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A Critical Examination of STO (Longish)
Cor4x
Member Posts: 241
Forward: I'm an old gamer and generally game 40+ hours a week. I played Star Fleet Battles (the P&P tactical game) and Federation & Empire (the P&P strategic add on) in tournament and casually for years. I also am a Starfleet Command (II) player. I am not really a Star Trek fan. I disliked / didn't watch everything TNG and forward up to the reboot. I thought the reboot was OK.
My expectations were that the game would have at least the tactical depth of EVE. My initial intentions were to play a Gorn full-time and have fun PVPing Fed players. Obviously I was disappointed on both fronts.
My initial impressions of the game were: Cheap, easy, flashy, and shallow. I felt it was the Tara Reid of mmorpgs. (I would've said Megan Fox, but the game just isn't good looking enough.)
I thought the box art on the regular version was really poor. I looked at it in Amazon and thought: “Wow. I could'a done better than that.”
Graphics in-game looked ok, but I thought all the panels (blue on black mono-tone rounded with hollow buttons circa 1995) looked really cheap. Also, the loading screen only shows for standard aspect ratios, so on my widescreen monitor I get junk along the edges. Most people won't notice this stuff, but I do.
The character graphics looked spectacular as did most of the interiors. They are in no way as bad as the graphics on CO. I can't imagine a better job on character differences considering the sameness in uniforms. An awesome job by the design team.
I felt the ship graphics were adequate, even as I felt having each ship be “customizable” according to appearance be both idiotic and necessary. Otherwise the cookie-cutter appearance would've been too great. It is a conundrum I would've been unable to solve conceptually.
As for characters, I thought the character generator would be the best part of the game, and it is. But... the screen construction for the characters is badly flawed in that the UI is clunky and divided up into sections forcing you to design the head, then the body, then the uniform. A designer looks at the whole and adjusts pieces to match (like you do in CoX's generator). Having to go back and forth, click on “Advanced” (which in this context means change ANYTHING), then click on what you want then click a couple of more times to get back to the body design is really clunky. It does get the job done, however, and produces interesting variations.
I wish there were more variances in costume, but I understand it is Star Trek. I wanted the Wrath of Khan outfit.
The tutorial was nicely executed and gave me a solid grounding for learning how to play. I wouldn't want to sit through it twice though.
Outside the tutorial, in the space zones and in the star base, it felt both empty and cramped. I'm not sure why I got that feeling, as in a number of places there were lots of star ships and such.
I was sorely disappointed in the lack of tactics in space combat. My mind automatically sizes up the best strategy for whatever situation I'm in, and this system leaves really no interesting alternatives. For each outcome, every decision is easy to understand. The combat model is child-like; less than, for instance, Masters of Orion 2.
There are people, who are at least my equal in tactics and strategy, who disagree. However, the majority of people with whom I have discussed this game agree that the tactics and strategy are simplistic.
Is that bad? Well, for some people it is and for others it isn't. For me it is.
This isn't to say that fleet doesn't express some different tactical alternatives, but simply that I feel these choices are probably moot. For example: If someone projects shields onto another ship to make them stronger, and thereby loses firepower; does the synergistic effect (aside from how un-fun it sounds and silly to boot) actually overcome the reduction in firepower?
Part of my ire at the space combat model comes from the ham-handed idea to translate the staid tank, healer, buffer, and dps roles to space ships. I don't think of this as Star Trek or even space-combat like. It just ruins any suspension I might be able to build up. Non-veterans of other tactical space games might not find it bad, or even enjoyable; so it might not be an issue for some people.
Aside from space combat, the ground combat model is also based on traditional warrior, healer, buffer, dps lines. Here it is a better fit, but still doesn't lend itself to the Star Trek feel. I felt that most people in Star Trek from the original series and later were like military personnel (as they were) and were generally good at making things dead with phasers and hand-to-hand combat.
I didn't like the kit system at all; but I admit my interest was waning by the time I got around to examining the different kits for sale and offer. They seemed to provide a “special move” or two, but these really won't change much as I'll get to in a few paragraphs about general combat system observations.
Ground combat consists of firing phasers, firing stun-phasers, and punching people under the chin to send them back a couple of steps.
Again, for me, this consisted 95% of the time of putting the phaser rifle (as it was better than the pistol, I just used it all the time after I got one) on autofire and mashing the “sniper” special whenever it was available. As I was a medic, I had a heal that worked pretty well. I didn't die whenever I was fighting or really get hurt much.
Movement and any real tactical considerations were ineffective and the most effective strategy was to walk into phaser distance and auto-fire the phaser until they died. Switching targets to stun them proved to be ineffective as the stun time was less than the time required to switch targets and reengage. So, the only real option was to auto-fire the phaser. I tried hand-to-hand combat as well, but took more damage 100% of the time, even strobing the attack buttons; so that seems useless as well.
This brings me to my last real point: recharge times and “the power of suck”. In a number of games, you receive abilities that are really good but have long recharge times. Sometimes these abilities do damage or they buff you or debuff the enemy.
The problem is... in a majority of these games the buff/debuff period is so short or the recharge period is soooo looooong that the end-result makes them either detrimental or ineffective for combat.
A number of abilities in this game have the power of suck. For two instances: The tactical officer's special clickie-button for super-torpedos and the stun-blast in ground combat.
The tactical officer's special in space battle allows you to fire a single round of super-torpedoes that do more damage, then it has a recharge time of 1 minute (or so I think). However, your window to fire these torpedoes is only 10 seconds (or so I think). Since to be effective, you have to fire into a down shield while both units are turning, the fire arcs are very narrow, and the recharge time on your photon torpedoes is long; it makes sense that when you're toggling this ability on you're going to miss a number of torpedo shots. The window for opportunity is small. So, for most people in most instances the optimal solution is not to use the ability. If you miss even 1 torpedo shot, the ability becomes a liability. This also doesn't weigh in clicking too early and having the 10 seconds tick off.
The stun-blast in ground combat stuns the mob for perhaps 3 seconds with a 5 second recharge time. Since you have to switch targets for this to be effective (as the stun blast doesn't do much damage and if you shot a single target with stun-phaser-phaser-stun causes you to miss 1.5 phaser blasts and lowers your overall damage without much benefit), you come out losing with more than 2 targets. If there are only 2 targets, you will kill them considerably faster and take as much damage by auto-phasering them.
With the phaser rifle, the sniper shot is a 1 shot kill, so it is always good to shoot whenever it is up at a fresh target.
So, overall, the tactics are simple and direct as far as I experienced. I don't see coordinated actions being particularly intricate. There are people that will choose to make the game artificially more intricate, but in general, straight-forward tactics will likely be as good or superior.
Aside from tactical issues, I have serious concerns about game play repetitiveness. It seems as if there are 2 scenarios: space shooty combat and ground shooty combat. Within these there seem to be no practical differences; by the time the tutorial is finished, I feel you've seen all the game has to offer. There will be perhaps some minor differences, but likely the differences in combat will be perceptual / cosmetic and not functionally different.
Since the genesis system is offline, I can't comment on how that might effect repetitiveness.
As I am an old-school gamer, had I found the combat interesting or pleasant at least, I could've easily handled the grind. Sadly, I found neither ground nor space combat interesting enough to handle even for a few days. I wouldn't last a month.
The instancing didn't bother me, but everything is instanced. Well, I take that back. The star base instances began to bother me as I had to zone and zone and zone to get to different places. It also seemed to have a lot of dead space, but I assume this is for expansion.
Overall, I'd say the game will likely be a hit for Trekie non-mmorpg / non-tactical / supra-casual players. It has enough to be interesting to non-mmorpg veterans or non-tactically inclined casual mmorpgers to play for a few months or longer.
I really don't see enough here to interest a serious mmorpg gamer. However, obviously others disagree. I can only state my opinion based on decades of experience.
Comments
Thumbs up on the great post. In my opinion very accurate.
I personally can only play for about 1-2 hours before i have to take a break. I can only do so many of the same missions in a row. I know it is "Beta" but I highly doubt there are going to be big changes to the core game play.
hello.
I, too agree that this is a very well thought out and written review. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
I personally feel on a game level that the "game" itself will decide the "games" future, as well the community. But more importantly when it comes to Crypt's reputation of marketing and its standing with the consumer, overall Crypts reputation is becoming highly marred. They have released 1 game with turmoil, and so far it looks to be 2 with STO. It's unfortunate because the IP has a long and respectfull history/story, it almost feels unjust.
The way Crypt is going head strong with its promotions and timing of said promotions, leaves little faith for a standing relationship. And most importantly the "cash cow" of inspired/overly hyped mmo player drones, is starting to wane thin. This market, game after uninspired failure of games, is becoming much more aware and not without anger, much more independent of the snake charms. When are developer houses finally going to realize that the "cheap buck" is not worth the effort nor risk of a companies reputation, by creating a fluff, rinse and repeat, copy of itself.
Don't get me wrong, I would KILL to have an HONEST effort for the love of passion to quality, nomatter what the IP is/was. Games like AC, EQ, DAoC, EvE, the first UO hell even LoTR online seem to be more concerned of the players/consumers awarness and intelligence for fun over the amount of money they make off them. I am getting worn out and tired of having to go back and "forgive" games like, CO, AoC, Vanguard, and a host of others for rolling out sh$t delapidated drivel all for the sake of making up "starting costs". Blizzard, (even before they were bajillion pocket deep), still took the time, and never released a game unitil "it is ready".
All I can picture is the headhunter telling the investors... "mmo's?, hell yeah its the easiest way to make money, these guys will buy ANYTHING, if the name is right".
I miss the old days.
"He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king."
"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much argruing, much writting, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making."
John Milton 1608-1674
my God..
sorry for my vent.
lol.
just my opinion.
"He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king."
"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much argruing, much writting, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making."
John Milton 1608-1674
Thank you for writing a critical, non-fanboi and unbiased review. I appreciate your efforts and applaud you. Although my spider senses are tingling telling me to stay away from this game, I am going to at least give open beta a shot. Expecting nothing, and with lowered expectations, I will try out this game. I too am not a fan of the Star Trek series, but a new MMO is a new MMO, and I am desperate for a change of scenery from the MMOs I currently play.
Once again, kudos on a well-thought out review.
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"Your pride, good sir, far exceeds your worth." -x3r0h
Oldest mmorpg.com member with the least amount of post counts. That counts for something, right?
Yeah, a lot of players are leaving the genre. It just isn't the same anymore, but sadly, the progression is understandable.
We can follow the trend in just about anything, but here lets stick with MMORPGs:
Phase 1: [The REALLY Old Days] A developer decides that he/she'd like to create an on-line experience similar to pen and paper or other game. So MUDs and MMORPGs are born. These are done by the little guys (mostly college students, but sometimes retired programmers do this stuff to. No one else has time!). The point is they CARE about the games they create deeply and want people to have fun. They have a vision.
Phase 2: Eventually, someone working at a programming company (i.e. a group of programmers / friends) decides they'd like to get together to develop some idea. Sometimes this idea has been pitched to the parent company and sometimes it hasn't. In any event, they manage to put their idea together and throw it out there. Predictably, it is a wild success. This would be Ultima Online, Everquest, and EVE Online.
Phase 3: In march the first wave of suits and the beginning of the end. They slobber all over the munnah that can be wrenched from these games and buy up the companies. In many cases, they exploit the game to its maximum potential. (Like Everquest and its thousand expensive expansions.) Most development stops or slows as the companies do not want to spend much money on anything other than new expansions. Bug fixes cost money and don't produce new revenue so they are at the bottom of the pile. Everquest, for instance, STILL has quests broken from the original game, even years later. Not that many people run quests in Everquest, but that is another story.
Phase 4: The slober-suits do the same thing to MMORPGs that they did to movies: They hire "experts" that don't know jack shit about anything (ie psychologists for game design, writers for story, and so on) to create "balanced, enjoyable" games that suck ass; as well as industry hacks. What they lack is someone that LOVES the game. The slobber-suits constantly interfere in every part of the design process from mucking with development protocols (ala moron project managers that aren't programmers) to trying to rush innovation via the soviet method (either do something creative or else). They rush and push and slice the development schedule to the bone to eke out more dallahs. This, in the end, produces the crap we have today.
Phase 4 only gets worse when someone 'wins' like WOW and manages to create a game a lot of people like to play. It brings out the shills. The problem is; a suit wouldn't know a good designer from a bad one. They have no way to. They just have this pile of dollahz and want to make more dollerz. They could care less how it is done or if you have fun.
When this design approach is taken, the result is lose - lose. Everyone loses.
When the EVE design approach is taken (and I don't like the game, but I understand) it is a win - win. People that CARE created the game that they liked to play. It has a soul and that is what these games lack.
As for intellectual property: Just look at video games in general. When was the last time you played a game that was based on a movie or comic book character or other genere that wasn't pure crap? You can count the good ones on 1 hand. MMORPGs are no different.
So, I don't get my hopes up anymore when I play an MMORPG. I assume they will absolutely suck and go up from there.
Rant on. It is the only way people are ever going to listen.
Yet another great post. I really can not argue with anything you have said here. I wish some (new) company who had a passion for making a great MMO got thier hands on this instead of Cryptic. I had such high hopes when this game was announced. I guess I was too used to playing big open world games like Lineage2 and LOTRO.. and let my mind run wild with the posibilities of a open world Star Trek. Some people might like this game and that is great, not everyone cna like the same thing.
I am just dissapointed I suppose.
I hate to agree but, the game that i have waited for is looking very shallow. The big part for me seeing this is star trek is exploration, ok so how does this mmo define it, a big checker board that spawns random systems and shallow missions. at lt. commander +2 or level 12 i have done a few missions and all i seem too find is the same alien life form wanting me to bring supplies or kill klingons . the planents look good from space and are ok on ground but hello all are devoid of life no animals or aliens makes you want to really explore more.
The game has hope but, i think it may be to much to ask for that the open the universe up like eve online space is big not a chess board..
I am not so sure it's about "new company" so much as it should be "new philosophy" or someone/entity doing the research on "what was magical that created the mmo genre" to begin with and then implementing this into a working mission statement. It has become apparent that the guts of the game have become trivial to the actual IP or name of the game being sold.
Back in the day it was the mystery and wanderlust that sold the mmo. It's (pardon the timing here) "new frontier" and being able to play a face with other faces that were real though virtual. But not only was this idea self hyped just by its own mechanic, but the GAME itself was actually GOOD because it had to be. The single player market of producers like Forgotten Realms, Sir Tech, Bioware/Interplay, even Blizzard (Warcraft Ors vs Humans) paved the way for quality OVER sales only in that it was DAMN expensive to be a PC game player back then. My first 386 comp cost me over 4 grand and that was because it had an 80meg (MEG) hd. And that was with my employee discount with Intel. Not to mention the passion for building an "epic" game was everywhere you looked.
Don't get me wrong, it is still a business and needs to make money, but quality was sold back then. Since when does releasing a f$cking sub par, half realized, piece of rubbish (insert ANY recent new release here), become an "accepted" practice in ANY other business model and expected to thrive. I have to laugh openly at the many times I read comments like. "It's just released, it's expected". I have myself fallen for the hype and lost a great deal of money to failed "expectations". Embarrassingly enough those being my own over what was promised by the developer.
I agree with the OP. Any game that comes out is automatically given the "don't expect much if anything" attitude and will not see one ducket from me unless its proven through beta, trial, demo or free play (this includes non mmo's) . It also sounds like the OP has worked in the pit of gaming industry
.. with the time I spent working contracts for certain unmentioned game houses, your comments sound all too familiar and right on point.
d
"He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king."
"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much argruing, much writting, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making."
John Milton 1608-1674
That just about sums it all up as far as what has happened to MMOs. They cost so much that the suits now make them and gamers just get to be disappointed by them. Original ideas are too risky, challenge/grouping/uniqueness is not broadly appealing, and the idea of releasing when it is done gives way to releasing in a quarter where you need the earnings boost or when you run out of development cash.
STO is not a bad game, CO is not a bad game - AoC, Vanguard, WAR, and all the others are not bad games they are simply unfinished and/or underdeveloped. Many represent incredibly great elements and ideas. Sadly though, all these games are all not fully realized and once you go live trying to really 'finish' or 'develop' it becomes near impossible to do anything but churning out more of the same that already is in the game or tossing band aids around plugging whatever leaks pop up.
Sadder still, it isn't likely to change anytime soon - but we can always hope I suppose.
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So what your trying to say is it's shit.
Interesting read, OP. I like the game. I like it a lot. But I can say this, your look at ground combat IS fairly accurate so I am not going to go into it with you much. There is strategy there, but just not a lot of it. A lot of ground combat strategy is simply being able to get in that flank bonus, which is significant damage compared to the regular damage taken. A lot of that is getting you or usually your team behind or to the side of the enemy and firing. Not a lot of strategy but it is there.
Now for your space combat, I mostly disagree and I hope I can explain it better than I usually do. You are right in that combat IS simple to a degree, but the complexity comes in with your bridge officers, the type of weapons your using and how much training you put into your bridge officers.
For example. Lets look at your tactical officer. At no training, it should be somewhere around 1:30 for you to be able to use that special again. your normal torpedoes have a 6 second cool down. The more you train your tactical officer for that skill, the less time it take for him to be able to use it again. I think you can get that down from 1:30 to around 30 seconds once they have 9 skills into it. That is a huge difference. Then you have to look at what your facing. Are you facing 3 even level ships or 3 +1 ships or 3 -1 ships. you simply can not go into a fight against 3 +1 ships with all your power into phasers and plan on winning. they will usually eat your shield down to quickly. So your tactics are multiple. One you have to manage your power. Say your going against 3 +1 ships. You start off in defensive mode giving your shield the most power it can have. Once you have taken out one of them, if you were successful in flying your ship correctly and keeping on them to down just one shield, then you might not have taken a lot of damage. if so, you flip over to either balanced or offensive to take down the next one and so on and so forth. The tactics are, flying your ship correctly and controlling your power management. And i can say this, it took me about 35 hours before I finally learned how to fly my ship correctly and how to manage my power settings and the game is completely different now. of course, you also have to look at the weaponry you have on your ship. In closed beta I really tried to use the narrow arc phasers and failed miserably at them. I found the wide arc phasers which may do less damage, work the best for me because I can keep my ship turned to the side of them and constantly be hitting them with both arrays. Also depending on how you have your power settings, the ships turn rate is greatly increased by adding more aux power. So again, more tactics for what your trying to do.
To me, the game was made simple enough for a newbie player to play and be able to enjoy it, but they also added in the complexity of all the power settings to make it more fun for more experienced players. So there are plenty of tactics you can use in the game, it all depends on your training and your play style.
Credit for your whole reply m8, but this stands out for me.
I am starting to see that more than "hope", awarness and more so "hard knocks" will start to direct the change. Many ft mmo players are simply at the point to where they have had enough. (especially the ones with pre 2004 experience) Its already at the point where because of the frequency of new realeases, it has become very expensive to even consider making a poor judgement call on overyly hyped, unproven/seen purchases.
The release of STO should have been Epic.. not just "good", "good enough", acceptable. DEFINATELY not, "oh it will get better, just you wait and see". Just that alone discredits the franchise, in my opinion. Crypt boldly went, where recent game producers have gone before, and its solidifying many mmo players perception of using extreme caution before making that 50$ mistake, let alone a 350$ one.
You are absolutely correct, and I agree with you. But its not hope that will change this, but player/consumer responsibility.
d
"He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king."
"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much argruing, much writting, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making."
John Milton 1608-1674
"My expectations were that the game would have at least the tactical depth of EVE."
I stopped reading right here, because I knew nothing that could come after it would be remotely objective. This could have been determined years ago without having even played the game that it was going to be nothing on the same scope as Eve (and thank god because the last thing we need are two boring spreadsheet simulators) which shows he didn't even bother to research it, he just decided "well this is what "I" expect the game to be, so it damn well better cater to me."
And hell, if you ask me, it's more tactical. Last I checked, pressing 1,2,3 and orbiting until explosion wasn't terribly tactical. And before you whine about dropoffs and ammo types, they're considerably less tactical and more about making combat random considering its 90% more likely your setup will be ineffective to average than for it to be particularly effective against an enemies loadout unless you're making pre-determined meetings and handing each other a list of what you're going to fit ahead of time.
I'm not saying STO is perfect by any means, but people are really just going for whatever little nitpicks and personal differences they can find with the game to knock it just because it wasn't how they thought it would be. I personally didn't even look at the game prior to playing it, and it's actually pretty fun. How long that's going to last is still questionable, but considering what they wanted to do with ground/space based combat, I can't think of a realistic way it could have been done much better (IE: Without instances). I mean, they can't be designing a full MMO world for every single planet you visit, that would be completely absurd. They could have did without that goofy checkerboard sector space for travel though.
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
Unfortunately for most MMO companies, all they can "hope" for is that enough people will want to play the game. I personally cannot justify spending any money on STO as there just isn't enough in the game, and I do not foresee them ever putting enough for my $15/mo. If I were to critique it to some level of game, it would be under F2P with micro. The world seems empty, there is not enough customization, and there certainly isn't enough of the in-depthness that all the hype has given. It is a fun game, but not enough to be considered a full-time MMO.
And I extend to you that I truely hope it stays that way, if not becomes mind blowing when they release the full client for head start. I will even go as far as to say I hope it's so good that it turns my bias and anger towards current mmo's in general completely around
(for my sake) lol. Lord knows, I love the IP, am a big fan and would love to partake with the same optimism you have.
What dissapoints me the most atm is that of Crypts marketing stradegies pre release. And the idea that its a mere shadow of what (to me) Star Trek represents. You take out the uniforms, change the ship styles, take out any resemblence of Star Trek at all, replace them with different models and look at the same game, and it would be mediocre at best. You definately wouldnt here testers saying.. "hey, this reminds me alot of what a Star Trek mmo would be like" .. ... at least I dont picture it that way.
all the best m8 and I mean that.
d
"He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king."
"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much argruing, much writting, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making."
John Milton 1608-1674
Seriously at this stage of the game, reviews are like dry humping. They don’t mean anything.
Compared to what? Would you call WoW "in-depth"? or customizable? How about AoC? I would have to laugh in your face. There are next to no games with a considerable amount of "depth" any more and most of the ones still around are on their way out or severely niche. "Depth" is an almost completely arbitrary metric in the MMO genre. Personally, if we're comparing, I'd say STO is pretty par for the course at the moment, which is still less than where I think MMOs should be, but enough that it can still be fun. Having played both I'd say it has more "depth" than say Aion or several other games on the market though.
Personally, I've been noticing a lot of this witch hunting about STO seems to be focused around to reocurring themes, neither of which tends to be backed up by actual gameplay experiences to prove their points. A: People pissed about Cryptic and Champions Online and B: Star Trek fans/people misled by hype.
The first part is just crap. Usual trolls just following a company hating on everything they release because they bought into the hype once and got burned. The second part is a recurring trend that's screwing up the MMO industry in general, namely people following and believing the hype way too much, and companies relying too much on cheap marketing bullshit than actually making a decent game and telling the damn truth for once. I'm actually quite certain the reason I don't see quite so many faults with the game is that I never had any preconceptions of "what should STO be" before playing it. I'm sure if I had I'd probably be pulling whatever reason I could out of my ass to explain why it sucks like everyone else.
All in all I think people just trying the game haven't seen enough to make an accurate judgement yet, and people riding the hype train are too bleary eyed right now to see things clearly. For example, I keep hearing people complaining about grinding randomly generated missions, when all I've played so far have been some very entertaining and non-repeated story missions the past few weeks, in some rather nice hand crafted space scenes. The klingon side definitely looks half assed and suffers from randomly generated crap, I'll give you that, but I haven't seen that in the federation side which I consider to be the only real main part of the game at this point.
TL;DR: I'm not saying the game is amazing, I'm saying the arguments for it being "the worst/most shallow game ever" and "best game ever" right now are weak to poor at best.
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
fixed.
"He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king."
"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much argruing, much writting, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making."
John Milton 1608-1674
And I extend to you that I truely hope it stays that way, if not becomes mind blowing when they release the full client for head start. I will even go as far as to say I hope it's so good that it turns my bias and anger towards current mmo's in general completely around
(for my sake) lol. Lord knows, I love the IP, am a big fan and would love to partake with the same optimism you have.
What dissapoints me the most atm is that of Crypts marketing stradegies pre release. And the idea that its a mere shadow of what (to me) Star Trek represents. You take out the uniforms, change the ship styles, take out any resemblence of Star Trek at all, replace them with different models and look at the same game, and it would be mediocre at best. You definately wouldnt here testers saying.. "hey, this reminds me alot of what a Star Trek mmo would be like" .. ... at least I dont picture it that way.
all the best m8 and I mean that.
d
hey, I fully understand where you are coming from and do not begrudge you for your opinions. This has been one of the things I have said the most about a star trek mmo. So many people have so many different ideas on how STO should be that they can not look over those preconceptions to see what cryptics version of the IP is. And cryptics vision is far different because not only are they trying to make a star trek game, they are also trying to make an MMO and those two are very hard to combine into one. Both sides of that have to have sacrifices for both fun game play and canon. I will say this though. if cryptic had taken, say, 4 years to make the game. I think you would still have a game similar to what you have now but with more in it. And because of that, people would still complain because it still doesn't fit their vision of star trek. That doesn't make it a bad game, it just means it is not going to fit with everyone.
As for your last statement, take away everything star trek and testers wouldn't say, hey this reminds me of what a star trek mmo would be. That sounds completely accurate considering you have taken away everything that is star trek and replaced it with random stuff. You take away everything that makes swg, swg, and testers would say that this doesn't resemble star wars at all. I think that was a very bad opinion to try to make, to be honest.
All I can say is, since it doesn't appear to be what you want ST to be, wait a year and then check it out again. Maybe they will have added on more stuff that you are looking for in the game.
Just some rant-replies.
1. In EVERY creative endeavor, the chance of producing something decent is very low. What percentage of novels are worth putting in a library? 1%? There are a handful of mmos that were/are decent efforts. That's about right. Personally, I am glad people keep trying, for whatever reason. More chances for someone to get very lucky. Take ANY mmo before release and the chances it will be worth investing 20+ hrs a week are very low. IF you have resources, experience, the right people, take a lot of development time, have the "right" attitude and a great IP, your chances are still slim. Do I never watch a movie because the vast majority are junk? When Star Wars was made, just before the release, nobody who was part of making it really had a clue as to whether it would be any good. Watch the making of doc. Its actually not surprizing that the second three movies of SW were pedestrian. Its amazing that the first three were all good. Amazing.
2. I get so tired of people saying an mmo is not worth $15 a month. Well in one sense yes, of course if you don't like it, sure - but in perspective it is like saying this game is not worth playing free...not ftp...free. Just say its not worth your time. After all, if you play 20+ hrs a week, and if you are a "serious gamer" you must be, then you are playing over 80 hrs for $15, which is like, what, less than 20 cents an hour. You can't read a library book for that... the gas you get you back and forth would be more. Isn't your Time worth a heck of a lot more than 20c an hour? Somehow I can't see asking 20c an hour as some kind of horrific rip off. Don't tell me its a lot of money. FAR more important is that its a lot of time. Having a bad game waste your time...now that is evil.
3. You "serious gamers" out there. You love complex PvP, figuring out optimal strategies, working the edges of a game for the finest points, taking no prisoners, and proving you are better than the vast majority of people who will actually be the ones who support the game.... you, people, remember, are in a very thin minority. By definition. (Heck, I am also in a small minority because I post on MMORPG.com. LOL) The game company needs to cater to the vast average majority --- and if you get some scraps thrown to you, be thankful. Yes I would also like to see the OPTION for people to be clever. Some serious optional depth. Like little old ladies can play bridge but if you want to you can probe an incredible depth of strategy. But the first thing the company has to get right is that the regular old gamer can enjoy it without a major mental investment, and these average gamers are not being totally run over by you guys all day long. So if you don't see much chance to figure out uber strategies before the release, should you really be surprized? Doesn't mean that content will ever be there, mind you. Just saying. A better question is whether mmos are actually a good medium for "strategy". I don't mean sensible play, I mean deep strategy. But that's another forum.
Brace for impact, captain.
---------------------------
Rose-lipped maidens,
Light-foot lads...
And I, sir, accorded you the same courtesy.
I'm sure you said something profound, but I won't know what it is.
However, I made a mental note to break my posts up into little pieces to make reading easier. I did supplement the title with a (Long) for those with short attention spans.
You've my deepest apology.
Would just like to point something out...
Most successful Star Trek franchise = Deep Space 9, specifically once the dominion war started
STO, takes all the combat from DS9 and shoves it into an MMO, it was built predominantly around what was considered to be the most successful part of Star Trek.
You can not blame Cryptic for this, blame the massives of mindless idiots who enjoyed the flashy light shows in DS9 more than they enjoyed the well thought out scripts of TNG or even Voyager, which were both firmly routed in exploration unlike DS9.