Something like half of that list is C-Store items, that's it I've waited as long as I said I would (until I heard what there next update would be) now it's time to cancel and move on STO gang enjoy but I can't support such a shallow and lifeless product......
I saw your "I quit" post on the forums. I had to laugh...a mod deleted the entire content of your post, but left the thread open for a while so fanbots could troll it before it finally got locked. WTG Cryptic.
Caitians were consistently asked for in beta, but Pakled? I realize that some of the people playing may bear a resemblance to these slow-witted schemers, but does that make them good starship Captains? I don't even recall seeing many Bolian or Saurian Captains during my brief time in the game. Starfleet must be getting desperate.
Pakled captains make no sense from an in-universe perspective. But Cryptic doesn't care about that! As long as you pony up as much money as you can, they are happy.
Pakled is about the dumbest (no pun intended) race they could have implemented.
They were in 1 episode out of 178 episodes spread over seven seasons.
IMO Cryptic is the Pakleds of the MMO Development universe.
They were seen as background aliens in a few episodes of DS9, "Whispers" has one prominently (it was also an very good episode.) But they have never been seen wearing Starfleet uniforms and there are no indications that Pakleds are even in the Federation.
The STO devs stole the CO engine to "make game go!"
i would love to see the sub numbers for this slag heap of a game. I look on the official forums and it is mostly blue Op's with a smidging of whites who post to quit. Can anyone say F2P
I would like to take this opportunity to post a preemptive I Quit.
I have never played the game or CO but I have wondered what it would be like to try it out from time to time. Well, no more. Paying monthly and having to shell cash out extra to fill out the lacking content is ridiculous.
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized" "The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
I played STO for two months, so I understand there's limited amount to be had in STO. The bottom line is that Cryptic is a bad game developer company, who puts in bare minimum effort, and charges premium prices and then some.
In vanilla wow i had the choice of 8 races, 4 alliance and 4 horde. War i had a choice of 6. EQ2 you had more choices than you knew what to do with it.
Star Trek to begin with you have 1... uno... one... human federation (until level 6 where you could play as klingon) anything else requires you to spend money.
All i've really seen in this articles is c-store, c-store, c-store, c-store...
People wonder why STO is failing, it really is... you compare registered accounts to subscriptions that even the devs say is just over 100,000 to other means (those graphs, and xfire et al)
it will fail... doesn't help you can level in 2 weeks as a casual, and then bore yourself to death on the same basic PvP maps you played at level 6. (harder to get in at that level, queue is.. oh gawd).
Game, like CO before it, is a fail... cryptic should have concentrated on ONE MMO.... instead of being the happy meal at mcdonalds.... i hear they have a 3rd one in development.. anyone else wanna facepalm with me?
1. No. You start out with more than a half dozen different races for the Federation faction (and another half-dozen for the Klingons). That doesn't even count "Alien" which is essentially a built-your-own wildcard race.
2. You can get access to the Klingon faction at level 5... it's essentially a tutorial period up 'till there. Doesn't take that long.
3. They're adding a few new ships and bridges (which don't do squat for gameplay or stats, just cosmetic) to the c-store. They're also adding a couple more playable races... which is a short-cut for customizing an Alien toon.
4. The joined trill is not being added to the c-store but being added to the Klingon faction which is something that people with the joined-trill prerelease bonus have been asking for.
5. I think it's premature to say STO is failing. A lot of people are still playing it and enjoying it. Even more importantly, a lot of people are complaining about it, which means: A) they're playing it, or they're interested in playing it.
[mod edit]
3. It doesn't matter that it's cosmetic and doesn't effect game balance. If a company is going to ask customers to pay a subscription fee, which until now has been used to develop content & fluff for free game updates in this genre, with the exception of yearly expansions for a select few games, you don't ALSO charge them AGAIN in a C-Store. That's called double-dipping on your customers. It's not illegal, just unethical.
5. I'm not presumptuous enough to declare STO as failing, because only time will tell. However, how long will a company that puts in the bare minimum when it comes to development and game design last, when also accompanied with bad business decision making and bad ethics? Cryptic itself may not go under, but STO will live or die by its own merits, and the popular opinion is that STO doesn't have enough merits to be worth subscribing to. That cannot bode well for its future.
I'm sorry, WoW is as close to McDonald's as it gets. Popular because it was designed for the masses, I tired of it years ago and moved on to superior products.
I'd like to know what you call superior to WoW... Cause Sto can't be one of them
I have a Lifetime sub to STO, and I like the game, even with it's flaws... but WoW beats it in many ways.
I'm also inclined to believe that WoW has so many subscriptions, because it is a high quality and fun game. There are other games designed to appeal to the masses, yet they aren't garnering millions of subscriptions. So this McDonald's argument is stupid.
These costs are significant. But also consider that (1) it is a niche product targetted at fans of the IP (so the value of STO for fans can't be directly compared to different MMOs, the IP enhances the value for that niche of fans) and (2) that these C store offerings, if you follow the link and read the details, don't include any of the gameplay - effecting items that all F2P games have. Lastly, the $5 retrains are over priced, but that's because you can always retrain through in-game resources unless you don't plan well, or like to retrain everyday, etc. This is not like "kill 20,000 X to get a retrain or else pay $5" from F2P games, more like "you reached level 20 have a retrain", etc.
I love forums, I wonder how much money you guys waste on energy drinks, beer and cigarettes each month. The money you spend vs the time you spend is not very much, I play 20-40 hrs a week and pay $15.00 a month. Have a nice day
These costs are significant. But also consider that (1) it is a niche product targetted at fans of the IP (so the value of STO for fans can't be directly compared to different MMOs, the IP enhances the value for that niche of fans) and (2) that these C store offerings, if you follow the link and read the details, don't include any of the gameplay - effecting items that all F2P games have. Lastly, the $5 retrains are over priced, but that's because you can always retrain through in-game resources unless you don't plan well, or like to retrain everyday, etc. This is not like "kill 20,000 X to get a retrain or else pay $5" from F2P games, more like "you reached level 20 have a retrain", etc.
You're not getting it. Part of our subscription money, possibly 1/3 to 1/2 is being used to create stuff that they'll charge us for! In other words, they charge us twice for the same stuff. They first charge us a monthly fee, so that they can stay in business and develop more content, and then they charge us AGAIN to get the stuff they developed using our subscription fees to create.
The value of STO to Star Trek fans can be compared to the value of WoW to Warcraft fans, WAR to Warhammer fans, AoC to Conan fans, SWG to Star Wars fans and so on and so forth. In other words, Cryptic is charging more money than any other P2P game on the market to have access to everything they've been developing with our subscription money.
I love forums, I wonder how much money you guys waste on energy drinks, beer and cigarettes each month. The money you spend vs the time you spend is not very much, I play 20-40 hrs a week and pay $15.00 a month. Have a nice day
I don't use energy drinks, drink beer, or smoke. But if you insist on arguing this, fine, I'll win this logic argument.
So you pay $15/mo and get 20-40 hours a week of entertainment. So what are you doing that's entertaining? Something that was in the game at release? Then you already paid for that with the box price. So I ask again, what are you getting for your monthly fee? Two STFs? That takes all of 4 hours to complete, and then you're just repeating it. So you think 4 hours worth of new content is worth the $30 worth of subscription fees for March and April?
The going rate for quality content, without repeating it, is .80 cents per hour. You, of course, can repeat that content as much as you want. So you pay $50 and get 40 hours of content with most games these days. That content is quality content, and RPG's generally have multiple ways to beat the game. So you get upwards to 100+ hours of content for $50. STO offers you 80 hours of content for $50. That alone is worth the box price. However, consider that the content isn't high quality. Most of it is a reuse of maps you've already gotten tired of in T1 and T2. But let's ignore that. So what do you get for the $15/mo, since you've already paid for all the content that was released with the box? You're definitely not getting your moneys worth, regardless of how cheap $15/mo is for entertainment. PLUS, they are charging you for items in the C-Store that was developed using your subscription money, further decreasing the value of your dollar per hour of NEW content they release.
These costs are significant. But also consider that (1) it is a niche product targetted at fans of the IP (so the value of STO for fans can't be directly compared to different MMOs, the IP enhances the value for that niche of fans) and (2) that these C store offerings, if you follow the link and read the details, don't include any of the gameplay - effecting items that all F2P games have. Lastly, the $5 retrains are over priced, but that's because you can always retrain through in-game resources unless you don't plan well, or like to retrain everyday, etc. This is not like "kill 20,000 X to get a retrain or else pay $5" from F2P games, more like "you reached level 20 have a retrain", etc.
As a fan of the IP, the C-Store items don't add value for me, they take value away for me. Why? Because I'm feeling like one of my favourite IPs is being milked for money rather than being respected and treated with care. Just thinking about buying/subscribing to this game mskes me feel ripped off, like I can feel a shadowy hand grasping at my credit card.
The value of the C-Store also becomes very highly overpriced when we consider that this game is half done at best. Why is Cryptic putting so many resources towards filling up the C-Store at such an alarming rate when the main game is still content light? Shouldn't they put more effort into finishing the game?
Finally, the value olf the C-Store is incredibly overpriced when I consider that other MMOs would give me the equivalent value, and more, for absolutely free in the form of regular free content updates. Even MMOs that do dabble slightly in microtransactions manage to keep those out balanced very heavily with free stuff. I don't feel like I'm missing anything because the sheer amount of free content blows away the amount of paid content.
I love forums, I wonder how much money you guys waste on energy drinks, beer and cigarettes each month. The money you spend vs the time you spend is not very much, I play 20-40 hrs a week and pay $15.00 a month. Have a nice day
Absolutely none.
Actually, I bought one case of beer last month for me and my friends, but that was the first beer I've bought in about 6 months. I don't waste my money on things I don't need to waste my money on.
STO is such a poor shakllow game that buying stuff from the C-Store is like casting pearls before swine anyway. Maybe if it was a good, robust and complete game, then the C-Store items would seem like less of a joke.
I love forums, I wonder how much money you guys waste on energy drinks, beer and cigarettes each month. The money you spend vs the time you spend is not very much, I play 20-40 hrs a week and pay $15.00 a month. Have a nice day
I buy beer. But I don't expect Michelob to put resources towards developing a proprietary cap in order sell me a specialized opener. If Cryptic brewed beer, the cap would be fluff because I can always just break the bottle to enjoy the content.
And you know what, Michelob sure doesn't charge customers a premium when they release their new box and bottle designs.
The last Update they had they broke the game ... AND ...did not include the content they said they would. Then they edited the post on the forums so yea keep a copy to see if they actually do release what they say they will?
C-Store ..C-Store ... need I go on!
It is a sad day when you actually have people who defend this game. It really shows how deceived they are... blindly following the IP into the fire! Especially when short sided players support a tittle like this... it makes it easer for them to produce the same grade of MMO (If you can call it that) ... again.
All content should be free ... because you pay your subs! ... And look it will take 6 months if they keep putting out 2 extra missions per month to give you 2 days play time! Considering it takes you two hours to complete a mission!
In vanilla wow i had the choice of 8 races, 4 alliance and 4 horde. War i had a choice of 6. EQ2 you had more choices than you knew what to do with it.
Star Trek to begin with you have 1... uno... one... human federation (until level 6 where you could play as klingon) anything else requires you to spend money.
All i've really seen in this articles is c-store, c-store, c-store, c-store...
People wonder why STO is failing, it really is... you compare registered accounts to subscriptions that even the devs say is just over 100,000 to other means (those graphs, and xfire et al)
it will fail... doesn't help you can level in 2 weeks as a casual, and then bore yourself to death on the same basic PvP maps you played at level 6. (harder to get in at that level, queue is.. oh gawd).
Game, like CO before it, is a fail... cryptic should have concentrated on ONE MMO.... instead of being the happy meal at mcdonalds.... i hear they have a 3rd one in development.. anyone else wanna facepalm with me?
Yes I will!
Really, I felt just the same... STO is short of anything and half of the new entries are C-Store. I mean, when a MMO is full to the seams with content, like say EQ2 is, then adding fluff to a store, ok. But when a game is already the bare minimum then it just stinks.
Indeed making 2 MMOs at the same time was an epic fail. Imagine one full of content and well rounded Champions instead of the mess of two mediocre half assed MMOs we have... Classic backfire of greed. When you want to have everything you may well end up having nothing at all.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I see a lot of C-Store crap in upcoming releases and frivolous "candy" like emotes/costumes, etc. No actual content to keep and entertain players who reach the cap. It's almost as if Cryptic wants this game to die. Sad, really. I thought this game showed a lot of promise over CO. I actually had fun with the game until I reached level cap and there was nothing else to do except the same exploration daily mission and raid. Maybe they need more than 7 content designers since content is their biggest commodity that's missing.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
IMO Cryptic is the Pakleds of the MMO Development universe.
I'd say Ferengi, myself.
The Developement Dept are Pakleds.
The Marketing Dept are Ferengi
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT Playing: Skyrim Following: The Repopulation I want a Virtual World, not just a Game. ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
Selling product after product in the C store when you charge a monthly fee is the epitamey of greed, know matter how fluffy said items are. Instead of concentrating on content they concentrate on milking their community dry. I seriously hope those still playing the game gives Crypitc a big FU and quit. If people blindfully accept RMT on top of a P2P sub by a substandard company such as Cryptic, it will be nothing but a downward spiral for the rest of the MMO community.
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
IMO Cryptic is the Pakleds of the MMO Development universe.
I'd say Ferengi, myself.
The Developement Dept are Pakleds.
The Marketing Dept are Ferengi
I'd classify the PR dept as Pakleds, also.
I have to admit I was mildly amused by the appropriateness of Ferengi being in the C-store, but everything else this early in the game's life should be free updates, especially seeing how woefully content lite the game is.
Comments
I saw your "I quit" post on the forums. I had to laugh...a mod deleted the entire content of your post, but left the thread open for a while so fanbots could troll it before it finally got locked. WTG Cryptic.
so much for the promis of Catians being the First new race.
Gues they mean't first after Parkelds and Tholians
They were seen as background aliens in a few episodes of DS9, "Whispers" has one prominently (it was also an very good episode.) But they have never been seen wearing Starfleet uniforms and there are no indications that Pakleds are even in the Federation.
The STO devs stole the CO engine to "make game go!"
i would love to see the sub numbers for this slag heap of a game. I look on the official forums and it is mostly blue Op's with a smidging of whites who post to quit. Can anyone say F2P
I would like to take this opportunity to post a preemptive I Quit.
I have never played the game or CO but I have wondered what it would be like to try it out from time to time. Well, no more. Paying monthly and having to shell cash out extra to fill out the lacking content is ridiculous.
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized"
"The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
Box Price for STO = Okay
Box Price + $15/mo = Not worth it.
Box Price + Monthly Fee + C-Store = Bad Business
I played STO for two months, so I understand there's limited amount to be had in STO. The bottom line is that Cryptic is a bad game developer company, who puts in bare minimum effort, and charges premium prices and then some.
3. It doesn't matter that it's cosmetic and doesn't effect game balance. If a company is going to ask customers to pay a subscription fee, which until now has been used to develop content & fluff for free game updates in this genre, with the exception of yearly expansions for a select few games, you don't ALSO charge them AGAIN in a C-Store. That's called double-dipping on your customers. It's not illegal, just unethical.
5. I'm not presumptuous enough to declare STO as failing, because only time will tell. However, how long will a company that puts in the bare minimum when it comes to development and game design last, when also accompanied with bad business decision making and bad ethics? Cryptic itself may not go under, but STO will live or die by its own merits, and the popular opinion is that STO doesn't have enough merits to be worth subscribing to. That cannot bode well for its future.
I'm also inclined to believe that WoW has so many subscriptions, because it is a high quality and fun game. There are other games designed to appeal to the masses, yet they aren't garnering millions of subscriptions. So this McDonald's argument is stupid.
Here is the dreaded STO C store itself.
ships (cosmetic)
Empire Bridge Pack II: Bird-of-Prey ($3)
Federation Advanced Escort - Hephaestus Class ($2)
Federation Assault Cruiser – Imperial Class ($3)
Federation Bridge Pack I: Star Cruiser ($2.50)
Federation Bridge Pack II: Light Cruiser ($1.50)
Klingon Empire Bridge Pack I: Battle Cruiser ($2.50)
account services
Retrain ($5)
Two Additional Character Slots ($6.25)
Captain Rename ($3.50)
races
Playable Federation Tellarite ($2.50)
Playable Federation Klingon ($3)
Playable Federation Ferengi ($1)
These costs are significant. But also consider that (1) it is a niche product targetted at fans of the IP (so the value of STO for fans can't be directly compared to different MMOs, the IP enhances the value for that niche of fans) and (2) that these C store offerings, if you follow the link and read the details, don't include any of the gameplay - effecting items that all F2P games have. Lastly, the $5 retrains are over priced, but that's because you can always retrain through in-game resources unless you don't plan well, or like to retrain everyday, etc. This is not like "kill 20,000 X to get a retrain or else pay $5" from F2P games, more like "you reached level 20 have a retrain", etc.
Cryptic is trying a Customer Development approach to MMO creation.
I love forums, I wonder how much money you guys waste on energy drinks, beer and cigarettes each month. The money you spend vs the time you spend is not very much, I play 20-40 hrs a week and pay $15.00 a month. Have a nice day
You're not getting it. Part of our subscription money, possibly 1/3 to 1/2 is being used to create stuff that they'll charge us for! In other words, they charge us twice for the same stuff. They first charge us a monthly fee, so that they can stay in business and develop more content, and then they charge us AGAIN to get the stuff they developed using our subscription fees to create.
The value of STO to Star Trek fans can be compared to the value of WoW to Warcraft fans, WAR to Warhammer fans, AoC to Conan fans, SWG to Star Wars fans and so on and so forth. In other words, Cryptic is charging more money than any other P2P game on the market to have access to everything they've been developing with our subscription money.
I don't use energy drinks, drink beer, or smoke. But if you insist on arguing this, fine, I'll win this logic argument.
So you pay $15/mo and get 20-40 hours a week of entertainment. So what are you doing that's entertaining? Something that was in the game at release? Then you already paid for that with the box price. So I ask again, what are you getting for your monthly fee? Two STFs? That takes all of 4 hours to complete, and then you're just repeating it. So you think 4 hours worth of new content is worth the $30 worth of subscription fees for March and April?
The going rate for quality content, without repeating it, is .80 cents per hour. You, of course, can repeat that content as much as you want. So you pay $50 and get 40 hours of content with most games these days. That content is quality content, and RPG's generally have multiple ways to beat the game. So you get upwards to 100+ hours of content for $50. STO offers you 80 hours of content for $50. That alone is worth the box price. However, consider that the content isn't high quality. Most of it is a reuse of maps you've already gotten tired of in T1 and T2. But let's ignore that. So what do you get for the $15/mo, since you've already paid for all the content that was released with the box? You're definitely not getting your moneys worth, regardless of how cheap $15/mo is for entertainment. PLUS, they are charging you for items in the C-Store that was developed using your subscription money, further decreasing the value of your dollar per hour of NEW content they release.
As a fan of the IP, the C-Store items don't add value for me, they take value away for me. Why? Because I'm feeling like one of my favourite IPs is being milked for money rather than being respected and treated with care. Just thinking about buying/subscribing to this game mskes me feel ripped off, like I can feel a shadowy hand grasping at my credit card.
The value of the C-Store also becomes very highly overpriced when we consider that this game is half done at best. Why is Cryptic putting so many resources towards filling up the C-Store at such an alarming rate when the main game is still content light? Shouldn't they put more effort into finishing the game?
Finally, the value olf the C-Store is incredibly overpriced when I consider that other MMOs would give me the equivalent value, and more, for absolutely free in the form of regular free content updates. Even MMOs that do dabble slightly in microtransactions manage to keep those out balanced very heavily with free stuff. I don't feel like I'm missing anything because the sheer amount of free content blows away the amount of paid content.
Absolutely none.
Actually, I bought one case of beer last month for me and my friends, but that was the first beer I've bought in about 6 months. I don't waste my money on things I don't need to waste my money on.
STO is such a poor shakllow game that buying stuff from the C-Store is like casting pearls before swine anyway. Maybe if it was a good, robust and complete game, then the C-Store items would seem like less of a joke.
I'd say Ferengi, myself.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I buy beer. But I don't expect Michelob to put resources towards developing a proprietary cap in order sell me a specialized opener. If Cryptic brewed beer, the cap would be fluff because I can always just break the bottle to enjoy the content.
And you know what, Michelob sure doesn't charge customers a premium when they release their new box and bottle designs.
Maybe they should rename the game to CSO (aka C-Store Online)..
Well!
The last Update they had they broke the game ... AND ...did not include the content they said they would. Then they edited the post on the forums so yea keep a copy to see if they actually do release what they say they will?
C-Store ..C-Store ... need I go on!
It is a sad day when you actually have people who defend this game. It really shows how deceived they are... blindly following the IP into the fire! Especially when short sided players support a tittle like this... it makes it easer for them to produce the same grade of MMO (If you can call it that) ... again.
All content should be free ... because you pay your subs! ... And look it will take 6 months if they keep putting out 2 extra missions per month to give you 2 days play time! Considering it takes you two hours to complete a mission!
Enjoy the new content ..if you get it ????
..lol
Yes I will!
Really, I felt just the same... STO is short of anything and half of the new entries are C-Store. I mean, when a MMO is full to the seams with content, like say EQ2 is, then adding fluff to a store, ok. But when a game is already the bare minimum then it just stinks.
Indeed making 2 MMOs at the same time was an epic fail. Imagine one full of content and well rounded Champions instead of the mess of two mediocre half assed MMOs we have... Classic backfire of greed. When you want to have everything you may well end up having nothing at all.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I see a lot of C-Store crap in upcoming releases and frivolous "candy" like emotes/costumes, etc. No actual content to keep and entertain players who reach the cap. It's almost as if Cryptic wants this game to die. Sad, really. I thought this game showed a lot of promise over CO. I actually had fun with the game until I reached level cap and there was nothing else to do except the same exploration daily mission and raid. Maybe they need more than 7 content designers since content is their biggest commodity that's missing.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
The Developement Dept are Pakleds.
The Marketing Dept are Ferengi
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT
Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
Selling product after product in the C store when you charge a monthly fee is the epitamey of greed, know matter how fluffy said items are. Instead of concentrating on content they concentrate on milking their community dry. I seriously hope those still playing the game gives Crypitc a big FU and quit. If people blindfully accept RMT on top of a P2P sub by a substandard company such as Cryptic, it will be nothing but a downward spiral for the rest of the MMO community.
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
Can't they be both?
You have SCARY thoughts. That would be one nasty hybrid.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I'd classify the PR dept as Pakleds, also.
I have to admit I was mildly amused by the appropriateness of Ferengi being in the C-store, but everything else this early in the game's life should be free updates, especially seeing how woefully content lite the game is.