ian

The combat looks uninteresting, and I loved the look and generally more lighthearted attitude (I'm so tired of mega-self-serious MMOs. I would kill for a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy MMO, for example). I loved the art direction and exploring WoW's world, but eventually the hotkey mechanics became unbearable after I had experienced something different in MMOs; and WoW you are forced to basically grind your way through the world if you want to see it.

Although the combat looks meh, the saving grace might be it can be my MMO where I "do something else" (like be an explorer) and enjoy the world with occasional combat. Therefore, its non-innovation in that area wouldn't matter as much.

Plus, I like the premise they've set up. Its not an explored world with you a n00b, its everyone is coming to gold-rush a mysterious planet.

@BigAndShiny It always confuses me when people combine "photo realistic" = "good graphics". Does the Incredibles by Pixar have "bad graphics" because its not realistic looking?

Now, it may be that I'm a designer/animator -- and maybe the fact that people without a sharp visual attunement can't distinguish these things is in fact a problem with the graphics commercially -- but it looks light-years ahead of WoW.

The animations are fluid and disney-esque (versus the Hanna-Barbera primitive movement of WoW), the designs of the characters a fluid rather than segmented looking, the environments look painterly and almost cell shaded (although this is a trait WoW shares that I like about it). In addition, the faces are expressive and mobile and the FX are far superior.

This might be a case similar to growing up in the late 80's, when I would bang my head against the table when people couldn't tell the difference between the animation quality of say, Hannah-Barbera's Smurfs and Disney's Pinnochio.

@Dunraven Yeah... Hilmar isn't just the CEO of CCP, he's the founder. So that's not going to happen. Nor should it. The recent contretemps with his email was irritating and showed bad judgement, but not such that IRS justifiable to push a guy out of a company he himself built, and a product that his vision created (and which was obviously exceptional enough that we all cared enough to be upset about it's possible compromise).

@Ogged Have you tried the foundry missions? That was brought me back to STO and I have to say it's the main killer feature that everyone overlooks. Sure there are a lot of crap farming missions people have designed (use the rating filter), but there are tons of missions frankly superior to what Cryptic puts out. Plus, because its crowdsourced, new ones are coming online faster than Cryptic (or any dev really) could do alone. It might end up with STO actually having the most content of any game at some point.

And for Klingons, the foundry missions are really filling-out the lack -- one person even put out a quite good series of missions for Klingons that adapt every Shakespeare play (Othello, Romeo&Juliet, MacBeth et. all really do lend themselves to Klingons).

I'm not sure of the value-added to MMOs base on beloved existing works of fiction, either for the gamer or developer. After all, the most successful MMO out there is not based on a non-game IP.

I think there might be an issue that people who are truly invested in the world as imagined in other media might be shy of having a game modify or distort their memories of it. I'm not a Harry Potter fan particularly (although I've read the books and seen the movies). I am a major Lord of the Rings fan, however. Whe LotRO came out, I jumped on it. And was stoked to be able to walk through The Shire, etc. And I thought -- and still do -- it was a quite good game.

However, soon I decided that the compromises, mechanics etc. necessary to make it into a game world had an effect of creating a less "real" world from this work for me. And I figured that spending hours per week playing in this compromised version of it would eventually lead to IT being Middle Earth to me since Inwould clock more hours is LotRO than it in any other media.

Thus, I decided to go to MMOs where the worlds they create could be experienced and fallen in love with on their own terms.

Star Wars may be the exception, in that although beloved, it's canon is much looser, and it's 'action' a lot more video game like in the first place. Also, Bioware wisely chose to set their games far away from the events in the movies. I actually thought LotRO should have done similar, as they too have thousands of years of pre-LotR Middle Earth history to work with.

Harry Potter doesn't, of course, really have this option.

So, has Aion simply given up on the concept of lore and creating an immersive virtual world? Although generally Asian MMOs are not stylistically my thing (not into anime sensibility), I actually thought Aion was a cut above in creating a lyrical and consistent sense of place.

It's a bit disappointing to see it succumb to what I feel -- beyond the on-rails tendency and grindy nature of many -- is a main failing of many K-MMOs... The total lack of concern for world building. Vindictus was an example of their ridiculously anachronistic football and cheerleader uniforms available in the cash store for their Medieval world.

At what point can an MMO not even be considered a "theme park" due to it's lack of ability to maintain a theme? Perhaps "amusement park" MMO is better in this case.

Say what you will about them, LotRO, EVE, Conan, STO all manage to sell items they at least keep connected to the world in which they exist. Even WoW's often ridiculous steam punk and in-jokes are woven into their world in a way credible given he cartoonish fantasy 'verse their characters inhabit.

@(Unverified) P.S., I'm not talking every combat mission. There would be those where it fits.

P.S., an out the game designers had, should they get creative, would have been to create a full experience for the Klingons with a much greater number of pure kill quests in which "excessive force" isn't a factor. It would also give incentive for people to play that faction.

@Avaera I agree. I would have like to see quests where, for example, even within a combat mechanic, a goal was to disable a ship without destroying it by applying the correct amount of non-lethal force, etc. And in which actually blowing up the vessel would have a negative consequence (such as failing the mission and receiving a dis-commendation because you didn't follow instructions).

Unfortunately, STO became a game in which the Federation were basically a violent totalitarian force. I remember missions in which people were smuggling non-military stuff, or were salvaging what they shouldn't -- and my mission was to basically blow-up their ships (presumably killing hundreds of people onboard). Yay for a Federation in which everything is a capital crime!

@Angn Specifically speaking regarding a theoretical STO where diplomacy is an option -- I would submit that if the worldview of the fictional Federation in Star Trek (and by its extension its creators, who hold that fictional organization as the heroes of the story) repulses you, that playing a game based on that IP is probably not the best for you.

It would make little sense for a game developer to tweak the game to appeal to people who specifically dislike its premise. "A fantasy MMO for people who hate fantasy" for example is a non-starter. This, I would argue, is in fact a part of STO's problem -- in that it tries to appeal to people the least likely to be interested in its world through over-reliance on combat.

As far as non-combat activities, I think an issue is simply a tech one. AI is not at the point where it can generate satisfying social-like interactions as part of its core gameplay, nor exploration. To do so would require a level of adaptability by the system that we presently don't have.

@Rayko Maybe a good strategy is not ripping into things you haven't looked into. And if people seem harsh, perhaps it's weariness with the knee-jerk armchair cynicism and complaint-factory everything generates when announced. And it seems acute among this kind of community.

It seems no publisher, no matter it's track record, ever earns anything but hostility. I'm an education 3d application dev, but I thank goodness I don't work in this industry. It would be demotivating to actually innovate, put blood sweat and tears into something and get a wall of knee-jerk hostility from people who can't be bothered to look into what they are pissed about.

Legit criticism is legit. I myself am not a fan of everything every publisher does. But critique and reflexive hostility are different.