Great concept; terrible execution

[Itisnotlogical]

Despite it's major successes, a lot of people forget to mention exactly how you have to micromanage every single unit on the map to get things done in Command & Conquer. One time I ordered some tanks across the bridge and left for a few minutes. When I came back, one tank had made it across the bridge while all the rest were still searching for another way around.

 

[Charlie Kelly]

Honestly, compared to the wide range of non-Star Trek games out there, most of the games you listed are just average.

Most of them got better than average reviews on release. I certainly enjoyed playing them.

Most MMO's are rushed, buggy and missing content at launch. Especially for a game that switched developers a year in, without the release deadline being commensurately being pushed back. Good thing about them, and the whole reason you pay for a subscription, is that what you get at launch is not the final product.

At the very least, you shouldn't refer to it in the past tense. If it doesn't meet your standards (which are perfectly valid, don't think I don't understand where you're coming from) I'd suggest giving it another shot after the Season 2 release. S2 will be what STO would have been had they pushed back the aforementioned deadline. I view the game in its current state as an extended beta, which is getting slightly better each week.

I'd love for them to sort out all the issues but there are some fundamental game play issues that go far beyond fixing bugs and adding content.

The ground combat being one of them, it's broken and would take a complete redesign. Even the space combat is far from perfect. Really, considering MMOs are in their nature repetitive the most important thing they should have got right was the combat systems. Everything else builds around that. There really is no excuse for it either, they should not have even passed the game into beta until they got the fundamental aspects right.

Charlie

 

[Canadave]

Despite it's major successes, a lot of people forget to mention exactly how you have to micromanage every single unit on the map to get things done in Command & Conquer. One time I ordered some tanks across the bridge and left for a few minutes. When I came back, one tank had made it across the bridge while all the rest were still searching for another way around.

Are we talking classic C&C though? Because I can forgive 10-15 year-old pathfinding AI for being pretty bad. And let's face it, it is pretty hilarious to order a giant squad of elite tanks to cross a bridge, only to see a quarter of them go the opposite direction, a quarter cross the bridge, and the rest mill about in apparent confusion.

 

[Reverend]

Hey, I've had exactly that happen with Dawn of War! It's hardly a problem unique to the old C&C games, in fact I think they still somehow to struggle with collision and path-finding.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

^^
They could have just made bigger bridges.

 

[ALF]

I can't get into World of Warcraft, Star Craft or Warcraft III. I think they nailed it with Warcraft II.

 

[darthraidr]

Mario Kart Double Dash
Awesome idea to have 2 riders on a kart.
Terrible execution of 2 riders on a kart. the second player is more of a hindrance as they make basic actions more complicated. powersliding becomes more complicated, firing weapons is unchanged, the only positive is stealing weapons.

all that needed to be done was let the 2nd player function like a turret. they can fire weapons in any direction...

oh well.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Hey, I've had exactly that happen with Dawn of War! It's hardly a problem unique to the old C&C games, in fact I think they still somehow to struggle with collision and path-finding.

There is really no excuse for lousy pathfinding at this point. I mean, geez, go steal the A* pseudocode algorithm from Wikipedia if you have to.

 

[Hoser]

I remember thinking 'Oh cool, a 3d Superman game. That'd be fun, flying around and saving people/etc.'
2 hours later Superman 64 was the first game I returned without finishing.

 

[FordSVT]

Good thing about them, and the whole reason you pay for a subscription, is that what you get at launch is not the final product.

Really? Continuing to pay for a game in order to play it and the game not every being quite finished both sound like negatives to me.

I also don't think it's an excuse that cuts it in the MMORPG world these days. Many have come and gone in recent times because let's face it: a new MMORPG has to compete with existing, fully-established and fleshed out games like WoW. While it's a valid point that even WoW went through it's beginner's growing pains, people expect more from a new game, even if it means blatantly ripping off other concepts just so you can say you have them.

I also agree with the idea that, at the very least, the combat system in a game like this needs to be ironed out before launch, there is no reason something like that can't be taken care of in beta.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Star Trek: Online - Great concept but poor execution with no sense of progression really other than, oh! Bigger ship.

Guild Wars: Eye of the North - I know they were canceling this series but the whole series seems like a huge tease. Great game but really in the end, they could have done so much more for it. EotN was the icing on the cake for a great game but ultimately flawed in the fact they kind of abandoned it.

Unleashed - Could not get into this game.

 

[sojourner]

Shadowrun: This was a property that was just dying to be made into an MMO. what did microsoft do? Turn it into a second run FPS. Way to mismanage a property!