The short version, although you can read the whole story here, if you’re interested, is that only weeks after the release of Star Trek Online, Cryptic started a sale that gave new players a better deal than the early adopters, which understandably annoyed the early adopters.

Now, I don’t want to fall into the trap of yelling into the void at Cryptic, but you really have to shake your head at such a short-sighted move.  When you run an MMO, you need the goodwill of your community, and so to piss them off with a move so clearly motivated by cash, well, you have to wonder who was actually in charge of this train, and whether they should be moved back to the buffet car.

Here’s a decent overview of the Infinity Ward/Activision dispute so far.

“It’s a truism that there is no drama without conflict, and in a medium where the storyteller does not have total control over the experience the simplest form of conflict is to provide the player with an antagonist to fight and let them get on with it. It’s a tried and tested formula that’s been around for decades, and while it gets constant refinement, it remains fundamentally unchanged.”

Oh, and I was in this video as well: