this is also my point of view. STO is the only mmo which i play, why should i use arc?
Guys, this isn't a shocker. It's been said for pretty much a year ARC WILL become mandatory. No if's, and's or but's. Your only two options will be ARC and Steam.
So no one should be shocked by the fact that other PWE titles are going mandatory for ARC and asking if STO will. It's just a matter of time
That is true. Making it mandatory while it is still in beta is another thing. Beta is meant to be an opt in, I have taken part in a couple myself and every time I had to apply for it.
We all know Arc is coming. But why the rush now? There's still much "content" and settings for Arc that haven't been implemented yet... to say nothing about testing it. I suppose after playing on Tribble and knowing that bugged content will still make it to Holodeck, being required to login to STO using a a half-finished Arc shouldn't be unexpected either.
My issue now is that they are going to force it upon Jade Dynasty (which I did play from time to time until this posting). This was announced through a patch note. The announcement was passed off, to me at least, as an afterthought. If PWE is going to get the ball rolling with Jade Dynasty... STO's time is not too far off in the future. I seriously doubt that they are going to require only some of the games to be used by Arc during this transition. And if they do, it's only for a short time.
The underhandedness of PWE (and Cryptic for that matter) doesn't surprise me anymore.
-AoP- Warrior's Blood (KDF Armada) / -AoP- Qu' raD qulbo'Degh / -AoP- ProjectPhoenix Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Comments
Prove to us it's not spyware.
Better yet; prove to us why we need ARC - what it contributes to our gaming that something like Steam doesn't already.
Why are you for ARC? Why should I change my mind about it? What does ARC give us that Steam is lacking?
Fleet: 1st Order of Role-Players' Guild - gaming together since 2004
In the same vein, you won't accept anything that can be offered as proof, either. In the age of Photoshop, I could sit here and give you all the screenshots of my anti-virus and anti-malware devices and you can do the same and we'd both be sitting here pulling or best Vreenak impersonation.
In all honestly, not much, if anything. But, don't sit there and scream "AH-HA! I KNEW IT!" just yet. For all you know, there's more that could come down the line and change things. *shrugs* I have no idea, I'm just a guy who wants to play STO and I could care less if I have to download Arc or not.
Because it's there and I don't see any problem with it. As long as my anti-virus thing doesn't start screaming obscenities at me over something bad it can do, I'm fine with it.
Arc isn't a bad thing, per se. It's not the Devil Incarnate everyone wants to picture it as, it's not the malware device that people are trumpeting it as. It's just a program designed to play games. But, I feel that a lot of this won't work on you. People have had at least a good year to stir up fear and confusion about what Arc can and cannot do that people will sit here and scream to the heavens at how horrible it is.
Honestly, if you want to play with Steam, by all means, go ahead. I got Steam, too, but I rarely use it. I just use Arc so I can hop on and play STO. I don't want the standalone launcher and I don't want to hunt down copies of the game so I can have the cool stuff waiting for me. I'm happy with what I got.
Isn't that what it comes down to in the end? We all should be open-minded about all of our options, no matter what.
I decided to drop by for a min to see if the innocents where ever given relief, but unfortunately its as I imagined, ARC's letting its fan club do its dirty work for it still.
Ok, here it is once more for the thick headed, and once more I think you already know it your just slapping your heads like Rainman to avoid the bath water, because you might ACTUALLY have to publicly acknowledge your old buddy Cat is right all along, after flaming me and others about this for so long. (You know I bet Sparklesoft could tattoo it on some of your foreheads himself, and you would just break the mirror and say "what spywhere? There is no proof")
The proof is still there, I took the time to listen to (SParklesoft and BranFlakes) and know what they said about what it does...so here it is again!!! If you really wanted proof you would investigate instead trying to help destroy things for the other players! (yes im angry...incase your asking
Post #1031 by SParklesoft
The guy put in charge of overseeing the ARC project...in case you ask, "why would he know?"
In all, we dont care if you like it or not, this isnt about you now that you have and like it, its an fight to avoid something designed to monitor you like the government in (Demolition Man) we have to deal with this enough in RL, cant players just enjoy the blasted game without you playing Gestapo? I cant figure why its so important for people in this world to dictate to one another, is the role of domination overtaken em so badly that they have to use law and their products to satisfy their sociopathic desires??
...just making friends and influencing people lol =^.^=
1) It's sparkiesoft :P
2) I think you're not realizing something. Almost every MMO in existance has a system to monitor for cheat systems, even STO's system has some rudimentary system i'm sure without the ARC launcher however with the ARC launcher running constantly it can monitor it better.
They aren't dictating anything to you or trying to dominate. They are trying to make sure that no one exploits their games the best they can.
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
um, that is not correct - Steam runs in exactly the same manner as Arc*, continues to run in the background while a game is playing, and in fact launches a (demonstrably unstable) interface layer whenever you launch a game (Arc does the same thing, but the Arc version doesn't seem to take an extra ten seconds to close after exiting a game, preventing you from immediately relaunching).
there's little to no difference between using either, and the complaints about Arc are exactly the same complaints that people made about Steam when it first appeared.
* in fact, it runs as a Service as well as a client, so is arguably using more resources than Arc.
I was wondering, can STO be run via Steam?
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
It's been stated by Cryptic already that you can't. Arc must be running after launching a game through it.
When right clicking the Arc icon in the system tray and trying to close it while STO is running after launching it through Arc you receive a message http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c355/MonkeyGuts69/Arc1_zps94c05926.jpg~original
You can go into Windows Task Manager and under processes force 'Arc.exe 32*' to close by right clicking and selecting to 'End Process'. This will close Arc down. However, the 'ArcOSBrowser.exe 32*' will not close when you try to end the process. This means that no matter what, you are going to have the Arc overlay still functioning. While in game you will still be able to press 'Shift+Tab' (default) to bring up the Arc console so you can access the Arc web browser without minimizing the game.
For now if you have STO without Arc you can continue to use it like that. Eventually there will be only 2 choices: Arc or Steam. But having Arc mandatory isn't going to happen for a while.
No idea when that was added, or if I just never noticed it before. Tabbed browsing makes the Arc browser more useful.
However, middle clicking (mouse wheel) and right clicking on a link in the Arc browser seems to do nothing.
In a normal web browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer I can middle click on a link and it will automatically open in a new tab. I can also right click a link and get a list of options pop up with 'Open in new tab' at the very top. Often times I end up opening multiple threads in separate tabs from the STO forums in Firefox by middle/right clicking the links.
I also don't see any way to bookmark/favorite web pages in the Arc broswer. It would make it even more useful if I could have STOAcademy bookmarked. Almost always when playing the game I have the STO forums open in 1 tab and STOAcademy open in another for the skill planner so I can look at my builds as I switch characters to see what's what and what needs changing if anything.
Y'know what's an even bigger dead horse beater? Responding here outright. Just let it die already, sheesh.
yes, anybody with an opinion different to yours truly must be lying.
it is all so obvious now.
it is beyond possibility that I merely tried the program and it worked as advertised, after all.
http://jd-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=646491
If they are already starting to force the PWE games to run through Arc, it is only a matter of time before that requirement makes its way to the Cryptic games as well.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
They're not any happier than we are. I wonder if they're purposefully trying to get rid of players.
Arc went down today. The Arc client couldn't connect, the Arc website gave an "internal error" message, the STO forums were down for a short while and when they came back up I just got a blank white webpage when trying to log in. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=16445211#post16445211
A few posts above me
Mandatory Arc coming soon to STO?
I'm sorry to people who I, in the past, insulted, annoyed, etc.
Guys, this isn't a shocker. It's been said for pretty much a year ARC WILL become mandatory. No if's, and's or but's. Your only two options will be ARC and Steam.
So no one should be shocked by the fact that other PWE titles are going mandatory for ARC and asking if STO will. It's just a matter of time
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
JD's side of things frustration is very legit. Arc is being forced on them against their will by PWE and the program itself is bugged and unfinished, which will directly affect their game play. Even one of the mods mentioned how unhappy he/she was about it.
At what point do you say, "this might not be a good idea based on feedback from multiple threads from multiple games from countless customers that they don't want it and could leave because of it, maybe we should leave it as an option instead"???
So why not just leave it as an option? If the answer is "probably because not a lot of customers will use it if we didn't" then that probably should be a hint that this isn't a program for a lot of people who plays your games and would want to continue to play your games regardless of how legit or bogus the reason for not wanting Arc might be.
If I was a possible consumer wanting to look in to or play one of PWE games, knowing that I would need to install this Arc to play them, I wouldn't bother and move on. Too much hassle while there are many other games available that don't need such programs.
Lastly, Arc isn't Steam and Steam isn't Arc. They are not the same. Still, I'm very confused as to why PWE just didn't use Steam instead. The idea behind Arc is to get customers to play their other games also, to have increased exposure, but if they used Steam, their exposure would be much greater and from a much wider market.
Apparently players from other games such as JD are working on a way to mod or bypass the Arc client already. This might get messy.
Edit: Happy to hear that for STO will still have the option to use Steam, I say we got off lucky compared to the others.
I wasn't asking if Arc was going to become mandatory. I was asking if it was going to become mandatory "soon".
I've also told others in the past on the forums here that the only options will be steam or Arc.
So go pick on somebody else.
I think the main reason why STO (and other PWE games) are still gonna be playable on Steam is because they got stuff they sell on there. STO and Neverwinter have Steam Starter Packs (STOs containing the canon ship Steamrunner-class) - hell, STO's Starter Park is Number #2 in best selling items from PWE to Steam (#1 is Neverwinter's Hero of the North. Seems like that's their "Legacy of Romulus" pack). I don't think PWE would want to lose those players. Or that money.
Speaking of, I should pick up the Steamrunner. Just because.
However, I can see why JD players are throwing a fit: it's one of the seven games NOT on Steam (all three of Cryptic's games, plus Rusty Hearts, Blacklight: Retribution, Forsaken World and War of the Immortals are part of the Steam circle) and, thus, is easy to go ahead and slip into the ARC fold. They can't run to Steam or somewhere else. So, it's either circumvent, deal with it, or Rage Quit. And it seems like people are pushing for #1, but settling for #3 until #1 can happen.
No, I'm good. Might be a hiccup with the downtime. I think someone here might have a link that shoots to the old one?
i have nothing to add, this is also my point of view. STO is the only mmo which i play, why should i use arc?
That is true. Making it mandatory while it is still in beta is another thing. Beta is meant to be an opt in, I have taken part in a couple myself and every time I had to apply for it.
My issue now is that they are going to force it upon Jade Dynasty (which I did play from time to time until this posting). This was announced through a patch note. The announcement was passed off, to me at least, as an afterthought. If PWE is going to get the ball rolling with Jade Dynasty... STO's time is not too far off in the future. I seriously doubt that they are going to require only some of the games to be used by Arc during this transition. And if they do, it's only for a short time.
The underhandedness of PWE (and Cryptic for that matter) doesn't surprise me anymore.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010