But if it is important information, then it should be released in as many ways as possible. If a dev makes a post about Inspiration affecting lag on Reddit, then it should be available on the forums, Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else they use.
Frankly, the idea of an STO Dev posting info about STO on reddit, and NOT on the STO Forum is rather strange.
<center><font size="+5"><b>Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day... Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Tbh, I'm relieved with the possibility to get back any of the previous event ships during the event as Salami_Inferno posted, even if it wouldn't be totally free. Leaving the ability itself is a good gesture.
Btw blugeek, I've looked around but can't find an answer so pardon me if I stray off topic just for a moment to ask since you're here, how can I nominate a thread for someone to consider to sticky? This is one I had in mind and I been thinking of making more in similar guide style.
Back to topic, I think the op's concern as stated in the title has been addressed by Inferno's post. I don't know whether they will continue bringing them back in future events, but I'd support that as well.
Like somebody said prior in this thread: I like to collect things in this game.
And it's no wonder, most MMOs are offering to collect things.
But I make a difference: I decide how much "work" I'll put in to get things and I decide which things I like to aquire.
There have been major differences in the offerings.
- anniversary: Those offerings have been SINGULAR and limited offerings. I'm sad I couldn't get those that were offered before I started to play. But one thing has been always clear = it was a one time limited offering. And I always accepted that.
- event: Those offerings have been REGULAR and time limited offerings (during the event). I was able to get some of these offerings (winter and summer) and I have other still slotted (mirror invasion and crystalline entity).
I accept changes, but I would always prefer doing changes with enough warning (best that way to say "next time is the last time along the old style"). The rules for this have been clear too and they have been "improved" by cryptic. Changing course suddenly is a serious matter. Players didn't expect this. They had no reason to expect such a change either and thus it is a BAD surprise.
If they think, we didn't work hard enough for the offerings, drop the discounts, but don't remove the offerings.
I would prefer the old ships being available even if I had to work for it like it was done before the discount kicked in! As I have them already (at least on my older toons), I would like them being available for me and new players in the future as well - not as freebie but as a collector's item we could work for.
You may have noticed over the years that there has been an increased push toward solo activities. Cryptic didn't do that out of the blue. Folks have asked for it. Lots of folks simply do not want to play with other folks. Some folks go so far as resenting that they have to play with other folks...
Care to point out where "always teamed" appears in Massively Multiplayer Online RPG? I've never found it.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Did anyone see that there may be no conflict with Cryptic saying they were retiring the old ships but also saying that once a ship or whatever from an event is unlocked it is unlocked forever for all characters on that account?
No new accounts can get the old ships but characters on accounts that have unlocked it can still claim them.
Does that make sense?
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I know there are times I'm away long periods and don't have an opportunity at an event.
And as I said there are other times, the ship being offered the next time doesn't interest me.
Being able to pick the ship, and get an old ship, made it possible for me to get ships I wanted that I missed out on during seasons I wasn't interested.
I understand how the currency saving was killing participation, and possibly hurting the business side in justification.
But to me that is solved just retiring the currency, not the ships.
I also can't say I've seen where players were making a big deal about these ships not being exclusive enough. I'm sure there are some, just I know I haven't seen it being a large issue.
I thought the seasonal ships were more about a fun change, not exclusiveness.
So now when a ship comes up that I'm not interested in, I'll be sitting out. I can't save currency or get a different ship, my participation won't be there, which as was said, was apparently part of the reasoning, dropping participation.
But as I said, retiring currency alone would address that if anything at all. One shot at a ship isn't going to be a factor to me. It is solely is there something available I'm interested in. And with fewer choices, that will be less likely.
It turned out the change we made to make earning the ships more alt friendly had completely trivialized play of the events. Players could earn currency on all of their alts in one year, and then spend the currency from a single character every year to get the ship immediately. While some few players would then re-run the event on the character that spent their currency, the vast majority wouldnt. Again, this meant participation was down while rewards were still earned at the same rate.
The thing is, whether a character ran the event 40 times in the past, or whether it runs it 40 times in the present, it is still participating in it 40 times total. I feel that these changes will actually reduce participation, especially if the discounts are still going to be used, because people will only run it for all the tokens on ONE character, and then just use the discounted prices on their alts.
To say that "participation was down" is incorrect, because the races were still run, just at a different time. I think if you look at the participation across all the times the event was active, you will see that participation per account was significantly inflated in some years as people were stocking up on tokens on their alts. Don't forget that those alts still had to spend the same amount of time to get their tokens, they just did it at a different time.
Unless they give us more reasons to farm these tokens, I, and probably many others, will not participate as much as we would have. As someone who was inactive during the previous summer events, I was planning to run the full event on at least 4 characters to earn all the ships and stock up for the future - instead, I am planning to only do the full event once, a decrease in participation of at least 75%, perhaps more if I would have had enough time to run more alts through it. While this does mean that to earn the next ship a year from now I will have to participate again (once!), I think in the long term my total event participation for this event will be significantly less than it could have been.
The thing is, whether a character ran the event 40 times in the past, or whether it runs it 40 times in the present, it is still participating in it 40 times total. I feel that these changes will actually reduce participation, especially if the discounts are still going to be used, because people will only run it for all the tokens on ONE character, and then just use the discounted prices on their alts.
To say that "participation was down" is incorrect, because the races were still run, just at a different time. I think if you look at the participation across all the times the event was active, you will see that participation per account was significantly inflated in some years as people were stocking up on tokens on their alts. Don't forget that those alts still had to spend the same amount of time to get their tokens, they just did it at a different time.
Unless they give us more reasons to farm these tokens, I, and probably many others, will not participate as much as we would have. As someone who was inactive during the previous summer events, I was planning to run the full event on at least 4 characters to earn all the ships and stock up for the future - instead, I am planning to only do the full event once, a decrease in participation of at least 75%, perhaps more if I would have had enough time to run more alts through it. While this does mean that to earn the next ship a year from now I will have to participate again (once!), I think in the long term my total event participation for this event will be significantly less than it could have been.
Normally I'd snip this, but I'm too lazy to snip it....
Participation is intended to be during the current event. Summer 2014 participation does not mean diddly squat for Summer 2015 participation.
By making the ships account unlocks, they've already addressed alt participation...it's going to be none. It's gone from having alts needing to run the full thing, to running a single, to having to do nothing...the one toon unlocks it for all.
Then there will also be the enterprising folks.
Summer 2013...they had to do it all on all of their ten toons, eh?
Summer 2014...aha, discount, eh? Nothing stopping them from running them on their toons though, right?
Summer 2015...don't have to run it at all.
Summer 2016...don't have to run it at all.
Summer 2017...don't have to run it at all.
Summer 2018...don't have to run it at all.
Summer 2019...don't have to run it at all.
Etc, etc, etc...participation is in the crapper. Hence the didn't really think out what they were doing there when they made that change thing that was said...oopsie.
Seriously though, they are trying something different this upcoming event. Give it a try, give CONSTRUCTIVE feedback about it, and they will in all likelihood change it again next year. They love making money so if there is a demand for the extra Risian consoles, they'll toss em in the lobi store or release the ships again in a different way or put them back into the event next year. If you already have them, on any character, look, you'll still have them, and automatically have them on new toons.
Seems to me a win win, and that's from the perspective on a new player. I didn't start from day one, and missed out on plenty of giveaways that happened prior to my joining. It hasn't reduced my fun at all seeing things others have that I don't have access to.
Over the past couple years I've only been able to acquire the "Love Boat" event ship. I missed out on the Vette and Breen "Brass-knuckle" boats due to deployments.
Hopefully the devs put some effort in future event ships as my mid-life crisis is vastly approaching and I had my heart set on that pixel Vette...:(
I was really looking forward to this years event but the wife, (I mean cryptic has spoken)...
... I missed out on the Vette and Breen "Brass-knuckle" boats due to deployments. ....
And that is, what according to IMHO will reduce participation in the future. If you don't know that you can spend enough time to do the 25 runs necessary during an event, you won't even start it. And I believe that there are enough people whose reallife might interfere right in the middle of doing runs - those will complain that they didn't get a chance on those ships.
The old version gave those people stopped from completing it one year the chance to finish it next year.
Well, if it would have been that way from the start, there would be no complaints. It would have been painful sometimes, but this would have been an accepted ruls.
But the rules were different and thus a change hurts and creates pain and noisy complaints.
Changing the rules without having a chance to do it oldstyle at least one more time, is increasing the pain and the noise of the crowd.
As I said before: having to work for it on every toon that likes to get it, that's the way I would prefer it.
Nevertheless I was happy that the "old" style gave me the chance to collect all the Risian and Breen ships and I will try to run those events for future ships as well. Some toons have them still boxed, because they are lacking level to fly it. "Flying High" and doing the "ice run" are definitely not that terrible to do and I like to pick theofferings after a "bit" of work.
I have to wonder how much this decision was driven by the people who reacted to the gift of "ship discounts for all your alts" by having stocking up a dozen characters with 1040+ pearls so that they wouldn't have to do anything the next 4+ summer events. (versus the "wanting the ships to be limited/prestige items" thing)
Kind of like how mark boxes weren't excluded from bonus mark weekends until some people decided to save up dozens/hundreds of boxes on their characters.
And how rep dilithum rewards weren't excluded from bonus dil weekends until some people started to rack up bunches of "Claim Tier V" missions on all their alts.
Honestly, we probably should have seen this coming.
Personally, I'm not bothered by the change. But that's because I was expecting to do 25 dailies each winter/summer event, and didn't bother trying to grind extra ahead of time. I've also never had that much of an issue with "limited time" prizes. Was I glad that I could go back and get the Breen raider this past winter event? Sure. But I'd have survived if I couldn't have.
But that's just my personal feelings on it. Different people, different opinions. /shrug
We will be making every event ship you've ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship you've earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
If the part that I read in the post about the retiring the event currency is accurate. Does that mean our Delta recruits can claim the Samsar, both old Risian ships, and the 3 Breen ships as long as we have earned them on one of our toons on the account previously? Or are they all going to be retired ships since the original post mentioned about retiring the previous event ships? If the retirement of the old ships is no longer planned will we still be able to earn the older event ships as long as we do the event for the new tokens to complete the project?
I just hope they keep the feature where you can turn it tokens from either the current year or previous year as they see fit for extra goodies, I really enjoy doing the mission every day on all my characters and if theres no extras available for playing either the race or summer & anniversary tasks there wont be much point.
it will just be a case of grab the ship with one character and stop.
so if they really want to keep their metrics up this might be a good way to go about it.
Btw, what will happen to my 380 Qmmendations I still have left?! Will those still be good for this year's ship?
I would guess the answer to that is no but don't discard them until we find out if we can trade them for alternative prizes like they are doing with the pearls.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I have to wonder how much this decision was driven by the people who reacted to the gift of "ship discounts for all your alts" by having stocking up a dozen characters with 1040+ pearls so that they wouldn't have to do anything the next 4+ summer events. (versus the "wanting the ships to be limited/prestige items" thing)
Kind of like how mark boxes weren't excluded from bonus mark weekends until some people decided to save up dozens/hundreds of boxes on their characters.
And how rep dilithum rewards weren't excluded from bonus dil weekends until some people started to rack up bunches of "Claim Tier V" missions on all their alts.
Honestly, we probably should have seen this coming.
Honestly, THEY should have seen it coming. Those are all plainly obvious outcomes.
If you give people more currency than they can use, they'll keep the rest for later.
If you make an item more valuable if used at a certain time, people will keep them until that time.
If you pay more for completing a task at a certain time, people will wait until that time to complete it.
And yes, it was obvious something had to be done about the ship currencies after the discount was created. It's just...they should've done it when they came up with the discount in the first place. Someone should've thought about it for a while and realized people would keep their extra pearls for next year, because there was nothing else they could do with them.
And of course that has nothing to do with retiring the ships themselves.
If they would not have made the discount, the people would run the event jobs just about as much as before.
BTW I wait until I see which event ships I can claim for my Delta recruits. There is still a lot of time until the winter event, I don't take or give any warranty for or against any solution for that ships.
I wait for that to hit holodeck when it's time for that.
(Once you loose your trust on something, that habit might be expected.) So, I don't ask now and I expect nothing (that is better for my blood pressure).
Comments
Frankly, the idea of an STO Dev posting info about STO on reddit, and NOT on the STO Forum is rather strange.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Btw blugeek, I've looked around but can't find an answer so pardon me if I stray off topic just for a moment to ask since you're here, how can I nominate a thread for someone to consider to sticky? This is one I had in mind and I been thinking of making more in similar guide style.
Back to topic, I think the op's concern as stated in the title has been addressed by Inferno's post. I don't know whether they will continue bringing them back in future events, but I'd support that as well.
And it's no wonder, most MMOs are offering to collect things.
But I make a difference: I decide how much "work" I'll put in to get things and I decide which things I like to aquire.
There have been major differences in the offerings.
- anniversary: Those offerings have been SINGULAR and limited offerings. I'm sad I couldn't get those that were offered before I started to play. But one thing has been always clear = it was a one time limited offering. And I always accepted that.
- event: Those offerings have been REGULAR and time limited offerings (during the event). I was able to get some of these offerings (winter and summer) and I have other still slotted (mirror invasion and crystalline entity).
I accept changes, but I would always prefer doing changes with enough warning (best that way to say "next time is the last time along the old style"). The rules for this have been clear too and they have been "improved" by cryptic. Changing course suddenly is a serious matter. Players didn't expect this. They had no reason to expect such a change either and thus it is a BAD surprise.
If they think, we didn't work hard enough for the offerings, drop the discounts, but don't remove the offerings.
I would prefer the old ships being available even if I had to work for it like it was done before the discount kicked in! As I have them already (at least on my older toons), I would like them being available for me and new players in the future as well - not as freebie but as a collector's item we could work for.
Care to point out where "always teamed" appears in Massively Multiplayer Online RPG? I've never found it.
Care to point out where I said anything like that? Should be simple...you quoted what I said and it's not there.
/facepalm
Hmm, it seemed like you were in support of the anti-solo person you quoted....
No new accounts can get the old ships but characters on accounts that have unlocked it can still claim them.
Does that make sense?
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Thanks Bluegeek. Appreciate you all letting the topic remain.
And as I said there are other times, the ship being offered the next time doesn't interest me.
Being able to pick the ship, and get an old ship, made it possible for me to get ships I wanted that I missed out on during seasons I wasn't interested.
I understand how the currency saving was killing participation, and possibly hurting the business side in justification.
But to me that is solved just retiring the currency, not the ships.
I also can't say I've seen where players were making a big deal about these ships not being exclusive enough. I'm sure there are some, just I know I haven't seen it being a large issue.
I thought the seasonal ships were more about a fun change, not exclusiveness.
So now when a ship comes up that I'm not interested in, I'll be sitting out. I can't save currency or get a different ship, my participation won't be there, which as was said, was apparently part of the reasoning, dropping participation.
But as I said, retiring currency alone would address that if anything at all. One shot at a ship isn't going to be a factor to me. It is solely is there something available I'm interested in. And with fewer choices, that will be less likely.
The thing is, whether a character ran the event 40 times in the past, or whether it runs it 40 times in the present, it is still participating in it 40 times total. I feel that these changes will actually reduce participation, especially if the discounts are still going to be used, because people will only run it for all the tokens on ONE character, and then just use the discounted prices on their alts.
To say that "participation was down" is incorrect, because the races were still run, just at a different time. I think if you look at the participation across all the times the event was active, you will see that participation per account was significantly inflated in some years as people were stocking up on tokens on their alts. Don't forget that those alts still had to spend the same amount of time to get their tokens, they just did it at a different time.
Unless they give us more reasons to farm these tokens, I, and probably many others, will not participate as much as we would have. As someone who was inactive during the previous summer events, I was planning to run the full event on at least 4 characters to earn all the ships and stock up for the future - instead, I am planning to only do the full event once, a decrease in participation of at least 75%, perhaps more if I would have had enough time to run more alts through it. While this does mean that to earn the next ship a year from now I will have to participate again (once!), I think in the long term my total event participation for this event will be significantly less than it could have been.
Normally I'd snip this, but I'm too lazy to snip it....
Participation is intended to be during the current event. Summer 2014 participation does not mean diddly squat for Summer 2015 participation.
By making the ships account unlocks, they've already addressed alt participation...it's going to be none. It's gone from having alts needing to run the full thing, to running a single, to having to do nothing...the one toon unlocks it for all.
Then there will also be the enterprising folks.
Summer 2013...they had to do it all on all of their ten toons, eh?
Summer 2014...aha, discount, eh? Nothing stopping them from running them on their toons though, right?
Summer 2015...don't have to run it at all.
Summer 2016...don't have to run it at all.
Summer 2017...don't have to run it at all.
Summer 2018...don't have to run it at all.
Summer 2019...don't have to run it at all.
Etc, etc, etc...participation is in the crapper. Hence the didn't really think out what they were doing there when they made that change thing that was said...oopsie.
(That was a joke)
Seriously though, they are trying something different this upcoming event. Give it a try, give CONSTRUCTIVE feedback about it, and they will in all likelihood change it again next year. They love making money so if there is a demand for the extra Risian consoles, they'll toss em in the lobi store or release the ships again in a different way or put them back into the event next year. If you already have them, on any character, look, you'll still have them, and automatically have them on new toons.
Seems to me a win win, and that's from the perspective on a new player. I didn't start from day one, and missed out on plenty of giveaways that happened prior to my joining. It hasn't reduced my fun at all seeing things others have that I don't have access to.
Hopefully the devs put some effort in future event ships as my mid-life crisis is vastly approaching and I had my heart set on that pixel Vette...:(
I was really looking forward to this years event but the wife, (I mean cryptic has spoken)...
And that is, what according to IMHO will reduce participation in the future. If you don't know that you can spend enough time to do the 25 runs necessary during an event, you won't even start it. And I believe that there are enough people whose reallife might interfere right in the middle of doing runs - those will complain that they didn't get a chance on those ships.
The old version gave those people stopped from completing it one year the chance to finish it next year.
Well, if it would have been that way from the start, there would be no complaints. It would have been painful sometimes, but this would have been an accepted ruls.
But the rules were different and thus a change hurts and creates pain and noisy complaints.
Changing the rules without having a chance to do it oldstyle at least one more time, is increasing the pain and the noise of the crowd.
As I said before: having to work for it on every toon that likes to get it, that's the way I would prefer it.
Nevertheless I was happy that the "old" style gave me the chance to collect all the Risian and Breen ships and I will try to run those events for future ships as well. Some toons have them still boxed, because they are lacking level to fly it. "Flying High" and doing the "ice run" are definitely not that terrible to do and I like to pick theofferings after a "bit" of work.
Kind of like how mark boxes weren't excluded from bonus mark weekends until some people decided to save up dozens/hundreds of boxes on their characters.
And how rep dilithum rewards weren't excluded from bonus dil weekends until some people started to rack up bunches of "Claim Tier V" missions on all their alts.
Honestly, we probably should have seen this coming.
Personally, I'm not bothered by the change. But that's because I was expecting to do 25 dailies each winter/summer event, and didn't bother trying to grind extra ahead of time. I've also never had that much of an issue with "limited time" prizes. Was I glad that I could go back and get the Breen raider this past winter event? Sure. But I'd have survived if I couldn't have.
But that's just my personal feelings on it. Different people, different opinions. /shrug
If the part that I read in the post about the retiring the event currency is accurate. Does that mean our Delta recruits can claim the Samsar, both old Risian ships, and the 3 Breen ships as long as we have earned them on one of our toons on the account previously? Or are they all going to be retired ships since the original post mentioned about retiring the previous event ships? If the retirement of the old ships is no longer planned will we still be able to earn the older event ships as long as we do the event for the new tokens to complete the project?
it will just be a case of grab the ship with one character and stop.
so if they really want to keep their metrics up this might be a good way to go about it.
I would guess the answer to that is no but don't discard them until we find out if we can trade them for alternative prizes like they are doing with the pearls.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
If you give people more currency than they can use, they'll keep the rest for later.
If you make an item more valuable if used at a certain time, people will keep them until that time.
If you pay more for completing a task at a certain time, people will wait until that time to complete it.
And yes, it was obvious something had to be done about the ship currencies after the discount was created. It's just...they should've done it when they came up with the discount in the first place. Someone should've thought about it for a while and realized people would keep their extra pearls for next year, because there was nothing else they could do with them.
And of course that has nothing to do with retiring the ships themselves.
BTW I wait until I see which event ships I can claim for my Delta recruits. There is still a lot of time until the winter event, I don't take or give any warranty for or against any solution for that ships.
I wait for that to hit holodeck when it's time for that.
(Once you loose your trust on something, that habit might be expected.) So, I don't ask now and I expect nothing (that is better for my blood pressure).