Why would Cryptic spend money upgrading the engine when they've no reason to do so? They still make money hand over fist off lockboxes and content packs.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
So wait, you've spent the last six years of your life playing a game you abhor just so you can TRIBBLE about it?
We hung on in the hopes it would get better until we finally gave up. I came back to try it again to see if anything had changed but, no surprise, all it meant was a graphics bug requiring a command line workaround ("Star Trek: Workaround" is what it really should be called, since workarounds have been the de rigueur of STO), and I found THAT only after multiple crashes on launch.
For the record, Cryptic was forced to fulfill Perpetual's old contract which required a finished product 18 months after the date they took over. They have however done their best to go back and overhaul things when they get a chance. So not their fault like at all, CBS fault.
I'm well aware of why they went with the 18-month development, and the point is that they should have said, "We can't do it justice in 18 months, CBS. If you want something that would be a good addition that someone who cares about the franchise would be proud to include in it, you'll have to give us more time."
But they didn't. They thought, "Hey, we can make a killing by putting out a garbage product because Trek fans will play it just because it's Trek."
Trek, and its fans, deserve better. They deserved better since Cryptic decided to put money over care or love for Trek.
I'm well aware of why they went with the 18-month development, and the point is that they should have said, "We can't do it justice in 18 months, CBS. If you want something tat would be a good addition that someone who cares about the franchise would be proud to include in it, you'll have to give us more time."
But they didn't. They thought, "Hey, we can make a killing by putting out a garbage product because Trek fans will play it just because it's Trek."
Trek, and its fans, deserve better. They deserved better since Cryptic decided to put money over care or love for Trek.
They had the experience from making City of Hereos and Champions Online, and they also had reusable code and game engine. Also, all the lore and story was written for them with CBS and the Star Trek franchise. They had a significant head start with Star Trek Online that few other developers of MMOs had. Sure, they came short nevertheless. However, an 18 month long development is very short for an MMO.
And I find it odd that the players can play this game for years without any significant hiccups and then you have the players who need to grind their own teeth trying to solve technical problems.
Actually, The way I remember it the 18 month time frame was one of CBS's requirements for selling them rights. So Cryptic had two choices, agree to do it in 18 months or no sale.
I JUST Want to say: Thank you Cryptic team. You have done a good job. I love Star Trek Online. I know you have had struggles that you have not told the community about, I know you're on our team because if it's not for us you would have no jobs. I know you care... that's why you bring on celebrity talent at a huge cost to you. I know you try to please EVERYONE, and still the constant complains come.
Ignore the complaints, I love you- and you have done a great job. I've purchased nearly everything you sell to support you.
Here is something else I just thought of.
Assume Cryptic decides to spend the enormous amount of money and time it takes to move this entire game over to a new engine. And, miracle of miracles, the player base does not wander off too far in the eighteen to twenty four months my (admittedly) very rough estimate says it would take to successfully accomplish this.
Are people going to spend the money to upgrade their ISP and their at home hardware as well? Doubt it.
Ever notice in a traffic jam how the people with the crappiest cars are usually the first ones to blow the horn?
Just sayin'
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Here is something else I just thought of.
Assume Cryptic decides to spend the enormous amount of money and time it takes to move this entire game over to a new engine. And, miracle of miracles, the player base does not wander off too far in the eighteen to twenty four months my (admittedly) very rough estimate says it would take to successfully accomplish this.
Are people going to spend the money to upgrade their ISP and their at home hardware as well? Doubt it.
Ever notice in a traffic jam how the people with the crappiest cars are usually the first ones to blow the horn?
Just sayin'
Don't forget theyll need to spend money to re-buy all their zen items and lobi items.
YOU have a computer you perceive as too strong. That does NOT constitute the vast majority of players, just you and that POS you built in your parents basement.
Something tells me you don't know a hertz from a hearse...
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
You may be technically intelligent, but you're interpersonal skills are horrible.
And wouldn't the logical thing to do is just turn down the game from max settings?
Instead of going out of your way to insult both the Dev's from Cryptic and other players.
smh
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Problem is, your people skills are in serious need of an upgrade and you've been nothing but a troll throughout this entire thread. How proud your parents must be of the donkey's rear end they've raised.
I seriously suspect the majority of the players complaining the loudest about this game are doing so on a 'puter which is just barely powerful enough to handle it.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Here is something else I just thought of.
Assume Cryptic decides to spend the enormous amount of money and time it takes to move this entire game over to a new engine. And, miracle of miracles, the player base does not wander off too far in the eighteen to twenty four months my (admittedly) very rough estimate says it would take to successfully accomplish this.
Are people going to spend the money to upgrade their ISP and their at home hardware as well? Doubt it.
Ever notice in a traffic jam how the people with the crappiest cars are usually the first ones to blow the horn?
Just sayin'
first....what would their ISP's have to do with an updated STO engine?
Second, the only real reason people would be updating their hardware, is if they have 32-bit systems.....and there are VERY VERY VERY FEW of those people left right now.
if the engine is updated heavily, it won't have to be graphically intensive, hell they can keep it as low as needed.
but there are many benefits to this.
Also, for those of you who found me on reddit, stop doing that.
You mean the Unofficial but really more Official Forums for the Devs?
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I'm not a troll, I just have principles and have zero appreciation for subpar work. I know I don't have good people skills, but at least I don't just eat up every little thing the corporations give me and accept it as "good". I have standards. Try getting some.
Yet, here you are telling us that you actually spend time playing this game, which is apparently below your standards...
I'd say your not quite as intelligent as you'd like us all to believe..., but then I'd be guilty of lowering myself to your "standards".
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
At least we got a small break from all those embedded jpgs. At least the Signatures are suppressed on mobile.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I am practically always on mobile, it's the ones embedded in the text that can become somewhat annoying. Thanks for the info.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Question: How is the new expansion going to work on the current engine? With the game used to dealing with 25th Century tech, will switching and downgrading to duotronic computers and 1960s retro styling be much easier to handle? I think this might be Cryptic's way of avoiding upgrading the engine! We're going backwards with our tech, flying much more dated ships and that will improve overall performance. Correct if I'm wrong. But yeah, now that we'll be able to fly a Daedalus, it's going to be waaaaay easier on the engine. No upgrades needed!
Question: How is the new expansion going to work on the current engine? With the game used to dealing with 25th Century tech, will switching and downgrading to duotronic computers and 1960s retro styling be much easier to handle? I think this might be Cryptic's way of avoiding upgrading the engine! We're going backwards with our tech, flying much more dated ships and that will improve overall performance. Correct if I'm wrong. But yeah, now that we'll be able to fly a Daedalus, it's going to be waaaaay easier on the engine. No upgrades needed!
Side Note: That's how this works right? Right?
hahahahahahahah
Obviously you're correct. How else could it work?
Starcraft 1 runs much better on my machine than Starcraft 2- obviously the more advanced units in Starcraft 2 are a bit more for my computer to handle than Starcraft 1.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The first computer I used to play STO back in 2010, died because of a Tribble.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
but it doesn't change the fact this game is very much ancient in its engine, I mean....it's from 2006, modified heavily a few years ago, but not enough. This game, even with very good hardware, struggles at times, especially in the new "counterpoint" where it seems a lot of people are having problems with framerate, even with good hardware.
The biggest problem here is that the engine STO runs on was never, ever intended to run STO. Cryptic had an engine already developed at the time they got the STO license, and that is the Champions engine, created for Champions Online.
In order to push the game out in 18 months, Cryptic went the fast-and-dirty way by modding an existing game and dumping a terrible, buggy mess skinned on an engine that was totally inadequate to what it really needs to do, and which is frankly a disgraceful way to handle the biggest and most-beloved science fiction franchise on the face of the planet (before anyone starts, "Star Wars" isn't science fiction, it's space fantasy, so calm down).
I remember seeing STO for the first time in beta years ago and thinking, "Oh, my god. They effed it up completely." Absolutely nothing has changed my opinion of the game since then. In fact, it's only gotten worse (especially after PWE, the cancer of the MMO industry, got their hands on it).
Um . . . no.
The fact that the game had a short timeframe before release didn't lead to us using our engine. Our engine was going to be used no matter what. And while the engine was INITIALLY built for Champions, that doesn't mean that it is and forever will be, "The Champions Engine." (Just as Epic made an engine for Unreal, and then used the "same" engine over and over again for all of their subsequent games) It's an engine, it's adaptable. And like any engine, changes were made to it to accommodate the game it was being used for.
The Unreal engine grew out of the engine originally made for Unreal, a first person shooter that came out in 1998. 18 years later, would you claim that the Unreal Engine can't do anything but 1998 era FPS games? Engines grow and change over time. They are adapted to fit the games that are made with them just as much (or more) as the game might be adapted to fit the engine.
I'm sorry that you dislike our game, but I don't believe that the parallel dimension where STO was developed on another engine, as a version of you in love with the game.
Actually, The way I remember it the 18 month time frame was one of CBS's requirements for selling them rights. So Cryptic had two choices, agree to do it in 18 months or no sale.
This is correct. The timeframe was a condition from CBS for the license to trasnfer at all. It might be nice to think that some other company could have picked it up and run with it better than we did, but we got the license because no one else wanted to touch that dev cycle with a 10' stick. If Cryptic had not picked up the license, there wouldn't be a DIFFERENT STO, there would be NO STO.
And for the record, remember that Perpetual had almost nothing after 4 years. When we were 6 months into the process and could show CBS that we actually HAD a game going, they agreed to give us an extension. (Can't remember exactly, but it was something on the 3-6 month scale) I don't remember the original ship date, but it was in 2009.
Comments
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
We hung on in the hopes it would get better until we finally gave up. I came back to try it again to see if anything had changed but, no surprise, all it meant was a graphics bug requiring a command line workaround ("Star Trek: Workaround" is what it really should be called, since workarounds have been the de rigueur of STO), and I found THAT only after multiple crashes on launch.
I'm well aware of why they went with the 18-month development, and the point is that they should have said, "We can't do it justice in 18 months, CBS. If you want something that would be a good addition that someone who cares about the franchise would be proud to include in it, you'll have to give us more time."
But they didn't. They thought, "Hey, we can make a killing by putting out a garbage product because Trek fans will play it just because it's Trek."
Trek, and its fans, deserve better. They deserved better since Cryptic decided to put money over care or love for Trek.
And I find it odd that the players can play this game for years without any significant hiccups and then you have the players who need to grind their own teeth trying to solve technical problems.
My character Tsin'xing
Ignore the complaints, I love you- and you have done a great job. I've purchased nearly everything you sell to support you.
Xo
yO
(can I have a free ship now? :P)
Assume Cryptic decides to spend the enormous amount of money and time it takes to move this entire game over to a new engine. And, miracle of miracles, the player base does not wander off too far in the eighteen to twenty four months my (admittedly) very rough estimate says it would take to successfully accomplish this.
Are people going to spend the money to upgrade their ISP and their at home hardware as well? Doubt it.
Ever notice in a traffic jam how the people with the crappiest cars are usually the first ones to blow the horn?
Just sayin'
Don't forget theyll need to spend money to re-buy all their zen items and lobi items.
Something tells me you don't know a hertz from a hearse...
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
And wouldn't the logical thing to do is just turn down the game from max settings?
Instead of going out of your way to insult both the Dev's from Cryptic and other players.
smh
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I seriously suspect the majority of the players complaining the loudest about this game are doing so on a 'puter which is just barely powerful enough to handle it.
first....what would their ISP's have to do with an updated STO engine?
Second, the only real reason people would be updating their hardware, is if they have 32-bit systems.....and there are VERY VERY VERY FEW of those people left right now.
if the engine is updated heavily, it won't have to be graphically intensive, hell they can keep it as low as needed.
but there are many benefits to this.
Also, for those of you who found me on reddit, stop doing that.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
^he calls this powerful *falls out of chair laughing*
Yet, here you are telling us that you actually spend time playing this game, which is apparently below your standards...
I'd say your not quite as intelligent as you'd like us all to believe..., but then I'd be guilty of lowering myself to your "standards".
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
You can disable signatures or signature images at any time, without using a mobile device.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/profile/signature
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Side Note: That's how this works right? Right?
hahahahahahahah
Starcraft 1 runs much better on my machine than Starcraft 2- obviously the more advanced units in Starcraft 2 are a bit more for my computer to handle than Starcraft 1.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Um . . . no.
The fact that the game had a short timeframe before release didn't lead to us using our engine. Our engine was going to be used no matter what. And while the engine was INITIALLY built for Champions, that doesn't mean that it is and forever will be, "The Champions Engine." (Just as Epic made an engine for Unreal, and then used the "same" engine over and over again for all of their subsequent games) It's an engine, it's adaptable. And like any engine, changes were made to it to accommodate the game it was being used for.
The Unreal engine grew out of the engine originally made for Unreal, a first person shooter that came out in 1998. 18 years later, would you claim that the Unreal Engine can't do anything but 1998 era FPS games? Engines grow and change over time. They are adapted to fit the games that are made with them just as much (or more) as the game might be adapted to fit the engine.
I'm sorry that you dislike our game, but I don't believe that the parallel dimension where STO was developed on another engine, as a version of you in love with the game.
This is correct. The timeframe was a condition from CBS for the license to trasnfer at all. It might be nice to think that some other company could have picked it up and run with it better than we did, but we got the license because no one else wanted to touch that dev cycle with a 10' stick. If Cryptic had not picked up the license, there wouldn't be a DIFFERENT STO, there would be NO STO.
And for the record, remember that Perpetual had almost nothing after 4 years. When we were 6 months into the process and could show CBS that we actually HAD a game going, they agreed to give us an extension. (Can't remember exactly, but it was something on the 3-6 month scale) I don't remember the original ship date, but it was in 2009.