Yep. The game developers for give the consumers what they want. Superficial and Vacuous... we just don't know anything else.
Actually , we do know something else (like the development cycle for this game's first 13 months) .
But those of us who remember don't count for zilch in the New World Order . :cool:
(errr I mean the "New Player Experience" as it was called when they went F2P) .
Yep. Essentially, what are called "MMOs" nowadays bear only a family resemblance to what used to be called "MMOs". There are some similarities, but more differences.
Principally, the idea of presenting a game in which you can have a sort of second life in a virtual world has completely gone out the window in favour of cash grabbing from casual players.
In the early days, there even used to be a vaguely evangelical and beneficial idea to MMOs - they were a place where you could develop yourself psychologically, by achieving things that were only virtual, to be sure, but had value in the eyes of other players.
I remember this worked for me to some extent even with CoH. Before I played CoH, I wasn't a very "leadery" person irl, but as I discovered I could lead teams well in CoH, that bled through to my every day life, so now I'm much more confident about leading irl.
But that was in a context where you had to build teams yourself by some effort (e.g. polite private tells, actual interaction with players). Again, part of the virtual world idea - which goes completely out the window when you have autoqueuing, and you have a succession of events where you're thrown in with a bunch of strangers, who hardly say anything at all to each other, and are only in it for the hamster wheel of a virtual achievement and nothing else.
Another way of saying this: it used to be case that a virtual achievement was recognized because it was difficult to attain, and people acknowledged that you had worked hard to attain it. Hence, people used to say "gratz" when someone dinged, because it was some kind of actual achievement. Nowadays, levelling is so fast it's hardly worth even noticing; and the value of virtual achievements are diminished when you can pay rl money for them.
I think someone ought to e-mail this to Jack Emmert .
(not that I'd expect to see changes because of it ...)
People always spout off something like this, and the funny thing is is that they themselves either A) Can't define "what Trek is" or think that their interpretation is the end all be all.
What is Trek? (According to my opinions)
TOS: A space western where almost every episode devolved into a fist fight (with the occasional social commentary).
TNG: These people may die, but hey, at least we didn't violate the Prime Directive!! Our ally is under attack by internal elements aligned with the Romulans but hey, at least we didn't violate the Prime Directive!! Let's sign this treaty that will 100% TRIBBLE us over in the long run, but hey at least we have something resembling peace!!
DS9: War movie, and as Han Solo put it, "Hoakie religions and ancient weapons..."
Voy: TOS 2.0
ENT: TOS 3.0
These are my interpretations. You guys will have your own. Cryptic has their interpretation based on their need to keep an MMO moving. Paramount and JJ Abrams have their interpretation based on the need to breath life into what was a dying franchise (and make money, of course).
At the very least keep an open mind to "space dinos" since it is technically canon.
Could be worst though, we could have the Kazon.
Maybe we will have the Kazon?
Oh, and you forgot TAS. TAS is basically seasons 4 and 5 of TOS. Same silliness and zaniness, and yeah, Kirk still tries to punch all the bad guys.... even the extraterrestrial serpent god. Hehehe... Every ep had some sort of combat. In one ep they even fought a fire breathing Dragon!
I really don't get where people get the idea that Star Trek DOESN'T center around conflict. Sure the TV show liked to use combat to tell morality tales, but morality tales don't really translate well into an MMO. Sure we have SOME stories that involve them, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Seriously.... you could sum up TOS as "Boldly going where the Federation has never gone before, and punching the locals in the face".
They could do a couple of missions which resolves the conflict properly as in the KDF and Starfleet officially realize how stupid they are both being and re start the Khitomer accords once again. PvP can become war games it doesn't really effect it in any way. Plus they can deal with some of the other hanging plot threads to like the Undine controlling parts of Starfleet.
Yeah, no. Like Pax said, there are a lot of plot threads you'd have to wrap up for this to work. Such as writing the rest of the Divide et Impera mission series. :P
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Actually , we do know something else (like the development cycle for this game's first 13 months) .
But those of us who remember don't count for zilch in the New World Order . :cool:
(errr I mean the "New Player Experience" as it was called when they went F2P) .
I think someone ought to e-mail this to Jack Emmert .
(not that I'd expect to see changes because of it ...)
Oh, and you forgot TAS. TAS is basically seasons 4 and 5 of TOS. Same silliness and zaniness, and yeah, Kirk still tries to punch all the bad guys.... even the extraterrestrial serpent god. Hehehe... Every ep had some sort of combat. In one ep they even fought a fire breathing Dragon!
I really don't get where people get the idea that Star Trek DOESN'T center around conflict. Sure the TV show liked to use combat to tell morality tales, but morality tales don't really translate well into an MMO. Sure we have SOME stories that involve them, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Seriously.... you could sum up TOS as "Boldly going where the Federation has never gone before, and punching the locals in the face". Yeah, no. Like Pax said, there are a lot of plot threads you'd have to wrap up for this to work. Such as writing the rest of the Divide et Impera mission series. :P
My character Tsin'xing