Star Trek Online doesn't need WoW players to succeed

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Home #I wish I could quit you

4:16 PM on 02.06.2010 | Josh Tolentino

30 comments

Star Trek Online doesn't need WoW players to succeed photo

#Atari #I wish I could quit you #Industry Bullshit #Online #Role Playing Games #Star Trek

World of Warcraft may be the biggest MMO around, but you don't have to take it on to succeed. Cryptic, the folks behind Star Trek Online, certainly feel that way. Said Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich:

"We think we've made something that Star Trek fans and gamers alike will enjoy. Maybe some of those fans will come from WoW and maybe some will be totally new to the MMOG genre.

We're not trying to directly compete with WoW and if our game grows to that success then that would be awesome but for now we're just worried about getting a good game out there that people will enjoy."

And he's perfectly right. Every time a new MMO comes out everyone goes "it'll never beat WoW," and dismiss it out of hand, judging it a "failure" should it not hit 12 million subscribers. What really matters is that the game is great enough to make everyone the money that it needs to keep it that way.

Speaking as a player, Star Trek Online is very different from WoW, not least because it's full of Star Trek goodness. Now, if you'll excuse me, my Borg character has some star clusters to explore.

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30 comments | showing # 1 to 30

Magnalon

I just hope it fulfills a niche, and doesn't go the way of "six months of PR hype followed by a foreclosure and server shutdowns a year later".

41K4153R

i just hope the niche it fulfills will accept that it will go away after "six months of PR hype followed by a foreclosure and server shutdowns a year later"

The Silent Protagonist

I think its funny people seem to believe you have to reach WoW levels of subscriber base to stay around. Many MMOs - before and after WoW - have shown this isn't the case at all.

You find your niche, spend your money well, keep your subscribers happy and they'll keep coming back.

crusnchill

I couldn't justify spending $240 for a lifetime subscription simply to get a borg. I just couldn't.

How did you come to the decision to buy that Josh?

Leon Field

I hope the niche accepts it will be filled and love it so much after the first 6 months that the servers never shut down.

Bigmoose85

Final Fantasy XI > WoW

NateT

Borg heh? I might have to take a look at this.

Josh Tolentino

@cusnchill

It wasn't the Borg (though that helped). I just took a long, hard look at how I enjoy my MMOs and why I don't play most of them. To put it in a sentence, I bought the freedom not to play.

Skribble

I may consider getting this based on 2 things.

1. How many planets are there to visit.

2. How does the game make visiting planets meaningful?

Cowboy TTop

MMOs are a largely failed concept (except WoW), because they rely on servers the player can't control. If MMOs came out with options for players, to continue playing on their own servers, once the developer has shut their own down servers, then they'd largely stand a chance to succeed, live long and prosper.

Add options for dedicated servers, LAN support etc and some might still be around for years (especially on consoles). Its the saddest thing, to see or hear of servers shutting down for a certain game. That's a damn lot of people with a physical MMO copy they can't use anymore, and gamers getting screwed this way, doesn't inspire hope to invest in such MMO games again.

Best thing for MMOs, is to have them be free to play, like Guild Wars. When you only have to buy the game to play, more people will invest in them and commit time and money.

Good luck, STO.

idmmao

@Cowboy TTop
The name of the game you're looking for is "Neverwinter nights" (And to a lesser degree, the sequel).
Built to let players run their own multiplayer games and shipping with a ridiculously easy to use toolset and a scripting language, people quickly figured out they could hook a mySQL database into it and make it into a player-run mini-MMO machine.
No monthly fee, 100% player run servers with up to 100% player-created content, it resulted in a lot of pretty interesting ideas about how to actually run a persistent world server when it's not about the money, and therefore not about the grind.

NateT

Bleh. Just looked at the official website No information on factons other than the Federation and Klingons. Overall the whole page looks like a jamble.

How do they expect to attact players when the web page is not too informative, somehwat chaotic in layout, and still focused on the beta? This does not bode well.

Janxer

He's NOT perfectly right - in fact, his statement that they aren't competing directly with world of warcraft is just as ridiculus as Sony or Microsoft pretending they aren't competing with Nintendo.
Practically every MMO in the business is directly competing with wow. Hell, even EVE Online is, and if something is "not like wow", it's EVE.

Cowboy TTop

Cheers, I didn't know about that, but it seems like the only way to MMOs to go, because the nickle and dime approach gets tired.

On PCs, its the only way to keep MMOs alive, and I feel its a shame that more developers don't talk such ideas up, more. Guess they only think short term, because they want our money, and seem scared we won't bite a new game for an old one.

Brlito

I played this through beta and since launch.

Eh. It's a fun MMO but... lost its pizazz quickly. Like Champions. Tons of hype, and then it's a loud "eh".

Burning Fire

Mmo= grindfest. Instead of killing 50 wolves now u'll be killing 50 Klingons.

StingingVelvet

First MMO I have ever bought and I enjoy it, though I can say without the ST license I would never have even considered buying it. MMOs, which are a service and not a game, go against most of my software principles. Also, the story is not done well since it is multiplayer focused.

For Star Trek though, I had to bite. Hopefully I can get my fill before I pay too many monthly fees (though Mass Effect 2 is making this a pipe dream).

Midgetsnowman

speaking as a wow Player. The only people who even care about the "wow killer" thing are the idiotic pricks who always threaten to leave WoW if the devs dont make the game exactl how they want it right nao.

They never leave.

The Silent Protagonist

@Midgetsnowman - What mentality isn't exclusive to WoW at all.

Diyomaro

That's the best way to go at it. If you simply just make a WoW clone, or something that even tries to steal the WoW crowd, your doomed to fail really.

bakasama

The dude would be more correct if he stated that "this game competes with WoW in the same way all MMOs compete with WoW". I don't know anyone who has say, a real gaming hobby (interested in many different types of games) and a real life who plays more than one MMO at a time seriously, and by seriously I mean at least with an eye towards the "end game". If you play MMOs seriously and are wanting a switch, maybe STO is right for you. I do see more people who aren't really interested in MMOs in general but are interested in Star Trek picking this one up, just because it's fun to play in that world, and if that's the audience they're going for, more power to them.

mada7

I hate that line so very very much. That line is on par with someone opening a KFC and then saying theyre not competing with McDonalds because they serve different types of food. All MMOs are competing with world of warcraft. No developer looking to make an MMO can say they completely ignored WoW. No one can look at the ridiculous profits that game takes in and say they dont want to be like that.

If you got grind up the ass, fetch quests, and forced communal activity youre making a WoW clone whether you like it or not. Just gotta hope that enough people find those particular fetch quests enjoyable for long enough to keep the servers running

runtheplacered

@ mada7,

I think you're missing the point, at least.. the point I generally make. A MMO doesn't have to have WoW statistics in order to be successfully making a profit. Sure, who doesn't want WoW's numbers? But is it absolutely necessary in order to justify developing an MMO? No.

Cryptic (for instance) right now has 3 fairly profitable MMO's on their hands right now. Blizzard has 1 massively profitable MMO on theirs (until their next one comes out, obviously). With those 3 Cryptic is not hurting for money. Again they don't NEED to have WoW numbers with each and every MMO in order to justify their development.

mada7

Im not saying that the only way to guage if an mmo is successfull is for it to have WoW style numbers but any MMO that is produced has the same general gameplay style (grind fetch quests and forced communal activity) as WoW and is thus in competition with it regardless of how different the games would appear to be. This is much like how pretty much every shooter released for a while now will be in direct competition with MW2 regardless of the subject matter of the game

Midgetsnowman

@Mada7: the problem with that comparison is simple. If a game has to measure up to wow to be considered successful. Then not a single MMO EVER except WoW has been successful.

Midgetsnowman

and @runthepacered, Cryptic has 2 MMos. They have loooong since sold off City of heroes to NCsoft and Paragon Studios (which mostly consists of the main original devs of CoH)

thatguyukno

@ Bigmoose85 I kind of agree, but why anyone still plays that game and pays for it is beyond me. You can get the same experience by running on a tread mill, and smashing yourself in the head with a brick while screaming JP ONRY!!!!

SephirothX

STO is a blast

Just thought i'd throw that in

KingSigy

I hope something at least gives WoW competition. I'm getting sick of hearing my friends go, "XXXX is coming out, I'm never going back to WoW," only to return 4 months later.

Sithinious

What STO really needs is a different company. Cryptic has been seriously dropping the ball. Rushed, incomplete content and completely ignoring problems pointed out to them during beta testing. I'm talking Champions as well as STO.

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