I know what I post will be at the end of the comments, but I'll post it anyway... reading these, I see a TON of displeasure coming from the posters above me, and I'm not exactly sure why.... the general overall theme I get from people here is "Its not WoW in space. We demand WoW in space." You're all just comparing it to something that not even you are able to truly define... its not want it to be... but I can't tell you what that is. Being an MMO developer is not an envious position...
Out af the many many many complaints STO has I can honestly say that wanting STO to be WoW in space isnt one of them.
Anyone else find it odd that several game sites re-reviewed STO this month? While I agree it is normal for a site to occassionally re-review a game, it is not normal for so many to do it all at one time. One site gave it a new score of 9.2 or something silly like that.
"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
Anyone else find it odd that several game sites re-reviewed STO this month? While I agree it is normal for a site to occassionally re-review a game, it is not normal for so many to do it all at one time. One site gave it a new score of 9.2 or something silly like that.
Like I said in a previous post, I expect it is part of a new, under the table PR campaign launched after that new guy Stahl took over.
And, I would not be surprised if some ad money or inside access to upcoming titles was part of the deal.
Lack of positive PR is not the problem with this game, lack of a good game is the problem with this game.
It is not a good ST game. It is not a good MMO. It is not a good ST MMO. It is an especially not good ST MMO when charging box+$15/mo+cash shop.
P.S. And LOL at the guy talking about how STO isn't WoW reskinned or whatever. This game is CO reskined, same engine, same mechanics, same interface, same feel, same almost everything.
Anyone else find it odd that several game sites re-reviewed STO this month? While I agree it is normal for a site to occassionally re-review a game, it is not normal for so many to do it all at one time. One site gave it a new score of 9.2 or something silly like that.
Like I said in a previous post, I expect it is part of a new, under the table PR campaign launched after that new guy Stahl took over.
And, I would not be surprised if some ad money or inside access to upcoming titles was part of the deal.
Lack of positive PR is not the problem with this game, lack of a good game is the problem with this game.
It is not a good ST game. It is not a good MMO. It is not a good ST MMO. It is an especially not good ST MMO when charging box+$15/mo+cash shop.
P.S. And LOL at the guy talking about how STO isn't WoW reskinned or whatever. This game is CO reskined, same engine, same mechanics, same interface, same feel, same almost everything.
I think you're probably right. Its just oddly suspicious and unfortunately, no company is going to be bribe immune.
Anyone else find it odd that several game sites re-reviewed STO this month? While I agree it is normal for a site to occassionally re-review a game, it is not normal for so many to do it all at one time. One site gave it a new score of 9.2 or something silly like that.
Like I said in a previous post, I expect it is part of a new, under the table PR campaign launched after that new guy Stahl took over.
And, I would not be surprised if some ad money or inside access to upcoming titles was part of the deal.
Lack of positive PR is not the problem with this game, lack of a good game is the problem with this game.
It is not a good ST game. It is not a good MMO. It is not a good ST MMO. It is an especially not good ST MMO when charging box+$15/mo+cash shop.
P.S. And LOL at the guy talking about how STO isn't WoW reskinned or whatever. This game is CO reskined, same engine, same mechanics, same interface, same feel, same almost everything.
I think you're probably right. Its just oddly suspicious and unfortunately, no company is going to be bribe immune.
Any one site could re-review STO and that's one thing (still spin, but hey). However, when many start re-reviewing in the same month or so timeframe, that is something else entirely.
I am sure a good many of the game sites are hurting on the ad revenue side, the economy being what it is, but to sell out integrity in exchange for some short term cash can only hurt in the longrun.
This review, like several of the other re-reviews, greatly over emphasizes the "positive" aspects of STO, while glossing over or completely omitting many of the negative/failing aspects of the game. At the same time, the reviewer takes the "company line" as gospel, and makes it glaringly obvious to most anyone that has played the game, that it is a spin job.
7.4 is joke. Some of the other re-reviews have scored higher. I would say you can't buy PR like that, except in this case, you obviously can.
First, why is it 'impossible' for Cryptic to create full content for the Klingon faction?
Every other MMO that has multiple factions manages to pull this off, and i'm sure some of them don't have Cryptic's resources.
Second, what is one of the most iconic things about Trek?
Bridge interactions between the characters.
Kirk/Spock/Mccoy
Picard/Riker/Data
Etc, Etc, Etc... I could do every show, but you get the point. It is one of the most recognizable things in the Trek canon. Why didn't Cryptic faithfully recreate this experience?
Because they're money-grubbing pimps who wanted to make a quick buck. They released the game far too soon, with shallow content, no raid system, buggy boring ground combat(how about a roving monster to kill just every once in awhile?), repetitive space content that gets boring after a few reps, crappy maps, I could go on forever.
And, oh yeah, what happened to that holodeck thing we were supposed to get?
They took a franchise with an already shady history of translating to games, and put a worm-ridden stinky cherry on top. How I wish a competent MMO company like Blizz could have gotten their hands on the IP.
Sometime after launch, they come out and say, "Hey, we have ship bridges now!", and what do we get?
A beeping museum.
Cryptic will never get another dollar out of me until they completely scrap and rewrite the game, which they'll never do, because they will never admit failure at that level.
What a FOS review Pros : Good Value : Are you for real? How can a game where you have to :
A: Buy the Box
B: Pay a Subscription
C: Buy other essentials like character slots, ships, races etc in the on-line Store.
This game is not only terrible to play but the value is a total joke, it's a rip off!
I clearly will not be taking any notice of future reviews from mmorpg as our views of quality are light years apart.
I was concerned about this at first, particularly character slots.
Then I played the game once through and realized there was no point in creating an alt and starting over. All three class types play mostly the same and the content all plays the same.
The races all play the same; the bonuses and special powers they get aren't really different enough to play a substantial role.
Ships... again, not much of a difference, other than the old science, escort, cruiser thing. You don't need the ships in the store.
Gotta agree, the review was pretty kid gloves. Especially the ground game. The only time it's really a challenge is when enemies keep knocking you off your feet. And even if they manage to take you out, your crew usually has things mopped up before you get back. The ground game makes me groan every time it rears its ugly head.
Thing is, all the anger, no matter how justified, isn't going to get you anything. If those of us who would like to have a better game post things like what's at that link to the Devs and continue to demand performance, we might get a better game. If we use and expand on the new UGC, we might get a better game. If you don't have a suggestion to make the game better, then why bother posting here or elsewhere about the game. You have every right to but what are you hoping to accomplish? I'd like to take what Cryptic's delivered and, despite how angry we may all be, take it from where it is to where we want it to be. Given the investment necessary to make a good Trek game, if this one dies we will probably never see another attempt.
Thing is, all the anger, no matter how justified, isn't going to get you anything. If those of us who would like to have a better game post things like what's at that link to the Devs and continue to demand performance, we might get a better game. If we use and expand on the new UGC, we might get a better game. If you don't have a suggestion to make the game better, then why bother posting here or elsewhere about the game. You have every right to but what are you hoping to accomplish? I'd like to take what Cryptic's delivered and, despite how angry we may all be, take it from where it is to where we want it to be. Given the investment necessary to make a good Trek game, if this one dies we will probably never see another attempt.
why and what do the posters here hope to accomplish... so that cryptic goes out of business and we therefore hopefully see less games that are less than half finished to release state released. so that when a game is completely subpar, a developer knows that adding a cash shop will make his predicament worse. so that hopefully in another ten years or less someone attempts to make a half decent mmo from the star trek ip.
and last but not least... SO THE OWNER OF THE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS IP PULLS THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER CRYPTIC BEFORE THEY DESTROY THAT FRANCHISE'S CHANCE OF A DECENT MMO!!!!!!!!
if after nine months you havent realized that cryptic still has you with "the next patch will fix so much and be awesome"... then completely fails to deliver...but if sitting on the official sto forums for another nine months wondering why cryptic really has not improved the game much, thats your choice.
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
If you don't have a suggestion to make the game better, then why bother posting here or elsewhere about the game. You have every right to but what are you hoping to accomplish?
How about calling out the author of the re-review for a suspect article as a start? Sure people are talking about the flaws of STO here in post after post, but you need to take it in context; the author treated STO with kid gloves and glossed over many outstanding problems with the game. People are rightly pointing out how overly generous the new score is.
I mean come on, look at some of the criteria he used for the new score. Roleplaying? While a valid category for those who enjoy roleplaying in MMOs, you can't just slap a high number in that category because someone can roleplay very well in their mind; the roleplay category should only take into consideration those game mechanics that actively encourage and help roleplaying. Currently STO's heavy use of instancing, rather lacking fleet mechanics, and poor implementation all actively discourage roleplay rather than encourage it.
The other criteria he listed were for the most part also overly generous, with the exception being graphics and sound which STO has always received high marks for (and which helped give it a score as high as it originally was on this website). As I said before, the review seems to be focusing more on where STO will be in the future, rather than where it actually is right now.
"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
I see your point Dinendae and did what you point out here in a previous response I posted:
Patrick Gerrard either isn't looking for the same things in this game that many Star Trek fans are, or has to stay true to purpose and write a review that gives STO the most favorable outlook possible. Please don't vilify him. He has to eat too. I'm sure many of us might like to be paid game reviewers but that job would quickly lose it's luster when we found out that the people giving us a paycheck could direct us to write a "favorable" article irregardless of how we felt. IF that's even true. I also noticed that Grand_Nagus seems to be working some kind of damage control in favor of the game or the review. I suspect this because of his rather timely entrie onto the forum that seem to be aimed at minimizing or explaining away some of the players complaints about the game and it's shortcomings. I could be wrong about this. Maybe Nagus is just a loyal fan who doesn't want to see his favorite game die. If so Nagus, I apologize for my suspicious nature. If you are being paid to do damage control, that's fine because, as bad as some of this may seem, I don't want this game to die either. I'll explain why shortly. If I'm right, then I'm not mad at you any more than I would be at Patrick for the same reasons, although I will say that your choice of Avatar was highly appropriate. (yes, that was a joke!)
If you are saying that All of MMORPG's reviews might be suspect based on what we've seen here, I'd have to agree. I'd even have to say the same thing about future postings by Patrick. When you deliver a review that's so much in conflict with the experiences of other gamers, you may affect your rep. I think the site is mainly to blame though.
Ummm this article is so transparent. The author was scratching and clawing his way to find "pros". This game is far below average for an MMO today. VAlue? Are you kidding me? Initial purchase+ SUb + Shop with one faction and no PvP. Terrible terrible article. "Please send us more advertising dollars. We are nice to you." Ack, I spit you out of my mouth. Ack!
HAHAHAHAA
Funny but completely true. It's sad. Wonder what the other sites have to say about this game and others? Since this site differs from popular/common opinion so conclusively there is no more reason to take it seriously. Game over.
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized" "The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
I see your point Dinendae and did what you point out here in a previous response I posted:
Patrick Gerrard either isn't looking for the same things in this game that many Star Trek fans are, or has to stay true to purpose and write a review that gives STO the most favorable outlook possible. Please don't vilify him. He has to eat too. I'm sure many of us might like to be paid game reviewers but that job would quickly lose it's luster when we found out that the people giving us a paycheck could direct us to write a "favorable" article irregardless of how we felt. IF that's even true. I also noticed that Grand_Nagus seems to be working some kind of damage control in favor of the game or the review. I suspect this because of his rather timely entrie onto the forum that seem to be aimed at minimizing or explaining away some of the players complaints about the game and it's shortcomings. I could be wrong about this. Maybe Nagus is just a loyal fan who doesn't want to see his favorite game die. If so Nagus, I apologize for my suspicious nature. If you are being paid to do damage control, that's fine because, as bad as some of this may seem, I don't want this game to die either. I'll explain why shortly. If I'm right, then I'm not mad at you any more than I would be at Patrick for the same reasons, although I will say that your choice of Avatar was highly appropriate. (yes, that was a joke!)
If you are saying that All of MMORPG's reviews might be suspect based on what we've seen here, I'd have to agree. I'd even have to say the same thing about future postings by Patrick. When you deliver a review that's so much in conflict with the experiences of other gamers, you may affect your rep. I think the site is mainly to blame though.
In defense of the Grand_nagus, i have seen him on many occasions take Cryptic to task for problems with STO. As for all of the reviews being suspect, I wouldn't go that far without seeing evidence of it. However with STO's re-review, something is indeed fishy; just recently we had both Emmert and DStahl commenting on the horrible state of STO currently, and they haven't had time to fix the problems they laid out in those interviews. I find it highly suspicious that the game gets re-reviewed and the rating is bumped up that much before Cryptic has had time to address those problems. I'm not going to go so far as to say there was some kind of pay off without definitive proof of that, but the review was clearly biased in favor of STO.
I do find it troubling, as one previous poster pointed out, that there don't seem to be any MMO reviews on this website that have scored under a five. I mean really, there are no lousy MMOs out there at all? Really? As for STO, while improvements have been made to the game, it still has a long way to go as two of Cryptic's top executives have admitted. Bumping the original score up to a 6.8 or perhaps 6.9 would have been more realistic in my opinion.
"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
Ummm this article is so transparent. The author was scratching and clawing his way to find "pros". This game is far below average for an MMO today. VAlue? Are you kidding me? Initial purchase+ SUb + Shop with one faction and no PvP. Terrible terrible article. "Please send us more advertising dollars. We are nice to you." Ack, I spit you out of my mouth. Ack!
HAHAHAHAA
Funny but completely true. It's sad. Wonder what the other sites have to say about this game and others? Since this site differs from popular/common opinion so conclusively there is no more reason to take it seriously. Game over.
Atomic magazine (Australia) wrote a re-review which also scratched to find positives and ended up briefly saying "everything sort of sucks. The PvP is GREAT!"
A few of us called the editor to task and he justified it by saying that reviews are 'his opinion and he writes for himself'. The counter argument was that as a review in a Computer magazine he should be writing for his readers on the basis that many may make purchasing decisions based on what he writes.
I do find it troubling, as one previous poster pointed out, that there don't seem to be any MMO reviews on this website that have scored under a five. I mean really, there are no lousy MMOs out there at all? Really? As for STO, while improvements have been made to the game, it still has a long way to go as two of Cryptic's top executives have admitted. Bumping the original score up to a 6.8 or perhaps 6.9 would have been more realistic in my opinion.
This problem is endemic within the computer games (review) industry.
A couple of years ago one reviewer wrote a blog on it (which I would have trouble finding again). But he commented that although reviews are supposedly out of 10, in fact they are out of 5 - ranging from 5 to 10 with 7.5 as an average.
So, in other words when a game gets a score of "5" that really means "this game is terrible" and "6" means "below average - not worth your time".
The problem is that because of the way normal people (not games reviewers I mean) think and have been educated consider that the average of a score (supposedly) ranked from 1 to 10 is "5". So, right from the beginning we are not speaking the same language.
So...who's wrong?
The Reviewers.
Part of writing is to write for your audience. If your audience consider an average score to be '5' then you need to adjust your scoring to match (not scoring from 1-5 plus 5).
The implications are kind of important too.
Here is a gamerankings.com listing for a newly released PC game - Darksiders by Vigil
Two reviews so far (IGN and Gamervision) scoring 8 out of 10. Looks good huh?
But really, when you consider that 7.5 is about average - that means this game is really only just above average. Certainly nothing special.
Now the reason I picked that title is because Vigil are developing WH40K:Dark Millenium Online - and I wanted to see how they go with a PC game as opposed to a console game? They seem to have managed "okay - a little bit above average" for a single player game. When you consider that an MMO is an order of complexity harder - how do you think they might do with DMO?
I had to laugh a bit at this. I don't think Cryptic is entirely happy with this review. They've known about it for a week and haven't linked it on their website. I'm not on anyone's payroll here.
Now, I did my best through revisions to TRY to review this game in a vacuum but my initial review, trying to judge this game on all the same merits as past Cryptic releases and modeling the first draft on the City of Villains re-review wound up giving this game a higher score than CoV. Aside from community interaction, which deserves a low score here, the overall wound up being higher than a 7.4 if you try to judge it up or down on the same curve that past Cryptic releases got.
I didn't feel that higher rating was fair and actually sweated out things with the chief editor of MMORPG, trying to figure out what lacking assets I wasn't focused on and I felt Cryptic's inability to really support multiple factions' worth of unique content was what warranted the harshest warnings about the game.
At the same time, a lower rating on re-review than the launch rating would imply that the game was in a worse state than launch or had not made significant improvements and progress since launch.
I feel that a lot of the comments I see about negatives here have been at least partially addressed in updates. Among other things, there IS diplomatic content now in the game in the form of a handful of persistent missions, a daily quest, and some randomized unlockables. There really is only so much you can say in 3000 words.
I am of the opinion that no game should run out of chances, that all games deserve regular re-evaluations as long as the servers are up... and that not even broken glass in babyfood would deserve the amount of hostility I sometimes see leveled at this game.
I covered it before but the value factor is... I think leveling, which most people can do inside a month, is worth the $10-20 the retail box costs and that the weekly featured episodes coupled with light entertainment are worth $3.75 a week a admission. I'm not saying this should be your only MMO or your primary MMO. I'm saying I think the repeatable content plus weekly episodes is a good value at $3.75 a week, which is about what the sub fee works out to.
Would you get more out of WoW? Sure, they have money to burn at Blizzard or SoE that Atari doesn't have. I don't think it's fair to weigh any MMO like this against an MMO with an over $50 million budget. Those games don't belong in any kind of comparison or even on the same scale. Their perks are not a realistic standard of comparison and their shortcomings are, frankly, less forgivable as well in light of their resources.
I don't think a game needs to be an immersive simulator or a cinematic experience to warrant $15 a month. I think it is absolutely unreasonable to call two or three hours of arcade action and weekly content rollouts a bad value at that price... and you're a very select audience if you need more than that to justify $15 a month.
Compare that against the average comic book franchise, which will have you spending at least $4 a week. You want to watch "Two and a Half Men" on iTunes for some strange reason? $3 a week. A McDonald's combo after work on Friday? Probably over $6.
Here you get access to a theme park game which provides character customization and basic RP tools, PvP, weekly content rollouts and UGC tools soon for $3.75 a week. I don't think that's a bad value. Maybe it is if you only want to play one MMO and want an immersive simulated world experience but I don't think that's what the genre represents anymore and I don't see why an extra $15 a month for this game on top of your preferred game would be a bad value.
I don't think Cryptic is the second coming and I've had some heated exchanges with them over the phone before and a part of my revised evaluation of their service comes from a shift I have witnessed. I'm certainly NOT on their payroll; like I said, they've practically gone out of their way NOT to link this piece (and they were prepared to when the score was higher -- I did contact them a couple of times in the process to get linked for exposure -- so it isn't that they think this score is too high).
I hope I have illustrated my position. Most of you have decided whether it suits you or not and that's fine by me. What I will say is that I think there's a level of paranoia that is unwarranted, that anyone who prefers a theme park to a sandbox must be on the take or that viral marketing agents are everywhere trying to manipulate you. Yeah, there have been a few isolated incidents of things like that but it's a dumb approach that doesn't work and, speaking personally, I'd rather be a rube than paranoid and I'd never be angry about something if I could get by simply being disappointed and walking away.
I cannot fathom how a theme park MMO with repeatable content and weekly content rollouts is a bad value at $15 a month. That's my opinion. I'm not saying there's no better value. I'm saying I think this game is worth $15 for what it is. I'm not saying that if you only have $15 a month to spend on an MMO, you should pick this one. I'm saying if you're inclined to play this game $15 a month is decent for what you get compared to other forms of entertainment to which this is comparable, ie. relatively non-social subscription based entertainment. And nobody will walk away from my review thinking this game is very social so I am comfortable with it.
The more professional route would probably be to just send in requesting a few typo corrections and maintain silence here but I want to be absolutely clear that I expressed my genuine impressions of the game, those opinions were not paid for, and I think you should do whatever makes you happiest with regards to this game. This review is simply one reviewer's opinion, a gauge -- and I'd say a relatively effective one since it has garnered a range of responses.
I had to laugh a bit at this. I don't think Cryptic is entirely happy with this review. They've known about it for a week and haven't linked it on their website. I'm not on anyone's payroll here.
Now, I did my best through revisions to TRY to review this game in a vacuum but my initial review, trying to judge this game on all the same merits as past Cryptic releases and modeling the first draft on the City of Villains re-review wound up giving this game a higher score than CoV. Aside from community interaction, which deserves a low score here.
Wanted to reiterate, not on the payroll.
I just think a themepark MMO with weekly episode rollouts IS a good value for $15 a month. If you ONLY have $15 a month to spend on MMOs? Maybe not. But I'd say it's of comparable value to other relatively non-social subscription entertainment.
$6 for an extra value meal at a burger joint. $4 for a comic book. $3 for an episode of Three and a Half Men for goodness sake. I think a few hours a week worth of play and new content and every week (plus this game's diplomatic content, PvP, and grinds) are worth $3.75 a week if you like non-social themepark arcade-style games. I don't think I portrayed this game as anything else
This problem is endemic within the computer games (review) industry.
A couple of years ago one reviewer wrote a blog on it (which I would have trouble finding again). But he commented that although reviews are supposedly out of 10, in fact they are out of 5 - ranging from 5 to 10 with 7.5 as an average.
So, in other words when a game gets a score of "5" that really means "this game is terrible" and "6" means "below average - not worth your time".
The problem is that because of the way normal people (not games reviewers I mean) think and have been educated consider that the average of a score (supposedly) ranked from 1 to 10 is "5". So, right from the beginning we are not speaking the same language.
So...who's wrong?
The Reviewers.
Part of writing is to write for your audience. If your audience consider an average score to be '5' then you need to adjust your scoring to match (not scoring from 1-5 plus 5).
The implications are kind of important too.
Here is a gamerankings.com listing for a newly released PC game - Darksiders by Vigil
Two reviews so far (IGN and Gamervision) scoring 8 out of 10. Looks good huh?
But really, when you consider that 7.5 is about average - that means this game is really only just above average. Certainly nothing special.
Now the reason I picked that title is because Vigil are developing WH40K:Dark Millenium Online - and I wanted to see how they go with a PC game as opposed to a console game? They seem to have managed "okay - a little bit above average" for a single player game. When you consider that an MMO is an order of complexity harder - how do you think they might do with DMO?
The websites need to follow the example of the computer game magizines I read then, and either have a true 1 -5 ratings system, or a percentile based systems like used in schools (i.e. less than 70% is not good). While it is understandable that personal tastes will influence a reviewer to some extent, you are correct; a review should take into account what the average gamer would think of the game.
"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
Lately, everyone's been kicking subscription fees to the curb and adopting free-to-play business models. Could we see something similar with Champions or Star Trek?
Sure, sure. You've gotta take any opportunity to maximize the number of people who can enjoy your game.
MMO's are failing because the execution is terrible, as he mentioned. What he didn't mention is that MMO producers are either going after the quick buck or a crude copy of another semi-successful MMO so they can cash in with the same crowd.
There is no true innovation, you still have game companies like NCSoft and SoE are more interested in holding deadlines than releasing a complete, quality product and it shows on many levels.
Comments
Out af the many many many complaints STO has I can honestly say that wanting STO to be WoW in space isnt one of them.
Anyone else find it odd that several game sites re-reviewed STO this month? While I agree it is normal for a site to occassionally re-review a game, it is not normal for so many to do it all at one time. One site gave it a new score of 9.2 or something silly like that.
Like I said in a previous post, I expect it is part of a new, under the table PR campaign launched after that new guy Stahl took over.
And, I would not be surprised if some ad money or inside access to upcoming titles was part of the deal.
Lack of positive PR is not the problem with this game, lack of a good game is the problem with this game.
It is not a good ST game. It is not a good MMO. It is not a good ST MMO. It is an especially not good ST MMO when charging box+$15/mo+cash shop.
P.S. And LOL at the guy talking about how STO isn't WoW reskinned or whatever. This game is CO reskined, same engine, same mechanics, same interface, same feel, same almost everything.
Well this game did peak my interest , its just ground and ship inside interaction actions are none excistent .
Become a space shooter >.< not a terrific one either .
It does has a lot of potential though , just sadly nothing is implemented or too slow .
Maybe if it excist in a year or 2 , it becomes the huge success it was boasted at.
Sadly starting right at this game was way too high feee.
Sorry lifetime subscription + goodies just to make your own bridge crew you would like .
For them to not have proper ground or ship interaction implemented >.<
argggg forget it
I think you're probably right. Its just oddly suspicious and unfortunately, no company is going to be bribe immune.
Any one site could re-review STO and that's one thing (still spin, but hey). However, when many start re-reviewing in the same month or so timeframe, that is something else entirely.
I am sure a good many of the game sites are hurting on the ad revenue side, the economy being what it is, but to sell out integrity in exchange for some short term cash can only hurt in the longrun.
This review, like several of the other re-reviews, greatly over emphasizes the "positive" aspects of STO, while glossing over or completely omitting many of the negative/failing aspects of the game. At the same time, the reviewer takes the "company line" as gospel, and makes it glaringly obvious to most anyone that has played the game, that it is a spin job.
7.4 is joke. Some of the other re-reviews have scored higher. I would say you can't buy PR like that, except in this case, you obviously can.
Dear God, where do I start?
First, why is it 'impossible' for Cryptic to create full content for the Klingon faction?
Every other MMO that has multiple factions manages to pull this off, and i'm sure some of them don't have Cryptic's resources.
Second, what is one of the most iconic things about Trek?
Bridge interactions between the characters.
Kirk/Spock/Mccoy
Picard/Riker/Data
Etc, Etc, Etc... I could do every show, but you get the point. It is one of the most recognizable things in the Trek canon. Why didn't Cryptic faithfully recreate this experience?
Because they're money-grubbing pimps who wanted to make a quick buck. They released the game far too soon, with shallow content, no raid system, buggy boring ground combat(how about a roving monster to kill just every once in awhile?), repetitive space content that gets boring after a few reps, crappy maps, I could go on forever.
And, oh yeah, what happened to that holodeck thing we were supposed to get?
They took a franchise with an already shady history of translating to games, and put a worm-ridden stinky cherry on top. How I wish a competent MMO company like Blizz could have gotten their hands on the IP.
Sometime after launch, they come out and say, "Hey, we have ship bridges now!", and what do we get?
A beeping museum.
Cryptic will never get another dollar out of me until they completely scrap and rewrite the game, which they'll never do, because they will never admit failure at that level.
You suck! Enjoy your C-store crack!
FYI, you can also buy a new copy of WoW for 11.99 on Amazon.
What a FOS review Pros : Good Value : Are you for real? How can a game where you have to :
A: Buy the Box
B: Pay a Subscription
C: Buy other essentials like character slots, ships, races etc in the on-line Store.
This game is not only terrible to play but the value is a total joke, it's a rip off!
I clearly will not be taking any notice of future reviews from mmorpg as our views of quality are light years apart.
I was concerned about this at first, particularly character slots.
Then I played the game once through and realized there was no point in creating an alt and starting over. All three class types play mostly the same and the content all plays the same.
The races all play the same; the bonuses and special powers they get aren't really different enough to play a substantial role.
Ships... again, not much of a difference, other than the old science, escort, cruiser thing. You don't need the ships in the store.
Gotta agree, the review was pretty kid gloves. Especially the ground game. The only time it's really a challenge is when enemies keep knocking you off your feet. And even if they manage to take you out, your crew usually has things mopped up before you get back. The ground game makes me groan every time it rears its ugly head.
Listen:Iif you want a good place to get an idea of a lot of the problems with STO try here:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=181341
Thing is, all the anger, no matter how justified, isn't going to get you anything. If those of us who would like to have a better game post things like what's at that link to the Devs and continue to demand performance, we might get a better game. If we use and expand on the new UGC, we might get a better game. If you don't have a suggestion to make the game better, then why bother posting here or elsewhere about the game. You have every right to but what are you hoping to accomplish? I'd like to take what Cryptic's delivered and, despite how angry we may all be, take it from where it is to where we want it to be. Given the investment necessary to make a good Trek game, if this one dies we will probably never see another attempt.
why and what do the posters here hope to accomplish... so that cryptic goes out of business and we therefore hopefully see less games that are less than half finished to release state released. so that when a game is completely subpar, a developer knows that adding a cash shop will make his predicament worse. so that hopefully in another ten years or less someone attempts to make a half decent mmo from the star trek ip.
and last but not least... SO THE OWNER OF THE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS IP PULLS THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER CRYPTIC BEFORE THEY DESTROY THAT FRANCHISE'S CHANCE OF A DECENT MMO!!!!!!!!
if after nine months you havent realized that cryptic still has you with "the next patch will fix so much and be awesome"... then completely fails to deliver...but if sitting on the official sto forums for another nine months wondering why cryptic really has not improved the game much, thats your choice.
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
How about calling out the author of the re-review for a suspect article as a start? Sure people are talking about the flaws of STO here in post after post, but you need to take it in context; the author treated STO with kid gloves and glossed over many outstanding problems with the game. People are rightly pointing out how overly generous the new score is.
I mean come on, look at some of the criteria he used for the new score. Roleplaying? While a valid category for those who enjoy roleplaying in MMOs, you can't just slap a high number in that category because someone can roleplay very well in their mind; the roleplay category should only take into consideration those game mechanics that actively encourage and help roleplaying. Currently STO's heavy use of instancing, rather lacking fleet mechanics, and poor implementation all actively discourage roleplay rather than encourage it.
The other criteria he listed were for the most part also overly generous, with the exception being graphics and sound which STO has always received high marks for (and which helped give it a score as high as it originally was on this website). As I said before, the review seems to be focusing more on where STO will be in the future, rather than where it actually is right now.
"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
I see your point Dinendae and did what you point out here in a previous response I posted:
Patrick Gerrard either isn't looking for the same things in this game that many Star Trek fans are, or has to stay true to purpose and write a review that gives STO the most favorable outlook possible. Please don't vilify him. He has to eat too. I'm sure many of us might like to be paid game reviewers but that job would quickly lose it's luster when we found out that the people giving us a paycheck could direct us to write a "favorable" article irregardless of how we felt. IF that's even true. I also noticed that Grand_Nagus seems to be working some kind of damage control in favor of the game or the review. I suspect this because of his rather timely entrie onto the forum that seem to be aimed at minimizing or explaining away some of the players complaints about the game and it's shortcomings. I could be wrong about this. Maybe Nagus is just a loyal fan who doesn't want to see his favorite game die. If so Nagus, I apologize for my suspicious nature. If you are being paid to do damage control, that's fine because, as bad as some of this may seem, I don't want this game to die either. I'll explain why shortly. If I'm right, then I'm not mad at you any more than I would be at Patrick for the same reasons, although I will say that your choice of Avatar was highly appropriate. (yes, that was a joke!)
If you are saying that All of MMORPG's reviews might be suspect based on what we've seen here, I'd have to agree. I'd even have to say the same thing about future postings by Patrick. When you deliver a review that's so much in conflict with the experiences of other gamers, you may affect your rep. I think the site is mainly to blame though.
Just a heads up for Patrick...
Bloggers/reviewers are required BY LAW to disclose any payoffs/gifts related to the product in question.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/business/media/06adco.html
HAHAHAHAA
Funny but completely true. It's sad. Wonder what the other sites have to say about this game and others? Since this site differs from popular/common opinion so conclusively there is no more reason to take it seriously. Game over.
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized"
"The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
In defense of the Grand_nagus, i have seen him on many occasions take Cryptic to task for problems with STO. As for all of the reviews being suspect, I wouldn't go that far without seeing evidence of it. However with STO's re-review, something is indeed fishy; just recently we had both Emmert and DStahl commenting on the horrible state of STO currently, and they haven't had time to fix the problems they laid out in those interviews. I find it highly suspicious that the game gets re-reviewed and the rating is bumped up that much before Cryptic has had time to address those problems. I'm not going to go so far as to say there was some kind of pay off without definitive proof of that, but the review was clearly biased in favor of STO.
I do find it troubling, as one previous poster pointed out, that there don't seem to be any MMO reviews on this website that have scored under a five. I mean really, there are no lousy MMOs out there at all? Really? As for STO, while improvements have been made to the game, it still has a long way to go as two of Cryptic's top executives have admitted. Bumping the original score up to a 6.8 or perhaps 6.9 would have been more realistic in my opinion.
"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
Atomic magazine (Australia) wrote a re-review which also scratched to find positives and ended up briefly saying "everything sort of sucks. The PvP is GREAT!"
A few of us called the editor to task and he justified it by saying that reviews are 'his opinion and he writes for himself'. The counter argument was that as a review in a Computer magazine he should be writing for his readers on the basis that many may make purchasing decisions based on what he writes.
In the end we had to agree to differ.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
This problem is endemic within the computer games (review) industry.
A couple of years ago one reviewer wrote a blog on it (which I would have trouble finding again). But he commented that although reviews are supposedly out of 10, in fact they are out of 5 - ranging from 5 to 10 with 7.5 as an average.
So, in other words when a game gets a score of "5" that really means "this game is terrible" and "6" means "below average - not worth your time".
The problem is that because of the way normal people (not games reviewers I mean) think and have been educated consider that the average of a score (supposedly) ranked from 1 to 10 is "5". So, right from the beginning we are not speaking the same language.
So...who's wrong?
The Reviewers.
Part of writing is to write for your audience. If your audience consider an average score to be '5' then you need to adjust your scoring to match (not scoring from 1-5 plus 5).
The implications are kind of important too.
Here is a gamerankings.com listing for a newly released PC game - Darksiders by Vigil
http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/991819-darksiders/index.html
Two reviews so far (IGN and Gamervision) scoring 8 out of 10. Looks good huh?
But really, when you consider that 7.5 is about average - that means this game is really only just above average. Certainly nothing special.
Now the reason I picked that title is because Vigil are developing WH40K:Dark Millenium Online - and I wanted to see how they go with a PC game as opposed to a console game? They seem to have managed "okay - a little bit above average" for a single player game. When you consider that an MMO is an order of complexity harder - how do you think they might do with DMO?
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
I had to laugh a bit at this. I don't think Cryptic is entirely happy with this review. They've known about it for a week and haven't linked it on their website. I'm not on anyone's payroll here.
Now, I did my best through revisions to TRY to review this game in a vacuum but my initial review, trying to judge this game on all the same merits as past Cryptic releases and modeling the first draft on the City of Villains re-review wound up giving this game a higher score than CoV. Aside from community interaction, which deserves a low score here, the overall wound up being higher than a 7.4 if you try to judge it up or down on the same curve that past Cryptic releases got.
I didn't feel that higher rating was fair and actually sweated out things with the chief editor of MMORPG, trying to figure out what lacking assets I wasn't focused on and I felt Cryptic's inability to really support multiple factions' worth of unique content was what warranted the harshest warnings about the game.
At the same time, a lower rating on re-review than the launch rating would imply that the game was in a worse state than launch or had not made significant improvements and progress since launch.
I feel that a lot of the comments I see about negatives here have been at least partially addressed in updates. Among other things, there IS diplomatic content now in the game in the form of a handful of persistent missions, a daily quest, and some randomized unlockables. There really is only so much you can say in 3000 words.
I am of the opinion that no game should run out of chances, that all games deserve regular re-evaluations as long as the servers are up... and that not even broken glass in babyfood would deserve the amount of hostility I sometimes see leveled at this game.
I covered it before but the value factor is... I think leveling, which most people can do inside a month, is worth the $10-20 the retail box costs and that the weekly featured episodes coupled with light entertainment are worth $3.75 a week a admission. I'm not saying this should be your only MMO or your primary MMO. I'm saying I think the repeatable content plus weekly episodes is a good value at $3.75 a week, which is about what the sub fee works out to.
Would you get more out of WoW? Sure, they have money to burn at Blizzard or SoE that Atari doesn't have. I don't think it's fair to weigh any MMO like this against an MMO with an over $50 million budget. Those games don't belong in any kind of comparison or even on the same scale. Their perks are not a realistic standard of comparison and their shortcomings are, frankly, less forgivable as well in light of their resources.
I don't think a game needs to be an immersive simulator or a cinematic experience to warrant $15 a month. I think it is absolutely unreasonable to call two or three hours of arcade action and weekly content rollouts a bad value at that price... and you're a very select audience if you need more than that to justify $15 a month.
Compare that against the average comic book franchise, which will have you spending at least $4 a week. You want to watch "Two and a Half Men" on iTunes for some strange reason? $3 a week. A McDonald's combo after work on Friday? Probably over $6.
Here you get access to a theme park game which provides character customization and basic RP tools, PvP, weekly content rollouts and UGC tools soon for $3.75 a week. I don't think that's a bad value. Maybe it is if you only want to play one MMO and want an immersive simulated world experience but I don't think that's what the genre represents anymore and I don't see why an extra $15 a month for this game on top of your preferred game would be a bad value.
I don't think Cryptic is the second coming and I've had some heated exchanges with them over the phone before and a part of my revised evaluation of their service comes from a shift I have witnessed. I'm certainly NOT on their payroll; like I said, they've practically gone out of their way NOT to link this piece (and they were prepared to when the score was higher -- I did contact them a couple of times in the process to get linked for exposure -- so it isn't that they think this score is too high).
I hope I have illustrated my position. Most of you have decided whether it suits you or not and that's fine by me. What I will say is that I think there's a level of paranoia that is unwarranted, that anyone who prefers a theme park to a sandbox must be on the take or that viral marketing agents are everywhere trying to manipulate you. Yeah, there have been a few isolated incidents of things like that but it's a dumb approach that doesn't work and, speaking personally, I'd rather be a rube than paranoid and I'd never be angry about something if I could get by simply being disappointed and walking away.
I cannot fathom how a theme park MMO with repeatable content and weekly content rollouts is a bad value at $15 a month. That's my opinion. I'm not saying there's no better value. I'm saying I think this game is worth $15 for what it is. I'm not saying that if you only have $15 a month to spend on an MMO, you should pick this one. I'm saying if you're inclined to play this game $15 a month is decent for what you get compared to other forms of entertainment to which this is comparable, ie. relatively non-social subscription based entertainment. And nobody will walk away from my review thinking this game is very social so I am comfortable with it.
The more professional route would probably be to just send in requesting a few typo corrections and maintain silence here but I want to be absolutely clear that I expressed my genuine impressions of the game, those opinions were not paid for, and I think you should do whatever makes you happiest with regards to this game. This review is simply one reviewer's opinion, a gauge -- and I'd say a relatively effective one since it has garnered a range of responses.
I had to laugh a bit at this. I don't think Cryptic is entirely happy with this review. They've known about it for a week and haven't linked it on their website. I'm not on anyone's payroll here.
Now, I did my best through revisions to TRY to review this game in a vacuum but my initial review, trying to judge this game on all the same merits as past Cryptic releases and modeling the first draft on the City of Villains re-review wound up giving this game a higher score than CoV. Aside from community interaction, which deserves a low score here.
Wanted to reiterate, not on the payroll.
I just think a themepark MMO with weekly episode rollouts IS a good value for $15 a month. If you ONLY have $15 a month to spend on MMOs? Maybe not. But I'd say it's of comparable value to other relatively non-social subscription entertainment.
$6 for an extra value meal at a burger joint. $4 for a comic book. $3 for an episode of Three and a Half Men for goodness sake. I think a few hours a week worth of play and new content and every week (plus this game's diplomatic content, PvP, and grinds) are worth $3.75 a week if you like non-social themepark arcade-style games. I don't think I portrayed this game as anything else
The websites need to follow the example of the computer game magizines I read then, and either have a true 1 -5 ratings system, or a percentile based systems like used in schools (i.e. less than 70% is not good). While it is understandable that personal tastes will influence a reviewer to some extent, you are correct; a review should take into account what the average gamer would think of the game.
"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
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/interview_cryptic_studios_head_talks_new_neverwinter_why_mmos_kind_suck?page=0,2
Can't say it's surprising.
It should hit ten on the Value meter :
Lately, everyone's been kicking subscription fees to the curb and adopting free-to-play business models. Could we see something similar with Champions or Star Trek?
Sure, sure. You've gotta take any opportunity to maximize the number of people who can enjoy your game.
MMO's are failing because the execution is terrible, as he mentioned. What he didn't mention is that MMO producers are either going after the quick buck or a crude copy of another semi-successful MMO so they can cash in with the same crowd.
There is no true innovation, you still have game companies like NCSoft and SoE are more interested in holding deadlines than releasing a complete, quality product and it shows on many levels.