Lockboxes are not gambling. It's purchasing an item without knowing what it is in advance. This is no functionally different than trading card packs or even f-ing easter eggs with a random toy inside.
Lockboxes are not gambling. It's purchasing an item without knowing what it is in advance. This is no functionally different than trading card packs or even f-ing easter eggs with a random toy inside.
Nail on the head!
I was gonna go over my usual diatribe on the legal definition of gambling, and the fact you always win with lockboxes, to which Gambling Law does not apply.
Anyone saying the practice that Cryptic undertakes is unlawful is wrong. You don't need anything out of any lockbox, just as with Kinder Eggs.
Let's look at Magic:The Gathering, which is the same as Lockboxes in this game. You don't need to buy the booster packs to play the game, just the starter pack, but in Magic, you do need to buy more to vastly improve your chances of winning. In STO you don't.
If Governments shut down lockboxes, they also shut down EVERY TRADING CARD GAME! There was an unsuccessful lawsuit in the 90's which tried to prove Magic et all were in effect, gambling, and it FAILED!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
And the point which is being missed, is that Christopher Lee does not represent people living outside of America. He is not my democratically elected representative. Nor is he the democratically elected representative of players in Belgium, or Germany. Yet his actions, affect us as well.
Do American citizens actually need 'protecting'? Or should they be allowed the autonomy to make their own decisions and live by the consequences of such? Again, this is not kindergarten...
You're mistaking my attempts to be clear and emphatic (about the points I'm trying to convey) as 'screaming and raging'. The screaming and raging, will come if this nonsense succeeds, and LockBoxes get outlawed in Europe, and if Cryptic either doesn't react, or fails to react in a particular way, and thus has to shut down because it loses a significant section of its playerbase. There will be rage and screams from those unable to play the game any more, and at it's core, will be the frustration of knowing that they did nothing to try and prevent it.
But not me. Sure, I'll be hellishly disappointed, but I'll at least be able to tell myself that I at least made suggestions to my community to try and preserve it.
What have you suggested, which Cryptic may or may not consider?
Have you actually suggested anything constructive at all just been an armchair commentator?
And if what we post here makes no difference to what Cryptic is going to do, then I'm not going to waste my time arguing about it, because that it will make no difference either.
I am pretty sure Christopher Lee has very little influence in Germany where German government officials are looking into the matter themselves. You are simply making him a scapegoat.
The potential banning of lootboxes in Germany is based on a University of Hamburg study which found that an increasing amount of games are containing more elements of gambling than they have previously. That study is likely the reason why the German Youth Protection Commission is considering a ban on lootboxes.
I guess a simple solution would be a fixed amount of lobi per box.
There is no need for that. You are getting Lobi when opening a box, which is what Lockboxes are actually for. There is no chance of loss as you are getting something of value whenever you open a box.
I can see changing the law to classify lootboxes as gambling IF they were the only means to collect gear/items that are REQUIRED to actually play the game.
the fact that the bonus item is random is questionable... call a horse a horse and not a zebra. anyone with common sense looking at it would know. your gonna say that PC on sale at ebay is for only $1 but shipping is $2k and you feel that is normal?
gambling is gambling and your trying to get folks to spend money. just post the odds. it's one thing if the only thing in the boxes were cosmetics and xp boosts. it's not. you have hero ships with uber stats and traits. that is "Pay to Win". Does these things make you god and one shot folks... no. But they are better than what is normally available. Why bother with actual ships in Lock Boxes... why not just make em cosmetic skins you can apply to your C-store ship? How many folks would then spend hundreds of keys to get that super rare ship skin?
Honestly I wouldn't mind seeing lockboxes go the way of the dinosaurs even if it means some games have to go. MMOs were more enjoyable when they didn't have the lockbox setup. Especially ones that tie power creep to their lock box systems instead of actual progression game play that keeps a story moving forward.
The problem is that not enough people will put money into MMOs by other means like subscriptions and C-Store sales.
Would you rather have lock boxes in STO, or half as many story episodes and no Trek voice actors? Speaking for myself I'd choose the gamble boxes.
I think I said if the lock boxes had to go and things shut down I wouldn't mind. So if STO shut down I wouldn't lose to much sleep over it.
The last really exciting bit of content I got out this game was Legacy of Romulus. Agents of Yesterday gave a little boost in the TOS aspects but since there were no Romulan and Klingon options from that expansion like there was Fed I feel it fell short. The game as a whole feels like it's not living up to it's potential and lock boxes are just stringing it along on life support.
And the point which is being missed, is that Christopher Lee does not represent people living outside of America. He is not my democratically elected representative. Nor is he the democratically elected representative of players in Belgium, or Germany. Yet his actions, affect us as well.
Do American citizens actually need 'protecting'? Or should they be allowed the autonomy to make their own decisions and live by the consequences of such? Again, this is not kindergarten...
You're mistaking my attempts to be clear and emphatic (about the points I'm trying to convey) as 'screaming and raging'. The screaming and raging, will come if this nonsense succeeds, and LockBoxes get outlawed in Europe, and if Cryptic either doesn't react, or fails to react in a particular way, and thus has to shut down because it loses a significant section of its playerbase. There will be rage and screams from those unable to play the game any more, and at it's core, will be the frustration of knowing that they did nothing to try and prevent it.
But not me. Sure, I'll be hellishly disappointed, but I'll at least be able to tell myself that I at least made suggestions to my community to try and preserve it.
What have you suggested, which Cryptic may or may not consider?
Have you actually suggested anything constructive at all just been an armchair commentator?
And if what we post here makes no difference to what Cryptic is going to do, then I'm not going to waste my time arguing about it, because that it will make no difference either.
I am pretty sure Christopher Lee has very little influence in Germany where German government officials are looking into the matter themselves. You are simply making him a scapegoat.
The potential banning of lootboxes in Germany is based on a University of Hamburg study which found that an increasing amount of games are containing more elements of gambling than they have previously. That study is likely the reason why the German Youth Protection Commission is considering a ban on lootboxes.
Oh well, if you're 'pretty sure' then that's okay then!
A scape goat, is someone who is wrongly given the blame for something they haven't done. This entire issue of LockBoxes, was brought up by some dude in Hawaii. It's been brought to Global attention, and it will now have Global Impacts. Do you no understand that. You clearly don't understand what 'recuse' means, or you wouldn't have directed a comment to me, demanding that I make a response.
If someone at the office catches a cold from an co-worker, they don't care who brought the cold to work, they care that they have a cold, and are going to feel unwell, have to buy medicines etc...
It doesn't matter who started it What matters, is that the EU are interested in the situation, the EU are discussing the situation, and could potentially come to a decision, which, based on things as they stand, could make this game cease to exist! So no, I am not 'making him a scapegoat', I pointed out the potentially massive impacts of this issue as a global whole and made a suggestion for how it could potentially be remedied. Which is more than you have done! All you have done, is made snarky comments, and been dismissive. But as has been already made very clear, Cryptic won't listen to me, and so I have better things to do than wasting my time arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin with someone who doesn't even grasp the fundamental impacts of the situation, and who is more interested in making snarky comments, and continuing an argument, than being constructive. If y'all want to continue discussing this amongst yourselves, go right ahead, but please don't direct any further comments to me about it. I really am not interested. I've made my suggestion for Cryptic at the top of pg 3, I've done my part, my conscience is clear, and I'm not prepared to waste my time conjecturing, debating, speculating, or otherwise discussing the topic with anyone.
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
As some others have already pointed out, we should not confuse a US law proposal with this issue. And has been said, German regulations will apply here, not US ones. Which leads to some consequences:
- It will normally not matter whether you call them "Buy 3 Lobi and maybe a goodie bonus" or "Test out your luck and gamble for the win box". What will matter is the relative worth of what you get guaranteed to what you are aiming for. So basically the authorities will want to know why players are buying these boxes. Of course that differs, and it isn't easy (things like trading cards have been mentioned).
- Depending on the thrust the whole issue gets and the direction it is going, it may even be better (again: German law) to call them "Test out your luck and gamble", because that wouldn't be a name that could fool players. Though again, it is unlikely that it will matter.
- Generally speaking, semantics of "gambling" vs "winning opportunities" may become important, but it is not a matter what Cryptic says or what we say. And it is a sliding scale, there are functional differences whether everything you get is of the same type (a playing card, a toy, ...) and those where it isn't.
- Whatever you think about politicians, they have no influence whatsoever here. And there is no "They" who want to get games shut down, because there is no political agenda as such behind it. This is also not about "new regulations" or suchlike but about the interpretation of already existing laws.
- The actual odds may be required to be published, and the actual odds may have an influence on a decision (i. e. when the worth of a "baseline win" is high enough), but just publishing the odds will not make the BPJM go away.
As much as people want to hate on the person or persons who kicked this all off, they did have a valid point.
An overpriced price AAA title (£50+ for multiplayer focussed game is insane given how short a lifespan they can have) shouldn't have gamble boxes for cash built into it. If they have to be there then it should only be for ingame currency.(...)
Gotta disagree here though. What price is "insane" is easily up to debate - even a short lived game may give you more time of entertainment than some concerts, sports events, movies, ... The issue would be more one of hidden costs, that you "have to" pay more to get a full game. STO should be pretty save in that regard though.
Do American citizens actually need 'protecting'? Or should they be allowed the autonomy to make their own decisions and live by the consequences of such? Again, this is not kindergarten...
People already have a hard time accepting the consequences of their decisions if they were well informed. Yes, many should get more adult with this. But at the same time that cannot mean that everything is fair game. Especially again if it is accessible for people who just aren't adults yet (i. e. kids).
You're mistaking my attempts to be clear and emphatic (about the points I'm trying to convey) as 'screaming and raging'. The screaming and raging, will come if this nonsense succeeds, and LockBoxes get outlawed in Europe, and if Cryptic either doesn't react, or fails to react in a particular way, and thus has to shut down because it loses a significant section of its playerbase. There will be rage and screams from those unable to play the game any more, and at it's core, will be the frustration of knowing that they did nothing to try and prevent it.
But not me. Sure, I'll be hellishly disappointed, but I'll at least be able to tell myself that I at least made suggestions to my community to try and preserve it.
To be honest, your emphatic contributions do come across a bit as "screaming and raging". But to me less in the "he's loud and obnoxious" way, more in the "he's panicky and uncoordinated like a headless chicken" way. If we want to understand what may be going on (because this mostly is understanding, we won't indeed change anything), we would need clear analysis. Repitition of a mantra "this isn't gambling" won't help, we first need a clear understanding of how "gambling" is defined in this special case. Lockboxes in STO may easily not be gambling, but they may just as easily be. "We just need to rebrand it" - as has been said, no. Repeating it won't help. You don't want STO to shut down. Understood, neither do other players. You're looking for scapegoats like some politician or people not adult enough to face consequences of their actions, and you may just as well be correct that they are to blame for the situation, but the blame game doesn't solve problems.
Please don't understand this as a personal attack, it isn't meant as one. I emphasize with what you are trying to do, but I have the feeling you are shooting yourself an arrow into the knee here. Doing something for the sake of doing something is often enough the only course of action that can solve a problem. But more often it is not, and legal matters usually belong in this second group.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
They might have to make the keys account bound and bought via the website rather than in game.
Would allow minors to play and have access to the store while not exposing them to the gamble boxes.
Lotro's gamble boxes have keys as random drops and I think possibly also earnable with a lot of effort, so that would be another possible workaround. Kind of amazed that PWE hasnt gone this route as it would be a better hook for luring folk into the boxes than the current spamming of loot-tables and tweaking the drop rate to push a popular box (disco box drops far more often than the kethi one)
PoE's boxes are opened at purchase rather than loot drops and they clearly state the value is never less than the asking price, debatable for stuff like the fireworks but for cosmetics and stash tabs its pretty accurate. In comparison keys are a slightly more fluid price due to the exchange and the minor prizes are certainly not worth the same in a lot of cases.
Because the boxes have been in sto for so long now they can't as easily remove keys from the game.
I'd love for them to remove the padding from the boxes, be upfront and publish the %'s, have the boxes themselves on a fixed drop rate and just put the cosmetics into the boxes as an item not a chance of a chance via the weapon crates.
Only downside for me with moving keys out the store and web based would be I'd have nothing to spend stipend on until a t6 kar'fi arrives.
The real issue, is that there is no Universally agreed upon Age Approval system on the internet. There's nothing stopping a kid swiping a credit card from their parent, or getting the parent to sign up on their behalf. The Nanny-State Compliance Mongers, are saying that one of their areas for concern is 'the kids' and 'those who may be vulnerable to addictive behaviours' and they can leverage that, against the lack of a Universally Agreed System. A company could just say they'll make their game credit card subscription only. But that doesn't stop a kid siping the card, or getting the parent to sign up for them. Nor does it take into account adults who don't have credit cards. Then there's the issue of the fact that the game went F2P (I would guess, due to not enough subscriptions) People have been playing the game for free for the better part of a decade: I question how many of those players, would continue to play, if a subscription was the only way to play. The issue goes way beyond 'LockBoxes are gambling!' faux-outrage in terms of its implications on the future of the game. I just hope cooler heads prevail and shut this nonsense down, before it kills, not just our game, but many games which many people enjoy...
In Germany, we actually have a mechanism for age approval, like POSTIDENT. Banks also seem to use a video-chat-based system these days (though I never tried that myself.) Setting up different identification systems according to different countries laws will cost money and time, but it might be worth it if the alternative is losing the entire market.
Of course, it would be preferable if the EU would agree on something so that whatever will be required works the same way for all member countries.
Of course there is no perfect safety, but adding a hurdle in the first place will offer some protection.
That sounds good, I didn't know that Is that some kind of government-issued ID card, which is recognized in all shops etc, as a valid ID? As you say, doing it online, will cost time and money. It's by no means impossible, it'll just take time and money. It won't necessarily help in this specific instance, but it will definitely help in the future/long term
We have a government issued ID in Germany.
POSTIDENT however is not an ID, but a way to confirm your ID using the postal service (Deutsche Post).
Basically, if you expect some form of mail that requires verification (like the German equivalent of an R-Rated movie on Bluray, or maybe a credit card for you), the postal worker who will deliver the item or the post office where you collect the item will make the check, and the postal service will provide the neccessary paperwork to the person sending you the item, confirming that everything was in order.
It would probably still be awkard to do this for a F2P MMO, and it would present a hurdle to overcome not just for a kid, but also an adult player, but it might be preferrable to losing all those customers.
That is basically the most low tech / offline version. Apparently the post also has a video chat sstem.
Oh, and new German passports ("Personalausweis") can be equipped with a chip that could also be used online, but it's not a default feature yet I think, or rather, you have to say that you want that feature available. (It doesn't cost extra, but you will need a reader to use it for anything.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Lockbox ships are not better than c-store ships, I own many of both.
you need to talk about seating and traits. also HP and shields, turn rates... is there a site that has all these where you can sort and see?
Lock box ships are ahead. Tact Dread-carrier is ONLY on lockbox. Lock box ships are better by per stats.
Look at Escorts @ L60
These are all the Zen store ships you can buy - next is the Fleet version - Fleet does not come with trait or consoles!
Advanced Escort - 41,333/45,466
Tactical Escort - 40,000/44K
Phantom Intel Escort - 38,000/41.8K
Mercury Class Pilot Escort - 38,800 <- No fleet version
Theseus Temporal Escort - 36,000/39.6K
Caitian Shikaris Escort - 40,000/44K
Lobi - gotten from lock boxes also only character 1 time ship
NX Escort Refit - 45,000
Several Lock Box ships - Yes not all LB ships have super high hulls.
Amarie-class Smuggler's Heavy Escort - 46,000
Jem'Hadar Recon Ship - 46,000
Jem'Hadar Strike Ship - 46,000
Still saying LB ships are not better? BS, look at ship stats. Sure not all LB ship is better than the previous LB ship but on average a LB ship is superior.
We can apply various skins to our ships... there is no reason to put actual ships in LBs but to generate money cause those are better ships. Again they wont make you god and one shot people or content, but on paper looking at stats, seating etc... no question LBS edge out regular ships.
Cryptic can easily get around it by putting everything in the lockboxes into the Lobi store. Then only thing you will be doing with that key, is getting Lobi.
However, by that point, they might as well remove keys and just sell Lobi in the cstore, directly.
> @azrael605 said: > No lockbox ships are not better, they have slightly higher base hull & shields because they are already fleet grade when you get them. Fleet versions of c-store ships are at the same level of hull & shields. Traits and consoles are irrelevant and always will be no matter what ship your talking about. There is no "must have" trait or console that exists anywhere in the game, most of the time I utterly ignore traits & consoles because they have no impact whatsoever into how good the ship is. I might have 1 ship thats actually using the consoke that came with it. Boff seating for Lockbox/Lobi ships is the same as c-store ships (in terms of available number of Boff skills) with fewer options on spec seating (for example the Walker class has a Lt. & an Ensign spec seat, extremely limited, the Event Nandi has better spec seating with one seat). > > Lockbox/Lobi ships are exactly on par with fleet or fleet grade ships (ie Event ships, c-store ships like the Command Battlecruiser that are fleet grade out of the box, etc). Individual ship classes may be slightly ahead in one area or another, but they will be correspondingly lacking in another. At no point in the history of the game has any ship ever been just flatly better than all others, and they never will be. > >
Your first sentence doesn't really make sense and is really just wrong. If you look closely at stats Lockbox and lobi ships have higher shield and hull modifies then fleet ships. So they generally have slightly better stats overall then c-store and fleet ships. They generally also have more flexible boff layout with more universal stations.
Doing something for the sake of doing something is often enough the only course of action that can solve a problem. But more often it is not, and legal matters usually belong in this second group.
I have to disagree with that. "Doing something for the sake of doing something" is almost never a solution for anything and when it is, it's only by sheer dumb luck. Usually it makes things worse and/or creates new problems to go with the one they tried to solve.
Like this thing...are germans not going to have easter eggs this year, because it's "gambling?"
Comments
As I said, I'm recusing myself from the discussion, as it's clearly not constructive or of use to Cryptic.
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
Nail on the head!
I was gonna go over my usual diatribe on the legal definition of gambling, and the fact you always win with lockboxes, to which Gambling Law does not apply.
Anyone saying the practice that Cryptic undertakes is unlawful is wrong. You don't need anything out of any lockbox, just as with Kinder Eggs.
Let's look at Magic:The Gathering, which is the same as Lockboxes in this game. You don't need to buy the booster packs to play the game, just the starter pack, but in Magic, you do need to buy more to vastly improve your chances of winning. In STO you don't.
If Governments shut down lockboxes, they also shut down EVERY TRADING CARD GAME! There was an unsuccessful lawsuit in the 90's which tried to prove Magic et all were in effect, gambling, and it FAILED!
I am pretty sure Christopher Lee has very little influence in Germany where German government officials are looking into the matter themselves. You are simply making him a scapegoat.
The potential banning of lootboxes in Germany is based on a University of Hamburg study which found that an increasing amount of games are containing more elements of gambling than they have previously. That study is likely the reason why the German Youth Protection Commission is considering a ban on lootboxes.
the fact that the bonus item is random is questionable... call a horse a horse and not a zebra. anyone with common sense looking at it would know. your gonna say that PC on sale at ebay is for only $1 but shipping is $2k and you feel that is normal?
gambling is gambling and your trying to get folks to spend money. just post the odds. it's one thing if the only thing in the boxes were cosmetics and xp boosts. it's not. you have hero ships with uber stats and traits. that is "Pay to Win". Does these things make you god and one shot folks... no. But they are better than what is normally available. Why bother with actual ships in Lock Boxes... why not just make em cosmetic skins you can apply to your C-store ship? How many folks would then spend hundreds of keys to get that super rare ship skin?
Not only ships in lock boxes... you also have player and space traits. a number of "must have" is only found in lock boxes.
I think I said if the lock boxes had to go and things shut down I wouldn't mind. So if STO shut down I wouldn't lose to much sleep over it.
The last really exciting bit of content I got out this game was Legacy of Romulus. Agents of Yesterday gave a little boost in the TOS aspects but since there were no Romulan and Klingon options from that expansion like there was Fed I feel it fell short. The game as a whole feels like it's not living up to it's potential and lock boxes are just stringing it along on life support.
A scape goat, is someone who is wrongly given the blame for something they haven't done. This entire issue of LockBoxes, was brought up by some dude in Hawaii. It's been brought to Global attention, and it will now have Global Impacts. Do you no understand that. You clearly don't understand what 'recuse' means, or you wouldn't have directed a comment to me, demanding that I make a response.
If someone at the office catches a cold from an co-worker, they don't care who brought the cold to work, they care that they have a cold, and are going to feel unwell, have to buy medicines etc...
It doesn't matter who started it What matters, is that the EU are interested in the situation, the EU are discussing the situation, and could potentially come to a decision, which, based on things as they stand, could make this game cease to exist! So no, I am not 'making him a scapegoat', I pointed out the potentially massive impacts of this issue as a global whole and made a suggestion for how it could potentially be remedied. Which is more than you have done! All you have done, is made snarky comments, and been dismissive. But as has been already made very clear, Cryptic won't listen to me, and so I have better things to do than wasting my time arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin with someone who doesn't even grasp the fundamental impacts of the situation, and who is more interested in making snarky comments, and continuing an argument, than being constructive. If y'all want to continue discussing this amongst yourselves, go right ahead, but please don't direct any further comments to me about it. I really am not interested. I've made my suggestion for Cryptic at the top of pg 3, I've done my part, my conscience is clear, and I'm not prepared to waste my time conjecturing, debating, speculating, or otherwise discussing the topic with anyone.
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
- It will normally not matter whether you call them "Buy 3 Lobi and maybe a goodie bonus" or "Test out your luck and gamble for the win box". What will matter is the relative worth of what you get guaranteed to what you are aiming for. So basically the authorities will want to know why players are buying these boxes. Of course that differs, and it isn't easy (things like trading cards have been mentioned).
- Depending on the thrust the whole issue gets and the direction it is going, it may even be better (again: German law) to call them "Test out your luck and gamble", because that wouldn't be a name that could fool players. Though again, it is unlikely that it will matter.
- Generally speaking, semantics of "gambling" vs "winning opportunities" may become important, but it is not a matter what Cryptic says or what we say. And it is a sliding scale, there are functional differences whether everything you get is of the same type (a playing card, a toy, ...) and those where it isn't.
- Whatever you think about politicians, they have no influence whatsoever here. And there is no "They" who want to get games shut down, because there is no political agenda as such behind it. This is also not about "new regulations" or suchlike but about the interpretation of already existing laws.
- The actual odds may be required to be published, and the actual odds may have an influence on a decision (i. e. when the worth of a "baseline win" is high enough), but just publishing the odds will not make the BPJM go away.
Gotta disagree here though. What price is "insane" is easily up to debate - even a short lived game may give you more time of entertainment than some concerts, sports events, movies, ... The issue would be more one of hidden costs, that you "have to" pay more to get a full game. STO should be pretty save in that regard though.
People already have a hard time accepting the consequences of their decisions if they were well informed. Yes, many should get more adult with this. But at the same time that cannot mean that everything is fair game. Especially again if it is accessible for people who just aren't adults yet (i. e. kids).
To be honest, your emphatic contributions do come across a bit as "screaming and raging". But to me less in the "he's loud and obnoxious" way, more in the "he's panicky and uncoordinated like a headless chicken" way. If we want to understand what may be going on (because this mostly is understanding, we won't indeed change anything), we would need clear analysis. Repitition of a mantra "this isn't gambling" won't help, we first need a clear understanding of how "gambling" is defined in this special case. Lockboxes in STO may easily not be gambling, but they may just as easily be. "We just need to rebrand it" - as has been said, no. Repeating it won't help. You don't want STO to shut down. Understood, neither do other players. You're looking for scapegoats like some politician or people not adult enough to face consequences of their actions, and you may just as well be correct that they are to blame for the situation, but the blame game doesn't solve problems.
Please don't understand this as a personal attack, it isn't meant as one. I emphasize with what you are trying to do, but I have the feeling you are shooting yourself an arrow into the knee here. Doing something for the sake of doing something is often enough the only course of action that can solve a problem. But more often it is not, and legal matters usually belong in this second group.
POSTIDENT however is not an ID, but a way to confirm your ID using the postal service (Deutsche Post).
Basically, if you expect some form of mail that requires verification (like the German equivalent of an R-Rated movie on Bluray, or maybe a credit card for you), the postal worker who will deliver the item or the post office where you collect the item will make the check, and the postal service will provide the neccessary paperwork to the person sending you the item, confirming that everything was in order.
It would probably still be awkard to do this for a F2P MMO, and it would present a hurdle to overcome not just for a kid, but also an adult player, but it might be preferrable to losing all those customers.
That is basically the most low tech / offline version. Apparently the post also has a video chat sstem.
Oh, and new German passports ("Personalausweis") can be equipped with a chip that could also be used online, but it's not a default feature yet I think, or rather, you have to say that you want that feature available. (It doesn't cost extra, but you will need a reader to use it for anything.)
you need to talk about seating and traits. also HP and shields, turn rates... is there a site that has all these where you can sort and see?
Lock box ships are ahead. Tact Dread-carrier is ONLY on lockbox. Lock box ships are better by per stats.
Look at Escorts @ L60
These are all the Zen store ships you can buy - next is the Fleet version - Fleet does not come with trait or consoles!
Advanced Escort - 41,333/45,466
Tactical Escort - 40,000/44K
Phantom Intel Escort - 38,000/41.8K
Mercury Class Pilot Escort - 38,800 <- No fleet version
Theseus Temporal Escort - 36,000/39.6K
Caitian Shikaris Escort - 40,000/44K
Lobi - gotten from lock boxes also only character 1 time ship
NX Escort Refit - 45,000
Several Lock Box ships - Yes not all LB ships have super high hulls.
Amarie-class Smuggler's Heavy Escort - 46,000
Jem'Hadar Recon Ship - 46,000
Jem'Hadar Strike Ship - 46,000
Still saying LB ships are not better? BS, look at ship stats. Sure not all LB ship is better than the previous LB ship but on average a LB ship is superior.
We can apply various skins to our ships... there is no reason to put actual ships in LBs but to generate money cause those are better ships. Again they wont make you god and one shot people or content, but on paper looking at stats, seating etc... no question LBS edge out regular ships.
However, by that point, they might as well remove keys and just sell Lobi in the cstore, directly.
> No lockbox ships are not better, they have slightly higher base hull & shields because they are already fleet grade when you get them. Fleet versions of c-store ships are at the same level of hull & shields. Traits and consoles are irrelevant and always will be no matter what ship your talking about. There is no "must have" trait or console that exists anywhere in the game, most of the time I utterly ignore traits & consoles because they have no impact whatsoever into how good the ship is. I might have 1 ship thats actually using the consoke that came with it. Boff seating for Lockbox/Lobi ships is the same as c-store ships (in terms of available number of Boff skills) with fewer options on spec seating (for example the Walker class has a Lt. & an Ensign spec seat, extremely limited, the Event Nandi has better spec seating with one seat).
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> Lockbox/Lobi ships are exactly on par with fleet or fleet grade ships (ie Event ships, c-store ships like the Command Battlecruiser that are fleet grade out of the box, etc). Individual ship classes may be slightly ahead in one area or another, but they will be correspondingly lacking in another. At no point in the history of the game has any ship ever been just flatly better than all others, and they never will be.
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Your first sentence doesn't really make sense and is really just wrong. If you look closely at stats Lockbox and lobi ships have higher shield and hull modifies then fleet ships. So they generally have slightly better stats overall then c-store and fleet ships. They generally also have more flexible boff layout with more universal stations.
Like this thing...are germans not going to have easter eggs this year, because it's "gambling?"