Zen costs them nothing, they can create and delete as much zen as they like to fuel the economy. Not only that but the notifications of the ships won by lockbox can easily be set to rerun or even be fake if needed. From a behind the scenes point of view it's very easy to manipulate and adjust data/information to suit their needs.
A lot of the big players are not necessarily the big spenders, especially the economically savvy ones.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
The free Lobi is a way to fiddle the numbers at least, as inaccurate as it may be. Otherwise they could have ended up with a report that shows a frightening number of people not even logging in compared to what they were really expecting so soon after DR launch.
I actually found the Lobi / free keys to the Euro folks on top of a Dil weekend to be a bit fishy (or just plain over the top) .
I believe that with just a few teaks, DR could actually be as successful as they are trying to claim it is. You could make DR a great release by doing a few small things.
1. Return the Old Elite ques as they used to be with the same rewards. (Call them Advanced.)
2. Up the 'scaling XP' after level 50 so that skill progression is a little faster.
3. Reduce the amount of R&D XP Required to get classes to level 15. Crafting is far more affordable if you're at level 15, but it takes almost 4 months to get a skill to level 15. That's ridiculous.
They could do these 3 things in one easy patch and it would (in my opinion) fix the bulk of the problem with DR. I know these changes would greatly change my current opinion of STO.
Add to that another Tier to all Reps that actually gives Mk 14 weapons , as in the age of Mk 14 , it's just dumb to grind for a month or two for non-top level gear .
Never going to happen. The whole reason behind time gating everything is so they can charge you money to skip the time gates. The more time gates they can add, the more money they'll make.
imo this game with all its time gates its like swtor f2p model enough to drive you to open your money bags
Never going to happen. The whole reason behind time gating everything is so they can charge you money to skip the time gates. The more time gates they can add, the more money they'll make.
While some will, I feel just as many won't. Most of my fleet pretty much quit except for the winter and summer events with the crafting revamp after they nerfed the 20 hour missions. I have yet to sink any dil into crafting except once when I derped and accidentally clicked finish now.
Never going to happen. The whole reason behind time gating everything is so they can charge you money to skip the time gates. The more time gates they can add, the more money they'll make.
Not all timegates serve the same function .
One is like you've described .
Another (like turning only 50 Marks into Dil) is to keep your cheeks in the seat .
Because at one point it was important to Cryptic to have you play , and along the way to tempt you to buy stuff .
This was as they described it .
I'm not sure that the more blatantly aggressive monetization that started with the Crafting system is actually wholly compatible with the former , more mellow approach .
At least with swtor, you can pay a flat rate (monthly subscription) and have full access to pretty much everything. STO does not have that option.
If only swtor had STO's shiny graphics . I'd be all over that ... , but I cant stand the flat looking character models . It's like something from a decade ago .
If only swtor had STO's shiny graphics . I'd be all over that ... , but I cant stand the flat looking character models . It's like something from a decade ago .
And there is the argument that we do at least get to KEEP our purchases.....
wouldn't know. Every time I play swtor, I sub. They do a good job of justifying the sub. It's not just about access to end game and pvp, but there's a lot that comes with a sub extra. There's enough of a challenge in terms of work to be done to keep me interested in the game, but unlike STO, it doesn't feel so monumental.
Also, I've been logging into STO once a day lately just to gain some creds here and there from doff missions and honestly, STO feels slow. Everything about it in terms of game mechanics and everything feels... slow.
I have 4 different classes, 8 different story-lines to immerse myself in and there's enough options to define my character how I want them. With STO, I just don't feel that way about it. The Romulans are the closest to being that way. KDF and Starfleet feel very static by comparison.
Oh yeah... and unlike the KDF, the Empire in Swtor is a full on faction.
I realize that it comes across as hijacking the thread. Sorry.
It's just that I logged back into STO right before DR to try and get back into it. I thought I would lead up to it by running a new KDF sci character, but everything just felt so limiting and I didn't want to do another Romulan (two already) and I don't feel like doing Fed up until they re-do the Rom story line stuff like they said they would (just feels like I'd be missing out on something). Seriously, the only sci ship available is the Gorn one and there aren't any options to modify the ship at all. I'd love to have something like the Lockbox ship, but again... that's behind a lockbox or what looks like 200 dollars. I'm not going to spend that much on a single ship when given that I used to sub before PW took over for two years and so have already dropped that much on this game.
So I thought I pick back up with my Rommie, but then I run into issues with not having fleshed out the Romulan rep grind which is weird to me since it is referenced in the opening episode to the Sphere. I just feel like I'm missing something with that and I honestly don't have time to grind just to get those stories. Certainly, I didn't have enough time before DR came out.
Oh and then SWTOR announces their new Expansion and says that if I sub again and buy the expac for only 20 then I can get to level out the stories that I hadn't done using only class missions. That's awesome. Imperial Agent and Bounty Hunter are soooo fun so far. And that's the difference to me. Yeah, I have to pay 15 a month for SWTOR, but over the past year or so... they've been giving me what I want. STO's devs seem intent on the opposite. Obviously, I have no problem paying. But ships are as much part of my character is the ground avatar is to me. And STO locks them up behind ridiculous prices or gambling boxes. Clearly, the Devs understand the players that are willing to fork over hundreds of dollars on digital items, but they don't understand me or a larger group of players.
It's sad in a lot of ways, because as this happens the average price of an item will actually go up over time because there aren't enough players buying to drive the cost of items down in the long term. If the Devs would focus on making STO a better game, the game would not only still be F2p as it is now, but cheaper over all for everyone included. But it's not, the prices are inflated. This is why I play Swtor instead. I have to pay, yes, but my fifteen means something in that game. In STO, my fifteen means virtually nothing. They don't care about me as a customer.
Also, if anyone is bothering to wonder why I check the forums and stuff, that much should be obvious. Yes, I don't play much of or give Cryptic money at this point, but I really wish they would make the game to a place where I felt like I could and not feel ripped off. Good luck with that, I know, but one can hope that they will see... the light, some light, something. Something that would actually make me want to play what is or could be a fairly decent game.
I stopped running the game through Steam after I hit 666 hours of gameplay.
Steam figures won't be perfect but are the only ones we have, and are at least indicative. For example: unless there has been a shift within the last two weeks of 20% of Steam players no longer using Steam, and instead shifting over to Arc and logging in there, then there has been an indicated 20% drop in player logins.
Steam figures won't be perfect but are the only ones we have, and are at least indicative. For example: unless there has been a shift within the last two weeks of 20% of Steam players no longer using Steam, and instead shifting over to Arc and logging in there, then there has been an indicated 20% drop in player logins.
2 weeks is an eternity in today's bloated attention span theater society.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
2 weeks is an eternity in today's bloated attention span theater society.
If you want to claim that this has happened, be my guest... but you'll need to show some sort of evidence to justify a position that Steam's lost 20% of its player base in two weeks.
If so, then all we'd end up with is "no way to tell" if DR's been successful beyond anecdotes of dead queues and poor fleet/friend list attendance, in which case I'd still lean to the side of "not as successful as advertised".
City of Heroes had a far superior character creator than SWToR and it was a decade older. And the selection of alien races in SWToR is insulting. You can choose...
Human
Blind Human
Red Human
Albino Human
Red Human with horns
Blue Human
Twileks
Then there's the Trek rip-offs
cyBORG Human
Green (Orion :rolleyes:) Human
Caitians err Cathar :rolleyes:
200 million and that's the selection we get... Pathetic.
That was an alright post until I remembered that there are cyborgs green aliens and cathar in star wars... Crappy aliens aren't limited to star trek
If you want to claim that this has happened, be my guest... but you'll need to show some sort of evidence to justify a position that Steam's lost 20% of its player base in two weeks.
If so, then all we'd end up with is "no way to tell" if DR's been successful beyond anecdotes of dead queues and poor fleet/friend list attendance, in which case I'd still lean to the side of "not as successful as advertised".
You misunderstand. I'm saying it's not surprising to me that the kiddies are done with the expansion in 2 weeks. This is a box office run now of a successful movie.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
You misunderstand. I'm saying it's not surprising to me that the kiddies are done with the expansion in 2 weeks. This is a box office run now of a successful movie.
Oh okay I get you.
Yes true, and when you look at the DR season as a stand-alone in terms of what it's really offering (1 Undine wrapup mission, half a dozen patrols, and half a dozen 'season' missions), it's to be expected. However, the hype especially the "Most Successful Season Ever!" spin isn't borne out by looking at the figures which show that huge hump from LoR, and the overall pattern suggests that the game is losing players down to levels that are getting towards pre-Fleet expansion levels.
As other seasons and events seem to have a life of around one to two months of a slow decline, a fast bottoming-out after a week or two just doesn't mesh with the PR spin.
You misunderstand. I'm saying it's not surprising to me that the kiddies are done with the expansion in 2 weeks. This is a box office run now of a successful movie.
You just have to compare DR with LoR to understand that's not true. We should see the same trend for both expansion if that was true. But it's clearly different. It took months for LoR to come back to "normal", and yet it was a bad launch, full of crashes, login queues,... which mean less people than it should have been.
DR launch was fine. Yet it's declining MUCH faster.
LoR could be "done" as fast as DR, if not even faster. Just run the Romulan missions one after the other, and you're done.
Anyway, as I already said, we had like 3 events to push people logging in for DR. Free lobi, dilithium WE (one of the player's favorite event), and for German/French, another free lobis/keys event.
They REALLY want to push people logging in, as in DR didn't work.
Anyway, as I already said, we had like 3 events to push people logging in for DR. Free lobi, dilithium WE (one of the player's favorite event), and for German/French, another free lobis/keys event.
They REALLY want to push people logging in, as in DR didn't work.
i cant properly recall, but im pretty sure we didnt have any other event, or free offering, during the LoR release. i do remember some additions to the pack, but think that was week 4. can anyone else remember this, or am i mistaken?
i cant properly recall, but im pretty sure we didnt have any other event, or free offering, during the LoR release. i do remember some additions to the pack, but think that was week 4. can anyone else remember this, or am i mistaken?
No you are not mistaken, but back then there was no need was there?
Me and my friends had much fun levelling our Romulan toons and had the backup of running endgame contend after it with wonderfully, beautifully filled queue lists.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
City of Heroes had a far superior character creator than SWToR and it was a decade older. And the selection of alien races in SWToR is insulting. You can choose...
Human
Blind Human
Red Human
Albino Human
Red Human with horns
Blue Human
Twileks
Then there's the Trek rip-offs
cyBORG Human
Green (Orion :rolleyes:) Human
Caitians err Cathar :rolleyes:
200 million and that's the selection we get... Pathetic.
Cyborg humans were a staple of science fiction before trek was a glimmer in Gene Roddenberry's eye. So calling them a trek ripoff is going a little too far.
When it works {cough} I like the menu/window system in STO a little better than SWTOR, although SWTOR having six toolbars you can position anywhere on the screen is nice. Having a hard time comprehending the recent toolbar issues in STO.
Space the final frontier. These are the voyages of [your name here] on a five year mission to gain one level after the delta rising xp nerf.
Comments
A lot of the big players are not necessarily the big spenders, especially the economically savvy ones.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
I actually found the Lobi / free keys to the Euro folks on top of a Dil weekend to be a bit fishy (or just plain over the top) .
Add to that another Tier to all Reps that actually gives Mk 14 weapons , as in the age of Mk 14 , it's just dumb to grind for a month or two for non-top level gear .
Unfortunately this opens up hop on Cryptic's side that says "players just need to get Mk 14 gear" .
Or ... "we just need to sell them new powerful shines , and they'll be back ..." .
imo this game with all its time gates its like swtor f2p model enough to drive you to open your money bags
system Lord Baal is dead
While some will, I feel just as many won't. Most of my fleet pretty much quit except for the winter and summer events with the crafting revamp after they nerfed the 20 hour missions. I have yet to sink any dil into crafting except once when I derped and accidentally clicked finish now.
Hey at least with swtor it's only fifteen a month. With sto, it's anybody's guess
Not all timegates serve the same function .
One is like you've described .
Another (like turning only 50 Marks into Dil) is to keep your cheeks in the seat .
Because at one point it was important to Cryptic to have you play , and along the way to tempt you to buy stuff .
This was as they described it .
I'm not sure that the more blatantly aggressive monetization that started with the Crafting system is actually wholly compatible with the former , more mellow approach .
At least with swtor, you can pay a flat rate (monthly subscription) and have full access to pretty much everything. STO does not have that option.
If only swtor had STO's shiny graphics . I'd be all over that ... , but I cant stand the flat looking character models . It's like something from a decade ago .
But not our skill points ... :P
This is also true. In swtor, once your subscription runs out, you lose access to a lot of things.
dude maybe its time to upgrade your PC or Gcard
system Lord Baal is dead
wouldn't know. Every time I play swtor, I sub. They do a good job of justifying the sub. It's not just about access to end game and pvp, but there's a lot that comes with a sub extra. There's enough of a challenge in terms of work to be done to keep me interested in the game, but unlike STO, it doesn't feel so monumental.
Also, I've been logging into STO once a day lately just to gain some creds here and there from doff missions and honestly, STO feels slow. Everything about it in terms of game mechanics and everything feels... slow.
I have 4 different classes, 8 different story-lines to immerse myself in and there's enough options to define my character how I want them. With STO, I just don't feel that way about it. The Romulans are the closest to being that way. KDF and Starfleet feel very static by comparison.
Oh yeah... and unlike the KDF, the Empire in Swtor is a full on faction.
agreed, swtor looks pretty good on my end. Stylistically they are different, but I wouldn't dismiss swtor's graphics by any stretch.
It's just that I logged back into STO right before DR to try and get back into it. I thought I would lead up to it by running a new KDF sci character, but everything just felt so limiting and I didn't want to do another Romulan (two already) and I don't feel like doing Fed up until they re-do the Rom story line stuff like they said they would (just feels like I'd be missing out on something). Seriously, the only sci ship available is the Gorn one and there aren't any options to modify the ship at all. I'd love to have something like the Lockbox ship, but again... that's behind a lockbox or what looks like 200 dollars. I'm not going to spend that much on a single ship when given that I used to sub before PW took over for two years and so have already dropped that much on this game.
So I thought I pick back up with my Rommie, but then I run into issues with not having fleshed out the Romulan rep grind which is weird to me since it is referenced in the opening episode to the Sphere. I just feel like I'm missing something with that and I honestly don't have time to grind just to get those stories. Certainly, I didn't have enough time before DR came out.
Oh and then SWTOR announces their new Expansion and says that if I sub again and buy the expac for only 20 then I can get to level out the stories that I hadn't done using only class missions. That's awesome. Imperial Agent and Bounty Hunter are soooo fun so far. And that's the difference to me. Yeah, I have to pay 15 a month for SWTOR, but over the past year or so... they've been giving me what I want. STO's devs seem intent on the opposite. Obviously, I have no problem paying. But ships are as much part of my character is the ground avatar is to me. And STO locks them up behind ridiculous prices or gambling boxes. Clearly, the Devs understand the players that are willing to fork over hundreds of dollars on digital items, but they don't understand me or a larger group of players.
It's sad in a lot of ways, because as this happens the average price of an item will actually go up over time because there aren't enough players buying to drive the cost of items down in the long term. If the Devs would focus on making STO a better game, the game would not only still be F2p as it is now, but cheaper over all for everyone included. But it's not, the prices are inflated. This is why I play Swtor instead. I have to pay, yes, but my fifteen means something in that game. In STO, my fifteen means virtually nothing. They don't care about me as a customer.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2v2bj9c&s=8#.VE-9T_nF98E
http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=adkBqYNLltt27Lc0jMUnl4h4l5k2TGxc#.VE-9uvnF98E
http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=adkBqYNLlttzMpaJxMRNA4h4l5k2TGxc#.VE--FfnF98E
http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=adkBqYNLltvUvP3%2B3F%2Bz%2Foh4l5k2TGxc#.VE-_UvnF98E
http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=adkBqYNLltunixHxkxHd3Ih4l5k2TGxc#.VE_AF_nF98E
http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=adkBqYNLltuSVOBCHTfEK4h4l5k2TGxc#.VE_AR_nF98E
sorry cant call them TRIBBLE flat or that A$$ flat
here some more pics
http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=adkBqYNLlttqU6QgIOqzSYh4l5k2TGxc#.VE_CbPnF98E
http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=adkBqYNLltsHeTUgAZhKcYh4l5k2TGxc#.VE_Cl_nF98E
system Lord Baal is dead
What about people who don't play through Steam?
I stopped running the game through Steam after I hit 666 hours of gameplay.
Steam figures won't be perfect but are the only ones we have, and are at least indicative. For example: unless there has been a shift within the last two weeks of 20% of Steam players no longer using Steam, and instead shifting over to Arc and logging in there, then there has been an indicated 20% drop in player logins.
2 weeks is an eternity in today's bloated attention span theater society.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
If you want to claim that this has happened, be my guest... but you'll need to show some sort of evidence to justify a position that Steam's lost 20% of its player base in two weeks.
If so, then all we'd end up with is "no way to tell" if DR's been successful beyond anecdotes of dead queues and poor fleet/friend list attendance, in which case I'd still lean to the side of "not as successful as advertised".
That was an alright post until I remembered that there are cyborgs green aliens and cathar in star wars... Crappy aliens aren't limited to star trek
You misunderstand. I'm saying it's not surprising to me that the kiddies are done with the expansion in 2 weeks. This is a box office run now of a successful movie.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Oh okay I get you.
Yes true, and when you look at the DR season as a stand-alone in terms of what it's really offering (1 Undine wrapup mission, half a dozen patrols, and half a dozen 'season' missions), it's to be expected. However, the hype especially the "Most Successful Season Ever!" spin isn't borne out by looking at the figures which show that huge hump from LoR, and the overall pattern suggests that the game is losing players down to levels that are getting towards pre-Fleet expansion levels.
As other seasons and events seem to have a life of around one to two months of a slow decline, a fast bottoming-out after a week or two just doesn't mesh with the PR spin.
DR launch was fine. Yet it's declining MUCH faster.
LoR could be "done" as fast as DR, if not even faster. Just run the Romulan missions one after the other, and you're done.
Anyway, as I already said, we had like 3 events to push people logging in for DR. Free lobi, dilithium WE (one of the player's favorite event), and for German/French, another free lobis/keys event.
They REALLY want to push people logging in, as in DR didn't work.
i cant properly recall, but im pretty sure we didnt have any other event, or free offering, during the LoR release. i do remember some additions to the pack, but think that was week 4. can anyone else remember this, or am i mistaken?
No you are not mistaken, but back then there was no need was there?
Me and my friends had much fun levelling our Romulan toons and had the backup of running endgame contend after it with wonderfully, beautifully filled queue lists.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Cyborg humans were a staple of science fiction before trek was a glimmer in Gene Roddenberry's eye. So calling them a trek ripoff is going a little too far.
When it works {cough} I like the menu/window system in STO a little better than SWTOR, although SWTOR having six toolbars you can position anywhere on the screen is nice. Having a hard time comprehending the recent toolbar issues in STO.