Jack Emmert admits in a a new podcast:
"We have well over 100,000 subscribers."
http://thebigfreaks.com/?p=263
around min 21
Also:
"It kills us to read the reviews of Star Trek Online... a lot sleepless nights."
"The reviews of Star Trek... I've never seen anything like it."
He also voices regret that so many people think Cryptic is greedy and releasing an unfinished product. Paraphrasing: It's because of WOW... people won't give a game a chance to grow because they expect it to be polished.
"I think that WOW has almost destroyed the MMO genre."
"The expectations for a traditional MMO... it won't be successful."
"Star Trek was just by happenstance. Champions was a really good idea."
He sounds positive about the game, but I found these honest quotes interesting.
Comments
100k x 15$ =1.5mil a month? wonder what their overhead is.
well over 100k means under 200k, theyre a buisness. It means not even close enough to say 'almost 200k', which investors would love.
Are you seriously that Nieve? I am not trying to be mean when I say that. However can you point me to a single review that gave the game better than 50% review? Example Gamespot 5.0 out of 10. You have exactly 2 factions The Federation and The Klingons. With The Federation you do have PVE content which if you are a casual gamer will last you MAYBE at best 2 months. Everyone I know in the game has hit Admiral within what a week or some situations 3 days?
Then there is the Klingon side which is TOTALLY PVP and exactly 1 or 2 missions that are PVE ,but ARE SPACE COMBAT. The average gamer will enjoy that for probably 2 days or maybe a week.
I love Star Trek. However even as a hard core Trek it is hard for me to play the game ,because frankly it is boring now. I am still playing and I paid for the lifetime ,but believe me if I had known in Open Beta about this being the game in its final form I wouldn't have given them 10 dollars let alone 239 or whatever it was.
So now I am stuck with sitting back and waiting to see if the devs can make the game worthwhile. So far I am not impressed especially when I think about for Klingons it will be somewhere in July b4 there is TRUE PVE.
Don't kid yourself. This game is in serious trouble. The Devs and their jobs are also as well. You need any further proof just watch the Season One Video. The guy is doing MAJOR PR and trying to keep people calm and trying to convince them hey we can make this game work for you.
As said before he said something like that before launch "we would be happy with 100k"..... he also said 100k is their interpretation of success and they are over that ... it doesn't mean it's under 200.000 he is just admitting that they met their expectations which is 100k +
Yes, he seemed pleased by the figure. He added something like, "We've definitely meet our expectations."
Considering Klingons were said to be a pure PvP faction, it shouldn't be a surprise.
Klingons are like WoW PvP. Added last minute (in this case with PvE)
No it doesn't mean that. Their original plan for a succesful MMO was having atleast 100,000 subscribers. What he was saying here is that they have WELL over 100,000 subscribers. That doesn't mean it's under 200k at all. It simply means that they have met and in fact, succeeded their expectations when it comes to the subscriber base.
Yes, but I do wonder how many they had at launch compared to today. I do hope it stays steady at over 100k.
If you'd actually listen to the interview, you'd discover that what you are seeing is the beginning of Cryptic studio's new face to the public. Step 1 is to open communication with the players to an unheard of level amongst major MMOs.
It is in no way a sign that they are panicking and trying to keep the warp core from breaching. The doom and gloom is way overdone on these forums. The extremely vocal minority most certainly does not speak for everyone.
I see a company that is pleased they have been so immediately succesful with CO & STO. At the same time they see their shortcomings on the two titles, and they are reinventing the way they operate to correct these problems.
Klingons are far from WOW PVP. Enough said not even worthy of being called PVP because it is FLAT IMPOSSIBLE ASIDE FROM CONSTANT GRIND to level the character.
Well I'm pretty sure it will ... don't know for how long ... but some facts from about 150 MMORPGs until today ...
- 9 out of 150 are defunct
- just one of these 9 had a major IP
- that ONE was Matrix Online and it lasted for 4 years
- most of the other 8 lasted for 2+ years
so crying DOOMSDAY after 2 months of an MMO is foolish .... crying DOOMSDAY after 2 months of an ST MMO is ... well ....
Well yeah but I personally like this game and I'm willing to help out the devs with my 15 a month to keep this game improving. I would have thought more than 100,000 people would at least feel the same or just like star trek and the community enough to keep up the subscriptions. I wonder if that 100,000 is including the lifetimes too because if they have only 50,000 lifetimes that's still about twelve million right up front and wouldn't show up on the sub list.
When asked about console ports or new products, Jack said it is "Absolutely not happening". They would love to do this, but obviously the 2 giants they have to go through first aren't willing to cooperate enough to warrant the effort.
He seemed to say that it was absolutely not part of Cryptic's plans at the moment. Consoles are really irrelevant.
I have to disagree with that. The PC's footing on the gaming market slips more and more each year. Cryptic has expressed great interest in bringing both CO and STO to consoles in the past. They've even stated on a number of occassions that they have it up and running on console dev kits in house. The problem is going through Microsoft and Sony, who both demand ridiculous royalties.
This has obviously caused Cryptic to do a complete about face on the matter. I can understand this decision on their part to just drop it. If its not worth the hassle, then why bother?
I see, so you're basing your interpretation of those comments based on earlier dev comments. I haven't read them. I was just going with my impression from the podcast, which seemed to say very bluntly, "NO."
All the interview and podcast that I will listen to today makes me happy thta I was right.
Nothing else other than me being correct.
The lifetime sub was a really good decision
It really is an optimistic interview with a ton of honesty mixed in. I just found the honestly kind of refreshing and wanted to quote it. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm fishing for the negative here. I love that Cryptic is being honest about the game.
I would like to also be optimistic, but it could be the case that they had 400k at launch and now it's down to "well over 100k." I'm not so sure if it's proof for celebration.
Yeah, there is some history on this with Cryptic - and I'm sure a number of other senior members here can vouch for me on this.
In fact, for atleast the first year of announced development, STO was being developed for "PC and Console" according to the Cryptic Studios website. Bill Roper was even quoted on a couple of interviews saying that Champions was up and running on consoles in house. And that the problem lied with the business aspect of it all. The same has been said of STO through less official means in the past.
I fully expected it to crumble, as most every attempt at a console MMO does. The tech is there, but the business models just clash.
You missed my point. My point was Klingons were intended to be PvP only. PvE was added at the last minute.
WoW was built for only PvE. PvP was added last minute.
I'm sorry, but that is not the impression I got from the ads for "choose your side" that includes lots of cut-scenes, etc., that made Klingon-side appear as an equal part of the game.