Here is one tiny example that makes me think that STO has been succesful:
I remember around the time that I decided to go for the lifetime subscription (which was even before F2P), the Mac Client was something a few fans did and announced to others, but which had little hope of being officially supported.
A few years later, STO has an official Mac Client.
STO was definitely underfunded and probably understaffed at the start. Being with Atari didn't do it any good. You can dislike Perfect World and F2P for a lot of things, but under PW and with F2P, Startrek Online really started to flourish. PW probably needed to inject some money to get this started, but eventually the C-Store/Zen-Store stuff paid for it all.
Yes, there is grind (but no game is without it), PvP balance is terrible (and PvP was for a time one of my main remaining draws to STO), but the game is getting lots of updates and new material. I would personally like more story content and PvP balance, but that doesn't seem to stand in the way of the game's success.
And to contrast that with something else. I think pretty much for how long I remember, Startrek Online had a dedicated public test server in the form of Tribble. At some point, they added Redshirt. Mechwarrior Online has a test server that is turned on only occasionally for a few hours a month at most.
I think STO's continual growth is proof that it is a success, but I don't know how much money it actually made in that time.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Probably, just note how many custom ships and weapons and gear are out there. The number of life time subscribers and regular subscribers. The sheer magnitude of lock box keys on the market. I think STO is paying for itself and providing a tidy profit.
I am curious, is there seenable statistics table, how many lifetime subscribers there are on STO compared to silver ones and those, who pays each month?
perhaps, perhaps not, whatever happens you can be sure it will dictate PWE's plans as a direct competitor because of STO. then we will see how successful it will be then. it's not a doom opinion, not yet anyways.
Based on what I know about the mechanics outside of space flight, it's more of a direct competitor to EVE Online than STO.
As far as the topic at hand, it's 4 years old at this point. I'm pretty sure it probably has. Net profit, probably not, but revenue more than likely.
Star Citizen is so Over-hyped, it is going to die horribly simply because everyone seems to be expecting the greatest, most perfect game ever and there is literally no way ANY game is going to be perfect at launch.
The advantages over Star Trek Online that Star Citizen has are many:
- No IP-wrangling with production studios: The man behind the game owns the IP.
- No massive community of IP sticklers expecting different interpretations of the lore.
- Open development cycle: Players have had front row seats and a voice in the development process.
- Seemingly bottomless well of cash: The team there can develop what they want, not just what they can.
- When it's done, it's done: No asinine 2-year deadline.
- Not strangled by its IP: Star Trek will generally appeal to Star Trek fans, while SC can spread its wings a little.
- Plenty of examples of what not to do in development these days: SC can learn from STO.
* - Star Citizen won't have much competition: STO is competing with every generic theme park MMO.
Because Cryptic/PWE are trying to appeal to a wide audience (largely dictated by their business model), they're appealing to very few. Make no mistake that under the shiny lights and laser-shooting dinosaurs, STO is as generic as it gets. Beyond that, the business model itself means it's competing against every single F2P MMO out there; people only have so much time to play games, and in a market as saturated as the MMO space is, there are plenty of options for gamers to choose from. The problem for STO is expressing why it should get our time over WoW, GW2, etc.
Even if Star Citizen isn't the Next Coming, it will put a dent in STO.
Why is it funny? 40 million is not that much in the video game industry.
they say we have something like 3 million players. while im sure many are old and inactive, the previous count from the year before was 2 million, so there is a good turnover of players.
its roughly 225k of subs for 1 year makes 40 million. i also doubt we have 200k of subs in a free game, so the figure might be lower but factor in however many people buy lifetimes a year, and the legacy of romulus packs, and whatever people are buying in the c-store (of which some spend massive amounts) then it does not sound that hard to believe.
For example, The old republic, which everyone says has a horrible f2p matrix reportedly made 139 million from its cartel store alone. some reports say wow is over 200 million.
and i dont think sto is making anywhere near that, and those figures may even be bogus but compared to that figure 40 million sounds not only reasonable, but even quite conservative.
however you can call star citizen a successor to freelancer, that clearly depends if it gets away from square one.
Well that's the point ... Freelancer was supposed to be, what Star Citizen is supposed to be now ... Freelancer kind of failed (still a fun game for ~12 hours) ... what does that say about "Star Citizen" ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
How much STO makes isn't really anyone's business really. I can see this thread going round and round in circles, going no where and eventually in about a day or so being closed.
i was assuming the topic OP meant by year, $40m. overall is too easy to try make a case for and even if sto only hit 40m overall, thats 10m a year which isnt much considering.
Based on what I know about the mechanics outside of space flight, it's more of a direct competitor to EVE Online than STO.
As far as the topic at hand, it's 4 years old at this point. I'm pretty sure it probably has. Net profit, probably not, but revenue more than likely.
i dont fully agree here, naturally competitors of the same genre compete with each other for dominance. STO is a sci fi game in space, EVE is the same as is star citizen. in the grand scheme of things if star citizen proves out then STO is going to be left second rate with a very small player base after a while when people star moving over. PWE either leave the game for as long as they can milk it until it's just not worth it and shut it down, or they react quickly like EVE's developers will probably do and produce something substantial enough to keep the majority of the player base around. it's also not just genres either mmo's in general will compete, WoW has been going on for years strongly, the general idea i get is that the game has become dated and in need of coding upgrades on the game engine to expand the ability while WG is bringing out World of warships and WoT on x360 probably to combat the attempts of PWE going console as well.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The advantages over Star Trek Online that Star Citizen has are many:
- No IP-wrangling with production studios: The man behind the game owns the IP.
- No massive community of IP sticklers expecting different interpretations of the lore.
- Open development cycle: Players have had front row seats and a voice in the development process.
- Seemingly bottomless well of cash: The team there can develop what they want, not just what they can.
- When it's done, it's done: No asinine 2-year deadline.
- Not strangled by its IP: Star Trek will generally appeal to Star Trek fans, while SC can spread its wings a little.
- Plenty of examples of what not to do in development these days: SC can learn from STO.
* - Star Citizen won't have much competition: STO is competing with every generic theme park MMO.
Because Cryptic/PWE are trying to appeal to a wide audience (largely dictated by their business model), they're appealing to very few. Make no mistake that under the shiny lights and laser-shooting dinosaurs, STO is as generic as it gets. Beyond that, the business model itself means it's competing against every single F2P MMO out there; people only have so much time to play games, and in a market as saturated as the MMO space is, there are plenty of options for gamers to choose from. The problem for STO is expressing why it should get our time over WoW, GW2, etc.
Even if Star Citizen isn't the Next Coming, it will put a dent in STO.
will have to see if these are advantages or a hindrance, what i mean is that the community will keep asking for more and more stuff that eventually it will get to the point where the advantage is like a developer dread. picture if you will the current grind system on sto, it looks good at first but after a while...
Well that's the point ... Freelancer was supposed to be, what Star Citizen is supposed to be now ... Freelancer kind of failed (still a fun game for ~12 hours) ... what does that say about "Star Citizen" ...
you could claim hindsight on the issue if you wish, but thats futile for the moment. freelancer was a success even if it didnt completely match what was reported at first and star citizen is yet to be proven, so i cant comment on that. when it does come out and i have played it we will see if it is, but on paper it looks like a successor, however it could be entirely different.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The future is always unsure. That's why it's called the future.
and your not answering the point. from what i have gathered for on here is that various members are thinking of STO overall as far as being a success and what happens in a few years, do PWE attempt to keep going and put money into it and hope? or they shut it down and become a failure?
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
and your not answering the point. from what i have gathered for on here is that various momebers are thinking of STO overall as far as being a success and what happens in a few years, do PWE attempt to keep going and put money into it and hope? or they shut it down and become a failure?
If you're using the forums as an accurate method over whether or not STO will survive, then you will have predicted the game dying one month after game launch.
PWE will either reduce staff and shift STO into maintenance mode where all that will be done is bug fixing, up until STO becomes so unprofitable that it's shut down, or CBS pulls the license.
They're taking steps to ensure STO continues to thrive, and all reality-based evidence points to doing just that.
and your not answering the point. from what i have gathered for on here is that various members are thinking of STO overall as far as being a success and what happens in a few years, do PWE attempt to keep going and put money into it and hope? or they shut it down and become a failure?
I for one, prefer to enjoy STO while it's still here rather than spending that time worrying about the end. There was similar feelings when SWTOR came out and I'll continue to suspect that these feelings will continue to happen so long as highly-anticipated games keep coming out. Continuing to worry about what PWE would do in x situation or in y circumstances will only stress me out. I get enough of that already.
Back to the original question, yes I think STO is successful. Largely because it is self-sustaining enough to show signs of growth. Not rapid growth but I can see the changes.
Member since November 2009... I think. (UFP) Ragnar
Perfect world paid 35 million euros for cryptic in may of 2011. The exchange rate was $1.44 at that time. This means PW paid just a tad over $50 million for cryptic.
As with any investment PW is looking for an roi value. It's just like when a person invests in the stock market and they're looking for a return percentage that makes them happy. PW's return percentage could be any value between 1% and 100%.
Let's say PW wants to make a 20% return on investment. That means for their $50 million invested into Cryptic they want to make back $10 million per year. Between STO, CO, and NWNs Cryptic needs to net $10 million; or about $3.33 million per game per year.
That's not an unreasonable figure. Based on their financials PW makes about $80 million per year from its 14 games; or about $5.7 million per game.
and your not answering the point. from what i have gathered for on here is that various members are thinking of STO overall as far as being a success and what happens in a few years, do PWE attempt to keep going and put money into it and hope? or they shut it down and become a failure?
Worrying about what might happen in a few years is pointless. Nothing lasts forever, so you're only fooling yourself if you think STO will last appreciably longer then any Trek series ever has.
Worrying about what might happen in a few years is pointless. Nothing lasts forever, so you're only fooling yourself if you think STO will last appreciably longer then any Trek series ever has.
We have a limited time on this planet, so do MMOs.
We can either spend that time worrying about our mortality, or we can enjoy the time we have been given.
Star Citizen has not made 40 million at all. Crowdfunding is not profit. Developing a game costs crazy resources. And Star Citizen is lucky enough to get that for "free". But it still has to prove itself. And it has to live up to a lot of promises. Unlike STO which has been on the market for 4 years. Also, STO can count on emotional attachment to the Star Trek universe. Star Citizen has yet to prove if it can live up to the promises that yielded 40 million in crowfunding. But funding is not profit.
Star Citizen has not made 40 million at all. Crowdfunding is not profit. Developing a game costs crazy resources. And Star Citizen is lucky enough to get that for "free". But it still has to prove itself. And it has to live up to a lot of promises. Unlike STO which has been on the market for 4 years. Also, STO can count on emotional attachment to the Star Trek universe. Star Citizen has yet to prove if it can live up to the promises that yielded 40 million in crowfunding. But funding is not profit.
Plus star citizen is all sandbox pvp. That's not something which appeals to the majority of trekkers. There's no story missions. You fly off into space, kill all foes, mine all ore, discover new stars so you can sell them and try to make money to get a better ship; all while trying not to be killed by others doing the same thing.
Plus star citizen is all sandbox pvp. That's not something which appeals to the majority of trekkers. There's no story missions. You fly off into space, kill all foes, mine all ore, discover new stars so you can sell them and try to make money to get a better ship; all while trying not to be killed by others doing the same thing.
All you need to do is look at the pvp queues and zones to see that over 50% of the playerbase isn't pvping in sto. So the majority of sto players aren't into pvp. It's just not their thing.
Cryptic knows that pvp isn't sto's money maker; they have the data samples. That's why it keeps getting pushed back on the schedule season after season. Pvp players are tossed a grape while the pve players get the 3 course meals.
I think sto is doing fine at the moment as far as i know none of the 40ish dev have lost there jobs. So thats a good sign plus it was only last year were the dev team took on more staff. I would be very shocked if sto had not made over 40 mill in the past 4 years
I'm almost certain you're mistaken on this one. Granted, your statement is most likely true in some cases. In the big picture though, that's definitely not the reason why players aren't pvping. It's definitely because the pvp in this game is imbalanced and maybe slightly a joke.
Cryptic has the data. This isn't a chicken and egg situation that everyone thinks it is: no one plays it becasue it sucks? No.
Cryptic know how many people pvp. They know how many do it regularly. They know how many go to k-7 at level 6 and never do it at all once they learn those are pvp missions being assigned. And they know how many only do pvp once or twice in kerrat because of those missions and then never do it again. They have all that data at the fingertips.
Cryptic doesn't even pay attention to the people who have pvped for years here because they know those aren't the representative samples. The data samples come from all the new players who join the game each month and then never pvp; not knowing if pvp is balanced or not.
Plus star citizen is all sandbox pvp. That's not something which appeals to the majority of trekkers. There's no story missions. You fly off into space, kill all foes, mine all ore, discover new stars so you can sell them and try to make money to get a better ship; all while trying not to be killed by others doing the same thing.
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Um, no. If you read what they're going for; SC will NOT be 'all sandbox PvP'. PvP will be a part of SC, but it will not be the focus of SC. There will be a PvP slider that a player can set that will allow them to face more PvP OR more PvE enemies on the Persistent Universe server. And as for 'no story' - again, not entirely true, as the game will launch with the 'Squadron 42' campaign, which, while being more akin to the single player 'Wing Commander' tle single player campaign - all the locations it will use will be in the Persistent Universe server; and if you play it while connected to the PU server, your progress in it will be tracked so that when you 'muster out' at the end with the character into the PU, you'll have more starting money, and perhaps a better starter ship, etc. They also plan to release other campaigns of the same type as DLCs - so that you can decide to 'help the military' for a short stint, etc; and get stuff for your character in the PU by having him play these campaigns.
So, yes,SC isn't a true 'themepark MMO' but it will have story campaigns, and will track player deeds and accomplishments and if a player does something of note, it will be reflected in the game's 'Galactipedia; and in game news reports. The Devs plan to grow the PU based on what the players do, and try to make it a more 'living universe' then sat STO which is effectively perpetually stuck in the year 2409 <--- Which is another aspect of themepark MMOs in that they are locked in time due to the mature of the story quests.
SC gets mischaracterized and misrepresented because a lot of people don't take the time to go through all the info available on the RSI Star Citizen site (and there's a lot, so it's understandable) - but in the end, simplifying it down to 'SC is all sandbox PvP' is not accurate at all.
(FYI - This ALL depends on how much Chris Roberts - who made the Wing Commander games I - IV is able to deliver; and they have indeed promised A LOT; but if anyone remembers/played the Wing Commander games (especially WC III and WC IV at that time - those games pushed the gaming envelope, and did more story and mechanics wise than any other similar game in that same era; and with what CIG has shown of the testbed stuff in the SC Cryengine Hybrid engine to date - I think chances are good they will deliver on the majority of what they are promising for SC, but time will tell, and we won't know until (and if) the game ultimately launches. But I've backed SC when it first appeared on Kick Starter; and even upgraded my pledge package since; and while it's still a gamble, I have faith in the guy who made what still stand out today as one of the top/best space-based science fiction flight sims on the market both in terms of story and gameplay, that still hold up pretty well 20 years after they were first released.)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Squadron 42 is a stand alone game set in the same universe. Your character isn't used in both games and they don't merge. It's like saying kotor and tor are the same game. They're not. One is a stand alone game and the other is an mmo.
And yes, there's a pvp slider, but other then that you're just doing things to make money. You bounty hunt, you mine, you set up jump gates, and so on; but there's no story missions. You get told to capture pirates in ABC system and when you kill them all you get paid. Then you run and buy new equipment to go and kill more pirates, and so on.
There's no story. It's just fight, make money, buy more stuff, fight more, make more money, buy more stuff.
Comments
Overall, of course.. !.!
system Lord Baal is dead
Nah, just don't want the thread locked because of off-topic discussion.
I remember around the time that I decided to go for the lifetime subscription (which was even before F2P), the Mac Client was something a few fans did and announced to others, but which had little hope of being officially supported.
A few years later, STO has an official Mac Client.
STO was definitely underfunded and probably understaffed at the start. Being with Atari didn't do it any good. You can dislike Perfect World and F2P for a lot of things, but under PW and with F2P, Startrek Online really started to flourish. PW probably needed to inject some money to get this started, but eventually the C-Store/Zen-Store stuff paid for it all.
Yes, there is grind (but no game is without it), PvP balance is terrible (and PvP was for a time one of my main remaining draws to STO), but the game is getting lots of updates and new material. I would personally like more story content and PvP balance, but that doesn't seem to stand in the way of the game's success.
And to contrast that with something else. I think pretty much for how long I remember, Startrek Online had a dedicated public test server in the form of Tribble. At some point, they added Redshirt. Mechwarrior Online has a test server that is turned on only occasionally for a few hours a month at most.
I think STO's continual growth is proof that it is a success, but I don't know how much money it actually made in that time.
I am curious, is there seenable statistics table, how many lifetime subscribers there are on STO compared to silver ones and those, who pays each month?
Based on what I know about the mechanics outside of space flight, it's more of a direct competitor to EVE Online than STO.
As far as the topic at hand, it's 4 years old at this point. I'm pretty sure it probably has. Net profit, probably not, but revenue more than likely.
The advantages over Star Trek Online that Star Citizen has are many:
- No IP-wrangling with production studios: The man behind the game owns the IP.
- No massive community of IP sticklers expecting different interpretations of the lore.
- Open development cycle: Players have had front row seats and a voice in the development process.
- Seemingly bottomless well of cash: The team there can develop what they want, not just what they can.
- When it's done, it's done: No asinine 2-year deadline.
- Not strangled by its IP: Star Trek will generally appeal to Star Trek fans, while SC can spread its wings a little.
- Plenty of examples of what not to do in development these days: SC can learn from STO.
* - Star Citizen won't have much competition: STO is competing with every generic theme park MMO.
Because Cryptic/PWE are trying to appeal to a wide audience (largely dictated by their business model), they're appealing to very few. Make no mistake that under the shiny lights and laser-shooting dinosaurs, STO is as generic as it gets. Beyond that, the business model itself means it's competing against every single F2P MMO out there; people only have so much time to play games, and in a market as saturated as the MMO space is, there are plenty of options for gamers to choose from. The problem for STO is expressing why it should get our time over WoW, GW2, etc.
Even if Star Citizen isn't the Next Coming, it will put a dent in STO.
Why is it funny? 40 million is not that much in the video game industry.
they say we have something like 3 million players. while im sure many are old and inactive, the previous count from the year before was 2 million, so there is a good turnover of players.
its roughly 225k of subs for 1 year makes 40 million. i also doubt we have 200k of subs in a free game, so the figure might be lower but factor in however many people buy lifetimes a year, and the legacy of romulus packs, and whatever people are buying in the c-store (of which some spend massive amounts) then it does not sound that hard to believe.
For example, The old republic, which everyone says has a horrible f2p matrix reportedly made 139 million from its cartel store alone. some reports say wow is over 200 million.
and i dont think sto is making anywhere near that, and those figures may even be bogus but compared to that figure 40 million sounds not only reasonable, but even quite conservative.
Well that's the point ... Freelancer was supposed to be, what Star Citizen is supposed to be now ... Freelancer kind of failed (still a fun game for ~12 hours) ... what does that say about "Star Citizen" ...
i dont fully agree here, naturally competitors of the same genre compete with each other for dominance. STO is a sci fi game in space, EVE is the same as is star citizen. in the grand scheme of things if star citizen proves out then STO is going to be left second rate with a very small player base after a while when people star moving over. PWE either leave the game for as long as they can milk it until it's just not worth it and shut it down, or they react quickly like EVE's developers will probably do and produce something substantial enough to keep the majority of the player base around. it's also not just genres either mmo's in general will compete, WoW has been going on for years strongly, the general idea i get is that the game has become dated and in need of coding upgrades on the game engine to expand the ability while WG is bringing out World of warships and WoT on x360 probably to combat the attempts of PWE going console as well.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Are we still getting content Season by Season? Yes.
Are Cryptic employees still drawing a paycheck? Yes.
Is PWE's stock value still fair? Yes.
Has CBS declined to pull the license from the game? Yes.
Are there still people playing the game? Yes.
Are there still people creating and posting in threads somehow trying to contradict anything said above this question? Yes.
I'd say the game is successful.
If making $40 million dollars is the benchmark by which success is measured, I am going to say most people in the world are not successful.
will have to see if these are advantages or a hindrance, what i mean is that the community will keep asking for more and more stuff that eventually it will get to the point where the advantage is like a developer dread. picture if you will the current grind system on sto, it looks good at first but after a while...
you could claim hindsight on the issue if you wish, but thats futile for the moment. freelancer was a success even if it didnt completely match what was reported at first and star citizen is yet to be proven, so i cant comment on that. when it does come out and i have played it we will see if it is, but on paper it looks like a successor, however it could be entirely different.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
for now at least, but what of the future? unsure.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The future is always unsure. That's why it's called the future.
and your not answering the point. from what i have gathered for on here is that various members are thinking of STO overall as far as being a success and what happens in a few years, do PWE attempt to keep going and put money into it and hope? or they shut it down and become a failure?
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
If you're using the forums as an accurate method over whether or not STO will survive, then you will have predicted the game dying one month after game launch.
PWE will either reduce staff and shift STO into maintenance mode where all that will be done is bug fixing, up until STO becomes so unprofitable that it's shut down, or CBS pulls the license.
They're taking steps to ensure STO continues to thrive, and all reality-based evidence points to doing just that.
I for one, prefer to enjoy STO while it's still here rather than spending that time worrying about the end. There was similar feelings when SWTOR came out and I'll continue to suspect that these feelings will continue to happen so long as highly-anticipated games keep coming out. Continuing to worry about what PWE would do in x situation or in y circumstances will only stress me out. I get enough of that already.
Back to the original question, yes I think STO is successful. Largely because it is self-sustaining enough to show signs of growth. Not rapid growth but I can see the changes.
(UFP) Ragnar
As with any investment PW is looking for an roi value. It's just like when a person invests in the stock market and they're looking for a return percentage that makes them happy. PW's return percentage could be any value between 1% and 100%.
Let's say PW wants to make a 20% return on investment. That means for their $50 million invested into Cryptic they want to make back $10 million per year. Between STO, CO, and NWNs Cryptic needs to net $10 million; or about $3.33 million per game per year.
That's not an unreasonable figure. Based on their financials PW makes about $80 million per year from its 14 games; or about $5.7 million per game.
We have a limited time on this planet, so do MMOs.
We can either spend that time worrying about our mortality, or we can enjoy the time we have been given.
Citation needed on that one...
Cryptic knows that pvp isn't sto's money maker; they have the data samples. That's why it keeps getting pushed back on the schedule season after season. Pvp players are tossed a grape while the pve players get the 3 course meals.
system Lord Baal is dead
Cryptic know how many people pvp. They know how many do it regularly. They know how many go to k-7 at level 6 and never do it at all once they learn those are pvp missions being assigned. And they know how many only do pvp once or twice in kerrat because of those missions and then never do it again. They have all that data at the fingertips.
Cryptic doesn't even pay attention to the people who have pvped for years here because they know those aren't the representative samples. The data samples come from all the new players who join the game each month and then never pvp; not knowing if pvp is balanced or not.
Um, no. If you read what they're going for; SC will NOT be 'all sandbox PvP'. PvP will be a part of SC, but it will not be the focus of SC. There will be a PvP slider that a player can set that will allow them to face more PvP OR more PvE enemies on the Persistent Universe server. And as for 'no story' - again, not entirely true, as the game will launch with the 'Squadron 42' campaign, which, while being more akin to the single player 'Wing Commander' tle single player campaign - all the locations it will use will be in the Persistent Universe server; and if you play it while connected to the PU server, your progress in it will be tracked so that when you 'muster out' at the end with the character into the PU, you'll have more starting money, and perhaps a better starter ship, etc. They also plan to release other campaigns of the same type as DLCs - so that you can decide to 'help the military' for a short stint, etc; and get stuff for your character in the PU by having him play these campaigns.
So, yes,SC isn't a true 'themepark MMO' but it will have story campaigns, and will track player deeds and accomplishments and if a player does something of note, it will be reflected in the game's 'Galactipedia; and in game news reports. The Devs plan to grow the PU based on what the players do, and try to make it a more 'living universe' then sat STO which is effectively perpetually stuck in the year 2409 <--- Which is another aspect of themepark MMOs in that they are locked in time due to the mature of the story quests.
SC gets mischaracterized and misrepresented because a lot of people don't take the time to go through all the info available on the RSI Star Citizen site (and there's a lot, so it's understandable) - but in the end, simplifying it down to 'SC is all sandbox PvP' is not accurate at all.
(FYI - This ALL depends on how much Chris Roberts - who made the Wing Commander games I - IV is able to deliver; and they have indeed promised A LOT; but if anyone remembers/played the Wing Commander games (especially WC III and WC IV at that time - those games pushed the gaming envelope, and did more story and mechanics wise than any other similar game in that same era; and with what CIG has shown of the testbed stuff in the SC Cryengine Hybrid engine to date - I think chances are good they will deliver on the majority of what they are promising for SC, but time will tell, and we won't know until (and if) the game ultimately launches. But I've backed SC when it first appeared on Kick Starter; and even upgraded my pledge package since; and while it's still a gamble, I have faith in the guy who made what still stand out today as one of the top/best space-based science fiction flight sims on the market both in terms of story and gameplay, that still hold up pretty well 20 years after they were first released.)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
And yes, there's a pvp slider, but other then that you're just doing things to make money. You bounty hunt, you mine, you set up jump gates, and so on; but there's no story missions. You get told to capture pirates in ABC system and when you kill them all you get paid. Then you run and buy new equipment to go and kill more pirates, and so on.
There's no story. It's just fight, make money, buy more stuff, fight more, make more money, buy more stuff.