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Will this get better? Shout out to Champions and COH/COV players!

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Hey everyone.
So far im loving my time with the game. Is it perfect? HELL NO, but it's still lots of good fun. What i'm worried about is the slim amount of activities. With three Fed crewman on thier way to "Admiral" Im bummed out by the lack of missions. Each toon runs the exct same story on thier way to the top.... SO... Will this get better. Im asking the Champions players and the COH/COV players. Were your games slim pickings at the start and have they grown. Will the Star Trek IP hold enough atention to force Cryptic to add content. Im willing to stick around for a few months to get extra stuff and Im not really wanting a whole ton, just enough to have some choices. As it is this game some times feels like an online "Mode" of a single player game. (by the way turning group options to auto does help this feeling IMO) Any feedback is great thanks.
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  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I started playing COH in December 2004. It had an interesting appeal to me because it was a supehero MMO. It seemed different from all the rest. COH/COV has grown and evolved a great deal since I started playing. I see the same poetential for STO. STO has an appeal to me as well. It's a new game. I'm looking forward to it's growth!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Will the Star Trek IP hold enough atention to force Cryptic to add content

    Yes, is the sales and subscriptions hold steady.

    But you have to spend money to make money -- hint, hint, Jack and Craig.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Hey everyone.
    So far im loving my time with the game. Is it perfect? HELL NO, but it's still lots of good fun. What i'm worried about is the slim amount of activities. With three Fed crewman on thier way to "Admiral" Im bummed out by the lack of missions. Each toon runs the exct same story on thier way to the top.... SO... Will this get better. Im asking the Champions players and the COH/COV players. Were your games slim pickings at the start and have they grown. Will the Star Trek IP hold enough atention to force Cryptic to add content. Im willing to stick around for a few months to get extra stuff and Im not really wanting a whole ton, just enough to have some choices. As it is this game some times feels like an online "Mode" of a single player game. (by the way turning group options to auto does help this feeling IMO) Any feedback is great thanks.

    I started playing CoH just before issue 1 was released. In the beginning CoH already had a lot of contacts and various missions so that playing a another character you would not repeat the same missions necessarily. This divergence grew as time went on. As new issues were released, along with new powers, new power sets, new zones, etc. we became able to customize our characters game experience.

    But then when COV was released the devs decided to slim down the contacts and streamline the content, making for a very repetitive game world for the villain altaholic. This paradigm has been carried over since then to both CO and STO.

    Though CO does give the appearance of alternatives with the two hazard zones (Canadian Crisis and Disaster in the Desert) you find out pretty quick that it pretty much ends there and you end up repeating the same quests that every character you play has done before.

    STO doesn't even try to give the illusion of choice though and IMO that is what is really missing from the game. We need a lot more content at all level ranges so that each character can experience the game in a different way.

    Cryptic should know by now that the amount of customization they allow attracts the type of players who play not one or two but as many characters as they possibly can. If STO gave 10 character slots to begin with I can guarantee that there are many many players that would have already filled every slot.

    If the devs can start to see these trends and make changes to suit the kind of players they attract then I have no doubt that STO will turn out to be an awesome game for several years to come. If they decide to streamline even further and create content only for the "we must have more end game" people, I can't see it lasting very long at all.


    :cool:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Blackavaar wrote: »

    STO doesn't even try to give the illusion of choice though and IMO that is what is really missing from the game. We need a lot more content at all level ranges so that each character can experience the game in a different way.

    They really have to make the classes a bit more different too. I am still only a LC, but I don't think I have seen class choice be more meaningless. It seems to me that BOs can make up any differences between the classes, except that they might not get to III in some skills.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Blackavaar wrote: »
    I started playing CoH just before issue 1 was released. In the beginning CoH already had a lot of contacts and various missions so that playing a another character you would not repeat the same missions necessarily.

    That was only true of the first five levels. Once you hit KR, everything was the same. You might get a different contact, but they all offered the same missions.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    COH had a lot of diverse content at launch. There was enough missions and contacts that you could level up without doing many so playing an alt would actually be a different experience. However some time later (I have no idea when) NCSoft took over running and managing the game so I dont know when cryptics influence stopped.

    A closer comparison I think though is CO as they are made on the same engine, and made by the same company and devs.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Will this get better?

    Pretty sure it will somewhat, how much better... hmmm lets just see :p

    I won't be paying Cryptic anymore money though, Ill come back in 1-2 months (after the miracle patch) to see.

    Probably at first using a free trial or something if possible.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    You could start out in Galaxy City or Atlas Park, then a choice of a few different contacts for KR. Then you had a choice of contacts for Skyway or SC. There was always a choice of contacts or you could pick up a new contact. The contact choice gave you a different story line with different enemies. Then there were Task Forces in at the beginning. I remember spending like 7 hours on the first one with Vahz. God I still hate them, and CoT.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I started playing CoH a few days after it launched. CoH had some notable shortcomings early on.
    - There were mission gaps in every five level range, if you played solo. Most of these gaps were filled in by Issue 2, except for the one in the upper 30s, which took a long time to fill.
    - No costume changes at first. It didn't take long to get the tailors and the extra costume slots, but there was no expectation of that at first.
    - No respecs at first. They were introduced in Issue 2.
    - The game was meant to go up to 50, but they couldn't get the 40-50 range done in time for launch, so they delayed it a month and called it Issue 1.
    - No PvP. I liked that part, but PvP is very common in MMOs. We didn't get an arena until Issue 4, and we didn't get the PvP zones until CoV came along.
    - No crafting. That was fine as far as I was concerned, since comic book superheroes aren't generally known to be big on crafting, but a lot of players like to craft. Crafting in CoH wasn't introduced (via the inventions system) until much later.
    - Poor power descriptions. Cryptic is, after all, cryptic. This wasn't fixed until after Cryptic sold the game to NCSoft.
    - Poor power balance. I didn't mind that so much because the powers were fun and had good variety. Balancing the powers took time and effort, and caused quite a bit of frustration for many players.

    CoH had the advantage of being the first in its genre. WoW hadn't come out yet, and there weren't too many other MMOs on the market. So it got good reviews. A game that launched now with what CoH had then probably wouldn't do well in the reviews.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Aris wrote:
    That was only true of the first five levels. Once you hit KR, everything was the same. You might get a different contact, but they all offered the same missions.

    Untrue. The fact that there were 9-15 different contacts in each zone guaranteed that you could do different mission lines than your alts. Just because you could do the same exact missions doesn't mean you had to. Sure, a lot of them gave the same mission lines, but again you didn't have to use the same mission line each time as there were multiple (at least 5 mission lines per zone) choices.

    And with new zones like the Hollows and Faultline and Striga Island you could completely skip all of those.

    If STO diversifies their game play like that, it could be a hugely successful game.


    :cool:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I started CoH in 2004 and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it up until issue 5 and COV came out. With issue 5 came the nerf of all nerfs enhancement diversification, That really killed the game for a lot of people. However I stayed and played though it all with my friends of my Super group. If it had not been for them I would have quit long ago. The problem with CoH was the cryptic kept trying to stop power leveling and focused on that to much so the game never got any really exciting content. By the time NCsoft bought it from cryptic it was to late. I give the NCsoft dev team credit for trying to fix what cryptic broke ( the game for a long time was on life support because cryptic was working on CO ) but it was to late the damage was done.

    The problem with Star Trek is that there are not enough story based missions. I run out of them and then have to go do patrol whatever system or the dreaded deep space missions till I level up enough to get more story missions. And now they are trying to kill the power leveling again. Also I don't think cryptic thought there would be Admirals flying around before then game went public. What needs to happen is they need to focus on the major game killing bugs that are still in the game, And focus on getting more content high level end game as well as filling in the gaps for the low level players.

    Let the players play how they want. Time has proved that if the developer fixes a issue they thought was a exploit to the game but in reality was fun for the player then let them do it (without it hurting other player) People will then find a new way to power level or whatever.

    I see a lot of what went on in City of Heroes going on in Star Trek. I hope that cryptic doesn't follow the same course because they have a huge responsibility with the star trek property. If they mess it up to bad there is another huge MMO (star wars) game coming up next year that will kill them if they don't do this right.

    That is my 2 cent thought for the day.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    i joined CoH at issue 4.

    at that point in time the game was new to the EU, but had been in the US for a while. so it came here with a good amount of content.

    overall i was impressed with cryptic, content coming for free on a semi regular basis, a solid engine and a good deal of fun to play, especially once they stopped the overpowering effects of people slotting only one type of enhancement as the system gave static boosts instead of a diminishing return (meaning an effect of a 300% boost on abilities rather than the 100% the game was set up for) so there was an actual challenge in it.

    i beta tested CoV, and thats what swung me to CoX full time as a MMO, and i was subscribed to it for 5 years, and saw all the content cryptic had planned before selling on to NCSoft (up to issue 10-11) and in many ways how NCSoft treated its EU customers was why i stopped playing.. but in the end, there was nothing left for me to do after 5 years and most of the community had moved on.

    i joined CO in the headstart, i was initially unimpressed but a few days in it began to grow on me, and i still keep logging in once in a while to do things. if not for STO i'd be playing that game still, its had its problems but personally i feel they've been exaggerated. (not saying they're not there, but that they're not as big a deal for me as they are made out to be). CO's biggest problem is its alt-friendly, you're encouraged to make new characters and go back to lower levels but its lacking content to make each run through different. given time and support from the playerbase i'm confident they'll fix that.


    STO however, makes me think the game is set up to be happening at the endlevel. weekly (or near enough) raidisodes, quick leveling speed, the more iconic ships being in the higher ranges (defiant, galaxy, intrepid are captain level, sovereign, prometheus are admiral) and the fact of less alt slots and story based missions honestly make me think the plan is to have us all at endgame and give us plenty to do there, in terms of missions stories and raids etc. its a bold move from them, as they've not done it before in other games, but right now, thats how it feels to me.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Still playing CoH/CoV since release day. *points to avatar*

    It will get better. :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I played CoH/CoV villians almost continually for 5 years. THe game really splintered off in the last couple of years where you could only find groups to play in the two most populated servers. Also people tended to just powerlevel over content.

    Unlke most of the people commenting, I loved the CoV game better than the CoH. The missions were really not that villianous but seemed better to me and more fun to play.

    The game really went downhill when NCSoft took over. They started blending classes together with the idea that they were making new powers but really just using the powers that were already there and giving them to other classes. Then they released the Architect Edition and the game pretty much ended for me. No longer did anyone play the game. They just powerleveled the same missions over and over.

    Cryptic tried to keep the game entertaining and balanced. NCSoft ruined the game and did so mostly on the cheap.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    i'd also like to say that NCSoft were the company behind two MMO's that got yanked very quickly, as in auto assault and tabula rasa.

    the player created content really was a death to CoX, its a great idea in theory, but allowing real exp and real rewards to be had from it was the wrong move to make. every time i logged on i had to hide my presences from search lists and default refuse invites because i was just being spammed by players looking to bump up numbers (and spawn size) so they could powerlevel in the missions they'd made purely to powerlevel in..

    i hear its better now, but i doubt i'll go back, even with the new expansion coming out..
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I played COH from launch and still have an active account. CO only held my interest for 2 months.

    One thing I've seen from Cryptic is that they hold tightly to certain design philosophies that seem illogical. Some of the same design elements have appeared in all three of their games. The more I play these design elements, the less I llike them. But above all else, Cryptic seems unwilling to change their design philosophies, despite the wants and desires of the players, and once a game is released, it's pretty much set in stone.

    I'll cover a few large samples;

    INSTANCES - For some reason, Cryptic doesn't have a problem with loading screens or box-like game maps. I loved the large ground maps of Tabula Rasa, the open feel of space in EVE, and the seamless world of WOW. Cryptic doesn't seem interested in large game maps, even though Star Trek offers the largest physical-space potential of any IP.

    INTERIORS - I don't know why, but every interior seems to be made for giants. It was passable in COH and CO since those were Cryptic's own universes, but Star Trek has endless references on what the interiors should look like, and Cryptic still chooses to make monster-sized halls anyway. In a world as well loved as Star Trek, it seems like you can't go wrong if you give the players what they expect. Why tinker with known variables?

    LINEAR GAMEPLAY - All three games have been rigid in their gameplay, offering little by way of sandbox entertainment. The more linear a game is, the less time it takes to play through it, as the console market has proven. The problem is, consoles are designed to end so you'll go buy another one... but MMOs are supposed to be endless. Therfore, linear is working against the need to retain players.

    There are other odd design philosophies that Cryptic holds on to, but I don't want to fall into needless negativity. Parts are quite well done.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Blackavaar wrote: »

    Untrue. The fact that there were 9-15 different contacts in each zone guaranteed that you could do different mission lines than your alts. Just because you could do the same exact missions doesn't mean you had to. Sure, a lot of them gave the same mission lines, but again you didn't have to use the same mission line each time as there were multiple (at least 5 mission lines per zone) choices.

    Sorry, but you're pretty blatantly wrong here. You pretty much couldn't get to the next tier in CoH without doing all the missions, plus some extra street sweeping. There simply was not enough content at launch. The 9-15 contacts thing was an illusion. You had five contacts every block of five levels. One Science, on Magic, one Tech, one Natural, and one Mutant. They all offered what are effectively Explore missions here, and three of them had story arcs. In the 20s, it went up to all five having arcs. But make no mistake, the contacts were completely interchangeable. The only thing different about them was where they stood.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Darkjedi wrote: »
    I

    INSTANCES - For some reason, Cryptic doesn't have a problem with loading screens or box-like game maps. I loved the large ground maps of Tabula Rasa, the open feel of space in EVE, and the seamless world of WOW. Cryptic doesn't seem interested in large game maps, even though Star Trek offers the largest physical-space potential of any IP.

    this is more due to the technology of the servers. multi node cluster servers simply dont have the cross-node bandwidth to host several thousand people in the same space at the same time, or allow for seamless transition between areas hosted by the nodes.

    the reasoning behind using multi node clusters is because overall you will see more power and more speed and capability in the system, and it has inbuilt redundancy and is easier to maintain and replace parts for than traditional large capacity servers.

    think of it like this, would you rather buy a single core 4ghz CPU, or a 2.8ghz quad core?

    its why most MMO's are moving in this direction, and will do until such point that nodes can be linked with faster switches and coding allows for faster handovers between them.

    so its not so much a cryptic thing there :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Aris wrote:
    Sorry, but you're pretty blatantly wrong here. You pretty much couldn't get to the next tier in CoH without doing all the missions, plus some extra street sweeping. There simply was not enough content at launch. The 9-15 contacts thing was an illusion. You had five contacts every block of five levels. One Science, on Magic, one Tech, one Natural, and one Mutant. They all offered what are effectively Explore missions here, and three of them had story arcs. In the 20s, it went up to all five having arcs. But make no mistake, the contacts were completely interchangeable. The only thing different about them was where they stood.

    Look, as a completionist I have tried to complete every mission for every contact that I got in that game both with and without going to the added zones. It is simply not possible to have completed every single mission line before you outleveled it. I've tried it. I always ended up outleveling one contact or another. That means there was content those characters missed.

    Until they added the option to turn off XP (which is more recent) it simply was not possible to complete all of the content with a single character on the Heroes side. Even more so with the added zones. The Villains side is a different story.

    I'm not blatantly wrong. I am right. I have played 157 characters in that game. I'm pretty sure I know what the hell I am talking about, thank you.


    :cool:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I don't think we can really say.

    COH/COV evolved a LOT; I saw a huge number of positive changes (and a few negative) over the course of Cryptic's control of that game; and enjoyed it greatly.

    CO... I don't know what the deal is there - logically I expected the same treatment as COH... but it hasn't really gotten that. That may change now that VIbora Bay is coming free though...



    Here's my take:

    *IF* Cryptic has the money and will, STO can improve drastically. It could turn into an utterly awesome game from the 'pretty good' one it is today.

    On the other hand if they lack the cash or the will... I'm less optimistic. This is one of those "We have to wait and see" things. I know what Cryptic can do - I don't know what they *will* do.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Shingi wrote:
    this is more due to the technology of the servers. multi node cluster servers simply dont have the cross-node bandwidth to host several thousand people in the same space at the same time, or allow for seamless transition between areas hosted by the nodes.

    the reasoning behind using multi node clusters is because overall you will see more power and more speed and capability in the system, and it has inbuilt redundancy and is easier to maintain and replace parts for than traditional large capacity servers.

    think of it like this, would you rather buy a single core 4ghz CPU, or a 2.8ghz quad core?

    its why most MMO's are moving in this direction, and will do until such point that nodes can be linked with faster switches and coding allows for faster handovers between them.

    so its not so much a cryptic thing there :)

    If they can do it in WoW, EvE, LotRO, ect..
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Blackavaar wrote: »
    Look, as a completionist I have tried to complete every mission for every contact that I got in that game both with and without going to the added zones. It is simply not possible to have completed every single mission line before you outleveled it. I've tried it. I always ended up outleveling one contact or another. That means there was content those characters missed.

    At launch, playing solo, you could not reach the next five level range without running out of missions. This was true with every five level range. If you teamed regularly, then yes you could easily outlevel some missions and see no content gaps.

    As I said before, this was mostly fixed in Issue 2, so even solo players could miss missions (except for the upper 30s).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Shingi wrote:
    ...so its not so much a cryptic thing there :)

    Thank you for your description and clarification. It makes sense, even to an artist like me :)

    However, I still believe that the small grouds/space maps are a preferences of the art lead or level designers, and not a limitation of the servers. I admit that 'zoning' is probably necessary when transitioning from planet to surface and back, but the tiny size of the maps themselves could be altered to feel much bigger. Sector Space could be one continunous map (I rarely see more than 3 - 4 people in the same sector as myself), because it holds very little geometry, no action, and no animations other than client-side engine trails.

    I was once told to approach a planet to beam down. I hit the planet. That wasn't necessary and wasn't related to server clusters - it's just a tiny map. It should be bigger.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    mrlee95 wrote: »
    If they can do it in WoW, EvE, LotRO, ect..

    older engines, different serverside set ups.

    i work with these kinds of systems daily, there's patterns in the behaviour of how the game handles loading into instances and such that flag it up as running on those kinds of systems rather than an older type.

    smaller load average per "instance" (WoW's main world counting as an instance there)
    quicker handoff between seperations (connectivity aside, the loading speed of a STO instance is faster on average than zoning into a WoW instance)

    WoW's server set up would be a very powerful CPU setup, maybe a system with 4 or 8 dedicated CPU's specifically built to handle high loads from multiple users, which runs the main world, with smaller satellite systems handling the instances.

    STO's set up is like several thousand smaller CPU's, with small groups of them on the same physical motherboard (or node) working in tangent to handle the instance its running.

    the benefit of the STO system is those nodes can be assigned any instance at all, so if the one that normally runs say, a Sol instance has a hardware failure the system can just mark it as no longer communicating and bump the load (us players) over to another node and things carry on fine. system techs can then remove the node physically from the system and replace it.

    with the larger CPU systems, they cant do that, if a CPU blows or even freezes in one of those the whole system has to come down, taking the whole world it runs offline.

    so while the powerful CPU's of a "WoW type" system can handle more input into one system at once, they're very expensive to buy, run and maintain compared to what is essentially several thousand desktops wired up together.

    EvE runs something else, i'm not sure how that works to be honest, i think they're running on older powerful but smaller servers that they've networked together into a cluster system, quite a novel idea to be honest.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Fiddo wrote: »
    I started playing COH in December 2004. It had an interesting appeal to me because it was a supehero MMO. It seemed different from all the rest. COH/COV has grown and evolved a great deal since I started playing. I see the same poetential for STO. STO has an appeal to me as well. It's a new game. I'm looking forward to it's growth!


    I agree with the above. I started CoH in Issue 3 and it's been built on a lot since then. I see similar things with STO but right now I'd say that it has 1/5 the story lines that CoH had when I joined it (basically due to the 5 different origins having different contacts, where STO has one set of contacts)
    The skeleton is here in STO but the content, and other races, need to be filled in a lot. I see some of the episodes show off the mechanics that could be used to make really interesting stories in the future. Ghost ship (phased effects), the wormhole transition used in the Hirogen mission, the DS9 Undine takeover mission which auto-follows one of the episodes when you get near DS9 rather than having it given by a contact, etc. Even the potential for invasion events similar to the Klingon / Borg invasion at the end of Beta 9 (but polished up).

    I'm looking forward to watching STO grow. Lots of potential.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Cryptic is solid, but I am worried that this franchise will end up carrying CO which incurred a debt. I'm concerned they will pull devs off it to cover, and run lean - when this game really needs content.

    They did a passable job on COx, and champions has some strong merits (despite what anyone will say).

    I bought lifetime. I think this game will end up being a lot of fun, but it may take 6mo to get there.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Mirai wrote: »
    I started playing CoH a few days after it launched. CoH had some notable shortcomings early on.
    - There were mission gaps in every five level range, if you played solo. Most of these gaps were filled in by Issue 2, except for the one in the upper 30s, which took a long time to fill.
    - No costume changes at first. It didn't take long to get the tailors and the extra costume slots, but there was no expectation of that at first.
    - No respecs at first. They were introduced in Issue 2.
    - The game was meant to go up to 50, but they couldn't get the 40-50 range done in time for launch, so they delayed it a month and called it Issue 1.
    - No PvP. I liked that part, but PvP is very common in MMOs. We didn't get an arena until Issue 4, and we didn't get the PvP zones until CoV came along.
    - No crafting. That was fine as far as I was concerned, since comic book superheroes aren't generally known to be big on crafting, but a lot of players like to craft. Crafting in CoH wasn't introduced (via the inventions system) until much later.
    - Poor power descriptions. Cryptic is, after all, cryptic. This wasn't fixed until after Cryptic sold the game to NCSoft.
    - Poor power balance. I didn't mind that so much because the powers were fun and had good variety. Balancing the powers took time and effort, and caused quite a bit of frustration for many players.

    CoH had the advantage of being the first in its genre. WoW hadn't come out yet, and there weren't too many other MMOs on the market. So it got good reviews. A game that launched now with what CoH had then probably wouldn't do well in the reviews.

    This is pretty much my assessment and how I remember it.

    I think Champions Online suffered because it was the second game in its genre and because it still had the first game in a much more polished form to compete with while Cryptic was hoping for a repeat of its CoH experience.

    In turn, STO has a bit more of a new car smell for me as it's the first game in its genre. Star Wars is more like a fantasy setting and EvE strikes me as a bit more hard edged sci-fi with a lot of physics and economics and landgrabbing.

    In terms of Trek being more Horatio Hornblower in space, a Buck Rogers style world with no economics, more military than fantasy, I really think Trek is a separate genre from "hard" sci-fi, "mercantile" sci-fi (ranging from Firefly to Han Solo in Star Wars) or Star Wars' fantasy wars and this game benefits from that. The closest games out there are probably nautical games like Pirates and they're fundamentally different as Trek is a world where profit and piracy don't exist or are at least very marginal aspects you'd never see much focus on.

    I think there's a contingent of people who aren't interested in mercantile behavior or hard physics and for whom Star Wars is too fantasy. This game has a niche bigger than a hundred thousand players, I'd imagine, whereas CO's niche was not only filled already by CoH but it's about to be sandwiched by the free to play DCU Online.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Shingi wrote:
    i'd also like to say that NCSoft were the company behind two MMO's that got yanked very quickly, as in auto assault and tabula rasa.

    the player created content really was a death to CoX, its a great idea in theory, but allowing real exp and real rewards to be had from it was the wrong move to make. every time i logged on i had to hide my presences from search lists and default refuse invites because i was just being spammed by players looking to bump up numbers (and spawn size) so they could powerlevel in the missions they'd made purely to powerlevel in..

    i hear its better now, but i doubt i'll go back, even with the new expansion coming out..

    I really believe strongly in a Holodeck for STO but I think they can avoid the pitfalls that had by eliminating real XP and drops and limiting Holodeck to a rolling reset quest with rewards like the Cluster exploration and Deep Space encounters.

    Just have it reward a random green or blue and a chunk of XP for the mission completion and reset once per hour (to discourage "holodiction" ala Barclay). It could be a great way to spice things up and take a break while in space for a modest reward (to make it worth doing) but I think the lesson from CoH is that it should feel like a break from everything else you're doing, not a primary way to do anything.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Given Cryptics record, the game probably will not improve much. The major problem with CoX and Champions was the glaring lack of content, especially end game. It never got addressed there, so it doesn't seem likely to here.

    There will be bug fixes and balancing attempts. And they'll do a passable job at it, but beyond that.. I wouldn't hold my breath.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Given Cryptics record, the game probably will not improve much. The major problem with CoX and Champions was the glaring lack of content, especially end game. It never got addressed there, so it doesn't seem likely to here.

    There will be bug fixes and balancing attempts. And they'll do a passable job at it, but beyond that.. I wouldn't hold my breath.

    I didn't think of it that way, but that about sums things up. Cryptic really doesn't do end game content.
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