Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[Modern Angel]

Double newsflash... getting upset to the point of frothing over this game right here means you might have a pituitary problem.

[01101010]

Newsflash...not everyone wants to play a game for 2 weeks of mediocre entertainment. 

One man's trash...

[Ghambit]

I just can't get upset about this game. It's a decent little timewaster that has a fair amount of short term fun packed into it. There are titles to get mad about, for sure; this just isn't one of them. At absolute worst it deserves apathy.

Newsflash...not everyone wants to play a game for 2 weeks of mediocre entertainment. 

Double-newsflash.  The vast majority of games out there pretty much last 2 weeks of someone's attention.

[Shatter]

I just can't get upset about this game. It's a decent little timewaster that has a fair amount of short term fun packed into it. There are titles to get mad about, for sure; this just isn't one of them. At absolute worst it deserves apathy.

Newsflash...not everyone wants to play a game for 2 weeks of mediocre entertainment. 

Double-newsflash.  The vast majority of games out there pretty much last 2 weeks of someone's attention.

MMO's arent supposed to be games that entertain for 2 weeks only, single player games sure. 

[Ghambit]

I just can't get upset about this game. It's a decent little timewaster that has a fair amount of short term fun packed into it. There are titles to get mad about, for sure; this just isn't one of them. At absolute worst it deserves apathy.

Newsflash...not everyone wants to play a game for 2 weeks of mediocre entertainment. 

Double-newsflash.  The vast majority of games out there pretty much last 2 weeks of someone's attention.

MMO's arent supposed to be games that entertain for 2 weeks only, single player games sure. 

They're not supposed to but by and large they pretty much are.  Save for WoW and Eve (what I call "lifestealers").  All others are either moderate timesinks stretched out over a long time or slam/bam/thankumaam short-term deals.  Sub. if you wanna.

[Shatter]

I just can't get upset about this game. It's a decent little timewaster that has a fair amount of short term fun packed into it. There are titles to get mad about, for sure; this just isn't one of them. At absolute worst it deserves apathy.

Newsflash...not everyone wants to play a game for 2 weeks of mediocre entertainment. 

Double-newsflash.  The vast majority of games out there pretty much last 2 weeks of someone's attention.

MMO's arent supposed to be games that entertain for 2 weeks only, single player games sure. 

They're not supposed to but by and large they pretty much are.  Save for WoW and Eve (what I call "lifestealers").  All others are either moderate timesinks stretched out over a long time or slam/bam/thankumaam short-term deals.  Sub. if you wanna.

/agree.  If one wants to treat STO as a "single player game" expecting to play it only a couple weeks, even if it is an MMO and feels that $50 is worth that then more power to them I guess...Im not.  Why pay at all when it comes out, just wait a few months when the cost goes down to $20 or something would make more sense to me but *shrugs*

[tmp]

They're not supposed to but by and large they pretty much are.  Save for WoW and Eve (what I call "lifestealers").

Even EVE has average churn rate of something like 6 months iirc. And that's artificially inflated by multiple account holders.

[Ghambit]

Some tools for the treknards to play with:

skills explanation

ship tier chart and explanation

galactic map

character builder


I will say this.  Having "Trekkers" as a resource for improving a game is a powerful thing.  This is something Cryptic has said they're more than willing to tap into over time (they keep carrying-on about this "emergent gameplay" people have shown them)...  but given the relatively shallow and non-sandbox nature of the game, that remains to be seen.   3rd-party prog.-wise there are a few files you can parse from, but I havent fooled with 'em much.  Guarantee someone will.

[Modern Angel]

MMO's arent supposed to be games that entertain for 2 weeks only, single player games sure. 

I think it's time for everyone to adjust what their expectations are. They're just games, at this point. If they're not breaking the mold and offering huge, neat expanses with years' worth of gameplay now, over ten years out from their invention? They're not going to.

Something dawned on me somewhere around WAR's hilarious cratering: nobody's going to fund the style of game we dreamed about. They're going to be derivative of WoW. They're making the 21st century's equivalent of platform shovelware.

So this is where we are. STO is an average to decent game with a short retention rate. Tada! It's a GAME, no better or worse than a zillion platformers or sports games that come out every year where we play them for a couple months and then go right back to the count on one hand standbys we all play for years. At this point if shocking disappointment grips you each time a diku is just a diku the problem's you, not them. Getting pissed at them is the same as getting pissed off at Banjo Kazooie.

[ghost]

Am strongly resisting urge to buy this on steam for extra goodies and early access..........

[Shatter]

MMO's arent supposed to be games that entertain for 2 weeks only, single player games sure. 

I think it's time for everyone to adjust what their expectations are. They're just games, at this point. If they're not breaking the mold and offering huge, neat expanses with years' worth of gameplay now, over ten years out from their invention? They're not going to.

Something dawned on me somewhere around WAR's hilarious cratering: nobody's going to fund the style of game we dreamed about. They're going to be derivative of WoW. They're making the 21st century's equivalent of platform shovelware.

So this is where we are. STO is an average to decent game with a short retention rate. Tada! It's a GAME, no better or worse than a zillion platformers or sports games that come out every year where we play them for a couple months and then go right back to the count on one hand standbys we all play for years. At this point if shocking disappointment grips you each time a diku is just a diku the problem's you, not them. Getting pissed at them is the same as getting pissed off at Banjo Kazooie.

My preferred game style is the traditional MMO, thats just my preference and I dont plan to change that anytime soon.  I guarantee you Cryptic would prefer their game not to be a 2 week game no one actually subs to, but it is.    Is that bad?  Well, yeah it means they failed to design a game with any retention which again Im sure they would prefer.  It would be better off as F2P but its not, it has the standard MMO monthly rate tacked to it and its not a game that is designed to hold long term subbers like myself who dont want a 2 week game.  Dont get me wrong, I understand your point but there are hundreds if not thousands of "2 week games" that come out each year across consoles and PC's, but very few "MMO's".  STO is an MMO wannabe and it will be another traditional MMO failure.  You make it sound like they want it to be a 2 week game and I am pretty sure thats not the case...they want subs, they just wont get them. 

[statisticalfool]

So this is where we are. STO is an average to decent game with a short retention rate. Tada! It's a GAME, no better or worse than a zillion platformers or sports games that come out every year where we play them for a couple months and then go right back to the count on one hand standbys we all play for years. At this point if shocking disappointment grips you each time a diku is just a diku the problem's you, not them. Getting pissed at them is the same as getting pissed off at Banjo Kazooie.

But that's the thing: MMOs get by with being not terribly great games because people uprate them because of the progression, social gameplay, structure, and "only in a MMO" type moments. When you say: "hey, this isn't really much of an MMO, it's a single-player game with some multiplayer", you then open it up for comparison against the market. And sure, there are a lot of mediocre games out there, but even if you don't take the very easy step of not buying the God of War ripoff, but instead God of War, MMOs as raw games are pretty damn terrible. You think any game that had about 60-200 hours worth of overly simplistic gameplay that boiled down to 11112113 would get any slack? Even action adventure games that are 5-10 hours long, and have GoW level control complexity often get thwacked as being simplistic and repetitive.

I mean, MUA2 is a pretty mediocre game, and it cleans CO: The NonMMO's clock on being fun to play and offering a challenge.

So, I think the further down this path the MMO industry follows, the more people will realize that replacing 'game' with 'progression' isn't actually worth it. Especially when so many non-MMOs are figuring out the progression part pretty well (see also: MW2, MUA2, NFS:Shift, most God of War ripoffs).

[Ghambit]

Welp, I'm 'bout ready to warm up the Impulse drives.
I'll be in-game @The_Traveller.  Shall we have a rollcall thread?
Also, some EnB peeps I was playing with may have a fleet up this evening... vent is already in place.  Contact me if you're interested and/or f13 isnt starting one.  I just got done watching Jolene Blalock's (T'Pol) feisty nipples on HDNET and it's got me fired up.

note: you can send ingame emails through your cryptic account w/o even being ingame

[Venkman]

So, I think the further down this path the MMO industry follows, the more people will realize that replacing 'game' with 'progression' isn't actually worth it. Especially when so many non-MMOs are figuring out the progression part pretty well (see also: MW2, MUA2, NFS:Shift, most God of War ripoffs).

There's nothing "further" about it. We're there already. The same old companies (and new companies making the same old decisionbs) getting funding because of the inflation WoW has wrought is exactly how we got here in the first place. The MMO game side hasn't changed all that much because it's mostly people from the same companies before WoW that are calling the shots in this post-WoW age. The only real difference is whatever bump they get because there's millions more in this genre than there were before 2004. But the fundamental decisions, compromises, prioritizations and inevitable excuses and promises-of-someday are exactly the same.

Take WoW out of the equation and I expect we'd see a huge deflation across all other games that more approprixmates the projections for the size of the genre that were made back in 2002/2003. Because without WoW, some of these games would have never been made, and none of the rest would compare any better to actual video games than they do today. And none of them at all would have strived for launch-day playability that WoW has forced them to consider.

LoTRO would probably be the game to beat and that probably at 500k or so after having leached off of whatever EQ2 didn't cannabalization from EQ1.

[01101010]

There's nothing "further" about it. We're there already. The same old companies (and new companies making the same old decisionbs) getting funding because of the inflation WoW has wrought is exactly how we got here in the first place. The MMO game side hasn't changed all that much because it's mostly people from the same companies before WoW that are calling the shots in this post-WoW age. The only real difference is whatever bump they get because there's millions more in this genre than there were before 2004. But the fundamental decisions, compromises, prioritizations and inevitable excuses and promises-of-someday are exactly the same.

Take WoW out of the equation and I expect we'd see a huge deflation across all other games that more approprixmates the projections for the size of the genre that were made back in 2002/2003. Because without WoW, some of these games would have never been made, and none of the rest would compare any better to actual video games than they do today. And none of them at all would have strived for launch-day playability that WoW has forced them to consider.

LoTRO would probably be the game to beat and that probably at 500k or so after having leached off of whatever EQ2 didn't cannabalization from EQ1.

I can tell you for sure that I might still be playing FFXI if it wasn't for WoW.

[Furiously]

Grunk?

[Malakili]

I've heard the servers have been up and down a lot, but has anyone played much of headstart?  Was there anything resembling the massive nerf batting that Champions saw?

[DaZog]

There's still two more days for Cryptic to deliver 

[Montague]

I've heard the servers have been up and down a lot, but has anyone played much of headstart?  Was there anything resembling the massive nerf batting that Champions saw?

Not so far, though I've only gotten up to Lieutenant 5. It does seem like some of the early Klingons got buffed a little bit, I actually have been blown up a couple of times when I get a Neg'Var and a couple of BOP's on me so the tuning seems pretty good so far. Like I thought the main problem is keeping the servers up.

[Brolan]

I've heard the servers have been up and down a lot, but has anyone played much of headstart?  Was there anything resembling the massive nerf batting that Champions saw?

I've only played a little of it, but my son who has put a lot of time in the Beta, says it seems the same.

[Furiously]

I'm getting a bit annoyed at the "Retrieving list of characters"...

My prediction for opening day... they start 3 additional servers.

[Jherad]

Very smooth on friday night, but down a lot yesterday. Yeah, needs more hamsters for the wheel.

No obvious nerfs that I've seen According to the forums, MES was nerfed - never used it, some kind of Federation semi-cloaking ability apparently, mostly useful for escorts in PvP - apparently been made so you'll pop out of stealth at about 9km now. PvE Combat is very easy at the lower levels, and levels are coming at a reasonable pace, with no quest content gaps so far.

[UnSub]

Said it before and I'll repeat it so I look extra stupid if I'm wrong: 1m boxes shipped, about the same sold, 300k players in 6 months. Cryptic has been smart enough to offer long-term sub packages that early adopters tend to grab, meaning that they'll get the money even if those early players quit on day 4.

I actually don't see this as being greedy since there is a sizeable proportion of the MMO player base who appear to buy their MMOs sight unseen just to get in on day 1, then complain they don't like the game. Caveat emptor, motherfuckers.

Given that I'm pretty sure that STO will be profitable at 100k players, 300k players would be gravy to Cryptic. If Cryptic can get more content out, they might be able to maintain that 300k for a while longer.

[UnSub]

Fiance is a die hard trekkie and is 'meh' about STO (the fact that everyone has their own ship rather than being part of a crew bothers her a lot apparently),

That's a shocker!

 

I welcome back the reports on player-crewed ships out of Allods Online. I expect them to be resoundingly negative for anyone who isn't in a guild.

[Venkman]

The good thing is that they're not starting with the hyper crazy marketing-pumped launches that were WAR or AoC, so they won't have such a precipitous decline.

[Malakili]

I'm getting a bit annoyed at the "Retrieving list of characters"...

My prediction for opening day... they start 3 additional servers.

I'm interested to see what happens with this.  It seems like their single server architecture, which actually worked pretty well at Champions launch, is having trouble with the much larger load of STO. 

[Ghambit]

I'm getting a bit annoyed at the "Retrieving list of characters"...

My prediction for opening day... they start 3 additional servers.

I'm interested to see what happens with this.  It seems like their single server architecture, which actually worked pretty well at Champions launch, is having trouble with the much larger load of STO. 

After a month this wont be a problem, since we'll have 1/3 the people.

[Malakili]

I'm getting a bit annoyed at the "Retrieving list of characters"...

My prediction for opening day... they start 3 additional servers.

I'm interested to see what happens with this.  It seems like their single server architecture, which actually worked pretty well at Champions launch, is having trouble with the much larger load of STO. 

After a month this wont be a problem, since we'll have 1/3 the people.

Definitely true,  but if people can't even log into the game after they buy it, they'll be in danger of it being a lot less than 1/3.

[Ghambit]

Welp, looks like their server architecture (as theorized) wasnt up to the task.  Now there are queues in the 1000's of people (when the queue system is working) and last I checked they just werent letting people online at all (not even a queue).

They've pretty much lost nearly 2 days of headstart in this madness (not to mention lifetime subbies who couldnt even get their borgs).  Forums are aflame of course.
Cryptic's system was designed to not HAVE to have a queue or deny access, yet here they are doing it (when the server isnt crashed).  Half the time there are multiple shards down if you can even get in.  Boy oh boy, this could get ugly.  I know many of us here will bathe in the tears.

I'd have to say so far this is the absolute worst Headstart I've ever seen, bar none.
Bodes well for box sales as we say... game blew up way harder than even I expected really.

[Jherad]

Server is going up and down like a yo-yo, and the forums are melting with rage. Looks like they're experimenting with a queuing system also - people are complaining that they're waiting for 30 mins+ to get on (at which point, the server crashes).

Mmmmmm  

[Modern Angel]

Man, it's actually been a really long time since we've had server down shenanigans on a real MMO's launch.

Oh shit, reading the forums... their fanboys are insane even by fanboy standards.

[Stormwaltz]

I'm baffled how the open beta could be more stable than the head start. Surely they had more people playing? The one time I was able to log in, the population was roughly half what I saw in beta.

[Modern Angel]

Oh hell no. For one, it IS more stable in the sense that lag and sudden crashes are rare. But second I've been floored at how many people are in. It's one of the most populated head starts I've been in since Guild Wars.

[Malakili]

Oh hell no. For one, it IS more stable in the sense that lag and sudden crashes are rare. But second I've been floored at how many people are in. It's one of the most populated head starts I've been in since Guild Wars.

The reports I'm hearing from people playing is that there is a 1000 deep queue to even log on.

[Jherad]

I got kicked, and im a queue now. 980 in front of me  

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