Star Trek Online

[Rico]

Reactivated my account for a month.  They've added A LOT of content.  So I want to check the game out again.

[billybob476]

Interested to hear what you have to say!

[ChrisMC]

On another board there has been contention about the design, but I dig the fact that it's fan submitted. Old time Star Trek style. The design itself is interesting, might take time to grow on me.

[Rico]

Merging this into the STO thread in the Gaming section.

[stonut]

i really lioke the changes they have made and there is a load more stuff comibng down the pipe, once they have sorted out the bugs from Season four new featured series will hit. Hopefully i will see you in game, although the time zone may affect that. MY ingame handle is @a2flyer.

[Geekyfanboy]

Perfect World Entertainment confirms Star Trek Online going F2P this year

by Shawn Schuster on Aug 31st 2011 10:00PM

Star Trek Online fight

File this one under "Stuff we Missed from Last Week": Thanks to the keen eye of reader The First Avenger, we've learned that Perfect World Entertainment plans to turn Star Trek Online free-to-play by the end of this year.

"And also Star Trek Online, after the acquisition, in fact Cryptic is working on the free-to-play model for Star Trek Online," Perfect World Entertainment's CEO, Kelvin Lau, said in a recent earnings call for Q2 2011. "This is going to be launched by the end of this year as well. So I think free-to-play model we have a bigger potential in US market and also in China market."

This news should be no surprise to anyone who knows that PWE's portfolio consists of F2P games, and it was inevitable that STO would follow in the footsteps of its older brother, Champions Online. We'll keep you posted on more details as they become available.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I'm waiting for the market to backlash on F2P games....its coming. 

King

[Dangelus]

Free to play?! Oh no I haven't got time to get hooked to this!! :)

[Jobydrone]

I'm waiting for the market to backlash on F2P games....its coming. 

King

Most disagree.  The demographics of the average gamers skew older as time goes on...I heard recently that the average gamer is 36 years old now.  In light of today's economy where people raising families find it harder to justify a $60+ price tag for a single game, you can begin to understand the huge appeal free to play gaming has to many people.  You can already see the changes with the disastrous failure of the Nintendo 3DS...people aren't willing to pay $40 for one game when they can buy 40 games for 99 cents each on their phones.   Even the home consoles are begining to experiment with the free-to-play model.  The Playstation network is starting to make F2P MMOs available on their store, and Playstation Home has been a HUGE cash cow for them, and is completely supported by digitally downloadable content that enhances a free environment.  In my opinion, the $60 blockbuster multimillion dollar games are going to become more and more a niche product, while the casual, free and cheap to play games are going to start to dominate the marketplace in the very near future.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

There are two problems with F2P games:

1) potential to cost way more than $60.  Take a look at farmville.
2) seems to give devs an excuse to not produce quality experiences. 

Cheaper games may be the wave of the future thanks to Steam sales, but F2P allows devs to be extremely greedy...

King

[Jobydrone]

There are two problems with F2P games:

1) potential to cost way more than $60.  Take a look at farmville.
2) seems to give devs an excuse to not produce quality experiences. 

Cheaper games may be the wave of the future thanks to Steam sales, but F2P allows devs to be extremely greedy...

King

It's not greedy to offer options to the consumer.  I've never played Farmville, but my understanding is that a high percentage of players never pay a dime to play that game, and that Zynga makes its money from a very small percentage of hardcore fans that choose to pay for items that make the experience more streamlined, faster, or whatever.  Developers have to produce quality experiences or no one will be bothered to pay for anything.  If a game sucks it will get immediately deleted, what do you lose?  Nothing, it's free.

There's a big debate going on right now over Blizzard's decision to allow players to pay real world money for items in a Diablo 3 auction house when that game is released.  It allows people the option to outfit their characters with uber end game gear without having to earn it, if they pay enough money on the auction house.  I'm sure this is a case where Blizzard sees money left on the table, as people have been doing this kind of thing in WoW for years, so they are doing what they can to get a piece of the action. 

My point is, with so many games out there competing for our dollars, developers have to do what they can to stay afloat.  Would you rather see Star Trek Online fold due to lack of interest, or an inability for Cryptic to justify the cost of continued development and support with a dwindling subscriber base?  There's a potential for Star Trek Online going free to play to completely revitalize the player base with new blood and interest from this move.

Do you think LOTRO would still be around if they hadn't gone free to play?  I don't.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Would you rather see Star Trek Online fold due to lack of interest, or an inability for Cryptic to justify the cost of continued development and support with a dwindling subscriber base?

Yes.  Because it means the game is not worth our time and maybe someone will try and fill the gap with a game worthy of our attention.  We do not need to waste our time on substandard games.  (yes, there is also the possibility that no one will try and fill the gap, but I'll take quality of quantity any day) 

Do you think LOTRO would still be around if they hadn't gone free to play?

No.   Again, lack of quality was killing that game. 

Does LOTRO or STO deserve to survive?  That's the real question.  I've played both and both are mediocre MMOs that come no where close to the level of quality that MMOs like WoW, Eve, or any other currently popular MMO is at.   LOTRO and STO were shoved through the development pipeline and the consumers reacted negatively to both games because of the quality they were presented with.  Its not a simple "its because it requires a subscription problem", its a simple: This game is not worth $15 a month.  I tried LOTRO.  I genuinely tried to play STO, I REALLY wanted to love that game, but it had a lot of issues with the base-game and I could not wait for "promised updates" to come from the developers.  And its not likely F2P will bring me back to the game.  (Ignoring that I'm on a MMO-hiatus atm)

I'll admit, I haven't tried an MMO on a F2P system.  I guess I should ask a LOTRO player how it works.  For some reason, F2P seems to lower people's standards to play and pay for the game.  I've tried social-games that use F2P and the level of "abuse" varies from game to game,  some companies like Zynga do a pretty good job but there are companies like Ngmoco:) that will take your wallet and empty it gleefully, while their games continue to get more buggy or they even remove the game and you get no refund, no matter how long ago you started playing their games.

I also have a lot of issues with Pay-To-Win systems like the one you mentioned.  It pretty much sucks the fun out of multiplayer games because the rich can easily outstrip others and skills no longer became part of the equation.  I had a vague interest in Diablo, (and that's because I have not played any of the Diablo games) but that was before they announced that Diablo is basically a Pay-to-Win, MMO-that-isn't-an-MMO game and I'm just going to ignore it.

I have hopes for F2P that it might one day be a viable system of gaming.  Some games like Team Fortress 2 do a good job of balancing free content to pay content, but there are so few amongst the horde of F2P games that do and its turning off gamers from them.  Sometimes, we just like being assured that all we are going to pay is $60 and get an upfront quality experience, but thanks to Steam, we can get them for much less and the amount of $$ to value goes up.  The system of paying up front is never going away, so long as demos continue to be produced.  This is largely thanks to services like Steam. 

Btw, if your argument contains the: "But you have to pay to play these games..." then that is not "Free-To-PLAY".  That is a very very nice demo then. 

King

[Rico]

Tim - I'm not sure what free to play games you have tried yet, but I think you really are off the mark on this one.  Free to play doesn't necessarily mean less quality or is it some kind of ploy to get even more money from people.  It's a very viable business model that is working more and more these days.  Games like DOTA are a great example of this as is LOTR Online and many, many others.  Also, you may mot like these games or the idea of F2P games, but many, many people are just fine with this idea.  And that is the real proof of it being a successful way to market a game.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Tim - I'm not sure what free to play games you have tried yet, but I think you really are off the mark on this one.  Free to play doesn't necessarily mean less quality or is it some kind of ploy to get even more money from people.  It's a very viable business model that is working more and more these days.  Games like DOTA are a great example of this as is LOTR Online and many, many others.  Also, you may mot like these games or the idea of F2P games, but many, many people are just fine with this idea.  And that is the real proof of it being a successful way to market a game.

I've tried quite a few games that were F2P. 

We Rule/Farm/City, Team Fortress 2, Farmville, FarmTown, Tiny Tower, Tap Fish, Robotek HD, several others on iOS that I can't remember because I deleted on day one =\ and I swear there was another PC game but its not coming to me.  More often than not its less enjoyable than paid-for games.  Granted, I haven't tried a F2P MMO and in one respect that's actually more attractive than a subscription based, WoW-like one because then I don't have to pay for all the expansions.  But on-hiatus from MMOs so that will have to wait. 

F2P may not be a "ploy", but I've noticed most F2P games like to subtly (or not subtly) encourage their customers to spend lots of $$ through various methods.  Yes, this is a legitimate business tactic, but that does lessen the experience of the game because it feels dirty and greedy.  Maybe I've just had a bad experience.  Out of the list I mentioned, Robotek and Team Fortress 2 were the only games I've truly enjoyed, the rest just play on you, trying to make you spend $$ when they really should be trying to get you to enjoy the game itself. 

Many people may be fine with how things currently are, but I'm not.  I think things can be better, for both parties.  And if anyone cares to mention a non-MMO-F2P game, I'd certainly like to hear about it.

King

[Rico]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Newerth