-= Star Trek Online Receives Positive Reviews from G4TV's MMO Report =-
Great news STO! X-play's top 2010 MMO Report posted an awesome review for STO! =D
Here's a link to the video review below. (ignore the random noises and cataclysm part lol)
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/709256/MMOs-of-2010---The-MMO-Report.html
Comments
Haha just kidding
Nice link.
Regards,
Q F T
I'd have paid for the transcript. That guy's voice is grating and the sound effects were stupid.
I too originally heard the bad reviews and avoided the game.
Lately though I was in the market for a new game and thanks to that wonderful demo (although a 15 days unlimited exploration membership would have been better) I decided to buy the game.
A month later and I have to say this game is awesome
Please keep up the good work and SW Old Republic will have nothing on us
I expect many more good reviews to head torward STO. When I bought that lifetime in beta it was a gamble.
As an avid Star Trek fan I rolled the dice and said there is just no way they can let an IP like Star Trek falter there is far and few between space mmo's and all I can say is Cryptic you may have just pulled it off.
This review from a BIG reviewer that's positive could send your subscriber base soaring.
Just don't forget about us lifers from the beginning that stuck it out through the thick and thin!
Cheers
---
That idiot jumping around like a TRIBBLE monkey, sticking his face into the camera and hitting that stupid red button was so annoying that I could barely sit through his review of STO. I'm lucky it was the first one reviewed because there's no way I could have sat through another second of that annoying nonsense.
I am happy to see a positive review of STO though.
lol agreed. I have avoided that guys MMO Reports ever since the first one i was unlucky enough to watch. And to be honest my first thought after clicking the link OP posted was "Oh TRIBBLE, i have to watch a video of this guy again?" and i debated whether it was worth it. I did watch it (well the STO part) and it was nice to see a good review. Good job Cryptic, keep it up.
That's a parody skit of Jim Cramer from MSNBC's "Mad Money".
"If there is one thing DS9 taught us, is that Star Trek fans will consume and defend anything in the franchise, no matter how bad it is"
-as part of the games review wasn't what I would consider to be "positive". All he said was it has a fan base that will keep it in existence into the new year, that it gets updates and their are big plans for it.
In terms of praise, I could imagine 10,000 other things that could have been said that would have seemed far more flattering.
One question I would ask is, just how many MMO's came out in 2010? I have no idea, but It seems he only reviewed 4 games in total that released in 2010 and one of them failed and is being relaunched in 2011. And though he mentioned the unfinished feel of the second game,FF XIV, I think, and the personel changes they have had, he seemed to avoid making note of the issues and personel changes this game has had. Why?
All the other games he spoke about he said were due in 2011.
this. what more is there?
If you look at Champions FTP as a response to DCU Online and dwindling numbers...
... well, I think STO, even after the exodus of initial players, was healthier than CO and got more new recruits as time went on than CO.
So... If the recipe for FTP is big competitor and dwindling numbers, the latter point doesn't look so bad for STO but TOR's delays probably allow Cryptic to put off FTP plans unless Infinite Space turns out to be huge. No wonder there aren't currently any FTP plans.
IF I were at Cryptic, my goal would be to polish and tweak and sustain the sub base at current levels, building the infrastructure up so that Klingons are complete and the same is super-slick and ready to keep an influx of players before considering FTP but have a backburner goal of launching FTP to go head-to-head with TOR, which will need a massive marketing campaign to recoup its insane budget (probably over $200M by the time it launches) and get STO ready for overflow from the new MMOers and dissatisfied MMOers that TOR brings in, and there will be plenty, even if it's perfect.
Thing is, I think STO would get an insane FTP response IF:
- The game is super-polished and super-complete and can hold FTP users enough to get them to buy things.
- TOR ever actually launches. The optimum time to launch any kind of FTP would be opposite TOR. It nets dissatisfied TOR players (and they'll exist even if TOR is perfect and I don't think any amount of money can make a perfect MMO), it acts as a stopgap against losses, it gets people who leave for TOR thinking about returning, and it would be a gutsy move.
Thing is, if TOR had launched this year or early 2011, any plans for STO to go FTP would be an afterthought because the game isn't ready for that. HOWEVER... The delays in TOR seem to make that a more viable longterm idea. Basically, the longer TOR takes, the more ready STO will be to drop the hammer down and go toe-to-toe on quality, content, and price.
If TOR launched, say, now, I'd probably be looking at a totally different approach than FTP. The longer TOR takes and the better CO does, the more I'd be looking at it. There's also less to lose with Champs due to lack of a licensing fee.
Champs launched... about six months before STO?
My call is that Champs' success with the model and TOR's delays are two of the factors that could influence STO to go FTP about six months after Champs, particularly if pitting Champs' FTP against DCU works well.
IF it works, Cryptic could wind up becoming a true giantkiller and that would position Neverwinter at a good place against WoW if STO and CO have big wins, since Neverwinter would be able to ride on those coattails with a new Cryptic fanbase and have the odd distinction of being the only major online fantasy co-op RPG to launch at that point since WoW will be between expansions, EQ and FF will have dwindled down, etc.
No guarantees but I really think the massive cash and delays put into DCU and TOR could position Cryptic VERY well and that, without those delays, the future would be less rosy. Those delays really give Cryptic the CHANCE to match money with skill and good marketing. And while I might have laughed at the "good marketing" tack a year ago, I think Cryptic is getting on the ball there and that it's just taken some time. The marketing is still their weekpoint, I think largely due to capital, but I also think there's some huge opportunity to piggyback off the big guys' marketing money by doing the crazy thing and being the little person who goes toe to toe with giants, getting press fueled by Sony and EA. The big guys will wind up having spent so much on hype, Cryptic can essentially use their competitors' own money and hype machines to promote Cryptic's games.
That is one problem with using deep pockets for big hype: once people talk about you, they don't stop talking, and if somebody else takes you on, they get famous to.
You can see that demonstrated with Joe the Plumber or Steven Colbert or even already established folks like Kanye West or Tom Cruise. A potential rival makes themselves famous enough, you can piggyback off that by going head-to-head with them. The trick then is to go beyond the 15 minutes of fame model and parlay that the way Colbert, talk radio hosts, and entertainment commentators have.
Think of it as the Chris Hanson model. Competent, affable, and moderately well known anchor. He takes on a big target that people care about (predators) and skyrockets in popularity and public awareness.
It's very common in pop culture. Get a competitor/rival/adversary people care about and dig in. The trick to parlaying that into long term success is not to rely on a fly-by-night, hit and run approach but to have substance to keep people around once they notice you.
These other games' delays buy Cryptic time to work on substance and stability.
By delaying these products to create the massive polish needed for massive numbers to support a massive budget, it buys Cryptic time to say, "Yeah. We are going for a chunk of your demographic. And we do some things better/cheaper than you."
It boils down to the big games' big numbers necessitating an insane amount of work on polish, enabling Cryptic to get the time needed to say, "Past the millions you spent on voiceover and marketing, we're comparable quality products."
A very poor parody. Jim Cramer's sound effects at least have a point and are not just random.
They do...?
Besides, a parody generally focuses on superficialities. It would be satire if it mimicked Cramer's nuances.
Thats the best part of the entire review
He's obviously a B5 fan. I thought his comment was dumb.
It would be, if you substitute Voyager or Enterprise for DS9!
That depends on how you see it. A game's community is an important aspect of its success, and a loyal fanbase means a lot these days. Even for potential customers. Nobody likes to play an MMO that has very little players and may get shut down every month, so a rather stable playerbase ensures continuation.
And it's not far from the truth concerning DS9 as well, as that show did take a huge step away from what Trek was about before, sacrificing parts of the original vision in the hopes of luring a greater audience with big wars and massive explosions (Dominion War) and fanservice (Ezri and Kira making out). Added to that comes the still-lingering impression that half of the show was a blatant rip-off from Babylon 5, as the list of similarities is so long that even Memory Alpha has its own article about this controversy. Yet, many Trek fans don't want to acknowledge this, so a bit of criticism as to that mindset seems justified.
And I say that whilst still having enjoyed DS9 a lot.
Yes, I like every show. Even Voyager and Enterprise.
Absolutely!!!!!
I guess. It certainly sounded to me like the game review equivilant of, "... A face only a mother could love."
Took the words out of my mouth.