How could you tell the difference?

So we're losing that one straight up, then, eh? Meh, never used it anyway.

My problem is with episode conversion, not monetary conversion. I copied over my Rear Admiral Upper Half to Tribble, and my episode chain seems to be completely broken. Everything is grayed out except the Klingon set, and those missions have all been completed. The character still has all the Borg/Undine missions to do, but they're not being offered. The episode list is completely nonfunctional for her, outside of replaying old missions. (Fortunately, I can still travel to the Borg sectors.)

I was kind of expecting this to be messed up.

Well seeing as on Tribble they no longer give out a VA ship token, losing one in the conversion from holo to Tribble seems to make sense no?

Actually I joined during Beta then left because the game, lets say was juvenile and incomplete. I came back a year later and got my Lifer, paid a little less during the 1 yr. Anniversary and have passed my 300 day mark so not sure I'm a drain yet but sure feel like I'm being used. Basically getting ripped off so they can re-do the whole currency system at our expense. I wonder if they are trying to drive us away?

Like that matters on Holodeck anyway? The RA ships cost only about 250k EC. It's the VA ship token that has the value equal to 250 emblems and those ships will be C-Store only in the future. Since ships are a lot more expensive in dilithium compared to what they cost in EC (dilithium is far harder to come by) it doesn't really matter that you save out 250k EC on Holodeck. Grantedt though, losing that free ship with the f2p system is gonna suck, since it'll be harder now to buy a new ship.

My advice; use those VA ship tokens on Holodeck while you still can, because you will lose them else without getting anything back for it. Unless Cryptic decides to covert them to dilithium too of course, it could that they overlooked those unused ship tokens and forgot to include them.

I wish other lifers would stop seeing themselves as 'a drain on the system' after they equaled out on the sub money. We still make C-store purchases and our loyalty to the game can easily bring in other gamers. I know I got several of my friends to sub and having enough faith in the game to go lifetime was what pulled at least one of them over to try it out with a normal sub.

Lifers have far more value to Cryptic beyond the subscription money.


In other threads I've also done some math, based on stats gathered from about 1k players (fleet mates mostly) that showed that in the big picture lifers pay more money than over 60% of the subscribers ever will, simply for the fact that most subscribers don't stay subbed for the entire lifespan of the game. A lot of them leave the game for several months, or never return at all.

For Cryptic it doesn't matter whether you purchased your life time membership at the start of the game or after a year, after all you still only pay the money once. In fact, due to inflation it's more in their favour if you bought a life time sub a year earlier, since they don't compensate the life time sub prices for inflation. :p

My Trek brothers and sisters;

I now am kind of afraid to convert one of my chars to Tribble. . .

Afraid because I fell in love with the vision that Cryptic has or had? for the Star Trek universe. . . I too became a Lifer, but it was because I believe in Cryptic's ability to make our hopes for Trek come to fruition. And I am afraid to loose that confidence in Cryptic and all the folks who make it what it is. . .

I wanted to support them (Cryptic) in their grand effort to bring all the wonderful stories from each Star Trek episode, (that we all fell in love with), into being with a grand future. The hope of continued story telling through this unique media of online gaming. . .

CBS, and all the companies before them who have had control of the future of Trek, (in my opinion) have for the most part given up on the Trek universe and all of us it's followers. . . I put my money into this smaller company (Cryptic) who had the desire and wonderful artistic ability to bring us Trek fans a future. . .

I know things may not be fair to us. . . but we may not be looking deep enough, when we place blame on Cryptic. If I am not mistaken, (and please feel free to correct me folks) Cryptic used to be under the umbrella of Atari, who was under the umbrella of CBS. But now they have either been purchased, or sub-contracting for a new company who has "successfully" brought F2P games to market. . . Please make note of those Quote, and Unquote marks. Because they are at our (the consumers) expense. Which gives us a Powerful Voice. . .

If indeed Cryptic is under the "umbrella" of this new F2P company, then they are most likely getting blamed from both sides for EVERYTHING! The F2P company (I can't remember their name off hand) is most likely telling them that they have to make more things cost real money, to make it on the MMO playing field.

At the same time, we who have invested in Cryptic (because of their vision for our Trek universe) with much more than our Lifer money and Monthly payments, because we have purchased ships, and all the other things available, feel let down that we still have to pay more money for Cryptic, but Mostly the parent F2P company, to bring this game to the world in the F2P form. . .

So poor Cryptic, has to do what the parent F2P company wants, yet they also feel a connection and responsibility to us the fans who have supported them thus far. . . I would hate to have to work under that kind of pressure. . . And I would guess that Dan Stall felt that pressure coming. . . But that would just be my guess.

So perhaps we should find the name of that parent F2P company, and start petitioning them instead of Cryptic who has already brought us much more that I would have thought possible in such a short time. . . If we petition them with our dis-satisfaction with their rules for Cryptic to follow, I would think the POWER of the followers of Trek would come to bear on the unfair pressure that Cryptic has been working under, which would also be the reason for the unreasonable conversions that you are all talking about. . .

I by no means am saying that your observations and frustrations are unwarranted. But I think that we may need to push OUR desires for the Trek universe up the Ladder of Authority. So that the creative genius that IS Cryptic can be free to give us the awesomeness that they truly DO desire to give us. And we desire to have.

And once again I don't mean any disrespect to your feelings and thoughts my Trek family. . . I just want to help us not blame the ones responsible for bringing us the great game that is STO. . . Yet I do desire us to find WHO Really IS Responsible for these unfair conversions, and want us to be able to have Those in Power hear our Collective Voice!

Because if Cryptic is just the creative genius behind the game and NOT the Controlling Force that holds the purse strings Who has their hands on Our Wallets, then we are blaming our Friends, and Not those who are Truly Responsible. And "Controlling Companies" Like it that way because then they don't get blamed for anything. . . Just the Creative Company Does!

I believe we have a Voice, and we have already proven that we believe in the Trek Universe with our hard earned Cash! So lets find out who we need to petition with out thoughts and feelings and MAKE SOME NOISE!

I believe in you all and in our cause! "Make it So". . .
Thanks for listening folks!
Tiger

I agree with you completely. Not including the $300 I paid for my LTS, if you take all the money I've spent on Star Trek Online, divide by the 20mos I've been here, then I average about $36/mo playing this game. Again, that's not including the LTS. It also does not include the LTS I bought for my Dad, multiple friend referrals, or a few CP Gifts I've given away.

I know my value to this game.

Cryptic doesn't seem to agree.

As I posted my currency conversion stats here, I can only feel that whatever equation they used to convert was unfair based on the hard cap (as evidenced by that no one received more than 384,000 ore and many people got that exact amount).

Currently on Tribble, a 3 emblem assignment rewards some 1440 dilithium (or a rate of 480 dilithium per emblem). As I have, through hundreds upon hundreds of hours of gameplay, earned over 5000 emblems and 1000 Marks of Valor/Honor/Exploration (not to mention the 1.3+ million merits, and over 70k badges and medals) one would think I'd *at least* get 5000*480 = 2.4M dilithium. Instead the entirety of my assets is 1.7M dilithium, which includes the 48 days it'd take to refine the 384k ore I got. All told, I should probably have twice that amount of dilithium, with no more than 10% of it given as ore.

This is unfair to me and other players who have spent so much of our time in the game and will only inflame the player base when F2P hits if its not altered before then. I hope that you'll revise the formula to remove the caps entirely and not be excessive amount giving ore in place of refined dilithium.

Ki'ara, VA51 Holo -> Tribble some time October:

Merits: 64754
Mark, Exploration: 6
Mark, Valor: 17
Medal, Excellence: 25
Medal, Bravery: 13
Medal, Achievement: 30
Badge, Exploration 5th: 484
Badge, Exploration 4th: 13
Badge, Exploration 2nd: 35
Badge, Exploration 1st: 37
Emblems: 26

Results in

Refined Dilithium: 32811


Yeah, meager numbers. I didn't play much between March 2010 and Sebtember 2011, so sue me.