Star Trek Online adds more C-Store options and controversy [Update]

There's a pattern that seems to repeat itself every time Cryptic adds new items to Star Trek Online's C-Store -- or at least, a sequence of events wherein players are at first excited, then angry or annoyed when the prices are revealed. A bunch of new items have been added to the store: two additional costume slots (not on the website at the moment), two additional ship slots, and two additional bridge officer spots. The trouble arises with the handling of the upgrades, particularly with the new costume slots, as they're counted on a per-character basis.

A similar upgrade is available in the store for Champions Online, for the exact same price -- but it increases the number of costumes available on every character rather than just the character it's purchased on. The per-character upgrades, coupled with a reduced importance for costumes in Star Trek Online, all help make many players feel a bit shorted by the price tag. Others are arguing that the add-on is only $2.50, an argument that's gone on at length on the official forums. Controversy is nothing new to the game, but this much debate over a fairly minor item leads one to be a bit curious about what reception future items might find.

[Update: Cryptic has contacted us with news on upcoming changes to this system, "We're going to change the way the costume slot purchases work so they become account-wide rather than per-character. And, of course, our customer service department will be able to assist anyone who purchased the upgrade multiple times to cover multiple characters."]

[Thanks to Cap for the tip!]

Reader Comments (33)

MMO subscription rates haven't increased since gasoline was below $1.00/gallon in the US. Development budgets absolutely have increased. Would you rather they raise the subscription rate? Or would you prefer that they pick out stuff that should, for canonical reasons, be rare in-game, price it nowhere near high enough to make it as rare as it should be, make it only imperceptibly if at all any better than the free stuff, and then use that money to deliver a major content update every two months? (I'll point out in passing that other MMOs ship content updates that size every 6 months, at best. And charge for them on top of the subscription fee. HOW long has it been since Lich King?)

The game is just as much fun without any of the C-Store stuff. Really.

I agree, "The game is just as much fun without any of the C-Store stuff. Really."

I've been putting this out there on the forums since launch, Brad. People don't get it or don't care to get it. This is an issue of the masses not being just dumb but also def and blind. I hate MT item shops but I also see that unless the sub rate for MMORPGs raise by 10is dollars an item shop is the only way the genre is going to survive in general.

Well said, Brad. I've only purchased one thing in the entire year I've been playing: the Nomad skin for my Star Cruiser. It was purely vanity, I just happened to dislike the look of the ships. That being said, I didn't dislike them enough to spend my own money, I bought it with the free C-Points cryptic gave me.

At the end of the day, the game doesn't play any differently without the C-Store items, and I for one couldn't care less what they decide to add to it. I choose to ignore the cash shop and play my game. Nobody's holding a gun to my head and forcing me to pay micro-transactions.

Cryptic has a history of doing this. They will not change. People who want to throw their money at them and hope that they will change are welcome to do so. They are not a good dev, and do not deserve praise in the least.

Well good luck Cryptic and their fans, but if you expect them to change, then I am sorry now you are bordering on delusional.

My biggest draw back in this game was the way you control the ships. I'd rather them be controlled in a FP or Arcade racing type way: W is accelerate, Space Bar and S are brake, Move left and right with A & D, and move the camera with the mouse. They choose to do something complicated, and while I do enjoy complex things and did finally master the controls after a couple hours, I still saw a lot of dead fish out in the sea of stars.

65 threads in that page of complaints, and Cryptic still tries to justify what they do. If STO says anything about the strategy Cryptic is going in the future, anyone who ever enjoyed Champions Online might as well cancel their preorder for #2.

I wish they'd put more thought and time into the glaring show stopping bugs, mediocre repetitive mission system and lackluster ground combat than paid for crap in the c-store and maybe entice back the 70% - 80% of the player base that never bothered renewing after the initial 30 days from Live.....

But that would be too hard wouldn't it? Just shove out some miniskirts and a few different styles of uniforms and bridges....

"I hate MT item shops but I also see that unless the sub rate for MMORPGs raise by 10is dollars an item shop is the only way the genre is going to survive in general."

You're forgetting that many MMOs don't do well because they suck. Cryptic has been patting itself on the back for the way they can now churn out MMOs on very short development cycles, but IMO the "finished" (lol) products are just shallow and forgettable games.

At some point after launch a STO dev confirmed they had met their goal of at least 100k subs. That's aiming incredibly low for a franchise as popular as Star Trek.

I'll feel bad for some of these MMO developers when they focus on the game itself and not just initial box sales, lifetime subs, pre-order bonuses, selling beta access, etc etc etc.

It's not just the costume slots but the bridge officer and ship slots, too. At $2.50 per character that adds up for lifers who have already given Cryptic a pretty heavy investment, as they have at least 5 characters.

The rub, for me, is that if you opted to purchase any of the larger bridge packs, you have a total of 12 officers stationed in your warehouse- I mean bridge, but only 10 officers that you can customise (at lv 45). This means that if you are visiting your bridge, you've got two random NPCs in your bridge who look like they don't belong there, and to get rid of them you have to pay $2.50 per character you get to that level.

Cryptic knows this and refuses to back down from of their position.

And they've recently announced with, great joy I'm sure, all of the new things going into the c-store:

*New Off-Duty Costumes Types
* - Merc Outfits
* - Formal Wear
* New Ships
* - Excelsior
* - Nebula
* New Species
* - Aenar
* - Kzinti
* - Talaxian

Perhaps my money doesn't mean much to them, but either way I won't be touching the C-store until they relent on this per-character fiasco.

As a correction to my previous comment, the extra bridge officer or ship slots are both $5.00 per character, not $2.50. So if you have 5 character slots and want to fill out your bridge crew in each, it would cost you $25.

isn't STO p2p? They have a C-Store? Lol, why would you even consider playing this game.

The marketing manager at Cryptic seriously needs to be fired. It is one fiasco after another. At what point do the powers that be at Cryptic can this person? More people have left the game because of stupid marketing moves than for any other reason as far as I can tell. Seriously Cryptic...

WTF?????

Star Trek Online adds more C-Store options and controversy [Update]

Reader Comments (33)

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 4:19AM J Brad Hicks said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 8:59AM Thac0 said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 11:41AM Ayenn said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 12:42PM WonderPenguin said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 5:07AM Samael said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 5:29AM WilliamNighthawk said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 6:07AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 6:11AM Dread said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 2:03PM SocksForYou said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 3:47PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 19th 2010 9:28PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 20th 2010 8:03AM Kaoss said

Posted: Jul 20th 2010 10:06AM spartanthetriviumorg said

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