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I'm starting to doubt PWE is an asset to Star Trek Online
khayuung
Member Posts: 1,876 Arc User
Sure, they saved the game 5 years ago. I certainly don't fault the design choices made for this game since then. Lockbox, rep grinds, T6. Like it or not, these things kept the lights on during the dark times.
Now it's Star Trek 50. Beyond is a hit with both JI trekkies and us Primers. Discovery is getting on Netflix and is already profitable, guaranteeing that there will be all but more to come.
But look at everything else PWE has. 16 games, of deserted ruins. I used to play a lot of PWE games, now all I have is my character and servers and servers of lights on and nobodies home. Jade Dynasty, Forsaken World, just some of the few. One of them even closed years ago.
Only 2 has any traffic at all; you guessed it. SO and CO. Both Cryptic games.
PWE isn't keeping the lights on, we are. Our lockbox money is being used to keep dead games, killed by PWE own inability to understand the foreign audience, alive.
I say it's time we look closely at PWE. Look at their performance and look at how much they've shrunk since 2013. Look at their game closures and the state of their very own games as contrast to how vibrant Star Trek is.
It's time we view the contract with PWE as chains to be cast off.
Cryptic now has the clout and resources to buy their game back. We have the power here, not PWE any longer. We hold the negotiating chips. We have tools, the kickstarter waiting to happen, the resurgent popularity of Star Trek.
We can do this peacefully. Either PWE listens and changes for the better, cut off those dying games and focus on us who actually matter, or we walk away and PWE can slowly drown in its pool of filth.
Who says post-PWE will Cryptic be any different? It might not be, but I think if Cryptic could decide it's own fate, there's a chance things might change.
At the very least, Star Trek won't be bowing to tyranny to survive.
Now it's Star Trek 50. Beyond is a hit with both JI trekkies and us Primers. Discovery is getting on Netflix and is already profitable, guaranteeing that there will be all but more to come.
But look at everything else PWE has. 16 games, of deserted ruins. I used to play a lot of PWE games, now all I have is my character and servers and servers of lights on and nobodies home. Jade Dynasty, Forsaken World, just some of the few. One of them even closed years ago.
Only 2 has any traffic at all; you guessed it. SO and CO. Both Cryptic games.
PWE isn't keeping the lights on, we are. Our lockbox money is being used to keep dead games, killed by PWE own inability to understand the foreign audience, alive.
I say it's time we look closely at PWE. Look at their performance and look at how much they've shrunk since 2013. Look at their game closures and the state of their very own games as contrast to how vibrant Star Trek is.
It's time we view the contract with PWE as chains to be cast off.
Cryptic now has the clout and resources to buy their game back. We have the power here, not PWE any longer. We hold the negotiating chips. We have tools, the kickstarter waiting to happen, the resurgent popularity of Star Trek.
We can do this peacefully. Either PWE listens and changes for the better, cut off those dying games and focus on us who actually matter, or we walk away and PWE can slowly drown in its pool of filth.
Who says post-PWE will Cryptic be any different? It might not be, but I think if Cryptic could decide it's own fate, there's a chance things might change.
At the very least, Star Trek won't be bowing to tyranny to survive.
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Says who? And how? Any money made from Cryptic's games doesn't go into some magical Cryptic purse, it goes into PWE's. If anything the 'success' of Cryptic under the PWE banner has raised the price further from what it would otherwise be.
Tra lala la lala, the OP is in their own little world.
If I was inclined to make a thread like this I would have cited STO and Neverwinter. CO is operating at a much smaller scale to either of these. I would have also made sure to downplay Blacklight, Torchlight, and Elsword as "well, not really mattering because who plays those genres anyway?" and cast a massive cloud of doom on Gigantic and Livelock. It doesn't make a lick of sense but getting your defense in first (regardless of how it sounds) is key to the soapbox.
Regardless, its a giant mental contortion to take vague impressions from I don't know where as a firm basis to criticize the economics of these games. From what we can tell from the case of CO, it doesn't take that all much input from the population to keep the lights on. What changes most is how much more the devs are willing to put in. If a game is doing well it continues adding large amounts of content (because even more money spent results in even more money gained). If not, then you're looking at a sliding scale of add-ons from "not as much" all the way back to "nothing" (when you're in maintenance mode) or closure if the game doesn't have any traction at all (it happens, as with most business ventures, but as the OP points out it doesn't happen at a remarkably high frequency with these games.)
PWE isn't using profits from Cryptic to endlessly support an endless string of dead material. We can't be certain of the firm economics here (see. the requirements of evidence based reasoning) but we can at least say that. Closing the dead weight and simply pocketing Cryptic's money would be a MUCH better business plan for an evil, uncaring corporate entity. It's also the most obvious approach. As such, this isn't a topic to take seriously. It just seems like lashing out at a company because (apparently) it's offering more than the OP particularly cares about (which can only be paid for by siphoning money from their self-identified audiences. Other groups are beyond the realm of imagination.)
And to the OP, I simply have to say "lighten up." Nothing has happened over the last few years to suggest that cryptic needs to "buy their game back "(Brexit style.) There are things that cost money (ex. lock boxes) but if Cryptic dumped their publisher do you honestly think they'd abandon this profitable and population-approved (people still buy keys) approach to F2P MMO's (and something you'll find across the genre in one form or another?) No, I don't think you've suggested anything that would change, apart from a arbitrary feeling of pride and aimless self-determination.
As found in this other post for eample:
What this seems like to me is a random stab at PWE. You may not like the company, but don't let fear and hatred launch you into a campaign with implications your line of reasoning and body of support is incapable of handling. Just take it easy and enjoy what you can. There is, after all, a game to play.
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Did you think this up all on your own? Or are you regurgitating other people's zone chat? I fail to find the humor in this. This is a joke right? Dude. Slap yourself in the face a few times for us all. Hard. Really really hard.
I thought that was EA? Oh no I guess thats just where game companies go to die
ya know.... I gotta give valoreah that one
Side note Sony is not an American company.
Champions is terrible.
reason why Sony had to let it go, it was from 2 massive hacker attacks and faced huge fine for failing to protect clients' CCs and accounts.
Of course Microsoft buying Cryptic would make things much better, just look at how they've improved Nokia's phones.
Derp, getting TOO old - Animal House. But you definitely had me thinking of Wild Bill Kelso...
For you -
Fixed it for you.
You mean the phone line they're now abandoning in favor of Surface Phone now that they've assimilated the technology from the company once known as Nokia?
All they've demonstrated is as EA has done with any game they've acquired- destruction of original concepts in order to acquire IP. If they had "improved" the Nokia line and continued to do so, your point would be valid.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
Meh, not sure about that. Power creep is worse than ever before and 90% of queues are empty most of the time. New ships seem to have replaced new content. Personally, I liked this game most when Legacy of Romulus was released. Every place was buzzing with activity, every queue, every system and every social hub. I miss those times...
Agreed, I miss the days before PWE and the early days of PWE when actual properly balanced content and gameplay was still a thing.
And if it wasn't for Atari, the game probably would never have existed to being with.
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