Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
So is this going to be the last throw of the dice?
Solomace
Member Posts: 5
I bought it a launch, played it for my free 30 days, unsubscibed, subscribed at after season 4 went live and the day later unsubscrbed.
The reason was I found the game boring. So did the majority of who bought the game. By this I mean wasn't it nearly a million box sold but they averaged about 100-150k subs. Out of this it seems most of the subbers were lifers and we never new how many subs it actually had. What we do know is that F2P was because it was losing subs and or not getting the revenue from those left (LTS).
So, is this last chance for STO? Did PW buy Cryptic for STO/NWN/CO or was it for the engine and asset etc, which means if STO fails, they will shut it down?
TBH, I will play F2P but I won't spend a penny and I suspect that after a month or so, I will leave and play other games more interesting, but Cryptic seem to be putting all their hopes on the tons of F2Pers that will flood the game (and they will), but will they spend any money? Somehow, I don't think they will and STO is doomed to fail.
Ask yourself this, you could get STO in the bargain bin for as cheap as £3 with 30 days, and people still didn't buy it or if they did, they didn't stay. F2Pers are notoriously stingy (I am) and when I read the official STO forums, the dedicated have spent £100s or pounds on the game. No F2P is going to do this surely? What am I missing?
Oh, on another note, I love to see all those CDFers who argued with me, told me to get lost, leave the game etc, are now part of the Cryptic hate force. Apologies in the post please!!!!!
Your thoughts...
Comments
I did pretty much the same thing. Bought at launch, maxed a character and quit. Crafting was crap. exploration was crap, multiplayer options were crap. 2nd faction was nearly non-existent... it was pointless to stay. They'd release new content here and there, then in one free weekend(or rather 1 free evening) I wiped that out, too.
I heard that crafting is better these days, but I've also heard that they're tying components to real money in the cash shop. So, no reason to go back for that. Something tells me I'll spend more time downloading the game then playing it.
And I'm not really the zerging type. The problem is, the zerg is all there was. There was little to do other than go on the missions. A handful of repeatable group quests does little to change that.
Maybe the diplomacy missions are better, these days. Used to just be beaming 10 or so vendor sold somalflanges down onto a planet. Ridiculously dull.
I always knew that Star Trek would be a REALLY hard IP to make into an MMO, but Cryptic didn't even try. It's funny when you realize that despite being the captain of your ship, your crew makes every decision for you and tells you what to do.
Beta tester and lifetime owner, where do I begin... Along with Bay and his Transformers films, I am getting sick of people raping the icons of my childhood, however though most of the features of STO are a bust, the pvp ship combat was far more fun for me than pvp in any other mmo. That however is not enough to justify the cost of the sub, and considering how long the c-store (cash shop) has been full to bursting, they should have gone f2p a long time ago, like DCUO when you compare this mmo to others that bother to either innovate or provide large amounts of content, you can't help but feel ripped off. I got 4 toons to endgame in a month, and was left with nothing to do, so much for a lifetime.
I may return to see how f2p works for STO, but I am still bitter, (not that you can tell), even if I thought there was a future for this game, and its f2p model works much better, there are so many more interesting mmos coming out, and though plenty of mmo-ers can be tight with money, I am sure many are getting sick of cheap trash, and are contemplating spending more on an mmo that actually rocks, GW2 for eg.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=241009
Just the short list of things they are stripping away from the corp game or subbers and instead making it a cash shop item.
I am pretty sure PW bought Cryptic for something a lot more valuable than STO: Cryptic have the license for a Forgotten realms MMO.
While FR isn't what it used to be it still have millions of fans that remember it foundly, and the first thing PW announced when they had a look on Cryptics game was that they moved back Neverwinter nights online 1 1/2 year and turned it into a real MMO instead of a CORPG.
While Star trek still have many fans, STO have gotten a bad rep among them and the same things goes for CO.
PW knows how to make money, STO and CO might get in a little but it is peanuts money. That means that they either wanted resources or NWN. I frankly doubt it was the resources, but if they play their cards right NWN might be a huge success.
If nothing else did they stop Cryptic from releasing the game way too early like they did with STO.
I think that they will keep STO around for as long as it makes more money than it cost, but how much work they will put into upgrade it depends on it's income so I think this game will have about as common updates as Vanguard.
I played and unsubbed couple of times as i got bored. I'll check out the game again when it goes F2P.
***Raises plunger in salute to hot vulcan ladies everywhere!***
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
Similar here, bought STO at launch and un-sub'd due to incompleteness of development. (I should have listened to the prophets here).
Of Course PW will shut it down if it fails to turn enough profit to pay the bills.
Your not missing much actually. F2P won't bring in that much more money and it will cost PW and Cryptic more than they realise.... STO's hardware will not be able to handle the influx of f2p players that will arrive. I say this because I sub'd in October and even with low player population the server was under strain in some key areas in the game. STO's hardware will need investment.
Now as to why PW bought Cryptic, Loke666 I think nailed it... PW bought Cryptic for Forgotten Realms and NWN for the most part.
PW and Cryptic are hoping against hope that this saves STO. Simple as that. If anyone can make a f2p STO succeed it is PW granted, but I myself will never want to play STO again and here's why:
Star Trek... the story... takes place in a time and a setting where capitalism/markets have been for the most part done away with or at least extremely restricted... money is not used everyday in the Federation and even the concept of profit is seen as... well as something only a Ferengi would dabble in. Now admitedly PW is epitome of the Free market capitalism preacher of MMOs...and very successful at f2p MMOs as well....however I see this "marriage" as a huge conflict of interest as far as how the story of Star Trek plays out in STO and I fear the abuse of the IP has only begun. It makes no sense to play a Star Trek MMO and visit the cash shop all the time to get what you need to play. "Diametrically Opposed" is the term that comes to mind.
f2p or not..its still the same bad mmorpg, nothing they can do about it, super instanced game, bad combat overall in space and worst in the ground, did i mention the ultra instancing that makes me feel i am playing inside a shoebox?
Its just a good mmorpg for the die hard sto fans...because there is really no other sto mmorpg.
Thanks, Duce. They're doing this to subscribers, too? Disgusting...
"-No new real playable content for 7 months and counting."
Is this true? They haven't put out any new content in 7 months???
IMHO when Pw bought the game the dice went out the window, I personally will never touch this game again because of PW's involvement.
The issue with STO is the same as in all other mmorpgs that came out recently, they suffer from the same sickness: lack of innovation. Its true many have failed because they were rushed to release, not polished enough, lack of content, bugs bugs and bugs, etc, but the major issue here is, as always, not being able to bring to the customer something different, and i dont mean by this that "different" equals "better".
When a game is structered to the same elements and same layouts than most of the traditional mmos, its no wonder that the game with the most agressive combination of game factors, marketing power and content updates will be the one to remain standing at the end of the fight. Thats why WoW has the player base that anyone knows it has, and similar games, some of them better, some of them worst, or balanced even, remain in the back, going for F2P or risking fading out forever.
When i look to STO, when i play it, im expecting to encounter something that lives to the franchise name (im a big fan btw) but also that really represents a mmo space sim with game aspects that can be said to have been projected for this millennium....i mean, sure the graphics are great, but come on dont tell me that gaming industry can only progress in that field...i had more fun playing wing commander, tachyon, freelancer or even x-3 than i had with STO. I can still have more fun playing all those old games and i dont care about the graphics. Sure i want eye candy, but also i want to feel that im doing something that is of the same size than the franchise it may represent....Star Trek deserves more than a mere pew pew ship going around with some eye candy going on. If you cant deliver it then dont even thing about doing it.
Heres a nice idea for you guys at Crptic: ask CCP if they can lend their game engine, put ST ships in there as well as all factions. Call it STO EvE edition and launch it. ill buy it and play it.
http://www.startrekonline.com/feature_episodes
Well 8 now. As you can see the last Cryptic developed content was released march 5th 2011. That episode was about 30 minutes of play time.
People are still wondering where all the money from the box sales went to, or from the life time subs of which had to be increased because so many people wanted them at launch, or even of the general monthly subs. The most developed, polished portion of their game is the cash shop.
For comparisons sake.
https://www.startrekonline.com/store
You can see their cash shop is well stock with no lack of "content".
I'm pretty sure the PW takeover, at least for STO, went completly unexpected (in a bad way) than anticipated by Cryptic. I joined it beginning of this year and was amazed by it considereing the pile of crap I expected. I think I just had the luck to join at its "peak" with introducing all these missions and lots of open communication on the forums even to a few more uncomfortable topics. I'm dead sure dstahl (ex-sto devteam boss) either already saw the shit flying towards the fan when PW walzed in and decided to left or, considering his popularity by lots of players for said open communication, it was sugested to him to leave on his conditions while he can. Maybe when F2P really launches all will be great and all the doomsayers are wrong, but I seriously doubt it at the moment (Say: Dooom!
).
What is really strange about all this IMO is that Champions Online is actually very good, full of stuff to do and get lots of updates. If it wasn´t for the startup logo I would never think it is hosted by the same company. Oo
Most of us in STO feel the same way about CO. We believe the F2P conversion was handled well and the game came out much healthier for it. Unfortunately the STO conversion just seems to be a massive cash grab.
If this is the last throw of the dice....Cryptic is about to roll "snake-eyes"...the house wins.
The transition to F2P is a telling one. Many of the other games that have gone to F2P, Age of Conan for example, have used it as a venue to "re-launch" their product, and in the process made vast improvements, added fan-requested features and generally have bent over backwards to give their game a fighting chance to succeed.
Cryptic, in their infinite wisdom, is going a different route, and as I commented in another forum thread, it's not so much about putting the game on life-support and rejuvenating it, as it is about an exit-strategy.
I think this has been their plan for a year. About a year ago is when STO's numbers dropped off sharply. The server became a ghost town, people left, fleets virtually died off one by one, and from an inside source, Cryptic was in a DIRE financial situation.
In my personal opinion, I think they wanted to dump STO to F2P then, but Atari refused to allow that, because it would devalue the sale of the company, which Atari needed to get back in the black.
So, Cryptic worked on a F2P strategy for the worst case scenario, a scenario where they don't get bought, and need to recoup as much money as possible to cover their losses. Enter the "C-Store" era, where over the past 8 months, pretty much everything has been about the C-Store.
Now, enter PWI. In all honesty, I'm betting PWI doesn't give a rat's rear end about STO. That isn't why they bought Cryptic. They bought Cryptic for access to Neverwinter, which is much more widely popular to a larger game and fan base than Star Trek, which has very select fans in a smaller spectrum.
So, PWI propbably gave Cryptic the go-ahead to continue their planned F2P, with the structure they were already working on, with the idea that while it would be pretty unpopular with existing players, it would maximize the cash they could garner from the game, in a minimum timeframe, until such time that intrest in STO had dropped to the point of negative returns and they can shut it down, with a complete focus on Neverwinter from there on.
Exit Strategy.
That's all this is. Recoup as many bucks as they can, before the end, then shut off the lights and board up the windows, making off with all the cash they could carry.
yes. No content in a year but alot of "STO is doing well", "Buy Cstore junk so we can get more content" and "Content comming soon" lies.
Cryptic sucks. Not only don't play STO F2P and don't play any of there new titles.
That's a bit easy to explain: CO had a slightly longer development time than STO did, especially when you consider that the Cryptic 2.0 engine was originally developed for the Marvel MMO, before Microsoft and Marvel pulled out of the deal. Since the engine and any non-Marvel specific content they had created were Cryptic's property, they just needed to fit that to the Champions IP they had bought. When they started working on STO, CO was still in development (stretching Cryptic's resources thin), and they had to take an engine clearly designed for a super hero game and make it work with STO. When CO launched though, it had many of the same complaints against it that STO had (though generally not as bad), chief among them being a limited amount of content. CO's a far better game today than STO, because it has had more time to be developed (both pre and post launch).
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
So when does STO go Free to Play or has it already?
Found it. Jan 17 2012. Pardon the post. I thought it had happened already.
1. I would argue that the Cstore era started at launch, with the introduction of the Federation Ferngi and Klingon races (which Cryptic had claimed were taken out of beta to fix, and were to be available again at launch). As the 45 day patch came, and then the various Seasons started, about half of the 'content' released was Cstore items.
2. At the time the sale of Cryptic was being negotiated, it wasn't clear if Atari (and Cryptic) would be able to continue working on NWN, due to the Hasbro lawsuit. I think PWI bought Cryptic for exactly the reasons they stated: Cryptic had two established MMOs already, and PWI wanted to get their hands on the Cryptic 2.0 engine and use it for their own future properties. That the Hasbro/Atari settlement allows Cryptic to go ahead and continue the NWN game is just icing on the cake for PWI.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
I remember them saying it was going to be December, but they lie so often I expect them to have go on til next spring.
I figure they still got more uniform and pet junk ideas to squeeze out of the gamer still playing...
I still haven't forgiven them for placing a Dance Hall at the Earth Space Dock.
I no longer beat the drum of support for STO. I had always been fairly upbeat about the game and the improvements it had made after launch. Was always a fan of the space combat. What I am just totally against is the dishonest so-called "free" to play. It is not really free. Sure, players can if they choose play without paying a dime, but someone IS paying. I will not be one of them.
Let's party like it is 1863!
I bought a Life sub to Champions to buy a Life sub to Trek, to get in early.
I was one of the "haters" on the forums while PE was developing it. My reason, I felt it was a mistake to focus the game on space ships and space combat.
I don't remember the last time I logged into STO.
Logging into this game (for me) is like entering into a self induced coma.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez"
Bladezz (The Guild)
See, it is free.
F2P does not imply that there is nothing to buy. It implies optional purchase.
F2P is determined by Free Access To Service. You need no upfront payment to play the game.
Guys, F2P is great opportunity to refresh the game. I came to LOTRO when it came F2P. According older playes there came a lot of new players and they brought new life into the game. I was playing for about 8 months and spent about 1/2 money comparing to month-sub. I got now access to the 90% of the game forever (not counting future expansions but I will wait after release for some 50% discount).
And now I wanna play STO the same way.. I'm not 12h-day player. I just need 1h/day ST fix..
The only question is.. Is STO worth it?
Wait, you mean that Atari wasn't a turnoff for you? They havn't made a good game since the 80s at least.
PW is at least good doing what the do, like it or not.
But it is a good question if they think they can turn around the game or if they just will cut their losses. They did get the Star trek license so a complete NGE might for once be a smart move here, to turn it from a CORPG to a MMO and relaunch the game in a better shape could actually bring back the trekkies.
Well with Turbine's two game, they weren't shoved out of the door in an unfinished state; they were ready to go at launch. Additionally they had several years each of continued development, versus STO's development which has been mostly trying to still get it in a launch ready state. CO's conversion to the Freemium model will be better than STO's, merely for the fact that it was mainly just lacking in content.
As fot it being worth it? That depends on what you are looking for, really. If you are just looking at getting your Star Trek fix, freemium STO should be ok for you; you should be able to experience everything the game has to offer fairly early on, and for free. If you are looking for a deep and immersive Star Trek experience? Not so much; freemium STO will still suffer from most of the same problems subsciption STO suffered from.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan