Even the worst MMOs tend to last well above five years.
There are really only three things that sink an MMO:
- Losing the IP license.
- The publisher going bankrupt, generally impossible except if a company has just one MMO and is close to launch.
- Dwindling population/revenue, below $4 million or so a year.
Barring those three things, no MMO has ever shut down to the best of my knowledge. They may stop getting content but the servers stay up. While it's easy for MMOs to enter a phase where content/feature development ends, that's never killed one to my knowledge.
Bolded segment is False. I can state of several AA - AAA MMOS that have sut down:
Star Wars Galaxies (Mainly due to the new SW MMO)
Matrix Online
Auto Assault
Hellgate London
While granted they were mainly shut down because of revenue, they were shut down.
As to STO's longevity? Maybe five years at best. STO, as is, is not worth subbing and I really don't see any improvements that will change my mind on that.
Too fast a leveling curve
No KDF 1-50 game path
Idiotic faux lottery system for functional/QoL items
No constant direction for the game's future
Thank you for the time...
STO CBT Player - 400 day+ Vet, Currently Silver
Cryptic, would you actulaly like me to spend actual Money? It's Simple:
Full, Story-driven, select from start 1-50 Klingon Side
Scrap current Lock Box & Lobi system for something more reasonable
Expand Dil and Rep/Fleet Marks to regular story content
Bolded segment is False. I can state of several AA - AAA MMOS that have sut down:
Star Wars Galaxies (Mainly due to the new SW MMO)
Matrix Online
Auto Assault
Hellgate London
While granted they were mainly shut down because of revenue, they were shut down.
As to STO's longevity? Maybe five years at best. STO, as is, is not worth subbing and I really don't see any improvements that will change my mind on that.
Too fast a leveling curve
No KDF 1-50 game path
Idiotic faux lottery system for functional/QoL items
No constant direction for the game's future
Thank you for the time...
Galaxies: Lost the IP.
Matrix Online: Dwindling revenue.
Auto Assault and Hellgate London: Bankrupt publisher at launch.
Those were the three examples of exceptions I gave.
I suppose I should have asked the question differently... I agree that STO probably won?t be around forever, but it will be for some time to come. Star Trek itself I think will be around forever because the Idea of Star Trek is soooo unique. I mean I love the idea of one day we can do things like transport ourselves from one place to another, or having ships like the Enterprise for real, being able to also use replicators also would be coolest thing to have.. If I had access to replicators I would replicate tons of Alcohol & Smokes... It?s the technology also like being able to use phasers, photon torpedoes, etc. But the main ideals of Star Trek is the exploration, and no one has to be poor anymore and we don?t need money and things like pollution are a thing of the past,
this game will last longer and survive better if people accept what they have and stop begging for more and more and more
We need to let the Devs Develop the game not waste time and resources making over powered super weapons out of SHUTTLES and every ship in the game more powerful than the death star.
We need to stop forming "elite" and "noob" groups and putting people in boxes
and we need to do away once and for all with all the HATE and moaning directed at the people doing the work of creating and managing this game
oh and if we could stop abusing each other and forbidding disagreement that might help as well
Ask for less
Do more for others
and NEVER call someone "noob"
Barring any majorly stupid decisions on the dev teams part, I think the game has quite some lifespan left to it. Yes, it had a *very* rough start, but they've made huge improvements since then. Just need to keep rolling out the content, and they'll keep me playing.
Lord knows they keep managing to hook me back into the C-Store. As soon as I decide I've spent too much and need to abstain, they go and announce an upcoming Sovvie retrofit...
Yes. It has the potential to last a long time. It would require continual investment into the game and graphics upgrades as technology advances, but this game can last.
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
Or when CBS isn't getting enough flow of cash. STO "died" months ago.
Kind of agree with you on that. I also see CBS pulling STO out from under Cryptic/Them if "They" put something in the game that CBS explicitly said no to. I unfortunately see that happening more than dieing off from lack of cash influx.
i'm not your typical gamer so i don't know if these are valid statement or not, but a couple things i see on STO is players ranging from kids to mid 50's and there seems to be a lot of female players. my point is that this game appeals to a lot of people, male and female, in all age groups.
this may be perfectly normal for these types of games, but i still think it will help this game last.
dont' want to sound sexist, but my boys would have friends over all the time as they were growing up and of course they played games, but i don't recall ever see any girls actually playing any of the games, so i was surprised to see so many playing star trek and i think it is great.
one post i had seen that i really liked was a guy talking about him and his wife playing together. my wife does not work and does assignments during the day (and likes it), manages the crew and plays dabo. this helps me out a lot and i am very surprised she likes it so much. keeps me well supplied with dilithium.
1. CBS doesn't get a better offer from another company.
2. PWE thinks the game is profitable.
I'm willing to bet that Champions Online would get the axe long before STO would.
Yes and no. The plus side with Champs is that Cryptic owns the IP. No license fee. No risk of non-renewal.
I expect Champs to get an Asian makeover for Asian markets, much like NCSoft's "City of Hero" which introduced a Korean version where the super-heroes all played second fiddle to martial arts/anime heroes. The game assets are diverse enough to be recycled into other types of games.
Now, what I could easily see is the Foundry being ported to Champs and dev-authored content ending at some point.
Aside from lack of license fee, one thing that will work in the favor of Champs or Neverwinter over Trek are that tabletop games work just fine being entirely user-generated story. Toy properties are much the same way and I think Cryptic would probably have a strong case to, say, pitch Hasbro on something like a G.I.Joe MMOFPS where the content is all user generated.
D&D, Champs, and most toy properties are fairly undemanding when it comes to story development. They're just fine with some user generated content and the occassional SCENARIO development.
Trek is more intensive in certain regards because it calls for PLOT development and characterization. Nobody is going to have expectations about showcasing Duke or Gung-Ho's family life, what Doctor Destroyer's childhood was like, etc. Neverwinter is kinda special as D&D properties go but still fine as a predominantly user-driven storyline.
In Trek, I think fans don't want scenarios. They want episodes. Cryptic can try to hedge around that (and I have ideas on how to do that more effectively) but there's a challenging (and expensive) level of depth required.
Whereas if Cryptic got rights from Nickelodeon to do a Ninja Turtles MMO, I think most folks would be happy with a scenario based game with an iconic version of TMNT New York, familiar mechanics (ninjitsu, various martial arts, select your mutant animal and decorate them up), and broad scenarios (stop the Utrom heist, defeat the mutants in the zoo, etc.)
Another perk with, say, TMNT or G.I.Joe or Neverwinter is that Cryptic can pretty much cast whatever actors they feel like casting in iconic roles. They could easily fly me out to do Michaelangelo and Donatello for whatever their standard pay is. People would be a lot pickier about flying me out to do Data or Odo. (Even if -- or perhaps especially because -- my Odo sounds like Rene A.) Imitating a live actor creates likeness/publicity rights issues. Imitating a cartoon voice is standard practice for anyone taking over an iconic role.
I think Star Trek has unique challenges. I think it will be around for years. I suspect it will be around at the same time as a second Star Trek MMO.
LucasArts pulled the plug on Galaxies for artistic/marketing reasons, as a privately held company interested in controlling the brand very tightly. Trek is owned by a publicly held company that relishes licensing the same thing out to competing companies and collecting two royalty checks. For example, there are something like 5+ people who all have non-exclusive rights to make Star Trek TV shirts right now. If CBS could license Trek out as 5 separate MMOs, they would. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that I think CBS is reluctant to have TOS assets in STO because they see STO as the "2409 Trek Game" and would LOVE to have separate MMOs, all running concurrently, for TNG-era and TOS era.
I too just paid for a lifetime so hoping it's here for a long time.
Several users has made sound arguments to your post. No, the game will not nor cannot last "forever" but it's really up to PWE on it's improvements that will keep us here and promote others.
I like startrek online, so much that I just paid for a lifetime membership today. Alot of games I have found especially some online ones often die. One of the main reasons I have been paying for my membership is to try to support the game and also that there have been so many improvements being made to it. I just wanted to get other peoples thoughts about the popularity of the game. Ive been playing it for quite awhile and slowly they have been improving the game like bringing in the duty officer system, making the game free to play and a host of other things. Also since I have paid for the lifetime membership what are the main things that I should see happening? Also I read that lifetime membership means that I can change colours or something in posts is that correct?
If SOE's 'Everquest' is still up and running after 13 years; (I betaed that back in 1999 and played it heavily until about 2004); I have no doubt STO could survive and run that long.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
It is difficult to tell whether any game out there will be around within the next year, much less forever.
The best thing you can do is sit back and enjoy the game while it still is around.
With that said, I can fathom this game being around for at least the next two years. Beyond that is anyone's guess.
Case in point:
There's a 2D MMO, Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, that has been around in the United States since roughly 1995. To this day, it still exists as a *paid* game with a free, level capped trial (not the same thing as free to play) for $9.95/month.
It didn't add a cash shop (mind you, this is a cash shop that also requires a subscription unlike STO and others) until a few years ago.
Further, Nexus: TK only has a few thousand players. That's it. But, it is still around more than 10 years later.
I still play it myself.
It hasn't received a major update in years. It receives pretty much no new content to speak of... Almost no customer support. Just us players keeping things alive.
What i'm trying to say is STO could last 50 years by some stroke of odd luck or it could be nixed in a year by management. You never know.
i just hope, there will be something like STO 2. a mix between freelancer (hours of hours flying through space, you probably wont ever visit the whole galaxy; some items are only available at certain points.. ok we have that but in freelancer, there are a lot of items only at certain places available), bridge commander (command your craft from the bridge), elite force (ground combat) and dead space or something
It's very possible STO will be around for a long time. To all the naysayers: Ragnarok Online has been around >10 years, originally subscription based, and survived regardless of the hundreds of free servers that have been around for years after the server software was cloned. It still survives today on F2P life support. That and we have been told they have at least 2-3 more seasons worth of content planned ahead. It may survive in a diminished capacity after a few more years sure, but to say it will completely die in the next 2-3 years based on how things are going now isn't necessarily accurate. Especially since it's probably making more revenue now than it ever has, regardless of how the revenue is made (lockboxes, cstore shineyshiney, etc)
I can honestly say this game will last for a while simply on the basis of the space gameplay alone. It's the jewel of this game frankly, and while this game suffers plenty of missteps fairly regularly the action packed ship vs ship gameplay keeps the fun alive.
The only reason STO is alive right now is because there is no other company that's making this kind of gameplay available for an MMO right now. Even if with games like TSW, GW2, Wildstar, all being in live now, STO will keep rolling along. It won't be dying out till who knows what game with more balance, detail, storyline, and funding can make a spaceship battle game be as fast paced as what STO has. I'm hoping Titan from Blizzard is that game but that's just blind hope from me.
I just wanted to thank everyone that replied to my question. I suppose i should have worded my question a little differently as even now i realise that "forever" is a long time. I hope with new expansion coming up shortly (Legacy of Romulas) will give this game some much needed infusion of life.
Even with the lifetime membership im also buying Zen to get the really cool stuff like the vesta ships etc. the main thing im trying to find out is if other people also buy zen or pay for the membership to try show support for the game so that they will keep putting out new content and new missions. I like doing the missions, it seems they havent really been adding anymore of them. Still though i guess we cant expect tooooo much.
The one thing i know that will be around forever is the idea of star trek itself. Its sooooo appealing to the imagionation and that one day it could even truly be something of a reality that we will be able to build ships to goto space etc.
Anyway thanks everyone.
(btw i just checked how long ive been a subscriber and im up to 951 days, i cant wait until i hit the 1000 days veteran reward, it would be cool if they gave really awesome stuff to the really long subscribers, but i wont complain to much because the 1000 day reward is pretty sweet )
i just hope, there will be something like STO 2. a mix between freelancer (hours of hours flying through space, you probably wont ever visit the whole galaxy; some items are only available at certain points.. ok we have that but in freelancer, there are a lot of items only at certain places available), bridge commander (command your craft from the bridge), elite force (ground combat) and dead space or something
I really like freelancer as well. The story line is fantastic. I hoped that they would put out a freelancer 2 or a game very similar to it. I have tried to find a game that was very much like freelancer and in someways sto is similar to it.
I really like freelancer as well. The story line is fantastic. I hoped that they would put out a freelancer 2 or a game very similar to it. I have tried to find a game that was very much like freelancer and in someways sto is similar to it.
You may be interested in Star citizen, by Chris Robert : http://robertsspaceindustries.com/
Work in progress.
I'm not sure ST could be used for a freelancer like game. Freelancer was more about you (alone), your small craft, and the whole universe. ST is more about you, your crew, your ship and exploration.
I really loved freelancer, and already gave some money for Star Citizen, hoping it will be nearly as good as freelancer was.
Cryptics biggest threat at this point outside of License renewals, is probably themselves. If Neverwinters doesn't perform well financially then PWE could cut it's losses which may affect the rest of Cryptics dev teams.
Comments
Bolded segment is False. I can state of several AA - AAA MMOS that have sut down:
Star Wars Galaxies (Mainly due to the new SW MMO)
Matrix Online
Auto Assault
Hellgate London
While granted they were mainly shut down because of revenue, they were shut down.
As to STO's longevity? Maybe five years at best. STO, as is, is not worth subbing and I really don't see any improvements that will change my mind on that.
Too fast a leveling curve
No KDF 1-50 game path
Idiotic faux lottery system for functional/QoL items
No constant direction for the game's future
Thank you for the time...
Cryptic, would you actulaly like me to spend actual Money? It's Simple:
Galaxies: Lost the IP.
Matrix Online: Dwindling revenue.
Auto Assault and Hellgate London: Bankrupt publisher at launch.
Those were the three examples of exceptions I gave.
If it is a JJverse one I doubt CBS would have any say in the matter since Paramount owns the rights to that.
Plus wasn't Galaxies pretty much already dead at the point.
That off-hand comment at the start of the DS9 FE series was a subtle way of letting us know.
3 more years? That'll give us a good 5-year mission in total.
AMEN, Brother
i just visited tribble and saw some definite improvements. i think the fleet bases will really help. (if you need to join a fleet see my signature)
i like the post above, especially the comment on hate. be friendly and help new players. that will help the game stay around too.
1. CBS doesn't get a better offer from another company.
2. PWE thinks the game is profitable.
I'm willing to bet that Champions Online would get the axe long before STO would.
Lord knows they keep managing to hook me back into the C-Store. As soon as I decide I've spent too much and need to abstain, they go and announce an upcoming Sovvie retrofit...
My Gaming Blog
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
Or when CBS isn't getting enough flow of cash. STO "died" months ago.
Kind of agree with you on that. I also see CBS pulling STO out from under Cryptic/Them if "They" put something in the game that CBS explicitly said no to. I unfortunately see that happening more than dieing off from lack of cash influx.
Someone should look into fixing that.
Waiting to play can be a game killer.
This game has way too many cool downs and timers.
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this may be perfectly normal for these types of games, but i still think it will help this game last.
dont' want to sound sexist, but my boys would have friends over all the time as they were growing up and of course they played games, but i don't recall ever see any girls actually playing any of the games, so i was surprised to see so many playing star trek and i think it is great.
one post i had seen that i really liked was a guy talking about him and his wife playing together. my wife does not work and does assignments during the day (and likes it), manages the crew and plays dabo. this helps me out a lot and i am very surprised she likes it so much. keeps me well supplied with dilithium.
Yes and no. The plus side with Champs is that Cryptic owns the IP. No license fee. No risk of non-renewal.
I expect Champs to get an Asian makeover for Asian markets, much like NCSoft's "City of Hero" which introduced a Korean version where the super-heroes all played second fiddle to martial arts/anime heroes. The game assets are diverse enough to be recycled into other types of games.
Now, what I could easily see is the Foundry being ported to Champs and dev-authored content ending at some point.
Aside from lack of license fee, one thing that will work in the favor of Champs or Neverwinter over Trek are that tabletop games work just fine being entirely user-generated story. Toy properties are much the same way and I think Cryptic would probably have a strong case to, say, pitch Hasbro on something like a G.I.Joe MMOFPS where the content is all user generated.
D&D, Champs, and most toy properties are fairly undemanding when it comes to story development. They're just fine with some user generated content and the occassional SCENARIO development.
Trek is more intensive in certain regards because it calls for PLOT development and characterization. Nobody is going to have expectations about showcasing Duke or Gung-Ho's family life, what Doctor Destroyer's childhood was like, etc. Neverwinter is kinda special as D&D properties go but still fine as a predominantly user-driven storyline.
In Trek, I think fans don't want scenarios. They want episodes. Cryptic can try to hedge around that (and I have ideas on how to do that more effectively) but there's a challenging (and expensive) level of depth required.
Whereas if Cryptic got rights from Nickelodeon to do a Ninja Turtles MMO, I think most folks would be happy with a scenario based game with an iconic version of TMNT New York, familiar mechanics (ninjitsu, various martial arts, select your mutant animal and decorate them up), and broad scenarios (stop the Utrom heist, defeat the mutants in the zoo, etc.)
Another perk with, say, TMNT or G.I.Joe or Neverwinter is that Cryptic can pretty much cast whatever actors they feel like casting in iconic roles. They could easily fly me out to do Michaelangelo and Donatello for whatever their standard pay is. People would be a lot pickier about flying me out to do Data or Odo. (Even if -- or perhaps especially because -- my Odo sounds like Rene A.) Imitating a live actor creates likeness/publicity rights issues. Imitating a cartoon voice is standard practice for anyone taking over an iconic role.
I think Star Trek has unique challenges. I think it will be around for years. I suspect it will be around at the same time as a second Star Trek MMO.
LucasArts pulled the plug on Galaxies for artistic/marketing reasons, as a privately held company interested in controlling the brand very tightly. Trek is owned by a publicly held company that relishes licensing the same thing out to competing companies and collecting two royalty checks. For example, there are something like 5+ people who all have non-exclusive rights to make Star Trek TV shirts right now. If CBS could license Trek out as 5 separate MMOs, they would. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that I think CBS is reluctant to have TOS assets in STO because they see STO as the "2409 Trek Game" and would LOVE to have separate MMOs, all running concurrently, for TNG-era and TOS era.
Several users has made sound arguments to your post. No, the game will not nor cannot last "forever" but it's really up to PWE on it's improvements that will keep us here and promote others.
=/\=
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If SOE's 'Everquest' is still up and running after 13 years; (I betaed that back in 1999 and played it heavily until about 2004); I have no doubt STO could survive and run that long.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
The best thing you can do is sit back and enjoy the game while it still is around.
With that said, I can fathom this game being around for at least the next two years. Beyond that is anyone's guess.
Case in point:
There's a 2D MMO, Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, that has been around in the United States since roughly 1995. To this day, it still exists as a *paid* game with a free, level capped trial (not the same thing as free to play) for $9.95/month.
It didn't add a cash shop (mind you, this is a cash shop that also requires a subscription unlike STO and others) until a few years ago.
Further, Nexus: TK only has a few thousand players. That's it. But, it is still around more than 10 years later.
I still play it myself.
It hasn't received a major update in years. It receives pretty much no new content to speak of... Almost no customer support. Just us players keeping things alive.
What i'm trying to say is STO could last 50 years by some stroke of odd luck or it could be nixed in a year by management. You never know.
The only reason STO is alive right now is because there is no other company that's making this kind of gameplay available for an MMO right now. Even if with games like TSW, GW2, Wildstar, all being in live now, STO will keep rolling along. It won't be dying out till who knows what game with more balance, detail, storyline, and funding can make a spaceship battle game be as fast paced as what STO has. I'm hoping Titan from Blizzard is that game but that's just blind hope from me.
Even with the lifetime membership im also buying Zen to get the really cool stuff like the vesta ships etc. the main thing im trying to find out is if other people also buy zen or pay for the membership to try show support for the game so that they will keep putting out new content and new missions. I like doing the missions, it seems they havent really been adding anymore of them. Still though i guess we cant expect tooooo much.
The one thing i know that will be around forever is the idea of star trek itself. Its sooooo appealing to the imagionation and that one day it could even truly be something of a reality that we will be able to build ships to goto space etc.
Anyway thanks everyone.
(btw i just checked how long ive been a subscriber and im up to 951 days, i cant wait until i hit the 1000 days veteran reward, it would be cool if they gave really awesome stuff to the really long subscribers, but i wont complain to much because the 1000 day reward is pretty sweet
I really like freelancer as well. The story line is fantastic. I hoped that they would put out a freelancer 2 or a game very similar to it. I have tried to find a game that was very much like freelancer and in someways sto is similar to it.
Work in progress.
I'm not sure ST could be used for a freelancer like game. Freelancer was more about you (alone), your small craft, and the whole universe. ST is more about you, your crew, your ship and exploration.
I really loved freelancer, and already gave some money for Star Citizen, hoping it will be nearly as good as freelancer was.
After that , for better or worse it's uncharted territory .
Factions
New ships
New story lines
enough for decades
BUT FTP might kill us yet