That's what people are joking about. From the looks of it, they aren't buying a 1 billion credit box. But if it looks like people are willing to buy it, they apparently might snap it up if it's increased in price from the normal ones.
Either way, that whole thing is ripe for abuse. And given how they've (refused to) handle the situation, I can't really say they don't deserve it.
This also explains why i've seen major developers hanging out in ESD these past few days, chatting in zone chat.
I had 2 gold boxes up for 29m each and Salami_Inferno definitely bought one of them earlier today but didn't touch the other one, which I found odd. Now I have a 3rd up at the same price, if the devs don't buy them that's fine, I originally put them up for people to buy after they are patched to be bound. Assuming that happens; at this point I can see them refusing to actually patch this as that would just be further confirmation that they screwed this all up entirely. I remember back when they released the 1st lockboxes and people wanted to know the odds of winning anything decent, they claimed they considered posting them but it was too late because if they did so it'd only be taken as an admission of guilt. I thought that odd at the time, now I'm wondering if they meant admission in the legal sense, that they know they're skating on thin ice here and eventually they're gonna get sued.
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
The way they're hushing up the many issues says that they're deathly afraid of legal issues. I posted on the last page mentioning most of the many issues the new lockboxes are having. At the very least they're in danger of being sued over false advertisement as things stand right now. And that's in multiple ways, too, since they claim that boxes are worth over the cost of a key.
It does come pretty quick - a mk XI deflector/shield/engine can give 25-50k just throwing it down the replicator, depending on quality. Inflation is pretty intense, though, since money never really leaves - there's no fees on the exchange, mail, etc. Fleet banks aren't that exorbitant and there's no EC related upkeep. When you start getting mk IX-XI drops you can ride the inflation to riches.
The way they're hushing up the many issues says that they're deathly afraid of legal issues. I posted on the last page mentioning most of the many issues the new lockboxes are having. At the very least they're in danger of being sued over false advertisement as things stand right now. And that's in multiple ways, too, since they claim that boxes are worth over the cost of a key.
It probably won't happen, but part of me really hopes this issue explodes somehow and the entire industry gets legally hammered over all these chance-based games involving real money (which are totally not gambling because digital, or something).
Nothing to do with digital, but because they're blind purchases, not wagers. They're on pretty long stable ground, since grab bags have been around as long as carnivals or kids meals have existed.
I think it's enough that it's false advertising if it's true that there is no difference in drop rates between the two types of boxes. That's a really shady move that I hope is picked up by media and possibly end up with a law suit.
I've noticed that there's like 400 listings of Gold boxes on the exchange now, so I guess the devs have stopped buying them up.
Shame, I guess I'll hold onto mine in case it does get fixed, or maybe I should sell it even if it's just for 2-3 mill?
they aren't going to fix it. (other then the binding issue)
how they are going to fix it, is by leaving in all the items it shouldn't be dropping and editing the FAQ and the listed loot on the lockbox to match it and say "opps we forgot to list these, we planned to have it that way"
got a reply from a support ticket saying its all intended.
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
they aren't going to fix it. (other then the binding issue)
how they are going to fix it, is by leaving in all the items it shouldn't be dropping and editing the FAQ and the listed loot on the lockbox to match it and say "opps we forgot to list these, we planned to have it that way"
got a reply from a support ticket saying its all intended.
That person who handled that ticket is full of shit.
One of the developers confirms that every aspect of the gold boxes are broken. Apparently going off of the latest posts, Cryptic neglected to inform customer service, so you're going to have to walk them through every step of the debacle step by step if you want proper compensation for your money spent.
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
edited April 2012
Stupid double post. Why do the forums hate me so?
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Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
So whomever told me about that power leech console last night... I got it on my all turret carrier now. I am never in danger of dieing now. I did one of the STFs and all my power settings were 100+ in addition to have all my BoPs deployed, a science fleet out, and shooting awesome gravity wells and other science stuff everywhere. So much power.
ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
edited April 2012
So apparently Cryptic's customer service team is now saying that they are not giving refund or fixing those effected by the faulty gold boxes,, and that the FAQ is going to be altered to reflect the new terms for what the gold boxes are going to drop soon. PS: Fuck all of you that got suckered into buying gold boxes and we're keeping your money.
IE: In polite business terms, they do the exact same thing as the normal box, only they claim it's a "better chance" to get something good. Which is not provable by them or the players as the box stands now. Also, not what the gold boxes were sold on doing, nor are what they are doing right now, as the drops are showing. The players already had a dev confirm that the crystals are not dropping properly for them, for instance.
You know what? I'm just going to say it. People should boycott Cryptic games if they do this. Actively campaign against these assholes in fact, because if they go through with this they are setting an amazingly shitty precedent for what F2P games can do and get away with. That is some grade triple A bullshit right there, and they should not be allowed to steal their customers money like that. And that is exactly what they'd try to be doing if they do that. Instead of fixing their own mess, they're trying to play internet cover-up. Which is not only incredibly stupid from a feasibility standpoint, but also amazingly shitty of them.
I'm surprised there's not more of an outcry over this. I would expect people who have spent large sums of money on the keys to open those gold boxes to be raising hell in zone chat but other than that thread in the bug report forum I'm just not seeing it. It's almost as if the majority of people just don't know or care that the gold boxes are not actually any better than the greens and that Cryptic plans to retroactively declare this as "working as intended." I realize part of this is due to their control of the forums, they merge all the threads but why is there no coverage of this outside STO? Where is STOked? Or Massively? Or any sort of online gaming "news" site? Surely someone would consider this news? As long as Cryptic contains the story there's really no way for players to put any sort of pressure on them.
I'm surprised there's not more of an outcry over this. I would expect people who have spent large sums of money on the keys to open those gold boxes to be raising hell in zone chat but other than that thread in the bug report forum I'm just not seeing it. It's almost as if the majority of people just don't know or care that the gold boxes are not actually any better than the greens and that Cryptic plans to retroactively declare this as "working as intended." I realize part of this is due to their control of the forums, they merge all the threads but why is there no coverage of this outside STO? Where is STOked? Or Massively? Or any sort of online gaming "news" site? Surely someone would consider this news? As long as Cryptic contains the story there's really no way for players to put any sort of pressure on them.
STOked tapes their stuff on the weekend and posts it today, so we'll have to wait till next week to probably anything about it from them.
most of the things like STOked seem like fan-boy apologists as well for cryptic.
I suggest sending in an email to to massively, MMORPG etc.
I tried brining it up in zone chat a few times, but got drowned out by 2-3 people who insisted I was wrong and it was meant to work that way.
90% of the players don't know any better that they are bugged, and recall on most mmo forums, a very small number of the playing population actually read (they will read the home page for news updates and that is about it)
I'm surprised there's not more of an outcry over this. I would expect people who have spent large sums of money on the keys to open those gold boxes to be raising hell in zone chat but other than that thread in the bug report forum I'm just not seeing it. It's almost as if the majority of people just don't know or care that the gold boxes are not actually any better than the greens and that Cryptic plans to retroactively declare this as "working as intended." I realize part of this is due to their control of the forums, they merge all the threads but why is there no coverage of this outside STO? Where is STOked? Or Massively? Or any sort of online gaming "news" site? Surely someone would consider this news? As long as Cryptic contains the story there's really no way for players to put any sort of pressure on them.
Its only one thing but i mentioned in doffjobs last night that the gold boxes were bugged and a fair few people in there commented on it being 'just a rumour by some guy on the forums' so they obviously hadn't seen it confirmed by the Dev so i guess there cover-up is working?
I'm surprised there's not more of an outcry over this. I would expect people who have spent large sums of money on the keys to open those gold boxes to be raising hell in zone chat but other than that thread in the bug report forum I'm just not seeing it. It's almost as if the majority of people just don't know or care that the gold boxes are not actually any better than the greens and that Cryptic plans to retroactively declare this as "working as intended." I realize part of this is due to their control of the forums, they merge all the threads but why is there no coverage of this outside STO? Where is STOked? Or Massively? Or any sort of online gaming "news" site? Surely someone would consider this news? As long as Cryptic contains the story there's really no way for players to put any sort of pressure on them.
Its only one thing but i mentioned in doffjobs last night that the gold boxes were bugged and a fair few people in there commented on it being 'just a rumour by some guy on the forums' so they obviously hadn't seen it confirmed by the Dev so i guess there cover-up is working?
Just saw some people bring it up in Doffjobs and zone chat.
They were pretty much torn apart by apologists and trolls who don't understand how advertising one product, selling someone a demonstratively different product, then not re-reimbursing or helping the affected people, and trying to cover up the mistake is actually somewhat illegal in quite a few countries. I watched three different people claim the terms of service (I believe they meant the EULA.) covered these actions. Which it doesn't, as several people tried to explain. But when someone tried to tell them that they just ignored it or started capsing at them.
It was pretty goddamned stunning to watch. The apologists kept harping about how it wasn't illegal to blatantly rip consumers off, even when the people trying to explain it were posting quotes from devs saying that the whole thing was screwed up. A bunch of people said they were all for the bug because it screwed over people who were spending more money then them. Overall, the entire channel descended into a sort of self-wanking chaos as people kept trying to preen their ego's while shouting the people trying to explain why the boxes were broken down.
Then Heretic (A developer.) started posting in DOffjobs. Which lead to many of those same apologists/amateur internet lawyers to start crowing about how the people who were trying to raise awareness of the issue were going to get their just desserts for "plotting against the developers" behind their backs, when a developer was really in front of them all along. Heretic replied by saying he had a "thick skin and was used to it by now".
The sheer fuckmuppetry of this community amazes me. It's like they aren't capable of basic reading comprehension and are actively entertaining some sort of weird virtual...I don't know the word for it, libertarian/Galtian fantasy? Half of the posts I saw seemed to basically have an underlying "Cryptic are the ones with all the power and provide the game, so they can screw us if they want" mentality. And then a few of those same people later started making intensely hypocritical comments about how the people who were "complaining" (They weren't. Again, amazing fuckmuppetry at work. I seriously wish I had gotten logs of the channel so I could post them here.) were still playing when they clearly hated the game.
They actually had people laying this shit out for them on a step by step basis, that even a child could understand, and their reply was basically "NUH-UH!" chanted over and over. Some of them mixed it up and tried to establish what I can only assume were attempts at internet celebrity personalities. Some of the unique ways some people on the channel were refusing to listen were bizarre. One guy kept putting the words "obiwanjabroni" in in place of someone's name. The example I listed had other people asking if they were high/stupid/insane. Another guy who was very pro fucked lockboxes tried to get the people on the channel to abuse the report spam function to mute the people who were trying to argue against him for 24 hours.
If it wasn't for the fact that most of the game is quite enjoyable, STF's excepting, i'd say the community deserves to be taken advantage of at this point. Does make for good comedy. We were cracking up in fleet chat as we watched ESD and Doffjobs self destruct just from a bunch of people trying to help out.
Looks like some good did come of it, though. It prompted a few people to make topics on the forums. And to warn the moderators not to merge it with the lockbox megathread, since the topics have nothing to do with it. Time will tell if Cryptic pays attention, I guess.
I was one of the people in that channel trying to explain to them, shoonu@shapey was me.
huge huge number of brown nosers, and like I told them, if THEY got screwed over, they wouldn't want everyone telling them "boo hoo suck it up"
I saw you in the channel, Shapeshifter. You were one of the ones getting verbally trashed by those idiots, weren't you? If so, don't worry, you were very much in the right. I sure as hell wasn't going to involve myself in that mess, but I was nodding along with you and the others.
It's not really worth making another post about it, but someone made a topic about the buggy lockboxes and customer service response on every relevant forum. Also, I dug up the original topic where the bugs were reported. Here they are if you're wanting to chime in.
Here's the "lockboxes are screwed up, do something that isn't unethical as hell to fix it" topic on the general discussion forum. It's the biggest one so far.
I won't white knight cryptic too strongly because their incompetence makes ccp look good, but really, the community is pretty dumb for not seeing this coming.
I mean, bran flakes is nothing but a glorified mod who has never given any information of note regarding serious issues. Not to mention iirc the cardy lock boxes ran the same way with the golds still dropping the crap rewards. Expecting cryptic not to make the decision that screws players out of more money is naive.
Well, I've sent the above two forum threads to Massively with a short explanation.
I doubt anything will happen though as Massively are massive fans of Cryptic.
Well, I've sent the above two forum threads to Massively with a short explanation.
I doubt anything will happen though as Massively are massive fans of Cryptic.
May want to toss a note to Gabe and Tycho as well. I don't know if they'd put it up on the front page, but it seems like something they'd have fun with.
Finally seeing how big the patches really are because I have turned off the on demand patching (it was, on occasion, pushing my laptop to single digit FPS, which was annoying as hell).
Yeah, there's really not much benefit to on demand patching. Trade X download now for X download plus shitty performance later. A lot of it happens in the loading screen, too, so either way, you're not actually playing while it's patching. Kind of defeats the point.
Yeah, there's really not much benefit to on demand patching. Trade X download now for X download plus shitty performance later. A lot of it happens in the loading screen, too, so either way, you're not actually playing while it's patching. Kind of defeats the point.
The loading screen bits didn't bother me, it was when it decided it was finished loading but still had several files to patch that screwed me up.
I'd probably get away with it on my PC (if it was, you know, functional right now), but my laptop just can't do that.
Six of one half of the other. Cryptic said before the acquisition they were looking for a way that CBS would be ok with them getting these third faction ships in the game. They can't do direct purchases or handouts, and they've always said everything they do has to be monetized in some way, either directly or indirectly (Mark my words: There'll be shuttles released with or soon after the shuttle STF this month), and they were never afraid of packing the C-store with shit, so they were probably heading somewhere as it was. The fact that they finally bit the bullet and started doing it this way right around the time the transition finally hit the games, though, is not in any way a coincidence.
No, it's not that they "can't" do direct purchases, it's that they won't since they make way more money off the lottery mechanic.
CBS' concern was that having half of Starfleet/KDF flying Galors or whatever would tarnish or confuse the Trek image by association, and I suppose I can agree with that. Cryptic could have just as easily thrown the ships in the c-store for 5000cp and achieved the desired rarity, but PW knows from experience that people will spend (on average) way more than 5000cp for each ship that gets awarded through the lottery (because they control the odds). I guess nobody's told CBS that the people most likely to shell out tons of money of these things are also the people who play the most, and so there's already an unrealistic number of non-Fed/KDF ships being flown by players.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
This might be heresy, but I don't like the look of Fed designed ships. They all look too similar to each other. The saucer and two back engines don't look aesthetically pleasing.
Klingon ships look cool though. They look like what I would call a sci-fi warship. Also, yes I have been exposed to Star Trek before, even watching the original series.
10 million isn't a whole lot really, but there's not all that much that actually costs more than that. The lockbox ships, and certain mk XII blue and purple consoles.
not much that costs more than that.. but if you ever want to buy more than a couple under 10 million items or hoard cash then the cash upgrade is certainly useful
lets say you do a console mission and get some XII console worth 100 million but you don't want to use it (I'd certainly never want to install 100 million EC on my ship), you're going to have a hard time selling it
had a gold account for a while (free respec tokens for leveling a new character, always handy), it was nice to not worry about going over the cap.
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That's what people are joking about. From the looks of it, they aren't buying a 1 billion credit box. But if it looks like people are willing to buy it, they apparently might snap it up if it's increased in price from the normal ones.
Either way, that whole thing is ripe for abuse. And given how they've (refused to) handle the situation, I can't really say they don't deserve it.
This also explains why i've seen major developers hanging out in ESD these past few days, chatting in zone chat.
It probably won't happen, but part of me really hopes this issue explodes somehow and the entire industry gets legally hammered over all these chance-based games involving real money (which are totally not gambling because digital, or something).
Shame, I guess I'll hold onto mine in case it does get fixed, or maybe I should sell it even if it's just for 2-3 mill?
they aren't going to fix it. (other then the binding issue)
how they are going to fix it, is by leaving in all the items it shouldn't be dropping and editing the FAQ and the listed loot on the lockbox to match it and say "opps we forgot to list these, we planned to have it that way"
got a reply from a support ticket saying its all intended.
That person who handled that ticket is full of shit.
Show them this topic.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=266492
One of the developers confirms that every aspect of the gold boxes are broken. Apparently going off of the latest posts, Cryptic neglected to inform customer service, so you're going to have to walk them through every step of the debacle step by step if you want proper compensation for your money spent.
IE: In polite business terms, they do the exact same thing as the normal box, only they claim it's a "better chance" to get something good. Which is not provable by them or the players as the box stands now. Also, not what the gold boxes were sold on doing, nor are what they are doing right now, as the drops are showing. The players already had a dev confirm that the crystals are not dropping properly for them, for instance.
You know what? I'm just going to say it. People should boycott Cryptic games if they do this. Actively campaign against these assholes in fact, because if they go through with this they are setting an amazingly shitty precedent for what F2P games can do and get away with. That is some grade triple A bullshit right there, and they should not be allowed to steal their customers money like that. And that is exactly what they'd try to be doing if they do that. Instead of fixing their own mess, they're trying to play internet cover-up. Which is not only incredibly stupid from a feasibility standpoint, but also amazingly shitty of them.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
STOked tapes their stuff on the weekend and posts it today, so we'll have to wait till next week to probably anything about it from them.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
I suggest sending in an email to to massively, MMORPG etc.
I tried brining it up in zone chat a few times, but got drowned out by 2-3 people who insisted I was wrong and it was meant to work that way.
90% of the players don't know any better that they are bugged, and recall on most mmo forums, a very small number of the playing population actually read (they will read the home page for news updates and that is about it)
Its only one thing but i mentioned in doffjobs last night that the gold boxes were bugged and a fair few people in there commented on it being 'just a rumour by some guy on the forums' so they obviously hadn't seen it confirmed by the Dev so i guess there cover-up is working?
very few actually read it, everyone else kept going on and on how it was working correctly.
They were pretty much torn apart by apologists and trolls who don't understand how advertising one product, selling someone a demonstratively different product, then not re-reimbursing or helping the affected people, and trying to cover up the mistake is actually somewhat illegal in quite a few countries. I watched three different people claim the terms of service (I believe they meant the EULA.) covered these actions. Which it doesn't, as several people tried to explain. But when someone tried to tell them that they just ignored it or started capsing at them.
It was pretty goddamned stunning to watch. The apologists kept harping about how it wasn't illegal to blatantly rip consumers off, even when the people trying to explain it were posting quotes from devs saying that the whole thing was screwed up. A bunch of people said they were all for the bug because it screwed over people who were spending more money then them. Overall, the entire channel descended into a sort of self-wanking chaos as people kept trying to preen their ego's while shouting the people trying to explain why the boxes were broken down.
Then Heretic (A developer.) started posting in DOffjobs. Which lead to many of those same apologists/amateur internet lawyers to start crowing about how the people who were trying to raise awareness of the issue were going to get their just desserts for "plotting against the developers" behind their backs, when a developer was really in front of them all along. Heretic replied by saying he had a "thick skin and was used to it by now".
The sheer fuckmuppetry of this community amazes me. It's like they aren't capable of basic reading comprehension and are actively entertaining some sort of weird virtual...I don't know the word for it, libertarian/Galtian fantasy? Half of the posts I saw seemed to basically have an underlying "Cryptic are the ones with all the power and provide the game, so they can screw us if they want" mentality. And then a few of those same people later started making intensely hypocritical comments about how the people who were "complaining" (They weren't. Again, amazing fuckmuppetry at work. I seriously wish I had gotten logs of the channel so I could post them here.) were still playing when they clearly hated the game.
They actually had people laying this shit out for them on a step by step basis, that even a child could understand, and their reply was basically "NUH-UH!" chanted over and over. Some of them mixed it up and tried to establish what I can only assume were attempts at internet celebrity personalities. Some of the unique ways some people on the channel were refusing to listen were bizarre. One guy kept putting the words "obiwanjabroni" in in place of someone's name. The example I listed had other people asking if they were high/stupid/insane. Another guy who was very pro fucked lockboxes tried to get the people on the channel to abuse the report spam function to mute the people who were trying to argue against him for 24 hours.
If it wasn't for the fact that most of the game is quite enjoyable, STF's excepting, i'd say the community deserves to be taken advantage of at this point. Does make for good comedy. We were cracking up in fleet chat as we watched ESD and Doffjobs self destruct just from a bunch of people trying to help out.
Looks like some good did come of it, though. It prompted a few people to make topics on the forums. And to warn the moderators not to merge it with the lockbox megathread, since the topics have nothing to do with it. Time will tell if Cryptic pays attention, I guess.
Edit:
I saw you in the channel, Shapeshifter. You were one of the ones getting verbally trashed by those idiots, weren't you? If so, don't worry, you were very much in the right. I sure as hell wasn't going to involve myself in that mess, but I was nodding along with you and the others.
It's not really worth making another post about it, but someone made a topic about the buggy lockboxes and customer service response on every relevant forum. Also, I dug up the original topic where the bugs were reported. Here they are if you're wanting to chime in.
Here's the "lockboxes are screwed up, do something that isn't unethical as hell to fix it" topic on the general discussion forum. It's the biggest one so far.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=266845
Here's the original topic reporting the bugs where Cryptic confirmed they were ten different kinds of messed up.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=266492
huge huge number of brown nosers, and like I told them, if THEY got screwed over, they wouldn't want everyone telling them "boo hoo suck it up"
I mean, bran flakes is nothing but a glorified mod who has never given any information of note regarding serious issues. Not to mention iirc the cardy lock boxes ran the same way with the golds still dropping the crap rewards. Expecting cryptic not to make the decision that screws players out of more money is naive.
I doubt anything will happen though as Massively are massive fans of Cryptic.
May want to toss a note to Gabe and Tycho as well. I don't know if they'd put it up on the front page, but it seems like something they'd have fun with.
2900MB to go!
The loading screen bits didn't bother me, it was when it decided it was finished loading but still had several files to patch that screwed me up.
I'd probably get away with it on my PC (if it was, you know, functional right now), but my laptop just can't do that.
CBS' concern was that having half of Starfleet/KDF flying Galors or whatever would tarnish or confuse the Trek image by association, and I suppose I can agree with that. Cryptic could have just as easily thrown the ships in the c-store for 5000cp and achieved the desired rarity, but PW knows from experience that people will spend (on average) way more than 5000cp for each ship that gets awarded through the lottery (because they control the odds). I guess nobody's told CBS that the people most likely to shell out tons of money of these things are also the people who play the most, and so there's already an unrealistic number of non-Fed/KDF ships being flown by players.
Klingon ships look cool though. They look like what I would call a sci-fi warship. Also, yes I have been exposed to Star Trek before, even watching the original series.
I'm considering getting either that or 4 character slots with my dil.
lets say you do a console mission and get some XII console worth 100 million but you don't want to use it (I'd certainly never want to install 100 million EC on my ship), you're going to have a hard time selling it
had a gold account for a while (free respec tokens for leveling a new character, always handy), it was nice to not worry about going over the cap.
Got to love bait and switch.