You have some excellent points. With regards to comparisons with those "other sci-fi games", I can only guess that most likely budget and staffing would be the reasons/excuses given. I couldn't even begin to guess at the validity of said reasons/excuses.
It's very interesting to know the time scale differences between the Romulan/KDF content development. That's remarkable. I'd guess it's probably also a "focus" thing because LoR was an entire expansion focused on those Roms. We can wish, I guess, that a near-future expansion will be Legacy of Q'onos?
For what it's worth, I don't actually feel partisan in the matter. I really enjoy the four KDF characters on my roster. And I eagerly welcome any new content that pushes back the boredom of grinding between updates. I'm mostly curious why many folks are so violently angry about it.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Star Wars Canon has seven movies-total. That's it for Star Wars Canon. That's actual canon source material. Star trek has more material on Klingon culture than the entire star wars Canon has on the Sith.
Sure. But Star Wars has as much about the Sith as it has about the history of the Republic or the Rebellion or the Jedi.
Both sides are equally "non-fleshed out".
Star Trek has something like 80-90 % Federation/Starfleet and 10-20 % other species.
That means there is a lot more material for the players to hinge their imagination and ideas on on the Federation side then on any of the other species. With a game like Star Trek Online with its strong star ship focus - there dozens of Federation vessels, including 5 hero ships, against a hand full of Klingon or Romulan ships.
The lines the customer thinks along is not necessarily "Faction Federation" and "Faction Klingon" but is more like "I want to fly the Ambassador" or "I want to fly a Nova in the Rhode Island refit version" or "I want to fly the Connie" or "I want to fly the Negh'Var". Or, for characters, for science officers alone "I want to play someone like Spock" or "I want to play someone like Data" or "I want to play someone like Dax" or I want to play someone like "Mara". or "I want to play a Vulcan" or "I want to play an Andorian" or "I want to play a Bajoran" or "I want to play a Romulan".
What matters is not if we have more background material for any Star Trek faction than we have for a Star Wars faction. What matters is how rich the background material is within one franchise for different factions.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
What am I being told about my worthless scum? Also, if you "identify" enough with a fictional alien species to take what's done or not done with them personally then you have something of a problem.
Assuming that because this thread remains unlocked, we are having a reasoned discussion here...
What from the Star Trek IP would ever lead someone to believe that Klingons, Romulans, Borg, Xindi, or any non Federation faction is going to get the same focus? There have been 13 movies to date, counting Beyond. How many of those revolve around a Non-Federation hero ship/crew? There have been 6 television series to date. How many of those revolve around a Non-Federation hero ship/crew? Absolutely, the Klingons and Romulans have been by now painted into more than a caricature of evil "otherness", but the audience connection has always been to the Federation. Much like any video game IP, it can be quite fun to play the "bad guys", but you can't be surprised they never get the same attention as the "good guys". That's just how storytelling works.
That said, if there are promises that once were made regarding KDF or ROM content being of complete parity with Federation, I can't speak to that. In the years since I've been playing, though, I haven't seen any such promises. I'm sure there are development time and budget considerations that come into play there. If you've got a small team of engineers and a limited budget, somebody's going to get the short stick. And it's never going to be the Hero of the story.
at what point does it make sense, in your scenario, for a game company to even MAKE multiple factions, Cuchulainn?
in every instance you've named, the focus has not been the FACTION,it's been the specifc CREW. The cast of main characters.
you know, PEOPLE.
because those are 'fixed' stories-they're non-interactive. limiting or not showing other factions makes sense when your audience is supposed to be passively watching the show in front of them.
Once you go the interactive route, and start adding factions, that safe, scripted existence no longer carries the ball.
as for bulk of material, consider this while you're chewing on that...
Star Wars Canon has seven movies-total. That's it for Star Wars Canon. That's actual canon source material. Star trek has more material on Klingon culture than the entire star wars Canon has on the Sith.
yet somehow, 'those other games' (SWG, SWTOR, etc.) managed to produce multiple, viable factions and were very successful at it, and at maintaining faction diversity (different play between factions-abilities not shared.)
The "but...canon " argument doesn't wash.
Keep in mind as well, that for the first three years of this game's existence, you had to level a fed to between 5 and 25 before you could even generate a KDF. It's a fact, you had no other option. this slants population percentages a lot, esp. when the smaller faction also has it's faction-unique player abilities being ported to the larger one on a regular basis not only over those first three years, but through the life of the game.
Often in an improved, or bugfixed, form.
While getting no maintenance.
it took eight months for Cryptic to turn out 1-20 missions for the Romulans, a full suite of tier 1-5 ships for Romulans, two large maps including social zones, a reputation system themed on Romulans, and the Scimitar.
It took Cryptic Studios Three years to create 1-20 missions and allow KDF players to 'join and create a Klingon'.
it does not take a marketing major or rocket scientist to figure out how that's going to work out on a game that lasts six years from launch, esp. when the smaller faction has not only no further development, but has gotten the privelage of living with new bugs every update while the old bugs don't get fixed unless or until something is being ported to the larger faction.
examples:
Carriers
Battlecruisers
raiders.
In the part highlighted in bold, I need to make a small addition. After the Crossfaction arc Wasteland, the Romulans have the Vengeance arc which would be I think levels 26?-30ish.
It also didn't take them THREE YEARS to make content from 1-20 for Klingons. Pre-Legacy of Romulus, these were the offerings that the Klingons had as far as repeatable missions:
The Federation War-Bringing Down the House*; The House Always Wins*; Second Star to the Right, Straight on 'til Morning*; Keep your Enemies Closer*; Temporal Ambassador; Skirmish; Spin the Wheel; What Lies Beneath; What's Old is New; Night of the Comet The Fek'Ihri Return*-Blood of the Empire, Destiny, Afterlife, The Gates of Gre'thor The Romulan Mystery-Alpha, The Vault, MIne Enemy, Frozen, Coliseum, Cutting the Cord Dominion Domination-Second Wave, Of Bajor, Operation Gamma, Facility 4028, Boldly they Rode Breen Invasion*-Cold Case, Out in the Cold, Cold Comfort, Cold Case, Cold Storage Undine Advance-Assimilation (the old version), The Return, Fluid Dynamics (the old version), A Light in the Dark
When LoR came, they added an arc called Empire which was the continuation of the new tutorial storyline involving Franklin Drake (four new episodes). This flowed into the old Federation War arc which had the first two episodes dialog polished up to include K'mtar. Test of Mettle (the episode required for Lt. Commanders to obtain their first new ship not rewarded by killing a superior officer) was added to this arc. This marks a total of five new episodes so far. The Fek'ihri arc was inserted right after. The Vigilance arc added 2 new episodes and took the remaining non-shared episode Alpha to create an arc that included Temporal Ambassador.
After Vigilance, we start seeing the Cross faction Wasteland arc, followed by the Romulan Mystery and Spectres (which is where the Devidian episodes go). With Dominion Domination, the Klingons get episodes alongside the Romulans that were initially Federation only, but got polished up for the use of cloaks. Same goes for the Borg Collective arc which was also originally Federation exclusive. The remaining episodes of course were already shared with the Federation from before.
In total, apart from the slight polish of the episodes where Worf originally appears in, it took them 8 months to come up with a new tutorial, 7 new missions and several polished up mission insertions into the Klingon leveling track so that they had enough content to get to level 50 at the time.
Areas denoted with a * next to them are episodes and arcs that came out during Season two, which makes them some of the oldest episodes still in the game. Not surprisingly, these are also episodes that Geko wanted to have redone after the Romulan Mystery and Cardassian Struggle revamps. Obviously, these episodes show their age compared to the upcoming episodes in AoY.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
You new here? There are KDF and Rom people that do exactly that and are told to STFU they're a minority and further told to get over themselves
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.[/quote]
What am I being told about my worthless scum? Also, if you "identify" enough with a fictional alien species to take what's done or not done with them personally then you have something of a problem.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
You typed all of that and miss the point entirely. It's not that Rom and KDF Sci ships don't sell well, it's that Rom and KDF ships in general don't sell well compared to Feds.
It's a pure numbers game; around 73% of the playerbase is Fed. If 10% of all players buy a given ship, then they would sell 7.3 fed ships per 100 players. Klingons are about 16% of the playerbase, so that same ship made for KDF would sell 1.6 ships per 100 players. Roms are lowest of all at 11%, only sell 1.1 per 100. (Percentages based on the 2015 anniversary infographic Cryptic published).
That's assuming that KDF and Rom players buy the same number of ships as Feds, and from what the devs have said that is simply not the case; more than once they have confirmed (in response to rants just like this one) that sales of ships to the two smaller factions are actually lower per person than for Fed players.
Now, you will probably head into circular reasoning: "but if they made better ships for them, people would buy more, and more people would play those factions!".
It doesn't matter, not anymore.
Risking losing 80% or more of the potential ROI on the art team's work (which is what really matters, it's the most limiting factor of anything put into the game) is too much to bear. That's likely why they only sell faction ships in bundles; it allows them to put all of the faction ships into a single line item, so the entire package is seen as one profitable item in the books rather than two low profit ones and one high. Companies do that all the time to keep product lines alive.
So, when will the KDF and Roms get science ships? When the Feds get another 3-pack of them, and almost certainly not before.
This isn't really a wall of text tho @salazarraze . It is however an I quite thread...so IBFL.
I'm quite sure that it's not a "I QUITE" thread, but it could be an "I QUIT" one.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
You typed all of that and miss the point entirely. It's not that Rom and KDF Sci ships don't sell well, it's that Rom and KDF ships in general don't sell well compared to Feds.
It's a pure numbers game; around 73% of the playerbase is Fed. If 10% of all players buy a given ship, then they would sell 7.3 fed ships per 100 players. Klingons are about 16% of the playerbase, so that same ship made for KDF would sell 1.6 ships per 100 players. Roms are lowest of all at 11%, only sell 1.1 per 100. (Percentages based on the 2015 anniversary infographic Cryptic published).
That's assuming that KDF and Rom players buy the same number of ships as Feds, and from what the devs have said that is simply not the case; more than once they have confirmed (in response to rants just like this one) that sales of ships to the two smaller factions are actually lower per person than for Fed players.
Now, you will probably head into circular reasoning: "but if they made better ships for them, people would buy more, and more people would play those factions!".
It doesn't matter, not anymore.
Risking losing 80% or more of the potential ROI on the art team's work (which is what really matters, it's the most limiting factor of anything put into the game) is too much to bear. That's likely why they only sell faction ships in bundles; it allows them to put all of the faction ships into a single line item, so the entire package is seen as one profitable item in the books rather than two low profit ones and one high. Companies do that all the time to keep product lines alive.
So, when will the KDF and Roms get science ships? When the Feds get another 3-pack of them, and almost certainly not before.
Honest Question: Memory serves (And I am low on coffee so it probably doesn't) The Mogh was a copy of all the Avenger's stats and just dropped onto a Klingon skin. I thought the idea was this would lower cost related to KDF ships so they could get out the door easier. Do you know how well that worked?
And before anyone interrupts the answer. Yes I bought one the first payday after it came out.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
You typed all of that and miss the point entirely. It's not that Rom and KDF Sci ships don't sell well, it's that Rom and KDF ships in general don't sell well compared to Feds.
It's a pure numbers game; around 73% of the playerbase is Fed. If 10% of all players buy a given ship, then they would sell 7.3 fed ships per 100 players. Klingons are about 16% of the playerbase, so that same ship made for KDF would sell 1.6 ships per 100 players. Roms are lowest of all at 11%, only sell 1.1 per 100. (Percentages based on the 2015 anniversary infographic Cryptic published).
That's assuming that KDF and Rom players buy the same number of ships as Feds, and from what the devs have said that is simply not the case; more than once they have confirmed (in response to rants just like this one) that sales of ships to the two smaller factions are actually lower per person than for Fed players.
Now, you will probably head into circular reasoning: "but if they made better ships for them, people would buy more, and more people would play those factions!".
It doesn't matter, not anymore.
Risking losing 80% or more of the potential ROI on the art team's work (which is what really matters, it's the most limiting factor of anything put into the game) is too much to bear. That's likely why they only sell faction ships in bundles; it allows them to put all of the faction ships into a single line item, so the entire package is seen as one profitable item in the books rather than two low profit ones and one high. Companies do that all the time to keep product lines alive.
So, when will the KDF and Roms get science ships? When the Feds get another 3-pack of them, and almost certainly not before.
Honest Question: Memory serves (And I am low on coffee so it probably doesn't) The Mogh was a copy of all the Avenger's stats and just dropped onto a Klingon skin. I thought the idea was this would lower cost related to KDF ships so they could get out the door easier. Do you know how well that worked?
And before anyone interrupts the answer. Yes I bought one the first payday after it came out.
actually the avenger was supposed to be a copy of the mogh... feds with their time travel. and the mogh was delayed so they could work on the voth ships.
from the fact we got alot more ships after yes it was. and they been doing that whenever possible since and kdf has mostly accepted it, then AoY was announced.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
You typed all of that and miss the point entirely. It's not that Rom and KDF Sci ships don't sell well, it's that Rom and KDF ships in general don't sell well compared to Feds.
It's a pure numbers game; around 73% of the playerbase is Fed. If 10% of all players buy a given ship, then they would sell 7.3 fed ships per 100 players. Klingons are about 16% of the playerbase, so that same ship made for KDF would sell 1.6 ships per 100 players. Roms are lowest of all at 11%, only sell 1.1 per 100. (Percentages based on the 2015 anniversary infographic Cryptic published).
That's assuming that KDF and Rom players buy the same number of ships as Feds, and from what the devs have said that is simply not the case; more than once they have confirmed (in response to rants just like this one) that sales of ships to the two smaller factions are actually lower per person than for Fed players.
Now, you will probably head into circular reasoning: "but if they made better ships for them, people would buy more, and more people would play those factions!".
It doesn't matter, not anymore.
Risking losing 80% or more of the potential ROI on the art team's work (which is what really matters, it's the most limiting factor of anything put into the game) is too much to bear. That's likely why they only sell faction ships in bundles; it allows them to put all of the faction ships into a single line item, so the entire package is seen as one profitable item in the books rather than two low profit ones and one high. Companies do that all the time to keep product lines alive.
So, when will the KDF and Roms get science ships? When the Feds get another 3-pack of them, and almost certainly not before.
Honest Question: Memory serves (And I am low on coffee so it probably doesn't) The Mogh was a copy of all the Avenger's stats and just dropped onto a Klingon skin. I thought the idea was this would lower cost related to KDF ships so they could get out the door easier. Do you know how well that worked?
And before anyone interrupts the answer. Yes I bought one the first payday after it came out.
Yep, that was the very last KDF ship sold independently, and if I remember correctly it was the first one to just carbon-copy the systems side of an existing ship. It'll probably also be the very last one ever sold independently, since obviously it didn't sell well enough to justify doing things that way again as we haven't seen that sales model in over 2 years. The carbon-copy thing worked so well that it's the ONLY way they have made KDF and Rom ships since, of course.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
You typed all of that and miss the point entirely. It's not that Rom and KDF Sci ships don't sell well, it's that Rom and KDF ships in general don't sell well compared to Feds.
It's a pure numbers game; around 73% of the playerbase is Fed. If 10% of all players buy a given ship, then they would sell 7.3 fed ships per 100 players. Klingons are about 16% of the playerbase, so that same ship made for KDF would sell 1.6 ships per 100 players. Roms are lowest of all at 11%, only sell 1.1 per 100. (Percentages based on the 2015 anniversary infographic Cryptic published).
That's assuming that KDF and Rom players buy the same number of ships as Feds, and from what the devs have said that is simply not the case; more than once they have confirmed (in response to rants just like this one) that sales of ships to the two smaller factions are actually lower per person than for Fed players.
Now, you will probably head into circular reasoning: "but if they made better ships for them, people would buy more, and more people would play those factions!".
It doesn't matter, not anymore.
Risking losing 80% or more of the potential ROI on the art team's work (which is what really matters, it's the most limiting factor of anything put into the game) is too much to bear. That's likely why they only sell faction ships in bundles; it allows them to put all of the faction ships into a single line item, so the entire package is seen as one profitable item in the books rather than two low profit ones and one high. Companies do that all the time to keep product lines alive.
So, when will the KDF and Roms get science ships? When the Feds get another 3-pack of them, and almost certainly not before.
Honest Question: Memory serves (And I am low on coffee so it probably doesn't) The Mogh was a copy of all the Avenger's stats and just dropped onto a Klingon skin. I thought the idea was this would lower cost related to KDF ships so they could get out the door easier. Do you know how well that worked?
And before anyone interrupts the answer. Yes I bought one the first payday after it came out.
Yep, that was the very last KDF ship sold independently, and if I remember correctly it was the first one to just carbon-copy the systems side of an existing ship. It'll probably also be the very last one ever sold independently, since obviously it didn't sell well enough to justify doing things that way again as we haven't seen that sales model in over 2 years.
What was your point here? That you totally bought a single ship in December 2013, so obviously that sales model worked? Congratulations on being one of the less that 16 percent of players who did, I guess?
Nope. I was asking because I don't even know where to look up sales figures and you seem to so I hoped you could give me an honest answer. Because it was supposed to be hope for KDF side and maybe RR as well. My point on my buying it was I am not a hypocrite telling people to buy when I don't. Also it was not aimed at you, but those that would ask that before I could get an answer from you.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
You typed all of that and miss the point entirely. It's not that Rom and KDF Sci ships don't sell well, it's that Rom and KDF ships in general don't sell well compared to Feds.
It's a pure numbers game; around 73% of the playerbase is Fed. If 10% of all players buy a given ship, then they would sell 7.3 fed ships per 100 players. Klingons are about 16% of the playerbase, so that same ship made for KDF would sell 1.6 ships per 100 players. Roms are lowest of all at 11%, only sell 1.1 per 100. (Percentages based on the 2015 anniversary infographic Cryptic published).
That's assuming that KDF and Rom players buy the same number of ships as Feds, and from what the devs have said that is simply not the case; more than once they have confirmed (in response to rants just like this one) that sales of ships to the two smaller factions are actually lower per person than for Fed players.
Now, you will probably head into circular reasoning: "but if they made better ships for them, people would buy more, and more people would play those factions!".
It doesn't matter, not anymore.
Risking losing 80% or more of the potential ROI on the art team's work (which is what really matters, it's the most limiting factor of anything put into the game) is too much to bear. That's likely why they only sell faction ships in bundles; it allows them to put all of the faction ships into a single line item, so the entire package is seen as one profitable item in the books rather than two low profit ones and one high. Companies do that all the time to keep product lines alive.
So, when will the KDF and Roms get science ships? When the Feds get another 3-pack of them, and almost certainly not before.
Honest Question: Memory serves (And I am low on coffee so it probably doesn't) The Mogh was a copy of all the Avenger's stats and just dropped onto a Klingon skin. I thought the idea was this would lower cost related to KDF ships so they could get out the door easier. Do you know how well that worked?
And before anyone interrupts the answer. Yes I bought one the first payday after it came out.
Yep, that was the very last KDF ship sold independently, and if I remember correctly it was the first one to just carbon-copy the systems side of an existing ship. It'll probably also be the very last one ever sold independently, since obviously it didn't sell well enough to justify doing things that way again as we haven't seen that sales model in over 2 years.
What was your point here? That you totally bought a single ship in December 2013, so obviously that sales model worked? Congratulations on being one of the less that 16 percent of players who did, I guess?
Nope. I was asking because I don't even know where to look up sales figures and you seem to so I hoped you could give me an honest answer. Because it was supposed to be hope for KDF side and maybe RR as well. My point on my buying it was I am not a hypocrite telling people to buy when I don't. Also it was not aimed at you, but those that would ask that before I could get an answer from you.
Apologies on my tone in my previous post, was doing some frustrating things at work as I was typing and it kinda spilled over. Was hoping I removed it in time but you were too quick.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
You typed all of that and miss the point entirely. It's not that Rom and KDF Sci ships don't sell well, it's that Rom and KDF ships in general don't sell well compared to Feds.
It's a pure numbers game; around 73% of the playerbase is Fed. If 10% of all players buy a given ship, then they would sell 7.3 fed ships per 100 players. Klingons are about 16% of the playerbase, so that same ship made for KDF would sell 1.6 ships per 100 players. Roms are lowest of all at 11%, only sell 1.1 per 100. (Percentages based on the 2015 anniversary infographic Cryptic published).
That's assuming that KDF and Rom players buy the same number of ships as Feds, and from what the devs have said that is simply not the case; more than once they have confirmed (in response to rants just like this one) that sales of ships to the two smaller factions are actually lower per person than for Fed players.
Now, you will probably head into circular reasoning: "but if they made better ships for them, people would buy more, and more people would play those factions!".
It doesn't matter, not anymore.
Risking losing 80% or more of the potential ROI on the art team's work (which is what really matters, it's the most limiting factor of anything put into the game) is too much to bear. That's likely why they only sell faction ships in bundles; it allows them to put all of the faction ships into a single line item, so the entire package is seen as one profitable item in the books rather than two low profit ones and one high. Companies do that all the time to keep product lines alive.
So, when will the KDF and Roms get science ships? When the Feds get another 3-pack of them, and almost certainly not before.
Honest Question: Memory serves (And I am low on coffee so it probably doesn't) The Mogh was a copy of all the Avenger's stats and just dropped onto a Klingon skin. I thought the idea was this would lower cost related to KDF ships so they could get out the door easier. Do you know how well that worked?
And before anyone interrupts the answer. Yes I bought one the first payday after it came out.
Yep, that was the very last KDF ship sold independently, and if I remember correctly it was the first one to just carbon-copy the systems side of an existing ship. It'll probably also be the very last one ever sold independently, since obviously it didn't sell well enough to justify doing things that way again as we haven't seen that sales model in over 2 years.
What was your point here? That you totally bought a single ship in December 2013, so obviously that sales model worked? Congratulations on being one of the less that 16 percent of players who did, I guess?
Nope. I was asking because I don't even know where to look up sales figures and you seem to so I hoped you could give me an honest answer. Because it was supposed to be hope for KDF side and maybe RR as well. My point on my buying it was I am not a hypocrite telling people to buy when I don't. Also it was not aimed at you, but those that would ask that before I could get an answer from you.
Apologies on my tone in my previous post, was doing some frustrating things at work as I was typing and it kinda spilled over. Was hoping I removed it in time but you were too quick.
No worries. I understand work frustrations very well. Here's hoping the rest of your day gets better and stays that way.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I'm pretty sure that Frau Blucher was a Klingon, actually.
*Horse whinnies in the background*
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
The Klingon and Romulan Factions don't have the number of players that makes creating content for them worth it. Cryptic doesn't make money off what content they do make for them except when it comes to including them with Federation things. That's why you see Romulan and Klingon ships packaged as bundles and cross-faction packs. That's the only way they can make a profit off of the work put into making them.
In addition, they've stated the things like bridges and other environments in general are among the most expensive things to make in the game as far as time/cost goes and so they don't make interiors for players to buy on the C-Store any longer if they can help it unless it's once again part of a bundle or it's used as an important set piece in a mission or a series of missions.
It's always the same thing, some random poster with less then 20 posts who's 'played since beta' and who 'pours tons of money into the game' suddenly wants to post a rant and threaten to quit. Is there a contest going on or something? It's always people that you can tell hardly play the game (I mean come on, the OP talked about how he 'buys DLC's' when if he actually played, he would know this game has no paid DLC.)
Look, bottom line is.. the game.. like the show.. is Federation Centered. It's always going to be that way, it's never going to change. If this bothers you, then it's not the game for you. If that's the case, then just stop playing.. don't come to the forum and try and convince people you're some long time, big spending player that the community cannot function without.
Comments
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.
and sadly I can judge the validity of their "reasons". there b.s.
people who need money do not turn away income. it's not a matter of it being worth the effort or not. you need the money, if means doing something you hate. oh well, if it means you barely doing more then breaking even. too bad you need that tiny bit too badly to do otherwise. if cryptic was bad off enough that it was excusable for them to be doing this. they wouldn't be because they could afford to picky about where they get the money. oh they be spitting out terrible ships but they would be making them.
and there is the other reason people get so angry about they could at least do better then they do but they choose not too. they were doing better for a minute then they pull this.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Both sides are equally "non-fleshed out".
Star Trek has something like 80-90 % Federation/Starfleet and 10-20 % other species.
That means there is a lot more material for the players to hinge their imagination and ideas on on the Federation side then on any of the other species. With a game like Star Trek Online with its strong star ship focus - there dozens of Federation vessels, including 5 hero ships, against a hand full of Klingon or Romulan ships.
The lines the customer thinks along is not necessarily "Faction Federation" and "Faction Klingon" but is more like "I want to fly the Ambassador" or "I want to fly a Nova in the Rhode Island refit version" or "I want to fly the Connie" or "I want to fly the Negh'Var". Or, for characters, for science officers alone "I want to play someone like Spock" or "I want to play someone like Data" or "I want to play someone like Dax" or I want to play someone like "Mara". or "I want to play a Vulcan" or "I want to play an Andorian" or "I want to play a Bajoran" or "I want to play a Romulan".
What matters is not if we have more background material for any Star Trek faction than we have for a Star Wars faction. What matters is how rich the background material is within one franchise for different factions.
No no, the SW Christmas Special was shot out of a cannon in a confetti of ewok fur and droid parts.
If only.
nevermind, I tried. ignore my post.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
In the part highlighted in bold, I need to make a small addition. After the Crossfaction arc Wasteland, the Romulans have the Vengeance arc which would be I think levels 26?-30ish.
It also didn't take them THREE YEARS to make content from 1-20 for Klingons. Pre-Legacy of Romulus, these were the offerings that the Klingons had as far as repeatable missions:
The Federation War-Bringing Down the House*; The House Always Wins*; Second Star to the Right, Straight on 'til Morning*; Keep your Enemies Closer*; Temporal Ambassador; Skirmish; Spin the Wheel; What Lies Beneath; What's Old is New; Night of the Comet
The Fek'Ihri Return*-Blood of the Empire, Destiny, Afterlife, The Gates of Gre'thor
The Romulan Mystery-Alpha, The Vault, MIne Enemy, Frozen, Coliseum, Cutting the Cord
Dominion Domination-Second Wave, Of Bajor, Operation Gamma, Facility 4028, Boldly they Rode
Breen Invasion*-Cold Case, Out in the Cold, Cold Comfort, Cold Case, Cold Storage
Undine Advance-Assimilation (the old version), The Return, Fluid Dynamics (the old version), A Light in the Dark
When LoR came, they added an arc called Empire which was the continuation of the new tutorial storyline involving Franklin Drake (four new episodes). This flowed into the old Federation War arc which had the first two episodes dialog polished up to include K'mtar. Test of Mettle (the episode required for Lt. Commanders to obtain their first new ship not rewarded by killing a superior officer) was added to this arc. This marks a total of five new episodes so far. The Fek'ihri arc was inserted right after. The Vigilance arc added 2 new episodes and took the remaining non-shared episode Alpha to create an arc that included Temporal Ambassador.
After Vigilance, we start seeing the Cross faction Wasteland arc, followed by the Romulan Mystery and Spectres (which is where the Devidian episodes go). With Dominion Domination, the Klingons get episodes alongside the Romulans that were initially Federation only, but got polished up for the use of cloaks. Same goes for the Borg Collective arc which was also originally Federation exclusive. The remaining episodes of course were already shared with the Federation from before.
In total, apart from the slight polish of the episodes where Worf originally appears in, it took them 8 months to come up with a new tutorial, 7 new missions and several polished up mission insertions into the Klingon leveling track so that they had enough content to get to level 50 at the time.
Areas denoted with a * next to them are episodes and arcs that came out during Season two, which makes them some of the oldest episodes still in the game. Not surprisingly, these are also episodes that Geko wanted to have redone after the Romulan Mystery and Cardassian Struggle revamps. Obviously, these episodes show their age compared to the upcoming episodes in AoY.
The need money and Worth the effort reasons are very much in synch with one another. Worth it means you actually make money. And no income is not profit or even breaking even. Not unless it equals or exceeds your costs.
So if it takes artists and coders $2000 in time. (Ball parking the numbers I don't know their salaries or how many work on one ship.) They need to sell 67 ships to make a small profit at the T6 $30 a piece range. If people look at them and say meh I will wait for the sale. Then the ship shows as a loss till after it is being considered. To bolster sales what players need to do is buy more then demand more. If you have every KDF ship. Get on a crate and say I am not satisfied. Craft me more stuffs! But always seeing the sales loiter won't do a thing for them.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
You new here? There are KDF and Rom people that do exactly that and are told to STFU they're a minority and further told to get over themselves
you seem to have missed the point of that rant. and for cryptic making a profit is not even close to worth it as far they are concern it has to make large profits or it just not worth the effort. no matter how little they actually put into it.
when I said worth the effort I mean in most money for effort way, not make money at all. when you need money you do not care if it takes 3 times the effort you prefer and make barely more then enough to cover what you put into, you do not leave money on the table. cryptic does not measure thingsw that way, in fact I can't tell what standard they use because their actions and statements contradict each other.
the dyson ships, ship basically screwed up from go, though I like mine, naturally didn't sell well, sold so badly it was used as example of sci ship don't sell. yet it didn't stop them from making nine ship mega packs... so did it sell or didn't. and on sci ships not selling why did delta launch with two of them and launched another shortly after and if you look at the past couple of year sci heavy ship have been everywhere, promos, lock boxes, you know the thing that makes their money, hell the last anniversary ship was a sci vessel, but no kdf or rom one why sci ships don't sell. what the f***. either they don't know what makes a ship sell dispite having both the sells numbers and players telling what they want/like/hated or they lie when it suits them. doesn't matter which can't trust what they say.
kdf and rom player do that and cryptic marrily ignores it cause its not worth it. making anything not for feds seems to be a distasteful act. so something has to balance out the distaste, assured high sells, lost of players, the forum burning down. something has to balance the fact their making something for someone besides the glorious master race.
note to self: make sleeytime tea so you can sleep after all this ranting.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
how would you feel if you were told everyday that your worthless scum. and that your fault that your treated like it. for years. thats pretty much what cryptic does to non fed factions for people who identify with those faction it can feel rather personal.[/quote]
What am I being told about my worthless scum? Also, if you "identify" enough with a fictional alien species to take what's done or not done with them personally then you have something of a problem.
[quote="nightken;12972250"] there b.s. [/quote]
Where?[/quote]
There b.s.........there castle.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
You typed all of that and miss the point entirely. It's not that Rom and KDF Sci ships don't sell well, it's that Rom and KDF ships in general don't sell well compared to Feds.
It's a pure numbers game; around 73% of the playerbase is Fed. If 10% of all players buy a given ship, then they would sell 7.3 fed ships per 100 players. Klingons are about 16% of the playerbase, so that same ship made for KDF would sell 1.6 ships per 100 players. Roms are lowest of all at 11%, only sell 1.1 per 100. (Percentages based on the 2015 anniversary infographic Cryptic published).
That's assuming that KDF and Rom players buy the same number of ships as Feds, and from what the devs have said that is simply not the case; more than once they have confirmed (in response to rants just like this one) that sales of ships to the two smaller factions are actually lower per person than for Fed players.
Now, you will probably head into circular reasoning: "but if they made better ships for them, people would buy more, and more people would play those factions!".
It doesn't matter, not anymore.
Risking losing 80% or more of the potential ROI on the art team's work (which is what really matters, it's the most limiting factor of anything put into the game) is too much to bear. That's likely why they only sell faction ships in bundles; it allows them to put all of the faction ships into a single line item, so the entire package is seen as one profitable item in the books rather than two low profit ones and one high. Companies do that all the time to keep product lines alive.
So, when will the KDF and Roms get science ships? When the Feds get another 3-pack of them, and almost certainly not before.
I'm quite sure that it's not a "I QUITE" thread, but it could be an "I QUIT" one.
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Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
You, sir, are a troublemaker of the highest order. Well done.
Honest Question: Memory serves (And I am low on coffee so it probably doesn't) The Mogh was a copy of all the Avenger's stats and just dropped onto a Klingon skin. I thought the idea was this would lower cost related to KDF ships so they could get out the door easier. Do you know how well that worked?
And before anyone interrupts the answer. Yes I bought one the first payday after it came out.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
actually the avenger was supposed to be a copy of the mogh... feds with their time travel. and the mogh was delayed so they could work on the voth ships.
from the fact we got alot more ships after yes it was. and they been doing that whenever possible since and kdf has mostly accepted it, then AoY was announced.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Yep, that was the very last KDF ship sold independently, and if I remember correctly it was the first one to just carbon-copy the systems side of an existing ship. It'll probably also be the very last one ever sold independently, since obviously it didn't sell well enough to justify doing things that way again as we haven't seen that sales model in over 2 years. The carbon-copy thing worked so well that it's the ONLY way they have made KDF and Rom ships since, of course.
Nope. I was asking because I don't even know where to look up sales figures and you seem to so I hoped you could give me an honest answer. Because it was supposed to be hope for KDF side and maybe RR as well. My point on my buying it was I am not a hypocrite telling people to buy when I don't. Also it was not aimed at you, but those that would ask that before I could get an answer from you.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Apologies on my tone in my previous post, was doing some frustrating things at work as I was typing and it kinda spilled over. Was hoping I removed it in time but you were too quick.
No worries. I understand work frustrations very well. Here's hoping the rest of your day gets better and stays that way.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
*Horse whinnies in the background*
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
In addition, they've stated the things like bridges and other environments in general are among the most expensive things to make in the game as far as time/cost goes and so they don't make interiors for players to buy on the C-Store any longer if they can help it unless it's once again part of a bundle or it's used as an important set piece in a mission or a series of missions.
It's always the same thing, some random poster with less then 20 posts who's 'played since beta' and who 'pours tons of money into the game' suddenly wants to post a rant and threaten to quit. Is there a contest going on or something? It's always people that you can tell hardly play the game (I mean come on, the OP talked about how he 'buys DLC's' when if he actually played, he would know this game has no paid DLC.)
Look, bottom line is.. the game.. like the show.. is Federation Centered. It's always going to be that way, it's never going to change. If this bothers you, then it's not the game for you. If that's the case, then just stop playing.. don't come to the forum and try and convince people you're some long time, big spending player that the community cannot function without.
If you don't like the game, don't play it.