I've heard a lot of negative feedback from players playing this game. Most of it from sites like mmorpg.com where most people are hardcore mmo-players. I'm a huge Star Trek fan, but only a casual MMO-player. Been playing every now and then since 2003 (first MMO was SWG then EVE soon after). Too me it seems like most MMO games, based on leveling up, getting new skills and gear etc. with some typical destroy 10 klingon ships missions and some more interesting.

I've only been playing for 1½ weeks playing roughly for 8-10h a week so granted I can't fully judge it yet, but it seems so far to be fun at least to me. All the trekkies I know like the game. Many of them have not even played an MMO before.

Perhaps if you judge the game as a star trek game that happens to be an MMO rather than an MMO that happens to be a Star Trek game it will seem better.

My question is what exactly makes this game so bad? The problems I have with are the same problems I have with it most MMO's such as too many generic quests. I've seen games with more grind, less interesting missions and more generic gameplay that doesn't get as bashed as STO. So can you hardcore gamers tell me what I am missing because from my casual view point it's just as good or bad as most MMO's I've played over the years, except this one is Star Trek (and I admit I would not play it otherwise). I played SWG during its hayday and I must say that so far I like STO more.

there are a lot of problems with the game, both as a trek fan point of view, and as a gamer.

Now, granted, I am a hardcore gamer...but the game just didnt have enough to interest me. Im a HUGE Star Trek fan, and a buddie of mine knowing I was got the game for me as a gift. I sadly, didnt make it past level 12.

The ground combat was clunky...seeing 10 other people on the planet with you doing the quest you are doing at different stages just didnt make much sense. How bout soloing borg ships as a newbie? Going from ensign to captain in one mission?

I'll be quite honest The Borg was my favorite race from the TV series. A completely unstoppable juggernaut that almost ended the federation...and hear we are as newbies flying around and easily crushing them. I had heard that was explained later on... but it would be similar to a hobbit aoe farming balrogs in LOTRO...it just doesnt make sense.

Lets talk basic game mechanics. STO can pretty much be summed up as land at station, talk to guy, fly to sector, do mission, fly back. It seemed like most of the game could be done solo, and most of the game was just pretty boring. Yes all games have a certain amount of mundane boring bs in them...but it seemed to me that STO was pretty much made up only of the dull and boring.

Now, I'm glad some folks are liking it. I hope that it does well so we can later see a STO game liscensed that will apeal to me...but STO has very little to offer to my demographic, and none of my friends like it. Something is wrong there other than just the hardcore gamer crowd.

    First of all, drop the only hardcore players hate it line; it didn't work when Cryptic first tried it, and it doesn't work now. Hardcore, regular, and casual players have all had problems with the game. The only people who seem to enjoy it are some casuals and the ultra-casual crowd. As for what the problems are? Had you bothered to check, there are multiple threads in this forum that detail exactly what many people find wrong with the game. Here is one from the front page: Link

I for one am a BIG star trek fan and also a gamer. ya the game has some work still needed to be done to it, but now with the weekly episodes it feels more like star trek. but i'm not one going to try to convents people to come and play it, just download the demo and give it a try.

My beef with the game from a casual player perspective is the bad ground combat. This is the same company who I think made combat fun in CO. I was looking for something similar. I wanted also something along the line of Tabula Rasa combat. Something that was a bit more fast pace engaging.

My opinion it seems the hardcore players rushed to the end and ran out of content. I think this happens in most new MMOs the hardcore rush to the end and there is a lack of content.

• The planets aren't very explorable.  You just go there to do a quest and that's it.  You may find some glowies here and there while doing the mission (I forget what they're called) to trade in for equipment and such, but that's it.  This dissappointed me terribly because Star Trek is about the Trek!!  You're supposed to be able to explore.  The planets were too confined with invisible walls and such. :(
   
• Travelling reminded me of old school games like Zelda where you're wandering around on the big map, then uh oh! you get sucked into an instance and have to fight baddies unexpectedly.  For that reason, the game made you fly  very slowly from planet to planet, and sector to sector, where you can choose to go in those instances or not.  That caused very boring, long travel, when you just wanted to go from A to B.
   
• For a while, I liked the idea of  "pew-pewing" on my science ship.  There were a lot of things I could do.  I could heal and buff other ships as well as myself, and also do some nasty damage.  Unfortunately, things got really repetitive especially because my main blasts were always shot off with the spacebar.  So guess what?  It felt like some old school Atari game were you're steering with the joystick and mashing the button to shoot.  That got really old.
   

Originally posted by Sevenwind

My beef with the game from a casual player perspective is the bad ground combat. This is the same company who I think made combat fun in CO. I was looking for something similar. I wanted also something along the line of Tabula Rasa combat. Something that was a bit more fast pace engaging.

My opinion it seems the hardcore players rushed to the end and ran out of content. I think this happens in most new MMOs the hardcore rush to the end and there is a lack of content.

I agree with the ground combat. If they could revamp ground combat, it would be much more enjoyable for me. I still like space combat though. It is still fun (for a short time anyway). 

I am happy with the new weekly series missions and new dailies. They have done a very good Jon in giving us much better environments and encounters both on the ground and in space. But it only gets me to come back and play the weekend. Still can't do dailies over and over. It gets too boring. But for new players to have this new content (once they complete a few series), it wil give a lot more choice. Then add in UGC in at the end of the year and the game will be ready for launch.

Originally posted by Sevenwind

My beef with the game from a casual player perspective is the bad ground combat. This is the same company who I think made combat fun in CO. I was looking for something similar. I wanted also something along the line of Tabula Rasa combat. Something that was a bit more fast pace engaging.

My opinion it seems the hardcore players rushed to the end and ran out of content. I think this happens in most new MMOs the hardcore rush to the end and there is a lack of content.

  On the first bit, we (the beta testers) knew STO's ground combat was extremely lacking and reported it (there were many threads on the subject in the beta forums). The devs responded that they knew the ground combat was bad and that they had no idea on how to improve it, especially in the timeframe that was set. What gets me is when companies have all these examples of what can be done in MMOs, and ignore them. Cryptic is not the only one guilty of that; sadly it has become far too common. Heck, some companies can't seem to take lessons from previous MMOs that they have made (Mythic and Funcom immediately come to mind). I am beginning to think that Blizzard is the only company that has the ability to take what has come before (the better parts) and then improve on them.

  Hardcore players weren't the only ones who ran out of content; far too many players reached the end of STO before the initial 30 days was up. The true hardcore crowd hit cap in less than a week, with many reaching RA5 during the three day headstart. The average MMO players (those playing 4-6 hours per session) were hitting cap between on to three weeks after launch. Casual players (generally 2 or less hours per session) were hitting RA5 between 2 -3 weeks after launch. With all groups, that was generally without skipping anything. In fact, STO has so little content even after all the updates that there still is really only enough for a single playthrough. Players didn't really have the luxury of skipping content, especially early on.

Originally posted by ssjdagas

I've heard a lot of negative feedback from players playing this game. Most of it from sites like mmorpg.com where most people are hardcore mmo-players. I'm a huge Star Trek fan, but only a casual MMO-player. Been playing every now and then since 2003 (first MMO was SWG then EVE soon after). Too me it seems like most MMO games, based on leveling up, getting new skills and gear etc. with some typical destroy 10 klingon ships missions and some more interesting.

I've only been playing for 1½ weeks playing roughly for 8-10h a week so granted I can't fully judge it yet, but it seems so far to be fun at least to me. All the trekkies I know like the game. Many of them have not even played an MMO before.

Perhaps if you judge the game as a star trek game that happens to be an MMO rather than an MMO that happens to be a Star Trek game it will seem better.

My question is what exactly makes this game so bad? The problems I have with are the same problems I have with it most MMO's such as too many generic quests. I've seen games with more grind, less interesting missions and more generic gameplay that doesn't get as bashed as STO. So can you hardcore gamers tell me what I am missing because from my casual view point it's just as good or bad as most MMO's I've played over the years, except this one is Star Trek (and I admit I would not play it otherwise). I played SWG during its hayday and I must say that so far I like STO more.

 In a nut shell the game is extremely repetative, so much so that mostly only ultra casual people will get more than a month play time out of it.  While I think in general most of the posters here myself included probably spend more time playing mmo's than a casual player but no one mentions liking this game unless they add that they either just started playing or that they are ultra casual.

basically if you plan to spend more than eight hours a week playing an mmo STO is probably not the game for you unless you like a game's experience to be the same from the first day you play it til your last.

Ok OP: please share with us your definition of hardcore player. A term that has yet been defined by time playing or play style or game played.

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Originally posted by ssjdagas

My question is what exactly makes this game so bad?

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There is nothing exact, since good/bad are subjective and relative terms. Every each game is bad for someone, it only depends on who you ask.

Yeah, 'hardcore kids' make good haters but that does not apply for STO only though, they represent tiny minority of the customer base so you can figure out yourself...

I'm a huge Star Trek fan. I followed this game from its inception. But all I had to do was watch the preview of ground combat and I knew this game was not for me. I went by there sight today to look at the series two content and it still looks bad.  The original SWG was so much better then this. How can developers keep going in the wrong direction for so long when all anyone needs to do is look at what was good about SWG before they nerfed the game. People dont want to have to kill things every time they move ten feet ingame. Make a world where there is more then just bang bang pow pow. The Star Trek Universe could be so much more.

Since when did "casual" mean "stupid easy". I am sick of these so called "casual" game claim this title because a 4 year old could smash their face on the keyboard and win.

Only thing casual means is time contraints. To solve this, is just put the content in the game to be completed in shorter chunks. The game doesn't have to end quicker nor does it have to be designed for a drooling retard. People need to be able to login and complete some dungeons, quest, etc in a shorter amount of time.

It wasn't just the graphics engine from Champions Online that was reused, it was the same type of content and overall activities.  Which, in the end, just gets very boring.

There is a lot of excitement in making the character, and for the first few levels.  But after awhile, it becomes almost completely the same.  What you need to be successful is almost always the same patterns over and over again.  While this is largely true in most MMOs, the better MMOs do tend to have many other abilities that both the characters can use (thus opening more possibilities of approach to a mob) and several have better mob UI.

I got to despise CO for the same reasons I left WoW shortly after Wrath came out.  No challenge (my wife literally hit high dps on her mage using exactly 2 buttons), just pure repetitiveness that several other MMOs at least mitigated a bit better...an instance in CO was exactly more of the same that you would find on the streets of Millenium City.  I went through STO in beta, and by the end of it, it was pretty easy to tell that this was CO in a Star Trek setting.

I liked it as the start, didnt love it but it was my play for fun game for a while.

It was an easy game to play and I lvled up fast made a klingon and started to really have fun in pvp.

Then they came up with the first big update which was aimed at a pretty tough group, I managed to do it once the second part took us 2 hours and after it was done, I felt sick at the thought of ever doing it again. over a few days I stopped logging and now I have a life sub and dont play.

Why did they put such a tough run into what was an easy casual game?

Originally posted by trozyxxx

I liked it as the start, didnt love it but it was my play for fun game for a while.

It was an easy game to play and I lvled up fast made a klingon and started to really have fun in pvp.

Then they came up with the first big update which was aimed at a pretty tough group, I managed to do it once the second part took us 2 hours and after it was done, I felt sick at the thought of ever doing it again. over a few days I stopped logging and now I have a life sub and dont play.

Why did they put such a tough run into what was an easy casual game?

 they had to add something that was more challenging as people were (and still are) screaming for content. unfortunately cryptic seems clueless to the idea that people wanted something "challenging" rather than repetitive. most game developers at least get the idea that this means a group of people that have roles and have to use multiple skills/abilities in order to accomplish a group goal fighting a variety of mobs with different abilities.

but honestly what can you expect from a company that is still convinced that flying around in a circle while spamming space bar is fun?

if your looking for an arcade shooter with a star trek skin, sto may be your game. if your looking for a fully fleshed out mmo with content, dont bother looking at sto for anything more than a few weeks (At best) of play from this half finished game.  

i played it for a while... gave it a fair shot, two, three month focus. but it was to much hastle, so many glitches and problems and just weird, it mucked up my computer something rotten.. so i stopped, been meaning to see if it had got better, but im looking forward to dcuo so much theres no point buying a new game.... see i may not be a hard core gamer, but i dont really like the game :(

I tried this game in OB and I couldn't have been more dissappointed.  I am somewhat of a Star Trek fan, but I did not follow along with the STO developement so I really had no idea what the game was going to be.  However, I have played oh-so-many games in my life, several of them mmos, and what I did expect was a game that followed the genre it was advertised to be in.  In my opinion, this game does not and completely missed the mark I, II and III.

Now, assuming I know nothing of this game going into it other than it is based on the vastly diverse lore of Star Trek and it is an mmo, this is what I would have expected before ever even logging into STO for the first time.

1.  A selection of playable races - Star Trek online has none.  Your race is The Federation.  That is not a race.  That is a faction.  Yes, there is a wide and diverse character creation where you can choose racial traits, but when you start the game you are The Federation, no exceptions.

2.  A selection of starting worlds - Star Trek online has none.  You start off in the Sol system on a space station orbiting Earth.  On a spacestation orbiting Earth?  Really?  Not even Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco?  Just some unnamed station around Earth.  Where is Vulcan, Romulus, Remus, Cardassia, Bajor, Andoria, the Klingon home world whose name I forget, etc.  Also, the very use of the name Sol system seemed to smack me in the face immediately.  I know that is what we call our system IRL, but is this what it was called in Star Trek?  I always thought we were Terrans, but I may be wrong on this.  Shouldn't it be the Terran system?

3.  A selecton of classes - STO has 3.  All combat based.  How about something more?  Traders, smugglers, diplomats, etc. 

4. Factions - Star Trek Online has 2 race / faction combinations, but no real factions.  One of which was an afterthought.  Perhaps the Vulcan Science Academy, Vulcan High Council, Klingon Empire, Maquee (sp?), etc.

5.  An economy that actually falls within the lore of Star Trek - Energy Credits?  What is an Energy Credit? Basically it is money and humans don't use money.  I guess it falls well within the shallowness that is STO, but in a diverse STO MMO that never was, there should have been a much more complex economy between the races.

6.  Crafting - Had anyone at Cryptic ever even heard of replicators?  My idea is that the replicators always needed a "pattern" of an item before it would create objects.  This could have easily been the recipies in the game.  And they could have made it so the replicators only made parts of an object and not the complete object.  The player would then only be able to assemble something if they had the correct skill.

7. PvP - Yes, I know it is in the game, but it does nothing as far as I know in terms of influencing the galaxy.  I could never get into any PvP during OB to even test this out.  Hasn't anyone at Cryptic ever heard of the Neutral Zone?  I mean, come on.  A wide and diverse PvP system could have been put in place fighting over the neutral zone and this would have completely fallen well within the lore of Star Trek.

8. The Borg - This is probably one of my biggest issues that I had with STO.  They took what is arguably the most sinister villian ever created in any form of storytelling ever, and they turn them into the generic "kill ten rats".  The borg should have been endgame.  They should have been the final fight.  When you killed The Borg you knew you could turn the game off and be happy that you accomplished something.  Instead you fight the most powerful enemy in Star Trek lore as a total noob, and worst of all, you win.  This is the same issue I had with the Star Trek TV shows.  They were overdone to death.  They went from being sinister and evil to being the carebears of the galaxy.  It has been quite sad to see the demise of the borg over the years.

IMO, this is not an mmo.  This game should have been sold as a single player game called The Federation with no monthly fees.  It is not deserving of the title Star Trek Online.

Originally posted by Lohdown

2.  A selection of starting worlds - Star Trek online has none.  You start off in the Sol system on a space station orbiting Earth.  On a spacestation orbiting Earth?  Really?  Not even Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco?  Just some unnamed station around Earth.  Where is Vulcan, Romulus, Remus, Cardassia, Bajor, Andoria, the Klingon home world whose name I forget, etc.  Also, the very use of the name Sol system seemed to smack me in the face immediately.  I know that is what we call our system IRL, but is this what it was called in Star Trek?  I always thought we were Terrans, but I may be wrong on this.  Shouldn't it be the Terran system?

All the instances I can think of (and I've rewatched several seasons of TNG recently) call it the Terran system, but I think either use would be correct. To call it the Terran system is to call it by the race that dwells there. To call it the Solar system is to call it by the name of the star, Sol. Calling it the Sol System seems just to be incorrect.

You could call the system that the Klingons are from the Klingon system or call it by the name of the star(memory alpha doesn't list the star - it might never be named). Either is practical, but the tv show writers seem to stick to calling a system by the race since that's simpler for the viewer to understand.