He enjoys the ship to ship combat, and I think his hook is the IP - he likes seeing different pieces of Star Trek episodes pop up. It looks like you do get to see more interesting things as you level up, but the game only had a couple hours to make a first impression with me and it failed.
After seeing in the open beta what they did with the Doomsday Machine encounter - I lost hope of them doing justice to other canon story content.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
He enjoys the ship to ship combat, and I think his hook is the IP - he likes seeing different pieces of Star Trek episodes pop up. It looks like you do get to see more interesting things as you level up, but the game only had a couple hours to make a first impression with me and it failed.
After seeing in the open beta what they did with the Doomsday Machine encounter - I lost hope of them doing justice to other canon story content.
Just curious, but what did they do there?
I do find it somewhat interesting how some people are happy with random elements of the IP popping up, being used in an often poor way and even in a way not all that consistent with the IP and love the game, whereas others hate it for that reason.
Its hard for me to gather information from a rant.
PvP is meaningless how? Is there no reward for winning? You stated there is no risk, that is a big problem. Skills are meaningless how? You dont see them affect your game if you pick one over the other or go with none? Or are they just not in your set of uses so they dont mean anything to you?
You failed to mention if there are level restrictions to zones or exploration. You failed to mention if there is even exploration or it is all quest instances. The bit regarding progression is a rant. People level for leveling and phat loot. Is there no better loot? Is the next ship just a new skin? I am assuming based off your post that there is no reputation or diplomacy with factions as all ships are hostile. Does the game also not hold true to the franchise in regards to combat flow and style? This is why I called it a rant and lacking information. There are many things that are bashed but nothing explained.
The game is all quest instances. There is no exploration. Even the starbases are instanced, about 30 players per starbase, so no way to develop a sense of community.
There are two skill sets. Space and Ground. Your "career" (science officer, tactical, engineering) only affects the ground game. All space skills are available to all captains, regardless the career you roll. As the ground game offers no challenge, it is best to put ALL you acquired skill points into space combat.
Space combat is rather fun. You can mess with shields in the middle of a fight, change power levels for weapons, auxillary systems, engines. You get special tactics that are linked with your bridge officers, but you control them, not the AI. Ground is different. You can trigger the away team's special skills but it really isn't necessary, the AI will do that for you. Ground combat is hardly what I would call exciting.
Playzones are extremely small. You move through Sector Space on essentially a 2D map which has a tiny bit of Z-axis to make it seem like it is 3D space. From sector space, you enter systems but, again, it is essentially a 2D map. These systems have planets but you can't explore them. You might get to beam down to an instance on the planet, generally into a small mini-dungeon. Usually, however, you get a mission to defeat 5 groups of enemies, such as Gorn, or Klingon. The groups are lined up in orbit around the planet and if you circle the planet, you will easily find them all.
Yes, you get a new ship with each rank: Lieutenant, Lt. Commander, Commander, Captain, Commodore, Admiral. Each new level of ship has increased capabilities. The gear on the ships uses the Mark system like we saw on SWG's Jump to Lightspeed: Mark I shields, Mark 2 Torpedos, Mark 4 engines, etc. The more powerful ships let you equip extra bridge officers (i.e. extra combat commands and buffs) as well as double up on some systems, such as torpedo launchers. That part was rather fun for me. Same with away missions, you equip yourself and all of your away team with personal shield's, body armor, weapons, and "kits" that add capabilities. Nothing wrong with this system at all. You can also upgrade your gear by gathering resources and taking that stuff and your gear to a starbase NPC to for enhancements.
No, the problem is more with the playzones, missions and instancing. Everything seems very, very small. I felt claustrophobic both in space and on the ground. Maybe it was because I came over from Vanguard: Saga of Heros, which was expansive.
There is no crafting. You can loot the gear you need. What you don't need, you can sell on your ship with the "Replicator" and you will amass so many "Energy Credits" that you can buy what you need from Starbase NPCs. There is an auction house and maybe it will play a roll at higher levels, I just don't know. My impression is that there will NOT be a significant player economy in this game.
As for grouping, all the instances suggest this is a big single player game. But there are group missions and the game has a function to throw multiple players together in some of the mission instances. Once inside, you can cooperate together and complete the objectives, even if you don't actually form a "group". I tried to talk to other spaceships and rarely got anyone to respond. So, I just followed the crowd into a set of enemies and tried to focus my ship weps on whatever other guys were shooting. Pretty simple and effective strategy. If you get a lot of aggro and die, no biggie, you respawn nearby and re-enter the fight, there is ZERO death penalty. Some missions have NPC ships to help you out. Hardly matters if the player ships won't talk to you!!
I've tried to flesh out some of my impressions about this game but I realize that written opinions really can't convey a whole lot. I am just VERY glad I played the beta for free and learned that it was not the expansive space or scifi mmo that I am looking for.
Id like to thank the original poster for posting this and the subsequent posters for their input. I was all set for buying this game but having read the criticism and by the looks of it there more criticism than praise in this and many other forums, im certainly not now. Its a shame too as there hasnt been a decent ST licence game since Elite Force and was looking forward to it. Guess ill wait till everyone has finished their 30 days and left the game and they start offering trials.
Good luck if you guys are playing it or even if u r not !!!!!
Greatness is difficult to appreciate from close up. The great mountain on the horizon is only the ground when you are standing on it.
Oh, I forgot to mention, you complete missions by fighting. If you wanted to play Jean Luc Piccard and use diplomacy, you will not. There are some limited dialogs to the ground missions, but it doesn't matter what you say, your selections are really just to gather info, there are no consequences to NPC interaction such as you might be expecting from KOTOR (or Star Wars: The Old Republic for that matter). Its a pretty simple system, in my opinion.
While I think the first paragraph of insults to slights you haven't even seen yet I don't begrudge you your opinion, I could have posted similar commentary about a few games myself but STO for me is not one of them. I read your entire post but I simply don't see things the way you do and again I can only chock it up to different strokes for different folks. I haven no problem with the skill system as it exists (but more so why do so many people seem to complain about this without first finding out what the skills mean/do?) nor the quests and truth be told through the beta's I repeated lot's of quests low and behold I didn't repeat a single quest from LT to LT Commander from headstart to launch so that point comes off for me as much of the criticism Aion faced where many people said it was too content light and too much grind while others swore they did not repeat many quests if any, in this case it obviously depends on what and how you do it.
I played EVE and within fifteen minutes I knew it wasn't for me and I never even logged in again so that makes me aware that it's possible to not like a game that many consider to be fine and I'll look at this post the same way especially since again the experiences you relay are your experiences and not necessarily indicative of what every player is going to experience.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Id like to thank the original poster for posting this and the subsequent posters for their input. I was all set for buying this game but having read the criticism and by the looks of it there more criticism than praise in this and many other forums, im certainly not now. Its a shame too as there hasnt been a decent ST licence game since Elite Force and was looking forward to it. Guess ill wait till everyone has finished their 30 days and left the game and they start offering trials.
Good luck if you guys are playing it or even if u r not !!!!!
A good post. I commented about similar issues during the beta.
The last nail in the coffin was when I watched a clip of Cryptic CEO talking about their ability to churn out new games with ease, as they only have to design "content" because of their engine. He really sounded like a person who is not interested in Star Trek or games in general.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
The thing is, people need to find these things out on their own. I knew pretty quickly that the game wasn't for me, but I thought it might appeal to a lot of people who value different things in a game. It took another twenty hours of play to decide that the game is EMPHATICALLY not for me, and to come to the conclusion that it's only going to end up appealing to a small number of people. But why should they take my word for it? We get a lot of "humanitarians" around here, trying to help people save their money. But nobody's fooled; you're just bitter you wasted yours.
Best post I've read in quite some time on here again while I give the op the right to have his opinion everything highlighted in that orange section is really subjective as you put it, depends on what a person looks for in a game and STO does it for me.
I've noticed atleast one person and I'm sure others will mention "it doesn't look like the type of game you play for years". Let's be honest here while we would all like to find that game most of us don't or we wouldn't spend so much time on here criticizing the new game that didn't meet our expectations (right wouldn't we be happily playing that game we've played for years?).
I could even say and have said in the past I don't think STO will last me longer than a few months, but does that really qualify it as some type of failure? Maybe from Cryptics perspective as they need to get all the money they can out of as many people as they can but that isn't my problem. What concerns me is getting a quality entertaining game for as long as I'm willing to sub and I expect it to do that though I don't see myself playing it as long as I did LOTRO or even WOW for that matter.
The game is not the greatest game ever but I certainly don't see it as bad as the op does and I agree with TheAesthet while so many people want to try to "save us" the money by testing out the products and telling us what we like it doesn't really work that way and the truth again is by trying the game you will most likely find you aren't losing out on as much as the op says.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
While I think the first paragraph of insults to slights you haven't even seen yet I don't begrudge you your opinion, I could have posted similar commentary about a few games myself but STO for me is not one of them. I read your entire post but I simply don't see things the way you do and again I can only chock it up to different strokes for different folks. I haven no problem with the skill system as it exists (but more so why do so many people seem to complain about this without first finding out what the skills mean/do?) nor the quests and truth be told through the beta's I repeated lot's of quests low and behold I didn't repeat a single quest from LT to LT Commander from headstart to launch so that point comes off for me as much of the criticism Aion faced where many people said it was too content light and too much grind while others swore they did not repeat many quests if any, in this case it obviously depends on what and how you do it. I played EVE and within fifteen minutes I knew it wasn't for me and I never even logged in again so that makes me aware that it's possible to not like a game that many consider to be fine and I'll look at this post the same way especially since again the experiences you relay are your experiences and not necessarily indicative of what every player is going to experience.
Well, you are right. I did the quests from LT to LT Commander and unless you repeated the Defend missions or the Deep Space Encounter Missions, you don't actually repeat quests. But, the missions didn't have a lot of variety in them either, at least for me. That may be why some folks thought it was a grind. Still, to each his own. My god, how many Squill Lairs did I destroy over and over and over along my way to becoming a Jedi in PreCU SWG? Haha.
Like you, I couldn't get past the tutorial in Eve, it just wasn't for me.
Still, as so many people are disappointed in this game, for whatever reason, a free trial seems a great idea. Dang, that is true for any mmo these days, don't you think?
A good post. I commented about similar issues during the beta. The last nail in the coffin was when I watched a clip of Cryptic CEO talking about their ability to churn out new games with ease, as they only have to design "content" because of their engine. He really sounded like a person who is not interested in Star Trek or games in general.
From what I have heard (and judging by the results) - he is not at all unusual in that.
There are a lot of people in the business now who don't care about games. Not at all surprising - the bigger an industry gets, the more people will chase the money - but disappointing.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The thing is, people need to find these things out on their own. I knew pretty quickly that the game wasn't for me, but I thought it might appeal to a lot of people who value different things in a game. It took another twenty hours of play to decide that the game is EMPHATICALLY not for me, and to come to the conclusion that it's only going to end up appealing to a small number of people. But why should they take my word for it? We get a lot of "humanitarians" around here, trying to help people save their money. But nobody's fooled; you're just bitter you wasted yours.
Best post I've read in quite some time on here again while I give the op the right to have his opinion everything highlighted in that orange section is really subjective as you put it, depends on what a person looks for in a game and STO does it for me.
I've noticed atleast one person and I'm sure others will mention "it doesn't look like the type of game you play for years". Let's be honest here while we would all like to find that game most of us don't or we wouldn't spend so much time on here criticizing the new game that didn't meet our expectations (right wouldn't we be happily playing that game we've played for years?).
I could even say and have said in the past I don't think STO will last me longer than a few months, but does that really qualify it as some type of failure? Maybe from Cryptics perspective as they need to get all the money they can out of as many people as they can but that isn't my problem. What concerns me is getting a quality entertaining game for as long as I'm willing to sub and I expect it to do that though I don't see myself playing it as long as I did LOTRO or even WOW for that matter.
The game is not the greatest game ever but I certainly don't see it as bad as the op does and I agree with TheAesthet while so many people want to try to "save us" the money by testing out the products and telling us what we like it doesn't really work that way and the truth again is by trying the game you will most likely find you aren't losing out on as much as the op says.
Well, I couldn't agree more. I really really liked Lord of the Rings Online. When I level capped after the Mines of Moria expansion and found that the end game (at the time) was repetitive group dungeon grinding to get armor drops, I dropped out. No way did I play that game for years. As I don't like to re-roll to play a different class, I just dropped my sub and moved on. So was LoTRO a failure for me? Not at all. Now, if I bought that LIfetime Sub, I would be singing a different toon, that would have been a mistake for me. So I think your point is well taken.
Now I DID play SWG PreCU for a long time and I loved the goofy game even though it had practically zero content and damn SOE made us pay for expansion after expansion. Wistfully, I long for an immersive mmo that I could play for years. For me, it would take the development of a player community that I care about to achieve such longevity. Such a game would have to have an interesting mix of both content and sandbox features. In all probability, such an mmo is mythical. So, you are right, if you can play a game for a few months and enjoy it, what the hell, that is not a failure.
While I think the first paragraph of insults to slights you haven't even seen yet I don't begrudge you your opinion, I could have posted similar commentary about a few games myself but STO for me is not one of them. I read your entire post but I simply don't see things the way you do and again I can only chock it up to different strokes for different folks. I haven no problem with the skill system as it exists (but more so why do so many people seem to complain about this without first finding out what the skills mean/do?) nor the quests and truth be told through the beta's I repeated lot's of quests low and behold I didn't repeat a single quest from LT to LT Commander from headstart to launch so that point comes off for me as much of the criticism Aion faced where many people said it was too content light and too much grind while others swore they did not repeat many quests if any, in this case it obviously depends on what and how you do it. I played EVE and within fifteen minutes I knew it wasn't for me and I never even logged in again so that makes me aware that it's possible to not like a game that many consider to be fine and I'll look at this post the same way especially since again the experiences you relay are your experiences and not necessarily indicative of what every player is going to experience.
Well, you are right. I did the quests from LT to LT Commander and unless you repeated the Defend missions or the Deep Space Encounter Missions, you don't actually repeat quests. But, the missions didn't have a lot of variety in them either, at least for me. That may be why some folks thought it was a grind. Still, to each his own. My god, how many Squill Lairs did I destroy over and over and over along my to becoming a Jedi in PreCU SWG? Haha.
Like you, I couldn't get past the tutorial in Eve, it just wasn't for me.
Still, as so many people are disappointed in this game, for whatever reason, a free trial seems a great idea. Dang, that is true for any mmo these days, don't you think?
Agreed, I hope I did a good enough job of relaying that I certainly see problems with this game but I do think as long as the community stays active and Cryptic has some talent over there the game can be built up quite nicely.
As some have mentioned overall the use of instances does make the game seem smallish but I also agree with what the devs said in the interview about this today. I have only on the rare occasion of a motion picture (or maybe it happened in DS9) seen more than the one federation ship in the same area and if alot more of you asked yourself I'd think you'd realize how silly it would look if the entire game was inundated with the amount of traffic you usually see around sol (earth system). The system as it is set up at times does do a decent job of showing that even with the amount of ships in the Federation space is big and you will mostly find yourself alone in it unless you choose to group up often. They could certainly use larger maps for both ground and space and maybe the ability to chose to explore random planets would help to (But another thing about this is anyone who knows much of science will know that you are going to very rarely in any solar system find a planet worth or able to be explored).
More diplomacy would work too something even as simple as the mission where you have to get the miners grievences works for me. And keep in mind players diplomacy requires us to actually read the content so be careful what you wish for. But I do think there is much room for improvement but unlike many other games released lately STO is in my estimation in a good position to alleviate many of it's problems.
I agree that most games should offer a trial but I am equally convinced that the "mmo community" as a whole is generally unhappy and are quick to resort to "the sky is falling" to describe anything they don't get with. With most mmo's costing now less than console/pc games as well as offering a free month we need to really start to consider what we are paying for and what we are getting. Most non mmo's (simulation games excluded) last for a month or two so I think paying fifty dollars for a game I'll get thirty dayso f enjoyment out of is par for the course as I've been playing games since the days of Atari (for those who don't remember the game system) and have gotten much less for about the same price before.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Agreed, I hope I did a good enough job of relaying that I certainly see problems with this game but I do think as long as the community stays active and Cryptic has some talent over there the game can be built up quite nicely. As some have mentioned overall the use of instances does make the game seem smallish but I also agree with what the devs said in the interview about this today. I have only on the rare occasion of a motion picture (or maybe it happened in DS9) seen more than the one federation ship in the same area and if alot more of you asked yourself I'd think you'd realize how silly it would look if the entire game was inundated with the amount of traffic you usually see around sol (earth system). The system as it is set up at times does do a decent job of showing that even with the amount of ships in the Federation space is big and you will mostly find yourself alone in it unless you choose to group up often. They could certainly use larger maps for both ground and space and maybe the ability to chose to explore random planets would help to (But another thing about this is anyone who knows much of science will know that you are going to very rarely in any solar system find a planet worth or able to be explored). More diplomacy would work too something even as simple as the mission where you have to get the miners grievences works for me. And keep in mind players diplomacy requires us to actually read the content so be careful what you wish for. But I do think there is much room for improvement but unlike many other games released lately STO is in my estimation in a good position to alleviate many of it's problems. I agree that most games should offer a trial but I am equally convinced that the "mmo community" as a whole is generally unhappy and are quick to resort to "the sky is falling" to describe anything they don't get with. With most mmo's costing now less than console/pc games as well as offering a free month we need to really start to consider what we are paying for and what we are getting. Most non mmo's (simulation games excluded) last for a month or two so I think paying fifty dollars for a game I'll get thirty dayso f enjoyment out of is par for the course as I've been playing games since the days of Atari (for those who don't remember the game system) and have gotten much less for about the same price before.
I am perfectly willing to revisit this game in the future. If they can do a turnaround with Age of Conan (which I didn't revisit) and Vanguard (which I did) then, sure, the improvements you mentioned wouldn't be that hard. I still love Star Trek and i would like to see this game do well!
Oh, I don't have a problem with a space sim not being crowded with ships. But I would like to see a Starport crowed with avatars! LOL
Agreed, I hope I did a good enough job of relaying that I certainly see problems with this game but I do think as long as the community stays active and Cryptic has some talent over there the game can be built up quite nicely. As some have mentioned overall the use of instances does make the game seem smallish but I also agree with what the devs said in the interview about this today. I have only on the rare occasion of a motion picture (or maybe it happened in DS9) seen more than the one federation ship in the same area and if alot more of you asked yourself I'd think you'd realize how silly it would look if the entire game was inundated with the amount of traffic you usually see around sol (earth system).
Or - in any fleet action - like Starbase 24. More ships in any run of that than an entire series of Star Trek.
That's one of the major beefs I have with the 'feel' of the game - way frikkin' too many ships, and way frikkin' too many being blown up. You 'kill' more ships in a couple of missions than Kirk and Picard combined blew up in their careers.
Now, a lot of posters have complained about the degree of instancing, but not me. It's not instanced enough. Most missions should be one or two friendly ships at most. The multiplayer aspect should be coming from PLAYER CREWS - not hordes of single player ships.
If you want a game that feels like Trek - that is the way to do it.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Agreed, I hope I did a good enough job of relaying that I certainly see problems with this game but I do think as long as the community stays active and Cryptic has some talent over there the game can be built up quite nicely. As some have mentioned overall the use of instances does make the game seem smallish but I also agree with what the devs said in the interview about this today. I have only on the rare occasion of a motion picture (or maybe it happened in DS9) seen more than the one federation ship in the same area and if alot more of you asked yourself I'd think you'd realize how silly it would look if the entire game was inundated with the amount of traffic you usually see around sol (earth system).
Or - in any fleet action - like Starbase 24. More ships in any run of that than an entire series of Star Trek.
That's one of the major beefs I have with the 'feel' of the game - way frikkin' too many ships, and way frikkin' too many being blown up. You 'kill' more ships in a couple of missions than Kirk and Picard combined blew up in their careers.
Now, a lot of posters have complained about the degree of instancing, but not me. It's not instanced enough. Most missions should be one or two friendly ships at most. The multiplayer aspect should be coming from PLAYER CREWS - not hordes of single player ships.
If you want a game that feels like Trek - that is the way to do it.
No, I don't what a game that feels like Trek. Not literally. Nor do I want a game that accurately feels like space travel. If I want to spend a long time doing nothing, I'll sub to Eve:Online.
Yeah, starbase 24 is a bit nuts, but instancing is just one way to control the amount of traffic. Increasing the size of the playzones would work as well. We didn't have instancing in Jump to Lightspeed in SWG and crowded space was not a problem, in my opinion.
You forgot to mention the cash shop. Cryptic are so confident that they have a winner on their hands that they are also charging extra for races and characters slots from... you guessed! Day 1.
Bravo Cryptic.
At least Bill Roper is already familiar with this trying to have people pay a monthly fee to play Hellgate: London. We all rememnet how that one went...
--------------------------------------------------------- Never argue with idiots. They are immune to logic.
There's a lot I disagree with in your post, and no real point arguing with you to change your mind. I like the game, as is, and find it immersive. Basically, I feel almost opposite of you. I agree with other posters that say you can't really enjoy a game if you go in prepared to nitpick it. Admit it or not, you went in looking for problems. Yeah, you probably wanted the game to be fun, but your whole attitude is likely negative in life, which carries over into your hobby. A negative attitude, versus a fun loving attitude, is what makes nitpicking such a natural tendency for you.
Since you so kindly admitted your purpose is to disuade people from playing, if they so choose, I'll give my two sense. First off, I don't care if people decide to play STO or not. If people decide to play, and have fun, then I'll see them possibly later in the game. If not, then I won't see them. Simple answer, but it's the truth. I won't lose sleep if you all never play the game. I find it fun soloing through it, which I typically hate to do.
How many hours of content does a single player game typically give you for the box price? For a new PS3 game, it's $59. While I was on my MMO hiatus, I was spending approximately $120/week on games, because they only last a week. STO, even if it only lasts me two weeks, will be worth the box price. So is STO worth the box price to try the game? For me, yes. Is it worth a subscription? I don't know, nor do I care right now. I'm focusing on the present.
Together money hungry publishers alongside developers have turned a wonderful, magical industry into nothing more than a dirty, money hungry whore - and thats exactly what this industry has become, metaphorically speaking. Developers who see nothing but $$$ signs without being willing to take risks and push the genre forward are quite frankly the cancer of the gaming industry, eating it up from the inside and spitting out the remains for players to chew on. And STO is a prime example.
This is so well said. I too am sick of this industry pumping out crappy, unfinished games.
Comments
After seeing in the open beta what they did with the Doomsday Machine encounter - I lost hope of them doing justice to other canon story content.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
After seeing in the open beta what they did with the Doomsday Machine encounter - I lost hope of them doing justice to other canon story content.
Just curious, but what did they do there?
I do find it somewhat interesting how some people are happy with random elements of the IP popping up, being used in an often poor way and even in a way not all that consistent with the IP and love the game, whereas others hate it for that reason.
The game is all quest instances. There is no exploration. Even the starbases are instanced, about 30 players per starbase, so no way to develop a sense of community.
There are two skill sets. Space and Ground. Your "career" (science officer, tactical, engineering) only affects the ground game. All space skills are available to all captains, regardless the career you roll. As the ground game offers no challenge, it is best to put ALL you acquired skill points into space combat.
Space combat is rather fun. You can mess with shields in the middle of a fight, change power levels for weapons, auxillary systems, engines. You get special tactics that are linked with your bridge officers, but you control them, not the AI. Ground is different. You can trigger the away team's special skills but it really isn't necessary, the AI will do that for you. Ground combat is hardly what I would call exciting.
Playzones are extremely small. You move through Sector Space on essentially a 2D map which has a tiny bit of Z-axis to make it seem like it is 3D space. From sector space, you enter systems but, again, it is essentially a 2D map. These systems have planets but you can't explore them. You might get to beam down to an instance on the planet, generally into a small mini-dungeon. Usually, however, you get a mission to defeat 5 groups of enemies, such as Gorn, or Klingon. The groups are lined up in orbit around the planet and if you circle the planet, you will easily find them all.
Yes, you get a new ship with each rank: Lieutenant, Lt. Commander, Commander, Captain, Commodore, Admiral. Each new level of ship has increased capabilities. The gear on the ships uses the Mark system like we saw on SWG's Jump to Lightspeed: Mark I shields, Mark 2 Torpedos, Mark 4 engines, etc. The more powerful ships let you equip extra bridge officers (i.e. extra combat commands and buffs) as well as double up on some systems, such as torpedo launchers. That part was rather fun for me. Same with away missions, you equip yourself and all of your away team with personal shield's, body armor, weapons, and "kits" that add capabilities. Nothing wrong with this system at all. You can also upgrade your gear by gathering resources and taking that stuff and your gear to a starbase NPC to for enhancements.
No, the problem is more with the playzones, missions and instancing. Everything seems very, very small. I felt claustrophobic both in space and on the ground. Maybe it was because I came over from Vanguard: Saga of Heros, which was expansive.
There is no crafting. You can loot the gear you need. What you don't need, you can sell on your ship with the "Replicator" and you will amass so many "Energy Credits" that you can buy what you need from Starbase NPCs. There is an auction house and maybe it will play a roll at higher levels, I just don't know. My impression is that there will NOT be a significant player economy in this game.
As for grouping, all the instances suggest this is a big single player game. But there are group missions and the game has a function to throw multiple players together in some of the mission instances. Once inside, you can cooperate together and complete the objectives, even if you don't actually form a "group". I tried to talk to other spaceships and rarely got anyone to respond. So, I just followed the crowd into a set of enemies and tried to focus my ship weps on whatever other guys were shooting. Pretty simple and effective strategy. If you get a lot of aggro and die, no biggie, you respawn nearby and re-enter the fight, there is ZERO death penalty. Some missions have NPC ships to help you out. Hardly matters if the player ships won't talk to you!!
I've tried to flesh out some of my impressions about this game but I realize that written opinions really can't convey a whole lot. I am just VERY glad I played the beta for free and learned that it was not the expansive space or scifi mmo that I am looking for.
Hope this post helps. Good luck.
Id like to thank the original poster for posting this and the subsequent posters for their input. I was all set for buying this game but having read the criticism and by the looks of it there more criticism than praise in this and many other forums, im certainly not now. Its a shame too as there hasnt been a decent ST licence game since Elite Force and was looking forward to it. Guess ill wait till everyone has finished their 30 days and left the game and they start offering trials.
Good luck if you guys are playing it or even if u r not !!!!!
Greatness is difficult to appreciate from close up. The great mountain on the horizon is only the ground when you are standing on it.
Oh, I forgot to mention, you complete missions by fighting. If you wanted to play Jean Luc Piccard and use diplomacy, you will not. There are some limited dialogs to the ground missions, but it doesn't matter what you say, your selections are really just to gather info, there are no consequences to NPC interaction such as you might be expecting from KOTOR (or Star Wars: The Old Republic for that matter). Its a pretty simple system, in my opinion.
While I think the first paragraph of insults to slights you haven't even seen yet I don't begrudge you your opinion, I could have posted similar commentary about a few games myself but STO for me is not one of them. I read your entire post but I simply don't see things the way you do and again I can only chock it up to different strokes for different folks. I haven no problem with the skill system as it exists (but more so why do so many people seem to complain about this without first finding out what the skills mean/do?) nor the quests and truth be told through the beta's I repeated lot's of quests low and behold I didn't repeat a single quest from LT to LT Commander from headstart to launch so that point comes off for me as much of the criticism Aion faced where many people said it was too content light and too much grind while others swore they did not repeat many quests if any, in this case it obviously depends on what and how you do it.
I played EVE and within fifteen minutes I knew it wasn't for me and I never even logged in again so that makes me aware that it's possible to not like a game that many consider to be fine and I'll look at this post the same way especially since again the experiences you relay are your experiences and not necessarily indicative of what every player is going to experience.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Yeah, I agree, wait for a free trial.
A good post. I commented about similar issues during the beta.
The last nail in the coffin was when I watched a clip of Cryptic CEO talking about their ability to churn out new games with ease, as they only have to design "content" because of their engine. He really sounded like a person who is not interested in Star Trek or games in general.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Best post I've read in quite some time on here again while I give the op the right to have his opinion everything highlighted in that orange section is really subjective as you put it, depends on what a person looks for in a game and STO does it for me.
I've noticed atleast one person and I'm sure others will mention "it doesn't look like the type of game you play for years". Let's be honest here while we would all like to find that game most of us don't or we wouldn't spend so much time on here criticizing the new game that didn't meet our expectations (right wouldn't we be happily playing that game we've played for years?).
I could even say and have said in the past I don't think STO will last me longer than a few months, but does that really qualify it as some type of failure? Maybe from Cryptics perspective as they need to get all the money they can out of as many people as they can but that isn't my problem. What concerns me is getting a quality entertaining game for as long as I'm willing to sub and I expect it to do that though I don't see myself playing it as long as I did LOTRO or even WOW for that matter.
The game is not the greatest game ever but I certainly don't see it as bad as the op does and I agree with TheAesthet while so many people want to try to "save us" the money by testing out the products and telling us what we like it doesn't really work that way and the truth again is by trying the game you will most likely find you aren't losing out on as much as the op says.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Well, you are right. I did the quests from LT to LT Commander and unless you repeated the Defend missions or the Deep Space Encounter Missions, you don't actually repeat quests. But, the missions didn't have a lot of variety in them either, at least for me. That may be why some folks thought it was a grind. Still, to each his own. My god, how many Squill Lairs did I destroy over and over and over along my way to becoming a Jedi in PreCU SWG? Haha.
Like you, I couldn't get past the tutorial in Eve, it just wasn't for me.
Still, as so many people are disappointed in this game, for whatever reason, a free trial seems a great idea. Dang, that is true for any mmo these days, don't you think?
Since there is a cash shop already in - I recommend waiting for F2P.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
From what I have heard (and judging by the results) - he is not at all unusual in that.
There are a lot of people in the business now who don't care about games. Not at all surprising - the bigger an industry gets, the more people will chase the money - but disappointing.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Best post I've read in quite some time on here again while I give the op the right to have his opinion everything highlighted in that orange section is really subjective as you put it, depends on what a person looks for in a game and STO does it for me.
I've noticed atleast one person and I'm sure others will mention "it doesn't look like the type of game you play for years". Let's be honest here while we would all like to find that game most of us don't or we wouldn't spend so much time on here criticizing the new game that didn't meet our expectations (right wouldn't we be happily playing that game we've played for years?).
I could even say and have said in the past I don't think STO will last me longer than a few months, but does that really qualify it as some type of failure? Maybe from Cryptics perspective as they need to get all the money they can out of as many people as they can but that isn't my problem. What concerns me is getting a quality entertaining game for as long as I'm willing to sub and I expect it to do that though I don't see myself playing it as long as I did LOTRO or even WOW for that matter.
The game is not the greatest game ever but I certainly don't see it as bad as the op does and I agree with TheAesthet while so many people want to try to "save us" the money by testing out the products and telling us what we like it doesn't really work that way and the truth again is by trying the game you will most likely find you aren't losing out on as much as the op says.
Well, I couldn't agree more. I really really liked Lord of the Rings Online. When I level capped after the Mines of Moria expansion and found that the end game (at the time) was repetitive group dungeon grinding to get armor drops, I dropped out. No way did I play that game for years. As I don't like to re-roll to play a different class, I just dropped my sub and moved on. So was LoTRO a failure for me? Not at all. Now, if I bought that LIfetime Sub, I would be singing a different toon, that would have been a mistake for me. So I think your point is well taken.
Now I DID play SWG PreCU for a long time and I loved the goofy game even though it had practically zero content and damn SOE made us pay for expansion after expansion. Wistfully, I long for an immersive mmo that I could play for years. For me, it would take the development of a player community that I care about to achieve such longevity. Such a game would have to have an interesting mix of both content and sandbox features. In all probability, such an mmo is mythical. So, you are right, if you can play a game for a few months and enjoy it, what the hell, that is not a failure.
Well, you are right. I did the quests from LT to LT Commander and unless you repeated the Defend missions or the Deep Space Encounter Missions, you don't actually repeat quests. But, the missions didn't have a lot of variety in them either, at least for me. That may be why some folks thought it was a grind. Still, to each his own. My god, how many Squill Lairs did I destroy over and over and over along my to becoming a Jedi in PreCU SWG? Haha.
Like you, I couldn't get past the tutorial in Eve, it just wasn't for me.
Still, as so many people are disappointed in this game, for whatever reason, a free trial seems a great idea. Dang, that is true for any mmo these days, don't you think?
Agreed, I hope I did a good enough job of relaying that I certainly see problems with this game but I do think as long as the community stays active and Cryptic has some talent over there the game can be built up quite nicely.
As some have mentioned overall the use of instances does make the game seem smallish but I also agree with what the devs said in the interview about this today. I have only on the rare occasion of a motion picture (or maybe it happened in DS9) seen more than the one federation ship in the same area and if alot more of you asked yourself I'd think you'd realize how silly it would look if the entire game was inundated with the amount of traffic you usually see around sol (earth system). The system as it is set up at times does do a decent job of showing that even with the amount of ships in the Federation space is big and you will mostly find yourself alone in it unless you choose to group up often. They could certainly use larger maps for both ground and space and maybe the ability to chose to explore random planets would help to (But another thing about this is anyone who knows much of science will know that you are going to very rarely in any solar system find a planet worth or able to be explored).
More diplomacy would work too something even as simple as the mission where you have to get the miners grievences works for me. And keep in mind players diplomacy requires us to actually read the content so be careful what you wish for. But I do think there is much room for improvement but unlike many other games released lately STO is in my estimation in a good position to alleviate many of it's problems.
I agree that most games should offer a trial but I am equally convinced that the "mmo community" as a whole is generally unhappy and are quick to resort to "the sky is falling" to describe anything they don't get with. With most mmo's costing now less than console/pc games as well as offering a free month we need to really start to consider what we are paying for and what we are getting. Most non mmo's (simulation games excluded) last for a month or two so I think paying fifty dollars for a game I'll get thirty dayso f enjoyment out of is par for the course as I've been playing games since the days of Atari (for those who don't remember the game system) and have gotten much less for about the same price before.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I am perfectly willing to revisit this game in the future. If they can do a turnaround with Age of Conan (which I didn't revisit) and Vanguard (which I did) then, sure, the improvements you mentioned wouldn't be that hard. I still love Star Trek and i would like to see this game do well!
Oh, I don't have a problem with a space sim not being crowded with ships. But I would like to see a Starport crowed with avatars! LOL
Or - in any fleet action - like Starbase 24. More ships in any run of that than an entire series of Star Trek.
That's one of the major beefs I have with the 'feel' of the game - way frikkin' too many ships, and way frikkin' too many being blown up. You 'kill' more ships in a couple of missions than Kirk and Picard combined blew up in their careers.
Now, a lot of posters have complained about the degree of instancing, but not me. It's not instanced enough. Most missions should be one or two friendly ships at most. The multiplayer aspect should be coming from PLAYER CREWS - not hordes of single player ships.
If you want a game that feels like Trek - that is the way to do it.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Or - in any fleet action - like Starbase 24. More ships in any run of that than an entire series of Star Trek.
That's one of the major beefs I have with the 'feel' of the game - way frikkin' too many ships, and way frikkin' too many being blown up. You 'kill' more ships in a couple of missions than Kirk and Picard combined blew up in their careers.
Now, a lot of posters have complained about the degree of instancing, but not me. It's not instanced enough. Most missions should be one or two friendly ships at most. The multiplayer aspect should be coming from PLAYER CREWS - not hordes of single player ships.
If you want a game that feels like Trek - that is the way to do it.
No, I don't what a game that feels like Trek. Not literally. Nor do I want a game that accurately feels like space travel. If I want to spend a long time doing nothing, I'll sub to Eve:Online.
Yeah, starbase 24 is a bit nuts, but instancing is just one way to control the amount of traffic. Increasing the size of the playzones would work as well. We didn't have instancing in Jump to Lightspeed in SWG and crowded space was not a problem, in my opinion.
The OP is right on all points. However, I will play it for a while just because there is nothing else for me to play right now.
Yeah there is... It's called Eve Online.
As he stated, and why shouldn't he post it on every site which covers STO?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Yeah there is... It's called Eve Online.
I have tried Eve Online several times and it is just not my cup of tea.
It's so sad because it's all true.
I agree 101%.
You forgot to mention the cash shop. Cryptic are so confident that they have a winner on their hands that they are also charging extra for races and characters slots from... you guessed! Day 1.
Bravo Cryptic.
At least Bill Roper is already familiar with this trying to have people pay a monthly fee to play Hellgate: London. We all rememnet how that one went...
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Never argue with idiots. They are immune to logic.
There's a lot I disagree with in your post, and no real point arguing with you to change your mind. I like the game, as is, and find it immersive. Basically, I feel almost opposite of you. I agree with other posters that say you can't really enjoy a game if you go in prepared to nitpick it. Admit it or not, you went in looking for problems. Yeah, you probably wanted the game to be fun, but your whole attitude is likely negative in life, which carries over into your hobby. A negative attitude, versus a fun loving attitude, is what makes nitpicking such a natural tendency for you.
Since you so kindly admitted your purpose is to disuade people from playing, if they so choose, I'll give my two sense. First off, I don't care if people decide to play STO or not. If people decide to play, and have fun, then I'll see them possibly later in the game. If not, then I won't see them. Simple answer, but it's the truth. I won't lose sleep if you all never play the game. I find it fun soloing through it, which I typically hate to do.
How many hours of content does a single player game typically give you for the box price? For a new PS3 game, it's $59. While I was on my MMO hiatus, I was spending approximately $120/week on games, because they only last a week. STO, even if it only lasts me two weeks, will be worth the box price. So is STO worth the box price to try the game? For me, yes. Is it worth a subscription? I don't know, nor do I care right now. I'm focusing on the present.
This is so well said. I too am sick of this industry pumping out crappy, unfinished games.