I was in the OB and also tried the Demo. OB players weren't eligible for the Trial weekend apparently, so I didn't get to see if there were worthwhile improvements... Unfortunately the game refused to load into Sol System so I'm not real optimistic. Waited over 30 minutes, rebooted multiple times, and it stayed stuck on the Sol System load screen.
Anyways, has the game improved enough that it is worth the 30 bucks now asked? Most of what I read on these forums seems pretty negative, and I have been reading them since Day one. So, I'd like some honest opinions from those still playing, especially the lifers.
the game has improved since beta and its a much better game, although there is not too much beside some cosmetic fixes, difficulty sliders, memory alpha improvements. season 2 is shaping up to have more content so you might want to hold back a couple of months just to get that stuff in if your waiting for new content.
the loading screen issue is not really a problem for most people any more as they added more severs and there wont be as many people all trying to log in at the same time as beta so you should not have any real problems logging in unless you have a slow internet connection.
the forums are a bad place to get an accurate judgement of the game as you will tend to see more negative comments than positive because the people that like the game have less reason to post stuff, and there are still some kinks to be ironed out so a little patience is required.
whether its worth the money is up to you and how much money you have. i think its totally worth playing and im loving it and cant wait for the future updates.
I have´nt had problem getting into sol since closed beta, so id recomand lowering your grafic settings.
To be honest, i feel that the game as improved alot since lunch, and if you look at the poll area of the forum and the picures of coming captain rooms, well then i can be nothing but curius about what is to come.
Acording to gozzer on the interview he had with STOKED, they got things planned for the comming year.
So in my opinion it's worth it.
But then it depends on what you want to do and what your expecting.
The game is worth giving a shot. Depends on whether or not you feel the cost of the game is prohibitive in the event you are dissatisfied. Many people rave about it. Many people loathe it. And others grumble (like me).
But the team has made a lot of progress since launch.
Truth be told, if I didn't love Star Trek so much, I probably wouldn't still be playing. But its all I got.
I love it and play casually, but as often as I can, and have since closed beta. Heck, a movie with a date cost more than Thirty bucks. This is definitely worth it!
As to not being able to load into Sol....try launching the game in "safe mode". Use the option tab at the top of the launcher and check that. Had that problem once myself and it fixed it. It will only launch in safe mode on that launching of the game and then return to normal....at which point you should never have to do it again.
Thanks for the info on safe loading and thanks for the replies. I think I'll go ahead and pick the game up at GameStop (I like having a disc) and go ahead and give it a shot. After all as some mentioned, it's only 30 bucks. Even if I only get 30 hours of gameplay before hitting cap, that's still a bargain at $1.00 an hour. Since I am a casual type gamer that should actually stretch to several weeks or more.
I was in the OB and also tried the Demo. OB players weren't eligible for the Trial weekend apparently, so I didn't get to see if there were worthwhile improvements... Unfortunately the game refused to load into Sol System so I'm not real optimistic. Waited over 30 minutes, rebooted multiple times, and it stayed stuck on the Sol System load screen.
Anyways, has the game improved enough that it is worth the 30 bucks now asked? Most of what I read on these forums seems pretty negative, and I have been reading them since Day one. So, I'd like some honest opinions from those still playing, especially the lifers.
I love this game, and I look forward to many of the changes and improvements that are scheduled to come to us over the next few months.
You really have to take what you read on the forums with a grain of salt, as there is a very vocal minority on the forums, some of whom have already quit and are just having their time run out. But there are plenty of people who never bother to read the forums, that love this game and play it all the time.
Is a game you can play for several years worth $30? To me, yes. Is STO worth 50 cents a day? To me, yes. Granted, there are alot of problems with STO, and alot of things need to be added. But $30, and then 50 cents a day isnt really that much of an investment even if it isnt teh greatest game ever made.
I thought that was a failed experiment that Cryptic will shy away from after seeing what happened with it in their old game when it was implemented by those who stayed at NCSoft?
I thought that was a failed experiment that Cryptic will shy away from after seeing what happened with it in their old game when it was implemented by those who stayed at NCSoft?
The only thing that failed was allowing players to level from it. Aside from that, it is a great source of content for people who have finished all the official content, as well as for guilds to create their own stories or training missions. In STO, user generated content should be like the holodeck: you dont get some reward for doing it, but its something fun to do when your bored. And guilds can always set up their own reward systems.
I thought that was a failed experiment that Cryptic will shy away from after seeing what happened with it in their old game when it was implemented by those who stayed at NCSoft?
AE itself wasn't a failed experiment. What made it fail was how they handled things after release. First they had people doing nothing but AE then Posi threaten banning people which did the opposite and turn the buildings into useless pieces of brick and mortar that rarely saw a soul. Plus the whole vote system was screwed up because one of the Dev choices that got a ton of play and high rankings was the dumbest POS I saw in there. Even the farms had better content that only put up a question mark as text. I wanted to go on a seven state killing spree after being put through that Dev's Choice arc.
And how crappy that one was, it made the Devs look bad like they wouldn't know quality if it bit them.
I would hope they would learn from the mistakes Paragon Studios made on that but somehow I really doubt it.
Cryptic has been very intrigued by the idea of User Generated Content and there is a vision that what you are describing in this thread isn't too far off in the future. We are watching what other companies are doing with User Generated Missions very closely.
It is a long term goal to open up the tools to create content to players - there is an internal R&D department focused on this for all of Cryptic Games and we are simply awaiting the tech.
Personally, I think hooking up a "make your own mission system" up to your ship's holodeck seems like a complete win and something that would be awesome. Invite someone over to your ship and go to the holodeck to play a "sim" that someone made.
Cryptic's most recent engine and design tools are proprietary. Any UGC tools need to be made from scratch and work across our entire platform - it is no easy task and there is a specific R&D team at Cryptic working on this (separate from the game teams).
The exploration content in STO was using an alpha version of the UGC tools - it was very basic UI and you had to know a lot about how the game works in order to use it effectively - BUT even at that early state of the tool - it was able to make some beautiful basic content using a single text editor interface.
The goal of the R&D team is to continue to work on features and mission types to make the tools more useful for internal teams working on various projects, then once the tool is working great - start working on an external facing version that anyone can use to make content.
We've learned a lot by using the tools ourselves with a goal to continue using it internally to the point that it can do everything we need it to do in order to allow anyone to make a fun interesting mission.
Keep in mind that while tools like this may exist internally - creating a secure infrastructure that allow external players to store data on our internal networks requires a lot of backend work. That's why there's a dedicated R&D team working on it - while the game teams like STO and Champs continue working on the game - so we're not distracted.
Comments
the loading screen issue is not really a problem for most people any more as they added more severs and there wont be as many people all trying to log in at the same time as beta so you should not have any real problems logging in unless you have a slow internet connection.
the forums are a bad place to get an accurate judgement of the game as you will tend to see more negative comments than positive because the people that like the game have less reason to post stuff, and there are still some kinks to be ironed out so a little patience is required.
whether its worth the money is up to you and how much money you have. i think its totally worth playing and im loving it and cant wait for the future updates.
I find myself nodding, TBH.
To be honest, i feel that the game as improved alot since lunch, and if you look at the poll area of the forum and the picures of coming captain rooms, well then i can be nothing but curius about what is to come.
Acording to gozzer on the interview he had with STOKED, they got things planned for the comming year.
So in my opinion it's worth it.
But then it depends on what you want to do and what your expecting.
But the team has made a lot of progress since launch.
Truth be told, if I didn't love Star Trek so much, I probably wouldn't still be playing. But its all I got.
As to not being able to load into Sol....try launching the game in "safe mode". Use the option tab at the top of the launcher and check that. Had that problem once myself and it fixed it. It will only launch in safe mode on that launching of the game and then return to normal....at which point you should never have to do it again.
Thanks again and see you in game.
I love this game, and I look forward to many of the changes and improvements that are scheduled to come to us over the next few months.
You really have to take what you read on the forums with a grain of salt, as there is a very vocal minority on the forums, some of whom have already quit and are just having their time run out. But there are plenty of people who never bother to read the forums, that love this game and play it all the time.
I'm not bored with the game and I've been playing since OB as well.
If UGC goes live around Season 3, I see a lot of reasons to subscribe.
Just an off question, but what is UGC?
User generated content.
Universal Glue Cannon? A new hold/snare weapon that Klingons with the aid of some ferengi maunufacturers have been able to invent and mass produce?
I thought that was a failed experiment that Cryptic will shy away from after seeing what happened with it in their old game when it was implemented by those who stayed at NCSoft?
The only thing that failed was allowing players to level from it. Aside from that, it is a great source of content for people who have finished all the official content, as well as for guilds to create their own stories or training missions. In STO, user generated content should be like the holodeck: you dont get some reward for doing it, but its something fun to do when your bored. And guilds can always set up their own reward systems.
Oh......hmm...
I didn't know that they were considering this actually, thanks. By chance do you have a dev post or something I could refer to?
AE itself wasn't a failed experiment. What made it fail was how they handled things after release. First they had people doing nothing but AE then Posi threaten banning people which did the opposite and turn the buildings into useless pieces of brick and mortar that rarely saw a soul. Plus the whole vote system was screwed up because one of the Dev choices that got a ton of play and high rankings was the dumbest POS I saw in there. Even the farms had better content that only put up a question mark as text. I wanted to go on a seven state killing spree after being put through that Dev's Choice arc.
And how crappy that one was, it made the Devs look bad like they wouldn't know quality if it bit them.
I would hope they would learn from the mistakes Paragon Studios made on that but somehow I really doubt it.
Yes, but it will take me some time to dig it up.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=2143651#post2143651
http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?p=1500504#post1500504
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=2554189&postcount=102
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=2554480&postcount=110
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=2558432&postcount=119
I'm actually fairly impressed I was able to find all that
Very nice reads, thanks for posting those man. :cool: