I spent like $2000 playing Star Trek Online. Lockbox keys, lifetime sub, all sorts of ships, items, and boosts. They introduced Mark XIV equipment with a gambling-based crafting system. You could spend dilithium (which you could buy with $) to have a chance to upgrade your equipment.
The straw that broke me? Their shitty customer service. I wanted to gear up an alt and give them the Jem’Hadar battleship with the Jem’hadar attack ship so they could launch the attack ships from it as fighters, which you could do if you had both. Problem was some ships were account bound, and some ships were character bound, and I lost track of which was which. I ended up claiming the box for one of them on the wrong character. Easy fix, right? Well not every MMO is run to the same standard as Blizzard. Craptic absolutely refused to help me. So I cut ties.
It was after that, when I experienceced withdrawal, that I read about gambler’s fallacy and sunken cost fallacy and I really analyzed why it hurt so much to leave behind my addiction. I never went back, because I know that whole game is run like a casino. They do everything they can to hook you in.
That’s really unfortunate to hear. I played and enjoyed the game back when it first came out, before they added all the micro transaction stuff. I’ve thought about revisiting it a few times but never have.
this is like someone telling a story of their spiral into alcohol addiction and then you coming in at the end and being like “yeah well I got drunk a few times in college and im fine” lolololol
I’m struggling to see how. At the time the game first came out (when I played it) it was a flat subscription fee to pay, like most MMOs back then. It didn’t have any of the pay to win, micro transactiony gambling bullshit that was described by the person I replied to. It was just the game and the game was fun.
It sounds like it really went full enshitification with lootbox type stuff sometime after I quit so it was a very different experience for each of us.
I spent like $2000 playing Star Trek Online. Lockbox keys, lifetime sub, all sorts of ships, items, and boosts. They introduced Mark XIV equipment with a gambling-based crafting system. You could spend dilithium (which you could buy with $) to have a chance to upgrade your equipment.
The straw that broke me? Their shitty customer service. I wanted to gear up an alt and give them the Jem’Hadar battleship with the Jem’hadar attack ship so they could launch the attack ships from it as fighters, which you could do if you had both. Problem was some ships were account bound, and some ships were character bound, and I lost track of which was which. I ended up claiming the box for one of them on the wrong character. Easy fix, right? Well not every MMO is run to the same standard as Blizzard. Craptic absolutely refused to help me. So I cut ties.
It was after that, when I experienceced withdrawal, that I read about gambler’s fallacy and sunken cost fallacy and I really analyzed why it hurt so much to leave behind my addiction. I never went back, because I know that whole game is run like a casino. They do everything they can to hook you in.
Damning with faint praise.
That’s really unfortunate to hear. I played and enjoyed the game back when it first came out, before they added all the micro transaction stuff. I’ve thought about revisiting it a few times but never have.
this is like someone telling a story of their spiral into alcohol addiction and then you coming in at the end and being like “yeah well I got drunk a few times in college and im fine” lolololol
I’m struggling to see how. At the time the game first came out (when I played it) it was a flat subscription fee to pay, like most MMOs back then. It didn’t have any of the pay to win, micro transactiony gambling bullshit that was described by the person I replied to. It was just the game and the game was fun.
It sounds like it really went full enshitification with lootbox type stuff sometime after I quit so it was a very different experience for each of us.