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3 things I don't like about STO (the World, the Quests, the Exploration)

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
This game has got a lot of problems. I am sure a lot of them will be fixed with patches (skills not working, bad descriptions, bad crafting system, respecs etc.). But unfortunately there are 3 major things which bother me and will not be fixed. I write this posting as a feedback for the devs so that they know why I will not play after the free month.

-The Game World
At first it did not bother me that much. But after playing for a while I really dislike the game world especially the sector space. I mean come on. You fly in a small quadrant till you reach the edge where huge letters fly in space and you load the next zone. Couldn't you at least make it one map? Or why not just make an astrometric map where you navigate in space (take a look at Mass Effect 1+2). There would have been a lot of opportunities and the way it is implemented must be one of the worst possible methods to do it.
Its similar with the systems. You don't enter a system and fly to all planets. No you warp (load) from one to the next. All this loading really hurts the experience. One part of an MMO is to have a huge coherent world. I had the feeling when playing Star Wars Galaxies, there have been a few planets with cities, towns and pois and you could walk around the planet you had the feeling to be somewhere. Same with for example WoW sure you load when you change a continent but they are big enough to get the feeling of a "world". Unfortunately I never got this feeling in STO. Its just a connection of approx. 200 random little systems. Sure the number of systems is impressive but the systems itself are not. I don't remember them, they are nothing special and most of them are very boring (the worst I have seen so far is Vulcan). Space is quite beautiful but the ground levels are so small and boring. I don't see much level design involved. The game plays like the part of Mass Effect 1 which has been criticized most.

-The Episodic Content
All the interviews about the episodic contend sounded really exciting. But after playing till Captain 2 I am sure that it is just a marketing hype. All cryptic did is exchange the word "Quest" for the word "Episode". There are a few good episodes but I have seen nothing which is any different then Quests in WoW, Lotro or Everquest 2. You start with a textbox, kill some things, maybe there are a few textboxes in between and then you end with a textbox. Sure a few times you have to scan or click something but thats it. I don't know how the other players see this, but for me it is too boring, the MMOS are 10 years behind other games as far as story telling is concerned. Which is a shame if you consider how much more a player has to pay to play an MMO. This is not only STOs problem. But STO did exactly the same as everyone else but in all the interviews it sounded like it will be an experience like a Star Trek episode.

-The Exploration
It should have been "boldly go where no on has gone before and seek out new life and new civilizations". I remember hearing that you can name the system, gather rare resources, discover new species which can become crew members etc. Well maybe this was my fault because in my imagination I was doing first contact missions and meeting interesting species and space phenomena. I know this things are hard to make, but cryptic should have tried. "Exploring" in a small cube where random nodes pop up is not exploration. I had at least something like the universe of Spore in my mind.

- Summary
All this things will not be fixed because they are design flaws. So this game will not be for me. As a Star Trek fan I wanted to like it. I will play till Admiral and not pay for a subscription. A few things are fun but cryptic should have tried harder, maybe double the development time. Maybe I have too huge expectations. But this games (MMOs) costs a lot of money, if you play 1 years its 4-5 times of what an average game costs. So I think an MMO has to offer much more.
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