Missions removed for renovation...it's been 4 years

jandraelune

You have had more then enough time to make the changes and place them back into the mix. There is continuity issue's with so many missing missions. Some have important tie in stories: Kuvah'Mogh, Undine, Smiley, Section 31, Hirogen, Captain Kurland, True Way. Some of these missions rewarded unique items, still at current no means of obtaining these.

If leveling too fast is an issue, simply reduce the exp gain in the mission reward. Don't remove story for that reason.

pottsey5g

I don't understand why some of the best missions in the game have been removed. The mission with Q was loads of fun. SB24 was tons of fun and needs bringing back. No Win the Original is way better then the rubbish current version we have now. Just yesterday a bunch of people in game where talking about how they miss it.

marty123

It hasn’t been 4 years since the Klingon War missions were taken down for mantinace

jandraelune

marty123#3757 wrote: »

It hasn’t been 4 years since the Klingon War missions were taken down for mantinace

For most it has been 4yrs, others just recent only a few months.

ilithyn

Except stuff like the Section 31 and True Way stuff wasn't removed for retooling, they were removed full stop. And in the case of the True Way storyline replaced with something else.
You're mixing together apples and oranges here.

trekpuppy

I have a reasonable explanation to why we see this trend with removed missions. As Cryptic adds to or modifies the game engine, old content will inevitably break. Cryptic has currently no method to recover the cost for developers to fix this breakage. As the number of old missions grow, so does the developer cost to maintain them in a working state. At some point this cost will reach into your profits in a way that can't be financially justifiable and the only solution is to simply remove these missions and forget about them.

SUGGESTION: There's a lot of people regularly asking for the old missions. But there are also lots of players who would like to replay old events for whatever gimmick or accolade was the reward. Couldn't this content be put behind a pay wall? Sell tokens in the C-store to access these old missions and events and put a price on those tokens to cover the developer cost needed to keep them working.

ilithyn

trekpuppy wrote: »

I have a reasonable explanation to why we see this trend with removed missions. As Cryptic adds to or modifies the game engine, old content will inevitably break. Cryptic has currently no method to recover the cost for developers to fix this breakage. As the number of old missions grow, so does the developer cost to maintain them in a working state. At some point this cost will reach into your profits in a way that can't be financially justifiable and the only solution is to simply remove these missions and forget about them.

SUGGESTION: There's a lot of people regularly asking for the old missions. But there are also lots of players who would like to replay old events for whatever gimmick or accolade was the reward. Couldn't this content be put behind a pay wall? Sell tokens in the C-store to access these old missions and events and put a price on those tokens to cover the developer cost needed to keep them working.

I'm rarely one to say never because I'm old enough to have learned the dangers in that, never is a very long time and no one knows what will happen down the road.
That said this is extremely unlikely to happen because it would be a complete and radical break with how Cryptic/PWE run their games which is that no content at all is behind a paywall. Their whole gimmick (and I'd say what they survive on) is that everything is accessible for free, especially content like missions as that's what this specific game is all about.

As for the removed content I can't recall all of it, but I do recall the Section 31 stuff and the old True Way arc. They were bad, boring and confusing. I understand why they were removed in the name of if not good, then at least decent, storytelling.

As for rerun of events? They've repeatedly stated that, apart from the recruitment ones, where they've already rerun Delta and said they were considering the Temporal one for a future rerun too, it isn't happening. I see no reason to doubt their word as that's how basically all mmos operate, if you're there for an event you get the reward for it. If not, touch luck. It's how they keep players logging in regularly and they have zero reason to change that.

ilithyn

trekpuppy wrote: »

I have a reasonable explanation to why we see this trend with removed missions. As Cryptic adds to or modifies the game engine, old content will inevitably break. Cryptic has currently no method to recover the cost for developers to fix this breakage. As the number of old missions grow, so does the developer cost to maintain them in a working state. At some point this cost will reach into your profits in a way that can't be financially justifiable and the only solution is to simply remove these missions and forget about them.

SUGGESTION: There's a lot of people regularly asking for the old missions. But there are also lots of players who would like to replay old events for whatever gimmick or accolade was the reward. Couldn't this content be put behind a pay wall? Sell tokens in the C-store to access these old missions and events and put a price on those tokens to cover the developer cost needed to keep them working.

I'm rarely one to say never, but this would break Cryptic/PWE's whole business model that the story/main part of the game is not locked away behind any type of payment. This is at least as far as the missions goes.
Also, while I can't recall all the missions that was removed permanently, the Section 31 and True Way ones were removed because of bad storytelling and pacing, which in all honestly was true. Why would they bring back content they've officially judged bad? Like it wasn't because it broke, it was because they thought it was terrible (and personally I agree with their assessment, but of course that's a matter of taste).
The Klingon stuff doesn't count here as they've stated repeatedly that it isn't permanently gone, only being retooled.

Events? Which one do you want them to bring back for pay? They've already said they're considering doing more of the recruitment events as returns. The featured episode arcs happens now and again too, so that'll happen again when they feel like bringing it back, possibly when there's a hole in the content. Every other event I can think of happens regularly, but with differing rewards and yeah, they're not going to bring old rewards back for an event, that's what the Phoenix boxes are for.

trekpuppy

I was merely suggesting a way to earn revenue on content that was already created but removed and that players have expressed a wish to have access to again. When it comes to Cryptic's business philosophy - they have changed it at least once based on changing circumstances in the gaming industry. If these circumstances were to change again in the future, I would be surprised if they didn't adapt.

jandraelune

Events involving Section 31 and the Mirror empire is referenced in current playable content in some bits. The icon for the arc is James O'Brien. The son of Smiley ( James O'Brien ) is the Empire, Leeta is just the local Bajoran leader.

Undine story starts way early in at least the Fed line, but with out the Section 31/Cardasian missions and of course the Undine's own missions it just falls flat there to way later get some minor attention in which it gets swept under the rug again.

Section 31's Drake is still in game in parts, now mostly just for the KDF start.

ilithyn

trekpuppy wrote: »

I have a reasonable explanation to why we see this trend with removed missions. As Cryptic adds to or modifies the game engine, old content will inevitably break. Cryptic has currently no method to recover the cost for developers to fix this breakage. As the number of old missions grow, so does the developer cost to maintain them in a working state. At some point this cost will reach into your profits in a way that can't be financially justifiable and the only solution is to simply remove these missions and forget about them.

SUGGESTION: There's a lot of people regularly asking for the old missions. But there are also lots of players who would like to replay old events for whatever gimmick or accolade was the reward. Couldn't this content be put behind a pay wall? Sell tokens in the C-store to access these old missions and events and put a price on those tokens to cover the developer cost needed to keep them working.

I'm rarely one to say never because I'm old enough to have learned the dangers in that, never is a very long time and no one knows what will happen down the road.
That said this is extremely unlikely to happen because it would be a complete and radical break with how Cryptic/PWE run their games which is that no content at all is behind a paywall. Their whole gimmick (and I'd say what they survive on) is that everything is accessible for free, especially content like missions as that's what this specific game is all about.

As for the removed content I can't recall all of it, but I do recall the Section 31 stuff and the old True Way arc. They were bad, boring and confusing. I understand why they were removed in the name of if not good, then at least decent, storytelling.

As for rerun of events? They've repeatedly stated that apart from the recruitment ones where they've already rerun Delta and said they were considering the Temporal one for a future rerun too, it isn't happening. I see no reason to doubt their word as that's how basically all mmos operate, if you're there for an event you get the reward for it. If not, touch luck. It's how they keep players logging in regularly and they have zero reason to change that.

trekpuppy

ilithyn wrote: »

That said this is extremely unlikely to happen because it would be a complete and radical break with how Cryptic/PWE run their games which is that no content at all is behind a paywall. Their whole gimmick (and I'd say what they survive on) is that everything is accessible for free, especially content like missions as that's what this specific game is all about.

From empirical observations I'm inclined to agree with you. It still baffles me though. The old assets exists in the game and their development time has already been paid for. Selling access to it to people who missed them back then would be free money. If a paywall on Holodeck is the problem, I have an alternative suggestion:

A couple of years ago, the devs created a temporary shard with the Season 1 game code and let us play for a while there just to relive those old memories and for the fun. This shows they can create new shards at will and that they keep old code around. How about creating an extra shard where they rotate the old game code from the previous anniversaries and events? You could buy a token in the C-store to access this new shard and upon use you're prompted for which of your characters you want copied. Connect to this shard and grind out the anniversary/event account unlocked ship and accolade and on completion this status will be updated on the same character on Holodeck. This would keep paywalls away from Holodeck and a snapshot of the old game code would theoretically run out of the box.

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