STO, getting it's own Cryptic version of an NGE?

Esquire1980

With STO going F2P, They have a build on tribble (their beta test server for this specific round of CHANGES) that CHANGES professions as far as existing ship powers/etc (even bought and paid for ships via the C-store), CHANGES crafting almost in it's entirity as far as being able to craft and what needed for the process, CHANGES the economy that has been the status quo for the last 2 years totally, "take away" development such as VA ship tokens/powers for some existing ships/ingame methods of respecs, CHANGES the "raids" (in game STFs as they are called),  some items in their store going up to even $20 for a single virtual ship while others just got an increase of pricing by 100%, etc etc etc.  You can ck out Cryptic's "tribble" forums for a complete list of forthcoming CHANGES.

Their forums are erupting, "I quit" threads all over the place, people leaving the game in droves (even some who have played since launch and wrote guides/etc), PVP has become so unbalanced on their test server that it is almost unplayable unless you spend large dollars in their store, and maybe last but not least, the phrase of "Working as designed" (close to SOE's "working as intended") showing up in dev posts.  Devs getting testy with customers in threads due to all the negativity.  Cryptic community rep locking/deleting/moving threads left and right, etc etc etc, right on down the line with exactly what happened with SOE's NGE.

I would imagine this will work as well as SOE's NGE did.  It would not surprise me that about 3 months after this goes live, that the game will be a totally dead server, put on life support, and finaly when CBS pulls the IP, ends up the exact same as Star Wars Galaxies.

MMORPG.com, will you be taking out the SWG Vet Refuge forums (due to that game closing) and starting 1 over here (for the same reasoning you did for SWG)?

RefMinor

Originally posted by Esquire1980

With STO going F2P, They have a build on tribble (their beta test server for this specific round of CHANGES) that CHANGES professions as far as existing ship powers/etc (even bought and paid for ships via the C-store), CHANGES crafting almost in it's entirity as far as being able to craft and what needed for the process, CHANGES the economy that has been the status quo for the last 2 years totally, CHANGES the "raids" (in game STFs as they are called),  some items in their store going up to even $20 for a single virtual ship while others just got an increase of pricing by 100%, etc etc etc.  You can ck out Cryptic's "tribble" forums for a complete list of forthcoming CHANGES.
Their forums are erupting, "I quit" threads all over the place, people leaving the game in droves (even some who have played since launch and wrote guides/etc), PVP has become so unbalanced on their test server that it is almost unplayable unless you spend large dollars in their store, and maybe last but not least, the phrase of "Working as designed" (close to SOE's "working as intended") showing up in dev posts.  Devs getting testy with customers in threads due to all the negativity.  Cryptic community rep locking/deleting threads left and right, etc etc etc, right on down the line with exactly what happened with SOE's NGE.
I would imagine this will work as well as SOE's NGE did.  It would not surprise me that about 3 months after this goes live, that the game will be a totally dead server, put on life support, and finaly when CBS pulls the IP, ends up the exact same as Star Wars Galaxies.

 

I guess tis version is the Next Generation Experience/Enhancement

Garkan

Its a shame really, Cryptic where slowly pulling STO around. Some exra content and improvments to ground combat and some other tweaks might have seen the game finally come good. I guess we will never know now.

Cacaphony

It's very interesting, if not dissapointing to see whats going on in the STO forums.  It seems like the game is taking a 180 degree turn away from the direction that D Stahl tried to get the game to go in.  Things such as C store items dropping in price.   On the Stoked podcast today, I think Perrigrine Falcon said something to the affect that around 80 or so percent of the items in the store have seen a price increase (as it currently stands on tribble).  

 

 

The biggest backlash I have seen is about the crafting with the implimentation of Dilithium, though it seems that any time Cryptic opens their mouth these days, a bad idea comes out.  Some of the recepies require large amounts; around 31k refined dilithium, and there is a daily cap of 8k refined dilithium per day.  So, that item we could craft in a few hours by collecting data samples, now requires a few days.  Now, I don't think EVERY item requires dilithium, just odd MK gear and high end even MK gear.   Though, Im still not entirely clear on that.   

 

--> http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=237501 -- Dev blog 14, crafting thread.  As of this posting, that thread is near 500 posts of mostly negative feedbac. 

 

I am sure there are many other aspects of the switch to F2P that are also contributing to the widening spread of forum rage over on the STO forums, Ive just been paying more attention to the crafting part.  

 

 

I am not sure about the "People leaving in droves" part though.  I know people are wary, and long time defenders of Cryptic such as Armsman seemed a little taken back by the crafting changes.  Also, the Nagus seemed a little surprised as well, and to see him doubtfull like that, well, that worries me.  I don't think many people have left yet, but I do believe that they will start to leave very soon if Cryptic dosen't do something fast.  

 

"Cryptic community rep locking/deleting/moving threads left and right, etc etc etc"

I'm not sure which threads are being locked or deleted.  I havent looked at every thread and it's entirely possible that I just didn't notice.  Can you link a couple or give examples?

 

 

Esquire1980

Armsman is in fact in the same "fleet" I'm in.  Even he seems to be a bit dismayed due to all of these CHANGES.  And in his defense, just about ev1 is, to a certain extent or another.  Very simular to SOE's NGE here also.  It was all inclusive, if you didn't care about creature handler being removed (mostly by never playing the prof or wanting pets), then you were ticked due to the removal of unlocked jedi or just having jedi being "one clickly".  SOE's NGE had something for ev1 to hate.  This is about the same.  If P2W didn't grab you right out of the starting box, then the crafting CHANGES did.  It's getting ev1, somewhere, also.

You have to be rather fast seeing the threads.  The forums are moving so fast these days with new threads that the moved/deleted threads are getting buried fast.  This was about the same in SOE's CU, NGE, C6CD also.  To Storm's credit, he's moving alot more threads to the beta forums than he's deleting but there are many people asking why he's intentionaly "hiding" them there altho that may be where they belong at this point in time.

In TOS Vets, anyway, I've seen that "fleet" go from about 30 on per/night to hardly any1.  BigRedJedi has now said his "goodbyes" in a thread in the PVP forums that for some reason or another, Cryptic left up.  Most of the "I quit" threads are really jumped on fast and has been that way since launch, pretty much.  I read numorous threads from people saying they are activly talking people out of trying STO in F2P mode for 1 CHANGE or another.  Bioware, I would imagine, certainly likes the fact that Cryptic is going thru all this trouble as TOR seems to be talked about on the STO forums about as much as regular STO gameplay with entire fleets now moving to TOR in Dec.  I have a couple of STO fleets using my vent server as a way to keep in contact so that ev1, who would want to, end up on the same TOR server.

I've got the excel.  There are at least 4 long threads on the removal of the 3 transwarp locations on this ship alone.  And then to keep the 6 out of the 9 locations you have, you would have to switch consoles with the T3 and the T5 ships to do it.  (have to buy both).  Altho, I transfered my main over to tribble and altho the excel is really the only C-Store ship not to get another console spot so I actualy had to remove a console I was using to use this new console (with 3 transwarp locations and a 7.6 Eff power to everything), that ship is basicly very OP now.  In PVP, it realy took over 3 players to take mine out and with the extra power, I believe that it's getting very close to tanking a full team of 5.  With the console and my crew of EFF BOF's, my excel runs at max weapon power and 80 shield power to boot.  P2W sure works there, for me anyway (not so much the guy who I'm in a PVP match with tho) but they still turn around and take something away from it to boot.  (another characteristic of the original NGE)

To be honest, what will probably get to the last remaining hold-outs of Cryptic defenders will be the up coming skill point revamp.  If I was Cryptic, at this stage in the game, I would make sure that no1 lost nothing, but that is clearly not the design here and I would believe at this point, there will something in that CHANGE that leads directly to the C-Store there also.

To be honest, I think now that Dstahl seen what was happening and decided not to be a part of it.  There were specific developers who got blamed for years (even to the point of affecting their job seaches) over SOE's NGE.

It never ceases to amaze me how many gaming companies repeat the same mistakes and wonder why in the aftermath that they just didn't get rich over it.  Head scrather, to be sure.

Personaly, just a month or so ago, and after having been in beta for TOR, I wasn't planning to leave STO for TOR.  Their CHANGES have now CHANGED my mind about this in it's entirety.  I just do not care to watch another NGE go down or watch a game get life support and then death because of it.

SyrusSyi

STO will be better f2p then it is now probely

Greymantle4

I really liked the ship combat in this game. The ground combat I found really really bad because of the stupid AI for the NPC.  If they decide to rework the ground part of this game I would give it another shot. 

toodlepip123

Can I POST random words In CAPS TOO?

 

Also your parting paragraph about the SOE devs not being able to gain employment... You do realize that almost all the devs from SOE went to Bioware Austin back in 2005/6 right?

Cacaphony

Originally posted by toodlepip123

Can I POST random words In CAPS TOO?

 

 

Nothing holding YOU back!  Go FOR it!

 

 

Anyway, It will be intersting to hear explinations by devs, and see what happens in the coming weeks.  

Siveria

This seems to be happening to alot of games as of late, they go f2p, or rather freeimum in some cases, like city of heroes due to the fact almost everything is locked if u don't sub or buy it. I really don't understand whats in the minds of these mmorpg devs now a days, why do they insist on not listening to their playerbase? When changes are getting this amount of negative feedback on the offical forums you'd think the devs would stop and think it may be a bad idea to alienanate the last remaining players you have. I myself was looking forward to sto f2p, but now.. not so much since it seems they are going to destroy the game entirely.

Well we can only hope they change their minds.. But its cryptic so they probally won't sadly. Kinda reminds me of the FF14 debacle, with squaresoft going all draconic and not listening to their playerbase at all, then the game pretty much fell flat on its butt at release. Now square is still scrambling almost a year later to fix their game. Heard its going p2p in dec too.

ShardWarrior

Just my 2 cents here... there is still time for Cryptic to adjust pricing on crafted items and the C-Store.  Nothing is truly set in stone until it is put live.

 

With that said, I would hope they will take into consideration the feedback they are receiving.   Knowing Cryptic and from personal experience, however, I doubt they will.  The changes to ships/consoles from the P2W store were enough to get quite a few people I know to leave the game.  Historically, Cryptic has been known to make poorly thought out, large scale changes to their games (eg. ED in CoH) which led to both subscription losses and overall reputation losses they cannot recover from.

 

I certainly hope that STO does not go the direction of SWG, but I would not be surprised if it did.  Cryptic simply does not have what it takes to give this IP justice IMO, which is a shame.

Baxslash

As much as everyone is pouncing on the Devs and GMs for all the changes and saying they are having really bad ideas coming to the fore, its not them pushing all these changes through, its the accounting, management and upper echelons of the companies, they see ways to expoit the player base out of hard earned money, and, no matter how many are crying "FOUL", they keep on dipping more and more into the pay to win, they are the ones pushing all the bad ideas, and, the Devs and GMs are forced to put those actions into the game.

Its a sad situation for the Devs and GMs to see something they created being expoited, but, its either do, or, walk in some cases for them.

mayito7777

That is the reason D'Sthal left he saw what was coming and he left. Cryptic has locked many topics and then deleted them, in my toon, 3 were closed and deleted and I was accused of hate speach and banned, the same time a big group of old players were banned too. We are old players no teenagers filled with raging hormones, we are people that work and understand economy and how the world is running today. We were banned because we were showing the true identity of cryptic and its lies. They lied to us and they are now lying to the new players. It is sad but I dont see a future for STO.

daydreamerxx

Thing is STO was pretty bad all around. So a NGE for the game would be a good thing. because shit stacked on shit is still shit. 

 

So it really cant get any worse. if they changed the game and release freemium to play then the game may actually take off. 

Grand_Nagus

Every time someone compares something to the NGE is just shows me how little they actually understand the NGE. The NGE removed the majority of SWG's professions. Those professions were gone forever, period. Nothing is actually being removed from STO. Things are being changed, and I dont like all of them. But chaning something and removing it are not the same thing. This is just another example of someone who doesnt truly understand the NGE trying to use its name for shock value.

SwampRob

I played STO for about a month last January.   What really killed it for me is that I have never seen another MMO with such a greedy cash shop in a subscription game.     It was nothing short of outrageous on how much they wanted to gouge already paying customers further, even for non-fluff items like character slots.

mayito7777

You have not seen anything yet, go today and you will see how the Cash Shop has increased and wait untuil it goes F2P

Baxslash

SwampRob, don't go to the NEX shop in Eve online, a monocole implant is $70.00 in real cash there, and a shirt is $20.00

Robsolf

Man... Cryptic continues to outdo itself.

CoX most definitely kept all the real talent.  From the bottom, all the way up.

ducesettutam

For the best most concise record of the F2P2W changes check this link here. Patrician has done an outstanding job keeping all the test server updates together.

 

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=237322

Jobeleca

This isn't Cryptic's NGE - STO would have needed lots of stuff in the first place to be able to remove lots of stuff.

Instead, they're jacking us in many other ways.  I expect the end result to be the same as NGE with mass quittings.  I'm holding off to see what Tribble changes reach Live - but with things going the way they are I will probably cancel my lifetime subscription as a message.

Esquire1980

Originally posted by Grand_Nagus

Every time someone compares something to the NGE is just shows me how little they actually understand the NGE. The NGE removed the majority of SWG's professions. Those professions were gone forever, period. Nothing is actually being removed from STO. Things are being changed, and I dont like all of them. But chaning something and removing it are not the same thing. This is just another example of someone who doesnt truly understand the NGE trying to use its name for shock value.

To be honest, all your post shows me is you really fail to understand what the NGE was and is.  While the removal of the 32 profs were a part of the NGE, it was only a part.  It may have well been the part that affected you the most in your personal opinion, but it was still a part of the massive changes that came under the banner of NGE.

The original NGE also included the combat CHANGE to "benny hill" combat speeds which really is the thing that started it all according to Freeman and Rubenfield.  When SOE Austin started the NGE the removal of the 32 profs was not even into play, it came later. The NGE included the removal of the village. The NGE included taking jedi from unlocked and "earned" to "one-click" jedi.  The NGE included all the remaining alpha status of jedi removed.  The post NGE in-game economy was CHANGED overnight.  The NGE included the compete removal of the skil box system.  Visibility was removed.  The NGE made a permanant division of jedi classes in "elder" status and NGE jedi.  It included items for jedi that were promised to be better (for ever) for these "elders" which later was pretty much gone back on. etc etc etc etc etc.......... .  Many other CHANGES other than the loss of the 32 profs were also made a part of the NGE.

My daughter left SWG the day of the NGE patch and she played nothing more than a dancer.  Her prof was not removed but she quit just as much as some1 who loged in to get the respec screen.  It would seem that you misunderstand what the entire NGE actualy was.

The NGE was "massive changes" made to an existing game, post launch.  A term that Cryptic devs are now using to explain their list of "massive changes" also.  They full well know this is an NGE.  NGE was brought up specificaly by Cryptic devs on S-4 as they, at that time were trying NOT to have an NGE and stated the same.  If you remember right, no profs were removed with S-4.  Dstahl went out of his way to leave the existing combat system in S-4 to make the new development a choice and not an NGE.  But, Dstahl is now gone and I /agree with the poster above that believe Dstahl left knowing what was happening here.  Freeman and Rubenfield have been plagued by the original NGE many years after the fact and I would think that Dstahl was smart enough to know not to have his name connected with another NGE made by another company.  The NGE was a company trying to go after a playerbase they didn't have at the expence of a playerbase they did have.  You actualy believe this is any different in the stated motives for Cryptic's F2P?

NGE was all inclusive.  It got ev1.  There was something to hate about it for all.  If you can get by Cryptic's version of economy CHANGES, then the crafting CHANGE gets you.  If you can get by that, then the CHANGE to existing items gets you.  Pay to Win comes into play here also if you actualy like all the other CHANGES.  It is rumored that player skills will be NERFed by 75% of what they are now with the skill box CHANGE forthcoming and that will affect EVERY player in this nothing more than "pew pew" game that Cryptic has made..  It would seem that this round of CHANGES has something for ev1 to hate also.

Cryptic's version includes "take-away" development even to the extent of taking away abilities of C=Store ships people had bought and paid for.  Cryptic's version includes many CHANGES to existing systems, existing items, prof revamps (with the new skill-box revamp still coming), etc etc etc, right on down the line.

You can "spin" it how ever makes you sleep at night however, I am now convinced that even Cryptic knows what they are doing is the "quint essential NGE" and if you would even be honest with yourself, you would also.

Gdemami

Is there a release date for F2P release? I am looking forward to trying the game out very much.

Tamanous

Welcome to PWI!

 

Kyleran

Well, the difference between the original NGE and this one is in the former there actually was a large paying subscriber base that fled the game when the NGE landed, whereas perhaps with STO there's nothing much (in terms of subs) to really lose if the original player base walks?

They've never published subs, but if they've got less than 20K (which I'd bet is realistic) then they're probably betting on making more from cash shop customers once it goes F2P.

 

Esquire1980

Originally posted by Gdemami

Is there a release date for F2P release? I am looking forward to trying the game out very much.

No date as yet.  But, get out your credit card and "come on down".  You'll need it.