CAPTAIN'S BLOG

I would say Fleet Marks, not Fleet Credits. The only reason is that Fleet Credits are earned by contributing to your fleet. If you have two characters in two different fleets, it wouldn't be fair to contribute to Fleet A, transfer Fleet Credits, and use them in Fleet B.

You're welcome. Thank you for commenting!

If you earn fleet credits, and leave a fleet, you can join another fleet and use your fleet credits, right?

I don't think you loose them by transferring fleets. So, I would think you could toss them in the bank. ; )

That's a fair point.

I feel the same way. I made 10 characters because I'm an altaholic. Like Atillio said, hitting 50, in a way, was its own reward for alts. Now its not like that and they don't care. I spent money on making those characters decent but now with this expansion both my alts AND my main have been rendered obsolete. My investment of time AND money have been rendered obsolete. Yet, by design, this game has now taken a turn where the only way to "have fun" anymore is to pay, pay to gamble, grind to gamble, pay to grind, and grind. Funny thing is none of those are fun.... yet fundamentally thats exactly what a game is suppose to be. This, right here, is a perfect example of exploitation. /rantover
Now what I think would be nice is if there was no refining cap on dilithium and that we could store refined dilithium, at no taxed expense, in our account banks. I think it would also be cool to have fleet marks be stored in the account bank. Also, all the rep items should be account bound and those VIP dilithium claims should be account bound. On a different note, I would LOVE to see the ability to exchange fleet items for those of similar value. With this alt nerf I find myself re-outfitiing my alts and think it would be nice if I could turn in, lets say, my advanced AP DHs mk XII for advanced AP Beam arrays at no additional cost. Same would hold true for consoles.

But ... if players stop playing alts, then wouldn't the revenue from the player slow down *because* they are not spending it on alts?

I think it depends where the revenue comes from. Ships and uniforms, for example, are account wide. Having multiple toons wouldn't affect the revenue from that. Something like lockbox keys might.

Which goes back to the pay, pay to grind, grind to gamble (lockboxes and upgrading/crafting), pay to grind, pay to gamble, and grind that this game is full of now. And yes you would think that NOT spending money and time on alts would hurt their revenue but it doesn't because of the way they re-designed progression in the game... Which forces you to pay even more on your main(s). Which, conveniently, means a profit on there quarterly and, at the end of the day, that's all they care about.

Of course. To expect a video game company to think about anything besides revenue is foolish. Without revenue there is no video game to play. Point me to any video game company who's goal is to not make money, especially companies who make F2P MMOs. Every free MMO I've ever played had a business model focused towards micro-transactions in order to build revenue. No one can expect Cryptic/PWE to be any different.

VIP Mining Claims are now account bound. I have several in my Shared Bank for use at the next Dil Weekend.

Although true, Cryptic/PWE is an extreme in this case. Im not saying they shouldn't make money, but STO has gotten excessive. I can spend $30 on SWTOR and be satisfied. Whereas in STO, I would end up paying $90-$100 to get that same level of satisfaction. Yes, that is based in preference, but that still doesn't justify the degree of micro-transactions and grinding STO has. All it means is that Cryptic/PWE makes more money which, the past has shown, doesn't increase the value or quality of the game. So, although they need to make revenue to run the game, there is a point at which it just becomes greed. STO has passed that point.

Oh sweet! I should go consolidate my claims now. Thanks!

I have to disagree when you said "...doesn't increase the value or quality of the game...". My counter argument is Legacy of Romulus. The first expansion to the game which used revenue from past transactions to add an entire faction with some of the highest quality episodes available. Compared to the state of STO in 2010/2011, LoR alone drastically increased the value and quality of this game. I'd go as far as saying that the recent changes to the PvE queue have, at the very least, increased STO's quality if not it's value.

I don't disagree that it would be better to have less grinding and cheaper items. Me and "cheap" are best friends lol. Personally, their expansion packs (LoR an Delta) are the only time I spend money. As for grinding, I can't argue that it isn't annoying, but I've found most games are a grind anyway. It's just a matter of how fun the developers can make it.

In my opinion, LoR was half a faction. You are made to choose either FED or KDF at, if I remember correctly, level 10. Yes it came with a great story but it wasn't good enough to really counter my point. Expansions aside, I've spent money just like everyone else and have regretted 90% of it. DR is the main cause of that. The way I look at it, I didn't pay them to make more content, just as I wanted and was expecting them to. I paid them to make more ways for me to pay them. As of recently, repeatable content i.e. grinding, is, at this point, 80-90% of whats being pumped out using the funds they received from my purchases, as well as yours... and, ironically, the non-grinding content is often full of bugs an issues. This years winter event being one of them. I mean, sure, technically even the winter event is a grind but its fun. Which goes back to what you said about how fun devs can make the grinding. Now I'm not saying all grinding should be like the winter/summer events. I'm just pointing out that it can be done and since not all the grinding feels that way, its obvious they are choosing NOT to make it fun. So I ask myself "why?". This is the answer: money. Despite having been making a boat load of cash for PWE (about 500 Million, based on the PWE quarterly report stating that Cryptic studios is the means behind 25% of their current quarterly and stock value that is currently 2 billion). So, yes, they are making money. Now that was prior to DR. After DR PWE noticed a drop by about 30-32% in their stock. And this was their released response, "We have noticed a drop in revenue of about 31%. This is due to recent developments in our North American subsidiaries." So I speculate its because people in general, like me, just had enough. In closing, Grinding does not equal content. I want Cryptic to make more actual content. Their only excuse, at this point, for getting anything other than that is greed, and that is not something I will pay for. Less grinding avenues i.e reputation, crafting, and upgrading. These are wayyy too resource and time consuming. prior to the new rep and R&D/upgrading overhaul, the existing amount of grind was pushing the envelope. I cannot, in no way, see how this can be good. Especially if you are somewhat of a vet./rant over for good
Now I checked my claims and they are still bound to character. Ive had them stock piled across alts for about a year. So that is probably why they are still character bound.

You get those to drop?! Lucky you :P

Well from lockboxes, yeah.

Ah, I didn't look ahead to see the Exp bonus event coming. That should certainly help me get to 60 on the two of my characters that are close, and perhaps I'll continue working on my new-ish level 5 character. ; )

That's a good point. It would be nice if they were account ships, just like the Z-Store ones. With Cryptic adding more and more grinding features, it's becoming necessary for things to be account wide rather than per character.