I say PWE and Cryptic should come up with a replacement for star clusters themselves, not rely on foundry missions to replace it. that's just pathetic and lazy, after all, when were the players hired as employees of PWE or Cryptic? When did it become the player's job to take over the development of the game? If anything, they should merge all the sectors, add more star systems, particularly planets that are the home worlds of the different species of the game like Betazed, Ferenginar, Rigel V, Benzar, stuff like that. Besides being new social zones they could also have missions to do, not to mention being new settings for more foundry missions. That should be an acceptable replacement
this would be a fantastic idea, especially for those that Havnt tried the foundry missions, or end up avaiding them
Is it really needed to publicly wish a personal tragedy on someone just to remove them from the Dev Team? Have we allowed ourselves to be come this obsessed with STO?
I cannot help but disappointed here. That someone whose opinion I respected, until now, would go this far as a way to make their point.
Yeah, I was going to say that I hoped the Devs were reading this, but I suppose that a lot of the gratuitous vitriol will need to be Modhammered before they'll be able to read it without needing therapy.
It's ignorance. Across the board many of the decisions being made right now run counter to the direction of the game's first 3 plus years because the people piloting the ship are not the people who'd been there the whole time and so they are not really that well versed in what happened to get to this point.
Exploration is the overall key component to "Star Trek". Unlike the "Star Wars" franchise, where fantasy is the focal point, the "Star Trek" franchise is all about discovering new civilizations, cultures, lifeforms, and ecosystems. Everything about the franchise is focused on the human condition, and how its viewed from an alien perspective. (Humans watching our drama being played out by aliens.)
I think removing the exploration clusters creates a conundrum. Since the majority of the players ignore the crafting system, I can understand why Cryptic is removing the clusters. On the flip side of the coin, revamping the clusters would have been a better solution. Replacing the clusters with point-and-click duty officer missions seems cheap.
Although Cryptic has done some great work, feature episodes specifically, they rely upon the grinding mechanic and timegates systems a little too much. Cryptic seems to be suffering from writer's cramp. Or, they lack a desire to do something different. I personally think the grinding system is a crutch, which prevents Cryptic from doing creative things.
"Star Trek: Online" is a fantastic game for short term gratification. When it comes to long term gratification, "Star Trek: Online" gets too repetitive, expensive, and stale. Remember, "Star Trek: Online" is the first of its kind. As with many aspects of the franchise, the negative reactions are most likely due to fatigue. Franchise fatigue is very common with tv based franchises. "Star Trek: Enterprise" and "Stargate: Universe" were cancelled due to franchise fatigue.
Even though this may be edited, I personally think Season Ten should be the end. Regardless about what Cryptic does at this point, the repetitive and expensive nature of this game is overwhelming. Sure, Cryptic can generate some revenue with each season; however, the majority of the players are smart enough to see the conundrums.
Season Ten, the next possible expansion, will be the 'make it or break it' moment. Since the majority of Season Nine is about revamps, the next season or expansion needs to do something different. Adding new fleet holdings and reputation systems is kind of mute. Something BIG has to happen in the next season or expansion. Speaking as a fatigued semi-veteran player, Season Nine currently has nothing for me to accomplish. Sure, I could finish up the last two rep system; however, I am getting tired of carrying out repetitive tasks.
Again, Cryptic did a great job on the lower-level 50 content; therefore, I will give them one more chance to turn things around. Unless the next season or expansion does something different, I think allot of people will end up doing something else. We will have to wait and see.
I agree. I'm excited about the possibilities, but they need to do more than hand it off to us and hook up doors.
Which, given their history, is exactly what they'll do and nothing more.
Then when it fails massively, they'll blame the players and Foundry authors...of course. (See "Nobody plays PvP, that's why we don't put effort into it" for examples.)
Is it really needed to publicly wish a personal tragedy on someone just to remove them from the Dev Team? Have we allowed ourselves to be come this obsessed with STO?
I cannot help but disappointed here. That someone whose opinion I respected, until now, would go this far as a way to make their point.
This. If your thoughts are that messed up it's time to shut down your computer for a long time and get outside. I'm not happy with a lot of things regarding the development of this game, but it's a game and nothing more.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
when something is happening people can't or won't understand, it is certainly easier for them to construct some sort of giant conspiracy than to accept the truth, which in this case is simple: the content sucked, the majority didn't participated in it, it took up a lot of harddrive space, it was confusing for newbies.
Yes, under that premisse they could remove other things, but they didn't.
and yes they took stuff out i enjoyed a lot: hourly events, mirror universe to level alts, ...and some more i forgot, because it wasn't relevant.
Do you see me cry about it? No. I'm not in controle in this game, should there be future design decissions that make the game unbareable for me, i leave, simple as that.
Are You Guy Out Of Your Minds? How Dose Removing Them Make The Game Better?
It Dosen't It Blows Also Who Ever Came Up With The Idea Of Removing Memory Alpha Has Lost It Too! You Jerks Are Going To Ruin The Game Even More! Keep Slim Lining The Game And No One Is Going To Want To Play! It Needs To Be Thought About Again Because There Is No Place To Explore!!! Who Give A TRIBBLE About The Foundry, The Foundry Dose Not Make Up For These Clusters And Memory Alpha! HEY WHY DONT YOU JUST GET RID OR THE TRANSWARP GATES AS WELL WE DONT NEED THEM ANY MORE BECAUSE WE HAVE A MENU AND WE REALY DONT NEED GAMMA ORIONIS AND THE PELIA SECTOR TOO HELL LETS JUST SIT AT THE STARBASE AND SEND A DUTY OFFICERS TO EXPLORE WHY SHOULD I GO I DONT EVEN HAVE TO DO ANYTHING IN THE GAME TO RANK UP AFTER I GET THEM BUT DRINK COFFEE AND GET RANKED UP HELL LETS JUST TURN IT IN TO A TEXT BASED GAME AND QUITE!!!!
I guess I was thinking less literally than that. I just mean that I think the cluster maps themselves are pretty lackluster and flying around checking to see if all the little points are in fact star systems or just misplaced bits of data or mineral fragments is kind of absurd.
Sooo...looking around to find out where things are, and what those things are, is absurd in the context of "exploration?"
Please do tell us what your idea of "exploration" is, then. I'm just dying to know.
Players called it right when it first happened. This change is being made because of the crafting resources that can be scanned in the clusters.
Accroding to you, Cryptic is basically removing content for no reason what so ever, and is creating lies to explain it away.
But what is the point? Why do they remove it? Just to spite you and ruin your day? Does the Chinese government forbid exploration missions?
They're doing it because of the added resource and timesink that they've carefully constructed with the new crafting system. And then they're selling a complete bunch of bologna stating that tthat's not the reason, it's all this other stuff, like people getting lost.
This isn't the first time they've tried this.
Remember back when Wishstone flat out said the game wasn't going Free to Play and started locking any and all threads on the topic?
A short time later, players leaked the info found on a Perfect World memo demonstrating the game was going Free to Play.
You've been through all the same ups and downs I have. You've seen all the BS put forth from the likes of Gozer, Stahl, Emmert, Zinc and Geko. Time and time again there's been deflection and misdirection.
Is it really hard to believe the same tired old tactic is being used again?
Also, for the fine folks out there who are defending Cryptic's characterization of this content as being too simplistic and boring, I believe this post sums up how hypocritical Cryptic's development team really is.
It's just a huge joke, and it's on the players. I'm so very sorry that some of you can't really see what's happening here.
But as time goes by they will finally get around to removing something you DO like.
Maybe it'll be a uniform you like. A ship. Some trait you worked for. Something. It will happen. I hope you're as nonchalant then as you are now.
If it's anything like the exploration clusters, it will be something that no self-respecting dev can look at and feel proud of creating. It'll be a costume that clips so bad it pokes through the nose. And I'm not really saying that any of the post S6 non-FE content is really "quality" compared to the exploration clusters, but wow, the exploration cluster were trash generated by a blender. At least something like no-win-scenario had a human designer, although it's also trash content.
when something is happening people can't or won't understand, it is certainly easier for them to construct some sort of giant conspiracy than to accept the truth
Truth is not something Cryptic has much association with.
I'll skip over City of Heroes and NGE.
I'll skip over the marvel lawsuit, the failed Marvel MMO that became Champions.
A recorded history of this game's developers stretching the truth and misrepresenting themselves and the company.
This isn't a conspiracy. This is standard operating procedure for this game since day 1.
I haven't forgotten this stuff. But it seems some of my peers who've been playing the game as long as I have, have indeed forgotten how things have been done around here.
I wish somebody would do a page like this about the foundry. It would be jaw-dropping. I think it's been about 2 years now since promises of NW "ports" that are incoming right after NW launches.
I wish somebody would do a page like this about the foundry. It would be jaw-dropping. I think it's been about 2 years now since promises of NW "ports" that are incoming right after NW launches.
The amount of promises they gave regarding the Foundry and its future ...
And the reality of the support they give it ...
I mean it's right down there with Champions in terms of how flatlined it's been.
The amount of promises they gave regarding the Foundry and its future ...
And the reality of the support they give it ...
I mean it's right down there with Champions in terms of how flatlined it's been.
What's more surprising is how quickly it seems to have been intentionally killed at Neverwinter. They have an alleged "foundry team" with programmers, and the state of the Foundry there is far, far worse. It just got thrown into the trash, it seems. Imagine if STO Foundry missions gave only greens, no dilithium, and no reason to play more than a 16 minute mission. Also, imagine a chest at the end that you open to find... nothing. You just got trolled. You can 1 star the author now out of spite.
At least STO has a Foundry community still. That game's Foundry is a ghost town in absolute shambles.
Neverwinter Foundry is really quite pathetic, to be honest. I waver between feelings of anger than STO has no team and feelings of relief that we don't have that team. LINK
It's Sad That This Game Is Dieing All Because Of Stupid Idea's We Want More Places To Explore Not Less.. Duty Officers Are Not There To Take That Away From That, They Are Red Shirts That Can Die And No One Cares! I'm Sorry But Fighting One Fraction After Another Is Not Star Trek! Star Trek Is About Exploring And Now Your Killing It And Remolding Space For Duty Officers! Oh What Fun Will That Be........
Going To New Planets Meeting The People There Or Not Meeting Them Is Would Have To Be Up To The Captain And Maybe Star Fleet Command! Finding New Planets And New Things To Bring To Memory Alpha! Oh Wait That Going To Be Gone Sorry... Well Maybe A Rescue Some People That Crashed On A Planet Or Someone Out In Space! Or Find New Planets To Colonize, Something Like That! And Ya I Guess Some Fighting...
What's more surprising is how quickly it seems to have been intentionally killed at Neverwinter. They have an alleged "foundry team" with programmers, and the state of the Foundry there is far, far worse. It just got thrown into the trash, it seems. Imagine if STO Foundry missions gave only greens, no dilithium, and no reason to play more than a 16 minute mission. Also, imagine a chest at the end that you open to find... nothing. You just got trolled. You can 1 star the author now out of spite.
Me and my friends tried to play Neverwinter pretty much for the foundry. We were treating it like an old timey pen and paper group where we'd log on together to do stuff, with a heavy focus on foundry and exploring dungeons and the like.
That died fast.
We never 1 starred authors. It wasn't their fault.
But yeah, Neverwinter had a lot of potential. Ah well.
Woah. The Last Outpost was my example of an EXPLORATION episode. Not diplomacy.
Actually, the start of the episode was the Ent D chasing a group of Ferengi who had stolen something from a Federation Outpost. the Ferengi just happened to run away into unexplored space.
Actually, the start of the episode was the Ent D chasing a group of Ferengi who had stolen something from a Federation Outpost. the Ferengi just happened to run away into unexplored space.
???
That doesn't change anything I said. It's my example of an exploration episode. They explored the strange planet with the Tkon empire tech. Boom. Exploration in an episode. The parameters given were really basic. Examples of diplomacy and exploration.
It's funny that people think just because the giant behemoth of Exploration is getting removed, that Cryptic will be removing stuff left and right. Cryptic stated their reasons for its removal, and the reasons do not apply to most stuff in STO. The particular combination of size, newbie unfriendliness and low quality is what killed exploration. Most stuff in this game - even if it's just as bad or worse - just lacks the size. If it needs fixing, the fix can definitely wait, but when it is the turn to be fixed, it will also be manageable. (I think the only exception to that may be PvP, I don't see any manageable fixes possible there. But PvP isn't big, and hardly affects new players...)
In the season 9 update they took away access to half of a player's traits. And removed like four or five story missions including state of q. They have been removing stuff for awhile now. The exploration clusters are just the latest thing to go. Along with memory alpha.
That doesn't change anything I said. It's my example of an exploration episode. They explored the strange planet with the Tkon empire tech. Boom. Exploration in an episode. The parameters given were really basic. Examples of diplomacy and exploration.
I think a better example of exploration is Imaginary Friend. The Enterprise met Isabella because they were exploring her home.
But like all episodes of the TV show that involve exploration or diplomacy there's a wrinkle to make things interesting. Such as when Isabella smacked Troi around and her friends threatened to drain the power from the ship.
anyways, that sort of exploration translates to missions like Step Between the Stars in STO. Not clusters... clusters are like patrolling the Neutral zone....
Spoken like someone that has never see normal people struggling with user interfaces in a usability study.
It's not pretty.
There are plenty of people that are really not good at figuring out what button does what.
Pretty much every mission has a final prompt at the end that lets you warp out. So no need to use the warp out button then.
Exploration Clusters look pretty much like mostly Sector Block maps. ANd you can't use Warp Out in Sector Blocks. Enough people will figure that the Warp-Out button couldn't possibly work here either. (Even if it's just there).
And if that's the case with such a person, removing the Star Clusters and random missions isn't going to help Cryptic/PWE retain them as players as they find the STO UI too confusing to play (and want to pay for anything which is ALL Cryptic/PWE is interested in from them) STO.
Thus, their argument that Star Clusters are a major cause of non-retention falls flat.
(And again, my point isn't that the SC missions are 'great' per se; rather that STO from Day One has been content light; and it's just stupid to remove existing content - that is seeing use by some players - without replacing it with other content.)
I've been playing MMOs since 1999 with EQ; and this is the first time I've ever seen a developer crow that removing content will improve their MMO.
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's Sad That This Game Is Dieing All Because Of Stupid Idea's We Want More Places To Explore Not Less.. Duty Officers Are Not There To Take That Away From That, They Are Red Shirts That Can Die And No One Cares! I'm Sorry But Fighting One Fraction After Another Is Not Star Trek! Star Trek Is About Exploring And Now Your Killing It And Remolding Space For Duty Officers! Oh What Fun Will That Be........
As I said in a previous posting, "Star Trek: Online's" repetitive nature is causing fatigue. "Star Trek: Online's" endgame does not go anywhere substantial. Regardless about what faction you use, the endgame content is the same across all species.
You do not save the world.
You do not gain levels.
You do not solve diplomatic problems.
You do not solve scientific and/or environmental issues.
You do not save planets from destruction.
You do not build companion relationships.
You do not trigger off a war.
You do not see consequences for your dialogue choices.
You do not gain new ranks.
You do not relocate refugees.
You do not shift the balance between KDF and Feds.
You do not explore the galaxy.
While you can work to obtain space and ground gear, you cannot use them to do anything meaningful. Its all a hollow experience.
All those things I listed are hallmark features of modern games.
"Star Trek: Online" lacks a sense of diversity, which modern MMORPGs and offline RPGs are utilizing. Unless Cryptic does something to break the grinding mechanic, I do not see it lasting beyond its fifth or sixth year anniversary.
I do not think "Star Trek: Online" is built to get past the grinding and timegates mechanic.
Comments
this would be a fantastic idea, especially for those that Havnt tried the foundry missions, or end up avaiding them
Yeah, I was going to say that I hoped the Devs were reading this, but I suppose that a lot of the gratuitous vitriol will need to be Modhammered before they'll be able to read it without needing therapy.
I think removing the exploration clusters creates a conundrum. Since the majority of the players ignore the crafting system, I can understand why Cryptic is removing the clusters. On the flip side of the coin, revamping the clusters would have been a better solution. Replacing the clusters with point-and-click duty officer missions seems cheap.
Although Cryptic has done some great work, feature episodes specifically, they rely upon the grinding mechanic and timegates systems a little too much. Cryptic seems to be suffering from writer's cramp. Or, they lack a desire to do something different. I personally think the grinding system is a crutch, which prevents Cryptic from doing creative things.
"Star Trek: Online" is a fantastic game for short term gratification. When it comes to long term gratification, "Star Trek: Online" gets too repetitive, expensive, and stale. Remember, "Star Trek: Online" is the first of its kind. As with many aspects of the franchise, the negative reactions are most likely due to fatigue. Franchise fatigue is very common with tv based franchises. "Star Trek: Enterprise" and "Stargate: Universe" were cancelled due to franchise fatigue.
Even though this may be edited, I personally think Season Ten should be the end. Regardless about what Cryptic does at this point, the repetitive and expensive nature of this game is overwhelming. Sure, Cryptic can generate some revenue with each season; however, the majority of the players are smart enough to see the conundrums.
Season Ten, the next possible expansion, will be the 'make it or break it' moment. Since the majority of Season Nine is about revamps, the next season or expansion needs to do something different. Adding new fleet holdings and reputation systems is kind of mute. Something BIG has to happen in the next season or expansion. Speaking as a fatigued semi-veteran player, Season Nine currently has nothing for me to accomplish. Sure, I could finish up the last two rep system; however, I am getting tired of carrying out repetitive tasks.
Again, Cryptic did a great job on the lower-level 50 content; therefore, I will give them one more chance to turn things around. Unless the next season or expansion does something different, I think allot of people will end up doing something else. We will have to wait and see.
I have imagined that pwe and cryptic have grown used to negative feedback.
To the point were any feedback is, ineffective. (can't be arsed finding original post :P)
Which, given their history, is exactly what they'll do and nothing more.
Then when it fails massively, they'll blame the players and Foundry authors...of course. (See "Nobody plays PvP, that's why we don't put effort into it" for examples.)
This. If your thoughts are that messed up it's time to shut down your computer for a long time and get outside. I'm not happy with a lot of things regarding the development of this game, but it's a game and nothing more.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Yes, under that premisse they could remove other things, but they didn't.
and yes they took stuff out i enjoyed a lot: hourly events, mirror universe to level alts, ...and some more i forgot, because it wasn't relevant.
Do you see me cry about it? No. I'm not in controle in this game, should there be future design decissions that make the game unbareable for me, i leave, simple as that.
It Dosen't It Blows Also Who Ever Came Up With The Idea Of Removing Memory Alpha Has Lost It Too! You Jerks Are Going To Ruin The Game Even More! Keep Slim Lining The Game And No One Is Going To Want To Play! It Needs To Be Thought About Again Because There Is No Place To Explore!!! Who Give A TRIBBLE About The Foundry, The Foundry Dose Not Make Up For These Clusters And Memory Alpha! HEY WHY DONT YOU JUST GET RID OR THE TRANSWARP GATES AS WELL WE DONT NEED THEM ANY MORE BECAUSE WE HAVE A MENU AND WE REALY DONT NEED GAMMA ORIONIS AND THE PELIA SECTOR TOO HELL LETS JUST SIT AT THE STARBASE AND SEND A DUTY OFFICERS TO EXPLORE WHY SHOULD I GO I DONT EVEN HAVE TO DO ANYTHING IN THE GAME TO RANK UP AFTER I GET THEM BUT DRINK COFFEE AND GET RANKED UP HELL LETS JUST TURN IT IN TO A TEXT BASED GAME AND QUITE!!!!
Sooo...looking around to find out where things are, and what those things are, is absurd in the context of "exploration?"
Please do tell us what your idea of "exploration" is, then. I'm just dying to know.
If your idea of exploration is spamming the F key.... then I don't want to live in this world anymore
You choice. Can I have your stuff? :P
Ummmmmmm no
Players called it right when it first happened. This change is being made because of the crafting resources that can be scanned in the clusters.
They're doing it because of the added resource and timesink that they've carefully constructed with the new crafting system. And then they're selling a complete bunch of bologna stating that tthat's not the reason, it's all this other stuff, like people getting lost.
This isn't the first time they've tried this.
Remember back when Wishstone flat out said the game wasn't going Free to Play and started locking any and all threads on the topic?
A short time later, players leaked the info found on a Perfect World memo demonstrating the game was going Free to Play.
You've been through all the same ups and downs I have. You've seen all the BS put forth from the likes of Gozer, Stahl, Emmert, Zinc and Geko. Time and time again there's been deflection and misdirection.
Is it really hard to believe the same tired old tactic is being used again?
If it's anything like the exploration clusters, it will be something that no self-respecting dev can look at and feel proud of creating. It'll be a costume that clips so bad it pokes through the nose. And I'm not really saying that any of the post S6 non-FE content is really "quality" compared to the exploration clusters, but wow, the exploration cluster were trash generated by a blender. At least something like no-win-scenario had a human designer, although it's also trash content.
Truth is not something Cryptic has much association with.
I'll skip over City of Heroes and NGE.
I'll skip over the marvel lawsuit, the failed Marvel MMO that became Champions.
And I'll just link THIS.
A recorded history of this game's developers stretching the truth and misrepresenting themselves and the company.
This isn't a conspiracy. This is standard operating procedure for this game since day 1.
I haven't forgotten this stuff. But it seems some of my peers who've been playing the game as long as I have, have indeed forgotten how things have been done around here.
Memory Alpha ... dead map. Poof. Gone.
I wish somebody would do a page like this about the foundry. It would be jaw-dropping. I think it's been about 2 years now since promises of NW "ports" that are incoming right after NW launches.
The amount of promises they gave regarding the Foundry and its future ...
And the reality of the support they give it ...
I mean it's right down there with Champions in terms of how flatlined it's been.
What's more surprising is how quickly it seems to have been intentionally killed at Neverwinter. They have an alleged "foundry team" with programmers, and the state of the Foundry there is far, far worse. It just got thrown into the trash, it seems. Imagine if STO Foundry missions gave only greens, no dilithium, and no reason to play more than a 16 minute mission. Also, imagine a chest at the end that you open to find... nothing. You just got trolled. You can 1 star the author now out of spite.
At least STO has a Foundry community still. That game's Foundry is a ghost town in absolute shambles.
Neverwinter Foundry is really quite pathetic, to be honest. I waver between feelings of anger than STO has no team and feelings of relief that we don't have that team. LINK
Me and my friends tried to play Neverwinter pretty much for the foundry. We were treating it like an old timey pen and paper group where we'd log on together to do stuff, with a heavy focus on foundry and exploring dungeons and the like.
That died fast.
We never 1 starred authors. It wasn't their fault.
But yeah, Neverwinter had a lot of potential. Ah well.
BTW, I'm talking about PF, not Cryptic.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
???
That doesn't change anything I said. It's my example of an exploration episode. They explored the strange planet with the Tkon empire tech. Boom. Exploration in an episode. The parameters given were really basic. Examples of diplomacy and exploration.
In the season 9 update they took away access to half of a player's traits. And removed like four or five story missions including state of q. They have been removing stuff for awhile now. The exploration clusters are just the latest thing to go. Along with memory alpha.
But like all episodes of the TV show that involve exploration or diplomacy there's a wrinkle to make things interesting. Such as when Isabella smacked Troi around and her friends threatened to drain the power from the ship.
anyways, that sort of exploration translates to missions like Step Between the Stars in STO. Not clusters... clusters are like patrolling the Neutral zone....
My character Tsin'xing
And if that's the case with such a person, removing the Star Clusters and random missions isn't going to help Cryptic/PWE retain them as players as they find the STO UI too confusing to play (and want to pay for anything which is ALL Cryptic/PWE is interested in from them) STO.
Thus, their argument that Star Clusters are a major cause of non-retention falls flat.
(And again, my point isn't that the SC missions are 'great' per se; rather that STO from Day One has been content light; and it's just stupid to remove existing content - that is seeing use by some players - without replacing it with other content.)
I've been playing MMOs since 1999 with EQ; and this is the first time I've ever seen a developer crow that removing content will improve their MMO.
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..."
Helpful Tools: Dictionary.com - Logical fallacies - Random generator - Word generator - Color tool - Extra Credits - List of common English language errors - New T6 Big booty tutorial
You do not save the world.
You do not gain levels.
You do not solve diplomatic problems.
You do not solve scientific and/or environmental issues.
You do not save planets from destruction.
You do not build companion relationships.
You do not trigger off a war.
You do not see consequences for your dialogue choices.
You do not gain new ranks.
You do not relocate refugees.
You do not shift the balance between KDF and Feds.
You do not explore the galaxy.
While you can work to obtain space and ground gear, you cannot use them to do anything meaningful. Its all a hollow experience.
All those things I listed are hallmark features of modern games.
"Star Trek: Online" lacks a sense of diversity, which modern MMORPGs and offline RPGs are utilizing. Unless Cryptic does something to break the grinding mechanic, I do not see it lasting beyond its fifth or sixth year anniversary.
I do not think "Star Trek: Online" is built to get past the grinding and timegates mechanic.
Cryptic seems to be creatively stuck.