Update (1): We’re getting reports of people not having/ or have been unsubscribed to the emails associated with this and other promotions. See the bottom of this post for instruction on how to check your subscriptions status.
Update (2): PWE Response originally published on MassivelyOP.
Update (3): No news on the criteria, and any assumptions previously made about criteria I’m now throwing out the window. Some players are reporting the ship is showing up on their promotions tab without claiming a code. Eeeeenteresting.
Yesterday an email marketing piece was sent to many active players from Star Trek Online. The promotion included a special code which allowed those players to receive a free T6 Grand Nagus Marauder. The promotion made it possible for each character on that account to gain access to it.
Almost immediately a cry went up from the community with MassivelyOP reporting on the confusion. Reddit threads multiplied and a large vocal percentage of the community said ‘Why didn’t I get it?.’ and ‘Am I not whale-like enough?’
‘Why doesn’t Star Trek Online love me they way I love them?’
Disclaimer: At this stage, I DO NOT know the ‘gifting’ criteria. Pretty much no one does as it seems at this poitn some people are getting on thier acounts without the email. More questions than answers. Frustrating for everyone. but my current assumption is the dollar value spent in the past year. How much is up for your guess, however, 5 of the people I’ve spoken too have purchased more than 1K in the past year. And yes, that included me.
But you didn’t get the email.
Many who should have received it, but didn’t was because of one small problem.
It would have been against the law. (Waits for the roar of LAME! and all the hate the forums can muster.)
I’m not kidding and welcome to my world of email marketing. Bear (bare) with me for a moment, because if you missed out on this, here is one possible no-good-terrible-what-the-frack reason why. (and likely not the only reason).
While by night I’m pretending to be the Lootcritter, by day I work in Digital Marketing: Enterprise digital Operations, Social Media and yes, email marketing. Chances are if you’re politically active you have gotten an email from someone I work for. Since 2003 in the US, and since 2011 in Canada, our activities are bound by a set of binding legal requirements. It’s called the CAN-SPAM Act. While some buggers out there ignore it, those of us with physical addresses, shareholders, and legal teams have to play by the rules. And yes, there are people who get dinged in court by not playing by the rules.
I’m betting the same goes for Cryptic and Star Trek Online. Actually, I’d be surprised if they didn’t.
Have you ever pressed UNSUBSCRIBE? Because if you did at any point, there would be NO LEGAL WAY Star Trek Online could send you anything. Not even a cool, latinum plated starship.
That unsubscribe could have happened yesterday or 4 years ago. You may have pressed mute in Google Gmail. You may have tagged it as Junk in Outlook or Hotmail. Or you could have simply moved on from that email account.
So is there a chance you still can get it? The jury is out on that answer for the moment, but I would not be surprised if they aren’t discussing it at this very moment. I have asked the powers that be whether or not something could be done. Don’t get your hopes up – yet.
Couple of last points:
- As of the release of that email, Trendy did not have a role in it. And believe it or not, it’s normal for a CM NOT to know the details of every other department. It’s handled by another aspect of the company that manages customer retention. She is, however, swinging a bat’leth on your behalf. Cut the negativity – she’s on our side.
- Subscribe dammit. Sure they’ll send you some things you don’t like. But you will agree that free shit isn’t one of those things 😉 Why resubscribe after the fact? It’s the 50th anniversary, and you know, maybe something else will show up at some point!
To be perfectly honest this is a subject that everyone has their own opinion of how/when cryptic should promote themselves. This was a nice gesture on their part, and yes had I been left out I too would have been upset. But I understand why and how the process works, so I can’t blame STO.
And yes, a review is in the works.
My Two Bits
Lootcritter
PWE’s response:
Update: A representative for PWE issued the following statement to Massively OP in regard to these ships: “The gold-plated T6 Ferengi ship was sent out to a select group of players as part of an e-mail specific promotion. Unfortunately we aren’t able to reveal any additional information, as it goes against our policy to protect the privacy of our community members.”
http://massivelyop.com/2016/07/20/star-trek-online-confuses-community-with-ship-giveaway/
Check your subscription:
Conversations with the Lootcritter 
The problem here is they way it was handled, LTS left out, people dumping $’s or £’s into Zen, left out, monthly subscribers left out, ….. if we only knew the criteria it would be a salve for the burn… it is just so “under the counter”
The other problem is the theoretical natures of the assumptions being made.
Spent £x,000 or $y,000 – players who have never bought zen have been given a Nagus?
X days in game – players who have not played in years (Since FTP) have the email.
Supported tribble testing of AoY – limits it to subscribers or LTS – but non subscribers have the email…
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Right – I pointed out it doesn’t appear to be connected to LTS status, but rather an amount spent in the past year. I don’t know if it was also sent to others yet. Still trying to gather accurate information on the recipient criteria
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There is some folks who haven’t spent a dime how have received the ship. So it appears to be random.
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Yeah.I’ve encountered 2 people who claim not to have spent a dime. One of them recanted and admitted he’s as much a junkie for ships as I am 😉 spending roughly what I do.
Until STO tell us how/who/why – we’re in the dark.
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People will be angry as long as they don’t share the precise criteria of the giveway. When you’ve been a player for almost the beginning of the game, been a subscriber for a while then bought a LTS, spent litterally hundreds & hundreds of € through the years on C-Store ships, bought the Delta & Temporal packs and you see a buddy who’s been playing for less than a year and who bought for like 30 bucks of Zen get the ship and not you, you’re angry.
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It’s a catch-22.
They’re damned if they don’t.
They’re screwed if they do.
Here me out. One of the strengths of the game is it’s generous fans. How generous, and how big those players are identifies the value of the business. That’s highly proprietary and could create problems for the company. The licence could be renegotiated on terms unfavourable to further expansion – or worse, another company may step in to start a new mmo. Again – this is speculation on my part – but you have to admit they’ve been very cagey on actual data regarding what the player base looks like.
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After checking it, Arc websites showed I wasn’t subscribed but I’ve been receiving newsletter about PWE games (NWN, Livelock,… pretty much any of their games) except STO, for months (even years I think). Guess they screwed up something along the way when they modified something on their back-end.
Anyway, it’s another good idea turned fiasco only PWE can do.
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Recently I know of people who are Pokémon fans that discover that they can’t get hold of Single-use event Code for their game, only because they didn’t subscribe, and complained to staff of a fan site about it.
I’ve actually posted a guide in the help threads more than once..
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Reblogged this on Star Trek Online – Heidy's Thingies and commented:
Lootcritter offers a possible explanation on the latest STO controversy — an unannounced free ship redeem code emailed to some STO players, with a secretive eligibility requirement that got a bunch of players all riled up. Sounds like a case of good-intentions-turned-PR-nightmare to me! In any case, that is one seriously GAUDY ship! It looks like someone suffering from Sudden Wealth Syndrome. Flaunt it, baby! XD
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I still think my real issue is the lack of any clear rule for understanding who got codes/gift bags and who didn’t. It seems like you’d want people to know how people got such wonderful goodies to encourage more people to do… whatever it is you guys did. =)
That said, I understand what you are saying. Although unless they are sent from a different address than the ones talking about AoY being out and the zen sale and all that I’m sure I’m still subscribed. Out of curiousity though, can you reveal what address they were sent from and/or tips on how to make sure you are subscribed?
My biggest disappointment will be if the ships truly are exclusive to this promotion because if it does that means I can’t get the ship or it’s console for my Ferengi captain who’s been jonesing for one since she saw that third console show up in the set list. I hate exclusivity as a general rule, but exclusivity after the fact is the worst.
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Quick Edit: Thanks for the link on how to check your subscription status., I’m definitely still subscribed and no email. Although to be fair, even with getting my LTS in November I think my spending has been under $1K for the last year.
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“This was a nice gesture on their part, and yes had I been left out I too would have been upset.” Yep…I will no longer support them as a result. They made it easy with this move.
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quick question: were you a LTS or paying customer ? – just curious.
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Is there anyway of finding out if the “Allow us to send occasional newsletters and updates to your registered email address.” button was never touched or accidental turned off in ARC? It might explain why some people got and some didn’t when this might have been on/off for some people when they thought it was the other way around. For me, I thought it was on when it was off and I’m sure I clicked it at some point. Another point to note is that when ARC updated to the ‘new’ (current) format this had to be manually turned back on?
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Apparently I had the check box for receiving Emails from them in Arc, “unchecked”. I’ve since checked the box to receive them. Will they be doing a refresh and re-sending emails out so that the people who couldn’t have gotten them the first time because of the email being unchecked will be able to get them? Juding from what I’ve seen of the criteria, I most certainly would have got one.
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did the check your subscription link disappear or have I gone blind? Halp.
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I know I’ve missed out on a couple of promotions because I adamantly refuse to install the ARC launcher, but that’s okay with me. Emails are one thing, but when I’m required to install software I neither want nor need, my reply tends to be “Thanks, but no thanks.”
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You can log into ARC via any standard web browser.
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Yes, but a number of promotions have required the installation of the ARC Launcher for the game, not just logging into their website. So long as the standard launcher works, I see no reason to add bloatware.
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Yes – on that point you are right – the free ships in the past year were all done via email and the code could be entered via normal web browser.
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It started with the Khan jacket. The only way to get that (that I know of) was to install the ARC launcher.
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Your right;). That was a series of promotions designed to get players to use ARC in part to expose the player to other PWE titles, in part to further de-emphasize Steam. Even support prioritized ARC tickets first (found that out after waiting weeks for a reply).
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But I was unaware that the ships were all done as emails. Hopefully, they’ll repeat the offer or make it available in the C-store for some outrageous price…
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That explains a lot. Of course, I’ve been playing since year two (missed out on the year one anniversary because nobody sent me an invite to play before then), so I remember when Cryptic was the top level… And that’s most of the reason I don’t want the ARC launcher. I have no interest in their other games. I spend enough time on STO alone. (Besides, their lack of action against idiots like “neverwintergod” actually makes the chance of interest in trying that game a negative number.)
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I didn’t even know there was a setting to subscribe to newsletters, etc. Just looked now and found it unclicked. Sad face.
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How do u check is the Allow us to send occasional newsletters and updates to your registered email address is turned on?
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Check the image link in the tweet we have added.
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If you’re using an ad-blocker, disable it. Mine blocks linked content in articles as well as ads on some sites.
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It’s a silly ‘issue’, and it’s a bit disgusting people have gone as far as to send threats to LaughingTrendy and some other personalities in the community who have the ship. So not everyone got the G-Nagus? Big deal. That’s life. You get some, and then you don’t. Putting the business morality argument aside, it is what it is. If you got the ship, sweet. If not, so what? It’s a video game. While I don’t mean that to sound patronising, in this case, people should really calm down a bit. It’s all meant to be good fun.
Plus, the ship itself isn’t balls-to-the-walls amazing, in that it isn’t a ship that is just plainly overpowered. If they gave away an Annorax with Cmdr Temp Ops seat, then that might be a different story, but looking at it from a different point of view, the ship is more about the bragging rights than it is a ship that is supposed to be game-breaking.
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For those who received the email what was in the “subject” line so I can search my spam?
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A token of appreciation from the nagus
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Yea, like others, I didn’t know anything about this check box since I always received email about ZEN purchases and other items I paid for. What is so hard about giving a heads up about this part of being included in giveaways?
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Star Trek Online Facebook group within a post by another member:
$$ and tine spent isn’t the only thing. It’s work in the community as well. Testing and behind the scenes stuff you don’t see these guys doing. You got any idea how much work Scott and Warren put into this game? Just to name two. I highly doubt you know the full extent, cause the only ones who would are cryptic.
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Post is still there is is taken from Omitted persons name I am not whom wrote this either. But watched as the Arguement unfolded till the person asking the questions that got this answer got removed from the group. Brave soul asking he was. Not nice they banned him from group for asking tho if you ask me. But yer Looks like big requirement was possibly working as a outside tester for cryptic to get iy.
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Star Trek Online Facebook group within a post by another member:
“$$ and tine spent isn’t the only thing. It’s work in the community as well. Testing and behind the scenes stuff you don’t see these guys doing. You got any idea how much work Scott and Warren put into this game? Just to name two. I highly doubt you know the full extent, cause the only ones who would are cryptic.”
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I not 1 that wrote this I ommitted name for not mine to give. However it was wrote in respons to another in that group contiuned asking of what the requirements were to recieve a Negus. Poor guy got booted from group for his contiuned asking of what the criteria were that guy whom wrote above statement was hinting. wrong that the admin of that group did that to him. But brave of him to keep asking. But seems big part is working in Community & being a tester for cryptic was a big factor behind it.
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I’d like to say a special Thank you Loot Critter on pointing out the subscribe to emails options. I never thought to have checked it and sure enough, yup mine was switched off. I’ve enabled it so maybe next time Cryptic / pwe choose to do another ship giveaway event by email. Maybe I’ll get lucky. Not holding my breath but at least there’s a small glimmer of hope in future.
Cheers Lootcritter, and thank you .
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Thanks really goes to Redditor ThonOfAndoria who brought it to the communities attention 😉 Happy to be a conduit!
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Late to the party, but let me also express thanks to both you and Thon for that information.
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So how do we check our email status? Your post on that is blank, LC. Sorry if I missed something.
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You can get the links at the bottom of the post – or –
How to confirm your subscription:
Go Here: https://www.arcgames.com/en/my/setting
Choose Language tab
See image below pic.twitter.com/ReKMRMaFRm
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Darn I wanted this ship 😦
thought maybe its because im unsubscribed, checked the tweet info you guys have posted and yes all boxes ticked and subscribed since 2012 and have played every day since then, I am not a life timer I cannot see any info on this in the blog whether life timers are the only people with the chance does this make a difference? I then thought to check on monies spent and OMG I actually had a heart attack at the amount I have spent “holds breath”………..since 2012 I have spent WAY over a thousand…..im not going to give the actual figure as im a little ashamed of what I have been spending 🙂 so money spent should not be the issue? I have arc but don’t run the game through it I use steam as I am a steam game hoarder and like to keep all my eggs in 1 basket, perhaps this is at fault? I am only level 1 on my arc membership, could this be an issue?
Basically who do I have to sleep with to get this ship, could I send bank statements to cryptic showing iv been paying someone’s wages there every month for 4 years lol?
Im not gonna lie the day this promotion came out informing we were going to be treated I thought YES! I must get one im in all the high DPS channels I post vids on youtube and play PVP every day, and on that day when checking my emails I almost cried. especially after logging on and getting messages from people in my fleet who have barely played the game saying “ooooh I god a nice new ship for free, don’t know if its any good but wont use it cos I like my Jupiter(noob) class ship” I actually wanted to fly to Cryptic head office, cop-a-squat and leave a large pile of fecal matter on the directors car.
So what is the answer Gents?? I can only think of one, they had a certain amount of ship tokens they were gonna give out, they gave a mass amount to deserving (questionable) souls like Mr wolf here who basically promote the company (on the payroll of course lol) and the remainder was just random as I cant see a pattern to any of it?
OK rant over I have been wanting to get that off my chest for a while now, now every time a nagus flies past me I send them a challenge request just so I can vape them and cheer myself up 🙂
Keep this post going though guys I want to read any ideas or chances available to get this ship I am a ship collector and have them all except for this one and the new broadside but 900+ mil is a little redonculouse to pay out for this.
Cheers Ross DD
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I played STO for almost 57 months since I start it on Feb. 10, 2012, and I still enjoy the game as Silver User. Cryptic isn’t considerate for silver user. Really. That’s a one, critical weakness. If they don’t change their mind even a little bit for silver user’s welfare, this game will collapse in extreme case. They should study some case such as Overwatch.
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