Edit: let’s see what happens if we add in enemies that do the same, some of which may mirror heroes.

Engineer class turret/sentry:

• Borderlands, Crimson Lance Engineer
• Brink
• City of Heroes, Malta Operations Engineer
• Guild Wars 2
• Hellgate: London
• Mass Effect 2
• Quake Team Fortress
• Star Trek Online
• Team Fortress Classic
• Team Fortress 2
• Warhammer Online
• World of Warcraft (trade skill)

Engineer class without turret/sentry:

• Anarchy Online (or are those robots turrets? haven’t played)
• Battlefield FPS series
• Bloodline Champions
• Eden Eternal
• Hellgate: Global (mobile robots)
• Mass Effect
• Torchlight 2

Non-Engineer class that builds a turret/sentry (“close-enough” names starred):

• **Asheron’s Call 2, Lugian Tactician
• Borderlands, Roland the Soldier, although he is canonically a former Crimson Lance Engineer
• **Champions Online, Inventor
• City of Heroes, Blasters and Corruptors with Devices (was Auto-Turret, now Gun Drone)
• DC Universe Online, Gadgets
• **Dungeon Fighter Online, Mechanic
• **Global Agenda, Robotics
• **League of Legends, Heimerdinger the Revered Inventor

Obvious turret analogue, but not “built”:

• Dark Age of Camelot, Hibernian Animist
• Guild Wars, Ritualist
• Warhammer Online, Chaos Magus
• World of Warcraft, Shaman

“Deploys” turrets s/he did not build:

• Diablo 2, Assassin
• StarCraft, Raven
• TitanQuest, Rogue
• Torchlight, Vanquisher (Arbiter tree)

Rejected, pending argument: engineer units from RTS/turn-based strategy games like Civilization.
Heard of but unknown to Zubon: Alpha Protocol, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Engi Census is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Apparently, “free-to-play” these days really means “no cover charge.”

I assume it has been said before, but this is my first time seeing this phrasing, and I like it. Can we all start using that to refer to Wizard101, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and other games with the not-quite-F2P pricing model? I’m not sure that “NCC” will catch on as an acronym, although there would be a special glory in applying it to Star Trek Online…

: Zubon

“No Cover Charge” is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Let’s get meta.

A trial is like that first date – neither of you knows what to expect, but at least one of you hopes for a long term commitment, or at least something more than a five-day stand. You’re going to feel out the new game and see if it’s right for you. So you dress up in your NewbieSuit, jump into your internet connection and take that new game out to one of your favorite ports. Like a date, you can’t help but notice those physical characteristics first. Look at all those races. The varied classes. Is that – yes it is – personal housing, wow! You spend some time talking about each other. You know the usual; how much memory it needs, your graphics card capacity, perhaps you even talk about other games you’ve known. So as you slowly kill orcs/slimes/goblins/rats together, you begin to learn a little more about them. Find out how the UI works. Manage some inventory. Maybe bump off a rare monster or two. Before you know it, the trial’s over, so you decide to walk the game home to its 5th floor walkup. You’re standing there at your account page and it’s a bit awkward. The game clears its throat and looks at you. You tilt your monitor slightly, lean in, and…

Ahem. Ok, maybe not exactly like a first date, but close enough.

The trial is that time that a game developer gives for a person off the street to figure out if this game is for them. As there’s a possible monthly payment at stake, it behooves the game company to put everything that is the best of their game into the trial. Most games have accelerated leveling to start, or somewhat stack your initial experience to ensure you see as much of the game as possible. A trend a few years ago was to have an actual tutorial-type area where you spend your first few levels. This area was usually “juiced”, in that many of the items you could get within were far better than anything available in the world at large at the same level. Dishonest? Not really, as this area was accessible by anyone starting a new character, and even these powerful items were usually worthless a few levels outside of the area (AO was a notable exception to this).

The point is that trials are something every game company really needs to nail. It is, for many people, the first glimpse of your world you have spent years building. You want it to appeal to the broadest audience in the most powerful way possible so that you can sell your monthly subscription and make a profit. Half the battle is won when the player takes the time to install the trial, but you have to seal the deal. The trial is your salesman, and it must be that stereotypical one with the crisp suit and gleaming white tooth smile. It has to be out there making the sale, and trying to win over every single customer. Of the three I tried, only EQ2 did not have a tutorial zone, and instead put me in the game proper. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I was constantly told to hit 20 to get rewards. Hitting that a mere 5 days in (in both crafting and normal exp too), made me wonder how juiced the newbie experience is. It’s almost like 14 days was too long. Looking at STO, I managed to get to well over mid-level on just the trial. That’s too long (although I think it was actually that their exp model was far too generous) because then it questions why I’d even want to bother.

Even if you nail it though, you won’t get everyone. For example, I’m big on visuals and crafting. STO’s visuals (space at least) were amazing. I honestly loved it. Same with EQ2′s housing. And CoX’s legendary character developer. Moving to crafting, CoX’s system isn’t half bad. STO doesn’t have one; trading a bunch of items to a person for another item is the definition of barter. And EQ2′s didn’t thrill me at my level. As one poster said, it’s easier at higher levels with items and abilities, but it’s at the entry that you need to sell it. Entry level anything should be the easiest. It doesn’t have to stay that way, but it should be at least a sample of goodness to come. These are vital to my enjoyment of the game, and for me, any game without these will not sell me, no matter how awesome it is, and my ratings reflect this. Feel free to give them a try yourself if you’re between games and interested in trying something new – the beauty of a trial is you can form your own opinion hands on and see if you and that game are going to do something more long-term. For me, I had to leave – we just weren’t compatible.

If they should ask, tell them I’m doing fine.

Oz Trail of Trials, Part 4 – The Role of Trials is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

One thing that continuously made me giggle is the way they got around the whole advancement vs. spaceship command wrinkle. A major part of Star Trek is the ships, and of course a ship is commanded by its Captain. But if you’re a captain already, you have no need for advancement. Without advancement, one of the accepted basics of an MMORPG is out the window. Their solution: whoever commands the ship is the captain, regardless of actual rank. Brilliant in its own way, it allows you to still progress without taking away what would be half the game. I find it funny though as you start out as an Ensign and are given your own ship right away, after the crew is lost. This is vaguely possible in reality, however after you first promotion, you get a brand new complete shiny ship. The equivalent would be you going to naval boot camp, and once finishing, getting your own aircraft carrier. It’s a game though, and this mechanic allows them to give you all the different ships Star Trek has come up with over the years.

Space battle, and travel, is really amazing. I personally detest flight simulator games because they typically have a million controls and dials, and STO is not a really exception to this. However, they have distilled it down to more manageable controls that allow the player to move around without much problem. The battles are also initially very simple, which gives you time to learn. After I got my second ship, I had so many controls I was feeling a bit confused, but it added to the challenge for me and it worked.

Many of the space battles after your first promotion are “open instance” types. These types of zones are ones where the quest (mission) is going on and people join and leave as they finish it. These scale from 2 people to massive raids (fleets). This is not a new mechanic, but it’s implemented well. The one disappointing part is that if you get an unhelpful group mate, the battle has to be soloed. My first space-death was when I zoned into a group, got joined with a player 12 levels above me, who was apparently AFK. I was then mashed quite quickly by the higher level ships. Besides this, I usually found these open instances fun, and when chatting with the other players (hard as you have 20 controls to push), found them friendly.

Ground battle on the other hand, except off of zones mentioned above, is almost always alone, with a team of NPCs that you choose from your ship. The ground game is…disappointing. The graphics are much lower in quality than the space ones, and I found the Klingons very creepy at close quarters, which is where they prefer to fight. There is no facial movement, and the models have rough animation. It is like someone took Doom 3D and put Star Trek mesh over the models. The controls are awkward although simple, and the fights are almost always very simple and easily winnable. My son, a rabid gamer of the shooter type games, found it to be a “bad 3rd person shooter”, and I’m not inclined to disagree. The landscapes though are gorgeous, and you can visit stunning representations of scenes from the movies and shows both in missions and out. I found myself dreading when I had to “beam down” as I knew that I’d soon have un-animated Klingon masks rushing at my screen. That bashing aside, the creators of this game really had to try and figure out a way to make two games in one. If all you did was fly around in a starship, people would say it was a flight simulator. If it was just ground missions, it’d be a FPS. The marriage of the two is right in here, but I found the game to be handicapped by the poor animation/graphics of the ground game. Also what I found very interesting is not every mission is a fight. There are a good deal of missions where all you do is explore, and I found that to be very redeeming. After all, the original Star Trek, for all of the times that the Great Shatner found a new woman, also was about exploring new places. The later series would use this as their prime concept.

STO’s auction house, the Exchange, is something I’m guessing was a last minute decision. Despite lifting many other concepts from other games (which is common in the industry and not a bad idea), the Exchange was not. I would assume that in the near future it will be massively revamped. As it stands right now, it is a no-fee, flat price, instant pay, forever listed, excel sheet without sorting. The lack of ability to sort is aggravating, but not as much as the random window view sizes. Looking at one item you may get 100 on a page, and another may show 25. What you list an item for is what you get if it sells, and the money instantly lands in your pocket. You get an in game mail about it, but there is no need to ever go there. The Exchange had listings of hundreds of most items, and I felt like I was in a garage sale most of the time. The “crafting system” as it’s called also seems like a last minute addition, as it’s not crafting at all. You trade in items you pick up from “anomalies” you pass in your travels, plus a store-bought or looted item, and get another item. That’s not a trade skill, that’s barter.

This is getting long, so I will conclude with Tribbles. I was able to breed, in my 5-day trial, several of the second highest level of these using items I looted. This is an optional yet money-consuming process that gives you some very nice buffs. It’s not difficult to do, but is fairly rewarding for those who are bored enough to play with it. Be sure never to leave a Tribble in the same area of food. They accurately represented the episode with their breeding habits.

Overall, I liked the game a good deal. I think it has a decent amount of potential. Space flight and battle, while somewhat repetitious, made me feel very happy I have a high-end graphics card. Ground battles did not. I was also disappointed in the lack of control of gold spammers (it was nigh impossible to ask a question without it scrolling away immediately, and the spam control sometimes takes 5+ tries to block the person), and really think the game’s controllers should, if nothing else, be online and blocking the spammers themselves in these first fragile days. After all, there is only one server. The spam-reporting feature copies LoTRO’s current mechanic exactly, with an unlimited count, so it is at the least very user friendly, once you find it. The in-game community was very friendly, something I’ve grown to expect in a game from my time in LoTRO, and very present and willing to help new people. Aside from the normal occasionally silly chatter, questions from anyone were answered in a clear manner and politely, which really says a lot. Bravo to you if you’re a player – a mature community is something no programmer can code but is infinitely needed in any game. I would give this game 4 Oz’s out of 5, and may end up tossing a few dollars Crypic’s way for a month subscription at some point in the future. I couldn’t resist picking up the little shuttle pet that was a freebie from a restaurant on the west coast. Someone made a dollar off my gaming habit on eBay, but it was fun.

Next – Oz goes home, or at least a parallel post-apocalyptic home. EQ2 looms ahead.

Oz’s Trail of Trials, Part 2 – Set Phasers to Spam is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

* If this is set 30 years after Nemesis, and 22 years after Romulus was destroyed, how is Spock narrating it when he was sent to a parallel universe shortly thereafter?

* While the ground fight battles are fun but repetitive, the space battles are the most amazing eye candy I’ve seen since LoTRO’s Lorien. The graphic geek team who worked on this deserves medals.

* The goldspam in this game is worse than Ironforge, Orgrimmar and Bree combined. It was literally impossible for me to ask a single question without it being instantly whisked out of the chat buffer.

* Props to the Trek geeks who worked hard to ensure this game follows established stories/lore. LoTRO is the only other game to do so, in my experience. SWG tried, and ended up…well…NGE is all I need to say.

Oz’s Trail of Trials – Pre-Part 2 is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The philosophy that Cryptic has applied here is one that is “player-driven development” in the sense that feedback from the players should drive much of the development of the game.

I think it is a nice idea and also something that puts less risk into the project, which I think is needed for MMOs. But going with a traditional subscription-based model topped with an item shop does not fit that well into this approach to development.

The offerings of 6 month/12 month/lifetime subscriptions for STO and CO is also something that does not quite rhyme well with this development approach.

Given the choice if Cryptic should have spent 2 years or 5 years developing STO I definitely prefer the current approach of 2 years. But it is not fair to ask customer to pay to wait for them to develop what initial player feedback might indicate.

I forgot at which blog I read a little model showing moving “release” a few steps earlier in several waves of “fix bugs and add content” (link it [thanks!] if ya got it). Of course, a downside is if an entire system fails. City of Heroes underwent massive overhauls to basic systems in years of beta, such as back when Origins were very important rather than 98.72% decorative. If you decide that your entire combat system needs to be re-done, there are few positive synonyms for “NGE.” If they decide in 2011 that Champions really should have been class-based, that is hard to graft on top.

: Zubon

Comment Spotlight: Cryptic’s Model is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Lots of MMOs have price cuts, of course. But MMOs are not supposed to have a price cut within the first month after launch. The hardcore Star Trek fans who paid for their pre-orders weeks ago, felt ripped off. To make matters worse, many of those same fans purchased multiple copies of the game in order to secure one of every pre-order bonus item. Too bad there’s no end-game content to wear those precious limited-time cosmetic uniforms to. If there was, then the STO lifetimers would have something to do other than troll their forums.

Price Cut is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I watched Cryptic pull beta content from STO to add it to the cash shop, and I couldn’t even be bothered to snark on it. Not even “fail.” You just shake your head and walk away, you know?

: Zubon

RMT Growing Pains is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Syp finds the same problem with Star Trek Online, I said the same thing about LotRO skirmishes, and many of us have said the same about Borderlands and Torchlight: it is great at first, but there is not all that much improvement or variation over time. (I do credit the two single-player games for having interesting boss fights mixed into the repetition, where MMOs tend to rely on even more repetition, even in tank-and-spank bosses.) I appreciate being able to get 95% of the benefit in 5% of the time. Portal did that brilliantly and then ended.

: Zubon

Non-MMO inspiration banished to the first comment.

Onion Headline Syndrome is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Where World of Warcraft was able to drastically increase it’s numbers after launch, these new MMOs have been unable to duplicate the success. Droves of people tried Conan and were turned off by the lack of content. Many people tried Aion only to be turned away by it’s massive grind. I like to think that if any of these games had been of higher quality, everyone who tried it would be impressed enough to tell their friends about it. In a word, these games failed to “wow” people, no pun intended.

And lets remind ourselves, Cryptic may not be honest. Having “one million accounts” could refer to forum accounts, or include the multitude of people who pre-ordered the game from target for 99 cents and are currently playing a preorder’s free-download with no intention of ever spending any more money. Sounds a bit like Free Realms doesn’t it?

Even if Cryptic’s claims about initial success are accurate, there’s no doubt in my mind that the game was not ready to launch. Lack of content is Cyrptics “kryptonite”. Considering Cryptic says they tossed all the previous developer’s work in the trash and started development from scratch just two years ago, it’s impressive they have as good an MMO as they do. But still, the game doesn’t feel complete. This lack of quality will drive away any non-Star-Trek fan who sets up an account with Star Trek Online.

So can Star trek Online hold it’s numbers post launch? No, probably not.

Star Trek Online: Second to WOW? is a post from: Kill Ten Rats