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So, I dropped WoW for STO, here's what I think of it
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I consider myself an intelligent, thoughtful, and experienced person. I have enough perspective to not be a fanboy or hater of any particular franchise. I doubt most of the viewpoints on this forum are as fresh and objective as mine. So, I'm bored, I feel like running my mouth, etc.
My objective opinion as someone who pretty well stopped playing WoW for STO is that STO is a much, much more troubled game, with far more bugs and far bigger short- and long-term problems and less content.
But it has three winning qualities:
1. The community is far better (as if that's saying much)
2. The gameplay is truly original
3. The game is much more fun
Second issue is short and sweet. I already have a WoW. I'm not interested in playing WoW in space, or whatever. STO is very different. It's truly 3D, for one thing. The gameplay is fun and interesting. I like having many options on what I can do next. This is a great unsold strength of the game.
STO's terrestial graphics are horrid, which are why I like them. They remind me of Star Ocean 2 and a lot of other super-deformed 16/32 bit games.
This isn't just pure nostalgia; horrid graphics actually serve several definite purposes:
1. They reduce system load
2. They reduce eye strain and sensory overload due to excessive visual detail (the player having difficulty differentiating the functional from the aesthetic, e.g., SC II)
3. They increase the operational tolerances of the game programming
4. Most importantly, they distance the game from real life. Real life will always beat any virtual attempt to emulate it. Hence video games are at their finest when they do not attempt to fight a battle with reality they can't win.
Now, item #3, isn't just my subjective opinion. It's objective fact. How does one gauge "fun factor" objectively? Simple. The absence of a Vote To Kick button in Fleet Actions, and the fact that people don't AFK or bot through them. People actually play the grinds in the game without being forcibly compelled, because they're fun.
I can see FAs and STFs getting boring after a few hundred runs. I'm sure I'll find them boring, eventually. I know a lot of players have quit because they have had their fill. Still, in the here and now, the objective metric of "fun factor" is a sound one.
The biggest problems STO has are:
1. Lack of documentation
2. Unnecessarily confusing mechanics
3. Extreme shortage of developers
The first issue is really a community problem. Most game communities create their own guides and documentation. The STO Wikia - frankly, it's garbage, with a ton of broken links and outdated information. This forum has about three times as many subforums as it needs to. And, most importantly, those players who understand the mechanics of this game haven't bothered to sit down and share their knowledge.
Then again there's no excuse for Cryzoic to not have a few interns tabulate the game mechanics in an easy-to-read form, as if interns are expensive or hard to come by these days.
Second issue. I don't mean that the game would be better if it were "dumbed down". I like games with complex mechanics. What I mean is that a lot of the game is made unnecessarily confusing by naming completely different mechanics in very similar ways (e.g., boff/doff/PC traits that share the same name but function totally differently; the partial overlap between beam and drone weapon types that behave completely differently in their respective categories; the Excelsior and Nebula classes belonging to two completely separate tiers) and how seemingly similar mechanics diverge wildly (e.g., kits for PCs versus the curious skill system for boffs, skill points for PCs versus boffs).
Starship mechanics are incredibly opaque and confusing and redundant, not just because of the confusing and almost circuitous paradigm, but also because the UI provides so little information on stats and scaling. This is a profound problem and it drives players away in frustration. Players don't like it when the game doesn't lend itself to discovery.
I think that the game would be a lot less confusing if the mechanics became more intuitive by making things that are different more dissimilar and things that are of a kind more similar. For example, why can't boffs use kits? Why don't PCs and boffs share the same skill point pool and trait mechanics?
Third issue is really the most prickly. The game has a lot of bugs (as if this is news) and one gets the feeling that it's suffering from not so much gross incompetence as sheer lack of dev time. This impression is corroborated by a 10-day wait on an in-game ticket. F2P, for a lot of games, really just means that the producer has adopted the "30-year-old arcade game in the back of the pizza store that brings in a few quarters each week" mentality.
I believe this is unfortunate, because with a bit of investment - a few tens of millions, perhaps - there's substantial profit to be realized. The franchise and game capital are there, just needs a bit of work. Realistically, I don't see this happening, and I believe the root problem is the general dysfunction that is Corporate America's mismanagement of the videogame industry in general.
I think there is something Cryzoic can do about this problem: allow players to mod the UI. Perhaps this will prove more trouble than it's worth - for Cryzoic, having to deal with abuses and keep in touch with the community developers could be an awful lot of work. But I would argue that for a F2P game to be successful, the center of gravity of the game must shift further in the direction of the community. LoL is a good case study in this.
In conclusion, I left WoW as one of those disgruntled oldtimers who whines that the new players don't understand the game and know it as something it's not. How odd it is to find the tables turned. I don't identify with or understand the issues that people gripe about on this forum, but from my own experience, I'm not so stupid that I think those issues, whatever they are, are baseless. And it's the perceived indifference that is no doubt so frustrating to those players with ideas/grievances. Again, I blame Corporate America's dysfunctional management of franchises for the disconnect.
But, for now, I'm enjoying the game. I'm sure I'll get bored of it soon enough. It's pretty fun, though, and honestly I can't find anything that is more playable these days, even for cash, just a bunch of shallow franchises. I blame...guess.
So, uh, I'm done ranting. Have fun!
My objective opinion as someone who pretty well stopped playing WoW for STO is that STO is a much, much more troubled game, with far more bugs and far bigger short- and long-term problems and less content.
But it has three winning qualities:
1. The community is far better (as if that's saying much)
2. The gameplay is truly original
3. The game is much more fun
Second issue is short and sweet. I already have a WoW. I'm not interested in playing WoW in space, or whatever. STO is very different. It's truly 3D, for one thing. The gameplay is fun and interesting. I like having many options on what I can do next. This is a great unsold strength of the game.
STO's terrestial graphics are horrid, which are why I like them. They remind me of Star Ocean 2 and a lot of other super-deformed 16/32 bit games.
This isn't just pure nostalgia; horrid graphics actually serve several definite purposes:
1. They reduce system load
2. They reduce eye strain and sensory overload due to excessive visual detail (the player having difficulty differentiating the functional from the aesthetic, e.g., SC II)
3. They increase the operational tolerances of the game programming
4. Most importantly, they distance the game from real life. Real life will always beat any virtual attempt to emulate it. Hence video games are at their finest when they do not attempt to fight a battle with reality they can't win.
Now, item #3, isn't just my subjective opinion. It's objective fact. How does one gauge "fun factor" objectively? Simple. The absence of a Vote To Kick button in Fleet Actions, and the fact that people don't AFK or bot through them. People actually play the grinds in the game without being forcibly compelled, because they're fun.
I can see FAs and STFs getting boring after a few hundred runs. I'm sure I'll find them boring, eventually. I know a lot of players have quit because they have had their fill. Still, in the here and now, the objective metric of "fun factor" is a sound one.
The biggest problems STO has are:
1. Lack of documentation
2. Unnecessarily confusing mechanics
3. Extreme shortage of developers
The first issue is really a community problem. Most game communities create their own guides and documentation. The STO Wikia - frankly, it's garbage, with a ton of broken links and outdated information. This forum has about three times as many subforums as it needs to. And, most importantly, those players who understand the mechanics of this game haven't bothered to sit down and share their knowledge.
Then again there's no excuse for Cryzoic to not have a few interns tabulate the game mechanics in an easy-to-read form, as if interns are expensive or hard to come by these days.
Second issue. I don't mean that the game would be better if it were "dumbed down". I like games with complex mechanics. What I mean is that a lot of the game is made unnecessarily confusing by naming completely different mechanics in very similar ways (e.g., boff/doff/PC traits that share the same name but function totally differently; the partial overlap between beam and drone weapon types that behave completely differently in their respective categories; the Excelsior and Nebula classes belonging to two completely separate tiers) and how seemingly similar mechanics diverge wildly (e.g., kits for PCs versus the curious skill system for boffs, skill points for PCs versus boffs).
Starship mechanics are incredibly opaque and confusing and redundant, not just because of the confusing and almost circuitous paradigm, but also because the UI provides so little information on stats and scaling. This is a profound problem and it drives players away in frustration. Players don't like it when the game doesn't lend itself to discovery.
I think that the game would be a lot less confusing if the mechanics became more intuitive by making things that are different more dissimilar and things that are of a kind more similar. For example, why can't boffs use kits? Why don't PCs and boffs share the same skill point pool and trait mechanics?
Third issue is really the most prickly. The game has a lot of bugs (as if this is news) and one gets the feeling that it's suffering from not so much gross incompetence as sheer lack of dev time. This impression is corroborated by a 10-day wait on an in-game ticket. F2P, for a lot of games, really just means that the producer has adopted the "30-year-old arcade game in the back of the pizza store that brings in a few quarters each week" mentality.
I believe this is unfortunate, because with a bit of investment - a few tens of millions, perhaps - there's substantial profit to be realized. The franchise and game capital are there, just needs a bit of work. Realistically, I don't see this happening, and I believe the root problem is the general dysfunction that is Corporate America's mismanagement of the videogame industry in general.
I think there is something Cryzoic can do about this problem: allow players to mod the UI. Perhaps this will prove more trouble than it's worth - for Cryzoic, having to deal with abuses and keep in touch with the community developers could be an awful lot of work. But I would argue that for a F2P game to be successful, the center of gravity of the game must shift further in the direction of the community. LoL is a good case study in this.
In conclusion, I left WoW as one of those disgruntled oldtimers who whines that the new players don't understand the game and know it as something it's not. How odd it is to find the tables turned. I don't identify with or understand the issues that people gripe about on this forum, but from my own experience, I'm not so stupid that I think those issues, whatever they are, are baseless. And it's the perceived indifference that is no doubt so frustrating to those players with ideas/grievances. Again, I blame Corporate America's dysfunctional management of franchises for the disconnect.
But, for now, I'm enjoying the game. I'm sure I'll get bored of it soon enough. It's pretty fun, though, and honestly I can't find anything that is more playable these days, even for cash, just a bunch of shallow franchises. I blame...guess.
So, uh, I'm done ranting. Have fun!
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
wikia's dead jim
I dont know about terrestrial graphics being horrid though. Some maps are bad but they overall look quite well.
I'm sure you had fun when you first played WoW and now tired of it from what I get.
New games are always the most fun when they are just that -- new to you. In 6 - 8 months you might feel differently.
Shaka when the walls fell
I agree regarding the wikia... it's a good thing we have stowiki.org now
And as others mentioned, the graphics aren't 'horrid' (not the best out there obviously, but I wouldnt use 'horrid' to describe them)... perhaps you need to get a better gpu, this game requires better hardware specs than WoW I found (I came from WoW too), or up your graphics settings if you have a decent gpu... I'm just betting your settings are a bit off
1) Anything is better than WoW, but the community of STO has been ****ed at Cryptic for some time now b/c of the lack of true content for 1 year. The fires won't die down for some time sadly, but try to understand what the community here has been subjected to.
2) Not even. It's a copy / paste of another Star Trek game with aspects of WoW to do what is obvious, just like TOR, get some of the WoW refugees.
3) Compared to WoW, you bet it is. After awhile you'll start to loose the misconceptions of WoW's version of a MMO, but you'll be "tainted" for a nice amount of time.
For the rest of the post, like I said, you just came from WoW, one of the worst MMO's in history (if it didn't draw in the masses of stupidity it'd be dead by now). It forever tainted the MMO world and made it almost impossible for its refugees to understand the basics of True MMO's.
He means the combat, not the graphics.(i think) Space Combat is in a 3D setting. With a lot of room to maneuver on the maps.
Cryptic on this part does NOT think like Khan.
I think what is meant by that is not movement but that the worlds aren't made up of matte paintings and dummy objects. If there's a building, it's actually there.
I'm having real trouble equating the ground graphics to Ocean Star.
Here's a good example of what STO's ground graphics look like:
http://deadendthrills.com/?cat=86
Here is Ocean Star 2:
http://static.arstechnica.net/so2_battle02.jpg
If I had to guess, you must have the half-rez box checked in graphic options and medium graphics quality.
Space looks good in any setting. Ground won't look good without a nice graphics card.
How can it be the worst if it's the most successful?
I find STO more fun, but just saying....
It's not just a matter of money, but time.
When I quit WoW (the same night I got my Realm First heroic Lich King title), to get anywhere in a serious guild on top tier content, it took about 1-2 hours of daily grind a day to cover repair bills, and either another 3 hours grinding gold for the auction house or an hour of fishing to get your buff foods made and an hour on your herbalism alt getting the materials for your flasks. Then a 4 hour raid 4-5 nights a week, followed by another hour or two of grind to get gems and enchantments if you won items during it (because being in a serious guild meant sitting out of raids if you got the +50 spellpower enchantment for 3g instead of the +63 enchantment for 650g).
Didn't leave much time to play another MMO, even if the other one was free.
Though, to the OP: WoW's documentation was never much better than STO's. The WotLK documentation covered features that never actually made it into the expansion, didn't cover talent trees, and were wildly inaccurate about new spells. The accurate documentation is split between sites like Elitistjerks, Wowwiki, and Wowhead.
I think it is a mistake to think that WoW's model is inferior or evolved out of.
Some people learn to play checkers before they learn to play chess. It doesn't make checkers remedial and I know people who are good at chess who like checkers more.
I think there's fundamentally nothing wrong with the WoW-style MMO and I also think it takes a broad definition to consider this too terribly WoW-like. WoW was a lot like City of Heroes, which came first. Most MMOs released follow the actionbar, WASD, loot to advance system. Much deeper than that is going to be a waste as far as I'm concerned. I just like to see games in that style done well.
The graphics are worlds better than WoW.
Who is "Cryzoic"?
And here is what STO should look like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSuH4MZszis&feature=related
It's not the worst MMO in history. XN is simply blocking from memory games like Hellgate London and Tabula Rasa.
That is exactly right.
I played for a good long while during after launch until I got my fill and am just now returning.
Its a totally new game for me.
There have been that many improvements and additions.
When I get my fill again I will leave and will hope the game improves as much again by the time I return.
You could drop down to a less serious guild that didn't give you TRIBBLE for the +13 enhancement differential.
A lot of us saw the potential of this game before launch and invested up front. If I knew they were just going to focus on c-store I wouldn't have bothered.
It had two different forms of game play so I thought it would be hard to get bored. They decided to abandon everything but single player quest. While damaging many things like fleet actions and game mechanics like crouch and roll. Just to name a few out of many.
You used to be able to walk while crouching and stay in that stance, they broke it. You used to be able to roll out of danger then they ruined it by making it roll after you fired instead of it canceling your attack. You really don't need to roll a second from when you press it.
Many people are really excited by STO for a couple of weeks then lose interest. If they don't keep making good game play on a regular basis they will just be a revolving door game. Eventually running out of people wanting to play it.
It's even worse with the duty officers. Apart from the fact, that it's quite confusing to manage your officers, the game doesn't tell you, what your crew already can and where your crew could use a few more officers. Do I need more diplomats? Or should I hire the warp theorist? The game needs a simple yet effective additional UI element, that lists the different professions and how officers of each profession is serving on your ship.
There's also a huge problem with the "assignment manager". If you have an assignment, that requires certain goods you currently don't have in your inventory, the game won't let you have look, if you have officers available, that fit into the assignement. Therefore you might waste EC on replicating the requiered goods, just to find out, that you don't have an officer with the required profession and traits available. Simple solution: Allow to open every assignment, even if you don't have the required officers or goods.
Concerning the rest of the initial post: Yes, STO lacks endgame content. But I like that actually. I like, that there are no raids, that keep you busy for hours or even days. It's a quite simple game and always entertaining for an hour or two, and since it has become free to play it's a real nice package, that could use some polishing like a better UI more informative UI and a revamp of sector space and a revamp of the interiors (Properly scaled bridges! Give us properly scaled bridges!).
You gotta be kidding me right? Your saying WoW is one of the worst MMos in history on a STO forum
Because it has millions of more subscribers, your going to get a larger flavor of all types playing and posting.
I normally like your posts, but your insulting many people myself included, by calling them stupid masses and that people from WoW cannot understand the true basics of MMos? What does that statement even mean?
I have played MMos since U/O and have loved and hated loads, but WoW is still up there as one of the most "fun" MMos I have played. I still think EQ is my favourite, but 5 years of playing WoW and thoroughly enjoyed it, means it still gives me fond memories.
I left it over a year ago and have no plans to go back as I got bored of it, but I still acknowledge it as a superior MMo.
So tell me, what is a true MMo? STO?
Shesh.
SO2, like most games of the time, didn't use the same format for the world environment and the battlefield. I was referring more to the blocky, simplistic cities of SO2.
I completely understand where you're coming from about "preconceptions". I agree, you're right.
And I also agree that STO borrows a lot from Starfleet Command / Starfleet Academy. The former in particular. I was really wondering - how many SFC devs worked on this game? Especially since they managed to transition some really odd bugs such as verb/object number agreement in quest text ("we must defeat the Klingon").
Still, the game is pretty "original" compared not just to WoW but the over-franchising of games in general these days. I "grew up" during the days of 16/32 bit gaming where there was a great deal more innovation and diversity.
That was the Wikia to which I was referring that I found so wanting =P
ty
And dont forget STO;)
You might think so but not really. Obsession over trivial, arbitrary metrics has become one of those curious pervasive social movements in WoW, just like with so many things in real life. Internships, for example
It's not so easy to get away from them and get anything done, no matter how blatantly obvious it may seem to intelligent people that they are useless. Pre-potting, for example, still strikes me as an idiotic waste of time and a massive annoyance, and it accomplishes nothing. Honestly that phenomenon alone was a major issue that drove me away.
lol I was actually really wondering why I can't do that, since I can in Fallout: New Vegas
I can definitely see me there.
I blame Corporate America.
You can still guildshop and guildhop in WoW. Heck, you can even transfer pretty easily these days. You can find a guild that is a bit less serious but still gets things done.
And this game you can pretty much auto-play right now, on a second box you can run your DOFFs in about 5 minutes, and can run your dailies in-between buffs in a WoW raid.
"Get things done" is a funny phrase in a WoW context.
The game has been dumbed down tremendously, which is less a problem for the game itself than the reciprocal effect on the community. Most people looking for engaging gameplay have left, and the extreme level of churn and rapid change in the game coupled with the generally bad community and extreme over-moderation of the forums has prevented the skilled players from metasizing in any but the most elite guilds, which are way more hardcore than I prefer. (see prior anecdotes) The fact that the game experience as a whole is so bad on so many levels means that the newbs who actually make it to 85 - well, it takes a certain kind of person to stick with the game as it is now, coming into it.
"Getting things done" though...what does that mean, get a decent level of gear? clear a raid on normal mode? You can do those things alone, with braindead pugs. Why, though? Is that even fun, challenging? Like I said, that's why I underscored the absence of a Vote to Kick option as proof of STO's greater fun factor. As well as the far less linear game progression.
I did transfer a few times. Unfortunately, I too often found that the guilds that are recruiting cross-realm are usually recruiting for certain reasons. Typically not so good reasons. I got tired of it, so I went casual on my home server, then gradually lost interest. I still have my annual sub, which I bought with gold.
STO is a very deeply flawed game, more so than WoW I'd say, but it gives me more of what I want.
I did that for a bit then said TRIBBLE it.
Tabula Rasa actually had a great tutorial at launch when you recaptured the base. Then they changed it and it sucked. I used to replay the tutorial because it was the best part of the game at first. lol
It's actually worse in non-serious guilds, because not only were they equally obsessive, chances are they were obsessive and the people in charge didn't know your class (even if it was also their class). On my server, this mainifested in dozens of guilds forcing their casters to use the godawfulterrible Black Magic enchant in place of that 63 spellpower one, which carried an even more immense price tag and was one of the worst weapon enchants in the game.
And when I quit, guild hopping wasn't quite so easy - most servers had at most three guilds in top end content, and on many servers the leaders of those guilds regularly compared notes. You could move up out of the scrubs into one of those guilds, but once there switching between them wasn't an easy task (and something you really only got one chance at). WotLK heroic content wasn't dumbed down yet. Heroic Lich King was worse than pre-nerf Mu'ru, a boss so overtuned the devs felt bad in an era of the game where they actually enjoyed TRIBBLE their players in PVE content - more than two out of three servers in the US hadn't had a server first kill when I got my kill and quit. WoW as it stands today is very different than the game I quit in 2010.
Horse puckey.
Hyperbole like "lack of true content for 1 year" only weakens your rhetoric. It's not factually true.
By perpetuating this misinformation (or lie, I don't know), you de-legitimize actual complaints.
I had a little trouble with your post. It seemed to start off with good qualities. Then it jumped to the second issue. Then it moved on to the first issue. And then there was a new second issue. This was followed by non numerical issues presumably as some sort of filler to keep issue number three from despoiling any previous issues. It was a tad confusing. Could I suggest you start off with an outline for yourself next time? Have an intern whip one up!
All in all a good read, and I'd like to say I know where your coming from or where it is you're headed but I can't. Sorry!
On a constructive note perhaps you could edit your post to include just a handful of game play points that you are experiencing now and what those experiences are with a heartfelt promise to revisit us after say 10 more days played with a review of your initial impressions? Then we'd all have something to look forward to and discuss!
Cheers!