Just about STO:

The former idea of a ST MMOG had HUGE potential - the way Cryptic is doing it has very little.

No ship interiors?? That's all about tech, and tons of fans are turned on by the tech aspect from ST.

No crews made of players? Tons of fans would love to be THE Sciences Officer, THE Chief Engineer, THE Doctor, let alone THE Captain. Not to mention how many people, not just fans, would love to start as cadets, really work their way up on the chain of command (working hard, like in a sandbox game), studying in the Academy, then going to a Space Station, and then, if they WANTED, achieving a place at a starship, then becoming one of the bridge officers.

But no, we'll just have a watered down ST experience, modelled after WoW - and by this I also mean "raiding to get better items", when the Items will be your ...crew?

Agreed. I got a max-lvl char in SWG, but I don't see myself doing all the boring things all the way to lvl 30, when I think you can choose to do different theme parks.

I love the game, played for a goot time, am happy about the many improvements - but: until they make the game a little bit more diverse, less repetitive, I don't have anything to come back to.

Awesome article - and we see one of these, with such insights, perhaps once a year!

I wish I could have played MxO during those times...

I despise them because they are too easy, not challenging. AND, if all the companies go down that road, I'll have no more MMOGs to play, which will make me very sad, as I love the massive multiplayer experience of gaming.

I PvP for the challenge, the thrill. Actually, it's not about Player versus Player, it's about having an opponent that's as powerful as you, but that may also be as smart as you are. They keep you on your toes during PvE (where the AI is always lame), and that makes the game real.

Not about the article itself, but:

Given the lifespan of MMOGs, it's too early to re-review AoC. Should have waited at least 6 months.

Aihoshi, why don't you write an article on western F2P's, specially on the move from Turbine to make D&DO free? And/or the upcoming Champions Online and its incipient cash shop? Or the future re-release of Chronicles of Spellborn also as (full) F2P? I'd find such an article from you interesting to read.

Thanks for making me aware of that article! I laughed so hard!

So true for WoW... Still, I long for coming back to my Draenei paladin - on a PvP server, of course. Outside of it, it's brainless gameplay.

Great article - finally something here in mmorpg.com that's original.

I'm also one of the foreigners - from Brazil. I bought the "Brazilian" version of City of Heroes - but played in the American servers; until today, I cannot buy the extra power packs, because of my "version". It's always like that - if you don't play the American version of a mmog (not a problem with that), you're bound to be screwed, sooner or later. Imagine what the Chinese players are going through now, afraid they've lost their chars forever? Or the Europeans, who always have to wait for their version/release.

Time zone differences are already a problem - I'm living in Germany now, and besides that difference, we also have daylight savings time. So a 3 hours difference become 5 hours for about half a year - I can only meet my friends on the weekends, and only if we're all free.

In the end, I tend to favor SOE games - you buy them wherever you are and you play in servers that welcome the whole world. You make friends, learn about other cultures first hand and practice your English (my case).

One thing that surely is bad is when the "guettos" form - people who don't speak the game's main language - you're there trying to communicate with a fellow player and all he/she can say is "sry dont speak engrish" (I've received these exact words a lot of times over the years).

Originally posted by lornj

this process will not deter me from trying this game out. i could care less if jackleg can buy an item and i worked for it. personally i really dont care what people do with their time and money with MMOS and really its none of my business.

I agree 100% and am relieved to see someone that thinks like I do.

Hm... if every major mmog title starts turning into F2P, I might as well stop buying mmogs and wait until it becomes common place for the industry.

I go for item decay/wear - it's needed for my immersion.

Man, I have an idea of what you're going through. My case was immersing myself on MMOs away from my real life problems - a Master degree thesis that wasn't going well, and then writing the thesis itself. It got to one day when I found myself with no MMOG subscribed (credit card problem), no trial nearer than a 3 hour download and no F2P in which to hide and I had received this bad news from a friend who was evaluating something I'd done back at work - I believe I almost had a panic attack that day.

I knew I was jeopardizing my real life staying connected when I should be working, but it fulfilled my lack of immediate sucess in real life. But after that incident, it became clear to me how deep the thing had got into me.

What I recommend to you, is set a play-time limit. Playing from x to y hour, and while in play, preparing yourself to hit "logoff" as soon as the time is up - it's not impossible, I've been living in Germany for 8 months now and they do it as a second nature for everything.

Don't try to run away from games - they'll be around you every day, just like your friend mentioned SWG - and it's much healthier than beer (alcohol as an addiction) IMO. But try to play something that doesn't have a hook on you, like a F2P or an off-line game, where you don't have to worry about your 15$ that month going into the toilett.

Ask for help of friends - if they know what you're going through, and respect it, they won't be calling you for a LAN party or a raid when you should be studying.

It's a bit like alcoholism - one day at a time. Every day is a fight. Or perhaps it's like a lvl-based mmog - one lvl at a time.

Originally posted by Sarr 

People who I spoke to never had a probem with leveling sigils . I think the most restrictive thing is having just 2 character slots by default, other than that, it looks great.

I think D&D Online will shake the ground tremendoulsy. DDO was never so polished, big and fleshed out overall. It's a game better than ever, that could sutain itself having subcription. But that way I think all will benefit - less cash from each player, but there will be likely 10x more players than before - or even more.

Don't be suprised if there are log-in queues at launch . People from all over the world are generally very positive about this game, and most of them played other MMOs (including WoW) before.

Just take my warning - this is NOT WoW-like game. If you'll try to zerg / rush like in WoW, you're dead already. This game is challenging, no less in F2P than how it was before. Just solo-ability rose to the highest level than ever, thanks to difficulty scaling.

I'm quite eager to give it a 2nd go on DDO but if I'm to stick to it, it has to stay challenging - almost all F2P I've tried, though nice as they might have been, always had the huge problem of being ridiculously easy. If DDO proves to be fun and challenging, my wallet will be more than happy to visit its item shop.

That's a great idea form Funcom - more companies should do that, showing how they've improved the game and giving former players the opportunity to try it all out.

Originally posted by TCrossBar

I've never actually posted on a thread here, but I felt compelled to respond to this one.

Firstly, I have to say that I agree completely with Unsub, trying to get anything done when your bridge crew is made up of players sounds like a complete nightmare waiting to happen.  Imagine trying to play your cleric where one player is in charge of movement, one player is in charge of your weapons, one player is in charge of healing and one player is in charge of offensive spells- that's how I view this thought of players on a crew.

No, the way they have planned where grouping means an armada of ships is perfect.  Yes, grouping is an important part of any MMO, but you never want to be in a position where you are so very reliant on the group to not make your avatar worthless.... And while you are in space, the ship is your avatar.  It needs to be able to move, defend and fight all at ONE PERSON'S direction.  Group play in space just means making the encounters involve more ships.  Five romulan craft zip in from the aft side of your armada and you each have your role to play to survive the encounter as a group.  You may have a big destroyer class ship, everyone's going to see you as the tank.  Larry over there has a Hermes class ship and is kinda like the ranger of the group, darting about and taking potshots where he can.

I really can't even imagine playing this game if I had to play a <whatever> officer on a ship and didn't get to just have my own ship in the armada.  In fact, I had little more than idle interest in this game until I read this article.

[Helmsman]: "I'm bringing her around, I think we have them on their last legs!"
[Engineer]: "ZOMG NEWB I told u we hav no shields!!!!! L2P!!!"

Gameplay-wise, I agree with you.

But "trekkie"-wise, isn't it what exactly happens in the bridge of command of a Starfleet starship? Everyone does his/her job and the captain is counting on each one to do their best? Another comparison could be with American football. Wouldn't it be awesome to be playing with friends and know you won the battle or saved the ship or whatever, just because the "officers" did what they were supposed to be? REAL teamwork?

Would be hard to come up with something like that in a MMOG, where you have lots of casual players (at best), but it does happen in Star Trek play-by-mails (no, I'm not urging a pbmMMOG). But then it would have to be something more like a hardcore sandbox mmog, instead of the crappy "casual" tendency of nowadays...

Hey, I really like the article! Gonna save it for when I start playing! I have experience in WoW PvP server and from what I read in your article it seems AoC has many improvements and possibilities.

Well, if we couldn't have a sandbox Star Trek mmog, where one would start as a cadet at the Academy, train, start at a space station and perhaps go work at a starship and perhaps achieve captain's chair, I think what they've come up is good, even interesting.

Still, I can't stop thinking on the comparison: the bridge crew are the weapons of the captain-warrior - you train with each one and develop your skills on it. After that successful dungeon last night, he managed to get a green new crew member, which he'll equip on the new slot (station) and trade or sell his previous crew member.

Crew members grant buffs? What a magical thing! I wonder to whom will the captain-warrior turn to when his bridge crew worns out? A shore-leave on a quick warp to the planet "Re-pair IX"?

I shiver, thinking of raid nights so that everybody in the Fleet gets their purple items...

OP, I agree with all you said - I loved EQ2 for the 4 months I played it but around lvl 20 I simply couldn't solo anymore. That's it.

And WoW is soloable - among all the good things it also has.