Only purchased STO from Cryptic, if by time I wake up this afternoon and I cant resubscribe to check out season 2 I am done. CoH/CoV and CO bothing had great character creation, then from there I lost intrest, to the point I spent more time making my characters than playing them. So my last chance if not test out AoC since the next expansion has some good reviews

I can already tell you what to expect from their third MMO:

1.       There is no need to pay the full price for the game when it first comes out unless you just want to play in the first month.  The price of the game will come down $10 or more and extra game time may be offered if you simply wait a month or two from launch to buy it.

2.       There is no need to buy extra copies to get exclusives because they will just be available in the C-Store in a few months.

3.       The game will be heavily instanced and working with others will not really be required, at least not in the first 90% of levels.

4.       The game will be easy and you can max level a char in 30 days with just normal gameplay, faster if you power game.

5.       The game will be released with limited end-game content and will remain so for months until content is leaked in with a raid or two every month

6.       If the game has a crafting system in it, it will be bad, not very complex and the things you can craft will be substandard to loot drops so there will not be much of a need to use it.

Cant tell. If a company releases a MMO that I dont like, or changes a MMO into something I dont like, I wont hold it against them for their next MMO. It maybe makes me more cautious to try their new game, but if its features looks promising I still would try it. It could be a completely different group of developers who are creating the new game.

SOE is the only company on my ban list. Even though I didn't like CO and quit right away, I liked STO enough to stay a month and might actually return if they fix some stuff. CoH is my main MMO, so I may be holding over a bit of love for the Cryptic name.

Originally posted by Talonsin

I can already tell you what to expect from their third MMO:

 

1.       There is no need to pay the full price for the game when it first comes out unless you just want to play in the first month.  The price of the game will come down $10 or more and extra game time may be offered if you simply wait a month or two from launch to buy it.

 im guessing more than 10$, but you are probably right.

2.       There is no need to buy extra copies to get exclusives because they will just be available in the C-Store in a few months.

 true. allthough im guessing a few weeks not months.

3.       The game will be heavily instanced and working with others will not really be required, at least not in the first 90% of levels.

 true.

4.       The game will be easy and you can max level a char in 30 days with just normal gameplay, faster if you power game.

LIE!!!      theres no way it will take 30 days, maybe 2 weeks, less if  your play a lot. 

5.       The game will be released with limited end-game content and will remain so for months until content is leaked in with a raid or two every month

 LIE!!!             cryptic doesnt beleive in end game content, after all why bother when most of your customers cancel there sub before hitting max lvl?

6.       If the game has a crafting system in it, it will be bad, not very complex and the things you can craft will be substandard to loot drops so there will not be much of a need to use it.

true, allthough i would hardly call what was in sto at launch a crafting system, of course thats a matter of opinion.

 

If it's developed by Cryptic, expect full instances, boring gameplay, different skin, same game.

Whatever IP they decide to obliterate next, I can gaurantee you it will be a cheesy and cheap rush job.   It will be a half assed and much over hyped travesty that will bite cryptic in the butt again as they try and play catch up and do damage control in their forums in the midst of raging members of their player base after the game launches.

I will watch what they do with their next MMO, if only for entertainment value.

  I will certainly not be purchasing another Cryptic game after watching the way they handled Star Trek Online, it was really a sad thing to see such an amazing and loved IP treated so badly.

Originally posted by Cacaphony

Whatever IP they decide to obliterate next, I can gaurantee you it will be a cheesy and cheap rush job.   It will be a half assed and much over hyped travesty that will bite cryptic in the butt again as they try and play catch up and do damage control in their forums in the midst of raging members of their player base after the game launches.

 

I will watch what they do with their next MMO, if only for entertainment value.

 

Cryptic honestly got exactly what they wanted which was a metric shit ton of box sales. They could care less about their customers.

Originally posted by saxifr

 

Cryptic honestly got exactly what they wanted which was a metric shit ton of box sales.

    I'm not entirely convinced of that: Estimates put the initial number of subscribers between 200,000 - 300,000; even accounting for multiple copies bought, I honestly don't think they made over 400,000 - 450,000 box sales. The sad thing is that if they had spent the time to do the game right, and keep the core promises (two fully fleshed out faction, interiors, real exploration, a better form of diplomacy than the pop quiz system the have now, etc.) then I think they could have easily reached one million box sales (like their marketing department was trying to b.s. people into believing). Cryptic games do tend to get repetitive quicker than most and their heavy use of instancing (even in areas that don't need it that much, such as social areas) didn't help either, so I think retention of players would still have been a problem; still, I could see them having a solid playerbase of 150,000 - 250,000 if they had just spent the time on STO that they spent making CoH.

Originally posted by Dinendae

Originally posted by saxifr

 

Cryptic honestly got exactly what they wanted which was a metric shit ton of box sales.

    I'm not entirely convinced of that: Estimates put the initial number of subscribers between 200,000 - 300,000; even accounting for multiple copies bought, I honestly don't think they made over 400,000 - 450,000 box sales. The sad thing is that if they had spent the time to do the game right, and keep the core promises (two fully fleshed out faction, interiors, real exploration, a better form of diplomacy than the pop quiz system the have now, etc.) then I think they could have easily reached one million box sales (like their marketing department was trying to b.s. people into believing). Cryptic games do tend to get repetitive quicker than most and their heavy use of instancing (even in areas that don't need it that much, such as social areas) didn't help either, so I think retention of players would still have been a problem; still, I could see them having a solid playerbase of 150,000 - 250,000 if they had just spent the time on STO that they spent making CoH.

STO should of been a huge MMO with both the brand name and coming off the back of blockbuster movie but sadly Crpytic got to make it and the CO reskin was always going to be let down. The tiny amount of work done on the game since launch really makes it look like most of the dev team has been pulled for the 3rd reskin of the CO engine aka super secret MMO 3.

While STO is not quite at the SWG/Planetside level of just ticking over with tiny amounts of content added once or twice a year, I think by summer 2011 it will be. Sadly unlike SWG and Planetside, STO's core content is just way to lacking.

After playing STO for 3 months I would have to say that Cryptic is the Uwe Boll of the MMO industry.

Cryptic have talent, but since splitting from NCSOFT seem to have no imagination or ambition..... but its always down to the product, if it looks vaguely interesting I'll give it a go and even if they continue to underperform sometimes the community can lift an otherwise ordinary game. Be wary but never say never.

Originally posted by tyanya

Cryptic have talent, but since splitting from NCSOFT seem to have no imagination or ambition..... but its always down to the product, if it looks vaguely interesting I'll give it a go and even if they continue to underperform sometimes the community can lift an otherwise ordinary game. Be wary but never say never.

 The lack of ambition or imagination is probably due to the fact that most of Cryptic Studio's talent stayed on with NCSoft and became Paragon Studio; Cryptic retained just a handful of their people, including Jack. As for the community lifting an underperforming game, there has to be something to the game in the first place. In STO's case a lot of the core problems are in the actual engine itself, and they're not going to get fixed without a total rework of the Cryptic 2.0 engine. I honestly don't see Atari going for that idea.

Originally posted by Dinendae

Originally posted by tyanya

Cryptic have talent, but since splitting from NCSOFT seem to have no imagination or ambition..... but its always down to the product, if it looks vaguely interesting I'll give it a go and even if they continue to underperform sometimes the community can lift an otherwise ordinary game. Be wary but never say never.

 The lack of ambition or imagination is probably due to the fact that most of Cryptic Studio's talent stayed on with NCSoft and became Paragon Studio; Cryptic retained just a handful of their people, including Jack. As for the community lifting an underperforming game, there has to be something to the game in the first place. In STO's case a lot of the core problems are in the actual engine itself, and they're not going to get fixed without a total rework of the Cryptic 2.0 engine. I honestly don't see Atari going for that idea.

 I wonder why Cryptic thinks they can continue this copy paste routine onto the same engine for every game they make.  It would be nice if they actually put forth some effort and made a new engine, or puchased one that  will let them actually make a massive game with lots of features.   They have got to be getting tired of their rep about now wouldnt you think?  Or are they just oblivious to all this and off in happy la la land?

A common engine isn't unusual.  Look at the Unreal Engine, which is heavily used.  Also its apparent LoTRO and DDO also share a common platform.  They just tweak them, to add/remove features.

For CO the engine works extremely well.  The problem is they've played with it to much for STO.  Removing some of the better features, leaving only bland mechanics.  It actually feels like they took an earlier version to develop STO upon.

Originally posted by Cacaphony

 

 I wonder why Cryptic thinks they can continue this copy paste routine onto the same engine for every game they make.  It would be nice if they actually put forth some effort and made a new engine, or puchased one that  will let them actually make a massive game with lots of features.   They have got to be getting tired of their rep about now wouldnt you think?  Or are they just oblivious to all this and off in happy la la land?

 considering the service reps i was talking to in the 2 mmo's ive played since sto both were following the cryptic story, i think its a safe bet that cryptic themselves are following the feedback on sites like this. the problem with this is the management at cryptic. the guys on top at cryptic have a proven track record of releasing sub-standard games. i dont doubt that there is talented people at cryptic. but like any business, you do what your boss tells you to do.

some of the past titles the managers at cRIPtic have been involved with: hellgate london, city of heroes (which got better after the management team sold to paragon), champions online,mythos. and of course theres the guy from SOE (who at one point was in charge of QA and customer service).

it really doesnt matter if "cryptic" thinks they can continue to cut and past, the people in charge obviously do. the question now is if there boss' at atari think  this will continue to work.

No.

Originally posted by grapevine

A common engine isn't unusual.  Look at the Unreal Engine, which is heavily used.  Also its apparent LoTRO and DDO also share a common platform.  They just tweak them, to add/remove features.

 

For CO the engine works extremely well.  The problem is they've played with it to much for STO.  Removing some of the better features, leaving only bland mechanics.  It actually feels like they took an earlier version to develop STO upon.

 I found CO to be as bland and shallow as STO is and in alot of ways as COH was before it.  I think those of us who know and play mmo's knew then while COH could be lot's of fun to play the things that make it fun are the things you usually don't get or look for in an mmo fats paced action with very little variety.  CO follows that mode as does STO.  Playing a Cryptic game to me is like playing a game that is already ten years old and while before STO that was good enough for me I've come to realize that it's totally against my policy of paying full price and then subbing to something no more fun that my console games.  End result there will always be a console game that I can pay full price for that has more complexity and as much fun as Cryptic is willing to offer but they will try to keep a hand in your wallet while a console or offline game won't.  No more Cryptic for me.  I liked STO enough that truth be told if it ever went free to play I'd play it long enough to spend those Cryptic points I left behind but as it stands they will never get another dime from me.

Originally posted by raistalin69

 

 considering the service reps i was talking to in the 2 mmo's ive played since sto both were following the cryptic story, i think its a safe bet that cryptic themselves are following the feedback on sites like this. the problem with this is the management at cryptic. the guys on top at cryptic have a proven track record of releasing sub-standard games. i dont doubt that there is talented people at cryptic. but like any business, you do what your boss tells you to do.

some of the past titles the managers at cRIPtic have been involved with: hellgate london, city of heroes (which got better after the management team sold to paragon), champions online,mythos. and of course theres the guy from SOE (who at one point was in charge of QA and customer service).

it really doesnt matter if "cryptic" thinks they can continue to cut and past, the people in charge obviously do. the question now is if there boss' at atari think  this will continue to work.

   The problem is, I think Atari will be ok with the cut and paste method as long as they get ok amounts of box sales. I would like to think that they would be smart enough to realize how bad of a mistake rushing an MMO is, but so far I have seen nothing from them to indicate they want to change their approach. It may be that Atari is still sold on the idea of making box sales, instead of focusing more on player retention and subscription fees, in which case this next MMO may be as shallow as STO.

   That isn't just an Atari problem though: I saw a SW:TOR interview where they were talking about having to have a million subscribers for the first year just to make their money back. To me this is smacks of something the marketing suits came up with; instead of looking at the long term, which should be the standard when dealing with revenue from an MMO, they seem to only focus on the short term. Love it or hate it, Blizzard did several things right with WoW; one of the most important things they did, in my opinion, was knowing when to ignore what the Marketing people and their metrics were saying. I wish more companies would learn to tell their marketing department "No" when they need to do so, or at the very least nod their heads and then ignore them when they need to.