Comments on: Star Trek Online: Second to WOW?

By: DoggyDude96a

DoggyDude96a — Thu, 19 May 2011 21:19:50 +0000

WoW garnered its success through pedigree. Many of the new MMO’s on the block think they can just put out a game and join in the profit sharing / taking.

Blizard had Diablo, Diablo II, Warcraft (in all its previous guises) and Dune all laying paving for a player base. Sure WoW isn’t any of those games, but people grew up with Blizzard and knowing they deliver.

If other MMO’s would stop trying to be Blizard (or WoW) and just try to be good game houses who happen to provide online gaming they could succeed too.

Personally i’m hoping STO doesn’t fall a foul of bad publicity. Its a good game, its still a baby and like any baby you need paitience and some level of parental feeling to see through all the crying and screaming to see what it is going to become in the future.

By: GinsengSamurai

GinsengSamurai — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 09:31:13 +0000

Been a 6 year on-and-off subscriber to WoW. In short: nothing beats WoW in exploration, expansion, conquest and social diversity.

I’ve bought and played Guild Wars Nightfall, EVE Online (the only other good MMO game), Tabula Rasa, D&D Stormreach, Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online (beautiful visuals, but meh game), Aion (huge disappointment), etc and tried dozens of F2P MMO games over the last 12-ish years. People say WoW sucks because it’s cartoony or it sucks because it’s full of immature Barrens’ Chat ‘kiddies’ or that it’s “all tedious level grinding”. Seriously? Aren’t all MMO ‘RP’ games at one point or another grinding? Cartoony is hardly a visual fault. It’s more like preference. As far as maturity goes, you’re bound to find immaturity in any in-game population of topping 12 million players.

Indeed, this isn’t about WoW, but about STO, but that’s the thing. I’ve read some of the comments here saying in essence that it isn’t ‘fair’ to compare STO to WoW with subscriber numbers or that games like STO are doing “just fine” as a new MMO.

I disagree completely.

WoW is proof of what works. When gaming studios try to do something drastically off the proven path, they are often met with a crap-load of dissatisfied players. What these development houses should realize is that players will often stick with what works. If you create a game with proven mechanics, with your own skin and substance, tweak it a bit to suit your world and your own bits and pieces of creativity, people are more likely to stay with your game.

Like I said, I’ve played a LOT of different MMO games over the years. To the studios: stop trying to be too different and definitely stop trying to be another cookie-cutter game without substance. WoW is awesome because it’s ‘in-depth’ with lore, diverse quests, diverse travel mechanics, fluid and customizable controls, massive world to explore, broad visual effects and beautiful professional musical score and much much more.

Mind you, with this said, I can’t wait until Old Republic comes out. I just really hope it doesn’t turn out to be another DDO, Tabula Rasa, Aion, GW, etc, etc, etc, etc.

By: BOB

BOB — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 02:40:43 +0000

Yes water may be wet and snow may be cold — and you better believe that Cryptic sorely appears to have mislead it’s customers.
I suspect newbies have not played a real star trek MMO game, and it’s not their fault to think STO is heaven or something. My gut feeling is that STO is a scam, from the git go. The print advertising and the boxes all scream fly and fight – exactly what Star Trek gaming is about, so it was natural that most customers believed the imagery, but the imagery for STO said one thing and the game turned out being something else.
The imagery that Cryptic drew, was not an accurate representation of the game. Moreover, things that Cryptic stated in print would be done, were not done. Cryptic added more lame content instead of fixing the bugs. Cryptic broke a commitment to it’s customers.
And did you know that Cryptic allegedly said that they “THREW OUT” (I read it in print) ALL OF THE ORIGINAL WORK on a Star Trek type game that they inherited with the contract. (How foolish).
And what is going to happen to the money I spent – I bought a deluxe Ed + a life membership, and I bought the same as a present to my son (we both love star Trek) and spent money early on, near $800.00. But now that we see what STO is really like, we detest it. It’s not cannon, STO was not as it was depicted, we quit playing (and so did our friends) and that says it all.

By: Mostlysane

Mostlysane — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:13:04 +0000

Interestng that one of the biggest complaints about Champions online was the lack of content. Cryptic responded by announcing new cstuff – available for an extra price. Nickle and diming people will be one of the biggest factors in turning people off STO. Having already paid for the game and soon a monthly fee to keep playing. Charging for extra content will be a killer to any good will or positive buzz the game manages to generate. (Look at the complaints about the charges for extra playable races Cryptic have already implemented).

Yes it’s fun to play at the start (the fleet battles against the Borg do look good and are quite entertaniing) but with a lot of repetitivness already in missions and the threat (promise?) of a lack of end game at Admiral – it will be interesting to see what follows.

At least they more or less got the launch right. We haven’t been expected to endure the 7 hour queues that came with Aion in its first week. There was no queue at all last night, though whether that was because of Superbowl..

Cryptic are starting to get an “average” reputation from a games developer. They need to be aware of that or generating the hype for their next game will be that much harder.

By: Sente

Sente — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:34:53 +0000

As I recall Turbine had a similar statement when LOTRO was released. They all spin the numbers in some way to make it sound large.

If Cryptic continue to give some kind of numbers in the next few months, then they are probsbly doing well financially with the game. No numbers or any indicators at all, then probably not so well.

By: Pardoz

Pardoz — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:35:13 +0000

“Cryptic may not be honest” is much like saying “Water may be wet” or “Snow may be cold”.

By: Yeebo

Yeebo — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:32:49 +0000

1 million accounts is obviously some PR gibberish. Even if we assume it’s true, the number of users that game has three months from now means a lot more than what they have at launch. I would guess that the steady population of the game will turn out to be in the 100K to 300K range. I hope for Cryptic’s sake that their business model is predicated on “modest success” rather than “WoW killer.”

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:31:31 +0000

It all depends on what they do with the launch influx of cash. Keep working on bugs for sure, but in which direction do they take the game… more space missions? more away team? new features?

Personally, the game doesn’t appeal to me because it seems like more of a single player game where you sometimes play with other people than an actual multi-player game. Pirates of the Burning Sea was the same way.

By: Longasc

Longasc — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:03:35 +0000

I will become Admiral today or tomorrow. I think STO does not have the content or system to keep people subscribed for more than 2-3 months.

But it is quite fun, I wonder if it would not have done better as F2P item shop game in the long run. Or with a Guild Wars model. But obviously GW’s model was not profitable enough (note I did not say it was not profitable, just that some people probably think they can make even more money out of the franchise with more micro transactions), despite the huge success of the game.

By: spinks

spinks — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:01:33 +0000

But if lots of other people are doing that, it’ll keep STO on its feet for at least a year ;)

I’d like to see STO do well, I’m liking the gameplay. But I have other games I want to play as well, so once I’ve had my month’s fun with it, will I want to keep paying? I don’t know.