Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!)

[intrinsical]

JRS wrote:

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The fact that they have not even released an exact date when the Season 6 will come out does still worry me a bit.
Another example that things are not (yet) alright at Cryptic.

Software Development Rule #1: Whatever schedules you have planned is only valid on the day you planned the schedule. Quite simply, there is no way to foresee complications that can occur when you try to add new stuff to an already huge software system.

I know City of Heroes and Champs Online already have a similar Superbase system. Modifying the Suberbase system to create Fleet base is a natural low hanging fruit that the STO team can bring to STO. To convert superbase to fleetbase in 6 months is a challenging but not impossible schedule IF the team did not try to be too fanciful and pack too many new features into the fleetbase system. Anyway, its Software Engineering 101 to categorize each new feature as absolutely required, good to have or nice to have. If the project is behind schedule, the good to haves and nice to haves can be cut from the schedule.

My guess is, the fleetbase system is nearly complete but requires a few devs from the core engine team to help with the finishing touches.

JRS wrote:

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You mentioned City of Heroes in your earlier post..it makes me sometimes wish that the people who run that game would also run STO(They do not seem to have trouble of making meaningful and even fresh content to that game, even though the game is years old already..)

Most MMO devs agree that a new MMO requires a development time of three to four years. City of Heroes had close to five years of development time and as a result was launched as a very well polished game. Cryptic only started working on STO largely from scratch in July 2008 and the game was launched in February 2010. That is HALF the required time and part of the reason why I did not start playing STO from day one despite being a hardcore trekkie and MMO player. STO was born prematurely and even today the lack of polish still shows.

Don't get me wrong, I think most of the blame lies with Paramount and Atari in forcing STO to launch prematurely. In fact, I think Cryptic has done an amazing job in churning out so much content in just 1.5 years.

[syberghost]

Actually, it's not EXACTLY the same engine in City of Heroes vs. their other games. They split the company some time back, with some going to the spinoff Paragon Studios, and the rest beginning the new engine that is used in all the other games. Obviously there would have been a lot of code re-use, but it's a new thing, and Cryptic doesn't maintain the old thing at all; the Cryptic spinoff Paragon Studios does.

[Briquettes]

intrinsical wrote:

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Don't get me wrong, I think most of the blame lies with Paramount and Atari in forcing STO to launch prematurely. In fact, I think Cryptic has done an amazing job in churning out so much content in just 1.5 years.

I agree, and that's why I cut Cryptic so much slack. Ultimately, STO's failings are the result of CBS giving the license to the Star Trek IP to an unproven developer, then, after they went belly-up, turning to Cryptic and demanding that the game launch on schedule.

[JRS]

Ship sale on the C-store
I might just get the B'Rel Bop or the Nebula class..

From now until 10am PDT on Monday, July 2nd, we are having a 20% off sale on all ships*.
Now is the time to purchase the ship you've always dreamt of commanding.
*The Heavy Escort Carrier: Armitage Class is excluded.

[Bird of Prey]

JRS wrote:

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Ship sale on the C-store
I might just get the B'Rel Bop or the Nebula class..

You just beat me to posting it. In planning my Artimage build, I still need to get the quad cannons from the Sao Paulo and the Point Defense System from the Thunderchild. I have enough c-points to get the Sao Paulo during this sale, but will need to do some serious grinding to get the remaining couple hundred c-points needed for the Thunderchild.

In prepping for this, I'm switching out my Galaxy for my Promethius and trying to create a good Escort build using only phasers and photon torps.

[Hartzilla2007]

Bird of Prey wrote:

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but will need to do some serious grinding to get the remaining couple hundred c-points needed for the Thunderchild.

You know you can like 1500 or so zen which can be converted into close to 1200 or so C-points if you do the Netflix 1 month trial and if you cancel your account before the free month is up you can do it without spending money.

And it works through paypal so you don't have to give out credit card info.

[Xhiandra]

intrinsical wrote:

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Most MMO devs agree that a new MMO requires a development time of three to four years. City of Heroes had close to five years of development time and as a result was launched as a very well polished game. Cryptic only started working on STO largely from scratch in July 2008 and the game was launched in February 2010. That is HALF the required time and part of the reason why I did not start playing STO from day one despite being a hardcore trekkie and MMO player. STO was born prematurely and even today the lack of polish still shows.

Very true. BUT the playerbase's expectations start on release day, regardless of whether it was premature or not.

A big mistake Cryptic made is in the speed of levelling.
The average Cryptic MMO is quite fast in levelling, but STO takes it to 11.
Combine that with the fact that it also takes the "little in terms of endgame content", another Cryptic staple, to 11 as well and you've got bored players.
You can tell bored players you were rushed, but in the end they're still bored.

Then agian, maybe I was spoiled. The MMO I played most (and I've sampled many, believe me) had huge flaws, but lack of content certainly wasn't it.
2 years after release? Endgame was very well fleshed-out and frankly, it took me a year and half to even reach it (would've been a lot faster had I been in the US or Japan, but we're still talking months; not ~20 hours of playtime as in STO).

Of course, Cryptic probably doesn't have the manpower Squeenix had on the project, but once again, for the player that makes no difference.



Anyway, there probably are commercial reasons not to release Starbases too early as well.
Say the rumours are true: new Ships are on the way... that'd hurt the sale of existing Ships (hence the discount) and the Akira-R still has to make more return.

[JRS]

A big mistake Cryptic made is in the speed of levelling.
The average Cryptic MMO is quite fast in levelling, but STO takes it to 11.
Combine that with the fact that it also takes the "little in terms of endgame content", another Cryptic staple, to 11 as well and you've got bored players.
You can tell bored players you were rushed, but in the end they're still bored.

The funny thing is that I personally like the fast leveling myself..but I do know that I am in minority on that one.
These days I basically level up my new toons to lvl 50 before I start making the FEs and so on.

[Timelord_Victorious]

JRS wrote:

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The funny thing is that I personally like the fast leveling myself..but I do know that I am in minority on that one.
These days I basically level up my new toons to lvl 50 before I start making the FEs and so on.

That's because you are a veteran.
The whole point of a leveling experience is to learn the gameplay mechanics step by step which doesn't happen when you are at max the day after you started.

If the leveling curve becomes less demanding and faster when you run alts that would be ok.
Let's say you level your first toon and reach max level at some point, from that point on every bit of experience he earns gets added to an account XP pool. That pool would be used to add 20% to the XP of a new toon and could add up with XP boosts from C-Sto... sorry, ZEN Store, or you could use that extra XP to buy special leveling ship variants or kits and other gear.
It would be similar to but different enough from SWTOR's legacy system and encourage players to run alts and spend on the store.

[Bird of Prey]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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You know you can like 1500 or so zen which can be converted into close to 1200 or so C-points if you do the Netflix 1 month trial and if you cancel your account before the free month is up you can do it without spending money.

And it works through paypal so you don't have to give out credit card info.

Where is this offer posted and if I do register for the free promo, when would I get the c-points - right away or at the end of the one month? Curious to know if I was to register this weekend, if I would have the c-points to spend on the ship sale. If they offer the c-points as soon as you register, could I cancel the subscription right after?

[intrinsical]

Leveling speed isn't an issue for me. Its more of the lack of enough missions that bother me a lot more. As a player, I shouldn't be able to blow through every single mission in under a month.

[syberghost]

Levelling speed goes back to the content problem. Unless they force people to grind, the only way to slow levelling is put more content in each level.

[Scout101]

Honestly, they force you to grind anyway, so it would be nice if the missions were slowed down enough to only be *half* the points for each promotion. That way, you had to do some of the exploration, dailies, fleet actions, whatever at each level to advance.

Just removing all the XP that the DOFF system gets you would probably be enough to slow it back down some. Leave in the DOFF point system, but stop applying it to rank as well. Since it came out, I've leveled a couple characters almost from 0 to 50 (have to get to a minimum level to start DOFF) just using DOFF system. One character hasn't left the vicinity of the SOL system since he qualified to start DOFFing, and is a VA now. A little broken there...

If they slow it down, at least you don't fly through the missions and have all the characters sitting at end grinding to no particular gain. Before there were all these other options, it was at least a LITTLE slower on my first character, I remember having to look around a little and find defend/patrol missions to try and get those last couple points to make rank. Now you can hit VA without running any missions but the tutorial pretty much.

For a game with no particular endgame content, seems funny they want you to get there so fast. Spread some of the grind out so that you always have to grind a little, or can try different ones, rather than NO grind, and then nothing BUT grind...

[syberghost]

Scout101 wrote:

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Just removing all the XP that the DOFF system gets you would probably be enough to slow it back down some.

QFT. Some people have leveled all the way to 50 via DOFFs.

[Scout101]

I did it with my KDF toon, for sure, as well as a Fed SCI. Heck, didn't play a single KDF mission but the tutorial until LVL 50, I don't think. I then went back and checked out the half-dozen that are unique to KDF just to see what they had. STILL haven't played all the missions for that character (they just repacked the FEs for the KDF), and she's been LVL 50 for probably a year...

Before all the extras, just seemed like it actually took at least a LITTLE while to level. they just keep adding stuff worth more points, and don't add up that you can hit endgame in a long weekend at this point, and then there's not much to do. Grind for DOFFS, which is just a thing in and of itself, not much help outside the system, or you can try and grind for MK XII gear in STFs, but there's nowhere to use it but to grind MORE STFs, so kinda pointless, and the odds are so terrible anyway that it's an effort in frustration.