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A Call for Sustainable Game Play
spycho2
Member Posts: 67 Arc User
In the past 4 years since I started playing STO I have seen the developers come out with new content which is many cases is innovative and has a promising future. However, at the end of the day I have yet to see anything come about which truely sustains the intrest of the players for a prolonged period of time.
Throughout my life computer games have always been one of my favorite past times. Yet I feel in some ways the modern MMOs have lost their spark which made the MMORPG genra so great. People no longer wander around a world changing it as they play. There is no originality or true personalization in the world. What we play now is a far cry from the original concept of the MMORPG. We play in worlds (from STO to SWTOR to WoW to DCU and more) that give you a predefined set of goals in a static world and ask you to complete them with your friends.
This modern template for an MMO seems to be failing misserably. No modern MMO has acheived the sucess of EVE or Star Wars Galaxies(Pre-cu) or Everquest or WoW. I feel what is needed is a new take on how the modern MMO worlds run. I feel care needs to be taken to give players, per-character, new content which will sustain the intrest of the player for a substancially longer period of time then it does now.
Tetris, Space Engineers, Minecraft, Star Wars Galaxies, Eve Online, all of these game have strong levels of sustainable game play. For me Space engineers is a perfect example. Space Engineers comes out with maybe 3 building blocks a week because the game is still in beta. Yet with every weekly update they are adding multiple weeks of in game activity. In Eve Online the set up of the game allows people to live out events which are worthy of real life story telling. Star Wars Galaxies was the same. Events which are not only unscripted but not predetermined in any way.
There are many benefits to be gained from a shift in focus to content which will give players specificly more to do for a longer period of time. It would increase logins, slow down the rate at which new players cycle in and out of the game and increase the over all attension said game reseives. On top of this, most importantly, more sustainable game play will allow the developers to be more creative. They will have more time to work on cool new intresting concepts instead of having to go with the sure bet because updates and expansions wont be the life or death affairs for the Devs the way they are now.
I would like to finish by saying this is nothing more then my oppinions and feeling on the matter. I truely expect nothing to come of this but I felt strong enough about it to put it in writing for others to see. If any of this is unagreeable i apologize. I love star trek and 4 years ago i decide to make STO my number 1 game to play. Since then I have seen strong repetition in the content which has come out and i have seen great concepts completely removed. This is in a way a plee for something other then the status quo. To all who read this thank you for your time.
Throughout my life computer games have always been one of my favorite past times. Yet I feel in some ways the modern MMOs have lost their spark which made the MMORPG genra so great. People no longer wander around a world changing it as they play. There is no originality or true personalization in the world. What we play now is a far cry from the original concept of the MMORPG. We play in worlds (from STO to SWTOR to WoW to DCU and more) that give you a predefined set of goals in a static world and ask you to complete them with your friends.
This modern template for an MMO seems to be failing misserably. No modern MMO has acheived the sucess of EVE or Star Wars Galaxies(Pre-cu) or Everquest or WoW. I feel what is needed is a new take on how the modern MMO worlds run. I feel care needs to be taken to give players, per-character, new content which will sustain the intrest of the player for a substancially longer period of time then it does now.
Tetris, Space Engineers, Minecraft, Star Wars Galaxies, Eve Online, all of these game have strong levels of sustainable game play. For me Space engineers is a perfect example. Space Engineers comes out with maybe 3 building blocks a week because the game is still in beta. Yet with every weekly update they are adding multiple weeks of in game activity. In Eve Online the set up of the game allows people to live out events which are worthy of real life story telling. Star Wars Galaxies was the same. Events which are not only unscripted but not predetermined in any way.
There are many benefits to be gained from a shift in focus to content which will give players specificly more to do for a longer period of time. It would increase logins, slow down the rate at which new players cycle in and out of the game and increase the over all attension said game reseives. On top of this, most importantly, more sustainable game play will allow the developers to be more creative. They will have more time to work on cool new intresting concepts instead of having to go with the sure bet because updates and expansions wont be the life or death affairs for the Devs the way they are now.
I would like to finish by saying this is nothing more then my oppinions and feeling on the matter. I truely expect nothing to come of this but I felt strong enough about it to put it in writing for others to see. If any of this is unagreeable i apologize. I love star trek and 4 years ago i decide to make STO my number 1 game to play. Since then I have seen strong repetition in the content which has come out and i have seen great concepts completely removed. This is in a way a plee for something other then the status quo. To all who read this thank you for your time.
Post edited by spycho2 on
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Comments
We all know that they can make great story missions if they feel like it. I hope what the article says about the future will come true.
It's the same reason you will never see another raging bull or apocalypse now etc.
Most of us old-timers do remember the heyday of gaming where you'd see brand new technology and creativity being pushed to see gameplay never seen before.
But that has been over for 10-15 years.
They call it the stagnation of gaming by the way but could easily translate into a universal term to describe the processes of the movie idiocracy, which is a prophecy not a comedy
EQ3 is from what i read everything i dreamed about. And this to be honest sort of worries me. I am not a fantasy game fan and i love star trek, have put a lot of money in to this game, and fear the EQ3 model is going to be the rebirth of the game play i came to love. Game play the majority of the gaming world now never knew existed and will absolutely go crazy over, causing a strong shift to the thempark/sandbox hybrid and pushing STO out. Returning it to how us old players remember it being in the begining, a ghost town.
OP is asking for sandbox elements, not more single-player content
For me, I don't play klingon and I dont want a romulan. Because of this the update to level 60 and the Delta Quadrant is probably the biggest thing for me in a long time. That being said, if the past content has shined anything on the future im going to be maxed out on what i can do with my characters and bored again well before the next update.
I now know im not exactly their target audience. But, I know I would be completely content if i just had different, unrelated activities to add variety. Combat one day, exploration the next. Maybe go do a holodeck program(robin hood?). Or hang out on risa or in my ship. Maybe have some sort of simple sports my friends and I can play when we are sitting in chat, bored.
If i had a variety of things I could do or work towards besides the end goal of a pimped ship I would be very much satisfied. I believe it would meet my need for more sustainable content, and i think if they can make us old players happy in that way theyll make the rest of the people quite happy as well.
Sustainable Game Play can come in many forms. Reguardless of which form it takes on it is vital to the games future. Sandbox elements are without a doubt most sustainable by a large margin and i do feel it is the future of MMORPGs(Prophacy, Mark My Words). However its not the only way and i dont claim to have the winning answer.
I just know their methods now will run their course and the world of computer RPGs will move on and they will either keep to their tactics or they will adapt. I believe we are ending the era of the WoW model based on the new games i see comming out and i fear as a commited player that STO is not ready. Gamers tastes are going to change and their intrest in pure theme park game play will grow sour. Its already happening.
Please link your facts on this? Sandbox games had their day but unfortunately are not profitable. Lots of us can recall the "old glory days" of MMOs, tainted by not remembering how bad a lot of content was. MMOs now cater to the majority, not hardcore ppl who want 40h/week of game play. Even sandbox gets boring after time.
You have Everquest 3 which is integrating the Landmarks engine into it and with modern gaming tech there isnt going to be the same problems as you had with old Sandbox MMOs which were trying to do something with technology that wasnt ready.
You have A large public intrest in sandbox as a whole. Minecraft, Space Engineers, DayZ, Fallout: New Vegas, Eve Online taking the lead with an increase in free form sandbox style customization and game play in every game type from FPS to Race Car games. It may not happen in the next few years but Sandbox breads creativity and people enjoy being creative. Combined with the fact that not a single game has been able to hold up the P2P model partially because no game is worth paying monthly for anymore. I dont see how an injection of sandbox play into a themepark world wont happen in the future.
Nothing is new. Sandbox will come back its just a matter of how. The technology can handle it now.
Something needs to change, i'm afraid that The Delta Quadrant is going to be a another lost opportunity.
I know right, Sims only sold 175 million copies, the fekkin losers
That is all you need. The F2P model has taken over and as long as gaming companies keep working with the fact that the average gamer will pay way over the odds by using "micro" transactions, then that is all that will be made for the majority.
If you want content based gaming, you need to pay a subscription and then the gaming company will be forced to keep you engaged rather than just dangling another T6/mkXIV carrot in front on your face
Wrong. The reason majority of MMO's are going F2P? Subscription P2P games are not something the majority of the player base don't want anymore. They want the option to do micro transaction.
Honestly STO was P2P before, and probably was ready to close down because they weren't making much money. Now? They got a good size team at Cryptic, and are hiring more and more, so obviously they're making A LOT more money with F2P.
So yeah if this game went P2P it'd probably be dead within a year.
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
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You're wrong. If the game went p2p, it would be a much smaller operation with less profits, but it would still keep going.
And also, please tell me what's the name of the biggest space based MMO again? Can't remember off the top of my head, but I believe it is a P2P model
Firstly, this is something as a player I always think about, so far being a fan of startrek keeps me comming back, but the one thing that mmo's always fall short on is immersion... this is a huge challenge in any game.
However, I believe there are a few things startrek online can do without breaking the bank (or the game)
These fall into:
1) Aesthetics
2) game play options
3) custom play style.
Hit all three and you're on to a winner in my books! Here are my suggestions.
1) Sto's aesthetics are pretty good already... but there are so many moments where we see the same thing over and over again... just beam into you're starship and see for your self... Im actually surprised, whilst I understand the need to maintain a factional feel to a starship I feel that STO could have done so much more with the internal layout of the ship... you were on to something with the trophies... keep going! I'm willing to bet everyone would love to be able to have more options for shape of corridors, type of lighting, theme... It kind of feels weird that I have super cool dyson shields which make my ship look awesome, all these adapted consoles and unique technologies installed on my ship... yet the inside... doesnt look so special... I would actually love to see the warp core change to match the one i slot on my ship... to have access to the engine room and see the engines ive slotted, to be in tactical and see models of the torpedoes and weapons I've spent so much time acquiring! and oh... the mother of all my desires for the internals of my ship... on board ship missions and being able to customize the uniforms of the npc crew (just one "one-fits all" uniform no need to be unnecessarily complicated)
2) game play options, this does link to point 3 quite a bit... but what I mean here is types of modes that allow players to indulge in novelties they would have had to be crazy to do in the normal game... for example a teir1 ship pve mission... all players have to use a tier1 or equivalent ship, if they dont have one they will be placed in an equivalent vessel with standard common loadout temporarily... This would be fantastic! I know im not the only one who bought the NX class escourt, or who owns a suliban cell ship... players like us dont just pay for consoles which prove useless in late game... we like the ship in all its glory... it feels like such a huge let down that there is no realistic way we can keep using the early game ships we love (that dont have a retrofit or refit version) it really does. Either modes that allow us to continue using them should be implemented or a way to upgrade them... not to end game level but atleast to keep them flying so we can really enjoy and immerse ourselves with them... also it justifies having a massive collection of ships including free ones, dilithium bought ones, and zen ships! Currently too many ships just sit in mothballs!
3) custom play style... perhapse what i really meant was give us consequences to our choices... being led down a path which is only going to end one way is predictable... through missions we should have dialogue that actually alters how a mission plays out even if the conclusion is the same (mission success) it would be nice to play the way my character's fantasy personality would... we all do it in all games... look at masseffect (just for example) some players like to play as a shining example of all that is kind and just... others like the middle road approach... and others like playing a bit more rogueish... even though they are still the good guys...
If I saw these changes in STO I would move from being a standard player who occasionally makes zen purchases to a full life time member and probably uninstall all the other games on my pc! - I wouldnt have any need for them!
Finally one more thing... I hope 1) the galaxy map gets fixed to its a realistic representation of the quadrants... currently it looks like the word "quadrant" has a very loose meaning here...
2) that the gamma quadrant gets some love... I know the tv series didnt show too much of it but it did show enough to give some points of interest and reference. Plus its an easy way to get the cardassians and bajorans involved again (we dont even see well known bajoran raiders in game whats up with that?)
Anyway I hope my feed back is helpfull, please dont view this as me simply saying "just add this and that" but rather me explaining what is missing from sto... why i havnt made the leap to being a lifetimer, and just some examples that I feel would really work... which have actually been backed up by other players ive spoken to in game.
Peace out. in game I'm @legionexxod feel free to ask me any questions if you wish.
The Sims has long since stopped being a sandbox game and has become more of a legal murder simulator.
Sims teaches you that God made you in His image.
And God is a **** to you because He enjoys watching you suffer.
:eek:
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
Same here, if they had kept the feature episodes going but on a regular basis, like 4 episodes a month then a month break between the next 4, they would not have needed to complete a story arc in 4 episodes, they could have left a "cliffhanger" so they could carry on after the months break..... But unfortunately that's just a dream and would require a lot of work on their side.
I don't log in much anymore, about an hour total through the week but I look forward to seeing what the next 18 months has to offer.... Maybe I will start playing again.
this holds true to the MMO market, you had by 96 your first mmo to come out, then ultima online and a few years later you had everquest, this was the beginning of a new way of coming at gaming and then in 04' you had wow, and then you had all the rest which were just knockoffs of everquest and as such nothing to really show anything other then the status quo. eventually the computer game market will have to change to survive, but that time will come on its own dime.
we havent had anything that is truly unique on these games, they all copy each other and so i dont expect to see any change.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
STO, SWTOR and all the other games went F2P because not enough people thought that these games are worth paying for. And when the 15$ are not enough money for the company, they take away the payment limits and try to get the money from the people that are willing to spend hundrets or thousands per month.
There were official statements from F2P companies that say, that many of the free players don't pay and that most of the shop income is from already subscribed players.
The only reason why I am still here is because its a star trek game. The Star Trek theme keeps me playing.
I payed some money upfront, but once I realized that this is a wreck of a game I stopped paying.
The game that I mostly play at the moment is Eve-Online. Its not perfect, but I think that it's worth the money.
I have played theme parks for many years, but I am sick of them. Theme park mmos are to restrictive. And I think thats STOs biggest problem, to much time gates, to much grind. All they care for are ships, crafting revamps and other restricting mechanics, that add near to zero gameplay value.
But what if we would pay for new content instead of new ships? Than they had to focus on new engaging and fun content.
The problem is that the game is so broken at the moment, that it would take to much time and money to get it running again.
So, in my humble opinion, this game will go on as it is. They will sqeeze as much money out of you till they shut it down.
If I am wrong, and they make the game less restrictive and more sandboxy and/or fun, then I may spend some money on this game again. But until then, my wallet is closed.
ps: I come from germany, so my english is not perfect.
1) People obsessed with min-maxing whole spent obscene amounts of money
2) Freebie players who are here to inflate the numbers but spent next to nothing
There isn't room for those of us in the middle who are okay spending $15-20 a month in subscriptions or as in my case the casual purchase from c-store. You can see it everywhere from the obscene packs, cash grab lock box and other money sinks and the huge time gates (with dilithium shortcuts).
I stopped spending as Nov of last year. Everything I saw in Season 8, Grind-a-versery, Season 9, 9.5(crafting grind fest) and now X2 convinces me I was correct. PvP being completely trashed by crafting, T6 ships and lock boxes is the coup de grace.
- Judge Aaron Satie
But City of Heroes didn't have a massive well recognised IP like the Star Trek name has. The IP of this game alone means profit, no matter what model they use. But you do hit the nail on head when you talk about the amount of profit. F2p will always bring a higher profit margin than a p2p with roughly the same population.
No one is trying to duplicate the 800lb space gorilla as it is a p2p model. That's the problem. You can't duplicate what it has done and use a f2p model. It just won't work. But, it is the 800lb gorilla in the market which means they've done something right. They didn't get that way through sheer luck
I'd love to see what would happen if cryptic formed a p2p server with the f2p server and gave the players a choice. Some other games have done this, rebalanced the client on the p2p server and made a sub server and have done ok with it. Their f2p servers still tick over nicely, but they've brought a lot of older players back with the p2p.
Food for thought.
Cheers!
Not necessarily, IP only brings interest to the game for most fans of the IP and it can actually backfire for the game. IP limits the creativity of the game. If STO didn't have the Star Trek IP, then people would not be complaining about the Dyson ships and Intelligence ships for violating Star Trek. Also, games with an IP are criticized more heavily.
There are some players that will play no matter what state the game is in, but there is not enough of them to support a game. If the game is absolutely intolerable to play, then no amount of help from the IP will save the game. Therefore, quality is far more important to the game than IP.
But my opinion is that p2p brings quality. F2p only brings quantity; more stuff to buy/grind, more zones etc, but no real change to the gameplay. We all know the way the new episodes are going to run: Kill x amount of enemies, interact with x amount of things and then run all the way back across the map to interact with other stuff (if the devs are feeling cruel). Exactly what we have to do at the moment, except this time we'll be in the delta quadrant with an extra stat scalar put onto the enemies and our new ships/equipment.
Now, I could be wrong and when DR comes out there will have been a complete revamp. But, do you think that will happen?
Cheers!
But we never had the mission quality that we currently have with the most recent missions with P2P. Sphere of Influence, A Step Between Stars, and Surface Tension are far better than any mission we got when Atari was in charge. So the whole idea that F2P only brings quantity and P2P brings quality is flawed.