STO celebrates six months of interstellar conflict in the latest State of the Game

How much does all this cost above the subscription?

I just can't get on board with Cryptic anymore. I totally get that a company wants to make money. I am all for everyone in the world being prosperous. But charging me a monthly fee then charging for so many game extras is just too much.

Sure, even the powerhouses like WoW does it. Which still bothers me, however a glass horse is easier for me to swallow than a race, a ship, etc... which feels more game-play related than a mount.

Like Champions big thing is creating the heroes you want. Well, if you buy the right expansion costumes on top of the subscription price that is.

I recently bought this game a month ago and thought it was good. And as a lifetime owner of Champions, I know they will make this game better and better, because they have done the exact same thing with Champions. Both games very good for the casual crowd. And I am hoping that season 2 will make STO a better game and they keep on updating this gem.

Here's my issue with STO, and I know its a common issue... I started the game in the beginning, and then it very quickly felt like a grind. Doing the same randomly generated missions over and over and over and over again. My issue? I LOVE Star Trek! I would give up every other IP out there and focus on this game if the game wasn't a huge grind over and over and over. Its Star Trek, its all about the story. From what I played (I didn't play to max level... just couldn't bring myself to log in to get there) there was some story, but then I had to fill in the rest of the time with more randomness, which after you played it enough, stopped being random. (How random is shooting down ships in small group after group? So what if the ships owners change, they're still the same difficulty and the same number of ships...)

However, I've been seeing all the improvements they've made, but I can't help seeing the game as still just random crap after random crap. I want to come back, I really do, and start over from scratch, but if I come back, will it just give me the same feeling despite everything new? Thats what worries me more than anything else. Its not an investment for my money. Why buy items from the cash shop if I don't plan on sticking around for a while? I don't mind the cash shop, (I don't like double-dipping, but then the stuff in the cash shop isn't content, its just fluff, so I can avoid it easily) its just another way for the company to make money. Can't really fault them for trying to make money.

Sigh. Do I quit the other sub games I'm playing to come back? Or would it just be a waste? Playing more than one sub game, to me, is truly the waste. They need to start being more like GW. Buy the box, get the game. Want extras? Thats what the cash shop is for. Want expansions? Buy them seperately. Its why I've always loved GW. Never played it full to the end, but I could leave and come back anytime and it didn't feel like waste.

Now I'm rambling. Somewhere in here was a point or two... but all in all, I hope STO would change its core leveling system. Put the random there, but don't make it mandatory. Then, I'd come back.

This "update" is just adding some highly needed content that should have been there from the start. With getting to max level in two to six weeks without any problem the game lacks content and as far as I saw on the test server, Season 2 will not change this, just ad small bits here and there.

Plus what still highly lacking is mission diversity. Even the new "diplomatic" missions are just repeating very basic mechanisms - as do all the quests already in place.

That Cryptic and Atari have the chuzpe to charge money for the retail boxes PLUS a monthly fee PLUS the C-Store (including pay-to-win items like the Galaxy-class Dreadnought) is quite bold...

Ccon!!!!! Er...I mean...KAHN!!!!!!! LOL.

...there is this theory of the Roperbious. A twist in the fabric of self-gratulations, where naval gazing becomes a loop, naval gazing becomes a loop, naval gazing becomes a loop, naval gazing becomes a loop, naval gazing becomes a loop...