The way I see it is, if you don't have any complaints about this, this, this, and/or this....
....then why on earth are you complaining about this?
I really fail to see any significant distinction.
In each case, it is the sale of virtual goods, by their developer, at a price of the developer's choosing. If the consumer feels that price is unfair, they have the right to not pay it. It is as simple as that.
I would also point those who say this "merchandising" is BS, to any of the plethora of webcomic authors who sell merchandise and books featuring their works. DeviantArt users who sell prints of their artworks, be they hand-drawn/painted or Photoshop creations. The amount of 3D meshes, textures, scenes and whatnot on sale over at Turbosquid.
Et cetera, et cetera.
So you find it reprehensible when Cryptic turn a profit on their own creative works, but when you're pointed towards any other entity that does the exact same thing, you're like "Who gives a s***?".
Please just take the amatuer dramatics back over to The Jeremy Kyle Show. Some of us would like to see these forums be of use to someone - anyone - and it's really about time this kind of behaviour was nipped in the bud.
After all, this is supposed to be a community of adults, is it not?
Ferengi happy. Klingon buy P'taq blood from Ferengi, then happy. Seriously, let it go. If you can't ignore the 'it's not canon' justification or this then it might be more healthy for you to avoid the forums. As far as I'm concerned, the forums are for trolls, whiners, and canon freaks.
This could all be forgiven if they just handed out a couple points for these two items. Kind of like a demo of the C-Store. For those that actually bought them, well, they'd have additional points to play around with when more DLC comes out.
This is really pointless complaining. Those races are optional and don't really fit in the Federation to begin with, and what's more the purchase is really very little. If you want to play Klingon you already can, they have their own faction!
If you want to play those two races as Federation, then cough up the money. I'm just as happy not to see a Klingon vs Klingon game with tons of Klingons fighting on the Fed side.
Amen
And there was a total of /1/ ferengi in Starfleet, and he was ridiuced but EVERY FRIGGING Frengi. Honestly i hope to see Federation Gorn, Nausican, orion, Romulan, et all soon and Klingon Trills et all in the C-Store
The way I see it is, if you don't have any complaints about this, this, this, and/or this....
....then why on earth are you complaining about this?
I really fail to see any significant distinction.
In each case, it is the sale of virtual goods, by their developer, at a price of the developer's choosing. If the consumer feels that price is unfair, they have the right to not pay it. It is as simple as that.
I would also point those who say this "merchandising" is BS, to any of the plethora of webcomic authors who sell merchandise and books featuring their works. DeviantArt users who sell prints of their artworks, be they hand-drawn/painted or Photoshop creations. The amount of 3D meshes, textures, scenes and whatnot on sale over at Turbosquid.
Et cetera, et cetera.
So you find it reprehensible when Cryptic turn a profit on their own creative works, but when you're pointed towards any other entity that does the exact same thing, you're like "Who gives a s***?".
Please just take the amatuer dramatics back over to The Jeremy Kyle Show. Some of us would like to see these forums be of use to someone - anyone - and it's really about time this kind of behaviour was nipped in the bud.
After all, this is supposed to be a community of adults, is it not?
Most people like to get good value for money. It's not very often you hear people asking a company to charge them extra for stuff that should really be included in the price they are already paying. Yet for some reason you want Cryptic to charge you more. Why is that?
Amen
And there was a total of /1/ ferengi in Starfleet, and he was ridiuced but EVERY FRIGGING Frengi. Honestly i hope to see Federation Gorn, Nausican, orion, Romulan, et all soon and Klingon Trills et all in the C-Store
Was being the keyword.
That was 25 some odd years ago, remember? With Nog in Starfleet and Rom as the new Grand Nagus, things were bound to change. Rom's legacy, as you must have predicted, would have been far different from any previous Grand Nagus.
All three of your examples do not charge a monthly fee and MT for content at the same time.
No, those three examples don't charge a monthly, but the monthly fee isn't exactly the height of relevance in this specific comparison.
What we're looking at, in any of these four cases, is content which was not developed as part of a base game, being sold as an optional extra, for a negligible fee.
Do I find it a bit tactless that the C-Store was rolled out so quickly? Kinda, yeah, but when you've got deadlines and expenditures, you can't just sit on your hands to be polite.
What we really have here, once you strip away all the reasoning and just get down to the core instinct, is five groups:
Those miffed that everything's not all-inclusive.
Those who are happy so long as they get what they want.
Those who'll buy something they want if it's at a price they're willing to pay but otherwise don't care.
Those who are using this whole fiasco to stir up trouble and misinformation out of pettiness or malice.
Those who just don't know what to think because Group 4 are confusing the TRIBBLE out of them.
For the benefit of all five groups, I would like to recount my general experience with cash stores on MMOs which don't charge a monthly fee.
You'll reach level 30-ish in maybe a month, assuming you play three hours a day; it'll take roughly four days of three-hour play sessions to gain each single level after this. At Level 45 that goes up to about a week. Level 55 that goes up to two weeks. It only gets worse - and that's assuming you're grinding as fast as you can 100% of the time.
All along you fight monsters which are scaled to the point of being almost impossible to solo. Face more than one, die. Don't have the best gear for your level, die. Make a mistake with your skill spamming, die. Misallocate two or more stat points, probably die. Every time you die, you lose the entire contents of your exp bar, and are debuffed for a period of time.
The initial response would be to group up, and in all fairness if you do group with people it gets significantly easier. Finding a group is near-impossible. Arrogance and obnoxious attitudes are most of what you'll find, the few rational people generally keep to themselves, and everyone looks after #1. So you are almost always forced to solo, which means, you need something to tip the scales....
Want to get anywhere in the game? Gonna have to buy cash shop, tbh.
For the negligible fee of $5, you can buy an Exp Scroll (or similar item) which gives you +50% experience for a whole hour.
With just $14 you can buy a pair of sunglasses for your character which not only look damn sharp but give you an extra 100 points to HP and MP. Wow! *insert wolf-whistle here*
Just $5 and you can change your hair style or colour.
$8 you can buy a shirt. Matching pants, shoes, hat and gloves are also available at $8 each.
Uber discount if you buy your clothes as a gift set - just $18!
Getting your TRIBBLE kicked? Probably are, most of these monsters are designed so that a player four levels above them has a slightly better chance of beating them one-on-one than they do of winning the lottery. But don't worry, one hour duration stat buff items are just $5 each.
Want to upgrade your gear beyond +2 damage? Oooh, better shell out for some protect items so it doesn't break, deleting the weapon and all the upgrade items that went into it so far. That'll cost you $6, btw.
(For the record these are one-use only, and more than that you usually need a specific protect for a specific item type at a specific level. Prices go up for higher level upgrades.)
Bugger up your skills and/or stats? Don't worry. For $20 you can get an item to reset your skills, or an item to reset your stats.
Did you die? How unfortunate. I guess you just lost your entire exp bar and probably had most of your stats debuffed for the next hour. Should've gone to Expsavers. single-use resurrect items will revive you and prevent exp loss, for $5 each.
Sex change? $20. (Believe me ladies and gents I really, really thought that was something I'd never say.)
So you need to pay to take part in the "crafting", but what about harvesting? Oh, every player is given an item to forage, and it's free! ...but you need to buy a 10-day or 20-day battery before it will work. $4 and $7, respectively.
Annoyed with STO's drop rates? With these MMOs you'd be lucky to see a half-decent drop twice between UK general elections. Of course, for $2.50 there's an item to slightly boost drop rates for like, a day - and they stack, so you can use more than one! Oooooh. Hey, blow twenty five bucks on those and maybe you'll find a health potion a day and keep the doctor away! (Not so sure about the accountant though...)
...and last but not least, my personal favourite. $2.50 to be able to use the zone chat channel for 15 days, $4 to use it for 30.
Yo, Cryptic, hope you're taking notes. Wouldn't want to disappoint your loyal detractors now, would you?
Point is, for the amount these other companies - who do run "free to play" games with cash shops - charge for the most worthless of virtual items, you could've gone down to Gamestation and bought yourself a copy of Fallout 3.
What Cryptic are charging for these two cosmetic items is well below the going rates. That is, in part, due to the monthly fee, but it's also because they're not half the rip-off merchants some people would readily pass them off as.
If they really were that bad, you can bet your derriere they'd be charging the kind of ridiculous rates in my big ol' list up there, and they'd be getting away with it because according to industry regulators, there's nothing wrong with it.
This could all be forgiven if they just handed out a couple points for these two items.
Quite a lot of the preorder bonuses did come with 500 points (even when they weren't advertised, in some cases). Honestly I just thought Cryptic had done precisely as you suggested, but today noticed some people mentioning they hadn't received any. Poor sods.
Does sound like a good idea though. Sort of an introductory thing? Yeah, that would work. Would cost a fair bit of profits, but the potential gains for such a gesture of goodwill would far outweigh that, I'd think.
Just make a Vulcan and pretend you're a Romulan. They are visually indistinguishable from one another.
You know, just like Starfleet Klingons, the Alien option provides all the tools to make a Cardassian or a Romulan.
In fact, if you want to see a Cardassian in game as a lowbie for an example to use, check out Starbase 1. And Romulans as depicted in-game are in the CE character manual. Basically, pointier eyebrows, a pointier head, bigger brow, double spine forehead, otherwise Vulcan.
Obviously, you can try to make one from memory but my point is, you can even double check against game renders Cryptic supplies to make one exactly in their style that will match any NPCs.
You don't even know how to comprehend something spelled out for you do you? You pay for the cheeseburger, yes there is a cost for the cheese AS PART OF THE CHEESEBURGER PRICE. They don't come back to you after you've already paid and demand you then pay more is what I said.
This jumped out at me as I was skimming everything.
Your analogy is wrong.
The two playable races in the C-store would be like buying a cheeseburger, and asking for salad options to go on it as well. You'll pay the price for your cheeseburger, which gets you your bun, patty, cheese and sauce (and whatever else comes standard in your store) and then you pay a little extra for the things that you don't get as standard in your cheeseburger, like lettuce, pineapple, beetroot, whatever.
The point is, you get your cheeseburger for the same price and it comes exactly as advertised. Just if you want more, you pay those few cents extra.
With respect to STO, in all the advertising I have seen for it, not once did I see an ad that said, "Play as a Klingon or Ferengi in Starfleet!" Nor until I went into the C-store tonight did I even know they were possibilities. They're a nice touch, not for me, but if I wanted to play them I'd have no problem forking out a bit extra.
The question I guess you should be asking yourself is, is the game completely ruined for you if you can't play as a Klingon or Ferengi in Starfleet? Does it completely ruin the game for you in some indescribable way the rest of us just don't get? I don't think so. Before I starting skipping through this thread because of the constant whining (70+ pages of it? Over something this small? Really?) I didn't see any one of the people complaining say they actually wanted to play as a Ferengi or Klingon, nor did I see anyone say their game experience was ruined by not being able to do so. And certainly, if people are withholding these feelings, they're not actually saying anything about it or able to articulate what they feel.
I guess it must be the hate and bile they're directing at Cryptic or something. Dunno.
I bought them, I am happy with them, I am actually thinking about making a ferengi captain as my main instead of my borg! And they weren't very expensive, so I don't mind paying at all.
Ok i gave Cryptic and Atari the benefit of the doubt, and even after looking at the TRIBBLE they are doing with CO, and the backlash from it's community, i thought maybe they would smarten up, but i guess not. I just opened the c-store, and to my dismay saw something pretty dam reprehensible, HERE is the screen.
They had two races ready and playable for launch, but they withheld them from us and now we must pay even more money on top of the $50-$80 (and possible $250 if you bought the life time) to get all the playable races? No thanks Cryptic, if you are already starting to do **** like this with the game before it has officially even launched, you lost one customer here. I thought the C-store was supposed to only contain items that lazy people could buy instead of earning in game:(?
I know I'm going to get flamed and i honestly don't care. If your fine with them doing stuff like this by all means keep paying them to treat you this way. Myself i would rather save my money for companies that don't think it's ok to keep a part of the game locked away and charge extra for it to be unlocked once it is released. Now if only i could find one of those in this day and age.:(
EDIT: Quick question. Does any one else see the irony of the Ferengi being one of the races to get nickle and dimmed back to us?:D
LMAO
#1 - If you have a credit card, and can pay for any mmos monthly fees, it means you have money to invest in the gaming industry, like all of us.
#2 - If you cry cry QQ about this, it means that you're probably a kid that is playing with Mama's credit card and don't have the right to buy more stuff. poor little kido, you should play Free Online Games instead.
#3 - If you're not a kid ... Wake the hell up fluffy face !
There is micro transactions and online costs everywhere ! It's an industry...Not a charity.
Examples :
- X-box LIVE montly fees, when its totally free online play on PS3 (but ppl still pay for X-box Live)
- PS3 Network and Store with zillions of add-ons from $2 up to $49 each, quests, special items, special chars, accessories including wallpapers, themes, mini-games, old PS1 games, classics and even some animated features for your PS3 desktop. ( And ppl are buying tons of them)
- Most of all MMOs outhere : Online stores, Add-ons, Micro Stores, Special items etc etc
- Also all real online poker games, downloadable games, Casino games have micro stores
- Second Life online where EVERYTHING you buy is with Real Money
- Now if you add the zillions of online transactions per minutes...its called The Web Market
Hey i mean even tons of MMOs items and/or characters, accounts etc are selling on Ebay soooo lol....
Its your choice to buy or not, nobody is forcing you, and it wont affect your gameplay if you don't, it will only enhance it mostly cosmetically.
So Good Job Cryptic ! Now you really need to fill this C-store with tons of new items.
I bought them, I am happy with them, I am actually thinking about making a ferengi captain as my main instead of my borg! And they weren't very expensive, so I don't mind paying at all.
You know stores are still selling pr order bonnues , its how i got my TOS and conniw now that the servers seem stble but i dont see borg anywhere on the retail details list...
You know stores are still selling pr order bonnues , its how i got my TOS and conniw now that the servers seem stble but i dont see borg anywhere on the retail details list...
Playable Borg was the exclusive bonus for pre-purchasing the lifetime subscription.
#1 - If you have a credit card, and can pay for any mmos monthly fees, it means you have money to invest in the gaming industry, like all of us.
#2 - If you cry cry QQ about this, it means that you're probably a kid that is playing with Mama's credit card and don't have the right to buy more stuff. poor little kido, you should play Free Online Games instead.
#3 - Wake the hell up fluffy face !
There is micro transactions and online costs everywhere !
Examples :
- X-box LIVE montly fees, when its totally free online play on PS3 (but ppl still pay for X-box Live)
- PS3 Network and Store with zillions of add-ons from $2 up to $49 each, quests, special items, special chars, accessories including wallpapers, themes, mini-games, old PS1 games, classics and even some animated features for your PS3 desktop. ( And ppl are buying tons of them)
- Most of all MMOs outhere : Online stores, Add-ons, Micro Stores, Special items etc etc
- Also all real online poker games, downloadable games, Casino games have micro stores
- Now if you add the zillions of online transactions per minutes...its called The Web Market
Hey i mean even tons of MMOs items and or characters, accounts etc are selling on Ebay soooo lol....
Welcome in 2010 buddy...
I was thinking that it might be because to many played with mommy's CC that MT works so well, people that earn money for themselves tent to think about how they spend them.
I bet many of those that are complaining have never personally been involved with growing a business, starting a business, or have been in a position where your actions directly affect the sustainability of a business. Great ideas don't always succeed and not everyone in business is greedy. I have very personal experience, I know what its like starting out in massive debts, downsizing your house to raise capital, working 10hrs everyday, all to attempt to make your ideas a reality. I can tell you from that experience I had many clients you thought I was making huge amounts of money, when in reality I was struggling to keep tings going.
Why is this relevant? Has anyone realized Cryptic is owned by Atari? Has anyone bothered to look into Atari's finances?
I remember when Atari used to be listed on the NASDAQ, what happened? They were forced to de-list. The were bought out by Infogrames who changed the name of their company to Atari (technically Atari is a French owned company now). They haven't made money in years, actually they have massive losses, they have year-over-year revenue declines and have had to significantly downsize the company.
I tried to defend Cryptic's decision to charge for Vibora Bay in CO, not because I am a huge fanboi but from a business perspective it made sense, and I felt it will be worth my entertainment dollar. Many didn't agree, some telling me to do more research, that I didn't understand the situation. So I did do a very small amount of digging, I looked into just how much profit they were making, only to find out they don't make money.
I bet many of those that are complaining have never personally been involved with growing a business, starting a business, or have been in a position where your actions directly affect the sustainability of a business. Great ideas don't always succeed and not everyone in business is greedy. I have very personal experience, I know what its like starting out in massive debts, downsizing your house to raise capital, working 10hrs everyday, all to attempt to make your ideas a reality. I can tell you from that experience I had many clients you thought I was making huge amounts of money, when in reality I was struggling to keep tings going.
Why is this relevant? Has anyone realized Cryptic is owned by Atari? Has anyone bothered to look into Atari's finances?
I remember when Atari used to be listed on the NASDAQ, what happened? They were forced to de-list. The were bought out by Infogrames who changed the name of their company to Atari (technically Atari is a French owned company now). They haven't made money in years, actually they have massive losses, they have year-over-year revenue declines and have had to significantly downsize the company.
I tried to defend Cryptic's decision to charge for Vibora Bay in CO, not because I am a huge fanboi but from a business perspective it made sense, and I felt it will be worth my entertainment dollar. Many didn't agree, some telling me to do more research, that I didn't understand the situation. So I did do a very small amount of digging, I looked into just how much profit they were making, only to find out they don't make money.
I bet many of those that are complaining have never personally been involved with growing a business, starting a business, or have been in a position where your actions directly affect the sustainability of a business. Great ideas don't always succeed and not everyone in business is greedy. I have very personal experience, I know what its like starting out in massive debts, downsizing your house to raise capital, working 10hrs everyday, all to attempt to make your ideas a reality. I can tell you from that experience I had many clients you thought I was making huge amounts of money, when in reality I was struggling to keep tings going.
Why is this relevant? Has anyone realized Cryptic is owned by Atari? Has anyone bothered to look into Atari's finances?
I remember when Atari used to be listed on the NASDAQ, what happened? They were forced to de-list. The were bought out by Infogrames who changed the name of their company to Atari (technically Atari is a French owned company now). They haven't made money in years, actually they have massive losses, they have year-over-year revenue declines and have had to significantly downsize the company.
I tried to defend Cryptic's decision to charge for Vibora Bay in CO, not because I am a huge fanboi but from a business perspective it made sense, and I felt it will be worth my entertainment dollar. Many didn't agree, some telling me to do more research, that I didn't understand the situation. So I did do a very small amount of digging, I looked into just how much profit they were making, only to find out they don't make money.
They are not being greedy they are attempting to stay in business.
Cheers
Good points.
But the way to stay in business is to provide a service that people want. Currently STO is a good game that people like and subscribe to. So Cryptic need to keep it that way by using some of the subs for development.
They will make a lot more cash by retaining customers than they will make selling content expansions in the c-store.
Good ideas stay in business bad don't. That's in the beginners guide of capitalism.
Anyway you sound more like stockholders then costumers that's the tone that makes all this quite amusing.
That said you are free to spend your money as you wish.
Many good ideas die, and bad ideas survive. Just look around you, bad ideas flourish all the time because of ignorance and stupidity. What is a good idea is sometimes not a good business proposition, and many bad ideas survive because there is a way to make money off the bad idea. (speaking of 'bad' as in its negative for society in someway, not in the business sense)
That said I have no vested interest in Atari and Crytpic surviving financially past the fact I play CO, and STO. So far in CO and STO what is in the C-Store if given free to everyone would not entice a great deal more to play the game. However, there is of course a tipping point at which time the community won't pay for things and would leave over it, but we are not even remotely there.
I personally think the C-Store is a great idea, and one that I hope over time is embraced as a good thing for the community. I may not like grocery shopping or clothes shopping (past lingerie for my wife), but I could enjoy buying a few things from the C-Store.
There are all kinds of interesting ways to make the C-Store fun, say special one-time limited offers, that are bid on e-bay style. As long as its not game breaking, I think it'd be fun. Say special prototype hull designs, uniforms, etc.
The current business model for MMO's is old and won't hold up over time, when UO, Meridian 59, DAOC, and EQ were being designed the whole design team consisted of a dozen or so very dedicated passionate programmers. Many traded their personal lives to see the projects succeed. Now it is a established business market you have run-of-the-mill programmers joining in, they want a 9-5 job, and they don't want to sacrifice everything to see it succeed. We have a community that wants more and more.
If you hold purchase cost of a game steady, and subscription cost steady, but you need more resources (programmers, writers, artists, etc.) then your only recourse is to attract more audience, that was the WoW approach. The game got simpler, the concepts easier to understand, the leveling process faster, all to bring in more players.
What happens when you design a game that doesn't appeal to the masses? If the ideas don't appeal or the design is too complex, etc. the players that do like it have a choice. Pay more, left the game fail, or restructure the game to appeal to the masses. All the options are undesirable, and sometimes we will unfortunately encounter times when great ideas fail.
So far to me Cryptic/Atari's decision to have a C-Store is a compromise, it doesn't change the core game, but it serves to bring it a little bit more. Trust me they will be watching the sub rate, the reaction to C-Store items, and when it goes sour, when they lose more then they gain, it'll be changed.
Many good ideas die, and bad ideas survive. Just look around you, bad ideas flourish all the time because of ignorance and stupidity. What is a good idea is sometimes not a good business proposition, and many bad ideas survive because there is a way to make money off the bad idea. (speaking of 'bad' as in its negative for society in someway, not in the business sense)
That said I have no vested interest in Atari and Crytpic surviving financially past the fact I play CO, and STO. So far in CO and STO what is in the C-Store if given free to everyone would not entice a great deal more to play the game. However, there is of course a tipping point at which time the community won't pay for things and would leave over it, but we are not even remotely there.
I personally think the C-Store is a great idea, and one that I hope over time is embraced as a good thing for the community. I may not like grocery shopping or clothes shopping (past lingerie for my wife), but I could enjoy buying a few things from the C-Store.
There are all kinds of interesting ways to make the C-Store fun, say special one-time limited offers, that are bid on e-bay style. As long as its not game breaking, I think it'd be fun. Say special prototype hull designs, uniforms, etc.
The current business model for MMO's is old and won't hold up over time, when UO, Meridian 59, DAOC, and EQ were being designed the whole design team consisted of a dozen or so very dedicated passionate programmers. Many traded their personal lives to see the projects succeed. Now it is a established business market you have run-of-the-mill programmers joining in, they want a 9-5 job, and they don't want to sacrifice everything to see it succeed. We have a community that wants more and more.
If you hold purchase cost of a game steady, and subscription cost steady, but you need more resources (programmers, writers, artists, etc.) then your only recourse is to attract more audience, that was the WoW approach. The game got simpler, the concepts easier to understand, the leveling process faster, all to bring in more players.
What happens when you design a game that doesn't appeal to the masses? If the ideas don't appeal or the design is too complex, etc. the players that do like it have a choice. Pay more, left the game fail, or restructure the game to appeal to the masses. All the options are undesirable, and sometimes we will unfortunately encounter times when great ideas fail.
So far to me Cryptic/Atari's decision to have a C-Store is a compromise, it doesn't change the core game, but it serves to bring it a little bit more. Trust me they will be watching the sub rate, the reaction to C-Store items, and when it goes sour, when they lose more then they gain, it'll be changed.
Cheers
Ok, that's a thoughtful post I respect that. Kudos.
This jumped out at me as I was skimming everything.
Your analogy is wrong.
The two playable races in the C-store would be like buying a cheeseburger, and asking for salad options to go on it as well. You'll pay the price for your cheeseburger, which gets you your bun, patty, cheese and sauce (and whatever else comes standard in your store) and then you pay a little extra for the things that you don't get as standard in your cheeseburger, like lettuce, pineapple, beetroot, whatever.
The point is, you get your cheeseburger for the same price and it comes exactly as advertised. Just if you want more, you pay those few cents extra.
With respect to STO, in all the advertising I have seen for it, not once did I see an ad that said, "Play as a Klingon or Ferengi in Starfleet!" Nor until I went into the C-store tonight did I even know they were possibilities. They're a nice touch, not for me, but if I wanted to play them I'd have no problem forking out a bit extra.
The question I guess you should be asking yourself is, is the game completely ruined for you if you can't play as a Klingon or Ferengi in Starfleet? Does it completely ruin the game for you in some indescribable way the rest of us just don't get? I don't think so. Before I starting skipping through this thread because of the constant whining (70+ pages of it? Over something this small? Really?) I didn't see any one of the people complaining say they actually wanted to play as a Ferengi or Klingon, nor did I see anyone say their game experience was ruined by not being able to do so. And certainly, if people are withholding these feelings, they're not actually saying anything about it or able to articulate what they feel.
I guess it must be the hate and bile they're directing at Cryptic or something. Dunno.
Unfortunately in that skimming you missed the part where I'm not talking about the 2 races currently in the store. Really this thread has evolved to be more about charging a full monthly fee and then tacking on the item shop that Free To Play MMO's use on top of it.
I can understand that in the instance of these 2 races that it could have and probably was done to keep them rarer on the Fed side, and it doesn't bother me. I started posting as the topic started to move more towards the evils of the store in general.
The quoted examples (the this this and this links to DDO, Guildwars, Oblivion etc) are free to play games (OB isn't even an MMO) and item shops are standard practice for those because you aren't paying them 15 a month to continue development so they have to make a profit somehow.
To the person who said they would gladly shell out money at the C Store for a Nebula hull, I would say to you that this would be a prime example to show where the limit on cosmetics that are allowed on the store should be. Ships and ship parts are exactly where I would feel we should draw the line and not allow on the store considering the massive impact that the ships alone have on the IP. You can not give a flip about the races, but if you don't like the starships, well you sir just don't like trek.
If you're paying a subscription for Playboy, you don't have to pay a tiny little extra fees to remove censorship boxes from the ladies - "Sorry sir, the other nip is extra". You're paying a monthly payment to receive the magazine in it's entirety for as long as that subscription is valid. MMOs have been no different.
Now they may offer some extra services (name/server change, etc) that they don't normally want to allow, but will do occasionally for a fee.
Alot of us would like to see a statement from Cryptic lining out the types of content that will or will not be put in the store. This action of 2 races at launch with no statement regarding it just simply doesn't bode well towards anything being safe.
Stuff for your captain to wear, little tag along pets that do nothing, stuff for your BO's to wear, decorations for your bridge, are examples of things that I know I wouldn't be upset about being in the store. Ship hulls or parts or any actual functional item, I would. I don't pay a full monthly fee in an MMO for them to come back at me to pay micro transactions for the content my monthly fee funded.
This thread makes me sad. How can so many people think it is fine for a company to take people and time away from making the game you are about to buy better, to make content that you need to pay extra for the day it comes out? No you don't NEED to buy it, but the fact remains that it is content that had development time taken away from other aspects of the game to get made in time for the launch of the game, only to be locked away and have a price tag thrown on top of it.
Companies getting away with stuff like this is honestly just turning me off of the video game industry in general. Its almost impossible to find any good games these days that are not having content stripped out of it to be tacked on later at a cost, or having time and effort taken away from its development to make this stuff.:( The sad part is that their is just enough people out their who don't know any better, or like to waste money, who blindly buy this stuff to make it worth the backlash and hate from communities to keep doing this.
I couldn't agree with you more. Gone are the days of true gamers that would quest for hours and hours to get some uber item gone are the days when a person would prepare teams of their friends guild m8s etc.. to kill a single boss mob. All these MT are not just making it more expensive to be a gamer they are changing what it means to be a gamer. It's no longer about your friends or your skill level its becoming about how much money you spend on the game. I was like alot of you because I started playing mmorpgs back when Ashron's call was still shiny and new. I then moved over to Anarchy Online once I heard about it cuz I have have always loved the idea of a tech based mmorpg. Then funcom did something surprising they released a expansion pack for a subscription game and charged people extra money for it. Luckily FC decided to give the EP Notum Wars to the subscribers who have been around sense launch a heavily discounted price I only payed $5 for it on launch day. It was nice of them but it was still wrong because AO was a broken game until NW came out and by all rights NW should have been free from the start cuz it made AO playable.
I enjoyed the game so I kept playing and accepted the EPs and I rationalized spending the extra money by saying to myself as long as they add a bunch of content its worth it even though I pay them a monthly fee. Fast forward to when FC introduced MT into AO at first FC made it seem like the new vehicles were going to be made availble to all subscribers for ingame resources but then they suddenly put it up MT. That caused thousands of people to quit AO I was on a 3 month payment plan so I was stuck with the game for 2 more months and got to see the decline with my own eyes. Fc had to make AO F2P with the first expansion pack just to boost the population so the game didnt look empty. I left after my sub was up and found COH from cryptic I was excited because cryptic seemed to remember what MMORPGs were originally intended to be. A living game that was constantly improving life was good in CoH until cryptic left and NCsoft introduced booster packs. I left CoH soon after because I personally wasnt going to stand for MT in a game I am paying a subscription for not matter if the items/powers are cosmetic.
The only reason I am still playing STO at this point is because star trek is my all time favorite IP and it is the reason I got into IT field in the first place. That wont last for long thought If cryptic decides to keep using the MT for this subscription based game because my money is important to me I have to work for every dime I get and I cant justify blowing money on things that should be in the game I payed for. On a side note DLC/MT is the reason I dont own a newer console anymore. I bought a xbox 360 on launch day I was having fun with it until I bought a game on launch day came home poped it in my 360 and saw DLC on xbox live for a game I just bought that ment the company left that content out of the game just to sell it back to me and they had the nerve to charge me full retail for the game. I sold my xbox 360 as soon as i beat that game and havent looked back. I went on my bro's 360 a few days ago and saw how out of control DLC has gotten on live its really sad when u think about it because 90% of the people that buy DLC dont earn the money themselves so they dont really care about spending it.
In short I have seen the gaming industry deteriorate over the years I have been a gamer and I am sorry to say but I think the days of a person's skill and time invested being the key to awesomeness are long gone. Now we are stuck with a gaming industry that is more concerned about milking your bank account for every dime they can and content quality has takin a back seat to the all mighty dollar. Anyway I am going to make sure my kids have to pay for any video games themselves out of their own money they earned that way they realize just how expensive gaming is now days. It might not hurt the gaming industry by its self but if enough people do it the game industry will start to feel the pain and stop all this MT bs.
I'm all for Microtransactions that don't unbalance the game. Give us more parts for the alien creator, and more bridge officer species options. Give us more hull designs. Give us unique buyable emotes. So long as there's equivalent options in-game, and they're not selling "I win" buttons, it won't make a difference to gameplay aside from offering more customization options, and I only have to pay for the customization options I want.
They could have a staff of fifty working on new, free items in game and churn 5 or 10 out a month, or they could have a staff of one hundred, salaries supported by microtransactions, and churn out 8-15 free items a month plus 8-15 buyable.
More people buying microtransactions means more staff which means more stuff-including free stuff.
Comments
....then why on earth are you complaining about this?
I really fail to see any significant distinction.
In each case, it is the sale of virtual goods, by their developer, at a price of the developer's choosing. If the consumer feels that price is unfair, they have the right to not pay it. It is as simple as that.
I would also point those who say this "merchandising" is BS, to any of the plethora of webcomic authors who sell merchandise and books featuring their works. DeviantArt users who sell prints of their artworks, be they hand-drawn/painted or Photoshop creations. The amount of 3D meshes, textures, scenes and whatnot on sale over at Turbosquid.
Et cetera, et cetera.
So you find it reprehensible when Cryptic turn a profit on their own creative works, but when you're pointed towards any other entity that does the exact same thing, you're like "Who gives a s***?".
Please just take the amatuer dramatics back over to The Jeremy Kyle Show. Some of us would like to see these forums be of use to someone - anyone - and it's really about time this kind of behaviour was nipped in the bud.
After all, this is supposed to be a community of adults, is it not?
Ferengi happy. Klingon buy P'taq blood from Ferengi, then happy. Seriously, let it go. If you can't ignore the 'it's not canon' justification or this then it might be more healthy for you to avoid the forums. As far as I'm concerned, the forums are for trolls, whiners, and canon freaks.
Romulans have V-shaped forehead ridges
i didn't get any Cryptic Points from STO, but i never used my Points From CO, so they came in Handy.
Amen
And there was a total of /1/ ferengi in Starfleet, and he was ridiuced but EVERY FRIGGING Frengi. Honestly i hope to see Federation Gorn, Nausican, orion, Romulan, et all soon and Klingon Trills et all in the C-Store
Most people like to get good value for money. It's not very often you hear people asking a company to charge them extra for stuff that should really be included in the price they are already paying. Yet for some reason you want Cryptic to charge you more. Why is that?
Was being the keyword.
That was 25 some odd years ago, remember? With Nog in Starfleet and Rom as the new Grand Nagus, things were bound to change. Rom's legacy, as you must have predicted, would have been far different from any previous Grand Nagus.
What we're looking at, in any of these four cases, is content which was not developed as part of a base game, being sold as an optional extra, for a negligible fee.
Do I find it a bit tactless that the C-Store was rolled out so quickly? Kinda, yeah, but when you've got deadlines and expenditures, you can't just sit on your hands to be polite.
What we really have here, once you strip away all the reasoning and just get down to the core instinct, is five groups:
For the benefit of all five groups, I would like to recount my general experience with cash stores on MMOs which don't charge a monthly fee.
Yo, Cryptic, hope you're taking notes. Wouldn't want to disappoint your loyal detractors now, would you?
Point is, for the amount these other companies - who do run "free to play" games with cash shops - charge for the most worthless of virtual items, you could've gone down to Gamestation and bought yourself a copy of Fallout 3.
What Cryptic are charging for these two cosmetic items is well below the going rates. That is, in part, due to the monthly fee, but it's also because they're not half the rip-off merchants some people would readily pass them off as.
If they really were that bad, you can bet your derriere they'd be charging the kind of ridiculous rates in my big ol' list up there, and they'd be getting away with it because according to industry regulators, there's nothing wrong with it.
Quite a lot of the preorder bonuses did come with 500 points (even when they weren't advertised, in some cases). Honestly I just thought Cryptic had done precisely as you suggested, but today noticed some people mentioning they hadn't received any. Poor sods.
Does sound like a good idea though. Sort of an introductory thing? Yeah, that would work. Would cost a fair bit of profits, but the potential gains for such a gesture of goodwill would far outweigh that, I'd think.
You know, just like Starfleet Klingons, the Alien option provides all the tools to make a Cardassian or a Romulan.
In fact, if you want to see a Cardassian in game as a lowbie for an example to use, check out Starbase 1. And Romulans as depicted in-game are in the CE character manual. Basically, pointier eyebrows, a pointier head, bigger brow, double spine forehead, otherwise Vulcan.
Obviously, you can try to make one from memory but my point is, you can even double check against game renders Cryptic supplies to make one exactly in their style that will match any NPCs.
Yep. Gamestop, where most got their STO (I'm guessing), did not offer cryptic points.
This jumped out at me as I was skimming everything.
Your analogy is wrong.
The two playable races in the C-store would be like buying a cheeseburger, and asking for salad options to go on it as well. You'll pay the price for your cheeseburger, which gets you your bun, patty, cheese and sauce (and whatever else comes standard in your store) and then you pay a little extra for the things that you don't get as standard in your cheeseburger, like lettuce, pineapple, beetroot, whatever.
The point is, you get your cheeseburger for the same price and it comes exactly as advertised. Just if you want more, you pay those few cents extra.
With respect to STO, in all the advertising I have seen for it, not once did I see an ad that said, "Play as a Klingon or Ferengi in Starfleet!" Nor until I went into the C-store tonight did I even know they were possibilities. They're a nice touch, not for me, but if I wanted to play them I'd have no problem forking out a bit extra.
The question I guess you should be asking yourself is, is the game completely ruined for you if you can't play as a Klingon or Ferengi in Starfleet? Does it completely ruin the game for you in some indescribable way the rest of us just don't get? I don't think so. Before I starting skipping through this thread because of the constant whining (70+ pages of it? Over something this small? Really?) I didn't see any one of the people complaining say they actually wanted to play as a Ferengi or Klingon, nor did I see anyone say their game experience was ruined by not being able to do so. And certainly, if people are withholding these feelings, they're not actually saying anything about it or able to articulate what they feel.
I guess it must be the hate and bile they're directing at Cryptic or something. Dunno.
With all the offers and goodies pre-oreder peeps get they are offering some thing special to other guys, nothing wrong with that.........
LMAO
#1 - If you have a credit card, and can pay for any mmos monthly fees, it means you have money to invest in the gaming industry, like all of us.
#2 - If you cry cry QQ about this, it means that you're probably a kid that is playing with Mama's credit card and don't have the right to buy more stuff. poor little kido, you should play Free Online Games instead.
#3 - If you're not a kid ... Wake the hell up fluffy face !
There is micro transactions and online costs everywhere ! It's an industry...Not a charity.
Examples :
- X-box LIVE montly fees, when its totally free online play on PS3 (but ppl still pay for X-box Live)
- PS3 Network and Store with zillions of add-ons from $2 up to $49 each, quests, special items, special chars, accessories including wallpapers, themes, mini-games, old PS1 games, classics and even some animated features for your PS3 desktop. ( And ppl are buying tons of them)
- Most of all MMOs outhere : Online stores, Add-ons, Micro Stores, Special items etc etc
- Also all real online poker games, downloadable games, Casino games have micro stores
- Second Life online where EVERYTHING you buy is with Real Money
- Now if you add the zillions of online transactions per minutes...its called The Web Market
Hey i mean even tons of MMOs items and/or characters, accounts etc are selling on Ebay soooo lol....
Its your choice to buy or not, nobody is forcing you, and it wont affect your gameplay if you don't, it will only enhance it mostly cosmetically.
So Good Job Cryptic ! Now you really need to fill this C-store with tons of new items.
And for you Crusader... Welcome in 2010 buddy...
You know stores are still selling pr order bonnues , its how i got my TOS and conniw now that the servers seem stble but i dont see borg anywhere on the retail details list...
ah well, no biggie. I mean i bout klingon and fengeni just because but i'm running a custom alien
I bet many of those that are complaining have never personally been involved with growing a business, starting a business, or have been in a position where your actions directly affect the sustainability of a business. Great ideas don't always succeed and not everyone in business is greedy. I have very personal experience, I know what its like starting out in massive debts, downsizing your house to raise capital, working 10hrs everyday, all to attempt to make your ideas a reality. I can tell you from that experience I had many clients you thought I was making huge amounts of money, when in reality I was struggling to keep tings going.
Why is this relevant? Has anyone realized Cryptic is owned by Atari? Has anyone bothered to look into Atari's finances?
I remember when Atari used to be listed on the NASDAQ, what happened? They were forced to de-list. The were bought out by Infogrames who changed the name of their company to Atari (technically Atari is a French owned company now). They haven't made money in years, actually they have massive losses, they have year-over-year revenue declines and have had to significantly downsize the company.
I tried to defend Cryptic's decision to charge for Vibora Bay in CO, not because I am a huge fanboi but from a business perspective it made sense, and I felt it will be worth my entertainment dollar. Many didn't agree, some telling me to do more research, that I didn't understand the situation. So I did do a very small amount of digging, I looked into just how much profit they were making, only to find out they don't make money.
Visit http://corporate.atari.com/infogramesgb/publicationsuk/ read over the documents then come back and tell us that Crytpic and Atari are greedy and are nickel and dime-ing us to death.
They are not being greedy they are attempting to stay in business.
Cheers
Anyway you sound more like stockholders then costumers that's the tone that makes all this quite amusing.
That said you are free to spend your money as you wish.
Good points.
But the way to stay in business is to provide a service that people want. Currently STO is a good game that people like and subscribe to. So Cryptic need to keep it that way by using some of the subs for development.
They will make a lot more cash by retaining customers than they will make selling content expansions in the c-store.
Many good ideas die, and bad ideas survive. Just look around you, bad ideas flourish all the time because of ignorance and stupidity. What is a good idea is sometimes not a good business proposition, and many bad ideas survive because there is a way to make money off the bad idea. (speaking of 'bad' as in its negative for society in someway, not in the business sense)
That said I have no vested interest in Atari and Crytpic surviving financially past the fact I play CO, and STO. So far in CO and STO what is in the C-Store if given free to everyone would not entice a great deal more to play the game. However, there is of course a tipping point at which time the community won't pay for things and would leave over it, but we are not even remotely there.
I personally think the C-Store is a great idea, and one that I hope over time is embraced as a good thing for the community. I may not like grocery shopping or clothes shopping (past lingerie for my wife), but I could enjoy buying a few things from the C-Store.
There are all kinds of interesting ways to make the C-Store fun, say special one-time limited offers, that are bid on e-bay style. As long as its not game breaking, I think it'd be fun. Say special prototype hull designs, uniforms, etc.
The current business model for MMO's is old and won't hold up over time, when UO, Meridian 59, DAOC, and EQ were being designed the whole design team consisted of a dozen or so very dedicated passionate programmers. Many traded their personal lives to see the projects succeed. Now it is a established business market you have run-of-the-mill programmers joining in, they want a 9-5 job, and they don't want to sacrifice everything to see it succeed. We have a community that wants more and more.
If you hold purchase cost of a game steady, and subscription cost steady, but you need more resources (programmers, writers, artists, etc.) then your only recourse is to attract more audience, that was the WoW approach. The game got simpler, the concepts easier to understand, the leveling process faster, all to bring in more players.
What happens when you design a game that doesn't appeal to the masses? If the ideas don't appeal or the design is too complex, etc. the players that do like it have a choice. Pay more, left the game fail, or restructure the game to appeal to the masses. All the options are undesirable, and sometimes we will unfortunately encounter times when great ideas fail.
So far to me Cryptic/Atari's decision to have a C-Store is a compromise, it doesn't change the core game, but it serves to bring it a little bit more. Trust me they will be watching the sub rate, the reaction to C-Store items, and when it goes sour, when they lose more then they gain, it'll be changed.
Cheers
Unfortunately in that skimming you missed the part where I'm not talking about the 2 races currently in the store. Really this thread has evolved to be more about charging a full monthly fee and then tacking on the item shop that Free To Play MMO's use on top of it.
I can understand that in the instance of these 2 races that it could have and probably was done to keep them rarer on the Fed side, and it doesn't bother me. I started posting as the topic started to move more towards the evils of the store in general.
The quoted examples (the this this and this links to DDO, Guildwars, Oblivion etc) are free to play games (OB isn't even an MMO) and item shops are standard practice for those because you aren't paying them 15 a month to continue development so they have to make a profit somehow.
To the person who said they would gladly shell out money at the C Store for a Nebula hull, I would say to you that this would be a prime example to show where the limit on cosmetics that are allowed on the store should be. Ships and ship parts are exactly where I would feel we should draw the line and not allow on the store considering the massive impact that the ships alone have on the IP. You can not give a flip about the races, but if you don't like the starships, well you sir just don't like trek.
If you're paying a subscription for Playboy, you don't have to pay a tiny little extra fees to remove censorship boxes from the ladies - "Sorry sir, the other nip is extra". You're paying a monthly payment to receive the magazine in it's entirety for as long as that subscription is valid. MMOs have been no different.
Now they may offer some extra services (name/server change, etc) that they don't normally want to allow, but will do occasionally for a fee.
Alot of us would like to see a statement from Cryptic lining out the types of content that will or will not be put in the store. This action of 2 races at launch with no statement regarding it just simply doesn't bode well towards anything being safe.
Stuff for your captain to wear, little tag along pets that do nothing, stuff for your BO's to wear, decorations for your bridge, are examples of things that I know I wouldn't be upset about being in the store. Ship hulls or parts or any actual functional item, I would. I don't pay a full monthly fee in an MMO for them to come back at me to pay micro transactions for the content my monthly fee funded.
I couldn't agree with you more. Gone are the days of true gamers that would quest for hours and hours to get some uber item gone are the days when a person would prepare teams of their friends guild m8s etc.. to kill a single boss mob. All these MT are not just making it more expensive to be a gamer they are changing what it means to be a gamer. It's no longer about your friends or your skill level its becoming about how much money you spend on the game. I was like alot of you because I started playing mmorpgs back when Ashron's call was still shiny and new. I then moved over to Anarchy Online once I heard about it cuz I have have always loved the idea of a tech based mmorpg. Then funcom did something surprising they released a expansion pack for a subscription game and charged people extra money for it. Luckily FC decided to give the EP Notum Wars to the subscribers who have been around sense launch a heavily discounted price I only payed $5 for it on launch day. It was nice of them but it was still wrong because AO was a broken game until NW came out and by all rights NW should have been free from the start cuz it made AO playable.
I enjoyed the game so I kept playing and accepted the EPs and I rationalized spending the extra money by saying to myself as long as they add a bunch of content its worth it even though I pay them a monthly fee. Fast forward to when FC introduced MT into AO at first FC made it seem like the new vehicles were going to be made availble to all subscribers for ingame resources but then they suddenly put it up MT. That caused thousands of people to quit AO I was on a 3 month payment plan so I was stuck with the game for 2 more months and got to see the decline with my own eyes. Fc had to make AO F2P with the first expansion pack just to boost the population so the game didnt look empty. I left after my sub was up and found COH from cryptic I was excited because cryptic seemed to remember what MMORPGs were originally intended to be. A living game that was constantly improving life was good in CoH until cryptic left and NCsoft introduced booster packs. I left CoH soon after because I personally wasnt going to stand for MT in a game I am paying a subscription for not matter if the items/powers are cosmetic.
The only reason I am still playing STO at this point is because star trek is my all time favorite IP and it is the reason I got into IT field in the first place. That wont last for long thought If cryptic decides to keep using the MT for this subscription based game because my money is important to me I have to work for every dime I get and I cant justify blowing money on things that should be in the game I payed for. On a side note DLC/MT is the reason I dont own a newer console anymore. I bought a xbox 360 on launch day I was having fun with it until I bought a game on launch day came home poped it in my 360 and saw DLC on xbox live for a game I just bought that ment the company left that content out of the game just to sell it back to me and they had the nerve to charge me full retail for the game. I sold my xbox 360 as soon as i beat that game and havent looked back. I went on my bro's 360 a few days ago and saw how out of control DLC has gotten on live its really sad when u think about it because 90% of the people that buy DLC dont earn the money themselves so they dont really care about spending it.
In short I have seen the gaming industry deteriorate over the years I have been a gamer and I am sorry to say but I think the days of a person's skill and time invested being the key to awesomeness are long gone. Now we are stuck with a gaming industry that is more concerned about milking your bank account for every dime they can and content quality has takin a back seat to the all mighty dollar. Anyway I am going to make sure my kids have to pay for any video games themselves out of their own money they earned that way they realize just how expensive gaming is now days. It might not hurt the gaming industry by its self but if enough people do it the game industry will start to feel the pain and stop all this MT bs.
They could have a staff of fifty working on new, free items in game and churn 5 or 10 out a month, or they could have a staff of one hundred, salaries supported by microtransactions, and churn out 8-15 free items a month plus 8-15 buyable.
More people buying microtransactions means more staff which means more stuff-including free stuff.