Originally posted by tawess

Originally posted by FarOutFish

Players were offered entry into STO's Beta in exchange for their paying for a lifetime or six month subscription to Champions Online. This constitutes a Legally binding contract.  Criptic is now subject to lawsuits for breach of contract. I hope this happens. This entire episode reeks of Fraud.

 

Ok... I have looked at all the advertisments and i non of the ones i can find did i find anything about  "WHEN" said access should be granted. As long as you get in to the closed beta they have made good on their part, and as far asi know... The closed beta ain't over yet i am right.

 

The only one who has said anything about "first access" was a person, who in all fairnes was not in a position to make sutch claims. So show me were it says "WHEN" you were going to get in to the beta apart from that poor man and his forumpost.

 

Fraud... It's the new buzzword like, everything is fraud these days... BroadSword i say.

I'm not a lawyer, but it's my understanding that this argument wouldn't hold up at all in the American courts.  I believe that all contracts, offers, etc. have to abide by a "reasonable man" test.  That is, when debating certain terms of a contract, the court follows the logic of what a reasonable person would assume.  In this case, it's pretty clear cut that a reasonable person would assume that paying for entry would act as a sort of VIP pass in an Amusement Park; you get to skip the lines.

As far as your claim concerning that the person who made the announcement was in no position to do so, this is simply not the case.  Daeke (sp?) was an employee of Cryptic Studios.  The buck stops there.  To the best of m knowledge, cryptic did not *immediately* retract his statement.  This is somewhat alarming.  This means Cryptic was not paying attention to what their own employees were saying or actually did plan for, at that point, immediate access for Lifetime/6 Month subbers.

Many of my CO guildmates are lifers or 6-monthers and they haven't even gotten a single message from Cryptic about the closed beta. Quite a shame. It is this total lack of conversation which I find not right. I mean, there can always some issues happen, but then you can at least send all those people a mail to inform them about the ongoings.

Same with STO preorder in Europe. In most European countires it doesn't even exist! Most German retailers I phoned had not even heard of STO, and even the big Amazon of UK and Germany haven't even LISTED STO, let alone a pre-order option. There is a TWO WEEK old thread on the STO forums when there will be a European preorder and there isn't a single answer for two weeks, no even, we are working on it or something. Only when I made a relatively aggresive thread, they closed it and at least answered it will be available "soon" (tm).

Cryptic really has no idea how to handle things, it showed in the entire process of Champions, and it shows again. No matter what you think about their games, their PR handling is a catastrophe. No ads, no interviews in any of the German print mags, nada. You expect almost 2 months before release they are a bit more active in getting out the word, but no. Either they are so arrogant they think they don't need to advertise their game for Europeans or they are actually just to dumb to realize. Whoever is in charge of PR and handling f the info at Cryptic needs to be FIRED!

Was there ever any question that something would go sideways with this offer?

Cryptic has never i my experience followed through on a promise without much back peddling and changing the rules midgame.

I love Star Trek but cannot in good confidance give Cryptic anymore of my money.

And yet another thread. Though you try  to sound balanced most of the naysayers will take this as yet an opportunity to spill their guts.  A decent amount of the replies will be full of lies and slander. You could and should have anticipated that.

When does MMORPG stop making Cryptic black on one and the same issue?

The closed beta hasn't ended yet. They didn't say how long people would be in before open beta. The original deal said nothing about immediate entry. And though I haven't read Daeke's message and don't know the timing, I do believe that at least most people didn't preorder based on that promise.

Anyone thinking that a company would mostly only fill their closed beta with a single source of people should think again.

Others complain about not enough media attention, yet these prices are exactly to keep attention on the game. I'm sure pre order deals will available timely world wide (and I wouldn't buy from most of the big shops anyway).

I would suggest a "reasonable man": seeing an offer 'if  you buy this game, you will be able to participate in the closed beta test ' of STO" would reasonably expect if he accepted that offer, he would be able to participate in the closed beta. His acceptance of that offer forms a "contract" and if the company fails to admit him to the promised "closed beta" they are in violation of that contract.  The only problem is the award of damages. Most likely he would only be able to recover the subscription fee. The companies real problem is if an ambitious prosecutor decided to indite them for fraud. While I haven seen the offer, the report suggests fraud was committed and the company would be convicted if brought to trial.

"Caveat emptor" Buyer beware, should be everyone's watchword.

Ah.. yes i can not argue with you on that point... My knowledge of the american legal system is rather fuzzy too.

But to my first point, and i am in no way saying that cryptic was particularly proffesional in the way they handeld them self but if they get all pre-orders in before the 11 of december i would still considering it being them fullfilling their part of the deal as a month of beta testing is still quite alot. And it seems your court acts abit different from ours, Here they look alot closer to what was writen in the advert and in this case would most likley rule that no were in the contract did it specify when said acess and that people should stop asuming things.

As to my second point, and here i can only draw upon my own time as a CSR but is it is not Bob from marketing saying so in black and white someone has most likley overstepped their boundaries. But to be honest the main thing that rubbed me the wrong way the fraud bit, as i said drawing on my personall experience there is not all that unlikley that poor Bob in marketing, by the time he got wind of the forum post in particular nearly choked on his BLT sub and Coffey... sommunication between different departments are not always that effectiv.

Still it is one hell of a do-do to make but i have a hard time seeing how it was done with malicious intent or even worse trying to prove that as an outsider. 

The Perils of Paulene, err Mmarketing

I'm not emotionally or financially involved in this decision, so this is my detached view on the situation.

Cryptic should have sent out the invites to the CO subscribers that were due invites, first and foremost. They then could have given out invites through contests etc. for the PR gains. It's a bad business practice to burn your investors.

I suspect that they have closed-door reasoning behind their decision not to send out the invites. Perhaps time will tell.

 For people who aren't yet in closed beta, be grateful.  Early phases of closed beta in games are rife with bugs and horrid-to-the-point-of-being-almost-unplayable performance.  Do you really think STO would be any different?  If so, could I interest you in this cute little tribble?  He's perfectly harmless.  I promise.

Originally posted by aurick

 For people who aren't yet in closed beta, be grateful.  Early phases of closed beta in games are rife with bugs and horrid-to-the-point-of-being-almost-unplayable performance.  Do you really think STO would be any different?  If so, could I interest you in this cute little tribble?  He's perfectly harmless.  I promise.

FYI Gene Roddenbery and Star Trek stole the "Tribbles" from the Robert A Heinlein novel "The Rolling Stones" part of his 'juvenile' series of books. In "The Rolling Stones"  a family named "Stone" bought a used Space Ship and traveled around the Solar System. While on Mars they acquired an animal, described just like a "Tribble". On their way to the Asteroid Belt to sell supplies to miners their 'Tribble" multiplied like Rabbits, soon they were being eatin out of their Space Ship. They sold their Tribbles, which made a soothing sound when held, to the miners and got out of Dodge before they Asteroid belt was overrun by the creatures.

Cryptic being Cryptic on what they say, nothing new there.

Developers need to stop insulting the intelligence of gamers with all this hype-monetizing shady stuff, before they get literally destroyed in court. 10 weeks of closed beta, if subscribers only get to play two weeks... I wouldn't be very happy.

2 things ppl:

1. Who in their right mind pays to test someone else's software??? Are we gamers that desperate/gullible or just plain stoopid? *boggle*
2. Has anyone asked themselves WHY Cryptic didn't want to unleash as many beta account as they possibly could to curry favour with the media...? Hey, perhaps the game is a turd & they didn't want it to leak out, or they've badly underestimated their capacity planning. OMG, like that's never happened to a mmo before! <rolls eyes> Or perhaps they just wanted to stay in control of their own SDLC & rollout. Who would've thought!

I like Cryptic & their business model. I'm a huge fan of their CoX franchise which I've played for many years. But this kind of thing just takes the cake. You know all you so-called ST fans out there, you're all on the same side ffs...? They're making a game YOU want to play, they want it to be a commercial success, you want it to be a good game. How does any of this childish BS help? Wake TF up. You paid for a lifetime membership so if you now don't like the game _sight unseen_ because someone else got to play with the toys first (under a NDA mind you!), you're just in it for the whining. Get another hobby & get a life! ;-p

"There is a sucker born every minute." P.T. Barnum The American public has been exceeding that norm. You will never go broke by overestimating the gullibility of the American people.

"In months, or a year, the drama that's chased both Champions Online's launch and Star Trek Online's beta may pass as the proverbial water under the bridge; forgiveness may be widespread and trust rebuilt."

I doubt that.  Look at SOE and the Star Wars, and Vanguard, and just about anything else they touch.  Once an MMO company starts to get a reputation for screwing up, and/or screwing players or potential players, it is very hard to ever be forgiven.  Champions left a bad taste in a LOT of people's mouths, and the direction Cryptic has decided to take this IP (Everyone is a Captain, so away missions with real people require the never would happen in Star Trek 5 Captain away team), and now this, is going to cause bad blood.  I know I am passing on STO in favor of SW:TOR.  At least there it looks like they are listening to the potential players/fans of the IP.

Originally posted by aurick

 For people who aren't yet in closed beta, be grateful.  Early phases of closed beta in games are rife with bugs and horrid-to-the-point-of-being-almost-unplayable performance.  Do you really think STO would be any different?  If so, could I interest you in this cute little tribble?  He's perfectly harmless.  I promise.

In this day and age? Yes. I expect it to be different.  I was in the Alpha test for LOTRO and it was nearly ship-able then -- closed beta was highly polished.  So yeah, I expect MMOs in the Beta testing phase to be nearly ready. Gone are the days when the Beta test was for, well, testing.  Beta's ARE marketing -- pure and simple.  If Cryptic hasn't realized this, that's a problem. It could be why they're not letting in the Lifers from CO, who almost certainly fill that marketing role. If the game isn't ready for the marketing phase, then they would keep a minimal amount of testers in order to control the information flow.

Originally posted by tawess

Originally posted by FarOutFish

Players were offered entry into STO's Beta in exchange for their paying for a lifetime or six month subscription to Champions Online. This constitutes a Legally binding contract.  Criptic is now subject to lawsuits for breach of contract. I hope this happens. This entire episode reeks of Fraud.

 

Ok... I have looked at all the advertisments and i non of the ones i can find did i find anything about  "WHEN" said access should be granted. As long as you get in to the closed beta they have made good on their part, and as far asi know... The closed beta ain't over yet i am right.

 

The only one who has said anything about "first access" was a person, who in all fairnes was not in a position to make sutch claims. So show me were it says "WHEN" you were going to get in to the beta apart from that poor man and his forumpost.

 

Fraud... It's the new buzzword like, everything is fraud these days... BroadSword i say.

Sure 5 minutes before open Beta they could give those people access to Closed Beta and be with in legal bounds but it doesn't make it right.

I know if it was me in that situation I would demand a refund at the very least or boycott the their products if hey did not compensate me satisfactorily.

Well I am very wary of cryptic.   The entire you got to buy your way into beta turned me on them.  I don't buy my way into anything. If I like your product I will buy a 6 month or lifetime if offered.

I have to say that nomater what they do STO is kind of tainted, they have already set a bood mood for COX players, current cryptic players and those of us not yet associated with them.

There is very little room for forgivness in the MMO industry now days, you screw your player base and they will leave.   This is what happened with STO and COX.

For now I will sit on the sidelines and watch this beta event, I call it a a publicity show as that is what it really is. There is no beta just a bunch of hype trying to sell the game, and I say shame on cyrtip for trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

 Oh I am just wondering is there really a beta, does anybody know anybody who is attempting to play this beta, welll publicity stunt.

 I'm thankful for the conversation this has started, I've learned alot. Unfortunately one of those things is how disgusted foreigners seem to be with America. Don't worry, you'll be working for India or China soon enough, we can't farm our jobs or national pride out fast enough to them.

I'd be alright if I could get in to test by mid-December, 4 weeks before open beta. Otherwise I'll ask for a full refund as others have. Someone stated on the STO forums that they've commented on mid-December for us.

Originally posted by erictlewis

Well I am very wary of cryptic.   The entire you got to buy your way into beta turned me on them.  I don't buy my way into anything. If I like your product I will buy a 6 month or lifetime if offered.

what turned me off them was the bloody fact that they required you to pay for your 6month or Lifetime subs before even having a chance to play the game, and for those in beta who might of paid for those lifetime subs, they released a launch-day patch that literally shifted the balance of the whole game, untested and unknown to all.

I'm not going to bother with their contests, the whole "sakura park" fiasco is done to death. Cryptic is unoriginal and dull in their ideas, no surprise to me there.

People will still preorder the collector's edition of games even without some fancy beta access. Most of these developers today are probably making more money before the game even launches than 6 months worth of retained subscriptions. In my opinion things are only going to get worse.