I really don't know where you left your common sense or brain for that matter, but in the real world CUSTOMERS complain when a company screws them over! Maybe for you it is okay to be screwed by a company, but I don't like it and I will complain now and in the future.
YOU DON'T HAVE ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES CALL CUSTOMERS MORONS IN PUBLIC! PERIOD!
Zeus
except in this case, where the "customers" were trying to march out the door with fraudulently earned products.
You demand cryptic apologize for their mistakes, but refuse to admit the player base made one.
But you are never going to admit it because as a wise man once said,
"If the mistake is in your favor never owen up"
Everywhere I look, people are screaming about how bad Cryptic is.
What's my position?
That people should know what they're screaming about!
(paraphrased from "The Newsroom)
except in this case, where the "customers" were trying to march out the door with fraudulently earned products.
You demand cryptic apologize for their mistakes, but refuse to admit the player base made one.
But you are never going to admit it because as a wise man once said,
"If the mistake is in your favor never owen up"
This has been dealt with several times and repeating it doesn't make it so.
An employee calling customers "morons" is not on. Period.
The player base is not an undifferentiated blob. Nor did the retro-nerf only affect a subset: everybody risked future unilateral retro-nerfs if this went unchallenged. You're welcome.
The problem was reported prior to launch, Cryptic did nothing about it. Thus, not fraudulent. Ditch the hyperbole, it won't work.
Just because the people "in authority" say it, doesn't make it true. Not owning up to errors can apply just as much to Cryptic as it can to its customers depending on circumstances.
You didn't like what happened? Well you're not alone, nobody did.
In fact, the only real lesson from this is that the situation was such, that nobody "won". At least with the retraction, innocent people didn't "lose".
except in this case, where the "customers" were trying to march out the door with fraudulently earned products.
You demand cryptic apologize for their mistakes, but refuse to admit the player base made one.
But you are never going to admit it because as a wise man once said,
"If the mistake is in your favor never owen up"
So, let me get this straight.
First, the apology pretty much flat out states that people who DID NOTHING WRONG got dinged, and accused of wrong doing.
Second, people are upset that the game has been turned into something where you can't get ahead without spending large amounts of cash,and after spending large amounts of cash, you ge accused of exploiting when you did not due to errors on Cryptic's part.
Third, your justification of this -- your acceptance of this as just fine -- is based on the fact that SOME PEOPLE did something illegal. You cannot find a single quote in this thread denying that, and it is a STRAWMAN.
The problem is that people who did NOT exploit were treated like cheaters, and insulted. And then we're simply supposed to say "oh that's okay" when they've jacked up everything else?
The CDF has been full of white-knights who have jammed shards of rose-tinted glass into their eyesockets from day one.
When they lie to us, we're suppose to accept it.
When they nerf things instead of fixing it, we should be grateful.
When they flat out swear the game isn't going F2P, stage a big LTS sale, then take it F2P, we should be happy.
When they make up excuses that are later proven to be lies, we should "give them room to breathe".
Sorry, but some people aren't submissive masochists like you are.
I posted this in another thread but thinking more on this, IMHO this topic deserves it's own thread.
While the apology was a "step" in the right direction, it is just a "step".
Anytime a company berates it's own customers and it takes a week of rage by the customers for the "company" to apologize, then someone in-charge needs to re-evaluate several things.
1) The "company" exists to provide goods or services that it's customers want and in return it profits and grows.
2) Satisfied customers are the only way to make the "company" grow and profit.
3) Employees of the "company" represent the "company" when they communicate with the "company's" customers at ALL TIMES!
4) Fail to listen to customers and the "company" fails.
5) Not all customers in the world are the same. What sells in one part of the world does not mean it will sell everywhere. The "company" needs to have several different models of goods and services to reach a world wide customer base.
6) Forcing customers to buy what the "company" wants is a plan for failure.
7) Providing what customers want is a plan for success.
8) In a crisis, lack of communication turns a crisis into a disaster for the "company".
9) When customers stop using the "company's" goods or services the "company" starts to fail.
10) Not learning from past "company" mistakes causes the "company" to repeat mistakes and lose customers.
11) Customer trust and loyalty should be the one of the highest priorities of the "company".
12) Quality of the "company's" goods or services should never be compromised. A rush to market has the potential to fail as much as succeed.
I would suggest that the people in-charge at Cryptic and PWE take some time and look at the path Star Trek Online is headed and ask themselves one question,
Would I, as a customer, want to buy the "company's" goods and services in it's current state?
Speaking as one of your "whales", I am trying to answer that question for myself right now and so far the answer "Does not bode well".
Zeus
Wait. What? An actual apology from Cryptic? Link it, plz?
It's kind of a weak argument if you already spent 700$ on zen to dil to upgrade 2 rare weapons, that they should lower the cost.
If anything, you just showed them they ought to raise it, because you are quite obviously a whale that will buy in no matter what.
And your approach lowers the credibility of the forum, "I might maybe perhaps potentially not buy everything you tell me in the future!!!1"
In that situation just make your points without including empty threats of your habbits.
When they blocked the ground costumes with s.7 I didn't log in for 18 months all the while bumping just 1 thread several times a week.
And that was just a bugged outfit I was reacting to although from where I am sitting you are the maniac
Ironically all the problems of DR could have been fixed if you hadn't done a " shut up and take my money"
So frankly if you bought into I don't want to hear it
The developers are just doing what should be expected, pushing to see how much they can mlik people.
Your no to them is their limit, so it's YOUR responsibility.
I'd never expect developers to apologize or admit to anything but for the love of god meng please recognize the players do have control over them but you can start figuring out how to control yourself.
So yes I blame the players for the super failed fiasco state the game is now in.
And I especially blame anyone who spent on crafting, upgrading and t5u -t6 ships and lockbox is completely fair.
All I gotta say, people take this way too seriously.
Yes, yes I do. My grandfather was born before Ford made assembly line cars. He was in the cavalry on horseback in WW I. He was a horse jockey in the early 1920s. He designed, built, and raced cars in the 30's. He designed tanks for WW II. He went to work in Aerospace after that, and was a System Design Inspection Engineeer during the Apollo projects. He was what people then called a "Half-breed" with a 10th grade education and he was a Rocket Scientist. There were two things on TV during which one watched with respect and never said a word: 1) the Indianapolis 500, and 2) Star Trek.
Star Trek is not just about a game. It isn't just about lasers. It isn't just about space battles. It is about a real change in the definition of what it means to be human, to recognize the value and right of life, not merely to make allowance for who and what people are - but to provide a place for it without the condescension and molly coddling of special treatment programs and political grandstanding for gain. A man who was a beat cop and a war veteran created Star Trek out of an experience that never abandoned the structure of the status quo and never allowed for the pettiness which denigrates rather than celebrates the better parts of our differences: IDIC. I can imagine no way not to take this seriously without desecrating the memory of that man.
I remember when STO was new - when the bugs were more plentiful, when the ground combat looked like the clash of marionettes, when we had to train in each and every energy types separately to use a kind of weapon, and all. I remember when we were paying our way through the extended Beta of before F2P. A lot of good changes have been made since then. Like most, I remained a part of the silent majority and spent money when I could in support.
I hated the first change of the crafting system, as it made everything cost dilithium. Then we got the second destruction of crafting and I have resented every penny I have spent on the game since. When the DR package came out two things happened: 1) I had to start asking my people to wait, don't jump to conclusions, maybe the game wouldn't go pay to win, and 2) I refused to purchase an over priced pre-launch bundle since two bundles I have purchased previously from Cryptic resulted in a fight and temporary ban on all of my accounts trying to get what I paid for. DR further attacked those with lesser incomes and those with smaller fleets by making it impossilble or next to impossible to continue working on them unless one spends money and massive amounts of time for special assets and managing DOff returns with the tenacity of a bean counter with a trailer load of red bull.
I don't want an apology. What I want is a game back with the same access to the same rewards, benefits, etc. that I had before. I want my crafting given back. I want my STFs and their rewards given back. I don't want my game made more complicated. I don't want to have to get an MBA in order to play it. I don't play virtual games in order to look bad, be unsuccessful, and broke - that is what real life is for. And I don't want Star Trek used as a means to define people as too substandard to participate and excluded because they don't have a better than median income.
A part of the success of Star Trek is that it sells the promise of a better tomorrow. One cannot sell that promise only for the elite and still consider it the better.
Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~ Cecil Beaton
This has been dealt with several times and repeating it doesn't make it so.
An employee calling customers "morons" is not on. Period.
Yeah, LOL. You can think it, but you can never ever say it. Like, ever. In showbiz they call this Publikumsbeschimpfung. And it's totally not done.
The problem was reported prior to launch, Cryptic did nothing about it. Thus, not fraudulent. Ditch the hyperbole, it won't work.
Moreover, the NPC's in the 'affected' systems had been paying out the *exact* same amount of XP on Elite since years!
The way I now understand it, is that, in Tau Dewa, several people were using team trickery to fight NPC's at the level of their lowest team member. In all honesty, that *does* feel a bit like 'exploitative behavior' to me. Those team-mechanics were designed to let newbies temporarily fight at a higher level (so as to give them a fighting chance, as it were), and not for the reverse.
Cryptic then severely erred, lumping everyone power-leveling in with the exploiters. Even people who solo-ed, and where never even in Tau Dewa. Those people should never have been branded exploiters to begin with!
And what about the true 'exploiters' then? Well, thing is... there were never any true exploiters. Maybe the team trickery was a bit cheesy, but nowhere near a real exploit, such as commonly defined in the gaming world (like using mining-bots, wall-hacks, etc). Cryptic then grossly overreacted.
In fact, the only real lesson from this is that the situation was such, that nobody "won". At least with the retraction, innocent people didn't "lose".
I carry no grudges. The man apologized, and gave me my points back. Kudos on him!
The sad part, however, is, that trust was lost. Trust is a funny thing: you cannot so easily be magnanimous, and say 'I trust you again!' (All that really means is, that you make a conscious decision to overlook the fact that you DON'T trust them. Think about that, for a moment). In my case, for instance, it means I'm still afraid I will wake up tomorrow and find Argala nerfed. Or see my Spec points taken again one day soon, because I wasn't supposed to max them out within mere weeks. So, while I'm genuine in my desire to just shake it off, in reality the very fabric of trust itself dictates that it will simply take a while for me to stop worrying about that ever happening again.
... Star Trek is not just about a game. It isn't just about lasers. It isn't just about space battles. It is about a real change in the definition of what it means to be human, to recognize the value and right of life, not merely to make allowance for who and what people are - but to provide a place for it without the condescension and molly coddling of special treatment programs and political grandstanding for gain. A man who was a beat cop and a war veteran created Star Trek out of an experience that never abandoned the structure of the status quo and never allowed for the pettiness which denigrates rather than celebrates the better parts of our differences: IDIC. I can imagine no way not to take this seriously without desecrating the memory of that man...
Wow, thank you for sharing your story. It's a very powerful reminder of what Star Trek represents.
The original Star Trek was produced from 1966 to 1969. Here in Australia, there was a referendum which changed the Constitution in 1967. It might seem so legalistic and bureaucratic but it did happen to remove Section 127. Doesn't seem like much, until you read it:
"In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted."
What this section meant, in lay terms, was that when Star Trek first hit the screens, Australia still dealt with a group of people, under the Wildlife Act... because of the color of their skin.
Whilst Nichelle Nichols was portraying a Swahili woman in a position of authority on a futuristic capital ship, Australia was treating members of the human race as animals, quite literally. Giving an account of this is beyond the realms of this forum, but a simple example might suffice: if an Indigenous Australian wanted to have a beer, they were required to gain a license, in which they showed that they knew how to live like a "white" person, and also promised to never have anything to do with other Aboriginal people again. Imagine having to disown your family before your government "allowed" you do have a drink like any other human being.
I am not an Indigenous Australian so I cannot and will not speak on their behalf. As a citizen of Australia however, I can say this: it is a shameful part of our collective and ancestral pasts that many Australians still have not learned about, or learned to live with.
Star Trek was about optimism and a future which used technology for the better. Where things could be solved through understanding and graciousness. Where battles were a last resort. It's more than a bit of mindless entertainment and for the people who pushed to make it work, I thank them.
wow they can't even apologize without a bunch of whining...
and people think cryptic alone is ruining the game. guys(and gals) hate to tell you but thats not true... they have f'ed up more then once but the need to hold a grudge and keep at it after it's been taken care of isn't helping anyone. least of all the fan base. so drop it telll the next TRIBBLE up then go back to flaming them. don't worry their human it's not going to long.
This be my point exactly.
I'm imagining many of the people herecan't have many friends/chances for social encounters in the real world if they are this unforgiving.
I have NEVER seen a perpetual MMO not make any **** ups ever. Mistakes will always be made, but its those that are willing to be the mature ones who can just accept Cryptic's apology, wipe their foaming mouths and move on, who keep the player community strong. Those who just have an appetite for being obtuse and pessimistic should just keep away from the forums (ideally the public at large as well), as they provide no intersting feedback, suggestions, morals or ideals.
I'm English. We are famous for being a country full of moaners & whiners, but this forum recently makes the average Englishman look positively genial! :cool:
So, here's the simple solution, either you accept Cryptics apologiy, be at least appreciative that they reversed their actions, or, the alternative is that you dont accept it, in which case, this MMO isn't for you and you should uninstall.
wow they can't even apologize without a bunch of whining...
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
I always find threads like this interesting. It seems everyone works in game development, has immediate access to the metrics of the user base and their spending habits, and has a keen understanding of how international business and marketing works in the real world.
Mr vestereng makes a fine point, the game business do what they do because you tolerate it. Gamers are so damn fickle these days it's unbelievable. You'd throw money at games that don't even exist yet just by buying into hype and seeing 2 minutes of trailer footage.
Never assume that anyone at Cryptic are bad at their jobs, or don't know what they are doing. They know precisely what they are doing. They must do, since you are still here.
Never assume that anyone at Cryptic are bad at their jobs, or don't know what they are doing. They know precisely what they are doing. They must do, since you are still here.
Never assume that anyone at Cryptic are bad at their jobs, or don't know what they are doing. They know precisely what they are doing. They must do, since you are still here.
If Q does not presume -|P|. You forget the rubbernecking corollary in which the general public is drawn magnetically to observe the collision of facts and a train wreck. Simply because there are observers does not mean the engineer driving the train they are watching is aware or in control - nor does it mean the engineer is not. The presence of two objects does not establish their relationship, their relationship does.
Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~ Cecil Beaton
So, here's the simple solution, either you accept Cryptics apologiy, be at least appreciative that they reversed their actions, or, the alternative is that you dont accept it, in which case, this MMO isn't for you and you should uninstall.
They have not reversed their actions. Delta Rising and all the negatives it implemented are still in full swing. This is NOT about a single event. This is a Long Time coming.
We want our game back!
I want the crafting ability back!
I want the STFs and the rewards I had full access to before DR back!
I want the reputation traits back the way they used to be!
I want LESS grind back!
Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~ Cecil Beaton
They have not reversed their actions. Delta Rising and all the negatives it implemented are still in full swing. This is NOT about a single event. This is a Long Time coming.
We want our game back!
I want the crafting ability back!
I want the STFs and the rewards I had full access to before DR back!
I want the reputation traits back the way they used to be!
I want LESS grind back!
Agreed, wholeheartedly, on all counts!
I don't mind the grind, though; but, by the goddess, stop nerfing each and every bit of Dilithium and EC/XP people can make!
I'm imagining many of the people here can't have many friends/chances for social encounters in the real world if they are this unforgiving.
I have NEVER seen a perpetual MMO not make any **** ups ever. Mistakes will always be made, but its those that are willing to be the mature ones who can just accept Cryptic's apology, wipe their foaming mouths and move on, who keep the player community strong. Those who just have an appetite for being obtuse and pessimistic should just keep away from the forums (ideally the public at large as well), as they provide no intersting feedback, suggestions, morals or ideals.
I'm English. We are famous for being a country full of moaners & whiners, but this forum recently makes the average Englishman look positively genial! :cool:
So, here's the simple solution, either you accept Cryptics apologiy, be at least appreciative that they reversed their actions, or, the alternative is that you dont accept it, in which case, this MMO isn't for you and you should uninstall.
Here's my point Mako... you characterizing everyone that has complained as "Unsociable" we aren't this has been coming for a long time... Cryptic has been making many many mistakes over the course of the last few years and now they are paying for it as the anger and frustration have been allowed to build to the point that it is boiling over... to the point it has become self sustaining... like a runaway Warpcore reaction.
The fact that they asked for feedback on numerous of their changes for the last couple of years and those Ideas have been criticized and rejected both in socially acceptable and unacceptable manners does not negate the fact that the criticism was likely valid from a customers/players point of view... and then proceeded to go ahead anyway... that's just foolish.
I'm not saying that they can't make mistakes... but trending shows that Cryptic doesn't seem to learn from them... (I.E. Negative feedback on the crafting system and then Negative feedback on the upgrade system... and then both we're rolled live anyway. The costs/time required in both case are out of control)
Cryptic needs to...
1. Fix the game... I would like to see a patch in the next three or so months that addresses some of the broken code in the game that has been around for years now. (I.E. Borked up hotbars, Performance Issues, Ground Combat Bugs, etc...)
2. Actually deliver on the huge amount of items that have been supposedly "Coming Soon" TM (Secondary Deflectors, PvP Upgrades, Fixing (Adjusting) the Crafting/Upgrade System, A large number of other ships we have been promised/hinted at... etc.)
3. Lose the Grind... Grind does not = Content
4. Do something about the attitudes of the people in the company... They are not entitled to my money... I will not continue to contribute to a company that does not respect me... (I'm looking at you Geko)
Look at my post count I have been around since beta when the game was almost unplayable... I don't generally come to the forums to complain or start trolling... Not my bag... I do have other things to do.
But I have started now because I am angered at the way things are going and the tone/stance that the company over all has taken... and I deserve to be heard... and so do the others who are angry... upset and frustrated by the direction our interaction with this company has taken.
Admiralodan, I went through the posts and didn't see anything particularly negative, at least nothing that wasn't along the lines of "great that they've changed things for the better, it's a first step, hope they rebuild trust, they still need to fix other stuff then it'll be back on track". Sure people sound a pit burnt out and on a short fuse, it's been a trying week; I think another week or two and it'll be calmer (specially if the devs do get some movement on the more serious issues).
I think it's more a case of some people just having to whine about (what they perceive as) other people whining :rolleyes:
Janus I respect your optimism but I disagree... I am burnt out I admit it... I used to be one of Cyptics fanboys... used to defend them all the time... but now...
I don't think it's going to get better... they reversed themselves on something that was a completely self created clusterflock... how magnanimous of them... mostly because they screwed over people that had nothing to do with the people they we're actually targeting...
But the shear level of Ego that Geko has... I've seen him bad mouth players over and over again in public forums... In the crafting system update on one of the podcasts he calls everyone that provided negative feedback on the crafting system "Unappreciative Whiners" ... Why we're we complaining... because they turned crafting into a giant money grab grindfest.
Then he has the brass to sit and call players "Morons" in another podcast... over things they did in Delta Rising...
Then they come out and blame the players for not being able to do their little charity podcast... because of all the "ill will" from the player base...
This is TRIBBLE... I'm tired of their excuses... People need to go at the company...
Two thoughts for them...
"Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong." - Donald Porter, V.P. British Airways
"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so." - Kenneth B. Elliott also attributed to others.
Some people at Cryptic seem to have forgotten both of those and having been a manager myself and worked in IT and Customer Service/Relations when that starts happening it's usually time for someone/s to go...
What the op did is not whining. It reads like a man who is fed up with the direction this game is heading.
Face it some people are going to blindly defend this game because that is their nature.
others are going to bash each thing that they do no matter if it's good or bad once again it's their nature.
Myself in a nut shell
Kudos for the apology on this issue, Their needs to be another one very public concerning the moron incident.
I hate the costs to upgrade anything, I don't mind some grind all games have it but it would be nice to have some xp back.
Set our advanced stfs to the old elite leave normal alone and make Elite as hard as you want. it will give us something to reach for.
Please for the love of whatever deity you believe in Open lines of communication. Pick players at random ask them to tell you what they like and dislike about the game.
Ask the hardcore players as well as the casual, lifers and f2p get a wide sampling and listen.
I'm not going to blindly believe that this game will never change and there will be changes I hate.
I'm not going to run into the cryptic offices with my torch and pitch fork. But I'm not going to shower them in butterfly kisses and complements either.
As a business owner, I despise the old axiom 'The customer is always right.'
They are not always right, they are (quite often) wrong, and quite often rude.
However (again as a business owner) you allow a certain amount of leeway - because business is fundamentally a form of give and take - they give me money, and I provide them with a service or goods.
If somebody comes to me and complains that my service or goods are inadequate, I will immediately investigate. I will even entertain a certain amount of rudeness and anger - because after all, I have already taken their money, and if what was provided is not up to par, anger and rudeness is certainly to be expected (due to frustration and human nature.)
If it turns out that I was right and the customer was wrong - I politely point this out to them, I may (if they were reasonable and polite) provide them with a little free gift just so there was no bad feeling, and then forget about the whole thing.
If it turns out that I was wrong and the customer was right (and this had happened on a few occasions), I would not only refund them for the original goods or service, but provide them with a free replacement, along with many apologies.
Never in a million years would I call a customer a moron, ignore them, or indeed bait them (as I have seen Geko doing multiple times). Once you have somebodys money, it is VERY easy to come up with justifications about why a customer should be brushed aside (It's self evident in many multinational corporations that exist today).
No, the customer is not always right, but the customer (particularly if you are using large brush strokes to describe 'exploiters') should not be treated with distain, insulted and baited.
Not if you want to stay in business anyway.
Geko needs to make a public apology and make it soon. If one of my employees acted in the insulting manner he has repeatedly displayed, they would have been severely reprimanded, if not fired.
Look at my post count I have been around since beta when the game was almost unplayable...
With all due respect to you, but someone telling me that they've been around since the beginning and saying it was almost unplayable then makes you sound a little crazy.
A couple of years ago, I tried SWTOR, was on it for all of 15 mins, didnt like the game setup, the controls, the limitations when it comes to swinging a light sabre around, so I uninstalled and have never returned.
Many people love SWTOR, but I don't, just a matter of opinion, but i'll be quite mental if I kept on playing all this time it despite hating it wouldn't I?
Me personally, I love STO, it has an unbelievable amount of variety in this game, all from character creation to crafting. Its great, Yeah, some things do bug me, but they are little things I can live with.
I'm old enough that my first games computer was a Spectrum 48k. I cannot imagine playing an old game like Skool Daze (for example), being pissed off that the teachers give me too many lines, and writing off to the game's developers to complain and demand.
Cryptic will have things their way whether we like them or not, because it is their game and their property.
The playerbase seems to think it has a right to demand, but they don't. The very limit is that the players can suggest things, but that is all.
I think the real issue is everyone wants to be top level, with the best weapons, the most DPS, the most health/shields, the best ship, the best of everything, and they whine when they sudenly realise that they have to really work to get their alt to the top.
Again, I can respect those who disagree with me, we all have our opinions, but I can't respect those who throw their toys out of the pram every time they encounter something which they don't like.
On game forums, I have found one thing which works with game staff/mods/devs, and that is constructive feedback, not deffamatory and demands.
The playerbase seems to think it has a right to demand, but they don't. The very limit is that the players can suggest things, but that is all.
Supply and demand is an age old business transaction. Customers can (and do) demand what they want, if you cannot provide it, then indeed the customer can go and look elsewhere.
However, telling people they should not demand what they are paying for (and please don't tell me this game is free to play - THAT argument has been talked to death) is illogical.
Yes this 'game' belongs to cryptic/PWE, but it does not EXIST without customers (supply and demand).
If my customers did not tell me what they wanted, I would not know what to provide them with.
If I do not provide them with what they want... then I dont get any money.
Supply and demand is an age old business transaction. Customers can (and do) demand what they want, if you cannot provide it, then indeed the customer can go and look elsewhere.
However, telling people they should not demand what they are paying for (and please don't tell me this game is free to play - THAT argument has been talked to death) is illogical.
Yes this 'game' belongs to cryptic/PWE, but it does not EXIST without customers (supply and demand).
If my customers did not tell me what they wanted, I would not know what to provide them with.
If I do not provide them with what they want... then I dont get any money.
Exactly this... Cryptic may "own" this game... However CBS "Owns" the Star Trek franchise. Players "Us" we provide them with money when... they create something we want to buy... They TRIBBLE off enough customers... and guess what... no money. No money means they can't pay for the license or upkeep on STO which means the game folds which means... Cryptic now owns a lot of nothing.
Customers/consumers truly control the world like it or not. Don't believe me??
Look at Companies like Best Buy, Radio Shack who are both failing as... they aren't offering the customer what they want and or need.
Video Game companies like EA who axed a number of people and changed management and development strategies in response to the humongous amount of flap that they got for a few years over poorly designed and implemented games.
The truth is companies are forced to be accountable to they're customers/consumers all the time or... people take their money elsewhere and those companies suffer.
except in this case, where the "customers" were trying to march out the door with fraudulently earned products.
You demand cryptic apologize for their mistakes, but refuse to admit the player base made one.
But you are never going to admit it because as a wise man once said,
"If the mistake is in your favor never owen up"
I don't care if somebody is blatantly shoplifting from Wal-Mart, there is a more appropriate way to handle it than that.
Violators don't need to be punished or humiliated by your employees in any business, ever.
Part of that is handing things off to the legal system. Part of that is making sure that when you do have internal security, the guy tackling the shoplifter is NEVER mistaken for the cashier whose job is to be friendly to everyone. Part of that is budgeting for theft and accepting losses do to it.
It isn't the job of people in business to be the fairness police and I think if gamers and game designers got that, we'd have fewer gamergate debacles.
except in this case, where the "customers" were trying to march out the door with fraudulently earned products.
You demand cryptic apologize for their mistakes, but refuse to admit the player base made one.
But you are never going to admit it because as a wise man once said,
"If the mistake is in your favor never owen up"
I was not one of the players that did the so called exploiting nor were my friends!
I, nor my friends, got any so called profit or gain from the code that was put into the game by Cryptic. Which by the way, the testers on Tribble told Cryptic about months before DR was released on Holodeck.
A Cryptic employee called the customers of Cryptic morons for doing what the devs had programed into the code and it was code that the Dev's had been told about!
How is that the customers fault? And why do the customers deserve to be called morons?
IT IS NOT THE CUSTOMERS FAULT! THEY DON'T DESERVE TO BE CALLED MORONS!
Comments
except in this case, where the "customers" were trying to march out the door with fraudulently earned products.
You demand cryptic apologize for their mistakes, but refuse to admit the player base made one.
But you are never going to admit it because as a wise man once said,
"If the mistake is in your favor never owen up"
What's my position?
That people should know what they're screaming about!
(paraphrased from "The Newsroom)
This has been dealt with several times and repeating it doesn't make it so.
An employee calling customers "morons" is not on. Period.
The player base is not an undifferentiated blob. Nor did the retro-nerf only affect a subset: everybody risked future unilateral retro-nerfs if this went unchallenged. You're welcome.
The problem was reported prior to launch, Cryptic did nothing about it. Thus, not fraudulent. Ditch the hyperbole, it won't work.
Just because the people "in authority" say it, doesn't make it true. Not owning up to errors can apply just as much to Cryptic as it can to its customers depending on circumstances.
You didn't like what happened? Well you're not alone, nobody did.
In fact, the only real lesson from this is that the situation was such, that nobody "won". At least with the retraction, innocent people didn't "lose".
So, let me get this straight.
First, the apology pretty much flat out states that people who DID NOTHING WRONG got dinged, and accused of wrong doing.
Second, people are upset that the game has been turned into something where you can't get ahead without spending large amounts of cash,and after spending large amounts of cash, you ge accused of exploiting when you did not due to errors on Cryptic's part.
Third, your justification of this -- your acceptance of this as just fine -- is based on the fact that SOME PEOPLE did something illegal. You cannot find a single quote in this thread denying that, and it is a STRAWMAN.
The problem is that people who did NOT exploit were treated like cheaters, and insulted. And then we're simply supposed to say "oh that's okay" when they've jacked up everything else?
The CDF has been full of white-knights who have jammed shards of rose-tinted glass into their eyesockets from day one.
When they lie to us, we're suppose to accept it.
When they nerf things instead of fixing it, we should be grateful.
When they flat out swear the game isn't going F2P, stage a big LTS sale, then take it F2P, we should be happy.
When they make up excuses that are later proven to be lies, we should "give them room to breathe".
Sorry, but some people aren't submissive masochists like you are.
I am never scared to Owen up.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
1. Give all fleet tier 5u ships a lt cmdr ability.
2. Restore the previous XP allocations.
3. Make elite queues possible for non dps focused builds using mk 14 gold without AOE attacks.
https://youtube.com/channel/UCJZ5FBJ9bFaZ6yAFiNpZiRQ/featured?view_as=subscriber
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/CaptainCidStorm
Wait. What? An actual apology from Cryptic? Link it, plz?
Hold on a minute!
Let me get my popcorn first.
If anything, you just showed them they ought to raise it, because you are quite obviously a whale that will buy in no matter what.
And your approach lowers the credibility of the forum, "I might maybe perhaps potentially not buy everything you tell me in the future!!!1"
In that situation just make your points without including empty threats of your habbits.
When they blocked the ground costumes with s.7 I didn't log in for 18 months all the while bumping just 1 thread several times a week.
And that was just a bugged outfit I was reacting to although from where I am sitting you are the maniac
Ironically all the problems of DR could have been fixed if you hadn't done a " shut up and take my money"
So frankly if you bought into I don't want to hear it
The developers are just doing what should be expected, pushing to see how much they can mlik people.
Your no to them is their limit, so it's YOUR responsibility.
I'd never expect developers to apologize or admit to anything but for the love of god meng please recognize the players do have control over them but you can start figuring out how to control yourself.
So yes I blame the players for the super failed fiasco state the game is now in.
And I especially blame anyone who spent on crafting, upgrading and t5u -t6 ships and lockbox is completely fair.
But is you people who sabotaged the game
Yes, yes I do. My grandfather was born before Ford made assembly line cars. He was in the cavalry on horseback in WW I. He was a horse jockey in the early 1920s. He designed, built, and raced cars in the 30's. He designed tanks for WW II. He went to work in Aerospace after that, and was a System Design Inspection Engineeer during the Apollo projects. He was what people then called a "Half-breed" with a 10th grade education and he was a Rocket Scientist. There were two things on TV during which one watched with respect and never said a word: 1) the Indianapolis 500, and 2) Star Trek.
Star Trek is not just about a game. It isn't just about lasers. It isn't just about space battles. It is about a real change in the definition of what it means to be human, to recognize the value and right of life, not merely to make allowance for who and what people are - but to provide a place for it without the condescension and molly coddling of special treatment programs and political grandstanding for gain. A man who was a beat cop and a war veteran created Star Trek out of an experience that never abandoned the structure of the status quo and never allowed for the pettiness which denigrates rather than celebrates the better parts of our differences: IDIC. I can imagine no way not to take this seriously without desecrating the memory of that man.
I remember when STO was new - when the bugs were more plentiful, when the ground combat looked like the clash of marionettes, when we had to train in each and every energy types separately to use a kind of weapon, and all. I remember when we were paying our way through the extended Beta of before F2P. A lot of good changes have been made since then. Like most, I remained a part of the silent majority and spent money when I could in support.
I hated the first change of the crafting system, as it made everything cost dilithium. Then we got the second destruction of crafting and I have resented every penny I have spent on the game since. When the DR package came out two things happened: 1) I had to start asking my people to wait, don't jump to conclusions, maybe the game wouldn't go pay to win, and 2) I refused to purchase an over priced pre-launch bundle since two bundles I have purchased previously from Cryptic resulted in a fight and temporary ban on all of my accounts trying to get what I paid for. DR further attacked those with lesser incomes and those with smaller fleets by making it impossilble or next to impossible to continue working on them unless one spends money and massive amounts of time for special assets and managing DOff returns with the tenacity of a bean counter with a trailer load of red bull.
I don't want an apology. What I want is a game back with the same access to the same rewards, benefits, etc. that I had before. I want my crafting given back. I want my STFs and their rewards given back. I don't want my game made more complicated. I don't want to have to get an MBA in order to play it. I don't play virtual games in order to look bad, be unsuccessful, and broke - that is what real life is for. And I don't want Star Trek used as a means to define people as too substandard to participate and excluded because they don't have a better than median income.
A part of the success of Star Trek is that it sells the promise of a better tomorrow. One cannot sell that promise only for the elite and still consider it the better.
Yeah, LOL. You can think it, but you can never ever say it. Like, ever. In showbiz they call this Publikumsbeschimpfung. And it's totally not done.
Moreover, the NPC's in the 'affected' systems had been paying out the *exact* same amount of XP on Elite since years!
The way I now understand it, is that, in Tau Dewa, several people were using team trickery to fight NPC's at the level of their lowest team member. In all honesty, that *does* feel a bit like 'exploitative behavior' to me. Those team-mechanics were designed to let newbies temporarily fight at a higher level (so as to give them a fighting chance, as it were), and not for the reverse.
Cryptic then severely erred, lumping everyone power-leveling in with the exploiters. Even people who solo-ed, and where never even in Tau Dewa. Those people should never have been branded exploiters to begin with!
And what about the true 'exploiters' then? Well, thing is... there were never any true exploiters.
I carry no grudges. The man apologized, and gave me my points back. Kudos on him!
The sad part, however, is, that trust was lost. Trust is a funny thing: you cannot so easily be magnanimous, and say 'I trust you again!' (All that really means is, that you make a conscious decision to overlook the fact that you DON'T trust them. Think about that, for a moment). In my case, for instance, it means I'm still afraid I will wake up tomorrow and find Argala nerfed. Or see my Spec points taken again one day soon, because I wasn't supposed to max them out within mere weeks. So, while I'm genuine in my desire to just shake it off, in reality the very fabric of trust itself dictates that it will simply take a while for me to stop worrying about that ever happening again.
Wow, thank you for sharing your story. It's a very powerful reminder of what Star Trek represents.
The original Star Trek was produced from 1966 to 1969. Here in Australia, there was a referendum which changed the Constitution in 1967. It might seem so legalistic and bureaucratic but it did happen to remove Section 127. Doesn't seem like much, until you read it:
"In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted."
What this section meant, in lay terms, was that when Star Trek first hit the screens, Australia still dealt with a group of people, under the Wildlife Act... because of the color of their skin.
Whilst Nichelle Nichols was portraying a Swahili woman in a position of authority on a futuristic capital ship, Australia was treating members of the human race as animals, quite literally. Giving an account of this is beyond the realms of this forum, but a simple example might suffice: if an Indigenous Australian wanted to have a beer, they were required to gain a license, in which they showed that they knew how to live like a "white" person, and also promised to never have anything to do with other Aboriginal people again. Imagine having to disown your family before your government "allowed" you do have a drink like any other human being.
I am not an Indigenous Australian so I cannot and will not speak on their behalf. As a citizen of Australia however, I can say this: it is a shameful part of our collective and ancestral pasts that many Australians still have not learned about, or learned to live with.
Star Trek was about optimism and a future which used technology for the better. Where things could be solved through understanding and graciousness. Where battles were a last resort. It's more than a bit of mindless entertainment and for the people who pushed to make it work, I thank them.
This be my point exactly.
I'm imagining many of the people herecan't have many friends/chances for social encounters in the real world if they are this unforgiving.
I have NEVER seen a perpetual MMO not make any **** ups ever. Mistakes will always be made, but its those that are willing to be the mature ones who can just accept Cryptic's apology, wipe their foaming mouths and move on, who keep the player community strong. Those who just have an appetite for being obtuse and pessimistic should just keep away from the forums (ideally the public at large as well), as they provide no intersting feedback, suggestions, morals or ideals.
I'm English. We are famous for being a country full of moaners & whiners, but this forum recently makes the average Englishman look positively genial! :cool:
So, here's the simple solution, either you accept Cryptics apologiy, be at least appreciative that they reversed their actions, or, the alternative is that you dont accept it, in which case, this MMO isn't for you and you should uninstall.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
I always find threads like this interesting. It seems everyone works in game development, has immediate access to the metrics of the user base and their spending habits, and has a keen understanding of how international business and marketing works in the real world.
Mr vestereng makes a fine point, the game business do what they do because you tolerate it. Gamers are so damn fickle these days it's unbelievable. You'd throw money at games that don't even exist yet just by buying into hype and seeing 2 minutes of trailer footage.
Never assume that anyone at Cryptic are bad at their jobs, or don't know what they are doing. They know precisely what they are doing. They must do, since you are still here.
Tell that to the empty queues.
If Q does not presume -|P|. You forget the rubbernecking corollary in which the general public is drawn magnetically to observe the collision of facts and a train wreck. Simply because there are observers does not mean the engineer driving the train they are watching is aware or in control - nor does it mean the engineer is not. The presence of two objects does not establish their relationship, their relationship does.
We want our game back!
Agreed, wholeheartedly, on all counts!
I don't mind the grind, though; but, by the goddess, stop nerfing each and every bit of Dilithium and EC/XP people can make!
That's all this is about? The epic blocks of whine text? OK then...
Here's my point Mako... you characterizing everyone that has complained as "Unsociable" we aren't this has been coming for a long time... Cryptic has been making many many mistakes over the course of the last few years and now they are paying for it as the anger and frustration have been allowed to build to the point that it is boiling over... to the point it has become self sustaining... like a runaway Warpcore reaction.
The fact that they asked for feedback on numerous of their changes for the last couple of years and those Ideas have been criticized and rejected both in socially acceptable and unacceptable manners does not negate the fact that the criticism was likely valid from a customers/players point of view... and then proceeded to go ahead anyway... that's just foolish.
I'm not saying that they can't make mistakes... but trending shows that Cryptic doesn't seem to learn from them... (I.E. Negative feedback on the crafting system and then Negative feedback on the upgrade system... and then both we're rolled live anyway. The costs/time required in both case are out of control)
Cryptic needs to...
1. Fix the game... I would like to see a patch in the next three or so months that addresses some of the broken code in the game that has been around for years now. (I.E. Borked up hotbars, Performance Issues, Ground Combat Bugs, etc...)
2. Actually deliver on the huge amount of items that have been supposedly "Coming Soon" TM (Secondary Deflectors, PvP Upgrades, Fixing (Adjusting) the Crafting/Upgrade System, A large number of other ships we have been promised/hinted at... etc.)
3. Lose the Grind... Grind does not = Content
4. Do something about the attitudes of the people in the company... They are not entitled to my money... I will not continue to contribute to a company that does not respect me... (I'm looking at you Geko)
Look at my post count I have been around since beta when the game was almost unplayable... I don't generally come to the forums to complain or start trolling... Not my bag... I do have other things to do.
But I have started now because I am angered at the way things are going and the tone/stance that the company over all has taken... and I deserve to be heard... and so do the others who are angry... upset and frustrated by the direction our interaction with this company has taken.
My new sig till Cryptic fixes it....
I think it's more a case of some people just having to whine about (what they perceive as) other people whining :rolleyes:
I don't think it's going to get better... they reversed themselves on something that was a completely self created clusterflock... how magnanimous of them... mostly because they screwed over people that had nothing to do with the people they we're actually targeting...
But the shear level of Ego that Geko has... I've seen him bad mouth players over and over again in public forums... In the crafting system update on one of the podcasts he calls everyone that provided negative feedback on the crafting system "Unappreciative Whiners" ... Why we're we complaining... because they turned crafting into a giant money grab grindfest.
Then he has the brass to sit and call players "Morons" in another podcast... over things they did in Delta Rising...
Then they come out and blame the players for not being able to do their little charity podcast... because of all the "ill will" from the player base...
This is TRIBBLE... I'm tired of their excuses... People need to go at the company...
Two thoughts for them...
"Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong." - Donald Porter, V.P. British Airways
"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so." - Kenneth B. Elliott also attributed to others.
Some people at Cryptic seem to have forgotten both of those and having been a manager myself and worked in IT and Customer Service/Relations when that starts happening it's usually time for someone/s to go...
Odan
My new sig till Cryptic fixes it....
Face it some people are going to blindly defend this game because that is their nature.
others are going to bash each thing that they do no matter if it's good or bad once again it's their nature.
Myself in a nut shell
Kudos for the apology on this issue, Their needs to be another one very public concerning the moron incident.
I hate the costs to upgrade anything, I don't mind some grind all games have it but it would be nice to have some xp back.
Set our advanced stfs to the old elite leave normal alone and make Elite as hard as you want. it will give us something to reach for.
Please for the love of whatever deity you believe in Open lines of communication. Pick players at random ask them to tell you what they like and dislike about the game.
Ask the hardcore players as well as the casual, lifers and f2p get a wide sampling and listen.
I'm not going to blindly believe that this game will never change and there will be changes I hate.
I'm not going to run into the cryptic offices with my torch and pitch fork. But I'm not going to shower them in butterfly kisses and complements either.
They are not always right, they are (quite often) wrong, and quite often rude.
However (again as a business owner) you allow a certain amount of leeway - because business is fundamentally a form of give and take - they give me money, and I provide them with a service or goods.
If somebody comes to me and complains that my service or goods are inadequate, I will immediately investigate. I will even entertain a certain amount of rudeness and anger - because after all, I have already taken their money, and if what was provided is not up to par, anger and rudeness is certainly to be expected (due to frustration and human nature.)
If it turns out that I was right and the customer was wrong - I politely point this out to them, I may (if they were reasonable and polite) provide them with a little free gift just so there was no bad feeling, and then forget about the whole thing.
If it turns out that I was wrong and the customer was right (and this had happened on a few occasions), I would not only refund them for the original goods or service, but provide them with a free replacement, along with many apologies.
Never in a million years would I call a customer a moron, ignore them, or indeed bait them (as I have seen Geko doing multiple times). Once you have somebodys money, it is VERY easy to come up with justifications about why a customer should be brushed aside (It's self evident in many multinational corporations that exist today).
No, the customer is not always right, but the customer (particularly if you are using large brush strokes to describe 'exploiters') should not be treated with distain, insulted and baited.
Not if you want to stay in business anyway.
Geko needs to make a public apology and make it soon. If one of my employees acted in the insulting manner he has repeatedly displayed, they would have been severely reprimanded, if not fired.
With all due respect to you, but someone telling me that they've been around since the beginning and saying it was almost unplayable then makes you sound a little crazy.
A couple of years ago, I tried SWTOR, was on it for all of 15 mins, didnt like the game setup, the controls, the limitations when it comes to swinging a light sabre around, so I uninstalled and have never returned.
Many people love SWTOR, but I don't, just a matter of opinion, but i'll be quite mental if I kept on playing all this time it despite hating it wouldn't I?
Me personally, I love STO, it has an unbelievable amount of variety in this game, all from character creation to crafting. Its great, Yeah, some things do bug me, but they are little things I can live with.
I'm old enough that my first games computer was a Spectrum 48k. I cannot imagine playing an old game like Skool Daze (for example), being pissed off that the teachers give me too many lines, and writing off to the game's developers to complain and demand.
Cryptic will have things their way whether we like them or not, because it is their game and their property.
The playerbase seems to think it has a right to demand, but they don't. The very limit is that the players can suggest things, but that is all.
I think the real issue is everyone wants to be top level, with the best weapons, the most DPS, the most health/shields, the best ship, the best of everything, and they whine when they sudenly realise that they have to really work to get their alt to the top.
Again, I can respect those who disagree with me, we all have our opinions, but I can't respect those who throw their toys out of the pram every time they encounter something which they don't like.
On game forums, I have found one thing which works with game staff/mods/devs, and that is constructive feedback, not deffamatory and demands.
Supply and demand is an age old business transaction. Customers can (and do) demand what they want, if you cannot provide it, then indeed the customer can go and look elsewhere.
However, telling people they should not demand what they are paying for (and please don't tell me this game is free to play - THAT argument has been talked to death) is illogical.
Yes this 'game' belongs to cryptic/PWE, but it does not EXIST without customers (supply and demand).
If my customers did not tell me what they wanted, I would not know what to provide them with.
If I do not provide them with what they want... then I dont get any money.
Exactly this... Cryptic may "own" this game... However CBS "Owns" the Star Trek franchise. Players "Us" we provide them with money when... they create something we want to buy... They TRIBBLE off enough customers... and guess what... no money. No money means they can't pay for the license or upkeep on STO which means the game folds which means... Cryptic now owns a lot of nothing.
Customers/consumers truly control the world like it or not. Don't believe me??
Look at Companies like Best Buy, Radio Shack who are both failing as... they aren't offering the customer what they want and or need.
Video Game companies like EA who axed a number of people and changed management and development strategies in response to the humongous amount of flap that they got for a few years over poorly designed and implemented games.
The truth is companies are forced to be accountable to they're customers/consumers all the time or... people take their money elsewhere and those companies suffer.
My new sig till Cryptic fixes it....
I don't care if somebody is blatantly shoplifting from Wal-Mart, there is a more appropriate way to handle it than that.
Violators don't need to be punished or humiliated by your employees in any business, ever.
Part of that is handing things off to the legal system. Part of that is making sure that when you do have internal security, the guy tackling the shoplifter is NEVER mistaken for the cashier whose job is to be friendly to everyone. Part of that is budgeting for theft and accepting losses do to it.
It isn't the job of people in business to be the fairness police and I think if gamers and game designers got that, we'd have fewer gamergate debacles.
I was not one of the players that did the so called exploiting nor were my friends!
I, nor my friends, got any so called profit or gain from the code that was put into the game by Cryptic. Which by the way, the testers on Tribble told Cryptic about months before DR was released on Holodeck.
A Cryptic employee called the customers of Cryptic morons for doing what the devs had programed into the code and it was code that the Dev's had been told about!
How is that the customers fault? And why do the customers deserve to be called morons?
IT IS NOT THE CUSTOMERS FAULT! THEY DON'T DESERVE TO BE CALLED MORONS!
IT IS ALL ON CRYPTIC! PERIOD!
Zeus
After playing the Mirror Incursion, that statement is actually pretty factual.
STO playerbase is chock full of morons AND THEY ALL SEEM TO WANT TO TEAM UP WITH ME TO DRIVE ME INSANE!
*sobs*
I just want a damn shotgun......
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP