- The content of the game is really poor. You didn't yet have enough episodes to level up a single character and are forced to do boring, repetitive, clumsy, generic copy/paste missions.
- When you reach RA5 you have absolutely nothing to do and even when you play casually you reach this level in a maximum of 2 months.
- What to do then ? Reroll another character ? Why ? You have exactly the same content to redo, no choice, no originality. All other MMO get different storylines when you choose to play another race. Here you have absolutely no difference between one race or another except a secondary traits system.
- If this game didn't have a Star Trek logo on it, no one will play it.
All this is true and is even more important than bugs. I can play a game with lots of bugs and wait till they are corrected. I can't play a game with nothing inside !
Have you seen the calendar and the engineering reports? We have season 1 coming before end of the month a new STF also before the end of the month. Patience padawan.
It was an odd time.
DS9 and Voyager was on.
ST Games where selling like hotcakes (although I have no idea why a hotcake would sell well).
Moves where doing well.
And paramount decided to kicks it fans in the balls.
dont think so. BSG was a great show. LOST, Heroes and 24 still are.
The face of the shows just changed, drastically. When in the 80s-90s shows with episode-character would run great (ST:TNG, the prince of Bel-air, ... whatever.all shows back then *g*) nowadays you NEED a story line that starts with episode 1 and only ends with episode Omega. On the way there is a continuing story arc that binds the people to the show.
Thats why the seventh season DS9 was so successful. Star Trek: Enterprise was a great show (to me), but the concept was outdated even when it started.
I can envision another Star Trek series - but making it would require LOTS of thinking
It was an odd time.
DS9 and Voyager was on.
ST Games where selling like hotcakes (although I have no idea why a hotcake would sell well).
Moves where doing well.
And paramount decided to kicks it fans in the balls.
I still dont get why they made the choices they made. I suppose they wanted to give non-Trekkies the chance to enjoy the movie in the theatres. What they did was producing a mediocre SciFi-movie that put all Trekkies in NERDRAGE!
It's not an opinion. It's a fact. Every MMO I've played after WoW was released, and that number isn't a small one, has had more content, by far, than STO. It's not even in the realm of debate, really.
You said NO content, not less that other MMOs. It is your opinion that STO has no content, or not enough content to be released.
I never said that it has more or less content than any other MMO.
Time will tell the tales of history made by those who ventured to that place never quite visited.
Give them time, we have a very unique game here with again (beating a dead horse) much potential to become something great. This requires faith on our part.
What are we afraid of? Lost time playing a game that never met its true mettle within a 6 month time frame? Lost money on something that didn't turn out like we expected it to?
All we really have in this world IS time.
Money doesn't have a home.
Yet the true mark of a person is thier capacity of patience in dealing with that which they have little control over..........if for the moment.
In the end...what have you really lost if it's not what you thought it was supposed to be?
I could actually start quoting ST but that would be just a wee on the cheese side.
You get my point. Nothing is perfect, and a masterpiece whether we think it is or not, takes time.
So, I see that somebody from Cryptic has once again lamented the fact that World of Warcraft exists, and that STO (and presumably every other MMO) has been judged unfairly because of the mere existence of WoW. I'm getting pretty tired of this complaint honestly. STO got lampooned and got bad reviews because it was released far too early with far too little content and too many bugs and broken or unfinished systems.
And really, I'm not in the least bit upset that STO doesn't have as much content and variety as World of Warcraft does today. It is; however, a huge problem that it really only has about 10-25% of the depth and content that WoW had at release.
I'd be satisfied with the HALF the amount of content and variety as WoW at release.
Remember, at release World of Warcraft had just over 1500 quests. It had something on the order of 30 zones, each unique and different in mood and feel than the othersm, and you only had a loading screen if you changed continents or entered a dungeon instance. There were more than a dozen dungeon instances tuned for 5-man groups, as well as full functioning 40-man raids. All of the systems that were in game at launch worked and were fully featured. Both factions were fully featured. There were no placeholder art, sounds or game spaces. There was a wide variety of quest types, and each quest had a story, and a very large portion of the quests advanced major storylines.
Let's contrast this to Star Trek Online, shall we?
I don't know the precise number of quests in STO at release, but I've seen staggeringly low numbers. Like ... 100-150 total quests. That's 10% of what World of Warcraft launched with.
STO has a handful of "zones" at best, with almost no variety between them. Sector Space is either a placeholder or a complete joke. You face a loading screen basically any time you want to go someplace new or do something. Many times, it's several loading screens to get to what you actually want to do, coupled with long travel time in the very ugly and boring sector space.
There are only a handful of "Dungeons" (Fleet actions), so few in fact that RA5's can be found at all times in the low level ones, out of sheer boredom. I suppose you could consider fleet actions to be raids, but then there would be no small group dungeon content to speak of, since everything is soloable. Not only that, there's no support to actually, you know, get 19 other people from your fleet in the same group with yourself to go do one.
There are tons of broken systems. All ship interiors are so large they break any immersion you might have had with the game. It looks nothing like the TV Series' and movies. Crafting is a complete joke. It is like something that somebody's kid came up with and they ran with it because they could dump it into the game for release. PVP is broken and poorly balanced, and furthermore has no actual effect on anything, and therefore is pointless. What "story" there is in the game stagnates. The exchange is quite possibly the worst implementation of a brokerage in a game that I've ever seen, and I've played a LOT of games. Even DDO's awful auctioneer system is better.
STO launched with at least one faction barely functional at all. Some would argue that both factions launched unfinished.
STO appears to be made up more of placeholder art, sounds, game spaces, and systems than things that are actually considered "complete" by the developers. Make a complaint about something, and they respond that it's just a "placeholder" or a "simple version" until they "fix/complete the real thing".
And finally, most of the quests have absolutely no impact on the story whatsoever. Hey, go get into three random fights in this sector with the "enemy" and then report back to me. Hey, go explore these unknown systems, where the people mysteriously know all about who StarFleet is and want you to fly back to civilization and bring them back some stuffs. Hey, go kill some "klingons". Hey, go patrol some systems, where you will get one of three mission types either alone or incombination:
1.) Fly around and destroy X groups of enemy ships.
2.) Fly around and scan some stuff.
3.) Beam down and do 1 and/or 2 on the ground instead.
I'm glad to see that the devs are playing the "Woe is me" card here. That tells me an awful lot about what the future of this game is going to be like. We'll be lucky if this game has the content WoW had at release ... two years from now.
Devs ... here's reality.
World of Warcraft is a fantastic game enjoyed by multiple millions of people around the world. Star Trek, as an IP, has fans in amounts that dwarf the number of people who have ever played a Warcraft game. World of Warcraft was made by Blizzard, a company that has become legendary for their dedication to taking as much time as it takes to get a game ready to release, and therefore legendary for the quality of their products. STO was made by you guys, a company who seems to think that two years is enough time to make a game ... except you've already earned a reputation the world around for releasing buggy, unfinished games, with barely any content, and then taking months/years to put in even a reasonable amount of content that one would expect with a game's release.
Yes ... Blizzard set a high standard with the release and subsequent support and expansion of World of Warcraft. That doesn't give you license to be a failure. The last I checked, each and every one of you chose your line of work. If you are unwilling to do what it takes to match that high standard, it's a little disingenuous to cry after the fact that your game is seen poorly in light of World of Warcraft.
You're adults, start acting like it. Every time I see you cry and complain about how unfair it is that your game got lampooned, the less seriously I can take you guys. You made a game with almost no content. You have tons of broken placeholder systems in the game. What made you think people would accept something that's barely a late alpha stage product, and compare it favorably to WoW?
Here's what you need to do. Stop crying to the press about how unfair people are being when they talk about your game. Make a list, and it's going to be a long one, of all the broken or unfinished stuff in your game. Fix and finish those things as fast as possible. And seriously, think up a variety of quest types so that your "missions" aren't all made from the same three pieces. Try to make them have some kind of story so that we have some interest in doing them. Then, give it to your players for FREE ... because we already paid for it. If I purchased a car and it didn't have seats, doors, a windshield, or headlights ... the car manufacturer isn't going to make me pay for those things. Similarly, you shouldn't charge us for the things that SHOULD have come with the game in the first place. And when you do finally get to this point, send out a free 30 days to everyone who purchased your game in the first months and stopped playing because of how bad it was.
Then, you need to look at putting extras into the game. I'm working on a long post with a listing of everything that's currently considered "broken" by players, with suggestions on how you can fix the issues, as well as a very long listing of suggestions that could be added to the game to give it some more depth and variety.
But seriously, stop crying about World of Warcraft. Your game didn't get lampooned because of how good WoW is today, five years after release. Your game, as I outlined above, isn't even 10% as complete as World of Warcraft was when it released 5+ years ago. Your game got lampooned because you rushed it and released it with very little content, tons of bugs, tons of problems, an unfinished faction, and tons of missing or broken systems.
In short, you brought this on yourself. Even so, as you said, more than 100k of us are sticking around so far. Rather than alienate us by claiming we have no right to lampoon your game, I suggest that you face reality and start turning this disaster around. It's not to late ... but keep blaming us and pretending that your game is anything more than it is, and we'll stop paying you too.
And to the fanboy flamers who are inevitably going to show up and call me a troll or a hater, or whatever other thing... put the kool aid down, take the rose tinted lenses off, and be realistic. I know you like the game. I actually like the game too. That doesn't mean I'm going to ignore reality. You shouldn't either.
If I didn't care about the game and like it, I certainly wouldn't have taken the time to make this post ... I wouldn't even be around anymore.
So, I see that somebody from Cryptic has once again lamented the fact that World of Warcraft exists, and that STO (and presumably every other MMO) has been judged unfairly because of the mere existence of WoW. I'm getting pretty tired of this complaint honestly. STO got lampooned and got bad reviews because it was released far too early with far too little content and too many bugs and broken or unfinished systems.
And really, I'm not in the least bit upset that STO doesn't have as much content and variety as World of Warcraft does today. It is; however, a huge problem that it really only has about 10-25% of the depth and content that WoW had at release.
I'd be satisfied with the HALF the amount of content and variety as WoW at release.
Remember, at release World of Warcraft had just over 1500 quests. It had something on the order of 30 zones, each unique and different in mood and feel than the othersm, and you only had a loading screen if you changed continents or entered a dungeon instance. There were more than a dozen dungeon instances tuned for 5-man groups, as well as full functioning 40-man raids. All of the systems that were in game at launch worked and were fully featured. Both factions were fully featured. There were no placeholder art, sounds or game spaces. There was a wide variety of quest types, and each quest had a story, and a very large portion of the quests advanced major storylines.
Let's contrast this to Star Trek Online, shall we?
I don't know the precise number of quests in STO at release, but I've seen staggeringly low numbers. Like ... 100-150 total quests. That's 10% of what World of Warcraft launched with.
STO has a handful of "zones" at best, with almost no variety between them. Sector Space is either a placeholder or a complete joke. You face a loading screen basically any time you want to go someplace new or do something. Many times, it's several loading screens to get to what you actually want to do, coupled with long travel time in the very ugly and boring sector space.
There are only a handful of "Dungeons" (Fleet actions), so few in fact that RA5's can be found at all times in the low level ones, out of sheer boredom. I suppose you could consider fleet actions to be raids, but then there would be no small group dungeon content to speak of, since everything is soloable. Not only that, there's no support to actually, you know, get 19 other people from your fleet in the same group with yourself to go do one.
There are tons of broken systems. All ship interiors are so large they break any immersion you might have had with the game. It looks nothing like the TV Series' and movies. Crafting is a complete joke. It is like something that somebody's kid came up with and they ran with it because they could dump it into the game for release. PVP is broken and poorly balanced, and furthermore has no actual effect on anything, and therefore is pointless. What "story" there is in the game stagnates. The exchange is quite possibly the worst implementation of a brokerage in a game that I've ever seen, and I've played a LOT of games. Even DDO's awful auctioneer system is better.
STO launched with at least one faction barely functional at all. Some would argue that both factions launched unfinished.
STO appears to be made up more of placeholder art, sounds, game spaces, and systems than things that are actually considered "complete" by the developers. Make a complaint about something, and they respond that it's just a "placeholder" or a "simple version" until they "fix/complete the real thing".
And finally, most of the quests have absolutely no impact on the story whatsoever. Hey, go get into three random fights in this sector with the "enemy" and then report back to me. Hey, go explore these unknown systems, where the people mysteriously know all about who StarFleet is and want you to fly back to civilization and bring them back some stuffs. Hey, go kill some "klingons". Hey, go patrol some systems, where you will get one of three mission types either alone or incombination:
1.) Fly around and destroy X groups of enemy ships.
2.) Fly around and scan some stuff.
3.) Beam down and do 1 and/or 2 on the ground instead.
I'm glad to see that the devs are playing the "Woe is me" card here. That tells me an awful lot about what the future of this game is going to be like. We'll be lucky if this game has the content WoW had at release ... two years from now.
Devs ... here's reality.
World of Warcraft is a fantastic game enjoyed by multiple millions of people around the world. Star Trek, as an IP, has fans in amounts that dwarf the number of people who have ever played a Warcraft game. World of Warcraft was made by Blizzard, a company that has become legendary for their dedication to taking as much time as it takes to get a game ready to release, and therefore legendary for the quality of their products. STO was made by you guys, a company who seems to think that two years is enough time to make a game ... except you've already earned a reputation the world around for releasing buggy, unfinished games, with barely any content, and then taking months/years to put in even a reasonable amount of content that one would expect with a game's release.
Yes ... Blizzard set a high standard with the release and subsequent support and expansion of World of Warcraft. That doesn't give you license to be a failure. The last I checked, each and every one of you chose your line of work. If you are unwilling to do what it takes to match that high standard, it's a little disingenuous to cry after the fact that your game is seen poorly in light of World of Warcraft.
You're adults, start acting like it. Every time I see you cry and complain about how unfair it is that your game got lampooned, the less seriously I can take you guys. You made a game with almost no content. You have tons of broken placeholder systems in the game. What made you think people would accept something that's barely a late alpha stage product, and compare it favorably to WoW?
Here's what you need to do. Stop crying to the press about how unfair people are being when they talk about your game. Make a list, and it's going to be a long one, of all the broken or unfinished stuff in your game. Fix and finish those things as fast as possible. And seriously, think up a variety of quest types so that your "missions" aren't all made from the same three pieces. Try to make them have some kind of story so that we have some interest in doing them. Then, give it to your players for FREE ... because we already paid for it. If I purchased a car and it didn't have seats, doors, a windshield, or headlights ... the car manufacturer isn't going to make me pay for those things. Similarly, you shouldn't charge us for the things that SHOULD have come with the game in the first place. And when you do finally get to this point, send out a free 30 days to everyone who purchased your game in the first months and stopped playing because of how bad it was.
Then, you need to look at putting extras into the game. I'm working on a long post with a listing of everything that's currently considered "broken" by players, with suggestions on how you can fix the issues, as well as a very long listing of suggestions that could be added to the game to give it some more depth and variety.
But seriously, stop crying about World of Warcraft. Your game didn't get lampooned because of how good WoW is today, five years after release. Your game, as I outlined above, isn't even 10% as complete as World of Warcraft was when it released 5+ years ago. Your game got lampooned because you rushed it and released it with very little content, tons of bugs, tons of problems, an unfinished faction, and tons of missing or broken systems.
In short, you brought this on yourself. Even so, as you said, more than 100k of us are sticking around so far. Rather than alienate us by claiming we have no right to lampoon your game, I suggest that you face reality and start turning this disaster around. It's not to late ... but keep blaming us and pretending that your game is anything more than it is, and we'll stop paying you too.
And to the fanboy flamers who are inevitably going to show up and call me a troll or a hater, or whatever other thing... put the kool aid down, take the rose tinted lenses off, and be realistic. I know you like the game. I actually like the game too. That doesn't mean I'm going to ignore reality. You shouldn't either.
If I didn't care about the game and like it, I certainly wouldn't have taken the time to make this post ... I wouldn't even be around anymore.
So, I see that somebody from Cryptic has once again lamented the fact that World of Warcraft exists, and that STO (and presumably every other MMO) has been judged unfairly because of the mere existence of WoW. I'm getting pretty tired of this complaint honestly. STO got lampooned and got bad reviews because it was released far too early with far too little content and too many bugs and broken or unfinished systems.
And really, I'm not in the least bit upset that STO doesn't have as much content and variety as World of Warcraft does today. It is; however, a huge problem that it really only has about 10-25% of the depth and content that WoW had at release.
I'd be satisfied with the HALF the amount of content and variety as WoW at release.
Remember, at release World of Warcraft had just over 1500 quests. It had something on the order of 30 zones, each unique and different in mood and feel than the othersm, and you only had a loading screen if you changed continents or entered a dungeon instance. There were more than a dozen dungeon instances tuned for 5-man groups, as well as full functioning 40-man raids. All of the systems that were in game at launch worked and were fully featured. Both factions were fully featured. There were no placeholder art, sounds or game spaces. There was a wide variety of quest types, and each quest had a story, and a very large portion of the quests advanced major storylines.
Let's contrast this to Star Trek Online, shall we?
I don't know the precise number of quests in STO at release, but I've seen staggeringly low numbers. Like ... 100-150 total quests. That's 10% of what World of Warcraft launched with.
STO has a handful of "zones" at best, with almost no variety between them. Sector Space is either a placeholder or a complete joke. You face a loading screen basically any time you want to go someplace new or do something. Many times, it's several loading screens to get to what you actually want to do, coupled with long travel time in the very ugly and boring sector space.
There are only a handful of "Dungeons" (Fleet actions), so few in fact that RA5's can be found at all times in the low level ones, out of sheer boredom. I suppose you could consider fleet actions to be raids, but then there would be no small group dungeon content to speak of, since everything is soloable. Not only that, there's no support to actually, you know, get 19 other people from your fleet in the same group with yourself to go do one.
There are tons of broken systems. All ship interiors are so large they break any immersion you might have had with the game. It looks nothing like the TV Series' and movies. Crafting is a complete joke. It is like something that somebody's kid came up with and they ran with it because they could dump it into the game for release. PVP is broken and poorly balanced, and furthermore has no actual effect on anything, and therefore is pointless. What "story" there is in the game stagnates. The exchange is quite possibly the worst implementation of a brokerage in a game that I've ever seen, and I've played a LOT of games. Even DDO's awful auctioneer system is better.
STO launched with at least one faction barely functional at all. Some would argue that both factions launched unfinished.
STO appears to be made up more of placeholder art, sounds, game spaces, and systems than things that are actually considered "complete" by the developers. Make a complaint about something, and they respond that it's just a "placeholder" or a "simple version" until they "fix/complete the real thing".
And finally, most of the quests have absolutely no impact on the story whatsoever. Hey, go get into three random fights in this sector with the "enemy" and then report back to me. Hey, go explore these unknown systems, where the people mysteriously know all about who StarFleet is and want you to fly back to civilization and bring them back some stuffs. Hey, go kill some "klingons". Hey, go patrol some systems, where you will get one of three mission types either alone or incombination:
1.) Fly around and destroy X groups of enemy ships.
2.) Fly around and scan some stuff.
3.) Beam down and do 1 and/or 2 on the ground instead.
I'm glad to see that the devs are playing the "Woe is me" card here. That tells me an awful lot about what the future of this game is going to be like. We'll be lucky if this game has the content WoW had at release ... two years from now.
Devs ... here's reality.
World of Warcraft is a fantastic game enjoyed by multiple millions of people around the world. Star Trek, as an IP, has fans in amounts that dwarf the number of people who have ever played a Warcraft game. World of Warcraft was made by Blizzard, a company that has become legendary for their dedication to taking as much time as it takes to get a game ready to release, and therefore legendary for the quality of their products. STO was made by you guys, a company who seems to think that two years is enough time to make a game ... except you've already earned a reputation the world around for releasing buggy, unfinished games, with barely any content, and then taking months/years to put in even a reasonable amount of content that one would expect with a game's release.
Yes ... Blizzard set a high standard with the release and subsequent support and expansion of World of Warcraft. That doesn't give you license to be a failure. The last I checked, each and every one of you chose your line of work. If you are unwilling to do what it takes to match that high standard, it's a little disingenuous to cry after the fact that your game is seen poorly in light of World of Warcraft.
You're adults, start acting like it. Every time I see you cry and complain about how unfair it is that your game got lampooned, the less seriously I can take you guys. You made a game with almost no content. You have tons of broken placeholder systems in the game. What made you think people would accept something that's barely a late alpha stage product, and compare it favorably to WoW?
Here's what you need to do. Stop crying to the press about how unfair people are being when they talk about your game. Make a list, and it's going to be a long one, of all the broken or unfinished stuff in your game. Fix and finish those things as fast as possible. And seriously, think up a variety of quest types so that your "missions" aren't all made from the same three pieces. Try to make them have some kind of story so that we have some interest in doing them. Then, give it to your players for FREE ... because we already paid for it. If I purchased a car and it didn't have seats, doors, a windshield, or headlights ... the car manufacturer isn't going to make me pay for those things. Similarly, you shouldn't charge us for the things that SHOULD have come with the game in the first place. And when you do finally get to this point, send out a free 30 days to everyone who purchased your game in the first months and stopped playing because of how bad it was.
Then, you need to look at putting extras into the game. I'm working on a long post with a listing of everything that's currently considered "broken" by players, with suggestions on how you can fix the issues, as well as a very long listing of suggestions that could be added to the game to give it some more depth and variety.
But seriously, stop crying about World of Warcraft. Your game didn't get lampooned because of how good WoW is today, five years after release. Your game, as I outlined above, isn't even 10% as complete as World of Warcraft was when it released 5+ years ago. Your game got lampooned because you rushed it and released it with very little content, tons of bugs, tons of problems, an unfinished faction, and tons of missing or broken systems.
In short, you brought this on yourself. Even so, as you said, more than 100k of us are sticking around so far. Rather than alienate us by claiming we have no right to lampoon your game, I suggest that you face reality and start turning this disaster around. It's not to late ... but keep blaming us and pretending that your game is anything more than it is, and we'll stop paying you too.
And to the fanboy flamers who are inevitably going to show up and call me a troll or a hater, or whatever other thing... put the kool aid down, take the rose tinted lenses off, and be realistic. I know you like the game. I actually like the game too. That doesn't mean I'm going to ignore reality. You shouldn't either.
If I didn't care about the game and like it, I certainly wouldn't have taken the time to make this post ... I wouldn't even be around anymore.
Great post. I have felt the same way. I never thought STO was going to do as well as WoW. I did think Cryptic was going to deliver the game they spoke of in 2008. I keep playing STO waiting for them to bring us that game. I just hope they get things together before the player base drops to the point where they can no longer afford to support the game.
I renamed this thread to something generic, yet non-inflammatory.
So far...for the most part...we'll call it true for this thread. Please help me allow that to continue. I will close down this thread if you can't all keep it civil.
And here I click on the "Dev Post" thinking it was going to be something insightful from Jack or Zinc. Or even coderanger for that matter.
So, I see that somebody from Cryptic has once again lamented the fact that World of Warcraft exists, and that STO (and presumably every other MMO) has been judged unfairly because of the mere existence of WoW. I'm getting pretty tired of this complaint honestly. STO got lampooned and got bad reviews because it was released far too early with far too little content and too many bugs and broken or unfinished systems.
And really, I'm not in the least bit upset that STO doesn't have as much content and variety as World of Warcraft does today. It is; however, a huge problem that it really only has about 10-25% of the depth and content that WoW had at release.
I'd be satisfied with the HALF the amount of content and variety as WoW at release.
Remember, at release World of Warcraft had just over 1500 quests. It had something on the order of 30 zones, each unique and different in mood and feel than the othersm, and you only had a loading screen if you changed continents or entered a dungeon instance. There were more than a dozen dungeon instances tuned for 5-man groups, as well as full functioning 40-man raids. All of the systems that were in game at launch worked and were fully featured. Both factions were fully featured. There were no placeholder art, sounds or game spaces. There was a wide variety of quest types, and each quest had a story, and a very large portion of the quests advanced major storylines.
Let's contrast this to Star Trek Online, shall we?
I don't know the precise number of quests in STO at release, but I've seen staggeringly low numbers. Like ... 100-150 total quests. That's 10% of what World of Warcraft launched with.
Quests in wow are the same quests different skin how is this not the same as the instanced quests?
STO has a handful of "zones" at best, with almost no variety between them. Sector Space is either a placeholder or a complete joke. You face a loading screen basically any time you want to go someplace new or do something. Many times, it's several loading screens to get to what you actually want to do, coupled with long travel time in the very ugly and boring sector space.
HAHAHAHA you talk about WOW and STO and travel time in the same post you gotta be kidding me flying from one area to the other takes so long in WOW its a joke one of the reasons i stopped playing it 2 months after purchase.
There are only a handful of "Dungeons" (Fleet actions), so few in fact that RA5's can be found at all times in the low level ones, out of sheer boredom. I suppose you could consider fleet actions to be raids, but then there would be no small group dungeon content to speak of, since everything is soloable. Not only that, there's no support to actually, you know, get 19 other people from your fleet in the same group with yourself to go do one.
Agreed they need to add some lower level raids.
There are tons of broken systems. All ship interiors are so large they break any immersion you might have had with the game. It looks nothing like the TV Series' and movies. Crafting is a complete joke. It is like something that somebody's kid came up with and they ran with it because they could dump it into the game for release. PVP is broken and poorly balanced, and furthermore has no actual effect on anything, and therefore is pointless. What "story" there is in the game stagnates. The exchange is quite possibly the worst implementation of a brokerage in a game that I've ever seen, and I've played a LOT of games. Even DDO's awful auctioneer system is better.
Gotta agree with most of that the crafting and ah are a complete joke pvp is the same in all games though theres always a group off people that are happy and others that are not i played a warlock and that in pvp was a case of fear dot dot dot blast fear dot dot dot blast dead people screamed for a nerf and it got it and then it was a different power that was broken so yeah all pvp is broken depending on who your listening too.
STO launched with at least one faction barely functional at all. Some would argue that both factions launched unfinished.
They could have added more imo too
STO appears to be made up more of placeholder art, sounds, game spaces, and systems than things that are actually considered "complete" by the developers. Make a complaint about something, and they respond that it's just a "placeholder" or a "simple version" until they "fix/complete the real thing".
And finally, most of the quests have absolutely no impact on the story whatsoever. Hey, go get into three random fights in this sector with the "enemy" and then report back to me. Hey, go explore these unknown systems, where the people mysteriously know all about who StarFleet is and want you to fly back to civilization and bring them back some stuffs. Hey, go kill some "klingons". Hey, go patrol some systems, where you will get one of three mission types either alone or incombination:
1.) Fly around and destroy X groups of enemy ships.
2.) Fly around and scan some stuff.
3.) Beam down and do 1 and/or 2 on the ground instead.
Not sure whtat missions you were doing on WOW but most were kill 10 boars collect 10 eggs feathers etc etc so nothing diffrent here really.
the story line missions make for good reading, in WOW i never read quest text ever just clicked continue and went and did quest on the story based missions i read every line and i really enjoy them but you are right there isnt nearly enough of these way it should be is explore missions for tickets for that extra item you may need and cant find from a drop but want it so go get tickets and enough story based missions to level as normal without the need of having to finish each level with several cluster missions.
I'm glad to see that the devs are playing the "Woe is me" card here. That tells me an awful lot about what the future of this game is going to be like. We'll be lucky if this game has the content WoW had at release ... two years from now.
Not sure what you mean here mate i think the devs are doing a good job at listening and responding cant fault them mysellf.
Devs ... here's reality.
World of Warcraft is a fantastic game enjoyed by multiple millions of people around the world. Star Trek, as an IP, has fans in amounts that dwarf the number of people who have ever played a Warcraft game. World of Warcraft was made by Blizzard, a company that has become legendary for their dedication to taking as much time as it takes to get a game ready to release, and therefore legendary for the quality of their products. STO was made by you guys, a company who seems to think that two years is enough time to make a game ... except you've already earned a reputation the world around for releasing buggy, unfinished games, with barely any content, and then taking months/years to put in even a reasonable amount of content that one would expect with a game's release.
Wow is pure grind nothing immersive in the content dungoens are good raids are so so but in the end your doing it for one reason to get gear to go for the next raid and you have to do the raids over and over again if you want the full set very grindy and reeptative if you ask me.
Here's what you need to do. Stop crying to the press about how unfair people are being when they talk about your game. Make a list, and it's going to be a long one, of all the broken or unfinished stuff in your game. Fix and finish those things as fast as possible. And seriously, think up a variety of quest types so that your "missions" aren't all made from the same three pieces. Try to make them have some kind of story so that we have some interest in doing them. Then, give it to your players for FREE ... because we already paid for it. If I purchased a car and it didn't have seats, doors, a windshield, or headlights ... the car manufacturer isn't going to make me pay for those things. Similarly, you shouldn't charge us for the things that SHOULD have come with the game in the first place. And when you do finally get to this point, send out a free 30 days to everyone who purchased your game in the first months and stopped playing because of how bad it was.
Im still here didnt stop playing and will pay for next months too.
Car manufacturers make bog standard models and sell nice shiny wheels and electric windows, mirrors as upgrades and extras nothing different with expansions really.
Never really seen any interview where they claim were giving them a hard time tbh or crying about WOW they have mentioned its effect on the gaming industrys but so have all the latest MMO's nout new here and i try and read all the interviews.
I am not a fan boy but i do like this game and yes it has a lot of bugs but so do all the games out there and new ones are found everyday even wow has bugs ya know.
I played WoW for 5 years and I find STO to be far more enjoyable.
As far as questing goes I don't miss 1500 tiny little WoW quests to track down 10 drops each that have a 10% drop rate and having to spawn camp to get a shot at them. Or Nesingwary missions? Who misses those???
Episodes beat all the boring junk quests all the other MMO's I've played before hands down. I would rather do a few episodes to reach a new grade than several dozen boring quests for one level.
As soon as someone comes up with a way to design mission objectives that aren't kill x of them or collect x of those I'll be quite happy. Would it be better not to have the counter so you're not sure how far you are along on the mission? Klingons are attacking the planets population sir! We need to assist them! Objective "Go kill klingons." "No sir more klingon life signs still detected" every time you try to beam back up vs "Kill 10 klingons" and know when you'll be done with the mission from the start. If you want to free the planet you'll still have to kill the same number of guys, I like knowing how I'm progressing. Not to mention with scan technology they could say there are 5 groups of klingons sir.
The instancing doesn't take that long, it's annoying I'll admit that. I'm not sure why they don't have sector space all be one massive zone rather than instances. Cross instance zone chat and the ability to jump from one to the other means it's not a big deal either to me. If your friend was on a different server in most MMO's you had to create a different character or pay for a transfer. Here you just click a button on the map.
Quests in wow are the same quests different skin how is this not the same as the instanced quests?
I have yet to do a quest/mission in STO where I get to pilot a mech of some sort and run around on a cliff face. I have yet to do a quest/mission in STO where I'm copied and have to fight myself OR fight with myself. These are just 2 examples.
HAHAHAHA you talk about WOW and STO and travel time in the same post you gotta be kidding me flying from one area to the other takes so long in WOW its a joke one of the reasons i stopped playing it 2 months after purchase.
Really it takes all of 2 minutes to fly between the two faction cities on either continent. If you're constantly flying from the top of the map to the bottom (and I did know several players who did this for reasons I can't fathom) then yes it takes a while. But at least you could take a flight path and didn't have to walk as you do in STO. I could 'transwarp'/port to ANY place I wanted to in WoW (after setting the location) can't in STO. I was able to talk to other classes that were able to port me damn near anywhere if I wanted to (didn't actually have to I played that class specifically for that reason) I don't see ANYTHING like that in STO.
Not sure whtat missions you were doing on WOW but most were kill 10 boars collect 10 eggs feathers etc etc so nothing diffrent here really.
the story line missions make for good reading, in WOW i never read quest text ever just clicked continue and went and did quest on the story based missions i read every line and i really enjoy them but you are right there isnt nearly enough of these way it should be is explore missions for tickets for that extra item you may need and cant find from a drop but want it so go get tickets and enough story based missions to level as normal without the need of having to finish each level with several cluster missions.
If you never read any of the text in the Quests for WoW then how could you consider yourself versed enough in them to say that STO is anything better. You (by your own admittance) say you didn't read them so how could you know? If you read ALL of the STO missions, what exactly is different about the writing styles between the two writers that make you say "I must read this" or "That not worth my time"? I sense a bit of bias here. As in you're not a fan of fantasy (which is fine) so you didn't read the fantasy stories, but you are apparently a fan of Sci-Fi (which is also fine) so you CHOOSE to read those. I have to question how much ground you have to stand on in this comparison.
Not sure what you mean here mate i think the devs are doing a good job at listening and responding cant fault them mysellf.
While this is true as of late, it does seem that this is a recent development. There wasn't even 1/4 of this kind of communication during closed/open beta. But is has gotten better I'll give them that.
Wow is pure grind nothing immersive in the content dungoens are good raids are so so but in the end your doing it for one reason to get gear to go for the next raid and you have to do the raids over and over again if you want the full set very grindy and reeptative if you ask me.
Something is only immersible or not if you allow yourself to be immersed. You didn't allow yourself to be immersed in WoW for whatever reason. Yet some people seem to love STO beyond reason and will not allow themselves to see anything negative. Both games are grinds, in fact ALL MMORPG'S ARE GRINDS. That is the definition of an RPG: To grind experience to gain power and advance your character. Whether or not you allow yourself to be blinded/immersed by the game enough to ignore the grind is simply personal opinion.
Im still here didnt stop playing and will pay for next months too.
Car manufacturers make bog standard models and sell nice shiny wheels and electric windows, mirrors as upgrades and extras nothing different with expansions really.
You right here they do release a different model for either the same price or larger price than the previous one. This will not work for this game. That car you bought previously also still contains value, in that you can resell it to recoup or contribute to the purchase of the newer model. If you bought a car without seats and windows with the promise that they'll be added shortly how long is your patience? And is patience a sound enough model to try and run a business on?
Never really seen any interview where they claim were giving them a hard time tbh or crying about WOW they have mentioned its effect on the gaming industrys but so have all the latest MMO's nout new here and i try and read all the interviews.
I am not a fan boy but i do like this game and yes it has a lot of bugs but so do all the games out there and new ones are found everyday even wow has bugs ya know.
The interview was the podcast with Jack Emmeritt (sp?) in which he blamed WoW for raising the bar to the point where he believes no other companies will be able to reach, and because of that STO and any other start up MMO's will always fail when compared. He seemed to be pushing the same idea's that a lot of the STO defenders are pushing, the idea that everyone is comparing STO now to WoW now, but they aren't. Everyone of significance knows you can't judge a 2 month old game against a 5+ year old game. But what can be done is compare them in equivalent time frames: first 6 months vs first 6 months. It seems; however, that a lot of people don't believe this is being done and will always jump to the conclusion that it wasn't and that all reviews are 2 months vs 5 years which they're not.
2. lol Why would you want to spec survival unless you only did PVP and therefore wouldnt know the answer to your first question.
3. Works just fine in PVE, raids, instances etc. Has for 4 years.
For #2. Hunters used to be more melee oriented. It wasn't until Beta 2 or maybe 3 (I can't remember) that they took away the Hunter's use of bucklers (which used to be a separate shield class). It was when they also removed spears and Dwarven mages.
Uh huh. Then why is Jack blaming the fact they didnt get better scores because of WoW. The OP didnt bring it up. Cryptic did.
If WoW sucks so bad, and STO got bad scores because people are comparing it to WoW (supposedly) then whats that make STO? Worse than suck? Yea......maybe.
STO is one hundred times better then WoW. There is no comparison. WoW is for infantile children and STO is not. WoW is fantasy and STO is sci-fi. WoW is based on other prior games Blizzard had created and STO is based on a legendary epic franchise. There is no comparison here. WoW is dead and STO is only just beginning. In three years, when STO has had many updates and things added in WoW will simply be a footnote in history and STO will be the leader. Mark my words.
If the industry truly uses WoW as the basis of comparisons for every other game that hits the market then we are all in trouble. Millions of kids, notice I said kids, play video games. WoW caters to them so thankfully 90% of them stay there.
I have yet to do a quest/mission in STO where I get to pilot a mech of some sort and run around on a cliff face. I have yet to do a quest/mission in STO where I'm copied and have to fight myself OR fight with myself. These are just 2 examples.
Yes there are a few quests but there are some good ones in STO?
Really it takes all of 2 minutes to fly between the two faction cities on either continent. If you're constantly flying from the top of the map to the bottom (and I did know several players who did this for reasons I can't fathom) then yes it takes a while. But at least you could take a flight path and didn't have to walk as you do in STO. I could 'transwarp'/port to ANY place I wanted to in WoW (after setting the location) can't in STO. I was able to talk to other classes that were able to port me damn near anywhere if I wanted to (didn't actually have to I played that class specifically for that reason) I don't see ANYTHING like that in STO.
Everything was slow in wow mate its like they wanted to slow you down travelling from one system to the next really doesnt take that long would be nice not to get dragged in to a DSE so you could go get a drink or sumit but the games not perfect.
If you never read any of the text in the Quests for WoW then how could you consider yourself versed enough in them to say that STO is anything better. You (by your own admittance) say you didn't read them so how could you know? If you read ALL of the STO missions, what exactly is different about the writing styles between the two writers that make you say "I must read this" or "That not worth my time"? I sense a bit of bias here. As in you're not a fan of fantasy (which is fine) so you didn't read the fantasy stories, but you are apparently a fan of Sci-Fi (which is also fine) so you CHOOSE to read those. I have to question how much ground you have to stand on in this comparison.
So i gotta read a quest line that tells me to collect 10 boar tusks as i said there a few quests that are ok but most were just trash quests?
While this is true as of late, it does seem that this is a recent development. There wasn't even 1/4 of this kind of communication during closed/open beta. But is has gotten better I'll give them that.
Something is only immersible or not if you allow yourself to be immersed. You didn't allow yourself to be immersed in WoW for whatever reason. Yet some people seem to love STO beyond reason and will not allow themselves to see anything negative. Both games are grinds, in fact ALL MMORPG'S ARE GRINDS. That is the definition of an RPG: To grind experience to gain power and advance your character. Whether or not you allow yourself to be blinded/immersed by the game enough to ignore the grind is simply personal opinion.
I didnt get in to it as i hated the slow rides every where the constant need to grind for everything money mats quests rep the lot i made a max level character as i do in all games then couldnt face making another one running through guess what the same content just like in all games.
You right here they do release a different model for either the same price or larger price than the previous one. This will not work for this game. That car you bought previously also still contains value, in that you can resell it to recoup or contribute to the purchase of the newer model. If you bought a car without seats and windows with the promise that they'll be added shortly how long is your patience? And is patience a sound enough model to try and run a business on?
But you wouldnt buy the car with no windows or doors the games working not to everyones expectation but its working?
The interview was the podcast with Jack Emmeritt (sp?) in which he blamed WoW for raising the bar to the point where he believes no other companies will be able to reach, and because of that STO and any other start up MMO's will always fail when compared. He seemed to be pushing the same idea's that a lot of the STO defenders are pushing, the idea that everyone is comparing STO now to WoW now, but they aren't. Everyone of significance knows you can't judge a 2 month old game against a 5+ year old game. But what can be done is compare them in equivalent time frames: first 6 months vs first 6 months. It seems; however, that a lot of people don't believe this is being done and will always jump to the conclusion that it wasn't and that all reviews are 2 months vs 5 years which they're not.
Every company uses the same line Warhammer LOTR all of them have said the exact same sentence before its not just Jack thats saying it.
And for the record WOW is a good game its just not for me but i dont go slaging it off on WOW forums because its not to my taste and i dont have the time needed to get the best gear in that game as everything is slow if i only get a few hours a night every other night then a game with very slow travel system is not for me.
I also dont make posts on forums of a games i think are so bad if i dont like it then i dont pay for it i do my talking with my money.
Comparing any other game to World of Warcraft is meaningless, in the same way comparing any other game to any Blizzard game is meaningless.
On one side you have a company so rich and influential it can basically work as long as it wants, on anything it wants, with anyone it wants, and will be fought over by publishers for the privelege of sticking to the side of a guaranteed money machine like a terrifying lamprey. On the other side, you have teams working on a tight budget presided over by a hungry publisher with very specific contracted demands for release schedules and a wider expectation of what constitutes a functional game.
Blizzard will actually state that they are spending time simply polishing a game, that it's basically finished, they're just poking at it. Pretty much no-one else gets to do that. There's a few, iD unless their aquisition has changed things. Valve certainly. But it's not the norm.
A simple fact of the gaming industry is; you're not going to release like Blizzard can. Feel free to aspire to it, never expect it.
Actully it is not meaningless. Look these other games have backers like Atari and such that should get thier act togather and see what a succeesful game actully is (WoW) and allow these games to not be released 1/2 finished with no polishe. I fail to understand why the practice of releasing 1/2 finished games is ok with you people.
I also dont make posts on forums of a games i think are so bad if i dont like it then i dont pay for it i do my talking with my money.
I have done my talking with my money. I bought a lifetime in the hopes that someone/anyone could do something/anything great with the IP. That is why I and several others are here trying to point out the parts that need attention (in our opinions). I would feel as though I cheated myself if I didn't at least attempt to contribute to the future health of an iconic story franchise I enjoy such as this. If all they ever hear or see is "it's great don't change a thing" that's exactly what will happen. The moment that people stop posting negatives (in their opinion) is the day the game stops evolving and begins dieing. Nothing happens if everyone is 'fine'.
I've never played WoW and have little desire to do so. My first MMO was LOTRO for which I bought a lifetime sub at launch. I'm glad I did as I'm still playing 3 yrs later. I considered buying a lifetime for STO, but dismissed the concept fairly quickly. I agree with the OP on a lot of points that he and other posters have made in this thread so far. I think this game could have been epic, but won't because:
1. In an effort to maximize ROI as quickly as possible, Cryptic rushed a product to market that wasn't quite ready. The quests are pretty basic and cookie-cutter (with some exceptions) and there appears to be little to do at end game (ie no crafting, no hobbies, none of the fluff that people do while waiting for expansions).
2. The market is more mature at this point than it was when WoW came out. In my opintion, there aren't that many non-MMO players that love Trek that might be captured by this game. STO will have to compete with all the other titles out there for players' (in these days especially), hard earned money.
3. There appears to be some technical hiccups too. My fiance would love to play this game. Her computer meets the minimum requirments, but she's eternally stuck in loading screens.
3. Because of #1 and #2 (and possibly #3), I believe that many people will try this game for 30 - 90 days, but ultimately leave for the next new thing or go back to the old reliable. This happened recently with AoC, WAR, and I've heard Aion as well.
Another poster stated that they thought that STO should have come out as a F2P game. I think they may be right. I don't feel that the $15 a month I'm paying for STO is the same value as another sub for LOTRO would give me for the same price. I hope that Cryptic can turn things around. I've been a Trekker since the early 70's and would love to continue to hang out in Kirk and Spock's universe.
Not every development company has 7 years, teams of hundreds, a cash pile the size of God from creating two stellar franchises, and 70+ million dollars to develop an MMO like WoW.
Saying there are unreal market expectations is honest, frankly.
People expect Jesus walking in bestowing loaves and fishes - fully fleshed content for every level, multiple pathways, etc. No publisher will take that risk anymore with a developer (70 million, 7 years as Blizaard did because they had tons of money, rights to their own IP, and assets to start with).
So, we have less content at launches for MMOs nowadays (anyone remember two years ago? Age of Conan content gaps?) This was how the market worked for a long time - expansions every year for Everquest to fund development of new content (they've virtually had one every year too).
Before Blizzard entered the market with an incredible amount of their own capital and could afford taking 7 years to development an MMO, everyone had a broken MMO that was sold on the promise of great things to come (not the current state). So, yes, there are unrealistic market expectations as he pointed out in his interview - ones that will make it harder to break into MMO scene without failure.
Age of Conan got mostly positive reviews overall (something like 80% on metacritic). That game died after level 20 - almost no content, next to no endgame, missing features promised on launch.
They started fixing that soon - investing on the initial success they had.
Same with SWG. Anyone who remembers player-housing/cities or ship fights in SWG should also recall the launch:
no player-cities, no spaceships, no speeders, and no lightsabers or jedi options.
A year after launch and SWG was an AMAZING game that many fondly recall (before that whole NGE/CU debacle).
DDO has a rough launch - buggy, only went to level 9, not many levels, completely different style (module instancing vs. open world), etc. The turned that game around and made it free to play and raised the level cap to 20 during the course of four years. It wasn't rosy and not it has gotten better.
The internet is spiteful place with a short memory - despite the access to this information being right at everyone's fingertips.
So, with that, we can see that WoW has altered perceptions for the worst - not because it isn't a great game (it is great - it really tapped into what most people wanted in an MMO) but because of the unrealistic expectations.
Not every MMO is as lucky as WoW
Nor every woman as lucky as Audrey Hepburn.
Nor every car as awesomely plugged as the DeLorean.
Nor every gamer as lucky as the one who can appreciate the times we live in.
The internet and gaming in general are amazing - most of us wouldn't think of where we are today back when NWN launched on AOL or Meridian 59 or Ultima Online.
Tell any Trekkie -or gamer for that matter- from the 80s/early 90s that we'd have a game with thousands of players online, doing missions together, in full 3D with positional damage and they would've freaked out.
Wow that was a very wordy excuse for the crappy MMO's these days. So basically your saying it is ok for MMO's to be released in a crappy state because every one (except WOW) does. But your right it is bad that WoW shows what a good MMO can be if the incompetents of these other game companies were pushed aside.
I still dont get why they made the choices they made. I suppose they wanted to give non-Trekkies the chance to enjoy the movie in the theatres. What they did was producing a mediocre SciFi-movie that put all Trekkies in NERDRAGE!
A Pity.
Well that is a matter of opinion. I've been a ST fan since the 70's and the new movie was awsome one of the best infact which is weird for me because I tened not to like the Time eposodes in any of ther series very much. But I think Abrams did a good job with the Alternate Timeline.
Wow that was a very wordy excuse for the crappy MMO's these days. So basically your saying it is ok for MMO's to be released in a crappy state because every one (except WOW) does. But your right it is bad that WoW shows what a good MMO can be if the incompetents of these other game companies were pushed aside.
Dude, if you're ever on the business side of MMOs, you'd realize that most have a budget of less that 1/30th of WoW.
There's only so much that can be done with a smaller crew, with fewer resources, less creative control, etc.
Star Trek Online had some elements that have no excuse (skill and item descriptions). I'll concede that.
However, unrealistic expectations are created around the most expensively launched MMO with the largest team. How do you compete with that? You can't - not directly at least. The best bet is to either do something new and creative (space theme, have a huge diplomacy system, etc.) or just promise more as time goes on.
The best hope is come up with something new and promise tons of post-launch updates and added features.
These games aren't complete failures (STO was mediocre at best/worst at launch - if you want to look at actual failure, take WWII Online). Mediocre is the norm in the market - with great features launching during the first year of post-launch development.
I'm not saying, don't hold your breath for better games. What I'm saying is that WoW is not the normal release on the developer in, despite forming most gamers opinions of what a good MMO is.
I pointed out that some of the BEST MMOs have crappy states but hedge their bets on improving in the future (SWG went from okay to really good just before the NGE debacle, for example).
Here's a list of games and their woes during the first few weeks of launch:
WoW - unstable servers, long loading queues, virtually unplayable areas (see Ironforge Auction house during first month of launch), class imbalances, limited & lackluster PvP options
SWG - lots of sandbox but virtually no direction, save for random missions. Missing features from interviews: player cities, starships, speeders, and JEDI.
Age of Conan: huge content drop-off after level 20, almost no endgame, broken features
STO: unstable servers, confusing mission descriptions, confusing skill/item tooltips, almost no endgame, lackluster but strategic ground combat, lackluster crafting
Ultima Online: bugs, unstable servers, connection issues, gameplay imbalances
DDO: very few missions, cap at level 9, not many "dragons" per-say, confusing directions and interface
Everquest: unintuitive interface (lead to steep learning curve), not much end-game, tons of imbalances, severe death penalties (especially toward endgame - losing levels/items!)
World War II Online: server instability, login issues, account creation issues, missing graphics, incomplete features, poor docuementation/manual, broken gameplay mechanics, imbalances, framerate issues
First ... all MMO's depend on addicting the player to keep them subscribing.
Second, everyone is welcome to have certain wants and desires from the game. Just so you know, though, lots of people like and enjoy grouping and tackling content that requires a group to work together. There is room for both solo and group and raid content in a game. There's no rule that says a solo player has to be able to do everything in the game, and fankly, it's a little selfish for you to make a post where you imply that only the solo player should be considered when it comes to content.
99.99999% of this game is soloable. It's time for them to add some more rigorous stuff to appeal to the other player types, don't you think?
The addictive part of WoW is not was I was pointing out it is in the manner of how they make the game addictive. You can make a game that is addictive without resorting to the pull leaver for food style and that is what I was addressing. If you make a game like you would a TV show it could be addictive and fun instead of the repetitive tasks present in most MMOs.
Raids do not have to be designed in such a way that you must play with other people especially in this game where bridge officers could fill in for missing players on the ground and NPC ships for the space content. I prefer the AI over another player aside from my friends.
My point with raids is that end game content tends to be raid content and very few if any solo missions so unless a player wants to enter a raid over and over there really isnt anything for them to do and that is why I dislike raids even more so when there is only one great item drop and everyone has to fight over it.
MMOs should always design all content as solo and leave it up to the players to group up every time they add force group content they throw up a roadblock to player progress. I do not know about others but I will quit playing a game first before I will sit around for 10 minutes looking for a group that I really dont want to be part of in the first place.
Here's a list of games and their woes during the first few weeks of launch:
WoW - unstable servers, long loading queues, virtually unplayable areas (see Ironforge Auction house during first month of launch), class imbalances, limited & lackluster PvP options
SWG - lots of sandbox but virtually no direction, save for random missions. Missing features from interviews: player cities, starships, speeders, and JEDI.
Age of Conan: huge content drop-off after level 20, almost no endgame, broken features
STO: unstable servers, confusing mission descriptions, confusing skill/item tooltips, almost no endgame, lackluster but strategic ground combat, lackluster crafting
Ultima Online: bugs, unstable servers, connection issues, gameplay imbalances
DDO: very few missions, cap at level 9, not many "dragons" per-say, confusing directions and interface
Everquest: unintuitive interface (lead to steep learning curve), not much end-game, tons of imbalances, severe death penalties (especially toward endgame - losing levels/items!)
I think you can add lackluster PVP, class imbalances, inaccessible area's (Sol, which is still laggy as hell for me), NO queue system (a boot to the login screen), Missing features from interviews (DP, Ferengi), Confusing directions (the Where's Sulu tirade) to the STO list.
Also as for the crafting, I have to say 'lackluster' is a pretty generous word to use to describe the so called crafting in this game.
And the only strategic thing about ground combat is line of sight, which you don't even really have to use till the STF mission. With healbots available to everyone, there's not really anything on the ground that should pose a threat (unless you're gimping yourself by not equipping stuff, as I know some friends who are). Other than that you press 1 till you see a target appear then press 2 at them.
Here's a list of games and their woes during the first few weeks of launch:
WoW - unstable servers, long loading queues, virtually unplayable areas (see Ironforge Auction house during first month of launch), class imbalances, limited & lackluster PvP options
SWG - lots of sandbox but virtually no direction, save for random missions. Missing features from interviews: player cities, starships, speeders, and JEDI.
Age of Conan: huge content drop-off after level 20, almost no endgame, broken features
STO: unstable servers, confusing mission descriptions, confusing skill/item tooltips, almost no endgame, lackluster but strategic ground combat, lackluster crafting
Ultima Online: bugs, unstable servers, connection issues, gameplay imbalances
DDO: very few missions, cap at level 9, not many "dragons" per-say, confusing directions and interface
Everquest: unintuitive interface (lead to steep learning curve), not much end-game, tons of imbalances, severe death penalties (especially toward endgame - losing levels/items!)
World War II Online: server instability, login issues, account creation issues, missing graphics, incomplete features, poor docuementation/manual, broken gameplay mechanics, imbalances, framerate issues
I think in UO you forgot the lag and the fact there was nothing to fight. I recall taking two steps every 30 seconds and walking from one end of the map to the other without coming across a single monster to fight.
I spent the first month of U.O. in the shop making dresses quoting Garrick. I am just a simple tailor. If I recall right I had that as a macro.
Comments
Have you seen the calendar and the engineering reports? We have season 1 coming before end of the month a new STF also before the end of the month. Patience padawan.
Yes I do. :mad:
DS9 and Voyager was on.
ST Games where selling like hotcakes (although I have no idea why a hotcake would sell well).
Moves where doing well.
And paramount decided to kicks it fans in the balls.
dont think so. BSG was a great show. LOST, Heroes and 24 still are.
The face of the shows just changed, drastically. When in the 80s-90s shows with episode-character would run great (ST:TNG, the prince of Bel-air, ... whatever.all shows back then *g*) nowadays you NEED a story line that starts with episode 1 and only ends with episode Omega. On the way there is a continuing story arc that binds the people to the show.
Thats why the seventh season DS9 was so successful. Star Trek: Enterprise was a great show (to me), but the concept was outdated even when it started.
I can envision another Star Trek series - but making it would require LOTS of thinking
Here I'm with you 100%.
I still dont get why they made the choices they made. I suppose they wanted to give non-Trekkies the chance to enjoy the movie in the theatres. What they did was producing a mediocre SciFi-movie that put all Trekkies in NERDRAGE!
A Pity.
You said NO content, not less that other MMOs. It is your opinion that STO has no content, or not enough content to be released.
I never said that it has more or less content than any other MMO.
Give them time, we have a very unique game here with again (beating a dead horse) much potential to become something great. This requires faith on our part.
What are we afraid of? Lost time playing a game that never met its true mettle within a 6 month time frame? Lost money on something that didn't turn out like we expected it to?
All we really have in this world IS time.
Money doesn't have a home.
Yet the true mark of a person is thier capacity of patience in dealing with that which they have little control over..........if for the moment.
In the end...what have you really lost if it's not what you thought it was supposed to be?
I could actually start quoting ST but that would be just a wee on the cheese side.
You get my point. Nothing is perfect, and a masterpiece whether we think it is or not, takes time.
I have to agree with the OP
I'm still going to have to disagree.
Great post. I have felt the same way. I never thought STO was going to do as well as WoW. I did think Cryptic was going to deliver the game they spoke of in 2008. I keep playing STO waiting for them to bring us that game. I just hope they get things together before the player base drops to the point where they can no longer afford to support the game.
And here I click on the "Dev Post" thinking it was going to be something insightful from Jack or Zinc. Or even coderanger for that matter.
Le sigh...
1. I tanked better than any warrior on my realm.
2. lol Why would you want to spec survival unless you only did PVP and therefore wouldnt know the answer to your first question.
3. Works just fine in PVE, raids, instances etc. Has for 4 years.
As far as questing goes I don't miss 1500 tiny little WoW quests to track down 10 drops each that have a 10% drop rate and having to spawn camp to get a shot at them. Or Nesingwary missions? Who misses those???
Episodes beat all the boring junk quests all the other MMO's I've played before hands down. I would rather do a few episodes to reach a new grade than several dozen boring quests for one level.
As soon as someone comes up with a way to design mission objectives that aren't kill x of them or collect x of those I'll be quite happy. Would it be better not to have the counter so you're not sure how far you are along on the mission? Klingons are attacking the planets population sir! We need to assist them! Objective "Go kill klingons." "No sir more klingon life signs still detected" every time you try to beam back up vs "Kill 10 klingons" and know when you'll be done with the mission from the start. If you want to free the planet you'll still have to kill the same number of guys, I like knowing how I'm progressing. Not to mention with scan technology they could say there are 5 groups of klingons sir.
The instancing doesn't take that long, it's annoying I'll admit that. I'm not sure why they don't have sector space all be one massive zone rather than instances. Cross instance zone chat and the ability to jump from one to the other means it's not a big deal either to me. If your friend was on a different server in most MMO's you had to create a different character or pay for a transfer. Here you just click a button on the map.
I have yet to do a quest/mission in STO where I get to pilot a mech of some sort and run around on a cliff face. I have yet to do a quest/mission in STO where I'm copied and have to fight myself OR fight with myself. These are just 2 examples.
Really it takes all of 2 minutes to fly between the two faction cities on either continent. If you're constantly flying from the top of the map to the bottom (and I did know several players who did this for reasons I can't fathom) then yes it takes a while. But at least you could take a flight path and didn't have to walk as you do in STO. I could 'transwarp'/port to ANY place I wanted to in WoW (after setting the location) can't in STO. I was able to talk to other classes that were able to port me damn near anywhere if I wanted to (didn't actually have to I played that class specifically for that reason) I don't see ANYTHING like that in STO.
If you never read any of the text in the Quests for WoW then how could you consider yourself versed enough in them to say that STO is anything better. You (by your own admittance) say you didn't read them so how could you know? If you read ALL of the STO missions, what exactly is different about the writing styles between the two writers that make you say "I must read this" or "That not worth my time"? I sense a bit of bias here. As in you're not a fan of fantasy (which is fine) so you didn't read the fantasy stories, but you are apparently a fan of Sci-Fi (which is also fine) so you CHOOSE to read those. I have to question how much ground you have to stand on in this comparison.
While this is true as of late, it does seem that this is a recent development. There wasn't even 1/4 of this kind of communication during closed/open beta. But is has gotten better I'll give them that.
Something is only immersible or not if you allow yourself to be immersed. You didn't allow yourself to be immersed in WoW for whatever reason. Yet some people seem to love STO beyond reason and will not allow themselves to see anything negative. Both games are grinds, in fact ALL MMORPG'S ARE GRINDS. That is the definition of an RPG: To grind experience to gain power and advance your character. Whether or not you allow yourself to be blinded/immersed by the game enough to ignore the grind is simply personal opinion.
You right here they do release a different model for either the same price or larger price than the previous one. This will not work for this game. That car you bought previously also still contains value, in that you can resell it to recoup or contribute to the purchase of the newer model. If you bought a car without seats and windows with the promise that they'll be added shortly how long is your patience? And is patience a sound enough model to try and run a business on?
The interview was the podcast with Jack Emmeritt (sp?) in which he blamed WoW for raising the bar to the point where he believes no other companies will be able to reach, and because of that STO and any other start up MMO's will always fail when compared. He seemed to be pushing the same idea's that a lot of the STO defenders are pushing, the idea that everyone is comparing STO now to WoW now, but they aren't. Everyone of significance knows you can't judge a 2 month old game against a 5+ year old game. But what can be done is compare them in equivalent time frames: first 6 months vs first 6 months. It seems; however, that a lot of people don't believe this is being done and will always jump to the conclusion that it wasn't and that all reviews are 2 months vs 5 years which they're not.
For #2. Hunters used to be more melee oriented. It wasn't until Beta 2 or maybe 3 (I can't remember) that they took away the Hunter's use of bucklers (which used to be a separate shield class). It was when they also removed spears and Dwarven mages.
STO is one hundred times better then WoW. There is no comparison. WoW is for infantile children and STO is not. WoW is fantasy and STO is sci-fi. WoW is based on other prior games Blizzard had created and STO is based on a legendary epic franchise. There is no comparison here. WoW is dead and STO is only just beginning. In three years, when STO has had many updates and things added in WoW will simply be a footnote in history and STO will be the leader. Mark my words.
If the industry truly uses WoW as the basis of comparisons for every other game that hits the market then we are all in trouble. Millions of kids, notice I said kids, play video games. WoW caters to them so thankfully 90% of them stay there.
Every company uses the same line Warhammer LOTR all of them have said the exact same sentence before its not just Jack thats saying it.
And for the record WOW is a good game its just not for me but i dont go slaging it off on WOW forums because its not to my taste and i dont have the time needed to get the best gear in that game as everything is slow if i only get a few hours a night every other night then a game with very slow travel system is not for me.
I also dont make posts on forums of a games i think are so bad if i dont like it then i dont pay for it i do my talking with my money.
Actully it is not meaningless. Look these other games have backers like Atari and such that should get thier act togather and see what a succeesful game actully is (WoW) and allow these games to not be released 1/2 finished with no polishe. I fail to understand why the practice of releasing 1/2 finished games is ok with you people.
I have done my talking with my money. I bought a lifetime in the hopes that someone/anyone could do something/anything great with the IP. That is why I and several others are here trying to point out the parts that need attention (in our opinions). I would feel as though I cheated myself if I didn't at least attempt to contribute to the future health of an iconic story franchise I enjoy such as this. If all they ever hear or see is "it's great don't change a thing" that's exactly what will happen. The moment that people stop posting negatives (in their opinion) is the day the game stops evolving and begins dieing. Nothing happens if everyone is 'fine'.
1. In an effort to maximize ROI as quickly as possible, Cryptic rushed a product to market that wasn't quite ready. The quests are pretty basic and cookie-cutter (with some exceptions) and there appears to be little to do at end game (ie no crafting, no hobbies, none of the fluff that people do while waiting for expansions).
2. The market is more mature at this point than it was when WoW came out. In my opintion, there aren't that many non-MMO players that love Trek that might be captured by this game. STO will have to compete with all the other titles out there for players' (in these days especially), hard earned money.
3. There appears to be some technical hiccups too. My fiance would love to play this game. Her computer meets the minimum requirments, but she's eternally stuck in loading screens.
3. Because of #1 and #2 (and possibly #3), I believe that many people will try this game for 30 - 90 days, but ultimately leave for the next new thing or go back to the old reliable. This happened recently with AoC, WAR, and I've heard Aion as well.
Another poster stated that they thought that STO should have come out as a F2P game. I think they may be right. I don't feel that the $15 a month I'm paying for STO is the same value as another sub for LOTRO would give me for the same price. I hope that Cryptic can turn things around. I've been a Trekker since the early 70's and would love to continue to hang out in Kirk and Spock's universe.
Wow that was a very wordy excuse for the crappy MMO's these days. So basically your saying it is ok for MMO's to be released in a crappy state because every one (except WOW) does. But your right it is bad that WoW shows what a good MMO can be if the incompetents of these other game companies were pushed aside.
Well that is a matter of opinion. I've been a ST fan since the 70's and the new movie was awsome one of the best infact which is weird for me because I tened not to like the Time eposodes in any of ther series very much. But I think Abrams did a good job with the Alternate Timeline.
Dude, if you're ever on the business side of MMOs, you'd realize that most have a budget of less that 1/30th of WoW.
There's only so much that can be done with a smaller crew, with fewer resources, less creative control, etc.
Star Trek Online had some elements that have no excuse (skill and item descriptions). I'll concede that.
However, unrealistic expectations are created around the most expensively launched MMO with the largest team. How do you compete with that? You can't - not directly at least. The best bet is to either do something new and creative (space theme, have a huge diplomacy system, etc.) or just promise more as time goes on.
The best hope is come up with something new and promise tons of post-launch updates and added features.
These games aren't complete failures (STO was mediocre at best/worst at launch - if you want to look at actual failure, take WWII Online). Mediocre is the norm in the market - with great features launching during the first year of post-launch development.
I'm not saying, don't hold your breath for better games. What I'm saying is that WoW is not the normal release on the developer in, despite forming most gamers opinions of what a good MMO is.
I pointed out that some of the BEST MMOs have crappy states but hedge their bets on improving in the future (SWG went from okay to really good just before the NGE debacle, for example).
Here's a list of games and their woes during the first few weeks of launch:
The addictive part of WoW is not was I was pointing out it is in the manner of how they make the game addictive. You can make a game that is addictive without resorting to the pull leaver for food style and that is what I was addressing. If you make a game like you would a TV show it could be addictive and fun instead of the repetitive tasks present in most MMOs.
Raids do not have to be designed in such a way that you must play with other people especially in this game where bridge officers could fill in for missing players on the ground and NPC ships for the space content. I prefer the AI over another player aside from my friends.
My point with raids is that end game content tends to be raid content and very few if any solo missions so unless a player wants to enter a raid over and over there really isnt anything for them to do and that is why I dislike raids even more so when there is only one great item drop and everyone has to fight over it.
MMOs should always design all content as solo and leave it up to the players to group up every time they add force group content they throw up a roadblock to player progress. I do not know about others but I will quit playing a game first before I will sit around for 10 minutes looking for a group that I really dont want to be part of in the first place.
I think you can add lackluster PVP, class imbalances, inaccessible area's (Sol, which is still laggy as hell for me), NO queue system (a boot to the login screen), Missing features from interviews (DP, Ferengi), Confusing directions (the Where's Sulu tirade) to the STO list.
Also as for the crafting, I have to say 'lackluster' is a pretty generous word to use to describe the so called crafting in this game.
And the only strategic thing about ground combat is line of sight, which you don't even really have to use till the STF mission. With healbots available to everyone, there's not really anything on the ground that should pose a threat (unless you're gimping yourself by not equipping stuff, as I know some friends who are). Other than that you press 1 till you see a target appear then press 2 at them.
They comped everyone free time for that.
I think in UO you forgot the lag and the fact there was nothing to fight. I recall taking two steps every 30 seconds and walking from one end of the map to the other without coming across a single monster to fight.
I spent the first month of U.O. in the shop making dresses quoting Garrick. I am just a simple tailor. If I recall right I had that as a macro.