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Did it become okay for a pay to play mmo, to charge extra money for game functionality?
When a free to play game charges money for you to have extra character slots or inventory space, thats because you obviously like it enough to pay the extra for some more playability. This helps them cover server costs and such, without relying too heavily on outside advertising.
When a pay to play game charges for vanity items, it's to give you the ability to say look, I can be pretty! And yet it doesn't change the game play. This is almost pure profit, as server costs and such are covered by the monthly fee's.
This game is trying to get the best of both worlds, and it bothers me that it may set a precedent for pay to play games to give limited playability just because you aren't paying enough.
Sure, I'll pay for an expansion, one time, to pay for development costs, I'll pay a monthly fee to get access to the game I payed for, to cover server costs and staff wages. But also paying to get access to the fundamentals of the game on top of that doesn't make sense to me.
Please, explain in a way that an idiot can comprehend, as I seem to be one, Because I really enjoy the game play aspects of this game, even if I do not agree with the management, and I would continue to play if there was even one good reason why this should be allowed.
When a free to play game charges money for you to have extra character slots or inventory space, thats because you obviously like it enough to pay the extra for some more playability. This helps them cover server costs and such, without relying too heavily on outside advertising.
When a pay to play game charges for vanity items, it's to give you the ability to say look, I can be pretty! And yet it doesn't change the game play. This is almost pure profit, as server costs and such are covered by the monthly fee's.
This game is trying to get the best of both worlds, and it bothers me that it may set a precedent for pay to play games to give limited playability just because you aren't paying enough.
Sure, I'll pay for an expansion, one time, to pay for development costs, I'll pay a monthly fee to get access to the game I payed for, to cover server costs and staff wages. But also paying to get access to the fundamentals of the game on top of that doesn't make sense to me.
Please, explain in a way that an idiot can comprehend, as I seem to be one, Because I really enjoy the game play aspects of this game, even if I do not agree with the management, and I would continue to play if there was even one good reason why this should be allowed.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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It's a slippery slope and we've slipped down that slope a bit.
The bad news is: I think you have a point. And that it does set a bad precedent.
The good news is: Certain commentary by a certain Executive at the company, when interviewed about that executive's next project, leads many to believe that the model isn't working all that well because of the problems you cite.
Oh heck, I won't beat around the bush. When interviewed about the next Cryptic game, Jack Emmert basically said that no matter how much he believes they did the right thing with STO, the critical reviews and fan reactions told him they did the wrong thing.
Um...it hasn't nor is it right now. Lots of people are up in arms about the C-Store. Fluff was fine...then they put items that have special powers that can ONLY be gotten through RMTs. If it was a F2P game then I doubt it would be quite as bad, but Cryptic's double-dipping and double-charging its playerbase.
Just a bit? I think that the slope is oiled down and we're surfing down it at warp speed.
Jack basically wrote off STO (and CO as an extension) as failures in that interview. With the sheer amount of stuff being sold (BOTH fluff as well as functional gameplay assets) I have been of the opinion for months that Cryptic is trying to milk the community for all its worth before dropping the game and focusing on the NWN OMG.
Until I am proven otherwise that's how I'll always see it.
OMG...**snicker**...perfect acronym for a Cryptic game.
Although it doesn't obscure the cancel button....so it looks a bit pink.
Just so you understand, those items, and the items currently on sale in Cryptic's C-Store may offer gameplay changes, but those changes are not now, nor will they ever be game-breaking. Claiming that anything on the C-Store (or the NCSoft CoH/V item store) is game-breaking requires a detailed report analyzing how the item in question breaks the game and so far, none of the threads that claim this that I've seen has shown such detailed analysis.
If and when a thread comes out and displays a detailed analysis showing that game-breaking items exist on the C-Store, I'm pretty sure Cryptic will act accordingly and probably boost other equivalent in-game items to such a state where the C-Store item no longer seems "required". :cool:
2cents and yes not another dime of mine will you get.
I never, in my post, stated that anything in the c store was game breaking.
However, giving players 2 character slots (3 with a klingon faction when a character reaches rank 5) and then charging for more slots strikes me as unethical. The extra bridge officer slots makes for a better away team makeup, as you can have multiple of the same type (this mission has a lot of enemies, so take 1 science officer and 3 tacticals or 4 engineers for the aoes, or four science officers for super heals.) They may not be game breaking, but they are game altering.
Actually, a third slot (and Klingon play) is unlocked at level 6, not 5. However, I agree with you. Three character slots by default is not nearly enough, especially for people with altitis. I have like 9 unlocked, 5 of which came with my sub (with only 3 currently in use). To add insult to injury, Cryptic gave us some BS about storage space when we called them out on it.