Cryptic, do you think that AoY is worth ... (pinky to mouth) ... ONE MILLION DOLLARS?
Because something else out there does cost that, somewhere. Maybe not on the McDonald's Dollar Menu, but it is out there. Waiting. For someone to buy it. With Money.
What a useless thread that this has turned out to be.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
What if instead Cryptic decided to make new story mission content one time plays that drop from lockboxes? I mean. WHAT IF?
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironic since my post merely ridiculed your "if" statement and did not claim that you said anything. Meaning that your statement that my post was a strawman is... ironically... a strawman on your part. Awkward....
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
What a useless thread that this has turned out to be.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
What if instead Cryptic decided to make new story mission content one time plays that drop from lockboxes? I mean. WHAT IF?
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironic since my post merely ridiculed your "if" statement and did not claim that you said anything. Meaning that your statement that my post was a strawman is... ironically... a strawman on your part. Awkward....
If all you have to say is "uh, no, YOU'RE a strawman! Ha!", I would appreciate it if you could please leave the thread instead of continuing to derail and harass. Thank you.
If STO's model was different and it was selling expansions, not ships,and I was still playing it as much as I do, I probably would have spend 40 $ on it.
If it was just a one time event - I would probably not spend money on it, because I would categorally oppose the idea of selling content in STO.
The beauty of STO's "free content" model is - it doesn't matter how large an expansion is, really, since you're not paying for it anway.
I would argue that if STO would in fact sell content, the Iconian War Arc wuld probably be its own payable expansion, as would the Temporal War Arc (maybe in that case including the AOY only stuff.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
What a useless thread that this has turned out to be.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
What if instead Cryptic decided to make new story mission content one time plays that drop from lockboxes? I mean. WHAT IF?
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironic since my post merely ridiculed your "if" statement and did not claim that you said anything. Meaning that your statement that my post was a strawman is... ironically... a strawman on your part. Awkward....
If all you have to say is "uh, no, YOU'RE a strawman! Ha!", I would appreciate it if you could please leave the thread instead of continuing to derail and harass. Thank you.
Yet another logical fallacy. I think we're done here. Good luck in your pursuit in trolling the devs.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
What a useless thread that this has turned out to be.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
What if instead Cryptic decided to make new story mission content one time plays that drop from lockboxes? I mean. WHAT IF?
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironic since my post merely ridiculed your "if" statement and did not claim that you said anything. Meaning that your statement that my post was a strawman is... ironically... a strawman on your part. Awkward....
If all you have to say is "uh, no, YOU'RE a strawman! Ha!", I would appreciate it if you could please leave the thread instead of continuing to derail and harass. Thank you.
Yet another logical fallacy. I think we're done here. Good luck in your pursuit in trolling the devs.
Again, if you have nothing to contribute but trolling, derailment, and "no u," please leave. I don't appreciate the disruption.
OK, let's be more realistic: If AoY was BtP, would you pay $10 for it. A much more credible price than the $40 for the contents it offers, and since expansions are definitely not fixed to $40, I think it'd be worth it.
Would you feel justified in charging $40 - the industry standard price for paid expansions - for AoY?
How is $40 industry standard? Most expansions for BTP MMOs I've seen are significantly less.
But, as above, what you're saying is "this bus ride is no where as good as driving in that's sports car. Would the bus company feel justified in charging $x00,000 for this bus ride?".
If STO wasn't FTP I probably wouldn't but anywhere near as much money into the game as I do. I probably wouldn't have started playing it. I think they have the perfect balance.
the fact that you had a choice in how much to pay is why I like F2P and why I don't play P2P MMOs. Now mind you, I generally do spend MORE in a F2P MMO that I really like over any P2P MMO...but like I said, I like having the CHOICE of how much to pay.
Same here. I didn't really feel the 'expansion' alone was enough to pay for. I did however do a 1 month sub to get the bank space and respec tokens as my AOY leveled. I also sold some Master Keys for the Vengeance so I did actually pay in a little bit of money. I like it because I didn't have to, it was just stuff I wanted.
I spent a grand total of $25 all said and done. If they had required $25 to play AOY though, I would not have paid it. Same dollar amount, but the current model lets me play rather I spent that money or not. I am much more inclined to spend when I feel that it's purely optional.
It would absolutely be worth $40 if it came with 4000 zeni.
I'm actually not even being funny. Certain aspects of this release are the new Zeni ships & costumes, and I consider the Kelvin Lockbox and it content in addition to the grand prize ships to be part of this release.
I was given the choice. I could go with the very basic and get the new faction (a term I find more and more suitable as my 60th level TOS admiral continues to enjoy little flourishes long after I'd have burned through any additional exclusive mission content...) and missions and instances/que. Or I could choose to pay $50 and pick up the trio of all-faction ships which have given me hours of fun in various combinatons on various captains and will continue to simplify my admiralty gameplay with some very handy cards. Or I could choose to kick in $200 during the simultaneous zeni and key sale, then buy the cross faction battlecruiser pack and hit the new lock boxes like a rampaging bull and walk away with all three ships, a ton of good consoles, traits, manuals, weapons, and high tier doffs and most of the zeni I needed for a Vengeance and still have hundred's of millions of Ec worth of keys left over. I've even heard some people chose to get the Temporal Special Agent pack and all the old-school goodness it offers.
They set the floor very, very low (free), and then created some additional goodies across a range of price points. I don't really see how adding barriers to entry would help them. You don't need the extra stuff I chose to get to run the new ques, so frankly I want as many people as possible having access to those activities out of blatant SELF-interest. SO its really not a question of the worth of that content... its a question of the value of getting as many players as possible participating so that those that do choose to pay in more or even much more have folks around to play with.
What a useless thread that this has turned out to be.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
What if instead Cryptic decided to make new story mission content one time plays that drop from lockboxes? I mean. WHAT IF?
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironically, missions in lockboxes actually sound like a reasonable idea, if properly implemented as a supplement to free missions. Single-use missions could be a common drop, with a permanent unlock at the "T6 ship" rarity tier. Add a decent mission reward at the end (unbound, perhaps?), and it would basically be like the current system but with the addition of gameplay.
Yah thats why i called it "content" and not content because there are people out there who do classify it as costumes and ships as content. The point of me mentioning those prices was to show what kind of stuff Cryptic DOES think is worth charging us for. And as other people have mentioned quests and stuff is not the kind of stuff that cryptic charges for.
As far as the previous expansions being more expansive? yes it was more expansive. But it was also still free...so whether i get 8 quests or 30 doesnt matter to me. Whether they call it an expansion, a DLC or a mini-expan-dlcsuperdeluxecombo doesnt matter either because its still free. If they decide to charge me 10 dollars for 50 quests, 3 dungeons, and 2 adventure zones and then 40 dollars for 10 quests, 1 dungeon and no adventure zones and start to mixmatch the description for that content (dlc vs expac) then yes i may start threads like this.
So, as long as it's free, you don't care what they call it or what they include in it? I can't say that's unreasonable. Personally, my focus is on the use of the term "expansion" and whether - if, again, it was B2P - Cryptic would feel comfortable calling it an ordinary expansion and charge $40, or if they would give it a different name, like a booster or mini-expansion or something, and charge a reduced price.
Basically, they currently seem to think AoY is worthy of being called an expansion. I'm wondering whether they would charge a corresponding full price if it were B2P, or if they would change their tune.
If Cryptic starts to charge for storyline/dungeon/adventure zone content then they *have* to get their descriptions right because if not then it would be misleading. That's like going to a restaurant and ordering a large soda that costs 5 dollars and finding out it only holds 6 ounces while their small soda costs 2 dollars and holds 20 ounces. I mean...yes it is a bit misleading now, but as i mentioned since its free i dont really care. If they start messing around with the expansion/DLC size description vs what the actual size of that expansion/DLC has then you can be sure that the players will be the first ones to tell them that. Once word comes out that Cryptic decides to change their business model and that they will also charge for storyline stuff then more people will probably engage you in "wondering if they would charge a full price" etc.
I learned yesterday that Rift - another F2P game - is charging for its next expansion. This expansion includes a new level cap, several new zones, new abilities, and so on. It is only available as a cash purchase, without an option for using the tradeable "cash-equivalent" currency, putting it firmly into B2P territory.
It's not F2P (Free to Play) if you're required to pay to play it.
I give my kids birthday gifts. If they came back to me and said they felt my gifts were lame because the neighbor paid to go on a cruise and cruises have way more content than the free gifts I gave them, I would think they were nuts....and so here we are OP...trolling?
40 currencies is the industry standard for expansions? You get full titles for that amount. For a MMO expansion I'd pay 15-20 if it came with content comparable to the old WoW expansions. AoY would be worth around 7-10 for the unlockable visuals and short introduction sequence, as you essentially play the same content after the tutorial. The game was 20 euros in it's "silver" version at launch, half that price for a expansion is in order, although LoR offered more. So if it was B2P I'd roughly put AoY at 7.99, LoR at 14,99 and DR somewhere in between (at release date).
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
What a useless thread that this has turned out to be.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
What if instead Cryptic decided to make new story mission content one time plays that drop from lockboxes? I mean. WHAT IF?
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironic since my post merely ridiculed your "if" statement and did not claim that you said anything. Meaning that your statement that my post was a strawman is... ironically... a strawman on your part. Awkward....
If all you have to say is "uh, no, YOU'RE a strawman! Ha!", I would appreciate it if you could please leave the thread instead of continuing to derail and harass. Thank you.
Yet another logical fallacy. I think we're done here. Good luck in your pursuit in trolling the devs.
Again, if you have nothing to contribute but trolling, derailment, and "no u," please leave. I don't appreciate the disruption.
If you don't appreciate it, then next time consider coming up with something coherent and isn't a useless "what if." There are some "what ifs" that can be interesting but this particular "what if" is just plain stupid.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
What a useless thread that this has turned out to be.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
What if instead Cryptic decided to make new story mission content one time plays that drop from lockboxes? I mean. WHAT IF?
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironic since my post merely ridiculed your "if" statement and did not claim that you said anything. Meaning that your statement that my post was a strawman is... ironically... a strawman on your part. Awkward....
If all you have to say is "uh, no, YOU'RE a strawman! Ha!", I would appreciate it if you could please leave the thread instead of continuing to derail and harass. Thank you.
Yet another logical fallacy. I think we're done here. Good luck in your pursuit in trolling the devs.
Again, if you have nothing to contribute but trolling, derailment, and "no u," please leave. I don't appreciate the disruption.
If you don't appreciate it, then next time consider coming up with something coherent and isn't a useless "what if." There are some "what ifs" that can be interesting but this particular "what if" is just plain stupid.
I'm inclined to agree with this opinion, really.
As I stated before, if they started charging for expansions in this game, it will turn into a graveyard. That's not speculation- STO was originally launched as a B2P sub game and it wasn't a "huge success"... that's why it eventually went F2P (pretty much why any game goes F2P, really). Want to see a mass exodus of players? This would definitively be the method to drive people out of this game. They chose their market model when they introduced ship tier pricing (tier 5) and specialization restrictions in the C-store, and that's likely where it's going to remain. They offer "enhancement" packs in which you get a few extra ships, perks, etc. but they do not charge for "universal" game content.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that this whole speculatory question is based on an overall solution of improving said future expansions, etc. a bit here. That said, "throwing money at it", does nothing to increase the value of game content.
Think of it this way- if you can get away with charging more for a product and still offer the same product- why on earth would you give more product? Why not just divert the extra profit into your coffers? What incentive do you have as a business or company to increase the value of a product by charging more for the same product?
Just a few things to ponder on. Perhaps the motivation for your question is based on something else- but I can really think of no other reason why anyone would walk down that path.
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
No i would not , nor do i buy expansions on other games, imo cryptic has a good way of doing things, you get free content and all you have to do is buy the shinys.
I will give cryptic credit they have one if not the best F2P model out there right now.
Levelcaps bring issues to veteran (long living) mmo's, and it doesnt make the game fresh, only more grind, between needed buggfixing and balancefixing before the levelcap is effective ingame.
I only started a while ago, and the model which is used here, made me spend on stuff i don't need, or is outdated. Started as Romulan as a newby and enjoyed the story,then joined Fed (a friend started before me, so had to pick a side ), later on made a fedies, and even later some klingons. Trust me, I hate breach event by now ..
Most stuff i can complain about, is what the romulans don't have or that they are not a ToS char.
They added the kelvin line here, and while i don't see it as sto material, and all opinions about kelvin timeline aside, it's not game breaking.Why do i bring in the kelvin stuff? well you love it or you hate it, but ewhen u see all those ships of them flying around you know why there is not pay to play expansion needed.
And even if im not a whale, i can buy them from Exchange. I was annoyed when there wasn't AoY Romulan or Gorn option (c'ommon gorn have the same functional armour for males in an MMO!), but it wasn't a game breaker. I decided if i don't get a romulan option i wouldnt buy the aoy pack. Now i played and they got me interested into buying it.
Developers greed made me change game. If i had to blindly buy an expansion, and gave me buggs and left me with an unsatisfied feeling, well then it costed me 40 bucks and left me thinking to move on. Here I played the expansion grumpy, and i'm surprised, turning me willingly into paying more (aoy pack not keys) then 40 bucks later this year (sorry replicator doesnt make me moneytrees, and only hair grows on my back ).
Die hard fans of any game will pre order, or launch date.
Given the questionable expansions in the past (Delta) charging would have negative effect on the game revenue over all IMHO. Take a hard look at Blizzard sometime. They charged well over 45 bucks for WOTLK then did the same with Cataclysm which was pretty much the point where the Game started imploding. The player base now is a fraction of what it was due to lousy expansions and other revamps that dumbed the game down. So much so that millions of players opted out of the game. I feel if Cryptic all of a sudden went this route the same thing would happen. Serioulsy if you shelled out say 40 bucks for Delta would you do the same for AOY that while solid is only fully playable by a Fed charecter and then only as a starter. I wouldn't.
What a useless thread that this has turned out to be.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
What if instead Cryptic decided to make new story mission content one time plays that drop from lockboxes? I mean. WHAT IF?
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironically, missions in lockboxes actually sound like a reasonable idea, if properly implemented as a supplement to free missions. Single-use missions could be a common drop, with a permanent unlock at the "T6 ship" rarity tier. Add a decent mission reward at the end (unbound, perhaps?), and it would basically be like the current system but with the addition of gameplay.
Yah thats why i called it "content" and not content because there are people out there who do classify it as costumes and ships as content. The point of me mentioning those prices was to show what kind of stuff Cryptic DOES think is worth charging us for. And as other people have mentioned quests and stuff is not the kind of stuff that cryptic charges for.
As far as the previous expansions being more expansive? yes it was more expansive. But it was also still free...so whether i get 8 quests or 30 doesnt matter to me. Whether they call it an expansion, a DLC or a mini-expan-dlcsuperdeluxecombo doesnt matter either because its still free. If they decide to charge me 10 dollars for 50 quests, 3 dungeons, and 2 adventure zones and then 40 dollars for 10 quests, 1 dungeon and no adventure zones and start to mixmatch the description for that content (dlc vs expac) then yes i may start threads like this.
Yeah really missions as part of the wallet whale favoring Lockbox? Seriously would you spend hundreds of dollars or millons and millions of EC for a chance at a mission? A mission as a reward that is locked at the same odds per lock box as these "rare lockbox" ships. That is quite laughable really. Talk about hearing people biotch in the forums. Right now as far as "rare" lockbox ships if Cryptic posted that only XX number of the ships were ever going to be released yeah I'd buy that "rare" tag but I see literly hundreds of "rare" lockbox ships both on the exchange and in play. The real rare ships are the ones most folks whine about "Event ships" mostly by folks that don't get limited time offer. If you are going to do a mission as a lockbox thing the odds should be very favorable to the player so even a nub can have a shot at getting one without breaking the bank.
Comments
It's very good, but there's just not enough of it.
Because something else out there does cost that, somewhere. Maybe not on the McDonald's Dollar Menu, but it is out there. Waiting. For someone to buy it. With Money.
Why are you still here?
If all you have to say is "uh, no, YOU'RE a strawman! Ha!", I would appreciate it if you could please leave the thread instead of continuing to derail and harass. Thank you.
If it was just a one time event - I would probably not spend money on it, because I would categorally oppose the idea of selling content in STO.
The beauty of STO's "free content" model is - it doesn't matter how large an expansion is, really, since you're not paying for it anway.
I would argue that if STO would in fact sell content, the Iconian War Arc wuld probably be its own payable expansion, as would the Temporal War Arc (maybe in that case including the AOY only stuff.)
Again, if you have nothing to contribute but trolling, derailment, and "no u," please leave. I don't appreciate the disruption.
How is $40 industry standard? Most expansions for BTP MMOs I've seen are significantly less.
But, as above, what you're saying is "this bus ride is no where as good as driving in that's sports car. Would the bus company feel justified in charging $x00,000 for this bus ride?".
If STO wasn't FTP I probably wouldn't but anywhere near as much money into the game as I do. I probably wouldn't have started playing it. I think they have the perfect balance.
Agreed 100%
The current pricing model for STO is fine the way it is.
Same here. I didn't really feel the 'expansion' alone was enough to pay for. I did however do a 1 month sub to get the bank space and respec tokens as my AOY leveled. I also sold some Master Keys for the Vengeance so I did actually pay in a little bit of money. I like it because I didn't have to, it was just stuff I wanted.
I spent a grand total of $25 all said and done. If they had required $25 to play AOY though, I would not have paid it. Same dollar amount, but the current model lets me play rather I spent that money or not. I am much more inclined to spend when I feel that it's purely optional.
Again, if you can't remotely behave yourself, please leave.
I'm actually not even being funny. Certain aspects of this release are the new Zeni ships & costumes, and I consider the Kelvin Lockbox and it content in addition to the grand prize ships to be part of this release.
I was given the choice. I could go with the very basic and get the new faction (a term I find more and more suitable as my 60th level TOS admiral continues to enjoy little flourishes long after I'd have burned through any additional exclusive mission content...) and missions and instances/que. Or I could choose to pay $50 and pick up the trio of all-faction ships which have given me hours of fun in various combinatons on various captains and will continue to simplify my admiralty gameplay with some very handy cards. Or I could choose to kick in $200 during the simultaneous zeni and key sale, then buy the cross faction battlecruiser pack and hit the new lock boxes like a rampaging bull and walk away with all three ships, a ton of good consoles, traits, manuals, weapons, and high tier doffs and most of the zeni I needed for a Vengeance and still have hundred's of millions of Ec worth of keys left over. I've even heard some people chose to get the Temporal Special Agent pack and all the old-school goodness it offers.
They set the floor very, very low (free), and then created some additional goodies across a range of price points. I don't really see how adding barriers to entry would help them. You don't need the extra stuff I chose to get to run the new ques, so frankly I want as many people as possible having access to those activities out of blatant SELF-interest. SO its really not a question of the worth of that content... its a question of the value of getting as many players as possible participating so that those that do choose to pay in more or even much more have folks around to play with.
So in reality, it wasn't really a free expansion.
Just my opinion mind, but the free content was probably worth £5 to me at best.
LoR is still the gold standard, and I had no problem buying the ship pack, because there was so much to do!
If Cryptic starts to charge for storyline/dungeon/adventure zone content then they *have* to get their descriptions right because if not then it would be misleading. That's like going to a restaurant and ordering a large soda that costs 5 dollars and finding out it only holds 6 ounces while their small soda costs 2 dollars and holds 20 ounces. I mean...yes it is a bit misleading now, but as i mentioned since its free i dont really care. If they start messing around with the expansion/DLC size description vs what the actual size of that expansion/DLC has then you can be sure that the players will be the first ones to tell them that. Once word comes out that Cryptic decides to change their business model and that they will also charge for storyline stuff then more people will probably engage you in "wondering if they would charge a full price" etc.
It's not F2P (Free to Play) if you're required to pay to play it.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I'm inclined to agree with this opinion, really.
As I stated before, if they started charging for expansions in this game, it will turn into a graveyard. That's not speculation- STO was originally launched as a B2P sub game and it wasn't a "huge success"... that's why it eventually went F2P (pretty much why any game goes F2P, really). Want to see a mass exodus of players? This would definitively be the method to drive people out of this game. They chose their market model when they introduced ship tier pricing (tier 5) and specialization restrictions in the C-store, and that's likely where it's going to remain. They offer "enhancement" packs in which you get a few extra ships, perks, etc. but they do not charge for "universal" game content.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that this whole speculatory question is based on an overall solution of improving said future expansions, etc. a bit here. That said, "throwing money at it", does nothing to increase the value of game content.
Think of it this way- if you can get away with charging more for a product and still offer the same product- why on earth would you give more product? Why not just divert the extra profit into your coffers? What incentive do you have as a business or company to increase the value of a product by charging more for the same product?
Just a few things to ponder on. Perhaps the motivation for your question is based on something else- but I can really think of no other reason why anyone would walk down that path.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
would i pay $40 for the AoY expansion?
No i would not , nor do i buy expansions on other games, imo cryptic has a good way of doing things, you get free content and all you have to do is buy the shinys.
I will give cryptic credit they have one if not the best F2P model out there right now.
I only started a while ago, and the model which is used here, made me spend on stuff i don't need, or is outdated. Started as Romulan as a newby and enjoyed the story,then joined Fed (a friend started before me, so had to pick a side
Most stuff i can complain about, is what the romulans don't have or that they are not a ToS char.
They added the kelvin line here, and while i don't see it as sto material, and all opinions about kelvin timeline aside, it's not game breaking.Why do i bring in the kelvin stuff? well you love it or you hate it, but ewhen u see all those ships of them flying around you know why there is not pay to play expansion needed.
And even if im not a whale, i can buy them from Exchange. I was annoyed when there wasn't AoY Romulan or Gorn option (c'ommon gorn have the same functional armour for males in an MMO!), but it wasn't a game breaker. I decided if i don't get a romulan option i wouldnt buy the aoy pack. Now i played and they got me interested into buying it.
Developers greed made me change game. If i had to blindly buy an expansion, and gave me buggs and left me with an unsatisfied feeling, well then it costed me 40 bucks and left me thinking to move on. Here I played the expansion grumpy, and i'm surprised, turning me willingly into paying more (aoy pack not keys) then 40 bucks later this year (sorry replicator doesnt make me moneytrees, and only hair grows on my back
Die hard fans of any game will pre order, or launch date.
"Anyaway, we don't often see a sense of humor in Section 31."