Is STO at risk of shutting down anytime soon?

[bruin82]

I imagine this has been asked many times over the years and obviously it hasn't closed down and is still here. I remember dabbling with the game long ago but at this time in my life I just want to enjoy some basic Star Trek goodness with the small spurts of time I have available for gaming. I'm not really interested in the MMO aspect I just want to enjoy some fun story and missions.

I ask this because to my understanding the game has swapped hands again and I kinda want to know if it's worth investing time into this late in the game. Thank you!

[NavFamG]

Originally posted by bruin82:

Is STO at risk of shutting down anytime soon?

"In a previous community update, the former CEO informed players of Star Trek: Online and Cryptic’s other popular MMO video games that DECA was being brought up to speed on handling the products. It was previously stated that no games would be closing. DECA plans to support these games “for many years to come”. Star Trek Online remains one of the best performers in Embracer’s back catalogue. Embracer is the owner of DECA Games."

Originally posted by bruin82:

I ask this because to my understanding the game has swapped hands again

Not really; Cryptic Studios now operates under free-to-play publisher/developer DECA Games.

[bruin82]

Originally posted by NavFamG:

Originally posted by bruin82:

Is STO at risk of shutting down anytime soon?

"In a previous community update, the former CEO informed players of Star Trek: Online and Cryptic’s other popular MMO video games that DECA was being brought up to speed on handling the products. It was previously stated that no games would be closing. DECA plans to support these games “for many years to come”. Star Trek Online remains one of the best performers in Embracer’s back catalogue. Embracer is the owner of DECA Games."

Originally posted by bruin82:

I ask this because to my understanding the game has swapped hands again

Not really; Cryptic Studios now operates under free-to-play publisher/developer DECA Games.

I think I'll jump back in thank you!

[Duke Flapjack]

Until there is something comparable I'd say STO is pretty safe.

[Jack Jester]

DECA is a Mobile-Trash-Game Company, don't expect too much. There are only a few employees left on STO and they first have to get to grips with the spaghetti-code.

former expensive employees were not taken on. positions were eliminated and support is also minimized over time to save costs.
This is the typical approach, the goal of DECA is to minimize, monetize. But the servers won't be shut down that quickly.

[NIkto Barada]

yea, on another hand, reaching 50 is now a week even if you play 3 h a day.
the mmo aspects are looting, some reputations and some mission gear.
we kinda attracted people who like it easy. good for them too.

[Fitzy]

Originally posted by ✨𝒞𝑜𝓈𝓂𝑜𝓈 ✨:

So it's in maintenance mode now, like it happen recently to SWTOR.

What i don't understand is, why not just re launch it with up to date graphics? on Up to date game engine?

Seeing how they can add new content from Discovery, Picard, Strange New World - they got licence on everything Star trek, right? Why keep spending it on a 15 year old game? Specially when Star Trek is at it peak of interest again with Picard, Discovery, Strange New World, Lower Decks.
They could make lots of money on Star Trek. So why don't they?

Possibly because it hasn't made and doesn't make anywhere near enough money to justify it and there is no guarantee that people who do play would cross over, especially lifetime subscribers to this. The development of a new game costs money, transfering an old game that doesn't make any won't be seen as a good business decision.

The game was launched in 2014 as a subscription model around the same time as a few others "Wow killers" they were described as, they all went free to play very quickly for the same reasons, at that time a lot of folk were leaving (myself included) wow because of how it was changing and these games had copied the changed version, not the version that made so popular in the first place, so they stuck star trek pictures on those mechanics and thought lots of players would give them £120 a year to play it.

Wow never died, the wow killers did. For context according to the net wow has roughly 150,000 players online, This game. 989 playing 6 min ago. 1,600 24-hour peak 7,402 all-time peak, admittedly that's just steam there will be more on ark.

While there is potential to make money with star trek, past developer choices chased a lot of the player base away and the game is still designed around paid subscription "wait 24 hours for this thing, then wait another 24 hours for this thing" mechanics and some newer players coming into that don't want to be waiting a week for something just to have to wait a week for the next thing.

[Black Hole]

I dont know what people see in this game, it's a boring grind.

I want bridge commander and armada type star trek games back, fans have attempted to make their own version of bridge commander but they never work out, too much time and of course cease and desist.

Only reason this game is still around is due to the whales that will throw their entire pay checks at the game for cosmetic stuff or op ships that look rediculous.

[NIkto Barada]

no it was duty officers , then later more ships and episodes.and getting zen every few months for dil

bc clone_https://sourceforge.net/projects/vegatrek/
and sins of a solar empire and several other rtses have armada style mods, gl

[cap-boulanger]

There have literally been rumors that STO was shutting down soon, ever since they abadoned the subscription model, if not before that. That was 13 years ago, and we're still here.

[Spirit]

sto is like an undine cockroach , it wont die that fast

[NIkto Barada]

what cap said, and also spirit. weve been here before- what im really sad about is the waste of veteran talent with the mtg debacle and now this.
*my heart is with them,*
there were some really talented ppl in the character modelling and slinning department.
the usual round of mannequin starter presets that dont look humanly relatable were instead replaced with faces and looks i sometimes fell in love with.
even sporty girls were possible to create- ofc the fatness slider was not outragous but i did make my scottish engineer have a beer belly for off duty costumes.
sigh -im gonna watch out for dev studios recruiting those ppl. good things might follow.

[MackTruck]

unless they can seek an alliance from a secondary development team of another game MMO in the form of none other than Star Sonata 2 if anyone has heard of that MMO game title? whoes dev team is headded by JeffL

[Darth Alpharius]

Either it stop turning Profit or Something better comes along.

[NIkto Barada]

we didnt see that,
stfc, st timelines, etc, they were all significantly more grindy and not in a good way.
literally some of those titles were nerve wracking.
others p2w for any sort of leaderboard position.
sto is sadly chill, we didnt turn away too many players,
only those that havent found the various good and uptodate guides on the internet -hint hint.
sincerely, camping b tran is a bit random but 3 vr techie doffs and aux to battery rly worked wonders for any of my setups.
i can literally throw anything reducing boff cds not further than min out bc aux2bat +3 vr techies reduces its own timer by 30 secs and the other abilities are also close to cd min.
at first i struggled with timing issues for sci abilities until i noticed i can simply pump my sci abilities faster by activating aux2bat after them, getting the best of both worlds.
none of my sci ships needed a pure torp setup. energy is just fine after i got lucky at btran 3 times.
now getting there is a prob. i admit that, but luckily theres also the gorn stass and the caitian at the respectve academies handing out free doffs every time you increase doffing rep levels.
guess what, some of those are techies.

[HorribleGamer]

Originally posted by Megatron:

I dont know what people see in this game, it's a boring grind.

I want bridge commander and armada type star trek games back, fans have attempted to make their own version of bridge commander but they never work out, too much time and of course cease and desist.

Only reason this game is still around is due to the whales that will throw their entire pay checks at the game for cosmetic stuff or op ships that look rediculous.

The best time I've ever had, was with my old fleet and armadas, just joking around, running adv pve, I miss that SO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MUCH. drama destroyed the fleet and by extension, the armada, while I was on vacation. All because someone couldn't take constructive criticism