Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[Surlyboi]

"Oh! they'll come back if we do this!"

No, they fucking won't. They've already shit up the place, they don't want to come back.

[Brolan]

Strangely enough I just cancelled my account today. 

I knew it was the end when I started to physically cringe whenever I had to start clearing out another ugly generic base in the ground game.   

What a horrible waste of the Star Trek IP.

[LK]

ANY Star Trek MMO that would be developed by a big name company would be a waste of the IP.

[Shatter]

Strangely enough I just cancelled my account today. 

I knew it was the end when I started to physically cringe whenever I had to start clearing out another ugly generic base in the ground game.   

What a horrible waste of the Star Trek IP.

Strangely enough?  Dude, you have 100 reasons to quit this bitch

[Margalis]

The thing that kills me is that I think a Star Trek MMO could be totally awesome if it was something other than shooting dudes with phazers and photon torpedoes.

[Ollie]

That is more or less the over-arching theme of this whole thread: lamenting wasted potential and pining over the pedestrian design. Not that I don't think you're spot on, it's just that the poor horsie has thoroughly expired after a 61-page mauling.

We've seen the kinds of changes Cryptic is capable of introducing to live with ChampO, and the precedent is quite telling. STO will never see the game systems needed to turn it into anything other than a space shooter with a Trek skin. Still, STO can provide harmless fun in small doses. It just doesn't have the variety, depth or long-term appeal that many people were hoping for.

Free-to-play could persuade some people back, though the lifers wouldn't be pleased.

[Tannhauser]

Dumb move Cryptic!  Time to vote with my wallet.

[Reg]

Making vastly unpopular moves and driving away their players seems to be something of a Cryptic tradition.

[UnSub]

If you launch without a death penalty, BZZZZT, too late, shouldn't put one in months post-launch.

Doing so is all negative incentives with absolutely nothing positive to keep players from feeling pissed off.

Hopefully the outcry is enough to keep it from migrating to the live environment.

[Sheepherder]

Blizzard managed it.  I have no clue how.

[Reg]

They probably did it early enough that everyone was still thrilled with WoW and having a wonderful time. Cryptic on the other hand is just tossing another lead straw onto the back of their poor suffering camel.

[Shatter]

Blizzard managed it.  I have no clue how.

Yeah but 75%(yes im pulling some random number out of my arse) of the playerbase hadnt left their game by the time they did unlike STO. 

[Sheepherder]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- World of Warcraft Client Patch (2004-11-07)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...

- On death, all eqipped items will lose 10% durability.
- Durability loss through fighting has been decreased (mainly to
  accommodate the new penalty for dying)
- The penalty for using a Spirit Healer has been changed - there is no
  longer any experience loss, instead all items (equipped and
  inventory) will take 100% durability loss and the character will gain
  resurrection sickness for a duration that scale according to level.

I guess it's not quite the same.

[El Gallo]

WoW was released on 11/23/04, so that would be a beta change, no?

[Teleku]

Yeah, I'm pretty positive from my memories that all the death changes happened in Beta, and weren't added in after launch.

[Ingmar]

Yeah that happened at the end of open beta, I remember it. There was actually some hand-wringing about it at the time.

[Valmorian]

That seems harsher than what is in WoW today, you don't lose %100 durability if you rez at a spirit healer currently, do you?

[Lantyssa]

Nope.  25% durability, on top of the 10% for death, and a harsh stat penalty for 10 minutes.  I think 75%.

[Stormwaltz]

Cryptic is now offering veterans' rewards.

For those who've played 100 days.

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/1593

[Shatter]

Cryptic is now offering veterans' rewards.

For those who've played 100 days.

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/1593

100 Days
Stalwart Title.
FREE Full Respec.
FREE Costume Piece – A special uniform Veteran badge.
A 2% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.

200 Days
Redoubtable Title.
FREE Extra Ship Slot.
FREE Costume Piece – Special Veteran Uniform Option.
A 3% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.

300 Days
Dauntless Title.
FREE Character Slot.
FREE Ship "Firework" emote.
A 4% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.

400 Days
Valiant Title.
FREE Full Respec.
FREE Access to The Captain’s Table.
FREE Vanity Ship – Captain’s Yacht.
A 5% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.

400 days = lol, not because of the rewards themselves but because they think people will still be playing that long

[Malakili]

400 Days
Valiant Title.
FREE Full Respec.
FREE Access to The Captain’s Table.
FREE Vanity Ship – Captain’s Yacht.
A 5% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.

400 days = lol, not because of the rewards themselves but because they think people will still be playing that long

Well, those who have a lifetime subscription probably will, just because if you have it, you may as well play now and again.   I can't see anyone really anxiously staying on a couple extra months to get one of these titles or something though, kinda silly.   

The real story here of course is that Cryptic is resorting to gimmicks to try to get people to stay with their game, and I guess you can't blame them, the game certainly isn't strong enough in its own right.

[LK]

First time I've seen Veteran awards based on a 100-day cycle rather than a yearly cycle.

[Reg]

That's just sad.

[Malakili]

First time I've seen Veteran awards based on a 100-day cycle rather than a yearly cycle.

Staying around for 100 days in that game DESERVES a reward, to be fair.

I remember saying the game was a total train wreck when the NDA lifted and there was a lot of "well its kinda cool to fly trek ships around, its probably worth the box price" 

I hate to be that guy (ok, maybe I don't hate it), but "I told you so"

Then again, maybe people still feel they got their box worth.

[Lantyssa]

Sometimes it's okay to be that guy (or gal).  This is one of those times.

[Ghambit]

I'd say it was worth the box price only if you had a viable bunch of people to run through the story missions with.  Beyond that, No.  You'd get more worthwhile persistence from a ST pbbg (if one existed).

[Kageru]

I'd love to see their subscription numbers across both games and some analysis of whether the "cheap but frequent MMO's" plan is working out for them. I believe their financial figures indicate the answer is "not well".

[Malakili]

I'd love to see their subscription numbers across both games and some analysis of whether the "cheap but frequent MMO's" plan is working out for them. I believe their financial figures indicate the answer is "not well".

If I had to guess, and it is just a guess, I'd wager they expected more people to stay after the short term exodus.  If they were sane they had to assume large amounts of people would leave without ever paying for a month.  The question is whether or not they under estimated just how many would jump ship early on, or if they assumed that AFTER that number left, the remaining would probably stay longer term.  I think probably the later, though without real numbers its all just conjecture.

The MMO market is surprisingly devoid of good games given the attention its received, but on that same note, even the mediocre stuff that Cryptic has put out lately isn't anywhere near good enough to keep people satisfied for very long.   I'd have to assume that after a while we'll see everyone but the lifetime and long term subscribers (year+) gone, at which point Cryptic is in serious trouble.  Sure, the burst of income probably helped them as they went live, but having a smaller steady source is probably better for the long term.

[UnSub]

First time I've seen Veteran awards based on a 100-day cycle rather than a yearly cycle.

CoH/V has its veteran rewards on a 3 month cycle, which is roughly 100 days apart.

As far as Cryptic's thinking goes, CoH had a lot of the same criticisms aimed at it at launch, yet apparently had a retention rate of around 90%. I'm sure this is the same kind of thing that Cryptic thought was going to happen with their more recent titles.

[Reg]

Oh c'mon the launch of COH was greeted with much more enthusiasm than STO. It wasn't until Cryptic initiated that long series of nerfs to anything actually super-heroic in the game that people turned against them.

[UnSub]

Oh c'mon the launch of COH was greeted with much more enthusiasm than STO. It wasn't until Cryptic initiated that long series of nerfs to anything actually super-heroic in the game that people turned against them.

My point was that the lessons Cryptic learned were from CoH - there were a lot of people telling they would fail for doing something different, for not having loot, for not having an end game, no PvP at launch, that the game was too easy and only fun for 30 days, etc. They didn't, so perhaps one of the lessons learned was that if Cryptic just stuck to what they planned to do, things would work out.

Also, CoH player subs continued to climb up to about the launch of CoV. All the forum cries about nerfs generally didn't appear to have much impact on overall title growth (and that was in the spectre of WoW's launch and ascension).

[Lantyssa]

My point was that the lessons Cryptic learned were from CoH - there were a lot of people telling they would fail for doing something different, for not having loot, for not having an end game, no PvP at launch, that the game was too easy and only fun for 30 days, etc. They didn't, so perhaps one of the lessons learned was that if Cryptic just stuck to what they planned to do, things would work out.

Not listening to critics and not listening to valid criticisms are two very different things...  the original Cryptic did the former.  Cryptic 2.0 did the latter.  Probably not so much the latter out of spite, but incompetence.

[Shatter]

http://www.startrekonline.com/referral

So the players that are left were wanting to see a certain class ship in the game so Cryptic added it, the catch is you need to refer 5 friends and get them to sub to get it lol.  BOOM HEADSHOT  Needless to say the players arent too happy they implemented the ship into the game this way vs say a veteran reward(see above)

[Mrbloodworth]

Is the point where the thread now allows "i told you so" posts?

[Reg]

I still want to know why this is the only thread in all of F13 that can't remember the last post I read.