Just a few thoughts about the C-store

[Archived Post]

First off let me say that I'm a life time sub member of STO. Been here since the last weeks of the beta two+ years ago. In that time I've watched as the C-store has evolved from what it was to what it is now.
But also I've noticed a few things that I'm not happy with concerning the c-store. And would like to see them change. These can be broken down into a few short lines.

1. Redesign of the web and in game gui of the store (no complaints here) it NEEDED it!

2. The prices on some things are ok, but I'm not happy with the fact that paid members (lifers also) have to pay the same as F2P members. (and yes I've read all of the other threads on this)

2.A Paid members/lifers get exclusive content not available to F2P members. Ok cool. But charging them the same rates for add-on's like costumes, respec tokens, ships etc. Sorry but this is just plain wrong, there should be a bigger gap between F2P members and paid/life members.

2.B F2P members don't have to pay to play STO, nor do they have to even buy anything from the C-store unless they want to ever. But they are restricted from the exclusive content paid/life members get.

3. And the monthly 400 c-points (what are we supposed to use them for?) The reality of it is the 400 c-points can't buy you anything unless it's some new costume piece or some non combat vanity pet...

The reality of it is that the c-store prices are too high when compared to other MMO'S out there. I would love to buy the Odyssey three pack but not having to pay $62.50 for enough c-points to buy it with. And as it stands I'm looking at oh around ten months before I can even think about it. (unless something else comes along first)

I'm a trekie from way back in the 70's watching reruns after school and dreaming of strange new worlds at night while I slept. As a lifer here I enjoy playing the game, just have a few problems with it, the c-store being one of them.
Laters.

[Archived Post]

The reality of it is that the c-store prices are too high when compared to other MMO'S out there.

The reality is, that you paid for all the **** before f2p, too. Only thing that has changed are the prices or unlock type (account/single character) on some stuff and the 400 cpoints you get for free now. Subs are pretty worthless anyway so before complaining that you don't get enough as a paying customer simply stop paying every month and just buy the stuff you really want, comes ways cheaper.

And the odyssey pack...while you're talking about 10 months here...simply save up your stipend for 10 month and you have it.

Something else, it's much easier now to get a free t5 ship account wide through dilithium conversion than it was before to get whatever store ships were available for badges.

I think I'm one of the top doomsayers and the guys at cryptic do a really, really bad job in many areas of the game but the shop/prices are the only thing I see no reason to complain about. If you compare to other games keep in mind, that most don't allow you to buy premium stuff for ingame currency (in this case for dilithium).

[Archived Post]

Your discount is 400c-points per month.

[Archived Post]

The reality is, that you paid for all the **** before f2p, too. Only thing that has changed are the prices or unlock type (account/single character) on some stuff and the 400 cpoints you get for free now. Subs are pretty worthless anyway so before complaining that you don't get enough as a paying customer simply stop paying every month and just buy the stuff you really want, comes ways cheaper.

And the odyssey pack...while you're talking about 10 months here...simply save up your stipend for 10 month and you have it.

Something else, it's much easier now to get a free t5 ship account wide through dilithium conversion than it was before to get whatever store ships were available for badges.

I think I'm one of the top doomsayers and the guys at cryptic do a really, really bad job in many areas of the game but the shop/prices are the only thing I see no reason to complain about. If you compare to other games keep in mind, that most don't allow you to buy premium stuff for ingame currency (in this case for dilithium).

Your discount is 400c-points per month.

Did either of you pay attention to the first line of my post?

Really?

I don't pay a thing monthly.... I'm a life time member!! Which means that I forked up $300 for my account way back when the game was still in open beta. And as a lifetime member I DO have the right to complain here on these forums when I feel that something isn't right.

[Archived Post]

I don't pay a thing monthly.... I'm a life time member!! Which means that I forked up $300 for my account way back when the game was still in open beta. And as a lifetime member I DO have the right to complain here on these forums when I feel that something isn't right.
That doesn't change the fact that you get 400 free CP a month, which you can use to buy a 400 CP product or use as a discount on more expensive items.

You should also keep in mind that prior to FTP the only benefit you got from being a Lifer was the few special Lifer items and never having to pay a monthly Subscription again. Also, since you've been a Lifer since launch, 26 months ago, your $300.00 investment was essentially equalized 6 months ago: 20 months x $15.00 per month = $300.00. So, like me, you have been playing for "free" for the last 6 months, and 4 of those months Cryptic actually paid you $5.00 worth of CP just to be here.

[Archived Post]

I agree a lot of prices on the C-store are just too high and I personally would not buy 80% of the stuff there because of the that. I will fight by your side to complain about high prices.

But being a Lifer doesnt mean we deserve more than F2P players beyond what we already paid for. If you have been here since launch you have gotten your monies worth and more. As Cosmic_One said, we are being paid $5 in C-points a month.

[Archived Post]

That doesn't change the fact that you get 400 free CP a month, which you can use to buy a 400 CP product or use as a discount on more expensive items.

he doesn't get anything for free. he *paid* for the account. and have you not noticed cryptic is essentially charging people $15 a month for $5 worth of points? if you can't see that theres a problem there...

[Archived Post]

he doesn't get anything for free. he *paid* for the account. and have you not noticed cryptic is essentially charging people $15 a month for $5 worth of points? if you can't see that theres a problem there...

He said he bought his lifetime at open beta, so he is not paying a subscription. That means that he has been playing for free for 6 months. Even more, as Lifers we get PAID $5 a month in c-points to play. So yes, we do get things for free.

The other point that C-store prices are too high, is something I completely agree with though.

[Archived Post]

Some of you actually understood part of my point and missed the rest of it.

Point: C-store prices are to high when compared to other mmo's.

Point: 400 Cryptic Points a month = akin to a tip at a restaurant for keeping someones tea glass filled. When compared to the 800-2000 points it costs for 1 new ship. (yeah subs and lifers get a free ship every ten levels but the exclusive ships still cost us) So does buying extra ships, And special refits/retrofits.

Point: 5000 c-points = $62.50 usd (highway robbery as they used to say)

Point: Paid members and Lifers should get some sort of discount.

Point: Other MMO'S micro-transaction systems give the subs and lifers get big discounts but charge more to free 2 play players.

laters.

[Archived Post]

I didnt miss your other points, I just disagree with them. :D

[Archived Post]

Point: C-store prices are to high when compared to other mmo's.
I Subscribe to 7 MMOs and play several more FTP games. Prices are all over the place. For example, in LotRO (a sister license game) an exceptional Steed will cost you 1,995 Turbine Points. 2,500 Turbine points costs $29.50. That means a horse in LotRO costs $23.54. I guarantee you get far more use out of a $25.00 Odyssey, Galaxy Dreadnought, or MVAM in STO then you do an exceptional Steed in LotRO.

I could talk about $50.00 tanks in WoT or $25.00 Celestial Steeds in WoW too. But you probably don't want to hear about that either. :)

Point: 400 Cryptic Points a month = akin to a tip at a restaurant for keeping someones tea glass filled.
Based on that analogy a monthly Subscription is akin to 3 tips at a restaurant per month for keeping someone's tea glass filled. As I eat out 2-3 times a week my tea tips alone are covering the cost of 3-4 Subscriptions. :)

[Archived Post]

Some of you actually understood part of my point and missed the rest of it.

Point: C-store prices are to high when compared to other mmo's.

Point: 400 Cryptic Points a month = akin to a tip at a restaurant for keeping someones tea glass filled. When compared to the 800-2000 points it costs for 1 new ship. (yeah subs and lifers get a free ship every ten levels but the exclusive ships still cost us) So does buying extra ships, And special refits/retrofits.

Point: 5000 c-points = $62.50 usd (highway robbery as they used to say)

Point: Paid members and Lifers should get some sort of discount.

Point: Other MMO'S micro-transaction systems give the subs and lifers get big discounts but charge more to free 2 play players.

laters.

I see your logic....anyone who disagrees with you "doesn't understand".

I agree the prices are a *little* high...on everything else I disagree whole heartedly!

[Archived Post]

I Subscribe to 7 MMOs and play several more FTP games. Prices are all over the place. For example, in LotRO (a sister license game) an exceptional Steed will cost you 1,995 Turbine Points. 2,500 Turbine points costs $29.50. That means a horse in LotRO costs $23.54. I guarantee you get far more use out of a $25.00 Odyssey, Galaxy Dreadnought, or MVAM in STO then you do an exceptional Steed in LotRO.

I could talk about $50.00 tanks in WoT or $25.00 Celestial Steeds in WoW too. But you probably don't want to hear about that either. :)


Based on that analogy a monthly Subscription is akin to 3 tips at a restaurant per month for keeping someone's tea glass filled. As I eat out 2-3 times a week my tea tips alone are covering the cost of 3-4 Subscriptions. :)

Might not want to mention the vanity monocles of Eve then eh? (http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/22/eve-online-now-sells-70-monocles/)

FTA:
...
If you’ve followed that, you’ll have realised that in real money terms the clothes cost around $17.50 each and the implant costs more than $70.00 (or four months subscription). An astonishing amount for an item with no in game functionality.

:)

[Archived Post]

How many of the ships below tier V are 'useful' for more than a handfoul hours with the current levelling speed?

Unlike the Ody, the Borta is not an upgrade over the free ships.

No search feature, not even between Federation/KDF.
No option to filter the ships by rank or type.

No option to buy things above your current rank, or for the other faction - not even account wide unlocked things.

The ship descriptions have typos (ie. Varanus), and they do not mirror the way they are discribed ingame with the nifty little icons (all ships: stations).
Powers are described vague.

Items that used to be sold are available for free now (playable races).


The shop could certainly be designed and run better. At the moment it seems to be an afterthought, done by game centered people, not sales centered people.
But I have yet to read anything about cryptic emplying people for that kind of job.

[Archived Post]

How many of the ships below tier V are 'useful' for more than a handfoul hours with the current levelling speed?

Unlike the Ody, the Borta is not an upgrade over the free ships.

No search feature, not even between Federation/KDF.
No option to filter the ships by rank or type.

No option to buy things above your current rank, or for the other faction - not even account wide unlocked things.

The ship descriptions have typos (ie. Varanus), and they do not mirror the way they are discribed ingame with the nifty little icons (all ships: stations).
Powers are described vague.

Items that used to be sold are available for free now (playable races).


The shop could certainly be designed and run better. At the moment it seems to be an afterthought, done by game centered people, not sales centered people.
But I have yet to read anything about cryptic emplying people for that kind of job.

You bring up some good points to, the c-store is lacking in somethings besides the overpriced items.

[Archived Post]

i agree with the OP we lifetime members should definitely get a discount. we should not have to pay the same as silvers do for anything since we paid and well they are getting the same gameplay we payed for for free.

[Archived Post]

i agree with the OP we lifetime members should definitely get a discount. we should not have to pay the same as silvers do for anything since we paid and well they are getting the same gameplay we payed for for free.

Yeah.. Gold and Lifetimers should get something like $5 per month in free stuff from Cryptic.. Gold pays $15 / mo as it is so giving them back $5 of that in free stuff each month seems fair to me.

[Archived Post]

he doesn't get anything for free. he *paid* for the account. and have you not noticed cryptic is essentially charging people $15 a month for $5 worth of points? if you can't see that theres a problem there...

What "problem"? That they're making money... just? Barely? Maybe? Unless I missed something somewhere I think that's what they're SUPPOSED to be doing. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to keep the game up and alive and we'd all have to go back to meeting over at a friends house on the weekends and rolling dice on a table. Which wasn't a bad way to spend time... just saying... :p

[Archived Post]

Yeah.. Gold and Lifetimers should get something like $5 per month in free stuff from Cryptic.. Gold pays $15 / mo as it is so giving them back $5 of that in free stuff each month seems fair to me.

So you're saying that for my $15 sub each month I should get $5 back in value of some sort? Something like, oh, say... $5 worth of CP? Lessee... do the math here <mumble, mumble, mumble> that would be about 400 cp each month. So then I'm really only paying $10 a month to sub. Okay, kewl... I'll go fer that! :p... or were you saying we should ANOTHER $5 back each month on TOP of the 400 CP we already get... so then we're paying, really, only $5 a month to sub? Hmmmm... keep going at this rate and you're gonna have them paying everyone just to play the game... the way they ALREADY are paying some of the lifers to play the game. :eek:

You don't, by any chance, work for the Government... do you?? :confused:

[Archived Post]

So you're saying that for my $15 sub each month I should get $5 back in value of some sort? Something like, oh, say... $5 worth of CP? Lessee... do the math here <mumble, mumble, mumble> that would be about 400 cp each month. So then I'm really only paying $10 a month to sub. Okay, kewl... I'll go fer that! :p... or were you saying we should ANOTHER $5 back each month on TOP of the 400 CP we already get... so then we're paying, really, only $5 a month to sub? Hmmmm... keep going at this rate and you're gonna have them paying everyone just to play the game... the way they ALREADY are paying some of the lifers to play the game. :eek:

You don't, by any chance, work for the Government... do you?? :confused:

$5 dollars a month seems fair to me. $10 per month seems greedy when you consider gold members only pay $15 per month.

:)

[Archived Post]

im not saying for all gold members im saying for us lifetime members we should b getting a discount or free points above and beyond your average gold member i mean think about it we did pay $300 dollars for our lifetime membership

[Archived Post]

I do believe there should be a greater distinction between Silver & Gold, and I have thought that since we changed over to the new system. There's simply not enough to justify the sub price given that the game revolves around Dilithium & paying subscribers don't get any major "leg up's" out side of a few ships while levelling. As far as a hybrid system goes it need a lot more work put into it, that said I'm not sure if lifers should be included in everything.

Personally, my biggest gripe is the change to character unlocks only. You are right about the price of ships in general being pretty hefty, but the fact that you can only unlock them per character is the real sticking point. A lot of players have multiple classes at VA, and for those who, like me, tend to play all of the classes, having to fork out that much money x3 is just a straight up turn off. In fact, I'm not buying items because of it, I simply can't justify it any more.

I don't hate the C store, but I feel they have taken it too far with their prices & restrictions since FP2, and frankly I'm in the same boat as you. I have been here since beta & In general I like the game, but it's hard look past the recent changes and feel happy about it.

If I had to power to change things I would do the following.

*Silver players can unlock account wide C store purchases for a fee (Either per item or one time only)
*Lifers & Subscribers get account wide C store unlocks
*Lifers & Subscribers get crafting with out the extra Dilithium cost
*Subscribers unlock DilithiumX. Can't be traded & can only be used to buy "selected" ships & mods. Can't be used in conjunction with normal Dilithium. 4x as much per mission & 4x the daily cap.
*Lastly I would try and keep prices for new ships under $15 with older ships getting bumped down to $8-$10 after 3/4 months.

It will never happen, but it's nice to dream...

[Archived Post]

Personally, my biggest gripe is the change to character unlocks only. You are right about the price of ships in general being pretty hefty, but the fact that you can only unlock them per character is the real sticking point. A lot of players have multiple classes at VA, and for those who, like me, tend to play all of the classes, having to fork out that much money x3 is just a straight up turn off. In fact, I'm not buying items because of it, I simply can't justify it any more.



Just want to correct you on that point. Ships are ACCOUNT unlocks. You buy it once and can use it on all current faction characters and any new faction characters you make. Plus you can use the low level consoles on all faction characters as well. I do think the current sale price, which is the old original price, should be what ships cost though and the Flagship packs should be 3200 CP.

im not saying for all gold members im saying for us lifetime members we should b getting a discount or free points above and beyond your average gold member i mean think about it we did pay $300 dollars for our lifetime membership

Yes we did pay $300 dollars, but for me that was paid off 6 months ago. Gold should be increased in value so there is a point to subscribing, and veteran rewards should be better. But Lifers should not get more than Gold members, we arent any more special. We just paid for GOLD membership up front. For me and anyone who bought a lifetime at launch it has paid for itself and every month it keeps on paying us. :)

[Archived Post]

The reality of it is that the c-store prices are too high when compared to other MMO'S out there. I would love to buy the Odyssey three pack but not having to pay $62.50 for enough c-points to buy it with. And as it stands I'm looking at oh around ten months before I can even think about it. (unless something else comes along first)


Not that I also don't agree that the new prices from F2P are too high (400 points for a BOFF? Really? especially since they used to be only 100 points?)...

But, the Odyssey or Bor'tasqu bundle is 4000 points, not 5000, so you don't have to spend 62.50 on C-points.

[Archived Post]

My signature says it all.

[Archived Post]

im not saying for all gold members im saying for us lifetime members we should b getting a discount or free points above and beyond your average gold member i mean think about it we did pay $300 dollars for our lifetime membership

Except that once you've played the game for over 20 months you're essentially playing for free. Whereas a monthly subscriber would still be paying money into the game long past the 20 month point. So by your logic the monthly subscribers should get the most goodie extras :D.

[Archived Post]

It's funny...I remember the entilted lifers way back when I played at launch...good to see some things never change. You're playing for free now and getting $5 a month in c-store money...there's your discount. Want the Odyssey pack? I have to buy $50 worth of c-store points, and you can either wait 10 months and get it for free, or you can buy it right now and get a 10% discount, or next month and get a 20% discount, and so on.

If anything, monthly subbers should get specials to stay subscribed. Yes, I know there are vet rewards but they are lame. Do subscribers get the monthly c-store stipend like monthly LotRO people do? If not, I can't think of ANY reason to subscribe. BTW, F2P people get a free ship at least up to commander and IIRC up to and including captain. I bought a tier3 cruiser anyway, since all the tier3 cruisers and science vessels are ugly as Hell.