Originally posted by apocalance

 

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Originally posted by lttexxan
well said....it's open Beta   see for yourself...the grind and repitition sets in fast.

 

To seek out new life and new civilizations...to boldly go where no one has gone before.....has nothing to do with this game.

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I'm sure Barclay and his lab buddies never felt that way either.

Tried to avoid nitpicking this, but it didn't work.  Barclay first appeared on the Enterprise, and got a lot of experience with exploration.

More to the larger point though, the game has a huge "We come in peace, shoot to kill!" element to it.  Non-combat elements of exploration are rather rare and always paper-thin.  If Klingons show up and say your ambassador is an evil alien and to hand him over, then you should be able to test that theory and see if what they say is true.  Instead you just shoot the Klingons and ignore what they say (you have NO choices).  A good Trek MMO should at least give you CHOICES THAT MATTER.  Ironically, while Star Trek was definitely more cerebral than Star Wars, with the MMOs it is going to definitely be the other way around.

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by apocalance

 

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Originally posted by lttexxan
well said....it's open Beta   see for yourself...the grind and repitition sets in fast.

 

To seek out new life and new civilizations...to boldly go where no one has gone before.....has nothing to do with this game.

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I'm sure Barclay and his lab buddies never felt that way either.

Tried to avoid nitpicking this, but it didn't work.  Barclay first appeared on the Enterprise, and got a lot of experience with exploration.

More to the larger point though, the game has a huge "We come in peace, shoot to kill!" element to it.  Non-combat elements of exploration are rather rare and always paper-thin.  If Klingons show up and say your ambassador is an evil alien and to hand him over, then you should be able to test that theory and see if what they say is true.  Instead you just shoot the Klingons and ignore what they say (you have NO choices).  A good Trek MMO should at least give you CHOICES THAT MATTER.  Ironically, while Star Trek was definitely more cerebral than Star Wars, with the MMOs it is going to definitely be the other way around.

Very well said my friend. I was really hoping for the ability to make meanifull choices that would test a young Captain to be.

Instead I am selected to kill everything in the Universe that enters my path,

A time of war.....sure....maybe you could get a break from the carnage occasionaly to explore an M class planet or two.

Maybe bed a beautiful green alien girl......not kill her.

Making more choices, that I totally agree with. I think the principle of star trek was about the decisions the captains made. It goes with the saying, life is 10% action and 90% reaction. In MMO's however, it's usually not what you're going to do, but how you're going to do it.

I've been wanting to like this game.  It, though, has got to be one of the shallowest, so-called mmo/mmorpg's,I have ever had the displeasure of playing;probably more-so than Tabula Rasa and WAR.

I rolled a klingon and am at rank 13.  My game-play consists of being in the same scenery, the same linear mission, with the same keyboard strokes repeatedly. 

It's a complete lack of expectation management; lacks community communication, community cooperation, dynamic encounters, industry, diplomacy, economy, character skill specialty and differentiation, action rewards,  action consequences, player crews, non-combat missions, non-combat zones, exploration, engaging story-lines. etc.

Originally posted by Cik_Asalin

I've been wanting to like this game.  It, though, has got to be one of the shallowest, so-called mmo/mmorpg's,I have ever had the displeasure of playing;probably more-so than Tabula Rasa and WAR.

 

I rolled a klingon and am at rank 13.  My game-play consists of being in the same scenery, the same linear mission, with the same keyboard strokes repeatedly. 

 

It's a complete lack of expectation management; lacks community communication, community cooperation, dynamic encounters, industry, diplomacy, economy, character skill specialty and differentiation, action rewards,  action consequences, player crews, non-combat missions, non-combat zones, exploration, engaging story-lines. etc.

You echo my experience completely.

Very well said. Maybe I set my hopes too high.

It's just so shallow of an experience that should be deep and compelling.

I thought AOC had a lot of instancing and load screens...but STO takes the title away hands down.

Who knew space could be so small and underwhelming?

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Originally posted by mbd1968

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Originally posted by nikoliath

 but the game is set in a period of war. Having now played it i can honestly say the gameplay so far has been enjoyable.
"not my trek" ?  - it's a game, not a star trek simulator. Perhaps some people were expecting Elite, but with trek stuff.
"star trek was not about blowing stuff up" - ST is as much about conflict and war as it is about exploration and Marina Sirtis being mentally undressed by Mr Frakes. Infact every feature film contains "violence" in one form or another, afaik.

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Thank you, I'm glad at least one person actually understands this and bothered to read the path to 2406. Exploration is on hold, this is a time of conflict and there is no time for old pursuits.
 
 

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So it hasn't occured to you that it's just an excuse to dumb the game and the IP down to almost purely shooting stuff? This isn't Star Trek. In TOS and DS9 they had wars with the klingons aswell, but they still managed to avoid fighting most of the time and even help each other out where it mattered (Martok the changeling, the house of Duras?).

Yes, conflict and war may play into it but not in a manner where it became a brainless 'target and destroy' activity. You should really watch TOS and DS9 again especially.

STO is decidedly not a proper ST MMO. It's Champions Online with a thin coat of Star Trek looks, nothing more, nothing less. STO is like SWG, only they implemented the CU and NGE right from the beginning.

Originally posted by ChromeBallz

 

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Originally posted by mbd1968

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Originally posted by nikoliath

 

 but the game is set in a period of war. Having now played it i can honestly say the gameplay so far has been enjoyable.
"not my trek" ?  - it's a game, not a star trek simulator. Perhaps some people were expecting Elite, but with trek stuff.
"star trek was not about blowing stuff up" - ST is as much about conflict and war as it is about exploration and Marina Sirtis being mentally undressed by Mr Frakes. Infact every feature film contains "violence" in one form or another, afaik.

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Thank you, I'm glad at least one person actually understands this and bothered to read the path to 2406. Exploration is on hold, this is a time of conflict and there is no time for old pursuits.
 
 

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So it hasn't occured to you that it's just an excuse to dumb the game and the IP down to almost purely shooting stuff? This isn't Star Trek. In TOS and DS9 they had wars with the klingons aswell, but they still managed to avoid fighting most of the time and even help each other out where it mattered (Martok the changeling, the house of Duras?).

Yes, conflict and war may play into it but not in a manner where it became a brainless 'target and destroy' activity. You should really watch TOS and DS9 again especially.

STO is decidedly not a proper ST MMO. It's Champions Online with a thin coat of Star Trek looks, nothing more, nothing less. STO is like SWG, only they implemented the CU and NGE right from the beginning.

of course it hadn't occurred to me... I'm just another dumb MMO player with half a brain cell...

A large factor in that is simply: Even in a time of war, 95% of your existence is not based on wholesale slaughter.  There is not one single thing to do ingame that eventually doesn't lead back to killing 20 of this of 15 of that. Saying its wartime buys them the right to push combat to the fore-front, I agree, but once you get past that front and realize that's simply all there is, then the "At War" excuse loses it's validity. Its just that, and excuse for lacking every other thing an MMO should have.

the community (sector space) is a giant chat room, you cannot actually DO anything there.

Every encounter is instanced.

There is no crafting

only 50% of the story is even done. Not 85% not 75% hell, not even 60%. 1/2 the game is simply not there. The klingons effectively simply do NOT exist.  Yet this is considered "Release Ready?".  If you bought a watch, but half the gears in it were simply not in it when you got home, what would you do? Would you let him promise that down the road he would come over and put the rest of the parts in at some undisclosed future date? Hell no. You would want your money back and never deal with the thief again. The concept in peoples subconcious mind is the same, no matter what they say, bad 1/2 done products do NOT promote loyalty.  It's the same concept,

it is a luxury item meant to have a finite lifespan. If it is 1/2 broken from the word go, you got robbed.

I'm beginning to wonder if Cryptic will still exist come corporate tax season. Atari is notoriously tight with cash, and if this game doesnt turn a good profit out the door, I have a feeling their days are numbered, and in turn, so is the game.

Originally posted by harvest151

I'm beginning to wonder if Cryptic will still exist come corporate tax season. Atari is notoriously tight with cash, and if this game doesnt turn a good profit out the door, I have a feeling their days are numbered, and in turn, so is the game.

I agree, that makes buying a lifetime pretty risky. Besides,  I don't care if people are enjoying it, its not finished. I wish people would stop supporting games that aren't complete, or base buying it on what it could be later.  Companies will stop pushing this stuff out on us and actually finish a product if we stop paying for betas.
 

Originally posted by harvest151

A large factor in that is simply: Even in a time of war, 95% of your existence is not based on wholesale slaughter.  There is not one single thing to do ingame that eventually doesn't lead back to killing 20 of this of 15 of that. Saying its wartime buys them the right to push combat to the fore-front, I agree, but once you get past that front and realize that's simply all there is, then the "At War" excuse loses it's validity. Its just that, and excuse for lacking every other thing an MMO should have.

 

the community (sector space) is a giant chat room, you cannot actually DO anything there.

Every encounter is instanced.

There is no crafting

only 50% of the story is even done. Not 85% not 75% hell, not even 60%. 1/2 the game is simply not there. The klingons effectively simply do NOT exist.  Yet this is considered "Release Ready?".  If you bought a watch, but half the gears in it were simply not in it when you got home, what would you do? Would you let him promise that down the road he would come over and put the rest of the parts in at some undisclosed future date? Hell no. You would want your money back and never deal with the thief again. The concept in peoples subconcious mind is the same, no matter what they say, bad 1/2 done products do NOT promote loyalty.  It's the same concept,

it is a luxury item meant to have a finite lifespan. If it is 1/2 broken from the word go, you got robbed.

I'm beginning to wonder if Cryptic will still exist come corporate tax season. Atari is notoriously tight with cash, and if this game doesnt turn a good profit out the door, I have a feeling their days are numbered, and in turn, so is the game.

Cryptc's days have been numbered since CO's release. There is a reasion NCSoft let Cryptic go and a reasion why more then half of the Cryptic team stayed with NCSoft instead of going with Cryptic.

No when the dust settles and everyone is done with these rinse and repeat mockups of MMO games. I think we will see Cryptic with a nice stash of cash but not many people wanting to pickup there products. After getting burned on CO and after helping test STO there is no way in hell I would pickup another Cryptic game. Someone couldn't even give me a lifetime subscription for one of there games.

Originally posted by Thomas2006

Originally posted by harvest151

A large factor in that is simply: Even in a time of war, 95% of your existence is not based on wholesale slaughter.  There is not one single thing to do ingame that eventually doesn't lead back to killing 20 of this of 15 of that. Saying its wartime buys them the right to push combat to the fore-front, I agree, but once you get past that front and realize that's simply all there is, then the "At War" excuse loses it's validity. Its just that, and excuse for lacking every other thing an MMO should have.

 

the community (sector space) is a giant chat room, you cannot actually DO anything there.

Every encounter is instanced.

There is no crafting

only 50% of the story is even done. Not 85% not 75% hell, not even 60%. 1/2 the game is simply not there. The klingons effectively simply do NOT exist.  Yet this is considered "Release Ready?".  If you bought a watch, but half the gears in it were simply not in it when you got home, what would you do? Would you let him promise that down the road he would come over and put the rest of the parts in at some undisclosed future date? Hell no. You would want your money back and never deal with the thief again. The concept in peoples subconcious mind is the same, no matter what they say, bad 1/2 done products do NOT promote loyalty.  It's the same concept,

it is a luxury item meant to have a finite lifespan. If it is 1/2 broken from the word go, you got robbed.

I'm beginning to wonder if Cryptic will still exist come corporate tax season. Atari is notoriously tight with cash, and if this game doesnt turn a good profit out the door, I have a feeling their days are numbered, and in turn, so is the game.

Cryptc's days have been numbered since CO's release. There is a reasion NCSoft let Cryptic go and a reasion why more then half of the Cryptic team stayed with NCSoft instead of going with Cryptic.

No when the dust settles and everyone is done with these rinse and repeat mockups of MMO games. I think we will see Cryptic with a nice stash of cash but not many people wanting to pickup there products. After getting burned on CO and after helping test STO there is no way in hell I would pickup another Cryptic game. Someone couldn't even give me a lifetime subscription for one of there games.

I agree...Cryptic is churning out what eventually will be reduced to item mall- free to play- instanced MMOFPS that cater to the lowest common denominator.

Originally posted by Cohas

 Good More play time for me. I for one enjoy this game. 

You do realize no matter who stays or leaves...it affects your ability to have all the game time you want?

So rest easy my friend...hell here take some of my play time...really...go on take it.

I have more if you need it. Just PM me.

they won me over with a tribble, small cute fluffy then three missions later they had taken half my inventory, little fur balls of death. Yet I still keep one, I just make sure that it's not making little ones.

The tribbles multiply when there is food in your Inventory I believe (Like targe guts and romulan weenus bites and whatever else they named the same exact items that do the same exact thing). And good god don't give them to your away team. Wait. Yeah, actually, do that, you might get a kick out of the Giant Golden tribble aura that your away team just can't seem to keep their hands off.

I actually had high hopes for it until today. In a word, the game fails for me because it is "shallow". The graphics are shallow, the animations are shallow, the stories are shallow, the combat is shallow, the quest system is shallow, etc.
 
I made it through level 7, playing since Friday, and have had enough experience for myself to understand how the game will play out for the remainder of the levels.
 
CONS:
- Quest system is FAR too repetitive: Kill mission in space, kill mission on ground, explore mission on ground, collection mission in space. Period.
- Ground instance layouts begin to repeat in theme, graphics, and objectives FAR too often.
- Performance is some of the worst I have ever experienced for an open beta a couple weeks away from release. They would have been better prepared if they had an open beta two months ago to test/work out performance issues.
- Map system is clunky, cumbersome, and just plain frustratingly-confusing.
- Combat system on ground is City of Heroes with Star Trek skins.
- Game sound system. I cannot stress just how badly this was done. It is completely inconsistent for ground/space combat where you will sometimes hear a shot fired or explosion and sometimes you won't; combat can go "deaf" (read: no sound at all) for minutes on end while all hell is breaking loose around you; music comes and goes at what seems to be randomly.
- Character animations are just terrible. I thought Jerky unrealistic movements and motions, stiff "corpse" walking/running animations, etc just left a lot to be desired.
- Number of very large memory leaks on major maps still this close to release.
- Multiple player space combat performance was absolutely terrible. It turned into a Stark Trek slide show instead of a light show.
- Space has invisible walls.
- A very serious lack of in-game documentation, explanation, and tutoring makes for some very confusing and often frustrating moments in trying to equipment your characters, ships, and especially skills.
- Many skill descriptions don't do a very good job in explaining what they really do, outside of special ability uses and/or show little to no impact on your character/ship's abilities to perform "better".
- Skill trees are not intuitive and very little guidance and explanation are given to the player on how they should/could proceed with skill points.
- Little to nothing is discussed in-game regarding the replicator, selling/buying items, currency, or auction house/exchange workings. You pretty much feel like you are left to fend for yourself without any road to guide you.
- No in-game voice communications (this is pretty much standard now in the MMO industry).
- No quest tracker-to-map-to-quest log integration whatsoever. This is also pretty much MMO industry standard now.
- No sense of direction for a character's flow of progression or quests. It felt very adhoc and often times very daunting to figure out where to go and what to do with ten different quests at a time, all of which send you to different corners of space (and no real direction on the map on how to get there!).
- Quest reward system needs a very strong second look at it: point distribution seems almost randomly generated and item progression rubber-bands back and forth confusingly for the same items/slots.

PROS:
- Its Star Trek. Mostly everyone can relate to the story, worlds, and background to the game.
- The game has a TON of possible play area for players. I'm just not sure if it will come into play later or not.
- Auto grouping feature is a fairly neat concept and had me interacting with players more than I would have normally.
- Some of the large-scale fights, like Starbase 24, was very fun and very rewarding for points; until the lag of so many players began to cause more casualties than the ships firing weapons. This is a must-fix if they want to bring something uniquely fun in the title.

SUMMARY:
Thank you but no thank you. While I certainly can respect any development studio's efforts in creating such a large-scale MMO, I have to take a very strong and careful look at what this company actually made, in truth: A Star Trek game skin laid upon previous games' engines, codes, graphics, and systems.

It is almost depressing to see such a wonderful IP like Star Trek, with such an immense and amazingly rich history, documentation, etc be put out like this company has done. The end result, I would say, is shameful, at best. It is a crime to have allowed this company to have taken what could only be called a coveted IP, put very little original thought, design, and effort into it beyond Star Trek graphics, names, and sounds, and put it out for public consumption; fully expecting the public to purchase it and be satisfied.

Honestly what game isnt shallow?

I feel cryptic could have added alot more stuff to the game but some of you posters are getting a lil carried away.   The game in ur head isnt real.... theres a reason why most of you are arm chair developers and not real game developers.

This game was never meant to be a sand box type game.   It was meant to be a theme park.  A theme park about star trek.  So get over it.  Judge it by its genre  Theme park multiplayer online rpg.

Do I think of star trek when I play this game...YES... Do I feel like im living in the star trek universe....NO.. And if i did I would be insane.

One thing I like about this game is the fact that it actualy feels like a multiplayer game.  Its been awhile since I played in so many teams. Usualy its a guild or solo 99%.  And teams actualy stick together and go off on other missions. Unless you suck then everyone leaves just to not be around you. Like this one guy in our team who kept full impulsing into a fleet of warbirds to die over and over.  He thought blowing up and damaging the ships was strategy.  If your good people will stick with you. If you suck or no better than AI, then your just a burden.

Its a fun game for a few week. After that I dont know havnt been playing that long.  But your a fool if you think this game is the only mmog that is grindy, repetitive and tedius. Seriously take off the blind hate.  mmorpgs are tedius and mind numbing, Take the big enchilada WoW. Are you saying every minute is unique from the last and playing it is a mind stimulating experience equal to learning physics?  Hell even UO didnt make you a genius from playing it.  UO,swg,AC werent that great.  Theyll always have a place in my gamers heart but THEY WERENT THAT GREAT.

alot can be cured by simple reading and not thinking you know everything from a beta version of the game.

A) Quests are all combat missions: acutally theres alot of fetch quests in the explore missions I run into them more then combat. If theres another type of quest that can be done besides fetch and combat quests please let me know cause I really don't see them besides courier quests.

B) Not enought content: well there is entire regions of space not available in beta which most likely come complete with their own content/missions because they are focusing on federation space and level 1 to 16 content.

C) Ship combat is too slow: 6,500,000 tons will not move quick in space regardless this is starship combat not dogfighting.

D) Tedious: Yea well they acutally tried to have different mechanics then the usual wow rehash. Shame on them I say! they better stop this thinking out of the box crap.

E) Don't like sector space: while it isn't my favorite either it is atleast faster then most travel in mmorpgs atleast this has autopilot where you don't have to worry about being blown up halfway through.

F) Lag: They are getting new servers and no there is no way they could have predicted the counts beforehand.

I acutally commend cryptic for atleast trying to put out a new game while most companies will pull out rehashs of <insert popular game> here. The only thing I can fault them with is I think they should of really just not given away so many free beta passes because its rather clear that most people who signed up have never been in a beta and don't know the difference between a release and a beta. Even World Of Warcraft was struggling at this stage with alot of the same issues but meanwhile a game that is the same as everything else will be cheered for but a game that decides to do things a little differently will always be bashed.

You die way to fast in Ground pvp, almost everything results in instant death. I got myself full close combat gear and guess what i kill everything with 2-3 hits.

1. Sniper special (flanked, the melee kit has cloak)
2. Lunge
3. Target is dead or close to death, if he still refuse die use
4. a) Kneecap b) Knock him with your rifle.

The worst part is that this game has /autoface and /autotarget

With people quiting in droves and they will if they aren't already, its going to have less of a populations suited to grouping. Grouping is fine if there are people to group with. If you like mindless serging it could be quite fun though.

Another thing, saying not to judge the game because its not all opened yet? Are you guys really serious? If you can't hook us now we should pay out 50 bucks in case the fun you are hiding is released when the game goes live? I think that is a poor business decision. If you have a hook, use it and use it early. 

If the Dev's had added in 50% of a decent sandbox, it might have helped to hide how poor the rest of the core game is so far.

I will say that SWG, AC, UO, great or not were miles a head of this crap. 

Just like the old america is better than todays america.  Anyone watch the Comedy Centrals daily show where they make fun of all the media saying how the old is better than the new.

I remember the days of UO,AC, and SWG.   And the forums were a flame fest with a large amount of complaining.   STO forums pale in comparison to the mood of there forums.   SWG was the worst followed by UO then AC which actualy wasnt that popular. EQ whooped AC's @55 in subcribers. Not sure who had more AC or UO, but i think AC since UO was having a exodus. 

Im starting to think forum posters complain about every single game until it gets old then they praise it.

Sorta like Indie devs make the best game comment i see around here alot. Yet from what I can tell they release broken games (DF, MO) or mediocre games like fallen earth or the more numorus Scams.  Only good indie game is EvE but i guess one indie dev equals them all.

Oh and on a side note. It feels like space to me. Specialy if you get a good random map that has a planet with a meteor belt due to a moon blowing up.   Going thru all that ruble and trying to target a warbird as it hid (more like stuck) under one. Was muy cool. Plus it took some time to go around that planet finding all the enemys.  Was a longer walk than most quests in WoW. 20 billion times longer than WARs quest. Now that was a small, cramed together game world.

And theres alot of missions that dont inculde combat. Been in quite a few.  Maybe 1 to every 3 combat missions. Plus the large missions will sometimes have one non-combat mission.

Its like some people complain just to complain.   Maybe your all just my wife loging in as different users.