STO

[klasvaakie]

IS anyone going to try ou Star Trek Online? Looks like the spaceship ballllllttes r going to be epic. lol

 

[killkom]

I preordered my copy already

I should be part of the closed beta that is going to start soon

I have been following this game since they announced it over a year ago looks interesting I am just wondering how good the interface is going to be. How well can you control the ships and how much fun that will be.

Well one refreshing thing is its not at all like wow something that a whole lot of companys have been getting wrong lately e.g AION WARHAMMER and so on at least its a fresh approach to an MMORPG

 

[Xyber]

My brothyer pre-ordered and I'll prolly grab a copy on release day to check it out.

 

[killkom]

The only issue I have is I had to purchase it on amazon.co.uk and send it to a friend in the UK then he will send it to me they would not ship it to SA

Looks like SA is excluded from this game as usual

I emailed BT games to see if they are getting any copies but they have not gotten back to me

 

[klasvaakie]

BT games isnt part of the preorder closed beta and headstart program. I have asked. I preordered with take2...I hope they get some beta keys...but will have to wait and see

But yea, it looks pretty awesum and the video that sold me on the thing was the one where they show fleet actions...they just look so hawt

 

[killkom]

But yea, it looks pretty awesum and the video that sold me on the thing was the one where they show fleet actions...they just look so hawt

Yeah same here but I wonder what type of PC and bandwidth you will need when you have so many ships interacting with one another I hope they made this game slick

 

[Cornedp]

I am currently in the Closed Beta. It's looking good. Still a couple of issues to address and they planning lots of bug fixes for play test tonight and tomorrow. This could be a sleeper hit for Cryptic this year.

 

[Cornedp]

Yeah same here but I wonder what type of PC and bandwidth you will need when you have so many ships interacting with one another I hope they made this game slick

I play on a 4Mb unshapped. No issues with lag in huge battles and there is a couple of them....Starbase 24 is one. PVP also seems to be reletivly lag free, but then again, it is still closed beta and the masses have not been let in yet for open beta....

 

[ToxicBunny]

What kind of pricing structure are they thinking of?

 

[killkom]

You guys are lucky to be in the closed beta

How is the game though is it fun to play

I didn't really like playing AION or Warhammer. I love WOW though I know this is a different type of game but do you have a good time when you playing it.

How is the ship to control is it quite complex or is it like wow where you just explore the maps with basic left forward right and reverse keys?

 

[diabolus]

What kind of pricing structure are they thinking of?

If Champions Online is anything to go by (Cryptic's other title), i'd wager:

$15 monthly sub -AND- a micro transaction store, probably loaded with stuff you actually need (as opposed to fluffy vanity pet items)...oh AND of course paying for whatever expansions/content updates they throw in every x-months.

Normally you only get the one or the other (sub or store) , but Cryptic is giving new meaning to "Triple-Dipping" , so i hope they don't push their pricing tactics too blatantly in STO. Unlike Activision with Modern Warfare 2, i do not believe they're in a position to dictate pricing too much before it backfires on them.

 

[ToxicBunny]

$15pm + the price of the game + a micro transaction store would be too much in my opinion....

Price of the game + a micro transaction store would be good..

maybe $8 - $10 pm plus the price of the game would be acceptable...

But then I'm not an MMO player so the idea of paying for a game every month just to play it grates me the wrong way...

 

[diabolus]

$15pm + the price of the game + a micro transaction store would be too much in my opinion....

Price of the game + a micro transaction store would be good..

maybe $8 - $10 pm plus the price of the game would be acceptable...

But then I'm not an MMO player so the idea of paying for a game every month just to play it grates me the wrong way...

I think more likely is they will have a sub, but they might combine it with Champions Online. Similar to what SOE (Sony) is doing with their Station Access. You pay a single monthly fee ($30) and can then play all the MMOs in their lineup (right now that would be EQ1,Planetside,Everquest 2,Star Wars Galaxies,Vanguard,Pirates).

It won't be below $15. If there's a sub it will be $15 or higher.

They're probably keeping it quiet because of the sh*tstorm they created with Champs when they started selling "respecs" (ability to reset your skills/talents) in the store for $12 a pop (quite an essential thing) on top of the $15 monthly sub. People were so upset about this double-dipping that Cryptic could not even talk about the game itself. So maybe they want to do the same with STO, but don't want everyone moaning about pricing instead of the actual game.

Unfortunately micro transaction stores are the latest "flavor-of-the-month" , even WoW now have a store with gender changes,race change and pets etc. So i am sure STO will have one too. Actually it is now a vital design decision, if a game ever wants to drop their subscription and become "free to play" you need a micro transaction store setup , hence it being worthwhile to have one. That's what DDO [dungeons and dragons online] did, people are more likely to jump in a game if it's free (up to a point) and then you start paying for things as you need/want it.

The latest trend is to allow "unlimited" trial play up to a certain level, combined with a store and then paying a sub to go deeper into the game. So that is what i am expecting. Something like Warhammer's structure with a store. In fact CHamps have it now too, you can play in the tutorial area for free, unlimited until lvl 15.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Its nice not being an MMO junky I spose..

I'm intrigued by STO.. but it has to be at the right price point... and R100 +- pm is where I'll draw the line.... and if they charge for essential things in the game.. I'll walk away.

 

[f4ntom]

@Toxicbunny: I feel the same. It's why I never played WoW. Problem is these MMO's are just an extra monthly cost. Maximum time I am able to play each day is probably one or two hours and that's if Im lucky. I just feel I'm wasting money if I cant play all the time. I like the idea of Free MMOs but now with the trend of having to pay for essentials (Champs Online) I have lost faith in those too. All hope rests on the shoulders of Guild Wars 2.

 

[killkom]

Yeah I play WOW the killer is that we are forced to play on the European servers and we get nailed by the Euro the dollar is more Rand friendly

One thing I strongly disagree with is paying the monthly fee then you have to pay for essential things WOW does'nt even do that they only charge extra for nice to haves

Can you imagine every time you have to respec in WOW they would charge you.

I have never paid any extra money for WOW if I had to I would not be playing for it anymore.

The thing is Cryptic are not a top MMO player like Blizzard there is already so much pressure on the game at release all the comparisons to other MMO's. Will it be stable will the content be good enough why bring out a pricing structure that increases the pressure doesn't make any sense.

I am all for paying a monthly fee for MMO's they take a tremendous amount of work to create and maintain and keep fresh I think free MMO's are a recipe for failure a company has to make money to keep there games working and move them forward. This has been a critical part of wows success.

 

[diabolus]

Yeah I play WOW the killer is that we are forced to play on the European servers and we get nailed by the Euro the dollar is more Rand friendly

On that note, is STO even releasing on seperate servers located in Europe?

FYI, Champions Online use a similar architecture as EVE. This means there is ONE server and everyone connects to the same thing. Advantage is obviously no more wondering where your friends rolled and whether a server is fast/slow/populated enough. Bad part, the server most likely located in a single location and you don't have much choice in terms of getting a better latency. Also if they do maintenance they now need to take the server down for the entire world and chances are it will happen in your prime gaming time if the server is located in the USA.

Now, EVE is located in Europe (Iceland/Britain) where Champs Online is in the USA. If STO uses remotely the same server structure as Champs, it will also mean you will connect to the USA.

Advantage of that also, no more EU/USA split (and different boxes for EU/USA etc), but as typical of americans they will do all their patching when it suits THEM (which is always our evenings) . Anyhow, if you don't see the boxes being sold as "STO EU" and "STO USA" , then you know it will be one server located in the USA.

USA servers, even in WoW have a reputation of being a bit more laggy for us, but i've been playing at least 3 MMOs (including Champs) that were exclusively USA and it doesn't seem much worse than Europe (for us), but of course Europeans themselves tend to go ballistic about it all.

 

[killkom]

yeah I played WOW in the US for a while and as far as latency goes its the same as Europe not much difference there

The Crap part was that the maintenance was on a Tuesday which only ended at 8pm at night but its was not really a train smash.

I don't know what cryptic are going to do though because unlike wow they are forcing everyone to connect to the states including Europe so they have to consider them when they do maintenance.

As far as pricing goes I was going through the forums and they are only expecting to Pay $15.00 per month and nothing about the Store that you need to pay for things you need in the game. That's about the same price as WOW is. They are already complaining about this here is the forum link http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=5258&page=11

One thing about the Americans they are a lot more harsh on companies that try rip them off more than SA and Europe put together.

If they feel like they are being ripped off they will not pay for it.

One the other hand one thing that is quite concerning to me is that Cryptic have started the closed Beta announced a release date started selling pre-orders with a 5% deposit from there site and they have not officially announced the monthly cost yet.

 

[diabolus]

I don't know what cryptic are going to do though because unlike wow they are forcing everyone to connect to the states including Europe so they have to consider them when they do maintenance.

As far as pricing goes I was going through the forums and they are only expecting to Pay $15.00 per month and nothing about the Store that you need to pay for things you need in the game. That's about the same price as WOW is. They are already complaining about this here is the forum link http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=5258&page=11

One thing about the Americans they are a lot more harsh on companies that try rip them off more than SA and Europe put together.

If they feel like they are being ripped off they will not pay for it.

One the other hand one thing that is quite concerning to me is that Cryptic have started the closed Beta announced a release date started selling pre-orders with a 5% deposit from there site and they have not officially announced the monthly cost yet.

Well believe me, Cryptic pulled down the Champions Online server DAILY smack in the middle of European primtime (this was the first month after launch when there's constant bugs). Of course this is only an issue in the first few months after launch, after that it's much like WoW [once in awhile], but unfortunately it's the first 3 months that counts nowadays. There were -gigantic- threads from both Aussies and Euros complaining to high hell about this. So i have no doubt, Cryptic will do the same with STO. They simply did not give a hoot, and the americans simply defend all this saying "it's an american game and an american company, go play a euro game if you don't like it" .

As for the pricing. The store will be there, what exactly they will sell there is another story, but there's no doubt in my mind that there will be one. They'll initially probably only sell uniforms or little non-combat mini-pets.

That 5% deposit thing is a little concerning though, there are rumours that Cryptic is running out of cash , which is why they are going to release STO come hell or high water (even if it might severly lack content). Only Blizzard can go "we will release it when it is done" , all others are "we will release it when our cash runs out" .

With Champs they did the "Lifetime Sub" thing before launch. Here you could pay $200 and get an unlimited sub. Unfortunately, alot of people started demanding their money back within the first month when the realised they won't be playing Champs past 2-3 months. I suppose they're avoiding that, and instead getting cash with deposits now...

 

[Cornedp]

On that note, is STO even releasing on seperate servers located in Europe?

FYI, Champions Online use a similar architecture as EVE. This means there is ONE server and everyone connects to the same thing. Advantage is obviously no more wondering where your friends rolled and whether a server is fast/slow/populated enough. Bad part, the server most likely located in a single location and you don't have much choice in terms of getting a better latency. Also if they do maintenance they now need to take the server down for the entire world and chances are it will happen in your prime gaming time if the server is located in the USA.

Now, EVE is located in Europe (Iceland/Britain) where Champs Online is in the USA. If STO uses remotely the same server structure as Champs, it will also mean you will connect to the USA.

Advantage of that also, no more EU/USA split (and different boxes for EU/USA etc), but as typical of americans they will do all their patching when it suits THEM (which is always our evenings) . Anyhow, if you don't see the boxes being sold as "STO EU" and "STO USA" , then you know it will be one server located in the USA.

USA servers, even in WoW have a reputation of being a bit more laggy for us, but i've been playing at least 3 MMOs (including Champs) that were exclusively USA and it doesn't seem much worse than Europe (for us), but of course Europeans themselves tend to go ballistic about it all.

STO will be very similar to Champions online. One server but multiple instances. There is no USA / EU servers.