I really don't think anything short of shutting down the game and performing a major, major overhaul will ever make STO into a good game now, but getting rid of Zinc is a good start.
Getting rid of Zinc is the equivalent of patching a hull breach with a piece of cardboard. They need to redesign the game around an engine that does more than just combat.
Absolutely. Using the Star Trek intellectual property to paint over the Champions Online engine and then treating it as a separate game has been appallingly shameless.
I've been waiting for this to happen. Looks like Cryptic's replacement won't be any improvement.
From Wikipedia:
"Daniel Stahl (born 1971) is an American game designer best known for creating German-style board games. In 2002, his game ''Pirate's Cove'' (with Paul Randles) was published by Amigo Spiele in Europe (under the name Piratenbucht) and then in the United States by Days of Wonder.
A former member of the ImagiNation Network, He became a webmaster in 1994 and later created Alphastrike.com, a BattleTech trading card game fansite. He was also an online producer at Wizards of the Coast during the Hasbro acquisition where he managed development for the Star Wars: TCG, and MagicTheGathering.com websites.
He was a member of the Xbox 360 and Zune launch teams while working at Microsoft and later went on to work for Cryptic Studios where he was a game producer on Champions Online and Star Trek Online."
Cryptic seems to have a real knack for putting marginally-qualified people in charge of major projects.
Since this new guy, Daniel, has had his hands in a lot of trading card games, perhaps Cryptic will make an online trading card game for STO and have cards that can give you in-game items?
It has worked wonders for SoE in EQ!, EQ2 and SWG, why shouldn't it work for Cryptic?
Perhaps Needham is working his magic again (read this in the most sarcastic voice you can muster)?
Ah, well, purely speculation on my part. I think I need more coffee to subdue my cynic side though
Comments
Getting rid of Zinc is the equivalent of patching a hull breach with a piece of cardboard. They need to redesign the game around an engine that does more than just combat.
Absolutely. Using the Star Trek intellectual property to paint over the Champions Online engine and then treating it as a separate game has been appallingly shameless.
Since this new guy, Daniel, has had his hands in a lot of trading card games, perhaps Cryptic will make an online trading card game for STO and have cards that can give you in-game items?
It has worked wonders for SoE in EQ!, EQ2 and SWG, why shouldn't it work for Cryptic?
Perhaps Needham is working his magic again (read this in the most sarcastic voice you can muster)?
Ah, well, purely speculation on my part. I think I need more coffee to subdue my cynic side though
Lord Draekon
"Cryptic seems to have a real knack for putting marginally-qualified people in charge of major projects."
The fact that they put Bill Roper in charge of design comes to mind