Has nothing to do with padding anything, the new ships will do that.
Has all to do with most people only signed up for 1 month while they level a character to get all the bonus bank slots/retrain tokens when going up levels. All free to play delta recruits wont have that without a month long sub. And some will keep it after that.. While love the idea of Delta Recruits, i dont want to have to sub another month to make the char useful endgame.
Why would you have to sub to make a character useful endgame? You can pretty much spend nothing and do what you want. It takes time but it is doable. The only thing I recommend dropping a few bucks on is the ec cap.
You obviously have never worked in Silicon Valley. Everyone knows every job is temporary, you just try to keep your corporate sponsors signing your checks until the ****e hits the fan. Padding stats is a standard business practice in tech companies.
Maybe they want some gratification for all the work they put into revamping the early missions? I don't know, I don't work there. Speculation is a waste of time one way or another. It's like wondering whether GRRM will ever finish ASOIAF. Impossible to know even WITH his current medical prognosis. Which none of us have access to.
IMHO, the guy has waited for a decade for his success. Let him enjoy it while he can still walk around. By now, its kinda pointless anyway: nothing he writes will satisfy the many camps and seeing this stuff moving TV is so much fun.
The Show should work with his cliff notes and he can write his books whenever he sees fit. They will probably make an interesting read down the line. Like alternate reality stories. We love those don't we? What would have been... what should.. what could....
After seeing the blog on all the rewards for delta recruits the first thing that went through my head was: "Why?". Why would a dev throw together a whole event encouraging players to run an Alt and throw a TRIBBLE ton of currency and marks at them for doing it? Compared to anything any other MMOs are doing it just seems strange. Like look at FFXIV: ARR for example. You can have one main and never need to make an alt ever to experience all the games content. Switching classes is as easy as switching gear and leveling up. Sounds good right? This is like the opposite of that.
Then it dawned on me. They're doing it just to pad their stats/metrics.
Maybe to avoid any more future lay-offs? Or to give an impression of "game growing!" while their parent company may soon be looking to cut costs? When you think about what the player community will be left after this is with a bunch of dead alts. Most players will just create the Delta recruit solely to get the account wide unlocks.
It's the mind baffling stuff that goes on in this game that keeps it where it's at today. Like continuing to dedicate resources to re-vamping old missions. Why? What a waste of time. Someone should tell the Devs to keep looking forward and stop looking back.
The event is widely know in the STO circle. They can't use it to claim growth, it'd be stupid and I think they know that. They can use it to see interest in replay value, if any. I still haven't decided if I want to go science or tactical. I'd like to go with another career path, but this game is all DPS, TRIBBLE the rest.
I guess we'll have to see what's going on with the event.
I personally think there was a fairly significant exodus in the months following the release of DR and that this event is an attempt to lure those people back along with, hopefully, some new players who might be on the outside looking in.
Existing players will get Delta rewards just like new players will. New players who participate in the Delta event will find themselves just as far behind as they always are. New players who start too late to participate in the Delta event will be even further behind than they would have, since they won't be able to get Delta rewards like the older players.
The only way to actually mitigate the gap between old and new players is to abandon the "get it now before it's Lost Forever" event reward paradigm. A good example of event rewards is what we have in the winter event: you can only get the rewards during the event, but with enough effort you can catch up and acquire rewards from current and previous years.
You obviously have never worked in Silicon Valley. Everyone knows every job is temporary, you just try to keep your corporate sponsors signing your checks until the ****e hits the fan. Padding stats is a standard business practice in tech companies.
You'd think that at some point, their bosses will realize that these stats are superficial and can easily be manipulated.
"Hey, look, there's a sudden spike in the number of characters being created, whoever is in charge must be doing something righ-- oh, he just gave players rewards for creating characters."
I just think someone's bonus is connected with the number of characters created.
After seeing the blog on all the rewards for delta recruits the first thing that went through my head was: "Why?". Why would a dev throw together a whole event encouraging players to run an Alt and throw a TRIBBLE ton of currency and marks at them for doing it? Compared to anything any other MMOs are doing it just seems strange. Like look at FFXIV: ARR for example. You can have one main and never need to make an alt ever to experience all the games content. Switching classes is as easy as switching gear and leveling up. Sounds good right? This is like the opposite of that.
Then it dawned on me. They're doing it just to pad their stats/metrics.
Maybe to avoid any more future lay-offs? Or to give an impression of "game growing!" while their parent company may soon be looking to cut costs? When you think about what the player community will be left after this is with a bunch of dead alts. Most players will just create the Delta recruit solely to get the account wide unlocks.
It's the mind baffling stuff that goes on in this game that keeps it where it's at today. Like continuing to dedicate resources to re-vamping old missions. Why? What a waste of time. Someone should tell the Devs to keep looking forward and stop looking back.
First, you are comparing this game to Final Fantasy? You just blew your entire argument out the water Final Fantasy is a game that is a monthly sub therefore you can afford to do things a lot differently than you can with a game that is free to play, and after patting their stats for metrics so what? Like no one uses metrics or needs to pad stats grow up and stop whining about every damn thing....... either play the new content or don't........FFS... You are dismissed
ive stat padded on nemerous games over the years, the biggest nostalgic and incidentally biggest example of that is return to castle wolfenstien enemy territory, i had an almight 246 kill record on a map of a clan i used to hang out with, problem with the map is that the ai were never given instructions, so they spawn at their point, i goto the spawn point as support then throw down arty and support strikes and laugh at the numbers of enemies killed off each time. that was pure stat padding, to make my kill.death ratio look impressive and it was legitimized with the game tracker at the time .
i also did the same for BF2 back in the day as well, youd be amazed what a keyboard and mouse could do with a cobra attack chopper, used to rack up the body count like crazy inbetween fighting off the advances of an enemy players in SU-27/SU-35. was not invincible, enough players caught on what i was doing before long , usually every other match i was forced to eject and let the co-pilot take the dive into the ground and if im lucky take out a few enemies, butu usually get enough to satisfy the k/d ratio by a country mile and a half.
those were good days, long gone unfortunately. but stat padding is a form of exploiting the system. this stuff that cryptic is bringing out is intended to help players, new and old alike, so where you get your idea that the delta recruitment adventure is an exploit? you should rethink what you consider an exploit, because this is not it.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
ive stat padded on nemerous games over the years, the biggest nostalgic and incidentally biggest example of that is return to castle wolfenstien enemy territory, i had an almight 246 kill record on a map of a clan i used to hang out with, problem with the map is that the ai were never given instructions, so they spawn at their point, i goto the spawn point as support then throw down arty and support strikes and laugh at the numbers of enemies killed off each time. that was pure stat padding, to make my kill.death ratio look impressive and it was legitimized with the game tracker at the time .
i also did the same for BF2 back in the day as well, youd be amazed what a keyboard and mouse could do with a cobra attack chopper, used to rack up the body count like crazy inbetween fighting off the advances of an enemy players in SU-27/SU-35. was not invincible, enough players caught on what i was doing before long , usually every other match i was forced to eject and let the co-pilot take the dive into the ground and if im lucky take out a few enemies, butu usually get enough to satisfy the k/d ratio by a country mile and a half.
those were good days, long gone unfortunately. but stat padding is a form of exploiting the system. this stuff that cryptic is bringing out is intended to help players, new and old alike, so where you get your idea that the delta recruitment adventure is an exploit? you should rethink what you consider an exploit, because this is not it.
I don't know if you're joking or if you don't remotely understand what the OP was talking about.
After seeing the blog on all the rewards for delta recruits the first thing that went through my head was: "Why?". Why would a dev throw together a whole event encouraging players to run an Alt and throw a TRIBBLE ton of currency and marks at them for doing it? Compared to anything any other MMOs are doing it just seems strange. Like look at FFXIV: ARR for example. You can have one main and never need to make an alt ever to experience all the games content. Switching classes is as easy as switching gear and leveling up. Sounds good right? This is like the opposite of that.
Then it dawned on me. They're doing it just to pad their stats/metrics.
Maybe to avoid any more future lay-offs? Or to give an impression of "game growing!" while their parent company may soon be looking to cut costs? When you think about what the player community will be left after this is with a bunch of dead alts. Most players will just create the Delta recruit solely to get the account wide unlocks.
It's the mind baffling stuff that goes on in this game that keeps it where it's at today. Like continuing to dedicate resources to re-vamping old missions. Why? What a waste of time. Someone should tell the Devs to keep looking forward and stop looking back.
I guess you can stumble around in the dark for a conspiracy theory if that's what makes you happy. But let me ask you a very simple question.
Do you have any reason, in this particular case, to disbelieve their stated reason? And, isnce I see you didn't even address their stated reason in your post, I also need to ask, do you know what their stated reason is?
Gee Willikers Hausofmartok! You've hit the nail on the head! A game company wants people to play their game, look good, increase the number of logins and make money!
... Of course that's the case. The same is true for every patch. Every event. Every expansion in every MMO ever released. What? You think they release those things solely for the good of the players? Don't be ridiculous. There is an element of that sure, but only because happy players are playing players, and playing players are (potentially, in the case of a free-to-play game) paying players.
Cryptic, stop with this gimmicky TRIBBLE. You're not going to bribe most of the players you lost with this kind of stuff. Nor are you going to gain many new players. You've burned, napalmed and nuked those bridges long ago. You're only hope is to do an about face on your recent design choices.
0/10.
In all honesty, if one sits down and does some basic working and common sense you quickly realise this event will benefit the veterans a lot more than the new player this is supposedly aimed for.
I mean for one we know how to use the resources better, and so are less likely to be wasted on stuff that isn't going to help in the long run, not to mention we can just transfer it all between chars anyway.Not to mention there'll be a few things there that may possibly never be available again once the event ends like the trait and devices.
So really stat padding is the only thing this can achieve, but like others have said I haven't seen this advertised anywhere, and new players are probably going to be the minority if that really is the case.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
A game company with a somewhat successful product based upon a popular science fiction show has decided said game needs to get some new or some more players! As a way to increase profitability for the aforementioned company!
Oh NOES!
How dare they do something so dastardly? I stopped playing this game since before beta because they obviously are trying to make money off me! I only post in these forums so I can publicly display my hipsterism to the great unwashed.
Oh NOES!
Now, a game which I really want to play but am far too cool to do so openly, will make money off other people! Who are obviously too stupid to accept my premise playing a game for fun is verah unkewel! Which means not only will I not play it openly, I'll get to do so without spending a single dime of my own money!
Oh NOES!
How can I maintain my air of cynically unaffected hipsterism on the official forums of a game I supposedly don't play when the aforementioned game company launches such a devious assault of exquisite timing on other people? I know! I'll tell the world about their sneaky and underhanded tactics. Stop Playing, everyone! It's all a trick! Stop playing so you can be as cool as I am! Well, almost. After all, I am the epitome of cool and hip! You'll never be as cool as I am, But this thought gives me pleasure as I disdainfully look down upon the world from Mummy and Daddy's basement while cultivating my neckbeard.
There. That about sums up this thread for me. Thanks for the laugh, hipsters! Needed one on my way out the door to work. And clueless people really are the funniest.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
There is no denying a huge disparity exists between those of us who have been here for 5 years and those of just starting. If you are a new player, just starting today, you are looking at months of Rep grinding, months of Crafting grinding, months of Fleet grinding, etc - and all of this coming basically after you hit 50 in about 30 /played hours.
Plus you have a fact that many of us played in a time when in-game resources were plentiful. I have 1.6 billion ECs and 75,000 Zen, primarily because I played in a time before EC and Dilithium nerfs - back when I could make 20,000 Dilithium and 1.5 million ECs in 90 minutes of playing; and doing that day-in and day-out because there was nothing else to do. A lot of us had years to do dozens of Patrol Doff Chains to earn the best Doffs, etc. And the Reps were added over the years rather then facing them all at once.
So yeah, for a new player it is a daunting mountain to try and climb. Delta Recruit seems to be trying to smooth-out some of the climb. For us old-timers it does not really mean anything, but if today were my first day of STO it would be a big deal.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
experience all the games content. Switching classes is as easy as switching gear and leveling up. Sounds good right?.
Ew, sounds awful. Please tell me that you can still get extra character slots relatively cheaply, to play alts.... not being able to have a bunch of alts would suck.
edit: also, aren't all game events, "gimmicks" to get people to play more? I know I came back for the Winter event, and I'm looking forward to the Summer one (both for a new Risan ship, and to see if they improve/expand the swimwear).
This event sounds pretty interesting (always love a reason to run a new alt)..... and it would be a lot more interesting if I weren't in the in the middle of a subscribed try-out of The Old Republic. Hooray for timing.
I'm having a hard time seeing how this will really bring in new players, at least in any significant numbers.
Outside of these forums, and the Star Trek facebook page, you'd never know it was happening. Especially for a limited time event. Maybe if people read Massively OP? I think I saw it there?
I dunno, STO has always been such a niche game to start with, I just don't see them drawing much in the way of new players, especially with the weak marketing STO has always seemed to have.
Then it dawned on me. They're doing it just to pad their stats/metrics.
Maybe to avoid any more future lay-offs? Or to give an impression of "game growing!" while their parent company may soon be looking to cut costs?
Except that such a scheme would, I suspect, fall apart under even casual examination - after all, X active accounts is still X, no matter how many alts are involved - and make the perpetrators look like chumps.
That said... as has been pointed out, this event offers benefits to veterans and newcomers both. I imagine there are several threads in the Academy among other places which would be of great help to the latter; perhaps they could be highlighted in an upcoming dev blog, along with certain features.
I'm having a hard time seeing how this will really bring in new players, at least in any significant numbers.
Its a promotion. Think "ad in your local paper." Cyrptic isn't lighting a beacon from the tallest tower in all the land to attract the hordes and begin a goldenage for all mankind. They're just running a special deal, play now and get 10% bonus stuff. But wait, there's more! We'll also throw in this account-unlocked starship trait for no extra cost.
The difference between this and your typical end-game grinding event is that you can incidentally include new players in the pitch. Delta Recruitment is still just something to keep us interested in STO until season 10 (which is in keeping with how Cryptic has managed the game for perhaps the last two years now, there's pretty much always something going on), just with a tweak in rhetoric because Cryptic can.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Im curious how padding the number of new characters in the game helps them? I figure it comes down to two things
1) The assumption is people will spend money on each character, encourage existing players to create new characters and perhaps they'll spend some money to get them some fancy stuff.
2) Give the game a thorough run through before shifting into "maintenance mode". While this may seem like a "oh noes the sky is falling" concept the truth is the game is going to have a limited development cycle. STO is not eternal and they want to get a good feel for where the game stands from 0-60.
What is STO's expected lifespan? 7 years? 10 years? When they started the game they had to have projected it's lifespan, I'm guessing that was between 5-10 years at best. They finish out Season 10, have a big summer event then in the fall they shift the STO devs off STO over to their latest "top secret project" in order to get that off the ground and we begin the countdown to server shutdown. The good news is STO could coast for at least another 3-4 maybe 5 years "as is" just on the strength of it's IP. I'm guessing it depends on when CBS wants to pull the plug or when the license is up.
It's been a great ride but the sun is hanging low in the sky... sooner or later it's going to set.
After seeing the blog on all the rewards for delta recruits the first thing that went through my head was: "Why?". Why would a dev throw together a whole event encouraging players to run an Alt and throw a TRIBBLE ton of currency and marks at them for doing it? Compared to anything any other MMOs are doing it just seems strange. Like look at FFXIV: ARR for example. You can have one main and never need to make an alt ever to experience all the games content. Switching classes is as easy as switching gear and leveling up. Sounds good right? This is like the opposite of that.
Then it dawned on me. They're doing it just to pad their stats/metrics.
Maybe to avoid any more future lay-offs? Or to give an impression of "game growing!" while their parent company may soon be looking to cut costs? When you think about what the player community will be left after this is with a bunch of dead alts. Most players will just create the Delta recruit solely to get the account wide unlocks.
It's the mind baffling stuff that goes on in this game that keeps it where it's at today. Like continuing to dedicate resources to re-vamping old missions. Why? What a waste of time. Someone should tell the Devs to keep looking forward and stop looking back.
OP? if they wanted to "Pad thier stats" they wouldve given us cardassians with season 10 which alone would generate tons of interest from both new and old players.
New factions tend to give a nice population increase even if its for a short time
You'd think that at some point, their bosses will realize that these stats are superficial and can easily be manipulated.
"Hey, look, there's a sudden spike in the number of characters being created, whoever is in charge must be doing something righ-- oh, he just gave players rewards for creating characters."
I just think someone's bonus is connected with the number of characters created.
The rich do not play video games. Their life is better than a video game, including such things as sleeping with models and traveling to foreign lands....
So they barely know what goes on in a game, or have any idea of the motivations of the peasant masses....
Im curious how padding the number of new characters in the game helps them? I figure it comes down to two things
1) The assumption is people will spend money on each character, encourage existing players to create new characters and perhaps they'll spend some money to get them some fancy stuff.
2) Give the game a thorough run through before shifting into "maintenance mode". While this may seem like a "oh noes the sky is falling" concept the truth is the game is going to have a limited development cycle. STO is not eternal and they want to get a good feel for where the game stands from 0-60.
What is STO's expected lifespan? 7 years? 10 years? When they started the game they had to have projected it's lifespan, I'm guessing that was between 5-10 years at best. They finish out Season 10, have a big summer event then in the fall they shift the STO devs off STO over to their latest "top secret project" in order to get that off the ground and we begin the countdown to server shutdown. The good news is STO could coast for at least another 3-4 maybe 5 years "as is" just on the strength of it's IP. I'm guessing it depends on when CBS wants to pull the plug or when the license is up.
It's been a great ride but the sun is hanging low in the sky... sooner or later it's going to set.
The license expires in 2018. At that point PW will need to decide if the money they pay to CBS yearly - most-likely in the seven-figure range - is worth the return.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
The rich do not play video games. Their life is better than a video game, including such things as sleeping with models and traveling to foreign lands....
So they barely know what goes on in a game, or have any idea of the motivations of the peasant masses....
I would say you have an incredibly limited idea of what it means to be "rich."
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
The license expires in 2018. At that point PW will need to decide if the money they pay to CBS yearly - most-likely in the seven-figure range - is worth the return.
I hope we get atleast one more faction by then my hopes is cardassians though ive all but given up hope of seing a cardi faction...i no longer beleive its gonna happen
I'm pretty 'meh' about this entire event, but a few friends and I are getting creative in how we're going to make the best of it (think derped-out talaxians in BoPs for starters). The one thing that still irritates me is the need to complete the tutorial. What the heck, after how many years of STO I have to complete the tutorial again?
I don't know if you're joking or if you don't remotely understand what the OP was talking about.
if you cant be bothered to find the point in the message itself, i cant be bothered to point it out to you so the joke is on you in the end for not wanting to know. not very productive use of time is it? id suggest you try again.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Not exactly sure which stat you think they are padding, creating alts doesn't count towards anything other than total number of characters created, and when that figure goes up without the account total going up its actually a meaningless number, if you are referring to total people logged in because of returning players then that wont mean much unless it stays high, in the long run it wont make any real difference to anything as the numbers will quickly normalise
Comments
Why would you have to sub to make a character useful endgame? You can pretty much spend nothing and do what you want. It takes time but it is doable. The only thing I recommend dropping a few bucks on is the ec cap.
IMHO, the guy has waited for a decade for his success. Let him enjoy it while he can still walk around. By now, its kinda pointless anyway: nothing he writes will satisfy the many camps and seeing this stuff moving TV is so much fun.
The Show should work with his cliff notes and he can write his books whenever he sees fit. They will probably make an interesting read down the line. Like alternate reality stories. We love those don't we? What would have been... what should.. what could....
The event is widely know in the STO circle. They can't use it to claim growth, it'd be stupid and I think they know that. They can use it to see interest in replay value, if any. I still haven't decided if I want to go science or tactical. I'd like to go with another career path, but this game is all DPS, TRIBBLE the rest.
I guess we'll have to see what's going on with the event.
The only way to actually mitigate the gap between old and new players is to abandon the "get it now before it's Lost Forever" event reward paradigm. A good example of event rewards is what we have in the winter event: you can only get the rewards during the event, but with enough effort you can catch up and acquire rewards from current and previous years.
You'd think that at some point, their bosses will realize that these stats are superficial and can easily be manipulated.
"Hey, look, there's a sudden spike in the number of characters being created, whoever is in charge must be doing something righ-- oh, he just gave players rewards for creating characters."
I just think someone's bonus is connected with the number of characters created.
First, you are comparing this game to Final Fantasy? You just blew your entire argument out the water Final Fantasy is a game that is a monthly sub therefore you can afford to do things a lot differently than you can with a game that is free to play, and after patting their stats for metrics so what? Like no one uses metrics or needs to pad stats grow up and stop whining about every damn thing....... either play the new content or don't........FFS... You are dismissed
i also did the same for BF2 back in the day as well, youd be amazed what a keyboard and mouse could do with a cobra attack chopper, used to rack up the body count like crazy inbetween fighting off the advances of an enemy players in SU-27/SU-35. was not invincible, enough players caught on what i was doing before long
those were good days, long gone unfortunately. but stat padding is a form of exploiting the system. this stuff that cryptic is bringing out is intended to help players, new and old alike, so where you get your idea that the delta recruitment adventure is an exploit? you should rethink what you consider an exploit, because this is not it.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I don't know if you're joking or if you don't remotely understand what the OP was talking about.
I guess you can stumble around in the dark for a conspiracy theory if that's what makes you happy. But let me ask you a very simple question.
Do you have any reason, in this particular case, to disbelieve their stated reason? And, isnce I see you didn't even address their stated reason in your post, I also need to ask, do you know what their stated reason is?
... Of course that's the case. The same is true for every patch. Every event. Every expansion in every MMO ever released. What? You think they release those things solely for the good of the players? Don't be ridiculous. There is an element of that sure, but only because happy players are playing players, and playing players are (potentially, in the case of a free-to-play game) paying players.
In all honesty, if one sits down and does some basic working and common sense you quickly realise this event will benefit the veterans a lot more than the new player this is supposedly aimed for.
I mean for one we know how to use the resources better, and so are less likely to be wasted on stuff that isn't going to help in the long run, not to mention we can just transfer it all between chars anyway.Not to mention there'll be a few things there that may possibly never be available again once the event ends like the trait and devices.
So really stat padding is the only thing this can achieve, but like others have said I haven't seen this advertised anywhere, and new players are probably going to be the minority if that really is the case.
A game company with a somewhat successful product based upon a popular science fiction show has decided said game needs to get some new or some more players! As a way to increase profitability for the aforementioned company!
Oh NOES!
How dare they do something so dastardly? I stopped playing this game since before beta because they obviously are trying to make money off me! I only post in these forums so I can publicly display my hipsterism to the great unwashed.
Oh NOES!
Now, a game which I really want to play but am far too cool to do so openly, will make money off other people! Who are obviously too stupid to accept my premise playing a game for fun is verah unkewel! Which means not only will I not play it openly, I'll get to do so without spending a single dime of my own money!
Oh NOES!
How can I maintain my air of cynically unaffected hipsterism on the official forums of a game I supposedly don't play when the aforementioned game company launches such a devious assault of exquisite timing on other people? I know! I'll tell the world about their sneaky and underhanded tactics. Stop Playing, everyone! It's all a trick! Stop playing so you can be as cool as I am! Well, almost. After all, I am the epitome of cool and hip! You'll never be as cool as I am, But this thought gives me pleasure as I disdainfully look down upon the world from Mummy and Daddy's basement while cultivating my neckbeard.
There. That about sums up this thread for me. Thanks for the laugh, hipsters! Needed one on my way out the door to work. And clueless people really are the funniest.
Plus you have a fact that many of us played in a time when in-game resources were plentiful. I have 1.6 billion ECs and 75,000 Zen, primarily because I played in a time before EC and Dilithium nerfs - back when I could make 20,000 Dilithium and 1.5 million ECs in 90 minutes of playing; and doing that day-in and day-out because there was nothing else to do. A lot of us had years to do dozens of Patrol Doff Chains to earn the best Doffs, etc. And the Reps were added over the years rather then facing them all at once.
So yeah, for a new player it is a daunting mountain to try and climb. Delta Recruit seems to be trying to smooth-out some of the climb. For us old-timers it does not really mean anything, but if today were my first day of STO it would be a big deal.
Ew, sounds awful. Please tell me that you can still get extra character slots relatively cheaply, to play alts.... not being able to have a bunch of alts would suck.
edit: also, aren't all game events, "gimmicks" to get people to play more? I know I came back for the Winter event, and I'm looking forward to the Summer one (both for a new Risan ship, and to see if they improve/expand the swimwear).
This event sounds pretty interesting (always love a reason to run a new alt)..... and it would be a lot more interesting if I weren't in the in the middle of a subscribed try-out of The Old Republic. Hooray for timing.
Outside of these forums, and the Star Trek facebook page, you'd never know it was happening. Especially for a limited time event. Maybe if people read Massively OP? I think I saw it there?
I dunno, STO has always been such a niche game to start with, I just don't see them drawing much in the way of new players, especially with the weak marketing STO has always seemed to have.
That said... as has been pointed out, this event offers benefits to veterans and newcomers both. I imagine there are several threads in the Academy among other places which would be of great help to the latter; perhaps they could be highlighted in an upcoming dev blog, along with certain features.
Its a promotion. Think "ad in your local paper." Cyrptic isn't lighting a beacon from the tallest tower in all the land to attract the hordes and begin a goldenage for all mankind. They're just running a special deal, play now and get 10% bonus stuff. But wait, there's more! We'll also throw in this account-unlocked starship trait for no extra cost.
The difference between this and your typical end-game grinding event is that you can incidentally include new players in the pitch. Delta Recruitment is still just something to keep us interested in STO until season 10 (which is in keeping with how Cryptic has managed the game for perhaps the last two years now, there's pretty much always something going on), just with a tweak in rhetoric because Cryptic can.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
1) The assumption is people will spend money on each character, encourage existing players to create new characters and perhaps they'll spend some money to get them some fancy stuff.
2) Give the game a thorough run through before shifting into "maintenance mode". While this may seem like a "oh noes the sky is falling" concept the truth is the game is going to have a limited development cycle. STO is not eternal and they want to get a good feel for where the game stands from 0-60.
What is STO's expected lifespan? 7 years? 10 years? When they started the game they had to have projected it's lifespan, I'm guessing that was between 5-10 years at best. They finish out Season 10, have a big summer event then in the fall they shift the STO devs off STO over to their latest "top secret project" in order to get that off the ground and we begin the countdown to server shutdown. The good news is STO could coast for at least another 3-4 maybe 5 years "as is" just on the strength of it's IP. I'm guessing it depends on when CBS wants to pull the plug or when the license is up.
It's been a great ride but the sun is hanging low in the sky... sooner or later it's going to set.
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
OP? if they wanted to "Pad thier stats" they wouldve given us cardassians with season 10 which alone would generate tons of interest from both new and old players.
New factions tend to give a nice population increase even if its for a short time
The rich do not play video games. Their life is better than a video game, including such things as sleeping with models and traveling to foreign lands....
So they barely know what goes on in a game, or have any idea of the motivations of the peasant masses....
I hope we get atleast one more faction by then my hopes is cardassians though ive all but given up hope of seing a cardi faction...i no longer beleive its gonna happen
I have many incredible attributes, but that is not one of them....
if you cant be bothered to find the point in the message itself, i cant be bothered to point it out to you so the joke is on you in the end for not wanting to know. not very productive use of time is it? id suggest you try again.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Heck, been counting down the minutes, if not seconds, since they told us 'bout this event.
Alt: here I come!!!