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Lifers Starting to Bail!
Felconian
Member Posts: 103
So based on the current situhation with subscribers leaving in droves....
Some LifeTime members are now trying to get refunds and threatening legal action against Cryptic.
I think its realy starting to hit home there and alot of guys are relizing they are going to take a loss.... I feel for alot of them but they not getting there Money back .... !
Sad day for many!
PS: This in no way refurs to the Entire Lifes Playerbase.... there have just been 2 more post's by life time members ...which has just been edit by Criptic!
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=150108
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=149954
New THread... (14th April)
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=150608
New Thread... (20th April)
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=152054
New Thread..(21st April)
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=152251
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=152437
PS: I am just posting the good one's ...!
Comments
I hate STO as much as the next guy but....
Sources?
Quotes?
Supporting information?
It looks more like a thread where you personally got tired of the game and know one or two other people who also did, and are now projecting that onto the entire playerbase. But some nice supporting information could clear that up.
I never was lifer .... and quit ofter my free 30days!
And i am not trying to project my ........onto ..... ???
..Just intresting to see the I quite's comming from Life's now ! ..,maybe there is nobody else to quit ....anymore ???
I've seen more lifers express their dissatisfaction over the game in the last week, but I can't say I've seen many asking for refunds since the end of the first month when you could still get one.
It seems damn near half the posts on the forums are lifers now. Maybe a big chunk of the monthlies are bailing at least until Season 2 in (maybe) July.
Edit: NM OP linked
The amusing thing here is that the Lifetimers are largely responsible for chasing other customers away. Cryptic then added fuel to the fire by creating an "If Ye Ain't Fer Us, Yer Agin Us!" mentality among what little player base they had and the Lifers and EVE refugees were all too happy to drive out the discontented. Now they can all sit around in their little special space station clubhouse and polish thier shiny blue titles, secure in the fact that they have priority in server queues.
Good community management might have made something of this mess, but the STO team remains arrogantly incapable.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
popcorn and enjoy the show
This game is a S**t Storm of epic proportions. You would need a rock for a brain to even buy it.
The lifers got what they deserved, no use in dropping tears now.
I just wish somehow this would bankrupt cryptic so we do not have to deal with their craptastic games anymore.
For a while I was really interested in STO, and then I saw what the game was turning into I decided against playing the game. I have since been able to see that my instincts about the game were correct.
I really don't see anything happening with the lifetime sub people though. They all had 30 days from what I have seen from reading the linked topics, and if they didn't like the game during that period they should have asked for their refund. If they didn't offer the 30 days then I can see them being able to complain, but they had enough time to make their choice.
By demanding exclusive goodies, they're effectively making the whole game exclusive to themselves, as the rest of us cancel our subs.
QFT and well said!
No the completely horrendous game they produced is what is chasing customers away. I got bored in CO after about 2 months, but it honestly took me 2 days to abhor STO.
I'll agree that the community didn't help as well. I have stated several times it's the worst community I have ever seen in a MMO.
I don't understand why people throw money at something without researching it first then have the gall to threaten lawsuits. I've done stupid things in my past, like paying for a one year subscription to Shadowbane, then realizing how bad of a game it was within the first week. I didn't go around bashing the game or threatening to sue anyone, because it was my own dumbass fault for investing money into something on blind faith that I would enjoy the game.
And what should we learn? Never buy a Cryptic game!
Life time subscriptions should've really raised the suspicion flag. You have the ask yourself, why do sucessful games not offer life time subs? Because its not profitable. STO Devs knew their game was half assed and would not last, so in addition to selling boxes, they sold two in a sense.
Even if you release a so-so game, if you treat your community right from Day 1 and make that a priority, many will stick with you through thick and thin. Cryptic sat back with folded hands while potential customers were brutalized on their forums. Also, the item shop in addition to the subscription was a point of contention. I have to wonder if these people really believed that they had a Triple-A title on their hands and that people would be lining up to play it. The STO development team just acted like they were far too clever to trouble themselves with trying to appeal to their customers, which they apparently view as walking sacks of money.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
They had plenty of warning. I finished the content in about 3 weeks with a full time job and a social life. It should have been clear in the 30 days time they got(not counting headstart and open beta) that the game lacked reasons to stay playing for more than a month, let alone a lifetime.
I have little sympathy for the lifers, especially now as they demand exclusive goodies that divert much needed dev attention away from core content. But that's ok. I might never resub again, so no skin off my nose.
I have seen a few rumblings among the lts's over there but not many demanding refunds. I think the problem is now that they're starting to get to the end/mid game and doing stf's, they see that a lot of the "haters" complaints were valid. It seems the non power gamers are in the same boat at the "power gamers" that made it to max level in a1-2 months. It's funny, before if you made it to RA5 in a month you were a power gamer. Now, if you make it in 2 months you're still a power gamer. To be honest, I felt the same way about the players complaining about no end content during head start. Once I started to get close to that level the truth became apparent. Some people have to see things for themselves I guess.
LTS's have been a major factor in chasing other subs off due to the sense of entitlement/superiority for forking over an extra $300 for a game. Sure it's your money but doing it doesn't make you a better player or more important. It seems in order to be a constructive post they need to start with " STO is the most awesome game ever...." I lump those post in with the "cryptic needs to die in a fire" posts. Both are engineered to provoke an emotional response whether intentional or not.
Yup.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I'm a lifer myself. I got the lifetime subscription knowing full well the game is gonna be lacking - to say the least - in the first 6 to 9 months. I had the extra cash, was really needing an MMO I can play once in a while without worrying about monthly sub and I like Star Trek, so I decided to blow it on STO. I wrote that money off long before spending it, but I can see how it can be somewhat painful to others as $240 isn't exactly a small amount.
But I think the problem with STO, and other new MMOs which release with little content (e.g. WAR, AoC, Aion), is that they're asking premium price for an inferior product. That worked before 2004. when there was little in the way of good MMOs, but now there are many, many games out there which give a lot more for the same (or less) money and people always prefer to invest their cash and time in those. New games should probably start out with a lower sub price ($5 to $7,50) and then increase it as the amount of content increases.
That or they should be released in the first place with a comparable or unique enough content to warrant the premium price. It seems that's what SWTOR is trying to do.
Just like Cryptic's other half-assed garbage-in-a-box, it got tons of unwarranted press by sites looking for clicks prior to launch, and in less 3 months, no one even cares about it.
The "gimmie gimmie" kids have all moved on to w/e is the next big thing, and any player that looks for longevity has either felt duped and moved on or saw this fish tank simulator on rails from a mile away and never thought twice about it.
Either way, they now have 2 games that are less then a year old, and don't have 150K monthly subs between the two of them. The lifers money is what's keeping Atari from locking Cryptic's doors. Knowing Atari, I'm sure they have the best intentions too *cough*beingsuedbyTurbine*cough*.
also there are many free games so ppl dont have to stick around and wait for fixes.
NEWS AT 11: Lifers turn on their own kind because that is pretty much all that is left due to the fact that they chased everyone else away. Now they spend their days going back and forth belittling each other because they know no better. Someone on the forum has an avatar whit the 3 monkeys of see no evil hear no evil and speak no evil with the words Big Blue on the bottom and i think his/hers avatar pretty much sums up lifers in general.
The fact that there was a lifetime sub again after the CO launch patch fiasco raised a red flag for me. The fact that the STO lifetime sub was about $100 more than the CO lts raised another.
Must be amazing to buy a lifetime sub... and then get banned.
Anyway, still lots of blues defending their game, adding those blue names for lifers was really a good idea for us to identify the defenders.
I'd agree with you that they probably thought the Star Trek IP is a license to print money. Same with Star Wars. Hopefully Bioware pays attention.
If they hadn't sold to Atari and had arranged a deal with a better publisher I believe Cryptic could have released a better game. As it was with Atari doing so poorly they needed to rush both CO and STO out and so they were forced to decide on what they could do in the shortest amount of time and hope the people would buy it. Not only buy it but love it enough to pay for extra stuff in the item shop.
Given time and a low investment and upkeep vs. moderate income profit margin they could turn them both into decent games, but I don't believe they have enough subscribers.