I have been a huge fan of Star Trek for as long as I can remember. I grew up watching Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the Original cast. I was thrilled with TNG. I watched DS9 and Voyager. I enjoyed Enterpirse and of course all the movies.
I am a huge fan of Star Trek Online. For the most part I love the game! I think its a lot of fun to be able to feel like I'm a part of the Star Trek Universe. I am a lifetime subscriber, and have purchased more Cryptic Points then my wife really appreciates.
All that to say that I am a supporter of STO.
However, I was a bit disappointed with the most recent Featured Episode. Primarily for 2 reasons:
1) The animation of the cut scenes did not match up very well at all to the words being said. I have been also playing SWTOR. They are two completely different games and I think I will enjoy continuing to play both. But, when you see a cutscene from SWTOR, you get the impression that they actually tried to make it like a cartoon. The lips move when they should and form the right shapes for the words being said. They animated emotion and expression. I felt like the cut scene from the new Featured Episode was terrible in regards to how it was animated. I don't understand why it was not animated so that it seemed the characters were actually saying what they said. To be perfectly honest I was even a bit embarrassed by it. I talked 2 other friends into playing through them with me and it was hard to enjoy the plot because of the poor quality animation.
2) The next thing that I found very diappointing was the group mechanic when trying to do the quests on DS9. We got separated looking for the various Delegates to the conference and when one of us would speak to an NPC, it would advance for the whole group. The problem is that we did not know what had happened. It was also very confusing at times to know what it was we were suppose to do.
I did go back and solo it and found it to be much easier to figure out and play through; but with my 2 friends who were less experienced with STO than I was, it was embarrassing to play a Featured Episode that I spent a lot of time talking up, that seemed so unfinished and lacking polish.
In my opinion, if the quests are going to be done in a group, they should not be able to advance until everyone is on the same page. I was really surprised that this was released to the public when it seemed to be unfinished.
Dear Cryptic,
I love the idea behind Star Trek Online. I love the artwork and the story lines that have been put into the game. Please invest a bit more time into animating any future episodes so that the main characters don't look so ridiculous while the voice actors play their parts. And, please fix the group mechanic so that it is more friendly.
Thank you!
Respectuflly,
Morgon
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