STO - Cryptic looking at adding a third faction and maybe a fourth

Dan Stahl, Cryptic's Executive Producer for Star Trek Online, has posted up the latest Ask Cryptic article where he replies to a range of player submitted questions. Despite there being a lot of the "promising but non-committal" answers that game developers tend to give, it is well worth a read and gives a bit of insight into future plans. Certainly Dan is promising a focus on adding new content, but the quotes I'm most interested in are these:

Q: (WazzaG) When will we see a Romulan Faction? I always read answers along the lines of “when the KDF has more content.” When will they have enough content so you can then launch a Romulan faction?
Dstahl: This is the number one long-term question on my mind and something I’m working directly with Jack (Cryptic’s CEO) and Perfect World to address. While I can’t give you a date, one of my goals in returning to Star Trek Online is to address this very issue.

Q: (KeithCrimson) When do we get to play as a Cardassian?
Dstahl: We’ve been holding off on having playable Cardassians and Romulans for the time being as we envision having a complete faction devoted to these races. That is the only reason we haven’t added them as playable species in the game yet. They are reserved for future expansions. That said, depending on what our timeline is for future expansions, we haven’t ruled out the possibility of having a few Cardassians or Romulans appear in Fed/Kdf ranks. So this is very TBD still.

OK so clearly it's not going to happen anytime soon, but it does sound like it will happen. Particularly the Romulans if that's the number one thing on their minds right now. Now, bare in mind STO is not a RvR game and as such a third faction would not turn it into DAoC in space, but aside from the obvious PvE additions and masses of new content, it would open up more PvP options. Plus it would sure make a lot of people very happy and be one hell of a news headline for the game. New factions are big media hype news, Romulan ships look cool, things that look cool and have media hype will attract players. And that's without considering the attraction for Trekkies.

STO has exploded in popularity since it went F2P, on a couple of occasions I've even had to queue to log in (not for long thankfully) and from what I see in game it looks like their cash shop is very successful. Everything in the cash shop can be earned without paying real money, since you can convert in-game currency "dilithium" into Cryptic Points to spend in the store, but that takes time to earn and it's pretty clear people are putting money in to get stuff quickly. Which is all good for STO and only increases the likelihood of Cryptic being able to introduce major expansions.

This is purely a personal opinion, but I suspect we will see an announcement of a playable Romulan expansion for STO being made around the Summer of 2012. Followed by a series of episodes related to it over the following months, then see it going into beta on tribble in December and going live Jan/Feb 2013. He says, speculating hopelessly :P

STO dings 2

Happy birthday STO :)

The event is now live and you've got just a few days to get the new fancy ships for free. Details here.

And just noticed they've got a coming soon trailer out. I'm not trekkie enough to know what all that is, but it has lasers/phasers and stuff :P

STO - 2nd anniversary rewards are a bit good

So normally games give you a load of old tosh for their anniversary rewards. A cloak, title or something else decidedly zzzzzzzzz. Sure there's been some decent veteran rewards in games, as in a reward for being subscribed for a certain amount of time; mounts black dye tubs (ahh fond memories), etc. Yet anniversary rewards received just for being logged in at that particular time are usually, well, a bit rubbish.

STO however is slapping that idea down and delivering some properly useful and rather substantial rewards. Everyone that plays during the 4 days from 2nd February can get a quest line that rewards them with proper all new design end game starships! You have to be at least level 5 to get the mission (or level 21 for Klingon, but Klingon chars start at higher level anyway) and then you'll have the ship as an inventory reward ready to activate when you get to Vice Admiral.

Odyssey Class Starship

Bortas Class Starship

Some details of the event can be found here. Klingon ship info here and Federation here.

If you've not played STO before it's probably worth installing, getting to level 5, getting the ship when the event is on and then if you ever decide to play it properly you'll have that waiting. Since it's free and all.

PS: After this event I would expect that these ships will only be available through the cash shop...

STO is now F2P

OK so I am a few days late announcing this, but I forgot, sorry :P



I would say that of all the free to play games out there these days, it's Star Trek Online that gives you the most content for free. Seriously folks this game pretty much throws everything at you for free and is very reasonable in what it expects people to pay for. It's also, in my mind anyway, the most improved since launch MMORPG probably ever.

As a free download this is one of the easiest recommendations I've been able to make.

Official site: http://www.startrekonline.com/

SWTOR 2 days later

Ahoy me hearties! Since I've been playing SWTOR for a couple of days now, it's time for a few words on SWTOR client and server performance in comparison with beta, identified bugs and whatever other random thoughts pop in there...

Client performance was pretty good prior to launch and I'm pleased to report it has improved further. I'm running on high settings and get a more than comfortable 30-60 frames per second, only occasionally dipping to around 25 when I'm a particularly manic situation. There are still moments of that memory leak style problem where the game starts chugging and stuttering, but this has only happened twice so far and a reboot cleared everything and sorted everything out. Seriously though I must stress this is a minor gripe and I am extremely happy with how the game runs.

BTW to make those fps numbers mean more, my PC spec is a mere:
Q6600 processor
4gb RAM
GTX260 graphics card
Vista 32 (yes I know.. :P )

The servers have been very stable, I've hardly had any issues other than things getting a little spikey now and again, but compared with other MMO launches it has been very good indeed. Connections to the servers are pretty solid, lag hasn't been much of an issue for me, but obviously since I recently recommended people try out WTFast Lagkiller IF they have problems with lag, I figured I should report my results from the SWTOR live servers. Without Lagkiller running I have a latency fluctuating between 46 and 87ms (which is quite reasonable), but with it on my ping lowers a little and the range stabilises to between 35 and 52ms. So not a monumental change or an urgent requirement in my case, but I'll continue with it as it makes a huge difference for my connection to Star Trek Online (Yes I am still dabbling with that and plan to continue) and since I play SWTOR on a PvP server obviously a slightly smoother connection is nothing to complain about.

There has clearly been a fair bit of work put into how smooth things are with the storyline conversations when grouped and I've hardly had any issues. In fact there's a general sensation that almost everything has been smoothed out and given a little glean of polish, it's hard to list exactly what has changed, it just feels smooth and effortless if that makes sense.

The only real bugs and annoyance I've encountered has been with the guild system. The rosters are broken, randomly listing different amounts of people from one moment to the next. For example at one point last night I know we had 24 people in the guild total and 15 people online, yet the roster listed 2 people, when I checked the show offline box it went up to 5. When i then tried sorting the list by name it went up to 7 people... Five minutes later it showed us as having 3 people. This is a right pain in the arse as I can't set people's guild ranks up because I can't see them in the bloody roster! :P Also officer and member notes do not show up at all for anyone, regardless of changing settings or not. Unfortunately Bioware have done what every developer seems to do when launching an MMORPG and left the guild functionality until last. It's very basic and quite broken. However, with guild capital ships on the way and the promise of other stuff, I'm expecting this to get dramatically improved and to be honest if the only serious bugs are to do with the guild roster, well... that's not too shabby!

So all told it's looking very good. I shall amend my previous "worst MMO launch ever" statement to be:

"The worst organised MMO pre-launch ever, but so far one of the best technically and a joy to play once you're in."

I could also use the word smooth a few more times. Smooth smooth smoothy smooth.

Star Trek Online F2P launch date

Latest dev blog delivers the date of 17-JAN-2012. Interesting timing, being roughly a month after the SWTOR release. It could work quite well for those players that burn out fast with SWTOR and as F2P there's no downside to trying it out, though to be honest I just can't see it becoming a big player or even denting SWTOR's sub numbers. Too many folks wrote the game off already.

I'll definitely return and dabble with it. Despite it's many faults, I've always liked STO. It's a game with a nice atmosphere and the missions are fun, it just struggles to hold my sub long as I'm not huge into repeating PvE experiences over and over. As F2P though I'll gladly enjoy the freedom of playing it whenever I feel like a change.

A little update

Lots has happened, but I've had no time, kinda. My house is under quarantine due to throat/chest/pukey pox and I've lacked motivation to move, let alone think about writing :P

Kill Frenzy in WAR is pretty much on hold again. A lot more people than just little old me got narked off with the whole situation WAR is in right now. A few die-hards are sticking around, but most of us have now quit and are looking forward to new games. Slightly depressing to see our WAR communtiy floundering so, at least as much as a computer game can be depressing, but the future for KF is bright with us gearing up for SWTOR and quite possibly a few other games. Our KF-RIFT guild is still going very strong too ;)

What little gaming time I've had over the last couple of weeks has been spent pottering around in Star Trek Online. It's been bloody great too. From reading forums it sounds like there's a range of issues with the game (shock horror), but I don't care really, I'm enjoying it. The atmosphere is great, it runs really well, the storylines are very solid, the character/ship development and customisation is interesting, it has some pretty spectacular graphics at times and it's casual friendly. However, I'm not doing any PvP in it at the moment and I don't plan to with any real dedication or effort. I'm purely playing this for casual entertainment where I'm free to AFK or pay loose attention and in those regards it's come up trumps, just be aware that my expectations maybe different to those looking for a full time MMO. I wouldn't like to say how solid the game is in that regard, at least not yet. Anyways, there's been a fair few interesting changes in STO since I last played it and I'll talk about those soon. One in particular is a great example of when Devs do the right thing.

nn :)

Star Trek Online goes F2P in an impressive way

Everyone was expecting Star Trek Online to change to Free 2 Play as soon as the news got out that Perfect World had bought Cryptic. It was pretty much a given with their track record. However what I wasn't expecting was for them to be quite so generous with what you get with the F2P accounts. Take a moment to check out this features matrix.

It's pretty.

That's a lot of game for nowt and before you say "yeah yeah isn't STO a fail game", believe me that since it's rocky launch STO has seen loads of excellent changes and a LOT of new content added, enough that I consider it to be quite easily the most improved MMO of recent years. I'm no Trekkie, but it's been good enough that I've reactivated every few months to play through some more of the storylines and see what else has been introduced. Sure, I normally only do a month and then go back to WAR, but the key point here is unlike most MMOs I dabble with, this is the only one where I have not once regretted reactivating and have never considered it a waste of money. It has always delivered plenty of entertainment, albeit mainly PvE based. The PvP is not too bad, it's certainly not great or anything but it's a pleasant change now and again.

Now you may wonder with so much being given away for free, will they make enough money with presumably minimum levels of gold subscribers and the bulk from cash shop purchases? I think they'll do more than fine. I already find their cash shop rather tempting for the funky looking ships and did actually buy one from it a while back and probably will again, but I expect for a Trekkie they must be like a kid in a sweet shop.

Very pretty.

If you've not played STO before it's definitely one I would recommend trying out when it goes live with F2P. After a dubious start it has turned into a very solid game and for me playing it as F2P is an absolute no brainer. If you want a pure PvP game then it's not going to tick your boxes, but if you want a very good looking, well themed game with enjoyable PvE and excellent storylines, STO should provide some quality entertainment. This is the first F2P game that I can see myself playing long term, most likely alongside a single subscription game which will undoubtedly switch around with the times.

Like this moon, STO has plenty of atmosphere.

HOWEVER!!!!11

There is another.... in spandex.

Now then, if STO isn't your thing, the other one you might be interested in is City of Heroes which is also offering a solid F2P package in the near future. Details can be found here. Purely on a personal front STO is the one I'm really looking foward to, but I'm sure I'll give CoH a spin again once it goes F2P. CoH is a very solid game and as it will be free, nothing to lose in looking eh!

Uh... trudging. You know trudging?

To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on.

Its strange, I’ve been playing MMOs since 1997 and as I think back over the various games, I’m struggling to think of one where there wasn’t a section of levelling that felt too bloody slow. There’s nearly always a big chunk of levels where it just feels like your trudging through treacle. I’m not sure why developers always spray this gooey muck somewhere, perhaps it’s insanely difficult to get right. Which is unfortunate because it’s an issue that can easily ruin people’s perception of a game and become an unassailable barrier. Take my current two active MMOs: Warhammer Online and Star Trek Online…

WAR’s journey to level 40 is split into milestones by its tiering system, progressing to a new tier brings major changes in your game experience and the locations you fight in. Tier 1 (level 1-11) and tier 2 (12-21) are perfectly paced, with just the right amount of time spent in each. I’ve put 6 characters fully through those tiers and it’s been a joy every time. However of those I’ve only got 4 to max level, leaving two lost souls in tier 3 and I have another 4 characters spread throughout tier 1 & 2. I’m not rushing to get those into tier 3 either, simply because it is WAR’s trudge in the treacle. It takes too long and is to be frank, boring. The fighting in the RvR lakes and scenarios is erratic and the PvE has worn thin at this point. Once you get out of tier 3 and into the final tier, life gets more interesting as you’re now playing with the big boys. The PvE remains meh, but I’ve never found tier 4 a hardship to reach level 40 in, mainly because I just do RvR. That and I guess psychologically I’m on the home straight with the end game in sight. Problem though is that many people didn’t make it through tier 3, as it burnt them out. They wrote WAR off as rubbish and took themselves to pastures new. Which is a shame because despite WAR's much whinged about problems, it does provide some great RvR fighting in tier 4 that you just can't find elsewhere.

Star Trek Online’s pacing is a completely different kettle of fish, yet has the same problem in a different place. Like WAR it is split into tiers, in this case 5 of them which are defined by your character’s rank and ship class options. After completing the tutorial you’ll be at Lieutenant rank and have a light cruiser to fly and it then takes 11 grades (levels) to reach the first major promotion to Lieutenant Commander. This is the point where you get a choice of ship class: Cruiser, Escort or Science ship. It’s a huge milestone in the game, as this is the moment where you choose how you want to play space combat. In fact it’s a more important choice than when choosing your officer class during character creation. It’s also at this point that the game really takes off, with each new tier having progressively better storyline missions, epic space battles and a lot of fun. I’m up to Captain grade 6 so far (tier 4) and it’s been an utter joy since getting my first science ship. It’s PvE whoring for sure, but damn it’s good fun and I’ve not felt any grind at all.

The problem is that it takes far, far too long to reach that first all-important Lieutenant Commander rank. I’ve seen a LOT of people at Lieutenant rank complaining that it takes too long to level in STO. If you combine that with the more basic missions in that first tier, you wouldn’t be surprised to see people write the game off at that point. Certainly it was this tier 1 trudge during beta that led to me expecting just another Cryptic game where I run out of steam before even reaching the mid levels. Whilst it turns out quite the opposite has happened and I will definitely be taking my character to max level, it could easily have gone the other way and that tier 1 trudge send me into rage quit mode.

Both STO and WAR are lucky in that they have their IP to fall back on. Many people will be a bit more forgiving about the treacle trudge when they have the sound of phasers melting faces or a witch elf’s buttocks to get mesmerised by (though WAR’s tier 3 really did push that forgiveness to the limit). Other games don’t have the luxury of good IP. The awful pacing of Aion in it’s early levels turned me off the game very quickly and as I had no interest in the dodgy fairy crap storyline, I was in and out quicker than those poor sods Pele pushes cock pills for. And yes I did just sneak an erectile disfunction gag into post about MMO gaming.

Even the “perfection” of World of Warcraft has suffered from this problem. How many people look back at sodding Desolace with a smile? Not bloody many I’d wager. I can’t think of any of my past MMOs where there wasn’t a long slog somewhere… Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron’s Call, Everquest, Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, etc, etc. They’ve all had it, for me at least anyway. Actually I’ve thought of one. Ultima Online… But then that wasn’t level based and to be honest the way we played MMOs then were different, so it doesn’t really count.

So what about you lot, is there an MMO you thought was perfectly paced or an absolutely tedious nightmare?

STO - Star Trek Offline

Beta is over. It's headstart time, but it seems Cryptic just simply aren't prepared. At first I wasn't that bothered about the fact they did a server maintenance in the middle of the day at the weekend, it's a US game so their timezones will get preference, 'tis the nature of things. However since the server also goes down without any warning for hours all the bloody time, it's a tad annoying. If your decision to pre-order was influenced by getting a headstart code, it would be nice if it was actually possible to play the game with any reliability during said headstart .

Of course the MMO veteran in me says "Oh what shock horror! A MMO having shitty server stability at launch". But seriously, we've been cutting developers slack because it's an MMO for years now. It's wearing a bit thin.

• Will any MMO developer ever learn from the past?
• Did Cryptic really not understand how popular an MMO with the Star Trek IP would be?
• Do they not actually know how many headstart codes they created?
• We've had queues to log in, many server crashes, restarts and emergency maintenances just during the headstart. Do Cryptic really think they can sort this out before this week's launch?

Which leads me to ask...
Q) Is there any chance of a smooth retail launch?
A) None what so ever. Which is a shame considering it's a pretty solid game.

 However, when the game is actually online, it's been a generally enjoyable experience. Improving dramatically as you get your first proper ship choice. I've gone with a Science ship, sorta debuff/healy/buff/funky thing.

Oh... and I heard millions of Role Players suddenly cry out in terror. Only to be suddenly silenced by uberness. Doh wrong IP... Anyway, the chap below amused me. You could almost hear the intake of breath from the RPers (of which STO has many).

STO - final thoughts from the beta

Man… this game is rough around the edges. The latest patch has smoothed things out a lot, but there’s still this kind of general rough feeling, particularly around the instancing. Some times its very straight forward, others it’s just sodding cranky. A friend and I had an absolutely mare getting into the same instanced mission the other day, even when we were grouped, it was just not quite working. Though when we did get in, it was great fun double-teaming in our spaceships.
 
After level 10 the missions have got better (including the ground combat) and I’ve enjoyed the storylines. It’s the same old MMO style, kill this, collect that, talk to him, etc, but it’s dressed up in a decent fashion and I’ve not found it too grindy. I’m finding it quite relaxing and enjoyable as a PvE game, there’s more to it than meets the eye, at least once you get a bit further in anyway. I particularly like the way you develop not only your character, but also your bridge officers and ship/s.
 
I’ve not done much PvP, but what I did felt very meh. If you’re looking for a PvP game, move along, nothing to see here… I say that for now anyway, this might change as new races are added and developed. Though I have to say I find Cryptic’s vagueness about the other playable races very odd. They’ll add content if players want it, apparently. Well duh... just add it.
 
Over all I still quite like the game, certainly enough to buy it and give it a whirl for a month or two. It just has a certain charm, feels quite relaxed, it looks great and, to me at least, it does feel like Star Trek. Having said all that, I still don’t see it as an MMO. I know technically it is, but it just doesn’t feel like one. Some friends summed it up very well the other day:
“It’s like playing a single player game, but where your mates can play with you.”
“Reminds me of multiplayer Neverwinter Nights.”
I think this non-MMO feeling is partly down to the gameplay, but also heavily related to the god-awful chat sytem Cryptic insist on and the over reliance on instancing. Yet as I’ll mainly be playing the game solo, I quite simply don’t care. Being an unsociable bastard I will probably only talk to friends on my WAR guild’s ventrilo anyway.
 
Hmmm I don’t think I’ve said anything particularly different to my previous comments on STO, in fact the extra time on the beta has just consolidated my first impressions. So in final summary: STO is a pleasant secondary soloing MMO, but don’t expect it to take over from your WAR, WoW, etc. Don’t set your expectations too high and you’ll have fun.

Star Trek Online - thoughts from the open beta

First off, the big 2 questions for me after trying out a new MMO…

Q) Is this a game that could compete with WAR for my “main MMO” title?
A) Definitely not.

Q) Is it interesting enough to be a secondary MMO, something to dabble with in my spare non-WAR time?
A) Yes.

I've been intrigued by Star Trek Online for a while. I'm no Trekkie, but I don't mind watching the TV shows and films, plus it's just one of those classic shows that people around my age grew up with. So while I don't speak Klingon or any of that madness, like most people I do know what the game's universe should feel like. Which is one of the things you instantly notice with STO, the Star Trek atmosphere is spot on. The classic Star Trek visual style has translated to Cryptic’s cartoony style very well, but the thing that’s really got me is the sound effects and music, both of which are great. Cryptic have nailed the Star Trek feel and for some people this will no doubt make up for the game’s shortcomings.

Like any Cryptic game the character creation system is second to none, no shock there, but you can also customise your ships. Had it allowed people to make ships that didn't fit the ST canon, it would have been a recipe for disaster, but thankfully it works fine and whatever you create will look just right.

Unlike EVE, you actually do get to properly control your ship, which if you compare them as space themed MMORPGs is one big score for STO. But comparisons between the games are unfair. EVE is a brilliant, incredibly deep and bloody harsh sandbox, the spiritual successor to Ultima Online in many ways, where as STO is a much more accessible, heavily instanced, PvE Carebear MMORPG. Which I say not as a criticism, just as a fact, the two games are apples and oranges. It’s like comparing Ultima Online (pre-Trammel) and World of Warcraft. Comparisons are pointless.

STO's space combat is a lot of fun and has a bit more to it than you may think. I like the whole balancing act of managing your shields, the switching power levels and positioning your ship correctly. Hell, I just like the damn sound of phasers. It's a lot of fun, extremely atmospheric and enough to make me want to log in, for now.

Ground missions are not so hot. They're not exactly bad, just a little dull at times and suffer from feeling very clunky. Characters don't move very smoothly and coming from WAR (which runs very well now) it was like walking through treacle. Also gun based combat seriously shows off the limitations of the traditional MMO NPC's AI. It's not so bad in a sword and sorcery game when NPCs run at you blindly waving swords, but it looks stupid when they still do it with a laser gun... On the positive side, the landscapes look great and so far have been very varied in appearance. I really hope the variety continues throughout the game. I’ve heard that the ground missions get a lot better once you get to the first big promotion (which is also where you get your first major ship upgrade), however I’m not convinced. One cool thing is you can solo ground missions and instead of other players you can take your bridge crew. That is a quality move.

Another thing I really do like is the way the "quest" text is presented. It's just the right amount of info and for the first time EVER I have actually read everything. The storylines flow nicely as you switch back and forth between your ship and various away team missions, be they planetside or inside other spaceships.

Another Cryptic thing, which I still don't like, is all the instancing. It negatively affects a players feeling of immersion into the game world. Thankfully in STO the whole going to warp thing combined with the game's ambiance limits this as an annoyance. I don’t like it, but I can live with it.

Character and ship progression shows a great deal of potential. The concept of not only managing your character’s skills, but also your bridge officers, is very interesting. There also appears to be a wide range of equipment upgrades for both your characters and your ships. To be honest though it's too early to judge how it will pan out at higher levels, certainly there’s potential.

Like Champions Online it’s a game that looks interesting short term, but I’m not convinced about it long term. I suspect it’s going to be another Cryptic grind fest. Even so, I will be buying it. Despite many annoyances (some of which I’ve not mentioned to save wall of texting too far…) I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the storylines. So I am going to play it, but primarily as a single player game and probably only occasionally group up. At the end of the day it will cost the same as buying a new single player game and having almost finished Company of Heroes, I need a new single player game :P