i just want to chime in on the "milking" PWE does: Nobody forces YOU to buy anything, and you can play the game WITHOUT any restrictions if you choose not to spend money.
First off that is a blatant lie. Second, that is like saying a drug dealer selling heroin to people is ok because nobody is forcing you to buy it from him
If you can't controle yourself from buying stuff in this game, don't shift the fault away from yourself.
Do you always make excuses for shady business practices and blame the victim?
The game was released unfinished because of a release deadline set by CBS...you can google that fact, and it was mentioned in many interviews with devs.
A fact? Really? The only fact regarding deadlines was that they had to make the date they released to obtain a BONUS. THAT is a fact.
OP presents some really distroted views on past events. More based on his emotion towards publishers than researched facts.
Rethink what you said before you say that again
Like it or not, but Atari was killing the game. PWE saved it.
After reading the nonsense the OP was babbling during his befuddled trip down faulty memory lane while wearing his rose colored glasses, i'd guess the wall of text he wrote in was an attempt to conceal his dementia.
1. Atari and PWE were never co-owners of STO. Both companies own(ed) Cryptic and all it's games.
2. Atari never gave a rat's butt about it's customers. They rushed the game out unfinished in order to milk the customers out of their money, even going so far as to TRIBBLE over the retailers and players less than a month after launch by putting the game on sale on their website at a significant discount.
3. Under Atari's mismanagement Cryptic and STO's future was circling the toilet, and the only way Atari could show a profit was by selling Cryptic to PWE.
4. The KDF's current low population is a vast improvement because it was virtually nonexistent under Atari. Atari was forced to give out level bumps just to entice people to make a klingon character because the faction was unplayable outside of PvP.
5. Of course PWE is out to make money. If the game doesn't turn a profit it gets shut down.
6. The reason the Feds are vastly more popular than the other factions is because the IP has always been focused on the Federation. That's the faction most trekkies grew up and fell in love with, so naturally most people prefer playing Starfleet characters.
+1 - ANYONE who thinks Atari was a good steward of STO either has a VERY faulty memory, or didn't actuallt experience the Atari days. Remember, back then DStahl stated Atari was dumbfounded at the thought of continuing to spend money on development to expand the game, as in their mind, once a game was launched, that was it. You spent money on the server costs, and maybe did the occasional bug fix, but ADD content? Atari was 'Why?' and it clearly showed.
As for money grubbing, please show me where Atari was EVER giving away ANYTHING free to the playerbase? Again, DStahl stated Atari was always against NOT putting any new ship in the C-Store; and thout Cryptic was crazy for suggesting anything along those lines.
PWE ain't perfect, but at least they've:
- Expanded the Dev team (which was shrinking under Atari, even BEFORE the sell off was annopunced)
- Have continued to throw money back into the game for development (and more Star Trek actor voice overs) <--- I doubt we would have EVER seen that under Atari ownership.
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..."
I totally agree here. The money grabbing and all the grinding is PW's business model for all their games. But its even worse here because of the popular ip. It being the only game Star Trek fans have to play factors into it also. You can bet they will make a ton of money on the new Dyson ship bundles too. Don't be mad at the company be mad at the players willing to spend that kind of money here. They are the ones making it easy for PW to TRIBBLE us over.
You obviously never played the game under Atari's management. I find it hilarious that people grip about the small things or say Season # is the worst even though they have been with the game since Season 5 or 6.
Try playing STO when the only things to do were grinding Accolades (Redoing the Exploration, Defend the sector missions, the six dailies from the 2 FEs at the time). Once you got the Borg Set, you really didn't play the STFs after that.
After reading the nonsense the OP was babbling during his befuddled trip down faulty memory lane while wearing his rose colored glasses, i'd guess the wall of text he wrote in was an attempt to conceal his dementia.
1. Atari and PWE were never co-owners of STO. Both companies own(ed) Cryptic and all it's games.
2. Atari never gave a rat's butt about it's customers. They rushed the game out unfinished in order to milk the customers out of their money, even going so far as to TRIBBLE over the retailers and players less than a month after launch by putting the game on sale on their website at a significant discount.
3. Under Atari's mismanagement Cryptic and STO's future was circling the toilet, and the only way Atari could show a profit was by selling Cryptic to PWE.
4. The KDF's current low population is a vast improvement because it was virtually nonexistent under Atari. Atari was forced to give out level bumps just to entice people to make a klingon character because the faction was unplayable outside of PvP.
5. Of course PWE is out to make money. If the game doesn't turn a profit it gets shut down.
6. The reason the Feds are vastly more popular than the other factions is because the IP has always been focused on the Federation. That's the faction most trekkies grew up and fell in love with, so naturally most people prefer playing Starfleet characters.
Right....Atari is to blame and not Perpetual Entertainment who squandered the time they were given to make STO in the first place, in all reality, Cryptic had what was CBS's time constraint placed on them, they were forced by CBS!!! to make a Star Trek MMO in the little time they had.
Atari was the one who saved STO along with cryptic, if not for them both, a Star Trek MMO might not have even been considered a good idea.
if ya wanna blame anyone for half the TRIBBLE you posted up there, then blame Perpetual Entertainment. Also the main reason the Feds are so popular is because you HAD to play one in order to get access to the KDF, that was in the past of course, and the KDF wasn't nearly as finished as Cryptic wanted because of the time constraint they had put on them.
I think it was something along the lines of 1.5 years that cryptic had to cram STO into Existance.
First off that is a blatant lie. Second, that is like saying a drug dealer selling heroin to people is ok because nobody is forcing you to buy it from him
What Cryptic/PWE is selling is not comparable to heroin or drug dealing. Please dial it back.
What they are selling is the equivalent of comic books. If you buy it then you made a choice. If you decide not to buy. You made a choice. If you feel that anyone playing the lobi grab bag game is being fleeced, I would recommend you boycott your local casino as they have worse odds and higher prices for their payouts.
As for blaming the 'victim' here. If a person has a gambling problem, they should seek help.
If they have poor impulse control your comparision is to villify anheuser busch because someone is an alcoholic.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Why else do you explain why DStahl was so quick to jump ship... twice?
To be accurate, Stahl did not "jump ship". He is still working at Cryptic on a new project, last I heard.
I can well believe being EP of this game is stressful enough for somebody to want to take a break. And it's entirely possible that he'll end up back at the helm someday.
- Expanded the Dev team (which was shrinking under Atari, even BEFORE the sell off was annopunced)
- Have continued to throw money back into the game for development (and more Star Trek actor voice overs) <--- I doubt we would have EVER seen that under Atari ownership.
Right....Atari is to blame and not Perpetual Entertainment who squandered the time they were given to make STO in the first place, in all reality, Cryptic had what was CBS's time constraint placed on them, they were forced by CBS!!! to make a Star Trek MMO in the little time they had.
Atari was the one who saved STO along with cryptic, if not for them both, a Star Trek MMO might not have even been considered a good idea.
You're both right.
Cryptic couldn't have done STO without the investment from Atari. Trouble is, Atari didn't understand MMO's and probably didn't understand that the Star Trek IP wasn't the gaming equivalent of a printing press for money.
The fact remains that Atari presided over a period of time when STO was in serious trouble, and they are directly responsible for the loss of subscribers that took place.
Without PWE, I'm not sure there would still be a Cryptic, let alone STO. The quality of the game has improved steadily since F2P launch and the 'gimmicks' are successfully funding the game.
I think they do go too far sometimes. Season 8 and 8.5 were actually pretty good when one overlooks the debacle that the Anniversary event became this year. Quick equip and the loadouts feature were great Quality of Life improvements and the FE's themselves were very well done and introduced new tech and a higher bar set for the Dev team.
They've also given a lot of stuff away for free. When did Cryptic under Atari ever do that?
Oh, and let's take a moment to consider Atari's customer support alongside PWE's? PWE's got a long ways to go, but Atari's was truly atrocious.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Heads up, champ - I've been playing since F2P. I've raised characters of every faction (or fraction, if you prefer) from startup to 50. (The first Klink wasn't from 1-50, because that was back when you started at lvl 20, after getting a Fed to 25.) I've explored all the career paths, and am working on all the free ships.
I have yet to spend any money on this game. I haven't even spent much Dil - since it was introduced, I've mostly wound up spending it on fleet projects. It's completely doable to play this game, and have a good time doing so, without ever buying anything from the C-Store.
I think that a lot of people are trying to pin the blame solely on Atari or PWE, but Cryptic isn't entirely clean themselves. There were numerous questionable decisions being made well before either PWE or Atari came into the picture. There were a lot of things that were being introduced unfinished, many things that were being overhyped and built up as things they are not, and empty promises and lame excuses.
This has not changed at all. My main issue with what is happening is a general lack of quality. The Romulan Faction isn't a faction, more so since they actually are forced to join the Fed/KDF. They're an enhanced playable race at best. The liberated borg, a species you have to pay over $100 to play as (i'm not sure the current LTS price) is still a horrid mess in comparison. They don't even have a full body skin, it just ends at the neck, showing how little Cryptic cares. There are so many bugs and every time they add things, more show up, as well as sometimes flat out break things. yet most of these bugs are allowed to stay because they don't keep people from playing enough to hurt the cashflow.
The ships are often overpriced, more so when you need to buy the same ship under a faction themed skin. Cryptic only has to make these things once, and occasionally fix bugs for them or balance a bit. Aside from that, they're done. They could easily sell 3-5 times the number of ships by dropping the prices in half. As cool as some of these ships are, they really are not worth $50 for a three pack. No game should be charging that much for a virtual item, regardless of what it is. The prices should either match the quality, or be low enough that people can't help but buy them, not over priced and of poor quality. We're not even getting full interiors with these things, and a lot of the newer ships (not all) aren't even coming with the optional parts anymore.
Just because this is becoming the big trend in video games doesn't make it right. More and more, we see gaming companies from all across the board, putting out products of lesser quality, but trying to get more money out of them. People keep trying to justify these actions with poor excuses, and the more people allow them to do such horrible things, the more the game companies will try to get away with.
I Honestly don't see how Cryptic can claim to be a bunch of fans of the IP, then use it against the players as they have been, in such a horrible and greedy way. There is a difference between making a quality product that fans willingly want to buy and support, and using the love of an IP to milk as much money out of something.
As a relatively new player OP's post is quite informative and disturbing at the same time.
I mean I found this game to be really buggy and poorly optimized, but I thought that this will probably be patched in time.
But when I read this and see that this has been the state of the game for a long time now and that many, if not most of the problems are simply being left unpatched and unattended to for such a long time - while the cashshop andcontent is being updated on a regular basis - I wonder if I should bother?
Thing is, I really like this game, I really do. It's a very generic system without the depth of other mmos but I don't give a damn since it provides quite an enjoyable experience for me.
But the thing is: core elements like ground battles for example are so buggy that they could already be called "broken". And when I, as a STO noob take a look at this forums and see that many people complain about that and that those things are really left alone like that - I simply loose interest and "faith"in what this game might become.
Now I don't want to join the "free stuff vs. cashshop" train since this game is f2p and that's how cryptic makes it's money and i'm totally fine with it.
But if that is all that is happening update wise - than I can definitely understand that rage.
I haven't grown so attached to this game that I would be enraged about it's state but bugs and the horrible ground combat made me quit the game about 20x by now which was enraging every time and doesn't really make me eager to try again.
I'm concerned about the state of the game because it sounds like those problems will continue to be problems for a long time, if not until the game dies.
So as a new player, I hope that OP is wrong and that updates and patches will happen because if not, the people who told me I shouldn't bother with this game, were probably right.
All I've seen in the last year, is farmville-inspired grinding and a couple of missions that would probably have been done BETTER in Foundry.
Fundamental problem here: this is a captive audience (an IP based Monopoly market-there aren't any other Star Trek games out there), and unfortunately, PWE and Cryptic KNOW THIS.
If this game, in it's present condition released tomorrow without the Star Trek IP, it would flop hard.
Without the "STAR TREK" label, this game would make BSGO look profitable and active.
get it?
there is a whole lot of "Unfinished' in this game-it's barely-beta after three years, useability wise.
You're preaching to a choir which consists of people that have known the game would occupy this state even as far back as closed-beta and people whom you could ask to show you on the bear where the "bad man" touched them at which time they would blankly stare and ask "bad man?"
Like I said, I wasn't around back then. I guess people forgot about the content drought, but then if the game model was undergoing a change, it's a valid reason for that drought.
As it stands, STO has a solid playerbase and Cryptic/PWE must have made a killing from people purchasing master keys for the lock boxes. Yet, it seems to be more and more not about what we would like but more about what they think is a good idea.
I could list a whole number of requests, by multiple people that have been asked for years, and these aren't simple impractical requests either, they're genuine practical ones, yet ignored for otherwise pointless material.
Well... you seem to imply a dichotomy where none exists.
Cryptic DOES do requests, and many new features are a result of that. But they can't do everything and thus must pick and choose what they think is best.
Additionally the performance-related bonus could see as much as USD 20 million paid in cash or stock if Champions Online and Star Trek's 2010-11 revenues outperform set undisclosed targets, payable in August 2010 and May 2011.
Many accused Cryptic of launching STO too early, and without the effort of the STO dev's, to change the wheels on this moving train, it would have derailed a long time ago thanks to Atari.
Which means, if Atari didn't set the deadline to get the bonus, we could have actually had a more complete game on launch day, and in fact a higher rating over all on the books, which could have brought more customers.
I believe the posting restriction is in place to discourage goldsellers from spamming using newly created accounts.
I see but not newly created accounts probably ones that haven't posted since PW took over, cause like I said I had account from before first day of STO with CO since its beta.
Where?
STO, wondering if its more populated since all the hype sent out or only few people play.
Either there are so many mmo's out there it dilutes a lot of them.
It wasn't Perpetual Entertainment that decided to buy the STO license knowing full well what was expected by CBS.
Nor was it Perpetual Entertainment's, CBS's, or PWE's gross mismanagement that was responsible for Cryptics financial losses while they were owned by Atari.
According to Cryptic's financial statements for the fiscal year ending in march 2011 they lost $7.5 million, and the year before they reported losing $17.9 million.
Cryptic went 25.4 million dollars into the hole under Atari's benevolent ownership.
yes, because Cryptic had to take massive losses to repair most of the damage that a half finished, batcrap launch STO had. and the only reason why that had to happen was because Perpetual Entertainment litterally pissed away almost 60% of the development time aloted to them, in which 40% was passed to cryptic to scramble and make a new MMO off an exsisting engine.
I'm talking about pre launch problems. If not for Cryptic's under the gun work, STO would never have been a reality, and in all likelyhood never have made it into an MMO at all.
but they had to cram 4 years of a development cycle into just 2 years, Atari was bad at pretty much everything, but at least they were able to keep STO in development even when the ship was sinking.
Quite simply put, Atari and Cryptic are the only reasons why Star Trek got an MMO.
Additionally the performance-related bonus could see as much as USD 20 million paid in cash or stock if Champions Online and Star Trek's 2010-11 revenues outperform set undisclosed targets, payable in August 2010 and May 2011.
Many accused Cryptic of launching STO too early, and without the effort of the STO dev's, to change the wheels on this moving train, it would have derailed a long time ago thanks to Atari.
Which means, if Atari didn't set the deadline to get the bonus, we could have actually had a more complete game on launch day, and in fact a higher rating over all on the books, which could have brought more customers.
This is insane. It's somehow Atari's fault for setting the bonus? If Cryptic launched in an incomplete state in an ill-advised attempt to gain a bonus (that they clearly didn't deserve), that's entirely Cryptic's fault.
yes, because Cryptic had to take massive losses to repair most of the damage that a half finished, batcrap launch STO had. and the only reason why that had to happen was because Perpetual Entertainment litterally pissed away almost 60% of the development time aloted to them, in which 40% was passed to cryptic to scramble and make a new MMO off an exsisting engine.
Whoa, hold the phone. Who was holding the gun on Cryptic to make them pick up the game? As far as I was aware, they volunteered to do it in a very short time-frame. Call it hubris, call it arrogance, but Cryptic dug their own grave.
"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
This is insane. It's somehow Atari's fault for setting the bonus? If Cryptic launched in an incomplete state in an ill-advised attempt to gain a bonus (that they clearly didn't deserve), that's entirely Cryptic's fault.
Whoa, hold the phone. Who was holding the gun on Cryptic to make them pick up the game? As far as I was aware, they volunteered to do it in a very short time-frame. Call it hubris, call it arrogance, but Cryptic dug their own grave.
Atari won the contract, Cryptic was under Atari at the time.
If cryptic didn't do that, NO STAR TREK MMO would have been produced, The colossal Failure that was Perpetual Entertainment would have stained the Idea of a Star Trek MMO.
Do you even know the whole story on how Cryptic got the job? Do you even remember the ****storm that occured when it was found out Perpetual Entertainment squandered two years worth of development time on pretty pictures and concept art? and many of the Trader Magazines, even gameinformer touched on it, IGN etc, all of them saying this was Star Treks first and possibly only chance to break into the MMO world, With remarks being made that CBS would pull the right fro anyone to make a Star Trek MMO.
Cryptic is indisputably the savior of the Star Trek MMO. it had a semi new engine (at the time) that they were able to put Star Trek Online into, it looked reletively good. Cryptic had the best of the best working harsh hours in such a small frame.
But with CBS not allowing extra time, STO launched with a pre-beta state, poor servers, etc. This lack of time, directly given to what Perpetual Entertainment squandered is what lead to the Pasta Strainer of a ship to set sail.
It's my opinion Atari/Cryptic had something to do with squashing this.
actually that was due to several factors, number one being the game was half finished regardless of what the original press conference stated, they released legal notes stating status.
Also you really are not paying any lick of attention to what I was saying are you?
Perpetual Entertainment ran the STO development from 2006-2008, ST:IS didn't even pop up on the radar of development until late 2010. By the statment again Cryptic is what saved STO in general. if STO had flopped then ST:IS would never have gotten the go ahead by CBS to do it.
It was also pushed down hard by PWE which owned the rights (re-negotiated with cbs) to the Star Trek MMO license.
I also have to note, ST:IS was only slated for development in june of 2010. STO as it is was the only reason the game was even remotely aproved by CBS, and even then it took a bit of lobbying, and after the fact it was a good concept, it didn't even manage to pass the third stage of deveolopment.
Didn't pop up on whose radar? Your speculation is that if Atari lost the license no Star Trek MMO would have been produced. Which is wrong because Infinite Space was already in production, when Cryptic took over for Perpetual.
wow you really haven't read a damn thing I wrote did ya, ya glanced over it and filled in the blanks I take it.
I'm saying that because Perpetual Entertainment Squandered 2 years of the 4 year time constraint that CBS put out there via contract. A contract of which they did not extend for cryptic, Giving cryptic a 1.5 year development cycle. This contract was CBS's way of testing the waters, to see if a Star Trek MMO would have been feesable to do at the time.
In other words, and words better explained by the editors of half a dozen gaming magazines, and Trader Information Weekly (discontinued name, but very good mag) All stated CBS's reluctance to even proceed with something like this, and if the project failed either the development cycle, or the practice form. CBS would have prevented ANY Star Trek MMO from being produced under the prime timeline, this isn't speculation, it's a spoken fact by CBS.
CBS would have continued that ban until some studio managed to offer a better product in a secure format, but only (contract statment) after 2 years of the original contract expiration time.
And no Star Trek: Infinate Space was not in development before STO was given to Cryptic, the damn thing didn't even start development until mid 2010, it was RESERVED for production years before the development date, but it was never really a good idea to proceed.
And I am not saying that If Atari Lost the license no MMO would ever have been produced, I'm saying that because Cryptic managed to jam an entire MMO into such a small time frame and doing it moderately sucessfully, that they saved the STO concept.
If Cryptic had failed, Many companies would have thought it impossible or just extremely improbable to make a Star Trek MMO, Especially after 2 studios failing to make it, the prospect of a Star Trek MMO would most likely have been put on the back burner for many years.
or what's worse, Paramount might have gotten the rights to the MMO, making a JJverse STO a terrifying reality.
Star Trek: infinite space btw, was announced in 2010, began its cycle in june, and flopped hard in 2011 as support left them, and I'm assuming PWE put pressure on them. Sto was in development from 2006-20010, ST:IS was reserved before 2010 but it wasn't what people expected it to be.
seriously read one of the articles from when it was all a **** storm in the perpetual entertainment scandal and scare, investors preparing to pull out, many who did, and confidence in a Star Trek MMO making the creation of one a dream for the foolish.
Cryptic under the gun of time managed to save STO, untill I have evidence that disputes the history we've gotten about that, I will not change my stance.
Atari won the contract, Cryptic was under Atari at the time.
Incorrect.
Perpetual folded January 2008
Cryptic announced STO July 2008
Atari acquired Cryptic December 2008
"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
Perpetual Entertainment only ever had concept art and a interior mockup done in a game mod (Unreal I think), they had no game engine for it. While many would complain that they slapped a star trek skin on Champions Online, that was the quickest way of making it on time. Atari ended up using most of the money to pay-off its debts.
Yep. Atari saw STO as a cash cow they could plunder because of the size of Star Trek's fanbase.
I'd agree with that.
I was kind of wary when the sale to PWE was announced because I knew very little about them, but I have enjoyed the game more since they took over. I was never very happy with Atari and their decisions, and while I don't always agree with the choices PWE makes there are enough things that they've gotten right that I enjoy to offset it.
In my opinion PWE did not save STO, F2P did, Atari and PWE see STO as a cash cow and they are right...it is.
If I was Atari back in the day and I wanted sell this game back then, I would have started a F2P conversion to make it more attractive to buyers (in this case PWE).
And if I was PWE I would demand as a condition of my purchase that Cryptic does not release the new F2P content until I owned them so I (PWE) would gain maximum profits from A new F2P player base.
As Atari I would agree to that condition to offload the game ASAP.
The game would have gone F2P anyway, for better or worse........
Comments
First off that is a blatant lie. Second, that is like saying a drug dealer selling heroin to people is ok because nobody is forcing you to buy it from him
Do you always make excuses for shady business practices and blame the victim?
A fact? Really? The only fact regarding deadlines was that they had to make the date they released to obtain a BONUS. THAT is a fact.
Rethink what you said before you say that again
That remains to be seen
+1 - ANYONE who thinks Atari was a good steward of STO either has a VERY faulty memory, or didn't actuallt experience the Atari days. Remember, back then DStahl stated Atari was dumbfounded at the thought of continuing to spend money on development to expand the game, as in their mind, once a game was launched, that was it. You spent money on the server costs, and maybe did the occasional bug fix, but ADD content? Atari was 'Why?' and it clearly showed.
As for money grubbing, please show me where Atari was EVER giving away ANYTHING free to the playerbase? Again, DStahl stated Atari was always against NOT putting any new ship in the C-Store; and thout Cryptic was crazy for suggesting anything along those lines.
PWE ain't perfect, but at least they've:
- Expanded the Dev team (which was shrinking under Atari, even BEFORE the sell off was annopunced)
- Have continued to throw money back into the game for development (and more Star Trek actor voice overs) <--- I doubt we would have EVER seen that under Atari ownership.
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..."
You obviously never played the game under Atari's management. I find it hilarious that people grip about the small things or say Season # is the worst even though they have been with the game since Season 5 or 6.
Try playing STO when the only things to do were grinding Accolades (Redoing the Exploration, Defend the sector missions, the six dailies from the 2 FEs at the time). Once you got the Borg Set, you really didn't play the STFs after that.
Right....Atari is to blame and not Perpetual Entertainment who squandered the time they were given to make STO in the first place, in all reality, Cryptic had what was CBS's time constraint placed on them, they were forced by CBS!!! to make a Star Trek MMO in the little time they had.
Atari was the one who saved STO along with cryptic, if not for them both, a Star Trek MMO might not have even been considered a good idea.
if ya wanna blame anyone for half the TRIBBLE you posted up there, then blame Perpetual Entertainment. Also the main reason the Feds are so popular is because you HAD to play one in order to get access to the KDF, that was in the past of course, and the KDF wasn't nearly as finished as Cryptic wanted because of the time constraint they had put on them.
I think it was something along the lines of 1.5 years that cryptic had to cram STO into Existance.
What Cryptic/PWE is selling is not comparable to heroin or drug dealing. Please dial it back.
What they are selling is the equivalent of comic books. If you buy it then you made a choice. If you decide not to buy. You made a choice. If you feel that anyone playing the lobi grab bag game is being fleeced, I would recommend you boycott your local casino as they have worse odds and higher prices for their payouts.
As for blaming the 'victim' here. If a person has a gambling problem, they should seek help.
If they have poor impulse control your comparision is to villify anheuser busch because someone is an alcoholic.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
To be accurate, Stahl did not "jump ship". He is still working at Cryptic on a new project, last I heard.
I can well believe being EP of this game is stressful enough for somebody to want to take a break. And it's entirely possible that he'll end up back at the helm someday.
You're both right.
Cryptic couldn't have done STO without the investment from Atari. Trouble is, Atari didn't understand MMO's and probably didn't understand that the Star Trek IP wasn't the gaming equivalent of a printing press for money.
The fact remains that Atari presided over a period of time when STO was in serious trouble, and they are directly responsible for the loss of subscribers that took place.
Without PWE, I'm not sure there would still be a Cryptic, let alone STO. The quality of the game has improved steadily since F2P launch and the 'gimmicks' are successfully funding the game.
I think they do go too far sometimes. Season 8 and 8.5 were actually pretty good when one overlooks the debacle that the Anniversary event became this year. Quick equip and the loadouts feature were great Quality of Life improvements and the FE's themselves were very well done and introduced new tech and a higher bar set for the Dev team.
They've also given a lot of stuff away for free. When did Cryptic under Atari ever do that?
Oh, and let's take a moment to consider Atari's customer support alongside PWE's? PWE's got a long ways to go, but Atari's was truly atrocious.
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Heads up, champ - I've been playing since F2P. I've raised characters of every faction (or fraction, if you prefer) from startup to 50. (The first Klink wasn't from 1-50, because that was back when you started at lvl 20, after getting a Fed to 25.) I've explored all the career paths, and am working on all the free ships.
I have yet to spend any money on this game. I haven't even spent much Dil - since it was introduced, I've mostly wound up spending it on fleet projects. It's completely doable to play this game, and have a good time doing so, without ever buying anything from the C-Store.
Don't pee on my boots and tell me it's raining.
This has not changed at all. My main issue with what is happening is a general lack of quality. The Romulan Faction isn't a faction, more so since they actually are forced to join the Fed/KDF. They're an enhanced playable race at best. The liberated borg, a species you have to pay over $100 to play as (i'm not sure the current LTS price) is still a horrid mess in comparison. They don't even have a full body skin, it just ends at the neck, showing how little Cryptic cares. There are so many bugs and every time they add things, more show up, as well as sometimes flat out break things. yet most of these bugs are allowed to stay because they don't keep people from playing enough to hurt the cashflow.
The ships are often overpriced, more so when you need to buy the same ship under a faction themed skin. Cryptic only has to make these things once, and occasionally fix bugs for them or balance a bit. Aside from that, they're done. They could easily sell 3-5 times the number of ships by dropping the prices in half. As cool as some of these ships are, they really are not worth $50 for a three pack. No game should be charging that much for a virtual item, regardless of what it is. The prices should either match the quality, or be low enough that people can't help but buy them, not over priced and of poor quality. We're not even getting full interiors with these things, and a lot of the newer ships (not all) aren't even coming with the optional parts anymore.
Just because this is becoming the big trend in video games doesn't make it right. More and more, we see gaming companies from all across the board, putting out products of lesser quality, but trying to get more money out of them. People keep trying to justify these actions with poor excuses, and the more people allow them to do such horrible things, the more the game companies will try to get away with.
I Honestly don't see how Cryptic can claim to be a bunch of fans of the IP, then use it against the players as they have been, in such a horrible and greedy way. There is a difference between making a quality product that fans willingly want to buy and support, and using the love of an IP to milk as much money out of something.
I mean I found this game to be really buggy and poorly optimized, but I thought that this will probably be patched in time.
But when I read this and see that this has been the state of the game for a long time now and that many, if not most of the problems are simply being left unpatched and unattended to for such a long time - while the cashshop andcontent is being updated on a regular basis - I wonder if I should bother?
Thing is, I really like this game, I really do. It's a very generic system without the depth of other mmos but I don't give a damn since it provides quite an enjoyable experience for me.
But the thing is: core elements like ground battles for example are so buggy that they could already be called "broken". And when I, as a STO noob take a look at this forums and see that many people complain about that and that those things are really left alone like that - I simply loose interest and "faith"in what this game might become.
Now I don't want to join the "free stuff vs. cashshop" train since this game is f2p and that's how cryptic makes it's money and i'm totally fine with it.
But if that is all that is happening update wise - than I can definitely understand that rage.
I haven't grown so attached to this game that I would be enraged about it's state but bugs and the horrible ground combat made me quit the game about 20x by now which was enraging every time and doesn't really make me eager to try again.
I'm concerned about the state of the game because it sounds like those problems will continue to be problems for a long time, if not until the game dies.
So as a new player, I hope that OP is wrong and that updates and patches will happen because if not, the people who told me I shouldn't bother with this game, were probably right.
But I don't want them to be right.
You're preaching to a choir which consists of people that have known the game would occupy this state even as far back as closed-beta and people whom you could ask to show you on the bear where the "bad man" touched them at which time they would blankly stare and ask "bad man?"
go figure.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Very sad, but very tue, very tue.
Cryptic DOES do requests, and many new features are a result of that. But they can't do everything and thus must pick and choose what they think is best.
My character Tsin'xing
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/atari-acquires-cryptic-studios
Additionally the performance-related bonus could see as much as USD 20 million paid in cash or stock if Champions Online and Star Trek's 2010-11 revenues outperform set undisclosed targets, payable in August 2010 and May 2011.
Many accused Cryptic of launching STO too early, and without the effort of the STO dev's, to change the wheels on this moving train, it would have derailed a long time ago thanks to Atari.
Which means, if Atari didn't set the deadline to get the bonus, we could have actually had a more complete game on launch day, and in fact a higher rating over all on the books, which could have brought more customers.
STO, wondering if its more populated since all the hype sent out or only few people play.
Either there are so many mmo's out there it dilutes a lot of them.
Thanks very much.
yes, because Cryptic had to take massive losses to repair most of the damage that a half finished, batcrap launch STO had. and the only reason why that had to happen was because Perpetual Entertainment litterally pissed away almost 60% of the development time aloted to them, in which 40% was passed to cryptic to scramble and make a new MMO off an exsisting engine.
I'm talking about pre launch problems. If not for Cryptic's under the gun work, STO would never have been a reality, and in all likelyhood never have made it into an MMO at all.
but they had to cram 4 years of a development cycle into just 2 years, Atari was bad at pretty much everything, but at least they were able to keep STO in development even when the ship was sinking.
Quite simply put, Atari and Cryptic are the only reasons why Star Trek got an MMO.
This is insane. It's somehow Atari's fault for setting the bonus? If Cryptic launched in an incomplete state in an ill-advised attempt to gain a bonus (that they clearly didn't deserve), that's entirely Cryptic's fault.
Whoa, hold the phone. Who was holding the gun on Cryptic to make them pick up the game? As far as I was aware, they volunteered to do it in a very short time-frame. Call it hubris, call it arrogance, but Cryptic dug their own grave.
Atari won the contract, Cryptic was under Atari at the time.
If cryptic didn't do that, NO STAR TREK MMO would have been produced, The colossal Failure that was Perpetual Entertainment would have stained the Idea of a Star Trek MMO.
Do you even know the whole story on how Cryptic got the job? Do you even remember the ****storm that occured when it was found out Perpetual Entertainment squandered two years worth of development time on pretty pictures and concept art? and many of the Trader Magazines, even gameinformer touched on it, IGN etc, all of them saying this was Star Treks first and possibly only chance to break into the MMO world, With remarks being made that CBS would pull the right fro anyone to make a Star Trek MMO.
Cryptic is indisputably the savior of the Star Trek MMO. it had a semi new engine (at the time) that they were able to put Star Trek Online into, it looked reletively good. Cryptic had the best of the best working harsh hours in such a small frame.
But with CBS not allowing extra time, STO launched with a pre-beta state, poor servers, etc. This lack of time, directly given to what Perpetual Entertainment squandered is what lead to the Pasta Strainer of a ship to set sail.
actually that was due to several factors, number one being the game was half finished regardless of what the original press conference stated, they released legal notes stating status.
Also you really are not paying any lick of attention to what I was saying are you?
Perpetual Entertainment ran the STO development from 2006-2008, ST:IS didn't even pop up on the radar of development until late 2010. By the statment again Cryptic is what saved STO in general. if STO had flopped then ST:IS would never have gotten the go ahead by CBS to do it.
It was also pushed down hard by PWE which owned the rights (re-negotiated with cbs) to the Star Trek MMO license.
I also have to note, ST:IS was only slated for development in june of 2010. STO as it is was the only reason the game was even remotely aproved by CBS, and even then it took a bit of lobbying, and after the fact it was a good concept, it didn't even manage to pass the third stage of deveolopment.
too many problems.
wow you really haven't read a damn thing I wrote did ya, ya glanced over it and filled in the blanks I take it.
I'm saying that because Perpetual Entertainment Squandered 2 years of the 4 year time constraint that CBS put out there via contract. A contract of which they did not extend for cryptic, Giving cryptic a 1.5 year development cycle. This contract was CBS's way of testing the waters, to see if a Star Trek MMO would have been feesable to do at the time.
In other words, and words better explained by the editors of half a dozen gaming magazines, and Trader Information Weekly (discontinued name, but very good mag) All stated CBS's reluctance to even proceed with something like this, and if the project failed either the development cycle, or the practice form. CBS would have prevented ANY Star Trek MMO from being produced under the prime timeline, this isn't speculation, it's a spoken fact by CBS.
CBS would have continued that ban until some studio managed to offer a better product in a secure format, but only (contract statment) after 2 years of the original contract expiration time.
And no Star Trek: Infinate Space was not in development before STO was given to Cryptic, the damn thing didn't even start development until mid 2010, it was RESERVED for production years before the development date, but it was never really a good idea to proceed.
And I am not saying that If Atari Lost the license no MMO would ever have been produced, I'm saying that because Cryptic managed to jam an entire MMO into such a small time frame and doing it moderately sucessfully, that they saved the STO concept.
If Cryptic had failed, Many companies would have thought it impossible or just extremely improbable to make a Star Trek MMO, Especially after 2 studios failing to make it, the prospect of a Star Trek MMO would most likely have been put on the back burner for many years.
or what's worse, Paramount might have gotten the rights to the MMO, making a JJverse STO a terrifying reality.
Star Trek: infinite space btw, was announced in 2010, began its cycle in june, and flopped hard in 2011 as support left them, and I'm assuming PWE put pressure on them. Sto was in development from 2006-20010, ST:IS was reserved before 2010 but it wasn't what people expected it to be.
seriously read one of the articles from when it was all a **** storm in the perpetual entertainment scandal and scare, investors preparing to pull out, many who did, and confidence in a Star Trek MMO making the creation of one a dream for the foolish.
Cryptic under the gun of time managed to save STO, untill I have evidence that disputes the history we've gotten about that, I will not change my stance.
Incorrect.
Perpetual folded January 2008
Cryptic announced STO July 2008
Atari acquired Cryptic December 2008
I'd agree with that.
I was kind of wary when the sale to PWE was announced because I knew very little about them, but I have enjoyed the game more since they took over. I was never very happy with Atari and their decisions, and while I don't always agree with the choices PWE makes there are enough things that they've gotten right that I enjoy to offset it.
If I was Atari back in the day and I wanted sell this game back then, I would have started a F2P conversion to make it more attractive to buyers (in this case PWE).
And if I was PWE I would demand as a condition of my purchase that Cryptic does not release the new F2P content until I owned them so I (PWE) would gain maximum profits from A new F2P player base.
As Atari I would agree to that condition to offload the game ASAP.
The game would have gone F2P anyway, for better or worse........
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