Wow! An unnecessary launcher that will present more security risks, will eat up more resources, display ads, burrow deep inside my OS just to irritate me more! What's not to like? :P
Don't want it, don't need it and if I had to choose between ARC and Steam right now - I'd choose Steam.
It has been said a million times; Cryptic is not responsible for ARC - Perfect World Entertainment is. Direct your anger at PWE, not Cryptic.
Don't shoot the messenger.
I had read that. However, reading the quote in this thread about "we would like to see ARC fully intergrated...we are still working on it..." see all those 'we' s in there? I assume the 'we' is Cryptic devs. Or perhaps the 'we' s are PWE/Cryptic as a whole, but I doubt it. So it appears as if Cryptic devs are indeed working on this thing.
Also, can we get any response to the questions posed in this thread? As someone once said, "silence speaks volumes" and ignoring the public opinion does little to alleviate the communities fears.
It's becoming clear that "people do not like it". Is there any discussion going on about the community backlash? Is there any hope that playing STO does not mean mandatory use of ARC?
I had read that. However, reading the quote in this thread about "wewould like to see ARC fully intergrated...weare still working on it..." see all those 'we' s in there? I assume the 'we' is Cryptic devs. Or perhaps the 'we' s are PWE/Cryptic as a whole, but I doubt it. So it appears as if Cryptic devs are indeed working on this thing.
Also, can we get any response to the questions posed in this thread? As someone once said, "silence speaks volumes" and ignoring the public opinion does little to alleviate the communities fears.
It's becoming clear that "people do not like it". Is there any discussion going on about the community backlash? Is there any hope that playing STO does not mean mandatory use of ARC?
Brandon isn't a Cryptic Dev, nor (as I understand it) is he technically a Cryptic employee after the PWE buyout -- he's now a PWE employee assigned as the Community Manager for STO (and even works in a different building) -- so, when he says 'we' - he's speaking for PWE.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
While this may serve some corporate value I "Will Not" load this on my computer. I "Do Not" want any access to other games. I paid for a lifetime subscription to STO not any other offerings from PWE. If corporate decision mandates that this becomes a reality I will unfortunatley have to bid farewell to STO. I will not be told "I Have" to load a game menu to simply play a single game. I have absolutley no interest in any of PWE's other offerings nor would I care to be reminded of them when I want to play STO. PWE's market research needs to toss thier current consumer models and actually spend some effort and time asking STO players what they think. I am sure they will overwhelmingly be told the answer is "No" to Arc. Its unfortunate that the Cryptic staff are not in a position to submit a white paper as to why this is a bad idea. Brandon I realize you are in the middle on this and have to tow the corporate line, but seriously even your tolerence must have a limit to this PWE mentality. While we cant do a 1960's style "sit in" demonstration, maybe a day when no one signs in and the servers sit idle would get their attention! As Dennis Miller says "I don't know, I could be wrong, this is just my opinion".
I wonder if it includes the part about it nukeing your current client and forcing it to be re-downloaded/re-patched. Even if you set up the arc to do it in a different HD or directory.
AGREED!!! I buy Zen all the time and have a Life Time STO and just bought Legacy of Romulus. If I can't have direct access to the game I'm not playing it bottom line.
While this may serve some corporate value I "Will Not" load this on my computer. I "Do Not" want any access to other games. I paid for a lifetime subscription to STO not any other offerings from PWE. If corporate decision mandates that this becomes a reality I will unfortunatley have to bid farewell to STO. I will not be told "I Have" to load a game menu to simply play a single game. I have absolutley no interest in any of PWE's other offerings nor would I care to be reminded of them when I want to play STO. PWE's market research needs to toss thier current consumer models and actually spend some effort and time asking STO players what they think. I am sure they will overwhelmingly be told the answer is "No" to Arc. Its unfortunate that the Cryptic staff are not in a position to submit a white paper as to why this is a bad idea. Brandon I realize you are in the middle on this and have to tow the corporate line, but seriously even your tolerence must have a limit to this PWE mentality. While we cant do a 1960's style "sit in" demonstration, maybe a day when no one signs in and the servers sit idle would get their attention! As Dennis Miller says "I don't know, I could be wrong, this is just my opinion".
I have to agree that i am not thrilled at all by that new prog that will possibly run in the background when i try playing a game.
I do not even like Steam and yet was forced to cope with it to play some of the games i have ( Xcom )...
And there is also Origin, another useless software i had to get to play another game ( Mass Effect 3 )...
To be honest, i find all of these USELESS. I shut them all down as soon as i am logged into my games and there are 0 functionalities i ever use with them.
To me, these things are simply invasive spywares that are eating up memory of my not so up to date computer.
Call me Not Impressed about this Arc thingy. Not looking forward to see it.
Rocknrobot, I agree with you 100% -- I feel like there are a large number of quality games out there I could be playing -- we all have a large number of choices for our entertainment needs. If the company that makes any particular game has such contempt for me as a customer that they've got to ram adware and bloatware down my throat, I will simply abandon that game and move on to something else.
Both STO players and CO players have slammed this as the worst of all possible ideas you could have done.
Any smart company would backpedal fast and withdraw what they were offering.
Or at the very least, stop promoting it so much.
As I suspect, this is more motivated by the desire to advertise their other games then to actually provide a service to the Cryptic customer base.
And like someone said earlier, if I was interested in those other games, I'd be playing them already.
I'm not going to care about them just because you use a launcher to advertise them at me, assuming I did not know they existed.
I do know they exist and I'm still not interested in playing them.
As for Steam wallet, I find this a more efficient method of obtaining my C-points.
When PWE took over, I needed to buy some more C-Points, only for their website to keep giving an error message about the purchase, therefore, no purchase actually happened.
I then investigated Paypal, but it said you need to transfer funds in advance due to a 2-3 day waiting period.
So I was stymied for a while, then realized, Steam wallet could buy C-Points.
The transaction is quick and easy, I just add balance to my Steam Wallet via Steam, then go back to STO or CO and buy the C-Points.
And that's why I'm sticking with Steam, I trust their payment system and consider it more reliable then anything else you can provide.
And I suspect that's why they want to push their own launcher system really.
I don't know how it works, but technically, Steam is getting money for C-Points, not Cryptic.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
A primary purpose of arc is to save money by making the users torrent patch files to each other instead of downloading from the server. That's right, they expect you, the customer, to absorb that bandwidth cost.
Zinc: The universe of Star Trek Online is shaped and changed by the actions of the players...expect to see new planets and races discovered that were unknown the last time you logged in."
Well, my regular STO launcher appears to have DIED. It looks like you're forcing ARC upon us TODAY. In the past, the usual reason for the STO launcher failing, for me, is that it can no longer reach the launch server.
Let's hope it works better and has less bugs then the game... Oh wait forgot what company I was complaining about or a moment, my bad. We're in for trouble...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] ***Disenchanted***
Real Join Date: Monday, 17 May 2010
I'd just this evening been convinced to come back to STO by a friend's discussion of the new content and his thoughts on carriers only to find this new installer. My thoughts?
No. I do not want another piece of **** I will never use and will always resent on my PC. Either give me a straight installer for STO, or lose a player you'd just gained back.
Follow-Up: Downloaded ARC, it's very fast, but it is also having trouble launching STO, so I must assume there is a temporary network issue somewhere. Also, I had to click 3 different buttons, each saying "play STO" to get it to launch. Yes, I really want to play, you don't have to ask thrice.
A primary purpose of arc is to save money by making the users torrent patch files to each other instead of downloading from the server. That's right, they expect you, the customer, to absorb that bandwidth cost.
They did that a long time ago when they forced Pando Media Booster on people without telling them they were installing it and using their bandwidth to seed the file.
Good question: Should we shut down Pando when attempting to use ARC? Also, ARC is adding a plugin to IE, you might want to tell people to make sure they open IE and ENABLE that plugin. Otherwise, still no successful launch. I'll wait until tomorrow.
Well, my regular STO launcher appears to have DIED. It looks like you're forcing ARC upon us TODAY. In the past, the usual reason for the STO launcher failing, for me, is that it can no longer reach the launch server.
I'm using the Steam client launcher and that still allows me to login.
I guess Cryptic doesn't dare antagonize the mighty Steam by disabling their client launcher!
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
They did that a long time ago when they forced Pando Media Booster on people without telling them they were installing it and using their bandwidth to seed the file.
I, too, will remove my support if Arc is mandatory, though not only because of the reasons mentioned by others (but they are sufficient).
The following was posted by Branflakes, PWEBranflakes actually, in another thread on this same topic:
"The Arc team's first big test is to have new players coming into STO utilize Arc to play, and we sincerely look forward to all types of feedback. If you're going to be critical, or positive, be constructive. And the key to being constructive and being able to speak towards what you like and don't like includes having tried it for yourself."
This is contradictory. One cannot "look forward to all types of feedback" and then immediately apply conditions to said feedback without losing credibility. This leaves all subsequent attempts at reassurance sounding rather empty. Sadly it's an impression I will be stuck with.
Another concern I have dates back to the launch of Season 7, which took place shortly after I purchased my Lifetime Subscription. That was when Dilithium rewards were greatly reduced, thus angering the player base.
Then Legacy of Romulus was near launch. It was recommended to players that they take advantage of a pre-patch to reduce the download size and time of the actual launch. This pre-patch would seize at a certain point and would turn into a waste of the players time, thus angering the player base.
What followed was the Legacy of Romulus official launch. The required download was horrifically slow, on the order of eight-to-ten hours for some, and even those who opted to download it overnight would rise the next day to find that little progress had been made, thus angering the player base.
Legacy of Romulus also came with its own slew of bugs. Bugs that the beta testers tell us they had mentioned prior to launch.
This brings us to Arc. I won't repeat what others have already stated, just that I agree with them and that Arc will have to live up to MY standards before it is allowed on MY system. From what I have seen thus far it does not. Additionally, Arc is angering the player base.
With all that in mind I have to ask: Is someone actively trying to be horrible? Is it sabotage? I fully understand that there are bumps in the road and I am even willing to deal with them. Occasionally. My issue here is that the whole thing sometimes feels like an abusive relationship. As many can attest I do not stick around for those.
However, it should be noted that my greatest concern is something larger in scope. I urge everyone to look up SETI@home. In short it is software that uses home computers resources to help analyze signals received from radio telescopes. It runs in the background when one is online. This kind of technology exists. It is a fact. Another fact is that the United States of America has frequently been "cyber attacked" by the Peoples Republic of China. Perfect World Entertainment is a China-based company that could be either coerced or a willing participant in such activities and Arc could be an asset for such activities.
I'm nobody and I can think of using these tools in these ways. Just imagine what the professionals can get up to with the same tools and then ask yourself is Arc is worth the bother.
You know what though? I'd be fine with Arc being optional. I firmly believe in the freedom to choose. It also doesn't hurt that I abso-freaking-lutely love Star Trek Online and have loads of respect for those who have worked to make it the best Star Trek game I have ever played.
In conclusion I just want to leave Perfect World Entertainment/Cryptic with this bit of information: Regardless of what decision is made pertaining to the Arc Platform, whatever happens next will be your doing.
Another fact is that the United States of America has frequently been "cyber attacked" by the Peoples Republic of China.
Thanks for highlighting the elephant in the room! As the Snowden saga highlights both sides are culpable, but I still want no part in it. 600 MB (with ad hoc 'upgrades' over time) is a big place to hide stuff on my computer. PWE would not even need to be aware of it for it to happen. Such could be carried out by the US too, but their legal system sometimes provides protection.
Ok Brandon first of all my answer is no just like it was for raptr I do not install random TRIBBLE like that onto my system especially when I don't need it or want it ok, whats even more funny is that someone somewhere has made a ridiculous assumption that on some planet far far away players want this? They want this in the same they want the plague lol.
ugh, I wonder how much of this is Cryptics choice or PWE making them do this. I'm just thanking my lucky stars STO and Champions is still available on Steam. Wouldn't touch Arc with a ten foot pole :P.
I found an old client file (StarTrekST.17.20120104b.18) on File Planet that worked. It required a 6GB update but it's better than having to use the ARC client.
Star Trek Online is THE ONLY MMO I currently play and probably will be for the foreseeable future.
BUT...
If this piece of added, UNWANTED software becomes mandatory...
Star Trek Online, will probably be the Last MMO I will play for some time.
I have looked at other PWE games and have found No Redeeming Qualities that would interest me in playing them.
I am a Star Trek Fan..., that is the only reason I play STO.
Nothing PWE could offer would ever match my interest as greatly.
And nothing else would cause me to drop as much money into it as STO has.
(close to $4300.00 since Feb. 2010 which is equal to a little over $100.00 dollars a month, which will end)
I will repeat again, No Thank You.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Comments
Don't want it, don't need it and if I had to choose between ARC and Steam right now - I'd choose Steam.
I had read that. However, reading the quote in this thread about "we would like to see ARC fully intergrated...we are still working on it..." see all those 'we' s in there? I assume the 'we' is Cryptic devs. Or perhaps the 'we' s are PWE/Cryptic as a whole, but I doubt it. So it appears as if Cryptic devs are indeed working on this thing.
Also, can we get any response to the questions posed in this thread? As someone once said, "silence speaks volumes" and ignoring the public opinion does little to alleviate the communities fears.
It's becoming clear that "people do not like it". Is there any discussion going on about the community backlash? Is there any hope that playing STO does not mean mandatory use of ARC?
I would like this answered as well. I will buy a box copy to avoid it! See here PWE: I will pay money NOT TO BE FORCED to put ARC on my pc!!
Brandon isn't a Cryptic Dev, nor (as I understand it) is he technically a Cryptic employee after the PWE buyout -- he's now a PWE employee assigned as the Community Manager for STO (and even works in a different building) -- so, when he says 'we' - he's speaking for PWE.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Peace
Please do note that the images on the left side will be updated in the near future.
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
I don't mind that you would launch arc to compete with steam or any other platform i just hope we aren't "forced" to use it in the future.
I do not even like Steam and yet was forced to cope with it to play some of the games i have ( Xcom )...
And there is also Origin, another useless software i had to get to play another game ( Mass Effect 3 )...
To be honest, i find all of these USELESS. I shut them all down as soon as i am logged into my games and there are 0 functionalities i ever use with them.
To me, these things are simply invasive spywares that are eating up memory of my not so up to date computer.
Call me Not Impressed about this Arc thingy. Not looking forward to see it.
I'm so done with all this TRIBBLE.
Both STO players and CO players have slammed this as the worst of all possible ideas you could have done.
Any smart company would backpedal fast and withdraw what they were offering.
Or at the very least, stop promoting it so much.
As I suspect, this is more motivated by the desire to advertise their other games then to actually provide a service to the Cryptic customer base.
And like someone said earlier, if I was interested in those other games, I'd be playing them already.
I'm not going to care about them just because you use a launcher to advertise them at me, assuming I did not know they existed.
I do know they exist and I'm still not interested in playing them.
As for Steam wallet, I find this a more efficient method of obtaining my C-points.
When PWE took over, I needed to buy some more C-Points, only for their website to keep giving an error message about the purchase, therefore, no purchase actually happened.
I then investigated Paypal, but it said you need to transfer funds in advance due to a 2-3 day waiting period.
So I was stymied for a while, then realized, Steam wallet could buy C-Points.
The transaction is quick and easy, I just add balance to my Steam Wallet via Steam, then go back to STO or CO and buy the C-Points.
And that's why I'm sticking with Steam, I trust their payment system and consider it more reliable then anything else you can provide.
And I suspect that's why they want to push their own launcher system really.
I don't know how it works, but technically, Steam is getting money for C-Points, not Cryptic.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Let's hope it works better and has less bugs then the game... Oh wait forgot what company I was complaining about or a moment, my bad. We're in for trouble...
***Disenchanted***
Real Join Date: Monday, 17 May 2010
No. I do not want another piece of **** I will never use and will always resent on my PC. Either give me a straight installer for STO, or lose a player you'd just gained back.
They did that a long time ago when they forced Pando Media Booster on people without telling them they were installing it and using their bandwidth to seed the file.
I'm using the Steam client launcher and that still allows me to login.
I guess Cryptic doesn't dare antagonize the mighty Steam by disabling their client launcher!
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
If true, this one just screams LAWLSUITS.
The following was posted by Branflakes, PWEBranflakes actually, in another thread on this same topic:
"The Arc team's first big test is to have new players coming into STO utilize Arc to play, and we sincerely look forward to all types of feedback. If you're going to be critical, or positive, be constructive. And the key to being constructive and being able to speak towards what you like and don't like includes having tried it for yourself."
This is contradictory. One cannot "look forward to all types of feedback" and then immediately apply conditions to said feedback without losing credibility. This leaves all subsequent attempts at reassurance sounding rather empty. Sadly it's an impression I will be stuck with.
Another concern I have dates back to the launch of Season 7, which took place shortly after I purchased my Lifetime Subscription. That was when Dilithium rewards were greatly reduced, thus angering the player base.
Then Legacy of Romulus was near launch. It was recommended to players that they take advantage of a pre-patch to reduce the download size and time of the actual launch. This pre-patch would seize at a certain point and would turn into a waste of the players time, thus angering the player base.
What followed was the Legacy of Romulus official launch. The required download was horrifically slow, on the order of eight-to-ten hours for some, and even those who opted to download it overnight would rise the next day to find that little progress had been made, thus angering the player base.
Legacy of Romulus also came with its own slew of bugs. Bugs that the beta testers tell us they had mentioned prior to launch.
This brings us to Arc. I won't repeat what others have already stated, just that I agree with them and that Arc will have to live up to MY standards before it is allowed on MY system. From what I have seen thus far it does not. Additionally, Arc is angering the player base.
With all that in mind I have to ask: Is someone actively trying to be horrible? Is it sabotage? I fully understand that there are bumps in the road and I am even willing to deal with them. Occasionally. My issue here is that the whole thing sometimes feels like an abusive relationship. As many can attest I do not stick around for those.
However, it should be noted that my greatest concern is something larger in scope. I urge everyone to look up SETI@home. In short it is software that uses home computers resources to help analyze signals received from radio telescopes. It runs in the background when one is online. This kind of technology exists. It is a fact. Another fact is that the United States of America has frequently been "cyber attacked" by the Peoples Republic of China. Perfect World Entertainment is a China-based company that could be either coerced or a willing participant in such activities and Arc could be an asset for such activities.
I'm nobody and I can think of using these tools in these ways. Just imagine what the professionals can get up to with the same tools and then ask yourself is Arc is worth the bother.
You know what though? I'd be fine with Arc being optional. I firmly believe in the freedom to choose. It also doesn't hurt that I abso-freaking-lutely love Star Trek Online and have loads of respect for those who have worked to make it the best Star Trek game I have ever played.
In conclusion I just want to leave Perfect World Entertainment/Cryptic with this bit of information: Regardless of what decision is made pertaining to the Arc Platform, whatever happens next will be your doing.
Thanks for highlighting the elephant in the room! As the Snowden saga highlights both sides are culpable, but I still want no part in it. 600 MB (with ad hoc 'upgrades' over time) is a big place to hide stuff on my computer. PWE would not even need to be aware of it for it to happen. Such could be carried out by the US too, but their legal system sometimes provides protection.
Really? A PWE-focused Steam-like media client doesn't really seem to be on the level of that kind of change...
http://www.fileplanet.com/208701/download/Star-Trek-Online-Free-To-Play-Client
I scanned it with the Norton but always be careful of downloading any files period.
There is a "Note: FilePlanet is no longer being updated and is in the process of being archived" on the site so get the client while you can.
Star Trek Online is THE ONLY MMO I currently play and probably will be for the foreseeable future.
BUT...
If this piece of added, UNWANTED software becomes mandatory...
Star Trek Online, will probably be the Last MMO I will play for some time.
I have looked at other PWE games and have found No Redeeming Qualities that would interest me in playing them.
I am a Star Trek Fan..., that is the only reason I play STO.
Nothing PWE could offer would ever match my interest as greatly.
And nothing else would cause me to drop as much money into it as STO has.
(close to $4300.00 since Feb. 2010 which is equal to a little over $100.00 dollars a month, which will end)
I will repeat again, No Thank You.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion