I just assumed Gamestop quit selling PC games. Last I looked at our local one all that was there MMO wise was WoW + expansions. Damn all those other MMORPGs out there must be a waste of space too!
Much better selection of PC games and MMOs locally is at Best Buy, in my opinion. I even saw STO there, War, AoC, WoW...
I bought the CE of Auto Assault at *Staples* years ago. Right next to the printer paper.
10$, and it came with headphones and a soundtrack. Great buy.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Seems that players are not the only ones sick of it, haven't seen a copy on any shelf in a while. I stopped in at gamestop for something else and happened to ask if he had any copies of STO and how cheap, and the manager said no, and would not be getting or selling any more, because STO is a waste of shelf space.
Not my opinion.
PC games are difficult to judge - with so many downloads available now boxed copies in themselves are becoming a bit obsolete/collectors items. A PC game these days can be successful without ever releasing a boxed copy. Overall I find the trend is reducing space for PC games full stop, in favor of console games.
Seems that players are not the only ones sick of it, haven't seen a copy on any shelf in a while. I stopped in at gamestop for something else and happened to ask if he had any copies of STO and how cheap, and the manager said no, and would not be getting or selling any more, because STO is a waste of shelf space.
Not my opinion.
PC games are difficult to judge - with so many downloads available now boxed copies in themselves are becoming a bit obsolete/collectors items. A PC game these days can be successful without ever releasing a boxed copy. Overall I find the trend is reducing space for PC games full stop, in favor of console games.
As a usual STO hater, gonna lay off from it on this one. Gamestop is not the place to go for PC games. If it's not console Gamestop dosn't care about it. They botched PotBS launch, tried to pick up the laqtest sims 3 exp. for my wife, after trying to convince the highly trained gaming professional at gamestop of it's very existance, I gave up and went next door to Walmart. If you're looking for PC games at Gamestop, don't bother... Even I'm not going to hate on STO for that one.
Seems that players are not the only ones sick of it, haven't seen a copy on any shelf in a while. I stopped in at gamestop for something else and happened to ask if he had any copies of STO and how cheap, and the manager said no, and would not be getting or selling any more, because STO is a waste of shelf space.
Not my opinion.
PC games are difficult to judge - with so many downloads available now boxed copies in themselves are becoming a bit obsolete/collectors items. A PC game these days can be successful without ever releasing a boxed copy. Overall I find the trend is reducing space for PC games full stop, in favor of console games.
As a usual STO hater, gonna lay off from it on this one. Gamestop is not the place to go for PC games. If it's not console Gamestop dosn't care about it. They botched PotBS launch, tried to pick up the laqtest sims 3 exp. for my wife, after trying to convince the highly trained gaming professional at gamestop of it's very existance, I gave up and went next door to Walmart. If you're looking for PC games at Gamestop, don't bother... Even I'm not going to hate on STO for that one.
It must depend on the region; my local Gamestop has a good selection of PC games, including ones that are hard to find in other stores.
"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 hate this POS game. I wish Crapic would go bankrupt and die lol !
That would have to be Atari, as they own cryptic.
"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 just assumed Gamestop quit selling PC games. Last I looked at our local one all that was there MMO wise was WoW + expansions. Damn all those other MMORPGs out there must be a waste of space too!
Much better selection of PC games and MMOs locally is at Best Buy, in my opinion. I even saw STO there, War, AoC, WoW...
I bought the CE of Auto Assault at *Staples* years ago. Right next to the printer paper.
10$, and it came with headphones and a soundtrack. Great buy.
Awesome find. I don't have a Staples here. Was this when Auto Assault was up and running or afterwards?
After playing Age of Conan (AOC), having high expectations and hitting my head against a development company that cared so little for it's own game. To me just having a game that a) Works, b) Works well, no lag or latency c) Doesn't have glaring visual bugs d) Seems to have some ongoing development I agree with - I am as happy as a pig in a sty.
I even spent my AOC sub money for next year on WoW plus expansions, I am loving that as well. Just playing a game without it crashing, lagging and screwing up every five minutes is mana for heaven. Yes I am easily pleased now. But only because I have been continuously told by the AOC crowd I should expect so little from an MMO - no MMO is perfect don't you know. It's an ongoing development, you shouldn't expect bugs to be fixed or the game to even work. You should never expect it to perform at the same level as a single player game - come on be reasonable, it's an MMO. They are so complex and involved how can you even expect them to work properly with your hardware - hell you probably have the wrong hardware. ATI cards - no AOC doesn't like them no matter how good they are - it's the cards. DX11 what is that, DX10 lets half support that and blame other issues on the hardware. We can get away with anything we are an MMO and people just understand. If they complain about anything, we ban from the forums - job done.
Yes at one point I had expectations, now I am happy if it works. When I find something on top of that which I actually like (such as missions in STO) it's fantastic. No it doesn't have to be ground breaking, the graphics don't have to be great - all that matters is it does what is states on the tin. Anything above and beyond that is a bonus to me now.
I just assumed Gamestop quit selling PC games. Last I looked at our local one all that was there MMO wise was WoW + expansions. Damn all those other MMORPGs out there must be a waste of space too!
Much better selection of PC games and MMOs locally is at Best Buy, in my opinion. I even saw STO there, War, AoC, WoW...
I bought the CE of Auto Assault at *Staples* years ago. Right next to the printer paper.
10$, and it came with headphones and a soundtrack. Great buy.
Awesome find. I don't have a Staples here. Was this when Auto Assault was up and running or afterwards?
Yeah, I played it for about 4-6 months, before NCsoft closed the servers.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Seems that players are not the only ones sick of it, haven't seen a copy on any shelf in a while. I stopped in at gamestop for something else and happened to ask if he had any copies of STO and how cheap, and the manager said no, and would not be getting or selling any more, because STO is a waste of shelf space.
Not my opinion.
I just assumed Gamestop quit selling PC games. Last I looked at our local one all that was there MMO wise was WoW + expansions. Damn all those other MMORPGs out there must be a waste of space too!
Much better selection of PC games and MMOs locally is at Best Buy, in my opinion. I even saw STO there, War, AoC, WoW...
Couple of the gamestops near me still stock several racks of PC games.
I find it rather amusing that the racks had copies of the Diablo2 battlechest, which is what. 8+ years old and still sell, but STO (and basically everything made by SOE) doesn't make the cut and the managers refuse to order the stuff. Not good for a game not even out a year. They don't even have it in the bargain bin.
And yes, Best buy carries more, and the one near me had no STO, and for the same reason as Gamestop: either people don't buy it and it sits on the shelf, or they have to price it so low, that they make next to no money on it. Talked to the manager that does the software ordering and they haven't had STO for some time.
Couple of the gamestops near me still stock several racks of PC games.
I find it rather amusing that the racks had copies of the Diablo2 battlechest, which is what. 8+ years old and still sell, but STO (and basically everything made by SOE) doesn't make the cut and the managers refuse to order the stuff. Not good for a game not even out a year. They don't even have it in the bargain bin.
And yes, Best buy carries more, and the one near me had no STO, and for the same reason as Gamestop: either people don't buy it and it sits on the shelf, or they have to price it so low, that they make next to no money on it. Talked to the manager that does the software ordering and they haven't had STO for some time.
I find it amusing you talking to all these managers about why they don't stock a game. Is this some sort of pastime of yours or are you just a naturally sociable person? I imagine managers of game stores like talking about games they don't stock as the possibility of a sale is zero and it sounds like a beneficial use of their time. Or are the managers of these stores female, blond with large chests? Now then I could understand it, I would talk to them about why they don't stock Amiga games if that was the case. I might even venture outside and go to a game shop, though they are for the console kids these days, for a bit of human interaction if it involved real women.
Anyway, you can pickup STO online from places like Steam if you are having a hard time finding a copy. Also online retailers like Play.com sell it and according to the details have it in stock.
Couple of the gamestops near me still stock several racks of PC games.
I find it rather amusing that the racks had copies of the Diablo2 battlechest, which is what. 8+ years old and still sell, but STO (and basically everything made by SOE) doesn't make the cut and the managers refuse to order the stuff. Not good for a game not even out a year. They don't even have it in the bargain bin.
And yes, Best buy carries more, and the one near me had no STO, and for the same reason as Gamestop: either people don't buy it and it sits on the shelf, or they have to price it so low, that they make next to no money on it. Talked to the manager that does the software ordering and they haven't had STO for some time.
I find it amusing you talking to all these managers about why they don't stock a game. Is this some sort of pastime of yours or are you just a naturally sociable person? I imagine managers of game stores like talking about games they don't stock as the possibility of a sale is zero and it sounds like a beneficial use of their time. Or are the managers of these stores female, blond with large chests? Now then I could understand it, I would talk to them about why they don't stock Amiga games if that was the case. I might even venture outside and go to a game shop, though they are for the console kids these days, for a bit of human interaction if it involved real women.
Anyway, you can pickup STO online from places like Steam if you are having a hard time finding a copy. Also online retailers like Play.com sell it and according to the details have it in stock.
It's called "market research," genius.
If you want to know what's selling, you ask the people placing the orders. And most people, that work a boring job, are only too happy to talk to someone who is interested about "their work". People like to talk.
And since I do market reseach as part of my job, talking people up when I do my own shopping is almost second nature. (In case it was any of your business, which it isn't.)
Bottom line is that even among retailers that sell boxed copies of PC games, STO is/was not selling and not wanted, and largely not even carried, among the placed I happened to see.
If you want to know what's selling, you ask the people placing the orders. And most people, that work a boring job, are only too happy to talk to someone who is interested about "their work". People like to talk.
And since I do market reseach as part of my job, talking people up when I do my own shopping is almost second nature. (In case it was any of your business, which it isn't.)
Bottom line is that even among retailers that sell boxed copies of PC games, STO is/was not selling and not wanted, and largely not even carried, among the placed I happened to see.
So what you are saying is from your extensive market research the trend is that retailers don't stock boxed copies of STO because they don't sell. This was identified by taking a cross section of the retail community, I think you mentioned 3 shops. Then discussing at length with staff, at a managerial level, the reasons for them not stocking this game. A game which should be noted was released at the beginning of this year so is hardly current. So what you are saying, with your extensive market research knowledge, is that PC gamers as a whole and as a trend buy more boxed copies of games than other available methods? So with these shops not stocking boxed copies of STO it shows a trend that the game is on a downward spiral. Even though it could be argued that the success of platforms like Steam as a PC distribution method, just checked 2.5million users online. Has probably eclipsed the sale of boxed copies by significant numbers and STO is still listed as an available game. That is by no means, as far as you see an indication of possible continued success. In essence I should worry because boxed copies are no longer being sold in 3 shops near you?
Gamestop would be last place I'd be getting market research especially at the local level. I saw Age of Conan in one of the Gamestops here and got into the story about Robert E. Howard being born around here. He told me AOC was going to be shut down within the year and didn't know why he still had it on the shelf because of it. This was Jan 2009. You can fault AOC for whatever problems you want, but the game still is up and running.
Another is Asheron's Call 2 expansion. It showed as top seller for PCs that week on gamestop.com and I wanted to get back into AC2 to check it out and went to local gamestop and he never heard of the game.
Unless it's console or WoW that's all they know, in my experience and opinion. And in my opinion savvy PC shoppers are getting their PC games from better and cheaper places than Gamestop and BB. Gogamer is a lot cheaper and shipping is excellent. There are other places and then there is digital dist.
But hey if GS and BB say STO doesn't sell then it must be bad! They can't all be WoWs, thank god.
I am 80+ hours into Star Trek Online (STO) and I think it's a fantastic game. What appeals to me in this game is the mission structure. Some missions start off as a walk in the park and end up turning out to be a major adventure. Not knowing if something is going to take me 5 minutes or an hour to me makes it quite immersive. Just login for ten minutes and do what you think is a simple mission, two hours later you are still playing. The fact you have space combat and away missions I think mixes things up well, because they then have their own subcategories of gameplay. So in effect a mission can involve you doing five or six different things.
I still need to learn a lot more about the game in general. For example I seem to have started some sort of Tribble breeding program. Overall after playing some lame titles, like Age of Conan, this is just refreshing in so many ways. They have captured to me the feeling of Star Trek, it's fun and enjoyable to play and works as expected.
I am looking forward to S3 and the addition of mission-maker.
I dont think this guy is troll, I mean I'm Star Trek fan, I tried STO but I dont play it. Why? I just dont like the idea how ship moves, its too quick, too "no space" move. I dont care that you move ship with arrows its not the problem, problem for me is that ships look like a little paper model cause if you push the arrow it moves so quickly that direction. But otherwise I kinda liked it.
I dont understand MMO players at all with STO. Everyone is whining give us some different game, give us something new, so thats what they did. You can fly a ship and you can walk on planet. Ship battle seems to be easy (arrows + spacebar) but also its tactical cause you must watch your shield and enemy shield and possition yourself by that. Also ground combat is more tactical than other games. Yea, its not go to your enemy and clickfest on him, its not WoW kinda combat thats for sure. But I think if ppl want something new and you got it than dont cry it doesnt have as much content as WoW, EQ 2 or Lineage 2, cause those games are years old. If you like the game stick with it and w8 what they will do in future.
P.S. I tried STO after launch so if there was some improvement in combat I dont know about it. :P But realy, STO is not that bad as ppl say. Mostly those ppl are WoW fans who were bored by WoW and tried something else which wasnt like WoW so they couldnt say its a WOW CLOOOONE so they said.. it SUUX. Go to hell.
Played: Lineage 2,Guild Wars 1 and 2, Age of Conan, Ragnarok Online, LOTRO, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EvE online Tried: KAL Online, Face of Mankind, ROSE online Playing: CS:GO
Game has a better feel now sector space has been changed - more space like. I think ships move a bit faster as well or at least feel like they move faster through sector space.
What I like is they admit they have only taken a step in the right direction, 'space needs to look and feel big'. Fair play to them they are on the right track and at least they appear to listen to user feedback, I can't knock that at all.
Fair play to them they are on the right track and at least they appear to listen to user feedback, I can't knock that at all.
Having participated in their closed betas, both for STO itself and its Foundry tool-set (User Generated Content), I can say they're working with their community to make their offerings better. Perhaps they can afford to do this because they're not the 800lbs gorilla.
To all those who complain about lack of content, I suggest hopping on Tribble (test-server) and putting in a few hours to make your own STAR TREK stories and missions. I think most will gain a new-found appreciation for Cryptic's courage in creating weekly episodes for STO.
To all those who complain about lack of content, I suggest hopping on Tribble (test-server) and putting in a few hours to make your own STAR TREK stories and missions. I think most will gain a new-found appreciation for Cryptic's courage in creating weekly episodes for STO.
The issues most people have with this game boils down to a few things.
Cryptic thinks the player populations of MMO's are idiots. They hyped a game that was nowhere near being complete, even as MMO's go. Pulling out the line that MMO's are never complete , you can save that for the noob population that doesn't know it's head from it's ass. Content is important on release , bugs can be forgiven and fixed , poor and incomplete content shows what the company thinks of the playerbase. Cryptic believed that the player base wanted a ST game so badly they would endure anything. While initial sales were good , they got the beneifit of the doubt , the majority voted with their wallets and left.
The game is frankly overtly easy even on " Elite " mode . Couple this with the content ( lack of ) and you have a game that leaves players asking "Wth, I paid for this ? ".
Finally , why in the world would I pay to do Cryptics job ? They've failed to add sufficient content up to this point and the only hope they have is the player base . They shifted their programmers to the NWN project and more then likely some yet unannounced project, and they have you alpha/beta testing the key component of the new game . This is what Cryptic thinks of the playerbase.
While on paper the idea may sound exciting , think about it for a minute . A minimum of 75% of the stories will more then likely be crap or nonsense , filled with incomprehensible rubbish . Attractive , huh ? Sorry that's not content , that's busy work for the remainder of the population. No , thanks.
Hype is just marketing and most MMO launches do not go smoothly there is always some sort of fly in the ointment. I think Cryptic have done a fantastic job to my mind based on the subject/source material. They have tried to stay true, from what I can see, to the whole Star Trek theme. It at least feels like Star Trek to me, though I am only a casual fan. If you look at something like Age of Conan, Funcom destroyed the lore by making the game into Age of Harry Potter just so they could try to compete with the likes of WoW (epic fail). It would probably have had more appeal if they had focussed on the reasons people liked Conan in the first place.
I agree STO is easy, but then to be honest I don't find that such a bad thing. I am the sort of person that attacks an elite monster or something 12 times before realising I need some special tool/weapon/potion to kill them. STO I don't have to think too much, just get on with the action. I like the game because of that, I login do some missions 'have fun' and then get on with things. I don't feel the need for STO to be all-consuming like some MMO games and I think that again targets the game at a slightly different area that some traditional MMO games. But I suppose likewise if you were expecting a game with total immersion you would be very disappointed.
I will wait and see what the mission creation tool brings, it won't be something I will use but hopefully those creative types might be able to angle things more to their liking overall. Community led content, especially in FPS games, normally works well so I don't see why it can't work well in STO.
Content is what it is. No matter how much content any game has, there will always be people who burn through in a matter of hours. When it takes days to make content that takes only hours to finish, this will always be a problem.
LOL @ expecting people to pay a monthly fee to have to create your own missions because Cryptic is diverting resources to their next abortion of a popular IP. Reminds me of the "Seinfeld" episode where Kramer wants to open a pizza place where you have to make your own pizza.
Please PLEASE CBS/Paramount strip these clowns of their license and give it to a real dev team.
I didn't think it was a bad game. I couldn't really enjoy the space combat for some reason, and I felt ground combat was too easy. I liked Champions, and never have held cryptic in the NEVER BUY catagory like most MMO buyers do. I bought the game when it was like 10 dollars on steam once, and I didn't think that it was a bad purchase. I will probably even go back eventually to check it out again. I'm just weary of the space combat.
Hype is just marketing and most MMO launches do not go smoothly there is always some sort of fly in the ointment. I think Cryptic have done a fantastic job to my mind based on the subject/source material. They have tried to stay true, from what I can see, to the whole Star Trek theme. It at least feels like Star Trek to me, though I am only a casual fan. If you look at something like Age of Conan, Funcom destroyed the lore by making the game into Age of Harry Potter just so they could try to compete with the likes of WoW (epic fail). It would probably have had more appeal if they had focussed on the reasons people liked Conan in the first place.
I agree STO is easy, but then to be honest I don't find that such a bad thing. I am the sort of person that attacks an elite monster or something 12 times before realising I need some special tool/weapon/potion to kill them. STO I don't have to think too much, just get on with the action. I like the game because of that, I login do some missions 'have fun' and then get on with things. I don't feel the need for STO to be all-consuming like some MMO games and I think that again targets the game at a slightly different area that some traditional MMO games. But I suppose likewise if you were expecting a game with total immersion you would be very disappointed.
I will wait and see what the mission creation tool brings, it won't be something I will use but hopefully those creative types might be able to angle things more to their liking overall. Community led content, especially in FPS games, normally works well so I don't see why it can't work well in STO.
I hate to have to say there aren't many people who aren't already enjoying STO as much as you that will give a hoot about creating content so that Cryptic can continue to mask the lack of quality content they are able to deliver to a game.
I am not too sure thatI disagree with many of your sentiments at all the game doesn't look as horrible in my eyes as Champions does as a super hero themed game, some of the missions even feel as "corny" as some of the episodes of star trek I've seen so maybe they are in line there.
It's a good thing for you that you don't feel the need for STO to be all consuming either because quite simply put there isn't enough there that that is possible. While other games like WOW and LOTRO can get you on a hamster wheel that can help players burn through quite literally thousands of hours of enjoyment over the years as it stands Cryptic will be lucky to provide hundreds of hours at this rate.
@panther2103 that's a first I've heard most people thought the space combat was alright while the ground game was lacking, you say that you thought space combat is the worse part but ground combat was too easy so what exactly is it you like about the game?
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
This is definitely NOT a fantastic game - and I say that as a lifelong Trekkie, Lifetime subscriber to Star Trek Online, and as someone who fervently hopes that it will one day merit the title of this thread.
There's three fundamental flaws to the game:
1. Combat - it's tedious. Space combat is mildly tedious, a speed up factor of something like 25-50% would probably solve it and make it more enjoyable (make Cruisers as fast as Escorts and Escorts into true "zippin' right by ya" fighters). Ground combat, on the other hand, is a mind numbing snore-fest that kills me every time. It's just plain boring. Any Trek fans seen the DS9 Season 7 Episode "Siege of AR-558"? - now THAT's a phasor fight. What's in STO can be done with a single hand and minimal to almost no attention as you while away endless minutes killing a single mob out of the far too numerous trash mobs every single ground map seems to have.
2. Content - though the Genesis engine does a decent job of generating random terrain for ground missions (a small respite before you realise you'll have to fight 256 nearly identical mobs to open a door 23 feet 6 inches away), the variety of content just isn't there. Almost every mission is "kill 5 squadrons of ships (3 of which will be identical)" or "defeat 5 squads of baddies (4 of which will be identical)" or "investigate 5 anomolies" or "click on 5 screens". If combat were fixed, they might get away with it, but since the fun factor is already so relatively low, they don't.
3. Star Trek - they didn't bring it. It doesn't FEEL like Star Trek. A more appropriate title would be Star WARS Trek. From the moment you phase in to the lounge looking out at windows viewing ships taking on a Borg cube, you're in a perpetual state of war with just about everyone around you. The difficulty with the Star Trek IP is that it isn't (the most recent movie aside) all about going in gung-ho and blasting everything in sight. Most fans I knew (and I led quite a large fleet awaing the games release) were interested in an MMO that, yes would have a good smack of combat in it, but might also let us be the guy making first contact, or saving some colony from a strange and mysterious disease or whatever. That is, we didn't want perpetual combat from first mission to last. For myself personally, I especially didn't want perpetual underwhelming combat most of all, and on ground especially, this is what we have.
As a fan of the IP, I still hope STO succeeds. Knowing just how dedicated us Trek fans can be, I'd say of all the games that had a failed launch (and there is no other way to describe STO's launch), then this one, perhaps more than most, has a chance - even now - of turning it around and making a moderately and reasonably profitable MMO for Cryptic (there's no chance of it ever being a smash hit any more). I think the odds of that are more against than in favour, but still, I live in hope. The fleet I led, with over 100 members (many with more than a years membership) one week prior to launch has just 6 active members left to it currently playing the game.
Still, anyone describing STO, now or especially then, as a "fantastic" MMO, either doesn't know MMO's too well, has a startlingly low threshold for excitement or is blinded by their love of the IP.
Comments
I bought the CE of Auto Assault at *Staples* years ago. Right next to the printer paper.
10$, and it came with headphones and a soundtrack. Great buy.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
PC games are difficult to judge - with so many downloads available now boxed copies in themselves are becoming a bit obsolete/collectors items. A PC game these days can be successful without ever releasing a boxed copy. Overall I find the trend is reducing space for PC games full stop, in favor of console games.
As a usual STO hater, gonna lay off from it on this one. Gamestop is not the place to go for PC games. If it's not console Gamestop dosn't care about it. They botched PotBS launch, tried to pick up the laqtest sims 3 exp. for my wife, after trying to convince the highly trained gaming professional at gamestop of it's very existance, I gave up and went next door to Walmart. If you're looking for PC games at Gamestop, don't bother... Even I'm not going to hate on STO for that one.
I hate this POS game. I wish Crapic would go bankrupt and die lol !
It must depend on the region; my local Gamestop has a good selection of PC games, including ones that are hard to find in other stores.
"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
That would have to be Atari, as they own cryptic.
"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
Awesome find. I don't have a Staples here. Was this when Auto Assault was up and running or afterwards?
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
After playing Age of Conan (AOC), having high expectations and hitting my head against a development company that cared so little for it's own game. To me just having a game that a) Works, b) Works well, no lag or latency c) Doesn't have glaring visual bugs d) Seems to have some ongoing development I agree with - I am as happy as a pig in a sty.
I even spent my AOC sub money for next year on WoW plus expansions, I am loving that as well. Just playing a game without it crashing, lagging and screwing up every five minutes is mana for heaven. Yes I am easily pleased now. But only because I have been continuously told by the AOC crowd I should expect so little from an MMO - no MMO is perfect don't you know. It's an ongoing development, you shouldn't expect bugs to be fixed or the game to even work. You should never expect it to perform at the same level as a single player game - come on be reasonable, it's an MMO. They are so complex and involved how can you even expect them to work properly with your hardware - hell you probably have the wrong hardware. ATI cards - no AOC doesn't like them no matter how good they are - it's the cards. DX11 what is that, DX10 lets half support that and blame other issues on the hardware. We can get away with anything we are an MMO and people just understand. If they complain about anything, we ban from the forums - job done.
Yes at one point I had expectations, now I am happy if it works. When I find something on top of that which I actually like (such as missions in STO) it's fantastic. No it doesn't have to be ground breaking, the graphics don't have to be great - all that matters is it does what is states on the tin. Anything above and beyond that is a bonus to me now.
Yeah, I played it for about 4-6 months, before NCsoft closed the servers.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Couple of the gamestops near me still stock several racks of PC games.
I find it rather amusing that the racks had copies of the Diablo2 battlechest, which is what. 8+ years old and still sell, but STO (and basically everything made by SOE) doesn't make the cut and the managers refuse to order the stuff. Not good for a game not even out a year. They don't even have it in the bargain bin.
And yes, Best buy carries more, and the one near me had no STO, and for the same reason as Gamestop: either people don't buy it and it sits on the shelf, or they have to price it so low, that they make next to no money on it. Talked to the manager that does the software ordering and they haven't had STO for some time.
I find it amusing you talking to all these managers about why they don't stock a game. Is this some sort of pastime of yours or are you just a naturally sociable person? I imagine managers of game stores like talking about games they don't stock as the possibility of a sale is zero and it sounds like a beneficial use of their time. Or are the managers of these stores female, blond with large chests? Now then I could understand it, I would talk to them about why they don't stock Amiga games if that was the case. I might even venture outside and go to a game shop, though they are for the console kids these days, for a bit of human interaction if it involved real women.
Anyway, you can pickup STO online from places like Steam if you are having a hard time finding a copy. Also online retailers like Play.com sell it and according to the details have it in stock.
It's called "market research," genius.
If you want to know what's selling, you ask the people placing the orders. And most people, that work a boring job, are only too happy to talk to someone who is interested about "their work". People like to talk.
And since I do market reseach as part of my job, talking people up when I do my own shopping is almost second nature. (In case it was any of your business, which it isn't.)
Bottom line is that even among retailers that sell boxed copies of PC games, STO is/was not selling and not wanted, and largely not even carried, among the placed I happened to see.
So what you are saying is from your extensive market research the trend is that retailers don't stock boxed copies of STO because they don't sell. This was identified by taking a cross section of the retail community, I think you mentioned 3 shops. Then discussing at length with staff, at a managerial level, the reasons for them not stocking this game. A game which should be noted was released at the beginning of this year so is hardly current. So what you are saying, with your extensive market research knowledge, is that PC gamers as a whole and as a trend buy more boxed copies of games than other available methods? So with these shops not stocking boxed copies of STO it shows a trend that the game is on a downward spiral. Even though it could be argued that the success of platforms like Steam as a PC distribution method, just checked 2.5million users online. Has probably eclipsed the sale of boxed copies by significant numbers and STO is still listed as an available game. That is by no means, as far as you see an indication of possible continued success. In essence I should worry because boxed copies are no longer being sold in 3 shops near you?
Gamestop would be last place I'd be getting market research especially at the local level. I saw Age of Conan in one of the Gamestops here and got into the story about Robert E. Howard being born around here. He told me AOC was going to be shut down within the year and didn't know why he still had it on the shelf because of it. This was Jan 2009. You can fault AOC for whatever problems you want, but the game still is up and running.
Another is Asheron's Call 2 expansion. It showed as top seller for PCs that week on gamestop.com and I wanted to get back into AC2 to check it out and went to local gamestop and he never heard of the game.
Unless it's console or WoW that's all they know, in my experience and opinion. And in my opinion savvy PC shoppers are getting their PC games from better and cheaper places than Gamestop and BB. Gogamer is a lot cheaper and shipping is excellent. There are other places and then there is digital dist.
But hey if GS and BB say STO doesn't sell then it must be bad! They can't all be WoWs, thank god.
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
fail troll is fail
I dont think this guy is troll, I mean I'm Star Trek fan, I tried STO but I dont play it. Why? I just dont like the idea how ship moves, its too quick, too "no space" move. I dont care that you move ship with arrows its not the problem, problem for me is that ships look like a little paper model cause if you push the arrow it moves so quickly that direction. But otherwise I kinda liked it.
I dont understand MMO players at all with STO. Everyone is whining give us some different game, give us something new, so thats what they did. You can fly a ship and you can walk on planet. Ship battle seems to be easy (arrows + spacebar) but also its tactical cause you must watch your shield and enemy shield and possition yourself by that. Also ground combat is more tactical than other games. Yea, its not go to your enemy and clickfest on him, its not WoW kinda combat thats for sure. But I think if ppl want something new and you got it than dont cry it doesnt have as much content as WoW, EQ 2 or Lineage 2, cause those games are years old. If you like the game stick with it and w8 what they will do in future.
P.S. I tried STO after launch so if there was some improvement in combat I dont know about it. :P But realy, STO is not that bad as ppl say. Mostly those ppl are WoW fans who were bored by WoW and tried something else which wasnt like WoW so they couldnt say its a WOW CLOOOONE so they said.. it SUUX. Go to hell.
Played: Lineage 2,Guild Wars 1 and 2, Age of Conan, Ragnarok Online, LOTRO, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EvE online
Tried: KAL Online, Face of Mankind, ROSE online
Playing: CS:GO
Game has a better feel now sector space has been changed - more space like. I think ships move a bit faster as well or at least feel like they move faster through sector space.
What I like is they admit they have only taken a step in the right direction, 'space needs to look and feel big'. Fair play to them they are on the right track and at least they appear to listen to user feedback, I can't knock that at all.
Having participated in their closed betas, both for STO itself and its Foundry tool-set (User Generated Content), I can say they're working with their community to make their offerings better. Perhaps they can afford to do this because they're not the 800lbs gorilla.
To all those who complain about lack of content, I suggest hopping on Tribble (test-server) and putting in a few hours to make your own STAR TREK stories and missions. I think most will gain a new-found appreciation for Cryptic's courage in creating weekly episodes for STO.
The issues most people have with this game boils down to a few things.
Cryptic thinks the player populations of MMO's are idiots. They hyped a game that was nowhere near being complete, even as MMO's go. Pulling out the line that MMO's are never complete , you can save that for the noob population that doesn't know it's head from it's ass. Content is important on release , bugs can be forgiven and fixed , poor and incomplete content shows what the company thinks of the playerbase. Cryptic believed that the player base wanted a ST game so badly they would endure anything. While initial sales were good , they got the beneifit of the doubt , the majority voted with their wallets and left.
The game is frankly overtly easy even on " Elite " mode . Couple this with the content ( lack of ) and you have a game that leaves players asking "Wth, I paid for this ? ".
Finally , why in the world would I pay to do Cryptics job ? They've failed to add sufficient content up to this point and the only hope they have is the player base . They shifted their programmers to the NWN project and more then likely some yet unannounced project, and they have you alpha/beta testing the key component of the new game . This is what Cryptic thinks of the playerbase.
While on paper the idea may sound exciting , think about it for a minute . A minimum of 75% of the stories will more then likely be crap or nonsense , filled with incomprehensible rubbish . Attractive , huh ? Sorry that's not content , that's busy work for the remainder of the population. No , thanks.
Hype is just marketing and most MMO launches do not go smoothly there is always some sort of fly in the ointment. I think Cryptic have done a fantastic job to my mind based on the subject/source material. They have tried to stay true, from what I can see, to the whole Star Trek theme. It at least feels like Star Trek to me, though I am only a casual fan. If you look at something like Age of Conan, Funcom destroyed the lore by making the game into Age of Harry Potter just so they could try to compete with the likes of WoW (epic fail). It would probably have had more appeal if they had focussed on the reasons people liked Conan in the first place.
I agree STO is easy, but then to be honest I don't find that such a bad thing. I am the sort of person that attacks an elite monster or something 12 times before realising I need some special tool/weapon/potion to kill them. STO I don't have to think too much, just get on with the action. I like the game because of that, I login do some missions 'have fun' and then get on with things. I don't feel the need for STO to be all-consuming like some MMO games and I think that again targets the game at a slightly different area that some traditional MMO games. But I suppose likewise if you were expecting a game with total immersion you would be very disappointed.
I will wait and see what the mission creation tool brings, it won't be something I will use but hopefully those creative types might be able to angle things more to their liking overall. Community led content, especially in FPS games, normally works well so I don't see why it can't work well in STO.
Content is what it is. No matter how much content any game has, there will always be people who burn through in a matter of hours. When it takes days to make content that takes only hours to finish, this will always be a problem.
LOL @ expecting people to pay a monthly fee to have to create your own missions because Cryptic is diverting resources to their next abortion of a popular IP. Reminds me of the "Seinfeld" episode where Kramer wants to open a pizza place where you have to make your own pizza.
Please PLEASE CBS/Paramount strip these clowns of their license and give it to a real dev team.
I didn't think it was a bad game. I couldn't really enjoy the space combat for some reason, and I felt ground combat was too easy. I liked Champions, and never have held cryptic in the NEVER BUY catagory like most MMO buyers do. I bought the game when it was like 10 dollars on steam once, and I didn't think that it was a bad purchase. I will probably even go back eventually to check it out again. I'm just weary of the space combat.
I hate to have to say there aren't many people who aren't already enjoying STO as much as you that will give a hoot about creating content so that Cryptic can continue to mask the lack of quality content they are able to deliver to a game.
I am not too sure that I disagree with many of your sentiments at all the game doesn't look as horrible in my eyes as Champions does as a super hero themed game, some of the missions even feel as "corny" as some of the episodes of star trek I've seen so maybe they are in line there.
It's a good thing for you that you don't feel the need for STO to be all consuming either because quite simply put there isn't enough there that that is possible. While other games like WOW and LOTRO can get you on a hamster wheel that can help players burn through quite literally thousands of hours of enjoyment over the years as it stands Cryptic will be lucky to provide hundreds of hours at this rate.
@panther2103 that's a first I've heard most people thought the space combat was alright while the ground game was lacking, you say that you thought space combat is the worse part but ground combat was too easy so what exactly is it you like about the game?
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
This is definitely NOT a fantastic game - and I say that as a lifelong Trekkie, Lifetime subscriber to Star Trek Online, and as someone who fervently hopes that it will one day merit the title of this thread.
There's three fundamental flaws to the game:
1. Combat - it's tedious. Space combat is mildly tedious, a speed up factor of something like 25-50% would probably solve it and make it more enjoyable (make Cruisers as fast as Escorts and Escorts into true "zippin' right by ya" fighters). Ground combat, on the other hand, is a mind numbing snore-fest that kills me every time. It's just plain boring. Any Trek fans seen the DS9 Season 7 Episode "Siege of AR-558"? - now THAT's a phasor fight. What's in STO can be done with a single hand and minimal to almost no attention as you while away endless minutes killing a single mob out of the far too numerous trash mobs every single ground map seems to have.
2. Content - though the Genesis engine does a decent job of generating random terrain for ground missions (a small respite before you realise you'll have to fight 256 nearly identical mobs to open a door 23 feet 6 inches away), the variety of content just isn't there. Almost every mission is "kill 5 squadrons of ships (3 of which will be identical)" or "defeat 5 squads of baddies (4 of which will be identical)" or "investigate 5 anomolies" or "click on 5 screens". If combat were fixed, they might get away with it, but since the fun factor is already so relatively low, they don't.
3. Star Trek - they didn't bring it. It doesn't FEEL like Star Trek. A more appropriate title would be Star WARS Trek. From the moment you phase in to the lounge looking out at windows viewing ships taking on a Borg cube, you're in a perpetual state of war with just about everyone around you. The difficulty with the Star Trek IP is that it isn't (the most recent movie aside) all about going in gung-ho and blasting everything in sight. Most fans I knew (and I led quite a large fleet awaing the games release) were interested in an MMO that, yes would have a good smack of combat in it, but might also let us be the guy making first contact, or saving some colony from a strange and mysterious disease or whatever. That is, we didn't want perpetual combat from first mission to last. For myself personally, I especially didn't want perpetual underwhelming combat most of all, and on ground especially, this is what we have.
As a fan of the IP, I still hope STO succeeds. Knowing just how dedicated us Trek fans can be, I'd say of all the games that had a failed launch (and there is no other way to describe STO's launch), then this one, perhaps more than most, has a chance - even now - of turning it around and making a moderately and reasonably profitable MMO for Cryptic (there's no chance of it ever being a smash hit any more). I think the odds of that are more against than in favour, but still, I live in hope. The fleet I led, with over 100 members (many with more than a years membership) one week prior to launch has just 6 active members left to it currently playing the game.
Still, anyone describing STO, now or especially then, as a "fantastic" MMO, either doesn't know MMO's too well, has a startlingly low threshold for excitement or is blinded by their love of the IP.