The supply was sparse at the beginning of the promo and right now is, obviously, depleted. You are looking at least for a 1.5b deal in the best case scenario.
The Exchange will only allow items to be listed with a max price of 750 million EC. The scarcity of the Temporal Light Cruiser has pushed the value of it beyond that price limit. That means you need to seek out individuals who has it and is willing to negotiate with you to determine how much EC and other valuable items you may have in order to do a trade. For example, he may ask for something like 900m EC and 150 master keys.
Getting an invite to The Trade Channel is pretty much the only in-game hope you'll have of finding one. Get ready to either pay through the nose or forget about it.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
Cryptic really needs to re-run that promotion ASAP and let it run for a while, there are plenty of people who still want one and the supply isn't nearly enough to meet the demand. By not doing so, they're leaving money on the table.
Do they re-run them though? I'd love to pick up the Elachi R&D promo ship I missed from taking an extended break from the game but I couldn't find anything that stated if they would ever be re-run again.
You don't want to wear out the golden goose. They'll be milking the connie for years and I applaud their brilliant marketing, they've found the one thing that will never run out of demand. As far as things go it isn't THAT expensive the main issue would be supply.
I'd say 1.5 billion EC is too damned expensive, yes.
You can say it, but if people are paying it, it's not true. The people who will spend always have more say than the people who won't.
And those player to player sales generate no revenue for Cryptic, they've already made their money on the ships in the supply now.
You can't possibly be so short sighted to not realize that Cryptic makes an enormous amount of money off the player to player sales... because players all across the wealth spectrum bought additional packs specifically to speculate. That Cryptic gets their money up front doesn't mean they're not taking their cut on every transaction.
If and when they re-run the promotion, they'll generate a new round of pure dollars as people spend cash directly or dump dilithium into zen which also cost cash in the first place. You have a lot of people wanting that ship, saying "shut up and take my money!" and Cryptic will be wise to take it from them.
And Cryptic will be even more wise to have made it clear when the window's open, you' better act on it. This is a high pressure sales item. From a practical standpoint we're talking about a $200-$250 ship. That's way outside the normal model for this game. We had literally 3000 posts of people whining "why can't I buy it for $30?" Cryptic absolutely wants 12 months of accumulated regret, of "why didn't I buy that last time?" prompting people to dump in way more money than they normally ever would, without waiting for zeni-sales, and without careful planning. They want reckless spending and on this item, they'll get it if they lay the proper groundwork. More frequent windows and Cryptic LOSES MONEY because people start to think "well, that's a lot of money. I should think about it, and maybe I'll pick it up next time around..."
I still think the tier 6 connie should of been in the Zen store, this was just a kick to the face for most people. I mean after putting the Kelvine Connie in a lockbox, this was just "we want to make money hand over fist just because we can".
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
Ah, here comes one now. Seriously: selling the most Iconic ship in the entire franchise with endgame stats for $30 was never on the table. There are far too many players in this nostalgia-fest who once they have it, would simply never buy another ship ever again. Its not just that they could make more than $30 (easily and obviously) its that they lose all future sales when the kind of customer who thinks $200 is a lot becomes perfectly satisfied. On the other hand people who don't sweat $200 can buy a T6 connie, love the heck out of it, and still keep picking up cute little $30 ships now and then.
You'll spend a lot less time leaning forward asking to get kicked in the face when you stop pretending Cryptic is your friend. They will ever and always act in their own best interest.
I was a huge supporter for an end-game version of the TOS Connie. RL took me out of STO last year, so I had no idea what amazing things have been released since then. I just found out a little over a week ago about AoY and the T6 Connie. I have never been so excited about STO (and I LOVE STO) and logged in, didn't even bother to research the AoY pack (lol) I just bought it. As soon as I could, I tried to buy my brand new T6 Connie. I had no idea it was a limited time thing! (my fault for not looking) I thought maybe I'd get lucky and find someone that had one for sale, I did, and he wanted 300 keys for it.
I'm beyond heartbroken that I missed out on this ship.
My hope is that we'll get a c-store pack of all 3 ships.
Why do people balk at the price sellers are asking? For those that missed the promo when it was on, the price was not much cheaper. Average selling price during the promo was 900 million ec. Or almost 200 keys. So there is 50% inflation. Not that much. This has always been a thing that will cost more than $150 us. Now more like $250 us with the key sale. You want it. Put down the 250 dollars. Or buy packs until you win the lotto.
People complain about the game not getting enough attention and then complain when they try to make enough money to grow the compa, you can't have your cake and eat it folks, pay up or shut up.
There might be a re-run once a year. Annorax->TOS->Sheshar->JHAS.... Repeat. Or, hopefully, they'll retire the sheshar and give us something new to add to the rotation.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
Do you realize the next lockbox will contain (arguably next, since the new ships have already been leaked to appear) the brand new T6 Elachi ships, right?
Honestly, I hadn't thought about it. I'm keeping track of the T5-to-T6 revamps because I will probably pony up for a new Llaihr and a new Narcine when they become available. In this case though I don't care all that much. The dream is to fly the dreadnought with the full trio of consoles and uniquely Elachi benefit that grants. The T6 revamp ships will likely have better consoles of course, but not enough so to tip the scales for me. What's available now works to my satisfaction.
Do you realize the next lockbox will contain (arguably next, since the new ships have already been leaked to appear) the brand new T6 Elachi ships, right?
Honestly, I hadn't thought about it. I'm keeping track of the T5-to-T6 revamps because I will probably pony up for a new Llaihr and a new Narcine when they become available. In this case though I don't care all that much. The dream is to fly the dreadnought with the full trio of consoles and uniquely Elachi benefit that grants. The T6 revamp ships will likely have better consoles of course, but not enough so to tip the scales for me. What's available now works to my satisfaction.
Give it time and grab the T6 deal, you would not be dissapointed in terms of your requests. The entire T5 bundle will drop in price and you may potentially afford it, but I wouldn't do it granted there are T6 ships available.
My hope is that we'll get a c-store pack of all 3 ships.
Highly unlikely.
If they re-run the promo, you'll likely see them do a Sheshar-style change to the specialist seating: get a Temporal Light Cruiser with Command or Pilot or "fancy new specialist" for a limited time. In this way, players who bought it once, will have incentive to buy it again. Also, it would devalue existing stockpiled promo-packs as the would have the "older" ships, possibly with less-valuable specialist seating.
So people don't seem to realize the cost of obtaining the ships. The drop rate is low for every ship drop I think 100 packs were sold. So if you brought the packs on the exchange during the event that would be about 1.5 billion ec. And you would have 1000 Lobi. So really this item was very expensive to obtain during the event. There are of course many lucky people that got it in the first few packs, but that is rare. If you really want to try. Buy a 10 pack on the exchange for $290 million and try your luck. You might just get the ship. If people don't open packs that means new supply is zero and depends on those holding the ship it their banks to be located.
Comments
Do they re-run them though? I'd love to pick up the Elachi R&D promo ship I missed from taking an extended break from the game but I couldn't find anything that stated if they would ever be re-run again.
They do re-release them, and that is pretty much exactly the interval it seems to me, from memory anyway.
You can say it, but if people are paying it, it's not true. The people who will spend always have more say than the people who won't.
You can't possibly be so short sighted to not realize that Cryptic makes an enormous amount of money off the player to player sales... because players all across the wealth spectrum bought additional packs specifically to speculate. That Cryptic gets their money up front doesn't mean they're not taking their cut on every transaction.
And Cryptic will be even more wise to have made it clear when the window's open, you' better act on it. This is a high pressure sales item. From a practical standpoint we're talking about a $200-$250 ship. That's way outside the normal model for this game. We had literally 3000 posts of people whining "why can't I buy it for $30?" Cryptic absolutely wants 12 months of accumulated regret, of "why didn't I buy that last time?" prompting people to dump in way more money than they normally ever would, without waiting for zeni-sales, and without careful planning. They want reckless spending and on this item, they'll get it if they lay the proper groundwork. More frequent windows and Cryptic LOSES MONEY because people start to think "well, that's a lot of money. I should think about it, and maybe I'll pick it up next time around..."
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
You'll spend a lot less time leaning forward asking to get kicked in the face when you stop pretending Cryptic is your friend. They will ever and always act in their own best interest.
I'm beyond heartbroken that I missed out on this ship.
My hope is that we'll get a c-store pack of all 3 ships.
Join Date: Aug 14th 2008
@sevexpar sent you a message in-game.
Honestly, I hadn't thought about it. I'm keeping track of the T5-to-T6 revamps because I will probably pony up for a new Llaihr and a new Narcine when they become available. In this case though I don't care all that much. The dream is to fly the dreadnought with the full trio of consoles and uniquely Elachi benefit that grants. The T6 revamp ships will likely have better consoles of course, but not enough so to tip the scales for me. What's available now works to my satisfaction.
If they re-run the promo, you'll likely see them do a Sheshar-style change to the specialist seating: get a Temporal Light Cruiser with Command or Pilot or "fancy new specialist" for a limited time. In this way, players who bought it once, will have incentive to buy it again. Also, it would devalue existing stockpiled promo-packs as the would have the "older" ships, possibly with less-valuable specialist seating.
So really this item was very expensive to obtain during the event. There are of course many lucky people that got it in the first few packs, but that is rare. If you really want to try. Buy a 10 pack on the exchange for $290 million and try your luck. You might just get the ship. If people don't open packs that means new supply is zero and depends on those holding the ship it their banks to be located.