I'd much rather play 3 to 4 hours of interesting content a week than 2 hours of grind a day.
They should take the money they spend paying devs to design game systems to force people to log on everyday, and to make new shinies that only elite grinders can afford, and instead use it to pay writers to create STAR TREK story's that we can play with the ships and crews and game mechanics that we ALREADY have. If they bumped out a high quality hour long story mission every other week the player base would continually rise.
They could even keep the grind systems they already have in place and the lockboxes for hardcore players. I wouldn't even care if they put a couple of none essential side-story missions behind the rep grinds to make them more worthwhile, because I'd be able to do the reps whilst continuing the story of my crew.
pay writers to create STAR TREK story's that we can play with the ships and crews and game mechanics that we ALREADY have. If they bumped out a high quality hour long story mission every other week the player base would continually rise.
So, let's say they did that. You play the hour-long mission annnnd ... then your done? IF they wrote 10 or 100 new missions, once you've done them, then it's been done. So players would come back and howl at the moon for more content.
Cryptic will never please everybody - they simply can't. No MMO ever could.
Besides, The Foundry has the content. It's not "official" and you'll find some ... not so good sessions, but STO is technically not lacking content.
So, let's say they did that. You play the hour-long mission annnnd ... then your done? IF they wrote 10 or 100 new missions, once you've done them, then it's been done. So players would come back and howl at the moon for more content.
Cryptic will never please everybody - they simply can't. No MMO ever could.
Besides, The Foundry has the content. It's not "official" and you'll find some ... not so good sessions, but STO is technically not lacking content.
Problem with the foundry, it's glitchy as hell.
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And polluted with farming/junk missions. The problem with relying on UGC is that the decent authors are very few and very far between in my experience.
Also, it's almost impossible to find missions worth playing with STO's pathetic search function.
As has been said many times before there is a greater mass of players who never frequent the forums so it really is activity on the server and cash flow in the c-store that will be how developers determine how well or poorly their changes are being received by the user base.
I don't think we should have any illusions about the actual importance of these forums.
I tend to agree.
Every ZEN you buy with cash is a vote FOR the current state of things in STO. Meaningful change will only come when (and if :rolleyes:) people change their vote.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
So, let's say they did that. You play the hour-long mission annnnd ... then your done? IF they wrote 10 or 100 new missions, once you've done them, then it's been done. So players would come back and howl at the moon for more content.
That point's been raised in CO's forums, as well, where folks howl for "a new zone" - and every so often, someone points out that if they did spend a year or so not doing anything with the game in order to create a new zone, the same folks would burn through it inside a month and once again complain of "nothing to do".
TRIBBLE, we saw that here with Season 8. New Klingon content, all-new Romulan content (because Roms were brand-new as well), revamped Fed content including a new Tutorial, and in a matter of months there were once again voices complaining that the devs weren't producing anything...
Yes, that's a big problem too. Was the same problem in CoX in the Mission Architect.
There was the Dev's Choice and Hall of Fame missions in CoX that were usually good. Dev's Choice meant a dev loved the mission and Hall of Fame meant enough players favorably rated the mission.
So, let's say they did that. You play the hour-long mission annnnd ... then your done? IF they wrote 10 or 100 new missions, once you've done them, then it's been done. So players would come back and howl at the moon for more content.
Cryptic will never please everybody - they simply can't. No MMO ever could.
Besides, The Foundry has the content. It's not "official" and you'll find some ... not so good sessions, but STO is technically not lacking content.
I'd play the one hour mission then I'd probably do some rep stuff for dil because I'd have more incentive to try and get shiny gear. Then maybe play a foundry mission with one of my alts, do their reps, do all my doff stuff. To a total of about 4 hours playtime. Per week, about the same as I'm doing now but I'd actually be enjoying it, and would probably be considering putting in a bit more cash to get some nicer ships for my alts.
Here's the thing guys. The only thing that is going to be a STO killer, is another Star Trek game.
Till that happens STO will be fine because it's the only online game where Star Trek fans can get their fix regardless of how bad the game really is.
That's just the truth of the matter.
But do diehard Star Trek fans make for a big enough player base by themselves to keep this game viable? Judging from Cryptic's/PWE's catering to casual and/or IP-agnostic gamers, often at the expense of the diehards, they don't seem to think so.
This is why I characterized No Man's Sky as a potential STO-killer. It appears to be a very similar type of game to STO, only far more sophisticated - and capable of doing "exploring strange new worlds" better than STO ever did. The only thing STO appears to have going for it that NMS doesn't is the Star Trek IP, and that's only relevant to those of us who play STO simply for the sake of the Star Trek IP. The rest of the player base - those who are just looking for the best gaming experience possible and couldn't care less about the IP - that's who Cryptic now has to worry about losing to games like NMS.
The same goes for any new players Cryptic's trying to attract to STO. By now it's safe to say that few of them are going to be pre-existing Star Trek fans - STO has had 4+ years to bring them in now, so chances are that most fans who might be interested in the game are either already playing it, or have already come and gone. This means their target audience will be more of the IP-agnostic variety; in order to attract them, STO will have to stand on its own merits as an MMO, and that's going to be much harder to do once a game like NMS hits the market.
STO became my go-to game after the news of City of Heroes' impending shutdown, although I played before that too. I've bought ships, uniforms, LTS (but not a single lockbox key) along the way. It's been fun, and I still haven't found a game with similarly entertaining space combat.
I uninstalled the game a couple of weeks ago with an "oh well" type sentiment. Haven't even read the forum until today, something I used to do daily. It's not any one thing, but a gradual erosion by many smaller things: everything in the OP, plus Cryptic adding challenge through annoyance (every new space enemy is more annoying than the last), marketeers running rampant, disco fever, general decline in the average team member's attitude and competence and so on. The last straw was a dev giving an arrogant, flippant response to a long-standing issue and the thread being closed soon after.
There's a lot I'm willing to put up with, tolerate or shrug off if the overall gaming experience is pleasant. That's no longer the case here. It's as if Cryptic can't decide what to do with the game and in the absence of a plan just default to cash extraction mode. I'm tired of waiting in the game and for the game.
That point's been raised in CO's forums, as well, where folks howl for "a new zone" - and every so often, someone points out that if they did spend a year or so not doing anything with the game in order to create a new zone, the same folks would burn through it inside a month and once again complain of "nothing to do".
TRIBBLE, we saw that here with Season 8. New Klingon content, all-new Romulan content (because Roms were brand-new as well), revamped Fed content including a new Tutorial, and in a matter of months there were once again voices complaining that the devs weren't producing anything...
What's so fascinating about that dilemma is other MMO companies have the exact same problem. But keep releasing content. I believe Turbine in LOTRO is about to open up parts of Gondor?
They keep doing what people here say Cryptic can't do. They make new zones and areas and content. Missions, quests, what have you.
But do diehard Star Trek fans make for a big enough player base by themselves to keep this game viable? Judging from Cryptic's/PWE's catering to casual and/or IP-agnostic gamers, often at the expense of the diehards, they don't seem to think so.
This is why I characterized No Man's Sky as a potential STO-killer. It appears to be a very similar type of game to STO, only far more sophisticated - and capable of doing "exploring strange new worlds" better than STO ever did. The only thing STO appears to have going for it that NMS doesn't is the Star Trek IP, and that's only relevant to those of us who play STO simply for the sake of the Star Trek IP. The rest of the player base - those who are just looking for the best gaming experience possible and couldn't care less about the IP - that's who Cryptic now has to worry about losing to games like NMS.
The same goes for any new players Cryptic's trying to attract to STO. By now it's safe to say that few of them are going to be pre-existing Star Trek fans - STO has had 4+ years to bring them in now, so chances are that most fans who might be interested in the game are either already playing it, or have already come and gone. This means their target audience will be more of the IP-agnostic variety; in order to attract them, STO will have to stand on its own merits as an MMO, and that's going to be much harder to do once a game like NMS hits the market.
You forget one simple thing about "No Man's Sky." Make it REAL simple.
IT IS NOT STAR TREK. Just that simple.
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im not saying that there is no need for repeatable grindy content.. but, all the content cannot be this cheap type of content.. and even compared to a lot of other mmo games on the market, cryptics content is just lackluster.. sure, it looks pretty, and has some voiceovers here and there, but there is little to no challenge in the missions.. nor is there any real veriety..
the answer is not to remove it, the answer is to make it not feel so grindy.. if the missions were fun, and didn't feel so repetitive, half the people currently complaining probably would not be.. and that would be a win in my eyes..
its true, you cant make everyone happy, but the goal as a game developer is to create a game that has the larger part of your players happy.. I would say right now, just by seeing the forums, and even though this is only a small portion of the player base, it is a good indication of what the overall community is feeling.. sure not to the exact decimal point, but within reason.. the game is getting so/so reviews outside of the cryptic brownnose media outlets (massively, and the podcasts) as well.
its also a sad point that the foundry has better content than most of the game has given these two reasons..
1. we as players do not have access to all the tools and hardware a cryptic dev does.. we are given a very condensed version of the tools needed to manipulate the engine and create content.. and even further, with limited tools, we are doing things with the cryptic engine that has the devs in awe.. which is pretty sad...
2. the devs are paid to create a star trek game, they work all day every day (presumably) working with the engine, and creating content.. and more than 3/4's of dev content doesn't touch half the foundry with a stick in quality, story, and having that star trek feel.
Another I quit post. For 9.5 seasons it has been the same thing...human nature to complain yet some go...others MORE come. Until the ones who leave outnumber the ones coming in Cryptic will not stray away from the F2P model it adopted based since S6 grinding...grinding...and more grinding now with time gates added to it. I do agree the game has deteriorated ever since there was an intent to adopt the grinding system however; devs won't change the design till there are more who leave this game than those who come back.
Interesting to see when the server would shut down and what extremes they are willing to take to TRIBBLE players out :D
What's so fascinating about that dilemma is other MMO companies have the exact same problem. But keep releasing content. I believe Turbine in LOTRO is about to open up parts of Gondor?
They keep doing what people here say Cryptic can't do. They make new zones and areas and content. Missions, quests, what have you.
I think that's because LOTRO is a bigger MMO in terms of player numbers, so it has a bigger team.
In general, fantasy has a bigger market than s-f.
But actually, there are similar types of complaints on the Turbine forums about their content - some of it pleases some, other bits (e.g. Rohan) aren't very well received, because buggy, not-very-well functioning, etc.
I've played a lot of MMOs, and so far as I can see, Cryptic really aren't all that bad as MMO developers go, either in terms of quality or quantity of content.
But then again, I think part of the problem with Cryptic is that they've always stretched themselves a bit thin. With any one of their MMOs - Champions, STO or Neverwinter - they could have made any one of them a stonking hit. They have the chops and resources to do it, and they have a tradition of creativity and innovation. The trouble is, they've chosen instead to make 3 moderately good MMOs instead of one great one.
That's how I see it anyway.
Going a but further into that, when Champions Online came out, it had a pretty good subscriber intake, because everyone was interested to see what the developers of one of the all time classic MMOs (CoH) had done new. The game had problems, but most people at that time were willing to cut Cryptic some slack, but as time went on and there was no evidence of further development, it lost players. At the same time, it became apparent that Champions had been forsaken by Cryptic in order to develop STO. Then part-way through STO's life, it became apparent that Cryptic's attention was now on Neverwinter.
It was a bold managerial decision to take on STO, and as I say, it's a moderately good MMO - and I think Cryptic are probably one of the few companies who could have 2 or more MMOs on the go (a testament to the power and quality of the engine that started life in CoH). But as someone who loved CoH and the promise Champions offered, I regret that they took on STO, and didn't make Champions the brilliant superhero MMO it could have been. Similarly, although I understand the team for Neverwinter was a different team, I wonder how much Neverwinter took focus away from the development of STO into the great Trek MMO everyone here has seen the promise of since the beginning.
No doubt Cryptic now have something else on the boil that's taking focus away from Neverwinter. It just seems to be the way they work - a trail of moderately good MMOs, instead of a legacy of one or two great ones. Or maybe, the legacy of one great one (CoH) and a few moderately good runners up.
I think that's because LOTRO is a bigger MMO in terms of player numbers, so it has a bigger team.
In general, fantasy has a bigger market than s-f.
But actually, there are similar types of complaints on the Turbine forums about their content - some of it pleases some, other bits (e.g. Rohan) aren't very well received, because buggy, not-very-well functioning, etc.
I've played a lot of MMOs, and so far as I can see, Cryptic really aren't all that bad as MMO developers go, either in terms of quality or quantity of content.
But then again, I think part of the problem with Cryptic is that they've always stretched themselves a bit thin. With any one of their MMOs - Champions, STO or Neverwinter - they could have made any one of them a stonking hit. They have the chops and resources to do it, and they have a tradition of creativity and innovation. The trouble is, they've chosen instead to make 3 moderately good MMOs instead of one great one.
That's how I see it anyway.
Going a but further into that, when Champions Online came out, it had a pretty good subscriber intake, because everyone was interested to see what the developers of one of the all time classic MMOs (CoH) had done new. The game had problems, but most people at that time were willing to cut Cryptic some slack, but as time went on and there was no evidence of further development, it lost players. At the same time, it became apparent that Champions had been forsaken by Cryptic in order to develop STO. Then part-way through STO's life, it became apparent that Cryptic's attention was now on Neverwinter.
It was a bold managerial decision to take on STO, and as I say, it's a moderately good MMO - and I think Cryptic are probably one of the few companies who could have 2 or more MMOs on the go (a testament to the power and quality of the engine that started life in CoH). But as someone who loved CoH and the promise Champions offered, I regret that they took on STO, and didn't make Champions the brilliant superhero MMO it could have been. Similarly, although I understand the team for Neverwinter was a different team, I wonder how much Neverwinter took focus away from the development of STO into the great Trek MMO everyone here has seen the promise of since the beginning.
No doubt Cryptic now have something else on the boil that's taking focus away from Neverwinter. It just seems to be the way they work - a trail of moderately good MMOs, instead of a legacy of one or two great ones. Or maybe, the legacy of one great one (CoH) and a few moderately good runners up.
You forgot to mention that Cryptic is currently working on an fourth secret project as well. Other than that I completely agree.
Of course, they're leaving themselves open for new ideas - komerex tal khesterex, after all - but so far as I've been able to determine, they haven't actually taken on any new projects as such since NW. The last big hiring push was when they acquired the former Flying Lab Studios (now Cryptic North) to handle some of the new programming for CO while the Los Gatos studio concentrated on STO and NW.
I think that's because LOTRO is a bigger MMO in terms of player numbers, so it has a bigger team.
After City of Heroes died, Cryptic absorbed a lot of those folks. And Cryptic North was assigned to Champions AND some other secret project.
I'm betting Cryptic's dev team right now is larger than Turbine's.
And really, looking at some other games out there (Wildstar, No Man's Sky) ... Cryptic's team size doesn't really indicate their ability to effectively develop games. Smaller teams have done better work in the past and will do so in the present.
The company has a long history of making pretty games with engaging combat, but not really offering much in the way of MMORPG standards (ie end-game content ... where they've never been able to design properly tiered end-game raiding experiences that most MMO players take for granted).
I don't know. I think it really is a matter of talent. And it starts at the top. The direction and decisions made all seem to have been to design something not like an MMO ... lest we forget Emmert's infamous "It's an OMG, Online Multiplayer Game" commentary about Neverwinter ... and at this point, the decisions made since the sale to PWE have all been in line to make it more in line with PWE's eastern products.
It's definitely lost that Star Trek feel for me. Which was the whole point of the game for me.
If it's just picking and choosing which MMO to play, this one doesn't have enough gameplay incentive to keep me playing. It's not designed well enough. There's not enough "stuff to do."
Take a look at crafting. It's artificial time gate forces it to take forever. But it's not actually a lot of stuff to do. It's just waiting on timers.
After City of Heroes died, Cryptic absorbed a lot of those folks. And Cryptic North was assigned to Champions AND some other secret project.
I'm betting Cryptic's dev team right now is larger than Turbine's.
Well, none of us have the facts, but I'd be willing to bet the team assigned to STO is pretty small at the moment, maybe a dozen people or so, maybe 15, 16? They probably pull in people when they need them.
I don't know. I think it really is a matter of talent. And it starts at the top. The direction and decisions made all seem to have been to design something not like an MMO
I don't think Cryptic have ever lacked talent, they have good people on board. They've also always been innovative.
If you mean management talent, or company-steering talent, then maybe yes. I think it's a similar kind of story to CCP or Funcom, or latterly Crytek - no lack of talent, but somehow management or whoever steers the ship, just makes bad or odd or overcharged decisions at crucial moments.
It's hard to make games, it's even harder to make MMOs, it's even harder to survive as a company that makes games and MMOs; that Cryptic have survived this long shows they do some things right.
And I agree with you, what they tend to do right is, as you say, make games with engaging combat and interesting build systems, so they always do tend to get that core aspect pretty good. And then everyone sees the "potential", because that core is there, and there's obviously been some enthusiasm and love in the making of the game (e.g. art design and attention to detail are good too), and everyone keeps hoping and wishing them well that they'll fulfil the game's potential, but they never seem to quite make good on the potential. It's been the same story with Champions, STO and Neverwinter: there's some good **** in all these games, but it never quite all clicks. And again, I agree that it's got something to do with high level content.
So it's some combination of management and steering that's never quite settled into a groove for Cryptic. Somehow, whatever resource management game has to be played, in order to allocate enough resources to create enough high level content to keep up with players in a new game after the initial flush of success, it never happens.
If any one thing were the deciding factor or marker wrt WoW against all the other contenders that have been, it's that endgame thing. Somehow, because Blizzard managed to have just enough endgame content in place at launch, and then create more just in time for new high level arrivals in the first few years, i.e. stay ahead of the curve, somehow that did the trick, and nobody's been able to replicate it.
And it's a really odd thing because in terms of numbers (as Blizz themselves complained) not a lot of players got to see that high end content in the first 4 or 5 years or so. But somehow, having it creates a kind of loyalty and community that cements the game's fortunes. Maybe the "buzz" about a game is more important than people think, and that high end loyalty is more important than the sheer numbers would suggest.
I recall a statistic I read somewhere once that said that in terms of dev input of man hours, some ridiculous statistic about 2/3 of WoW's content was in the endgame. That means, they lavished more care and attention on creating interesting, tricksy endgame stuff than anyone else, and all the stuff most players see is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the devs put into the game.
So maybe that's all it is, that's the trick, to somehow ride that wave of early success right, so you are able (as management) to allocate the resources you get from that early success well, in order to get that humungous amount of endgame content filled in in time for people getting to max level in the early years of the game.
And that cements the game's fortunes in terms of loyalty and "buzz".
Well, none of us have the facts, but I'd be willing to bet the team assigned to STO is pretty small at the moment, maybe a dozen people or so, maybe 15, 16? They probably pull in people when they need them.
Taco, Bort, Geko, JamJamz, Frost, Thomas, Jheinig, Swalrus, Hawk, Miller, Kestrel, and that's just off the top of my head. Check the dev tracker and I'm sure you'll find more. Then there could be others that we don't even know about.
Of course, they're leaving themselves open for new ideas - komerex tal khesterex, after all - but so far as I've been able to determine, they haven't actually taken on any new projects as such since NW. The last big hiring push was when they acquired the former Flying Lab Studios (now Cryptic North) to handle some of the new programming for CO while the Los Gatos studio concentrated on STO and NW.
Taco, Bort, Geko, JamJamz, Frost, Thomas, Jheinig, Swalrus, Hawk, Miller, Kestrel, and that's just off the top of my head. Check the dev tracker and I'm sure you'll find more. Then there could be others that we don't even know about.
They have said there are around 40 or so Devs working on STO at any given time.
They have said there are around 40 or so Devs working on STO at any given time.
40 Devs. Thats a lot of people on a Post-Launch Game. If this number is accurate then it makes me truely wonder why the content is lacking in so many areas.
They have said there are around 40 or so Devs working on STO at any given time.
Still now? I mean I can see that's what it might have been for a couple of years after launch, but I seriously doubt it's 40 now. If it is, then there's something seriously wrong if they can't pump out more content than they are doing, with 40 people.
Still now? I mean I can see that's what it might have been for a couple of years after launch, but I seriously doubt it's 40 now. If it is, then there's something seriously wrong if they can't pump out more content than they are doing, with 40 people.
They are pumping out money for PWE. I don't think you understand the situation here - it's not that they can't, it's that they won't, or PWE won't let them (and instead make them pump out money making "content")
Still now? I mean I can see that's what it might have been for a couple of years after launch, but I seriously doubt it's 40 now.
You have the timeline wrong.
They had a huge team during the alpha/launch stage. The team dwindled over the next 2 years. But after the PWE purchase, the F2P launch and the absorption of staff from CoH dying and the creation of Cryptic North, they're actually way up on staff again.
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They should take the money they spend paying devs to design game systems to force people to log on everyday, and to make new shinies that only elite grinders can afford, and instead use it to pay writers to create STAR TREK story's that we can play with the ships and crews and game mechanics that we ALREADY have. If they bumped out a high quality hour long story mission every other week the player base would continually rise.
They could even keep the grind systems they already have in place and the lockboxes for hardcore players. I wouldn't even care if they put a couple of none essential side-story missions behind the rep grinds to make them more worthwhile, because I'd be able to do the reps whilst continuing the story of my crew.
So, let's say they did that. You play the hour-long mission annnnd ... then your done? IF they wrote 10 or 100 new missions, once you've done them, then it's been done. So players would come back and howl at the moon for more content.
Cryptic will never please everybody - they simply can't. No MMO ever could.
Besides, The Foundry has the content. It's not "official" and you'll find some ... not so good sessions, but STO is technically not lacking content.
Problem with the foundry, it's glitchy as hell.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Also, it's almost impossible to find missions worth playing with STO's pathetic search function.
I tend to agree.
Every ZEN you buy with cash is a vote FOR the current state of things in STO. Meaningful change will only come when (and if :rolleyes:) people change their vote.
TRIBBLE, we saw that here with Season 8. New Klingon content, all-new Romulan content (because Roms were brand-new as well), revamped Fed content including a new Tutorial, and in a matter of months there were once again voices complaining that the devs weren't producing anything...
There was the Dev's Choice and Hall of Fame missions in CoX that were usually good. Dev's Choice meant a dev loved the mission and Hall of Fame meant enough players favorably rated the mission.
I'd play the one hour mission then I'd probably do some rep stuff for dil because I'd have more incentive to try and get shiny gear. Then maybe play a foundry mission with one of my alts, do their reps, do all my doff stuff. To a total of about 4 hours playtime. Per week, about the same as I'm doing now but I'd actually be enjoying it, and would probably be considering putting in a bit more cash to get some nicer ships for my alts.
But do diehard Star Trek fans make for a big enough player base by themselves to keep this game viable? Judging from Cryptic's/PWE's catering to casual and/or IP-agnostic gamers, often at the expense of the diehards, they don't seem to think so.
This is why I characterized No Man's Sky as a potential STO-killer. It appears to be a very similar type of game to STO, only far more sophisticated - and capable of doing "exploring strange new worlds" better than STO ever did. The only thing STO appears to have going for it that NMS doesn't is the Star Trek IP, and that's only relevant to those of us who play STO simply for the sake of the Star Trek IP. The rest of the player base - those who are just looking for the best gaming experience possible and couldn't care less about the IP - that's who Cryptic now has to worry about losing to games like NMS.
The same goes for any new players Cryptic's trying to attract to STO. By now it's safe to say that few of them are going to be pre-existing Star Trek fans - STO has had 4+ years to bring them in now, so chances are that most fans who might be interested in the game are either already playing it, or have already come and gone. This means their target audience will be more of the IP-agnostic variety; in order to attract them, STO will have to stand on its own merits as an MMO, and that's going to be much harder to do once a game like NMS hits the market.
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page
STO became my go-to game after the news of City of Heroes' impending shutdown, although I played before that too. I've bought ships, uniforms, LTS (but not a single lockbox key) along the way. It's been fun, and I still haven't found a game with similarly entertaining space combat.
I uninstalled the game a couple of weeks ago with an "oh well" type sentiment. Haven't even read the forum until today, something I used to do daily. It's not any one thing, but a gradual erosion by many smaller things: everything in the OP, plus Cryptic adding challenge through annoyance (every new space enemy is more annoying than the last), marketeers running rampant, disco fever, general decline in the average team member's attitude and competence and so on. The last straw was a dev giving an arrogant, flippant response to a long-standing issue and the thread being closed soon after.
There's a lot I'm willing to put up with, tolerate or shrug off if the overall gaming experience is pleasant. That's no longer the case here. It's as if Cryptic can't decide what to do with the game and in the absence of a plan just default to cash extraction mode. I'm tired of waiting in the game and for the game.
What's so fascinating about that dilemma is other MMO companies have the exact same problem. But keep releasing content. I believe Turbine in LOTRO is about to open up parts of Gondor?
They keep doing what people here say Cryptic can't do. They make new zones and areas and content. Missions, quests, what have you.
You forget one simple thing about "No Man's Sky." Make it REAL simple.
IT IS NOT STAR TREK. Just that simple.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
The nail hath been hit upon the head.
It's sad. And it's mainly because there's a general lack of content in the game, especially at endgame.
the answer is not to remove it, the answer is to make it not feel so grindy.. if the missions were fun, and didn't feel so repetitive, half the people currently complaining probably would not be.. and that would be a win in my eyes..
its true, you cant make everyone happy, but the goal as a game developer is to create a game that has the larger part of your players happy.. I would say right now, just by seeing the forums, and even though this is only a small portion of the player base, it is a good indication of what the overall community is feeling.. sure not to the exact decimal point, but within reason.. the game is getting so/so reviews outside of the cryptic brownnose media outlets (massively, and the podcasts) as well.
its also a sad point that the foundry has better content than most of the game has given these two reasons..
1. we as players do not have access to all the tools and hardware a cryptic dev does.. we are given a very condensed version of the tools needed to manipulate the engine and create content.. and even further, with limited tools, we are doing things with the cryptic engine that has the devs in awe.. which is pretty sad...
2. the devs are paid to create a star trek game, they work all day every day (presumably) working with the engine, and creating content.. and more than 3/4's of dev content doesn't touch half the foundry with a stick in quality, story, and having that star trek feel.
Interesting to see when the server would shut down and what extremes they are willing to take to TRIBBLE players out
I think that's because LOTRO is a bigger MMO in terms of player numbers, so it has a bigger team.
In general, fantasy has a bigger market than s-f.
But actually, there are similar types of complaints on the Turbine forums about their content - some of it pleases some, other bits (e.g. Rohan) aren't very well received, because buggy, not-very-well functioning, etc.
I've played a lot of MMOs, and so far as I can see, Cryptic really aren't all that bad as MMO developers go, either in terms of quality or quantity of content.
But then again, I think part of the problem with Cryptic is that they've always stretched themselves a bit thin. With any one of their MMOs - Champions, STO or Neverwinter - they could have made any one of them a stonking hit. They have the chops and resources to do it, and they have a tradition of creativity and innovation. The trouble is, they've chosen instead to make 3 moderately good MMOs instead of one great one.
That's how I see it anyway.
Going a but further into that, when Champions Online came out, it had a pretty good subscriber intake, because everyone was interested to see what the developers of one of the all time classic MMOs (CoH) had done new. The game had problems, but most people at that time were willing to cut Cryptic some slack, but as time went on and there was no evidence of further development, it lost players. At the same time, it became apparent that Champions had been forsaken by Cryptic in order to develop STO. Then part-way through STO's life, it became apparent that Cryptic's attention was now on Neverwinter.
It was a bold managerial decision to take on STO, and as I say, it's a moderately good MMO - and I think Cryptic are probably one of the few companies who could have 2 or more MMOs on the go (a testament to the power and quality of the engine that started life in CoH). But as someone who loved CoH and the promise Champions offered, I regret that they took on STO, and didn't make Champions the brilliant superhero MMO it could have been. Similarly, although I understand the team for Neverwinter was a different team, I wonder how much Neverwinter took focus away from the development of STO into the great Trek MMO everyone here has seen the promise of since the beginning.
No doubt Cryptic now have something else on the boil that's taking focus away from Neverwinter. It just seems to be the way they work - a trail of moderately good MMOs, instead of a legacy of one or two great ones. Or maybe, the legacy of one great one (CoH) and a few moderately good runners up.
You forgot to mention that Cryptic is currently working on an fourth secret project as well. Other than that I completely agree.
Of course, they're leaving themselves open for new ideas - komerex tal khesterex, after all - but so far as I've been able to determine, they haven't actually taken on any new projects as such since NW. The last big hiring push was when they acquired the former Flying Lab Studios (now Cryptic North) to handle some of the new programming for CO while the Los Gatos studio concentrated on STO and NW.
After City of Heroes died, Cryptic absorbed a lot of those folks. And Cryptic North was assigned to Champions AND some other secret project.
I'm betting Cryptic's dev team right now is larger than Turbine's.
And really, looking at some other games out there (Wildstar, No Man's Sky) ... Cryptic's team size doesn't really indicate their ability to effectively develop games. Smaller teams have done better work in the past and will do so in the present.
The company has a long history of making pretty games with engaging combat, but not really offering much in the way of MMORPG standards (ie end-game content ... where they've never been able to design properly tiered end-game raiding experiences that most MMO players take for granted).
I don't know. I think it really is a matter of talent. And it starts at the top. The direction and decisions made all seem to have been to design something not like an MMO ... lest we forget Emmert's infamous "It's an OMG, Online Multiplayer Game" commentary about Neverwinter ... and at this point, the decisions made since the sale to PWE have all been in line to make it more in line with PWE's eastern products.
It's definitely lost that Star Trek feel for me. Which was the whole point of the game for me.
If it's just picking and choosing which MMO to play, this one doesn't have enough gameplay incentive to keep me playing. It's not designed well enough. There's not enough "stuff to do."
Take a look at crafting. It's artificial time gate forces it to take forever. But it's not actually a lot of stuff to do. It's just waiting on timers.
That's Farmville, Clash of Clans type stuff.
Well, none of us have the facts, but I'd be willing to bet the team assigned to STO is pretty small at the moment, maybe a dozen people or so, maybe 15, 16? They probably pull in people when they need them.
I don't think Cryptic have ever lacked talent, they have good people on board. They've also always been innovative.
If you mean management talent, or company-steering talent, then maybe yes. I think it's a similar kind of story to CCP or Funcom, or latterly Crytek - no lack of talent, but somehow management or whoever steers the ship, just makes bad or odd or overcharged decisions at crucial moments.
It's hard to make games, it's even harder to make MMOs, it's even harder to survive as a company that makes games and MMOs; that Cryptic have survived this long shows they do some things right.
And I agree with you, what they tend to do right is, as you say, make games with engaging combat and interesting build systems, so they always do tend to get that core aspect pretty good. And then everyone sees the "potential", because that core is there, and there's obviously been some enthusiasm and love in the making of the game (e.g. art design and attention to detail are good too), and everyone keeps hoping and wishing them well that they'll fulfil the game's potential, but they never seem to quite make good on the potential. It's been the same story with Champions, STO and Neverwinter: there's some good **** in all these games, but it never quite all clicks. And again, I agree that it's got something to do with high level content.
So it's some combination of management and steering that's never quite settled into a groove for Cryptic. Somehow, whatever resource management game has to be played, in order to allocate enough resources to create enough high level content to keep up with players in a new game after the initial flush of success, it never happens.
If any one thing were the deciding factor or marker wrt WoW against all the other contenders that have been, it's that endgame thing. Somehow, because Blizzard managed to have just enough endgame content in place at launch, and then create more just in time for new high level arrivals in the first few years, i.e. stay ahead of the curve, somehow that did the trick, and nobody's been able to replicate it.
And it's a really odd thing because in terms of numbers (as Blizz themselves complained) not a lot of players got to see that high end content in the first 4 or 5 years or so. But somehow, having it creates a kind of loyalty and community that cements the game's fortunes. Maybe the "buzz" about a game is more important than people think, and that high end loyalty is more important than the sheer numbers would suggest.
I recall a statistic I read somewhere once that said that in terms of dev input of man hours, some ridiculous statistic about 2/3 of WoW's content was in the endgame. That means, they lavished more care and attention on creating interesting, tricksy endgame stuff than anyone else, and all the stuff most players see is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the devs put into the game.
So maybe that's all it is, that's the trick, to somehow ride that wave of early success right, so you are able (as management) to allocate the resources you get from that early success well, in order to get that humungous amount of endgame content filled in in time for people getting to max level in the early years of the game.
And that cements the game's fortunes in terms of loyalty and "buzz".
Taco, Bort, Geko, JamJamz, Frost, Thomas, Jheinig, Swalrus, Hawk, Miller, Kestrel, and that's just off the top of my head. Check the dev tracker and I'm sure you'll find more. Then there could be others that we don't even know about.
That's where they said Dstahl went.
They have said there are around 40 or so Devs working on STO at any given time.
40 Devs. Thats a lot of people on a Post-Launch Game. If this number is accurate then it makes me truely wonder why the content is lacking in so many areas.
Still now? I mean I can see that's what it might have been for a couple of years after launch, but I seriously doubt it's 40 now. If it is, then there's something seriously wrong if they can't pump out more content than they are doing, with 40 people.
They are pumping out money for PWE. I don't think you understand the situation here - it's not that they can't, it's that they won't, or PWE won't let them (and instead make them pump out money making "content")
You have the timeline wrong.
They had a huge team during the alpha/launch stage. The team dwindled over the next 2 years. But after the PWE purchase, the F2P launch and the absorption of staff from CoH dying and the creation of Cryptic North, they're actually way up on staff again.
So it's like peak, dip, peak again.