I expect this to end up moved the Frequently Closed Threads thread come Monday, where things the community repeatedly wants Cryptic to address get shoved into and, for the most part, ignored.
<logic>I mean, seriously... Cryptic wouldn't need a Frequently Created Threads thread as an excuse to stifle discussion of certain topics if they... I don't know... Actually DID something about what those threads are being created frequently for.</logic>
Except that, this topic isn't listed there, so have at it.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
I am actually surprised no one took my 'Pledge Drive' suggestion seriously.
Question: How many ship sales are needed to make a unit profitable?
I don't know the answer, but I bet some bright boys do. If we can guarantee that many sales Cryptic would make the ship. Even if they hate Klingons they do like money.
Find out how many ship sales are needed and get at least that many pledges to purchase the new ship. Prove it is a legitimate pledge by buying half of the needed Zen and maintaining it unused on your account.
You may want to research how successful pledge drives work to improve your chance of success, but I'm betting that if enough actual money is set aside Cryptic will do whatever it takes to get it.
I expect this to end up moved the Frequently Closed Threads thread come Monday, where things the community repeatedly wants Cryptic to address get shoved into and, for the most part, ignored.
<logic>I mean, seriously... Cryptic wouldn't need a Frequently Created Threads thread as an excuse to stifle discussion of certain topics if they... I don't know... Actually DID something about what those threads are being created frequently for.</logic>
Except that, this topic isn't listed there, so have at it.
LOL... Touche!
I guess maybe topics requesting more Romulan / KDF elements aren't as prolific as some of us think... or wish... they are.
<logic>Maybe that means there really ISN'T enough interest to warrant allocating resources to providing them.</logic>
Well, I am trying to get a few more topics added there (waiting on approvals/answers), but this isn't one of them. Typically, FCT topics aren't listed unless devs have provided documented answers that can be referred to, or if debating the topic itself generally ends up degenerating into a flame war. Civil discussion is always welcome.
I'm all for adding more KDF/ROM ships. The problem with the OP's premise is, it's just not going to happen. He's asking for FED ship development to stop entirely for several development cycles, in order for KDF/ROM ship development to continue and "catch up". It's just unrealistic.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Agreed, BMR. Like it or not, the Feds have the money, and no business can afford to ignore their paying customers for long.
The reality is that there are a limited number of developers and an infinity of potential projects. Because developer time is finite only a few of the possibilities can be developed, and any fool can see that developing less profitable projects means less money to support their daily eating habit. When KDF becomes a profit center, Cryptic will support KDF no matter how much they personally dislike the faction.
The trick is to show how the product you want Cryptic to develop helps to develop Cryptic. It has to make money for them to want to make it. Profit is not just a dirty word: it drives incentive and encourages the company to do more business of that kind.
History lessons are fine, but will not advance the issue. I keep hearing why we are where we are. I know where we are. I also know where some of us want to be. I've charted one path to get there, but so long as our sights remain fixed on what happened, we'll never have a shot at helping what we want to be what comes next.
Agreed, BMR. Like it or not, the Feds have the money, and no business can afford to ignore their paying customers for long.
The reality is that there are a limited number of developers and an infinity of potential projects. Because developer time is finite only a few of the possibilities can be developed, and any fool can see that developing less profitable projects means less money to support their daily eating habit. When KDF becomes a profit center, Cryptic will support KDF no matter how much they personally dislike the faction.
As with ship bridges, there is, however, always a bit of circular logic attached to your/Cryptic's reasoning: "KDF isn't selling well -> So we're not giving it a lot of attention -> And, as a result, it isn't selling well." Sometimes you have to spend first, before you can earn.
The trick is to show how the product you want Cryptic to develop helps to develop Cryptic. It has to make money for them to want to make it. Profit is not just a dirty word: it drives incentive and encourages the company to do more business of that kind.
Whilst that is true, it's equally (if not more) true, that investing absolutely nothing in the KDF, hoping it will automagically pick up by itself, certainly isn't a viable business concept.
History lessons are fine, but will not advance the issue. I keep hearing why we are where we are. I know where we are. I also know where some of us want to be. I've charted one path to get there, but so long as our sights remain fixed on what happened, we'll never have a shot at helping what we want to be what comes next.
I still can't fathom why ppl are so obsessed, almost, with the amount of ships the 'other' factions have. I rolled a Rom Tact, because, at the time, they were hopelessly OP. And you know what?! They still are. Roms also got the Scimitar (also rather OP). And we get to slot a full complement of SRO boffs, and make use of a standard Battle Cloak.
So, why would I care what ships Feds get?! My Engi main is a Fed, so I know exactly what we have. But, as a Rom, this has never bothered me, in the least.
N.B. Only thing I'd love to see, is that we could work on something major, like help to build up New Romulus. Or have us build a giant (like I mean, massive) new space station -- to replace the Flotilla, for example. Like we could see the various building stages when we were still building our Fleet starbases. I'd gladly donate my Dilithium towards that. Throw in player housing, and I'll be elated.
OP, we have cross faction bundles now, cancelling all fed ship development in favour of KDF and RR is a tad bit unrealistic as it would hurt Cryptic financially given most of the player base is Federation.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The trick is to show how the product you want Cryptic to develop helps to develop Cryptic. It has to make money for them to want to make it. Profit is not just a dirty word: it drives incentive and encourages the company to do more business of that kind.
Whilst that is true, it's equally (if not more) true, that investing absolutely nothing in the KDF, hoping it will automagically pick up by itself, certainly isn't a viable business concept.
You need to look at the problem from where it is now. Imagine a golf ball out in the rough on a Par 5. You don't have a Mulligan. How much time do you spend worrying about how you got there? The game always progresses from where the ball,lies now.
If Cryptic is, in your words, investing nothing and hoping, then indeed your point is valid. However, I'm betting Cryptic uses sales numbers and in game activity as the basis of their decisions. Even if Evil Emperor Zerg commands the development team to ignore Faction X, the owners of Cryptic won't allow him to ignore profit. That they allow KDF to languish is de facto evidence that it is less profitable.
If you want more attention for KDF, you MUST demonstrate to Cryptic that investing in KDF will be worth their effort.
It is not Cryptic's responsibility to serve your favorite flavor. It is their responsibility to make money for their shareholders or owners. If they do that with 31 flavors of vanilla, and have metrics that show chocolate costs more than it makes, it would be foolish of yhem to stop making vanilla in favor of making more chocolate.
If you want chocolate you must show how investing in chocolate is good for their business, or at least covers the cost of not making the vanilla they know they can sell. If there are a line of customers at the door with dollars in one hand and spoons in the other asking for chocolate, only the most dedicated idiot refuses to make chocolate.
As I tried to explain, interest in a faction -- let's stick to the KDF -- isn't born ex nihilo. Passively waiting for "a line of customers at the door with dollars in one hand and spoons in the other asking for chocolate," may sound reasonable, at first glance, but is really leading nowhere. To protract your analoy, you have to entice people to WANT to buy chocolate. They're not just gonna show up on your doorstep, demanding you make chocolate. Think of it as advertising: first you must spend money to attract ppl to your product, and then you may (hope to) profit from it. Cryptic, in fact, did so with Roms: made 'em so OP, nobody could refuse the deal.
So, KDF isn't just gonna grow because suddenly more ppl will ask for their expansion. Rather, Cryptic will have to give the KDF something extra again, so they ppl will want to play Klink again.
The trick is to show how the product you want Cryptic to develop helps to develop Cryptic. It has to make money for them to want to make it. Profit is not just a dirty word: it drives incentive and encourages the company to do more business of that kind.
Whilst that is true, it's equally (if not more) true, that investing absolutely nothing in the KDF, hoping it will automagically pick up by itself, certainly isn't a viable business concept.
You need to look at the problem from where it is now. Imagine a golf ball out in the rough on a Par 5. You don't have a Mulligan. How much time do you spend worrying about how you got there? The game always progresses from where the ball,lies now.
If Cryptic is, in your words, investing nothing and hoping, then indeed your point is valid. However, I'm betting Cryptic uses sales numbers and in game activity as the basis of their decisions. Even if Evil Emperor Zerg commands the development team to ignore Faction X, the owners of Cryptic won't allow him to ignore profit. That they allow KDF to languish is de facto evidence that it is less profitable.
If you want more attention for KDF, you MUST demonstrate to Cryptic that investing in KDF will be worth their effort.
It is not Cryptic's responsibility to serve your favorite flavor. It is their responsibility to make money for their shareholders or owners. If they do that with 31 flavors of vanilla, and have metrics that show chocolate costs more than it makes, it would be foolish of yhem to stop making vanilla in favor of making more chocolate.
If you want chocolate you must show how investing in chocolate is good for their business, or at least covers the cost of not making the vanilla they know they can sell. If there are a line of customers at the door with dollars in one hand and spoons in the other asking for chocolate, only the most dedicated idiot refuses to make chocolate.
As I tried to explain, interest in a faction -- let's stick to the KDF -- isn't born ex nihilo. Passively waiting for "a line of customers at the door with dollars in one hand and spoons in the other asking for chocolate," may sound reasonable, at first glance, but is really leading nowhere. To protract your analoy, you have to entice people to WANT to buy chocolate. They're not just gonna show up on your doorstep, demanding you make chocolate. Think of it as advertising: first you must spend money to attract ppl to your product, and then you may (hope to) profit from it. Cryptic, in fact, did so with Roms: made 'em so OP, nobody could refuse the deal.
So, KDF isn't just gonna grow because suddenly more ppl will ask for their expansion. Rather, Cryptic will have to give the KDF something extra again, so they ppl will want to play Klink again.
which doesn't fit with the business model that's been working for the sTO team for the last seven years.
in fact, the reverse has been in operation-they've been taking the "Chocolate" from one bin and putting it into the other-effectively cannibalizing the KDF faction to provide novelty and variation fedside.
while placing Noticeable "artificial colors and flavours" into the KDF bin.
Varanus
Bortasque
Naj'sov
the result resembling very much an 'anti-advertising' (Why roll a...ugh...Klink when you can get the better version of their stuff if you stick with Fed, or do a Fed-aligned Romulan?)
the problem being, this strategy has largely worked for seven years. it's unlikely to change, because it HAS worked for a long time. In a sense, it might end when they've succeeded in removing even the core playerbase, or when they run out of things to cannibalize and have to resort to gutting the appeal of the Romulan faction by giving Feds the Romulan advantages and faction abilities. At which point, hte odds of investment to make those factions more appealing will probably be less than the investment of shutting down the servers and everyone goes to make a new game.
heck, we might've already reached that point, the homogenizing of the factions in the game doesn't have a lot further to go before they're faced with the potential that transfers the other way will have to include GOOD stuff.
which is likely to anger the playerbase they've just spent the better part of a decade catering to.
I actually agree with you here. Seriously, it was probably a bit of a douche move, on Cryptic's end, to let the Fed in on boons that were specifically meant to get ppl to play KDF (like the Leech). Disingenuous, at least, to those who rolled a Klink, just for those benefits.
The homogenizing, as you call it, is also a certified way to undermine the incentives to want to play KDF. Sure, it might have pleased some Feds, but scoffing an entire faction like that, let's just say I don't think that was very nice of them.
The trick is to show how the product you want Cryptic to develop helps to develop Cryptic. It has to make money for them to want to make it. Profit is not just a dirty word: it drives incentive and encourages the company to do more business of that kind.
Whilst that is true, it's equally (if not more) true, that investing absolutely nothing in the KDF, hoping it will automagically pick up by itself, certainly isn't a viable business concept.
You need to look at the problem from where it is now. Imagine a golf ball out in the rough on a Par 5. You don't have a Mulligan. How much time do you spend worrying about how you got there? The game always progresses from where the ball,lies now.
If Cryptic is, in your words, investing nothing and hoping, then indeed your point is valid. However, I'm betting Cryptic uses sales numbers and in game activity as the basis of their decisions. Even if Evil Emperor Zerg commands the development team to ignore Faction X, the owners of Cryptic won't allow him to ignore profit. That they allow KDF to languish is de facto evidence that it is less profitable.
If you want more attention for KDF, you MUST demonstrate to Cryptic that investing in KDF will be worth their effort.
It is not Cryptic's responsibility to serve your favorite flavor. It is their responsibility to make money for their shareholders or owners. If they do that with 31 flavors of vanilla, and have metrics that show chocolate costs more than it makes, it would be foolish of yhem to stop making vanilla in favor of making more chocolate.
If you want chocolate you must show how investing in chocolate is good for their business, or at least covers the cost of not making the vanilla they know they can sell. If there are a line of customers at the door with dollars in one hand and spoons in the other asking for chocolate, only the most dedicated idiot refuses to make chocolate.
As I tried to explain, interest in a faction -- let's stick to the KDF -- isn't born ex nihilo. Passively waiting for "a line of customers at the door with dollars in one hand and spoons in the other asking for chocolate," may sound reasonable, at first glance, but is really leading nowhere. To protract your analoy, you have to entice people to WANT to buy chocolate. They're not just gonna show up on your doorstep, demanding you make chocolate. Think of it as advertising: first you must spend money to attract ppl to your product, and then you may (hope to) profit from it. Cryptic, in fact, did so with Roms: made 'em so OP, nobody could refuse the deal.
So, KDF isn't just gonna grow because suddenly more ppl will ask for their expansion. Rather, Cryptic will have to give the KDF something extra again, so they ppl will want to play Klink again.
Cryptic has already made their decision, for whatever reasons, to do as they do now. They have expressed no interest in enticing new customers with chocolate because their belief in their vanilla product and their history with chocolate already demonstrates to them that investing in chocolate is not profitable.
Either you can accept the situation as it is, or you can bemoan the failure for it to become what it could have been, but neither act changes anything. Expecting Cryptic to suddenly change course is unrealistic because they got here by a series of conscious decisions.
If you truly wish to change minds in the Cryptic development team you have to demonstrate that their decisions were wrong, and that chocolate, in spite of their history and their metrics, can be profitable. Cryptic has no incentive to do this: they already have more work than they can do without another faction worth of problems.
So, history aside, prejudices and past injustices aside, lost opportunities and paths not taken aside, where do you want to go from here? If you want to change minds you have to show how it benefits the person whose mind you want to change.
Cryptic believes eliminating factions while focusing on Federation customers is their best path forward. They aren't about to invest in recruiting new players for a faction they've already deemed unprofitable at the expense of a faction they have deemed profitable. The smart business decision in that situation is to minimize their exposure to the unprofitable segment as they expand the profitable one.
If you want this to change, you must give Cryptic incentive to change it.
On the other hand, if this is a thread composed solely for a venting session, job well done, reward issued, time to move on.
Agreed, BMR. Like it or not, the Feds have the money, and no business can afford to ignore their paying customers for long.
The reality is that there are a limited number of developers and an infinity of potential projects. Because developer time is finite only a few of the possibilities can be developed, and any fool can see that developing less profitable projects means less money to support their daily eating habit. When KDF becomes a profit center, Cryptic will support KDF no matter how much they personally dislike the faction.
As with ship bridges, there is, however, always a bit of circular logic attached to your/Cryptic's reasoning: "KDF isn't selling well -> So we're not giving it a lot of attention -> And, as a result, it isn't selling well." Sometimes you have to spend first, before you can earn.
The trick is to show how the product you want Cryptic to develop helps to develop Cryptic. It has to make money for them to want to make it. Profit is not just a dirty word: it drives incentive and encourages the company to do more business of that kind.
Whilst that is true, it's equally (if not more) true, that investing absolutely nothing in the KDF, hoping it will automagically pick up by itself, certainly isn't a viable business concept.
Once upon a time(way back before season 4), the Feds and KDF were equal in z-store ships many of which had features that were better than their Fed counterpart. So, yes, the devs DID actually start by investing in KDF. Granted the cool ships were pretty much the main reason to play KDF back then, but they were there. And we all know how much return Cryptic got from that.
The reason the devs started making KDF ships again had nothing to do with the dev's agendas. It was a reflection of the corporate climate changing when Cryptic got bought by PWE. Atari was why the game was so starved for development funds.
I am actually surprised no one took my 'Pledge Drive' suggestion seriously.
Question: How many ship sales are needed to make a unit profitable?
I don't know the answer, but I bet some bright boys do. If we can guarantee that many sales Cryptic would make the ship. Even if they hate Klingons they do like money.
Find out how many ship sales are needed and get at least that many pledges to purchase the new ship. Prove it is a legitimate pledge by buying half of the needed Zen and maintaining it unused on your account.
You may want to research how successful pledge drives work to improve your chance of success, but I'm betting that if enough actual money is set aside Cryptic will do whatever it takes to get it.
Sounds like a good idea, except for the "maintaining it unused" part of it.
The simple fact of the matter is that the fickleness of the player base will always be an issue.
For example, If players were to pledge some Zen to the idea of developing a new KDF Science ship and simply hold it in their accounts while this pledge is going on, and then a new T6 Warbird bundle or a new Lockbox or the Phoenix Prize Pack comes out that has stuff that people REALLY want for a character, what's to stop them from just using that Zen for that? What's to stop someone from pledging the Zen, getting the funding up and going, and using the Zen at the last second to get what they pledged without following through on the pledge? There HAS to be a way to hold those funds.
To wit, I would propose two alternatives to this:
1) Use a system similar to the Dil/Zen exchange to hold the Zen out of the main Zen account yet not completely gone (or just add a Pledge section to the Dil/Zen exchange for that purpose). The Zen would be held in that area, inaccessible by the player, until such time as the pledge drive ends. If it is successful, the Zen is removed from the Dil/Zen exchange. If the pledge is unsuccessful, the Zen you pledge would be available to reclaim on your account.
2) This one is more feasible. Create a new section under the "Charge" section of the website for pledging to create a new ship. There's no unnecessary Zen issues, no need for a new Dil/Zen type setup, and no way for a player to use the funds before the pledge drive is up. If successful, the money disappears into Cryptic's coffers. If unsuccessful, the money pledged would get converted to Zen and credited to your account.
Space Barbie Extraordinaire. Got a question about Space Barbie? Just ask.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
My lord, your logic is flawless. However, my point was to demonstrate that it could, not to dictate how it should be done.
In your examples you require someone at Cryptic to devote time and effort to something they deem a lost cause. Why should Cryptic spend a second of their time for something they know won't make them any money?
If someone knows how to set up a 'kickstarter' for the KDF, that might help Cryptic decide to do it. I don't have the skills to set it up, but for a Science Hegh'ta I'd take a chance on investing. I know others have other desires for Cryptic's KDF time. Perhaps several simultaneous pledge drives could be issued for specifics and a 'general' fund for more generic development of the faction could be done.
But let me know when you set it up because I've got $50 earmarked for my T6U Science BoP.
I've been sort of keeping up on this Thread by going onto it to remove the Unread Post count, because a lot of the stuff is the usual blah, blah, blah. I turn my back on it for a couple of hours after someone posted that he expected for the Thread to be closed tomorrow by the FCT and low and behold 24 Unread.
I guess the way to increase the post count in a Thread is to say that it will soon be closed.
'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.'
Comments
Nothing else needs to be said...this should be the end of the thread right here.
Except that, this topic isn't listed there, so have at it.
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Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
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Question: How many ship sales are needed to make a unit profitable?
I don't know the answer, but I bet some bright boys do. If we can guarantee that many sales Cryptic would make the ship. Even if they hate Klingons they do like money.
Find out how many ship sales are needed and get at least that many pledges to purchase the new ship. Prove it is a legitimate pledge by buying half of the needed Zen and maintaining it unused on your account.
You may want to research how successful pledge drives work to improve your chance of success, but I'm betting that if enough actual money is set aside Cryptic will do whatever it takes to get it.
Well, I am trying to get a few more topics added there (waiting on approvals/answers), but this isn't one of them. Typically, FCT topics aren't listed unless devs have provided documented answers that can be referred to, or if debating the topic itself generally ends up degenerating into a flame war. Civil discussion is always welcome.
I'm all for adding more KDF/ROM ships. The problem with the OP's premise is, it's just not going to happen. He's asking for FED ship development to stop entirely for several development cycles, in order for KDF/ROM ship development to continue and "catch up". It's just unrealistic.
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
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The reality is that there are a limited number of developers and an infinity of potential projects. Because developer time is finite only a few of the possibilities can be developed, and any fool can see that developing less profitable projects means less money to support their daily eating habit. When KDF becomes a profit center, Cryptic will support KDF no matter how much they personally dislike the faction.
The trick is to show how the product you want Cryptic to develop helps to develop Cryptic. It has to make money for them to want to make it. Profit is not just a dirty word: it drives incentive and encourages the company to do more business of that kind.
As with ship bridges, there is, however, always a bit of circular logic attached to your/Cryptic's reasoning: "KDF isn't selling well -> So we're not giving it a lot of attention -> And, as a result, it isn't selling well." Sometimes you have to spend first, before you can earn.
Whilst that is true, it's equally (if not more) true, that investing absolutely nothing in the KDF, hoping it will automagically pick up by itself, certainly isn't a viable business concept.
I still can't fathom why ppl are so obsessed, almost, with the amount of ships the 'other' factions have. I rolled a Rom Tact, because, at the time, they were hopelessly OP. And you know what?! They still are.
So, why would I care what ships Feds get?! My Engi main is a Fed, so I know exactly what we have. But, as a Rom, this has never bothered me, in the least.
N.B. Only thing I'd love to see, is that we could work on something major, like help to build up New Romulus. Or have us build a giant (like I mean, massive) new space station -- to replace the Flotilla, for example. Like we could see the various building stages when we were still building our Fleet starbases. I'd gladly donate my Dilithium towards that. Throw in player housing, and I'll be elated.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
As I tried to explain, interest in a faction -- let's stick to the KDF -- isn't born ex nihilo. Passively waiting for "a line of customers at the door with dollars in one hand and spoons in the other asking for chocolate," may sound reasonable, at first glance, but is really leading nowhere. To protract your analoy, you have to entice people to WANT to buy chocolate. They're not just gonna show up on your doorstep, demanding you make chocolate. Think of it as advertising: first you must spend money to attract ppl to your product, and then you may (hope to) profit from it. Cryptic, in fact, did so with Roms: made 'em so OP, nobody could refuse the deal.
So, KDF isn't just gonna grow because suddenly more ppl will ask for their expansion. Rather, Cryptic will have to give the KDF something extra again, so they ppl will want to play Klink again.
I actually agree with you here.
The homogenizing, as you call it, is also a certified way to undermine the incentives to want to play KDF. Sure, it might have pleased some Feds, but scoffing an entire faction like that, let's just say I don't think that was very nice of them.
Cryptic has already made their decision, for whatever reasons, to do as they do now. They have expressed no interest in enticing new customers with chocolate because their belief in their vanilla product and their history with chocolate already demonstrates to them that investing in chocolate is not profitable.
Either you can accept the situation as it is, or you can bemoan the failure for it to become what it could have been, but neither act changes anything. Expecting Cryptic to suddenly change course is unrealistic because they got here by a series of conscious decisions.
If you truly wish to change minds in the Cryptic development team you have to demonstrate that their decisions were wrong, and that chocolate, in spite of their history and their metrics, can be profitable. Cryptic has no incentive to do this: they already have more work than they can do without another faction worth of problems.
So, history aside, prejudices and past injustices aside, lost opportunities and paths not taken aside, where do you want to go from here? If you want to change minds you have to show how it benefits the person whose mind you want to change.
Cryptic believes eliminating factions while focusing on Federation customers is their best path forward. They aren't about to invest in recruiting new players for a faction they've already deemed unprofitable at the expense of a faction they have deemed profitable. The smart business decision in that situation is to minimize their exposure to the unprofitable segment as they expand the profitable one.
If you want this to change, you must give Cryptic incentive to change it.
On the other hand, if this is a thread composed solely for a venting session, job well done, reward issued, time to move on.
The reason the devs started making KDF ships again had nothing to do with the dev's agendas. It was a reflection of the corporate climate changing when Cryptic got bought by PWE. Atari was why the game was so starved for development funds.
My character Tsin'xing
Sounds like a good idea, except for the "maintaining it unused" part of it.
The simple fact of the matter is that the fickleness of the player base will always be an issue.
For example, If players were to pledge some Zen to the idea of developing a new KDF Science ship and simply hold it in their accounts while this pledge is going on, and then a new T6 Warbird bundle or a new Lockbox or the Phoenix Prize Pack comes out that has stuff that people REALLY want for a character, what's to stop them from just using that Zen for that? What's to stop someone from pledging the Zen, getting the funding up and going, and using the Zen at the last second to get what they pledged without following through on the pledge? There HAS to be a way to hold those funds.
To wit, I would propose two alternatives to this:
1) Use a system similar to the Dil/Zen exchange to hold the Zen out of the main Zen account yet not completely gone (or just add a Pledge section to the Dil/Zen exchange for that purpose). The Zen would be held in that area, inaccessible by the player, until such time as the pledge drive ends. If it is successful, the Zen is removed from the Dil/Zen exchange. If the pledge is unsuccessful, the Zen you pledge would be available to reclaim on your account.
2) This one is more feasible. Create a new section under the "Charge" section of the website for pledging to create a new ship. There's no unnecessary Zen issues, no need for a new Dil/Zen type setup, and no way for a player to use the funds before the pledge drive is up. If successful, the money disappears into Cryptic's coffers. If unsuccessful, the money pledged would get converted to Zen and credited to your account.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
In your examples you require someone at Cryptic to devote time and effort to something they deem a lost cause. Why should Cryptic spend a second of their time for something they know won't make them any money?
If someone knows how to set up a 'kickstarter' for the KDF, that might help Cryptic decide to do it. I don't have the skills to set it up, but for a Science Hegh'ta I'd take a chance on investing. I know others have other desires for Cryptic's KDF time. Perhaps several simultaneous pledge drives could be issued for specifics and a 'general' fund for more generic development of the faction could be done.
But let me know when you set it up because I've got $50 earmarked for my T6U Science BoP.
I guess the way to increase the post count in a Thread is to say that it will soon be closed.
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.'