Cryptic is stuck between a PWE and a CBS....not an easy place to be in. I imagine PWE demands they create more content to in turn create revenue. Cryptic then devises a plan of some kind for said content(ships, guns, etc. etc.) and presents it to CBS for approval based upon whatever 'it' is they need to create. CBS says 'yay' or 'neigh' depending on their POV or revenue timeline which then forces Cryptic back to the drawing board, and thus back to PWE, or they then begin the slow process of implementing said idea with already limited resources/personnel/morale while PWE comes back and says 'So what's next? Isn't that done yet? We need more revenue ideas!!'
That may be accurate, or it maybe very far from what's actually going on but it certainly seems plausible. The crunch from both sides of Cryptic may eventually become too much, and it crumbles. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.
And the idea of the community paying to create IP in a game isn't new. It's been done a few times previously, just on games most people have never heard of. I saw a program on TV covering MMO's quite a few years ago and it told of a man who paid a gaming company $25,000 to create a functional space station with 'apartments' people could 'rent' for money in a game to honor his deceased wife who played the game with him for a long time. Different reason, and not the only other time it's happened but interesting nonetheless.
LOL Yes! It doesn't matter to me in the slightest what you say you've done for a living, or what you imagine the devs FEEL about anything. So don't expect me to just give you the floor because you feign "insider." My opinion stands and can't be swayed by a load drivel.
Well, ignoring the vitriol for a moment, I'm not trying to 'sway your opinion' - just stating that in my experience, working as a games dev is long hours, hard work, never enough time to really finish anything and feeling great when something you've worked on is well received and lousy when the feedback is negative.
People don't do that job because the pay's awesome or because it's got great job security (it isn't and it doesn't) - they do it because they're creative and it's a passion.
Artists, designers and programmers don't TRIBBLE a game up - it's the manager or producer (or owner) telling them what to do that does it.
LOL Yes! It doesn't matter to me in the slightest what you say you've done for a living, or what you imagine the devs FEEL about anything. So don't expect me to just give you the floor because you feign "insider." My opinion stands and can't be swayed by a load drivel.
If you don't care what anyone says, why are you reading anyone's posts?
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
I'm just going to say, go look at Bioware. Early on they made a couple of clunky misses but basically since the late 90s they've received almost unanimous praise for everything... until recently. Recently meaning when EA finally got its mucky fingers into the business.
From the Wiki page for Bioware, a single paragraph can tell you everything you need to know about how money ruins everything, specifically money from management.
In 2007, BioWare released the science fiction RPG Mass Effect. The following year, BioWare released Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood on the Nintendo DS, its first title for a handheld game console. Near the end of 2009, BioWare released the fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Origins, and in January 2010, Mass Effect 2. Later, EA announced that BioWare would be merged with Mythic Entertainment, another division of EA, so that they could have all of their RPG development in one business unit.
Interesting. While EA acquired Bioware in 2007 it only merged it with all its other major RPG holdings after the release of ME2 and Dragon Age 1. Then what happened...
BioWare completed three major games between 2011 and 2012. The MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic is based on BioWare's previous contribution to the Star Wars franchise,[8] and was announced on October 21, 2008, although BioWare had first mentioned an unspecified new collaboration with LucasArts in October the previous year.[9] The other games were Dragon Age II, the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins, and Mass Effect 3.
Dragon Age II, otherwise known as the worst game BW has made in a long TRIBBLE time. Everyone remember the ME3 ending controversy, and finally lets not even touch TOR with a 10 foot Gaffi Stick.
No doubt most of the planning and work for ME2 and DA:O were under way when they entered the EA fold, but follow on projects post dating their "reorganization" amongst EA's other stuff has been pretty god awful. Even a great game like ME3 somehow manages to get soiled by proximity to the EA brand.
Basically, big game publishers are great for keeping the lights on, but I don't believe they do a single damned thing for determining how bright those lights shine. If anything it just dims everything into one of those mediocre florescent blue hazes that reminds you of all those awful standardized tests from high school, the ones that put you to sleep and spoke to the most common lame TRIBBLE denominator possible.
Some people would tell me I'm just being a utopian, that I want too much, that I can't expect people who want to make money to live up to unrealistic expectations, but I think they're wrong. There's a fine line bewteen selling out, like everyone expects to, and utterly compromising the integrity of the work you're making. Big money is a mistake if you care about art, quality, and meaningful cultural significance. Annie Liebowitz was an iconic rock photographer, then she started working for Vogue and now she's just another one of those people.
Money is the enemy, but you need some of it. Its gotta exist in balance, and frankly I dont think anybody who's been witness to the last 4 years of the world economy can tell me that the power brokers of economic destiny know anything about balance. Better to stay small, cause going big just means going boring or going broke, or more often than not going both, not before debuting a new exciting free to play model of course.
The artists are passion, the publishers are sin, better to avoid the sin and stick to the passion. Its been very evident in the early history of game development that a faction of passionate developers managed to stay sane for a while.
The secret is to know that success need not always lead to bigger better more and more. True artists stay small. And if they don't they eventually end up irrelevant. Look at Salvatore Dali. Late in his career he became a joke because he bought into his own myth.
Gotta stay small, its the only way, and the internet has given us a way. I think more people will realize this in the next decade, if they don't kill the internet by then.
No - I've worked in the games industry for a long time and I've managed teams of creatives (and worked as a games artist myself) - the team - the artists, programmers, systems people, QA, designers, producers etc. - love what they do, it's just that the goal is no longer to produce an MMO that does justice to the IP and make its fans happy.
It's to wring every last drop of cash out of us before PWE closes STO and/or Cryptic down.
Posts like this make me sad. Not only are they incredibly pessimistic, but it also shows a lack of understanding. The big thing these days is franchise and brand recognition. Almost everything made these days is a sequel, remake, reboot, re-imagining, or rehash.
Back in the 90's, companies realized that killing a franchise means killing millions, if not billions of dollars in profit. (RIP Rare)
I honestly think that PWE and Cryptic are doing everything they possibly can to keep this game alive, as it is making them lots of money, and they would be stupid to not continue to bring players in. We just tend to disagree with them a lot.
I do think that the Devs could stand to listen to the players more, but they could also stand to tell the players what's planned, as long as there's a big fat *DISCLAIMER* at the bottom detailing how the Devs have all the right in the world to a better idea.
The problem with 'listen to the players' is that players are idiots.
Well, let me unpack that:
For every really pertinent and well-reasoned point of view, there are a dozen other views ranging from pants-on-head lunacy to well-reasoned but wrong, not to mention the fact that what people say they do and what they actually do are often wildly divergent.
So, in short, 'listening more to players' could just as easily doom the game as, well, not.
Among other things, players are generally not experienced game designers and are also not privy to a lot of details about how this game particularly runs or what internal goals are. They may not have much useful things to say.
Which isn't to say players should utterly be ignored, but just because 'what devs do' differs from 'what we've been asking for' doesn't necessarily mean the devs have a callous disregard for our feelings.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
- the team - the artists, programmers, systems people, QA, designers, producers etc. - love what they do
Don't put your own experience up as a defining stat per which all gaming studios and all their workers operate .
Those (like myself) who "complain" (i.e. notice) the lack of passion in STO aren't completely deluded .
Take a look at the rate & quality of the updates in the first year vs what we have now , and tell me that the enthusiasm is the same .
'Cause at some point it became a job ... , and it was a job that was not enough for some Devs . (so they quit)
In fact I would argue that there was a higher amount of enthusiasm & passion in the times STO had less Devs , then in the current bloated crew .
Enthusiasm shines ... -- it shines through . You can't fake it . It goes beyond the hype , beyond the PR . And right now only the art department shines in STO ... -- apart from whoever is in charge of new emotes/hair . Those dudes still suck .
it's just that the goal is no longer to produce an MMO that does justice to the IP and make its fans happy.
Oh I think that the goal is absolutely to make "us" happy .
STF gear ? No longer skill based . A Tribble breeder can get it now ... , so even the Tribble breeder is happy . Yey .
I still maintain that they have a list of "stuff to do" from 2009 , and they are still picking ideas from that list , but now adapting them to their F2P goals in a way that the original idea has little in common with the (usually grindy) result .
wring every last drop of cash out of us before PWE closes STO and/or Cryptic down.
Posts like this make me sad. Not only are they incredibly pessimistic, but it also shows a lack of understanding. The big thing these days is franchise and brand recognition. Almost everything made these days is a sequel, remake, reboot, re-imagining, or rehash.
Back in the 90's, companies realized that killing a franchise means killing millions, if not billions of dollars in profit. (RIP Rare)
Which didn't stop SOE from making bone-headed changes to Star Wars Galaxies and Matrix Online in order to make money - seriously, two of the hottest IPs of their time and they killed them stone dead.
The problem is that the execs feel that they can slap a logo on a rock and the fans will buy it up in their millions and the thing is, they do - we're our own worst enemies. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the whole lockbox thing had backfired drastically - what if every attempt to Easternise STO had been rejected by the players?
PWE wouldn't have canned it - they'd invested too much money to do that - but they'd have been forced to rethink their strategy. Unfortunately that's not what happened - we embraced $250 per-character ships and everything that's happened to STO since then is a consequence.
PWE is going to continue to push its business model into STO because that's all they know - and because its made them a lot of money, but eventually the players will tire of it - and they won't protest, they won't argue on the forums - they'll just leave. I've never seen so much apathy for STO in the 3 years its been running.
Yes, many F2P'ers still love the game because you get so much for free - but all that free stuff was paid for with subscriptions and LTS money - if STO was purely what Cryptic's delivered since it went F2P we wouldn't be having this discussion because the game simply wouldn't exist any more.
I honestly think that PWE and Cryptic are doing everything they possibly can to keep this game alive, as it is making them lots of money, and they would be stupid to not continue to bring players in. We just tend to disagree with them a lot.
I think Cryptic is in an incredibly uncomfortable position where it wants to grow and evolve STO but every decision is tempered by 'how much will that cost us?' and 'how much will that make us?' - which is good business sense, but only up to a point - when I look at Season 7, I see it as the efforts of a team that's completely starved of development resources - quite simply, very little of the money going into STO seems to be reinvested in it.
Of course, that's just speculation - there's no facts and Cryptic wouldn't be any more candid about their situation now than they were under Atari's rule - all I have to go on is what's been said ('We're doing great! Expanding the team!') and what's been delivered: old content tied into a modified fleet starbase system and a big, empty open world with very little to do there.
but all that free stuff was paid for with subscriptions and LTS money -
Actually, it's been paid for by the new owners and the F2Pers impulse spending on lock boxes and the like have been the ones helping them pay it back. If subs and LTS' were doing the job, the game would still be sub only.
Subs are just the easy reliable money. Like the old lady living in your slum apartment paying rent with her pension.
Despite the inflammatory wording of the title for this thread I will reply to it. I still have a number of concerns. Refining cap still at 8k, I'd like the dilithium back to at least half what it used to be for dismissing doffs, the exchange is still a catastrophe, and others. Nothing major though. The changes made post-launch to S7 showed what I think most really wanted to see; that the devs do in fact respond to feedback. None of this has brought back the vast majority of my wayward fleetmates that quit out of boredom. A few have popped in, but they see the grinds, and usually leave again fairly quickly. It would appear that it gives plenty to do for those of us that are here anyway, but does not do a lot to entice people into returning and staying.
They do seem to be lacking two important parts of the development process lately.
- Vision: The doff system required a dev to have a vision and to stick with it. All it is, mechanically speaking, is a facebook game. But because of that dev's vision it became one of the best components of STO even if it is hardly integrated into new content other than as a different 'daily wrapper'. Yes New Romulus I'm looking at you. Although on the same token New Romulus is pretty snazzy.
- Development: They have been having a very hard time refining the vision into something that works well. In addition I really think they need someone at Cryptic who will do the following with nearly every single subject and that is to ask why.
Why are so many players having a hard time getting Omega Marks while another group is having a hard time getting Romulan Marks? And is that a good thing?
Why is the PvP bootcamp movement succeeding so well? Are we missing a huge opportunity with PvP or is it simply that we have a restless playerbase seeking greater challenge?
Why is Battleship Royal one of the most popular and highly rated Foundry Missions?
Why did we loose money on the last KDF ship?
Why do we have 'autofire' for weapons but not 'autodistribute' for shields? Are we making players who don't bother to manual edit keybinds (likely the majority) deal with frustration for no reason? What does this particular design decision add to the game?
Those are just a few off the top of my head but I could come up with many many more. And I have a feeling that some at Cryptic are 'assuming' they have the answers to those questions yet in reality do not.
PWE is going to continue to push its business model into STO because that's all they know - and because its made them a lot of money, but eventually the players will tire of it - and they won't protest, they won't argue on the forums - they'll just leave. I've never seen so much apathy for STO in the 3 years its been running.
Well it doesn't help at all that every time someone makes an "I'm leaving, and here's why" post, they just get razzed and belittled out the door for it. "I'm leaving" posts actually serve a very positive purpose in that they give Cryptic exactly the kind of necessary feedback you're talking about, but petty-minded forum goers can't seem to comprehend it as anything other than "whining".
If customers are prematurely leaving the shop, from a business POV that's a real problem. The ONLY real problem.
People on the forums like to think that expressing their reasons for leaving is stupid since they won't be around to see any benefit that might come of it. They assume there's no profit in it for Cryptic since any changes made on the basis of such feedback would only serve customers who aren't there at the expense of those who still are. This is petty, short sighted BS. If the reasons people give for leaving are relatively consistent, then that's a perfect indicator of what needs fixing to prevent loosing more customers. This isn't a restaurant: you don't want customer turnover, you want customers to stay, as many and for as long as possible. And improving the game isn't going to ruin it for the relatively thin film of dregs who'll never leave no matter what, it's going to make sure that your customer base grows and stays while retaining (and dare I say it, improving the experience of) those "lifers".
Furthermore, the complaints of "lifers" mean nothing next to the complaints of people who will actually leave the game. From a business perspective, nothing is broken so long as people still buy it, no matter how much they complain. Why should they do anything to sate the complaints of someone who will stick around regardless? The complaints of people who actually will/do leave are the only complaints that can ever actually matter.
Well it doesn't help at all that every time someone makes an "I'm leaving, and here's why" post, they just get razzed and belittled out the door for it. "I'm leaving" posts actually serve a very positive purpose in that they give Cryptic exactly the kind of necessary feedback you're talking about, but petty-minded forum goers can't seem to comprehend it as anything other than "whining".
If customers are prematurely leaving the shop, from a business POV that's a real problem. The ONLY real problem.
People on the forums like to think that expressing their reasons for leaving is stupid since they won't be around to see any benefit that might come of it. They assume there's no profit in it for Cryptic since any changes made on the basis of such feedback would only serve customers who aren't there at the expense of those who still are. This is petty, short sighted BS. If the reasons people give for leaving are relatively consistent, then that's a perfect indicator of what needs fixing to prevent loosing more customers. This isn't a restaurant: you don't want customer turnover, you want customers to stay, as many and for as long as possible. And improving the game isn't going to ruin it for the relatively thin film of dregs who'll never leave no matter what, it's going to make sure that your customer base grows and stays while retaining (and dare I say it, improving the experience of) those "lifers".
Furthermore, the complaints of "lifers" mean nothing next to the complaints of people who will actually leave the game. From a business perspective, nothing is broken so long as people still buy it, no matter how much they complain. Why should they do anything to sate the complaints of someone who will stick around regardless? The complaints of people who actually will/do leave are the only complaints that can ever actually matter.
There is a big problem with your post: "I'm leaving" threads are against the forum rules and will be proptly removed! You are not allowed to say your leaving even if you are giving reasons.
There is a big problem with your post: "I'm leaving" threads are against the forum rules and will be proptly removed! You are not allowed to say your leaving even if you are giving reasons.
The problem I have with this, is that in the players eyes they're going, "I'm out of here, now try to win me back". And while you might think that works, it doesn't. At all.
Look at it this way, if you're having a fight with your girlfriend (or boyfriend, or whatever, I wont judge) and you tell her/him/it that "This is it, we're done, I'm out of here" and you leave, they probably won't be taking you back any time soon.
And it don't matter how carefully, tactfully, and well written your critiques and complaints are. At that point, they're probably helping you haul your *** out the door.
Cryptic and PWE is not staffed by Vulcans. They are staffed by very emotional humans that get just as pissed when the coffee machine breaks as you do. When you tell them that they suck and you're out of here, they aren't going objectively look at your reasoning, they are going to tell you "Good riddance sucker".
That's no way to make money. Don't need to be a Vulcan, just a mature adult. Customers are not boyfriends/girlfriends, and something is VERY wrong if that level of emotion is being ascribed to what is merely a small-instance professional relationship.
If "I'm leaving" threads are banned by the forum TOS, then that's a(nother) sign that they don't really WANT to improve.
Again: leavers are what actually damages the game's/company's the bottom line, not complainers who stay. If they are so fragile that they can't even accept the very existence of leavers' complaints, then they (and the game) are doomed.
Well it doesn't help at all that every time someone makes an "I'm leaving, and here's why" post, they just get razzed and belittled out the door for it. "I'm leaving" posts actually serve a very positive purpose in that they give Cryptic exactly the kind of necessary feedback you're talking about, but petty-minded forum goers can't seem to comprehend it as anything other than "whining".
Send them an email. The forum isn't a place for it. "I quit" have one singular intent, to stir up the hornets nest. 99% of the time the person that posts doesn't quit at all, or is gone for only a short time. They are just attention grabs.
BFD. People say stuff to stir things up all the time. As a forum goer, it's just as much on you if you respond. It shouldn't matter where it's said, the actual merits of a complaint are gonna be the same regardless, so rest is just extraneous ballyhoo.
Also, it probably gives people catharsis. Being ignored by the devs on the forum prolly feels more like you did something than getting ignored by the devs via email. Sometimes people gotta vent whether they're leaving or not, and why shouldn't they if they're really that frustrated?
That's no way to make money. Don't need to be a Vulcan, just a mature adult. Customers are not boyfriends/girlfriends, and something is VERY wrong if that level of emotion is being ascribed to what is merely a small-instance professional relationship.
If "I'm leaving" threads are banned by the forum TOS, then that's a(nother) sign that they don't really WANT to improve.
Again: leavers are what actually damages the game's/company's the bottom line, not complainers who stay. If they are so fragile that they can't even accept the very existence of leavers' complaints, then they (and the game) are doomed.
No they don't, they get trolled, and bashed by other players...Now can I has your stuff.
BFD. People say stuff to stir things up all the time. As a forum goer, it's just as much on you if you respond. It shouldn't matter where it's said, the actual merits of a complaint are gonna be the same regardless, so rest is just extraneous ballyhoo.
Also, it probably gives people catharsis. Being ignored by the devs on the forum prolly feels more like you did something than getting ignored by the devs via email. Sometimes people gotta vent whether they're leaving or not, and why shouldn't they if they're really that frustrated?
Vent without crying like a 5 year old who got his ball stole. You can make a productive post about things you don't like without stamping your feet and pouting. I'd ignore you too.
If "I'm leaving" threads are banned by the forum TOS, then that's a(nother) sign that they don't really WANT to improve.
No, this is just a standard industry practice designed to keep useless drivel from flooding the forums everytime someone doesn't like something. Take the same post content (assuming your posting something worthwhile), get rid of the childish "I quit" whining, and the post won't be removed.
Most of the leaver posts I've seen have been no different in the tone of their complaints than the average non-leaver complaints and "devs, you should do this..." posts. The only thing that distinguishes them on balance is that the people posting claim they're leaving. If you hold such expectations to leavers, they you gotta hold the same to non-leavers. A legit complaint is a legit complaint, regardless, and the same goes for whines.
Also, I find it fascination that you guys are talking like I'm a leaver myself, even though I'm not. That says a lot about the emotion vs. logic aspects of this issue.
Also, I find it fascination that you guys are talking like I'm a leaver myself, even though I'm not. That says a lot about the emotion vs. logic aspects of this issue.
Nah, it's just that you're defending a really stupid subject.
Most of the leaver posts I've seen have been no different in the tone of their complaints than the average non-leaver complaints and "devs, you should do this..." posts. The only thing that distinguishes them on balance is that the people posting claim they're leaving. If you hold such expectations to leavers, they you gotta hold the same to non-leavers. A legit complaint is a legit complaint, regardless, and the same goes for whines.
You can say you're leaving, you just can't start a thread and seek attention as if Cryptic is going to do a romantic comedy and Stop you from leaving and saying they will better themselves just for you.
The forums would be empty if no one could complain being that's all there is here.
No, this is just a standard industry practice designed to keep useless drivel from flooding the forums everytime someone doesn't like something. Take the same post content (assuming your posting something worthwhile), get rid of the childish "I quit" whining, and the post won't be removed.
i quit threads also make no sense in a F2P game.
"hey Guise you know That game that I don't put any money into?!?! Yeah well I quit it LOL".
I don't do a lot of things but you don't seem me being all drama about it. If you don't feel like playing the game fine. Go take a break or leave, no one cares.
After taking a three weeks hiatus from "Star Trek: Online", I decided to sign back into the system. Within a few moments of reentering the game, I discovered that the passion that drove me to "STO" is over.
No more feedback.
No more complaints.
No longer care.
Bingo!!!
Having a LTS means i can come back when and if they ever release something that is not another grind feast....but i'm not holding my breath.
To answer the OP (haven' got time to read the rest!) I would agree that unlocking T5 has made the game better than the pre s7, it just sucked getting there while I could not add anything of note to improve my arsenal (I bought the two consoles, a set of Omega force armor, unlocked a couple of romulan store ground weapons to burn and a hyper plasma torpedo, none of which I've used other than the armor.)
However its the fixing of some of the new content which has made the game vastly better, the radiation scans andthe embassy officer of the watch that were just too bugged to bother trying and just felt like a slap in the face. Lets hope they sort out the space red alert, I've got the feeling its going to become another crystalline entity however.
That's no way to make money. Don't need to be a Vulcan, just a mature adult. Customers are not boyfriends/girlfriends, and something is VERY wrong if that level of emotion is being ascribed to what is merely a small-instance professional relationship.
If "I'm leaving" threads are banned by the forum TOS, then that's a(nother) sign that they don't really WANT to improve.
Again: leavers are what actually damages the game's/company's the bottom line, not complainers who stay. If they are so fragile that they can't even accept the very existence of leavers' complaints, then they (and the game) are doomed.
Exactly! Customers are Customers. By leaving, you are no longer a customer, and Cryptic no longer has any loyalties to you.
Comments
That may be accurate, or it maybe very far from what's actually going on but it certainly seems plausible. The crunch from both sides of Cryptic may eventually become too much, and it crumbles. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.
And the idea of the community paying to create IP in a game isn't new. It's been done a few times previously, just on games most people have never heard of. I saw a program on TV covering MMO's quite a few years ago and it told of a man who paid a gaming company $25,000 to create a functional space station with 'apartments' people could 'rent' for money in a game to honor his deceased wife who played the game with him for a long time. Different reason, and not the only other time it's happened but interesting nonetheless.
We ALL pay for this game in some way.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The o3 - Killed you good
Well, ignoring the vitriol for a moment, I'm not trying to 'sway your opinion' - just stating that in my experience, working as a games dev is long hours, hard work, never enough time to really finish anything and feeling great when something you've worked on is well received and lousy when the feedback is negative.
People don't do that job because the pay's awesome or because it's got great job security (it isn't and it doesn't) - they do it because they're creative and it's a passion.
Artists, designers and programmers don't TRIBBLE a game up - it's the manager or producer (or owner) telling them what to do that does it.
If you don't care what anyone says, why are you reading anyone's posts?
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
From the Wiki page for Bioware, a single paragraph can tell you everything you need to know about how money ruins everything, specifically money from management.
Interesting. While EA acquired Bioware in 2007 it only merged it with all its other major RPG holdings after the release of ME2 and Dragon Age 1. Then what happened...
Dragon Age II, otherwise known as the worst game BW has made in a long TRIBBLE time. Everyone remember the ME3 ending controversy, and finally lets not even touch TOR with a 10 foot Gaffi Stick.
No doubt most of the planning and work for ME2 and DA:O were under way when they entered the EA fold, but follow on projects post dating their "reorganization" amongst EA's other stuff has been pretty god awful. Even a great game like ME3 somehow manages to get soiled by proximity to the EA brand.
Basically, big game publishers are great for keeping the lights on, but I don't believe they do a single damned thing for determining how bright those lights shine. If anything it just dims everything into one of those mediocre florescent blue hazes that reminds you of all those awful standardized tests from high school, the ones that put you to sleep and spoke to the most common lame TRIBBLE denominator possible.
Some people would tell me I'm just being a utopian, that I want too much, that I can't expect people who want to make money to live up to unrealistic expectations, but I think they're wrong. There's a fine line bewteen selling out, like everyone expects to, and utterly compromising the integrity of the work you're making. Big money is a mistake if you care about art, quality, and meaningful cultural significance. Annie Liebowitz was an iconic rock photographer, then she started working for Vogue and now she's just another one of those people.
Money is the enemy, but you need some of it. Its gotta exist in balance, and frankly I dont think anybody who's been witness to the last 4 years of the world economy can tell me that the power brokers of economic destiny know anything about balance. Better to stay small, cause going big just means going boring or going broke, or more often than not going both, not before debuting a new exciting free to play model of course.
The artists are passion, the publishers are sin, better to avoid the sin and stick to the passion. Its been very evident in the early history of game development that a faction of passionate developers managed to stay sane for a while.
The secret is to know that success need not always lead to bigger better more and more. True artists stay small. And if they don't they eventually end up irrelevant. Look at Salvatore Dali. Late in his career he became a joke because he bought into his own myth.
Gotta stay small, its the only way, and the internet has given us a way. I think more people will realize this in the next decade, if they don't kill the internet by then.
Posts like this make me sad. Not only are they incredibly pessimistic, but it also shows a lack of understanding. The big thing these days is franchise and brand recognition. Almost everything made these days is a sequel, remake, reboot, re-imagining, or rehash.
Back in the 90's, companies realized that killing a franchise means killing millions, if not billions of dollars in profit. (RIP Rare)
I honestly think that PWE and Cryptic are doing everything they possibly can to keep this game alive, as it is making them lots of money, and they would be stupid to not continue to bring players in. We just tend to disagree with them a lot.
I do think that the Devs could stand to listen to the players more, but they could also stand to tell the players what's planned, as long as there's a big fat *DISCLAIMER* at the bottom detailing how the Devs have all the right in the world to a better idea.
Well, let me unpack that:
For every really pertinent and well-reasoned point of view, there are a dozen other views ranging from pants-on-head lunacy to well-reasoned but wrong, not to mention the fact that what people say they do and what they actually do are often wildly divergent.
So, in short, 'listening more to players' could just as easily doom the game as, well, not.
Among other things, players are generally not experienced game designers and are also not privy to a lot of details about how this game particularly runs or what internal goals are. They may not have much useful things to say.
Which isn't to say players should utterly be ignored, but just because 'what devs do' differs from 'what we've been asking for' doesn't necessarily mean the devs have a callous disregard for our feelings.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Don't put your own experience up as a defining stat per which all gaming studios and all their workers operate .
Those (like myself) who "complain" (i.e. notice) the lack of passion in STO aren't completely deluded .
Take a look at the rate & quality of the updates in the first year vs what we have now , and tell me that the enthusiasm is the same .
'Cause at some point it became a job ... , and it was a job that was not enough for some Devs . (so they quit)
In fact I would argue that there was a higher amount of enthusiasm & passion in the times STO had less Devs , then in the current bloated crew .
Enthusiasm shines ... -- it shines through . You can't fake it . It goes beyond the hype , beyond the PR . And right now only the art department shines in STO ... -- apart from whoever is in charge of new emotes/hair . Those dudes still suck .
Oh I think that the goal is absolutely to make "us" happy .
STF gear ? No longer skill based . A Tribble breeder can get it now ... , so even the Tribble breeder is happy . Yey .
I still maintain that they have a list of "stuff to do" from 2009 , and they are still picking ideas from that list , but now adapting them to their F2P goals in a way that the original idea has little in common with the (usually grindy) result .
Can't argue w/that .
Which didn't stop SOE from making bone-headed changes to Star Wars Galaxies and Matrix Online in order to make money - seriously, two of the hottest IPs of their time and they killed them stone dead.
The problem is that the execs feel that they can slap a logo on a rock and the fans will buy it up in their millions and the thing is, they do - we're our own worst enemies. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the whole lockbox thing had backfired drastically - what if every attempt to Easternise STO had been rejected by the players?
PWE wouldn't have canned it - they'd invested too much money to do that - but they'd have been forced to rethink their strategy. Unfortunately that's not what happened - we embraced $250 per-character ships and everything that's happened to STO since then is a consequence.
PWE is going to continue to push its business model into STO because that's all they know - and because its made them a lot of money, but eventually the players will tire of it - and they won't protest, they won't argue on the forums - they'll just leave. I've never seen so much apathy for STO in the 3 years its been running.
Yes, many F2P'ers still love the game because you get so much for free - but all that free stuff was paid for with subscriptions and LTS money - if STO was purely what Cryptic's delivered since it went F2P we wouldn't be having this discussion because the game simply wouldn't exist any more.
I think Cryptic is in an incredibly uncomfortable position where it wants to grow and evolve STO but every decision is tempered by 'how much will that cost us?' and 'how much will that make us?' - which is good business sense, but only up to a point - when I look at Season 7, I see it as the efforts of a team that's completely starved of development resources - quite simply, very little of the money going into STO seems to be reinvested in it.
Of course, that's just speculation - there's no facts and Cryptic wouldn't be any more candid about their situation now than they were under Atari's rule - all I have to go on is what's been said ('We're doing great! Expanding the team!') and what's been delivered: old content tied into a modified fleet starbase system and a big, empty open world with very little to do there.
Actually, it's been paid for by the new owners and the F2Pers impulse spending on lock boxes and the like have been the ones helping them pay it back. If subs and LTS' were doing the job, the game would still be sub only.
Subs are just the easy reliable money. Like the old lady living in your slum apartment paying rent with her pension.
Bump for this excellent post.
- Vision: The doff system required a dev to have a vision and to stick with it. All it is, mechanically speaking, is a facebook game. But because of that dev's vision it became one of the best components of STO even if it is hardly integrated into new content other than as a different 'daily wrapper'. Yes New Romulus I'm looking at you. Although on the same token New Romulus is pretty snazzy.
- Development: They have been having a very hard time refining the vision into something that works well. In addition I really think they need someone at Cryptic who will do the following with nearly every single subject and that is to ask why.
Why are so many players having a hard time getting Omega Marks while another group is having a hard time getting Romulan Marks? And is that a good thing?
Why is the PvP bootcamp movement succeeding so well? Are we missing a huge opportunity with PvP or is it simply that we have a restless playerbase seeking greater challenge?
Why is Battleship Royal one of the most popular and highly rated Foundry Missions?
Why did we loose money on the last KDF ship?
Why do we have 'autofire' for weapons but not 'autodistribute' for shields? Are we making players who don't bother to manual edit keybinds (likely the majority) deal with frustration for no reason? What does this particular design decision add to the game?
Those are just a few off the top of my head but I could come up with many many more. And I have a feeling that some at Cryptic are 'assuming' they have the answers to those questions yet in reality do not.
Well it doesn't help at all that every time someone makes an "I'm leaving, and here's why" post, they just get razzed and belittled out the door for it. "I'm leaving" posts actually serve a very positive purpose in that they give Cryptic exactly the kind of necessary feedback you're talking about, but petty-minded forum goers can't seem to comprehend it as anything other than "whining".
If customers are prematurely leaving the shop, from a business POV that's a real problem. The ONLY real problem.
People on the forums like to think that expressing their reasons for leaving is stupid since they won't be around to see any benefit that might come of it. They assume there's no profit in it for Cryptic since any changes made on the basis of such feedback would only serve customers who aren't there at the expense of those who still are. This is petty, short sighted BS. If the reasons people give for leaving are relatively consistent, then that's a perfect indicator of what needs fixing to prevent loosing more customers. This isn't a restaurant: you don't want customer turnover, you want customers to stay, as many and for as long as possible. And improving the game isn't going to ruin it for the relatively thin film of dregs who'll never leave no matter what, it's going to make sure that your customer base grows and stays while retaining (and dare I say it, improving the experience of) those "lifers".
Furthermore, the complaints of "lifers" mean nothing next to the complaints of people who will actually leave the game. From a business perspective, nothing is broken so long as people still buy it, no matter how much they complain. Why should they do anything to sate the complaints of someone who will stick around regardless? The complaints of people who actually will/do leave are the only complaints that can ever actually matter.
There is a big problem with your post: "I'm leaving" threads are against the forum rules and will be proptly removed! You are not allowed to say your leaving even if you are giving reasons.
The problem I have with this, is that in the players eyes they're going, "I'm out of here, now try to win me back". And while you might think that works, it doesn't. At all.
Look at it this way, if you're having a fight with your girlfriend (or boyfriend, or whatever, I wont judge) and you tell her/him/it that "This is it, we're done, I'm out of here" and you leave, they probably won't be taking you back any time soon.
And it don't matter how carefully, tactfully, and well written your critiques and complaints are. At that point, they're probably helping you haul your *** out the door.
Cryptic and PWE is not staffed by Vulcans. They are staffed by very emotional humans that get just as pissed when the coffee machine breaks as you do. When you tell them that they suck and you're out of here, they aren't going objectively look at your reasoning, they are going to tell you "Good riddance sucker".
If "I'm leaving" threads are banned by the forum TOS, then that's a(nother) sign that they don't really WANT to improve.
Again: leavers are what actually damages the game's/company's the bottom line, not complainers who stay. If they are so fragile that they can't even accept the very existence of leavers' complaints, then they (and the game) are doomed.
Send them an email. The forum isn't a place for it. "I quit" have one singular intent, to stir up the hornets nest. 99% of the time the person that posts doesn't quit at all, or is gone for only a short time. They are just attention grabs.
Also, it probably gives people catharsis. Being ignored by the devs on the forum prolly feels more like you did something than getting ignored by the devs via email. Sometimes people gotta vent whether they're leaving or not, and why shouldn't they if they're really that frustrated?
No they don't, they get trolled, and bashed by other players...Now can I has your stuff.
Dil is easy to get. Any easier and no one will ever put any money into the game man. Just how free do you want the game to be?
Vent without crying like a 5 year old who got his ball stole. You can make a productive post about things you don't like without stamping your feet and pouting. I'd ignore you too.
No, this is just a standard industry practice designed to keep useless drivel from flooding the forums everytime someone doesn't like something. Take the same post content (assuming your posting something worthwhile), get rid of the childish "I quit" whining, and the post won't be removed.
The ten character limit on replies is why you get, "I can has stuffs?" replies instead of just the eyeroll emoticon.
Nah, it's just that you're defending a really stupid subject.
You can say you're leaving, you just can't start a thread and seek attention as if Cryptic is going to do a romantic comedy and Stop you from leaving and saying they will better themselves just for you.
The forums would be empty if no one could complain being that's all there is here.
i quit threads also make no sense in a F2P game.
"hey Guise you know That game that I don't put any money into?!?! Yeah well I quit it LOL".
I don't do a lot of things but you don't seem me being all drama about it. If you don't feel like playing the game fine. Go take a break or leave, no one cares.
Bingo!!!
Having a LTS means i can come back when and if they ever release something that is not another grind feast....but i'm not holding my breath.
However its the fixing of some of the new content which has made the game vastly better, the radiation scans andthe embassy officer of the watch that were just too bugged to bother trying and just felt like a slap in the face. Lets hope they sort out the space red alert, I've got the feeling its going to become another crystalline entity however.
Exactly! Customers are Customers. By leaving, you are no longer a customer, and Cryptic no longer has any loyalties to you.