Although since I assume that's not going to work, will Arc have an option to terminate it once it has launched STO or will I have to kill it manually each time? I do NOT want more TSR software running while I'm gaming.
If it doesn't have this option I'll switch to the Steam version of the game.
All I'm after is something that patches and launches my games. I don't use Origin, I don't like Steam. I don't want to know what my friends recently played, I don't want to be told that I can save 25% on in-game items for a game I will never play, and I don't need to know how many hours I've been playing something for.
HOWEVER! If you really are making this a minimal-footprint launcher that doesn't swamp us with irrelevant ads, doesn't spy on us, and doesn't use our bandwidth to upload your games... you might be on to something.
Keep the cross-patching from Tribble to Holodeck (or vice-versa), and fix the problem where patching one game while playing another (eg Neverwinter and STO) plays havoc with the game in progress, and that'll be icing on the cake.
I also note that line there... "no changes are currently being made to the account and @handle system". While that's great news, that little 'currently' had better just be a backside-cover in case changes are needed in the future, rather than an indication of super-secret plans already in progress :P
When I launch STO through Steam it still launches the usual launcher so if they swap to ARC, I assume Steam would just launch ARC instead. Does seem a little redundant to have potentially conflicting software doing the same tasks simultaneously. Have to admit not looking forward to having to use ARC.
i will not use Arc if mandatory, the same way i don't use that >Uplay< ubisoft buls** and that >origin< EA TRIBBLE and other similar so call "media" software. Not that you guys need my money anyway.
P.S. i still remember the first PW videos you guys make back in the days, case someone wonder if i born for the interweb today. y peace*:cool:
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dezstravusMember, Cryptic DevelopersPosts: 2Arc User
Hey Dez, btw Haven't seen you around the forums.. Welcome!!!
Anywho, Once ARC is at the stage you guys want it to be, eg, having all the games run through it only... What will happen to us players that have the now "Old" launcher save somewhere in case of an emergency... *install and repatch the game through it*
On that note, will we still be able to run the game trough the launcher once ARC is up... or will our Launcher just shut-down and not let us patch nor access the game???
Hi Generalmoco,
Thanks for posting your question. I've looked into this though at this time I don't know precisely what the functionality will be, since the integration between the STO Launcher and the Arc client is pretty far out on the development timeline.
Currently, the initial goal we are tackling is getting all our websites into a single, unified infrastructure, and surfacing the website news through the new Arc client.
We should have more information as it the launcher integration transitions from being a goal to something that is actively being developed.
Well, I've watched STO go from Perpetual to Cryptic to Atari to Perfect World. I wonder how long I'll have to wait 'til someone else takes control and I can bypass this whole Arc phase.
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dezstravusMember, Cryptic DevelopersPosts: 2Arc User
HOWEVER! If you really are making this a minimal-footprint launcher that doesn't swamp us with irrelevant ads, doesn't spy on us, and doesn't use our bandwidth to upload your games... you might be on to something.
Hey Clusterfox,
Yes, that is absolutely the goal. I should also clarify that Arc does not use your upload bandwidth to host game downloads to other users. This was a feature that was experimented with in the past, however, we no longer utilize torrent functionality, and host all downloads via our own infrastructure.
Well as long as they're doing away with the background torrenting and ARC isn't going to automatically install every other PW game on my system, then I'm kind of ok with it. I'm still not going to switch over to it until it's mandatory however.
I do have one question though. I currently play STO, Champs, and occasionally Neverwinter. I own retail boxes of STO and Champs and have kept them because on more than one occasion I've had to reinstall the games and used the retail CDs because it was far easier than downloading the entire thing from scratch. Once ARC becomes mandatory if I needed to reinstall STO or Champs down the road would I still be able to use my CDs to install the games (minus all the updates) or would I have to download everything through ARC?
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dezstravusMember, Cryptic DevelopersPosts: 2Arc User
I also note that line there... "no changes are currently being made to the account and @handle system". While that's great news, that little 'currently' had better just be a backside-cover in case changes are needed in the future, rather than an indication of super-secret plans already in progress :P
Yes, it's just a word I use to be safe. Since we're talking about things very far into the future, it's best to play it safe and leave room open for plans to change.
At this time there are currently no super-secret plans. :P
For item #2 - Yes - I totally agree that the current launcher is an amazing piece of technology. It's our goal to preserve the current functionality as much as possible.
Mr. Holmes,
If you're truly being honest with the above comment, then the easiest thing to do is to never make ARC mandatory for all players. Allow players the choice of using ARC or a Stand-alone launcher. Simple as that.
To be honest, I am only playing one Cryptic/PWE game: Star Trek Online. I only plan on playing Star Trek Online and do not wish to be burdened with ads or other nonsense that could disrupt my current playing experience. I do not need a all-in-one launcher/browser/social network hub running in the background beyond applications I already have running. That eat up more system resources than I care to use.
1) Does ARC have to be kept running in the background while running the game of your choice, regardless if you wish to use ARC's Features or not?
2) Does ARC have options to allow it to shut itself down after the game you wish to play is running?
3) Can you do simultaneous updates for the Holodeck/Tribble/Redshirt installations? (This was a positive feature, to me, for NCSoft's launcher)
4) Are there options to keep ARC from activating upon Windows startup?
I have enough background applications already (Considering the Steam client has those options).
These are relativity simple questions, I feel. Why should I even try using ARC if I can not have some technical questions answered?
Now I could go on, but I had already categorized my current thoughts about ARC in a post in a different thread. Here it is:
Now I don't see an issue with a publisher's application that can act as a across-the-board updater/launcher. That's fine with me. I have issues with said program running in addition to the actual game client that I wish to play, because it shouldn't have to! That, from some player confirmation and OCR (i.e. Brandon) non-confirmation, is pretty much a non-starter with me. I have a older system with limited memory. I don't need extra resources taking up my system's memory any more than I have already.
I usually have a browser already running when I play, so that function of ARC I don't want or need. I also have it configured to my liking. Why should I even mess with trying to configure ARC's when I have something good already working?
Granted, seeing those you have as friends is a interesting feature, but we get that already within the game. And considering the interactivity of Cryptic's chat client already, is it really needed beyond in-game?
I don't consider anything I mentioned above as being lazy at all. I look at ARC as being POS Bloatware eventually being shoved down our throats by PWE and I will have nothing to do with it. If you want better detail, look at post #479 in the "Downloading ARC" Thread in the Galactic News Network sub-section.
I may be an outlining case here, but I think there are enough other players like me that look at ARC and will, more likely than not, walk away from STO and never touch a PWE product ever again.
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
1) Does ARC have to be kept running in the background while running the game of your choice, regardless if you wish to use ARC's Features or not?
2) Does ARC have options to allow it to shut itself down after the game you wish to play is running?
3) Can you do simultaneous updates for the Holodeck/Tribble/Redshirt installations? (This was a positive feature, to me, for NCSoft's launcher)
4) Are there options to keep ARC from activating upon Windows startup?
I have enough background applications already (Considering the Steam client has those options).
Yes, that is absolutely the goal. I should also clarify that Arc does not use your upload bandwidth to host game downloads to other users. This was a feature that was experimented with in the past, however, we no longer utilize torrent functionality, and host all downloads via our own infrastructure.
Would be great if that was adopted for the starbase, embassy, etc to stop using us as hosts.
Any plans for tighter integration with the user-driven wiki? On some games a /wiki <topic> will bring up the appropriate wiki page.
What are your plans for SQA - Which operating systems will you target? XP/Vista/Win7/Win8? Will you test using Wine on Linux and on whatever Mac-equivalent is available? Will Linux/Wine/Mac be made part of the Arc product requirements? I tried installing Arc on an old Linux PC a few months back and was unable to complete it, but the STO launcher worked fine.
Will we be able to login to two accounts on the same PC? It's handy to have a free account right now to pass Bridge Officers between alts on my main - currently I can run two instances of STO just fine on a single computer.
A related question, will Arc run correctly behind a NAT router? I have multiple PCs setup in my house and sometimes my son likes to game with me - will that still be possible?
The performance/configuration data gathering - if we opt out, will Arc still be required to stay on during/out of games?
I like the idea of keeping a separate chat window, since often while switching toons I can miss fleet messages in our private channel and /tells.
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dezstravusMember, Cryptic DevelopersPosts: 2Arc User
There are parts of the website integration with the server that haven't worked in *years*
Hi lazarus,
One of the motivations behind this update is to bring all of our websites onto a single infrastructure. As you've stated, there are certainly a couple website issues here and there. This is unfortunately a "growing pain" that resulted from bringing several games into our portfolio and creating separate, independent websites for each one. That is one of the reasons we are building a unified platform for hosting our games and websites. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback here.
Thanks for posting your question. I've looked into this though at this time I don't know precisely what the functionality will be, since the integration between the STO Launcher and the Arc client is pretty far out on the development timeline.
Currently, the initial goal we are tackling is getting all our websites into a single, unified infrastructure, and surfacing the website news through the new Arc client.
We should have more information as it the launcher integration transitions from being a goal to something that is actively being developed.
For item #2 - Yes - I totally agree that the current launcher is an amazing piece of technology. It's our goal to preserve the current functionality as much as possible.
^^^
Yes - reinvent the wheel and force players to use a huge invasive form of bloatware, instead of just allowing players the OPTION (read CHOICE) of continuing as they have been (some since closed beta in 2009).
Yep, you'll 'try to preserve 'functionality' that has 4 years of data and experience with some new software that's probably more hackable and exploitable then MSIE ever was.
Yep, can 100% see the logic is pissing off the Cryptic playerbase; but hey, PWE probably loves the revolving door; and expects a bunch of new players who never played STO before PWE took over.
Wish you waited until 2015 though. It not going to be easy waiting for the game I'm waiting for to replace STO for me. (There's NO WAY I'll use ARC, but hey, one less person to worry about, right?)
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..."
Translation: Soon you'll be forced to use Arc because we'll be getting rid of all the other launchers, despite the fact that when asked the last time we told you that we had no plans to do such a thing
I called it. Yet again we were lied to.
This. There are parts of the website integration with the server that haven't worked in *years*
I'm thinking its the first option there. Steam would never allow a company to essentially distribute their own version of steam via a steam game. It would be a very bad business move. In fact their tos doesn't allow companies to do things like that
A) steam doesn't allow companies to do what you're suggesting in the way you've said you're planning to do it.
You mean like how last time arc was advertised we were told there were no plans to force its use? Yeah, sure buddy. I'm not stupid. You lied about that, there is no reason you wouldn't be doing so now about the steam issue as well.
Except that the blog post explicitly said that they are getting rid of the launchers and having everything run through Arc. So by that logic it will be the only option
Yeah, because no company has ever lied about doing things like that. I'll believe that when I see proof that no data is being collected without permission and no adware is involved
Actually what Cryptic said (pwebranflakes I think said it) was that there were no plans [at that time] to force us to use arc but if their plans changed they would let us know. So technically they didn't lie to us about it.
I would like to point out though there was a thread asking us to give feedback about Arc and the majority of us were worried we were going to be forced to use it eventually. We said we didn't want that to happen and someone pulled a jedi mind trick on Cryptic "These are not the feedbacks you are looking for". I assume the feedback they wanted was about the functionality and the likes and any feedback about us being forced to use it was irrelevant and, obviously, ignored.
Arc will not gather or share personal information without consent
Optionally, you can opt-in to provide anonymous performance and hardware statistics (which helps us make sure Arc performs well on a diverse spectrum of hardware), though it does not gather or send any data without your consent.
That's what they all say.
You seriously think anybody will want to "op-in" to having their data recorded and shared with others with recent world events going on right now? *cough NSA cough*
You better not lie about that. It's bad enough you're going to force us to have this ARC TRIBBLE on our systems, if I find out you lied to us and we are automatically opted-in to have our data collected and shared and we have to actually op-out, I'm uninstalling the game immediately.:mad:
Originally Posted by tymersto
1) Does ARC have to be kept running in the background while running the game of your choice, regardless if you wish to use ARC's Features or not?
2) Does ARC have options to allow it to shut itself down after the game you wish to play is running?
3) Can you do simultaneous updates for the Holodeck/Tribble/Redshirt installations? (This was a positive feature, to me, for NCSoft's launcher)
4) Are there options to keep ARC from activating upon Windows startup?
I have enough background applications already (Considering the Steam client has those options).
This is exactly what I want to know, too.
Joined in March, 2011. Lifer since December, 2011.
Personally I'm not looking forward to Arc, I only play STO, I have no interest in any other PW games and for me Arc's just gonna be another I don't need running in the background to slow down my already rubbish computer =/
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Arc will be the exclusive method of downloading, patching, and launching all Perfect World games
When this goes into effect, I'm done with STO. I refuse to allow game company spyware like Arc/Uplay/etc on my machine. I won't be spending any more money on STO, and probably will stop playing even before it goes into effect, now that it has been announced.
At the moment with the current STO, NW and CO launchers, we can run additional command lines from the launcher (Such as Demo_play and demo_render for the demo record functionality).
Will this still be possible with the Arc platform? Or will we have to use 3rd party programs or edit the properties of the Gameclient.exe?
Foundry Enthusiast
Machinima Person
Did some things back in the day
Actually what Cryptic said (pwebranflakes I think said it) was that there were no plans [at that time] to force us to use arc but if their plans changed they would let us know. So technically they didn't lie to us about it.
Actually, they didn't lie to us in a way in which we would be able to call them on it. It was patently obvious from the start that they wanted to make everyone use Arc, if for no other reason than supporting multiple launchers is a wasteful duplication of effort. So I would bet money that somewhere, there were plans to move everyone to Arc. Perhaps Bran was deliberately kept out of the loop. Perhaps by his choice.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
One of the motivations behind this update is to bring all of our websites onto a single infrastructure. As you've stated, there are certainly a couple website issues here and there. This is unfortunately a "growing pain" that resulted from bringing several games into our portfolio and creating separate, independent websites for each one. That is one of the reasons we are building a unified platform for hosting our games and websites. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback here.
AIO - i do not know if this is so good idea, i am playing STO for moste of the time and little bit of NW, and i am not intrasted in getting and reading news about games i do not play. . .i think that current sub-domain sites are good as they are. . .
Hi,
One of the questions I have is running multiple copies of the same client at once. there are times now and then when I run 2 copies of the same game at the same time and alt+tab between them. Will the launcher let me start the same game twice.
AIO - i do not know if this is so good idea, i am playing STO for moste of the time and little bit of NW, and i am not intrasted in getting and reading news about games i do not play. . .i think that current sub-domain sites are good as they are. . .
It's not supposed to benefit you. It's supposed to benefit the marketing dept at PWE. You see, this is mandated by marketing people, not gamers. Marketing people thing differently than you and I do. It goes like this: If you don't read stuff about their other games, then they can't convince you to play and spend money on the other games. By forcing every game's "news" in front of you at every launch, they think they can convince you to play those other games.
Make no mistake, programs like this aren't designed for the benefit of the players.
Will Arc always be running while you are playing a game and will it be constantly sending a data stream in addition to a games back and forth to its server?
I'm on a very limited data cap due to my remote location and if it is anywhere near as intensive as Steam I will have to give up STO which I do not want.
I'm still opposed to this 'Arc' being forced on me.
There are no benefits attached to it as I only play STO.
There seem to be disadvantages attached to it: more ads, more bloated than current launcher. (It still wasn't answered if it keeps running in the background.)
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Comments
Although since I assume that's not going to work, will Arc have an option to terminate it once it has launched STO or will I have to kill it manually each time? I do NOT want more TSR software running while I'm gaming.
If it doesn't have this option I'll switch to the Steam version of the game.
HOWEVER! If you really are making this a minimal-footprint launcher that doesn't swamp us with irrelevant ads, doesn't spy on us, and doesn't use our bandwidth to upload your games... you might be on to something.
Keep the cross-patching from Tribble to Holodeck (or vice-versa), and fix the problem where patching one game while playing another (eg Neverwinter and STO) plays havoc with the game in progress, and that'll be icing on the cake.
I also note that line there... "no changes are currently being made to the account and @handle system". While that's great news, that little 'currently' had better just be a backside-cover in case changes are needed in the future, rather than an indication of super-secret plans already in progress :P
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
P.S. i still remember the first PW videos you guys make back in the days, case someone wonder if i born for the interweb today. y peace*:cool:
Hi Generalmoco,
Thanks for posting your question. I've looked into this though at this time I don't know precisely what the functionality will be, since the integration between the STO Launcher and the Arc client is pretty far out on the development timeline.
Currently, the initial goal we are tackling is getting all our websites into a single, unified infrastructure, and surfacing the website news through the new Arc client.
We should have more information as it the launcher integration transitions from being a goal to something that is actively being developed.
Hope that helps!
Hey Clusterfox,
Yes, that is absolutely the goal. I should also clarify that Arc does not use your upload bandwidth to host game downloads to other users. This was a feature that was experimented with in the past, however, we no longer utilize torrent functionality, and host all downloads via our own infrastructure.
I do have one question though. I currently play STO, Champs, and occasionally Neverwinter. I own retail boxes of STO and Champs and have kept them because on more than one occasion I've had to reinstall the games and used the retail CDs because it was far easier than downloading the entire thing from scratch. Once ARC becomes mandatory if I needed to reinstall STO or Champs down the road would I still be able to use my CDs to install the games (minus all the updates) or would I have to download everything through ARC?
Yes, it's just a word I use to be safe. Since we're talking about things very far into the future, it's best to play it safe and leave room open for plans to change.
At this time there are currently no super-secret plans. :P
Mr. Holmes,
If you're truly being honest with the above comment, then the easiest thing to do is to never make ARC mandatory for all players. Allow players the choice of using ARC or a Stand-alone launcher. Simple as that.
To be honest, I am only playing one Cryptic/PWE game: Star Trek Online. I only plan on playing Star Trek Online and do not wish to be burdened with ads or other nonsense that could disrupt my current playing experience. I do not need a all-in-one launcher/browser/social network hub running in the background beyond applications I already have running. That eat up more system resources than I care to use.
I also have serious doubts about what ARC can and will do. Considering I asked some rather simple questions over three months ago that haven't been answered to my satisfaction. Here they are again for reference:
These are relativity simple questions, I feel. Why should I even try using ARC if I can not have some technical questions answered?
Now I could go on, but I had already categorized my current thoughts about ARC in a post in a different thread. Here it is:
I may be an outlining case here, but I think there are enough other players like me that look at ARC and will, more likely than not, walk away from STO and never touch a PWE product ever again.
Thank you for the time...
Cryptic, would you actulaly like me to spend actual Money? It's Simple:
Please answer these.
Would be great if that was adopted for the starbase, embassy, etc to stop using us as hosts.
What are your plans for SQA - Which operating systems will you target? XP/Vista/Win7/Win8? Will you test using Wine on Linux and on whatever Mac-equivalent is available? Will Linux/Wine/Mac be made part of the Arc product requirements? I tried installing Arc on an old Linux PC a few months back and was unable to complete it, but the STO launcher worked fine.
Will we be able to login to two accounts on the same PC? It's handy to have a free account right now to pass Bridge Officers between alts on my main - currently I can run two instances of STO just fine on a single computer.
A related question, will Arc run correctly behind a NAT router? I have multiple PCs setup in my house and sometimes my son likes to game with me - will that still be possible?
The performance/configuration data gathering - if we opt out, will Arc still be required to stay on during/out of games?
I like the idea of keeping a separate chat window, since often while switching toons I can miss fleet messages in our private channel and /tells.
Hi lazarus,
One of the motivations behind this update is to bring all of our websites onto a single infrastructure. As you've stated, there are certainly a couple website issues here and there. This is unfortunately a "growing pain" that resulted from bringing several games into our portfolio and creating separate, independent websites for each one. That is one of the reasons we are building a unified platform for hosting our games and websites. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback here.
Alright... Thanks for the Info!!!
Yes - reinvent the wheel and force players to use a huge invasive form of bloatware, instead of just allowing players the OPTION (read CHOICE) of continuing as they have been (some since closed beta in 2009).
Yep, you'll 'try to preserve 'functionality' that has 4 years of data and experience with some new software that's probably more hackable and exploitable then MSIE ever was.
Yep, can 100% see the logic is pissing off the Cryptic playerbase; but hey, PWE probably loves the revolving door; and expects a bunch of new players who never played STO before PWE took over.
Wish you waited until 2015 though. It not going to be easy waiting for the game I'm waiting for to replace STO for me. (There's NO WAY I'll use ARC, but hey, one less person to worry about, right?)
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..."
Actually what Cryptic said (pwebranflakes I think said it) was that there were no plans [at that time] to force us to use arc but if their plans changed they would let us know. So technically they didn't lie to us about it.
I would like to point out though there was a thread asking us to give feedback about Arc and the majority of us were worried we were going to be forced to use it eventually. We said we didn't want that to happen and someone pulled a jedi mind trick on Cryptic "These are not the feedbacks you are looking for". I assume the feedback they wanted was about the functionality and the likes and any feedback about us being forced to use it was irrelevant and, obviously, ignored.
That's what they all say.
You seriously think anybody will want to "op-in" to having their data recorded and shared with others with recent world events going on right now? *cough NSA cough*
You better not lie about that. It's bad enough you're going to force us to have this ARC TRIBBLE on our systems, if I find out you lied to us and we are automatically opted-in to have our data collected and shared and we have to actually op-out, I'm uninstalling the game immediately.:mad:
This is exactly what I want to know, too.
Joined in March, 2011. Lifer since December, 2011.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Will this still be possible with the Arc platform? Or will we have to use 3rd party programs or edit the properties of the Gameclient.exe?
Machinima Person
Did some things back in the day
Now a Games Developer and Researcher
Actually, they didn't lie to us in a way in which we would be able to call them on it. It was patently obvious from the start that they wanted to make everyone use Arc, if for no other reason than supporting multiple launchers is a wasteful duplication of effort. So I would bet money that somewhere, there were plans to move everyone to Arc. Perhaps Bran was deliberately kept out of the loop. Perhaps by his choice.
AIO - i do not know if this is so good idea, i am playing STO for moste of the time and little bit of NW, and i am not intrasted in getting and reading news about games i do not play. . .i think that current sub-domain sites are good as they are. . .
One of the questions I have is running multiple copies of the same client at once. there are times now and then when I run 2 copies of the same game at the same time and alt+tab between them. Will the launcher let me start the same game twice.
Make no mistake, programs like this aren't designed for the benefit of the players.
I'm on a very limited data cap due to my remote location and if it is anywhere near as intensive as Steam I will have to give up STO which I do not want.
- Raith
There are no benefits attached to it as I only play STO.
There seem to be disadvantages attached to it: more ads, more bloated than current launcher. (It still wasn't answered if it keeps running in the background.)
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!