So we got threads where people can take a side as to whether or not the game is doing well. I do not know where to post this, so it's posted in both threads!
So we got threads where people can take a side as to whether or not the game is doing well. I do not know where to post this, so it's posted in both threads!
I get so tired of seeing this... Want to know what Star Trek is? WATCH STAR TREK. Want to know how Cryptig/PWE can make this game more Star Trek? They WATCH STAR TREK AND MAKE THIS GAME LIKE WHAT THEY SEE...
Missed the point of the post. The point is that everyone defines Star Trek differently. Not every Star Trek fan is a fan of every Star Trek series. So some like Exploration, some like Diplomacy, and some like cool battles with lots of ships.
I would say this is where STO is getting its basics down. Cryptic had 1.5 years to develop the game while other MMOs have far longer to do it. Most of the basics in a MMO should be developed before the game goes live. Therefore, other MMOs can busy develop new content while STO is stuck developing new content and getting the basics running properly years after the game is launched. After all, MMOs usually don't go through multiple versions of Crafting since their crafting plans are developed before launch.
Most MMOs take between 3-5 years of development. 5 years being a very risky length of time. Youre right in that STO had 1.5 years but theyve had almost 5 on top of that post launch. If STO was to have had what is the norm of MMO development of 3 years. Then theyre well into what would be any other MMOs 3.5 years of post launch existence.
The excuse that STO is 'still catching up' is getting old now. The Development team is far larger then it was post launch and the content at this point is a trickle. They swore up and down with the addition of Developers that things like the FEs would be more often and yet they havent been. What did we really receive with 9.5? The most obvious is new Crafting and a Uniform change. Beyond that any other changes fall to the wayside.
I think Season 7 and definitely LoR were the high point for STO post F2P. Since then, Cryptic has managed to stagnate and the only thing they had done well is monetization. As a business they deserve an A ... as a gaming company a big fat D! ... Barely passing ...
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Can I have what the OP is "imbibing" ... really, I want to live in this wonderful fantasy world even if for a short while.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
tl;dr, another entitlement claim thread. just one more satisfied customer. fyi the team havent listened in the past except for one or two occasions as a moment of weakness, from their view they have been burned for it, the biggest of these is the design an enterprise f contest, turns out it was north america only, they really got bitten for that and never done it again, its also the only thing i will never forgive them for by making it NA only. the other notable thing try also gotten bitten for time and again is releasing information on future projects that never materialized. to their thinking why bother with the community just pretend to listen and then have the mods inadvertently run interference over the whole thing to diffuse the situation. same old same old.
they wont change over night and i cant see it coming. so i accepted that they will release what they like including dinosaurs with freaking lasers on their heads and i can play it or i can leave the game, since i dont see myself leaving with disasters like season 8 or whatever, more then anything the team provides something interesting every other time and im just looking at it and enjoying myself as the nerd rage goes off like this in the quote.
Missed the point of the post. The point is that everyone defines Star Trek differently. Not every Star Trek fan is a fan of every Star Trek series. So some like Exploration, some like Diplomacy, and some like cool battles with lots of ships.
And some of us enjoy all of it. We dont pick and choose which angle of Star Trek to declare is true Star Trek.
Not really. The Galaxy Beef thread demonstrates that it doesn't cater to the community perfectly. The No T5 Connie issue demonstrates that it doesn't cater to the community perfectly. The lack of exploration in a Star Trek game demonstrates it doesn't cater to the community perfectly.
they dont understand the fact that this is a game made Primarily for Star Trek Fans.
Your post demonstrates you don't understand this game is failing Star Trek fans.
Read the Galaxy threads. Get a full on look at Star Trek fans and their disappointment with how this game doesn't cater to their desires.
My Old Blog about things that could and should have been added when I wrote it. Not sure what I want to do with it now. I'll just keep it available now that most of it is outdated.
The OP was being sarcastic. I mean go back and read the post. That's all sarcasm right there.
My face is read ... I skimmed it (as in read a couple of words).
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
After re-reading this whole thread, I am now beginning to hate all things Star Trek.
You mean, all things Star Trek Online. Two different universes. Literally.
My Old Blog about things that could and should have been added when I wrote it. Not sure what I want to do with it now. I'll just keep it available now that most of it is outdated.
To be a successful business, you HAVE to listen to your customers.
No, you really, really don't.
What you HAVE to do is make something your customers like and will buy.
In some circumstances, this may involve listening to them.
More usually, it involves ignoring them, mainly because people don't always know what they will really like and buy. They only know what they think they would like and buy.
The two coincide sometimes, but not often enough to make listening to customers mandatory.
My Old Blog about things that could and should have been added when I wrote it. Not sure what I want to do with it now. I'll just keep it available now that most of it is outdated.
The OP was being sarcastic. I mean go back and read the post. That's all sarcasm right there.
I am certain that the OP is making a joke with respect to the other thread. Whether the OP was being sarcastic is only something that they can answer since sarcasm doesn't work on the forums without some indication like /sarcasm and to indicate they are being sarcastic.
I am sure the owners or CEO or whomever is reading all of these messages will have to decide what is better for this game. Right now technology is growing and new advancements will be out soon. Right now technology in this game engine is what you see. Sure a lot want more or what the TV Series called Star Trek was all about.
I play this game daily and I do more hours that I feel like playing each day varies. Everyone not going to be like me, but I like this game more than the rest I've played. Of course those I don't even touch. People ask what happen I told them I playing STO and tell them about how it's better than what I was playing.
But those players just want to stick it out with prior game. Can't change game play with those guys. 1.6 million of them.
I know the numbers playing this game is greater, and keeps getting higher each day. So something is working right there.
This thread makes other players mad, and those who want to speak out will do here. Forums is a place to speak-up and not to be shy. I've read so much and learn so much here. I know how most want a better game but in time is should get better. Just got to have hope!
Here's what I think. Because what I think is quantifiable! Given we know the approximate number of people who play, I can be established as a percentage of the public voice! Yay me.
#1: I LOVE THE STARSHIPS.
The ships might not look absolutely perfect (I saw a thread loaded with whiny nitpicks about minor texture things that I really never noticed because I was too busy FIRING ALL MY WEAPONS BOOMBOOM) but they look really great. I wouldn't mind a little tweak to the flying animations though! My ships tend to wiggle when I move my camera. I can only imagine how many crewman get sick when I have to look left.
#2: FUN? IN AN MMO?!
The game is fun! When I played World of That-Which-Shall-not-be-mentioned, you were literally bribing the other paladin with thousands of gold so you can have that epic shield because you've only run the raid about 50 times trying to get it and OH MY GOD WHY WILL YOU NOT BE REASONABLE-- sorry. Flashbacks... Anyway, in this game, I know that each Borg Cube that goes a'splodey and every Romulan Scimitar that clips through an Azure Nebula asteroid on its way the hell outta Dodge brings me a little closer to that sweet delicious gear that I'll use with a questionable level of effectiveness.
#3: IT'S NO SHEX'PIR, BUT...
The missions mix it up with dialogue, space action and ground action. You'd think with 3 forms of mission progress (save for the odd minigame in the newer content) that doing the story missions would get old and samey. Well, from the perspective of a gamer coming off the Wii or some nonsense where someone drilled it into their head that performing the same task more than once immediately qualified it as "repetitive". I LIKE EXPLODING SPACE SHIPS. If the game was all exploding space ships, I would be totally sorta okay with that. I like Star Trek stories! The game's missions might not be winning any awards for complexity, but when you compare these missions to the quests in most MMOs where it's literally just one panel of text at the beginning where some old dude is telling you how annoyed he is that ducks keep stealing his magical tomatoes or something. All this builds up to you going out back and murdering a specific number of ducks, and coming back for a pat on the head and handful of coins.
With Star Trek Online, the story opens around you AS YOU PLAY, not as bookends to your brainwashed killing spree. You talk to characters and they reveal more dialogue and expand the story from beginning to end - even leading you through the overall story arc from mission to mission.
#4: IT'S ALREADY OUT?
Content comes out at a machinegun pace. No wonder they didn't get Season 9.5's dev blogs up early. They've had their noses down cobbling up this new expansion for us. I'm not sure why that was a big deal to begin with. What purpose did the dev blog serve that required it to be up on a specific schedule? Isn't something being done as a courtesy by developers of a free game be taken with a bit more grati...mm. Let's not venture into that territory. Spooky beasts lie ahead!
#5: THESE GUYS MUST HAVE WORKED IN CUSTOMER SERVICE BEFORE
The developers are SUPER supportive of their playerbase, and extremely patient with us when a little hiccup turns into a public relations disaster for no particular reason. I just wish more people could stop and think before hitting the Post Reply buttion, "Do I really have a need to be this mad about something this small?" Of c--nrrrr... spooky beasts.
#6: FREE-TO-PLAY, IS IT PAY-TO-WIN OR DO THEY JUST WANT YOU TO THINK THAT?
The game is basically rigged to be playable without ever having to pay a penny. They literally let players join the game, play through the entirety of its content and actually access any store item without having to use real life dollars. This is exceptional for young kids who don't have a credit card (I HOPE) as well as their parents who really don't want to be dumping more money into their son's worsening video game habit (I HOPE). It also benefits folks who just don't have money to throw around. They can afford to drop a fiver or something now and then, but you won't see them adding points to their account every paycheck - or even once a month. I haven't purchased anything from the store in a while, but I do have a lot of purchases from the game Store. The reason for me not buying more stuff isn't because the stuff they're offering is all TRIBBLE; quite the opposite. The Avenger and the ...Tempest? I'll edit that if I'm wrong, but it's the Hermes-Odyssey lovechild, both look like sexy sexy ladies, and I bet they handle like Ferraris. Space Ferraris.
But with the ability to purchase Lock Box ships from other players on the Exchange (albeit for exorbitant prices, but that can hardly be blamed on the developers), and the fact that the Rear Admiral level starships are actually more than sufficient for a competent player to keep up, not to mention the value of converting Dilithium into store points for that ever-sweet day you get to buy something with your saved up amount. And thanks to the adjustments made to how and when dilithium is rewarded since the introduction of fleet progression, I've found it only EASIER to earn my daily conversion cap since almost everything I'm doing now is giving me a handful of these pink crystals. You'd think I was at a rave or something. Of course, with the R&D system luring me into spending some from time to time to finish off those last couple of hours, my stockpile toward my next ship is creeping slower than usual.
#7: MOST RANDOM SIDENOTE. WHEN DID I WRITE THIS PART?
Did I mention how gratifying it is to solo a Borg Cube? Canon, it is not. But that doesn't dull the sweetness of such a David-and-Goliath victory. They didn't make it particularly easy, but I've got it figured out. It's just spooky usually because it's always down to the wire and I'm almost out of shields or I'm already taking hull damage and WHAM, twenty-seven cubic kilometres of Borg turns into a broken Rubik's cube from hell. Usually I have to book it pretty quicktime, otherwise my little ship (that always sits way too damn close to those cubes) would be wrecked worse than a GM with a faulty brake line.
What, no 21st century humour allowed?
#8: MAYBE ONLY WHEN STARVED OF APPRECIATION IS AN ARTIST TRULY CREATIVE
They're designing their own ships!! When I first started playing, I was worried they wouldn't. I mean, they already did for the levelling content, what with the Hermes, Trident Class and the Emissary Class, but everything else on the Federation's content was more or less either directly out of the franchise or at least two degrees of Kevin Bacon away from it. The Odyssey class established a benchmark. Not only that the players wanted new classes that weren't simply refits or texture updates to old designs, but that they wanted to help! From there, Cryptic set to work doing some really cool designs for Starfleet's Rainbow Space Brigade and the Klingon Defense Force's You-Can-Have-It-In-Any-Colour-As-Long-As-It's-Green Fleet. The Romulan ships are basically all variations on a theme, but you can see how carefully they work with the original source to make their new designs look like more than simply a kitbash. More like a sculptor carefully trimming spots he thinks need a little love.
My Vote for Best Cryptic Starships? The Romulans sport the sleek and sexy Ar'Kif Carrier. It is everything about Romulan design that you'd expect from their type of species. Stealthy (as is the ship's low profile), menacing (with it's broad aerial span) and clever (you don't see those knotty-headed Klingons double-reinforcing their wing mounts, do you!)
Before you hate on me for knocking Klingons, they have their own crotch rockets that convinced me to play that faction. The one that I like the most of Cryptic's design is the Mogh. I feel like they were saving that name for the most b*tchin' Klingon ship they could ever conceive. You know that agitated kid in the seventh grade that picked fights with everyone because he couldn't stand sitting still and every hour made him go a little bit crazier? That kid is who I think of when I look at that ship.
Feds. Oh, you Starfleet people. You're so easy to love. Federation Starships are all good. Even the lame, ugly ships (I'm looking at you, Oberth Class. Seriously, how do people even get from the top part of the ship to the bottom? There's no access between the saucer and stardrive! Seriously, check out this screen grab of Star Trek III: The Search For Profit. Given the distance between windows illustrating the relative sizes of the windows and number of decks and therefore the overall dimensions of the ship, there is no space inside the nacelle pylons for a turbo lift, or even a Jeffries tube! How do they get down there???) Anyway, I had a point. Oh! THE AVENGER. This squeaked past my previous favourite, the Aquarius. The Avenger is a slick and stylish package for a ship that takes a beating while still delivering a pretty mean punch of its own. I equate this ship with a cage fighter. You know the kind. The kind that could out-Rocky-Balboa Rocky Balboa. IT'S OVER ROCK--UHHHNO ITS NOT I JUSS NEEMA OPENING -- okay, Stallone impressions aren't as good unless you actually hear it.
I think my point after all of this mess is that for all of the minor nitpicks. All the gripes. All the whimpering from so-called fans. A texture that's a notch out of place. A little geometry error on the front of your ship (you know, the side you almost NEVER look at?) that is easily hidden with a paint job. Maybe your bridge officer fell through the floor. Maybe your tooltips have weird numbers that aren't accurate. Maybe! But for all of that... here we stand. You're still playing. And I bet you're having fun, not even thinking about those tiny annoyances.
"Oh yeah? Well, I stopped playing, Mister Fancypants." Then what are you doing here? "Uh... excuse me, I left my witty comeback in the restroom." I'll wait here.
First off, let me start by saying that this thread was designed to discuss and reflect on issues in this game that can be improved. Feel free to comment and add to constructive criticism for PWE.
I would also like to state that I have been playing this game since the game was in beta 5 years ago and have been around long enough to have a good idea of how this game is run like many of us like to say. (This makes what I have to say important )
Here are some of the most notable areas of success in my opinion for PWE, and STO.
Listening to the Community
To be a successful business, you HAVE to listen to your customers. This is where I feel Cryptic, has succedded and continuallly pushed the game forward and mostly for the better.
How many times has the community (both in game and on the forum) said that they WANT SOMETHING NOW THEN DO NOT WANT IT and had it forced on them anyways? Fellow STO players, feel free to post as replies examples of this issue. I could understand a few "features" being added into the game that are of sole interest to PWE in order to make money, but what I cannot understand is why the playerbase continually sends mixed messages to the devs on these forums? It makes it very hard for the devs to get a clear and concise idea where this game should go. Luckily they have ways to get information that generally helps the game direction with less vitriol and mostly common sense progression for the game. When its obvious that every kind of "person" can share his/her viewpoint from an untouchable pedestal their "constructive feedback" isn't as relevant as they think it is. But that's what happens when you have thousands of people playing a game and they think their ideas are the answer to all, they get mad... So good on you for not answering them as history has proven, your answers always fly over the head of those who ask but do not mean to listen.
The Upcoming Expansion
This is was what ultimately triggered me to write this extensive post. Creating a little bit of suspense is a brilliant idea in order to get people excited to invest in your product, but not when it causes extreme concerns over the very product you want to sell. But by being vague people think that everything they have worked on for in some cases thousands of hours is going to be useless without defining "competitive". Luckily as you said at the convention the first thought in your mind when progressing to tier 6 was that all the work that players had done over the years was not to be undone. Does competitive mean I will be able to continue to PvP without getting destroyed in five seconds by the latest and greatest strategy (rhetorical )? Or does competitive mean I will be able to complete ESTFs in 2 mins or 4?
A simple fix for this would have been to say that it's time that STO progresses to its next level LIKE EVERY OTHER MMO, the old will become obsolete as it has always been. I myself have purchased many ships and gear with my money, but I never for once thought that my current gear/ship setup would remain the end game for me till the end of time. Not sure why someone would think that at all to be honest considering that this game is CONSTANTLY being developed and expanded upon? I eagerly awaited this kind of announcement for a long time in regards to ship and gear advancement.
Everyone knows STO isn't perfect. In fact there has never been a "perfect game" similar to this one. It's got bugs, some systems aren't the best, but the vast majority and the sum of the parts is what makes STO a success. Though people love to rant and rave one way or the other about this game, they're still here... for better or worse. And ATM STO has as many players playing right now as ESO does according to Steam users (and this game is 4 freaking years old!) That is testament in itself!
With that said, I like the game and I still play it! I do not have time to play games like a used too and STO has and will be the last mmo I play. I'm excited for the story to keep going, the new ships (retire my Vesta possibly? ), gear, challenges and just all around to keep enjoying STO!
Thank you all at Cryptic, and I'm stoked for Delta Rising!
Sincerely,
A STO player who wants your game to keep succeeding.
This thread right here is exactly why this game WILL NEVER BE a success.
A divided player base on almost every aspect of this game will continue ensuring that devs remain confused and unsure what their next move should be.
While I disagree wholeheartedly with what you have to say, I respect your opinion and am somewhat saddened to see that you are truly unwilling to accept that some serious problems exist with this game.
This is nothing close to a perfect game, but as far as Star Trek goes, it's all we have.
You highlighted how "perfect" you believe this game is in this sentence. In fact there has never been a "perfect game" similar to this one.
If you didn't mean that it is as close to perfection as possible, please correct me.
The devs were in a bit of a tough spot here. They don't choose when STLV will be. It happened to occur at a time when they knew what their plans were, but had not finalized them. They had a choice between announcing pre-plans and saying details will come later, or saying nothing. I assume they thought the outcry would be huge if they had made no announcements at all (and it would have been).
They chose to to communicate with the player base over being silent, and now they are being reprimanded for that too.
OK, so much misinformation there that it's painful.
The Devs used to share boat load of upcoming information before PWE came along.
PWE work differently.
They have an organised PR schedule and they require the Devs to adhere to said schedule.
That translates to the Devs being able to say only so much ...with all that gets said getting pretty approved by PWE .
It's a sad, sterile situation, but it is one that is beyond our control.
Having said that ... , the Devs have been working on X2 for about 9 months , thus I really expected them to show up with a bit more material, and the lack of another 5 or 10 slides really made this presentation a bit bare bones.
And as to the current quiet, that too strikes me as PWE .
great game, does exactly what it is supposed to, caters to the community perfectly.
What it doesent do is cater to the 1% or less who pvp's, or min-maxes so they can run a ship that can do ESTF's in 150 seconds. It makes no apologies to this minority, nor should it.
Every.Single.Time. I see someone lament their concerns or show their sense of entitlement, it is clear that they dont understand the f2p model, they dont understand the Intellectual Property Agreement, they dont understand the fact that this is a game made Primarily for Star Trek Fans.
Star Trek Fans. Not Gamers, not Hardcore PVP'ers, not Elitestjerks.com, not CataBabies. Star Trek Fans. People who watch all the shows and want to continue their experience interact with like minded people, and have a sense that they are a part of the Star Trek universe themselves.
If you dont like the game, get out. Now. Go play WoW. Go play Starcraft, Go play Eve, Go play Star Citizen. Play anything but STO. play something that you think is GOOD. Clearly you dont like it here, and whatever convoluted desires for the game your sense of entitlement gives you just arent gonna happen, and the sooner you uninstall sto, the sooner you will be doing yourself a huge favor.
Not really. The Galaxy Beef thread demonstrates that it doesn't cater to the community perfectly. The No T5 Connie issue demonstrates that it doesn't cater to the community perfectly. The lack of exploration in a Star Trek game demonstrates it doesn't cater to the community perfectly.
Your post demonstrates you don't understand this game is failing Star Trek fans.
Read the Galaxy threads. Get a full on look at Star Trek fans and their disappointment with how this game doesn't cater to their desires.
Heck I still trying to get what's Star Trekish about the tier system.
Which is my major gripe with both the expansion and the game in general.
That I have to switch to a new ship every 5 to 10 levels, while in Star Trek they had a ship and the kept it.
See I don't mind having to upgrade the phasers and torpedoes when I rank up, it's having my ship become obsolete all of a sudden just because Quinn gives me a new pip that annoys me.
This thread right here is exactly why this game WILL NEVER BE a success.
A divided player base on almost every aspect of this game will continue ensuring that devs remain confused and unsure what their next move should be.
While I disagree wholeheartedly with what you have to say, I respect your opinion and am somewhat saddened to see that you are truly unwilling to accept that some serious problems exist with this game.
This is nothing close to a perfect game, but as far as Star Trek goes, it's all we have.
You highlighted how "perfect" you believe this game is in this sentence. In fact there has never been a "perfect game" similar to this one.
If you didn't mean that it is as close to perfection as possible, please correct me.
What "serious" problems exist? How do you define "serious" in this instance? I haven't run into any serious problems. A clipping issue now and again, predictable lag moments during peak hours, and why can't I disable the Equip panel? I don't like it. That's my big gripe. I don't like the Quick Equip function. I like to work with my gear slowly. Why? Because every time I get promoted on a character, my ship does a naughty striptease for me. Then I chastise her for being a TRIBBLE and trade her in for something better. Because I'm a horrible person with no morals.
...Oh, sorry, that was sarcasm. I forgot you couldn't tell, given that you read the OP's post and thought he was for serious.
EDIT: Wasn't truly sarcasm, but I really wanted to tie the theme into my final comment. Hopefully he has the decency to try and burn me back with some creativity!
Comments
You know what, brooding is pretty cool.
Carry on.
Missed the point of the post. The point is that everyone defines Star Trek differently. Not every Star Trek fan is a fan of every Star Trek series. So some like Exploration, some like Diplomacy, and some like cool battles with lots of ships.
Most MMOs take between 3-5 years of development. 5 years being a very risky length of time. Youre right in that STO had 1.5 years but theyve had almost 5 on top of that post launch. If STO was to have had what is the norm of MMO development of 3 years. Then theyre well into what would be any other MMOs 3.5 years of post launch existence.
The excuse that STO is 'still catching up' is getting old now. The Development team is far larger then it was post launch and the content at this point is a trickle. They swore up and down with the addition of Developers that things like the FEs would be more often and yet they havent been. What did we really receive with 9.5? The most obvious is new Crafting and a Uniform change. Beyond that any other changes fall to the wayside.
- Judge Aaron Satie
- Judge Aaron Satie
TL;DR Another wall of text ignoring the OP.
And some of us enjoy all of it. We dont pick and choose which angle of Star Trek to declare is true Star Trek.
Not really. The Galaxy Beef thread demonstrates that it doesn't cater to the community perfectly. The No T5 Connie issue demonstrates that it doesn't cater to the community perfectly. The lack of exploration in a Star Trek game demonstrates it doesn't cater to the community perfectly.
Your post demonstrates you don't understand this game is failing Star Trek fans.
Read the Galaxy threads. Get a full on look at Star Trek fans and their disappointment with how this game doesn't cater to their desires.
Exactly, but we have to acknowledge that some fans have limited exposure to Star Trek or only like one or two series.
If you were in charge of marketing, you wouldn't bother with any marketing of your new expansion until October?
That's a pretty bad marketing plan.
You caught my reference. Many kudos.
The OP was being sarcastic. I mean go back and read the post. That's all sarcasm right there.
My face is read ... I skimmed it (as in read a couple of words).
- Judge Aaron Satie
You're all in the forums, still attached the game. And time and again, forums are clearly a relative minority of any playerbase.
So yeah - it's a nice sandbox to drop the kids off at.
But I frankly find the overwhelming bulk of posting on these boards to be worthless drivel. (not you, of course. You're a special snowflake.)
These forums aren't marketing. This is the trollpen.
You mean, all things Star Trek Online. Two different universes. Literally.
Nope all things Star Trek.
No, you really, really don't.
What you HAVE to do is make something your customers like and will buy.
In some circumstances, this may involve listening to them.
More usually, it involves ignoring them, mainly because people don't always know what they will really like and buy. They only know what they think they would like and buy.
The two coincide sometimes, but not often enough to make listening to customers mandatory.
*waves*
It was nice chatting with you.
I am certain that the OP is making a joke with respect to the other thread. Whether the OP was being sarcastic is only something that they can answer since sarcasm doesn't work on the forums without some indication like /sarcasm and
I play this game daily and I do more hours that I feel like playing each day varies. Everyone not going to be like me, but I like this game more than the rest I've played. Of course those I don't even touch. People ask what happen I told them I playing STO and tell them about how it's better than what I was playing.
But those players just want to stick it out with prior game. Can't change game play with those guys. 1.6 million of them.
I know the numbers playing this game is greater, and keeps getting higher each day. So something is working right there.
This thread makes other players mad, and those who want to speak out will do here. Forums is a place to speak-up and not to be shy. I've read so much and learn so much here. I know how most want a better game but in time is should get better. Just got to have hope!
Time will only tell!
#1: I LOVE THE STARSHIPS.
The ships might not look absolutely perfect (I saw a thread loaded with whiny nitpicks about minor texture things that I really never noticed because I was too busy FIRING ALL MY WEAPONS BOOMBOOM) but they look really great. I wouldn't mind a little tweak to the flying animations though! My ships tend to wiggle when I move my camera. I can only imagine how many crewman get sick when I have to look left.
#2: FUN? IN AN MMO?!
The game is fun! When I played World of That-Which-Shall-not-be-mentioned, you were literally bribing the other paladin with thousands of gold so you can have that epic shield because you've only run the raid about 50 times trying to get it and OH MY GOD WHY WILL YOU NOT BE REASONABLE-- sorry. Flashbacks... Anyway, in this game, I know that each Borg Cube that goes a'splodey and every Romulan Scimitar that clips through an Azure Nebula asteroid on its way the hell outta Dodge brings me a little closer to that sweet delicious gear that I'll use with a questionable level of effectiveness.
#3: IT'S NO SHEX'PIR, BUT...
The missions mix it up with dialogue, space action and ground action. You'd think with 3 forms of mission progress (save for the odd minigame in the newer content) that doing the story missions would get old and samey. Well, from the perspective of a gamer coming off the Wii or some nonsense where someone drilled it into their head that performing the same task more than once immediately qualified it as "repetitive". I LIKE EXPLODING SPACE SHIPS. If the game was all exploding space ships, I would be totally sorta okay with that. I like Star Trek stories! The game's missions might not be winning any awards for complexity, but when you compare these missions to the quests in most MMOs where it's literally just one panel of text at the beginning where some old dude is telling you how annoyed he is that ducks keep stealing his magical tomatoes or something. All this builds up to you going out back and murdering a specific number of ducks, and coming back for a pat on the head and handful of coins.
With Star Trek Online, the story opens around you AS YOU PLAY, not as bookends to your brainwashed killing spree. You talk to characters and they reveal more dialogue and expand the story from beginning to end - even leading you through the overall story arc from mission to mission.
#4: IT'S ALREADY OUT?
Content comes out at a machinegun pace. No wonder they didn't get Season 9.5's dev blogs up early. They've had their noses down cobbling up this new expansion for us. I'm not sure why that was a big deal to begin with. What purpose did the dev blog serve that required it to be up on a specific schedule? Isn't something being done as a courtesy by developers of a free game be taken with a bit more grati...mm. Let's not venture into that territory. Spooky beasts lie ahead!
#5: THESE GUYS MUST HAVE WORKED IN CUSTOMER SERVICE BEFORE
The developers are SUPER supportive of their playerbase, and extremely patient with us when a little hiccup turns into a public relations disaster for no particular reason. I just wish more people could stop and think before hitting the Post Reply buttion, "Do I really have a need to be this mad about something this small?" Of c--nrrrr... spooky beasts.
#6: FREE-TO-PLAY, IS IT PAY-TO-WIN OR DO THEY JUST WANT YOU TO THINK THAT?
The game is basically rigged to be playable without ever having to pay a penny. They literally let players join the game, play through the entirety of its content and actually access any store item without having to use real life dollars. This is exceptional for young kids who don't have a credit card (I HOPE) as well as their parents who really don't want to be dumping more money into their son's worsening video game habit (I HOPE). It also benefits folks who just don't have money to throw around. They can afford to drop a fiver or something now and then, but you won't see them adding points to their account every paycheck - or even once a month. I haven't purchased anything from the store in a while, but I do have a lot of purchases from the game Store. The reason for me not buying more stuff isn't because the stuff they're offering is all TRIBBLE; quite the opposite. The Avenger and the ...Tempest? I'll edit that if I'm wrong, but it's the Hermes-Odyssey lovechild, both look like sexy sexy ladies, and I bet they handle like Ferraris. Space Ferraris.
But with the ability to purchase Lock Box ships from other players on the Exchange (albeit for exorbitant prices, but that can hardly be blamed on the developers), and the fact that the Rear Admiral level starships are actually more than sufficient for a competent player to keep up, not to mention the value of converting Dilithium into store points for that ever-sweet day you get to buy something with your saved up amount. And thanks to the adjustments made to how and when dilithium is rewarded since the introduction of fleet progression, I've found it only EASIER to earn my daily conversion cap since almost everything I'm doing now is giving me a handful of these pink crystals. You'd think I was at a rave or something. Of course, with the R&D system luring me into spending some from time to time to finish off those last couple of hours, my stockpile toward my next ship is creeping slower than usual.
#7: MOST RANDOM SIDENOTE. WHEN DID I WRITE THIS PART?
Did I mention how gratifying it is to solo a Borg Cube? Canon, it is not. But that doesn't dull the sweetness of such a David-and-Goliath victory. They didn't make it particularly easy, but I've got it figured out. It's just spooky usually because it's always down to the wire and I'm almost out of shields or I'm already taking hull damage and WHAM, twenty-seven cubic kilometres of Borg turns into a broken Rubik's cube from hell. Usually I have to book it pretty quicktime, otherwise my little ship (that always sits way too damn close to those cubes) would be wrecked worse than a GM with a faulty brake line.
What, no 21st century humour allowed?
#8: MAYBE ONLY WHEN STARVED OF APPRECIATION IS AN ARTIST TRULY CREATIVE
They're designing their own ships!! When I first started playing, I was worried they wouldn't. I mean, they already did for the levelling content, what with the Hermes, Trident Class and the Emissary Class, but everything else on the Federation's content was more or less either directly out of the franchise or at least two degrees of Kevin Bacon away from it. The Odyssey class established a benchmark. Not only that the players wanted new classes that weren't simply refits or texture updates to old designs, but that they wanted to help! From there, Cryptic set to work doing some really cool designs for Starfleet's Rainbow Space Brigade and the Klingon Defense Force's You-Can-Have-It-In-Any-Colour-As-Long-As-It's-Green Fleet. The Romulan ships are basically all variations on a theme, but you can see how carefully they work with the original source to make their new designs look like more than simply a kitbash. More like a sculptor carefully trimming spots he thinks need a little love.
My Vote for Best Cryptic Starships? The Romulans sport the sleek and sexy Ar'Kif Carrier. It is everything about Romulan design that you'd expect from their type of species. Stealthy (as is the ship's low profile), menacing (with it's broad aerial span) and clever (you don't see those knotty-headed Klingons double-reinforcing their wing mounts, do you!)
Before you hate on me for knocking Klingons, they have their own crotch rockets that convinced me to play that faction. The one that I like the most of Cryptic's design is the Mogh. I feel like they were saving that name for the most b*tchin' Klingon ship they could ever conceive. You know that agitated kid in the seventh grade that picked fights with everyone because he couldn't stand sitting still and every hour made him go a little bit crazier? That kid is who I think of when I look at that ship.
Feds. Oh, you Starfleet people. You're so easy to love. Federation Starships are all good. Even the lame, ugly ships (I'm looking at you, Oberth Class. Seriously, how do people even get from the top part of the ship to the bottom? There's no access between the saucer and stardrive! Seriously, check out this screen grab of Star Trek III: The Search For Profit. Given the distance between windows illustrating the relative sizes of the windows and number of decks and therefore the overall dimensions of the ship, there is no space inside the nacelle pylons for a turbo lift, or even a Jeffries tube! How do they get down there???) Anyway, I had a point. Oh! THE AVENGER. This squeaked past my previous favourite, the Aquarius. The Avenger is a slick and stylish package for a ship that takes a beating while still delivering a pretty mean punch of its own. I equate this ship with a cage fighter. You know the kind. The kind that could out-Rocky-Balboa Rocky Balboa. IT'S OVER ROCK--UHHHNO ITS NOT I JUSS NEEMA OPENING -- okay, Stallone impressions aren't as good unless you actually hear it.
I think my point after all of this mess is that for all of the minor nitpicks. All the gripes. All the whimpering from so-called fans. A texture that's a notch out of place. A little geometry error on the front of your ship (you know, the side you almost NEVER look at?) that is easily hidden with a paint job. Maybe your bridge officer fell through the floor. Maybe your tooltips have weird numbers that aren't accurate. Maybe! But for all of that... here we stand. You're still playing. And I bet you're having fun, not even thinking about those tiny annoyances.
"Oh yeah? Well, I stopped playing, Mister Fancypants." Then what are you doing here?
"Uh... excuse me, I left my witty comeback in the restroom." I'll wait here.
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
A divided player base on almost every aspect of this game will continue ensuring that devs remain confused and unsure what their next move should be.
While I disagree wholeheartedly with what you have to say, I respect your opinion and am somewhat saddened to see that you are truly unwilling to accept that some serious problems exist with this game.
This is nothing close to a perfect game, but as far as Star Trek goes, it's all we have.
You highlighted how "perfect" you believe this game is in this sentence.
In fact there has never been a "perfect game" similar to this one.
If you didn't mean that it is as close to perfection as possible, please correct me.
OK, so much misinformation there that it's painful.
The Devs used to share boat load of upcoming information before PWE came along.
PWE work differently.
They have an organised PR schedule and they require the Devs to adhere to said schedule.
That translates to the Devs being able to say only so much ...with all that gets said getting pretty approved by PWE .
It's a sad, sterile situation, but it is one that is beyond our control.
Having said that ... , the Devs have been working on X2 for about 9 months , thus I really expected them to show up with a bit more material, and the lack of another 5 or 10 slides really made this presentation a bit bare bones.
And as to the current quiet, that too strikes me as PWE .
... not that that makes it any less upsetting ...
Then what pre tell have we done to merit your august presence ?
Heck I still trying to get what's Star Trekish about the tier system.
Which is my major gripe with both the expansion and the game in general.
That I have to switch to a new ship every 5 to 10 levels, while in Star Trek they had a ship and the kept it.
See I don't mind having to upgrade the phasers and torpedoes when I rank up, it's having my ship become obsolete all of a sudden just because Quinn gives me a new pip that annoys me.
What "serious" problems exist? How do you define "serious" in this instance? I haven't run into any serious problems. A clipping issue now and again, predictable lag moments during peak hours, and why can't I disable the Equip panel? I don't like it. That's my big gripe. I don't like the Quick Equip function. I like to work with my gear slowly. Why? Because every time I get promoted on a character, my ship does a naughty striptease for me. Then I chastise her for being a TRIBBLE and trade her in for something better. Because I'm a horrible person with no morals.
...Oh, sorry, that was sarcasm. I forgot you couldn't tell, given that you read the OP's post and thought he was for serious.
EDIT: Wasn't truly sarcasm, but I really wanted to tie the theme into my final comment. Hopefully he has the decency to try and burn me back with some creativity!
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]