The actual foundational bones of this game are crying out for an original IP, because they're really rather good but DON'T WORK with Star Trek. The way beam arrays work, in terms of how they're stacked up and result in an enraged disco ball that's tripping the **** out, is terrible for Star Trek. It would, however, be totally ballin' if you were cruising about in some sort of Earth Alliance Warlock-esque brick o' death. The ability of your five man team to relentlessly wade through hails of fire in the process of slaughtering waves of enemies is about as Star Trek as Sauron, but if you were actually be some sort of power armour laden, genetically engineered, or transhuman death machine.....
I never thought of it that way before, but damn you are actually dead on there -
Just imagining it, I think a lot of this game would be more fun without the Trek paintjob than with it.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
While there are many aspects of the game I enjoy, (some I don't but not the subject here) I think one of the best things Cryptic has done with STO is the addition of the Foundry. Nothing has kept me more engaged with the game than the ability to both create and play custom content.
I personally believe that if the game suddenly stopped development and was put into maintenance mode, we're still have a source of new and engaging content.
- Incredible levels of customization: The ability to pick one career path and pair it with any ship rather than just class specific ones. The ability to pick and choose ALL the abilities on your bridge officers slots, as well use duty officers for an even greater boost. I really really love that I'm not pigeonholed into one optimal build like in every other MMO.
- TWO different play experiences: Either play as a starship captain exploring the galaxy and blowing up other ships (or) play as the leader of an away team and blast away at bad guys with rifles and cool ground abilities. It's a wonderful change of pace from most MMOs where you can only do one. And no, Star Wars TOR does not count as starship combat there is baaaaaaaaad.
- AMAZING storytelling. I cannot ever stress this enough. This is where Cryptic shines. The quality of the writing in this game is phenomenal. Every story has an interesting plot. Every story makes you think. Quest chains are more than just an ever escalating series of 10 wolves to kill. You have time travel, alternate universes, morally challenging situations, NPCs that you learn to love or hate with a passion. Seriously ... I just tried out an Orion girl recently to check out the Klingon missions ... and played one where I *literally* am fighting my way through Klingon Hell. How cool is that? Of all the MMOs I've played, and I've played many, only The Secret World has comparable writing.
I love the level design, there are some very well thought out areas that clearly took a lot of hard work to create. Facility 4028 will always be my favourite mission (who doesn't love a nice prison riot) and it's the only one I will actually replay for fun. As for the new stuff, the Kobali Ground Zone is well laid out and fun to fight your way through.
(normally I'd say something negative now about the XP rewards but I'm sick of going on about it, it'll never be fixed)
While I have some fair answers to this question, I feel that answering it would detract from the real problems that need to be addressed. This in no way helps *that*
Seriously, the game is a blast. The story is great, it's fun to level up, the game has a casual feel that appeals to a lot of players. It doesn't feel like a game where you have to make sure you log in every day or lose out, it's a game you can play casually and enjoy.
It's honestly fantastic up to that point.
When you get up to the 'end game' and find it's nothing but grinding and spending tons of resources for little gain it starts to lose out. But up until that point, I still actually really like this game.
Have you ever played EVE online? if not omg you should try the trial. I played STO and took a "break" about a year or so ago and i went and played EVE for a few months. The first time i entered warp in EVE i was so blown away. The actual warp sequence, the computer voice with her brit accent (wooop drav act-ev), and the bumps you encounter in warp and then when you exit out of warp there is no cutscene you just leave warp. And sometimes when you have a nebula in the background its like "woooooow" and its made better when one of their cool in game music tracks is playing. If you've never played it and dont want to do the trial then at least check out the clips below. You can just see how pretty space is.
The second link is an older one and the one that was in game when i first started/last played EVE. The first link i believe is the new warp animations which i havent seen yet. In the second vid it starts off with a warp and then he drops out of warp. Then he spends some time looking at the engine trail but he does another warp at around 2:05 and at 2:30 the ship actually starts going into warp.
1) I do like the overall storyline of STO and various nods to the various shows they've weaved in.
2) I like that PWE has given them the budget to get Star Trek cast members to voice-over for the game.
3) A lot of the canon ship models are nice (and a few of the Cryptic designs are as well)
4) The space combat system overall is nice/fun.
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..."
The best is the free to play model. It matches my needs of game play as well as allows me to purchase from the online store with the fruits of my gameplay.
The klingon story line could be more cut to the character being played but still good.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I was Klingon before Klingon was cool.
Have you ever played EVE online? if not omg you should try the trial. I played STO and took a "break" about a year or so ago and i went and played EVE for a few months. The first time i entered warp in EVE i was so blown away. The actual warp sequence, the computer voice with her brit accent (wooop drav act-ev), and the bumps you encounter in warp and then when you exit out of warp there is no cutscene you just leave warp. And sometimes when you have a nebula in the background its like "woooooow" and its made better when one of their cool in game music tracks is playing. If you've never played it and dont want to do the trial then at least check out the clips below. You can just see how pretty space is.
The second link is an older one and the one that was in game when i first started/last played EVE. The first link i believe is the new warp animations which i havent seen yet. In the second vid it starts off with a warp and then he drops out of warp. Then he spends some time looking at the engine trail but he does another warp at around 2:05 and at 2:30 the ship actually starts going into warp.
That's a pretty cherry-coated view of EVE. Have fun getting blasted in low security space or getting your ship blown up without any insurance on it. Alternatively, check out the local corporation where you're sure to have a member backstab the entire fleet by stealing all of the ships and assets.
Not to mention how much of a time sink it is; it is a veritable black hole of time. As an example, I could spend 6-8 hrs playing EVE and feel like only an hour or two went by. It is dangerously addictive and I tell my gamer friends to steer clear of it for that reason.
STO on the other hand is much more casual and for me at least, it's much easier to quit after playing 1-2 hrs. You also don't have to worry about insuring your ship or avoiding goons in sector space.
However in all fairness, EVE does have some positive aspects. For example, I hear you can now queue skills in the skill trainer indefinitely. Yes, read that again, INDEFINITELY. That means you could queue skills to be training for months at a time and I presume they'd keep running as long as you maintained an active subscription.
I also agree that the warp-In and warp-out mechanic is quite cool in EVE. It would be very nice if STo could scrap the current sector space entirely and have a global map similar to EVE's set-up with load screens exclusively for transitioning from space to ground.
The story content is pretty good. The actual storyline, characters, and dialogue aren't as deep as, say, NextGen or DS9 back in their prime, but it's still very entertaining, and I always look foreword to seeing what's going to happen next, on that front.
Some of the mission design is pretty incredible. Only The Secret World manages to top it, in my opinion. Mind Games, Mindscape, and The Dragon's Deceit really stand out, in particular. Surface Tension as well, but less for the actual gameplay and mission design, and more for the blockbuster movie-style presentation.
And the space gameplay itself is still really solid. They may have upped the difficulty and the grindiness of upgrading our chosen spacecraft, but they still haven't completely ruined the fact that you can pop into your favorite Star Trek ship and go around shooting stuff pretty much whenever you feel like it.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
Are you sure you really want to know? Heh, too late.
The bad well done:
I think they have excelled at nerfing the living **it out of a lot of things.
I think they have been very consistant in the releases and renewals of many great bugs. After all it's the consistency that counts, right?
Massive pandering to the feds. A good example are the ships and ship traits. Seriously, not everyone comes to sto to play a fed. Yes I have a few feds, I HAD to have at least one when I started 3 years ago so I could get access to the KDF. As it stands now, I have 5 fed, 5 kdf, 2 rom-fed, 3 rom-kdf. You know what I do with the feds and fed aligned? Nothing except 2 are running the WW event race. Besides that, I'm kdf exclusive, and if it wasn't for the ships they have, and the money I've spent on them the feds would get the airlock treatment.
The good well done:
I think that while I detest the 50 - 60 leveling, I do enjoy the story line of DR. Even more so when it suddenly hit me that we were all just running around cleaning up Janeway's mess. Really, I actually laughed when it hit me.
Visual appearance. While I like the newer look to many of the graphics, I would like to know what they changed since LoR that made the newer stuff so laggy.
Club 47. I like the remodel of the club (great job Taco). I would like it even more if it wasn't in that lag-fest shopping mall of a space station (sorry Taco).
Well, anyway, those are my thoughts and opinions. I'm hoping that things do get better soon, as I and a few friends genuinely like the game. I'm pretty sure it's a shared hope that has us still logging in even just to do the quick daily stuff and a few runs together.
Customization. It is a hallmark of Cryptic games, and in STO it is no different. I enjoy the various races you can play, the diversity of them all. The addition of various ships from throughout the Star Trek IP.
This is the only Star Trek game that has put in a lot of work bringing so many ships from the Star Trek universe to life. There are only a handful that are not in the game, sure. But that is actually something to be proud of, when the game started off with such a dismal ship selection.
Particularly when they went the extra mile to get in ships from the novels in the game, such as the Luna and Vesta. That is dedication to their craft.
The addition of non-faction ships is similarly commendable, even if I may not necessarily enjoy the fact they're in chanceboxes or the lobi store. The fact they are there and playable is another form of customization which I admire.
The work put into costumes and accessories to tailor your character how you desire to see them is simply fantastic, and one of the reason I continue to support Cryptic Studios.
The game is not perfect, but it could be worse. And it is still the only Star Trek MMO there is, and quite likely the only Star Trek MMO there ever will be. I like it, warts and all.
Well I believe in credit where credit is due and the flip side blame where blame is due.
I like the BZ both Dyson and Undine, and the fact they allowed access to the items needed for gear without having to do queued content. Shame they took a step back here in DR. The Kobali zone is actuially good, it is the low marks and no way to get APCs there that let it down.
Not sure if it counts as a BZ, but I like the Nakura ground. I had forgotten how fun it could be until the recent marks weekend.
The Winter Wonderland area is fun. I like the race against other players, though the need to change from flags to an actualy register of when a person crosses the line, if that is possible. The Snorg invasion is fun. Even the race against the NPC isn't bad, and I can use it to try to get different tricks to use in the race against other players.
In genreal the art work. Only the intel ships being the exception to me but they are a minor thing in the whole.
The one thing I've always said is good in this game is the art, environments and all that, those have always been done really well and I've very rarely had a criticism in that regard. It's just a shame how that's as good as it is only to be let down by the systems.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
I think I'll join the crowd. The art, environment are all well in STO. Customization to.
Story is fine. Sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's good, most of the time it's average. So, just fine, I've seen much better, but to be honest, I've seen much worse.
The space combat is not bad, the only problems are the powercreep, and the lack of balance.
they have done a very good job misleading the player base into thinking there alterations would not effect game play. Im mostly thinking of when thay stated that advanced would be the same as the pre DR elite and the time they claimed that the XP tweaks would have no effect on leveling speed
Comments
I never thought of it that way before, but damn you are actually dead on there -
Just imagining it, I think a lot of this game would be more fun without the Trek paintjob than with it.
I personally believe that if the game suddenly stopped development and was put into maintenance mode, we're still have a source of new and engaging content.
- Incredible levels of customization: The ability to pick one career path and pair it with any ship rather than just class specific ones. The ability to pick and choose ALL the abilities on your bridge officers slots, as well use duty officers for an even greater boost. I really really love that I'm not pigeonholed into one optimal build like in every other MMO.
- TWO different play experiences: Either play as a starship captain exploring the galaxy and blowing up other ships (or) play as the leader of an away team and blast away at bad guys with rifles and cool ground abilities. It's a wonderful change of pace from most MMOs where you can only do one. And no, Star Wars TOR does not count as starship combat there is baaaaaaaaad.
- AMAZING storytelling. I cannot ever stress this enough. This is where Cryptic shines. The quality of the writing in this game is phenomenal. Every story has an interesting plot. Every story makes you think. Quest chains are more than just an ever escalating series of 10 wolves to kill. You have time travel, alternate universes, morally challenging situations, NPCs that you learn to love or hate with a passion. Seriously ... I just tried out an Orion girl recently to check out the Klingon missions ... and played one where I *literally* am fighting my way through Klingon Hell. How cool is that? Of all the MMOs I've played, and I've played many, only The Secret World has comparable writing.
(normally I'd say something negative now about the XP rewards but I'm sick of going on about it, it'll never be fixed)
Free Tibet!
VOs - Love hearing the actor/actress coming to play their roles. It really adds to the game, and makes it really wonderful.
Ships - Very nice detailed, and fun to play. We have a very big wide range to choose from. So everyone can use a ship to fit their style.
Ground/Space action - I love the play style and how it you interact with the targets.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Honestly, prior to level 60.. almost everything.
Seriously, the game is a blast. The story is great, it's fun to level up, the game has a casual feel that appeals to a lot of players. It doesn't feel like a game where you have to make sure you log in every day or lose out, it's a game you can play casually and enjoy.
It's honestly fantastic up to that point.
When you get up to the 'end game' and find it's nothing but grinding and spending tons of resources for little gain it starts to lose out. But up until that point, I still actually really like this game.
2.) Space combat
3.) Delta Rising story content
4.) how DANG PRETTY space is.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
And that's it. :rolleyes:
Have you ever played EVE online? if not omg you should try the trial. I played STO and took a "break" about a year or so ago and i went and played EVE for a few months. The first time i entered warp in EVE i was so blown away. The actual warp sequence, the computer voice with her brit accent (wooop drav act-ev), and the bumps you encounter in warp and then when you exit out of warp there is no cutscene you just leave warp. And sometimes when you have a nebula in the background its like "woooooow" and its made better when one of their cool in game music tracks is playing. If you've never played it and dont want to do the trial then at least check out the clips below. You can just see how pretty space is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuCfTuUc-Cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6DCOoducRc
The second link is an older one and the one that was in game when i first started/last played EVE. The first link i believe is the new warp animations which i havent seen yet. In the second vid it starts off with a warp and then he drops out of warp. Then he spends some time looking at the engine trail but he does another warp at around 2:05 and at 2:30 the ship actually starts going into warp.
2) I like that PWE has given them the budget to get Star Trek cast members to voice-over for the game.
3) A lot of the canon ship models are nice (and a few of the Cryptic designs are as well)
4) The space combat system overall is nice/fun.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
The klingon story line could be more cut to the character being played but still good.
I was Klingon before Klingon was cool.
That's a pretty cherry-coated view of EVE. Have fun getting blasted in low security space or getting your ship blown up without any insurance on it. Alternatively, check out the local corporation where you're sure to have a member backstab the entire fleet by stealing all of the ships and assets.
Not to mention how much of a time sink it is; it is a veritable black hole of time. As an example, I could spend 6-8 hrs playing EVE and feel like only an hour or two went by. It is dangerously addictive and I tell my gamer friends to steer clear of it for that reason.
STO on the other hand is much more casual and for me at least, it's much easier to quit after playing 1-2 hrs. You also don't have to worry about insuring your ship or avoiding goons in sector space.
However in all fairness, EVE does have some positive aspects. For example, I hear you can now queue skills in the skill trainer indefinitely. Yes, read that again, INDEFINITELY. That means you could queue skills to be training for months at a time and I presume they'd keep running as long as you maintained an active subscription.
I also agree that the warp-In and warp-out mechanic is quite cool in EVE. It would be very nice if STo could scrap the current sector space entirely and have a global map similar to EVE's set-up with load screens exclusively for transitioning from space to ground.
Some of the mission design is pretty incredible. Only The Secret World manages to top it, in my opinion. Mind Games, Mindscape, and The Dragon's Deceit really stand out, in particular. Surface Tension as well, but less for the actual gameplay and mission design, and more for the blockbuster movie-style presentation.
And the space gameplay itself is still really solid. They may have upped the difficulty and the grindiness of upgrading our chosen spacecraft, but they still haven't completely ruined the fact that you can pop into your favorite Star Trek ship and go around shooting stuff pretty much whenever you feel like it.
And that's actualy saying something, because even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Are you sure you really want to know? Heh, too late.
The bad well done:
I think they have excelled at nerfing the living **it out of a lot of things.
I think they have been very consistant in the releases and renewals of many great bugs. After all it's the consistency that counts, right?
Massive pandering to the feds. A good example are the ships and ship traits. Seriously, not everyone comes to sto to play a fed. Yes I have a few feds, I HAD to have at least one when I started 3 years ago so I could get access to the KDF. As it stands now, I have 5 fed, 5 kdf, 2 rom-fed, 3 rom-kdf. You know what I do with the feds and fed aligned? Nothing except 2 are running the WW event race. Besides that, I'm kdf exclusive, and if it wasn't for the ships they have, and the money I've spent on them the feds would get the airlock treatment.
The good well done:
I think that while I detest the 50 - 60 leveling, I do enjoy the story line of DR. Even more so when it suddenly hit me that we were all just running around cleaning up Janeway's mess. Really, I actually laughed when it hit me.
Visual appearance. While I like the newer look to many of the graphics, I would like to know what they changed since LoR that made the newer stuff so laggy.
Club 47. I like the remodel of the club (great job Taco). I would like it even more if it wasn't in that lag-fest shopping mall of a space station (sorry Taco).
Well, anyway, those are my thoughts and opinions. I'm hoping that things do get better soon, as I and a few friends genuinely like the game. I'm pretty sure it's a shared hope that has us still logging in even just to do the quick daily stuff and a few runs together.
This is the only Star Trek game that has put in a lot of work bringing so many ships from the Star Trek universe to life. There are only a handful that are not in the game, sure. But that is actually something to be proud of, when the game started off with such a dismal ship selection.
Particularly when they went the extra mile to get in ships from the novels in the game, such as the Luna and Vesta. That is dedication to their craft.
The addition of non-faction ships is similarly commendable, even if I may not necessarily enjoy the fact they're in chanceboxes or the lobi store. The fact they are there and playable is another form of customization which I admire.
The work put into costumes and accessories to tailor your character how you desire to see them is simply fantastic, and one of the reason I continue to support Cryptic Studios.
The game is not perfect, but it could be worse. And it is still the only Star Trek MMO there is, and quite likely the only Star Trek MMO there ever will be. I like it, warts and all.
And in some areas... the music.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
I like the BZ both Dyson and Undine, and the fact they allowed access to the items needed for gear without having to do queued content. Shame they took a step back here in DR. The Kobali zone is actuially good, it is the low marks and no way to get APCs there that let it down.
Not sure if it counts as a BZ, but I like the Nakura ground. I had forgotten how fun it could be until the recent marks weekend.
The Winter Wonderland area is fun. I like the race against other players, though the need to change from flags to an actualy register of when a person crosses the line, if that is possible. The Snorg invasion is fun. Even the race against the NPC isn't bad, and I can use it to try to get different tricks to use in the race against other players.
In genreal the art work. Only the intel ships being the exception to me but they are a minor thing in the whole.
Story is fine. Sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's good, most of the time it's average. So, just fine, I've seen much better, but to be honest, I've seen much worse.
The space combat is not bad, the only problems are the powercreep, and the lack of balance.