I have heard many things against cash shops, but this argument is completely illogical. Let's say Cryptic charges for subscription $10 instead of $15, then the cash shop would be fine yes or no, let's say they charge for subscription $5 instead. In the end, we pay $15 for the free content, based on that content we decide about playing or quitting.
personally i dont think a cash shop has any place at all in any way in a subscription game, but thats beside the point. you charge what a game is worth, in which case i am currently playing a ftp, and tbh if sto was ftp, i would not go back, as the ftp i am currently playing is a better game. cash shops should only be included in ftp games period, imho.
STO was not finished, by most accounts is still unfinished. charging anything while working on other content is wrong. selling a half finished job, then charging a monthly fee to develope content and then adding a second optional fee for the content u developed with the initial payment is wrong.
if i went to toyota and they tried to sell me a car, with no tires, saying the tires were coming at the end of the month, took my payment to have an upgraded engine rush delivered to the dealership, only to call me and tell me they had a great new engine for my car and i should check it out (its an optional fee). oh and by the way my tires were going to be a little late. thats dishonest and unethical, which seems to be typical behaviour for cryptic.
its really not hard to figure out that the game has little to do with quality, effort or customer satisfaction, unless of course you bought a lts. in which case i fully understand why you might have trouble understanding these things, and i dont blame you.
IF THE ONLY DEFENCE FOR CRITICISM OF A GAME IS CALLING SOMEONE A TROLL OR HATER, THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME
Hell, most of the post period on the forums seem to be lifers. Lifers and people that bought 6 mo/1 year subs are probably about all that's left.
The really sad thing in that thread is that all the usual idiots were decrying it as an 'I quit'/doom post and it clearly wasn't; the OP just said that the decision to her was diappointing, but she wasn't going to quit over it and didn't think the game would fail due to it. All she stated was that she was unlikely to purchase another lifetime subscription from Cryptic over it, and would tend to ignore any 'exclusive' offers from Cryptic in the future.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Eve online, Jumpgate, Earth and Beyond and generally most any game that has space ships and space in it, NO MATTER HOW DIFFERENT THEY MAY BE OTHERWISE...... (but im no star trek fan)
SO MY OPINION IS BIASED!!
Well, FIRST THE NEGATIVES: *(Yes, im well aware that the game is not perfect,,, far from it)*
-Extra races for sale? pfft
-Champions online graphics engine ripoff- a little too cartoony for Star Trek, IMHO
-Depending on your love or hate of the game, the quest can get repetitive after a while,,, like most any other MMO i have had the experience of playing
-Doesnt have that much of an MMO feeling considering the fact that the game is mostly instanced, yet there is a standart monthly fee to pay.
-Lack of proper craftin or anything
-We got the combat, but where is the exploration or diplomacy so typical os Star Trek?
-No proper death penalty... i mean i gotta admit: i hate LOOSING Substantial amounts of EXP or anything when i get killed (Like that final fantasy online game) BUT its too shallow yet....
*****BUT IM STILL LOVING' IT!!*****
Why?
Total customisation:
-u can customise your characters appearance/traits out of a given species, or create a whole new one on your own
-You not oly get to pick uniforms for yourself, but you also get to choose your crew and name/dress em in a uniform as u see fit
-Furthermore, there are COOL PIECES OF KITS / ARMOR that you can equip on your character on top of your uniform and they VISUALLY show up,,, also there are some cool pieces of weaponry to be had
-Almost TOTAL SHIP CUSTOMISATION: Pick the name of the ship that show up on your hull, color your ship to some extend, pick individual VISIBLE/HULL pieces for your ship AKA, Earth&Beyond style, and ofcourse equip it with guns/cannons/turrets etc etc from tip to toe.
Other stuff:
-Ground missions: SURE, they may not be so great, but at least they are there,, AND being able to move around with your character reminds you that YOU ARE NOT YOUR SHIP, RATHER THE CAPTAIN OF IT!! After some space missions, it always feels good to feel the soft touch of earth/whatever beneath my threaded boots!
-Lotsa scripted missions to keep ya buzzy if ur into that kinda thing like me.
-Tonsa random missions to fill in the blanks, there are also a few non-combat missions.
-Generally well-done and satsfying art direction and graphics overall both for ships, structures, characters and equipment. Sound is nice too, after all, its hailing from the star trek franchise.
-LACK of LAG: You may be experiencing rubberbanding, lag spikes or whatnot, but PERSONALLY i have notniced none of em so far,,,, AND HEY!!, This is MY* post so im posting here MY thoughts about MY Experience with the game, YOURS MAY DIFFER, heheheh...
-Overall good performance: MAXIMUM SETTINGS, no lag............Yet again i just cashed in lotsa money for a new system so depending on your hardware setup, your experience may wary.
-YOU ARE THE CAPTAIN: As i previously pointed out, you are not the ship, you are the commander in chief with your little officers stationed at the bridge obeying your commands and hundreds of your redshirts (the faceless ones:D) doing your bidding repairing your ship and keeping it functional.
-Since you are the captain, you NOT ONLY get promoted yourself (Bigger/better ships etc etc) BUT you ALSO get to PROMOTE YOUR CREW i mean officers. And when ur promoted there is this little ceremony for that,, heheh....
In the end, i am well aware of the shortcomings of this game, yet i find myself compelled to play it again and again. The sweet sweet feeling of equipping my CHARACTER -*AND*- my SPACE SHIP and going on adventures gives me that awesome feeling that i might be missing lately from other games i tried.
You sound like a girl telling her mother about her new boyfriend: "Mom he is not perfect, I know that but I love him".
His cons:
Likes to hit me from time to time (because I deserve it)
Ex-con who did time for running over people with his truck
Cheats me with other women
Shallow and dumb
Lies to me all the time
Pros:
Looks good
Has many fashionable clothes
Drives a cool car
Has cool friends who own a bar
"I love him and I don't care what you think!"
UrbanMonkey you sir are an absolute genius. I'm in awe over your awesomness of a reply/post. This rings true on so many complex levels!
-Ground missions: SURE, they may not be so great, but at least they are there,, AND being able to move around with your character reminds you that YOU ARE NOT YOUR SHIP, RATHER THE CAPTAIN OF IT!!
I got a bit of a chuckle out of that. In beta, for a while this distinction was blurred. You'd beam down and instead of your bipedal humanoid, you'd see your ship (about the size of a large dog compared to the other humoids). It certainly didn't feel like you were a captain. Even when they fixed that bug, I never felt like a captain. Steering the ship from a 3rd-person view made me feel like I was the ship...or some cadet doing training in a simulator - steering via remote control.
Just to clarify, this isn't meant as a swipe at Krelian's review. I too enjoyed the game when I started playing. However, for me the big draw was that it was about Star Trek. Once I started viewing the game as a general space game (minus Star Trek), I quickly grew disenchanted. But since you're not a fan, Krelian, maybe you'll stick with it. Time will tell.
Wow, there is a lot of hate for STO and Cryptic o_O
I played the Beta and got the game afterwards. Didn't have money for a lifetime sub at the time though. I got tired of the game and left it alone for a while, and have recently returned, and have had fun so far.
Here's the thing though, and I kinda feel like I need to try and act like the voice of reason here:
Yes, the game as is, is fairly shallow and the 'shoot first, ask questions if there are any survivors' approach isn't very Star Trekky.
Yes, crafting is still flawed and speaking in terms of end-level characters, also fairly useless. However, if you manage to keep up with crafting as you are levelling, it's a good way of getting some decent blue-quality gear along the way.
Yes, missions can get repetitive quickly, especially if you are like most players and don't really read the quest text. Also, the game definitely lends itself best to being a casual game.
No, there wasn't really any combat nerf. When I came back after my break of a couple of months, I found myself in trouble more than I was used to (I'm a tac-cruiser captain on my main), but after adjusting my playstyle a bit, I find that my effectiveness in combat is pretty much unaltered, leaning towards actually being improved. Some specs/setups might have been nerfed/rebalanced, but they most likely were with good reason, and it's just a matter of adapting and changing your setup/playstyle. This holds true for any MMO, especially ones that have PvP.
I do see where the OP is coming from though. One major draw for me over EVE (which I have also played, although not hardcore or anything) is that I actually have a character rather than just a ship (or ships). Sure the points highlighted here are mostly "cosmetic", but you know, sometimes that is what we as players need to get the immersion we want in a game. Not having an avatar was one of the major things that turned me off EVE. Having one was what kept me playing SWG as long as I did, and it's what's keeping me playing STO as well. Even though space combat is vastly better and more fun than ground combat in this game (and in SWG too actually), it's nice to actually have your ship be just a ship, and your character be a separate entity from that.
What has convinced me to stick around this time is actually the research that I have done on the STO forums. If you look at the number of Developer posts there, it's pretty clear that they haven't "abandoned" the game as some have said in this thread. They are actively working on improving many aspects of the game, and have been since launch. Progress isn't lightning fast though, because the budget isn't huge, but the developers do seem pretty dedicated. They also seem to listen to the players, which is a huge plus in my book.
Enter Season 2 - More diplomatic content, Klingon PvE content, social/varied content in the form of minigames and so on. Also on the horizon (as in, being worked on at the moment) is ship interiors (transporter room, medical bay, captain's quarters, crew lounge etc.) that actually serve a purpose, and user generated content.
This last point especially is something I think is significant. The other things that the Devs are putting in are things that have been requested by players for a long time, and it's nice to see that they are actually working on that. The UGC though, could potentially be a very good thing for this game. Already players are talking about recreating favorite Trek episodes or doing specific "aftermath" episodes. Getting the players in on creating content, especially considering the number of Trekkies playing this game, could very well help bridge the gap between official content patches.
TLDR version: Regardless of what else has been said here, the developers actually do seem devoted to the game, and they seem to care enough about their player base to listen to them. If the engineering reports are to be believed, then they are working hard on fixing/filling out the parts needed for STO to actually feel like a Star Trek MMO.
You guys can quit posting about this thread, the OP has stated in other threads that he is no longer full of love for this game.
Here is what he says now: Star Trek Online: there is so god damn little* content in this game, IF you dont play it like the way i do - meaning no more than 2-3 hours A WEEK, ur gonna hate this game
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
Comments
personally i dont think a cash shop has any place at all in any way in a subscription game, but thats beside the point. you charge what a game is worth, in which case i am currently playing a ftp, and tbh if sto was ftp, i would not go back, as the ftp i am currently playing is a better game. cash shops should only be included in ftp games period, imho.
STO was not finished, by most accounts is still unfinished. charging anything while working on other content is wrong. selling a half finished job, then charging a monthly fee to develope content and then adding a second optional fee for the content u developed with the initial payment is wrong.
if i went to toyota and they tried to sell me a car, with no tires, saying the tires were coming at the end of the month, took my payment to have an upgraded engine rush delivered to the dealership, only to call me and tell me they had a great new engine for my car and i should check it out (its an optional fee). oh and by the way my tires were going to be a little late. thats dishonest and unethical, which seems to be typical behaviour for cryptic.
its really not hard to figure out that the game has little to do with quality, effort or customer satisfaction, unless of course you bought a lts. in which case i fully understand why you might have trouble understanding these things, and i dont blame you.
IF THE ONLY DEFENCE FOR CRITICISM OF A GAME IS CALLING SOMEONE A TROLL OR HATER, THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME
The really sad thing in that thread is that all the usual idiots were decrying it as an 'I quit'/doom post and it clearly wasn't; the OP just said that the decision to her was diappointing, but she wasn't going to quit over it and didn't think the game would fail due to it. All she stated was that she was unlikely to purchase another lifetime subscription from Cryptic over it, and would tend to ignore any 'exclusive' offers from Cryptic in the future.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
UrbanMonkey you sir are an absolute genius. I'm in awe over your awesomness of a reply/post. This rings true on so many complex levels!
-Ground missions: SURE, they may not be so great, but at least they are there,, AND being able to move around with your character reminds you that YOU ARE NOT YOUR SHIP, RATHER THE CAPTAIN OF IT!!
I got a bit of a chuckle out of that. In beta, for a while this distinction was blurred. You'd beam down and instead of your bipedal humanoid, you'd see your ship (about the size of a large dog compared to the other humoids). It certainly didn't feel like you were a captain. Even when they fixed that bug, I never felt like a captain. Steering the ship from a 3rd-person view made me feel like I was the ship...or some cadet doing training in a simulator - steering via remote control.
Just to clarify, this isn't meant as a swipe at Krelian's review. I too enjoyed the game when I started playing. However, for me the big draw was that it was about Star Trek. Once I started viewing the game as a general space game (minus Star Trek), I quickly grew disenchanted. But since you're not a fan, Krelian, maybe you'll stick with it. Time will tell.
Wow, there is a lot of hate for STO and Cryptic o_O
I played the Beta and got the game afterwards. Didn't have money for a lifetime sub at the time though. I got tired of the game and left it alone for a while, and have recently returned, and have had fun so far.
Here's the thing though, and I kinda feel like I need to try and act like the voice of reason here:
Yes, the game as is, is fairly shallow and the 'shoot first, ask questions if there are any survivors' approach isn't very Star Trekky.
Yes, crafting is still flawed and speaking in terms of end-level characters, also fairly useless. However, if you manage to keep up with crafting as you are levelling, it's a good way of getting some decent blue-quality gear along the way.
Yes, missions can get repetitive quickly, especially if you are like most players and don't really read the quest text. Also, the game definitely lends itself best to being a casual game.
No, there wasn't really any combat nerf. When I came back after my break of a couple of months, I found myself in trouble more than I was used to (I'm a tac-cruiser captain on my main), but after adjusting my playstyle a bit, I find that my effectiveness in combat is pretty much unaltered, leaning towards actually being improved. Some specs/setups might have been nerfed/rebalanced, but they most likely were with good reason, and it's just a matter of adapting and changing your setup/playstyle. This holds true for any MMO, especially ones that have PvP.
I do see where the OP is coming from though. One major draw for me over EVE (which I have also played, although not hardcore or anything) is that I actually have a character rather than just a ship (or ships). Sure the points highlighted here are mostly "cosmetic", but you know, sometimes that is what we as players need to get the immersion we want in a game. Not having an avatar was one of the major things that turned me off EVE. Having one was what kept me playing SWG as long as I did, and it's what's keeping me playing STO as well. Even though space combat is vastly better and more fun than ground combat in this game (and in SWG too actually), it's nice to actually have your ship be just a ship, and your character be a separate entity from that.
What has convinced me to stick around this time is actually the research that I have done on the STO forums. If you look at the number of Developer posts there, it's pretty clear that they haven't "abandoned" the game as some have said in this thread. They are actively working on improving many aspects of the game, and have been since launch. Progress isn't lightning fast though, because the budget isn't huge, but the developers do seem pretty dedicated. They also seem to listen to the players, which is a huge plus in my book.
Enter Season 2 - More diplomatic content, Klingon PvE content, social/varied content in the form of minigames and so on. Also on the horizon (as in, being worked on at the moment) is ship interiors (transporter room, medical bay, captain's quarters, crew lounge etc.) that actually serve a purpose, and user generated content.
This last point especially is something I think is significant. The other things that the Devs are putting in are things that have been requested by players for a long time, and it's nice to see that they are actually working on that. The UGC though, could potentially be a very good thing for this game. Already players are talking about recreating favorite Trek episodes or doing specific "aftermath" episodes. Getting the players in on creating content, especially considering the number of Trekkies playing this game, could very well help bridge the gap between official content patches.
TLDR version: Regardless of what else has been said here, the developers actually do seem devoted to the game, and they seem to care enough about their player base to listen to them. If the engineering reports are to be believed, then they are working hard on fixing/filling out the parts needed for STO to actually feel like a Star Trek MMO.
http://machineborn.guildportal.com - Now recruiting players!
You guys can quit posting about this thread, the OP has stated in other threads that he is no longer full of love for this game.
Here is what he says now: Star Trek Online: there is so god damn little* content in this game, IF you dont play it like the way i do - meaning no more than 2-3 hours A WEEK, ur gonna hate this game
This can be found here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3617350#3617350