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dalnar83
Member Posts: 2,420 Arc User
Lock box ships is how you sacrifice Star Trek for profits. Starfleet captains flying bugs, galors or even tholian ships ? Why not ? It's money. I'm glad for Gene Roddenberry that he cannot see what Earth Ferengis made out of his dream.
Don't know about others, but for me personally it ruins the the Star Trek immersion. I personally am disgusted.
Don't know about others, but for me personally it ruins the the Star Trek immersion. I personally am disgusted.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
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this is the federation, there should be hundreds of different aliens flying hundreds of different ship designs around space.
if people want to spend their hard earned money for the chance to fly around in an ugly TRIBBLE cardie Galor just so I don't have to look at an endless sea of cloned cruisers - more power to them.
Me playing UT2k4 (red guy) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz0DnP7wXnU
Gene's 'vision' was about humans living together in peace. That much is certain but the rest was open to storytelling in my view. I doubt he would really care if some players in a non-canon computer game could fly different ship to a Starfleet vessel but again honestly, I really don't know. Maybe he would hate STO, maybe he would hate DS9 or XI but they're here. None of us know what he would say or what he would change.
Why do fans only think that only STO is about making money? Have you not seen the thousands upon thousands of bits of merchandise that people make at the truck load to sell to Star Trek fans? Ever bought the TV series and films being released and re-released over and over again in every new format? Ever tried to get an autograph from one of the stars or gone to a convention. It all costs money, and it costs a lot of money. The entire franchise has been about taking as much money out of Trek fans as they can. Much like STO its all a persons choice to buy.
The companies that make Star Trek over the years have done so purely for profit. Our enjoyment is sadly a by-product of their desire to make money. The moment Trek stops making money, it gets cancelled. Sad but true. At least STO gives players the ability to play for free.
And quite frankly, if someone wants to spend their money buying a Jem'hadar ship or a Ferengi ship, then who are we to tell them that is wrong? If people don't like the lock boxes and that's 100% fine, and they spam has been terrible, but some players clearly do buy them and like flying those ships. Was being open to what other people want to do with their lives part of Gene's vision too?
Why does it ruin immersion either? If your immersed that much then its hardly unusual to see Ferengi or Cardassian ships flying around the galaxy. If anything seeing something other than a fed or Klingon ships should increase immersion.
All in all, I'm really excited for the upcoming Tholian lockboxes. They seem to have really upped the prizes, which I think pretty much all of them are good prizes, except I'll probably pass on the consumables at the Lobi store.
@DevolvedOne
While it is a bit silly seeing KDF and Starfleet captains flying about in Tholian ships, remember this is a game and if people want to spend at least $100 to get a very rare ship then let them. Everyone eventually goes back to flying their typical ship, e.g. I fly my Odyssey 24/7. Remember when the Atrox got released and ESD had a hundreds of those things flying about? Now I barely see them.
Season 6 was funded by lockboxes, we got starbases from lockbox profits (amongst other things to be fair). The only VALID complaint about lockboxes now that the rewards are adequate for what you're paying for is that they take up room far too often on the loot screen.
{UFP}Thomas45 - Thomas Nixon U.S.S. Majesty Unbound
And the lock box spam is horrible.
Gene would probably hate the action focus and focus on weapons. He didn't want Starfleet to be seen as a military or for phasers to be treated like weapons. They were a utility tool and stun setting existed to further make them passive. I imagine he'd institute quotas like "one shot per mission" and all weapons on stun. Environmental damage would be the only way to die.
I think he'd love the idea of the mismatching rainbow uniforms... But dislike the leathery or military feel of some, since he hated the Wrath of Khan uniforms. (If you look, though, Gene supported as many uniform variants as budget would allow for, from male skants to the TMP uniforms where everyone has their own look.)
He'd absolutely adore lockboxes, though, and if he got a cut, he'd be pushing them further than PWE and Cryptic have pushed them. I'd wager that everybody at Cryptic and even some at PWE have varying degrees of reluctance or personal preferences for what goes in a lockbox... and Gene, well... He wouldn't have ANY hesitations or limits. You'd be seeing bridge designs, Mark XXVI gear, alien BOs... and bikinis. Lots of bikinis, with as little fabric as anyone would let him use.
https://youtube.com/user/MyBalkanGaming
And if anyone thinks that Gene wasn't half Ferengi then they weren't alive in the 60s or early 70s. Gene marketed every Trek thing he could. Shirts, lunchboxes, posters, anything he could put Trek on and sell to make money from he did. Gene was Hollywood and about making a buck.
Because we are talking about STO making money? At least with the other types it's not a lottery. if I want an autograph, I don't pay money in the hope I might get one. If I want to buy a toy, I don't go into the shop, hand over my cash and hope I'm lucky?
Who is telling anyone, that buying lock boxes is wrong? Telling Cryptic that what they are doing is killing a franchise with lock boxes is what is wrong. Wasn't the overwhelming response to lock boxes that they were not liked. Weren't people happy with the DOFF packs and a possibility of a ship with it? If as you say people clearly do buy them, why are they changing them and trying to entice you to buy them? Could it be that not as many are buying them as before?
The game must truly be failing if lockboxes are the major way to pull in cash.
Don't most good F2P games pull in cash because people are willing to spend cash because they don't feel fleeced?
I think lockboxes are fine as long they are PvE-only items. But I wish we never went into this lottery nonsense.
Alot of F2P Games give people reason to use real money and there are people willing to use it. I have no NEED to have the Jupiter Uniform, but i like how it looks enough to buy it, some people dont NEED to have the defient Retrofit, but they love the ship enough to buy it.
Also people play the lottery every day, millions of people buy a piece of paper with random numbers on it for the chance to win money, for some, that is exciting, and the lockboxs are the same, people/players get excited about it, the whole "oo what am i going to get?" mentality for some is worth the money.
So in closing, Lockboxs are just an In game lottery that people can play. Are you being forced to play? no? are they ruining the IP? maybe? Do they all in all stop or ruin your playing of the game? No. Feds/KDF in other ships odd? Maybe, but its a war, you use whatever advantage you get.
Hell yes they do. They ruin PvP by making class counterpart ships obsolete. They take the delicate balance of PvP and stomp on it. They give an irresistible advantage to the team that fields them assuming everything else is equal (skill, team coordination).
If they were PvE-only ships, I'd wouldn't care.
Unfortantly PvP is about competion and skill, everything has a counter reguardless, even a counter to a counter, can be countered if you do it right, if your having issues with those ships, then your not good enough to know what to do, none of the ships you can get from lock boxs are invincable, nor are they a certified win, i used a bog standard advanced escort and i do not get any issues from bug ships.
And also you blew the actual concept of this Topic out of the water, we are not talking about the ships that come from it, its the idea of lockboxs having ships as a random chance, So to repeat the question to hard raging PvPer, does the fact that alock box dropping and needing a purchased key, Ruin the game for you? can you not bring yourself to play the game knowing that out there somewhere, somone has used real money to open alock box?
How is this ruining PvP when all players have equal chance to get the ships?
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
I have to agree with this. I don't know why at some point we started viewing Gene as some kind of a New Age Messiah. He created Star Trek purely for profit - nothing more, nothing less. Star Trek wasn't his 'dream,' it was his plan for a huge cash cow. We're talking about a guy so into squeezing every last penny from the franchise no matter how many ethics were trodden on that he hired someone to compose the Star Trek theme, and then, once it was completed, turned around and wrote his own lyrics to it (which were never intended to be used) just so he could pocket half of the composer's royalties. He would love the lockbox scheme.
I agree with this. A lockbox is far less immersion-breaking than the guys I saw last night running around DS9 as MTV's Beavis and Butthead spraying everyone with party poppers (I took screenshots, whoever was doing it is a master of the character creator). Yes, it's highly annoying when I put out a fire or pop a metreon gas pocket or shoot down a torpedo and it transforms into a lockbox, but as far as intrusiveness goes, it could be much worse.
I also agree that Gene didn't force anyone to pony up cash for his product. And at the end of the day, neither is PWE.
Yet.
The Tholian ships though I can't really get behind. The enviroment that the ship is normally run under is just too harsh. Do you have a whole crew in EV suits 24/7 to fly the thing? What is the story on how the factions even got their hands on them? The Tholians are devious and xenophobic to an extreme. I seriously doubt they would allow their ships fall into enemy hands. Even if their enemies did get one of their ships, they wouldn't have it for long.
The mirror ships do make since and I like the idea very much. I am interested in the sword too.
Could you post the screenshots, please? This I'd like to see...
I agree that ship diversity should be seen as an opportunity and I'd like to see Cryptic build systems that support THAT kind of immersion.
1. PvP as PseudoFaction
Those Galors could be seen as a way to have KDF vs "True Way" PvP battles. The trick is building a system that allows those lockbox ship owners to easily team up at the right time.
Yes, we know that the captain of that ship is really Fed or KDF, but we can pretend, can't we?
2. Ship switching for Immersion
One reason those ships break immersion is because you can't switch ships without docking at a station. If I were the owner of a D'Kora headed for ESD, I would have no opportunity to swap over to a Starfleet ship before I got to ESD and docked. So you have Galors, D'Koras, and what else hanging around... even if they wanted to, they can't easily switch ships right before they enter Sol.
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This is the same argument some people have with C-Store ships.
I really don't understand why people believe that the only way we can have PvP in this game is if everybody fits into nice, neat little categories with no surprises.
Some attempt at balance, yes. Counters, definitely. There shouldn't be any "IWin Buttons". Something different to shake things up occasionally... Absolutely.
I see the off-faction ships as the opportunity to set up something like a Starfleet vs Tholian battle. Under the hood they might both be Federation players, but with the appearance and special abilities that help them to feel different.
I do wish those ships could be bought outright from the C-Store. But since they can't, I simply hope that Cryptic continues to offer new ships with new abilities that we CAN buy from the C-Store.
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Was he a Capitalist? Yes
Was he "as big as anyone else in the 60's"? No
If he wanted to just make money he would have stuck to writing cop shows and westerns.
Re: to others
Star Trek as a cash cow? It took the smallest studio in Hollywood to agree to produce it (out of desperation, the only other source of money Desliu has was "I Love Lucy" reruns). If he wanted to make money in a Sci Fi series it would not have been Star Trek but 'Gene Roddenberry's Lost in Space' (the show CBS turned down Star Trek in favor of BTW). A kid friendly show where the robot explained every mundane piece of technology to the viewer and the only women were mothers and big sisters, and there would have been no Mr. Spock in sight. You do not pitch a show that is fundamentally different that everything else of TV and expect to be widely successful, you do it for other reasons (the same reason he agreed to produce the episode "to set it right" for CBS's The Lieutenant in 63-64, which the network refused to air).
As for the violence of STO, I think most don't remember the old FASA role playing game. As the story goes the reason why its licence got pulled at the request of Gene was that the upcoming sourcebooks dealt with a Star Fleet Marine Corps and the Federation making a preemptive strike against the Klingons. A level of violence he was uncomfortable with. Just compare that with the Star Trek show of the time (TNG), in the pilot episode the Enterprise surrenders rather than fight!
That aside, to put things as simple as possible
Lockboxes are an insult to what Star Trek stands for.
None of the series ever focusses on the value of money, always on the value of an open mind on cultures and ideas, and humankind its passion and love to explore new things, its curiosity.
NEVER EVER MONEY
Its insulting, and the fact the devs dont even see that, means they are not driven by a need to bring us a good ST experience. Just stuff their pockets and abuse our love for the ST franchise untill we stop bothering to fight back at this disgrace.
Edit: Ive seen these kinds of threads a lot of times before. And some of the more senior people on the forums might think what exactly is the point. But its natural for somebody to react to injustice. And to stop responding is to invite more.
I take it you haven't played KDF side.
Most of the missions are the same anyways.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "I weary of the chase. Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick."
To me, seeing other species ships is not the immersion breakers.
My immersion breakers are as follows:
1. When other species ships out number Starfleet vessels in Federation territory.
While annoyingly obvious, it's not my most hated immersion breaker.
2. Half-Assimilated Starfleet ships.
This one is majorly annoying. Do the people that fly those ships realize that no Starfleet Officer would fly a half-assimilated ship? Usually, ships that undergo partial assimilation are sent to drydock (under heavy guard) and the assimilation components are stripped out, and the ship either rebuilt or scrapped.
But, as much as I hate half-assimilated ships...nothing is more annoying than:
3. University of Clown College Earth Spacedock.
This should have been a no-no from the very beginning. MMO or not. I look at the cacphony of uniforms on ESD and other places, and simply shake my head. During this time, I'm often asking myself..."CBS won't allow a T5 Connie, but they will allow this?"
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
I find the uniforms entertaining, actually...there are so many variants it's funny, so I go out of my way to make my Borg Captain look like an Easter egg. (Look for "Angry Black Man" anywhere and you will likely see his signature clown uniform...)
I do agree with the alien ships breaking immersion...it's just too much. Release variants of existing ships and go THAT route....becuase the concept of owning a Tholian ship - an alien species with totally different physiology and environmental needs - is just silly.
Ultimately it just comes down to the fact that STO is an MMO, and MMOs are about pleasing fans on an individual geek basis rather then as a whole. If STO were "real" the junk ships in this game would be the Galaxies, Intrepids, and Defiants and all the good ships would be designs never-before seen in any Trek series. But STO's not about being true to the Trek universe. It's about pleasing Trek fans.