I watched it live yesterday hoping for either a tease or an actual announcement, but it was mostly just the same old stuff I've heard on the weekly Livestream. The only new and interesting details were that the new Terran arc will finish in either January or May of next year, Al was star struck for the first time during a recent voice acting session (so they must have someone really big coming ... maybe Frakes?), and that his biggest disappointment was not being able to get Patrick Stewart.
And as usual we see Al's REAL goals - to get various Star Trek actors to sign his personal Star Trek props. Also, I like how he somehow remembers STO was released BEFORE the first JJ Abrahams Star Trek film - when the EVENTS of that film affected STO development in that they had to abandon stuff they had developed for the Romulans and Romulus in particular - not to mention Zachary Quinto (ST09's 'Mr. Spock') do some VO for the original STO tutorial.
Seems Al's memory isn't all that great these days - and I think he's burned out of Star Trek in general at this point. Hey 14 years on one project is a very long time - and maybe the game would be better served getting a lead with a 'fresh take'.
One can hope - but somehow I doubt that's happen.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I watched it live yesterday hoping for either a tease or an actual announcement, but it was mostly just the same old stuff I've heard on the weekly Livestream. The only new and interesting details were that the new Terran arc will finish in either January or May of next year, Al was star struck for the first time during a recent voice acting session (so they must have someone really big coming ... maybe Frakes?), and that his biggest disappointment was not being able to get Patrick Stewart.
That's a pity. I'm not interested in mirror stuff at all. Knowing that it will inspire the main story and possibly be the only type of content we'll be getting for a year or even a year and a half, isn't really inspiring.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
House United dropped in May of last year, and I think there usually is a content drop in late spring /early summer anyway even if it doesn't necessarily land in May.
Sorry... They can't deliver that regularly. It's not monetized, so it's not a priority.
While I would agree that content drops are entirely too infrequent for how well the game is supposedly doing, they do have a fairly regular schedule to it with missions generally releasing in January, late spring / early summer, and in the fall.
Sorry... They can't deliver that regularly. It's not monetized, so it's not a priority.
While I would agree that content drops are entirely too infrequent for how well the game is supposedly doing, they do have a fairly regular schedule to it with missions generally releasing in January, late spring / early summer, and in the fall.
It takes them six months to deliver content that will be blasted through in a few hours. I guarandamntee you that if playable content was a contributing factor in their profits, we'd be getting a steady flow of it all year round. They would find a way to make it happen...
I wonder what would happen if everyone proclaimed, "Not one red cent without content!" and refrained from buying a single Zen for six months. That would bring them to their knees. But enough of us won't do that because so many people are fine with throwing their money at fluff that, at the most, just lets them look a little different while repeating the same content over and over, but maybe a little faster. And when someone like me suggests that they actually charge for actual content, the "If they do that, I'll quit!" tantrums start.
The DilEx is dead. Cryptic doesn't even seem to acknowledge there's a problem. There is no fix. They stopped producing Fleet holdings, whic provided an actual demand for RD and people actually bought Zen to trade for it so they could get that part of each holding project. All the while they keep introducing more and more Zen purchases and the prices for them keep increasing. It won't be long at this rate before Pay to Get becomes the only Way to Get.
But I will noy spend money on fluff. Only actual playable content. Since the game went free to play, the only thing I spent Zen on was the Jupiter uniforms. And I traded RD for that Zen. So in all that time, Cryptic has received not a single penny from me. Because from me, there will be not one red cent without content. They start charging for story arcs, then I will buy the zen to unlock them. And I may even buy a ship or two.
Of all the star trek shows that have come and gone over my almost 49 years of mortal existence, I carry with me the memory of the stories they told. When STO ends, some parts of it will leave us with memories we can carry with us, but every ship we spent money to buy Zen to get will no longer be accessible. We are literally throwing money down a hole. And make no mistake... One day the sun WILL set on STO. How much will all these ships be to us when that happens? That's why I don't buy fluff. It has no real value. But I can take my memories of good storytelling with me. Too bad they are so few and far between in this game.
So again
Not one red cent without content!
Yes, it's true that when the game's servers are shut off for good, all uniforms, characters, ships, gear etc. will no longer be available for us to play with. However, one thing that WILL live on are the pics that we CAN take with our stuff as it is now, to show off in the future to show what kinds of memories we made while in game. I know I plan on taking as many pictures of my many ships & crew so I have the memories to share in the future.
For some that decided to do it, they have their 3D printed ships that they'll have a physical memory of. That's not within my budget to do, but at least with the pics, I'll have those to look back on.
Yes, it's true that when the game's servers are shut off for good, all uniforms, characters, ships, gear etc. will no longer be available for us to play with.
Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes. Both games were officially shut down but returned as simulators and/or "black market" servers.
And just to be clear for anyone who hasn't followed those, SWGs Emu servers didn't go live right agreed the game shut down, it took a little while and isn't technically finished yet even now, infact from what I can find many servers still don't have the Jump to Lightspeed expansion (ie space combat) enabled yet, and when it comes to CoH for years that game was considered impossible to emulate until it was suddenly revealed one day that someone had saved all of the code necessary to get a server running.
Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes. Both games were officially shut down but returned as simulators and/or "black market" servers.
And just to be clear for anyone who hasn't followed those, SWGs Emu servers didn't go live right agreed the game shut down, it took a little while and isn't technically finished yet even now, infact from what I can find many servers still don't have the Jump to Lightspeed expansion (ie space combat) enabled yet, and when it comes to CoH for years that game was considered impossible to emulate until it was suddenly revealed one day that someone had saved all of the code necessary to get a server running.
Not to get too far off topic with this stuff, but just for the record: the largest/most well-known SWG emu has all content up to the point of shutdown(yes, including JTL), and has even added a brand new planet. And I am pretty sure the same is true of the largest/most well-known COH (has all official content + new stuff now).
My point in bringing those up was not to say "the day after X game officially closes, you'll still be able to play". But my point is that a game shutting down is no longer "the end, forever" like it used to be. And that's pretty cool IMO
And as usual we see Al's REAL goals - to get various Star Trek actors to sign his personal Star Trek props. Also, I like how he somehow remembers STO was released BEFORE the first JJ Abrahams Star Trek film - when the EVENTS of that film affected STO development in that they had to abandon stuff they had developed for the Romulans and Romulus in particular - not to mention Zachary Quinto (ST09's 'Mr. Spock') do some VO for the original STO tutorial.
Seems Al's memory isn't all that great these days - and I think he's burned out of Star Trek in general at this point. Hey 14 years on one project is a very long time - and maybe the game would be better served getting a lead with a 'fresh take'.
One can hope - but somehow I doubt that's happen.
Be careful what you wish for. It might turn into a CW-esq Woke Trek that makes Disco see conservative
Sorry... They can't deliver that regularly. It's not monetized, so it's not a priority.
While I would agree that content drops are entirely too infrequent for how well the game is supposedly doing, they do have a fairly regular schedule to it with missions generally releasing in January, late spring / early summer, and in the fall.
It takes them six months to deliver content that will be blasted through in a few hours. I guarandamntee you that if playable content was a contributing factor in their profits, we'd be getting a steady flow of it all year round. They would find a way to make it happen...
I wonder what would happen if everyone proclaimed, "Not one red cent without content!" and refrained from buying a single Zen for six months. That would bring them to their knees. But enough of us won't do that because so many people are fine with throwing their money at fluff that, at the most, just lets them look a little different while repeating the same content over and over, but maybe a little faster. And when someone like me suggests that they actually charge for actual content, the "If they do that, I'll quit!" tantrums start.
The DilEx is dead. Cryptic doesn't even seem to acknowledge there's a problem. There is no fix. They stopped producing Fleet holdings, whic provided an actual demand for RD and people actually bought Zen to trade for it so they could get that part of each holding project. All the while they keep introducing more and more Zen purchases and the prices for them keep increasing. It won't be long at this rate before Pay to Get becomes the only Way to Get.
But I will noy spend money on fluff. Only actual playable content. Since the game went free to play, the only thing I spent Zen on was the Jupiter uniforms. And I traded RD for that Zen. So in all that time, Cryptic has received not a single penny from me. Because from me, there will be not one red cent without content. They start charging for story arcs, then I will buy the zen to unlock them. And I may even buy a ship or two.
Of all the star trek shows that have come and gone over my almost 49 years of mortal existence, I carry with me the memory of the stories they told. When STO ends, some parts of it will leave us with memories we can carry with us, but every ship we spent money to buy Zen to get will no longer be accessible. We are literally throwing money down a hole. And make no mistake... One day the sun WILL set on STO. How much will all these ships be to us when that happens? That's why I don't buy fluff. It has no real value. But I can take my memories of good storytelling with me. Too bad they are so few and far between in this game.
So again
Not one red cent without content!
Some might enjoy the memories of flying all sorts of different ships in ISA, Gravity Kills, Tzenkethi Front, the Breach and so on. Personally, I hardly care about the stories. They're fun to play and experience, but not really something that's memorable. Queued missions are, to me.
Fluff may not have real or less value to you, but that's still just your opinion.
Yes, it would be great if they released more content and I too might be willing to pay for it. But pretending that spending money to play a virtual mission is better than spending it on 'fluff' in that same virtual environment is just silly. We're all paying for experiences here, some differently than others.
And the risks of focussing so much on monetising content would be greater too. If a single ship doesn't prove popular, they can create another one that might be. Or create a new lockbox. A new event, or whatever.
There's no big loss there as the ship design devs have to create ships anyway while others can work on creating other stuff that can be sold. These things bring in money irrespective of how much content we get. Players still want to try out and fly different ships and use new stuff.
If, however, they put most of their money on content that takes much longer to create and it doesn't sell, they could quickly get into serious trouble.
'Just sell content' may sound nice, it's also too easy to just assume that this could replace all existing revenue streams safely.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
the player base has given them tons of ideas on what they want, would buy, etc, and nada...
What the more vocal portion of the playerbase says they would buy and what actually sells well are often two very different things. For example, people frequently say they would happily buy canon bridges and interiors, but when the dev team took the time to make an amazing, high quality, screen accurate Galaxy class interior it was a MASSIVE flop.
i may be wrong, but it appears a good portion of players are getting tired of LB only items, to include lobi only items. they also are not huge fans of toon locked items anymore.
The more vocal portion of the playerbase complains about those things, but the game is more profitable than ever so clearly people are buying all of them.
the player base has asked for methods to repackage things to send to other toons
Kael mentioned this on a livestream a long time ago, apparently they looked into it but were ultimately told no. Idk if it was someone at Cryptic that said no or if it was PWE, if it was PWE then maybe it's something they could revisit once the transition to Gearbox is complete but I wouldn't get my hopes up.
Borticus said on a livestream once that players have accumulated so much GPL over the years that it would be very hard to justify developing anything else for it, and since it doesn't affect the in-game economy in any way there really is no need to either.
the player base has given them tons of ideas on what they want, would buy, etc, and nada...
What the more vocal portion of the playerbase says they would buy and what actually sells well are often two very different things. For example, people frequently say they would happily buy canon bridges and interiors, but when the dev team took the time to make an amazing, high quality, screen accurate Galaxy class interior it was a MASSIVE flop.
There is simply not a lot of variety in interiors and not everyone flies a Galaxy class. Also, the flying Hilton was not the most liked bridge in the first place. Add to that the fact that the TOS bridge is emersion-breaking levels of bugged (few if any of the chairs actually work so the people sit on the floor with the station chairs impaling them) and it decreases the variety even more.
Worst of all, those interiors are not usable on most ships anyway, especially the newer ships, because they have to be added by hand into the database for each ship they can be used on, and they were spotty enough with that before to be a problem, and nowadays they don't seem to bother with it at all and just put that concrete monstrosity that makes it look like you fly the ship from a parking garage as the only available bridge/interior.
At the end of the day, they simply charge way too much for those c-store interiors considering how infrequently you can actually use them on favorite ships. If they had them linked so they are available for all ships (or at least all of the ships of the faction it is from) it would be a different story and they might actually sell even at that price.
It is one of the things they desperately need modern dev tools for, so it does not take so much time and effort to make interiors and other maps. There is a livestream where they showed the process for making maps and it is incredibly crude and labor intensive by modern standards, to the point where it is somewhat surprising that they can push out content even at the rate they currently do.
Sorry... They can't deliver that regularly. It's not monetized, so it's not a priority.
While I would agree that content drops are entirely too infrequent for how well the game is supposedly doing, they do have a fairly regular schedule to it with missions generally releasing in January, late spring / early summer, and in the fall.
It takes them six months to deliver content that will be blasted through in a few hours. I guarandamntee you that if playable content was a contributing factor in their profits, we'd be getting a steady flow of it all year round. They would find a way to make it happen...
I wonder what would happen if everyone proclaimed, "Not one red cent without content!" and refrained from buying a single Zen for six months. That would bring them to their knees. But enough of us won't do that because so many people are fine with throwing their money at fluff that, at the most, just lets them look a little different while repeating the same content over and over, but maybe a little faster. And when someone like me suggests that they actually charge for actual content, the "If they do that, I'll quit!" tantrums start.
The DilEx is dead. Cryptic doesn't even seem to acknowledge there's a problem. There is no fix. They stopped producing Fleet holdings, whic provided an actual demand for RD and people actually bought Zen to trade for it so they could get that part of each holding project. All the while they keep introducing more and more Zen purchases and the prices for them keep increasing. It won't be long at this rate before Pay to Get becomes the only Way to Get.
But I will noy spend money on fluff. Only actual playable content. Since the game went free to play, the only thing I spent Zen on was the Jupiter uniforms. And I traded RD for that Zen. So in all that time, Cryptic has received not a single penny from me. Because from me, there will be not one red cent without content. They start charging for story arcs, then I will buy the zen to unlock them. And I may even buy a ship or two.
Of all the star trek shows that have come and gone over my almost 49 years of mortal existence, I carry with me the memory of the stories they told. When STO ends, some parts of it will leave us with memories we can carry with us, but every ship we spent money to buy Zen to get will no longer be accessible. We are literally throwing money down a hole. And make no mistake... One day the sun WILL set on STO. How much will all these ships be to us when that happens? That's why I don't buy fluff. It has no real value. But I can take my memories of good storytelling with me. Too bad they are so few and far between in this game.
So again
Not one red cent without content!
Some might enjoy the memories of flying all sorts of different ships in ISA, Gravity Kills, Tzenkethi Front, the Breach and so on. Personally, I hardly care about the stories. They're fun to play and experience, but not really something that's memorable. Queued missions are, to me.
Fluff may not have real or less value to you, but that's still just your opinion.
Yes, it would be great if they released more content and I too might be willing to pay for it. But pretending that spending money to play a virtual mission is better than spending it on 'fluff' in that same virtual environment is just silly. We're all paying for experiences here, some differently than others.
And the risks of focussing so much on monetising content would be greater too. If a single ship doesn't prove popular, they can create another one that might be. Or create a new lockbox. A new event, or whatever.
There's no big loss there as the ship design devs have to create ships anyway while others can work on creating other stuff that can be sold. These things bring in money irrespective of how much content we get. Players still want to try out and fly different ships and use new stuff.
If, however, they put most of their money on content that takes much longer to create and it doesn't sell, they could quickly get into serious trouble.
'Just sell content' may sound nice, it's also too easy to just assume that this could replace all existing revenue streams safely.
the large problem your post avoids, is that the player base has given them tons of ideas on what they want, would buy, etc, and nada...
i may be wrong, but it appears a good portion of players are getting tired of LB only items, to include lobi only items. they also are not huge fans of toon locked items anymore.
the player base has asked for methods to repackage things to send to other toons, in forms of dil or GPL to do so...and? nada.
Toon-locked items are becoming a thing of the past in most cases. The downsides are that they put huge prices on account-wide unlocks, that they make things available through temporary events instead of episodes and that previously unlocked items like expensive ships aren't made account-wide unlocks (or that players aren't enabled to get something like a token to do so).
But anyway, my point was that them focussing on 'fluff' isn't a bad thing per se. Even if the execution of how they do it isn't necessarily always ideal.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
I dont like to put content on a paywall... but i do like the idea for "Holodeck Historic MIssions", where you can play mission based on episodes of ST, and that could be unlocked with dilithium, things like that...
The question is, if Cryptic does not fix the issue with the DilEx, will they keep taking oyut their credit cards, or will the wallets start closing.
Most of the people who are buying their zen with cash probably don't care that much about the current state of the DilEx, I know I don't. I think it sucks for F2Pers and I occasionally offer suggestions for sinks I'd be willing to buy Dil for, but at the end of the day it doesn't actually affect me so I really don't care. If anything I like the fact that the exchange rate is stuck at 500 because it maximizes the value I get when I do need some dil, and the backlog means I get the dil instantly.
I watched it live yesterday hoping for either a tease or an actual announcement, but it was mostly just the same old stuff I've heard on the weekly Livestream. The only new and interesting details were that the new Terran arc will finish in either January or May of next year, Al was star struck for the first time during a recent voice acting session (so they must have someone really big coming ... maybe Frakes?), and that his biggest disappointment was not being able to get Patrick Stewart.
The Star Struck bit got my attention. Since he eliminated Patrick Stewart, hmmm? Who else might grab his attention like that, above and beyond the Trek regulars he's already met? Maybe Frakes? Colm Meaney perhaps? Avery Brooks or Kate Mulgrew I could see. Of them I could much more readily see Kate Mulgrew as she has been busy doing Trek Voice Work these days. Whereas Avery Brooks is still his rather hermitlike jazzy self. I mean maybe Shatner? But He's got to be slowing down. Who else would hit a jaded Trek Producer like than? Scott Bakula maybe? Especially if he grew up on Quantum Leap?
Comments
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Seems Al's memory isn't all that great these days - and I think he's burned out of Star Trek in general at this point. Hey 14 years on one project is a very long time - and maybe the game would be better served getting a lead with a 'fresh take'.
One can hope - but somehow I doubt that's happen.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
That's a pity. I'm not interested in mirror stuff at all. Knowing that it will inspire the main story and possibly be the only type of content we'll be getting for a year or even a year and a half, isn't really inspiring.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
House United dropped in May of last year, and I think there usually is a content drop in late spring /early summer anyway even if it doesn't necessarily land in May.
While I would agree that content drops are entirely too infrequent for how well the game is supposedly doing, they do have a fairly regular schedule to it with missions generally releasing in January, late spring / early summer, and in the fall.
Yes, it's true that when the game's servers are shut off for good, all uniforms, characters, ships, gear etc. will no longer be available for us to play with. However, one thing that WILL live on are the pics that we CAN take with our stuff as it is now, to show off in the future to show what kinds of memories we made while in game. I know I plan on taking as many pictures of my many ships & crew so I have the memories to share in the future.
For some that decided to do it, they have their 3D printed ships that they'll have a physical memory of. That's not within my budget to do, but at least with the pics, I'll have those to look back on.
SWG and COH say otherwise
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
> SWG and COH say otherwise
What's SWG and COH?
Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes. Both games were officially shut down but returned as simulators and/or "black market" servers.
And just to be clear for anyone who hasn't followed those, SWGs Emu servers didn't go live right agreed the game shut down, it took a little while and isn't technically finished yet even now, infact from what I can find many servers still don't have the Jump to Lightspeed expansion (ie space combat) enabled yet, and when it comes to CoH for years that game was considered impossible to emulate until it was suddenly revealed one day that someone had saved all of the code necessary to get a server running.
Not to get too far off topic with this stuff, but just for the record: the largest/most well-known SWG emu has all content up to the point of shutdown(yes, including JTL), and has even added a brand new planet. And I am pretty sure the same is true of the largest/most well-known COH (has all official content + new stuff now).
My point in bringing those up was not to say "the day after X game officially closes, you'll still be able to play". But my point is that a game shutting down is no longer "the end, forever" like it used to be. And that's pretty cool IMO
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Be careful what you wish for. It might turn into a CW-esq Woke Trek that makes Disco see conservative
Some might enjoy the memories of flying all sorts of different ships in ISA, Gravity Kills, Tzenkethi Front, the Breach and so on. Personally, I hardly care about the stories. They're fun to play and experience, but not really something that's memorable. Queued missions are, to me.
Fluff may not have real or less value to you, but that's still just your opinion.
Yes, it would be great if they released more content and I too might be willing to pay for it. But pretending that spending money to play a virtual mission is better than spending it on 'fluff' in that same virtual environment is just silly. We're all paying for experiences here, some differently than others.
And the risks of focussing so much on monetising content would be greater too. If a single ship doesn't prove popular, they can create another one that might be. Or create a new lockbox. A new event, or whatever.
There's no big loss there as the ship design devs have to create ships anyway while others can work on creating other stuff that can be sold. These things bring in money irrespective of how much content we get. Players still want to try out and fly different ships and use new stuff.
If, however, they put most of their money on content that takes much longer to create and it doesn't sell, they could quickly get into serious trouble.
'Just sell content' may sound nice, it's also too easy to just assume that this could replace all existing revenue streams safely.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
There is simply not a lot of variety in interiors and not everyone flies a Galaxy class. Also, the flying Hilton was not the most liked bridge in the first place. Add to that the fact that the TOS bridge is emersion-breaking levels of bugged (few if any of the chairs actually work so the people sit on the floor with the station chairs impaling them) and it decreases the variety even more.
Worst of all, those interiors are not usable on most ships anyway, especially the newer ships, because they have to be added by hand into the database for each ship they can be used on, and they were spotty enough with that before to be a problem, and nowadays they don't seem to bother with it at all and just put that concrete monstrosity that makes it look like you fly the ship from a parking garage as the only available bridge/interior.
At the end of the day, they simply charge way too much for those c-store interiors considering how infrequently you can actually use them on favorite ships. If they had them linked so they are available for all ships (or at least all of the ships of the faction it is from) it would be a different story and they might actually sell even at that price.
It is one of the things they desperately need modern dev tools for, so it does not take so much time and effort to make interiors and other maps. There is a livestream where they showed the process for making maps and it is incredibly crude and labor intensive by modern standards, to the point where it is somewhat surprising that they can push out content even at the rate they currently do.
Toon-locked items are becoming a thing of the past in most cases. The downsides are that they put huge prices on account-wide unlocks, that they make things available through temporary events instead of episodes and that previously unlocked items like expensive ships aren't made account-wide unlocks (or that players aren't enabled to get something like a token to do so).
But anyway, my point was that them focussing on 'fluff' isn't a bad thing per se. Even if the execution of how they do it isn't necessarily always ideal.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
The Star Struck bit got my attention. Since he eliminated Patrick Stewart, hmmm? Who else might grab his attention like that, above and beyond the Trek regulars he's already met? Maybe Frakes? Colm Meaney perhaps? Avery Brooks or Kate Mulgrew I could see. Of them I could much more readily see Kate Mulgrew as she has been busy doing Trek Voice Work these days. Whereas Avery Brooks is still his rather hermitlike jazzy self. I mean maybe Shatner? But He's got to be slowing down. Who else would hit a jaded Trek Producer like than? Scott Bakula maybe? Especially if he grew up on Quantum Leap?