It's the exact same system that CO uses. The highest ranking contributors have a fairly good chance to get a blue, or later on, purple item from FA's as well.
I feel compelled to point out here that there are no FA's later on, as the game stands right now. The last one is Crystalline Entity at level 15, and after that there's nothing. It is my fervent hope that they put a few in, because I really enjoy them. I do wish they'd change the ranking system though.
You are building a road between two cities ten miles apart. You have a $50 million dollar budget and it costs $5 million to build a mile long stretch of two lane widths. Logic would dictate that you would build a one lane road ten miles long.
Cryptic instead built a two mile long road with nine lanes going one direction for the Federation and one going the other for the Klingons.
Imagine if Blizzard had gotten through coding VanCleef and said "Ok, done."
The really damning thing, when you think about it, is that most of their content doesn't require all that much development time. I mean, space is 90% empty. Most of the planets are procedurally generated, most of the bases are modular rooms slapped together. The engine itself and most of the tools were already there, developed in house for prior games.NONE of it requires the kind of development time that went into say, the unique art assets of deadmines or shadowfang keep.
To be honest I don't really care. Space combat is plenty fun, they could throw a dozen pre-generated fleet actions at me and I'd enjoy them all. I want two things from the game right now; One, the promise that they are working hard to bring out the rest of the game. Two, something for my admiral to do that actually benefits him while he waits for that content. Just something, anything, so I'm not just logging on and going "Yep... space."
I'm enjoying it, although I do miss FAs. I hope to hit 41 tonight, at which point I'll switch to an alt, perhaps a more casually leveled at, at that. Might even try some PVP as a Tac/Escort Klingy, or maybe Sci/Sci Klingy. Not sure.
I could go all the way to 45 and get a bunch of MKX gear, but there's no reason to, not with a 42+ content patch coming.
Does CO have the same randomized missions that this game does? I didn't see them in CO when I played. I have a lifetime for that, too, just never got into it.
I could definitely see how this game was designed originally for a capless system, though. I have to wonder why they changed it at the last minute. If it was me, I would have made the grades MUCH harder to get, maybe requiring a FF11 style promotion quest.
It just feels a bit too easy to level, I guess is what I'm saying. But the game isn't designed for 8 hour marathons like what I've been doing, it's a 1-2 hour in the evening thing.
Respecs are going to rock my world, though. I'll ditch the "heavy cruiser" skill, pick the star or assault cruiser I'm going to take at 41, then pick a single beam weapon type and a single torpedo type, and spec for that. That will give me a LOT more points for BOff and Ground augment skillpoints.
Hopefully they'll add content before they start losing subscriptions.
I'm far from done with this game, and I plan to play through at least engineer and tactical, and then either science or KDF. If there's nothing added by the time I'm done though, I'll cancel and wait for major updates, if they ever come.
Yeah, I'm only lt com level 2. So I have a lot to go. And so far, space combat is enough fun to keep me engaged. But there already seems to be a real lack of anything to do. I doubt I'll resub after the first month.
It's actually become what I expect from crypic, the first month will be fun, as you're still in the honeymoon phase, and things are new, but the flaws are really glaringly obvious right off the bat, and won't hold many people's attention after a few months without some pretty big changes. Cryptic is building a reputation for releasing half-finished game, with little incentive to continue playing after a few months, particularly when you reach the level cap.
How long was this game in development anyways?
I suspect I'll cancel my sub before the first month is up. So many things in the game just feel half-assed. There's no polish and a lot of bugs.
At least space combat is fun. I almost wish they cut ground combat from the game completely. Allowing away teams would be good for a few things like exploration, star docks and the like. But overall, anytime I'm not on my ship, pretty much sucks.
Sorry for the rant, as much fun as I do have when I'm playing, I can't help but smell missed opportunity.
City of Heroes was in a lot better state at release. Was it perfect? No. But it was a whole lot more complete than Champions or STO. I have a feeling that boils down to publisher. It seems as though NCSoft is a lot more understanding about the long development times that it takes to make a truly good MMO.
Atari seems like they have totally unrealistic and stupid expectations. Champions was Atari's first MMO. It feels like the publisher are a bunch of noobs when it comes to understanding the concepts behind what it takes to make a game work. All they see is dollar signs. They want to tap into the success of WoW, but they have no concept of what it takes to actually pull something like that off.
Star Trek uses the same game engine as Champions, so it shared a lot of development time with that game. But neither one of them were released in a state of readiness.
Yeah, there is so much potential. As is, the game still needs a lot of TLC. I am hoping that they have the means with which to realize this potential. I pretty much got this game in good faith that they would not take such a great license deal and turn it into an alter ego homosexual zombie prostitute. (Looking at YOU SoE.) I don't know how anyone could be feeling warm fuzzies about buying a lifetime sub for this game at this point.
Don't get me wrong, I am having a blast at the moment. But I have no delusions suggesting to me that I am experiencing anything other than that new game sensation. And I know that if they don't start piling in new content and some new features, I will start losing interest even though I am a huge fan of Star Trek. (The content faucet abruptly shut off at about Admiral 2 for me.) And I know I won't be the only one losing interest.
It just bugs me how the MMO genre has reached the point where most of the new titles are flash-in-the-pan type ventures. Hype up your release as much as possible, and hope to make the majority of your money from release sales. I am hoping SO HARD that this isn't one of those types of ventures.
Okay, here's the definitive answer on using DSE's to level since I just figured it out yesterday and it is fucking awesome.
I previously said to stop trying DSE's after 11 because they suck. I am wrong. WAS right, but now wrong. When I said it was when there weren't anyone high level enough to be int he dse, so there was 1, maybe two instances not even full. Now 11-20 is quite full with about 50+ instances. so DSE's are now good from1 -21, not sure about 21-45 yet.
Does CO have the same randomized missions that this game does? I didn't see them in CO when I played. I have a lifetime for that, too, just never got into it.
Sorta. Random civilians ran up to you to give you a mission. Kinda random. But they weren't repeatable? So it was like a random questgiver you sometimes needed for exp
City of Heroes was in a lot better state at release. Was it perfect? No. But it was a whole lot more complete than Champions or STO. I have a feeling that boils down to publisher. It seems as though NCSoft is a lot more understanding about the long development times that it takes to make a truly good MMO.
Atari seems like they have totally unrealistic and stupid expectations. Champions was Atari's first MMO. It feels like the publisher are a bunch of noobs when it comes to understanding the concepts behind what it takes to make a game work. All they see is dollar signs. They want to tap into the success of WoW, but they have no concept of what it takes to actually pull something like that off.
Star Trek uses the same game engine as Champions, so it shared a lot of development time with that game. But neither one of them were released in a state of readiness.
It was, but at the same time, it was almost from a different era. Different expectations and all that. It was pre-WoW, and an mmo being released into what was still a niche market, and it was still flawed like crazy. If it were released in that state today, it would be considered pretty weak. Repetitive instances, incredibly slow leveling times, no reward or item system, and powers become few and far between the higher level you get. And to top it off, you hit the level cap and there was nothing to do. I'll admit it never seemed to be very buggy for me when I got it, but there's a pattern they've been following that starting to become obvious. I've seen the same complaints about every game released by cryptic. But to make matters worse with star trek, the ground combat engine appears to be the same as Champions, which appears to be the same as city of villains, which is the same as city of heroes. So when you get to ground missions, it feels like you're playing a 5+ year old game, which you pretty much are, in addition to the standard complaints about cryptic games (feels unfinished, lack of varied content, lack of endgame, etc.).
Thankfully, in the short term, space combat seems to make up for a lot of the game's other weaknesses, the question is, can it hold enough people's attention for long enough for them to make enough changes to the game for it to be considered an A+ title?
Personally it's a game that's going to be fun for me for a few weeks (right now I'm looking forward to going home to play) but after that chances are I'll put it aside and wait for maybe a year and see what they do in the meantime.
I paid for the year subscription due to the promise of the game. I'm frustrated from time to time (especially with the Klingon side of things,) but I have faith that Cryptic will continue to work on things. Until then, I'm taking my time reading all the quest text, taking pretty pictures, and generally wasting time.
I will probably play til Admiral on both Federation and Klingon, then put this on the shelf for a while. I have an expectation there will be at least some endgame content.
I'll admit it never seemed to be very buggy for me when I got it, but there's a pattern they've been following that starting to become obvious. I've seen the same complaints about every game released by cryptic. But to make matters worse with star trek, the ground combat engine appears to be the same as Champions, which appears to be the same as city of villains, which is the same as city of heroes. So when you get to ground missions, it feels like you're playing a 5+ year old game, which you pretty much are, in addition to the standard complaints about cryptic games (feels unfinished, lack of varied content, lack of endgame, etc.).
100% agreed. Crypticism is well founded.
Asuma on
"Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right, you meet the same idiots coming around from the left." -- Clint Eastwood ***
IF they are working frantically right now on a Klingon storyline package, and get that out by May at the latest, they can probably salvage the game, and then start working on content for the Cardassians and Romulans). I think they can make a game of it with a short leveling curve if they just keep adding new factions. They'll need to increase the character limits of course but it would be a viable way of dealing with NOT having an end-game dungeon progression.
Personally I'd like to see them move into having Borg, Dominion, and Kazon (Talaxian, Malor, Hirogen... Ocampa would be an interesting storyline too since by now they've run out of stored power; adding Talaxians and Ocampa as members of the Federation and starting a new Kazon-vs-Federation arc would be interesting) playable factions. Apparently since Jayneway returned we've invented limited transwarp drive (your "Transwarp to Starbase" ability), so opening up the Delta Quadrant isn't implausible.
May is much too late. They will need to get some concrete changes in the game before the 30 day trials expire for first month purchases. If they don't get a big, game changing patch in before the trials are up, I can guarantee you that they will lose as much as 30% or more of their initial user-base.
Also a part of it has to do with how Cryptic markets itself to its publishers, especially Atari. They market themselves like a shovelware developer (small budgets, fast profitability, almost negligently short dev cycles) in an industry that demands much higher standards for AAA products with prominent licenses. That's why they focus so hard on getting people to buy lifetimes, yearly subs, or at least preorder the thing.
korodullin on
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
May is much too late. They will need to get some concrete changes in the game before the 30 day trials expire for first month purchases. If they don't get a big, game changing patch in before the trials are up, I can guarantee you that they will lose as much as 30% or more of their initial user-base.
Yep, pretty much. Additionally, they'll need to fix a lot of the issues the game already has now. Like bugginess, poor ground mission mechanics and lack of variety between missions, or the people who do stick around or come back for the Klingon stuff will get bored with it even faster than they did with the federation stuff. They've kind of dug themselves a hole with their February release date.
Also a part of it has to do with how Cryptic markets itself to its publishers, especially Atari. They market themselves like a shovelware developer (small budgets, fast profitability, almost negligently short dev cycles) in an industry that demands much higher standards for AAA products with prominent licenses. That's why they focus so hard on getting people to buy lifetimes, yearly subs, or at least preorder the thing.
Yeah, that's what's cryptic's starting to look like to me. Shovelware MMO development.
May is much too late. They will need to get some concrete changes in the game before the 30 day trials expire for first month purchases. If they don't get a big, game changing patch in before the trials are up, I can guarantee you that they will lose as much as 30% or more of their initial user-base.
If nothing is out after the initial thirty days (March 4th I guess), they'll lose a lot of players, and it'll be even worse after the first paid month if the game goes nowhere. I consider myself to be in the second batch, since I'm taking it slow.
I love it too, however I am waiting on buying until there is more content since I have already been through all the PvE content there is and while I would enjoy playing through it again, it can wait until there is more to do.
I really don't understand how Cryptic or Atari for that matter can seriously expect players will be content with shovelware in 2010. And its Star Trek for crying out loud ... Why are developers and publishers still thinking that putting out a shoddy product will lead to long term success? Nobody expects a game as polished and tweaked as WoW might be today or EVE or all MMO's that have long running success. But what they put out with STO and (from what I hear) with CO is laughable ...
Isn't there a content patch planned for launch +45 days? They'll probably have to move that date up if they don't wanna lose subscriptions.
Hmm. Interesting. I guess I'm like the only guy who actually really likes this game, when I have time to play it.
I'm having a great time. Played up through Lt Commander 8 in Open Beta and am currently Commander 2 in release. 2 days 23 hours in Open Beta and 2 days 11 hours since Release. I'm still having a lot of fun, and am thinking of starting up a Klingon for PvP. STO is definitely the best game I've played in a long while.
Yeah, I had a blast with the game. I like to load up my Sovereign and go join the level 38 DSE every once in a while just for some almost-even-level destruction, it's just mindless fun. It's just that there is literally nothing to do of any real benefit, and having seen the limited content once, I am having trouble slogging through it again on a second character.
I sincerely hope that the 45 day patch comes sooner and adds more. Based on what people have said about CO's 45 day patch though, I am not hopeful. Oh well, if it comes out I'll resub, if it doesn't I won't. Simple as that, and I'm not sweating it.
They were given an impossible job here, but beyond that the product they turned out just seems lacking in imagination. Given the immensity of the star trek universe there's just so much they could have done. Not a single mission on the ship? That's where, like, 90% of Trek episodes take place. No mirror universe version of myself to fight against? No moral dilemmas or character development for my BO's? What about a mission where a couple of them are kidnapped and my commander has to go track them down, a-la every episode of Voyager season 1? How about a mission where I inadvertently violate the prime directive, or make contact with a new alien species, or... hell I don't know, something other than "Kill this villain and touch this console."
The root of it is, right now I feel like the developers don't care. Which makes me not care. If they can turn that around, I'll happily come back.
Astronomical dungeon gear ladders, or a sandbox world with astronomical advantages for collective effort (EVE), are really the only thing that keeps games viable long term.
Astronomical dungeon gear ladders are really the only thing that keeps games viable long term.
Eternal upgrade model. Most successful MMOs follow this route.
This one is my personal favorite. An eternal battle for resources doesn't really appeal to me, it turns out, but knowing there are more missions/dungeons are coming is great.
Hmm. Interesting. I guess I'm like the only guy who actually really likes this game, when I have time to play it.
I greatly enjoy the game. The developer behind it? Not so much.
The game, what parts are there, is pretty fun. But I'm desperately afraid the current state is 95% of all this game is ever going to be, and there's substantial prior examples to illustrate the point.
Asuma on
"Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right, you meet the same idiots coming around from the left." -- Clint Eastwood ***
Hmm. Interesting. I guess I'm like the only guy who actually really likes this game, when I have time to play it.
I greatly enjoy the game. The developer behind it? Not so much.
The game, what parts are there, is pretty fun. But I'm desperately afraid the current state is 95% of all this game is ever going to be, and there's substantial prior examples to illustrate the point.
CoH came a long way after release. They never put in a real endgame, but they added quite a few missions and superhero fleet actions (I forget what they're called.) CO isn't really a good gauge for their support style. I'm sure they pulled 90% of the devs from CO to STO the second it was off the production line. I expect that STO will hold on to devs a lot better, especially considering contract terms with CBS.
Dewar on
^This is like the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese's^
0
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
I'm sure they pulled 90% of the devs from CO to STO the second it was off the production line
They have assured us on multiple occasions that they did not.
Regardless of whether they pulled devs off of CO or merely hired more devs STO is a much higher profile title, with much greater income potential. From a straight business standpoint, it makes sense for them to try to put resources into it so they can milk it for a long time. Whether or not they have the creative and engineering abilities to expand it and continue to keep us interested remains to be seen. But IMO from a business perspective it makes more sense for them to put more resources into STO than CO.
ydejin on
0
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
I'm sure they pulled 90% of the devs from CO to STO the second it was off the production line
They have assured us on multiple occasions that they did not.
Oddly enough I don't believe most people trust the company that much on what they actually say.
Recent situations has proved that well enough, no?
Look, I am pretty critical of Cryptic. They have been evasive, have made decisions that have been bad for us as customers, and the product is no where near what I would call complete.
That being said, I don't recall any instance of outright lying.
Just_Bri_Thanks on
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I'm sure they pulled 90% of the devs from CO to STO the second it was off the production line
They have assured us on multiple occasions that they did not.
Oddly enough I don't believe most people trust the company that much on what they actually say.
Recent situations has proved that well enough, no?
Look, I am pretty critical of Cryptic. They have been evasive, have made decisions that have been bad for us as customers, and the product is no where near what I would call complete.
That being said, I don't recall any instance of outright lying.
As far as the "we haven't pulled any devs off of CO for STO" line goes, it is a lie. Or at least, it's a lie covered for by a possible technicality. Several devs, like Coderanger, were pulled off of Champions to work on a more or less permanent basis on STO, and still are. Of course, it's not technically a lie if they're still doing token work on Champions (like the STO engine being backported to Champions counted as "working on Champions"), or still being officially considered part of the "Champions team" despite doing absolutely no real work on it anymore.
It's a lot like "we promise we're not going to make any more sweeping changes to powersets, but we never said anything about not touching Enhancements" in CoH.
korodullin on
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Posts
The really damning thing, when you think about it, is that most of their content doesn't require all that much development time. I mean, space is 90% empty. Most of the planets are procedurally generated, most of the bases are modular rooms slapped together. The engine itself and most of the tools were already there, developed in house for prior games.NONE of it requires the kind of development time that went into say, the unique art assets of deadmines or shadowfang keep.
To be honest I don't really care. Space combat is plenty fun, they could throw a dozen pre-generated fleet actions at me and I'd enjoy them all. I want two things from the game right now; One, the promise that they are working hard to bring out the rest of the game. Two, something for my admiral to do that actually benefits him while he waits for that content. Just something, anything, so I'm not just logging on and going "Yep... space."
I could go all the way to 45 and get a bunch of MKX gear, but there's no reason to, not with a 42+ content patch coming.
Does CO have the same randomized missions that this game does? I didn't see them in CO when I played. I have a lifetime for that, too, just never got into it.
I could definitely see how this game was designed originally for a capless system, though. I have to wonder why they changed it at the last minute. If it was me, I would have made the grades MUCH harder to get, maybe requiring a FF11 style promotion quest.
It just feels a bit too easy to level, I guess is what I'm saying. But the game isn't designed for 8 hour marathons like what I've been doing, it's a 1-2 hour in the evening thing.
Respecs are going to rock my world, though. I'll ditch the "heavy cruiser" skill, pick the star or assault cruiser I'm going to take at 41, then pick a single beam weapon type and a single torpedo type, and spec for that. That will give me a LOT more points for BOff and Ground augment skillpoints.
(I just hit Lt.Com 2, woo)
Yeah, I'm only lt com level 2. So I have a lot to go. And so far, space combat is enough fun to keep me engaged. But there already seems to be a real lack of anything to do. I doubt I'll resub after the first month.
It's actually become what I expect from crypic, the first month will be fun, as you're still in the honeymoon phase, and things are new, but the flaws are really glaringly obvious right off the bat, and won't hold many people's attention after a few months without some pretty big changes. Cryptic is building a reputation for releasing half-finished game, with little incentive to continue playing after a few months, particularly when you reach the level cap.
How long was this game in development anyways?
I suspect I'll cancel my sub before the first month is up. So many things in the game just feel half-assed. There's no polish and a lot of bugs.
At least space combat is fun. I almost wish they cut ground combat from the game completely. Allowing away teams would be good for a few things like exploration, star docks and the like. But overall, anytime I'm not on my ship, pretty much sucks.
Sorry for the rant, as much fun as I do have when I'm playing, I can't help but smell missed opportunity.
Atari seems like they have totally unrealistic and stupid expectations. Champions was Atari's first MMO. It feels like the publisher are a bunch of noobs when it comes to understanding the concepts behind what it takes to make a game work. All they see is dollar signs. They want to tap into the success of WoW, but they have no concept of what it takes to actually pull something like that off.
Star Trek uses the same game engine as Champions, so it shared a lot of development time with that game. But neither one of them were released in a state of readiness.
Don't get me wrong, I am having a blast at the moment. But I have no delusions suggesting to me that I am experiencing anything other than that new game sensation. And I know that if they don't start piling in new content and some new features, I will start losing interest even though I am a huge fan of Star Trek. (The content faucet abruptly shut off at about Admiral 2 for me.) And I know I won't be the only one losing interest.
It just bugs me how the MMO genre has reached the point where most of the new titles are flash-in-the-pan type ventures. Hype up your release as much as possible, and hope to make the majority of your money from release sales. I am hoping SO HARD that this isn't one of those types of ventures.
Sorta. Random civilians ran up to you to give you a mission. Kinda random. But they weren't repeatable? So it was like a random questgiver you sometimes needed for exp
It was, but at the same time, it was almost from a different era. Different expectations and all that. It was pre-WoW, and an mmo being released into what was still a niche market, and it was still flawed like crazy. If it were released in that state today, it would be considered pretty weak. Repetitive instances, incredibly slow leveling times, no reward or item system, and powers become few and far between the higher level you get. And to top it off, you hit the level cap and there was nothing to do. I'll admit it never seemed to be very buggy for me when I got it, but there's a pattern they've been following that starting to become obvious. I've seen the same complaints about every game released by cryptic. But to make matters worse with star trek, the ground combat engine appears to be the same as Champions, which appears to be the same as city of villains, which is the same as city of heroes. So when you get to ground missions, it feels like you're playing a 5+ year old game, which you pretty much are, in addition to the standard complaints about cryptic games (feels unfinished, lack of varied content, lack of endgame, etc.).
Thankfully, in the short term, space combat seems to make up for a lot of the game's other weaknesses, the question is, can it hold enough people's attention for long enough for them to make enough changes to the game for it to be considered an A+ title?
Personally it's a game that's going to be fun for me for a few weeks (right now I'm looking forward to going home to play) but after that chances are I'll put it aside and wait for maybe a year and see what they do in the meantime.
^This is like the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese's^
100% agreed. Crypticism is well founded.
Personally I'd like to see them move into having Borg, Dominion, and Kazon (Talaxian, Malor, Hirogen... Ocampa would be an interesting storyline too since by now they've run out of stored power; adding Talaxians and Ocampa as members of the Federation and starting a new Kazon-vs-Federation arc would be interesting) playable factions. Apparently since Jayneway returned we've invented limited transwarp drive (your "Transwarp to Starbase" ability), so opening up the Delta Quadrant isn't implausible.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Yep, pretty much. Additionally, they'll need to fix a lot of the issues the game already has now. Like bugginess, poor ground mission mechanics and lack of variety between missions, or the people who do stick around or come back for the Klingon stuff will get bored with it even faster than they did with the federation stuff. They've kind of dug themselves a hole with their February release date.
Yeah, that's what's cryptic's starting to look like to me. Shovelware MMO development.
If nothing is out after the initial thirty days (March 4th I guess), they'll lose a lot of players, and it'll be even worse after the first paid month if the game goes nowhere. I consider myself to be in the second batch, since I'm taking it slow.
I love this game. I'm also willing to replay it 3 times with alts. But once I reach admiral with all three, there better be something to do.
Isn't there a content patch planned for launch +45 days? They'll probably have to move that date up if they don't wanna lose subscriptions.
I greatly enjoy the game. The developer behind it? Not so much.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I'm having a great time. Played up through Lt Commander 8 in Open Beta and am currently Commander 2 in release. 2 days 23 hours in Open Beta and 2 days 11 hours since Release. I'm still having a lot of fun, and am thinking of starting up a Klingon for PvP. STO is definitely the best game I've played in a long while.
I sincerely hope that the 45 day patch comes sooner and adds more. Based on what people have said about CO's 45 day patch though, I am not hopeful. Oh well, if it comes out I'll resub, if it doesn't I won't. Simple as that, and I'm not sweating it.
They were given an impossible job here, but beyond that the product they turned out just seems lacking in imagination. Given the immensity of the star trek universe there's just so much they could have done. Not a single mission on the ship? That's where, like, 90% of Trek episodes take place. No mirror universe version of myself to fight against? No moral dilemmas or character development for my BO's? What about a mission where a couple of them are kidnapped and my commander has to go track them down, a-la every episode of Voyager season 1? How about a mission where I inadvertently violate the prime directive, or make contact with a new alien species, or... hell I don't know, something other than "Kill this villain and touch this console."
The root of it is, right now I feel like the developers don't care. Which makes me not care. If they can turn that around, I'll happily come back.
^This is like the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese's^
The week's rapidly running out.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Astronomical dungeon gear ladders, or a sandbox world with astronomical advantages for collective effort (EVE), are really the only thing that keeps games viable long term.
Eternal upgrade model. Most successful MMOs follow this route.
This one is my personal favorite. An eternal battle for resources doesn't really appeal to me, it turns out, but knowing there are more missions/dungeons are coming is great.
The game, what parts are there, is pretty fun. But I'm desperately afraid the current state is 95% of all this game is ever going to be, and there's substantial prior examples to illustrate the point.
CoH came a long way after release. They never put in a real endgame, but they added quite a few missions and superhero fleet actions (I forget what they're called.) CO isn't really a good gauge for their support style. I'm sure they pulled 90% of the devs from CO to STO the second it was off the production line. I expect that STO will hold on to devs a lot better, especially considering contract terms with CBS.
^This is like the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese's^
They have assured us on multiple occasions that they did not.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Oddly enough I don't believe most people trust the company that much on what they actually say.
Recent situations has proved that well enough, no?
Regardless of whether they pulled devs off of CO or merely hired more devs STO is a much higher profile title, with much greater income potential. From a straight business standpoint, it makes sense for them to try to put resources into it so they can milk it for a long time. Whether or not they have the creative and engineering abilities to expand it and continue to keep us interested remains to be seen. But IMO from a business perspective it makes more sense for them to put more resources into STO than CO.
Look, I am pretty critical of Cryptic. They have been evasive, have made decisions that have been bad for us as customers, and the product is no where near what I would call complete.
That being said, I don't recall any instance of outright lying.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
As far as the "we haven't pulled any devs off of CO for STO" line goes, it is a lie. Or at least, it's a lie covered for by a possible technicality. Several devs, like Coderanger, were pulled off of Champions to work on a more or less permanent basis on STO, and still are. Of course, it's not technically a lie if they're still doing token work on Champions (like the STO engine being backported to Champions counted as "working on Champions"), or still being officially considered part of the "Champions team" despite doing absolutely no real work on it anymore.
It's a lot like "we promise we're not going to make any more sweeping changes to powersets, but we never said anything about not touching Enhancements" in CoH.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)