@Itsneo I agree that wording of the title could have been better. However your saying that you should do some research about Cryptic then say give the game a chance because its a fresh start is completly contradictory. So yeah I don't know how to respons to this.
About Cryptic is aware not to drop the ball, well every mmo company suffers from it. They say they are aware but they end up failing horribly. As I said previously promises from devs are worth nothing when it comes to mmo's. It's all PR and should be weighd as such.
Lastly there is a huge difference between haters flaming on the internet and players with experience with a company are sharing their experiences about the companies short coming. Even on this thread people have sharing their stories, even one of them on this thread who had a positive experience with Cryptic said that he is disapointed with how slowly Cryptic released content in STO.
@apocrs I don't think you have completly grasped what we are discussing. It's widely known about flamers and haters especially in the mmo community. What I have been trying to point out is however speccific concerns with the how Cryptic has handled their previos games. Not everyone who have valid concerns about a game should instantly be branden as trolls and flamers, thats just blind fanboyism.
Also just because you are going f2p doesnt give you the right to treat a game as you see fit. This IP has a huge fanbase wich do have certain expectations, the devs do have a responsibility towards that community. Alot of us wouldnt even be here if this game wasnt based on DnD.
I have seen many devs putting in their blood and soul in making a game. Cryptic are not unique in anyway on this regard. The same devs have later littered all over the game or had their distributor doing it instead by poorly supported the game post-launch or tried to suck the money out of their playerbase leading to the game suffering badly. Remember their is a completly different devolepment cycle on a game post-launch compared to pre-launch due to the investors wanting to cash in on the game as much and as fast as possible.
People wont play it just because its free! All game companies are competing for our time. If a dev company has a bad enough rep then ppl wont even try it for that reason alone. Besides f2p still has a negative stigma. If Cryptic abuses the cash shop as they have in their previous games then only very few ppl will play this game and the game would suffer horribly.
@vernednd Going f2p doesnt allways save a game. Swtor is suffering horribly post f2p launch because of how poorly they have handled the f2p model. Then again everyone should do the exact opposite on how to make an mmo like Bioware did. They probably made every misstake in the book.
I am not sure any other industry produces such utterly obsessed, yet chronically dissatisfied customers as gaming. I think sports is the closest thing, to people who obsess over every minutia, are clearly deeply passionate about the hobby and yet continually mewl and whine about the state of it.
This is the golden age of video games. Gaming is better now than ever before. Not just in the myriad of choices we have, but in the expansion of those who play video games. Video games are completely and utterly mainstream now and the hobby has been passed down from generation to generation.
Yet here we are, deep in a thread riddled with negativity. Sure the target is specifically Cryptic, but don't tell me this isn't a boiler-plate gamer rant, because it most certainly is.
Here's my counter to it all:
1. City of Heroes was a great game. If MMOs had a hall of fame, City of Heroes would be in it. Cryptic was a large reason why. The original contention that Cryptic somehow didn't update CoH after launch is just a bold faced lie. City of Heroes was very aggressive with new features (what they called issues) after launch. In addition to revolutionizing character creation and being the first game to make avatar customization a centerpiece, CoH was also the first to truly launch epic holiday-themed events. They had been done before, but never to the scale or success of CoH's early months. Cryptic rightly can and should take credit for what CoH did for MMOs.
2. Champions Online - There are criticisms to be made about CO to be sure. I can write an essay about its flaws, but I won't. But CO was one of the first to really start enhancing the play style away from stodgy push-button EQ-style combat, to a more of a free-flowing combat type system. It was crude, but it was moving the needle on faster, "action oriented" combat. CO also developed a nemesis system, that was flawed, but also, in my opinion under-praised. It allowed you to customize a particular mob, that would follow you around randomly, haunt you like a nemesis would a hero. I loved it. Lastly, CO took COH's customer creation efforts to yet an even higher level, allowing you to customize the look and feel of your powers, something COH crudely copied afterward. It was a first for western-style MMOs. CO didn't really succeed, it had problems, its main one, was that it was competing with its previous creation, COH and it had an entrenched customer-base that didn't see enough compelling reasons to switch. It was also a superhero MMO and none of them have really ever come close to succeeding on the level of a fantasy game.
3. STO made mistakes. STO however was also another bold and very unique game. Not only did it prominently feature Cryptic's growing forte in character customization, it also let you customize your ships. In fact, as the game developed the myriad of ships and their styles is amazing. Those ships by the way, were amazing places to RP and some space games (SWTOR *cough* *cough*) that ten-fold more development money ever came close to replicating their strength. STO had terrible ground combat at first, but they tried to improve it.
Cryptic is a flawed company. Try banking at Bank of America if you want to see a truly dysfunctional and indifferent company. Hey, and at least Cryptic didn't bankrupt the entire nation because they were over-leveraged!
Cryptic is a flawed company. But what gaming company receives universal praise from gamers? Blizzard is hated, EA is utterly despised, NCSoft is mocked. If you look at the history of gamers ranting about how crappy gaming companies are, you walk away with this clear conclusion:
It's not really the gaming companies, at least not all the time. Many times, it's just the gamers themselves. They are spoiled, petulant and seem to delight in ripping on the very games they obsess over. WOW, probably more than any other game, just has this signature comment:
This game sucks and I should know I play it 60-hours a week.
Why won't Cryptic's "reputation" tarnish the launch of this game? Because that reputation is a crock and gamers know it. You know how they know it? Because every gaming company has a similar reputation. Show me an MMO and I'll show you a gaggle of geese on 4chan who rip it, kids who couldn't code a for loop or tell you what an abstract class is. It's pervasive to every game you show.
Even when the market place speaks and creates a multi-billion dollar success like Warcraft, gamers on forums the game is total <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Some call this hubris, I call it tired.
Gaming companies have flaws, games have issues we can all pick on. But this hobby of ours is growing and thriving more than it ever has in its 50 year history. This is the golden age of gaming and Cryptic, like it or not, is a vital part of its renaissance.
For every nerd who thinks they are being clever by avoiding Cryptic because of its alleged reputation, there are two customers who will play because the brand says Dungeons & Dragons.
If you want me to predict, I think Neverwinter will be a medium-sized hit. I think it will atrophy by the winter, as Cryptic, like so many other companies can't pace their development with the multitude of fans starving for new content. But I think Neverwinter stays a fairly medium-sized bit because of the Foundry.
But to suggest Cryptic has a meaningful reputation out there that taints them is a lie. Every gaming company gets ripped by nerds. It's what nerds do. Most of us tune that out as noise and focus on the actual signal. Those signals are producing a vision of a game that's flawed, still needs a lot of work, but also has innovative features Cryptic is famous for (customization, user-generated content) that has a lot of us intrigued.
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apocrs1980Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, SilverstarsPosts: 0Arc User
@apocrs I don't think you have completly grasped what we are discussing.
Have I? to simplify the thread... all I have seen so far is (here are quotes from folks who feel this developer sucks biased on their past experiences with their games and because they suck who will play this game?) my hope is that everyone is on this forum because they are interested and ready to play NWO and if that holds true the game is off to a great start and we should see the population increase after release. if not then what is the purpose for posing comments on the forum? I'm not a fanboy by any stretch of the imagination I have played many MMO's and enjoyed my time with them all and totally I agree with ryger5.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The Cragsteep Crypt - BETA Ravenloft Look for@Apocrs1980 or visit the main page here or Ravenloft here
@ryger5 Im going to bed now but I wont respond to your entire post because that would take me forever on my phone. I do feel that I want to respond to you on one point, because I really want to make it clear the purpose of this thread.
This is NOT a rant. Im trying to form a discussion about the impression new players might have towards this game due to Cryptics track record. If anything it is to let the Cryptic player veterans voice their experience to ease uncertain players ambivalence. Also its a chance for us as a community to express to Cryptic what our fears are so they have a base of knowledge on what to avoid in NO. Im not trying to spread negativity. I really damn want this game to succeed as much as it can. If anything is Im trying to be realistic, because as you call gamers selfentitled I call them cynical. Alot of mmo players has seen far too many of their favourite IP and games get completly destroyed in the hands of greedy companies and lazy/incompetent developers.
@ apocrs1980 What I said above ansewers your question.
"I'm excited for Neverwinter because instead of judging it based on it's developer I am judging it based on it as a game. I like what I have read about it and now that I have had a chance to play it myself I really enjoy it. It's a solid game, probably the most solid Cryptic has ever released. It certainly feels like a DnD game. All that aside I think you're judging based more on rumor and speculation, what you've heard, than anything else. STO wasn't that great at launch, but it's been worked on so much it's considered by most as one of the most solid, and best all around, F2P games on the market atm. With a lot ton of content you get for free, nothing has to be purchased, nothing. And while I wish CO got more development than it does, the game has received many many updates and tweaks and is a lot of fun. Imo CO could be revitalized with just 2 things thrown in. Give me a new comic series every 3 months or so and throw in the Foundryso we can shape our own missions , alerts, comics, etc.... The game itself is solid, the game play works and is smooth and reactive, and you can do 90% of the game with absolutely zero purchases. It just needs more frequent content updates, it's getting them, just not on as much a regular basis like it needs."
So this was on the Gamebreaker forums about Neverwinter. I'm seeing a lot of positive feedback and very few negative.
Ok, I'm taking the OP at their word that this is not a rant and I'll provide my own feedback here as STO lifetime subscriber from way back yonder.
What follows is my own opinion and impressions!
I am a Star Trek nut. I love Trek, so the ability to play in that universe was like a dream come true. However over time that dream was brought down to reality rather quickly.
Firstly by incomplete, buggy, and repetitive content that lacked in story content and focused more on the 'go here kill that' mentality. Then later by broken promises over the Klingon faction, followed by even more broken promises when PWE took over, and lastly by the 'greed' factor within the game of lock-boxes and other pay to use 'features'. The argument about everything can be pick up for free by playing the game forgot to mention how long it takes for a player to accrue the amount of in-game currency needed to exchange for Zen to buy even the simplest of cash store items.
As time went on, PWE/Cryptic put in even more paywalls/gated content, and made it even harder for all but the largest of guilds to achieve anything without hours upon hours of mindless grinding.
Now all this sounds negative, and it is, however over time Cryptic has improved a lot of features within STO, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I a very big Neverwinter fan. I want this game to be good. I want it to be fun, and more importantly I want to play. I want to invest in the $200 founders pack simply because I love the setting, D&D, etc. However past experience has made me wary.
This post pretty much says it all. I have no idea why so many gamers are so vigorously negative and full of imagined grievances and venom, but they sure are. Once again, ryger5 breaks it down like a boss.
As to the topic of the thread, I'll admit that I wasn't at all thrilled about the idea that the new Neverwinter MMO was being developed by Cryptic. I didn't have the highest opinion of them, really. I mean, I didn't seethe with hatred of them like some people seem to, but they had just never impressed me at all.
I tried City of Heroes a couple of different times, and found its gameplay to be very un-fun for my tastes. I just didn't like the game at all. Bought and subscribed to Champions Online for a couple of months, and it was certainly more fun for me than CoH, but ultimately it didn't grab me, and I never even got a character to max level or went back to it. Star Trek Online just looked awful from the videos I saw (and I'm not a Trek fan, or into spaceship stuff in general) so I never even played it.
I didn't think of Cryptic as a "bad" company or developer, but I didn't think of them as a particularly "good" one either. I would have probably said that they make mediocre games, not to my taste. So I wasn't entirely hopeful that they would be able to make a Neverwinter MMO that I'd really love to play.
As the videos and articles about Neverwinter continued to increase, however, it looked better and better to me, and I found myself surprised at how fun the game appeared to be, in comparison to my impression of their past titles. And then, when I got to play Neverwinter myself in this past beta weekend, I was thoroughly impressed, delighted, and convinced. I had the thought many times, "Wow, this is WAY better than Champions Online."
So I'm pretty optimistic about the future of this game. Cryptic seems to have done a great job so far with this one!
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iamdoctordeathMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited February 2013
No such thing as an mmo that isn't bashed, and doesn't get the 'they don't care about their customers, only profit', etc... labels.
I'll admit, I'm more wary about Cryptic than most companies- but at the same time, even with how much I myself have criticized TOR- the game is amazing at its core, and while there were some awful decisions made, and it took a long time to see anything happen- it's getting back on its feet and starting to win back some respect... it's also still better than anything else.
GW2- feels like they simply lied to us and released trash.
I think though- people call every single mmo a failure nowadays simply because it's not WoW.
I can understand though Cryptic's detractors, simply because it doesn't seem like we're seeing them change, and it does feel a bit like they abandon their games once they're out. I didn't mind dishing out 200 bucks- but I can see a bit of worry that they're simply cash grabbing before people figure out what the game is.
Ultimately- I've waited with anticipation for so many mmos, only to be disappointed, to be shocked if NWO is bad... but, I'll still pray this game's great.
@vernednd Going f2p doesnt allways save a game. Swtor is suffering horribly post f2p launch because of how poorly they have handled the f2p model. Then again everyone should do the exact opposite on how to make an mmo like Bioware did. They probably made every misstake in the book.
Really? Because it's my favorite MMO I've ever played (and I've been playing since '99), and the servers that remain have a very healthy population. I've got a lifetime sub to TSW, and I've not played it since a month after release because I've been in TOR pretty much every night. As far as I'm concerned, Bioware did a lot more right than they did wrong.
As far as Cryptic's "rep" goes, you really have to take everything you read with a grain of salt. People on the Internet are very quick to use hyperbole in their opinions. I've dealt with SOE in the EQ, SWG and EQ2; Turbine in the first Asheron's Call days and in LOTRO; EA for TOR; and Cryptic/Atari for CO and STO, as well as a few other companies. Not once have I been let down by any of their customer service.
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iamdoctordeathMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
@vernednd Going f2p doesnt allways save a game. Swtor is suffering horribly post f2p launch because of how poorly they have handled the f2p model. Then again everyone should do the exact opposite on how to make an mmo like Bioware did. They probably made every misstake in the book.
Except the part where they had, for several months, one of the highest sub rates minus WOW when it was p2p, before it started to plummet- and upon releasing f2p numbers skyrocketting, and, months later populations are still full on all servers so the retention is great- and they're making a killing on their cartel shop.
Nevermind having the best levelling process for any mmo ever made due to the inclusion of story rather than just 'kill x of y' for 60 levels.
They made some errors- yes, they sure did, and most of their errors were indeed amateur ones, and some (like everything done in patch 1.2) were massive in scope and caused an NGE level exodus. To say they did everything wrong is grossly incorrect though. And to say they're suffering due to f2p is nonsense that goes contrary to the reality.
1) STO is wildly successful by any measure of MMORPG success other than "Blizzard is worried", and NOBODY meets that level.
2) STO is making more money than City of Heroes did at its peak.
3) City of Heroes wasn't "passed to Paragon Studios"; Paragon Studios was just part of Cryptic that got spun off, and quite a few of the key players went with the rest of the company to California.
So, saying that Neverwinter is going to fail based on Cryptic's past performance is like saying that "The Avengers" was going to fail because "Firefly" got cancelled. You can dislike STO, and you can say that its growth can't last, but you can't say it's not successful without holding your hands over your ears and going "lalala" when somebody reads to you from Perfect World's financial statements.
Looking over my previous post I'm concerned it may have come across as STO bashing, which is not my intent. Cryptic have made a lot of improvements to STO over time, and I've had a lot of fun playing it.
I'll stop rambling about STO now. I guess I'm hoping that Cryptic will make Neverwinter a game worth investing my time and money into. If they do, then great we both win, otherwise, well I'll be disappointed and go play something else for the time being.
1) STO is wildly successful by any measure of MMORPG success other than "Blizzard is worried", and NOBODY meets that level.
No, it isn't. It's making money for PWE, but that's about it. The playerbase barely breaks six figures. Outside of special events, I haven't seen ESD with more than six instances since the first year.
Instances are capped at 200 players.
How is this 'wildly successful?' It's been out for over three years, and has been getting its butt kicked in pretty much every measure by GW2 AND TOR. That's not 'wildly successful.' That's sad.
I am curious. What is a "player driven chat ban system"?
Cryptic uses an automated chat ban system in all of their game's that's triggered by players using the "Report Spam" or "/Ignore" functions on other players. Supposedly this was implemented as an automated means to handle gold-farmers specifically, but even the use of Ignore can trigger it.
The system works by giving a demerit to a player's account every time they get hit with a "Report Spam" (which is supposed to be used strictly for gold farmers but nothing in the system prevents you from using it on anyone) or "Ignore", with Report Spam giving a higher number of demerits than Ignore (at least, as we've been told, since only the devs know the actual figures). Once an account reaches a certain number of demerits, the account receives a warning ("You have been silenced. You may chat again in [insert time left]") and is banned from all commucation--including all forms of chat from all channels, as well as removing the ability to send tells or PMs--for 24 hours. The demerits also reset at this point, and reaching the amount required for a chat ban is the ONLY thing that resets the counter (no reduced demerits for prolonged times of good behaviour).
Additionally, their chat servers are shared accross their games. This has the benefit of being able to communicate with friends accross games through tells or custome channels (and from a developer perspective, of not having to come up with a bran new system for every single game). But it also has the disadvantage that if you get chat banned in one of Cryptic's games, you get chat banned in ALL of them.
People generally refer to it as a "player driven chat ban system" (or similar terms) because:
- The system is triggered by players with NO GM oversight (it is a completely automated system--GM's do not determine who gets banned--and we have been told at the CO forums at least in the past that GMs don't even have the power to override a chat ban, "deserved" or otherwise. If you're banned, you're banned for the duration. Period.)
- It is easily and frequently abused by vinctive and/or trollish players that know about it (apparently they can even ignore you repeatedly till they get you chat banned), and since the game is F2P and it costs nothing to create a new account, trolls may even start a new account for the strict purpose of trolling and/or getting back at others
And in addition to this, even if you "Ignore" someone for strictly personal or mundane reasons (you simply didn't like what they were discussing but they weren't necessarily being a menace to the general population, didn't feel like seeing RP chat, didn't feel like seeing OOC chat, etc.) you may end up unwittingly chat banning someone simply because the system doesn't discriminate between gold sellers (the ONLY accounts this system was originally intended for), trolls (accounts this system was not intended for) or regular players simply writting chat you do not want to read but that are not necessarily causing a problem otherwise.
GW2- feels like they simply lied to us and released trash.
What did they lie to you about? They've delivered on everything. If you dont like what they delivered, then thats your problem. Not only that, but they're coming out with monthly content for FREE. Not 500-1000 zenny for stuff Gary made in his garage in a day.
"It's just haters!" this is the kind of statement made by overzealous white knights who refuse to accept that certain companies have downsides. That's not the say that cryptic doesn't do things right (Hell they're known for their elaborate and excellent character creators and generally have big ideas.) But to deny any flaws in the developer and to simply dismiss any criticism as haters hating serves only to blind yourself to the opinions of others. For your own sake, don't be that person. It just makes you look dumb.
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lanessar13Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, SilverstarsPosts: 8Arc User
"It's just haters!" this is the kind of statement made by overzealous white knights who refuse to accept that certain companies have downsides. That's not the say that cryptic doesn't do things right (Hell they're known for their elaborate and excellent character creators and generally have big ideas.) But to deny any flaws in the developer and to simply dismiss any criticism as haters hating serves only to blind yourself to the opinions of others. For your own sake, don't be that person. It just makes you look dumb.
There's white knighting, then there are statements like I am reading here about something being unsuccessful because the "game subs barely breaks six figures".
That's just crazy. Six figures is pretty awesome, and makes money. This is the "if it's not millions, it's fail" ideology which isn't true for MMOs. Realize that one of the best MMOs before WOW (EverQuest) never broke six figures at it's peak, yet thrived on it's own merit.
It's not a denial of flaws. EQ had flaws. Huge ones. As did SWG, TOR, and pretty much every MMO released from day one of MMOs. But the standard of success or fail and good or bad is pretty skewed here. Even if it's just 200,000 people playing this game, it's a success.
There's white knighting, then there are statements like I am reading here about something being unsuccessful because the "game subs barely breaks six figures".
That's just crazy. Six figures is pretty awesome, and makes money. This is the "if it's not millions, it's fail" ideology which isn't true for MMOs. Realize that one of the best MMOs before WOW (EverQuest) never broke six figures at it's peak, yet thrived on it's own merit.
It's not a denial of flaws. EQ had flaws. Huge ones. As did SWG, TOR, and pretty much every MMO released from day one of MMOs. But the standard of success or fail and good or bad is pretty skewed here. Even if it's just 200,000 people playing this game, it's a success.
Show me where I said it was unsuccessful. Unless you're making the strawman argument that "not being wildly successful" is exactly the same as "unsuccessful."
And denial of flaws is RAMPANT on these boards. The response to every criticism of Cryptic has been met with either "they were owned by Atari then" (even during the times they weren't), or "they're owned by PWE now, and they won't let them do that" (even if nothing has changed on that particular front (you know, like Klingons)).
I will agree that if the game is making money, it's successful. But HOW is it making money? Cryptic's games don't make money purely on the merit of the gameplay. They do it by forcing people to the C-Store, and they've been doing it almost since launch.
When the games had subs.
Oh, wait - I forgot. That's all Atari's fault, even though they were still doing it when PWE bought them out for about six months.
@all the arguments that complaints about game companies being common and you should take what people say on the internet with a grain of salt
I agree. You should make up your own mind about a game company and this game is no exception. Regardless of anything we may say you should make up your own mind based on your own experiences rather than just take our word for it.
However, that being said, I have played and participated on the CO forums extensively for years and I have been around other games and their forums as well and IMO and in my experience complaints about Cryptic are not the same as what you normally hear about other game companies.
They are very specific complaints, some of it about stuff you WILL likely experience (or know people who experience it) in their games regardless of what you want to believe about us. The chat ban issue, for example, is real. Its not just "haters" making it up. Its people who enjoy the game--some of them who contribute to the community by hosting events such as costume contests--getting targeted and chat banned by trolls with little (read NO) results from the company to properly address the issue.
One of the key differences between the rampant bashing you hear about every single game company and Cryptic is that with Cryptic its not just "haters" doing the bashing. Its the once uppon a time hardcore fans, long time supporters and people that have no incentive to hate on them getting fed up with them as well.
I have "0" incentive to "hate" on Cryptic. Appearance customization in online RPGs are a key feature for my enjoyment and to retain long term interest in a game for me, and Cryptic is the industry leader for that type of feature. CO is like the holy grail of appearance customization in MMOs; Its one of the few MMOs that provides the level of freedom customization I expect. I gain NOTHING from bashing that game.
I am not just hating to hate. Most of the complaints you hear about Cryptic are from long time fans, not just random haters.
Firstly, I do not wish to bash or troll the OP, but I've a few things to say.
1) Tell me one single game company that has not had this sort of bashing, I suggest that you will be hard pressed to find a single one.
2) I did not see any positive quotes in your post. Was your intent to post all the negative and none of the positive? Where are all the rave reviews? The fan love?
3) If you are bent on forming an uninformed opinion, one without first hand experience and rely solely on the words of others who, in my view say the same <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> about every game they have ever played because they clearly have nothing better to do but complain. I get that we all make, or form an opinion based on the reviews of the games we are interested in. We do. BUT, a wise opinion is formed only after looking at all, or as much, or as many reviews, press releases, game footage, and even logging in ourselves to play for a while. Only then can you really form an informed opinion.
I'd like to close with a final statement, I understand your concerns, we have all had them at one point or another. But realistically, the game is free to play, and I mean FREE to download, subscription FREE, and you are FREE to play at your own discretion. How can anyone complain about a product that costs them nothing if it brings even the smallest amount of pleasure, or at very least, some amusement? How? I don't get it. IF you decide after giving a game a fair chance, playing a a week or two, that you do not enjoy the game, move on to something else. Perhaps maybe you'd enjoy another, the choice here, is yours. Don't let the few haters, complainers and the like persuade your opinion, before you have even experienced a FREE to play game for yourself. Form your own opinion.
I truly hope you find you love Neverwinter, but like all games it will, I am sure, not be without its haters. I for one, choose to ignore all the BS, HYPE, and form my own opinion from as much information as I possibly can find, and as I am a HotN Founder, clearly... I CHOOSE to love Cryptic for bringing us 2013 Most anticipated, most amazing, and I suspect the most gamers choice awards winning game for 2013.
Peace Peeps.
Early interviews before the PWE acquisition of Cryptic it was brought up about their..."lackluster" perfromance of past titles (Forget the exact interview but it was with Jack and the talked about why they are abandoning the MMO approach and taking an OMG approach, course they've recanted this philosophy change though). He also stated that they tried to take on too many features which none were of good enough quality. All of Cryptic responses and philosophies on making good quality features in an MMO stems from this. Cryptic is known... RENOWNED for efficient production of MMOs but they are lackluster MMOs.
While companies do get hate but Cryptic is especially bad, they have a lot of stigmata from their past titles. Most new games people are like ooooo shiney... but with cryptic it's initial reaction was Fool me once Cryptic Shame on you, Fool me twice Never again.
Winner's choice 2013? And yet they still have yet to get back up in the top 7 hype on MMORPG for months now ever after big press releases. Best Game of 2013 looks pretty bleak. Maybe best F2P Game of 2013 highly dependent upon what future F2P titles are coming out in 2013.
Neverwinter will be a niche MMO, like TSW and AoC.
@vernednd Going f2p doesnt allways save a game. Swtor is suffering horribly post f2p launch because of how poorly they have handled the f2p model. Then again everyone should do the exact opposite on how to make an mmo like Bioware did. They probably made every misstake in the book.
And in the interest of complete disclosure, and basic fairness, one should ask themselves the question, "How many MMOs had Bioware made prior to SWOTOR?" Answer, it was their first, and that shows. SWOTOR had some neat concepts, executed less than optimally (way less than optimally, to be honest), but I cut them a bit of slack as they had never done an MMO before, so mistakes were rampant.
Add to this the *initial* high expectations driven by *early Star Wars Galaxies, and one sees the train wreck coming, in all its gory slow motion. It was bound to happen, and I think LucasArts may have added to disastrous recipe as well. Many factors involved, not all of them either clearly defined or calculable...
On the reverse side, a company made what is considered a smash hit MMO in *their* first at bat in the genre, a success which still reverbrates today over a decade later. That was Blizzard, and WoW. They did some things right, and were actually able to take advantage of an upcoming trend which had relatively little to do with their product directly, but had the power to catapult their product from obscurity to global recognition. The trend was the internet becoming more common, its usage expanding geometrically on a global basis, and the advent of broadband as a new standard. Those are circumstances which are very unlikely to repeat themselves, thus the phenomena of WoW is unlikely to repeat itself as well.
What has any of this to do with Cryptic's perceived reputation among many long-time MMO players? Just this, there are factors involved in any endeavor which may be unseen by the outside observer, or indeed by anybody except in hindsight which affect not only objective reality, but our perceptions of it as well...
(once again, in the interests of disclosure, I am not/never have been a Blizzard fanboi or even a WoW player. I beta-tested *both* WoW, and its nearest competitor at that period of time, EQ2, and much preferred EQ2, and do to this day, even though *both* games have essentially changed from their original incarnations...)
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lanessar13Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, SilverstarsPosts: 8Arc User
Show me where I said it was unsuccessful. Unless you're making the strawman argument that "not being wildly successful" is exactly the same as "unsuccessful."
And denial of flaws is RAMPANT on these boards. The response to every criticism of Cryptic has been met with either "they were owned by Atari then" (even during the times they weren't), or "they're owned by PWE now, and they won't let them do that" (even if nothing has changed on that particular front (you know, like Klingons)).
I'm not pro-Cryptic, so save your rancor for an actual fanboi. I'm actually supporting your argument, in a way - but also saying "flaws don't make a game unsuccessful, wildly or otherwise".
What is a valid definition of wildly successful? Because unless it's clearly shown that STO is losing money, the number of subs and income generated versus cost seem to indicate it is, in fact, successful. Pet features unimplemented aside, and I have many I could list for any game, people play it. People pay money for it. And a few hundred thousand is more than enough for even a high-budget, high-expense game like TOR to warrant an expansion.
All I'm positing with my post is that despite "flaws", these games are successful. Failure would be MxO, which lasted, what, less than five years? Or possibly APB, which lasted less than six months. There are scales of success, and stating one or the other because of some feature or the other, or even slow support and feature addition, isn't what makes or breaks a game.
It's simply "does it make more money than it costs to develop?"
Hating on the game or loving it individually isn't the factor. My viewpoint doesn't matter worth a darn; nor does yours, nor does anyone else individually. I read rants and hear about flaws with pretty much every "successful" MMO, WoW included. Hate doesn't really matter. Spewing your dislike of a developer won't change anything. Because a majority of the customers playing the game will never read a single forum post, won't read and think about some intelligent or not-so-intelligent point.
They play the game, they judge it on its own merits, and don't go "it doesn't have XYZ! Ragequit!". They either find it fun, or not, or like the pricing model and feature additions, or not, and keep playing (or not).
The straw-man arguments are every single argument on these forums - mine included.
No, it isn't. It's making money for PWE, but that's about it. The playerbase barely breaks six figures. Outside of special events, I haven't seen ESD with more than six instances since the first year.
Instances are capped at 200 players.
How is this 'wildly successful?' It's been out for over three years, and has been getting its butt kicked in pretty much every measure by GW2 AND TOR. That's not 'wildly successful.' That's sad.
So a MMO that has millions of players but isn't making money and is going to shutdown is successful? The very definition of success in business is turning a profit. If an MMO is turning a profit than it is successful. So if it is making a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> load of money it could be considered "wildly successful". How good a game is has NO bearing on its success over than it MIGHT make more people play the game and that MIGHT make a game bring in more money. But even if 10 million people play a free to play game and none of them are spending money on it, it is still fail.
Cryptic uses an automated chat ban system in all of their game's that's triggered by players using the "Report Spam" or "/Ignore" functions on other players. Supposedly this was implemented as an automated means to handle gold-farmers specifically, but even the use of Ignore can trigger it.
The system works by giving a demerit to a player's account every time they get hit with a "Report Spam" (which is supposed to be used strictly for gold farmers but nothing in the system prevents you from using it on anyone) or "Ignore", with Report Spam giving a higher number of demerits than Ignore (at least, as we've been told, since only the devs know the actual figures). Once an account reaches a certain number of demerits, the account receives a warning ("You have been silenced. You may chat again in [insert time left]") and is banned from all commucation--including all forms of chat from all channels, as well as removing the ability to send tells or PMs--for 24 hours. The demerits also reset at this point, and reaching the amount required for a chat ban is the ONLY thing that resets the counter (no reduced demerits for prolonged times of good behaviour).
Additionally, their chat servers are shared accross their games. This has the benefit of being able to communicate with friends accross games through tells or custome channels (and from a developer perspective, of not having to come up with a bran new system for every single game). But it also has the disadvantage that if you get chat banned in one of Cryptic's games, you get chat banned in ALL of them.
People generally refer to it as a "player driven chat ban system" (or similar terms) because:
- The system is triggered by players with NO GM oversight (it is a completely automated system--GM's do not determine who gets banned--and we have been told at the CO forums at least in the past that GMs don't even have the power to override a chat ban, "deserved" or otherwise. If you're banned, you're banned for the duration. Period.)
- It is easily and frequently abused by vinctive and/or trollish players that know about it (apparently they can even ignore you repeatedly till they get you chat banned), and since the game is F2P and it costs nothing to create a new account, trolls may even start a new account for the strict purpose of trolling and/or getting back at others
And in addition to this, even if you "Ignore" someone for strictly personal or mundane reasons (you simply didn't like what they were discussing but they weren't necessarily being a menace to the general population, didn't feel like seeing RP chat, didn't feel like seeing OOC chat, etc.) you may end up unwittingly chat banning someone simply because the system doesn't discriminate between gold sellers (the ONLY accounts this system was originally intended for), trolls (accounts this system was not intended for) or regular players simply writting chat you do not want to read but that are not necessarily causing a problem otherwise.
One of the key differences between the rampant bashing you hear about every single game company and Cryptic is that with Cryptic its not just "haters" doing the bashing. Its the once uppon a time hardcore fans, long time supporters and people that have no incentive to hate on them getting fed up with them as well.
Yep, I can definitely vouch for that. As much as I'd actually love to get back into STO, for instance, I know I probably never will because of what's been done and where it seems to be going.
On the one hand, Cryptic games do show genuine (and IMO pretty darn cool) innovation in their mechanics, and their games are worth playing just for that reason alone.
On the other hand, Cryptic representatives have often been less than clear, straightforward, or sometimes even less than honest about features and plans. And not all of it is attributable to the usual risks that open communication entails... For me, and for a few other grizzled vets, it's come to the point where if Cryptic says anything about any future moves at all, the best I can do is cross my arms and say "I'll believe it when I see it."
I truly hope you find you love Neverwinter, but like all games it will, I am sure, not be without its haters. I for one, choose to ignore all the BS, HYPE, and form my own opinion from as much information as I possibly can find, and as I am a HotN Founder, clearly... I CHOOSE to love Cryptic for bringing us 2013 Most anticipated, most amazing, and I suspect the most gamers choice awards winning game for 2013.
Peace Peeps.
Ditto this.
tl;dr version:
"We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong." -William Hazlitt, 1778-1830
In short: haters hate because they think we care what they think when we really don't
Verbose version:
I've played STO from the beginning. Yes, it had it's problems, my own complaint being it was a little too cartoony and the ground combat *really* sucked (5 to 10 minutes to defeat a group of 5 bad guys? (!)) - However, they've worked on (and have since completely fixed) those issues. Anyone who played the game two years ago (even last year) who jumped back in today would be flabbergasted: it's an entirely new monster.
After 3 years of STO (2.5 years, actually) I jumped over to Champions. From the "Cryptic Community Support" side of things: CO could really use some luvin' The so-called "PWE Community Manager" (A.K.A. "Branflakes") isn't. He's a *STO* Community Manager and that needs to be corrected (CO has no "community manager" to drum-up excitement).
But so what? STO and CO are both 100% freebie to play. Translation: "worst-case-scenario...they are worth everything you pay for them". Since I get enjoyment from playing them, they are, by simple logic, worth more than I pay for them, right?
I am most certainly NOT a fan of drop boxes. But I find them a minor irritant at worst. So what? It helps fund the game I get to play for FREE.
Now along comes Neverwinter - All of the above still applies. Except I suspect CO will become the little <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> stepchild in terms of community engagement (it exists but not at the level as STO, and I suspect Neverwinter by virtue of the I.P. popularity alone).
Here's the thing: the haters will hate because it's the easy, cowardly way out. I find Cryptic to be a good company as gaming developers go (Don't even get me started on EA or Ubi). The developers are just trying to put food on their table by doing something they love to do, that doesn't mean it's easy and it's certainly impossible to satisfy everyone. As for those of you who screetch how this is "not D&D!!!11!1!" - get a clue: this isn't even day one, yet. Take a breather and then come back in a year.
I haven't played anything D&D in 30 years and don't have a clue what the hell "4th Edition" is all about. The best part: I don't even care. To me this is just a fantasy medieval swashbuckler MMO and I'm good with that. As for "canon" aspects: get a life. I mean, really. Always remember: it's worth what you pay for it. Everything is value over, above and beyond that.
drwarpeffectMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 71Arc User
edited February 2013
In general, for those that take the position about critics of NW they don't 'care" about their opinions please remember the following:
1) if you don't care please remember that is hardly the spirit in using a discussion forum. Sure you don't have to care but
a) why bother using up valuable space telling everyone about how "you don't care"
b) what makes you think your position is something anyone else would necessarily care about either?
2) you will find that the game you are defending will fail if enough people decide not to play it, free or otherwise
I criticize NW for what I believe can be verifiably shown to be flaws or items that give evidence of possible future problems. Things they do well I compliment if comment seems worthwhile.
Plus, the whole idea of the original post is that bad reputation can lead a game to either fail or succeed less than would otherwise be the case. Most critics on this forum I believe would like to see the game succeed, I know I would. Defenses like, its free to play so everything is ok no matter what and such ilk are simply false.
So a MMO that has millions of players but isn't making money and is going to shutdown is successful?
No, and I've never said such.
The very definition of success in business is turning a profit.
No, it isn't. It's return on investment. If you spent $1 million to get back $1,000,005, that's a profit, and "successful" by your definition.
That isn't success.
If an MMO is turning a profit than it is successful.
That's certainly part of it. It also needs to maintain a sizable playerbase to keep those profits coming.
So if it is making a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> load of money it could be considered "wildly successful". How good a game is has NO bearing on its success over than it MIGHT make more people play the game and that MIGHT make a game bring in more money. But even if 10 million people play a free to play game and none of them are spending money on it, it is still fail.
But STO doesn't make a "crapload of money." Which is my point. It turns a profit, yes, but by no means so much profit that the profit it makes outweighs the poor playerbase to be a game that could reasonably be considered "wildly successful."
As a matter of fact, when you figure in all of the money wasted to make things that never made it into the game, on the way things were before they changed things in the game or the money wasted on things they outright took OUT of the game, the picture gets worse.
Comments
About Cryptic is aware not to drop the ball, well every mmo company suffers from it. They say they are aware but they end up failing horribly. As I said previously promises from devs are worth nothing when it comes to mmo's. It's all PR and should be weighd as such.
Lastly there is a huge difference between haters flaming on the internet and players with experience with a company are sharing their experiences about the companies short coming. Even on this thread people have sharing their stories, even one of them on this thread who had a positive experience with Cryptic said that he is disapointed with how slowly Cryptic released content in STO.
@apocrs I don't think you have completly grasped what we are discussing. It's widely known about flamers and haters especially in the mmo community. What I have been trying to point out is however speccific concerns with the how Cryptic has handled their previos games. Not everyone who have valid concerns about a game should instantly be branden as trolls and flamers, thats just blind fanboyism.
Also just because you are going f2p doesnt give you the right to treat a game as you see fit. This IP has a huge fanbase wich do have certain expectations, the devs do have a responsibility towards that community. Alot of us wouldnt even be here if this game wasnt based on DnD.
I have seen many devs putting in their blood and soul in making a game. Cryptic are not unique in anyway on this regard. The same devs have later littered all over the game or had their distributor doing it instead by poorly supported the game post-launch or tried to suck the money out of their playerbase leading to the game suffering badly. Remember their is a completly different devolepment cycle on a game post-launch compared to pre-launch due to the investors wanting to cash in on the game as much and as fast as possible.
People wont play it just because its free! All game companies are competing for our time. If a dev company has a bad enough rep then ppl wont even try it for that reason alone. Besides f2p still has a negative stigma. If Cryptic abuses the cash shop as they have in their previous games then only very few ppl will play this game and the game would suffer horribly.
This is the golden age of video games. Gaming is better now than ever before. Not just in the myriad of choices we have, but in the expansion of those who play video games. Video games are completely and utterly mainstream now and the hobby has been passed down from generation to generation.
Yet here we are, deep in a thread riddled with negativity. Sure the target is specifically Cryptic, but don't tell me this isn't a boiler-plate gamer rant, because it most certainly is.
Here's my counter to it all:
1. City of Heroes was a great game. If MMOs had a hall of fame, City of Heroes would be in it. Cryptic was a large reason why. The original contention that Cryptic somehow didn't update CoH after launch is just a bold faced lie. City of Heroes was very aggressive with new features (what they called issues) after launch. In addition to revolutionizing character creation and being the first game to make avatar customization a centerpiece, CoH was also the first to truly launch epic holiday-themed events. They had been done before, but never to the scale or success of CoH's early months. Cryptic rightly can and should take credit for what CoH did for MMOs.
2. Champions Online - There are criticisms to be made about CO to be sure. I can write an essay about its flaws, but I won't. But CO was one of the first to really start enhancing the play style away from stodgy push-button EQ-style combat, to a more of a free-flowing combat type system. It was crude, but it was moving the needle on faster, "action oriented" combat. CO also developed a nemesis system, that was flawed, but also, in my opinion under-praised. It allowed you to customize a particular mob, that would follow you around randomly, haunt you like a nemesis would a hero. I loved it. Lastly, CO took COH's customer creation efforts to yet an even higher level, allowing you to customize the look and feel of your powers, something COH crudely copied afterward. It was a first for western-style MMOs. CO didn't really succeed, it had problems, its main one, was that it was competing with its previous creation, COH and it had an entrenched customer-base that didn't see enough compelling reasons to switch. It was also a superhero MMO and none of them have really ever come close to succeeding on the level of a fantasy game.
3. STO made mistakes. STO however was also another bold and very unique game. Not only did it prominently feature Cryptic's growing forte in character customization, it also let you customize your ships. In fact, as the game developed the myriad of ships and their styles is amazing. Those ships by the way, were amazing places to RP and some space games (SWTOR *cough* *cough*) that ten-fold more development money ever came close to replicating their strength. STO had terrible ground combat at first, but they tried to improve it.
Cryptic is a flawed company. Try banking at Bank of America if you want to see a truly dysfunctional and indifferent company. Hey, and at least Cryptic didn't bankrupt the entire nation because they were over-leveraged!
Cryptic is a flawed company. But what gaming company receives universal praise from gamers? Blizzard is hated, EA is utterly despised, NCSoft is mocked. If you look at the history of gamers ranting about how crappy gaming companies are, you walk away with this clear conclusion:
It's not really the gaming companies, at least not all the time. Many times, it's just the gamers themselves. They are spoiled, petulant and seem to delight in ripping on the very games they obsess over. WOW, probably more than any other game, just has this signature comment:
This game sucks and I should know I play it 60-hours a week.
Why won't Cryptic's "reputation" tarnish the launch of this game? Because that reputation is a crock and gamers know it. You know how they know it? Because every gaming company has a similar reputation. Show me an MMO and I'll show you a gaggle of geese on 4chan who rip it, kids who couldn't code a for loop or tell you what an abstract class is. It's pervasive to every game you show.
Even when the market place speaks and creates a multi-billion dollar success like Warcraft, gamers on forums the game is total <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Some call this hubris, I call it tired.
Gaming companies have flaws, games have issues we can all pick on. But this hobby of ours is growing and thriving more than it ever has in its 50 year history. This is the golden age of gaming and Cryptic, like it or not, is a vital part of its renaissance.
For every nerd who thinks they are being clever by avoiding Cryptic because of its alleged reputation, there are two customers who will play because the brand says Dungeons & Dragons.
If you want me to predict, I think Neverwinter will be a medium-sized hit. I think it will atrophy by the winter, as Cryptic, like so many other companies can't pace their development with the multitude of fans starving for new content. But I think Neverwinter stays a fairly medium-sized bit because of the Foundry.
But to suggest Cryptic has a meaningful reputation out there that taints them is a lie. Every gaming company gets ripped by nerds. It's what nerds do. Most of us tune that out as noise and focus on the actual signal. Those signals are producing a vision of a game that's flawed, still needs a lot of work, but also has innovative features Cryptic is famous for (customization, user-generated content) that has a lot of us intrigued.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
Have I? to simplify the thread... all I have seen so far is (here are quotes from folks who feel this developer sucks biased on their past experiences with their games and because they suck who will play this game?) my hope is that everyone is on this forum because they are interested and ready to play NWO and if that holds true the game is off to a great start and we should see the population increase after release. if not then what is the purpose for posing comments on the forum? I'm not a fanboy by any stretch of the imagination I have played many MMO's and enjoyed my time with them all and totally I agree with ryger5.
Ravenloft
Look for@Apocrs1980 or visit the main page here or Ravenloft here
This is NOT a rant. Im trying to form a discussion about the impression new players might have towards this game due to Cryptics track record. If anything it is to let the Cryptic player veterans voice their experience to ease uncertain players ambivalence. Also its a chance for us as a community to express to Cryptic what our fears are so they have a base of knowledge on what to avoid in NO. Im not trying to spread negativity. I really damn want this game to succeed as much as it can. If anything is Im trying to be realistic, because as you call gamers selfentitled I call them cynical. Alot of mmo players has seen far too many of their favourite IP and games get completly destroyed in the hands of greedy companies and lazy/incompetent developers.
@ apocrs1980 What I said above ansewers your question.
All that aside I think you're judging based more on rumor and speculation, what you've heard, than anything else. STO wasn't that great at launch, but it's been worked on so much it's considered by most as one of the most solid, and best all around, F2P games on the market atm. With a lot ton of content you get for free, nothing has to be purchased, nothing.
And while I wish CO got more development than it does, the game has received many many updates and tweaks and is a lot of fun. Imo CO could be revitalized with just 2 things thrown in. Give me a new comic series every 3 months or so and throw in the Foundryso we can shape our own missions , alerts, comics, etc.... The game itself is solid, the game play works and is smooth and reactive, and you can do 90% of the game with absolutely zero purchases. It just needs more frequent content updates, it's getting them, just not on as much a regular basis like it needs."
So this was on the Gamebreaker forums about Neverwinter. I'm seeing a lot of positive feedback and very few negative.
What follows is my own opinion and impressions!
I am a Star Trek nut. I love Trek, so the ability to play in that universe was like a dream come true. However over time that dream was brought down to reality rather quickly.
Firstly by incomplete, buggy, and repetitive content that lacked in story content and focused more on the 'go here kill that' mentality. Then later by broken promises over the Klingon faction, followed by even more broken promises when PWE took over, and lastly by the 'greed' factor within the game of lock-boxes and other pay to use 'features'. The argument about everything can be pick up for free by playing the game forgot to mention how long it takes for a player to accrue the amount of in-game currency needed to exchange for Zen to buy even the simplest of cash store items.
As time went on, PWE/Cryptic put in even more paywalls/gated content, and made it even harder for all but the largest of guilds to achieve anything without hours upon hours of mindless grinding.
Now all this sounds negative, and it is, however over time Cryptic has improved a lot of features within STO, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I a very big Neverwinter fan. I want this game to be good. I want it to be fun, and more importantly I want to play. I want to invest in the $200 founders pack simply because I love the setting, D&D, etc. However past experience has made me wary.
This post pretty much says it all. I have no idea why so many gamers are so vigorously negative and full of imagined grievances and venom, but they sure are. Once again, ryger5 breaks it down like a boss.
As to the topic of the thread, I'll admit that I wasn't at all thrilled about the idea that the new Neverwinter MMO was being developed by Cryptic. I didn't have the highest opinion of them, really. I mean, I didn't seethe with hatred of them like some people seem to, but they had just never impressed me at all.
I tried City of Heroes a couple of different times, and found its gameplay to be very un-fun for my tastes. I just didn't like the game at all. Bought and subscribed to Champions Online for a couple of months, and it was certainly more fun for me than CoH, but ultimately it didn't grab me, and I never even got a character to max level or went back to it. Star Trek Online just looked awful from the videos I saw (and I'm not a Trek fan, or into spaceship stuff in general) so I never even played it.
I didn't think of Cryptic as a "bad" company or developer, but I didn't think of them as a particularly "good" one either. I would have probably said that they make mediocre games, not to my taste. So I wasn't entirely hopeful that they would be able to make a Neverwinter MMO that I'd really love to play.
As the videos and articles about Neverwinter continued to increase, however, it looked better and better to me, and I found myself surprised at how fun the game appeared to be, in comparison to my impression of their past titles. And then, when I got to play Neverwinter myself in this past beta weekend, I was thoroughly impressed, delighted, and convinced. I had the thought many times, "Wow, this is WAY better than Champions Online."
So I'm pretty optimistic about the future of this game. Cryptic seems to have done a great job so far with this one!
I'll admit, I'm more wary about Cryptic than most companies- but at the same time, even with how much I myself have criticized TOR- the game is amazing at its core, and while there were some awful decisions made, and it took a long time to see anything happen- it's getting back on its feet and starting to win back some respect... it's also still better than anything else.
GW2- feels like they simply lied to us and released trash.
I think though- people call every single mmo a failure nowadays simply because it's not WoW.
I can understand though Cryptic's detractors, simply because it doesn't seem like we're seeing them change, and it does feel a bit like they abandon their games once they're out. I didn't mind dishing out 200 bucks- but I can see a bit of worry that they're simply cash grabbing before people figure out what the game is.
Ultimately- I've waited with anticipation for so many mmos, only to be disappointed, to be shocked if NWO is bad... but, I'll still pray this game's great.
As far as Cryptic's "rep" goes, you really have to take everything you read with a grain of salt. People on the Internet are very quick to use hyperbole in their opinions. I've dealt with SOE in the EQ, SWG and EQ2; Turbine in the first Asheron's Call days and in LOTRO; EA for TOR; and Cryptic/Atari for CO and STO, as well as a few other companies. Not once have I been let down by any of their customer service.
Except the part where they had, for several months, one of the highest sub rates minus WOW when it was p2p, before it started to plummet- and upon releasing f2p numbers skyrocketting, and, months later populations are still full on all servers so the retention is great- and they're making a killing on their cartel shop.
Nevermind having the best levelling process for any mmo ever made due to the inclusion of story rather than just 'kill x of y' for 60 levels.
They made some errors- yes, they sure did, and most of their errors were indeed amateur ones, and some (like everything done in patch 1.2) were massive in scope and caused an NGE level exodus. To say they did everything wrong is grossly incorrect though. And to say they're suffering due to f2p is nonsense that goes contrary to the reality.
1) STO is wildly successful by any measure of MMORPG success other than "Blizzard is worried", and NOBODY meets that level.
2) STO is making more money than City of Heroes did at its peak.
3) City of Heroes wasn't "passed to Paragon Studios"; Paragon Studios was just part of Cryptic that got spun off, and quite a few of the key players went with the rest of the company to California.
So, saying that Neverwinter is going to fail based on Cryptic's past performance is like saying that "The Avengers" was going to fail because "Firefly" got cancelled. You can dislike STO, and you can say that its growth can't last, but you can't say it's not successful without holding your hands over your ears and going "lalala" when somebody reads to you from Perfect World's financial statements.
I'll stop rambling about STO now. I guess I'm hoping that Cryptic will make Neverwinter a game worth investing my time and money into. If they do, then great we both win, otherwise, well I'll be disappointed and go play something else for the time being.
No, it isn't. It's making money for PWE, but that's about it. The playerbase barely breaks six figures. Outside of special events, I haven't seen ESD with more than six instances since the first year.
Instances are capped at 200 players.
How is this 'wildly successful?' It's been out for over three years, and has been getting its butt kicked in pretty much every measure by GW2 AND TOR. That's not 'wildly successful.' That's sad.
Cryptic uses an automated chat ban system in all of their game's that's triggered by players using the "Report Spam" or "/Ignore" functions on other players. Supposedly this was implemented as an automated means to handle gold-farmers specifically, but even the use of Ignore can trigger it.
The system works by giving a demerit to a player's account every time they get hit with a "Report Spam" (which is supposed to be used strictly for gold farmers but nothing in the system prevents you from using it on anyone) or "Ignore", with Report Spam giving a higher number of demerits than Ignore (at least, as we've been told, since only the devs know the actual figures). Once an account reaches a certain number of demerits, the account receives a warning ("You have been silenced. You may chat again in [insert time left]") and is banned from all commucation--including all forms of chat from all channels, as well as removing the ability to send tells or PMs--for 24 hours. The demerits also reset at this point, and reaching the amount required for a chat ban is the ONLY thing that resets the counter (no reduced demerits for prolonged times of good behaviour).
Additionally, their chat servers are shared accross their games. This has the benefit of being able to communicate with friends accross games through tells or custome channels (and from a developer perspective, of not having to come up with a bran new system for every single game). But it also has the disadvantage that if you get chat banned in one of Cryptic's games, you get chat banned in ALL of them.
People generally refer to it as a "player driven chat ban system" (or similar terms) because:
- The system is triggered by players with NO GM oversight (it is a completely automated system--GM's do not determine who gets banned--and we have been told at the CO forums at least in the past that GMs don't even have the power to override a chat ban, "deserved" or otherwise. If you're banned, you're banned for the duration. Period.)
- It is easily and frequently abused by vinctive and/or trollish players that know about it (apparently they can even ignore you repeatedly till they get you chat banned), and since the game is F2P and it costs nothing to create a new account, trolls may even start a new account for the strict purpose of trolling and/or getting back at others
And in addition to this, even if you "Ignore" someone for strictly personal or mundane reasons (you simply didn't like what they were discussing but they weren't necessarily being a menace to the general population, didn't feel like seeing RP chat, didn't feel like seeing OOC chat, etc.) you may end up unwittingly chat banning someone simply because the system doesn't discriminate between gold sellers (the ONLY accounts this system was originally intended for), trolls (accounts this system was not intended for) or regular players simply writting chat you do not want to read but that are not necessarily causing a problem otherwise.
What did they lie to you about? They've delivered on everything. If you dont like what they delivered, then thats your problem. Not only that, but they're coming out with monthly content for FREE. Not 500-1000 zenny for stuff Gary made in his garage in a day.
There's white knighting, then there are statements like I am reading here about something being unsuccessful because the "game subs barely breaks six figures".
That's just crazy. Six figures is pretty awesome, and makes money. This is the "if it's not millions, it's fail" ideology which isn't true for MMOs. Realize that one of the best MMOs before WOW (EverQuest) never broke six figures at it's peak, yet thrived on it's own merit.
It's not a denial of flaws. EQ had flaws. Huge ones. As did SWG, TOR, and pretty much every MMO released from day one of MMOs. But the standard of success or fail and good or bad is pretty skewed here. Even if it's just 200,000 people playing this game, it's a success.
Show me where I said it was unsuccessful. Unless you're making the strawman argument that "not being wildly successful" is exactly the same as "unsuccessful."
And denial of flaws is RAMPANT on these boards. The response to every criticism of Cryptic has been met with either "they were owned by Atari then" (even during the times they weren't), or "they're owned by PWE now, and they won't let them do that" (even if nothing has changed on that particular front (you know, like Klingons)).
I will agree that if the game is making money, it's successful. But HOW is it making money? Cryptic's games don't make money purely on the merit of the gameplay. They do it by forcing people to the C-Store, and they've been doing it almost since launch.
When the games had subs.
Oh, wait - I forgot. That's all Atari's fault, even though they were still doing it when PWE bought them out for about six months.
I agree. You should make up your own mind about a game company and this game is no exception. Regardless of anything we may say you should make up your own mind based on your own experiences rather than just take our word for it.
However, that being said, I have played and participated on the CO forums extensively for years and I have been around other games and their forums as well and IMO and in my experience complaints about Cryptic are not the same as what you normally hear about other game companies.
They are very specific complaints, some of it about stuff you WILL likely experience (or know people who experience it) in their games regardless of what you want to believe about us. The chat ban issue, for example, is real. Its not just "haters" making it up. Its people who enjoy the game--some of them who contribute to the community by hosting events such as costume contests--getting targeted and chat banned by trolls with little (read NO) results from the company to properly address the issue.
One of the key differences between the rampant bashing you hear about every single game company and Cryptic is that with Cryptic its not just "haters" doing the bashing. Its the once uppon a time hardcore fans, long time supporters and people that have no incentive to hate on them getting fed up with them as well.
I have "0" incentive to "hate" on Cryptic. Appearance customization in online RPGs are a key feature for my enjoyment and to retain long term interest in a game for me, and Cryptic is the industry leader for that type of feature. CO is like the holy grail of appearance customization in MMOs; Its one of the few MMOs that provides the level of freedom customization I expect. I gain NOTHING from bashing that game.
I am not just hating to hate. Most of the complaints you hear about Cryptic are from long time fans, not just random haters.
Early interviews before the PWE acquisition of Cryptic it was brought up about their..."lackluster" perfromance of past titles (Forget the exact interview but it was with Jack and the talked about why they are abandoning the MMO approach and taking an OMG approach, course they've recanted this philosophy change though). He also stated that they tried to take on too many features which none were of good enough quality. All of Cryptic responses and philosophies on making good quality features in an MMO stems from this. Cryptic is known... RENOWNED for efficient production of MMOs but they are lackluster MMOs.
While companies do get hate but Cryptic is especially bad, they have a lot of stigmata from their past titles. Most new games people are like ooooo shiney... but with cryptic it's initial reaction was Fool me once Cryptic Shame on you, Fool me twice Never again.
Winner's choice 2013? And yet they still have yet to get back up in the top 7 hype on MMORPG for months now ever after big press releases. Best Game of 2013 looks pretty bleak. Maybe best F2P Game of 2013 highly dependent upon what future F2P titles are coming out in 2013.
Neverwinter will be a niche MMO, like TSW and AoC.
And in the interest of complete disclosure, and basic fairness, one should ask themselves the question, "How many MMOs had Bioware made prior to SWOTOR?" Answer, it was their first, and that shows. SWOTOR had some neat concepts, executed less than optimally (way less than optimally, to be honest), but I cut them a bit of slack as they had never done an MMO before, so mistakes were rampant.
Add to this the *initial* high expectations driven by *early Star Wars Galaxies, and one sees the train wreck coming, in all its gory slow motion. It was bound to happen, and I think LucasArts may have added to disastrous recipe as well. Many factors involved, not all of them either clearly defined or calculable...
On the reverse side, a company made what is considered a smash hit MMO in *their* first at bat in the genre, a success which still reverbrates today over a decade later. That was Blizzard, and WoW. They did some things right, and were actually able to take advantage of an upcoming trend which had relatively little to do with their product directly, but had the power to catapult their product from obscurity to global recognition. The trend was the internet becoming more common, its usage expanding geometrically on a global basis, and the advent of broadband as a new standard. Those are circumstances which are very unlikely to repeat themselves, thus the phenomena of WoW is unlikely to repeat itself as well.
What has any of this to do with Cryptic's perceived reputation among many long-time MMO players? Just this, there are factors involved in any endeavor which may be unseen by the outside observer, or indeed by anybody except in hindsight which affect not only objective reality, but our perceptions of it as well...
(once again, in the interests of disclosure, I am not/never have been a Blizzard fanboi or even a WoW player. I beta-tested *both* WoW, and its nearest competitor at that period of time, EQ2, and much preferred EQ2, and do to this day, even though *both* games have essentially changed from their original incarnations...)
I'm not pro-Cryptic, so save your rancor for an actual fanboi. I'm actually supporting your argument, in a way - but also saying "flaws don't make a game unsuccessful, wildly or otherwise".
What is a valid definition of wildly successful? Because unless it's clearly shown that STO is losing money, the number of subs and income generated versus cost seem to indicate it is, in fact, successful. Pet features unimplemented aside, and I have many I could list for any game, people play it. People pay money for it. And a few hundred thousand is more than enough for even a high-budget, high-expense game like TOR to warrant an expansion.
All I'm positing with my post is that despite "flaws", these games are successful. Failure would be MxO, which lasted, what, less than five years? Or possibly APB, which lasted less than six months. There are scales of success, and stating one or the other because of some feature or the other, or even slow support and feature addition, isn't what makes or breaks a game.
It's simply "does it make more money than it costs to develop?"
Hating on the game or loving it individually isn't the factor. My viewpoint doesn't matter worth a darn; nor does yours, nor does anyone else individually. I read rants and hear about flaws with pretty much every "successful" MMO, WoW included. Hate doesn't really matter. Spewing your dislike of a developer won't change anything. Because a majority of the customers playing the game will never read a single forum post, won't read and think about some intelligent or not-so-intelligent point.
They play the game, they judge it on its own merits, and don't go "it doesn't have XYZ! Ragequit!". They either find it fun, or not, or like the pricing model and feature additions, or not, and keep playing (or not).
The straw-man arguments are every single argument on these forums - mine included.
So a MMO that has millions of players but isn't making money and is going to shutdown is successful? The very definition of success in business is turning a profit. If an MMO is turning a profit than it is successful. So if it is making a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> load of money it could be considered "wildly successful". How good a game is has NO bearing on its success over than it MIGHT make more people play the game and that MIGHT make a game bring in more money. But even if 10 million people play a free to play game and none of them are spending money on it, it is still fail.
Thank you. Looks like a very flawed system.
On the one hand, Cryptic games do show genuine (and IMO pretty darn cool) innovation in their mechanics, and their games are worth playing just for that reason alone.
On the other hand, Cryptic representatives have often been less than clear, straightforward, or sometimes even less than honest about features and plans. And not all of it is attributable to the usual risks that open communication entails... For me, and for a few other grizzled vets, it's come to the point where if Cryptic says anything about any future moves at all, the best I can do is cross my arms and say "I'll believe it when I see it."
The gorilla formerly known as Kolikos
Ditto this.
tl;dr version:
"We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong." -William Hazlitt, 1778-1830
In short: haters hate because they think we care what they think when we really don't
Verbose version:
I've played STO from the beginning. Yes, it had it's problems, my own complaint being it was a little too cartoony and the ground combat *really* sucked (5 to 10 minutes to defeat a group of 5 bad guys? (!)) - However, they've worked on (and have since completely fixed) those issues. Anyone who played the game two years ago (even last year) who jumped back in today would be flabbergasted: it's an entirely new monster.
After 3 years of STO (2.5 years, actually) I jumped over to Champions. From the "Cryptic Community Support" side of things: CO could really use some luvin' The so-called "PWE Community Manager" (A.K.A. "Branflakes") isn't. He's a *STO* Community Manager and that needs to be corrected (CO has no "community manager" to drum-up excitement).
But so what? STO and CO are both 100% freebie to play. Translation: "worst-case-scenario...they are worth everything you pay for them". Since I get enjoyment from playing them, they are, by simple logic, worth more than I pay for them, right?
I am most certainly NOT a fan of drop boxes. But I find them a minor irritant at worst. So what? It helps fund the game I get to play for FREE.
Now along comes Neverwinter - All of the above still applies. Except I suspect CO will become the little <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> stepchild in terms of community engagement (it exists but not at the level as STO, and I suspect Neverwinter by virtue of the I.P. popularity alone).
Here's the thing: the haters will hate because it's the easy, cowardly way out. I find Cryptic to be a good company as gaming developers go (Don't even get me started on EA or Ubi). The developers are just trying to put food on their table by doing something they love to do, that doesn't mean it's easy and it's certainly impossible to satisfy everyone. As for those of you who screetch how this is "not D&D!!!11!1!" - get a clue: this isn't even day one, yet. Take a breather and then come back in a year.
I haven't played anything D&D in 30 years and don't have a clue what the hell "4th Edition" is all about. The best part: I don't even care. To me this is just a fantasy medieval swashbuckler MMO and I'm good with that. As for "canon" aspects: get a life. I mean, really. Always remember: it's worth what you pay for it. Everything is value over, above and beyond that.
1) if you don't care please remember that is hardly the spirit in using a discussion forum. Sure you don't have to care but
a) why bother using up valuable space telling everyone about how "you don't care"
b) what makes you think your position is something anyone else would necessarily care about either?
2) you will find that the game you are defending will fail if enough people decide not to play it, free or otherwise
I criticize NW for what I believe can be verifiably shown to be flaws or items that give evidence of possible future problems. Things they do well I compliment if comment seems worthwhile.
Plus, the whole idea of the original post is that bad reputation can lead a game to either fail or succeed less than would otherwise be the case. Most critics on this forum I believe would like to see the game succeed, I know I would. Defenses like, its free to play so everything is ok no matter what and such ilk are simply false.
No, and I've never said such.
No, it isn't. It's return on investment. If you spent $1 million to get back $1,000,005, that's a profit, and "successful" by your definition.
That isn't success.
That's certainly part of it. It also needs to maintain a sizable playerbase to keep those profits coming.
But STO doesn't make a "crapload of money." Which is my point. It turns a profit, yes, but by no means so much profit that the profit it makes outweighs the poor playerbase to be a game that could reasonably be considered "wildly successful."
As a matter of fact, when you figure in all of the money wasted to make things that never made it into the game, on the way things were before they changed things in the game or the money wasted on things they outright took OUT of the game, the picture gets worse.