Star Trek Online
I have got to get me one of these!
A few days ago i caved in and bought Star Trek Online. I have been a Star Trek fan for a long time so it only seemed obvious that i would play an MMO based on Star Trek. I am also currently doing a course on Game Culture where it again seemed like a good idea to once more throw myself into an MMO game. However Star Trek online has really disappointed me.
Before World of Warcraft there was a lot of MMO’s where you really had to work hard to get anything done in them. World of Warcraft implemented an easy to understand quest system which made sure that you always had something to do. Gone were the days where you would run around for hours hoping to find something to do. Pretty much every MMO since has taken up the banner of World of Warcraft and used a similar questing system. The saying goes that if you make sure the player have something to do, they will do it (and thereby stay in your game).
When Age of Conan came out i was really psyched about it. The game turned out to have an incredibly boring endgame, but it the game as such did have one very important innovation. It was the combat system. Gone were the days when you just clicked one button a billion times to perform the same attack again and again. Now you had to actually push combination’s of buttons to perform your special attacks. The more powerful the attacks, the more buttons you had to click. The system made MMO combat interesting! (at least for a while).
This takes me back to Star Trek Online. As any other MMO out there it has the World of Warcraft style quest system. You fly around space, pick up missions and go do them. However it seems to me that most of the missions are actually the same, and use the template of “go to this system, shoot whatever is there”. Rumor has it that there are more talky missions in the game – i just haven’t found any yet. The problem with this is that it, first of all, goes against the whole feeling of the Star Trek universe. Never do you see the Enterprise just charge into battle without at least first hailing the enemy, exchanging some insults, and THEN do battle. There’s none of that in STO. Here you just attack, kill…kill…kill. And that leads me to my major problem with this game.
The combat system is absolutely horrible! Most of your time will be spent pressing “1….1….2….1….1…2″ (repeat ad nauseum). Its just so incredibly boring. The game hype said that there would be a vastly different playstyle depending on what type of ship you had, and depending if you where in space battle or ground battle. But once again the hype has failed. Actually the game is just about pushing the same button again and again, and to me, that just becomes boring really fast.
I am going to keep playing the game for a while, but i probably wont renew my subscription. Its too bad because the game really did have potential – i guess they should just have looked more at the gameplay than at the hype.
It is indeed a shame that you feel this way. You and me have a similar opinion of games, I was also in great anticipation of this game. There are too many negative reviews. To understand why many MMO’s have a hard time we must look at the MMO format.
The concept is that many different people with different skillsets can interact with each other and party up. This is the reason for “grind” style questing i.e. the more storyline that is mainstream to the game the harder is becomes for people to play with their friends as they will move ahead or to be boosted through the game to catch up with their friends.
I wonder what your opinions are on endgame content in MMO’s, Getting to LVL 80 in WoW requires roughly 10 days of playtime, then there are dailies and gearing up LOTS before you get into the raids. Is it ingenious to keep people working at the game, how would it differ if people could raid from the get go?
Interesting thought about beginning raids. Actually i have never played until the end game content in WoW. I gave up around lvl 40, it just couldn’t keep me interested for longer. And that is actually very annoying because i think i would REALLY enjoy the whole raid part of WoW. So the question is then if it is really fair to have players pay for months and months to get to “the fun part” of the game?
I know that it is possible to get to lvl 80 pretty fast in WoW, but honestly, most people will never play like that. most people will move around the world, chat a bit, do some quests, explore, try out different gear etc. etc. But having some sort of raid feature for lower level players would actually be pretty cool. Of course you would then need to figure out how to keep everything balanced, so higher level players don’t go into low level raids, and also make sure that the raids are actually possible to do for lower levels who will, most likely, increase their level pretty fast (so the raid needs to be doable without 2 years of gear adjusting).
Have you tried STO – it just disappointed me a lot. It really has a nice setting and some good ideas, its just the implementation of gameplay mechanics that fails.
You should (at least for research purpuses) try guild wars, there you can skip the buildup, and go directly for the endgame.
But that said, for me at least this MMO endgame stuff require to much commmitment, for raising child at the same time.
I am playing AION atm, and enjoying the hack n slash, and the “even more” improved quest system.
Guild Wars is one of the few MMO’s i haven’t tried. My problem with Guild Wars is that, as far as i understand, it leaves out all the possibility of roleplaying. I’m very keen on roleplaying, basically i feel that the social interaction makes up for all the bad quests we see in these games.
I haven’t tried AION – how is it compared to the other MMO’s out there?
And yes, having a kid makes it damn near impossible to get time to play games, hehe. My daughter was born this september – so, I only have time to play very late at night and at the University.
Testing something – EOM
Roleplaying endgame in a MMO ?
rare stuff
my experiences are that its either or, and sometimes in the same guild.
Either you powerbuild you char, and raid, after some strict raid rules, Or, you hang around RP in the noob towns.
eksample:
My GF got in trouble when her hunter, did not have the ability to set traps in a certain instance. The traps was deselected due to there “magic” nature (ice fire etc) with didn’t seam appropriate for that kind of hunter (no xbow og gun either)
AION is just like all the MMO’s (at least up to level 17) the quest help are massive, (blue flags on minimap for all persons you need to talk to on all your quests) and locate function build in on all quests. ( no need for the rogue browser anymore)
and Yes, its REAL beautifull, (cryengine, and Korean taste in design, a little.. nahh total over the top)
but I got to shape shift into a Angry killer Corn, the other day, that a first.
http://twitpic.com/13gkwk
Yeah well roleplaying in an MMO is a lot of work, hehe. Actually I always DO manage to find players who want to roleplay. However not all MMO’s are good for it. It requires that you are able to actually participate in the world, like building houses and such, for it to be really belieavable. Thats why I’ve never like World of Warcraft much, but loved Star Wars Galaxies (at least the part about building stuff).
And…. Angry killer corn?! What the…?