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Why Star Trek Online is still the best MMO on the market.
centersolace
Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
Don't get me wrong. STO has a laundry list of problems, many of them completely arbitrary and easily fixable. But in spite of it's myriad issues, after about a half a year of bouncing from MMO to MMO, I can safely say that Star Trek Online stands tall as the best MMO on the market, and here's why:
1. What's in a name? A lot actually.
I can name my captain whatever I want. That might seem like a silly thing to put as No. 1 but after seeing 50 variations of XXXSUPER_HAXORS_360NOSCOPES_1997XXX it makes me really happy to be able to name a character "Steve Buscemi" and call it a day. As an added perk, it's easier to see your captain as an actual character in a story if they have a real name. It's hard to be immersed in a story if you're characters name is ULTIMATE90SGIRL27.
Bonus Round: Want to change your name in STO? It's about $4 USD. In TERA? About $10. Not even kidding.
2. Killer character? Killer haircut? Killer price.
If I'm bored, I can walk up to any tailor in any social zone and immediately change my captain into a completely different character if I so wish. Sure it costs a little bit of Energy Credits, but you can get them without trying. In other MMO's I've tried? Be prepared to fork over $10 or even $20 USD every time you feel like wearing a different haircut.
3. Fear the Tux. Fear it.
In STO, what armour you have on has no impact on what you actually look like. In fact, other than Champions, APB Reloaded, and the now defunct CoH/CoV I don't know of any other MMO's that do this. In every other MMO, it's always "Too bad that 10th level armour looks so cool with it's gold flame patterns, it's stats are terrible compared to that 30th level potato sack with the all the high res texture quality of mud.
Bonus Round: Some MMO's let you use premium outfits to change end level gear. Too bad you wasted $20 because the new patch is out, and all the new endgame sets are much better than anything you currently have.
4. Time limits are terrible.
In far, far too many MMO's, items you earn are temporary. Felt like taking a break? Wanted to play something else for a little while? Too bad. It's been 30 day's since you last logged out and all your best items/costumes have disappeared. Don't have enough money to buy them again? Time to grind for them all over again~! At least the time limits in STO GIVE you stuff.
5. Community? Well, I hear it's a show.
Many, many MMO forums are complete utter wastelands. Nary a post, nary a community manager, not a single dev. STO however has one of the most vibrant and colourful communities on the internet.
6. Devs that listen.
Okay, okay, they're not perfect, and a lot of requests go ignored. (William Ware Theiss costumes? Where are they!?!?!) But they do visit the forums, and it's fairly easy to talk to them if you know where to look. Sure, it might take them 3 1/2 years but they do listen.
And I think I'll stop it here. I've given enough ammo for the trolls to blow over for now. :P
1. What's in a name? A lot actually.
I can name my captain whatever I want. That might seem like a silly thing to put as No. 1 but after seeing 50 variations of XXXSUPER_HAXORS_360NOSCOPES_1997XXX it makes me really happy to be able to name a character "Steve Buscemi" and call it a day. As an added perk, it's easier to see your captain as an actual character in a story if they have a real name. It's hard to be immersed in a story if you're characters name is ULTIMATE90SGIRL27.
Bonus Round: Want to change your name in STO? It's about $4 USD. In TERA? About $10. Not even kidding.
2. Killer character? Killer haircut? Killer price.
If I'm bored, I can walk up to any tailor in any social zone and immediately change my captain into a completely different character if I so wish. Sure it costs a little bit of Energy Credits, but you can get them without trying. In other MMO's I've tried? Be prepared to fork over $10 or even $20 USD every time you feel like wearing a different haircut.
3. Fear the Tux. Fear it.
In STO, what armour you have on has no impact on what you actually look like. In fact, other than Champions, APB Reloaded, and the now defunct CoH/CoV I don't know of any other MMO's that do this. In every other MMO, it's always "Too bad that 10th level armour looks so cool with it's gold flame patterns, it's stats are terrible compared to that 30th level potato sack with the all the high res texture quality of mud.
Bonus Round: Some MMO's let you use premium outfits to change end level gear. Too bad you wasted $20 because the new patch is out, and all the new endgame sets are much better than anything you currently have.
4. Time limits are terrible.
In far, far too many MMO's, items you earn are temporary. Felt like taking a break? Wanted to play something else for a little while? Too bad. It's been 30 day's since you last logged out and all your best items/costumes have disappeared. Don't have enough money to buy them again? Time to grind for them all over again~! At least the time limits in STO GIVE you stuff.
5. Community? Well, I hear it's a show.
Many, many MMO forums are complete utter wastelands. Nary a post, nary a community manager, not a single dev. STO however has one of the most vibrant and colourful communities on the internet.
6. Devs that listen.
Okay, okay, they're not perfect, and a lot of requests go ignored. (William Ware Theiss costumes? Where are they!?!?!) But they do visit the forums, and it's fairly easy to talk to them if you know where to look. Sure, it might take them 3 1/2 years but they do listen.
And I think I'll stop it here. I've given enough ammo for the trolls to blow over for now. :P
Post edited by centersolace on
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Now, if only they would bring back the daily events (PUG PvE has become a TRIBBLE shoot, where you are more likely to wind up with a team that doesn't even know what the optionals are, let alone how to do them, or worse, a bunch of noobs flying all over the map not doing anything they should be doing, and of course we still have those jerks who bail from Fleet Alert just before the siege group shows up), give more attention to the KDF (fix/expand the color palette, for one thing!), and make Romulans into a full faction (or two, because I'm tired of the Tal'Shiar-lovers and reactionary imperialists starting nonsense in the Romulan Gameplay forum and want them to have their own forum so I don't have to see their efforts at denialism, historical revisionism, and trolling -- and I might even take some interest in PvP in STO if I could fight them outside a private match).
Compared to WoW I stay with STO much better and fun.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I keep coming back to STO. Nuff said.
As far as STO being the best MMO out there, that's disputable. There are a lot of different genres of MMOs that play in vastly different ways, so calling STO the best of all is a bit of a stretch.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Sometimes I try to look around for some other F2P games to play every now and then, and I always compare their models to STO only to find that they fall short. By a lot. Makes it hard to look at anything else. :P
Mine Trap Supporter
All and all even with some of the problems, it is better than a bunch out there in customization, ability to get things and generally having fun.
Yeah maybe not the BEST, but one of the better ones around.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
CM
(UFP) Ragnar
Despite having inverse priorities to my own cryptic have still produced my favorite MMO. Not cirtain how they managed that to be honest...
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I just wanted to encourage you in that every single MMO out there has their forums littered with hate posts. ALL of them.
I play a few different mmos by totally different company if you listen to the fans all of them are abut to close. gamers are a.. emotional group anything can grounds for "ruined forever" "it's going under" comments.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Pretty much what this guy said.
(UFP) Ragnar
I do feel the pricing overvalues some items and undervalues others, but it's hardly the disconnect that most other F2P games have, where I don't have to option to buy premium items without cash, or if an exchange exists it's not fair at all. STO is incredibly good in this regard, and it deserves a lot more praise than it gets for it.
STO is a phenomenal game! And, placed highly amongst my favorites.
My number one reason: Two fantastic expansions (Legacy of Romulus and The Sphere) for free... FREE! Other titles usually charge you money for that stuff, so I'm told.
I'm having so much fun shooting at Dinosaurs with Frickin Lazors on their heads, I felt like I was stealing from them. So, I bought a ton of zen to make up for it. :P
You guys rock, Cryptic.
Thx criptic for good game.;)
One thing I appreciate in this game is the freebies they do give away. The breen ships and risian corvette are the best example of this. They are the equivalent of lock box ship given away for free. They could have put them in a lock box. They could have put them in the c-store of lobi store. The grind for them is minimal compared to grinding the ec to buy one on the exchange.
There is customer appreciation at cryptic. I mention the free ships because ships is sto's main money maker and when they give one of that caliber to anyone for free you gotta really thank them for it.
As annoying some of these "hate" posts may be, these people care (even if some of them would not agree on that at the posting moment) otherwise they would not bother to post.
Fear the day people stop bothering to post what they don't like. That will be the first deathknell.*
Typing about that reminds me of a dev observation or study I read some time ago in which the heated fanboys got identified as worst possible damage to a game because they just tell stuff the devs want to hear (feel good stuff; understandable) and bash any critic who posts about problems (besides work stuff also can turn into an ego "now the opposite" thing form some devs because the critic must be the enemy, otherwise he would not tell stuff devs don't like to read).
*exception would be if the game has reached true perfectionism and the big amount of players just can't think of anythink they don't like/that could be improved.
In other MMO's your identity is actually your email. Which companies aren't supposed to just give out, so they can't use it as your handle. In short, it's not hard, it's just a lazy lazy way to make a couple of extra bucks.
Why thank you.
And I get that . To some it's important .
(I could not stand the look of SWTOR for long after 3+ years in STO.)
But let's start at the beginning .
- You were out there trying other MMO's for 1/2 a year .
Why ?
Should I hesitate to guess that it was content related ?
You're welcome to answer if you wish .
For myself ... I'm kind of curious if I already did Infected 10.000 times or not ?!
It's a random number to be sure , but I do have several hundred's worth of Infected under my belt before it was split up into mini-STF's .
- As to the Dev's listening ... -- let's just say that what they hear and what they listen to are two different things . I don't consider your example to be a positive one ... and the last EP didn't even bother to say 'goodbye' (the second time) .
See I was around when the Devs were still talking like "we" meant them and us .
- Now I don't doubt that STO has a generous and even profitable financial model .
But that model was achieved by turning this game into what it was never intended to be at it's start ... , and that has caused disappointment and dare I say even heartbreak along the way .
On the practical side -- that "generous model" (or something else entirely) has caused this game to become a grind fest .
Before , the 'deal' was : we give you subs , you give us content .
Now it's you give us Lockboxes and grind , and we give you money if we choose .
For many of us , about 90% of our time in game is spent grinding .
If that 'fun' equals to your enjoyment of cosmetics -- more power to you .
And I'm sorry , but the answer that "it's like every other MMO" does not cut it for me .
I'd rather have 2-3 new STF's and 3-4 FE series and a PVP map and a few missions then the "epic gaming" that STO promotes .
No really.
I got bored and wanted to do something else. It's not like it's the first time I did it, and It certainly won't be the last.
A lot of MMO devs don't listen at all. As in they don't even visit the forums. Ever.
I'm going to stop you right there. After seeing countless shard transfer costs, single character unlocks (You think lockboxes and the Lobi store items are bad? In most MMO's every item in the cash shop is single character only), limited time items, lockboxes with limited time items, very expensive limited time items, untradable items, 3 month long leveling periods, even worse PvP, gankers, botters, and trolls, bad guild mechanics, pay for loot drops , quest rewards that require money to use (Seriously SWtoR? What the TRIBBLE?), paywalls for certain areas of the map.........
I think I'll forgive STO's method.
Hey now. Don't knock on my pretty outfits. I have plenty of issues with them as they are. (TRIBBLE you off duty slot!!!!!)
But you're missing something. We are beginning to get more of the things you're asking for. Season 7, Season 8, even the upcoming Season 9 are more of the stuff you're asking for. Sure, it's not every month, but we weren't even getting that when STO was Pay to Play. Sure, there is a lot to be grumpy about (My poor neglected bridge officers.......) But there's a lot to be grateful for.
Take the ground battlezone idea and put it in space. I'm not even a fan of ground combat and I loved the Voth battlezone.
The point about character naming though strikes a big nerve with me. Every time I go to a new MMO, type in a name and get "That name is taken." all I can think of is..."what a bunch of amateurs". Identity management has moved on! To date: blizzard.net, Guild Wars 2 and the Cryptic games are the only ones I know of to have worked that out.
I generally agree with the other points but I don't think they make or break a game.
The price is not the only important aspect here - the more important thnig is that it doesn't matter if there is another Samantha Tanner, Clara Soft, Jake Miller or Patrick Riker or whatever on the servers - you can both keep your name, without needing to get "creative" with numbers or what not. Your character name is only already chosen if you have used that name for another of your own characters. Same thing for the ship name.
The charactername@accountname concept is so simply and so genius that every MMO should adopt it yesterday. (Or did Cryptic patent or trademark the idea?)
What is a shame that they have the great customziation system in their engine and don't seem to utilize it fully in Neverwinter. At least the last time I checked, you had a similar setup as in other games, where costumes must be bought expensively and can be linked to stats. I get that it has some "immersion" appeal, but ultimately, it's unfun if you just want to create a cool looking character.
In TOR, they finally introduced adaptable gear and made moddable gear so you could have pretty much any benefit on any look. Much preferrable to me.
I love the FE, the mission quality is certainly above most MMO mission types. The casual nature that we can just play for a few minutes or a few hours. The graphics are excellent. The Trek VO's add a sense of nostalgia.
I like the model. The way the game is free but the options are charged gives people a lot of freedom. Even ships which are expensive are so much better than mounts for other games which often cost even more.
There are tons of things I would like improved but the game is constantly heading in the right direction and I'm happy with that.