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Star Trek Online: F2P Interview with Dan Stahl
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The announcement that Cryptic's Star Trek Online would be going free to play, while not unexpected, came as a surprise timing-wise when it was announced a week or so ago. MMORPG.com Industry Relations Manager Garrett Fuller caught up with STO's Executive Producer Dan Stahl to talk about the future of Star Trek Online as a F2P title. Keep reading and then be sure to leave us your comments.
Will this model give more optins to Klingon players?
What this model does is help move the Klingon players closer to being on par with the Federation. It means more ships, more costumes, more content that they can play. By increasing their starting level, it also means improving their leveling progression and ensuring there is a good PVE experience for Klingon players who do not want to PVP.
Read more of Garrett Fuller's Star Trek Online: F2P Interview with Dan Stahl.
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Comments
Cryptic promises much but delivers little.
@above: haven't they been adding missions, episodes and story arcs and other content every month or two?
I felt there could have been a few other pertinent (to me) questions asked, such as, 'will FTP players be able to use the Foundry?'.
I considered myself a StarTrek fan. I own the next generation complete series dvd, even own a few StarTrek games for pc. I didn't even consider playing this game. I'm still wondering how any model F2P or P2P made any profit, this game was atrocious.
"LOL"
This is a very lean game. What they need to do is add loads more missions. As it stands now, in order to get to your max level, you've pretty much have to do all the missions in the game. The Foundery and Weekly episodes are great but if this game wants to survive it's needs to have some depth. And at least two complete factions.
I'm pretty sure that the reason progress is so slow is due to the fact that any major change has to be green lighted by CBS. And from what I've seen, those guys can be kind of stingy on that front. Took forever for them to give permission for the Enterprise-F.
That's answered in the F2P matrix, you can't create foundry missions as a free player but I believe you can still play missions others have created.
Didn't they add the story missions this year staran?
Wow I didn't really believe there had been a content drought for 7 months. Sure enough I looked it up on their page and the last mission they made was revealed on March 5th of this year.
Post didn't finishe lol....but to korvass Cryptic already stated in their last news article on F2P that the foundry will only be available for premium members.
I'm actually looking more forward to STO going ftp than I am for the release of SWTOR online. At least with this I'll be getting my monies worth.
F2P ( and that means do NOT spend any cash on this game) is the only way i would say to go if any that want to try this out.
Unless and untill, they (Cryptic) can prove that they will take any problems that they have with their store not working properly, and make sure that they FIX those issues and not give people that spend cash the run a round, there is no way i would trust them with your cash.
If the new company allows Cryptic to continue to run and operate the C-store and provide tech/customer support, then you are taking a serious chance that you will lose your cash to bugs, and be told that their logs show nothing or the wrong info.
And that will be ALL you will be told, their logs show this and that is the end. Even escalating the issue to their supposedly upper tier you get the exact same message before they close tickests, the logs show this, and they will flatly refuse to even look at your characters to verify what you are telling them.
This type of customer service, especially, on a cash shop type game, ifs totally unexceptable. And it really is a shame, this game would be nice for a casual game, pay as you go. It really is deeper than it appears to be on first look, what with all the captain and bridge officer skills.
I was having fun playing up untill i ran into issues with the C-store and horrible customer service that appears to be the norm for Cryptic.
The last weekly episode of the last Featured Series was released at the end of March. They have also gone back and Remastered 3 other missions as well (and made those playable at any level), which effectively made them new missions also.
I think a lot of STO players (the vocal ones, anyway) had gotten accostomed to seeing a new Featured Episode Series every couple months, and got disallusioned when production focus seemed to switch from rapidly spitting out story content to making system updates and changes like the change to ground combat and now gearing up for the new F2P model.
It is like last year when they would have welcome back weekends and people who left the game and said "Uh...there is still nothing to do but buy c-store junk"....
Even F2P I'm not gonna play STo. I tried it in beta and was so happy with it, never to buy it at all!
Sorry for the (few?) fanbois here, but STo is the lamest excuse for a MMO there is...
I wonder if they'll finally add bridges to the starships. Last time I played it was like playing an RTS game in space. When it came to space battles. Its Star Trek for cryin' out loud. If I'm a Captain, I want to have my character sitting in the captain's chair giving commands to my crew. Thats how a reall Star Trek game should be played. Of course if you're in a small shuttle you'd only have a cockpit, but in a starship you should have a full size bridge at least. A whole explorable starship would be best, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that. I'd be happy with a bridge though.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
They do have bridges and other explorable areas of the ships. You can't do anything usefull from them other than set-up episode replay, but they do exist.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
I'm betting this F2p model won't be as sucessful as there Champions Online F2p model, reason being they will be bogged down by approval process from CBS. Its one thing to have a vision for a game then have those ideas turn down by CBS.
My main irritations with this game come in two parts.
1) Load screens. Lots and lots of load screens. I think if you are running with bare bones graphics load times are very short. But if you run with everything maxed as I do the load times between instances are much longer, and sitting infront of a load screen time and time again during a single play session is very tiresome.
Now some load screens are probably necessary. But others seem extraneous. Why all the load screens between sectors or quadrants. My God, there's not a lot going on in space to warrant that many load screens, especially when you have all that instancing going on. Break down the damn walls and make space feel open, not cramped up like some little room.
2) Give me the damned TOS t5 and TOS refit t5 already. Make it a 'costume' or whatever. To make my point....let's use an analogy. Suppose I make a Planet of the Apes game and set it far in the past when there are no talking apes. Do you see how retarded that is. When people think of Star Trek they think of certain iconic things. Since it's basically a solo/coop game can we please use what we want without penalty.
Well that's my gripe. F2P? I don't really care. Money isn't the issue. Time is the issue and other games and forms of entertainment are competing for my attention.
There was to much focus on the c-store before F2P, I can only imagine how bad it might get after F2P. I am sick of seeing F2P destroy games and communities in general, on the other hand this is one of those games that needs to go F2P to survive. I wish them luck who knows maybe I can bring out my Admiral from retirement.
"Onward to adventure".
I really hate f2p, because usually destroys quality. There is no such thing in business as free launch. Never. Period. And gaming is business. But in case of CO I admit game is better and as usually when playing f2p, I always play in sub mode. But maybe CO would be better anyway. F2p model attracts cheap people. The one that would like to get everything in life for free. But as long as there are enough people that are willing to PAY sub ... game will at least live. If will attract only cheap people ... well ... will die.
hahahah hilarious!! "its very important to us that we dont devalue the their game" how funny is that, the game wasnt really worth what they was asking in the first place, i dont think it could be valued anyless even if they tried!
startrek online will be a fantastic game as soon as we dont have to pay for it
and only then.
How does pvp work in this game? Any open pvp? Or all faction based pvp everywhere, etc?
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
You can happily wander your ship. You have been able to for quite some time.
My captain sits in his chair constantly especially during rp scenerio's.
I don't think you realize how impossible it would be to have fights on a bridge like that. Explain to me how you'd get a view. Have you actually ever tried Bridge Commander?
There is no way you can do that in this type of game. It would be too slow. I wish we could but you cannot fathom how many logistics problems there is to it.
Besides combat in Star Trek is like this.
Fire Phasers...
"Phasers firing captain", "We have scored a hit, shields are down"
"Load torpedo's, FIRE!"
Cut to outside scene of the ship blowing up.
Star Trek combat in shows is equal parts 3rd person and bridge.