That is funny because I believe more or less everything they do is only possible through malice.
For example, if you write the whole community off as "forum whiners" you release yourself from having responsibility for loyal, paying customers.
They aren't client they are "those people"
You can even start telling yourself you are doing the right thing by treating them badly because they deserve it or it's their fault.
That's how you distance yourself from guilt or blame and can perform your job.
Then when people do complain or even just fail to compliment or brown nose it, they just proved you right.
I find it funny that poor customer support and a lack of transparency are frequently seen in companies that hold a monopoly over a product or service. The only proverbial wake up call can come from a competing product, in this case, another star trek mmo which I don't see as likely. In the meantime, the whales continue to throw hundreds at lock boxes and c-store items.
So Geko is technically right-from a strictly profits standpoint, sto has been successful; the long-term health of the game is another story, though, and focusing exclusively on short term profits only goes so far. Players need to feel their investments are worthwhile (stop with the bait and switch tactics) and that playing the game is fun (investing x amount of times equates to a reasonable amount of reward Y) in order to ensure a game and it's community continue to flourish.
As a suggestion to the developers, actually ask forum players to define what fun means and what kind of rewards we'd like to see and then make a compromise with us based on your needs and objectives. Geko, you do not have an objective opinion since your main goal is to make as much profit for your company as possible and should exclude yourself from commenting on what rewards you think are fair for us. You can't help it since you're EP and I don't hold that against you since any good businessman or woman would do the same in your position. Consequently, it falls on you to find other more objective types of opinions. Ask gaming journalists, developers from other companies, mods, reddit channels, etc. Anybody but yourselves please.
Working from a mindset of malice or resentment IS incompetence.
You'd assume they took professional pride in their product - especially if they supposedly are star trek fans, you' assume that the job is the job and the objectiec is the objective...
When gecko got upset back with the doff UI because he, as he said, had expected to be complimented for the free crafting inventory slots, he was entirely unable to just focus on the job at hand and carry out the objective.
To the point that he went into a rant and started insulting people and flaming the forums.
Now if you multiply that with years of getting called out - sometime rightfully others not but not actually owning up to it or dealing with it 1 single time.
Then you will start appreciating the years of bottled up frustration and malice.
What does the forum represent, will they represent broken promises and a never-dying memory of all the stuff you'd like to forget.
If a developer was insulted sometime last year or even just felt he is owed credit for something they built then starts the game of broken marriage where you start getting even through various acts of retaliation.
The forums are absolutely guilty of giving the developers ulcer and making their lives miserable and giving them every excuse to post-rationalize all the scumbag stuff they've done but the difference is they are getting paid to perform a service.
I am too busy playing Armada 3 right now to worry about STO.
But one thing ih ave to ask: why do modders, modding a game engine they did not make themselves do a better job at making a star trek games than the hired "professionals" do?
Heck, they have proper torpedo volleys, phaser charge up animations... high quality ship models... 5 factions....
I am too busy playing Armada 3 right now to worry about STO.
But one thing ih ave to ask: why do modders, modding a game engine they did not make themselves do a better job at making a star trek games than the hired "professionals" do?
Heck, they have proper torpedo volleys, phaser charge up animations... high quality ship models... 5 factions....
Armada 3?? Wow, never heard about this before. Some kind of a mod from what I've read, I don't think I have the base content though.
Fun times with the originals mind you.
If you've come to the forums to complain about the AFK system, it's known to be bugged at the moment.
I am too busy playing Armada 3 right now to worry about STO.
But one thing ih ave to ask: why do modders, modding a game engine they did not make themselves do a better job at making a star trek games than the hired "professionals" do?
Heck, they have proper torpedo volleys, phaser charge up animations... high quality ship models... 5 factions....
I don't know - do these modders have a business model to worry about? Do they have deadlines set by contract partners, do they need to pay for a licenses? Do they have to make everything themselves, or can they reuse stuff from other people?
I think modders can often to great work because they can avoid constraints normal game companies have to deal with. Makes you wonder if there couldn't a better system for something that is essentially a creative endeavour?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I don't know - do these modders have a business model to worry about? Do they have deadlines set by contract partners, do they need to pay for a licenses? Do they have to make everything themselves, or can they reuse stuff from other people?
I think modders can often to great work because they can avoid constraints normal game companies have to deal with. Makes you wonder if there couldn't a better system for something that is essentially a creative endeavour?
But maybe its the other way around, lets say if you are in charge of an Ip you shoul be able to sort the constraints, because thats what you are getting paid for, toe make a giood product for consumers. that said there will always problems, but the rate of problems in this one particular is amazing...and amusing.
That is funny because I believe more or less everything they do is only possible through malice.
For example, if you write the whole community off as "forum whiners" you release yourself from having responsibility for loyal, paying customers.
They aren't client they are "those people"
You can even start telling yourself you are doing the right thing by treating them badly because they deserve it or it's their fault.
That's how you distance yourself from guilt or blame and can perform your job.
Then when people do complain or even just fail to compliment or brown nose it, they just proved you right.
Here's the thing though: You can't please everyone. Not in an MMORPG, not in Star Trek, not anywhere. The most recent patch was proof - Before the patch, people were complaining that we needed to grind Tides of Ice 10 times on EACH character we wanted warp cores on. After the patch, people were complaining that Tides of Ice was 'dead'. Hell, some people are only happy when others are not(the snowball and Subspace Party Nullifier issues are a GREAT example)
The fact is, Cryptic, whether they or we like it or not, must choose who to cater to in updates. With Delta Rising, they chose to cater to the die-hard grinders who don't want to sit on their thumbs in between updates. And they also to a lesser extent catered to hypercasuals who can ignore a long grind like the spec point or R&D ones.
But just because they're not specifically catering to one demographic doesn't mean they are doing so out of malice. Is it the 'right' thing? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's the path they chose, as if they chose the opposite route, other players would be here on the forums complaining or leaving an "I quit" thread instead of those that have.
If you work off the premise you are going to fail, you probably will. Or rather you most certainly will.
The thing about Dil Vaporizing could have been what you try to brush it off as, subjective changes that were good for some people, bad for others.
In reality though, Dil Vaporizing is just bad for everyone.
See if you can find one single person in STO who can honestly say he is enjoying having to play 800 patrol missions - per character, I will wait
(that would be minus you and the 2 other developer apologists left on the forums)
How many people are going to high five you for having their EC, marks, exp and dil super nerfed?
It was terrible decisions that ruined it though - there wasn't anything standing in the way of people just enjoying the story and enjoying the game minus very poor and quite un-neccessary decisions being made.
Other stuff was emergency solutions and hardly qualify as decisions as in rather forced - least of all the fantasy world you live in had anything to do with what was carried out.
We know that mostly everything they released was released un-finished.
This includes doff UI and other recent and major stuff such as crafting and upgrading that were supposed to have modifiers and a system based off breaking down components - like you'd expect from a crafting system.
The 5 million dil you are putting into upgrading right now is essentially putting money into a fundamentally broken system that is nothing but text - no animations, no models just 1995 text in notepad copy-pasting.
Those are the un-contested facts.
Now, peace on to that - if you enjoy giving them 5 million dil (the cost of 10, yes 10x c-store t6 ships) for some notepad text, you absolutely totally should go for it.
My problem is when you pay them to do this you effectively ruin the game, not just now but moving forward.
I am not okay with the total nerf of everything, no models and no animations copy-paste expansion that comes with a pricetag of 5 million dil PER SHIP.
No one can stop the whale train but I can make damn sure the developers face up to reality and take responsiblity for their work.
A number of factors led to my current status regarding STO, including but not limited to the following;
1 - Vendor trash value nerf. Fine, it wasn't all that balanced with ground gear being worth a few hundred and deflectors, etc. hitting 50k. We were told it would balance out by ground gear being worth more while reducing space gear's worth. That was a misrepresentation.
2 - Delta Rising progression. I enjoyed the missions, but found that I was forced to grind XP to reach the level gate. That had never been an issue I encountered before in STO, I was surprised and disappointed it was a necessity with DR's release.
3 - Spec point removal. I was hit by this in a minor way, not as much as some but more than others who had actively pursued exploits. Following their numbers and boundaries of punishment precisely, many people who were penalised should never have been touched. For the record, I never visited Japori, never teamed up to run and rerun elite patrols (with the exception of three visits to Argala and one visit to some mission with infinite ships to destroy), I ran the Romulan patrol wrapper once a day for the marks, I trawled around the galaxy for Red Alerts. I was refunded two thirds of the points taken. Yay. The way they stated their calculations was again a misrepresentation.
4 - XP hike/nerf. The numbers have been analysed repeatedly by now. Suffice to say the statement that we would notice no change in our progression speed was a misrepresentation. Again.
I found that I grew to resent Cryptic and their continued shifting of goalposts in the pursuit of .... whatever it is they're pursuing. I can't attribute their changes to incompetence, there have to be some concrete goals they have set. I wish they had simply come out and been honest about what they were, instead of dressing things up with marketing, obfuscation and accusation.
The end result of these actions was the lessening of my enjoyment and enthusiasm for the game.
I voted with my money and my time. Neither are spent in STO any more.
If you work off the premise you are going to fail, you probably will. Or rather you most certainly will.
The thing about Dil Vaporizing could have been what you try to brush it off as, subjective changes that were good for some people, bad for others.
In reality though, Dil Vaporizing is just bad for everyone.
See if you can find one single person in STO who can honestly say he is enjoying having to play 800 patrol missions - per character, I will wait
(that would be minus you and the 2 other developer apologists left on the forums)
There's your problem. You're assuming too much without knowing what the hell I actually think.
I'm not "apologizing" for anything nor anyone, and I never claimed that I personally like "playing 800 patrol missions per character". The fact is, people do enjoy it, as evidenced by the popularity of Korean MMORPGs - most of which, if you had no idea, has far worse grind than the "patrol mission" grind as you put it.
How many people are going to high five you for having their EC, marks, exp and dil super nerfed?
Depends on the results of the 'nerfs'. If it for instance stabilizes the economy, then it's more likely that people in fact will. People that can't look past the face value will not see those effects.
It was terrible decisions that ruined it though - there wasn't anything standing in the way of people just enjoying the story and enjoying the game minus very poor and quite un-neccessary decisions being made.
Other stuff was emergency solutions and hardly qualify as decisions as in rather forced - least of all the fantasy world you live in had anything to do with what was carried out.
We know that mostly everything they released was released un-finished.
This includes doff UI and other recent and major stuff such as crafting and upgrading that were supposed to have modifiers and a system based off breaking down components - like you'd expect from a crafting system.
Hardly anything in MMOs, ANY MMOs, is 'finished'. If they WERE finished, there would be no more expansions. No more content. Or do you mean 'complete'?
The 5 million dil you are putting into upgrading right now is essentially putting money into a fundamentally broken system that is nothing but text - no animations, no models just 1995 text in notepad copy-pasting.
Those are the un-contested facts.
I'm not putting 5mill dil into ANYTHING. I do perfectly fine with MkXII purples. Also, what do animations and models have to do with it?
Now, peace on to that - if you enjoy giving them 5 million dil (the cost of 10, yes 10x c-store t6 ships) for some notepad text, you absolutely totally should go for it.
My problem is when you pay them to do this you effectively ruin the game, not just now but moving forward.
I am not okay with the total nerf of everything, no models and no animations copy-paste expansion that comes with a pricetag of 5 million dil PER SHIP.
No one can stop the whale train but I can make damn sure the developers face up to reality and take responsiblity for their work.
I'm not fine with that price tag either. That's why I don't follow that path. My ships destroy NPCs perfectly fine without dishing out that insane amount of cash.e capable. Thank you.
Here's the thing though: You can't please everyone. Not in an MMORPG, not in Star Trek, not anywhere. The most recent patch was proof - Before the patch, people were complaining that we needed to grind Tides of Ice 10 times on EACH character we wanted warp cores on. After the patch, people were complaining that Tides of Ice was 'dead'.
Which was largely the result of Tides of Ice being bugged as heck.
The fact is, Cryptic, whether they or we like it or not, must choose who to cater to in updates. With Delta Rising, they chose to cater to the die-hard grinders who don't want to sit on their thumbs in between updates. And they also to a lesser extent catered to hypercasuals who can ignore a long grind like the spec point or R&D ones.
So basically what was probably the fringe groups.
But just because they're not specifically catering to one demographic doesn't mean they are doing so out of malice. Is it the 'right' thing? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's the path they chose, as if they chose the opposite route, other players would be here on the forums complaining or leaving an "I quit" thread instead of those that have.
One group is basically a section of hardcore gamers which are typically a minority.
Now Hyper casuals might be a large group, but they are probably going to get bored as with the ques pretty much dead they can't do those and story missions are level gated and need a grind to get to, which they probably won't be inclined to do.
Because they have different goals. Modders goals are to provide the community with the best possible experience, it is a showcase of their abilities as well as being something very important in their lives, their goal is one of player satisfaction as a result of their talents.
The hired professionals, well the clue is in the description, hired, it's all about maximising profit for the business, the goal of every business is to make money now and in the future and that's it.
Unfortunately what many businesses don't fully understand is that by taking a balanced approach to the modders goal they will indeed satisfy the business goal, shame that but there you go, the world is full of short sighted business leaders with companies that almost always go bust.
As a modder.... I know this is BS. I do whatever I feel like. My approach is anything but balanced. And based on my experiences with other modders I've worked with in the past, it's typical for modding projects to be done based primarily on the whims of the people doing the mod work.
Mod Star Trek: Birth of the Federation to be Stargate themed? sure? why not? but it'll only happen if there are modders who want to do that.
Foundry was one of the most powerfull and inovative feature in any mmo, but never has get the proper develoment to reach the potential to be relevant, and thats sad.
Cryptic has actually done a lot with it in the NeverWinter game (it's better woven into the game and their are more features to help players and authors find/promote Foundry content in the game.)
The Foundry in STO on the other hand has just been left to effectively stagnate; and while I DO appreciate and applaud certain STO Dev's who've added more usable items for mission authors - even those Devs do it in their free time; as beyond maintenance fixes; the STO Foundry never seems to get any time on the official STO development.
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..."
As a modder.... I know this is BS. I do whatever I feel like. My approach is anything but balanced. And based on my experiences with other modders I've worked with in the past, it's typical for modding projects to be done based primarily on the whims of the people doing the mod work.
Mod Star Trek: Birth of the Federation to be Stargate themed? sure? why not? but it'll only happen if there are modders who want to do that.
I can support this, I've also done a good bit of mod work, specifically 3D design work making ships and environments for space based games and while I was doing it, I was mostly doing it for my own enjoyment. As it was a hobby I would take the time to fine tune things to my satisfaction. Providing something for the greater community was only a secondary consideration, since these communities could often be appallingly demanding and ungrateful in regards to something they weren't even paying for.
As for what Cryptic plans to do, I suspect they plan to do nothing. they'll continue business as usual making their changes and adjustments as they see fit. Meanwhile they will simply play the waiting game, players that are staying will stay, players that are leaving will leave and as time passes the current game mechanic will become the status quo, with a batch of players no longer accustomed to playing any other way. So long as the money keeps rolling in, that is all that matters. Long term players satisfaction is a non-issue, we are all very much disposable.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
Comments
For example, if you write the whole community off as "forum whiners" you release yourself from having responsibility for loyal, paying customers.
They aren't client they are "those people"
You can even start telling yourself you are doing the right thing by treating them badly because they deserve it or it's their fault.
That's how you distance yourself from guilt or blame and can perform your job.
Then when people do complain or even just fail to compliment or brown nose it, they just proved you right.
I find it funny that poor customer support and a lack of transparency are frequently seen in companies that hold a monopoly over a product or service. The only proverbial wake up call can come from a competing product, in this case, another star trek mmo which I don't see as likely. In the meantime, the whales continue to throw hundreds at lock boxes and c-store items.
So Geko is technically right-from a strictly profits standpoint, sto has been successful; the long-term health of the game is another story, though, and focusing exclusively on short term profits only goes so far. Players need to feel their investments are worthwhile (stop with the bait and switch tactics) and that playing the game is fun (investing x amount of times equates to a reasonable amount of reward Y) in order to ensure a game and it's community continue to flourish.
As a suggestion to the developers, actually ask forum players to define what fun means and what kind of rewards we'd like to see and then make a compromise with us based on your needs and objectives. Geko, you do not have an objective opinion since your main goal is to make as much profit for your company as possible and should exclude yourself from commenting on what rewards you think are fair for us. You can't help it since you're EP and I don't hold that against you since any good businessman or woman would do the same in your position. Consequently, it falls on you to find other more objective types of opinions. Ask gaming journalists, developers from other companies, mods, reddit channels, etc. Anybody but yourselves please.
Actually, that was one of the milder comments.
You'd assume they took professional pride in their product - especially if they supposedly are star trek fans, you' assume that the job is the job and the objectiec is the objective...
When gecko got upset back with the doff UI because he, as he said, had expected to be complimented for the free crafting inventory slots, he was entirely unable to just focus on the job at hand and carry out the objective.
To the point that he went into a rant and started insulting people and flaming the forums.
Now if you multiply that with years of getting called out - sometime rightfully others not but not actually owning up to it or dealing with it 1 single time.
Then you will start appreciating the years of bottled up frustration and malice.
What does the forum represent, will they represent broken promises and a never-dying memory of all the stuff you'd like to forget.
If a developer was insulted sometime last year or even just felt he is owed credit for something they built then starts the game of broken marriage where you start getting even through various acts of retaliation.
The forums are absolutely guilty of giving the developers ulcer and making their lives miserable and giving them every excuse to post-rationalize all the scumbag stuff they've done but the difference is they are getting paid to perform a service.
But one thing ih ave to ask: why do modders, modding a game engine they did not make themselves do a better job at making a star trek games than the hired "professionals" do?
Heck, they have proper torpedo volleys, phaser charge up animations... high quality ship models... 5 factions....
Armada 3?? Wow, never heard about this before. Some kind of a mod from what I've read, I don't think I have the base content though.
Fun times with the originals mind you.
I don't know - do these modders have a business model to worry about? Do they have deadlines set by contract partners, do they need to pay for a licenses? Do they have to make everything themselves, or can they reuse stuff from other people?
I think modders can often to great work because they can avoid constraints normal game companies have to deal with. Makes you wonder if there couldn't a better system for something that is essentially a creative endeavour?
But maybe its the other way around, lets say if you are in charge of an Ip you shoul be able to sort the constraints, because thats what you are getting paid for, toe make a giood product for consumers. that said there will always problems, but the rate of problems in this one particular is amazing...and amusing.
GG Cryptic.
dnirg eht nioj
The fact is, Cryptic, whether they or we like it or not, must choose who to cater to in updates. With Delta Rising, they chose to cater to the die-hard grinders who don't want to sit on their thumbs in between updates. And they also to a lesser extent catered to hypercasuals who can ignore a long grind like the spec point or R&D ones.
But just because they're not specifically catering to one demographic doesn't mean they are doing so out of malice. Is it the 'right' thing? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's the path they chose, as if they chose the opposite route, other players would be here on the forums complaining or leaving an "I quit" thread instead of those that have.
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nothing.
As far as they are concerned
DELTA RISING IS AN AMAZING EXPANSION AND THE PLAYERS LOVE IT.
This negativity is but .0000000000001 of discontent... and outlier.
More lockboxes ahoy!
The thing about Dil Vaporizing could have been what you try to brush it off as, subjective changes that were good for some people, bad for others.
In reality though, Dil Vaporizing is just bad for everyone.
See if you can find one single person in STO who can honestly say he is enjoying having to play 800 patrol missions - per character, I will wait
(that would be minus you and the 2 other developer apologists left on the forums)
How many people are going to high five you for having their EC, marks, exp and dil super nerfed?
It was terrible decisions that ruined it though - there wasn't anything standing in the way of people just enjoying the story and enjoying the game minus very poor and quite un-neccessary decisions being made.
Other stuff was emergency solutions and hardly qualify as decisions as in rather forced - least of all the fantasy world you live in had anything to do with what was carried out.
We know that mostly everything they released was released un-finished.
This includes doff UI and other recent and major stuff such as crafting and upgrading that were supposed to have modifiers and a system based off breaking down components - like you'd expect from a crafting system.
The 5 million dil you are putting into upgrading right now is essentially putting money into a fundamentally broken system that is nothing but text - no animations, no models just 1995 text in notepad copy-pasting.
Those are the un-contested facts.
Now, peace on to that - if you enjoy giving them 5 million dil (the cost of 10, yes 10x c-store t6 ships) for some notepad text, you absolutely totally should go for it.
My problem is when you pay them to do this you effectively ruin the game, not just now but moving forward.
I am not okay with the total nerf of everything, no models and no animations copy-paste expansion that comes with a pricetag of 5 million dil PER SHIP.
No one can stop the whale train but I can make damn sure the developers face up to reality and take responsiblity for their work.
Not a damn thing
1 - Vendor trash value nerf. Fine, it wasn't all that balanced with ground gear being worth a few hundred and deflectors, etc. hitting 50k. We were told it would balance out by ground gear being worth more while reducing space gear's worth. That was a misrepresentation.
2 - Delta Rising progression. I enjoyed the missions, but found that I was forced to grind XP to reach the level gate. That had never been an issue I encountered before in STO, I was surprised and disappointed it was a necessity with DR's release.
3 - Spec point removal. I was hit by this in a minor way, not as much as some but more than others who had actively pursued exploits. Following their numbers and boundaries of punishment precisely, many people who were penalised should never have been touched. For the record, I never visited Japori, never teamed up to run and rerun elite patrols (with the exception of three visits to Argala and one visit to some mission with infinite ships to destroy), I ran the Romulan patrol wrapper once a day for the marks, I trawled around the galaxy for Red Alerts. I was refunded two thirds of the points taken. Yay. The way they stated their calculations was again a misrepresentation.
4 - XP hike/nerf. The numbers have been analysed repeatedly by now. Suffice to say the statement that we would notice no change in our progression speed was a misrepresentation. Again.
I found that I grew to resent Cryptic and their continued shifting of goalposts in the pursuit of .... whatever it is they're pursuing. I can't attribute their changes to incompetence, there have to be some concrete goals they have set. I wish they had simply come out and been honest about what they were, instead of dressing things up with marketing, obfuscation and accusation.
The end result of these actions was the lessening of my enjoyment and enthusiasm for the game.
I voted with my money and my time. Neither are spent in STO any more.
Try posting again without the rude assumptions, IF you'r There's your problem. You're assuming too much without knowing what the hell I actually think.
I'm not "apologizing" for anything nor anyone, and I never claimed that I personally like "playing 800 patrol missions per character". The fact is, people do enjoy it, as evidenced by the popularity of Korean MMORPGs - most of which, if you had no idea, has far worse grind than the "patrol mission" grind as you put it.
Depends on the results of the 'nerfs'. If it for instance stabilizes the economy, then it's more likely that people in fact will. People that can't look past the face value will not see those effects.
Hardly anything in MMOs, ANY MMOs, is 'finished'. If they WERE finished, there would be no more expansions. No more content. Or do you mean 'complete'?
I'm not putting 5mill dil into ANYTHING. I do perfectly fine with MkXII purples. Also, what do animations and models have to do with it?
I'm not fine with that price tag either. That's why I don't follow that path. My ships destroy NPCs perfectly fine without dishing out that insane amount of cash.e capable. Thank you.
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Which was largely the result of Tides of Ice being bugged as heck.
So basically what was probably the fringe groups.
Yes, but would as many players be doing it?
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Perhaps...checking other MMOs till they fix the TRIBBLE out of this one
One group is basically a section of hardcore gamers which are typically a minority.
Now Hyper casuals might be a large group, but they are probably going to get bored as with the ques pretty much dead they can't do those and story missions are level gated and need a grind to get to, which they probably won't be inclined to do.
I give up.
Bye.
Mod Star Trek: Birth of the Federation to be Stargate themed? sure? why not? but it'll only happen if there are modders who want to do that.
My character Tsin'xing
Cryptic has actually done a lot with it in the NeverWinter game (it's better woven into the game and their are more features to help players and authors find/promote Foundry content in the game.)
The Foundry in STO on the other hand has just been left to effectively stagnate; and while I DO appreciate and applaud certain STO Dev's who've added more usable items for mission authors - even those Devs do it in their free time; as beyond maintenance fixes; the STO Foundry never seems to get any time on the official STO development.
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..."
As for what Cryptic plans to do, I suspect they plan to do nothing. they'll continue business as usual making their changes and adjustments as they see fit. Meanwhile they will simply play the waiting game, players that are staying will stay, players that are leaving will leave and as time passes the current game mechanic will become the status quo, with a batch of players no longer accustomed to playing any other way. So long as the money keeps rolling in, that is all that matters. Long term players satisfaction is a non-issue, we are all very much disposable.