Many, MANY people have been watching Star Trek Online since it was first brought up to be developed by the now defunct studio Perpetual. For a short time the IP was up in the air, then finally discovered to have been picked up by Cryptic Studios. They made a deal to have the game released with a tight (compared to the typical 4-year development cycle) 2-year time frame. Finally on Feb. 2, 2010, the game went live. But even before launch, there were cries of "The sky is falling!" from the far corners of the MMORPG community.
The closed beta phase of the testing went forward in the typical fashion. Many changes and updates were done, and a number of bugs and issues were reported by the testers. The one thing a closed beta doesn't take into account is the stress on the game and its servers from the massive increase in users that comes when the game goes live. But in what seems to be an increasingly popular decision these days, an "open beta" was held to give people the opportunity to get a "sneak preview" of the game's features and allow the developers to observe the effects of more players (including the fact that more players means more bugs coming to the surface).
It seems that the moment open beta started, so did the cries, moans, and roars of players. Even so-called "professionals" from game sites and magazines who gave their "previews" seemed to join in the popular spiral of negativity that many seemed to embrace. But why such blind hatred? What made so many fume about THIS game in particular?
When any MMORPG has launched in the past, it has been accompanied by varying levels of bugs, crashes, unexpected downtimes, and other issues. Even the beloved World of Warcraft was no exception to this, having crashes, missing content, and developing long queue lines just to get into the game. For over a decade, it has (or so I thought) become understood that some bumps in the road early on are almost unavoidable because it is difficult to anticipate the effect of hundreds of thousands of players flooding into the game. But Star Trek Online's occasional issues have people foaming at the mouth, even making up non-existant problems to persuade others to their cause.
For example, there have been many cries on the official STO forums of "constant downtimes" and "constant crashing". The truth of the matter has shown this to be a complete exaggeration. There have been only a few unscheduled downtimes since launch nearly 2 weeks ago. Much like other MMORPG's, they have had some scheduled maintenance, which was posted on the forums in advance. As for the crashes, most of the reports have been met with players in general not experiencing them, and several players seem angry even when the root of the problem is their PC not meeting the minimum requirements to run the game. In reality, crashes are a rarity.
Even "professionals" are not above making up information to fit in with the mobs of nay-sayers. MMOZine recently published a preview of STO, which was full of speculation and just plain misinformation. The previewer said things like the combat boils down to turning in a circle until someone is dead, and that the space battles are quickly over because players are either extremely under or over-matched. Anyone who has played the game for more than the tutorial would tell you otherwise.
In a part of their segment, they claimed that exploration served little purpose other than to obtain aliens and boost stats of your bridge officers. This mechanic doesn't even exist, and was completely made up. When I wrote an email to their editor stating my notice of the made-up information, they rebutted by saying it was alright for the previewer to have falsified their description of the game because they qualified it with the word "seems". So, does that mean that it's alright for media outlets to make up lies like, "It seems as if Sony likes to cook and eat babies"? Qualifying blatant misinformation with the word "seems" or "boils down to" does not make it right.
For some reason people seem to have joined together in a popular fad of hating Cryptic Studios as if they had created a Frankenstein's monster which murdered their families. They have been called failures, liars, thieves, and just plain EVIL...
I'm sorry if you pre-ordered the game from a digital retailer and didn't read the terms of service. Maybe the next time you won't buy something you know nothing about and have never seen before. Would you buy a car because you saw it in a commercial before it has even been made yet and before you had a chance to see it or read about its details? Do you buy sushi from the back of a van in a dark alley? Pre-ordering is used to entice buyers with bonuses, but only brick and mortar stores offer the ability to cancel your pre-order if you choose to back out.
I think people need to take a step back from their self-absorbed mentalities and over-blown egos, and remember that this is just a game. It's been made so people will have fun with it, and in the hopes that people will continue to play it in the future. It's not a scam, scheme, or some corporate devilry sent to bring on the apocalypse.
