My who is wha whaing... I thought we where the crying bunch not you folk.
Kidden... seriously dude lighten up its a game(s).
Yes I'm sorry to most people STO is in maintenance mode. Trust me the content we have gotten is NOT real content. Its not content just to give players fun things to do. It has all been Mechanic changes (not game mechanic but montonization mechanics) changes intended to generate revenue disguised as content. They have done the min needed to call it new content, the truth has been that they are changes to the game itself to make it a longer grind. IMO the last content that wasn't really just a $ scheme wrapper was LOR (and that is very debatable) that was also almost 2 years ago now believe it or not. Everything since has only hit the game to introduce new time gates and grind walls.
Trust me if CO hasn't gotten the same sort of attention from PWE your better off.
Oh, you want to poke the superhero bear? Fine. Here it comes.
You want to know why LoR was so good? You want to know why Neverwinter is, in your opinion, Cryptic's favorite child? Because they both stole all of Champions Online's developers and never gave them back. Instead, Cryptic hired a skeleton crew in Seattle, and used their tutorials as temporary content for most of 2013. Then they repackaged the boss fights from those temporary events as Rampages, and tied them to a deeply-flawed endgame gear grind as an alternative to the existing endgame gear grind, the Lockbox Slot Machine.
You want to talk about questing? Since LoR launched, STO has received multiple Seasons and another Expansion. CO has received six daily quests.
Let me repeat that: Six. Daily. Quests.
It would have been seven, but one of them became a Rampage.
That's what happens when an entire development team gets stripped bare and replaced with people with no experience in your editing toolchain.
Once again, I don't give a damn if you, antoniosalieri, personally liked the riches you've received. Check your privilege, child, because those riches came at the expense of us.
I enjoy the occasional foray into Neverwinter. When you play the game, you have very few buttons to press. When I first played it, my exact thoughts were this feels like a PS game on the PC. This would be dead easy with a pad. Guess what?
City of Heroes was designed before F2P games became popular. So at the time, subscriptions were the only way to make money with MMOs. The executives at NCSoft saw how profitable F2P games were and decided to get on board.
And they weren't wrong. CoX was, according to the devs, doing great under the F2P model and it meant they were able to continually make stuff people actually wanted. Which makes a happy feedback loop of making money and making cool stuff.
CoX is never a good example of anything at all though, except illogical publisher behaviour. Any sort of wisdom would look at a self running enterprise cheerfully making some money for you, then shrug and let it keep dropping royalties on your doorstep.
Wisdom and NCSoft aren't words that share the same space in a sentence without a negative qualifier though.
"Hey, let's try stiffing Richard Garriott out of millions by explicitly breaking our contract, that couldn't go badly, right? No-one knows who that guy is."
Your right STO has gotten much more then CO... its a few years newer. So you know what we have to look forward to.
I)
nope,STO came out 5 MONTHS after CO and it was advertised on the back of the boxes set for CO. So it's not what you have to look forward to.
you have you're 5th anniversary this year. CO had it in September.
Those 6 daily missions that Sistersilicon mentioned, 4 of them were from the anniversary special Mechanon update and those are dailies too.
They did improve the free drop bags this year, they put in 2 more costume items and we got a new lockbox , the rest... rehash.
oh and NW is also getting mostly end game gear grinds, with an occasional new class or race. Plus of course, lots of lockboxes, gear packs, companion packs, costume packs, dye packs. That is a real F2p game, just look at the amount of things in the Z-store.
a lot of the players there are sick of the dailies already and the "I only just got the previous gear maxed, now you have new ones"
as for CoX, Paragon studios was put into liquidation in August. So those assets weren't reassigned to another game. They were all fired. Some now work for Cryptic.
People move on to other jobs, at least one Dev is now lecturing at University.So keeping people working on the same project is not always possible.
Comparison;
Cryptic offices are in California-
STO- devs 50 in 2012. new hirings in 2013.
NW- no idea but they got extras in the hirings in 2013 too.(Someone on the forums blabbed about their partner who was applying for a job)
Cryptic north- 12 people in Seattle handle CO. NO idea if that is all Devs or of that includes the office staff.
also If I can find the person forum signature. someone found an interesting tidbit.
PWE's business model for games is apparently, based on 3-5 years lifespan with lots of micro-transactions, not long term player retention but just keeping people buying things.
The original founder, Michael Yufeng Chi, is making a bid to buy PWE and take them private, pulling them back off the stock market. The stockholders will be given a chance to decide whether to take the offer.
Now, you're going to say, "What will this mean either way?" Well, obviously, it's complicated with anything like this.
But, in general:
- When a business is on the stock market, the stockholders demand results. In general, that is one of the big driving forces behind monetization as "good" sales may not be "good enough".
- Taking a business private is often a move done when an investor or buyer thinks stockholders are undervaluing the product and that things would improve dramatically by easing up on expectations in the short term, putting money back into the company, and either settling for "good enough" results or re-launching on the stock market. For example, Red Lobster's parent company divested Red Lobster, took Red Lobster private, and sold them to an investment group that generally spends 2-3 years pumping money, managerial consulting, R&D, and new tech into businesses with a goal to take them public and sell off most of the ownership once the company is on better footing.
Think about this as like people who flip houses. You buy a fixer upper with the intent of pumping resources into improvement and better design choices and then sell after an extended period of improvements.
- What this means for STO is less certain, because PWE might sell off Cryptic or divest or do any number of things.
In any case, the founder is offering $20 a share and analysts are expecting it to stay around $15 with no major growth prospects for 2015. I suspect this may spike the stock value back up some. (If somebody's offering $20 to buy the whole thing out, people will be willing to pay maybe $18 for it with a hope that it does sell.)
It could be interesting times for Cryptic in either way and we might see some philosophy changes in terms of how STO gets managed if the shareholders get removed from the equation and you have an investor pumping funds into improvements, assuming the new owner wouldn't sell off Cryptic in the process.
Oh, you want to poke the superhero bear? Fine. Here it comes.
You want to know why LoR was so good? You want to know why Neverwinter is, in your opinion, Cryptic's favorite child? Because they both stole all of Champions Online's developers and never gave them back. Instead, Cryptic hired a skeleton crew in Seattle, and used their tutorials as temporary content for most of 2013. Then they repackaged the boss fights from those temporary events as Rampages, and tied them to a deeply-flawed endgame gear grind as an alternative to the existing endgame gear grind, the Lockbox Slot Machine.
You want to talk about questing? Since LoR launched, STO has received multiple Seasons and another Expansion. CO has received six daily quests.
Let me repeat that: Six. Daily. Quests.
It would have been seven, but one of them became a Rampage.
That's what happens when an entire development team gets stripped bare and replaced with people with no experience in your editing toolchain.
Once again, I don't give a damn if you, antoniosalieri, personally liked the riches you've received. Check your privilege, child, because those riches came at the expense of us.
Yes, STO took the CO devs, and those were probably the CoX devs.
Yes NWN is the new favorite child, and they took STO devs.
Yes CO is dead development wise, while STO is still breathing.
Now, since that's out of the way, can you redirect your anger to the ones responsible ? Because I don't remember asking for CO devs to come our way, and I don't have enough power to force them to do so.
Then they repackaged the boss fights from those temporary events as Rampages, and tied them to a deeply-flawed endgame gear grind as an alternative to the existing endgame gear grind, the Lockbox Slot Machine.
Yep, totally sound like something Cryptic would do.
Can we get back to our usual "let's bash Cryptic thread" ? We can even do that together ! No need to fire upon each other.
Seriously, I feel for you. I don't play CO, but I feel. But we are not responsible. We try to improve our game, just like you do. No need to bash us for that. Just like the kid in the street with a stick as toy shouldn't bash the other kid because he have a broken doll, and it's so much better than a stick.
Hope they get bought soon and do some reshuffling of personnel particularly those in charge right now because I gotta tell you there hasn't been this much trouble for a title since Archeage! Wow....
They need some serious new blood in there to shake up the place and make them redesign some terrible concepts because apparently it's getting worse not better.
Hope they get bought soon and do some reshuffling of personnel particularly those in charge right now because I gotta tell you there hasn't been this much trouble for a title since Archeage! Wow....
They need some serious new blood in there to shake up the place and make them redesign some terrible concepts because apparently it's getting worse not better.
If you had bothered to read the thread you would know the person trying to buy it is the person who owned it. They are essentially trying to take the company private again. In the grand scheme of things it is about PW wanting to keep the $90+ million in dividends for itself in the future.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Yes, STO took the CO devs, and those were probably the CoX devs.
Actually, no, the devs they hired from Paragon were put straight to work on STO and NW. (The new Klingon tutorial is largely the work of Positron, a man whose real name I can never remember.)
Sure, you'd have thought they'd have poached all the CoX devs they could find and put them to work on CO, but no.
Thank you. And he rocked it. (And I can only look back on the fun I had playing through that, and forlornly imagine what he could have done with the Qularr Invasion and Westside...)
EA is a sucky company, for sure. But primarily so because they have a horrible support department. PWE's is simply absent, so, surprisingly, EA wins in that regard.
And not even EA has gone and turned everything into an Asian grinder.
Having said that, let VALVe pick up Cryptic, please!
* You have crafted a [Portal Rifle Mk XIV [Blue] [Yellow] [Gel]]
* You have crafted a [Crowbar Mk XIV [CLANG]x3]
Incomming Hail: "Gordorn here! Kurland is in sick bay with head crabs."
I thought that this "rumour" had been laid to rest as false
As in not happening.......
It is not a false rumor but the Board just hired a firm on the 9th to look into how they want to handle the idea. This is going to be a long, ongoing project. The information is on their website.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Well, this is all rumor and conjecture. Until you see a credible news story on a reputable site that a company is already sold or made a big move you should take whatever is being said with a grain of salt. Even if news does leak anything can happen before a deal is signed and money exchanges hands.
There has been no talk of PWE or Cryptic being sold. And absolutely no talk of STO going anywhere.
How is it a half-truth? At this point, and at the point when the thread was made, everything is still in the proposal stage. It can happen. It can not happen - and none of it has anything to do with PWE or Cryptic. No matter what happens with the proposal it is not going to have any impact on PWE or Cryptic: PW owns PWE and PWE owns Cryptic.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
How is it a half-truth? At this point, and at the point when the thread was made, everything is still in the proposal stage. It can happen. It can not happen - and none of it has anything to do with PWE or Cryptic. No matter what happens with the proposal it is not going to have any impact on PWE or Cryptic: PW owns PWE and PWE owns Cryptic.
Technically true however if part of the deal states to remove some of the baggage so to speak to streamline the businesses to make the company's more profitable with less over heads..
Cryptic may be sold who knows that's allmim meaning at this point there is no worry however down the line who knows....
I don't want the mandatory launch of steam everytime I use the game.
I don't want more hats.
I don't want to have the development dropped once they made their money.
I don't want players private screenshots being used as marketing without their agreement. Read the EULA, they can be used at wish, never wondered where those games background screenshots came from ?.
I don't want to have people from steam sending me PM when I'm playing STO.
I don't want Steam to send me stupid non related game ads as "recommendation" (like DOTA and stuff that is not even related beside being "multiplayer") because I'm playing STO.
Technically true however if part of the deal states to remove some of the baggage so to speak to streamline the businesses to make the company's more profitable with less over heads..
Cryptic may be sold who knows that's allmim meaning at this point there is no worry however down the line who knows....
Sure. The new owner could sell Cryptic. Or he can keep it. But PW can currently sell Cryptic; or they can keep it. Nothing has changed in any way.
Streamlining generally involves removing the things that are not profitable enough to keep. As PW spent a ton of money bringing NW to Console I really do not see them selling it off; nor do I see it as being unprofitable. It is now available in many countries and many platforms. And as I have said before, I would not be surprised to see STO follow suit in the future. NW and STO are probably safe. CO, not so much.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
I don't want the mandatory launch of steam everytime I use the game.
I don't want more hats.
I don't want to have the development dropped once they made their money.
I don't want players private screenshots being used as marketing without their agreement. Read the EULA, they can be used at wish, never wondered where those games background screenshots came from ?.
I don't want to have people from steam sending me PM when I'm playing STO.
I don't want Steam to send me stupid non related game ads as "recommendation" (like DOTA and stuff that is not even related beside being "multiplayer") because I'm playing STO.
And the list goes on and on.
Steam launching every time a game is played that is a steam game isn't a big deal.
We don't have many hats in STO. This isn't a bad thing.
Development feels kind of dropped already for KDF and Romulans wanting more faction ships. It's not bad once you get over the initial "awe."
You can turn off screenshot sharing, I did.
You can turn off whispers or things I imagine or you can do what I do. Have no friends in steam.
I never got ads while playing games, only when the Steam client itself launched without me firing up a game right away. Every other time I fired up a game that loaded Steam the ads never showed.
My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Michael Yufeng Chi sell off Cryptic Studios at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.
Why would they sell Cryptic and lose the STO license? Far more likely they'd shut down CO. It was on life support long before it was forced to go F2P.
Anything CAN happen but I find it more likely they'd divest themselves of 49% ownership in Cryptic North, which doesn't necessarily influence Cryptic's main operations all that much.
I believe there are accounting advantages to a Chinese firm owning 51% of a company. It would cut back their share of investment to keep it running and incentivize management's stake in it.
The big question then would be how Cryptic North can turn a profit. PWE might give them a one time cash infusion with the 49% divestment though and a reasonable (or no) license fee on the use of the engine.
My gut says there that one solid scenario would be if Emmert or Cryptic North bought the City of Heroes IP and launched a Champions Online: City of Heroes expansion with Atlas Park as a new zone and the CoH characters crossing over.
I know several of the fan attempts at CoH successors have tried to do what they could on that front. Some have hired former Cryptic staffers. But Emmert has publicly said that he wants to buy if NC Soft is selling the IP. My guess would be that he would mashup CoX and Champs.
Actually, one plus side to divestments and/or studios going indy might be that it would open up indy style tactics.
If Cryptic North/Champs could be spun off in a stable way (and particularly if they could nab the CoX IP), I figure they could run a Kickstarter for funding and possibly get a big response as an indy studio. But people would probably not respond well to that if they were part of PWE.
Then again, a lot of big-ish outfits are running Kickstarters now. White Wolf raises upwards of a million a year in revenue on there.
I think Champs might have options like that become easier if they did spinoff.
Anything CAN happen but I find it more likely they'd divest themselves of 49% ownership in Cryptic North, which doesn't necessarily influence Cryptic's main operations all that much.
I believe there are accounting advantages to a Chinese firm owning 51% of a company. It would cut back their share of investment to keep it running and incentivize management's stake in it.
The big question then would be how Cryptic North can turn a profit. PWE might give them a one time cash infusion with the 49% divestment though and a reasonable (or no) license fee on the use of the engine.
My gut says there that one solid scenario would be if Emmert or Cryptic North bought the City of Heroes IP and launched a Champions Online: City of Heroes expansion with Atlas Park as a new zone and the CoH characters crossing over.
I know several of the fan attempts at CoH successors have tried to do what they could on that front. Some have hired former Cryptic staffers. But Emmert has publicly said that he wants to buy if NC Soft is selling the IP. My guess would be that he would mashup CoX and Champs.
Actually, one plus side to divestments and/or studios going indy might be that it would open up indy style tactics.
If Cryptic North/Champs could be spun off in a stable way (and particularly if they could nab the CoX IP), I figure they could run a Kickstarter for funding and possibly get a big response as an indy studio. But people would probably not respond well to that if they were part of PWE.
Then again, a lot of big-ish outfits are running Kickstarters now. White Wolf raises upwards of a million a year in revenue on there.
I think Champs might have options like that become easier if they did spinoff.
This could be very cool. Especially since I have nothing against Emmert, but I know a lot of coh players who do and the troll in me would for him to be the guy who brings paragon city back so they have to be grateful to him. Plus a coh/co mash up would be all kinds of wacky fun.
Comments
Oh, you want to poke the superhero bear? Fine. Here it comes.
You want to know why LoR was so good? You want to know why Neverwinter is, in your opinion, Cryptic's favorite child? Because they both stole all of Champions Online's developers and never gave them back. Instead, Cryptic hired a skeleton crew in Seattle, and used their tutorials as temporary content for most of 2013. Then they repackaged the boss fights from those temporary events as Rampages, and tied them to a deeply-flawed endgame gear grind as an alternative to the existing endgame gear grind, the Lockbox Slot Machine.
You want to talk about questing? Since LoR launched, STO has received multiple Seasons and another Expansion. CO has received six daily quests.
Let me repeat that: Six. Daily. Quests.
It would have been seven, but one of them became a Rampage.
That's what happens when an entire development team gets stripped bare and replaced with people with no experience in your editing toolchain.
Once again, I don't give a damn if you, antoniosalieri, personally liked the riches you've received. Check your privilege, child, because those riches came at the expense of us.
KWRussell // PRIMUS // Twitter // Spotify
And they weren't wrong. CoX was, according to the devs, doing great under the F2P model and it meant they were able to continually make stuff people actually wanted. Which makes a happy feedback loop of making money and making cool stuff.
CoX is never a good example of anything at all though, except illogical publisher behaviour. Any sort of wisdom would look at a self running enterprise cheerfully making some money for you, then shrug and let it keep dropping royalties on your doorstep.
Wisdom and NCSoft aren't words that share the same space in a sentence without a negative qualifier though.
"Hey, let's try stiffing Richard Garriott out of millions by explicitly breaking our contract, that couldn't go badly, right? No-one knows who that guy is."
nope,STO came out 5 MONTHS after CO and it was advertised on the back of the boxes set for CO. So it's not what you have to look forward to.
you have you're 5th anniversary this year. CO had it in September.
Those 6 daily missions that Sistersilicon mentioned, 4 of them were from the anniversary special Mechanon update and those are dailies too.
They did improve the free drop bags this year, they put in 2 more costume items and we got a new lockbox , the rest... rehash.
oh and NW is also getting mostly end game gear grinds, with an occasional new class or race. Plus of course, lots of lockboxes, gear packs, companion packs, costume packs, dye packs. That is a real F2p game, just look at the amount of things in the Z-store.
a lot of the players there are sick of the dailies already and the "I only just got the previous gear maxed, now you have new ones"
as for CoX, Paragon studios was put into liquidation in August. So those assets weren't reassigned to another game. They were all fired. Some now work for Cryptic.
People move on to other jobs, at least one Dev is now lecturing at University.So keeping people working on the same project is not always possible.
Comparison;
Cryptic offices are in California-
STO- devs 50 in 2012. new hirings in 2013.
NW- no idea but they got extras in the hirings in 2013 too.(Someone on the forums blabbed about their partner who was applying for a job)
Cryptic north- 12 people in Seattle handle CO. NO idea if that is all Devs or of that includes the office staff.
also If I can find the person forum signature. someone found an interesting tidbit.
PWE's business model for games is apparently, based on 3-5 years lifespan with lots of micro-transactions, not long term player retention but just keeping people buying things.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Just want to praise you on a good writeup
Yes NWN is the new favorite child, and they took STO devs.
Yes CO is dead development wise, while STO is still breathing.
Now, since that's out of the way, can you redirect your anger to the ones responsible ? Because I don't remember asking for CO devs to come our way, and I don't have enough power to force them to do so.
Yep, totally sound like something Cryptic would do.
Can we get back to our usual "let's bash Cryptic thread" ? We can even do that together ! No need to fire upon each other.
Seriously, I feel for you. I don't play CO, but I feel. But we are not responsible. We try to improve our game, just like you do. No need to bash us for that. Just like the kid in the street with a stick as toy shouldn't bash the other kid because he have a broken doll, and it's so much better than a stick.
They need some serious new blood in there to shake up the place and make them redesign some terrible concepts because apparently it's getting worse not better.
Sure, you'd have thought they'd have poached all the CoX devs they could find and put them to work on CO, but no.
* You have crafted a [Portal Rifle Mk XIV [Blue] [Yellow] [Gel]]
* You have crafted a [Crowbar Mk XIV [CLANG]x3]
Incomming Hail: "Gordorn here! Kurland is in sick bay with head crabs."
I thought that this "rumour" had been laid to rest as false
As in not happening.......
Hmmmmmmmm so this was a half truth then
Nice....
Technically true however if part of the deal states to remove some of the baggage so to speak to streamline the businesses to make the company's more profitable with less over heads..
Cryptic may be sold who knows that's allmim meaning at this point there is no worry however down the line who knows....
I don't want more hats.
I don't want to have the development dropped once they made their money.
I don't want players private screenshots being used as marketing without their agreement. Read the EULA, they can be used at wish, never wondered where those games background screenshots came from ?.
I don't want to have people from steam sending me PM when I'm playing STO.
I don't want Steam to send me stupid non related game ads as "recommendation" (like DOTA and stuff that is not even related beside being "multiplayer") because I'm playing STO.
And the list goes on and on.
Streamlining generally involves removing the things that are not profitable enough to keep. As PW spent a ton of money bringing NW to Console I really do not see them selling it off; nor do I see it as being unprofitable. It is now available in many countries and many platforms. And as I have said before, I would not be surprised to see STO follow suit in the future. NW and STO are probably safe. CO, not so much.
Steam launching every time a game is played that is a steam game isn't a big deal.
We don't have many hats in STO. This isn't a bad thing.
Development feels kind of dropped already for KDF and Romulans wanting more faction ships. It's not bad once you get over the initial "awe."
You can turn off screenshot sharing, I did.
You can turn off whispers or things I imagine or you can do what I do. Have no friends in steam.
I never got ads while playing games, only when the Steam client itself launched without me firing up a game right away. Every other time I fired up a game that loaded Steam the ads never showed.
Anything CAN happen but I find it more likely they'd divest themselves of 49% ownership in Cryptic North, which doesn't necessarily influence Cryptic's main operations all that much.
I believe there are accounting advantages to a Chinese firm owning 51% of a company. It would cut back their share of investment to keep it running and incentivize management's stake in it.
The big question then would be how Cryptic North can turn a profit. PWE might give them a one time cash infusion with the 49% divestment though and a reasonable (or no) license fee on the use of the engine.
My gut says there that one solid scenario would be if Emmert or Cryptic North bought the City of Heroes IP and launched a Champions Online: City of Heroes expansion with Atlas Park as a new zone and the CoH characters crossing over.
I know several of the fan attempts at CoH successors have tried to do what they could on that front. Some have hired former Cryptic staffers. But Emmert has publicly said that he wants to buy if NC Soft is selling the IP. My guess would be that he would mashup CoX and Champs.
Actually, one plus side to divestments and/or studios going indy might be that it would open up indy style tactics.
If Cryptic North/Champs could be spun off in a stable way (and particularly if they could nab the CoX IP), I figure they could run a Kickstarter for funding and possibly get a big response as an indy studio. But people would probably not respond well to that if they were part of PWE.
Then again, a lot of big-ish outfits are running Kickstarters now. White Wolf raises upwards of a million a year in revenue on there.
I think Champs might have options like that become easier if they did spinoff.
This could be very cool. Especially since I have nothing against Emmert, but I know a lot of coh players who do and the troll in me would for him to be the guy who brings paragon city back so they have to be grateful to him. Plus a coh/co mash up would be all kinds of wacky fun.