Or, why I cancelled my Star Trek Online Subscription…
My intention here is not to have some kind of “Wahhh! Rage Quit!” post. Indeed the opposite is very true. I fully intend to keep playing the game and making purchases from the C-Store, as I still really enjoy playing Star Trek Online. Neither is this a post about how clearly the game has failed, as its going free to play. Nope. Figures from various other MMOs that have done the same have shown the games are far more profitable when they lose the subscription model and rely on microtransactions, including Cryptic’s own Champions Online which has enjoyed a whole new lease of life since going free to play. I wholeheartedly expect Star Trek Online to continue to be around for years to come, and continue to grow as a game with the new income this will generate.
So why the cancellation? Well, some background.
Without meaning to be overly harsh, I think its fair to say this hasn’t been the best year for the game. After enjoying its fortunes turning around with the featured episodes, and the promise of a restructure to allow those featured episodes to become a permanent feature in the second half of the year, the game was the strongest it had ever been, with loads of players turning up every Saturday to play the new missions. Then everything went a bit wrong. Atari decided to sell off Cryptic, and suddenly all the hope of new staff dried up. With no new staff, and the future of the company in doubt, suddenly the new mission content dried up as well.
I would hope its fair to say, that most of the community were pretty understanding of this at the time. Once it was clear that there was some sort of sale of the company going on, most seemed to respect that the staff were signed to NDAs. Eventually word came through that Cryptic had been purchased by Perfect World, and everyone was hopefull that we’d now start to see the promised Featured Episodes, the launch of the Enterprise-F, and the long-in-development Duty Officer System (something I was especially looking forward to) all start to appear on Tribble for testing.
Then the news leaked out, via a conference call that STO was going free to play. While the game going free to play had been expected (following the success of Champions Online), I think its fair to say that most hadn’t expected it until next year sometime. However, again I think all-in-all the forums were largely understanding of the benefits that going free to play would bring to the game for everyone.
And then Cryptic released their “Free to Play Matrix“. Now to those who don’t play the game, the differences between the Silver and Gold accounts may look reasonable, but there’s an issue. Practically speaking for players, there’s very little benefit to having a gold account. Sure, you get extra inventory and Bridge Officer slots, and you get a C-Store points stipend, however quickly players realised that this wasn’t really promising a lot. As a silver player, according to some of the maths done by various people, if you invest 2 months worth of subscription costs into C-Store points, you can buy replacement inventory, bank and bridge officer slots for those lost by downgrading. Yes, you lose Foundry access, but Silver members can still buy one slot to create a mission in, and as someone who’s played with the Foundry, but has never really released anything, I can say that this isn’t a big problem. Sure, if you really get into writing and publishing missions, you’ll have to subscribe, but for most casual players of the game, this isn’t something they’ll particularly miss.
You do lose access to your Veteran Rewards, but again, Character and Ship slots can be purchased to make up anything you lose, other than a few things (a couple of nice veteran uniforms, a ship firework device, and a Captain’s Yacht shuttlecraft).
Then, came what seemed to be the final straw for the forums. The announcement that the Featured Episodes were being further delayed, as was the Duty Officer System. Now rather than see a release to the live server, they were to be held back, and only available via the Free to Play beta server. No new content would go live until after the Free to Play launch. So now, the only way players would get any new mission content would be to beta test the Free to Play release. To say players were unhappy would be generous.
The forums as they stand are probably the most hostile I can ever remember them being. Even the die hard fans of the game (which I would count myself among) are struggling to defend Cryptic’s current track record of undelivered content with all the delays, and promises that such-and-such will go live once feature X is done. Only for feature X to be released, then that same content to be delayed for feature Y.
There are also the interviews with staff. The forums are pretty much united in feeling there isn’t enough between silver (free) and gold accounts to justify the cost of the ongoing subscription. Yet the responses to this seem to make clear that the current direction favours focusing on securing a large number of free players, all buying items via microtransaction versus looking after those players who have subscribed over the last year and a half/two years. From a financial standpoint there’s no denying it makes sense, however it does feel wrong that after sticking with the game and the company throughout the troubles this year has brought, we’re being ignored. At the very least it would be nice to feel that someone was listening to the concerns of the community, but questions about the gold/silver split are quickly deflected by talk of how much money free players will bring into the game. Ignoring the fact that the current model will see the benefits of that money go to both types of account equally. Surely courting those players that will pay a monthly subscription in addition to buying C-Store points for extra vanity items (as many of us have been doing since the start of the game) makes sense?
And so today, after a brief discussion with my in game fleet, I came to the decision that makes the most sense to me. My account is currently paid up through to the end of December, which means I’ll enjoy and participate in the free to play beta, and in all likelyhood also enjoy at least a month of gold access once the game goes free. However beyond that, for the sake of some uniforms I just couldn’t justify staying gold financially.
Of course, when my account goes free I’ll incur an initial cost in C-store points to equip my character with the bank and inventory they’ve lost, but all my other purchased ships and uniforms will remain. Sadly my intention over the next couple of months had been to use money I’d been putting aside to buy a lifetime subscription, but that doesn’t currently make sense any more, when a fraction of that money will keep me in C-store points for a good while.
This is not me stopping to support the game. I have no doubt that it’ll continue to be one of my main games, and I fully intend to continue purchasing new ships and other goodies as they become available. However at the moment it doesn’t really feel like I’m valued as a monthly subscriber, so I’ll become one of the silver account players instead. I do hope though, that eventually things change and prior to free to play launch there’s something added to the gold accounts that make them feel more worthwhile. It wouldn’t even have to be much. The occasional ship skin or uniform for subscribers for example. If something like that was to happen, I’d resubscribe in a heartbeat. However, at this point, it’d be nice to at least have devs properly acknowledge the unhappiness of the community and complaints about the free to play matrix. But they seem intent on following through on this course of action, despite whatever feedback they get. Which seems a shame, to attempt a relaunch of the game, with a community that’s pretty hostile.
Of course, I’ll still continue to recommend the game to my friends. After all, it is a fun game, and once the weekly missions restart, I expect to have a great time playing through whatever new storylines come our way. But would I recommend anyone subscribe to the game? No. Unless you’ve already bought a lifetime, I think it makes more sense to just go free to play, and occasionally invest in some C-Store points whenever something cool comes out that catches your eye. Which is a sad state of affairs, as I genuinely believe there’s a good team behind this game that cares about it. But somewhere at the moment, it definitely feels like there’s a disconnect between this game and its community.
To finish with a side thought, with Cryptic currently in development of the new Neverwinter game, it’ll be interesting to see if it goes straight to free to play on its release.