what's the champions land kerfuffle? they feeling red-headed step child fears now that STO seems to be an IP that will demand and receive more attention? (that's pure rampant speculation, so i hope that doesn't offend any champions people.)
The TOS Constitution is a Tier 1 ship, so you're only going to be using it for the first 10 levels.
And according to what I understand of the description of it, you only get it for 20 hours or so anyway before you're made to choose another ship.
Uh, I haven't seen anything to indicate that they take it away or anything. You get another newer, better ship at level 11, but they don't take away your old ship or make you use the new one.
That's just how I read the description on Cryptic's on page describing all the pre-order stuff. It's not very clearly worded, which is par for the course I guess.
Long story short CO is suffering from a severe lack of content and now that they finally announce specific plans to add more it's as a paid mini expansion.
Long story short CO is suffering from a severe lack of content and now that they finally announce specific plans to add more it's as a paid mini expansion.
More or less, yeah.
korodullin on
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
The lifetime is purely a personal choice... If someone knows they're going to play for more than twelve months, and want an extra playable race and character slots, it's up to them.
We know STO will have payable expansions. It's not like people get the lifetime thinking they'll never have to pay a cent ever again.
Personally, looking back at my MMO habits, I've never played one for more than 12 months. (on and off). I don't really care for the borg and extra slots either. But, for me the game is definitely good enough to shell out $ for the deluxe and pay for a couple of months. If I reach the end of content by then, I'll just cancel and wait for an expansion.
Banshee on
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
The lifetime is purely a personal choice... If someone knows they're going to play for more than twelve months, and want an extra playable race and character slots, it's up to them.
We know STO will have payable expansions. It's not like people get the lifetime thinking they'll never have to pay a cent ever again.
Personally, looking back at my MMO habits, I've never played one for more than 12 months. (on and off). I don't really care for the borg and extra slots either. But, for me the game is definitely good enough to shell out $ for the deluxe and pay for a couple of months. If I reach the end of content by then, I'll just cancel and wait for an expansion.
Paid expansions are a definite, yes, and expected. The problem is what the size of those expansions will be.
To give you some perspective, the CO paid expansion is one zone. Not an actual expansion. It's basically paid DLC for a MMO. Which is all the more insulting given that other MMO's offer that sort of stuff for free between large-scale expansions. Games like WoW, LOTRO, SWG, EVE, City of Heroes, Lineage, Lineage 2, and even Hellgate: London, along pretty much every other pay to play and free MMO in existence offer free content updates to keep the game fresh. CO is doing the exact opposite, and making you pay for it.
As far as I know, they haven't said anything about doing this in STO yet, and most people didn't even know it was a planned "feature" for CO up until they announced it.
Though, some slight research seems to indicate that they said it very quietly and in a place not many people would see it prior to release in CO. It was apparently mentioned off-handedly in a few developer posts in early closed beta. That's not exactly the way you want to advertise what's essentially DDO's current means of having content in a pay to play game however.
I usually PVP in MMO games, and my playtime gets to the point to where I am basically paying rent to game with my online friends every month. I am ashamed to tell you how long I played SWG and EVE, I avoided WOW for the same reason.
Payable expansions are a definite, yes, and expected. The problem is what the size of those expansions will be.
To give you some perspective, the CO paid expansion is one zone. Not an actual expansion. It's basically DLC for a MMO. Which is all the more insulting given that other games offer that sort of stuff for free between large-scale expansions.
As far as I know, they haven't said anything about doing this in STO yet, and most people didn't even know it was a planned "feature" for CO up until they announced it. Though, some slight research seems to indicate that they said it very quietly and in a place not many people would see it prior to release in CO. It was apparently mentioned off-handedly in a few developer posts in early closed beta
This CO thing may be blown out of proportion if the DLC turns out to be cheap, or if free content is added to the game later on. My only gripe with cryptic right now is the general lack of communication. All the conjecture and bitching is pretty much a result of that.
Banshee on
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
Payable expansions are a definite, yes, and expected. The problem is what the size of those expansions will be.
To give you some perspective, the CO paid expansion is one zone. Not an actual expansion. It's basically DLC for a MMO. Which is all the more insulting given that other games offer that sort of stuff for free between large-scale expansions.
As far as I know, they haven't said anything about doing this in STO yet, and most people didn't even know it was a planned "feature" for CO up until they announced it. Though, some slight research seems to indicate that they said it very quietly and in a place not many people would see it prior to release in CO. It was apparently mentioned off-handedly in a few developer posts in early closed beta
This CO thing may be blown out of proportion if the DLC turns out to be cheap, or if free content is added to the game later on. My only gripe with cryptic right now is the general lack of communication. All the conjecture and bitching is pretty much a result of that.
Well, part of the reason for the bitching on CO's forums is that the developers went for months with little to no communication, saying that there was a "massive content update incoming, and that it'd be legendary!".
For the record, this was aided by the fact that there is really nothing to do ingame once you level one character to cap since there's no alternative leveling routes, and not much endgame content, so the playerbase was, and still is, starved for content.
Eventually, they worked people into such a frenzy that they demanded to know what the content update was, which lead to the CO developers announcing the paid DLC, which in turn lead to a complete meltdown of the playerbase on the forums and in many shards of zones, ingame as well. So Cryptic really doesn't have anyone else to blame but themselves at this point, given that they've had this in the pipelines for quite awhile and tried to hype their own fanbase up over it.
wow. I hope no one is really buying into what archonex is saying. remember, just because he's writing the most doesn't make him 100% correct.
Given that what I posted up above was as accurate a representation of the course of events that I know of, perhaps you could fill in the blanks or correct what I posted then?
So, the CO devs didn't say there was a massive content update coming and they didn't announce something that was only a single zone and it's free and there isn't a dearth of content in CO?
Robziel on
Do I look like the sort of man who'd go and find unsuspecting Japanese schoolgirls in short skirts and white panties and ask them if they want to see my "Cthulu Special"?
wow. I hope no one is really buying into what archonex is saying. remember, just because he's writing the most doesn't make him 100% correct.
Given that what I posted up above was as accurate a representation of the course of events that I know of, perhaps you could fill in the blanks or correct what I posted then?
Your rant on the STO skill point cap was overdramatic, which may lead other posters to believe you may be doing the same with your CO rant.
Banshee on
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
wow. I hope no one is really buying into what archonex is saying. remember, just because he's writing the most doesn't make him 100% correct.
Given that what I posted up above was as accurate a representation of the course of events that I know of, perhaps you could fill in the blanks or correct what I posted then?
Your rant on the STO skill point cap was overdramatic, which may lead other posters to believe you may be doing the same with your CO rant.
I was just stating my opinion and what i'd seen. I will admit I was extremely angry over them quietly knocking off a heavily advertised feature of the game in favor of one that's untested about a week from release, nevermind after they just got done selling a large sum of lifetime subs. I'm still expecting the retail box to have absolutely no mention of a capless system, since they did away with it.
And i'll probably post about that if I find out that the box does still mention it, since it would just confirm my theory that this was a random last minute change, rather then something they've actually been planning to compensate for.
If people have a bias over that, that's their problem, not mine.
wow. I hope no one is really buying into what archonex is saying. remember, just because he's writing the most doesn't make him 100% correct.
Given that what I posted up above was as accurate a representation of the course of events that I know of, perhaps you could fill in the blanks or correct what I posted then?
Your rant on the STO skill point cap was overdramatic, which may lead other posters to believe you may be doing the same with your CO rant.
Yeah, pretty much. There's one or two facts in there, then blow into gigantic prop... ugh. You know it's a snowball thing.
Tell me one thing wow gave out for free content wise. And two, CO's thing cost money, but how much isn't said. If it's 1/10th the price of Wrath of the Lich King, it's understandable that it has 1/10th of the content. Three, CO already relesed Celestial for free, as well as powerhouse 2.0, nemesis confrontation, and craftable travel powers.
But it seems useless arguing this because you keep snowballing things and making large posts that connotativly look like you're really mad.
edit- i'm just as pissed about capless/capped changes as you, but you're um expressing it differently.
WoW have rather large content releases pretty often for free, if we want to use zones only as example than I can at least name the Isle of Quel'danas in TBC, but if we are talking additions to old zones then they do that every major patch.
I wouldn't really use WoW as a comparison if I were you Pika, it doesn't strengthen your argument.
I was just stating my opinion and what i'd seen. I will admit I was extremely angry over them quietly knocking off a heavily advertised feature of the game in favor of one that's untested about a week from release.
If people have a bias over that, that's their problem, not mine.
Heavily advertised? Even if that's true, of all the things this game has to offer, unlimited skill points would have to fall in the ''who cares'' category. It wouldn't even be in the top ten reasons for me to play this game. My opinion, of course.
And who says it was untested? Not everything has to be in the public beta test. It's not necessarily the best way to test a game, but it's possible.
Cryptic has obviously been exacerbating you with its last few business decisions. Why stick with them, and why spend so much time talking about it? Usually, when I don't like a game, I just forget about it and play something else. My opinion, of course.
I'm willing (for some reason) to give Cryptic the benefit of the doubt on the skill points cap after some thought. If they open the skill points cap back out to unlimited when they put in the 41-50 content, which would be the logical thing to do, I'd be content.
korodullin on
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
wow. I hope no one is really buying into what archonex is saying. remember, just because he's writing the most doesn't make him 100% correct.
Given that what I posted up above was as accurate a representation of the course of events that I know of, perhaps you could fill in the blanks or correct what I posted then?
Your rant on the STO skill point cap was overdramatic, which may lead other posters to believe you may be doing the same with your CO rant.
Yeah, pretty much. There's one or two facts in there, then blow into gigantic prop... ugh. You know it's a snowball thing.
Tell me one thing wow gave out for free content wise. And two, CO's thing cost money, but how much isn't said. If it's 1/10th the price of Wrath of the Lich King, it's understandable that it has 1/10th of the content. Three, CO already relesed Celestial for free, as well as powerhouse 2.0, nemesis confrontation, and craftable travel powers.
But it seems useless arguing this because you keep snowballing things and making large posts that connotativly look like you're really mad.
edit- i'm just as pissed about capless/capped changes as you, but you're um expressing it differently.
WoW? How about the numerous content updates, like Silithus and it's associated dungeons and events, the pre-BC dungeons, the post WotLK release dungeons, and if i'm correct in remembering some of the content releases, an entire new zone, in one or two cases?
It doesn't matter that it costs a little bit of money. CO's competitors set the standard for releasing content. They seem to be trying to pull the rug out from under their playerbase by upsetting that standard and trying to nickle and dime their playerbase. Which is what's causing people to self destruct on the official forums.
It's also not that it could be cheap either, it's that they're trying to gip people into paying for something other games release for free, when they haven't even released new repeatable content yet. The Celestial powerset is all well and good and was a great addition to the game, and the Nemesis Dungeon was too, but they're very limited in scope. The events aren't coming back, with the exception of Blood Moon, so that's a problem there too.
As several people on the official forums have mentioned, zones by themselves also don't give you jackshit in this game. They're nothing more then flashy 3D levels, just like most MMO's.
At the moment, there's no quest content like there is in WotLK, where there's unique types of quests, like riding through a forest while being chased by Worgen, or something similar. They're just places where you pick up kill quests with unique quest text, find the doodad quests, or an "indoor" mission that's been procedurally generated. That's not worth paying for, since that's the same thing that they're expected by their playerbase to release for free.
And even if they did include that stuff (And all signs point to no so far. The focus, going off of the state of the game post, seems to be on the story of some character that's associated with the DLC zone.), there's still the issue of dividing up their playerbase based off of who's willing to pay the most.
That method of content distribution works well in F2P MMO's because they're not paying anything to begin with. If you try to sell that to people who are paying 15 dollars a month, or in some cases, almost 200+ dollars in the case of lifetimers, you're going to see alot of confused and angry people, as the forums are showing now.
I'm not trying to be a dick when I post about this. And i'm certainly not trying to "snowball" things either.
My issue with each game has been simple so far, in STO, they completely altered many aspects game right before release without testing them, much like they did in CO, and in CO, they're currently addressing the lack of content in the game by trying to get people to pay for it. That's it. Outside of some minor quibbles, at this point and time, that's the only problems I have.
Well, unless his definition of 'free' differs from mine, I'd say any content that was not on the disc when I bought it at retail. So, just in Wrath, we got Ulduar, Ony-80, all the bosses in VoA excluding Archavon himself, ToC, ToC 10/25, ToGC 10/25 (Yes, I know its the same instance, but it is differently tuned content, and treated as a seperate raid), 3 Icecrown 5-man dungeons, and ICC 10/25. Not to mention all the seasons of arena that release with new gear/weapons.
Sure, some of this stuff was expected when we bought the expansion, namely ICC. However, it was not on the disc when I purchased it, thus, it was content later released with no attached pricepoint.
Edit; Gah, beated so hard. Posting while at work ftl!
Ok, since I only came into wow with expansion packs i thought the content releases were part of paying for the content packs. I mean you can't get into the nice TBC stuff unless you bought TBC and you can't get the WotLK stuff unless you had WotLK, but I guess I'm wrong and you can get to those places and experience those things without buying the expansions.
When wow was released, how many dungeons were there for top raid, and how long did it take until the next new dungeon was released? Also, when wow was released, how many "unique" quests were there? Nothing of the sort like where you ride away from Worgen, correct?
Apples and Oranges I'm afraid.
I do however agree wit you about the problems with making game altering changes right before launch.
Terroric on
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
When wow was released, how many dungeons were there for top raid, and how long did it take until the next new dungeon was released? Also, when wow was released, how many "unique" quests were there? Nothing of the sort like where you ride away from Worgen, correct?
Apples and Oranges I'm afraid.
I do however agree wit you about the problems with making game altering changes right before launch.
Actually, the unique quests were put in to alleviate tedium at the WotLK tier, since you're pretty high up in levels, then, and leveling can take awhile unless you powerlevel. Plus it was just a good business move for the game.
Still, there were a fair number of unique quests in vanilla WoW. You don't see anything like Scholomance, where there's an entire hidden quest hub that you can access outside the dungeon ingame in CO.
Ok, since I only came into wow with expansion packs i thought the content releases were part of paying for the content packs. I mean you can't get into the nice TBC stuff unless you bought TBC and you can't get the WotLK stuff unless you had WotLK, but I guess I'm wrong and you can get to those places and experience those things without buying the expansions.
Sorry that free link is work blocked.
They had free content updates before the expansions and there is plenty of expansion content that are available to non-expansion players as well. Hell with Cataclysm (their next expansion) they are completely revamping the old zones to make them compatible with the new content from expansions.
I think Amazon's Borg bridge officer has the best chance of staying relevant through the game, although even that is doubtful what with the rare quality type BO's I started seeing toward the end of beta. Still, if you're not a min-maxer you'd probably be fine using a stock BO.
The Borg BO should only be your choice of pre-order swag if you're trying to min-max your fashion. Its skills and traits, at least for space (because ground game is faceroll fodder in pve), are not unique.
To be honest, a cool visual effect is about the best you can get, since all the items are redundant and/or become obsolete very quickly. Personally, I'm excited to find out how much envy (more likely mockery and/or pity) I can generate by being a Liberated Borg captain who wears a mirror-universe uniform.
I went with the Borg BO because Amazon had the cheapest offer on the game I could find, there wasn't really any of the pre-order bonuses that excited me that much but I guess it will be neat having a Borg on my bridge...
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
Are there any details as to what is going to be in the microtransaction store? Or am I just blind and can't find the info?
Not many solid details as of yet.
The only confirmed items were respecs (Confirmed by a developer in that skill cap megathread.), character slots (Never confirmed, but given the change in basic gameplay design, and how CO handles it, it's a given.), and so far, most likely vanity pets, and optional costumes, which will be released sometime down the line.
Possibly, and I say possibly, because accolades weren't really in for long during beta, meaning noone really had a chance to test this particular feature, there may also be costume unlocks for "kill 5000 of these type of enemies" achievements. If that's the case, they'll most likely also let you buy some of them after a few months, if you don't want to do the grind to unlock them.
I doubt that the preorder bonuses will be C-Store purchases any time soon. It'd tick off the playerbase, and marginalize their contribution. Certain bonuses probably won't be available for at least a year, like the lifetime mirror universe costume set, if they ever are at all, due to the nature of the bonus.
So far like the only thing I would want to buy is maybe the ability to look like an EMH since I'm sorta going that way for roleplay, but otherwise games rarely put anything in a micro transaction store I'm interested in.
Oh and if they ever added camp to the game I better see the Galaxy Quest ship in there!
Star Trek is a huge IP and wont be shut down in the next 14-15 months.
The question of "Will the servers be up in 16 months?" isn't the one that is keeping me from getting the LTS. It's the question of "Will this game be able to hold my interest for even a decent majority of that 16 months".
I'll be honest, a very large majority of me only wants the LTS for the Borg avatar and his skills for ground pvp. And while I know that I'm the target of their little "ZOMG LIMITED TIME OFFER" scheme, I still want it. I just get to the screen and can't pull the trigger.
* Wrath of Khan Admiral's Uniform
* Star Trek Online - Preorder
* Star Trek Online Lifetime Subscription
I still miss my Del Taco code. Anyone live near one that can score me a code by chance?
After Hellgate London, I've always strayed away from Lifetime subs.
Well even with Hellgate, the people who lifetime sub'd got their moneys worth and a extra month by the math if I am not mistaken.
But even so, look how much SWG has fucked up over the years and is still going. Star Trek is a huge IP and wont be shut down in the next 14-15 months.
Oh yeah, if I weren't about to end my seasonal job, planning a wedding, and having a baby on the way, I would totally hop on that lifetime sub. Unfortunately, due to the aformentioned events, that's just not going to happen. :P
However, to anybody who has gotten it, or is on the fence about it, if you even remotely enjoyed the game, and think you might log on every once in a while to play it, I really do think it is completely worth it if you have the dough to fork over. But that's just one man's opinion.
ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
edited January 2010
Also, keep in mind that STO's lifetime sub has a huge advantage over other MMO's, especially the CO lifetime sub, in that the gameplay it offers is relatively unique.
So long as they can keep it from getting too unbalanced in PVP and PVE, they'll always have some sort of marketability to players. That, combined with the IP, means that they'll always have incoming funds from monthly subs, barring some sort of catastrophic fuck-up on Cryptic's part, like trying to sell a "Borg Queen Adventure Pack" several months down the line.
Hellgate: London, for the record, was incredibly unbalanced in some areas, and the pricing scheme was all sorts of shady and screwed up, which contributed to its downfall.
CO, which, in my opinion, seems to be slowly starting to circle the drain with their latest announcement, only really has unique combat mechanics if you have a controller, which turns the game into an Ultimate Alliance-esque brawler. The combat mechanics have a fair amount of imbalances too, further pushing people away from the game and causing boredom over a long period of time without new content.
Really, the thing that matters when looking to buy a lifetime sub is whether you feel you can trust the company, and whether the gameplay mechanics they have in at the moment are solid enough to warrant that level of an investment.
LOTRO is a good example of a game that offered a lifetime sub, and is still going strong. It had a solid foundation, and the game was improved pretty steadily post release.
If you've played the game already, Decoy, just ask yourself whether you enjoy space and ground combat enough to warrant the investment. If not, don't get it.
I might actually take the plunge on it, since I doubt Cryptic trying to sell "adventure packs" to Trekkies would go over all that well.
Posts
What's the big kerfuffle in Champion's Land?
More or less, yeah.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
We know STO will have payable expansions. It's not like people get the lifetime thinking they'll never have to pay a cent ever again.
Personally, looking back at my MMO habits, I've never played one for more than 12 months. (on and off). I don't really care for the borg and extra slots either. But, for me the game is definitely good enough to shell out $ for the deluxe and pay for a couple of months. If I reach the end of content by then, I'll just cancel and wait for an expansion.
Paid expansions are a definite, yes, and expected. The problem is what the size of those expansions will be.
To give you some perspective, the CO paid expansion is one zone. Not an actual expansion. It's basically paid DLC for a MMO. Which is all the more insulting given that other MMO's offer that sort of stuff for free between large-scale expansions. Games like WoW, LOTRO, SWG, EVE, City of Heroes, Lineage, Lineage 2, and even Hellgate: London, along pretty much every other pay to play and free MMO in existence offer free content updates to keep the game fresh. CO is doing the exact opposite, and making you pay for it.
As far as I know, they haven't said anything about doing this in STO yet, and most people didn't even know it was a planned "feature" for CO up until they announced it.
Though, some slight research seems to indicate that they said it very quietly and in a place not many people would see it prior to release in CO. It was apparently mentioned off-handedly in a few developer posts in early closed beta. That's not exactly the way you want to advertise what's essentially DDO's current means of having content in a pay to play game however.
This CO thing may be blown out of proportion if the DLC turns out to be cheap, or if free content is added to the game later on. My only gripe with cryptic right now is the general lack of communication. All the conjecture and bitching is pretty much a result of that.
Well, part of the reason for the bitching on CO's forums is that the developers went for months with little to no communication, saying that there was a "massive content update incoming, and that it'd be legendary!".
For the record, this was aided by the fact that there is really nothing to do ingame once you level one character to cap since there's no alternative leveling routes, and not much endgame content, so the playerbase was, and still is, starved for content.
Eventually, they worked people into such a frenzy that they demanded to know what the content update was, which lead to the CO developers announcing the paid DLC, which in turn lead to a complete meltdown of the playerbase on the forums and in many shards of zones, ingame as well. So Cryptic really doesn't have anyone else to blame but themselves at this point, given that they've had this in the pipelines for quite awhile and tried to hype their own fanbase up over it.
Maybe Cryptic has something big cooking, but what I don't get is why they're not giving out info to calm the playerbase down.
My guess is they need to kick their PR rep in the balls.
Given that what I posted up above was as accurate a representation of the course of events that I know of, perhaps you could fill in the blanks or correct what I posted then?
Your rant on the STO skill point cap was overdramatic, which may lead other posters to believe you may be doing the same with your CO rant.
I was just stating my opinion and what i'd seen. I will admit I was extremely angry over them quietly knocking off a heavily advertised feature of the game in favor of one that's untested about a week from release, nevermind after they just got done selling a large sum of lifetime subs. I'm still expecting the retail box to have absolutely no mention of a capless system, since they did away with it.
And i'll probably post about that if I find out that the box does still mention it, since it would just confirm my theory that this was a random last minute change, rather then something they've actually been planning to compensate for.
If people have a bias over that, that's their problem, not mine.
Tell me one thing wow gave out for free content wise. And two, CO's thing cost money, but how much isn't said. If it's 1/10th the price of Wrath of the Lich King, it's understandable that it has 1/10th of the content. Three, CO already relesed Celestial for free, as well as powerhouse 2.0, nemesis confrontation, and craftable travel powers.
But it seems useless arguing this because you keep snowballing things and making large posts that connotativly look like you're really mad.
edit- i'm just as pissed about capless/capped changes as you, but you're um expressing it differently.
I wouldn't really use WoW as a comparison if I were you Pika, it doesn't strengthen your argument.
Heavily advertised? Even if that's true, of all the things this game has to offer, unlimited skill points would have to fall in the ''who cares'' category. It wouldn't even be in the top ten reasons for me to play this game. My opinion, of course.
And who says it was untested? Not everything has to be in the public beta test. It's not necessarily the best way to test a game, but it's possible.
Cryptic has obviously been exacerbating you with its last few business decisions. Why stick with them, and why spend so much time talking about it? Usually, when I don't like a game, I just forget about it and play something else. My opinion, of course.
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/implemented/index.html#patch3p3
Here is the entire list of what they have given out for free.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
WoW? How about the numerous content updates, like Silithus and it's associated dungeons and events, the pre-BC dungeons, the post WotLK release dungeons, and if i'm correct in remembering some of the content releases, an entire new zone, in one or two cases?
It doesn't matter that it costs a little bit of money. CO's competitors set the standard for releasing content. They seem to be trying to pull the rug out from under their playerbase by upsetting that standard and trying to nickle and dime their playerbase. Which is what's causing people to self destruct on the official forums.
It's also not that it could be cheap either, it's that they're trying to gip people into paying for something other games release for free, when they haven't even released new repeatable content yet. The Celestial powerset is all well and good and was a great addition to the game, and the Nemesis Dungeon was too, but they're very limited in scope. The events aren't coming back, with the exception of Blood Moon, so that's a problem there too.
As several people on the official forums have mentioned, zones by themselves also don't give you jackshit in this game. They're nothing more then flashy 3D levels, just like most MMO's.
At the moment, there's no quest content like there is in WotLK, where there's unique types of quests, like riding through a forest while being chased by Worgen, or something similar. They're just places where you pick up kill quests with unique quest text, find the doodad quests, or an "indoor" mission that's been procedurally generated. That's not worth paying for, since that's the same thing that they're expected by their playerbase to release for free.
And even if they did include that stuff (And all signs point to no so far. The focus, going off of the state of the game post, seems to be on the story of some character that's associated with the DLC zone.), there's still the issue of dividing up their playerbase based off of who's willing to pay the most.
That method of content distribution works well in F2P MMO's because they're not paying anything to begin with. If you try to sell that to people who are paying 15 dollars a month, or in some cases, almost 200+ dollars in the case of lifetimers, you're going to see alot of confused and angry people, as the forums are showing now.
I'm not trying to be a dick when I post about this. And i'm certainly not trying to "snowball" things either.
My issue with each game has been simple so far, in STO, they completely altered many aspects game right before release without testing them, much like they did in CO, and in CO, they're currently addressing the lack of content in the game by trying to get people to pay for it. That's it. Outside of some minor quibbles, at this point and time, that's the only problems I have.
Well, unless his definition of 'free' differs from mine, I'd say any content that was not on the disc when I bought it at retail. So, just in Wrath, we got Ulduar, Ony-80, all the bosses in VoA excluding Archavon himself, ToC, ToC 10/25, ToGC 10/25 (Yes, I know its the same instance, but it is differently tuned content, and treated as a seperate raid), 3 Icecrown 5-man dungeons, and ICC 10/25. Not to mention all the seasons of arena that release with new gear/weapons.
Sure, some of this stuff was expected when we bought the expansion, namely ICC. However, it was not on the disc when I purchased it, thus, it was content later released with no attached pricepoint.
Edit; Gah, beated so hard. Posting while at work ftl!
Sorry that free link is work blocked.
Apples and Oranges I'm afraid.
I do however agree wit you about the problems with making game altering changes right before launch.
Actually, the unique quests were put in to alleviate tedium at the WotLK tier, since you're pretty high up in levels, then, and leveling can take awhile unless you powerlevel. Plus it was just a good business move for the game.
Still, there were a fair number of unique quests in vanilla WoW. You don't see anything like Scholomance, where there's an entire hidden quest hub that you can access outside the dungeon ingame in CO.
They had free content updates before the expansions and there is plenty of expansion content that are available to non-expansion players as well. Hell with Cataclysm (their next expansion) they are completely revamping the old zones to make them compatible with the new content from expansions.
The Borg BO should only be your choice of pre-order swag if you're trying to min-max your fashion. Its skills and traits, at least for space (because ground game is faceroll fodder in pve), are not unique.
To be honest, a cool visual effect is about the best you can get, since all the items are redundant and/or become obsolete very quickly. Personally, I'm excited to find out how much envy (more likely mockery and/or pity) I can generate by being a Liberated Borg captain who wears a mirror-universe uniform.
Not many solid details as of yet.
The only confirmed items were respecs (Confirmed by a developer in that skill cap megathread.), character slots (Never confirmed, but given the change in basic gameplay design, and how CO handles it, it's a given.), and so far, most likely vanity pets, and optional costumes, which will be released sometime down the line.
Possibly, and I say possibly, because accolades weren't really in for long during beta, meaning noone really had a chance to test this particular feature, there may also be costume unlocks for "kill 5000 of these type of enemies" achievements. If that's the case, they'll most likely also let you buy some of them after a few months, if you don't want to do the grind to unlock them.
I doubt that the preorder bonuses will be C-Store purchases any time soon. It'd tick off the playerbase, and marginalize their contribution. Certain bonuses probably won't be available for at least a year, like the lifetime mirror universe costume set, if they ever are at all, due to the nature of the bonus.
Oh and if they ever added camp to the game I better see the Galaxy Quest ship in there!
I posted this some time ago. Faux Pas to quote oneself, but there you have it.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Activated Features
* Wrath of Khan Admiral's Uniform
* Star Trek Online - Preorder
* Star Trek Online Lifetime Subscription
I still miss my Del Taco code. Anyone live near one that can score me a code by chance?
After Hellgate London, I've always strayed away from Lifetime subs.
Well even with Hellgate, the people who lifetime sub'd got their moneys worth and a extra month by the math if I am not mistaken.
But even so, look how much SWG has fucked up over the years and is still going. Star Trek is a huge IP and wont be shut down in the next 14-15 months.
The question of "Will the servers be up in 16 months?" isn't the one that is keeping me from getting the LTS. It's the question of "Will this game be able to hold my interest for even a decent majority of that 16 months".
I'll be honest, a very large majority of me only wants the LTS for the Borg avatar and his skills for ground pvp. And while I know that I'm the target of their little "ZOMG LIMITED TIME OFFER" scheme, I still want it. I just get to the screen and can't pull the trigger.
Oh yeah, if I weren't about to end my seasonal job, planning a wedding, and having a baby on the way, I would totally hop on that lifetime sub. Unfortunately, due to the aformentioned events, that's just not going to happen. :P
However, to anybody who has gotten it, or is on the fence about it, if you even remotely enjoyed the game, and think you might log on every once in a while to play it, I really do think it is completely worth it if you have the dough to fork over. But that's just one man's opinion.
So long as they can keep it from getting too unbalanced in PVP and PVE, they'll always have some sort of marketability to players. That, combined with the IP, means that they'll always have incoming funds from monthly subs, barring some sort of catastrophic fuck-up on Cryptic's part, like trying to sell a "Borg Queen Adventure Pack" several months down the line.
Hellgate: London, for the record, was incredibly unbalanced in some areas, and the pricing scheme was all sorts of shady and screwed up, which contributed to its downfall.
CO, which, in my opinion, seems to be slowly starting to circle the drain with their latest announcement, only really has unique combat mechanics if you have a controller, which turns the game into an Ultimate Alliance-esque brawler. The combat mechanics have a fair amount of imbalances too, further pushing people away from the game and causing boredom over a long period of time without new content.
Really, the thing that matters when looking to buy a lifetime sub is whether you feel you can trust the company, and whether the gameplay mechanics they have in at the moment are solid enough to warrant that level of an investment.
LOTRO is a good example of a game that offered a lifetime sub, and is still going strong. It had a solid foundation, and the game was improved pretty steadily post release.
If you've played the game already, Decoy, just ask yourself whether you enjoy space and ground combat enough to warrant the investment. If not, don't get it.
I might actually take the plunge on it, since I doubt Cryptic trying to sell "adventure packs" to Trekkies would go over all that well.