Having unique interiors would be great for rp and whatnot, but as has been pointed out many times it is not practical with the tools the devs have for making stuff like that. On the other hand, the ships definitely are the "homes" for the characters in the various series and even if the game interiors are not that customizable (only a few trophies on a few of the older ships) the exteriors are usually quite customizable and that is what everyone sees anyway.
Player-housing is a major thing in pretty much every other game I know... except STO: they just stubbornly refuse to add it. Used to be Lobi ships always got unique bridges. Then, one day, a Dev mumbled something like "Well, we didn't time to make a bridge for the NX" (if any ship deserved it, it was the NX). And ppl let Cryptic get away with it. Same as with the Mudd store: peeps are upset a bit, for a day or two, then Cryptic is forgiven. Very sad. And don't tell me that making bridges isn't economically viable, as they had been doing it for years (that is, until ppl let them get away with no longer doing so).
Anyway, I think player-housing could still work, easily. All that's required is selling bridge unlock tokens, so you can use any bridge you own on a current ship that just has the crappy default cargo-bridge. Doesn't require them to design anything new, just remove a restricton or two when you apply a token to a ship (after all, the mechanism to choose bridges is already in place).
Having unique interiors would be great for rp and whatnot, but as has been pointed out many times it is not practical with the tools the devs have for making stuff like that. On the other hand, the ships definitely are the "homes" for the characters in the various series and even if the game interiors are not that customizable (only a few trophies on a few of the older ships) the exteriors are usually quite customizable and that is what everyone sees anyway.
Player-housing is a major thing in pretty much every other game I know... except STO: they just stubbornly refuse to add it. Used to be Lobi ships always got unique bridges. Then, one day, a Dev mumbled something like "Well, we didn't time to make a bridge for the NX" (if any ship deserved it, it was the NX). And ppl let Cryptic get away with it. Same as with the Mudd store: peeps are upset a bit, for a day or two, then Cryptic is forgiven. Very sad. And don't tell me that making bridges isn't economically viable, as they had been doing it for years (that is, until ppl let them get away with no longer doing so).
Anyway, I think player-housing could still work, easily. All that's required is selling bridge unlock tokens, so you can use any bridge you own on a current ship that just has the crappy default cargo-bridge. Doesn't require them to design anything new, just remove a restricton or two when you apply a token to a ship (after all, the mechanism to choose bridges is already in place).
I would like to see player housing done as apartments or rooms on certain planets, they just have to keep it simple.
For example, an apartment on earth, make it the same view as Kirk's. You pay for the basic room, then spend Dil to unlock various furnishing as you go...couches, wall decorations a fireplace. They can easily do up a pile of simple decorations and players simply unlock to decorate. Then they just have to make places available elsewhere...a house on Andor on a mountain side...Risa beachfront condo, place on DEWA, Qonos, DS9. If they keep the basic apartment simple it shouldn't be that much to build and then they can design all kinds of decorations and ornaments that you unlock for them..since the decorations go in a specific spot it requires less work.
I bet this would solve their Dil sink issues,I'd love to have various places to decorate...and you include the consoles (unlocked for a price of course) to do everything from your home.
Are we certain that "they" have a dil sink "issue" in the first place? A tweet from bort about a half assed phoenix release is not at all convincing.
I rather belive they give a poo and things are fine the way they are considering a new zen store release with new ship prices for which we got entire bundles with a dozen of ships so far.
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> @peterconnorfirst said: > (Quote) > > Are we certain that "they" have a dil sink "issue" in the first place? A tweet from bort about a half assed phoenix release is not at all convincing. > > I rather belive they give a poo and things are fine the way they are considering a new zen store release with new ship prices for which we got entire bundles with a dozen of ships so far.
Oh I don't believe it for a second...I think they're just trying damage control. And yeah, you're right there.
Are we certain that "they" have a dil sink "issue" in the first place? A tweet from bort about a half assed phoenix release is not at all convincing.
I rather belive they give a poo and things are fine the way they are considering a new zen store release with new ship prices for which we got entire bundles with a dozen of ships so far.
Agreed, hard to believe they see it as a problem when they keep doing the very things that cause said problem to begin with.
Not seeing it as a problem could be considered a symptom of it being a problem.
It's like parking a car with the handbrake off at the top of a hill then being confused about why it got wrapped around a tree at the bottom. The focus has been so blinkered to the pushing of zen for cash that they've seemingly ignored the very obvious warning signs resulting in the unplanned phoenix which will have less effect than a £1 water pistol against a forest fire.
I wonder if they've blown the budget on getting big names for some 10th anniversary voice acting and are scrabbling about to keep the lights on as a result.
Not seeing it as a problem could be considered a symptom of it being a problem.
It's like parking a car with the handbrake off at the top of a hill then being confused about why it got wrapped around a tree at the bottom. The focus has been so blinkered to the pushing of zen for cash that they've seemingly ignored the very obvious warning signs resulting in the unplanned phoenix which will have less effect than a £1 water pistol against a forest fire.
I wonder if they've blown the budget on getting big names for some 10th anniversary voice acting and are scrabbling about to keep the lights on as a result.
DOOM!
The Black Friday sales don't seem any more aggressive than last year so I doubt that very much.
A high dillex like 490 doesn't directly hurt Cryptic's zen income, since zen buyers get more dil for their zen not less, and those buyers are happy. Hitting the 500 cap and staying there might hurt some if buyers hold back because they think they should be getting even more dil.
And now the game is telling me the day is really december 31st and all events(including breech and the Phoenix box evenet thats supposed to go december 2nd) are over. I'm posting in the bugs forum this is really making me sour.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
And now the game is telling me the day is really december 31st and all events(including breach and the Phoenix box event thats supposed to go december 2nd) are over. I'm posting in the bugs forum this is really making me sour.
It is a display error. Have you checked the tab called Available? If the Phoenix Box event is still going on then there is a Phoenix box mission in there and the event is not over.
And now the game is telling me the day is really december 31st and all events(including breach and the Phoenix box event thats supposed to go december 2nd) are over. I'm posting in the bugs forum this is really making me sour.
It is a display error. Have you checked the tab called Available? If the Phoenix Box event is still going on then there is a Phoenix box mission in there and the event is not over.
I might check that, thanks.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
As far as housing is concerned, how often did we ever see that in the Shows or Movies. Not often, and mostly as part of a flashback, a time travel 'dream', plot device, or some other such nonsense. People did not go home after 'work'.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
> @ltminns said: > As far as housing is concerned, how often did we ever see that in the Shows or Movies. Not often, and mostly as part of a flashback, a time travel 'dream', plot device, or some other such nonsense. People did not go home after 'work'.
Like Kirk's apartment? It's not about going home after work...it's about having a place that we can call home away from the ship (since apparently quarters on board the ship is too tough). I suspect the crew of ESD go home after work as well...even the admiral and his staff. Be nice to have a place after a mission...nice views and decor etc.
There is already playing housing - fleet holdings and your ship interior exist. It might not be enough for your taste and be seriously flawed, but it's there. And it's also the most sensible "Player Housing" for STO that I can think of. We almost never see any personal apartments for any character in Star Trek - but we see their cabins aboard ships or their ready room from time to time. I don't play a Star Trek game to look at an ordinary house.
STO has also some other notable customization options that many games lack an equivalent for - Your Starship and your bridge officers. The level of customization possible is considerably. And unlike housing, it's very easy to "invite" people to see it - just fly around ESD or into the Dyson Sphere or Kobali War Zone.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I don't care to have some housing/apartment on a planet I won't be at.
I'd prefer any effort in that area be made into ship interiors instead.
I saw a suggestion earlier about having an unlock token for generic fixed bridge ships, to unlock a full interior. I support this, and make it a dil sink.
I'd like to have a "interior refit" token to convert a starship's interior to my faction appropriate material. Or even a few more decks of "generic starship interior." Some of the old foundry or mission maps, while dated, would certainly work to give a starship at least a more filled out interior.
Also, the one thing that always puzzled me is why does the ready room have account bank access, but not character bank access? If anything it should be the other way around. Anyway, why not add both, and exchange and mail as well?
In fact, all of the above could be made as special reputation projects (like the old events) to unlock them per character with dilithium.
I don't care to have some housing/apartment on a planet I won't be at.
I'd prefer any effort in that area be made into ship interiors instead.
I saw a suggestion earlier about having an unlock token for generic fixed bridge ships, to unlock a full interior. I support this, and make it a dil sink.
I'd like to have a "interior refit" token to convert a starship's interior to my faction appropriate material. Or even a few more decks of "generic starship interior." Some of the old foundry or mission maps, while dated, would certainly work to give a starship at least a more filled out interior.
Also, the one thing that always puzzled me is why does the ready room have account bank access, but not character bank access? If anything it should be the other way around. Anyway, why not add both, and exchange and mail as well?
In fact, all of the above could be made as special reputation projects (like the old events) to unlock them per character with dilithium.
I think they simply don't want people to stand alone in their bridge, and instead spend time in social zones. So interiors will probably never get all the amenities a fully fledged social map will have. They offer them for fleet holdings, probably because they envisioned fleet members might use those as a social zone. I wonder how many fleets do that, however. I don't remember a time I actually met someone on my fleet holding, but I am not a very "social" gamer like that.
If wishes were horses, or we had a time machine, or an arbitrary amount of manpower, I'd build ship interiors differently.
1) Limit them to a very small number of base bridges and interiors.
2) Create customization points on these interiors, e.g. what style of warp core or what style of view screen, what kind of MSD, what kind of ship models in your ready room, what paintings hang on your cabin walls and what style of bed do yo use. Stuff to personalize your ship, the style of wall. Somewhat similar to the Champions Online Hideout*.
3) Create mission interaction points where NPCs or mission objects can spawn, so you can reuse interiors for missions. If there is a mission type that STO is missing, it's the "ship-in-a-bottle" episode were a significant part of the story happens on the ship and not extravagant sets.
But that is still a ton of work, and it leaves unanswered what is going to happen to all the existing bridges people bought or gained by acquiring special ships.
*) I fear that the success or lack thereof of Champions Online's hideout system might also influence Cryptic's willingness to invest into this area, even if they didn't have all the other issues regarding the existing interiors. @tacofangs might have something to comment on, or perhaps he definitely doesn't want to or just plain shouldn't.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
As far as housing is concerned, how often did we ever see that in the Shows or Movies. Not often, and mostly as part of a flashback, a time travel 'dream', plot device, or some other such nonsense. People did not go home after 'work'.
Player housing is the natural extension to any virtual world. Make it real enough, and ppl will want to 'dwell' there. Is nothing to do with the show. Other game companies get it, Cryptic doesn't.
Remember towards the end of Mass Effect 3? You're given a beautiful apartment. And the players loved it! XD That's not going to happen in STO, of course; but my proposal -- which I've been pitching from time to time -- to simply sell bridge unlock tokens, for those ships that have just the crappy default cargo bridge, I see that as entirely reasonable. Implementing it should be trivial. And make it a Dilithium sink (after all, they're selling MACO uniforms that way too... or are they? LOL, but that's another matter), and all is well.
I don't care to have some housing/apartment on a planet I won't be at.
I'd prefer any effort in that area be made into ship interiors instead.
I saw a suggestion earlier about having an unlock token for generic fixed bridge ships, to unlock a full interior. I support this, and make it a dil sink.
I'd like to have a "interior refit" token to convert a starship's interior to my faction appropriate material. Or even a few more decks of "generic starship interior." Some of the old foundry or mission maps, while dated, would certainly work to give a starship at least a more filled out interior.
Also, the one thing that always puzzled me is why does the ready room have account bank access, but not character bank access? If anything it should be the other way around. Anyway, why not add both, and exchange and mail as well?
In fact, all of the above could be made as special reputation projects (like the old events) to unlock them per character with dilithium.
I think they simply don't want people to stand alone in their bridge, and instead spend time in social zones. So interiors will probably never get all the amenities a fully fledged social map will have. They offer them for fleet holdings, probably because they envisioned fleet members might use those as a social zone. I wonder how many fleets do that, however. I don't remember a time I actually met someone on my fleet holding, but I am not a very "social" gamer like that.
If wishes were horses, or we had a time machine, or an arbitrary amount of manpower, I'd build ship interiors differently.
1) Limit them to a very small number of base bridges and interiors.
2) Create customization points on these interiors, e.g. what style of warp core or what style of view screen, what kind of MSD, what kind of ship models in your ready room, what paintings hang on your cabin walls and what style of bed do yo use. Stuff to personalize your ship, the style of wall. Somewhat similar to the Champions Online Hideout*.
3) Create mission interaction points where NPCs or mission objects can spawn, so you can reuse interiors for missions. If there is a mission type that STO is missing, it's the "ship-in-a-bottle" episode were a significant part of the story happens on the ship and not extravagant sets.
But that is still a ton of work, and it leaves unanswered what is going to happen to all the existing bridges people bought or gained by acquiring special ships.
*) I fear that the success or lack thereof of Champions Online's hideout system might also influence Cryptic's willingness to invest into this area, even if they didn't have all the other issues regarding the existing interiors. @tacofangs might have something to comment on, or perhaps he definitely doesn't want to or just plain shouldn't.
Unless Thursday downtime fixed things, that's exactly what Cryptic has done, with ship bridge invites not working since November 12th. And why are people being on their bridges a bad thing? Especially since some of the older bridges are amazing(Bortasqu' bridge is best bridge, numbah 1. I also like the Reclaw bridge, Voth, and Breen bridges as close seconds) in how they look. Why should players be led by the nose to social hubs, especially if some of those that "evolved" ended up having more detriments added to them(I'll go ahead and say it. I miss the old DS9, and prefer it to the new one.)? Or some social hubs have been neglected ever since being completed(like Captain's Table) We already have to deal with being railroaded through missions.
I don't care to have some housing/apartment on a planet I won't be at.
I'd prefer any effort in that area be made into ship interiors instead.
I saw a suggestion earlier about having an unlock token for generic fixed bridge ships, to unlock a full interior. I support this, and make it a dil sink.
I'd like to have a "interior refit" token to convert a starship's interior to my faction appropriate material. Or even a few more decks of "generic starship interior." Some of the old foundry or mission maps, while dated, would certainly work to give a starship at least a more filled out interior.
Also, the one thing that always puzzled me is why does the ready room have account bank access, but not character bank access? If anything it should be the other way around. Anyway, why not add both, and exchange and mail as well?
In fact, all of the above could be made as special reputation projects (like the old events) to unlock them per character with dilithium.
I think they simply don't want people to stand alone in their bridge, and instead spend time in social zones. So interiors will probably never get all the amenities a fully fledged social map will have. They offer them for fleet holdings, probably because they envisioned fleet members might use those as a social zone. I wonder how many fleets do that, however. I don't remember a time I actually met someone on my fleet holding, but I am not a very "social" gamer like that.
If wishes were horses, or we had a time machine, or an arbitrary amount of manpower, I'd build ship interiors differently.
1) Limit them to a very small number of base bridges and interiors.
2) Create customization points on these interiors, e.g. what style of warp core or what style of view screen, what kind of MSD, what kind of ship models in your ready room, what paintings hang on your cabin walls and what style of bed do yo use. Stuff to personalize your ship, the style of wall. Somewhat similar to the Champions Online Hideout*.
3) Create mission interaction points where NPCs or mission objects can spawn, so you can reuse interiors for missions. If there is a mission type that STO is missing, it's the "ship-in-a-bottle" episode were a significant part of the story happens on the ship and not extravagant sets.
But that is still a ton of work, and it leaves unanswered what is going to happen to all the existing bridges people bought or gained by acquiring special ships.
*) I fear that the success or lack thereof of Champions Online's hideout system might also influence Cryptic's willingness to invest into this area, even if they didn't have all the other issues regarding the existing interiors. @tacofangs might have something to comment on, or perhaps he definitely doesn't want to or just plain shouldn't.
Unless Thursday downtime fixed things, that's exactly what Cryptic has done, with ship bridge invites not working since November 12th. And why are people being on their bridges a bad thing? Especially since some of the older bridges are amazing(Bortasqu' bridge is best bridge, numbah 1. I also like the Reclaw bridge, Voth, and Breen bridges as close seconds) in how they look. Why should players be led by the nose to social hubs, especially if some of those that "evolved" ended up having more detriments added to them(I'll go ahead and say it. I miss the old DS9, and prefer it to the new one.)? Or some social hubs have been neglected ever since being completed(like Captain's Table) We already have to deal with being railroaded through missions.
You're railroaded into social zones because that is where you definitely can meet other players, and MMOs work better if you engage in some ways with other players than if you not. You have a question, someone answers. Or someone has a question, you reply. Or someone has a cool uniform/ship/fleet/title and you wonder how she/he got it, or vice versa.
On your bridge, none of that happens unless you already made friends in social zones or other group activities before. But if everoyne that did it once disappears into bridges all the time, new players won't have much of that.
Of course, that's not why they broke the invite-feature. That's just a bug.
I really don't get why anyone would want that old ugly DS9 map back. So glad it finally feels accurate. It has really been remarkable work. And despite being looking so much better, it hasn't lost its utility, it got even simpler to use, thanks to the ship stuff and the bank/exchange being so close. They probably could dial down Leeta a bit.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I don't care to have some housing/apartment on a planet I won't be at.
I'd prefer any effort in that area be made into ship interiors instead.
I saw a suggestion earlier about having an unlock token for generic fixed bridge ships, to unlock a full interior. I support this, and make it a dil sink.
I'd like to have a "interior refit" token to convert a starship's interior to my faction appropriate material. Or even a few more decks of "generic starship interior." Some of the old foundry or mission maps, while dated, would certainly work to give a starship at least a more filled out interior.
Also, the one thing that always puzzled me is why does the ready room have account bank access, but not character bank access? If anything it should be the other way around. Anyway, why not add both, and exchange and mail as well?
In fact, all of the above could be made as special reputation projects (like the old events) to unlock them per character with dilithium.
I think they simply don't want people to stand alone in their bridge, and instead spend time in social zones. So interiors will probably never get all the amenities a fully fledged social map will have. They offer them for fleet holdings, probably because they envisioned fleet members might use those as a social zone. I wonder how many fleets do that, however. I don't remember a time I actually met someone on my fleet holding, but I am not a very "social" gamer like that.
If wishes were horses, or we had a time machine, or an arbitrary amount of manpower, I'd build ship interiors differently.
1) Limit them to a very small number of base bridges and interiors.
2) Create customization points on these interiors, e.g. what style of warp core or what style of view screen, what kind of MSD, what kind of ship models in your ready room, what paintings hang on your cabin walls and what style of bed do yo use. Stuff to personalize your ship, the style of wall. Somewhat similar to the Champions Online Hideout*.
3) Create mission interaction points where NPCs or mission objects can spawn, so you can reuse interiors for missions. If there is a mission type that STO is missing, it's the "ship-in-a-bottle" episode were a significant part of the story happens on the ship and not extravagant sets.
But that is still a ton of work, and it leaves unanswered what is going to happen to all the existing bridges people bought or gained by acquiring special ships.
*) I fear that the success or lack thereof of Champions Online's hideout system might also influence Cryptic's willingness to invest into this area, even if they didn't have all the other issues regarding the existing interiors. @tacofangs might have something to comment on, or perhaps he definitely doesn't want to or just plain shouldn't.
Unless Thursday downtime fixed things, that's exactly what Cryptic has done, with ship bridge invites not working since November 12th. And why are people being on their bridges a bad thing? Especially since some of the older bridges are amazing(Bortasqu' bridge is best bridge, numbah 1. I also like the Reclaw bridge, Voth, and Breen bridges as close seconds) in how they look. Why should players be led by the nose to social hubs, especially if some of those that "evolved" ended up having more detriments added to them(I'll go ahead and say it. I miss the old DS9, and prefer it to the new one.)? Or some social hubs have been neglected ever since being completed(like Captain's Table) We already have to deal with being railroaded through missions.
You're railroaded into social zones because that is where you definitely can meet other players, and MMOs work better if you engage in some ways with other players than if you not. You have a question, someone answers. Or someone has a question, you reply. Or someone has a cool uniform/ship/fleet/title and you wonder how she/he got it, or vice versa.
On your bridge, none of that happens unless you already made friends in social zones or other group activities before. But if everoyne that did it once disappears into bridges all the time, new players won't have much of that.
Of course, that's not why they broke the invite-feature. That's just a bug.
I really don't get why anyone would want that old ugly DS9 map back. So glad it finally feels accurate. It has really been remarkable work. And despite being looking so much better, it hasn't lost its utility, it got even simpler to use, thanks to the ship stuff and the bank/exchange being so close. They probably could dial down Leeta a bit.
The new DS9 map is definitely a more accurate depiction of the series DS9 & I like it a lot, but I always have & still feel it is more cramp & should've been widened a bit.
> @foppotee#4552 said: > (Quote) > > The new DS9 map is definitely a more accurate depiction of the series DS9 & I like it a lot, but I always have & still feel it is more cramp & should've been widened a bit.
Agree 100%, park your ship outside the inner ring, then look up how big you shipsize is, and the measure the time to run around the inner ring, that's a whole new world record! 😋😋
Are we certain that "they" have a dil sink "issue" in the first place? A tweet from bort about a half assed phoenix release is not at all convincing.
I rather belive they give a poo and things are fine the way they are considering a new zen store release with new ship prices for which we got entire bundles with a dozen of ships so far.
As noted by someone else, they will see a drop in Zen sales if it stays at or near the cap for an extended period, due to people feeling that the cap is artificially limiting the amount of dilithium that they would receive in the exchange.
But, really, this is about the last part. I know that they say that the higher prices are the real prices, but does anyone expect that those items will be at those prices for any significant length of time? Any amount of time that items in Mudd's Store are at the list price should just be called what they are, "Times that we don't expect to sell any of these things." A term that would also apply to really any price higher than these introductory sales. I know it, and I'm pretty sure that Cryptic also knows it.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
The Black Friday sales don't seem any more aggressive than last year so I doubt that very much.
A high dillex like 490 doesn't directly hurt Cryptic's zen income, since zen buyers get more dil for their zen not less, and those buyers are happy. Hitting the 500 cap and staying there might hurt some if buyers hold back because they think they should be getting even more dil.
I'd speculate a higher DZE actually does hurt Cryptic's revenue. Consider it takes a lot more game play for people to earn ZEN, while at the same when Dilithium buyers get a lot more, both of which reduces demand considerably.
Now given the fact Phoenix Upgrades give 5x the Technology Points, between those and Omega Upgrades that give 4x the quality improvement chance, both should introduce at least a small per upgrade dilithium cost. The biggest sink for DIL is in fact upgrading gear with Superior Tokens, and with so many Phoenix &/or Omega being introduced so often; it certainly takes the demand off ZEN, aside from any gear or fleet holdings you require updating.
Yet it be easier to introduce some new items to phoenix boxes; or as others have said move some old event ships out of Lobi store into Phoenix. They could also introduce costumes or other items as well, or possibly housing options or other idea's mentioned on here...
> @foppotee#4552 said:
> (Quote)
>
> The new DS9 map is definitely a more accurate depiction of the series DS9 & I like it a lot, but I always have & still feel it is more cramp & should've been widened a bit.
Agree 100%, park your ship outside the inner ring, then look up how big you shipsize is, and the measure the time to run around the inner ring, that's a whole new world record! 😋😋
The exterior map is too big, not he interior map too small.
Though we might still break world records, I suspect our characters are running a lot faster than is realistic. Like in most games.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Another idea for Ultra Token's might be a few expandable starship Skins for various Cstore ships; especially if they were account-unlockable!
That might be appealing changes to give a unique Sauser, Hull, Warp Drive, Pylons or what have you. Then it also give them a lot of potential to add a lot of new items. Granted the vast majority of their time is likely going to be for sellable ships or lockbox/lobi, but it would certainly give them a lot of opportunities...
Show accurate is fine for a TV show that removes walls and ceiling from behind the camera but for a game that doesn't do that not so much.
There's also the doorways into places like security that are far too small as a result of the general scaling, not to mention the incredibly long pause before the doors decide someones near and maybe it might want to consider opening. Or the stairs that need someone to be borderline anorexic to squeeze up.
Another idea for Ultra Token's might be a few expandable starship Skins for various Cstore ships; especially if they were account-unlockable!
That might be appealing changes to give a unique Sauser, Hull, Warp Drive, Pylons or what have you. Then it also give them a lot of potential to add a lot of new items. Granted the vast majority of their time is likely going to be for sellable ships or lockbox/lobi, but it would certainly give them a lot of opportunities...
Just simply a thought...
Anything besides T6 ships for an ultra token would be a total waste of time unless they lowered the odds against getting ultra grade tokens.
Well, the dilex is currently at 470 now. So the phoenix box run has helped.
However, with the video showing the Jellyfish and i suspect a promo lockbox run announcement in the next day or so I suspect that hard work is about to get exploded.
Another idea for Ultra Token's might be a few expandable starship Skins for various Cstore ships; especially if they were account-unlockable!
That might be appealing changes to give a unique Sauser, Hull, Warp Drive, Pylons or what have you. Then it also give them a lot of potential to add a lot of new items. Granted the vast majority of their time is likely going to be for sellable ships or lockbox/lobi, but it would certainly give them a lot of opportunities...
Just simply a thought...
Anything besides T6 ships for an ultra token would be a total waste of time unless they lowered the odds against getting ultra grade tokens.
Oh I certainly agree with you, about introducing a few non event T6 ships, to the Phoenix Epic Token's. One likely candidate they could consider a few of the R&D Promo Ships expanding the methods they could be earned, yet they'd still likely remain only with a smaller percentage of the playerbase.
Or they could design a ship just for Phoenix every now and then. If a few more were Fleet upgradeable, they could more than make up the difference as more Fleet Modules are required. I'm surprised that only recently we've saw the first Event ship that was Fleet upgradeable this last Summer, and might expect a few more event Ships, or others who may be expanded into account-wide unlocks in future!
As for Ultra Token's I don't expect we'd see new ship skins parts for every CSTORE, Lockbox or Lobi Ship mentioned in my post above; but a few skins for more popular ships be a way to expand appeal to some Ultra tokens!
In fact one Candidate is the Juniper which had 7 other designs that were never seen released; it might be nice to see 2 or 3 variations made available, and they could slowly introduce more for other ships as well...
Comments
Player-housing is a major thing in pretty much every other game I know... except STO: they just stubbornly refuse to add it. Used to be Lobi ships always got unique bridges. Then, one day, a Dev mumbled something like "Well, we didn't time to make a bridge for the NX" (if any ship deserved it, it was the NX). And ppl let Cryptic get away with it. Same as with the Mudd store: peeps are upset a bit, for a day or two, then Cryptic is forgiven. Very sad. And don't tell me that making bridges isn't economically viable, as they had been doing it for years (that is, until ppl let them get away with no longer doing so).
Anyway, I think player-housing could still work, easily. All that's required is selling bridge unlock tokens, so you can use any bridge you own on a current ship that just has the crappy default cargo-bridge. Doesn't require them to design anything new, just remove a restricton or two when you apply a token to a ship (after all, the mechanism to choose bridges is already in place).
I cant agree to this more. +1
For example, an apartment on earth, make it the same view as Kirk's. You pay for the basic room, then spend Dil to unlock various furnishing as you go...couches, wall decorations a fireplace. They can easily do up a pile of simple decorations and players simply unlock to decorate.
Then they just have to make places available elsewhere...a house on Andor on a mountain side...Risa beachfront condo, place on DEWA, Qonos, DS9. If they keep the basic apartment simple it shouldn't be that much to build and then they can design all kinds of decorations and ornaments that you unlock for them..since the decorations go in a specific spot it requires less work.
I bet this would solve their Dil sink issues,I'd love to have various places to decorate...and you include the consoles (unlocked for a price of course) to do everything from your home.
Are we certain that "they" have a dil sink "issue" in the first place? A tweet from bort about a half assed phoenix release is not at all convincing.
I rather belive they give a poo and things are fine the way they are considering a new zen store release with new ship prices for which we got entire bundles with a dozen of ships so far.
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> Are we certain that "they" have a dil sink "issue" in the first place? A tweet from bort about a half assed phoenix release is not at all convincing.
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> I rather belive they give a poo and things are fine the way they are considering a new zen store release with new ship prices for which we got entire bundles with a dozen of ships so far.
Oh I don't believe it for a second...I think they're just trying damage control. And yeah, you're right there.
I wonder how far they'll go with this tbh.
Agreed, hard to believe they see it as a problem when they keep doing the very things that cause said problem to begin with.
It's like parking a car with the handbrake off at the top of a hill then being confused about why it got wrapped around a tree at the bottom. The focus has been so blinkered to the pushing of zen for cash that they've seemingly ignored the very obvious warning signs resulting in the unplanned phoenix which will have less effect than a £1 water pistol against a forest fire.
I wonder if they've blown the budget on getting big names for some 10th anniversary voice acting and are scrabbling about to keep the lights on as a result.
DOOM!
The Black Friday sales don't seem any more aggressive than last year so I doubt that very much.
A high dillex like 490 doesn't directly hurt Cryptic's zen income, since zen buyers get more dil for their zen not less, and those buyers are happy. Hitting the 500 cap and staying there might hurt some if buyers hold back because they think they should be getting even more dil.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
It is a display error. Have you checked the tab called Available? If the Phoenix Box event is still going on then there is a Phoenix box mission in there and the event is not over.
I might check that, thanks.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
> As far as housing is concerned, how often did we ever see that in the Shows or Movies. Not often, and mostly as part of a flashback, a time travel 'dream', plot device, or some other such nonsense. People did not go home after 'work'.
Like Kirk's apartment?
It's not about going home after work...it's about having a place that we can call home away from the ship (since apparently quarters on board the ship is too tough).
I suspect the crew of ESD go home after work as well...even the admiral and his staff. Be nice to have a place after a mission...nice views and decor etc.
STO has also some other notable customization options that many games lack an equivalent for - Your Starship and your bridge officers. The level of customization possible is considerably. And unlike housing, it's very easy to "invite" people to see it - just fly around ESD or into the Dyson Sphere or Kobali War Zone.
I'd prefer any effort in that area be made into ship interiors instead.
I saw a suggestion earlier about having an unlock token for generic fixed bridge ships, to unlock a full interior. I support this, and make it a dil sink.
I'd like to have a "interior refit" token to convert a starship's interior to my faction appropriate material. Or even a few more decks of "generic starship interior." Some of the old foundry or mission maps, while dated, would certainly work to give a starship at least a more filled out interior.
Also, the one thing that always puzzled me is why does the ready room have account bank access, but not character bank access? If anything it should be the other way around. Anyway, why not add both, and exchange and mail as well?
In fact, all of the above could be made as special reputation projects (like the old events) to unlock them per character with dilithium.
I think they simply don't want people to stand alone in their bridge, and instead spend time in social zones. So interiors will probably never get all the amenities a fully fledged social map will have. They offer them for fleet holdings, probably because they envisioned fleet members might use those as a social zone. I wonder how many fleets do that, however. I don't remember a time I actually met someone on my fleet holding, but I am not a very "social" gamer like that.
If wishes were horses, or we had a time machine, or an arbitrary amount of manpower, I'd build ship interiors differently.
1) Limit them to a very small number of base bridges and interiors.
2) Create customization points on these interiors, e.g. what style of warp core or what style of view screen, what kind of MSD, what kind of ship models in your ready room, what paintings hang on your cabin walls and what style of bed do yo use. Stuff to personalize your ship, the style of wall. Somewhat similar to the Champions Online Hideout*.
3) Create mission interaction points where NPCs or mission objects can spawn, so you can reuse interiors for missions. If there is a mission type that STO is missing, it's the "ship-in-a-bottle" episode were a significant part of the story happens on the ship and not extravagant sets.
But that is still a ton of work, and it leaves unanswered what is going to happen to all the existing bridges people bought or gained by acquiring special ships.
*) I fear that the success or lack thereof of Champions Online's hideout system might also influence Cryptic's willingness to invest into this area, even if they didn't have all the other issues regarding the existing interiors. @tacofangs might have something to comment on, or perhaps he definitely doesn't want to or just plain shouldn't.
Player housing is the natural extension to any virtual world. Make it real enough, and ppl will want to 'dwell' there. Is nothing to do with the show. Other game companies get it, Cryptic doesn't.
Remember towards the end of Mass Effect 3? You're given a beautiful apartment. And the players loved it! XD That's not going to happen in STO, of course; but my proposal -- which I've been pitching from time to time -- to simply sell bridge unlock tokens, for those ships that have just the crappy default cargo bridge, I see that as entirely reasonable. Implementing it should be trivial. And make it a Dilithium sink (after all, they're selling MACO uniforms that way too... or are they? LOL, but that's another matter), and all is well.
Unless Thursday downtime fixed things, that's exactly what Cryptic has done, with ship bridge invites not working since November 12th. And why are people being on their bridges a bad thing? Especially since some of the older bridges are amazing(Bortasqu' bridge is best bridge, numbah 1. I also like the Reclaw bridge, Voth, and Breen bridges as close seconds) in how they look. Why should players be led by the nose to social hubs, especially if some of those that "evolved" ended up having more detriments added to them(I'll go ahead and say it. I miss the old DS9, and prefer it to the new one.)? Or some social hubs have been neglected ever since being completed(like Captain's Table) We already have to deal with being railroaded through missions.
On your bridge, none of that happens unless you already made friends in social zones or other group activities before. But if everoyne that did it once disappears into bridges all the time, new players won't have much of that.
Of course, that's not why they broke the invite-feature. That's just a bug.
I really don't get why anyone would want that old ugly DS9 map back. So glad it finally feels accurate. It has really been remarkable work. And despite being looking so much better, it hasn't lost its utility, it got even simpler to use, thanks to the ship stuff and the bank/exchange being so close. They probably could dial down Leeta a bit.
The new DS9 map is definitely a more accurate depiction of the series DS9 & I like it a lot, but I always have & still feel it is more cramp & should've been widened a bit.
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> The new DS9 map is definitely a more accurate depiction of the series DS9 & I like it a lot, but I always have & still feel it is more cramp & should've been widened a bit.
Agree 100%, park your ship outside the inner ring, then look up how big you shipsize is, and the measure the time to run around the inner ring, that's a whole new world record! 😋😋
As noted by someone else, they will see a drop in Zen sales if it stays at or near the cap for an extended period, due to people feeling that the cap is artificially limiting the amount of dilithium that they would receive in the exchange.
But, really, this is about the last part. I know that they say that the higher prices are the real prices, but does anyone expect that those items will be at those prices for any significant length of time? Any amount of time that items in Mudd's Store are at the list price should just be called what they are, "Times that we don't expect to sell any of these things." A term that would also apply to really any price higher than these introductory sales. I know it, and I'm pretty sure that Cryptic also knows it.
I'd speculate a higher DZE actually does hurt Cryptic's revenue. Consider it takes a lot more game play for people to earn ZEN, while at the same when Dilithium buyers get a lot more, both of which reduces demand considerably.
Now given the fact Phoenix Upgrades give 5x the Technology Points, between those and Omega Upgrades that give 4x the quality improvement chance, both should introduce at least a small per upgrade dilithium cost. The biggest sink for DIL is in fact upgrading gear with Superior Tokens, and with so many Phoenix &/or Omega being introduced so often; it certainly takes the demand off ZEN, aside from any gear or fleet holdings you require updating.
Yet it be easier to introduce some new items to phoenix boxes; or as others have said move some old event ships out of Lobi store into Phoenix. They could also introduce costumes or other items as well, or possibly housing options or other idea's mentioned on here...
The exterior map is too big, not he interior map too small.
Though we might still break world records, I suspect our characters are running a lot faster than is realistic. Like in most games.
That might be appealing changes to give a unique Sauser, Hull, Warp Drive, Pylons or what have you. Then it also give them a lot of potential to add a lot of new items. Granted the vast majority of their time is likely going to be for sellable ships or lockbox/lobi, but it would certainly give them a lot of opportunities...
Just simply a thought...
There's also the doorways into places like security that are far too small as a result of the general scaling, not to mention the incredibly long pause before the doors decide someones near and maybe it might want to consider opening. Or the stairs that need someone to be borderline anorexic to squeeze up.
Anything besides T6 ships for an ultra token would be a total waste of time unless they lowered the odds against getting ultra grade tokens.
However, with the video showing the Jellyfish and i suspect a promo lockbox run announcement in the next day or so I suspect that hard work is about to get exploded.
Oh I certainly agree with you, about introducing a few non event T6 ships, to the Phoenix Epic Token's. One likely candidate they could consider a few of the R&D Promo Ships expanding the methods they could be earned, yet they'd still likely remain only with a smaller percentage of the playerbase.
Or they could design a ship just for Phoenix every now and then. If a few more were Fleet upgradeable, they could more than make up the difference as more Fleet Modules are required. I'm surprised that only recently we've saw the first Event ship that was Fleet upgradeable this last Summer, and might expect a few more event Ships, or others who may be expanded into account-wide unlocks in future!
As for Ultra Token's I don't expect we'd see new ship skins parts for every CSTORE, Lockbox or Lobi Ship mentioned in my post above; but a few skins for more popular ships be a way to expand appeal to some Ultra tokens!
In fact one Candidate is the Juniper which had 7 other designs that were never seen released; it might be nice to see 2 or 3 variations made available, and they could slowly introduce more for other ships as well...
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1252406/jupiter-needs-some-tlc
There are also a few T5 event ships that have for a long time been in the Lobi Store rather than the Phoenix.
@ambassadorkael#6946