Originally posted by Adogg5

There is some serious irony in the posts above mine.  I'll let you find it but give you a hint - read the signatures.

Anyway, the developers have made a nice first step in rebuilding the communication lines with the player base.  In that thread you'll see I made a post that urged the developers to play the game with us and one of the first items they changed was to do just that.  They will be having a developer PvP time this Friday evening.  (I'm not sure I'd like to call it an event but just a time to battle them in the lvl 40 PvP)

As always, if anyone is interested in trying the game out then let me know.  I can email you a demo key for 15 day trial with no level cap.

I am Adogg5 and I made windo... I mean Champions Online.

I'm not gonna point any fingers (Adogg5), but someone (Adogg5) doesn't know what whining is (Adogg5), but they apparently know how to be a sycophant. 

P.S. It's Adogg5.

See what I did there?

 I think this falls under the "too little, too late" category.

Originally posted by jonaylward

Meh. So many people willing to trash a title when it isn't exactly the way they'd have designed it, or when it's not just like WoW (or even when it *is* just like WoW)...

My prediction is that STO will be a success because it does do many, many things differently than the Kings of the Hill.

It definitely has that Star Trek feeling. The instancing means that there are other people around you, but not so many that you lose that feeling of being special - a Captain of a Starship - in the process. Space combat has a tactical feel to it, and the ebb and flow of combat reminds me a LOT of the combat scenes in The Wrath of Khan. It's well done in that respect. If you're of the belief that space combat is nothing beyond mashing the spacebar, you're doing it wrong. There's no feeling quite like finding that mix of weapons and tactics that allows you (at Level 5) to obliterate a K'tinga in 30 seconds.

My experience has been that it is a LOT more 'mature gamer' friendly than most. It's a fine game for that (ever-increasing) number of players who have a job and a spouse and kids and a dog and a house and the like, and who strive to find a "life/game" balance. STO is *great* for the person who has an hour and a half (three times a week) between when the kids go to bed and when it's time to climb into bed to get some sleep before work the next day. There are a number of things you can do in an hour or less, and *still* feel like you've made some not-insignificant progress. You don't have to block out 4-6 hours for that big raid. You don't find yourself hearthing out from the middle of nowhere right in the middle of a quest to go get your rested experience.

Downsides? Yeah, there are some.
I had a rip-roaring time in my Klingon Noob Ship - it turns on a dime in comparison to the Fed ship - but I'd have liked more PvE options, since the tradeoff is that the Klingon Noob Ship is fairly frail in starter PvP. I'll wait until I can mail some better gear from my Fed to my Klingon (or until there are more PvE options) before playing Klingon Side in earnest.

The time it takes to get out of the Miranda is a little excessive on the Fed side, particularly since the WHOLE GAME changes when you get into your first Escort/Cruiser/Science ship, thanks to the specialization of each role (in combination with the specialization of your own character, and the specialized roles of your Bridge Officers - there are many, many, many effective combinations with which to play)

I really don't understand the Doom and Gloom Brigade. To y'all, *EVERY* MMO launch sucks, and *EVERY* MMO is destined to fail. I don't understand why y'all bitch about how existing games are stale and boring, and new games are either a rehash of the old game (I'm looking at you, Allods), or they're going to fail because they didn't cater to your every whim?

All in all, STO is an acceptable game where it is now, and there's still a lot of room for growth (and the developer appears keenly interested in this growth), and there's a lot of fun to be had while the gaps are filled out, if you're willing to allow yourself to have that fun.

C'mon, man. I don't think people are complaining because it's not like WoW or how they'd have developed the game. It is possible to objectively look at a game and see that it was, for the most part a cut and paste job on top of their existing engine.

A franchise like Star Trek has staying power. If you want to tap into that, you need to make an game with a lot of depth and longevity, but most importantly, you need to capture the soul of the IP.

I don't think Cryptic did this. I don't even think they tried to. 

They didn't even tweak the interface for the quest delivery to be compatible with the on ship view screens. In fact, there's not a single instance in the whole game where they even utilize the view screen. The tutorial was a perfect opportunity to do this. Instead they use the same window that Champions uses. Thats one of many no-brainer core aspects of Star Trek that they didn't even try to get into the game. Almost every single episode of every Star Trek series and every movie had view screen communications.

The IP deserves better treatment. It deserves more development time and it deserves to have an engine designed from the ground up to suit the needs of the gameplay that would reflect and capture the soul of the IP.

I understand that money is an issue, but they didn't have to grab up the IP and rush it out as fast as possible, which is what happened. 

So now, Cryptic has a lackluster in-house engine that they are going to cut and paste all their new IPs onto to sustain themselves. This kind of treatment is fine for something as obscure as Champions, but not something as popular as Star Trek.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by jotull

Talk about fucking yellow journalism.

 

MMORPG.com: All the beta testers think you game is fail are you looking for a new line of work now?

STO: Ummmm

MMORPG.com:: So would you say that your game sucks more or less than Diakatana?

Sto:uhhhh.less?

MMORPG.com: You heard it hear first folks STO devs admit that STO is the biggiest failure since Diakatana, stay tuned for or gushing fanboi praise of Aion and EveOnline next., back to you sparky.

 

Yep typical mmorpg.com

Normally, I at least understand when people start mindlessly bashing us... This, I don't understand. Can you clarify?

hahaha An hour later and still no response. 

I hate that I bought this game. Right now, on release day, I'm trying to make myself log in and play it. I didn't play at all during the head start and I've been really disappointed with Cryptic as a whole in the past year or so.

I like Star Trek, but I don't have a lot of faith in STO. If their idea of improving the game is adding more of the same, it won't hold my attention.

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by voidchaser

"I really hope Cryptic goes belly under after STO fails (and it will). .." Guillermo 197 

 

I really can't believe the comments here.  You really wish for people to loose their jobs and customers to loose their money by companies going under?

Get a grip.

 

 

If he doesn't, I do.

Bad products deserve to fail, bad companies deserve to get punished. And it is the customer that gets the vote.

That is how the market works.

Is it too bad people get fired? Sure. When they do they should blame management and the "money men" who often dictate what will or will not go into a game and when it will launch, regardless of its condition.

When the features of a game are dictated to maximize profit at the expense of gameplay, by management, more often then not you are going to get a crappy product. Such products deserve to fail.

 

 

 

That's the way the market should work, but it doesn't and that's the problem.

We as gamers are irresponsible consumers. I'm referring to gamers as a whole and not as individuals.

As a whole we buy games, for full retail price, that are unfinished. We buy these games in the hopes, and sometimes with a promise, that the game will receive updates and polish to make it a game worth playing. We then pay more money, every month, and more or less patiently wait for the game to get "finished" or fleshed out.

In short, we enable the companies producing these games to get by with practices that just wouldn't fly in any other genre of entertainment. 

I think that in order for this genre to flourish, it needs to be rebuilt. That won't happen until the the state of affairs gets even worse than it all ready is.

The McDonald's mentality that has been adopted by so many businesses is, in the long run, bad for everyone but the people making money. We've seen what it's done to the food industry. We've seen what it's done to television and cinema, and God help the music industry.

It would be nice if the industry focus shifted towards a more consumer friendly atmosphere, but I'm not holding my breath. Even the console market has caught on to the nickel and dime trend. Game content that is on the disk is locked, until you "purchase" the "download content".

Granted, not all download content is locked on the disk, but it happens more often than I'm comfortable with.

It's up to us as consumers to vote with our wallets and stand firm against questionable business practices, but that won't happen. Gamers, as a whole, are irresponsible consumers.

Originally posted by unreal

 The game had a beautiful atmosphere and great ideas. It really felt like playing in a story. And the graphics, although not spectacular, were very immersive. All it needed was more content and some meaningful PvP. But it'll just be an item-mall type of game now, so R.I.P. Spellborn. No, not excited at all.

I'm thinking you were the only other person who's posted in this thread that actually played the game.

I kind of liked Spellborn. I really appreciated the Q and A sessions that the developers did with the players. They were genuinely interested in player feedback, which is pretty damn rare these days.

It will be a shame if "version 2" is just the free to play game with an item mall. 

I don't think the game has the potential to be a commercial success, but as far as fun and immersion are concerned, the game did so many things right.

I will definitely give "version 2" a spin.

Originally posted by XxMaticxX

this discussion isn't for everyone, if you don't like it GTFO and go back to WoW.

I laughed my ass off when I read the end of number 5 and he was all, take my advice or GTFO. hahaha

Originally posted by Unrulyevil

IMO, MMORPG's could and do become an addiction, just like smoking. This article is great in the way that it helps you realize just that. It is short and yet constructive. Props to author.

 

In China they have special bootcamps that help children and adults to overcome this addiction.

 

Truly yours EVE addict. 

I was just about to post that this article is like the beginning of a support group.

I met this guy a few years ago when my wife and I were newly weds and I was playing SWG. This was before the CU even, so maybe it was more than few years ago.

Anyway, he was a huge Star Wars fan and we were talking about Star Wars, playing Empire at War and consuming mass quantities of beer.

I start to tell him about SWG and it was like he sobered up instantly and pretty much cut me off. He went on to tell me that his wife made him promise her that he would never play another MMORPG ever again.

I was shocked. I couldn't imagine my wife asking me to give up any of my recreational time or endeavors. I told him so.

He then told me how he played EQ to the exclusion of everything else. He told me he played so much that he stopped taking care of his personal hygiene, and would even play EQ over some horizontal refreshment with his old lady.

At first I was shocked, but then when I got home and started talking to my wife about it, I started to think that maybe he was exaggerating and that his wife was whoring up all his attention and didn't want him to do "other things".

I held to that belief for a few years, and even when people talked about it on forums I thought they were exaggerating. It took me awhile to come to terms with the fact that some people just can't pull away. Don't get me wrong, I can't tell you guys how many times my wife and I made love to the sound track of FFXI in the background because I we just wanted to get a quickie on and go back to what we were doing, but real life, family, and health always trumps video games. 

Maybe we're just sex addicts and that addiction takes center stage. I'm playin'.... sort of. hahahaha

 I'm not sure, but this article may be my favorite one ever put up on this site.

Also: "Seeking professional troll. Must hate everything and have unpleasant social skills. Being a douchebag is an asset, but not required."

Where do I sign up?

Originally posted by CayneJobb

I think any adaptation should be primarily concerned about capturing the main themes and overall character of the source material. The Lord of the Rings movies were very successful because they focussed on the core themes from the books, and doing so they were able to capture the essence of what Tolkien wrote. You can get all the character's names right, include every city or planet that was ever mentioned, and tell a great story, but if the adaptation is totally different thematically, it's not going to be a success - at least not to fans of the original.

Any Star Trek fan would say that war is not a core theme of Star Trek. Just because there have been war stories at times in the series doesn't mean that war is a major theme of Star Trek. If I was to guess, I'd say less than 5% of the episodes have anything to do with war. That would be like making the Lord of the Rings films musicals because Tolkien included a few songs in the books. "The Lord of Moulin Rouge" would not have been nearly as successful as Peter Jackson's films.

Jon Wood's comment "Like it or not, combat is the number one activity in any given successful MMO" is so annoying. That's just great, Jon. Let's make sure every MMO follows the same formula as every other MMO. Can't have anyone trying something new or innovative! It HAS to be "World of WarTrek" or it can't be any good, right? Ugh, I'm disgusted...

There's no law at all that says every MMO has to be about combat. It's just cowardly developers who are afraid to be different, so they take an IP like Star Trek and say "How can we cram this into the same tired old formula that every other MMO follows?" It's pathetic, and we can see how stagnant MMO industry is getting because of this "follow the leader" attitude that apparantly even MMORPG.com writers are subscribing to now.

That's a bit harsh, no? I don't think he was saying that in order to be successful all MMORPGs must revolve around combat. 

He stated it in a pretty objective way if you ask me. 

I'm just as frustrated as the next guy about the current trends in online gaming, but I try not to let it blind me to the point of lashing out at someone who isn't even remotely responsible for the way things are.

Originally posted by Fuerchtegott

Good topic, Jon.

I think the reason why ppl are enraged with Cryptic and ST:O is that they feel the company did not make a real effort to translate the core concepts of Star Trek to be resembled in an MMO.

Every IP has certain concepts, ideas and principles at its core. An adaptation means the attempt of translating these concepts into MMO mechanics. As some other poster mentioned in an example earlier, Mythic would have made ST:O differently than Sigil and than Cryptic did.

Here lies the heart of the problem. Instead of thinking what mechanics would be fitting to the IP, the companies take the mechanics typical to their company philosophy and modify the IP towards that.

As a result, Cryptic took Star Trek and put it into a setting of war, which, yes, happens in Star Trek, but is the exception rather than the rule. Making the exception the rule is never a good idea with a strong IP. Because it is IP-breaking.

It's not fatal though, if, and this is a big IF, the other principles of the IP are still present. Star Trek is about to go "where no man has gone before". And this is simply not possible in ST:O.

Some here state that exploration is not appealing enough to attract a lot of ppl, and combat is more exciting. I wonder when explorers started being pacifists? If you look at human history and if you look at many Star Trek episodes, to go into the unknown, to meet the unknown let's you live through some of the most dangerous events, exactly because it is the unknown. If a game can capture this effect, if combat can be part of exploration and the two not a separate thing, the game would be sure a hit.

 

@ edited too many typoes

I'm voting for you to be the new lead on the Star Trek Online project. You hear that Jackalope? You're fired!! This guy is replacing you. Let's make it happen internet. 

 I loved The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books. Those books are one of a few series that I have read multiple times. The others being The Foundation Trilogy, The Sword of Truth series, A Song of Ice and Fire series, and The Dresden Files. I read a lot. Seriously, I will always have some book that I'm reading. I read every night before I go to bed and a lot of times during the day if I have down time. Movies are a close second passion to literature for me.

That being said, it's really not often that an adaptation embodies the source material and evokes the emotions equal to or greater than the source material, in my eyes. Something always gets lost in translation. 

I personally felt that Peter Jackson took the magic out of The Lord of the Rings. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get into the movies. At the end of The Return of the King I groaned inwardly and was just ready to go home. I swear that movie just wouldn't end. Every time they faded to black and came back I became more and more disenfranchised with the movies and I still don't know why to this day.

It wasn't that they weren't true to the source material. I understood the changes that they made. I'm not bitter, but I don't own the films and that's saying something because I own just about every piece of SciFi and Fantasy related TV series and movies since the early 80s.

I liked LotRO and played it for some time. As far as popular fiction that has been adapted as an MMORPG is concerned, it's, hands down, the most well done. 

Star Wars Galaxies' first incarnation was done really well. It also had in spades what is missing from every single contemporary MMORPG: interconnectivity between non-combat and combat profession and a very strong sense of immersion. I never RP in MMORPGs, but the beauty of old school SWG is that you didn't have to make an effort to do so. Sadly no other game has even tried to emulate this, which is a shame.

I haven't spent enough time with Star Trek Online to make a final decision. Furthermore, my issues with Cryptic, and the direction they seem to be going in, color my opinion of the game. I will say that the inter-dimensional aliens trying to take over shtick is getting old. Seriously, City of Heroes had the Rikti, Champions has the Rikti with a different skin and new name, and Star Trek Online has Species 8472. It's like they aren't even trying to come up with original concepts for story. 

I can't decide if I pre-ordered STO after playing the beta because I like the game or if I'm just a big geek that likes Star Trek and can't help myself. My wife will tell you I'm obsessed with Star Trek, but that's just because I haven't watched any of the shows in awhile and have been running marathons of TOS, TNG, and Voyager.

In the end it's all subjective, but I guess that's what makes adapting a popular IP into any other form so hard. 

Originally posted by Wizardry

I have to be honest here,i applaud the question,it is a very interesting one,however....

I could never read any dev response,because i know full well what the answers will be w/o reading them,and i could never trust them to give an honest answer,no developer is going to incriminate themselves ...ever.I will stick to using my own judgment by what i see in the games themselves.

I see games releasing 2 factions in a faction based PVP game?lmao,that is SUPER cheap,SUPER cost effective,not quality.

I see games releasing 3 races,again super lazy and cheap.I see games releasing super cheap quests,because they don't want to spend item and effort on animations and triggers,it is MUCH easier to just link a quest to a mob and a NPC and that is it.You code that into the game,and you can make a million quests w/o any new code,VERY cheap design.

I see games that know full well,you can have BOTH hi res and low res textures ,but they choose ONLY low res,again cheap.I see games making tons of Instances,that is the cheapest form of content you can make,i could make instances myself w/o any help,very cheap design.

Bottom line is they are all cheap,they are all in it for the money,the days of quality and heart and soul are long gone by the garage developers like Open GL man John Carmack and many other old retired developers.

I have seen a good solid success story from a few young guys[Naughty Dog Studios]they created a famous Sega rpg the biggest game ever on a sega system [Rings Of Power].They went on to  join SOE after creating Crash Bandicoot,then went on to make Jax and Dexter,the UNCHARTED series.However even they started way back in 1986,so it has been a very long time since the days of a few guys in their garage making games.

I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree as to where the blame lies.

Let's be fair. You can't lay the blame squarely on developer's shoulders. You can't blame publishers either. We made the genre what it is today by buying what they were selling.

If gamers were more responsible as consumers and stopped rewarding questionable business practices by purchasing games and feeding monthly subscriptions to the companies responsible for making the industry what it is, the climate would shift.

Look at all of these morons that creep out of the nether regions of the internet to try to convince people, that give negative feedback about a game, that developers create games out of some altruistic need to give to all out of the goodness of their hearts, so we should all be grateful they "gave" us this game to play.

I'm sorry, but MMORPGs are THE most expensive genre of games. They are more expensive than table top gaming and that's saying something. Sure with Warhammer 40k you get nickel-and-dimed while piecing your army together and then painting them, but once your army is up and running the only cost you incur happen when/if you want to add to your army.

Now look at MMORPGs. You pay full price (The going rate for a finished console game, which for the most part don't get released unfinished for full price) for the game and then you pay $12-$15 a month to play these games.

Developers have become way too comfortable releasing unfinished games that are sometimes not even feature complete for full price and no discount on the monthly sub.

If they want to release a game early, fine... lower the price of the game itself and discount the monthly subs. Some of these games don't even warrant a monthly fee and , in fact, offer less content than some multiplayer console games.

Look at Cryptic. They're pretty much just shoe horning different skins onto what is basically the same game. What's worse is that they are migrating the developers from their other game onto the new hotness and leaving the old game to marinate or whatever. If you guys think they aren't going to do the same thing with STO when they get the ball rolling for their unannounced game, you're fooling your selves, and that is the crux of the issue:

Developers don't seem to be developing games that will last. Furthermore, they aren't giving the games the attention they need in order for them to thrive, flourish, and not stagnate. 

MMORPGs should be dynamic and fluid, but instead they are stale and repetitive. They should flower environments that are conducive to social interaction, but instead pander to solo play. They should have enough depth to draw you into some form of role playing, but instead maintain a healthy distance from any such immersion.

It's up to us as consumers and fans of the genre to make developers and publishers give us what we want. As long as we keep buying the latest minute-man MMORPG nothing will change. If I satisfied my wife for as short a time as most contemporary MMORPGs satisfy the average gamer, I'd be single.

Originally posted by jawapet

Originally posted by kennethk

Leave it to good ol Jack to open his mouth, shove his foot deep down his throat and screw up yet another cant miss IP.  I am interested in what IP can Cryptic completely destroy next. 

 

Yea... here is your answer also. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6243795.html This really lends credence to a NWN MMO, that of course as Crpytic is the MMO company for Atari, Cryptic would be working on.

I really hope that Cryptic hasn't Gumped their way into developing a NWN MMORPG. I loved NWN and I think Bioware did an outstanding job on the game.

That being said I hate NWN2. Bioware gets us pregnant with a great game and then leaves us, and throws the sequel to Obsidian who haven't put out a decent game in quite some time.

The only reason I don't dislike Obsidian as a whole as much as I dislike Cryptic as a whole is that Obsidian has the decency to only push their ineptitude on us every few years, where as Cryptic can't crap out sub par games fast enough.

I've been a Star Trek fan since I was a kid, but I don't think I'm going to play this game. Maybe I'm wrong and Cryptic will wow us all and bring balance to the for... I mean live long and prosper.

 I'm still skeptical about the game because I have no confidence whatsoever in Cryptic's competence as an MMORPG developer. 

I'm still going to try the game out because I've been a SciFi and Fantasy geek since I was about 8 years old and I loved the original and the next gen. 

I still like Babylon 5 better and Farscape trumps all as the coolest and most engrossing SciFi show ever. (I miss that show. It was so awesome and funny as hell too.) 

Originally posted by Jpizzle

 

---

Originally posted by augustgrace

 

a generation that feels a great deal of entitlement.

---

anyone that pays $50 and $15 a month or some cases $200 (and until after 13 months) is entitled to bitch til their heart is content. If a business can't take the heat, get out of an already saturated pool and stop releasing half-thought-out, shallow games full of imbalance and broken promises. 
What you call "nerd rage" I call disgruntle consumer w/ no way to recoup lost money spent on something no where near where expectations where built up to.  The minute they offer me my $50 back, I'll never troll their game on any site again. Until then, it's buyer beware, and I'm making others aware.

 

I completely agree. Where did all of these clueless pleebs that act like developers make these games for the masses out of the goodness of their hearts come from?

Like it or not we are consumers. In the entertainment industry this is one of the most expensive genres. It's the only video game genre that tries to convince players that they have to pay a monthly fee for lackluster, repetitive crap.

The MMORPG genre is very stale and it will stay that way if you accept the garbage that's been pumped out for the past year or so.

It really burns my ass that there have been so many douches lately that defend and condone the behavior and design philosophies of any and every developer.

It seems as though it's unanimous. CO sucks and the next step is to shut down the servers.

The thing that is the most disheartening is that I was in the alpha, closed beta, and open beta testing phases of the game and they pressed on with change after change and pretty much ignored all of the tester feedback. I only recall a very slight minority who defended the game mechanics, gameplay, ect., and those that did defend it either completely gave up on the game or changed their tune when they started to see what the other testers were talking about.

Why ask for feedback if you aren't going to take it into consideration?

I love comics and video games, but I hate CO. Hopefully DCUO will deliver, if not there's always The Old Republic.

I miss old school SWG.

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by JYCowboy

To follow up whats been posted:

The Nightwing name is not unused, now that Grayson is Batman.  The original Nightwing has made a comeback in the Superman comics along with his companion Flamebird.  They are involved with the whole New Krypton story arc.

It's not like Bruce is going to stay dead.  Seriously.
 

 

Anyhow, I am unmoved by this "revelation."  We already know they are going to have iconic DC heroes and villains.  I'm a lot more interested in the gameplay at this point.

I think he's definitely going to stay dead. Grayson has moved in and even rebuilt the Bat Cave. I think Grayson will stay on as Bats until Drake gets old enough to take on the Mantle.

I don't understand this because... (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BATMAN FANS)

Seriously, if you haven't read a Batman comic in the last year or so, don't read the spoiler unless you really don't care.

Last chance to look away.

Dick Grayson is now Batman. Bruce Wayne is dead. I was under the impression that they were going to work the whole DCUO into the DC cannon somehow, but maybe this will be like an alternate DC universe where Bruce is still alive and the Blackest Night stuff hasn't happened yet.

Anyone know what you are supposed to do after the scan?

The scan pops up my system specs and just sits there. Is that the end?

Did I get all the way through?

Is there something that I'm missing?