Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[01101010]

Its not about longevity its about why would you play a game that is obviously worse then other games?  Go buy Star Fleet Command for like $5 somewhere if you want to play a great straight translation of SFB on the PC.

I gotta give you credit Hoax, I found a copy of this and loaded it up. It might be dated, but its still as fun as it was for the most part. I had forgotten all about this title till you mentioned it.

[Malakili]

Buy a lifetime subscription for 240 bucks and get to play a Borg.

Fuck, and here I was hoping STO would amount to something. The beta is fun, but if it's yet another grab & run MMO...

Well, frankly, I don't mind the idea of a lifetime sub  conceptually, but frankly these limited time things before launch DO scream money grab I have to admit.  I honestly can't tell if Cryptic is a company that really believes in their products anymore, or if they really are just shoving shit out the door and trying to make enough to fund the production of another game.

[Shatter]

I guess that Cryptic will soon have a $30/month pass to all their games just like SOE does.  All mediocre games but you have access to all of them.  They dont seem like they care about any game they produce just money so they will just continue to launch shit without any real care or solid development to a main title.  Spit em out fast, make what you can on each one, rinse repeat. 

Hey game goes live in Feb 2010
Yeah its not ready but we need money
Hey, want to beta test then pre-order
Hey, lifetime sub for $240
Hey, want to play Borg, get the lifetime sub

Yeah that doesnt scream money grab at all...

[tazelbain]

Fire and Forget.

[LK]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with derivative as long as you are making a derivative of a good game.  Building on fun/positive aspects is good.  The rub comes when the game is derivative and it wasn't the good ideas that the game was derived from.

[Lantyssa]

How many times can we Bloodworth on one page?

Though honestly I'm not sure I can fault anyone for not wanting to read much regarding this game.

[Murgos]

Buy a lifetime subscription for 240 bucks and get to play a Borg.

Quick!  Hide Schild's credit card!

[Shatter]

Buy a lifetime subscription for 240 bucks and get to play a Borg.

Quick!  Hide Schild's credit card!

I thought he was already a Borg

[Draegan]

Best UI ever:

[01101010]

The colors alone would give me seizures.

[eldaec]

[tmp]

Some more beta keys if anyone is still craving one

[01101010]

oh sure... NOW as I am on my way out the god damn door you drop the key teaser. 

[Ironwood]

I was sure that game was on the Amiga and looked better....


(Sorry, I meant the ST.  And Google tells me it did !)

[Lum]

Its not about longevity its about why would you play a game that is obviously worse then other games?  Go buy Star Fleet Command for like $5 somewhere if you want to play a great straight translation of SFB on the PC.

I gotta give you credit Hoax, I found a copy of this and loaded it up. It might be dated, but its still as fun as it was for the most part. I had forgotten all about this title till you mentioned it.

The best in the series is SFC 2: Orion Pirates. SFC 3 takes the series into TNG territory but *significantly* dumbs down the game.

[Ingmar]

Its not about longevity its about why would you play a game that is obviously worse then other games?  Go buy Star Fleet Command for like $5 somewhere if you want to play a great straight translation of SFB on the PC.

I gotta give you credit Hoax, I found a copy of this and loaded it up. It might be dated, but its still as fun as it was for the most part. I had forgotten all about this title till you mentioned it.

The best in the series is SFC 2: Orion Pirates. SFC 3 takes the series into TNG territory but *significantly* dumbs down the game.

Seconded.

[rattran]

For laughs, name your Ensign any Star Wars name, then repeatedly ask how to get to Tatooine in chat.

Much fun ensues.

[jakonovski]

For laughs, name your Ensign any Star Wars name, then repeatedly ask how to get to Tatooine in chat.

Much fun ensues.

Hell is other people.

[Hoax]

Its not about longevity its about why would you play a game that is obviously worse then other games?  Go buy Star Fleet Command for like $5 somewhere if you want to play a great straight translation of SFB on the PC.

I gotta give you credit Hoax, I found a copy of this and loaded it up. It might be dated, but its still as fun as it was for the most part. I had forgotten all about this title till you mentioned it.

The best in the series is SFC 2: Orion Pirates. SFC 3 takes the series into TNG territory but *significantly* dumbs down the game.

Seconded.

What sucked is that they never delivered the working universe at war stuff like they said they would.  I was really really hyped for the game and then waited for about 6 months for it to come out and it just wasn't there.  I think they finally did something later on in that installment (I played 1 & 2) or a patch but by then I was long gone.

Total Annihilation's simple 2 sided persistent campaign was awesome, it only made sense to have something like that for SFC but they kept tripping over their dicks and not delivering it.

[LK]

Come on, really? Don't ever, ever believe the hype. Until they show you it functioning on screen and its in Beta or some other phase that says "This is launching with the product", it's bullshit that could be cut at a moment's notice if its too costly / broken and the developers have the balls to do it.

[Stormwaltz]

I'm playing beta. I'm doing a mission, I see other ships flying around. I assume they're bots, as in the tutorial.

After grabbing a piece of loot, one of them messages me, "That was a prickish thing to do."

What the hell? Who the fuck invited other players into my mission instances? I sure as hell didn't. Are you telling me people can invite themselves into my missions?

After sending a half-hearted apology (how sincere can I didn't want to fight alongside other humans in the first place?) I log off.

Fuck that shit. If I wanted to be forced into PUGing, I'd...

Wait, no. I fucking hate PUGing. I hate it more than anything else in MMORPGs. I didn't invite this guy into my mission. I wouldn't have if given the option. The game just let him do it.

So fuck STO.

/uninstalls, doesn't look back

[Hawkbit]

wut

Actually, that's the one thing in this game I praise them on.  I'm a soloer in MMOs now that I have a kid, but the way that they've done it makes it fairly easy to actually group with other people.  Not seeing the issue here.  Without that aspect of the game, there would be nothing to actually group for and the game could simply be a single player.

[tmp]

Waiter, there's other people in my MMO.

(is the game actually grouping you with others or simply allowing more than single person inhabit the same chunk of space?)

[jakonovski]

What's more, AFAIK it's only anomaly nodes that are open to all, looting is automated so that if you can loot it, it's yours. So anyone whining is a gigantic douche.

[Koyasha]

The game seems to be set by default to automatically group you with other players that are doing the same mission, or something like that, but you can alter that setting so that you have to do it manually, and it'll spawn your own private instances if you don't actually group with anyone.

Also, the other ships in the tutorial, most of those weren't bots, at least they weren't when I did the tutorial.

[01101010]

Actually got a key and loaded up the beta last night. UI is a smattering of stuff all over the screen, but it does have the option of moving everything around like WAR did, which I liked. Liked character creation for the most part...just wish to god my avatar would hold still. I don't think I have seen half the tattoo options. I jumped in for 5 minutes so I will refrain from speaking, but it was lagging all over the place when I first dropped in with everything on low. I also was met with a feeling of playing a single player game. I found the chat box just fine, resized etc, but there was no activity other than the NPCs wandering about and a silly perpetual fight scene with the borg outside the window. Dunno, if there was a huge borg cube outside my window, I might be a bit more panicked ... but otherwise, the game just feels hollow. Will actually test some things out today though.

[kildorn]

I'm playing beta. I'm doing a mission, I see other ships flying around. I assume they're bots, as in the tutorial.

After grabbing a piece of loot, one of them messages me, "That was a prickish thing to do."

What the hell? Who the fuck invited other players into my mission instances? I sure as hell didn't. Are you telling me people can invite themselves into my missions?

After sending a half-hearted apology (how sincere can I didn't want to fight alongside other humans in the first place?) I log off.

Fuck that shit. If I wanted to be forced into PUGing, I'd...

Wait, no. I fucking hate PUGing. I hate it more than anything else in MMORPGs. I didn't invite this guy into my mission. I wouldn't have if given the option. The game just let him do it.

So fuck STO.

/uninstalls, doesn't look back

I actually like this feature, even if the anomaly looting is first come first serve. Everything else is assigned loot (yellow is yours, white is someone else's loot can). It also auto scales the instance to the number of players involved.

But the open grouping is love, minus how annoying it can be to find the option to disable it.

[Mrbloodworth]

LOL @ Starfleet captains arguing over "Loot".

[Tannhauser]

Downloaded it while I slept last night.  Installed, patched and got in no problem.  Yes, even the tutorial force groups you.  There was no lag and performance was good considering my laptop doesn't meet min specs.  I mean to say it ran smoothly.  Designed my ship (Reliant-class 4tw) and went out to explore strange new worlds.  First impressions in easy to read bullet format.

-Ground combat is better than I thought, some issues, but positioning troops and hiding behind stuff does give it a nice tactical feel.  I wonder if it's needed.
-Space combat is fun.  Some neat cooldowns even at low level.  Again, a nice tactical feel and constant movement and action.
-So far I'm liking the loot drops, not like the loot-rain of ChampO.  These drops are actually useful. 
-I can't afford anything at the Exchange.  I think it's full of place-holder items though.  Wish I could upgrade some ship systems.  Starting to die.
-So far I'm fine with forced grouping.  Could have grief issues down the road, but as Khan would say "We're one big happy fleet!" 
-Where the fuck is Sulu? LOL  Hide in plan sight my asian friend.  (Not the original Sulu btw)
-A few bugged missions but oh well.  I went back and re-loaded them and they worked.
-I don't feel cramped like in ChampO.  I feel there's lots of stuff to do so far.
-Ah Barren's chat in space.  Oh how I missed you, great unwashed retarded gaming public.  Don't ever change.  Unless it's to die.

Now that I see Cryptic's design I think they've done about a good a job as you can melding ground and space action.  They have a long way to go but I like the foundation they can build on.  It has potential.  Yeah I said it. 

I just wonder if it can keep an average gamer's attention for more than a month.  Including mine.  I predict it will sell a lot of boxes but subs will drop off after a month pretty hard as everyone goes back to WoW.  Hopefully they will patch like crazy and add cool stuff;  this IP has a ton of stuff you can do with it.

[Hawkbit]

I think my biggest issue with the game is that it's simply too shallow.  I mean, christ, we're in space.  There should be limitless things to do, yet we're doing the same missions and crap.  There's no exploring, which is exactly what ST was all about... boldly going where no man has gone before. 

It's a cryptic game.  I want to like it and there's parts that I do like, but it's roughly 20% of the game it should be.

[Khaldun]

This is the thing with Cryptic. They don't do games that you thoroughly hate or that are so clusterfucked that you despair. They do games that are likeable but shallow, totally lacking in sustainable vision but kind of fun in a mindless way. They frustrate the hell out of me, but I can't feel the same anger I feel towards some other dev houses that manage to fuck up designs with greater potential.

[Tannhauser]

I think my biggest issue with the game is that it's simply too shallow.  I mean, christ, we're in space.  There should be limitless things to do, yet we're doing the same missions and crap.  There's no exploring, which is exactly what ST was all about... boldly going where no man has gone before. 

It's a cryptic game.  I want to like it and there's parts that I do like, but it's roughly 20% of the game it should be.

Well, there's the Delta Something sector just to the west of Sol.  It's a whole sector of unexplored anomalies, fly up and scan them.  It's even listed as an exploration quest.

[Ratman_tf]

I'm playing beta. I'm doing a mission, I see other ships flying around. I assume they're bots, as in the tutorial.

After grabbing a piece of loot, one of them messages me, "That was a prickish thing to do."

What the hell? Who the fuck invited other players into my mission instances? I sure as hell didn't. Are you telling me people can invite themselves into my missions?

After sending a half-hearted apology (how sincere can I didn't want to fight alongside other humans in the first place?) I log off.

Fuck that shit. If I wanted to be forced into PUGing, I'd...

Wait, no. I fucking hate PUGing. I hate it more than anything else in MMORPGs. I didn't invite this guy into my mission. I wouldn't have if given the option. The game just let him do it.

So fuck STO.

/uninstalls, doesn't look back

Pardon me sir, but WTF are you talking about? It's true that instances will auto-group you, but loot is tagged, you can't take someone else's loot. It's even color-coded. Grey= not yours, you can't pick it up. Green=yours and you can nab it.

And yes, I've seen a Ton of other players with... gasp... reasonable names. It actually makes me pause and wonder if they're NPCs for a moment. (And a few DarthBallz in there  too... ah well.)

[Stormwaltz]

Pardon me sir, but WTF are you talking about? It's true that instances will auto-group you, but loot is tagged, you can't take someone else's loot. It's even color-coded. Grey= not yours, you can't pick it up. Green=yours and you can nab it.

It was some kind of floating salvage, not mob kill loot.

I don't mind grouping per se. What I hate is grouping with strangers. I've met too many asshats, so I only play with people I know from RL.

STO gave me mandatory PUGs with no warning or obvious way to shut it off. I don't like that at all. It's telling that in the first 10 minutes, I was called a prick by someone I didn't know, for doing something I didn't understand.

[Ghambit]

Pardon me sir, but WTF are you talking about? It's true that instances will auto-group you, but loot is tagged, you can't take someone else's loot. It's even color-coded. Grey= not yours, you can't pick it up. Green=yours and you can nab it.

It was some kind of floating salvage, not mob kill loot.

I don't mind grouping per se. What I hate is grouping with strangers. I've met too many asshats, so I only play with people I know from RL.

STO gave me mandatory PUGs with no warning or obvious way to shut it off. I don't like that at all. It's telling that in the first 10 minutes, I was called a prick by someone I didn't know, for doing something I didn't understand.

Ummm, the game has one of the most maleable grouping mechanics out there.  Everything from grouping or not (you're not always forced to group - it just defaults to this), scalable ai, to need/greed, master loot, etc. are all there for you to choose.  Your argument is moot.  Just drop it and come up with a better complaint.

Fleet actions, arena pvp (actually no, you have to manually group), and some larger storyline missions are obviously required grouping, but in those cases you can go get your RL friends and have at it.  Not having to sift around for groups is a big advantage imo and can actually be quite rewarding when you find people worth putting in your friends list.

Ingame explanations arent there because the UI hasnt been set in stone for some time.  Frankly, I could care less if they ever give them... I actually enjoy digging into the game and finding cool features.