I disagree with this. In my experience, every beloved IP, from Disney to Tolkien to Star Wars to Star Trek et al have their die hard purists and fans who believe theirs is the correct interpretation of what the IP is all about.
Saying Trek fans are "the worst of the lot" is erroneous.
Good point.
This as so many other STO is doomed threads is just a smokescreen for the player's own often massive fails. The vocal 1% of haters can stir up a storm, but at the end of the day, STO has its own loyal playerbase and it is they and PWE who get the last word.
Elves are physically incapable of passing gas?? Seems rather improbable...
As for the "qualitative" aspects of Trek, which one? TOS had mentions of money (Roddenberry didn't get his "no money in the future" thing in until STIV - Uhura was going to pay ten credits for a tribble in "The Trouble With Tribbles", for instance, and one of Scotty's miracles had Kirk telling him he'd "earned your pay for the week"). TNG was adamant about "no money in the future", while DS9 implied that there was some form of exchange in the Federation (there was a mention of "transporter credits" being saved up at the Academy, for instance), and of course there was a lot of trade in GPL through Quark's.
The Prime Directive in Kirk's time was "no interference in the normal development of a viable pre-spaceflight society" (with some wiggle room in "normal" and "viable" - for instance, they could interfere on Organia before learning what the Organians were, because the Klingon invasion wasn't part of the planet's "normal" development). Picard's Prime Directive completely forbade any "interference" in the internal affairs of any non-Federation world. (Janeway's Prime Directive seemed to be, "We only TRIBBLE with the development of this world if I really want to," but that was perhaps the least of that series' sins, and of course Archer's time came before the Prime Directive in any way - one of the episodes demonstrated how it came to be, in fact.) So which Prime Directive should guide our captains?
Should we be exploring "strange new worlds" and going "where no man has gone before," as in TOS (and, oddly, VOY), or should we just pay that concept lip service and only go exploring on rare occasions, as in TNG? (I can only recall a handful of episodes when the Enterprise-D actually left explored space, and two of those were at the hands of powerful alien beings - the Traveler and Q.)
Before we could possibly base a new game on the qualitative experience of Trek, we'd have to define exactly what that means.
But the fans...oh my god, I hate them more than Bajorans
I like nerding it up, talking about Trek stuff with my friends, and stuff...but some fans take things to an extreme if they don't get their way, or don't agree with stuff it's like Heeyy how bout you put that anger, and energy towards real life issues, and then maaaaybe the world would be better, and we might end up in space:eek:
A Fan is smart. Fans are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it:cool:
Yet 99% of your (quite numerous) posts reflect none of the attitude you described above .
You don't nerd it up, you don't talk about Trek stuff, you deliver one liners and lately a slew of sigs .
... interesting duality to say the least ... , when one's contempt of his fellows outweighs one's supposed joy of interacting ... , yet one chooses to stay non the less ... . Have you heard of the STOreddit ?
It's loaded with this forum's haters ... , maybe that's the home you seek?
It's all very convenient to blame Geko, or DStahl, or D'Angelo, (even Taco) or whomever else seems to be around to draw the players' ire, and while I'll be the first to agree there were/are many missed opportunities in the game, things that are broken that shouldn't be, unaddressed issues, etc, the fact of the matter is it really doesn't matter who is at the helm. The result will be the same. There will be moaning, outrage, so-and-so doesn't *get* Trek like I *get* Trek, etc. We have all these player whining "bring TREK back into the game," but, as we've seen time and time again, what that really means is "make the game more like WHAT I think Trek should be. Let me give you MY take," as if there aren't hundreds of others clamoring for THEIR vision of Trek.
The fanbase is growing older, crankier, and increasingly irrelevant in popular consumer culture. Good riddance.
SOOO TURE!!
Unless it's what I think Trek is, then it's wrong.
Yet 99% of your (quite numerous) posts reflect none of the attitude you described above .
You don't nerd it up, you don't talk about Trek stuff, you deliver one liners and lately a slew of sigs .
... interesting duality to say the least ... , when one's contempt of his fellows outweighs one's supposed joy of interacting ... , yet one chooses to stay non the less ... . Have you heard of the STOreddit ?
It's loaded with this forum's haters ... , maybe that's the home you seek?
I do, just not on these god awful forums, the reason I stay is because I get PMs about my sigs, and apparently people like them, so why would I stop them
I do, just not on these god awful forums, the reason I stay is because I get PMs about my sigs, and apparently people like them, so why would I stop them
You put way too much emphasis on my comment on your sigs , but if you want me to believe that you stay in a game forum who's population has clearly earned your contempt , because of sigs ... -- whatever ... .
... guess I have better things to do then to make sits for ppl I despise ... , which may be the reason I don't connect to your answer ...
He's not required to "Nerd it up" here, nor is he required to talk about trek stuff. He can post whatever he wants. I like his one-liners and especially his current Sig. You are trying to call into question his "trek fan" credentials based off a video game forum. Pretty funny stuff.
I was with you until your last two sentences .
That's where you started reaching to create your own conclusions , and thus amuse yourself .
As to the OP, many of STO's issues come from it's mildly outdated engine .
The engine still preforms , but it has reached it's peak in terms of performance .
Cryptic can still futz about with it, but it's not the right platform for a "next gen STO" .
... and quite frankly , neither is the current Cryptic team as a whole ...
I'll be honest, I always thought that this game would have been better off if it had been based on the mirror universe, with the game being so combat oriented.
You put way too much emphasis on my comment on your sigs , but if you want me to believe that you stay in a game forum who's population has clearly earned your contempt , because of sigs ... -- whatever ... .
... guess I have better things to do then to make sits for ppl I despise ... , which may be the reason I don't connect to your answer ...
I don't despise everyone.
Not in a particular order, but I like Iconians, qjunior,stoleviathan99, lordmanzelot, (he's a bunny what's not to like) newromulan1,daveyny, crashdragon, thecosmic1, tacofangs, bitemepwe, markhawkman, jexsamx, centersolace (not around anymore though:( ), nabreeki (and Crew) etc. etc.
I don't have problems with the individual, just the collective...also the forums are funny, and it's better than TV...this is as close as I'm getting to a Trekkie reality TV show.
Not in a particular order, but I like Iconians, qjunior,stoleviathan99, lordmanzelot, (he's a bunny what's not to like) newromulan1,daveyny, crashdragon, thecosmic1, tacofangs, bitemepwe, markhawkman, jexsamx, centersolace (not around anymore though:( ), nabreeki (and Crew) etc. etc.
I don't have problems with the individual, just the collective...also the forums are funny, and it's better than TV...this is as close as I'm getting to a Trekkie reality TV show.
*pouts* I had this set of Bajoran earrings...with the ears of Bajorans still in them.
Not in a particular order, but I like Iconians, qjunior,stoleviathan99, lordmanzelot, (he's a bunny what's not to like) newromulan1,daveyny, crashdragon, thecosmic1, tacofangs, bitemepwe, markhawkman, jexsamx, centersolace (not around anymore though:( ), nabreeki (and Crew) etc. etc.
I don't have problems with the individual, just the collective...also the forums are funny, and it's better than TV...this is as close as I'm getting to a Trekkie reality TV show.
It's possible to like someone but dislike particular opinions, decisions made, their interpretations, etc.
I know people on the forum, both players and devs, have educated me on my ignorance on more than a few occasions, and I don't take it personally. This isn't Forumball to me. I don't believe in polarizations and absolutes.
The only people I truly dislike are those who literally bring nothing new to the table. I value everyone's feedback, if for no other reason than it gives me some insight to what other players are thinking.
The posters who do absolutely nothing but provide toxic rhetoric are useless to me. Their feedback never changes, no matter what the topic of conversation is.
Even players who, from time to time, provide constructive criticism in addition to toxic rhetoric get a pass from me. Even if nine times out of ten it's the same old song and dance, that one time might actually give me something to reflect on.
On the whole though, I've been a member of several forums -- and I agree with Nabreeki. Nothing really quite compares to STO's forums in terms of just plain whining. These forums really do distill the worst Trekkies have to offer society.
If I'm cynical, it's because STO killed the magic of Star Trek for me. Not at all in the way Cryptic created this game, not in the slightest. STO killed the magic of Star Trek because of the people who co-exist with me in the game and on the forums.
The magic faded when I realized Star Trek fans on the whole are nothing like the fandom they claim as their own.
There are many points in this thread I agree with and many I don't, so I'm not going to bother quoting. So I offer my opinions for people to chew over.
Firstly the graphics engines. If memory serves me correctly this game is on it's second graphics engine, be it a completely new one or they just used new code on the original. I remember they introduced it in 2011 I think. This introduced better textures and effects. It also got rid of some over-use of particles in-game, although particle dense maps still produce a fair whack of frame-skipping now, but my laptop isn't a gaming machine. The one thing I cannot fathom however is the frustrating lack of free-flight in space. They say it's not possible with the current engine, but games way older than this harking back to the 80's had free flying 3D! There is no reason I cannot see that any ship shouldn't be able to pull a full loop. One thing that people must remember, is that there are countless variants of machines running this and what some think is a game issue, mostly like is actually a machine limitation such as lack of memory or a slow processor.
The ships. Most of the ships I like design-wise. I like the way ships look in differing environments. I understand from reading on the forum that CBS does have a say in what ships can and cannot be used, such as CBS saying NO T5 CONNIE or MIRANDA. It also suggests that they do have a substantial input towards STO. What I don't like is poor thought to ship load-outs. When you look at SFC you had proper weapon arcs, actual power drains, regionally located damage maps, on-the-fly systems damage and repairs. It took time to damage your ship, systems could be taken off-line or reduced in effectiveness and it took time for your shields to regenerate and hull to repair. In STO you have laser-light show and overly powered weapons boats, negligent power drain, a 3 stage damage map, virtually ineffectual damage effects and superfast healing abilities that even the borg (and Wolverine) would give their eye-teeth for. You certainly don't see the fragilty of systems as you do in the TV series. I do enjoy the limited customisation options of the hulls and do think that more personalisation, especially interiors would appeal to players, but for the fact that nothing really happens 'on-board' anyway, with exception to a few mission centric layouts on NPC ships.
The environment. To be quite honest there's way too much mess in the space environment. I get tired of maps full of particles and asteroids, especially the Dyson Sphere, as it impacts on the frame rate badly. Planet environments are pretty good. When I get a gaming PC and turn up the settings to max I'm sure the environments will look pretty good. Overall, not much complaint.
Content. I find it bizarre that people say there isn't much content. There is LOADS! I have friends from another game join that say that it's overwhelming. Even when I started playing in 2010 there was plenty to do. There's plenty of things to be going on with, but yes, it does become a grind, a bit like real-life work! From a Fed point of view at first there is episode upon episode to do and keeps you occupied for ages. Klingons and Romulans have had they're story arcs fleshed out abit in recent times. One thing I must point out though. The Federation's history and experiences are vastly covered in TV episodes, whereas much of the history of their rivals isn't. Although you could have more 'artistic license' and be able to go in differing directions, you have to accept if it's compatible with the canon, or CBS's opinion. That being said, this can all be explored in Foundry missions. The seemingly lacking 'exploration' of STO has been handed to the hands of the public also. Fan-fiction has long been popularly associated with Star Trek and other series, and I believe this is a good idea on the part of Cryptic to hand 'exploration' to the fans. Yes, it might seem lazy, and you need people willing to take the time, but remember there is probably only 1 dev to 100,000 players! Although I do understand some players views regarding the 'Patrol' episodes in DR, if you look at it from a Role-Play PoV, those are the exact sorts of missions you would be sent on anyway. Regardless, even removing the 'Patrols', there are still enough episodes in DR, on top of the BZ missions too.
Player evolution. Firstly, levelling is way, way, way too quick. It wasn't even satisfying hit level 50 in a month of first starting. The Rep system added a further level and the multiple Reps give plenty of options now. When they announced a more protracted and lengthy levelling for levels 51 to 60, I was happy. 'A month' they said. 10 days in my case! What really got my goat was the complaints on the forum saying a week was too long, in some cases! People wanted slower progression, then the few got Cryptic to cave and make it quicker. The revamp of the Rep traits and intro of Specializations are welcome, and thankfully they've limited the number that can be applied to avoid some of the 'power-creep'.
Combat. Well, okay, I rarely do Ground, so I'm gonna just say that for me, it's fine. For me, and many players it's Space Combat that is totally wrong. I have multiple toons, but favour my Sci and LRSV and other Sci ships. I do all my missions on Elite because of the epic scraps I have. Proper battles, proper tactics and strategies and decent threat of destruction. I love it that way and wouldn't have it any other. However, a number of players will insult me because I don't have a 20k+ DPS beam boat because it's seemingly 'quicker'. I've been in a few STF's were players warp out at the first sign of more than 1 Sci vessel or inexperienced player, or even worse just sit there and do nothing, go AFK and get some free marks for nowt, hoping they don't get a ban for AFK! STF's are about teamwork. That includes making the most of what you have at hand! It helps promote teamwork when people are willing to fight. It helps inexperienced players develop their strategies. The vast majority hate the Elitist attitude, which is where they mistakenly claim that the game is becoming 'Pay-To-Win' because they can't match the 20k DPS builds (which you can do with-out paying anything over time!). As mentioned, the beam/cannon boats are sooooooo over-powered with power drain having very little effect on weapons and with no 'live' systems damage effects and superfast healing and with Cryptic constantly making enemies weaker, there is little to no threat in this game. Bring back the horror of how powerful the Borg were, or the shock we all felt when first seeing 8472 punt a cube to pieces!
All in all. STO really is a decent game. Yes, all games have faults and not all games are to a certain player's liking. I do see it continuing for many years provided they update the game and graphics engines on the fly. It's not overly hard, they've done it before. If I was to request anything, it's that experienced players be more tolerant with those freshmen and for Cryptic to get some in-game GM's to kill off all the Trolls and Spammers. This is starting to become a serious issue now. Auto-censoring and reporting IS NOT working!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
It's possible to like someone but dislike particular opinions, decisions made, their interpretations, etc.
I know people on the forum, both players and devs, have educated me on my ignorance on more than a few occasions, and I don't take it personally. This isn't Forumball to me. I don't believe in polarizations and absolutes.
The only people I truly dislike are those who literally bring nothing new to the table. I value everyone's feedback, if for no other reason than it gives me some insight to what other players are thinking.
The posters who do absolutely nothing but provide toxic rhetoric are useless to me. Their feedback never changes, no matter what the topic of conversation is.
Even players who, from time to time, provide constructive criticism in addition to toxic rhetoric get a pass from me. Even if nine times out of ten it's the same old song and dance, that one time might actually give me something to reflect on.
On the whole though, I've been a member of several forums -- and I agree with Nabreeki. Nothing really quite compares to STO's forums in terms of just plain whining. These forums really do distill the worst Trekkies have to offer society.
If I'm cynical, it's because STO killed the magic of Star Trek for me. Not at all in the way Cryptic created this game, not in the slightest. STO killed the magic of Star Trek because of the people who co-exist with me in the game and on the forums.
The magic faded when I realized Star Trek fans on the whole are nothing like the fandom they claim as their own.
I'm going to say I went in with dimmer expectations than you.
A lot of my friends like Star Trek and MMOs but avoided STO because they considered the combination of the two to be a nightmare.
On one hand, it has brought out stronger and crankier opinions from me about Star Trek than I previously knew I was capable of.
On the other hand, this is honestly a lot better than I expected it to be coming in and I think the community has done almost nothing but improve since launch day. Most of the toxicity has drained out. I just wish we'd managed to hold onto more of the wide eyed dreamers like Chris from STOked as well.
Sure, it's toxic and personal and heated. But we've come a long way. When this game launched, the toxicity stemmed from what this game wasn't and from multiple visions of what Trek even is from people who had never interacted with other segments of Trek fandom before or only with isolated segments.
Things right now are distilled down to toxicity and criticism over what the game currently is. Granted, that's what the game is as we each see it. But we're no longer comparing it against totally different imaginary games. We're largely arguing over the game as it exists and even the most extremely dissatisfied now recognize that they are talking about a different game entirely if they're talking about an FPS, a 360 flight simulator, a rail shooter, etc.
The feedback right now is as concrete and applicable to THIS game as it has ever been and the bulk of the debate now comes down to enemy AI and spreadsheet values that determine reward values, DPS, and percentage chances. Maybe amount and type of content production but that is actually something that can at least be negotiated with to some extent.
Maybe with the odd season or expansion level feature. And anybody who wants dramatically different from that is at least now phrasing it as such that what they want is a different game.
Excuse me then, because when you said " But the fans...oh my god, I hate them more than Bajorans " -- it kind of implied that you did .
As to the list of ppl you deemed likable ... , well without going into too much detail , I was mildly surprised as to how average it was .
You literally picked a fruit from nearly every tree .
I don't have problems with the individual, just the collective...also the forums are funny, and it's better than TV...this is as close as I'm getting to a Trekkie reality TV show.
Putting aside for the moment the idea that this forum is a convergence of gamers as well as Trekkies -- which removes the "purity" from the Trekkie stand point (see the general lack of actual Trek discussions for further reference) -- I will admit to my bafflement as to the "amusements" you refer to, besides the obvious ones like the "everything is awesome" sig thread or that lowbrow "Dooom" one .
Maybe by bafflement is a product of our age difference , but maybe it's also a product of my other on line / off line experiences , in which laughing at people is not considered to be the main attraction .
... but now you will surely tell me that you don't laugh at everyone , so let me spare you the effort there ... by saying that just as I don't see your attitude reflected in any of the main cast of any Trek show that I know, I also don't see the benefit of exporting that attitude to other planets so you can perchance find other life forms to laugh at and hold in contempt ...
Comments
Good point.
This as so many other STO is doomed threads is just a smokescreen for the player's own often massive fails. The vocal 1% of haters can stir up a storm, but at the end of the day, STO has its own loyal playerbase and it is they and PWE who get the last word.
As for the "qualitative" aspects of Trek, which one? TOS had mentions of money (Roddenberry didn't get his "no money in the future" thing in until STIV - Uhura was going to pay ten credits for a tribble in "The Trouble With Tribbles", for instance, and one of Scotty's miracles had Kirk telling him he'd "earned your pay for the week"). TNG was adamant about "no money in the future", while DS9 implied that there was some form of exchange in the Federation (there was a mention of "transporter credits" being saved up at the Academy, for instance), and of course there was a lot of trade in GPL through Quark's.
The Prime Directive in Kirk's time was "no interference in the normal development of a viable pre-spaceflight society" (with some wiggle room in "normal" and "viable" - for instance, they could interfere on Organia before learning what the Organians were, because the Klingon invasion wasn't part of the planet's "normal" development). Picard's Prime Directive completely forbade any "interference" in the internal affairs of any non-Federation world. (Janeway's Prime Directive seemed to be, "We only TRIBBLE with the development of this world if I really want to," but that was perhaps the least of that series' sins, and of course Archer's time came before the Prime Directive in any way - one of the episodes demonstrated how it came to be, in fact.) So which Prime Directive should guide our captains?
Should we be exploring "strange new worlds" and going "where no man has gone before," as in TOS (and, oddly, VOY), or should we just pay that concept lip service and only go exploring on rare occasions, as in TNG? (I can only recall a handful of episodes when the Enterprise-D actually left explored space, and two of those were at the hands of powerful alien beings - the Traveler and Q.)
Before we could possibly base a new game on the qualitative experience of Trek, we'd have to define exactly what that means.
Yet 99% of your (quite numerous) posts reflect none of the attitude you described above .
You don't nerd it up, you don't talk about Trek stuff, you deliver one liners and lately a slew of sigs .
... interesting duality to say the least ... , when one's contempt of his fellows outweighs one's supposed joy of interacting ... , yet one chooses to stay non the less ... . Have you heard of the STOreddit ?
It's loaded with this forum's haters ... , maybe that's the home you seek?
SOOO TURE!!
Unless it's what I think Trek is, then it's wrong.
I do, just not on these god awful forums, the reason I stay is because I get PMs about my sigs, and apparently people like them, so why would I stop them
You put way too much emphasis on my comment on your sigs , but if you want me to believe that you stay in a game forum who's population has clearly earned your contempt , because of sigs ... -- whatever ... .
... guess I have better things to do then to make sits for ppl I despise ... , which may be the reason I don't connect to your answer ...
I was with you until your last two sentences .
That's where you started reaching to create your own conclusions , and thus amuse yourself .
... good for you ...
The engine still preforms , but it has reached it's peak in terms of performance .
Cryptic can still futz about with it, but it's not the right platform for a "next gen STO" .
... and quite frankly , neither is the current Cryptic team as a whole ...
And I totally believe you !
... like ... totally ...
Star Trek Online II: Mirror Universe
I don't despise everyone.
Not in a particular order, but I like Iconians, qjunior,stoleviathan99, lordmanzelot, (he's a bunny what's not to like) newromulan1,daveyny, crashdragon, thecosmic1, tacofangs, bitemepwe, markhawkman, jexsamx, centersolace (not around anymore though:( ), nabreeki (and Crew) etc. etc.
I don't have problems with the individual, just the collective...also the forums are funny, and it's better than TV...this is as close as I'm getting to a Trekkie reality TV show.
*pouts* I had this set of Bajoran earrings...with the ears of Bajorans still in them.
It's possible to like someone but dislike particular opinions, decisions made, their interpretations, etc.
I know people on the forum, both players and devs, have educated me on my ignorance on more than a few occasions, and I don't take it personally. This isn't Forumball to me. I don't believe in polarizations and absolutes.
The only people I truly dislike are those who literally bring nothing new to the table. I value everyone's feedback, if for no other reason than it gives me some insight to what other players are thinking.
The posters who do absolutely nothing but provide toxic rhetoric are useless to me. Their feedback never changes, no matter what the topic of conversation is.
Even players who, from time to time, provide constructive criticism in addition to toxic rhetoric get a pass from me. Even if nine times out of ten it's the same old song and dance, that one time might actually give me something to reflect on.
On the whole though, I've been a member of several forums -- and I agree with Nabreeki. Nothing really quite compares to STO's forums in terms of just plain whining. These forums really do distill the worst Trekkies have to offer society.
If I'm cynical, it's because STO killed the magic of Star Trek for me. Not at all in the way Cryptic created this game, not in the slightest. STO killed the magic of Star Trek because of the people who co-exist with me in the game and on the forums.
The magic faded when I realized Star Trek fans on the whole are nothing like the fandom they claim as their own.
Firstly the graphics engines. If memory serves me correctly this game is on it's second graphics engine, be it a completely new one or they just used new code on the original. I remember they introduced it in 2011 I think. This introduced better textures and effects. It also got rid of some over-use of particles in-game, although particle dense maps still produce a fair whack of frame-skipping now, but my laptop isn't a gaming machine. The one thing I cannot fathom however is the frustrating lack of free-flight in space. They say it's not possible with the current engine, but games way older than this harking back to the 80's had free flying 3D! There is no reason I cannot see that any ship shouldn't be able to pull a full loop. One thing that people must remember, is that there are countless variants of machines running this and what some think is a game issue, mostly like is actually a machine limitation such as lack of memory or a slow processor.
The ships. Most of the ships I like design-wise. I like the way ships look in differing environments. I understand from reading on the forum that CBS does have a say in what ships can and cannot be used, such as CBS saying NO T5 CONNIE or MIRANDA. It also suggests that they do have a substantial input towards STO. What I don't like is poor thought to ship load-outs. When you look at SFC you had proper weapon arcs, actual power drains, regionally located damage maps, on-the-fly systems damage and repairs. It took time to damage your ship, systems could be taken off-line or reduced in effectiveness and it took time for your shields to regenerate and hull to repair. In STO you have laser-light show and overly powered weapons boats, negligent power drain, a 3 stage damage map, virtually ineffectual damage effects and superfast healing abilities that even the borg (and Wolverine) would give their eye-teeth for. You certainly don't see the fragilty of systems as you do in the TV series. I do enjoy the limited customisation options of the hulls and do think that more personalisation, especially interiors would appeal to players, but for the fact that nothing really happens 'on-board' anyway, with exception to a few mission centric layouts on NPC ships.
The environment. To be quite honest there's way too much mess in the space environment. I get tired of maps full of particles and asteroids, especially the Dyson Sphere, as it impacts on the frame rate badly. Planet environments are pretty good. When I get a gaming PC and turn up the settings to max I'm sure the environments will look pretty good. Overall, not much complaint.
Content. I find it bizarre that people say there isn't much content. There is LOADS! I have friends from another game join that say that it's overwhelming. Even when I started playing in 2010 there was plenty to do. There's plenty of things to be going on with, but yes, it does become a grind, a bit like real-life work! From a Fed point of view at first there is episode upon episode to do and keeps you occupied for ages. Klingons and Romulans have had they're story arcs fleshed out abit in recent times. One thing I must point out though. The Federation's history and experiences are vastly covered in TV episodes, whereas much of the history of their rivals isn't. Although you could have more 'artistic license' and be able to go in differing directions, you have to accept if it's compatible with the canon, or CBS's opinion. That being said, this can all be explored in Foundry missions. The seemingly lacking 'exploration' of STO has been handed to the hands of the public also. Fan-fiction has long been popularly associated with Star Trek and other series, and I believe this is a good idea on the part of Cryptic to hand 'exploration' to the fans. Yes, it might seem lazy, and you need people willing to take the time, but remember there is probably only 1 dev to 100,000 players! Although I do understand some players views regarding the 'Patrol' episodes in DR, if you look at it from a Role-Play PoV, those are the exact sorts of missions you would be sent on anyway. Regardless, even removing the 'Patrols', there are still enough episodes in DR, on top of the BZ missions too.
Player evolution. Firstly, levelling is way, way, way too quick. It wasn't even satisfying hit level 50 in a month of first starting. The Rep system added a further level and the multiple Reps give plenty of options now. When they announced a more protracted and lengthy levelling for levels 51 to 60, I was happy. 'A month' they said. 10 days in my case! What really got my goat was the complaints on the forum saying a week was too long, in some cases! People wanted slower progression, then the few got Cryptic to cave and make it quicker. The revamp of the Rep traits and intro of Specializations are welcome, and thankfully they've limited the number that can be applied to avoid some of the 'power-creep'.
Combat. Well, okay, I rarely do Ground, so I'm gonna just say that for me, it's fine. For me, and many players it's Space Combat that is totally wrong. I have multiple toons, but favour my Sci and LRSV and other Sci ships. I do all my missions on Elite because of the epic scraps I have. Proper battles, proper tactics and strategies and decent threat of destruction. I love it that way and wouldn't have it any other. However, a number of players will insult me because I don't have a 20k+ DPS beam boat because it's seemingly 'quicker'. I've been in a few STF's were players warp out at the first sign of more than 1 Sci vessel or inexperienced player, or even worse just sit there and do nothing, go AFK and get some free marks for nowt, hoping they don't get a ban for AFK! STF's are about teamwork. That includes making the most of what you have at hand! It helps promote teamwork when people are willing to fight. It helps inexperienced players develop their strategies. The vast majority hate the Elitist attitude, which is where they mistakenly claim that the game is becoming 'Pay-To-Win' because they can't match the 20k DPS builds (which you can do with-out paying anything over time!). As mentioned, the beam/cannon boats are sooooooo over-powered with power drain having very little effect on weapons and with no 'live' systems damage effects and superfast healing and with Cryptic constantly making enemies weaker, there is little to no threat in this game. Bring back the horror of how powerful the Borg were, or the shock we all felt when first seeing 8472 punt a cube to pieces!
All in all. STO really is a decent game. Yes, all games have faults and not all games are to a certain player's liking. I do see it continuing for many years provided they update the game and graphics engines on the fly. It's not overly hard, they've done it before. If I was to request anything, it's that experienced players be more tolerant with those freshmen and for Cryptic to get some in-game GM's to kill off all the Trolls and Spammers. This is starting to become a serious issue now. Auto-censoring and reporting IS NOT working!
I'm going to say I went in with dimmer expectations than you.
A lot of my friends like Star Trek and MMOs but avoided STO because they considered the combination of the two to be a nightmare.
On one hand, it has brought out stronger and crankier opinions from me about Star Trek than I previously knew I was capable of.
On the other hand, this is honestly a lot better than I expected it to be coming in and I think the community has done almost nothing but improve since launch day. Most of the toxicity has drained out. I just wish we'd managed to hold onto more of the wide eyed dreamers like Chris from STOked as well.
Sure, it's toxic and personal and heated. But we've come a long way. When this game launched, the toxicity stemmed from what this game wasn't and from multiple visions of what Trek even is from people who had never interacted with other segments of Trek fandom before or only with isolated segments.
Things right now are distilled down to toxicity and criticism over what the game currently is. Granted, that's what the game is as we each see it. But we're no longer comparing it against totally different imaginary games. We're largely arguing over the game as it exists and even the most extremely dissatisfied now recognize that they are talking about a different game entirely if they're talking about an FPS, a 360 flight simulator, a rail shooter, etc.
The feedback right now is as concrete and applicable to THIS game as it has ever been and the bulk of the debate now comes down to enemy AI and spreadsheet values that determine reward values, DPS, and percentage chances. Maybe amount and type of content production but that is actually something that can at least be negotiated with to some extent.
Maybe with the odd season or expansion level feature. And anybody who wants dramatically different from that is at least now phrasing it as such that what they want is a different game.
I see vast progress in this community.
Nope. I'm perfectly content.
Excuse me then, because when you said " But the fans...oh my god, I hate them more than Bajorans " -- it kind of implied that you did .
As to the list of ppl you deemed likable ... , well without going into too much detail , I was mildly surprised as to how average it was .
You literally picked a fruit from nearly every tree .
Putting aside for the moment the idea that this forum is a convergence of gamers as well as Trekkies -- which removes the "purity" from the Trekkie stand point (see the general lack of actual Trek discussions for further reference) -- I will admit to my bafflement as to the "amusements" you refer to, besides the obvious ones like the "everything is awesome" sig thread or that lowbrow "Dooom" one .
Maybe by bafflement is a product of our age difference , but maybe it's also a product of my other on line / off line experiences , in which laughing at people is not considered to be the main attraction .
... but now you will surely tell me that you don't laugh at everyone , so let me spare you the effort there ... by saying that just as I don't see your attitude reflected in any of the main cast of any Trek show that I know, I also don't see the benefit of exporting that attitude to other planets so you can perchance find other life forms to laugh at and hold in contempt ...