Any chance that once this becomes mandatory, somebody will figure out how to disable it and spread the cheers?
I'm just hoping that since it didn't really add any particularly useful features, they don't start disabling existing ones in order to make it look better... I uninstalled it after trying it out for a month or so, and am just fine with the decision. That, and Arc accesses web-based content without any guarantee that Arc itself is free of bugs, viruses, and so on... which seems like a bad plan.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
After spending several hundred dollars in game. I too will walk away from must/bloatware advertising loaders. I opt out. Fix the bugs in the game. Don't add something that will not improve my gaming experience. I can't believe you said this. Do you guys really want to alienate this many paying customers?
Yep well just no am not running STO with that needless software running in the background no thanks .
If they acknowledged their player base it would mean they have to listen to us and actually take our opinions into consideration, however apparently forcing people to have a pointless piece of software is far more important perhaps they are getting paid a kings ransom for it so that could be why they don't care.
They just might regret it if the masses protest by refusing to use their game until they remove it?
I'm just hoping that since it didn't really add any particularly useful features, they don't start disabling existing ones in order to make it look better... I uninstalled it after trying it out for a month or so, and am just fine with the decision. That, and Arc accesses web-based content without any guarantee that Arc itself is free of bugs, viruses, and so on... which seems like a bad plan.
No worries, you can still launch the game directly without using the ARC. Lucky, coz that thing is more not working, jamming, crashing, then it should be. The only beef at the moment I have with this ARC is that it still downloading an old installer which needs the giant patch to download of 11 Gig. Geezes, even in these times, Cryptic fails to manage to provide us an unpatched installer after each Season expansion. :mad: Sad, really sad.
OK, if I have to stay here for a while, your cieling ... looks idious.:D
Do you guys really want to alienate this many paying customers?
They're operating under the assumption that nobody will ragequit the game over this.
They're already very aware that people don't want this, and they already know people will hate it when it is made mandatory... but they are assuming that you'll still play STO, even though you hate ARC.
Personally, I don't think the assumption is correct. I have a suspicion that ARC will be the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people who absolutely do not appreciate being forced to install a 10gig piece of bloatware garbage.
Personally, I don't think the assumption is correct. I have a suspicion that ARC will be the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people who absolutely do not appreciate being forced to install a 10gig piece of bloatware garbage.
This is exactly right. Remember, under an F2P model - 90% of us don't pay a dime or spend very little actual/real cash in game. 10% or so SPEND A LOT and pretty much fund both future game development and make profit for PWE/Cryptic.
I'm certain PWE/Cryptic is banking on the fact that the majority of this 10% (yes, they may still actually loose a few) will put with accept ARC - and if it cause a larger portion of the 90%n to move on; no big deal in the end to the bottom line - and hell, they can even not worry about having to expand the server farm/pay for more rack space/bandwidth, etc.
Any comment by PWEBranflakes of "PWE/Cryptic cares about everyone that plays STO..." is just the usual PR/lip service he's paid to say as CM. In the end they only really care about the 10% (and that's understandable really as any business exists to make money first and foremost - and that doesn't make them 'evil' - just your average big business capitalist ).
Thus, as long as their market research (and they are doing market research as STO (and CO and NW) are not the first MMOs brought under a unified client like ARC); shows they'll still retain the majority of the 10% who really pay to play STO -- they'll roll out 'ARC', as mandatory (with PWEBranflakes, Trailturtle and the NW Community managers all towing the company line, and singing it's praises, and downplaying its faults/bugs/major negative effects as you try to actually play STO/CO/NW with this bloatware running in the background); and not really care if they loose the 90% not spending much (or any) real cash on Cryptic/PWE games.
welcome to one of the downsides to the F2P model.
(As an aside, it's why Cryptic/PWE now spends money to send the Dev team to large Star Trek conventions - because the game is F2P and client is free to download - they realize that the majority of fans who attend are so into Star trek, they have a greater chance to become a 10% 'whale' (aka big in game money spender) on STO. if the game was still subscription based, they wouldn't bother - because while they would still get some of those same Star Trek fans; they wouldn't get enough to justify the loss in time or expense in hotels, etc. The old 'barrier to entry' of a $20 - $40 box plus a $15 a month sub, is enough to turn a lot of even hard core fans away. With F2P - they draw people in to try the game, (hey, I've nothing to loose and it could be fun), and find (if the starting stuff is top notch) that they then 'hook' them, and these folks start spending before they realize it.)
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..."
Personally, I don't think the assumption is correct. I have a suspicion that ARC will be the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people who absolutely do not appreciate being forced to install a 10gig piece of bloatware garbage.
Zactly! As I'm fond of saying: "Remember Jita IV!" (anyone who's anybody in the gaming world will know what that means). CCP also thought they could TRIBBLE with people endlessly -- you know how well that ended for them.
Apart from the question of whether people will rage-quit or not (or simply quit as a 'conscientious objector'), the main question simply remains: Why!? Why would you *want* to alienate your customers?! Just because some greedy Ferengi on the top floor are jealous of STEAM and want to launch their own (crappy) platform? We don't need it, we don't want it.
Any comment by PWEBranflakes of "PWE/Cryptic cares about everyone that plays STO..." is just the usual PR/lip service he's paid to say as CM. In the end they only really care about the 10% (and that's understandable really as any business exists to make money first and foremost - and that doesn't make them 'evil' - just your average big business capitalist ).
Nothing wrong with making a buck. Things become 'evil' (to loan your term) when making money becomes so paramount, that you're starting to sabotage your own game. When you're making Roms so ridiculously OP, that people are guaranteed to spend money on them. When power creep becomes the domain of managers, seeing a way to cash in on that -- and balance be damned! Or reason, for that matter.
Any comment by PWEBranflakes of "PWE/Cryptic cares about everyone that plays STO..." is just the usual PR/lip service he's paid to say as CM. In the end they only really care about the 10% (and that's understandable really as any business exists to make money first and foremost - and that doesn't make them 'evil' - just your average big business capitalist ).
I would hesitate to call them capitalists. A capitalist is merely someone who wants to keep the money they earn to do with as they please. They may fit the description as far as that goes.
However anyone in business knows not to take an openly adversarial stand against their customer base. That would be professional suicide. If a hotel gave you the master suite for the weekend at the going rate and then forced you to share it with eleven strangers... well, that's Arc, except you don't get to know how many strangers are involved or what their intentions are. It's a medical school for the blind on a field trip during your colonoscopy and everyone gets a turn. In Braille.
I, for one, will not "rage quit" should Arc become mandatory. I'm a lifetime subscriber so that would be a waste of money. What I will do is simply not log in any longer. I will, however, share the facts of the situation as far and as widely as I can since all the time I spent playing would suddenly be free.
If there is one thing that I do well it is to communicate my dissatisfaction.
I can't guarantee I will be as objective should Arc become mandatory.
Granted, I will be pretty angry, but I've already decided to quit if they force Arc on me.
And I'm a pretty dedicated STO/Star Trek fan.
When you factor in my CO activities as well, I'm loosing that too.
And yes, there is always the word of mouth issue.
We'll say why we quit and for what reason.
I'm not exactly big on internet socialization and I've already discussed it twice with my online friends.
And what I had to say wasn't very nice.
One of my friends had even worse things to say when I told them.
With a more outgoing person, that would be happening a lot more.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Here we go...an emergency patch today and what do you know my launcher is broken again. This is just another attempt to force me to uninstall my launcher and download ARC. This is coming to a head....
For those of you who are blissfully unaware Cryptic has crossed the line in the sand. PWE is publically traded on the Stock Exchange. They will be forced to sell off STO within 90 days... This means resistance is NOT futile against the Chinese Overlords. This childish retalliation by PWE to players who complain is utterly foolish. They laugh at us players but they underestimated us they didn't know they were going to TRIBBLE off the wrong people.
I have the steam client.
I don't need to reinstall at all.
Just patch and play.
What I meant was if PWE find a way to lock STO (or CO) so it won't launch without going through Arc, then they've lost me as a customer.
I'm just waiting for the inevitable announcement when PWE claim that we have to use Arc for <Turian Airquotes> "improved account security" and they cannot guarantee account security if we don't use Arc.
Or an announcement that they are making Arc mandatory to give us aforementioned account security.
Neither of which I will believe, by the way. :cool:
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 cannot guarantee account security if we don't use Arc.
Or an announcement that they are making Arc mandatory to give us aforementioned account security.
Neither of which I will believe, by the way. :cool:
You are smart not to believe it, because it's a lie....
ARC is using its own built-in HTML browser which simply cannot be as secure as IE, Chrome, etc. It is always going to be easier for a hacker to breach a poorly coded built-in browser than something like IE9, IE10, or the newest iteration of Chrome, because the hacker has more exploit options. If they say something like "ARC guarantees your account is secure!", first of all, that's a lie, and second of all, they are just begging hackers to breach it.
Okay guys 3 days ago on 08/08/2013 the "Emergency Patch" happened. Now I cannot log in to STO because my launcher has been sabotaged. The launcher refuses to open and when it does it stays minimized. If I right click on it and force it to open it will say that my password and login ID are unable to be authenticated. I got so frustrated with this I uninstalled the launcher and reinstalled from my original copy only to find the same problem. Funny how this happened to me after complaining about the ARC bloatware. PWE/Cryptic are about to find out what it means to deny service to a customer who has a lifetime contract with them. They have crossed the line in the sand....
I HAVE NEVER WANTED TO PLAY ANYTHING MMO BUT STAR TREK AND WILL NEVER PLAY ANOTHER MMO EVER AGAIN.
Here we go...an emergency patch today and what do you know my launcher is broken again. This is just another attempt to force me to uninstall my launcher and download ARC. This is coming to a head....
For those of you who are blissfully unaware Cryptic has crossed the line in the sand. PWE is publically traded on the Stock Exchange. They will be forced to sell off STO within 90 days... This means resistance is NOT futile against the Chinese Overlords. This childish retalliation by PWE to players who complain is utterly foolish. They laugh at us players but they underestimated us they didn't know they were going to TRIBBLE off the wrong people.
Okay guys 3 days ago on 08/08/2013 the "Emergency Patch" happened. Now I cannot log in to STO because my launcher has been sabotaged. The launcher refuses to open and when it does it stays minimized. If I right click on it and force it to open it will say that my password and login ID are unable to be authenticated. I got so frustrated with this I uninstalled the launcher and reinstalled from my original copy only to find the same problem. Funny how this happened to me after complaining about the ARC bloatware. PWE/Cryptic are about to find out what it means to deny service to a customer who has a lifetime contract with them. They have crossed the line in the sand....
I HAVE NEVER WANTED TO PLAY ANYTHING MMO BUT STAR TREK AND WILL NEVER PLAY ANOTHER MMO EVER AGAIN.
While I agree this issue is annoying, AFAIK, it is not ARC related. It is launcher related. I've had the same issue off-and-on over the last couple of weeks. I am using a now-a-days lower-end machine and I have a wonky 'net connection at the best of times.
Also, if you look at the top of any forum page, there is a red-lettered notice that your problem is a known issue and a workaround is available.
Thank you for the time...
STO CBT Player - 400 day+ Vet, Currently Silver
Cryptic, would you actulaly like me to spend actual Money? It's Simple:
Full, Story-driven, select from start 1-50 Klingon Side
Scrap current Lock Box & Lobi system for something more reasonable
Expand Dil and Rep/Fleet Marks to regular story content
Here we are 3 & 1/2 years into STO and they keep TRIBBLE with the launcher. Sorry but I am not the techie type so I am having a really difficult time understanding why they feel the need to keep breaking the launcher. Other than forcing us to do this 3rd party bloatware called Arc why would they keep doing stuff to the launcher? Doesn't a launcher just simply give access to the game? So other than forcing us to look at advertisements why are they messing the launcher up?
FYI it will not rteinstall from a hard copy disk now.... I am really starting to wonder if this is on purpose to herd us into adding bloatware on our computer like how they slipped Pando Media Booster without our permission.
Oh and by the way that workaround did not work. I still get the unable to authenticate user name or password error codes.
If you want to be really really specific, the launcher isn't even needed to access the game.
I've bypassed it on occassion simply by using GameClient.exe.
That is, if the client is fully updated and current.
But I think the launcher is required to patch the game.
Someone with more knowledge on that topic should be consulted, since I don't know much about patching.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Really getting irritated here... the little "fix" isn't working my stuff never maximizes or even gives the option to maximize. They ar SLOW about fixing the problem...on purpose? Perhaps, but I still refuse to download ARC just to find out.
I downloaded and installed Arc a while ago and found this out.
If you start a game through Arc, you cannot close the program while that game is running.
I bit the bullet and tried the ARC TRIBBLE. What he said is true. You cannot disable ARC when running one of its games.
Additionally, closing the game down does not turn off ARC. You have to go to your system tray, right click the ARC icon, and manually choose to exit the process. Otherwise, it keeps running in the background even after you've exited the associated game.
My solution was simpler: I've now walked away from Cryptic games. No more Zen purchases from me.
I'm lucky in that regard. I can only buy Zen with Euro's and that's about 400% more hassle to me than its worth.
Plus with arc looming I'm reluctant to put any more cash into the game.
While Arc can be bypassed using a shortcut to the client, is there anyway of tiggering a patch without using the launcher? As currently i cannot update through arc/launcher or steam as they all use the launcher and that crashes as soon as the password is entered. And without the patch launching the client will not let it talk to servers, due to differences in version etc.
I have a question and not sure if this is the right place. I now this is going to sound saft but what is ARC? I've looked on the offcial page and its not very clear. Is it like Steam but for only Perfect World games. If so as an existing STO user, can I down load the ARC thing and help out with the testing.
Sorry if this in the wrong place.
Comments
I'm just hoping that since it didn't really add any particularly useful features, they don't start disabling existing ones in order to make it look better... I uninstalled it after trying it out for a month or so, and am just fine with the decision. That, and Arc accesses web-based content without any guarantee that Arc itself is free of bugs, viruses, and so on... which seems like a bad plan.
"Ro"
If they acknowledged their player base it would mean they have to listen to us and actually take our opinions into consideration, however apparently forcing people to have a pointless piece of software is far more important perhaps they are getting paid a kings ransom for it so that could be why they don't care.
They just might regret it if the masses protest by refusing to use their game until they remove it?
No worries, you can still launch the game directly without using the ARC. Lucky, coz that thing is more not working, jamming, crashing, then it should be. The only beef at the moment I have with this ARC is that it still downloading an old installer which needs the giant patch to download of 11 Gig. Geezes, even in these times, Cryptic fails to manage to provide us an unpatched installer after each Season expansion. :mad: Sad, really sad.
They're operating under the assumption that nobody will ragequit the game over this.
They're already very aware that people don't want this, and they already know people will hate it when it is made mandatory... but they are assuming that you'll still play STO, even though you hate ARC.
Personally, I don't think the assumption is correct. I have a suspicion that ARC will be the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people who absolutely do not appreciate being forced to install a 10gig piece of bloatware garbage.
This is exactly right. Remember, under an F2P model - 90% of us don't pay a dime or spend very little actual/real cash in game. 10% or so SPEND A LOT and pretty much fund both future game development and make profit for PWE/Cryptic.
I'm certain PWE/Cryptic is banking on the fact that the majority of this 10% (yes, they may still actually loose a few) will put with accept ARC - and if it cause a larger portion of the 90%n to move on; no big deal in the end to the bottom line - and hell, they can even not worry about having to expand the server farm/pay for more rack space/bandwidth, etc.
Any comment by PWEBranflakes of "PWE/Cryptic cares about everyone that plays STO..." is just the usual PR/lip service he's paid to say as CM. In the end they only really care about the 10% (and that's understandable really as any business exists to make money first and foremost - and that doesn't make them 'evil' - just your average big business capitalist
Thus, as long as their market research (and they are doing market research as STO (and CO and NW) are not the first MMOs brought under a unified client like ARC); shows they'll still retain the majority of the 10% who really pay to play STO -- they'll roll out 'ARC', as mandatory (with PWEBranflakes, Trailturtle and the NW Community managers all towing the company line, and singing it's praises, and downplaying its faults/bugs/major negative effects as you try to actually play STO/CO/NW with this bloatware running in the background); and not really care if they loose the 90% not spending much (or any) real cash on Cryptic/PWE games.
welcome to one of the downsides to the F2P model.
(As an aside, it's why Cryptic/PWE now spends money to send the Dev team to large Star Trek conventions - because the game is F2P and client is free to download - they realize that the majority of fans who attend are so into Star trek, they have a greater chance to become a 10% 'whale' (aka big in game money spender) on STO. if the game was still subscription based, they wouldn't bother - because while they would still get some of those same Star Trek fans; they wouldn't get enough to justify the loss in time or expense in hotels, etc. The old 'barrier to entry' of a $20 - $40 box plus a $15 a month sub, is enough to turn a lot of even hard core fans away. With F2P - they draw people in to try the game, (hey, I've nothing to loose and it could be fun), and find (if the starting stuff is top notch) that they then 'hook' them, and these folks start spending before they realize it.)
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..."
Zactly! As I'm fond of saying: "Remember Jita IV!" (anyone who's anybody in the gaming world will know what that means). CCP also thought they could TRIBBLE with people endlessly -- you know how well that ended for them.
Apart from the question of whether people will rage-quit or not (or simply quit as a 'conscientious objector'), the main question simply remains: Why!? Why would you *want* to alienate your customers?! Just because some greedy Ferengi on the top floor are jealous of STEAM and want to launch their own (crappy) platform? We don't need it, we don't want it.
Nothing wrong with making a buck. Things become 'evil' (to loan your term) when making money becomes so paramount, that you're starting to sabotage your own game. When you're making Roms so ridiculously OP, that people are guaranteed to spend money on them. When power creep becomes the domain of managers, seeing a way to cash in on that -- and balance be damned! Or reason, for that matter.
I would hesitate to call them capitalists. A capitalist is merely someone who wants to keep the money they earn to do with as they please. They may fit the description as far as that goes.
However anyone in business knows not to take an openly adversarial stand against their customer base. That would be professional suicide. If a hotel gave you the master suite for the weekend at the going rate and then forced you to share it with eleven strangers... well, that's Arc, except you don't get to know how many strangers are involved or what their intentions are. It's a medical school for the blind on a field trip during your colonoscopy and everyone gets a turn. In Braille.
I, for one, will not "rage quit" should Arc become mandatory. I'm a lifetime subscriber so that would be a waste of money. What I will do is simply not log in any longer. I will, however, share the facts of the situation as far and as widely as I can since all the time I spent playing would suddenly be free.
If there is one thing that I do well it is to communicate my dissatisfaction.
Granted, I will be pretty angry, but I've already decided to quit if they force Arc on me.
And I'm a pretty dedicated STO/Star Trek fan.
When you factor in my CO activities as well, I'm loosing that too.
And yes, there is always the word of mouth issue.
We'll say why we quit and for what reason.
I'm not exactly big on internet socialization and I've already discussed it twice with my online friends.
And what I had to say wasn't very nice.
One of my friends had even worse things to say when I told them.
With a more outgoing person, that would be happening a lot more.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Re-Install Without ARC.
http://download.perfectworld.com/sto/star_trek_setup.exe
For those of you who are blissfully unaware Cryptic has crossed the line in the sand. PWE is publically traded on the Stock Exchange. They will be forced to sell off STO within 90 days... This means resistance is NOT futile against the Chinese Overlords. This childish retalliation by PWE to players who complain is utterly foolish. They laugh at us players but they underestimated us they didn't know they were going to TRIBBLE off the wrong people.
I have the steam client.
I don't need to reinstall at all.
Just patch and play.
What I meant was if PWE find a way to lock STO (or CO) so it won't launch without going through Arc, then they've lost me as a customer.
I'm just waiting for the inevitable announcement when PWE claim that we have to use Arc for <Turian Airquotes> "improved account security" and they cannot guarantee account security if we don't use Arc.
Or an announcement that they are making Arc mandatory to give us aforementioned account security.
Neither of which I will believe, by the way. :cool:
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
You are smart not to believe it, because it's a lie....
ARC is using its own built-in HTML browser which simply cannot be as secure as IE, Chrome, etc. It is always going to be easier for a hacker to breach a poorly coded built-in browser than something like IE9, IE10, or the newest iteration of Chrome, because the hacker has more exploit options. If they say something like "ARC guarantees your account is secure!", first of all, that's a lie, and second of all, they are just begging hackers to breach it.
I HAVE NEVER WANTED TO PLAY ANYTHING MMO BUT STAR TREK AND WILL NEVER PLAY ANOTHER MMO EVER AGAIN.
While I agree this issue is annoying, AFAIK, it is not ARC related. It is launcher related. I've had the same issue off-and-on over the last couple of weeks. I am using a now-a-days lower-end machine and I have a wonky 'net connection at the best of times.
Also, if you look at the top of any forum page, there is a red-lettered notice that your problem is a known issue and a workaround is available.
Thank you for the time...
Cryptic, would you actulaly like me to spend actual Money? It's Simple:
FYI it will not rteinstall from a hard copy disk now.... I am really starting to wonder if this is on purpose to herd us into adding bloatware on our computer like how they slipped Pando Media Booster without our permission.
Oh and by the way that workaround did not work. I still get the unable to authenticate user name or password error codes.
I've bypassed it on occassion simply by using GameClient.exe.
That is, if the client is fully updated and current.
But I think the launcher is required to patch the game.
Someone with more knowledge on that topic should be consulted, since I don't know much about patching.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
and I don't see anything about what benefit or service this "what ever it actually is" is supposed to provide.
For me the simple fact that PWE promotes well known internet scams as a way to earn free Zen means that I do not want anything from PWE on my computer
I bit the bullet and tried the ARC TRIBBLE. What he said is true. You cannot disable ARC when running one of its games.
Additionally, closing the game down does not turn off ARC. You have to go to your system tray, right click the ARC icon, and manually choose to exit the process. Otherwise, it keeps running in the background even after you've exited the associated game.
"The quest for the Book of Ignum"
"I have seen your future. I have seen your end"
I suppose the other option is locking Arc away behind every firewall you can find.
My solution was simpler: I've now walked away from Cryptic games. No more Zen purchases from me.
I'm lucky in that regard. I can only buy Zen with Euro's and that's about 400% more hassle to me than its worth.
Plus with arc looming I'm reluctant to put any more cash into the game.
All you have to do is enter your password each time but better than loading up ARC..
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Sorry if this in the wrong place.