Staff, this thread's for you.

System

This isn't my first rodeo. I've seen -many- game launches... but I'm starting to wonder just how on-the-bounce the staff is right now.

Friday night, peak time, lots of users, something's bound to give... but if I remember right, this is what beta testing is about. Stress all the systems, see what gives, fix it, repeat, so it doesn't happen so much after launch.

It's not the worst I've ever seen, not by a long shot, but it is something you can improve on. Right now, it's not going to chase me away, but it isn't the kind of label you want to add to a marketing portfolio.

Three things that could be done better -

A: A strong in-game moderation staff to deal with the external website spammers. It's a boring job, but it needs doing. Nip it in the bud or it absolutely will run off paying customers. 600 monthly subscriptions would pay for round the clock monitoring, you want to see what happens when you don't deal with it? Look at NCSoft's Aion. At the end of the first month more people canceled than continued.

B: A better organized, player-driven economy. We need to be able to craft, I know it's a lot of work to add this in -now-, but Memory Alpha just doesn't take it far enough. We need to be able to go out and do things -other- than missions, to play for things other than the next level. Adding that kind of content would give us significantly more to do with our time, it would make your game seem more valuable to us.

C: Content, content, content. I know, it sucks having to add content to something you just released a few days ago, but this is the way it works. You have a good thing going but you can't rest on your laurels. I recommend -strongly- diversifying the missions. So far it's scan this, shoot that. Adding more to a player-driven economy will go a long way in doing this, and giving us missions to reflect the nature of colonization and expansion in a dangerous universe ( Such as deliver supplies to an outlying colony, or beam down and investigate a sickness. ) that aren't related to a bird of prey de-cloaking and raining torpedoes on an unsuspecting science vessel will go even further. Give us rewards other than just experience and merits, give us credits, give us resources, give us a reason to boldly go somewhere.

In closing, I would like to say this;

So far? I am enjoying the time I've spent, but a lot more could be done to improve on it. I know the suggestions I offer are far-reaching, and not the kind of thing you can code up over a week-end and be done with. It is absolutely worth the investment of time, and your players will stand by you, if you devote yourself to the task.

Archived Post

I'd like to amend/retract several things about my statements. They are as follows;

A: A strong in-game moderation staff to deal with the external website spammers. It's a boring job, but it needs doing. Nip it in the bud or it absolutely will run off paying customers. 600 monthly subscriptions would pay for round the clock monitoring, you want to see what happens when you don't deal with it? Look at NCSoft's Aion. At the end of the first month more people canceled than continued.

I still think a stronger moderation presence would be very helpful to the game. However, the systems in place are functional. Other things should be addressed before this. Hopefully reporting spam auto-generates -real- reports for the staff to read and deal with as time permits.

B: A better organized, player-driven economy. We need to be able to craft, I know it's a lot of work to add this in -now-, but Memory Alpha just doesn't take it far enough. We need to be able to go out and do things -other- than missions, to play for things other than the next level. Adding that kind of content would give us significantly more to do with our time, it would make your game seem more valuable to us.

Amend; A better organized player driven economy - with reasonable distribution of loot types. Getting 80 radiation to 1 alloy isn't reasonable. Re-balance that.
Memory Alpha is a good idea but needs more explanation, more fleshing out. More filling in the details rather than making the players just stumble about in the dark. I haven't seen how deep it gets, so I won't comment on the type and quality of items, but judging by the markets, we need more options and variety. Greens to make blues, blues to make purples, bigger and better to keep us -wanting- to go out and look for the materials.

C: Content, content, content. I know, it sucks having to add content to something you just released a few days ago, but this is the way it works. You have a good thing going but you can't rest on your laurels. I recommend -strongly- diversifying the missions. So far it's scan this, shoot that. Adding more to a player-driven economy will go a long way in doing this, and giving us missions to reflect the nature of colonization and expansion in a dangerous universe ( Such as deliver supplies to an outlying colony, or beam down and investigate a sickness. ) that aren't related to a bird of prey de-cloaking and raining torpedoes on an unsuspecting science vessel will go even further. Give us rewards other than just experience and merits, give us credits, give us resources, give us a reason to boldly go somewhere.

I'm starting to find more diversity in missions. This is a very good thing. Maybe I just had an unlucky streak of constant "we're under attack" missions. Maybe it was something fixed in a patch. Either way, I retract the statement completely and offer a sincere apology.

Thank you, that is all.

Archived Post

Kudos ! Bumping this one.