Great to read an honest assessment of MMO combat. The points made here are some of the primary reasons that I do not play MMOs in general and why I am sure I will play SWTOR only for a couple of months.
This winner is a travesty. The community's votes over at Star Trek Online had nothing to do with this selection. This ship cannot even be found in the listing for highest rated or most votes listing here:
Clearly, Cryptic only selected this ship design as it is so vague and non-specific that there would be no intellectual property issues. The design is also highly morphable into whatever Cryptic would like to make it.
All of the vastly superior designs were very specific.
Black Prophecy is such a disappointment. After having slogged through decreasing parts on the tutorial during various beta iterations, I really can't be bothered to play the game.
Solo missions are few and unvaried. Story missions from my experience are even fewer.
Combat is unvaried and uninspiring. Space flight gives absolutely no sense of speed, little feeling of maneuverability.
Ship types at lower levels are non-existent. You'll be flying one ship for what feels like forever and upgrading ship parts gives no real sense of improvement or modification. The same old fusion gun or what have you with different numeric stats or cockpit or wing or engine gives no real sense of progression. It feels like there is nothing to work toward, nothing to do, and no incentive to move forward in the game.
The whole thing just feels wrong. It's kind of soulness space sim.
Nothing I saw in that update makes me want to play it again.
Yes, a Featured Episode, the release of which brought the Star Trek Online servers to their knees. Emergency Maintenance was implemented to deal with the network problems. A queue was put in place to deal with the number of folks trying to play the mission.
I love how you guys only report half of the story. At least you might have mentioned the server issues to illustrate how popular the Feature Episode is. It's been an ongoing issue all day.
The game is a terrible, buggy mess. Quests are boring. Graphics are bugged. Crashes and crashes. Masthead has terrible and ineffective server setup. Do not buy this game.
It seems clear to me at this point that Massively amongst other sites were unwitting participants in a social engineering scam. Masthead sent out thousands of beta keys in one day, from which it should fully have anticipated that every damn person would use or try to use that very day.
This influx of folks brought its servers to its needs. This was exactly what Masthead wanted. This was intended as a stress test. It was intended to crash the system.
The promise of access was waved in front of your nose to get you to jump through all the hoops to play the game. However, the only intent of releasing all of these keys at once was to crash the system so the logs could be assessed.
You were never intended to play the game. You were meant to crash it. You spent to your time, your bandwidth via torrenting, and your energy (literally electricity) supporting this game and have received nothing in return. It seems clear you never were intended to receive anything in return.
I invite Massively and all other MMORPG sites to investigate what the intention of these massive beta key giveaways are before becoming an unwitting participant in what I will call a socially-engineered fraud. A fraud wherein thousands of people accommodated a one-way transaction between player and company to participate in a stress test seemingly designed to kill a server.
Time to stop smiling pretty and shaking hands, Massively, and actually use your heads before offering up crack to crackheads, of which I am one, at least where MMOs are concerned.
Don't worry about the rest of the game as you can't even get into the game. Masthead released 2000+ beta keys today 5 days before launch and most people can't even finish the tutorial without crashing and such. I can't even get past character creation. I have yet to see the game despite hours of downloading and jumping through hoops. Clearly, Masthead has absolutely no capacity to handle even a small number of players for an MMO.
The Soapbox: Why MMO combat sucks, and how BioWare could've made it suck less
Sep 22nd 2011 10:21PM (Massively)Winners announced for Star Trek Online's Enterprise design contest
May 6th 2011 2:15PM (Massively)http://www.startrekonline.com/enterprise/gallery
Clearly, Cryptic only selected this ship design as it is so vague and non-specific that there would be no intellectual property issues. The design is also highly morphable into whatever Cryptic would like to make it.
All of the vastly superior designs were very specific.
You suck, Cryptic!
Letter to the Black Prophecy community outlines the state of the game
Apr 14th 2011 8:46PM (Massively)Solo missions are few and unvaried. Story missions from my experience are even fewer.
Combat is unvaried and uninspiring. Space flight gives absolutely no sense of speed, little feeling of maneuverability.
Ship types at lower levels are non-existent. You'll be flying one ship for what feels like forever and upgrading ship parts gives no real sense of improvement or modification. The same old fusion gun or what have you with different numeric stats or cockpit or wing or engine gives no real sense of progression. It feels like there is nothing to work toward, nothing to do, and no incentive to move forward in the game.
The whole thing just feels wrong. It's kind of soulness space sim.
Nothing I saw in that update makes me want to play it again.
The P-word: Earthrise first impressions
Feb 11th 2011 3:29PM (Massively)Cryptic releases new Star Trek Online Featured Episode
Feb 5th 2011 8:45PM (Massively)I love how you guys only report half of the story. At least you might have mentioned the server issues to illustrate how popular the Feature Episode is. It's been an ongoing issue all day.
Earthrise launch day arrives, sandbox title available for purchase
Feb 4th 2011 12:04PM (Massively)[Update] Get a head start on Earthrise with our closed beta key giveaway!
Jan 30th 2011 1:36PM (Massively)This influx of folks brought its servers to its needs. This was exactly what Masthead wanted. This was intended as a stress test. It was intended to crash the system.
The promise of access was waved in front of your nose to get you to jump through all the hoops to play the game. However, the only intent of releasing all of these keys at once was to crash the system so the logs could be assessed.
You were never intended to play the game. You were meant to crash it. You spent to your time, your bandwidth via torrenting, and your energy (literally electricity) supporting this game and have received nothing in return. It seems clear you never were intended to receive anything in return.
I invite Massively and all other MMORPG sites to investigate what the intention of these massive beta key giveaways are before becoming an unwitting participant in what I will call a socially-engineered fraud. A fraud wherein thousands of people accommodated a one-way transaction between player and company to participate in a stress test seemingly designed to kill a server.
Time to stop smiling pretty and shaking hands, Massively, and actually use your heads before offering up crack to crackheads, of which I am one, at least where MMOs are concerned.
[Update] Get a head start on Earthrise with our closed beta key giveaway!
Jan 30th 2011 12:28AM (Massively)Don't worry about the rest of the game as you can't even get into the game. Masthead released 2000+ beta keys today 5 days before launch and most people can't even finish the tutorial without crashing and such. I can't even get past character creation. I have yet to see the game despite hours of downloading and jumping through hoops. Clearly, Masthead has absolutely no capacity to handle even a small number of players for an MMO.
[Update] Get a head start on Earthrise with our closed beta key giveaway!
Jan 29th 2011 4:41PM (Massively)[Update] Get a head start on Earthrise with our closed beta key giveaway!
Jan 29th 2011 12:47PM (Massively)