Computer Ed talks Perfect World and more with Executive Producer Dan Stahl. Give it a listen here.


Link to the news article.

I cant get it to work?

Enjoyed the interview

Also, hello there Red Ice. I see you have posted a few things before but this is the first time I have seen you :p

Thanks for the link!

Caden, are you using Firefox? It wouldn't work for me either, but worked fine when I tried IE instead.

Edit: Oops, beaten to the punch. :p

It works fine in Chrome.

Guys sorry, not sure what is going on. I have done a little reformatting of the post to see if that will correct the issue. I have tested with Firefox, Chrome and IE and all are now working.

You have to use IE. I had the same issue in Firefox, I think...

Just pasting my comment on the Ed blog here, so may look a bit out of place.


Great interview. Thank you! My only issue is how much louder Ed was than Stahl. I had to have my volume up really high just to hear Stahl and then when Ed started talking, it was as if he was yelling. Either there is an issue with the record volume used for Stahl’s voice or Stahl wasn’t talking loud enough. Hopefully this is something you can look to remedy in future interviews. Never-the-less, a great informative interview and yes, as you said Ed, all of my worries have been relieved hearing that my Subscription and Paid Purchaces will remain intact.

Quick note:

Dan.. Dan, Dan, Dan.. What are we going to do with you?

You say F2P is a wonderful thing, because it allows the game to stand on it's own merits, having content be free but cosmetics be paid..

Dan, while an item lacks an in-game method of acquisition, it's a pay item. Announcing that there will be an in-game acquisition method doesn't change that. So the Rhode Island, and the other upcoming lower-tier ships that will have interesting consoles? Only when the method is in place can you say they aren't pay-for-power.

And they are Pay for Power. Just because you and the rest of the Dev Team has the publicity line that it isn't, doesn't fool anybody who has tested it, or even thought about having an extra tier-top power compared to other people.

The method has to come first, or at the same time to say they're available in-game. Nebulous future changes do not change their status now.

As to the hybrid F2p/P2P model you're going for, I can see the draw, and the industry itself seems to be moving in that direction, so I can see how this was perhaps an inevitability for virtually everything but WoW.

Indeed, it's likely that the model STO has followed (Debut P2P, go hybrid after initial run and real-world play has yielded important changes and updates) will be the model other games will follow (TOR, specifically).

So I'm not mad at the model, I'm mad at the timing. Perfect World couldn't have waited until the Pre-Launch LTS' had gotten their moneys worth? Until the 2 year Anniversary?

But here's my worry: There is, in the Asian MMO market, an unfortunate tradition of pay-for-power, items available for micro-transactions that have timers and give you Damage, Damage Resistance, or Regen Buffs. Things that unquestionably are pay-for-power, that give the edge to players with money to throw around, while claiming to be F2P and welcoming cash Strapped players, only to leave them unable to compete.

Please, state without doublespeak (Devspeak?) that that will not happen in STO.

Please repeat after me:

"I, Daniel Stahl, hereby swear and affirm that STO will not adopt a pay-for-power ideology with our micro-transactions so long as I am Lead Developer."

You're implying a elitist hyper-class system where none should exist. That's the entire purpose of VETERAN REWARDS.
The earlybird who paid less for LTS should expect no different treatment than the LTS subscriber who started in any following season. The LTS -> Gold level perks should be the same. The attempted calculation of time/dollars/value ratio is a non-starter, they are not equivalent or standardized. (I've read several other more eloquent posts with better logic than I can recount here.)

A company can't segregate their customers based on timing. Again, that's what Veteran Rewards are for. A membership level is a membership level. My money is just as good as yours, I just didn't give it to them all at once.