It's like creating many many thousands of Forum Posts. They didn't have to but they did.
Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
Yeah but these are the space rich who are whales in one way or another. These aren't the people you want to make seriously mad at you. No one has ever bought a box ship thinking that they would ever be account wide, and they aren't minor expenses to most people. So why not give them a little compensation for their time, loyalty, and investment if you're changing the rules suddenly? It makes good business sense.
Then they should read the "Gameplay subject to change" part of the EULA again. I don't speak for anyone other than myself, but I have purchased several copies of various lockbox ships for different alts. If they are made account wide unlocks and that leads to more sales that leads to more development for the game, I am all for it.
Sure, it can change at any moment. They can also leave at any moment over any change and take their Benjamins with them. I don't personally care as it wouldn't affect me, it was just a suggestion to try and prevent people from being totally ticked off by the change.
And on the topic of sponsorship token hoards. What? I mean really? People did that? Why? There was literally no reason to make more than you needed at any point in time.
Lockbox/promo ships being account wide unlocks is a pretty big giveaway. It's certainly possible, but I think there will be a trade off. I could see Cryptic making a major change to account wide unlocks hand in hand with making lockbox/promo ships account bound. There'd be no more reselling on the exchange, if you want the shiny then you pay dil/cash for it.
That will upset a fair few people, but then many of them by their own admission don't spend any money on the game, they pay for what they want with EC. The question is will Cryptic make more money through increased promo/key sales than they lose in players no longer buying packs/keys for sale on the Exchange?
The point has never been that these ships should be rare, the point has always been that anyone willing to spend enough money can have these ships.
I do recall Cryptic mentioning they only had licence from CBS to put certain ships in the game in limited numbers (Google search is not being kind to me at the moment, so I could be wrong).
However. If those ships where made account wide unlocks, the numbers would not increase (rarity would remain essentially the same), the person who owns them would simply be able to access them on all characters, so Cryptic would not have violated that (aforementioned) agreement, if this went ahead.
Unless Cryptic holds a sale, offering a specific number of ships and no more, how do they limit the number of ships?
I mean, they did that cancer fundraiser and that was limited, but there was nothing special about the ships they offered there.
In Neverwinter on some occasions they would place a very special companion on the market and let people bid for them. The winner got the companion and that was it.
They are not doing that here. The market isn't even set up for that sort of thing.
They have made it very clear that anyone willing to spend enough money could have these ships.
If a million people spend enough on R&D packs to all get a reward box, and each and every one of them want a T6 Connie, who is telling them that they can not because 'too many' exist, or would exist, in the game?
The only way they can limit the ships is by pulling the ships. What ships have been pulled? What ships are no longer available? And by that I mean hull designs. Doesn't really matter that the Llaihr class is no longer available since the Mandukar is.
I suppose that they could come along after the fact and say "Oh, by the way, when we told everyone that they could pick any of these ships from the box if they got one? We lied. We are no longer allowing people to pick this or that, and if enough people pick the other then we won't let anyone else pick that, either", but who is going to give them money after they say that?
On the flip side this move would hurt RWT sales which is a good thing as it would encourage people to buy ships in a more legit way and it would also change the exchange econmeny as ship prices would rise due to the account wide unlock adding value so prices will go up.
Ummm making em account wide would lower the cost of the ships on the exchange. supply and demand... you no longer need X number of copies of the same ship for your various toons on the same account. Now you only need 1. Now if your saying even more people will buy em cause they are account unlocks... I think it will drive sales of keys instead.
They also have not said anything about making new ship boxes bound to account or not to prevent fraud. Older single use ships could still be freely traded... but account unlocks? I see those as being bound on acquire to keep em "Rare". That way it will drive Key sales.
Making it account-wide also increases the value of the ship. Some people might decide to just take their lockbox or lobi ship because even if they have no use for it right now, or it isn't an ideal fit, because it might become one later.
If not many people had multiple ships before, simply because the cost were deemed excessive, you might end up with the prizes for these ships going up, not down. But of course, you'd also get more value from them.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
As someone who owns every lockbox/R&D ship I have ever wanted AND has bought multiple copies of certain ships, I completely support them being account wide. While it is true that a small number of people who have actually bought multiple copies of the same ship on different characters might be unhappy, I believe that will be offset by the amount of people who refused to dabble in boxes specifically because they were single character unlocks.
Unless Cryptic holds a sale, offering a specific number of ships and no more, how do they limit the number of ships?
How? Easy.
The MUCH more desirable ships, like the Temporal and Discovery Connies, are R&D Promo, which actually have a lower drop rate than stadard lockbox, and only appear during R&D Promo events.
So... in theory...
If we have an R&D Promo run as long as a lockbox, there would be more of the lockbox ships than there would be R&D Promo.
For example, lets put the Kelvin Connie up against a TOS Connie. Due to drop rates, there would be more Kelvin Connies than TOS despite the fact both were available for the same amount of time.
Now... lets lower the amount of time the R&D Promo is active. That further decreases the number of TOS Connies while the amount of Kelvin Connies remains the same.
You don't have to have a hard set limited number to keep it rare. You just need a shorter window of availability and lower drop chance.
The point has never been that these ships should be rare, the point has always been that anyone willing to spend enough money can have these ships.
I do recall Cryptic mentioning they only had licence from CBS to put certain ships in the game in limited numbers (Google search is not being kind to me at the moment, so I could be wrong).
However. If those ships where made account wide unlocks, the numbers would not increase (rarity would remain essentially the same), the person who owns them would simply be able to access them on all characters, so Cryptic would not have violated that (aforementioned) agreement, if this went ahead.
I remember something similar being written somewhere here.
Good point btw. Rarity would not be affected, I was wrong there.
The point has never been that these ships should be rare, the point has always been that anyone willing to spend enough money can have these ships.
I do recall Cryptic mentioning they only had licence from CBS to put certain ships in the game in limited numbers (Google search is not being kind to me at the moment, so I could be wrong).
However. If those ships where made account wide unlocks, the numbers would not increase (rarity would remain essentially the same), the person who owns them would simply be able to access them on all characters, so Cryptic would not have violated that (aforementioned) agreement, if this went ahead.
Unless Cryptic holds a sale, offering a specific number of ships and no more, how do they limit the number of ships?
Simple: by changing the drop rate.
It's not like the whole thing is transparent or anything and changes would be noted...
"Yes, we'll be replacing the removed Exploration Clusters with something better..."
or
"This UI change will allow us to expand features on the STO Portal website..."
^^^
Yeah, the site they shutdown very soon after.
I believe it when I SEE/HAVE the ability to claim/reclaim Lockbox ships one character currently has on other characters on my account. Until then it's still just hot air.
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..."
> @fleetcaptain5#1134 said:
> (Quote)
>
> Simple: by changing the drop rate.
>
> It's not like the whole thing is transparent or anything and changes would be noted...
They do not change the drop rate. That is an idiotic idea.
I was speaking hypothetically. Because, you know, the subject of this thread is something hypothetical.
Oh, and you don't know for sure that it's not done btw.
"Yes, we'll be replacing the removed Exploration Clusters with something better..."
or
"This UI change will allow us to expand features on the STO Portal website..."
^^^
Yeah, the site they shutdown very soon after.
I believe it when I SEE/HAVE the ability to claim/reclaim Lockbox ships one character currently has on other characters on my account. Until then it's still just hot air.
I share your skepticism. However I don't think your comparisons actually apply in this case. To explain, both of those statements were kind of "forced" in the sense that they were removing features that people liked, causing some degree of uproar that they "had" to respond to. And with no offense intended, PR people tend to BS when trying to put out fires.
On the other hand, this statement was not in response to any crisis. Lockboxes are a long established part of this game and there has been no recent uproar to force them to comment on them. Also, and this is kind of important: in the weekly livestreams they get to pick which questions they want to answer and which questions they want to ignore. The reason that is important is because since there has been no recent uproar about lockboxes, there was nothing "forcing" them to talk about this issue.
That being the case, the fact that they actually choose to address this question tells me this issue is actually being looked at and that this was not just a BS line. All of that said, I'm not actually optimistic. I just believe they are actually considering it.
Unless Cryptic holds a sale, offering a specific number of ships and no more, how do they limit the number of ships?
How? Easy.
The MUCH more desirable ships, like the Temporal and Discovery Connies, are R&D Promo, which actually have a lower drop rate than stadard lockbox, and only appear during R&D Promo events...
You don't have to have a hard set limited number to keep it rare. You just need a shorter window of availability and lower drop chance.
That doesn't limit the number of ships.
Yeah, it limits the availability window, but they keep on having the event.
Again, it goes back to money. Next time they hold the R&D event everyone, and I mean every single player and every one of their eligible characters, could find themselves flying a T1 Connie.
I specifically mentioned this in the post that you are responding to.
Even if they had held the event a single time; Even if they had said "For the next two hours we will be selling a pack containing 1 EC and 1 unrefined dilithium for $100, but one-in-a-million of these packs will also contain a T1 Constitution class TOS Enterprise style ship" that would not have set a limit on the number of T1 Connies in the game. Every player could have purchased a million or two of the packs, right? Every player could have gotten the ship.
They are not limiting numbers, they are just making it more expensive to get some ships.
Period.
The only thing stopping everyone from flying around in one of these "CBS doesn't want too many in the game" ships is their lack of willingness to spend the real money needed to get the ship.
That is a far cry from the game actually capping how many people can fly around in those ships.
Again, it goes back to money. Next time they hold the R&D event everyone, and I mean every single player and every one of their eligible characters, could find themselves flying a T1 Connie.
T1 Connie? Its a T6. Yes there are T1 Connies, but we're talking the T6 Temporal Connie. The T1 Connie was an account unlock I think tied to the Collector's Edition, and may also be in the C-Store.
I think you're misunderstanding things honestly.
The very reason its in the R&D Box is so that it is not WIDELY available like if it was in the C-Store. Wanting to keep it rare doesn't mean that only X number can exist in the game at all. That would be rather stupid as that is a ship people want. They use the R&D Promo to keep it rare, which in this case means availability. Not the number that exist. Can everyone still get one? Yes. How likely is it? Snowball's chance in hell at best. The drop rate is just too low to allow for that.
I've only ever bought one ship via phoenix tokens the Nandi, if they do make them account unlocks then I hope my Nandi will be unlocked on my whole account.
Same for my Nandi on my other acct. Though I have two of them cause I got a epic last time and got my Ferengi a Nandi.
I've only ever bought one ship via phoenix tokens the Nandi, if they do make them account unlocks then I hope my Nandi will be unlocked on my whole account.
Same for my Nandi on my other acct. Though I have two of them cause I got a epic last time and got my Ferengi a Nandi.
Yes you should have a T6 Nova!
Yes, I'd love a T6 Nova. My sci characters would so fly it.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
As someone who owns every lockbox/R&D ship I have ever wanted AND has bought multiple copies of certain ships, I completely support them being account wide. While it is true that a small number of people who have actually bought multiple copies of the same ship on different characters might be unhappy, I believe that will be offset by the amount of people who refused to dabble in boxes specifically because they were single character unlocks.
I bought several same lock box ships both for My Fed Engi and my Tact Rom. So, you'd think I'd be unhappy about it. Not really, though. Question for me is more, will I be able to claim lock box ships I only have on 1 character, on other toons too?
> @azrael605 said: > They do not change the drop rate. That is not a realistic idea.
Fixed that for you.
> @rattler2 said: > The MUCH more desirable ships, like the Temporal and Discovery Connies, are R&D Promo, which actually have a lower drop rate than stadard lockbox, and only appear during R&D Promo events.
Actually, the drop rate on R&D Ships is higher at 100:1 instead of 250:1 for a Lockbox. The cost of an R&D Box, however, is higher.
By making them Account-wide they are NOT making them less rare or more ubiquitous because you can only be logged in to an Account ONE Character at a time. At any given moment you will not be seeing more of them flying around.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
At this stage most are buying for the Phoenix Upgrades and not the ships.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
At this stage most are buying for the Phoenix Upgrades and not the ships.
Yeah this. I don't even consider getting a ship with Phoenix boxes.
I've missed a few on my breaks from the game, but which one would I want and who would I give it to? I only have one character that flies a free ship, the Breen Carrier, because I'm not buying a T5U token to upgrade the Kar'fi. As soon as I did, they would release the T6.
None of the ships I'm missing are really that interesting to me either so I can't say I care at all about winning a Phoenix ship.
By making them Account-wide they are NOT making them less rare or more ubiquitous because you can only be logged in to an Account ONE Character at a time. At any given moment you will not be seeing more of them flying around.
Although that sounds logical, at first glance, it's probably not entirey accurate. Having the same lockbox ship on multiple toons enhances not the total number of those ships, but the chance of there being one out there, period. So, if you have 8 toons, and only 1 of them has the lockbox ship, you could only ever be seen flying it when you were on that specific toon. And with the change, you could the be seen flying one on any of those 8 toons.
By making them Account-wide they are NOT making them less rare or more ubiquitous because you can only be logged in to an Account ONE Character at a time. At any given moment you will not be seeing more of them flying around.
Although that sounds logical, at first glance, it's probably not entirey accurate. Having the same lockbox ship on multiple toons enhances not the total number of those ships, but the chance of there being one out there, period. So, if you have 8 toons, and only 1 of them has the lockbox ship, you could only ever be seen flying it when you were on that specific toon. And with the change, you could the be seen flying one on any of those 8 toons.
I think people might be merging two different ideas together here and kind of muddying the waters a bit. There are two ways that they could make a Lock Box ships 'account wide.'
Method 1: The ship is claimed by the character that opens the box just like now. That ship and it's console/gear are bound to that character. The character however, has the option to unequip those items, re-box the ship and gear and transfer the account bound box to an alternate character. This means that only one character at a time could have the ship and it's related gear. Sending those items to an alt means that the primary character loses all access. This would require some special method to deal with how the star ship trait would be handled as those are per character unlocks. Same with the Admiralty Card.
Method 2: The ship works like a C-Store item and all of the characters on the account can now freely claim and use that ship and it's associated gear and traits. I find this option highly unlikely as this would, in my opinion, greatly reduce demand for lock box/R&D ships, especially ones like the TOS Dreadnought that is highly prized for it's powerful console, or the Mirror Escort Carrier for it's trait.
I believe that the method being considered is Option 1. I actually think this would be a fair way to handle things, it's still not 'account wide' so if you wanted 2 of your characters to have Discovery Enterprises for example.. you would still need to get 2 ships. It would however, prevent you from having that ship locked to that character and give you the option to change your mind down the road.
Option 2 seems extremely unlikely to me.. I just don't see a scenario where that would ever be considered.
By making them Account-wide they are NOT making them less rare or more ubiquitous because you can only be logged in to an Account ONE Character at a time. At any given moment you will not be seeing more of them flying around.
Although that sounds logical, at first glance, it's probably not entirey accurate. Having the same lockbox ship on multiple toons enhances not the total number of those ships, but the chance of there being one out there, period. So, if you have 8 toons, and only 1 of them has the lockbox ship, you could only ever be seen flying it when you were on that specific toon. And with the change, you could the be seen flying one on any of those 8 toons.
I think people might be merging two different ideas together here and kind of muddying the waters a bit. There are two ways that they could make a Lock Box ships 'account wide.'
Method 1: The ship is claimed by the character that opens the box just like now. That ship and it's console/gear are bound to that character. The character however, has the option to unequip those items, re-box the ship and gear and transfer the account bound box to an alternate character. This means that only one character at a time could have the ship and it's related gear. Sending those items to an alt means that the primary character loses all access. This would require some special method to deal with how the star ship trait would be handled as those are per character unlocks. Same with the Admiralty Card.
Method 2: The ship works like a C-Store item and all of the characters on the account can now freely claim and use that ship and it's associated gear and traits. I find this option highly unlikely as this would, in my opinion, greatly reduce demand for lock box/R&D ships, especially ones like the TOS Dreadnought that is highly prized for it's powerful console, or the Mirror Escort Carrier for it's trait.
I believe that the method being considered is Option 1. I actually think this would be a fair way to handle things, it's still not 'account wide' so if you wanted 2 of your characters to have Discovery Enterprises for example.. you would still need to get 2 ships. It would however, prevent you from having that ship locked to that character and give you the option to change your mind down the road.
Option 2 seems extremely unlikely to me.. I just don't see a scenario where that would ever be considered.
Very good points! I hadn't considered that; but, knowing Cryptic, realistically, Option 1, indeed, seems the most likely.
By making them Account-wide they are NOT making them less rare or more ubiquitous because you can only be logged in to an Account ONE Character at a time. At any given moment you will not be seeing more of them flying around.
Although that sounds logical, at first glance, it's probably not entirey accurate. Having the same lockbox ship on multiple toons enhances not the total number of those ships, but the chance of there being one out there, period. So, if you have 8 toons, and only 1 of them has the lockbox ship, you could only ever be seen flying it when you were on that specific toon. And with the change, you could the be seen flying one on any of those 8 toons.
I think people might be merging two different ideas together here and kind of muddying the waters a bit. There are two ways that they could make a Lock Box ships 'account wide.'
Method 1: The ship is claimed by the character that opens the box just like now. That ship and it's console/gear are bound to that character. The character however, has the option to unequip those items, re-box the ship and gear and transfer the account bound box to an alternate character. This means that only one character at a time could have the ship and it's related gear. Sending those items to an alt means that the primary character loses all access. This would require some special method to deal with how the star ship trait would be handled as those are per character unlocks. Same with the Admiralty Card.
Method 2: The ship works like a C-Store item and all of the characters on the account can now freely claim and use that ship and it's associated gear and traits. I find this option highly unlikely as this would, in my opinion, greatly reduce demand for lock box/R&D ships, especially ones like the TOS Dreadnought that is highly prized for it's powerful console, or the Mirror Escort Carrier for it's trait.
I believe that the method being considered is Option 1. I actually think this would be a fair way to handle things, it's still not 'account wide' so if you wanted 2 of your characters to have Discovery Enterprises for example.. you would still need to get 2 ships. It would however, prevent you from having that ship locked to that character and give you the option to change your mind down the road.
Option 2 seems extremely unlikely to me.. I just don't see a scenario where that would ever be considered.
Very good points! I hadn't considered that; but, knowing Cryptic, realistically, Option 1, indeed, seems the most likely.
IIRC Kael mentioned the first option on numerous livestreams as the option they were/had looked at. I wouldn't think it would be necessary and would be quite harsh to 'block' access to the Starship Trait and Admiralty Card when reboxing though.
"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.
Comments
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
Sure, it can change at any moment. They can also leave at any moment over any change and take their Benjamins with them. I don't personally care as it wouldn't affect me, it was just a suggestion to try and prevent people from being totally ticked off by the change.
And on the topic of sponsorship token hoards. What? I mean really? People did that? Why? There was literally no reason to make more than you needed at any point in time.
That will upset a fair few people, but then many of them by their own admission don't spend any money on the game, they pay for what they want with EC. The question is will Cryptic make more money through increased promo/key sales than they lose in players no longer buying packs/keys for sale on the Exchange?
Unless Cryptic holds a sale, offering a specific number of ships and no more, how do they limit the number of ships?
I mean, they did that cancer fundraiser and that was limited, but there was nothing special about the ships they offered there.
In Neverwinter on some occasions they would place a very special companion on the market and let people bid for them. The winner got the companion and that was it.
They are not doing that here. The market isn't even set up for that sort of thing.
They have made it very clear that anyone willing to spend enough money could have these ships.
If a million people spend enough on R&D packs to all get a reward box, and each and every one of them want a T6 Connie, who is telling them that they can not because 'too many' exist, or would exist, in the game?
The only way they can limit the ships is by pulling the ships. What ships have been pulled? What ships are no longer available? And by that I mean hull designs. Doesn't really matter that the Llaihr class is no longer available since the Mandukar is.
I suppose that they could come along after the fact and say "Oh, by the way, when we told everyone that they could pick any of these ships from the box if they got one? We lied. We are no longer allowing people to pick this or that, and if enough people pick the other then we won't let anyone else pick that, either", but who is going to give them money after they say that?
Making it account-wide also increases the value of the ship. Some people might decide to just take their lockbox or lobi ship because even if they have no use for it right now, or it isn't an ideal fit, because it might become one later.
If not many people had multiple ships before, simply because the cost were deemed excessive, you might end up with the prizes for these ships going up, not down. But of course, you'd also get more value from them.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
How? Easy.
The MUCH more desirable ships, like the Temporal and Discovery Connies, are R&D Promo, which actually have a lower drop rate than stadard lockbox, and only appear during R&D Promo events.
So... in theory...
If we have an R&D Promo run as long as a lockbox, there would be more of the lockbox ships than there would be R&D Promo.
For example, lets put the Kelvin Connie up against a TOS Connie. Due to drop rates, there would be more Kelvin Connies than TOS despite the fact both were available for the same amount of time.
Now... lets lower the amount of time the R&D Promo is active. That further decreases the number of TOS Connies while the amount of Kelvin Connies remains the same.
You don't have to have a hard set limited number to keep it rare. You just need a shorter window of availability and lower drop chance.
I remember something similar being written somewhere here.
Good point btw. Rarity would not be affected, I was wrong there.
Simple: by changing the drop rate.
It's not like the whole thing is transparent or anything and changes would be noted...
Yeah, I give that the same weight as:
"Yes, we'll be replacing the removed Exploration Clusters with something better..."
or
"This UI change will allow us to expand features on the STO Portal website..."
^^^
Yeah, the site they shutdown very soon after.
I believe it when I SEE/HAVE the ability to claim/reclaim Lockbox ships one character currently has on other characters on my account. Until then it's still just hot air.
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..."
I was speaking hypothetically. Because, you know, the subject of this thread is something hypothetical.
Oh, and you don't know for sure that it's not done btw.
I share your skepticism. However I don't think your comparisons actually apply in this case. To explain, both of those statements were kind of "forced" in the sense that they were removing features that people liked, causing some degree of uproar that they "had" to respond to. And with no offense intended, PR people tend to BS when trying to put out fires.
On the other hand, this statement was not in response to any crisis. Lockboxes are a long established part of this game and there has been no recent uproar to force them to comment on them. Also, and this is kind of important: in the weekly livestreams they get to pick which questions they want to answer and which questions they want to ignore. The reason that is important is because since there has been no recent uproar about lockboxes, there was nothing "forcing" them to talk about this issue.
That being the case, the fact that they actually choose to address this question tells me this issue is actually being looked at and that this was not just a BS line. All of that said, I'm not actually optimistic. I just believe they are actually considering it.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
That doesn't limit the number of ships.
Yeah, it limits the availability window, but they keep on having the event.
Again, it goes back to money. Next time they hold the R&D event everyone, and I mean every single player and every one of their eligible characters, could find themselves flying a T1 Connie.
I specifically mentioned this in the post that you are responding to.
Even if they had held the event a single time; Even if they had said "For the next two hours we will be selling a pack containing 1 EC and 1 unrefined dilithium for $100, but one-in-a-million of these packs will also contain a T1 Constitution class TOS Enterprise style ship" that would not have set a limit on the number of T1 Connies in the game. Every player could have purchased a million or two of the packs, right? Every player could have gotten the ship.
They are not limiting numbers, they are just making it more expensive to get some ships.
Period.
The only thing stopping everyone from flying around in one of these "CBS doesn't want too many in the game" ships is their lack of willingness to spend the real money needed to get the ship.
That is a far cry from the game actually capping how many people can fly around in those ships.
T1 Connie? Its a T6. Yes there are T1 Connies, but we're talking the T6 Temporal Connie. The T1 Connie was an account unlock I think tied to the Collector's Edition, and may also be in the C-Store.
I think you're misunderstanding things honestly.
The very reason its in the R&D Box is so that it is not WIDELY available like if it was in the C-Store. Wanting to keep it rare doesn't mean that only X number can exist in the game at all. That would be rather stupid as that is a ship people want. They use the R&D Promo to keep it rare, which in this case means availability. Not the number that exist. Can everyone still get one? Yes. How likely is it? Snowball's chance in hell at best. The drop rate is just too low to allow for that.
Yes you should have a T6 Nova!
And yes that, or something similar to it, would be a wise option.
Yes, I'd love a T6 Nova. My sci characters would so fly it.
I bought several same lock box ships both for My Fed Engi and my Tact Rom. So, you'd think I'd be unhappy about it. Not really, though. Question for me is more, will I be able to claim lock box ships I only have on 1 character, on other toons too?
> They do not change the drop rate. That is not a realistic idea.
Fixed that for you.
> @rattler2 said:
> The MUCH more desirable ships, like the Temporal and Discovery Connies, are R&D Promo, which actually have a lower drop rate than stadard lockbox, and only appear during R&D Promo events.
Actually, the drop rate on R&D Ships is higher at 100:1 instead of 250:1 for a Lockbox. The cost of an R&D Box, however, is higher.
By making them Account-wide they are NOT making them less rare or more ubiquitous because you can only be logged in to an Account ONE Character at a time. At any given moment you will not be seeing more of them flying around.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Yeah this. I don't even consider getting a ship with Phoenix boxes.
I've missed a few on my breaks from the game, but which one would I want and who would I give it to? I only have one character that flies a free ship, the Breen Carrier, because I'm not buying a T5U token to upgrade the Kar'fi. As soon as I did, they would release the T6.
None of the ships I'm missing are really that interesting to me either so I can't say I care at all about winning a Phoenix ship.
Although that sounds logical, at first glance, it's probably not entirey accurate. Having the same lockbox ship on multiple toons enhances not the total number of those ships, but the chance of there being one out there, period. So, if you have 8 toons, and only 1 of them has the lockbox ship, you could only ever be seen flying it when you were on that specific toon. And with the change, you could the be seen flying one on any of those 8 toons.
I think people might be merging two different ideas together here and kind of muddying the waters a bit. There are two ways that they could make a Lock Box ships 'account wide.'
Method 1: The ship is claimed by the character that opens the box just like now. That ship and it's console/gear are bound to that character. The character however, has the option to unequip those items, re-box the ship and gear and transfer the account bound box to an alternate character. This means that only one character at a time could have the ship and it's related gear. Sending those items to an alt means that the primary character loses all access. This would require some special method to deal with how the star ship trait would be handled as those are per character unlocks. Same with the Admiralty Card.
Method 2: The ship works like a C-Store item and all of the characters on the account can now freely claim and use that ship and it's associated gear and traits. I find this option highly unlikely as this would, in my opinion, greatly reduce demand for lock box/R&D ships, especially ones like the TOS Dreadnought that is highly prized for it's powerful console, or the Mirror Escort Carrier for it's trait.
I believe that the method being considered is Option 1. I actually think this would be a fair way to handle things, it's still not 'account wide' so if you wanted 2 of your characters to have Discovery Enterprises for example.. you would still need to get 2 ships. It would however, prevent you from having that ship locked to that character and give you the option to change your mind down the road.
Option 2 seems extremely unlikely to me.. I just don't see a scenario where that would ever be considered.
Very good points! I hadn't considered that; but, knowing Cryptic, realistically, Option 1, indeed, seems the most likely.
IIRC Kael mentioned the first option on numerous livestreams as the option they were/had looked at. I wouldn't think it would be necessary and would be quite harsh to 'block' access to the Starship Trait and Admiralty Card when reboxing though.