The Realm was my first MMO, but don't really consider that part of the modern MMO's, so EQ is what i'm considering to be my first.    As much as I enjoyed EQ at the time, I definetly enjoyed DAoC and SWG better!  I also enjoyed playing EQ2, Potbs, Vanguard, AO, and Wow to lesser extents.  I did not enjoy playing LOTR, Horizon or Eve.  Reason i like others better was EQ is too much of a time sink and getting the higher levels was brutel, one death would make you want to cry lol!  DAoC had a great community (at least for migard) and the end game was a blast!  SWG just had it all as you could do anything and everything or just chill out in the cantana listening to musicians and watching the dancers.

Perhaps they want input from gamers who actually play the game and not from those who never had any intention to play the game as it was designed!

The best way for cryptic to get an unbiased council would be for them to select the writers from this forum!!!!  Not only would they get 180 degree differing inputs for each subject, but think how each time they try and address an issue, at least half of the people here could complain and call Cryptic all sorts of nasty names!  These forums posts could go on for ever!   It might be so good that the complainers here just might not have to post on any other games board!  What a service that would be for the other producers, heck maybe they might just contribute to the Cryptic cause to keep the game in a permanent state of flux.  A total win win for both the haters of Cryptic, MMO haters in general and all the rest of the malcontents in general!

I never could get into Lotr as the character classes were too limited and character models of what I liked, looked like dumplings (Dwarf/Hobbit).  Game enviroments were nice, but overall too shallow of game play mechanics for me.  One other thing that totally turned me off is that there isn't a Orc/Goblin side playable.  Game would of been much nicer with Sauron/Saruman/goodie sides revolving around conflict and territorial gains.

If your looking for a deep game Vanguard has much more depth in my opinion.  EQ2 also has a ton of options to customize your toon.

As I'm still having a blast playing STO i'll stick with that for the time being.

The game doesn't seem to be fading as some here have suggested as I haven't seen any areas with reduced traffic and the number of instances seems to be actually increasing.  I know i have no trouble grouping up to handle the many grouped content areas of the game.  I'm happy they are listening to us players and our concerns that we gave them through the polls.  Many things can be improved or added such as more exploration areas and diplomacy added.  There needs to be consequences for the RvR battles also in my opinion.  Over all I like the game and its a blast to play.  Add in the ship developement skills and variety, theres many different combinations to try so it doesn't get old.  I really love the NPC crew members and all the various skills you can teach them.  I swap out the officiers from time to time to get a different flavor.  another nice thing is the great differences between Science, engineering or Tactical careers, they make a hugh difference in how you approach your enemies, add to that the differences of the type of ships and you add in even more flavor.  Good game with plenty of Star trek flavor that can be great with some additional changes and added content.

I can only assume the author didn't go past level twenty as he would of know "button mashing" only brings a quick death.  You must use tactics with your selections or you will never master the ground combat.  It may be somewhat clunky, but it is one of the few MMO ground combats that do utilize tactics. 

I thought the reason it didn't catch on better was the flaw of how one got replacement ships.  Most causual players won't risk ships to PvP when they have trouble replacing them due to cost or availablity.  Had ships been easier to obtain, I think more people would of attempted PvP more and kept the society interested in the end game.  Insurance didn't seem to make a bit of difference in bringing new players to the PvP part of the game.

If the game is boring for you quit!  I find the game a breath of fresh air in a jungle of fantasy MMO's.  Since I do a lot of grouping in STO, I must disagree that its not a MMO.  How dare Atari want to make money! I'm sure the rest of the MMO game distributors never had profit as a motive!  If you bought into the Open Beta the cost was just $5.00, you did not have to buy the full retail game.  I bought the lifetime sub and keep your pity as I enjoy playing the game.  If you played the Beta or read anything on the forums you would know that the bridges were a throw in bonus added at the last minute to fulfill fans requests.  They also said they would look at adding functionability at a later date.

Originally posted by ScribbleLay1 I can pretty much put up with alot of stuff when a new game first comes out but some things realy tick me off. First let me start with my top 10.

1. A level cap so easy to max out that most semi-hardcore players max it out before their 30 days of free play time is over. Actually even non semi-hard core players have reached the level cap within the first two weeks.

Seems to be the norm for new MMo's these days.  Rather odd in my opinion as their end games aren't normally ready for prime time. 

2. lieing, fibbing or stretching the truth. They said in open beta that they ordered new servers to handle the stress, but a month later the stress on the servers are still the same as in open beta, you still get server disconect atleast five times an hour.

I really haven't had that much problems with disconnects, although in the last week I'm seem to crash maybe once a day.

3. Those darn fly by hijackings where you are on auto pilot or just sitting in sector space adjusting your weapons and you get snatched up into an instanceby a wondering signal and before you can click the tab to leave 10 klingon ships open up on you and you are dead and when you finaly do get to cancel the mission you respawn right next to that same signal and get sucked back in again.

Doesn't bother me a whole lot as it does add a bit of danger to your voyage, easy enough to avoid in reality.

4. Broken missions that you reported in open beta and are still broken with the same missing NPC's.

Must of fixed those as I haven't found any so far.

5. A crafting system where you do not know what you have to do or how far you need to go to get to the next crafting level.

I've objected to that being called crafting as all it is is a turn in items to receive a better item!  100% correct in the fact they don't have a good way to inform you when you can trade with the next item giver, very poor!  You end up confused and waste a great deal of time running back and forth to the other NPC asking if there is anything else I can do to trade with the big dummy until you realize that the store option showed up.  Think they could at least answer the question with something like, no you don't need to anything more to trade with me.

6. A game that has fleets but you can not do any fleet actions.

Can't remember the mission name but been in a few places that we had fleets with a lot more than 5 ships.  Been in PvP battles with fleets a lot bigger than that also.

7. Space combat where there is no support for a Joystick to control you ship.

If you want that just put it in their suggestion board, they seem eager to add or improve things like that.

8. No integrated voice chat for teams.

Lol with how they handle the chat in game, I think I'll pass on them doing that.  I'll use something like vent instead.

9. And the same missions that you did at level 1 you are doing at lvl 45 to include the exact same planets or bases with just a name change.

Unfortunately every MMO out there has this problem, wish there was a way they could have a mission generator that could make multi-step unique missions.

10. And not too smart people like myself who paid to play open beta, paid $50 for the game and then bought a lifetime sub. just because it was Star Trek and should of seen this coming but chose to ignore it.

And I'm not really sure why so many folks were duped into this lifetime sub deal, especially after seeing what's become of CO released only months earlier...
 

I do have to laugh at that as you should of know what you were getting into since you played the open Beta.  I too played the open Beta and chose the same path as you with the Lifetime subscription, the difference is I'm still having a blast and am very happy I did buy it!

DAoC was one of the greatest MMo's in my opinion.  It could of used one important improvement in its original form and that is to eliminate or tone down group effect spells.  I don't think players today would tolerate being mezzed, rooted etc without being able to respond.  Another thing the gaming companies need to be highly aware of is not changing what made the game fun with their expansions.  I think DAoC was already on a downward spiral with the PvP powers grind and ToA just finshed it off with a hugh PvE grind.  I know on Morgan Ley Fay we had plenty of Realm loyality to Midgard and really did care what happened to the realm, couldn't always retrieve our relic right away but always tried. 

the Dev probably been reading this sites forum entries and the negativity projected made his head explode LOL!  Seriously i don't have a problem with a delay to make something better, whats the big deal?  Many critics here wanted STO delayed for just that purpose.  So what if that Dev doesn't post what he is working on in the future as long as he is working on improving the game?  If people get excited because somthing is delayed than maybe that is the best thing to do.

I give STO a 7/10 rating with a much higher potential if they listen to their fan base.  Its far from perfect, but i can't seem to stop playing it as it is fun to play in my opinion.  Crafting is a big 0 as it really is only a turn in quest to me, but i never was really big into that aspect of MMo's anyways.  I love the PvP play with the different scenarios and especially like head butting Klingons LOL!  I like that every character not only looks different but has many different battle characters from others in the same class.  So far no cookie cutter classes, and I hope that stays viable.  I would like the exploration missions to be much bigger in scale and have non combat options (other than scanning types)  or at least options that change the results according to what you choose to do.  Diplomacy is really a non player so far in my opinion so thats one area they can add to the game to add variance.  I really love my bridge crew members and their customization.  They actually perform above expectations, when there not stuck somewhere behind a crate lol.  One thing I have noticed is this game is drawing many first time players to the MMO world and as they aren't burnt out as many of the fans here seem to be,  giving cryptic has some additional time to add extra content.  The game is a breath of fresh air in the MMO arena filled with mostly Fasntasy based games.  It appears the Cryptic people are listening to their fans ideas, (just completed a survey yesterday on what I wanted added or fixed in the game) and they have been pretty fast with game updates so far, so I think they realize what a potential gold mine they here and are going to trying hard to make it even better.

"Personally, I'm glad there are people expressing their dislike of it, so that more people don't get suckered in to paying 50 dollars for it. I believe that just enables game designers like Cryptic to continue producing half made, empty games and profiting."

I would disagree with that statement as I see the game as full on content with many choices which make each captain different.  As the game is quick to get into and a boatload of fun, i don't see Cryptic as profitateering off a a half made empty game.  I quess it really does come down to ones tastes in the end.  Unfortunately there are too many people that are offended when a game is made that isn't up to their specifications and than degrade any who dare to like it in its present form!

I've played the PvP some and it seems the Klingons have a numbers advantage and skill/team advantage over the Federation at the moment.  Seems logical to me as the Federation has much more PvE so that limits how many Feds are entering PvP at the moment.   I'm quessing at the end the Klingons will be pressed more as more Federation members attain the Admiral level.  Still you can see the Federation players learning lessons quickly and will probably catch the klingons on team work and skill in the near future.  Loads of fun though, I really like rifle butting Klingon warroirs running up thinking my big Alien is going to be a easy melee kill!