Tag: Star Trek Online

Looking Back, Moving Forward: September 2010


True next gen capabilities.

It’s time to change the MMO Calendar, which can only mean it’s time for another Looking Back, Moving Forward. September brought upon us life, as well as death, and a whole lot of free to play.

It’s been over a month since Earth Eternal shut down, following Sparkplay’s demise. Even though the game was sold off during an auction back at the end of August, there hasn’t been much word out of Earth Eternal’s Facebook or Twitter pages. MMO Fallout is still looking for news on this ongoing story, including just who bought up the game to begin with!

Speaking of delayed action, although Lord of the Rings Online in North America launched its free to play turnover on September 10th, its equivalent in Europe, hosted by Codemasters, has yet to follow. Going off of claims of lack of preparation, Codemasters is still giving no concrete date on when the transition will take place.

Speaking of free to play titles, Sony’s Pirates of the Burning Sea announced its transition to free to play, following Everquest II Extended and Lord of the Rings Online. There is no set date, but Pirates will be following the formula of its predecessor from SOE, Everquest II, with the cash shop.

Generally we’ve had some sort of prior notice to a game shutting down, usually between one and four months, sometimes longer. When Realtime Worlds announced that All Points Bulletin was shutting down, they gave us one week’s notice, with no real date given at the time. All Points Bulletin shut down just 90 days after it launched, making it the shortest lived (launched) mmo in history. Exteel, the mech-based MMO, was NCsoft’s latest MMO to shut down, a free to play venture with a cash shop and, as some players referred to it, a “pay to win” system. Exteel’s shut down, unlike APB’s, was rather unsurprising due to NCsoft’s past actions with the title.

Cryptic Studios revealed why the Klingon faction in Star Trek Online will not be pumped full of content to the point where it rivals that of the Federation: Because there aren’t enough people playing Klingon to justify setting resources on it. Of course, few players play Klingon, in a grating circular motion, because there isn’t enough content for the faction.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Adventures launched this month, to an odd reaction. Disregarding the idea that this is technically a kids game, much of the reaction appears to be from people far outside this game’s intended audience. As I pointed out in my article, there’s a very good reason you don’t see professional journalists going out and reviewing Imagine: Party Babyz.

Mortal Online’s Henrik claimed that the upcoming Epic Patch will be so big and change the game so drastically that it will be like Mortal Online 2. The so-called Epic Patch is set to go live at an unconfirmed date, but will contain everything including a new patcher, higher resolution, new inventory, new AI, new game master capabilities, and more.

The lawsuit between Quest Online and David Allen is finally over, with both sides wiping post after post off of the internet. Following the recent settlement, a few MMO Fallout viewers noticed that both Derek Smart and David Allen have had blog posts and comments on third party websites wiped clear, perhaps part of the settlement.

Final Fantasy XIV launched at the end of the month to mixed reactions, but luckily with Square Enix backing the title there is no chance of FFXIV heading underwater by the end of next month (November). The latest installment into the Final Fantasy MMO franchise won’t be making Aion or World of Warcraft flinch, but it will maintain a health population for many years to come. Those who would like to check out the game can do so via buddy invites.

Star Trek Online: Ten Dollhairs On Amazon


Away team of the USS R'lyeh

Captains log, stardate 2365 rounded off to the nearest decimal point. While on a trade mission to the Steam quadrant, our ship received a hail from the jungle planet of Amazon Rigel IV in an attempt to offload ancient relics at a reasonable price. The items themselves are data disks dating back to the early twenty first century, containing on them a “video game,” based on long forgotten dreams of space exploration. Our ship was not equipped with the necessary equipment to make use of these disks, but we agreed to forward the message to anyone who could make use of such primitive technology.

Those looking to buy should be informed that the low prices are supplemented by delivery costs and time, making a more timely and, arguably cheaper, alternative in other sources of purchase, particularly the D2D and Steam quadrants, both of which offer this product in transmission form.

Cryptic Studios Repents(?) With Circular Logic


They don't want Klingon content!

In most of my articles about Cryptic Studios, I talk about how despite the fact that the company is always rushing up yelling to players to give them more feedback, they usually end up only fixing the issues that should have been blatantly obvious in the first place. Other than the do-or-die fixes, most other feedback is pushed into oblivion, if not completely ignored altogether. In my staple case, I referenced that not only did  someone think putting a two hour cooldown timer on the Blood Moon portals was a good thing, but made the exact same mistake going into the winter event. Yes, I’m riding on that example.

In the latest State of the Game, Cryptic wants to make amends…again. Foremost, Cryptic wants to address growing complaints over the game’s cash shop. dStahl has promised us that “coveted items” available in the cash shop will be available in-game as well. When the subject came to the Klingon faction, Stahl promised that the faction would become a full PvP faction with more faction-specific PvE missions and rewards, as well as veteran rewards suited for Klingon players. As for why the Klingon faction will never be up to par with the Federation, well Cryptic just doesn’t have the manpower, and not enough people play the Klingon faction.

There’s circular logic for you. Not enough people play the Klingon faction to warrant spending resources beefing it up to the Federation level, but the reason not enough people play is because the Klingon faction launched with barely any content.

It’s good to see that Star Trek Online is reportedly healthy, with a growing number of lifetime subscribers and normal subscribers, but slightly disappointing to see Cryptic still using their patented circular logic.

Cryptic Studios: Now With 100% Less Bill Roper!


At least until the moon rises.

Anyone who has played Champions Online or Star Trek Online knows Bill Roper, who took over for Jack Emmert after the latter left developer Cryptic Studios. And if you know him, chance states that you probably have some strong feelings about him, whether they be in the “Bill Roper is the devil,” “Bill Roper is the greatest developer ever,” or just “meh.” Knowing that, the gaming public will be either sad, jumping for joy, or casually nonchalant in their reaction to the news that Bill Roper has left Cryptic Studios.

In the following post on Champions Online’s website, Roper posted:

For the past two years I’ve had the extreme privilege of working with an amazing array of talented developers and just plain great people here at Cryptic Studios. Over the past few months my entrepreneurial spirit has become restless, and I’ve made the difficult decision to move on and look for new opportunities.

You can read the whole thing at the link above.

Hopefully Bill Roper will find success in whatever venture he chooses to move on to.

More on Cryptic Studios as it appears.

CapnLogan Responds To CapnLogal Comment


Set Phasers To Response!

When I said I’d continue looking for information on the “Star Trek Online team is shrinking” article, I never imagined that the information would come to me. CapnLogan has commented on the article (and yes, it is him) on the forum post this month, clarifying the Star Trek Online team shrinking.

Howdy! I googled myself and found this blog.

Cryptic is actually in good shape and isn’t doing anything like layoffs and stuff. We DO, however, have a lot of new projects springing up and a few of the STO guys have been pulled off and moved. Our CORE team is still very robust and working very hard.

The team, overall, is a bit smaller though. There’s a very good reason for this. Initially setting up and producing a game simply requires a larger team, and now that the core infrastructure of STO is in place, it requires a few less people to keep the game going at full force.

Have a look at season 2. You’ll likely be impressed with the amount of improvements and content that we’ve put forth.

Cheers!
Capn.

First I’d like to thank CapnLogan for coming on to MMO Fallout during his self-Googling to comment on the matter, more importantly to give a precise response. Now if only I could convince John Smedley to answer my emails. On that thought, I would be fine with anyone answering my emails (although Cryptic has been quite responsive in the past).

It’s good to see Cryptic is working on new projects, and hopefully the project is related to Cryptic’s upcoming MMO announcement. Hopefully this will quiet the trolls on MMORPG.com forums claiming Cryptic is going under (it won’t.).

More on Cryptic, Star Trek Online, and their upcoming project as soon as it appears.

CapnLogan: The Star Trek Online Team Is Shrinking.


Set Phasers To Reduction!

Getting a Cryptic member to post on the official forums is not exactly an impossible task, many of them do it on a daily basis. On the Star Trek Online forums, CapnLogan (of the Cryptic Logans) went on to explain his work on saucer separation, among other updates he had planned and others which could be planned (if the users complained enough, wink wink). When a user asked if certain updates were being delayed due to polygon restrictions or time allotment, he responded:

“So it’s not so much polygon budgets, or data budgets, but I’d say that it’s mostly because our team is shrinking, and we still have to continue to put out a lot of other content for the future, that it will be really hard for me to get the political pull to get a couple programmers, an FX guy, and myself a couple weeks to make new models for this cause.”

The extent to Cryptic shrinking the Star Trek Online team is yet to be seen, or in what areas, and how this is affecting development (because as CapnLogan has point out, it is clearly affecting development). MMO Fallout will be looking for some specific information to add on to this article.

More on Star Trek Online, and Cryptic’s other MMOs, as it appears.

Star Trek Online: Could Be Going F2P?


Set phasers to freemium!

Since Star Trek Online’s launch, the game has been doing pretty well for itself. Granted, it probably hasn’t jumped into the top-10, but if the quantity of updates is anything to go on, Cryptic must be happy as it is with their current population. Of course, no company would say no to more customers. With the recent swapping of Dungeons and Dragons, Global Agenda, among others, and the upcoming model change to Lord of the Rings Online, we can only sit back and wonder how many other MMOs will change to the freemium model, and if Cryptic’s Producer Daniel Stahl has anything to say about it, Star Trek Online may as well. In a forum posting, Stahl said:

“I could easily see STO going into a hybrid model similar to what Lotro is doing. In that model, subscriptions stay as is – but you allow people to play for free but heavily limit what they can do – which in essence creates a robust way to demo the game and then if you want to keep playing, you either pay for every little thing you are interested in, or you subscribe and don’t have to worry about it.

Turbine seems to have some interesting plans and looking at how DDO has turned around, its worth taking note.”

Pardon my correction, but from my experience with Dungeons and Dragons Online, the system isn’t about “heavily limiting” what free players can do. Stahl is correct on all fronts, however, with Dungeons and Dragons making a massive turnaround for Turbine when the title changed models.

Could a model change be exactly what the doctor had in store for Cryptic? More on this as it appears.

Cryptic Joins In: $25 Mount (Er…Ship)


Set Phasers To Money!

The twenty five dollar mount appears to be catching on far more than anyone would have anticipated…or hoped. With World of Warcraft’s Edward Cullen-esque horse, followed by Everquest II’s prowlers of the night, and now Everquest’s armored horses, one must assume that there are enough people out there, somewhere who are buying into singular items that cost more than the client itself (in the case of the Everquest titles). I hear people complain that the communities do not want these expensive mounts, but numbers don’t lie, and neither does money. When these functions stop being profitable is when they will cease to be.

Among the list of previously-exclusive items being added to the Cryptic store includes an upcoming Galaxy-X class starship, and for how much, you ask, knowing full well because I spoiled it in the article title. The price is two thousand Cryptic Points, or as Cryptic puts it:

Twenty Five Dollars: USD

The price can be found through Rekhan, noted ‘Marketing Dude’, whose post I shall relay here in case it is deleted or altered at some point:

More on the $25 mount craze as it appears.