Well the odds are certainly not in their favour are they. Cryptic is possibly the most hated MMO developer currently (sorry SOE), and now they're essentially trying to sequel one of the most loved developers (arguably) greatest hits? Good luck with that train wreck.

There seems to be alot of emphasis on this 'new Cryptic' and alot of damage control regarding STO and CO. They should just shuffle the management deck and change their name. 'Cryptic' means 'Garbage'.

As of 2010, a typical conversation between a husband and wife in an MMO playing household is as follows...

Wife - "Honey, don't forget to take out the Cryptic, it's Cryptic day."

Husband - "Are you sure dear? The neighbors don't have their Cryptic out to the curb today. It's already 8AM, the Cryptic truck has usually come down our street by now. I think you've got your wires crossed."

Wife - "Silly me. I'd just assumed that since our Cryptic can was so full, it must be Cryptic day today."

Husband - "Ha ha ha!"

Wife - "Ha ha ha!"

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Welcome back!

So, a weekly column dedicated to DCUO? Is this going to be a reocurring column going forward (for how long)?

What other games get a dedicated weekly? I didn't know this website was that dedicated to one game.

Originally posted by someforumguy

There doesnt have to be just one hero. My grandparents would call every single soldier of the allied forces in WWII heroes. They all risked their lives for strangers in a foreign country.

A heroic story can be made up of tiny pieces all performed by different ppl. Yeah I know, it sounds cheesy.

Not cheesy at all. Being a part of something bigger than ourselves is something sorely missing in MMO's. A large part of it I believe is due to the fact that while it's easy to use the line 'join thousands of others online' to market a game, it's alot tougher to sell a product that requires a ton of players to enjoy. 

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

So what you're saying is that you want a game where you can roleplay as a barmaid? How about a horse-stall cleaner? A city guard who sits at a post for 12 hours a day, watching for invading forces?

You claim that you want to be able to carve out your own place in the game, but do you really want to be just another guy that no one knows? Doesn't sound much like escapism to me.

I think that's not what he is saying. It's not a binary choice...it's a scale.

What I think he's saying is:

Current MMO's: I am Super-Man, Luke Skywalker, Connan. I saved the Universe all by my self, Won the War single-handed, etc.

What he wants: I was ONE of the guys who came ashore with the first wave at Omaha Beach. Alot of us didn't make it...but those that did...we're really proud of what we did that day. We did alot to HELP make the Landings a success.

 

Give me choice #2 any day. The "save the universe single handed" thing is just stupid, hacknied and childish. The "I am one individual among many who helped make something important happen." makes for a much better story (IMO).

 

Excellent analogy GrumpyMel. That is the difference between feeling special, and being special. MMO's these days are, as Tardcore so eliguently put it, the Special Olympics. Everybody wins.

Problem with everyone winning, is that winning loses it's value. Thus,the illusion of actually being a true hero is greatly diminished.

Originally posted by Snaylor47

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

Originally posted by Snaylor47

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

To those that say Star Wars doesn't need space combat, I say this... Star = Space, and Wars = Combat (WarS being plural, meaning LOTS of combat). Nuff said.

Space fighting in Star Wars was never about two little dogfighters just going at it, You followed Luke as he made his way down the trench of the Death Star, Han and Chewie tried to out run TIE fighters, never in the Star Wars movies did the camera ever zoom in on two mini ships fighting.

Are you sure about that?

Yeah purty sure...

Wonder what version of Star Wars you're watching. Maybe it's just George doing his crazy remake thing again, but the last time I watched ROTJ, I'd say the last half 45 minutes or so is kinda chocked full of all sorts of ship to ship combat.

I guess George edited that out of the version you saw.

Originally posted by Snaylor47

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

To those that say Star Wars doesn't need space combat, I say this... Star = Space, and Wars = Combat (WarS being plural, meaning LOTS of combat). Nuff said.

Space fighting in Star Wars was never about two little dogfighters just going at it, You followed Luke as he made his way down the trench of the Death Star, Han and Chewie tried to out run TIE fighters, never in the Star Wars movies did the camera ever zoom in on two mini ships fighting.

Are you sure about that?

Good article Mike. I totally agree with you.

I'm not a TOR apologist, but the things up until now that have kind of irk'd me about TOR (that we know of), I've been saying, "yeah this looks bad, but we'll wait and see for the final judgement"... but I'm having trouble saying that after this bit of news (along with the species/class restrictions). It's starting to sound like they are cutting corners a bit.

If this is true, it's the first real potential dealbreaker for me.

To those that say Star Wars doesn't need space combat, I say this... Star = Space, and Wars = Combat (WarS being plural, meaning LOTS of combat). Nuff said.

Originally posted by EricDanie

A Jedi republic trooper? :(

Star Warsy and Iconic?

Interesting article with a lot of very good points (that I agree with mostly).

But, the truly grand question regarding creativity in relation to all the 'clones' out there has very little to do with the creativity of the designers themselves. It comes down to business (as pointed out in this thread already). Nothing more, nothing less.

The shareholders want whatever WoW is eating.

"The Marketing Department" - Creativity stops here.

So in defense of pretty much all of the game designers I know (and I know quite a few), it's not necessarily their fault. I've never met a designer that wanted to clone anything. The orders to do so come from above.

Originally posted by Xionanx

Originally posted by mythran7

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

Originally posted by kilun

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw
 

Basically MMO gamers are a captive audience of suckers, and yes that makes me one too.  Which is why I developed the following philosophy:

 

If I go to the movies I will spend roughly $20 for ~2-3 hours of entertainment, or roughly $6.67 per hour of entertainment.

If I spend $60 on a game and $15 for the monthly sub and get at least 40 hours of entertainment that month then I come out ahead in the Money/Entertainment ratio, or roughly $1.87 per hour of entertainment.

I certainly hear that. But for your $1.87 per hour of entertainment, are you actually getting a quality experience? Saying you get more hours per buck is a common excuse in MMOs, and the devs know it. That's why we spend so many hours killing rats, than tigers, than bears etc...  You know what's cheaper? Watching TV.  And just as mindnumbing.

And yeah while I agree there's a certain amount of doom and gloom if you go back and read Mythrans posts, which I agree with for the most part, it doesn't mean quality, finished, products won't happen and that we should just resign ourselves to buying crap games.  I think it's just more apparent in the MMO market as we've been a bit of a goldrush since WoW came out.

Consoles ALWAYS have a steady stream of fantastic, innovative, completed products hitting the shelves. Why? Console gamers typically don't put up with crap games. Console games only recently were able to be patched, so they had to be completely finished before hitting the store shelves, this caused a culture of gamers used to holding their games to a much higher standard than a typical PC gamer (who are often left being their own troubleshooting department... and we've gotten used to it). Sure there has always been bad console games, but they meet a fairly swift trip into obscurity with little fanfare.

I have high hopes for SWToR. I don't even know if I'll play it or if it will be my thing, but I hope it's complete and polished. If it is I hope it's successful beyond their wildest dreams even if I never play it.

Originally posted by kilun

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw
 

Players do accept crap games.  I think what most people don't understand is some people know it maybe a pile now, but want to stick around for when it comes around.  Everyone and their mother knows NOT to buy an MMO within the first 6months of release.

I agree that yes, people do accept crap games, absolutely they do. Maybe I'm just cynical though (thanks SOE and Cryptic), but I tend to think the majority of people are quite happy to be fished along in hopes that their game will someday be playable. And THAT'S the problem. I only WISH that everyone and their mother knew better than to not buy an MMO younger than 6 months, but that's clearly not the case. Players, like investors, can't seem to get over the here and now. If people continue to buy into crap games via a slick sales pitch, developers will continue to make crap games out of the gate, and for ME at least, that's unacceptable. People have every right to support whatever game they see fit, they just forfeit their right to bitch about it when they get taken for a ride because the devs will (as they have many times in the past) just shrug off complaints, believing we'll all just get over it and come crawling back and choke down the swill they're trying to sling into our gaping maws.

Awesome, have fun!

Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious... but in the beta invite email, there are two codes, one for the beta itself, and one for the store points... did you enter the store points code?

Originally posted by mythran7

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

My opinion,

Companies shouldn't get second chances once they've launched games so brazenly incomplete. I don't care how good the game is 6 months out, they out and out ripped off the early adopters and this trend needs to stop. It blows my mind that still today, well after STO's launch they still have to do damage control regarding how bad it was when they brought it to the market in pretty much every single press junket and interview. It shouldn't have to be this way.

Players, don't accept crap games.

Developers, don't lowball your way into crap contracts with your publishers.

STO is a trainwreck. I hope we've all learned something.

The only real question they have to ask themselves is: will we make $$$?? This is the flaw in capitalism. They wern't looking for Blizzard esque profits, they were aimming low. I call it the Wal-mart effect. If you can make someithng shinny on the outside (the first 2 weeks of content in STO is sort of shinny) people will buy it. If investors are betting on intal box sales (this seems to be what Atari was doing) for return than thats what they will do.

Meanwhile Star Trek fans like myself are stuck with wanting a Star Trek MMO but being left with one less then stellar option. It really is sad, but that is our system.  But you are right, if they had spent the time and a little more money on it they could have made a game that would have made even more money. But that would have been risky,  andwould have required real vision not just thier "band-in-the-box" strategy to making MMO's.  Big Corporations don't do well with this creative process sort of thing. Look what they did to the music industry.

Back to the Wal Mart effect. People know its evil, they know most of the stuff there is crap quality, but they just keep comming back, over, and over, and over...

Sadly, very sadly, you are completely right and your Wal-Mart analogy is quite fitting.

Nothing wrong with the question "will we make $$$?" though... the problem is the question "will we make $$$ FAST for next to no investment?" which is what people, both customers and developers need to keep an eye on (if they want to play good games in the future). In the long run, it does Cryptic no favors to accept the low-bid/fast-track development contract from Atari.

Interestingly enough, it was Atari who was responsible who was for the 'Great videogame crash of 83' with the rushed release of "E.T the extraterrestrial" for the 2600.  It's a bit more complicated this time, but I can see history repeating itself.

Originally posted by Tardcore

"The game industry isn't all fun"

Take out the word 'all' and I'll agree with that statement. Time constraints, budget changes, massive competiton in the ranks due to the fact you know you could be replaced by a hotshot eighteen year old fresh out of school who will do your job for roughy half what you get paid. Rampant egotisim. Stress. And worst of all, being under the thumb of some micromanaging dickweeds who know not one damn thing about the gaming industry, but are in charge because of their managerial and accounting degrees. And heaven help you if on top of this rubbish you are attached to an IP that has its own minders (Lucas Arts, Games Workshop. etc..) who continually want to put their fingers in the pie as well.

Sorry but while it seems a noble cause, getting more females into the gaming industry is far from the biggest hurtle the industry currently faces.

100% agreed and /applause

My opinion,

Companies shouldn't get second chances once they've launched games so brazenly incomplete. I don't care how good the game is 6 months out, they out and out ripped off the early adopters and this trend needs to stop. It blows my mind that still today, well after STO's launch they still have to do damage control regarding how bad it was when they brought it to the market in pretty much every single press junket and interview. It shouldn't have to be this way.

Players, don't accept crap games.

Developers, don't lowball your way into crap contracts with your publishers.

STO is a trainwreck. I hope we've all learned something.

Originally posted by Surfrider

If the F2P option allowed you to go past the initial station, then I could see myslef at least checking out the game again.  I wouldn't mind see what the story teller elements are all about.

You can leave the station with the current 14 day trial as it is. Have at'r.

Originally posted by brostyn

 I'm interested to see how this plays out in LOTRO. I doubt it increases its p2p crowd much, and the f2p players are just worthless to other players(mostly kids) and the company. Then, again, LOTRO is an extremely easy game to grasp, so there may not be such a gap like in DDO(where it takes skill and dedication).

I too am interested to see how LOTRO turns out. For the reasons you mentioned, and the fact that unlike DDO was before the switch, LOTRO is currently healthy (pre-F2P). 

Originally posted by Sarr

DDO is now one of the most popular MMO games ever.

Care to back that statement up?  Yes it did have an amazing comeback, but from what? It was in the sh*tter before it went FTP.

A 400% gain from nothing is nothing.