Really, Cryptic sent the Dev Team 'off to the next project'?
Then I guess The Calendar (Link) (which outlines upcoming content resease dates); the Engineering Reports (Link) ( (which show what major bugs are being addressed - as well as what stuff is being developed and when it's will be on the Calendar and in game) ; and the Dev Tracker (link) (which does a good job of showing Developer and GM posts soon after they're up); are all smoke and mirrors, or Cryptic has somehow develped an AI system that automates ST development).
Yep, there's nothing but emperical evidence showing how Cryptic has completely pulled th STO Dev team and moved them to their next MMO project...oh, wait...
lol u so failed
maybe the calendar is pre planned? with a smaller dev team in mind, and your other 2 points are the work of a very small team maybe max 10 people gathering information,
tis a fact the others have gone to either 3rd mmo project or just not renewed contract. either way, sto is now not there main concern and just tend to keep us waiting on end of a hook whiles we maybe pay more money waiting
So Cryptic sold 1million copies huh, it must have been dark matter entities cause it seemed less than a quarter of that at launch. The "servers" are dying Jim, nurse 2L of cordrazine!
Wrong on many points. Devs stated multiple times that the STO live team was not reduced from the Development team. In fact, they added in some new people recently.
And recruitment programs kind of flies in the face of reducing server load yes?
its called scaling down. and it happerns when a mmo settles down from gold, the problem is this has happerned alot quicker than even some failed mmos, and going by the trends set by other mmo's (wht else is they to go on) this is exactly wht happerns. and forum posts are worth the paper there wrote on. them new people you talk about, could be anyone, GM's/customer service
Really, funny how I saw as many instances of Starbase 1 (40 or so) at peak times this weekend as I saw in open beta. Also, you DO realize it's ONE live server with many instances, and (unless teamed) when you go into a zone to do a mission, it's your own private zone - the only exception of ourse is Deep Space Encounters or Fleet Action Zones; and also realize that EVERY MMO (Even World of Warcraft in the first 3 months it was out - the' explosion' didn't happen until they had the servers stable enough - which TOOK them 90 days - and they put the game back in stores).
But hey, who wants facts in a 'game is dying' thread?
please don't even go into the instance thing, because it is no way a postive thing about this game...lol
wow launch wasn't that bad. Eu was flawless abiet maybe abit unstable after a patch, but every game has that problem. and for the US, yeah was abit rocky in the first 90 days, but so has sto.
now whts that to do with dieing population, a company that is scaling back. key devs leaving/moving
get past that sweet taste and you find a coffee center. but i'm a stupid trek fan, i'll still pay to play.
Bottom line is that when you sell a million copies of a game, and less than 20% of those are still playing the game 60 days in, you aren't doing something right. In fact you are doing something very wrong.
Bottom line is that you don't know of what you speak. You can not have "empty" servers in STO. Instances of Sector Space run from at least 1 to 50 players each. IF you would have looked at the instances you would probably have noticed MANY instances with from 50 down players apiece.
maybe the calendar is pre planned? with a smaller dev team in mind, and your other 2 points are the work of a very small team maybe max 10 people gathering information,
tis a fact the others have gone to either 3rd mmo project or just not renewed contract. either way, sto is now not there main concern and just tend to keep us waiting on end of a hook whiles we maybe pay more money waiting
Seriously man ... that third project is the bees knees. You WANT Cryptic putting all of its people on it.
That's the only way they're going to get all of those details right and approved by Rowlings.
Hogwarts Online is HUGE. And will need every person Cryptic has to make it a reality.
its called scaling down. and it happerns when a mmo settles down from gold, the problem is this has happerned alot quicker than even some failed mmos, and going by the trends set by other mmo's (wht else is they to go on) this is exactly wht happerns. and forum posts are worth the paper there wrote on. them new people you talk about, could be anyone, GM's/customer service
Except they arent. They specifically mentioned adding more to the art and programming teams. They've directly said the development team was not scaled down after game launch. Not GMs/Customer Service/etc.
The Engineering reports show exactly what they're up to and its a pretty big list. They also have an entirely different team (separate from Champions & STO) that are working specifically on creating a User Generated Content system for both those games.
But I'm sure you know much better how things work than people who actually work there.
Seriously man ... that 2nd project is the bees knees. You WANT Cryptic putting all of its people on it.
That's the only way they're going to get all of those details right and approved by cbs.
Startrek Online is HUGE. And will need every person Cryptic has to make it a reality
That's the past. Hogwarts is the future. How do you think they got this license in the first place? By doing the work they did on Star Trek. The Potter demographic is much larger and just as loyal as the Trek demographic.
This is going to be the best thing Cryptic's ever done. And I'm willing to let them slack a bit on Champions and Star Trek to bring Hogwarts to virtual life. I would suspect a lot of posters feel the same way.
I stopped reading here. If you really think that the majority of gamers would like open PvP, you are very, very mistaken. For every player that open PK would attract, the game would lose at least 3-4 others who are put off by this sort of gameplay. There is a reason why almost all newer MMOs either don't have open PK at all, or made it opt-in only. The more successful newer MMOs got there by having a great PvE component. Some also have good PvP in addition to that, but a large scale MMO in 2010 does not and cannot stand on its PvP part. Even Guild Wars, the most PvP focused MMO ever during its development, changed to PvE focus over time, because that's what the masses want.
The best thing about the new Hogwarts project is ... it will have open PVP! But only in the form of Quidditch. And so everyone who wants this will be opting in, but the quidditch pitch is what it is and will be open for all to try.
Cryptic will win with this. Totally win.
And with some of their Hagrid story arcs, they'll finally, for the frist time ever, design DRAGONS in one of their games!
The best thing about the new Hogwarts project is ... it will have open PVP! But only in the form of Quidditch. And so everyone who wants this will be opting in, but the quidditch pitch is what it is and will be open for all to try.
Cryptic will win with this. Totally win.
And with some of their Hagrid story arcs, they'll finally, for the frist time ever, design DRAGONS in one of their games!
For every player that open PK would attract, the game would lose at least 3-4 others who are put off by this sort of gameplay.
This.
That was one of my biggest complaints about UO. It was hard to get anywhere in the game when you'd be pretty much instantly killed and looted by every random person running by.
I find that the time of day that you are playing makes a big difference in population. I also think these trolls just come back to get the community all worked up over the same old issues. We get it, you don't like the game...yawn.
As I said when less than 20% subscribe to the game from those kinds of sales, you have problems. All you fanbois should listen up- stop asking Cryptic for more playable species etc and bells and whistles on your tricycle, and ask for a decent MMO that caters to a broad spectrum of MMO enthusiast- something that requires some skill and a level of decent competitveness. Otherwise you'll be all alone in less than a year at these rates.
In February Cryptic said they have over a million registered accounts for launch
The story being linked doesn't cite the 1 million number at all. Not a single quote from anyone related to the company or any other source given for the info. As far as that story goes ... it's a number provided by the writer. With no citation of where or how the writer got he number. I'm reading the preview story linked within the story to find a quote in it. Hopefully.
As I said when less than 20% subscribe to the game from those kinds of sales, you have problems. All you fanbois should listen up- stop asking Cryptic for more playable species etc and bells and whistles on your tricycle, and ask for a decent MMO that caters to a broad spectrum of MMO enthusiast- something that requires some skill and a level of decent competitveness. Otherwise you'll be all alone in less than a year at these rates.
Just read both stories. There's no actual source for the 1 million number. It's just something the writer wrote. With no verification or quotation or back up from anyone at Cryptic.
That's bad reporting. And ... well ... you know the rest.
That one million number was people registering to get into closed and open beta. There were game sites that gave out free play to open beta. A lot of those just played because it was free and had no intention of buying the game. They're also lots of multiple accounts made by people to get into closed beta.
That article said a million registered not a million copies sold.
Really, Cryptic sent the Dev Team 'off to the next project'?
Then I guess The Calendar (Link) (which outlines upcoming content resease dates); the Engineering Reports (Link) ( (which show what major bugs are being addressed - as well as what stuff is being developed and when it's will be on the Calendar and in game) ; and the Dev Tracker (link) (which does a good job of showing Developer and GM posts soon after they're up); are all smoke and mirrors, or Cryptic has somehow develped an AI system that automates ST development).
Yep, there's nothing but emperical evidence showing how Cryptic has completely pulled th STO Dev team and moved them to their next MMO project...oh, wait...
To play devil's advocate, there was a post by a dev saying they lost some people. Some left Cryptic. Some were just temps anyhow. Some to the next project but said it's because the type of work they do is they work on the new stuff he said. But they have retained the majority of the content devs. So in a way that person is right but so are you.
They did announce that a million people had signed up for forum accounts/updates on the game. That's a far cry even from having a million prospective players considering that a little Google fu reveals a lot of those people lost interest at the idea of a game with a monthly fee, a game that required a box purchase, etc. That's before even Open Beta or anyone even knew what features the game would or wouldn't have.
They had a million people with a vague interest in the game who weren't even necessarily willing to pay any money to play it. That's not a million subscribers and I don't get why a handful of critics keep throwing that number out there. It was clearly released to generate interest by making prospective players think "Wow. Everybody's doing it" but it's neither dishonest nor indicative of a million subscribers at any point.
To play devil's advocate, there was a post by a dev saying they lost some people. Some left Cryptic. Some were just temps anyhow. Some to the next project but said it's because the type of work they do is they work on the new stuff he said. But they have retained the majority of the content devs. So in a way that person is right but so are you.
They've also said they are retaining the same rough number of devs and replacing the people who leave with new people.
I remember what it was first like when it came out. Population is a joke now.
No I don't see a problem with opening up all instances, except for the exception I mentioned. Every major MMO allows open pvp. Some use a flagging system, some use a safe zone set up.
And they fall into three categories:
1) Those that have separate servers for Open PvP and non-Open PvP, and the non-Open ones are far more populated.
2) Those that used to have both, but have closed down the Open ones, because they were depopulated.
3) EVE.
Most people don't want Open PvP. You don't fix a game by driving off the paying customers in the hopes you'll get different paying customers.
I would happy sacrifice kittens to see a Dune MMORPG made, but I seriously don't think Cryptic is the right Dev house for it. What I loved about Dune was the intrigue, the "wheels within wheels" (and those nifty ornithopers!), sure there was plenty of pewpew but there was a whole lot more strategy and politicking. God what a wonderful series. *sigh*
I would happy sacrifice kittens to see a Dune MMORPG made, but I seriously don't think Cryptic is the right Dev house for it. What I loved about Dune was the intrigue, the "wheels within wheels" (and those nifty ornithopers!), sure there was plenty of pewpew but there was a whole lot more strategy and politicking. God what a wonderful series. *sigh*
Dune is wonderful because of it's rich STORY...(anyone who reads the novels understands this).
MMOs are the worst, most miserable device for delivering a good story... yes, they can be fun... but no, they cannot deliver an engaging story (as of yet)... A Dune MMO would just be a sci-fi game in an empty shell that vaguely resembles Dune.
If a Dune game had to be made, it would best be made as a single player RPG most likely... or an adventure / aciton-adventure game of some sort... as those tend to do a better job at delivering stories.
I have no idea how people come up with the notion that MMOs are the proper tool to bring some of our favorite stories to life in a game... they're awful for this purpose.
MMOs are good for making fun but meaningless playgrounds.. nothing more.
The new Star wars MMO is supposedly aiming to change this (and while I have hopes... I'm equally skeptical it will succeed.. despite how much I love Bioware as a developer).
I would happy sacrifice kittens to see a Dune MMORPG made, but I seriously don't think Cryptic is the right Dev house for it. What I loved about Dune was the intrigue, the "wheels within wheels" (and those nifty ornithopers!), sure there was plenty of pewpew but there was a whole lot more strategy and politicking. God what a wonderful series. *sigh*
Dune got weird after God Emperor. ... Okay, it got odd after the first page. But that was part of the appeal of it. Here was a universe rife with intrigue and suspense. House Corrino and the Sardaukar provide a built-in reason to limit the size of player-controlled Great Houses, while kanly/vendetta provides perfect impetus for small-scale conflict. There is a whole slew of unique character classes: Suk School doctor, Bene Gesserit, Bene Tleilax, Swordsman, Spymaster, Assassin, Mentat... each one offering opportunities for their own class-specific missions. I don't normally like PvP, but this would be awesome.
But I guess you're right. I don't think Cryptic's business plan would really support the development and support of a Dune MMO.
Dune is wonderful because of it's rich STORY...(anyone who reads the novels understands this).
MMOs are the worst, most miserable device for delivering a good story... yes, they can be fun... but no, they cannot deliver an engaging story (as of yet)... A Dune MMO would just be a sci-fi game in an empty shell that vaguely resembles Dune.
If a Dune game had to be made, it would best be made as a single player RPG most likely... or an adventure / aciton-adventure game of some sort... as those tend to do a better job at delivering stories.
I have no idea how people come up with the notion that MMOs are the proper tool to bring some of our favorite stories to life in a game... they're awful for this purpose.
MMOs are good for making fun but meaningless playgrounds.. nothing more.
The new Star wars MMO is supposedly aiming to change this (and while I have hopes... I'm equally skeptical it will succeed.. despite how much I love Bioware as a developer).
The hook for MMOs is that they give you a sandbox. To create your own story within the framework of that universe.
You make a valid point. A Dune single player game would probably be able to deliver a very engaging and intense Dune story. Because yes, that's what they do so very well.
A Dune MMO would be more about giving the fans of the world the sandbox (in Dune, that's almost literal, lol) to exist in the Dune universe and craft their own little stories.
Howevever, the point you make remains valid in the sense that once the game got underway, a lot of people would complain about how the game sacrificed the story for game mechanics.
So you'd see a lot of similar "complaints" that you see here.
Dune is wonderful because of it's rich STORY...(anyone who reads the novels understands this).
Read em all, even the "prequels" and additional books his son wrote afterward...multiple times. Hell, every guild I've run in every MMO I've played has had a Dune reference in it.
MMOs are good for making fun but meaningless playgrounds.. nothing more.
Hrmm, I think this is where you and I agree to disagree. This statement is really selling the genre short, and is rather short sighted. 5 years ago I would have a agreed that a Dune MMO would have been impossible to make. Now? Not so impossible anymore.
Comments
lol u so failed
maybe the calendar is pre planned? with a smaller dev team in mind, and your other 2 points are the work of a very small team maybe max 10 people gathering information,
tis a fact the others have gone to either 3rd mmo project or just not renewed contract. either way, sto is now not there main concern and just tend to keep us waiting on end of a hook whiles we maybe pay more money waiting
its called scaling down. and it happerns when a mmo settles down from gold, the problem is this has happerned alot quicker than even some failed mmos, and going by the trends set by other mmo's (wht else is they to go on) this is exactly wht happerns. and forum posts are worth the paper there wrote on. them new people you talk about, could be anyone, GM's/customer service
please don't even go into the instance thing, because it is no way a postive thing about this game...lol
wow launch wasn't that bad. Eu was flawless abiet maybe abit unstable after a patch, but every game has that problem. and for the US, yeah was abit rocky in the first 90 days, but so has sto.
now whts that to do with dieing population, a company that is scaling back. key devs leaving/moving
get past that sweet taste and you find a coffee center. but i'm a stupid trek fan, i'll still pay to play.
Bottom line is that you don't know of what you speak. You can not have "empty" servers in STO. Instances of Sector Space run from at least 1 to 50 players each. IF you would have looked at the instances you would probably have noticed MANY instances with from 50 down players apiece.
Seriously man ... that third project is the bees knees. You WANT Cryptic putting all of its people on it.
That's the only way they're going to get all of those details right and approved by Rowlings.
Hogwarts Online is HUGE. And will need every person Cryptic has to make it a reality.
Except they arent. They specifically mentioned adding more to the art and programming teams. They've directly said the development team was not scaled down after game launch. Not GMs/Customer Service/etc.
The Engineering reports show exactly what they're up to and its a pretty big list. They also have an entirely different team (separate from Champions & STO) that are working specifically on creating a User Generated Content system for both those games.
But I'm sure you know much better how things work than people who actually work there.
Seriously man ... that 2nd project is the bees knees. You WANT Cryptic putting all of its people on it.
That's the only way they're going to get all of those details right and approved by cbs.
Startrek Online is HUGE. And will need every person Cryptic has to make it a reality
That's the past. Hogwarts is the future. How do you think they got this license in the first place? By doing the work they did on Star Trek. The Potter demographic is much larger and just as loyal as the Trek demographic.
This is going to be the best thing Cryptic's ever done. And I'm willing to let them slack a bit on Champions and Star Trek to bring Hogwarts to virtual life. I would suspect a lot of posters feel the same way.
I stopped reading here. If you really think that the majority of gamers would like open PvP, you are very, very mistaken. For every player that open PK would attract, the game would lose at least 3-4 others who are put off by this sort of gameplay. There is a reason why almost all newer MMOs either don't have open PK at all, or made it opt-in only. The more successful newer MMOs got there by having a great PvE component. Some also have good PvP in addition to that, but a large scale MMO in 2010 does not and cannot stand on its PvP part. Even Guild Wars, the most PvP focused MMO ever during its development, changed to PvE focus over time, because that's what the masses want.
Cryptic will win with this. Totally win.
And with some of their Hagrid story arcs, they'll finally, for the frist time ever, design DRAGONS in one of their games!
Yer killing me here SC. Too funny.
This.
That was one of my biggest complaints about UO. It was hard to get anywhere in the game when you'd be pretty much instantly killed and looted by every random person running by.
Did Atari land the Harry Potter license?
I'd figure after Warner bought Turbine, it'd be a shoe in there...
It's all just rumor and speculation.
I'd think JK has a bit of control over decisions of that nature, even if Warner bought Turbine.
But it's all just rumor and speculation until Cryptic (or anyone else) announces it officially.
So we'll just have to play Lego HP until someone makes it official.
/sigh
http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/02/02/star-trek-online-starts-boldly-today-with-a-million-registered-users/
And today?
Less than 200k, and probably close to 100k per this article posted a few weeks ago:
http://www.incgamers.com/News/21628/star-trek-online-has-over-100000-subscribers
As I said when less than 20% subscribe to the game from those kinds of sales, you have problems. All you fanbois should listen up- stop asking Cryptic for more playable species etc and bells and whistles on your tricycle, and ask for a decent MMO that caters to a broad spectrum of MMO enthusiast- something that requires some skill and a level of decent competitveness. Otherwise you'll be all alone in less than a year at these rates.
I loved this combat engine- it's the game I hate.
And that's the last I'll say on the matter.
The story being linked doesn't cite the 1 million number at all. Not a single quote from anyone related to the company or any other source given for the info. As far as that story goes ... it's a number provided by the writer. With no citation of where or how the writer got he number. I'm reading the preview story linked within the story to find a quote in it. Hopefully.
That's bad reporting. And ... well ... you know the rest.
That article said a million registered not a million copies sold.
Gday't, and I was hoping it was Dune Online!
"Im in ur Great House, killin ur mentats."
To play devil's advocate, there was a post by a dev saying they lost some people. Some left Cryptic. Some were just temps anyhow. Some to the next project but said it's because the type of work they do is they work on the new stuff he said. But they have retained the majority of the content devs. So in a way that person is right but so are you.
They had a million people with a vague interest in the game who weren't even necessarily willing to pay any money to play it. That's not a million subscribers and I don't get why a handful of critics keep throwing that number out there. It was clearly released to generate interest by making prospective players think "Wow. Everybody's doing it" but it's neither dishonest nor indicative of a million subscribers at any point.
They've also said they are retaining the same rough number of devs and replacing the people who leave with new people.
And they fall into three categories:
1) Those that have separate servers for Open PvP and non-Open PvP, and the non-Open ones are far more populated.
2) Those that used to have both, but have closed down the Open ones, because they were depopulated.
3) EVE.
Most people don't want Open PvP. You don't fix a game by driving off the paying customers in the hopes you'll get different paying customers.
I would happy sacrifice kittens to see a Dune MMORPG made, but I seriously don't think Cryptic is the right Dev house for it. What I loved about Dune was the intrigue, the "wheels within wheels" (and those nifty ornithopers!), sure there was plenty of pewpew but there was a whole lot more strategy and politicking. God what a wonderful series. *sigh*
Dune is wonderful because of it's rich STORY...(anyone who reads the novels understands this).
MMOs are the worst, most miserable device for delivering a good story... yes, they can be fun... but no, they cannot deliver an engaging story (as of yet)... A Dune MMO would just be a sci-fi game in an empty shell that vaguely resembles Dune.
If a Dune game had to be made, it would best be made as a single player RPG most likely... or an adventure / aciton-adventure game of some sort... as those tend to do a better job at delivering stories.
I have no idea how people come up with the notion that MMOs are the proper tool to bring some of our favorite stories to life in a game... they're awful for this purpose.
MMOs are good for making fun but meaningless playgrounds.. nothing more.
The new Star wars MMO is supposedly aiming to change this (and while I have hopes... I'm equally skeptical it will succeed.. despite how much I love Bioware as a developer).
Dune got weird after God Emperor. ... Okay, it got odd after the first page.
But I guess you're right. I don't think Cryptic's business plan would really support the development and support of a Dune MMO.
The hook for MMOs is that they give you a sandbox. To create your own story within the framework of that universe.
You make a valid point. A Dune single player game would probably be able to deliver a very engaging and intense Dune story. Because yes, that's what they do so very well.
A Dune MMO would be more about giving the fans of the world the sandbox (in Dune, that's almost literal, lol) to exist in the Dune universe and craft their own little stories.
Howevever, the point you make remains valid in the sense that once the game got underway, a lot of people would complain about how the game sacrificed the story for game mechanics.
So you'd see a lot of similar "complaints" that you see here.
Read em all, even the "prequels" and additional books his son wrote afterward...multiple times. Hell, every guild I've run in every MMO I've played has had a Dune reference in it.
Hrmm, I think this is where you and I agree to disagree. This statement is really selling the genre short, and is rather short sighted. 5 years ago I would have a agreed that a Dune MMO would have been impossible to make. Now? Not so impossible anymore.
Anyways, off-topic.