Is This Game Dying?

praetorniral

Not been playing this game for a while until wih a nw PC and my own experience seems to confirm what's being said on Youtube. Is this game dying as outside of episodes and the foundry queing for PVE's now seems to be a waste of time? Is due care really being made to plot development to stimulate and retain interest and even looking to evolve the whole game with future developments in graphics, VR et all? Otherwise maybe they should wind this whole thing up, start again and have something set in the prime universe that has more of a look and feel (The trailers often look better than the actual gaming experience) that's more faithful to the series and prime universe based movies.it's already being said by others on Youtube that they couldn't to new players justify lifetime subscriptions or paying for new ships and other optional items.

tremere12

It's an old topic, but personally I have to say this is the greatest mmo ever created despite the MASSIVE amount of flaws. What other game has space/ground combat to an equal level? what other game has this many customization options?

Despite the bad management and developmental choices, I hope this game will last.

grendelthewise

This game has gone up and down for years, but it still runs. It does need some damage control in fixing problems and the endless bugs in game.

hillard1959

I don't think STO is dying. Not yet. Every MMO which reaches an age such as this one has is going to experience lulls, such as this one is. New games are always coming out that will lure away players, at least for a time. We'll likely see a lot of players return to play the new ques and episode content once they come out. But once the new wears off of those, we'll see another lull. As long as the game retains enough players to keep it afloat between major content updates, it will be fine.

tremere12

I'm also a fan of Neverwinter, which is I believe Cryptic's most successful mmo, and I don't see it dying any time soon. Therefore, I can see STO lasting a couple more years.

rattler2

We also have to consider other games coming out too. The hype for Destiny 2, which is ALSO being released on PC, is present, along with at some point Cryptic making a Magic MMO.

STO's running pretty steady right now, and with the upcoming TNG Anniversary as well as the announced Victory is Life Expansion teased for next summer... I'd say we're still alive and kicking.

tremere12

STO's only threats are STWTOR and Star Citizen. Swtor is still running on the abysmal faux-f2p payment method, and Star Citizen still isn't finished, so while this persists, STO still has place to profit.

captainkenny1

With a new trek show coming, I see potential new players incoming, specially when discovery stuff comes to sto

risian4

captainkenny1 wrote: »

With a new trek show coming, I see potential new players incoming, specially when discovery stuff comes to sto

This. There are threats indeed, but also lots of opportunities.

STO will stay alive for a while. It's the only Star Trek MMO after all and that fact is by itself enough to keep it going for a long time I think.

darakoss

Dying? Nope. But it is getting rather stale. New content just seems like re-skinned old content. I feel there needs to be more variety and different directions to take my character. Blasting the same things over and over gets really old after awhile imo.

davefenestrator

People have been saying the game is dying and DOOMED! for many years now. Perhaps in 5-10 years they'll finally be proven right . DOOMED I tells ya!

tremere12

If Cryptic seriously wants this game to last, they need to go lighter on noobs and the grind. While it's tempting to bash them n00bs for underperforming in elite queues as a veteran, this is not good for keeping them in-game. I noticed the general audience in the game is composed mostly of casuals, so Cryptic needs to find a way to keep the casuals staying.

I noticed the same old players show up in end-game scenario's, and this is not good, we need more players, that actually stay, and not leave.

where2r1

Better not be...I still need another year to figure out my new Pilot raptors. And at least another two to finish my Starbase...and Colony is coming... I will need 4 years for that.

risian4

tremere12 wrote: »

If Cryptic seriously wants this game to last, they need to go lighter on noobs and the grind. While it's tempting to bash them n00bs for underperforming in elite queues as a veteran, this is not good for keeping them in-game. I noticed the general audience in the game is composed mostly of casuals, so Cryptic needs to find a way to keep the casuals staying.

I noticed the same old players show up in end-game scenario's, and this is not good, we need more players, that actually stay, and not leave.

The game is very easy though. And questions can be asked in a lot of places.

With the Phoenix boxes and the weekly rewards for new episodes I feel they've already made things a lot easier for beginning players.


But I do agree with others here that they will need to do something new - not just bring in more guest stars and make more episodes and queues that are empty after a while because you can shoot the Borg much more easily. All these things are great, but something more is needed to keep the players in the game indeed. No idea what that 'something' could be though, except for a bit more variety within each queue maybe.

baddmoonrizin

Is this a Doom Thread? Because this sounds like a Doom Thread.

risian4

Well at least the OP wasn't crying 'doom'. He was curious about it's presence. Or absence

To be fair, some points are actually quite interesting. The VR thing for example, imagine how awesome it would be able to almost touch ESD xD

gaevsman

risian4 wrote: »

Well at least the OP wasn't crying 'doom'. He was curious about it's presence. Or absence

To be fair, some points are actually quite interesting. The VR thing for example, imagine how awesome it would be able to almost touch ESD xD

ReShade has a special shader that uses z-Buffer to create 3D, its quite fast, but incompatible with STO, thats sad, because i have my homemade VR visor ready, it used to work with the directx 9 version, but not with the new dx11, i wish the devs could implement this shader, that would be awesome!

iconians

The game normally experiences lulls at particular times of the year. It also doesn't help that their newest content and features have been kind of light, which is likely due to the fact they're devoting most of their resources on next year's expansion. The latest lockbox and R&D promo has also not been particularly well-received, which lowers player interest.

There is good news, though. The game has survived lulls before, and I'm sure it'll survive this one as well. We have a new Star Trek show to look forward to, and which might drive player interest back into STO, especially if they do some cross-promotional stuff with STO. Of course, if Discovery ends up tanking (which personally, I don't have much faith in the show, but I've been wrong before), that may not be particularly great news for STO.

I don't think the game is dying so much as it's experiencing fatigue, but there's enough cool stuff coming down the pipe that I'm sure we'll see a resurgence in players.​​

brian334

Everything that is alive is dying. The real question is, are there glory times ahead?

We have actors from the shows who have not yet appeared. We have races, cultures, and technologies hinted at but unexplored in the shows which have yet to appear. We have a great many ships which have not yet appeared.

There is potential in this game still untapped, and with the resurgence of the brand through new shows, the list of resources will only grow. I and others have speculated that Discovery could bring new players to the game, especially if there is an advertising tie in.

So, though death is inevitable, the patient appears stable and potentially on the road to recovery.

rattler2

brian334 wrote: »

We have actors from the shows who have not yet appeared. We have races, cultures, and technologies hinted at but unexplored in the shows which have yet to appear. We have a great many ships which have not yet appeared.

There is potential in this game still untapped, and with the resurgence of the brand through new shows, the list of resources will only grow.

AND... thanks to STO's own story... the door to a brand new galaxy, Andromeda, is open as during the leadup to the Iconian War there was mention of gates in Andromeda.

ussvaliant

I see plenty of players populating social zones orbiting ESD/DS9 and plenty on the ground. So there are lots of people still here.

PvE is however very inactive and has been on the decline since Delta Rising (Auto failures, bloated hit points and poor PUG's turned a lot of people off, most of that was addressed however but to late after damage was done), the recent Rebalance and New UI dealt a further hammer blow to it.

If you were to judge the games health on that feature PvE/STF'S then you would be reading the game its last rights.

However Dyson Battlezone is still fairly active, I see people in Undine and Terran BZ's and New Romulus usually has a few populated zones and plenty of players in orbit.

jbmonroe

I suspect the game engine is not ready to support VR, and I couldn't be happier about that. Why spend $400 US when I can already get vertigo for free?

(Does no one remember the lessons of the Nintendo Virtual Boy?)

dracounguis

Yes, the game is dying! So just send me all your stuff and EC then uninstall the game.

captainkenny1 wrote: »

With a new trek show coming, I see potential new players incoming, specially when discovery stuff comes to sto

I'm betting TRIBBLE doesn't last past 1 season. So don't plan on it saving anyone.

smokebailey

With several guest voice actors and all that, I think it's doing fine.

They said Runescape would not last 5 or 6 years, it's not over 15 years......so.....~blows raspberry~

garaks31

if i had a penny for everytime someone mentioning this ...

lianthelia

As long as lots of people keep forking out hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get those new ships every couple of months it will keep chugging along on life support.

kodachikuno

sto is very much alive imo, queues on the other hand are not. just enjoy the game

avoozuul

Queues usually temporarily die while special event queues happen.

drazursouthclaw

tremere12 wrote: »

It's an old topic, but personally I have to say this is the greatest mmo ever created despite the MASSIVE amount of flaws. What other game has space/ground combat to an equal level? what other game has this many customization options?

Despite the bad management and developmental choices, I hope this game will last.

Well said. I've been trying other MMOs, and I don't know if I just played STO too much beforehand, but they all seem to be 'a little bit off' to me.

I even tried Star Wars: The Old Republic.

All I would like to say about my time 'away' is that it's given me a new appreciation for Cryptic, especially the Support Crew.

In retrospect, and this figuratively kills me to admit this here of all places, I've considered the Support poor because I haven't like the answers.

I see now the total idiocy of my viewpoint.

Cryptic Support, while far from perfect - they once told me that all Tholian Ships cannot have non-USS registries, and sent me a link which *clearly showed that they can indeed have non-USS registries* - they do actually reply and attempt to process your issues within a reasonable amount of time.

SWTOR, by comparison, only provides Support to subscribers. And that support is terrible. I subscribed for 3 months to get some support for an issue, and that issue was never resolved. They told me how they were going to fix it, and then never did. I must have contacted them 5 times without reply.

That Tholian ship issue I mentioned above was 'resolved' (Cryptic Support basically said 'This isn't a big issue for us, suck it up princess') within a reasonable amount of time (I didn't think 3 weeks was acceptable then, I see now that it is, I hate that about MMOs, but I see it now).

Did I like the answer? No.

Did I GET the answer within a reasonable time frame? YES.

I guess what I'm saying is that I've given Cryptic a lot of TRIBBLE over the years, but I am beginning to understand how much worse it could be. I just think it's a pity that it's a Star Trek game in name only, but hey - it could be worse: At least EA aren't running it.

(For those curious - they eventually fixed the Tholian ship naming issue, and now I have all of them named exactly what I wanted all those years ago)

terloki

Better not die before I get my T6 Oberth, that's all I'm saying. We've got a T6 Miranda, so there's no excuse now.

Really though, STO is fine. Topics like these have been around since the beginning for any MMO, yet here we are years later still enjoying it. The concept of a "dead" MMO seems to be a misleading one anyway, at least to me. These games don't die until the devs let them, and even at the end there's at least a handful of loyal players keeping them going.

rattler2

lianthelia wrote: »

As long as lots of people keep forking out hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get those new ships every couple of months it will keep chugging along on life support.

If we were on life support... we wouldn't be getting regular content updates like the upcoming season next month, or the teased Expansion next Summer. Life Support implies that they're just keeping the servers running and doing maintenance, Nothing more.