Any RMT sites or ads you see today are scams, pure and simple. There is no gold, no zen, no dil, there is no ship, nothing that is actually for sale. They promise you that so you give them your CC info and/or account info which they then steal. They have zero effect on the in game economy because they do not participate in it beyond robbing you.
This is not true. Companies go to great lengths to track and remove these goldseller accounts. If they were all fake and had no impact, nothing would be done to try and prevent them from operating within the game.
True - but they do so BECAUSE the RMT/Goldseller 'companies' use stolen/fraudulent card and or personal info, which eventually results in charagebacks/lost revenue, etc. for the MMO developer. Plus all the time spent fixing TRIBBLE accounts, etc. cost their support team money and doesn't help the image of the game (IE - the TRIBBLE player(s) affected will probably have a bad view of the game and the developer - and thuus will not bring in more players, and may turn away players that had a passing interest in trying said game.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
As for putting something on the cstore vs making it a promo ship, it makes sense business wise why they made it a promo ship vs just a cstore. What's going to be more profitable per ship, $30 one time for the entire account, or potentially $200 for each copy of the ship they want?.
Which brings me back to my original point. You don't know the answer to this unless you know the elasticity of demand. The only way to know that is to conduct an actual test. This hasn't been done.
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STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
As for putting something on the cstore vs making it a promo ship, it makes sense business wise why they made it a promo ship vs just a cstore. What's going to be more profitable per ship, $30 one time for the entire account, or potentially $200 for each copy of the ship they want?.
Which brings me back to my original point. You don't know the answer to this unless you know the elasticity of demand. The only way to know that is to conduct an actual test. This hasn't been done.
Oh...but it has. Internally at cryptic. And they know what ships people are willing to shell out the big bucks for and which ones they are not.
It's impossible to do "internally".
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STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
As for putting something on the cstore vs making it a promo ship, it makes sense business wise why they made it a promo ship vs just a cstore. What's going to be more profitable per ship, $30 one time for the entire account, or potentially $200 for each copy of the ship they want?.
Which brings me back to my original point. You don't know the answer to this unless you know the elasticity of demand. The only way to know that is to conduct an actual test. This hasn't been done.
They do know the sales for every C-Store ship and every existing lock box and R&D pack ship. They know how the C-Store Defiant versions sold, the Voyager ships, the T-1 Connie, other TV show ships.
They have almost 10 years worth of data so they can make a much better estimation than just a wild guess.
As for putting something on the cstore vs making it a promo ship, it makes sense business wise why they made it a promo ship vs just a cstore. What's going to be more profitable per ship, $30 one time for the entire account, or potentially $200 for each copy of the ship they want?.
Which brings me back to my original point. You don't know the answer to this unless you know the elasticity of demand. The only way to know that is to conduct an actual test. This hasn't been done.
Oh...but it has. Internally at cryptic. And they know what ships people are willing to shell out the big bucks for and which ones they are not.
It's impossible to do "internally".
This is wholly incorrect. Cryptic can track how well every ship sells on the cstore, how many of each boxes are opened, and how many promo packs are opened. This data is not publicly available unless they decide to release it. Simply because you or I don't have access to the results of said test doesn't make the test invalid. All that matters is that Cryptic can see the sales, and I can tell you with 100% certainty they do see them.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
This is wholly incorrect. Cryptic can track how well every ship sells on the cstore, how many of each boxes are opened, and how many promo packs are opened. This data is not publicly available unless they decide to release it. Simply because you or I don't have access to the results of said test doesn't make the test invalid. All that matters is that Cryptic can see the sales, and I can tell you with 100% certainty they do see them.
Not only this, but Cryptic has a vested interest in keeping those numbers under wraps. In fact, if they ever released the actual lock box/promo ship drop rates that alone would have a significant effect on player behaviors as it would be possible to calculate accurate values for the precise "cost" of using a key or opening a promo pack. It's no accident, nor is it simple "greed", that the Disco Connie ended up in a promo pack, it was certainly a deliberate and very calculated decision by Cryptic to maximize their profits over the long term. Interestingly enough, you could still argue whether putting the Disco Connie in the C-store might have given them more total income from sales at the time the ship was first launched. I suspect that their calculation was not based only on launch but rather on the use of the promo pack sales over time, i.e., with the promo pack route they can likely get far more total money due to the high cost/limited demand of the time compared to if it were permanently available in the C-store. They have already had multiple "flash sales" for the Disco Connie packs and can generate a spike in sales "on demand" by putting the promo packs back up for a brief period of time. I suspect this is also very attractive if they want or need to generate more income near the end of a quarter, i.e., for shareholder purposes, as it gives Cryptic somewhat more control over income trends.
Interestingly enough, you could still argue whether putting the Disco Connie in the C-store might have given them more total income from sales at the time the ship was first launched. I suspect that their calculation was not based only on launch but rather on the use of the promo pack sales over time, i.e., with the promo pack route they can likely get far more total money due to the high cost/limited demand of the time compared to if it were permanently available in the C-store. They have already had multiple "flash sales" for the Disco Connie packs and can generate a spike in sales "on demand" by putting the promo packs back up for a brief period of time. I suspect this is also very attractive if they want or need to generate more income near the end of a quarter, i.e., for shareholder purposes, as it gives Cryptic somewhat more control over income trends.
It's my belief that Cryptic didn't really have a choice.
Now the following is personal opinion only and is in no way a claim of any knowledge of Cryptic's sales numbers or methodology. That being said..
We do know that in the past Cryptic was regulated in distribution of the Constitution class by CBS. We do know that when CBS did finally relent on the concept of an 'end game connie' that they wanted the ship to be rare.
It's my opinion, that Crytpic simply wasn't allowed to sell the ship for Zen. Imagine if the Discoprise was in the C-Store for 3,000 Zen. They would be.. everywhere.. it would be the most common ship in the game bar none. I am pretty sure that CBS is still not cool with that idea. That only left Cryptic with sales options that are non C-Store.
We were told by Cryptic that Promo box was the 'only viable way' the ship could be distributed but of course, they didn't elaborate on that. My guess is that they don't want to just come out and say it and throw CBS under the bus. I honestly have no idea how much they would have made putting the ship in the C-Store vs. the R&D Promo track.. but I do believe that it was never a choice to begin with.
Again, I can prove none of this.. it's just my opinion based on the information that I do have.
Any RMT sites or ads you see today are scams, pure and simple. There is no gold, no zen, no dil, there is no ship, nothing that is actually for sale. They promise you that so you give them your CC info and/or account info which they then steal. They have zero effect on the in game economy because they do not participate in it beyond robbing you.
This is not true. Companies go to great lengths to track and remove these goldseller accounts. If they were all fake and had no impact, nothing would be done to try and prevent them from operating within the game.
Nothing would be done to prevent scammers from operating in the game, preying on customers, some of who invariably get the idea that these scam sites are a better place to spend money than in the game itself? No, there is still plenty of reason to go after them, moreso in fact given that they are scams.
As for putting something on the cstore vs making it a promo ship, it makes sense business wise why they made it a promo ship vs just a cstore. What's going to be more profitable per ship, $30 one time for the entire account, or potentially $200 for each copy of the ship they want?.
Which brings me back to my original point. You don't know the answer to this unless you know the elasticity of demand. The only way to know that is to conduct an actual test. This hasn't been done.
Oh...but it has. Internally at cryptic. And they know what ships people are willing to shell out the big bucks for and which ones they are not.
It's impossible to do "internally".
Okay what the hell nonsense is this?!? You are telling me that Cryptic can't tell their own SALES RECORDS?!? SERIOUSLY?!? I know I give the devs a lot of flak lately for what they are doing to this game...but they ain't THAT stupid as to not include something like this on the back end. Come on people...are we really getting to a level of stupid in this world where somebody actually thinks that a company doesn't know how much of something it sold?!? Holy jeebus this is scary.
I *hope* that what they are saying is that it's impossible to know what the C-Store sales of a Connie would be compared to R&D pack, without actually doing both.
Which is kinda sorta true, if you ignore that Cryptic does know the C-Store sales for other TV show & movie ships, and knows the lock box and R&D pack sales for other ships.
Cryptic can estimate potential C-Store Connie sales based on T1 Connie, Defiant variants, Voyager variants, etc. but they can't "know" exactly what those sales would be.
But they don't need to know exact numbers to know they make a lot more money selling through lock boxes and packs.
Nothing would be done to prevent scammers from operating in the game, preying on customers, some of who invariably get the idea that these scam sites are a better place to spend money than in the game itself? No, there is still plenty of reason to go after them, moreso in fact given that they are scams.
This makes little to no sense. There are gold sellers that have been in business for a very long time. Either they ripped off every single person who used them and no ripped off customer or bank or credit card company reported them to the authorities ever or they have happy customers. You can go on YouTube or Google right now and find a whole host of videos and documentaries about the subject. The notion these sites are all just fake in that they never sell anything or have no inventory is false. Sure, there are a lot of scam sites out there and games don't want the headache. It's just inaccurate to say they all are.
I mean, a now defunct NCSoft game just posted they are now tracking gold sellers and have banned all kinds of accounts because of it and removed tens of billions of in-game currency. If there was no inventory to sell, this wouldn't have occurred.
As a company its in your best interests to fight these, based purely on the assumption that they are scams or that they are legit and undercutting the economy. It doesn't matter which is true. You don't get any profit from them being active and run the risk of them turning off customers who lost money or who don't take your in house route to get ingame money.
As a consumer it is always your best interest to assume its a scam because you may have no recourse if something goes wrong. If they steal your money, you may not be able to get it back. If they steal your account, you may not be able to get it back. If you get actual goods you may end up getting banned for the deal. Don't trust them, assume its a scam. It probably is.
Since its widely believed most of these sites are based in China, what authorities do you report to? The Chinese government cares absolutely zero about their people ripping off citizens of other countries. They encourage it.
Is it always a scam though? No, that is true, especially not in older games like City of Heroes (which I assume is the game you're talking about) and the current version I know about is completely free so you can't use money to get any ingame anything at all. That is a prime market for the more legitimate gold sellers to set up shop. But that is an apples and microchips comparison because in STO, and more modern games, as well as those old games that have evolved, many of them have built in ways to convert real money to in game wealth somehow like key selling, thus the demand isn't there so you see far more scammers instead of legit gold selling.
Remember, actual gold selling came around because of the demand for such a thing. Cryptic and other companies undercut it by allowing for a secure, legitimate way of turning real $$ to game $$ so the demand is able to be satisfied, which is why in this game its not a realistic assumption to imagine they are legit sites that do enough business to really mess with the economy. And given the utter rarity of getting these spam scam emails in game these days, I'd say its definitely not a threat if it were real.
Interestingly enough, you could still argue whether putting the Disco Connie in the C-store might have given them more total income from sales at the time the ship was first launched. I suspect that their calculation was not based only on launch but rather on the use of the promo pack sales over time, i.e., with the promo pack route they can likely get far more total money due to the high cost/limited demand of the time compared to if it were permanently available in the C-store. They have already had multiple "flash sales" for the Disco Connie packs and can generate a spike in sales "on demand" by putting the promo packs back up for a brief period of time. I suspect this is also very attractive if they want or need to generate more income near the end of a quarter, i.e., for shareholder purposes, as it gives Cryptic somewhat more control over income trends.
It's my belief that Cryptic didn't really have a choice.
Now the following is personal opinion only and is in no way a claim of any knowledge of Cryptic's sales numbers or methodology. That being said..
We do know that in the past Cryptic was regulated in distribution of the Constitution class by CBS. We do know that when CBS did finally relent on the concept of an 'end game connie' that they wanted the ship to be rare.
It's my opinion, that Crytpic simply wasn't allowed to sell the ship for Zen. Imagine if the Discoprise was in the C-Store for 3,000 Zen. They would be.. everywhere.. it would be the most common ship in the game bar none. I am pretty sure that CBS is still not cool with that idea. That only left Cryptic with sales options that are non C-Store.
We were told by Cryptic that Promo box was the 'only viable way' the ship could be distributed but of course, they didn't elaborate on that. My guess is that they don't want to just come out and say it and throw CBS under the bus. I honestly have no idea how much they would have made putting the ship in the C-Store vs. the R&D Promo track.. but I do believe that it was never a choice to begin with.
Again, I can prove none of this.. it's just my opinion based on the information that I do have.
I could see that the first Promo Connie was more to appease CBS requirements for rarity than anything else, but ambassadorkael clearly stated that they are releasing other ships - like the DSC Connie - because they just make a lot more money from them this way.
They still have ships like the Sovereign, Intrepid, Galaxy or Defiant Class that are sold in the C-Store, so Cryptic has good comparison data in what they can make with hero ships dependent on their chosen release way.
Absent of having ay actual numbers, we can always make the claim "but they haven't tested X yet, maybe that would work even better".... But once they have done "X", we could say "but they haven't tested Y yet, maybe that would work even better" - but clearly, that's just moving goalposts because some can't accept that Cryptic's method is proven and just fracking works fine.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Okay what the hell nonsense is this?!? You are telling me that Cryptic can't tell their own SALES RECORDS?!? SERIOUSLY?!? I know I give the devs a lot of flak lately for what they are doing to this game...but they ain't THAT stupid as to not include something like this on the back end. Come on people...are we really getting to a level of stupid in this world where somebody actually thinks that a company doesn't know how much of something it sold?!? Holy jeebus this is scary.
I'm not telling you anything of the sort. I would sit down and give you an econ lecture - such has been done to me - but, you cannot determine the elasticity of demand "internally".
I'm told that a particular ship earns more as a lock-box ship than as a c-store ship. This cannot be determined simply by looking solely at the sales figures from the lock-box . Elasticity of demand cannot be determined - in this case - simply by looking at how much revenue the lock box generated. Unless they actually put the ship in the c-store, this simply can't be determined.
It can be guessed at, and they may even get lucky and make an accurate guess. I haven't seen anything that suggests that to be case. As soon as someone shows me some actual numbers, I'll change my mind.
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STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
I *hope* that what they are saying is that it's impossible to know what the C-Store sales of a Connie would be compared to R&D pack, without actually doing both.
Which is kinda sorta absolutely true, if you ignore that Cryptic does know the C-Store sales for other TV show & movie ships, and knows the lock box and R&D pack sales for other ships.
Cryptic can estimate guess potential C-Store Connie sales based on T1 Connie, Defiant variants, Voyager variants, etc. but they can't "know" exactly what those sales would be.
But they don't need to know exact numbers to know they make a lot more money selling through lock boxes and packs.
That's exactly what I'm saying (once I corrected some of your statements).
Ignoring the fact that the lock box ships may be in lock boxes in order to maintain rarity, then if it is a known fact that lock-box ships generate (massively) more income than c-store ships, there is no point in having c-store ships. Which would once again bring into question Cryptic's business acumen.
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STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Interestingly enough, you could still argue whether putting the Disco Connie in the C-store might have given them more total income from sales at the time the ship was first launched. I suspect that their calculation was not based only on launch but rather on the use of the promo pack sales over time, i.e., with the promo pack route they can likely get far more total money due to the high cost/limited demand of the time compared to if it were permanently available in the C-store. They have already had multiple "flash sales" for the Disco Connie packs and can generate a spike in sales "on demand" by putting the promo packs back up for a brief period of time. I suspect this is also very attractive if they want or need to generate more income near the end of a quarter, i.e., for shareholder purposes, as it gives Cryptic somewhat more control over income trends.
It's my belief that Cryptic didn't really have a choice.
Now the following is personal opinion only and is in no way a claim of any knowledge of Cryptic's sales numbers or methodology. That being said..
We do know that in the past Cryptic was regulated in distribution of the Constitution class by CBS. We do know that when CBS did finally relent on the concept of an 'end game connie' that they wanted the ship to be rare.
It's my opinion, that Crytpic simply wasn't allowed to sell the ship for Zen. Imagine if the Discoprise was in the C-Store for 3,000 Zen. They would be.. everywhere.. it would be the most common ship in the game bar none. I am pretty sure that CBS is still not cool with that idea. That only left Cryptic with sales options that are non C-Store.
We were told by Cryptic that Promo box was the 'only viable way' the ship could be distributed but of course, they didn't elaborate on that. My guess is that they don't want to just come out and say it and throw CBS under the bus. I honestly have no idea how much they would have made putting the ship in the C-Store vs. the R&D Promo track.. but I do believe that it was never a choice to begin with.
Again, I can prove none of this.. it's just my opinion based on the information that I do have.
You win today's Stop Making Sense Award. Congratulations on cutting through the c rap and providing a thoughtful, intelligent, on point analysis. Unfortunately there is no monetary component to this award, but you have earned the committee's highest esteem.
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STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
I *hope* that what they are saying is that it's impossible to know what the C-Store sales of a Connie would be compared to R&D pack, without actually doing both.
Which is kinda sorta absolutely true, if you ignore that Cryptic does know the C-Store sales for other TV show & movie ships, and knows the lock box and R&D pack sales for other ships.
Cryptic can estimate guess potential C-Store Connie sales based on T1 Connie, Defiant variants, Voyager variants, etc. but they can't "know" exactly what those sales would be.
But they don't need to know exact numbers to know they make a lot more money selling through lock boxes and packs.
That's exactly what I'm saying (once I corrected some of your statements).
Ignoring the fact that the lock box ships may be in lock boxes in order to maintain rarity, then if it is a known fact that lock-box ships generate (massively) more income than c-store ships, there is no point in having c-store ships. Which would once again bring into question Cryptic's business acumen.
Knowing that lockbox ships generate more income than C-Store ships does not logically follow that there should be no point in having C-Store ships. Your logic is flawed and yes you can set these things up internally through looking at sales of C-Store ships compared to lockbox ships, Cryptic has these records and we do not. You are not going to win this argument and Dave did not need to be corrected because you disagree with him. Thanks.
I'm not telling you anything of the sort. I would sit down and give you an econ lecture - such has been done to me - but, you cannot determine the elasticity of demand "internally".
I'm told that a particular ship earns more as a lock-box ship than as a c-store ship. This cannot be determined simply by looking solely at the sales figures from the lock-box . Elasticity of demand cannot be determined - in this case - simply by looking at how much revenue the lock box generated. Unless they actually put the ship in the c-store, this simply can't be determined.
It can be guessed at, and they may even get lucky and make an accurate guess. I haven't seen anything that suggests that to be case. As soon as someone shows me some actual numbers, I'll change my mind.
You know what they can do? Assume that every registered account buys a T6 Constitution in the C-Store for 3000 Zen. (# of registered accounts) X (3000 Zen) = (Maximum amount possible to earn without new registered accounts being created). That's definitely a figure that anyone with rudimentary math skills could calculate. All one needs are those actual numbers, which Cryptic does have. They have plenty of C-Store sales figures that they could use to estimate a more realistic response, but they could definitely do that internally. And they have nearly 10 years worth of promo ship data to help estimate promo related sales.
Marketing a product is always based on estimating a market's response based on known data to arrive at a "best guess" and then determining the best strategy based on those estimates. Of course, you can't have "hard numbers" for future sales. No one can do that. But it's not luck, it's educated analysis of the known data they do have. You can try to armchair quarterback this thing all you want, you have literally no basis, i.e. no numbers, to back up your claims. And no one owes you any numbers, either. Personally, I don't care to change your mind. Just stop talking nonsense.
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
You win today's Stop Making Sense Award. Congratulations on cutting through the c rap and providing a thoughtful, intelligent, on point analysis. Unfortunately there is no monetary component to this award, but you have earned the committee's highest esteem.
I wish I had prepared a speech.. I have so many people to thank!
You know what they can do? Assume that every registered account buys a T6 Constitution in the C-Store for 3000 Zen. (# of registered accounts) X (3000 Zen) = (Maximum amount possible to earn without new registered accounts being created). That's definitely a figure that anyone with rudimentary math skills could calculate. All one needs are those actual numbers, which Cryptic does have. They have plenty of C-Store sales figures that they could use to estimate a more realistic response, but they could definitely do that internally. And they have nearly 10 years worth of promo ship data to help estimate promo related sales.
Marketing a product is always based on estimating a market's response based on known data to arrive at a "best guess" and then determining the best strategy based on those estimates. Of course, you can't have "hard numbers" for future sales. No one can do that. But it's not luck, it's educated analysis of the known data they do have.
This is an excellent assessment of how things actually are. Anyone with even a basic study of economics knows that having 10 years of sales data is more then enough to extrapolate a safe estimate for comparison. It's always a game of 'projections' which are essentially guesses.. but those guesses are highly educated guesses made using years of comprehensive data.
Cryptic can absolutely calculate projected profits from a C-Store item.. in fact, they could do this quite easily.
All I know is I had been saving-up for that Hur'q Ravager ship for a couple of months. That Strike Wing Escort & Cruiser to Carrier transition happened & poof. The price then has jumped-up about 30-33%.
So back to the road to keep on saving-up or abandon the idea. Just like a lot of things sold & bought though I had a more emotional reason behind buying that Ravager since I had a themed idea for it's build I wanted to try more than a practical build at least since I know it is not the best ship out there.
Not happy a bit about it, but I know these type of things happen, but it sure does seem prices overall have inflated recently on most items in-game.
Not happy a bit about it, but I know these type of things happen, but it sure does seem prices overall have inflated recently on most items in-game.
It really depends. RND-promos happen way more often now, so yeah.. those ships are way more available now and thus a bit cheaper than before (still expensive if you're buying).
Lockbox-ships, depending on their popularity tend to have the same price-curves as pretty much always. Price starts high at around 700m, gradually lowers to 400-500m, and then slowly rises again over time.
All I know is I had been saving-up for that Hur'q Ravager ship for a couple of months. That Strike Wing Escort & Cruiser to Carrier transition happened & poof. The price then has jumped-up about 30-33%.
So back to the road to keep on saving-up or abandon the idea. Just like a lot of things sold & bought though I had a more emotional reason behind buying that Ravager since I had a themed idea for it's build I wanted to try more than a practical build at least since I know it is not the best ship out there.
Not happy a bit about it, but I know these type of things happen, but it sure does seem prices overall have inflated recently on most items in-game.
Lock box ship prices tend to dip a bit during an Infinity Lock Box period, then rise when some new lock box replaces it. That's because people open more of whatever the current lock box is, taking the place of opening infinity and reducing the supply of older ships.
Keep saving, and wait for the next Infinity event.
What makes a 300 or 3000 dollar ship better then a 30 dollar ship? Is there any advantage in paying more for a ship thats in a lock box compared to one thats on a C-Store? I may be somewhat ignorant but why pay hundreds even thousands of US dollars on a ship when a 30 or 40 dollar ship works and functions on equal ground? Am I missing something here?
Except for looks is there any tactical advantages? If it a certain ship type you want and want to have if you work hard I can see it to farm for or buy as far as favorite ships go. However tactical advantages wise whats the difference?
If it is just a off the wall ship someone drew up and then find it way in a lock box why should I pay 300 or 3000 dollars on it when I got other T6 ships that work just as well?
What makes a 300 or 3000 dollar ship better then a 30 dollar ship? Is there any advantage in paying more for a ship thats in a lock box compared to one thats on a C-Store? I may be somewhat ignorant but why pay hundreds even thousands of US dollars on a ship when a 30 or 40 dollar ship works and functions on equal ground? Am I missing something here?
Except for looks is there any tactical advantages? If it a certain ship type you want and want to have if you work hard I can see it to farm for or buy as far as favorite ships go. However tactical advantages wise whats the difference?
If it is just a off the wall ship someone drew up and then find it way in a lock box why should I pay 300 or 3000 dollars on it when I got other T6 ships that work just as well?
You should be able to get the R&D pack ships for under 200 dollars from the exchange if you do it right. So anyone paying 300+ is doing it wrong.
Some of them are a little better, but the reason people buy them is:
Space Barbie is the real endgame
There is nothing to "win" in STO, so you can't pay2win. What you can pay to do is be Captain Awesome flying around in your favorite ship from TV or the movies going pew pew pew.
I'm too thrifty (cheap, tightwad) to buy and too lazy to grind for it, but I'd love to have my TOS captain flying a T6 Connie. Someday I might give in to that yearning and open my wallet.
I do own a bunch of lock box and lobi ships for different characters that I've bought from the exchange. For me 200-500 million is easier to justify than 1.2+ billion.
Comments
True - but they do so BECAUSE the RMT/Goldseller 'companies' use stolen/fraudulent card and or personal info, which eventually results in charagebacks/lost revenue, etc. for the MMO developer. Plus all the time spent fixing TRIBBLE accounts, etc. cost their support team money and doesn't help the image of the game (IE - the TRIBBLE player(s) affected will probably have a bad view of the game and the developer - and thuus will not bring in more players, and may turn away players that had a passing interest in trying said game.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Which brings me back to my original point. You don't know the answer to this unless you know the elasticity of demand. The only way to know that is to conduct an actual test. This hasn't been done.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
It's impossible to do "internally".
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
They do know the sales for every C-Store ship and every existing lock box and R&D pack ship. They know how the C-Store Defiant versions sold, the Voyager ships, the T-1 Connie, other TV show ships.
They have almost 10 years worth of data so they can make a much better estimation than just a wild guess.
This is wholly incorrect. Cryptic can track how well every ship sells on the cstore, how many of each boxes are opened, and how many promo packs are opened. This data is not publicly available unless they decide to release it. Simply because you or I don't have access to the results of said test doesn't make the test invalid. All that matters is that Cryptic can see the sales, and I can tell you with 100% certainty they do see them.
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Not only this, but Cryptic has a vested interest in keeping those numbers under wraps. In fact, if they ever released the actual lock box/promo ship drop rates that alone would have a significant effect on player behaviors as it would be possible to calculate accurate values for the precise "cost" of using a key or opening a promo pack. It's no accident, nor is it simple "greed", that the Disco Connie ended up in a promo pack, it was certainly a deliberate and very calculated decision by Cryptic to maximize their profits over the long term. Interestingly enough, you could still argue whether putting the Disco Connie in the C-store might have given them more total income from sales at the time the ship was first launched. I suspect that their calculation was not based only on launch but rather on the use of the promo pack sales over time, i.e., with the promo pack route they can likely get far more total money due to the high cost/limited demand of the time compared to if it were permanently available in the C-store. They have already had multiple "flash sales" for the Disco Connie packs and can generate a spike in sales "on demand" by putting the promo packs back up for a brief period of time. I suspect this is also very attractive if they want or need to generate more income near the end of a quarter, i.e., for shareholder purposes, as it gives Cryptic somewhat more control over income trends.
It's my belief that Cryptic didn't really have a choice.
Now the following is personal opinion only and is in no way a claim of any knowledge of Cryptic's sales numbers or methodology. That being said..
We do know that in the past Cryptic was regulated in distribution of the Constitution class by CBS. We do know that when CBS did finally relent on the concept of an 'end game connie' that they wanted the ship to be rare.
It's my opinion, that Crytpic simply wasn't allowed to sell the ship for Zen. Imagine if the Discoprise was in the C-Store for 3,000 Zen. They would be.. everywhere.. it would be the most common ship in the game bar none. I am pretty sure that CBS is still not cool with that idea. That only left Cryptic with sales options that are non C-Store.
We were told by Cryptic that Promo box was the 'only viable way' the ship could be distributed but of course, they didn't elaborate on that. My guess is that they don't want to just come out and say it and throw CBS under the bus. I honestly have no idea how much they would have made putting the ship in the C-Store vs. the R&D Promo track.. but I do believe that it was never a choice to begin with.
Again, I can prove none of this.. it's just my opinion based on the information that I do have.
Nothing would be done to prevent scammers from operating in the game, preying on customers, some of who invariably get the idea that these scam sites are a better place to spend money than in the game itself? No, there is still plenty of reason to go after them, moreso in fact given that they are scams.
I *hope* that what they are saying is that it's impossible to know what the C-Store sales of a Connie would be compared to R&D pack, without actually doing both.
Which is kinda sorta true, if you ignore that Cryptic does know the C-Store sales for other TV show & movie ships, and knows the lock box and R&D pack sales for other ships.
Cryptic can estimate potential C-Store Connie sales based on T1 Connie, Defiant variants, Voyager variants, etc. but they can't "know" exactly what those sales would be.
But they don't need to know exact numbers to know they make a lot more money selling through lock boxes and packs.
As a company its in your best interests to fight these, based purely on the assumption that they are scams or that they are legit and undercutting the economy. It doesn't matter which is true. You don't get any profit from them being active and run the risk of them turning off customers who lost money or who don't take your in house route to get ingame money.
As a consumer it is always your best interest to assume its a scam because you may have no recourse if something goes wrong. If they steal your money, you may not be able to get it back. If they steal your account, you may not be able to get it back. If you get actual goods you may end up getting banned for the deal. Don't trust them, assume its a scam. It probably is.
Since its widely believed most of these sites are based in China, what authorities do you report to? The Chinese government cares absolutely zero about their people ripping off citizens of other countries. They encourage it.
Is it always a scam though? No, that is true, especially not in older games like City of Heroes (which I assume is the game you're talking about) and the current version I know about is completely free so you can't use money to get any ingame anything at all. That is a prime market for the more legitimate gold sellers to set up shop. But that is an apples and microchips comparison because in STO, and more modern games, as well as those old games that have evolved, many of them have built in ways to convert real money to in game wealth somehow like key selling, thus the demand isn't there so you see far more scammers instead of legit gold selling.
Remember, actual gold selling came around because of the demand for such a thing. Cryptic and other companies undercut it by allowing for a secure, legitimate way of turning real $$ to game $$ so the demand is able to be satisfied, which is why in this game its not a realistic assumption to imagine they are legit sites that do enough business to really mess with the economy. And given the utter rarity of getting these spam scam emails in game these days, I'd say its definitely not a threat if it were real.
I could see that the first Promo Connie was more to appease CBS requirements for rarity than anything else, but ambassadorkael clearly stated that they are releasing other ships - like the DSC Connie - because they just make a lot more money from them this way.
They still have ships like the Sovereign, Intrepid, Galaxy or Defiant Class that are sold in the C-Store, so Cryptic has good comparison data in what they can make with hero ships dependent on their chosen release way.
Absent of having ay actual numbers, we can always make the claim "but they haven't tested X yet, maybe that would work even better".... But once they have done "X", we could say "but they haven't tested Y yet, maybe that would work even better" - but clearly, that's just moving goalposts because some can't accept that Cryptic's method is proven and just fracking works fine.
I'm not telling you anything of the sort. I would sit down and give you an econ lecture - such has been done to me - but, you cannot determine the elasticity of demand "internally".
I'm told that a particular ship earns more as a lock-box ship than as a c-store ship. This cannot be determined simply by looking solely at the sales figures from the lock-box . Elasticity of demand cannot be determined - in this case - simply by looking at how much revenue the lock box generated. Unless they actually put the ship in the c-store, this simply can't be determined.
It can be guessed at, and they may even get lucky and make an accurate guess. I haven't seen anything that suggests that to be case. As soon as someone shows me some actual numbers, I'll change my mind.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
That's exactly what I'm saying (once I corrected some of your statements).
Ignoring the fact that the lock box ships may be in lock boxes in order to maintain rarity, then if it is a known fact that lock-box ships generate (massively) more income than c-store ships, there is no point in having c-store ships. Which would once again bring into question Cryptic's business acumen.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
You win today's Stop Making Sense Award. Congratulations on cutting through the c rap and providing a thoughtful, intelligent, on point analysis. Unfortunately there is no monetary component to this award, but you have earned the committee's highest esteem.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Knowing that lockbox ships generate more income than C-Store ships does not logically follow that there should be no point in having C-Store ships. Your logic is flawed and yes you can set these things up internally through looking at sales of C-Store ships compared to lockbox ships, Cryptic has these records and we do not. You are not going to win this argument and Dave did not need to be corrected because you disagree with him. Thanks.
You know what they can do? Assume that every registered account buys a T6 Constitution in the C-Store for 3000 Zen. (# of registered accounts) X (3000 Zen) = (Maximum amount possible to earn without new registered accounts being created). That's definitely a figure that anyone with rudimentary math skills could calculate. All one needs are those actual numbers, which Cryptic does have. They have plenty of C-Store sales figures that they could use to estimate a more realistic response, but they could definitely do that internally. And they have nearly 10 years worth of promo ship data to help estimate promo related sales.
Marketing a product is always based on estimating a market's response based on known data to arrive at a "best guess" and then determining the best strategy based on those estimates. Of course, you can't have "hard numbers" for future sales. No one can do that. But it's not luck, it's educated analysis of the known data they do have. You can try to armchair quarterback this thing all you want, you have literally no basis, i.e. no numbers, to back up your claims. And no one owes you any numbers, either. Personally, I don't care to change your mind. Just stop talking nonsense.
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I wish I had prepared a speech.. I have so many people to thank!
This is an excellent assessment of how things actually are. Anyone with even a basic study of economics knows that having 10 years of sales data is more then enough to extrapolate a safe estimate for comparison. It's always a game of 'projections' which are essentially guesses.. but those guesses are highly educated guesses made using years of comprehensive data.
Cryptic can absolutely calculate projected profits from a C-Store item.. in fact, they could do this quite easily.
So back to the road to keep on saving-up or abandon the idea. Just like a lot of things sold & bought though I had a more emotional reason behind buying that Ravager since I had a themed idea for it's build I wanted to try more than a practical build at least since I know it is not the best ship out there.
Not happy a bit about it, but I know these type of things happen, but it sure does seem prices overall have inflated recently on most items in-game.
It really depends. RND-promos happen way more often now, so yeah.. those ships are way more available now and thus a bit cheaper than before (still expensive if you're buying).
Lockbox-ships, depending on their popularity tend to have the same price-curves as pretty much always. Price starts high at around 700m, gradually lowers to 400-500m, and then slowly rises again over time.
Lock box ship prices tend to dip a bit during an Infinity Lock Box period, then rise when some new lock box replaces it. That's because people open more of whatever the current lock box is, taking the place of opening infinity and reducing the supply of older ships.
Keep saving, and wait for the next Infinity event.
Except for looks is there any tactical advantages? If it a certain ship type you want and want to have if you work hard I can see it to farm for or buy as far as favorite ships go. However tactical advantages wise whats the difference?
If it is just a off the wall ship someone drew up and then find it way in a lock box why should I pay 300 or 3000 dollars on it when I got other T6 ships that work just as well?
You should be able to get the R&D pack ships for under 200 dollars from the exchange if you do it right. So anyone paying 300+ is doing it wrong.
Some of them are a little better, but the reason people buy them is:
Space Barbie is the real endgame
There is nothing to "win" in STO, so you can't pay2win. What you can pay to do is be Captain Awesome flying around in your favorite ship from TV or the movies going pew pew pew.
I'm too thrifty (cheap, tightwad) to buy and too lazy to grind for it, but I'd love to have my TOS captain flying a T6 Connie. Someday I might give in to that yearning and open my wallet.
I do own a bunch of lock box and lobi ships for different characters that I've bought from the exchange. For me 200-500 million is easier to justify than 1.2+ billion.