If the game were too predictable, it would be boring.
Portal updates etc. are features of the game, not the game. Or gameplay. And since long ago the game itself has become predictable and boring for many long year players. You see everything rosy, you are mainly satisfied with EVERYTHING the developers do. Which is fine. I am glad you still enjoy STT much.
But: People have different tastes, different likes, different expectations. And as much as you are still satisfied, others are dissatisfied to the same degree for their own reasons. And neither you nor they are right or wrong. Just, as, said, different viewpoints of the same thing. The "truth" often lies in the middle...
If the game were too predictable, it would be boring.
Portal updates etc. are features of the game, not the game. Or gameplay. And since long ago the game itself has become predictable and boring for many long year players. You see everything rosy, you are mainly satisfied with EVERYTHING the developers do. Which is fine. I am glad you still enjoy STT much.
But: People have different tastes, different likes, different expectations. And as much as you are still satisfied, others are dissatisfied to the same degree for their own reasons. And neither you nor they are right or wrong. Just, as, said, different viewpoints of the same thing. The "truth" often lies in the middle...
I've suggested different approaches for devs to handle honor sales and hoarding, communication, and a few other things. I'm not happy with everything. I'm just not a jerk when I'm unhappy. I can see how that could confuse some people though. I try to remember that the devs are human, with human faults and all that.
I'm fine when others disagree. It's healthy. You end up with diversity of thought and ideas. I'm fine accepting others' thoughts and feelings. I prefer they consider my side. But if they still feel the same afterward, that's cool. That's how diversity works.
1) I do see it as more professional and not antagonistic. It's kind of their job to keep us guessing. If the game were too predictable, it would be boring. I think the word "provocative" would be more appropriate. They are trying to get an emotional response, but I don't think they want it to be negative.
I think that addresses item 2 as well. It's more about getting us emotionally invested in the game.
I don’t mean to insert myself between the two of you, but this is an interesting response.
I don’t really understand how you can see it as professional when a company is fully aware that its customers believe one thing (honor sale is coming) and wait until the last minute to officially announce that there wont be one.
Then they further contradict themselves by following the playbook from the original honor sale (surprise players with a “sale” that rewards players who have the most resources, leave the players who dont have the resources feeling “left behind”, encourage hoarding). And, keep in mind that this is right after a spokesperson for the company said they dont want people hoarding.
Is that not a contradiction? At a minimum does it not at least demonstrate that wrg/tp has no idea about the repercussions of the decisions it makes? Or is it just “keeping us guessing” by telling us they do not want us to hoard, and then doing featurettes that reward hoarding?
Again, I'm not privy to the devs' intent or motivation, but I can hazard a guess. If I were them, I might be scared to give such bad news until I had something good to announce at the same time. How many would have rage-quit without good news on the horizon?
I laid out at length why it would be better to do the sale after we know how the new feature and currencies will work before having an honor sale. If that was their reasoning, it would have been good to communicate it. That's one area where they have room for improvement.
I can't remember if I already talked about my theory about hoarding. Basically, I think it's a no-no in game design to reward hoarding. I think they realize that. I think they didn't intend to change the economy in that way. But now they're stuck with it. They may be trying to find a way out of that hole they dug. The dabo sale could be interpreted either way. On one hand, they just rewarded hoarding yet another currency (credits). On the other hand, they set a limit: 71mil. That's better than their honor model, but still contrary to their stated goal. On this topic, I'm at a bit of a loss.
1) I do see it as more professional and not antagonistic. It's kind of their job to keep us guessing. If the game were too predictable, it would be boring. I think the word "provocative" would be more appropriate. They are trying to get an emotional response, but I don't think they want it to be negative.
I think that addresses item 2 as well. It's more about getting us emotionally invested in the game.
I don’t mean to insert myself between the two of you, but this is an interesting response.
I don’t really understand how you can see it as professional when a company is fully aware that its customers believe one thing (honor sale is coming) and wait until the last minute to officially announce that there wont be one.
Then they further contradict themselves by following the playbook from the original honor sale (surprise players with a “sale” that rewards players who have the most resources, leave the players who dont have the resources feeling “left behind”, encourage hoarding). And, keep in mind that this is right after a spokesperson for the company said they dont want people hoarding.
Is that not a contradiction? At a minimum does it not at least demonstrate that wrg/tp has no idea about the repercussions of the decisions it makes? Or is it just “keeping us guessing” by telling us they do not want us to hoard, and then doing featurettes that reward hoarding?
Again, I'm not privy to the devs' intent or motivation, but I can hazard a guess. If I were them, I might be scared to give such bad news until I had something good to announce at the same time. How many would have rage-quit without good news on the horizon?
I laid out at length why it would be better to do the sale after we know how the new feature and currencies will work before having an honor sale. If that was their reasoning, it would have been good to communicate it. That's one area where they have room for improvement.
I can't remember if I already talked about my theory about hoarding. Basically, I think it's a no-no in game design to reward hoarding. I think they realize that. I think they didn't intend to change the economy in that way. But now they're stuck with it. They may be trying to find a way out of that hole they dug. The dabo sale could be interpreted either way. On one hand, they just rewarded hoarding yet another currency (credits). On the other hand, they set a limit: 71mil. That's better than their honor model, but still contrary to their stated goal. On this topic, I'm at a bit of a loss.
So, you have three paragraphs. My response will be numbered 1-3 in reference to what you typed.
1. When you speak of the no good news on the horizon, i mean, thats basically where we have been living for the past year with this game. The honor sale was sort of the hope that many people were holding onto, but still, I don’t think you can really cite being afraid to announce the change as a relevant reason to not inform the public. Following that line of logic concludes with “its fine to withhold the truth when the truth is damaging to our revenue streams”.....in my opinion its always better to have transparency. Afterall, this is a game developer. They are not protecting the secret location of the ark of the covenant. So, we can agree to disagree if you want, but i don’t think advocating for the dev’s to withhold simple details about future planned events is a good precedent.
2. I agree. They just need to communicate better. There is no reason for them to be all cloak and dagger. Everyone knows they do the intel + dilithium + chrons deal during skirmishes for $5. Its unannounced, but its expected and its widely regarded as a good deal. Why cant they do the same with other events/planned sales?
3. I think its pretty clear that they just encouraged everyone to hoard credits in addition to honor, and potentially all fame resources at this point. So if their goal was “no hoarding” they have certainly failed with current player sentiment.
1) I do see it as more professional and not antagonistic. It's kind of their job to keep us guessing. If the game were too predictable, it would be boring. I think the word "provocative" would be more appropriate. They are trying to get an emotional response, but I don't think they want it to be negative.
I think that addresses item 2 as well. It's more about getting us emotionally invested in the game.
I don’t mean to insert myself between the two of you, but this is an interesting response.
I don’t really understand how you can see it as professional when a company is fully aware that its customers believe one thing (honor sale is coming) and wait until the last minute to officially announce that there wont be one.
Then they further contradict themselves by following the playbook from the original honor sale (surprise players with a “sale” that rewards players who have the most resources, leave the players who dont have the resources feeling “left behind”, encourage hoarding). And, keep in mind that this is right after a spokesperson for the company said they dont want people hoarding.
Is that not a contradiction? At a minimum does it not at least demonstrate that wrg/tp has no idea about the repercussions of the decisions it makes? Or is it just “keeping us guessing” by telling us they do not want us to hoard, and then doing featurettes that reward hoarding?
Again, I'm not privy to the devs' intent or motivation, but I can hazard a guess. If I were them, I might be scared to give such bad news until I had something good to announce at the same time. How many would have rage-quit without good news on the horizon?
I laid out at length why it would be better to do the sale after we know how the new feature and currencies will work before having an honor sale. If that was their reasoning, it would have been good to communicate it. That's one area where they have room for improvement.
I can't remember if I already talked about my theory about hoarding. Basically, I think it's a no-no in game design to reward hoarding. I think they realize that. I think they didn't intend to change the economy in that way. But now they're stuck with it. They may be trying to find a way out of that hole they dug. The dabo sale could be interpreted either way. On one hand, they just rewarded hoarding yet another currency (credits). On the other hand, they set a limit: 71mil. That's better than their honor model, but still contrary to their stated goal. On this topic, I'm at a bit of a loss.
So, you have three paragraphs. My response will be numbered 1-3 in reference to what you typed.
1. When you speak of the no good news on the horizon, i mean, thats basically where we have been living for the past year with this game. The honor sale was sort of the hope that many people were holding onto, but still, I don’t think you can really cite being afraid to announce the change as a relevant reason to not inform the public. Following that line of logic concludes with “its fine to withhold the truth when the truth is damaging to our revenue streams”.....in my opinion its always better to have transparency. Afterall, this is a game developer. They are not protecting the secret location of the ark of the covenant. So, we can agree to disagree if you want, but i don’t think advocating for the dev’s to withhold simple details about future planned events is a good precedent.
2. I agree. They just need to communicate better. There is no reason for them to be all cloak and dagger. Everyone knows they do the intel + dilithium + chrons deal during skirmishes for $5. Its unannounced, but its expected and its widely regarded as a good deal. Why cant they do the same with other events/planned sales?
3. I think its pretty clear that they just encouraged everyone to hoard credits in addition to honor, and potentially all fame resources at this point. So if their goal was “no hoarding” they have certainly failed with current player sentiment.
On point 1, I think you didn't account for one thing. You say "no good news on the horizon... that's basically where we've been the past year." That's not quite accurate, though being accurate is not much better. They spoke of a mini-event, an achievement event, and a new feature. Two of those things didn't happen, which is why I say it's not any better than you stated. We did have things to look forward to on the horizon, but when they evaporated, it had a noticeably negative impact.
So... the next time they communicated about the direction of the game, they needed to bring us something significant and something near completion. Obviously it wasn't complete, but they at least gave is an approximate time for a demo.
Had they failed to deliver the aforementioned mini-event and achievement event AND had nothing prepared for the game's future... well.... let's just be glad that didn't happen. An honor sale probably would have been pretty essential.
Would transparency be better? I would certainly prefer it. But with this community's propensity to wield torches and pitchforks... I'm not in a position to say which would be better. I spent months away from the forum during the offer wall thing. I just had no desire delve into all that negativity. And it wouldn't have been worth it. I didn't like the offer wall and had nothing to add that wasn't already said. But if WRG were transparent, there's a good chance we could have ended up right back in that spiral of negativity. The forum would not be a good place and it could jeopardize the game.
But that's just one perspective. Something to consider when making up your own mind.
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I do challenge the idea that the game was losing money. From my (possibly erroneous) understanding, DB was losing money having made bad investments in multiple failed games (GoT and Walking Dead). TP invested in DB, something like a $30mil investment based on STTs success. Early last year TP fully acquired STT and DB went bankrupt a few months later. This is a very brief synopsis and we're not privy to the details, just the timeline.
But at no point has it ever been suggested, to my knowledge, that STT was a loss making product. I would also wager that TP haven't turned anything around. I'd be genuinely shocked if player numbers and revenue were greater than they were last year. You can get a sense of the trend in player revenue by searching for the game on sensortower.com. It's a lot lower than it used to be.
So no credit due yet. Anecdotally I and everyone I know spends less on STT than they used to with lots of people I know having left the game to boot. There was a time when new players were joining all of the time, but that day is long past. Can it come again? Hopefully. If TP hit on a good feature worth advertising, then yes, but they have to keep trying things.
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I disagree with these points almost in their entirety.
I do not believe Timelines was losing money, Disruptor Beam was. Disruptor Beam spent a lot developing multiple games, of which 2 failed. As a result, they had a ton of overhead devoted to Timelines and were apparently losing a decent amount of money.
I do not recall there being an agreement of any type that we patiently wait for 12-18 months to see what Tilting Point would do. In any event, we’re into month 10 and to date, I and many others are underwhelmed.
Finally, the phrase “fair and balanced” is probably a bad one to use in describing a viewpoint, as it has been extensively marketed in the US to present viewpoints that are not seen to be fair and balanced.
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I do challenge the idea that the game was losing money. From my (possibly erroneous) understanding, DB was losing money having made bad investments in multiple failed games (GoT and Walking Dead). TP invested in DB, something like a $30mil investment based on STTs success. Early last year TP fully acquired STT and DB went bankrupt a few months later. This is a very brief synopsis and we're not privy to the details, just the timeline.
But at no point has it ever been suggested, to my knowledge, that STT was a loss making product. I would also wager that TP haven't turned anything around. I'd be genuinely shocked if player numbers and revenue were greater than they were last year. You can get a sense of the trend in player revenue by searching for the game on sensortower.com. It's a lot lower than it used to be.
So no credit due yet. Anecdotally I and everyone I know spends less on STT than they used to with lots of people I know having left the game to boot. There was a time when new players were joining all of the time, but that day is long past. Can it come again? Hopefully. If TP hit on a good feature worth advertising, then yes, but they have to keep trying things.
It was suggested in another thread. I think that thread is now closed. I don't think it was stated or discussed in this thread though, nor do I think it needs to be outside of mentioning its existence for context.
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I do challenge the idea that the game was losing money. From my (possibly erroneous) understanding, DB was losing money having made bad investments in multiple failed games (GoT and Walking Dead). TP invested in DB, something like a $30mil investment based on STTs success. Early last year TP fully acquired STT and DB went bankrupt a few months later. This is a very brief synopsis and we're not privy to the details, just the timeline.
But at no point has it ever been suggested, to my knowledge, that STT was a loss making product. I would also wager that TP haven't turned anything around. I'd be genuinely shocked if player numbers and revenue were greater than they were last year. You can get a sense of the trend in player revenue by searching for the game on sensortower.com. It's a lot lower than it used to be.
So no credit due yet. Anecdotally I and everyone I know spends less on STT than they used to with lots of people I know having left the game to boot. There was a time when new players were joining all of the time, but that day is long past. Can it come again? Hopefully. If TP hit on a good feature worth advertising, then yes, but they have to keep trying things.
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I disagree with these points almost in their entirety.
I do not believe Timelines was losing money, Disruptor Beam was. Disruptor Beam spent a lot developing multiple games, of which 2 failed. As a result, they had a ton of overhead devoted to Timelines and were apparently losing a decent amount of money.
I do not recall there being an agreement of any type that we patiently wait for 12-18 months to see what Tilting Point would do. In any event, we’re into month 10 and to date, I and many others are underwhelmed.
Finally, the phrase “fair and balanced” is probably a bad one to use in describing a viewpoint, as it has been extensively marketed in the US to present viewpoints that are not seen to be fair and balanced.
Nowhere did either myself or @Sith Laird Daftie {WHIF} , whom I quoted, say that the game itself was losing money. So these are some weird tangents to make off my post.
The closest thing to it would have been this line:
When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time
And even that does not make any claim the game itself was losing money, only DB. Which was proven to be true as they went bankrupt.
Again, not sure why you guys decided to go off disputing something that was not even said. Especially when the whole crux of my post was simply that TP had done both good and bad and they deserved both praise and criticism.
As for the issue with my using "fair and balanced", I'm neither American nor was using the phrase with any political connotation. Whatever issue you have with that phrase is your own, @Navarch .
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I do challenge the idea that the game was losing money. From my (possibly erroneous) understanding, DB was losing money having made bad investments in multiple failed games (GoT and Walking Dead). TP invested in DB, something like a $30mil investment based on STTs success. Early last year TP fully acquired STT and DB went bankrupt a few months later. This is a very brief synopsis and we're not privy to the details, just the timeline.
But at no point has it ever been suggested, to my knowledge, that STT was a loss making product. I would also wager that TP haven't turned anything around. I'd be genuinely shocked if player numbers and revenue were greater than they were last year. You can get a sense of the trend in player revenue by searching for the game on sensortower.com. It's a lot lower than it used to be.
So no credit due yet. Anecdotally I and everyone I know spends less on STT than they used to with lots of people I know having left the game to boot. There was a time when new players were joining all of the time, but that day is long past. Can it come again? Hopefully. If TP hit on a good feature worth advertising, then yes, but they have to keep trying things.
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I disagree with these points almost in their entirety.
I do not believe Timelines was losing money, Disruptor Beam was. Disruptor Beam spent a lot developing multiple games, of which 2 failed. As a result, they had a ton of overhead devoted to Timelines and were apparently losing a decent amount of money.
I do not recall there being an agreement of any type that we patiently wait for 12-18 months to see what Tilting Point would do. In any event, we’re into month 10 and to date, I and many others are underwhelmed.
Finally, the phrase “fair and balanced” is probably a bad one to use in describing a viewpoint, as it has been extensively marketed in the US to present viewpoints that are not seen to be fair and balanced.
Nowhere did either myself or @Sith Laird Daftie {WHIF} , whom I quoted, say that the game itself was losing money. So these are some weird tangents to make off my post.
The closest thing to it would have been this line:
When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time
And even that does not make any claim the game itself was losing money, only DB. Which was proven to be true as they went bankrupt.
Again, not sure why you guys decided to go off disputing something that was not even said. Especially when the whole crux of my post was simply that TP had done both good and bad and they deserved both praise and criticism.
As for the issue with my using "fair and balanced", I'm neither American nor was using the phrase with any political connotation. Whatever issue you have with that phrase is your own, @Navarch .
I think its fair and balanced to point out that you did not address that there is no agreement between the players and the devs for a 12-18 month “test period”. If that were the case, i would gladly accept my buyers remorse compensatory refund.
So far, time after time, tp/wrg has underwhelmed, made decisions to take advantage of players privacy, and even gone so far as to attempt to create predatory offers that monetized the acquisition of 3* crew. This is only the tip of the iceberg, btw.
I can appreciate someone saying “give them time and be patient”.....but the writing is on the wall.Comment moderated. ~Shan
Wait and see? Wait and see WHAT? How about wrg/tp pony up and actually deal with the real issues that are brought up on a daily basis?
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I do challenge the idea that the game was losing money. From my (possibly erroneous) understanding, DB was losing money having made bad investments in multiple failed games (GoT and Walking Dead). TP invested in DB, something like a $30mil investment based on STTs success. Early last year TP fully acquired STT and DB went bankrupt a few months later. This is a very brief synopsis and we're not privy to the details, just the timeline.
But at no point has it ever been suggested, to my knowledge, that STT was a loss making product. I would also wager that TP haven't turned anything around. I'd be genuinely shocked if player numbers and revenue were greater than they were last year. You can get a sense of the trend in player revenue by searching for the game on sensortower.com. It's a lot lower than it used to be.
So no credit due yet. Anecdotally I and everyone I know spends less on STT than they used to with lots of people I know having left the game to boot. There was a time when new players were joining all of the time, but that day is long past. Can it come again? Hopefully. If TP hit on a good feature worth advertising, then yes, but they have to keep trying things.
I don't know if anyone else remembers , but when TP first took over last year a number of people on here suggested we give them 12 to 18 months of running the game before we judge them . When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time , so to me what TP have been doing since then is making the hard choices needed to save the game . As yet we have not given them even 12 of the 18 months we offered them .
Looking through my rose tinted spectacles it looks like they may have now stabilised the game and started building on that . We are now starting to see new things happening , new collections every month and new features for instance .
Does this mean that I'm not annoyed and frustrated like everyone else ? No , of course it doesn't . We should still tell them these things , but just remember they've been a bit distracted by trying to save the game for us . So please be polite about it and withhold your judgement on their parentage at least until the 18 months is up .
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I disagree with these points almost in their entirety.
I do not believe Timelines was losing money, Disruptor Beam was. Disruptor Beam spent a lot developing multiple games, of which 2 failed. As a result, they had a ton of overhead devoted to Timelines and were apparently losing a decent amount of money.
I do not recall there being an agreement of any type that we patiently wait for 12-18 months to see what Tilting Point would do. In any event, we’re into month 10 and to date, I and many others are underwhelmed.
Finally, the phrase “fair and balanced” is probably a bad one to use in describing a viewpoint, as it has been extensively marketed in the US to present viewpoints that are not seen to be fair and balanced.
Nowhere did either myself or @Sith Laird Daftie {WHIF} , whom I quoted, say that the game itself was losing money. So these are some weird tangents to make off my post.
The closest thing to it would have been this line:
When they took over it was because DB were losing money big time
And even that does not make any claim the game itself was losing money, only DB. Which was proven to be true as they went bankrupt.
Again, not sure why you guys decided to go off disputing something that was not even said. Especially when the whole crux of my post was simply that TP had done both good and bad and they deserved both praise and criticism.
As for the issue with my using "fair and balanced", I'm neither American nor was using the phrase with any political connotation. Whatever issue you have with that phrase is your own, @Navarch .
You are quoting out of context. Sith goes on to talk about DB 'turning the game around'. The game, not DB. That suggests that the problems at DB were the fault of the game. They were not (as far as we know). How exactly have TP 'turned the game around'? Maybe they will, but so far they have not done that. So both premises are erroneous. How you get to 'fair and balanced' from two false premises is beyond me.
The truth is you read something you wanted to believe, didn't test it's logic and went with it.
Things are rarely 'fair and balanced' because it's hard to see your biases from where you're sitting.
We just have to wait five more days for more info and a look at the new feature and currencies when WRG Ben meets with Timelines Talks people again. I know it is frustrating the waiting will all the other stuff we are getting hit with in the real world but just hold on. I hate to have to have Shan close more threads cause players are attacking each other out of shared frustration. Fear not, I shall fix everything in the most internet way possible, a meme.
We just have to wait five more days for more info and a look at the new feature and currencies when WRG Ben meets with Timelines Talks people again. I know it is frustrating the waiting will all the other stuff we are getting hit with in the real world but just hold on. I hate to have to have Shan close more threads cause players are attacking each other out of shared frustration. Fear not, I shall fix everything in the most internet way possible, a meme
Cute, but thats sort of the problem. One side always blames the other, but generally speaking the “defenders of wrg” are typically responsive to any type of criticism that is directed toward the devs of this game. They essentially “jump in front of the bullet” and then try to act like they were the ones that were attacked. Which is simply not the case.
More often than not, the “positive” and “balanced perspective” people are the ones who insert themselves into this dance, and then attempt to jockey it to a personal attack and closed thread ritual.
We just have to wait five more days for more info and a look at the new feature and currencies when WRG Ben meets with Timelines Talks people again. I know it is frustrating the waiting will all the other stuff we are getting hit with in the real world but just hold on. I hate to have to have Shan close more threads cause players are attacking each other out of shared frustration. Fear not, I shall fix everything in the most internet way possible, a meme
Cute, but thats sort of the problem. One side always blames the other, but generally speaking the “defenders of wrg” are typically responsive to any type of criticism that is directed toward the devs of this game. They essentially “jump in front of the bullet” and then try to act like they were the ones that were attacked. Which is simply not the case.
More often than not, the “positive” and “balanced perspective” people are the ones who insert themselves into this dance, and then attempt to jockey it to a personal attack and closed thread ritual.
I went back to the beginning of this discussion and I see what you mean. People were trying to give TP advice on having more open communication on long term development and sales to better manage players’ expectations and then they were accused of being negative and then the whole thing snowballed. I am not sure though that this discussion could have done anything but snowball when we have too little information to make predictions. I am sorry if I was adding to the problem, but most of all, I am sorry that I went with a goat meme instead of a cat meme. Everyone knows the cat meme is the king of the internet and the salve that calms all wounds. I shall remedy that presently.
I've been busy moving. Have anyone's expectations changed recently?
Unfortunately the opposite. It seems to be what the introduction of two new currencies suggested beforehand: A straight way to aquire crew.
At least that is what the feature's name suggests to me.^^
But before I went to bed I was thinking what really would have excited me:
Very challenging away missions with good new gold crew as rewards would be what I desired the most but we knew that would not happen as Ben had told us so, and it would not be a new feature after all.
Sure, a new cool game mode to prevent most of my crew from idling all the time. Then I imagined what we could get from it as there always has to be a reward for doing something...
If the rewards were something like the ones from shuttles, what would that help with? I have an abundance of all kind of things already. Something like voyage loot? Good for chrons, honor and the few purples I still need, so it boils down to crew aquisition, as I do not need much chrons nowadays (burned 80k this weekend mainly for Dabo credits, but usually they just pile up).
A game mode to earn dil would have been what maybe had got me excited as this would have allowed for more crew slots and pulls. And realizing that sadly brought me to this: Maybe a shortcut to simply obtaining desired crew more easily is the best thing this CCG can do at this point, as aquiring, hosting and finishing as much crew as possible is all it comes down to in the end.
STT just feels more like only the CC part and less a G every day. But that is my personal issue and perhaps only a minority of players share this sad feeling, while the majority is happy with hunting down new (and old) colorful cards with hardly any real added value week after week? Maybe it really is time to take a break for me?
Wir, die Mirror Tribbles [MiT] haben freie Plätze zu vergeben. Kein Zwang und kein Stress, dafür aber Spaß, Discord und eine nette, hilfsbereite Gemeinschaft, incl. voll ausgebauter Starbase und täglich 700 ISM.
STT just feels more like only the CC part and less a G every day. But that is my personal issue and perhaps only a minority of players share this sad feeling, while the majority is happy with hunting down new (and old) colorful cards with hardly any real added value week after week? Maybe it really is time to take a break for me?
Well, the CC aspect is hampered by the crew slot limits and portal dilution. This feature seems designed to address the latter, which is not unwelcome.
However, I certainly understand and share your concern regarding the G aspect. I was hoping that there would be some interesting gameplay associated with the crew acquisition. If there is not, I will be taking a break myself.
You are not the only ones. To be expecting G but getting CC (especially after being a defender of and subsequently proponent of the honour piñata) is kind of meh.
The fact that it's a crew building/farming/purchasing feature doesn't bother me.
Ultimately most game features in Timelines, except for voyages and the arena, are designed to give you crew as the most valuable reward and you then use that crew to get/level/upgrade other crew. Even voyages, starbases and collections ultimately give you items/resources/boosts that you can then use to compete in events or puchase citations with honor.
Since the new currencies can probably (hopefully) be obtained through competition and gameplay and not just buy buying them with dilithium/money, it's not so different from a new game feature. The crew obtained through Crew Retrieval will then be used to compete in events or whatever else and obtain more of the currencies.
As long as there's some planning, strategy and resource management involved, I'm happy with it.
The thing I'm worried about is how it will actually work.
I hope that it's a way to purchase a pull or a guarantee of a pull with a specific trait in it.
I hope that it's not something you drop tons of time and resources into to get a 1% higer chance of pulling a crew with trait X.
Strange, with the new client, I can now see all the character art in the vault. Wasn’t able to do that before. For CC players ... Why collect a card, when you can look up the art of every character in the game?
Captain Kirk of [Battleship Musashi]
Playing since June 14th, 2019
Captain Level 80 / VIP 12
Crew Quarters: 241/270
Immortalized [436]: 5* x30, 4* x239, 3* x89, 2* x53, and 1* x27
Most recent Immortal: Deral (4/4)
Current Project: Waiting for sale with 680k Honor
Completed Collections: Eugenics, Daystrom, Romulan, Ferengi, Do No Harm, Veteran, EV Suit, Rare, Uncommon and Common
Strange, with the new client, I can now see all the character art in the vault. Wasn’t able to do that before. For CC players ... Why collect a card, when you can look up the art of every character in the game?
You see a great art of a character you don t have and decide to go after it, because of the art. Too easy? 🤗
Strange, with the new client, I can now see all the character art in the vault. Wasn’t able to do that before. For CC players ... Why collect a card, when you can look up the art of every character in the game?
You see a great art of a character you don t have and decide to go after it, because of the art. Too easy? 🤗
This. Clearly. "Oh! Pretty colors!" has a lot of influence on us.
🖖🖖🏼🖖🏻🖖🏽🖖🏾🖖🏿
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
Strange, with the new client, I can now see all the character art in the vault. Wasn’t able to do that before. For CC players ... Why collect a card, when you can look up the art of every character in the game?
I could look up the art of every one of Decipher's Star Trek CCG cards online, but that didn't stop me from spending a lot of money trying to obtain them so that I could use them in my deck.
Strange, with the new client, I can now see all the character art in the vault. Wasn’t able to do that before. For CC players ... Why collect a card, when you can look up the art of every character in the game?
You see a great art of a character you don t have and decide to go after it, because of the art. Too easy? 🤗
This. Clearly. "Oh! Pretty colors!" has a lot of influence on us.
🖖🖖🏼🖖🏻🖖🏽🖖🏾🖖🏿
That, plus pets.
"In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it's us players who define the game." — Nicky Case, The Evolution of Trust
Comments
Because it wasn't doing it before?!?!?
"NEW FEATURE"
Portal updates etc. are features of the game, not the game. Or gameplay. And since long ago the game itself has become predictable and boring for many long year players. You see everything rosy, you are mainly satisfied with EVERYTHING the developers do. Which is fine. I am glad you still enjoy STT much.
But: People have different tastes, different likes, different expectations. And as much as you are still satisfied, others are dissatisfied to the same degree for their own reasons. And neither you nor they are right or wrong. Just, as, said, different viewpoints of the same thing. The "truth" often lies in the middle...
I've suggested different approaches for devs to handle honor sales and hoarding, communication, and a few other things. I'm not happy with everything. I'm just not a jerk when I'm unhappy. I can see how that could confuse some people though.
I'm fine when others disagree. It's healthy. You end up with diversity of thought and ideas. I'm fine accepting others' thoughts and feelings. I prefer they consider my side. But if they still feel the same afterward, that's cool. That's how diversity works.
Now... Insano asked me a question or two.
Again, I'm not privy to the devs' intent or motivation, but I can hazard a guess. If I were them, I might be scared to give such bad news until I had something good to announce at the same time. How many would have rage-quit without good news on the horizon?
I laid out at length why it would be better to do the sale after we know how the new feature and currencies will work before having an honor sale. If that was their reasoning, it would have been good to communicate it. That's one area where they have room for improvement.
I can't remember if I already talked about my theory about hoarding. Basically, I think it's a no-no in game design to reward hoarding. I think they realize that. I think they didn't intend to change the economy in that way. But now they're stuck with it. They may be trying to find a way out of that hole they dug. The dabo sale could be interpreted either way. On one hand, they just rewarded hoarding yet another currency (credits). On the other hand, they set a limit: 71mil. That's better than their honor model, but still contrary to their stated goal. On this topic, I'm at a bit of a loss.
So, you have three paragraphs. My response will be numbered 1-3 in reference to what you typed.
1. When you speak of the no good news on the horizon, i mean, thats basically where we have been living for the past year with this game. The honor sale was sort of the hope that many people were holding onto, but still, I don’t think you can really cite being afraid to announce the change as a relevant reason to not inform the public. Following that line of logic concludes with “its fine to withhold the truth when the truth is damaging to our revenue streams”.....in my opinion its always better to have transparency. Afterall, this is a game developer. They are not protecting the secret location of the ark of the covenant. So, we can agree to disagree if you want, but i don’t think advocating for the dev’s to withhold simple details about future planned events is a good precedent.
2. I agree. They just need to communicate better. There is no reason for them to be all cloak and dagger. Everyone knows they do the intel + dilithium + chrons deal during skirmishes for $5. Its unannounced, but its expected and its widely regarded as a good deal. Why cant they do the same with other events/planned sales?
3. I think its pretty clear that they just encouraged everyone to hoard credits in addition to honor, and potentially all fame resources at this point. So if their goal was “no hoarding” they have certainly failed with current player sentiment.
On point 1, I think you didn't account for one thing. You say "no good news on the horizon... that's basically where we've been the past year." That's not quite accurate, though being accurate is not much better. They spoke of a mini-event, an achievement event, and a new feature. Two of those things didn't happen, which is why I say it's not any better than you stated. We did have things to look forward to on the horizon, but when they evaporated, it had a noticeably negative impact.
So... the next time they communicated about the direction of the game, they needed to bring us something significant and something near completion. Obviously it wasn't complete, but they at least gave is an approximate time for a demo.
Had they failed to deliver the aforementioned mini-event and achievement event AND had nothing prepared for the game's future... well.... let's just be glad that didn't happen. An honor sale probably would have been pretty essential.
Would transparency be better? I would certainly prefer it. But with this community's propensity to wield torches and pitchforks... I'm not in a position to say which would be better. I spent months away from the forum during the offer wall thing. I just had no desire delve into all that negativity. And it wouldn't have been worth it. I didn't like the offer wall and had nothing to add that wasn't already said. But if WRG were transparent, there's a good chance we could have ended up right back in that spiral of negativity. The forum would not be a good place and it could jeopardize the game.
But that's just one perspective. Something to consider when making up your own mind.
I agree. This is a fair and balanced outlook on the current situation. It neither ignores the obvious issues, nor does it not give credit where credit is due.
There are certainly still things that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't lose sight of the positives as well.
I do challenge the idea that the game was losing money. From my (possibly erroneous) understanding, DB was losing money having made bad investments in multiple failed games (GoT and Walking Dead). TP invested in DB, something like a $30mil investment based on STTs success. Early last year TP fully acquired STT and DB went bankrupt a few months later. This is a very brief synopsis and we're not privy to the details, just the timeline.
But at no point has it ever been suggested, to my knowledge, that STT was a loss making product. I would also wager that TP haven't turned anything around. I'd be genuinely shocked if player numbers and revenue were greater than they were last year. You can get a sense of the trend in player revenue by searching for the game on sensortower.com. It's a lot lower than it used to be.
So no credit due yet. Anecdotally I and everyone I know spends less on STT than they used to with lots of people I know having left the game to boot. There was a time when new players were joining all of the time, but that day is long past. Can it come again? Hopefully. If TP hit on a good feature worth advertising, then yes, but they have to keep trying things.
I disagree with these points almost in their entirety.
I do not believe Timelines was losing money, Disruptor Beam was. Disruptor Beam spent a lot developing multiple games, of which 2 failed. As a result, they had a ton of overhead devoted to Timelines and were apparently losing a decent amount of money.
I do not recall there being an agreement of any type that we patiently wait for 12-18 months to see what Tilting Point would do. In any event, we’re into month 10 and to date, I and many others are underwhelmed.
Finally, the phrase “fair and balanced” is probably a bad one to use in describing a viewpoint, as it has been extensively marketed in the US to present viewpoints that are not seen to be fair and balanced.
It was suggested in another thread. I think that thread is now closed. I don't think it was stated or discussed in this thread though, nor do I think it needs to be outside of mentioning its existence for context.
@Thurthorad and @Navarch
Nowhere did either myself or @Sith Laird Daftie {WHIF} , whom I quoted, say that the game itself was losing money. So these are some weird tangents to make off my post.
The closest thing to it would have been this line:
And even that does not make any claim the game itself was losing money, only DB. Which was proven to be true as they went bankrupt.
Again, not sure why you guys decided to go off disputing something that was not even said. Especially when the whole crux of my post was simply that TP had done both good and bad and they deserved both praise and criticism.
As for the issue with my using "fair and balanced", I'm neither American nor was using the phrase with any political connotation. Whatever issue you have with that phrase is your own, @Navarch .
I think its fair and balanced to point out that you did not address that there is no agreement between the players and the devs for a 12-18 month “test period”. If that were the case, i would gladly accept my buyers remorse compensatory refund.
So far, time after time, tp/wrg has underwhelmed, made decisions to take advantage of players privacy, and even gone so far as to attempt to create predatory offers that monetized the acquisition of 3* crew. This is only the tip of the iceberg, btw.
I can appreciate someone saying “give them time and be patient”.....but the writing is on the wall.Comment moderated. ~Shan
Wait and see? Wait and see WHAT? How about wrg/tp pony up and actually deal with the real issues that are brought up on a daily basis?
You are quoting out of context. Sith goes on to talk about DB 'turning the game around'. The game, not DB. That suggests that the problems at DB were the fault of the game. They were not (as far as we know). How exactly have TP 'turned the game around'? Maybe they will, but so far they have not done that. So both premises are erroneous. How you get to 'fair and balanced' from two false premises is beyond me.
The truth is you read something you wanted to believe, didn't test it's logic and went with it.
Things are rarely 'fair and balanced' because it's hard to see your biases from where you're sitting.
Cute, but thats sort of the problem. One side always blames the other, but generally speaking the “defenders of wrg” are typically responsive to any type of criticism that is directed toward the devs of this game. They essentially “jump in front of the bullet” and then try to act like they were the ones that were attacked. Which is simply not the case.
More often than not, the “positive” and “balanced perspective” people are the ones who insert themselves into this dance, and then attempt to jockey it to a personal attack and closed thread ritual.
I went back to the beginning of this discussion and I see what you mean. People were trying to give TP advice on having more open communication on long term development and sales to better manage players’ expectations and then they were accused of being negative and then the whole thing snowballed. I am not sure though that this discussion could have done anything but snowball when we have too little information to make predictions. I am sorry if I was adding to the problem, but most of all, I am sorry that I went with a goat meme instead of a cat meme. Everyone knows the cat meme is the king of the internet and the salve that calms all wounds. I shall remedy that presently.
Nope. But the Trait clean up just happened......
Unfortunately the opposite. It seems to be what the introduction of two new currencies suggested beforehand: A straight way to aquire crew.
At least that is what the feature's name suggests to me.^^
But before I went to bed I was thinking what really would have excited me:
Very challenging away missions with good new gold crew as rewards would be what I desired the most but we knew that would not happen as Ben had told us so, and it would not be a new feature after all.
Sure, a new cool game mode to prevent most of my crew from idling all the time. Then I imagined what we could get from it as there always has to be a reward for doing something...
If the rewards were something like the ones from shuttles, what would that help with? I have an abundance of all kind of things already. Something like voyage loot? Good for chrons, honor and the few purples I still need, so it boils down to crew aquisition, as I do not need much chrons nowadays (burned 80k this weekend mainly for Dabo credits, but usually they just pile up).
A game mode to earn dil would have been what maybe had got me excited as this would have allowed for more crew slots and pulls. And realizing that sadly brought me to this: Maybe a shortcut to simply obtaining desired crew more easily is the best thing this CCG can do at this point, as aquiring, hosting and finishing as much crew as possible is all it comes down to in the end.
STT just feels more like only the CC part and less a G every day. But that is my personal issue and perhaps only a minority of players share this sad feeling, while the majority is happy with hunting down new (and old) colorful cards with hardly any real added value week after week? Maybe it really is time to take a break for me?
Well, the CC aspect is hampered by the crew slot limits and portal dilution. This feature seems designed to address the latter, which is not unwelcome.
However, I certainly understand and share your concern regarding the G aspect. I was hoping that there would be some interesting gameplay associated with the crew acquisition. If there is not, I will be taking a break myself.
We'll find out in a week.
Ultimately most game features in Timelines, except for voyages and the arena, are designed to give you crew as the most valuable reward and you then use that crew to get/level/upgrade other crew. Even voyages, starbases and collections ultimately give you items/resources/boosts that you can then use to compete in events or puchase citations with honor.
Since the new currencies can probably (hopefully) be obtained through competition and gameplay and not just buy buying them with dilithium/money, it's not so different from a new game feature. The crew obtained through Crew Retrieval will then be used to compete in events or whatever else and obtain more of the currencies.
As long as there's some planning, strategy and resource management involved, I'm happy with it.
The thing I'm worried about is how it will actually work.
I hope that it's a way to purchase a pull or a guarantee of a pull with a specific trait in it.
I hope that it's not something you drop tons of time and resources into to get a 1% higer chance of pulling a crew with trait X.
Playing since June 14th, 2019
Captain Level 80 / VIP 12
Crew Quarters: 241/270
Immortalized [436]: 5* x30, 4* x239, 3* x89, 2* x53, and 1* x27
Most recent Immortal: Deral (4/4)
Current Project: Waiting for sale with 680k Honor
Completed Collections: Eugenics, Daystrom, Romulan, Ferengi, Do No Harm, Veteran, EV Suit, Rare, Uncommon and Common
You see a great art of a character you don t have and decide to go after it, because of the art. Too easy? 🤗
This. Clearly. "Oh! Pretty colors!" has a lot of influence on us.
🖖🖖🏼🖖🏻🖖🏽🖖🏾🖖🏿
I could look up the art of every one of Decipher's Star Trek CCG cards online, but that didn't stop me from spending a lot of money trying to obtain them so that I could use them in my deck.
That, plus pets.
I think it would be just that.
But even if it is I would still welcome a chance to get specific crew