Star Trek Online: Lohlunat Festival 2019 Controversy
Yesterday Cryptic posted details of the forthcoming summer event, known in Star Trek Online parlance as the Lohlunat Festival 2019. As usual there’s a Tier 6 ship to be earned through daily missions along with a ton of cosmetic items. Emotes are popular with players and so this event also includes several that can be used in space via your starship, giving “Captains” further means of expressing themselves. At first glance, there’s nothing exceptional about this bundle of goodies. Nor nothing controversial. However, the devil is in the detail, as developer’s Cryptic subsequently found out.
Yesterday Cryptic posted details of the forthcoming summer event, known in Star Trek Online parlance as the Lohlunat Festival 2019. As usual there’s a Tier 6 ship to be earned through daily missions along with a ton of cosmetic items. Emotes are popular with players and so this event also includes several that can be used in space via your starship, giving “Captains” further means of expressing themselves. At first glance, there’s nothing exceptional about this bundle of goodies. Nor nothing controversial. However, the devil is in the detail, as developer’s Cryptic subsequently found out.
One of the emotes that was included in this year’s event was the “Dixies Horn”, just like in The Dukes of Hazard (for those old enough to remember that TV show). I say “was” because Cryptic have now removed that particular emote as a reward, having been made aware of the socio-political connotations associated with the song it is based upon. A post made by Vesta 3312 prompted a debate on the STO subreddit and it soon became clear that this was a matter that needed to be resolved promptly. Below is the original post which makes it point very clearly.
As ever with such online debates, not all participants “covered themselves in glory” and there were several comments removed by moderators for obvious transgressions of the subreddit rules. As ever, many of those who have never faced any sort of discrimination in their life, displayed an empathic blind spot and there were the usual arguments based around false equivalence. “I’m not offended, so why are you” still seems to be the go-to argument of choice, despite being logically flawed and emotionally tone deaf. However, Cryptic have acted promptly, addressed the matter and issued an apology. The official STO website has been edited accordingly and hopefully things can move on without too much loss of goodwill.
Yet, it is still a valid point to ask as to how such a blunder could have been made. Star Trek is an intellectual property couched in liberal, progressive attitudes. It is about diversity, inclusion and social issues. Over the years the various shows have explored many different aspects of human failing but they certainly haven’t endorsed any of them. It is sad that such a mistake was made, especially in light of the existing political climate that has become more partisan in recent years. Hopefully lessons can be learned from this incident and that no lasting harm has been done.
Cosmetic Uniform Controversy in Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online like many MMOs uses multiple in-game currencies. Reputation, fleet equipment as well as cosmetic items are purchasable using a variety of energy credits, dilithium and reputation tokens. Cryptic have therefore placed various restrictions governing these items to ensure that the game economy remains functional. However many players still amass sizeable quantities of these currencies overtime; especially those with multiple alts and sufficient time to invest in the game. At present although dilithium ore can be earned in multiple ways, a daily cap allows only 8,000 units to be refined each day. It is refined dilithium that can be used as a tradeable currency.
Star Trek Online like many MMOs uses multiple in-game currencies. Reputation, fleet equipment as well as cosmetic items are purchasable using a variety of energy credits, dilithium and reputation tokens. Cryptic have therefore placed various restrictions governing these items to ensure that the game economy remains functional. However many players still amass sizeable quantities of these currencies overtime; especially those with multiple alts and sufficient time to invest in the game. At present although dilithium ore can be earned in multiple ways, a daily cap allows only 8,000 units to be refined each day. It is refined dilithium that can be used as a tradeable currency.
Five years on from its launch STO has a sizeable player base with a high percentage of veteran players. Because of the nature of the franchise, a lot of these are lifetime account holders who invest heavily in the game and make it their personal gaming focus. In a nutshell, a lot of folk have a ton of dilithium. Farming across multiple toons is a common practise and even I have a modest supply that is regularly topped up via four characters. So naturally the game developers from time to time, create new dilithium sinks as a way of reducing the surfeit of this in-game resource. Today Cryptic did just that and added some cosmetic outfits to the dilithium store; items that had previously been available in the Zen store and purchasable for real money.
As ever with matters of this nature, the decision has been met with disapproval from some quarters. The prices for these cosmetic uniforms range from one to two million dilithium. That equates to approximately 2,482 Zen at current exchange rates which would cost about £17/$22.50 in real money. The fact that these purchases are character bound and not unlockable across an entire account has also met with criticism. However it should be noted that cosmetic items and ships are already purchasable from the Lobi store for similar prices with comparable criteria, which does somewhat mitigate such complaints.
I personally have no objection to dilithium sinks of this nature and it can be cogently argued that nothing currently on sale in the dilithium store is essential to play STO. Perhaps Cryptic could offer a wider variety of items, such as some of the limited edition ships that were exclusively available from previously events. Items of this nature may well be perceived as better value than cosmetic uniforms. However offering previously exclusive items can similarly antagonise a percentage of the player base, proving yet again that you cannot please everyone in the MMO genre. Ultimately this particular “drama” will pass with time, like most others and do no major harm to the game. Furthermore the need for a dilithium sink will continue to occur through STO’s lifecycle.