Not another City of Heroes

[Loxius]

For discussion, of course, but I mainly wanted to reach out to Cryptic and share some thoughts about another of their products. Perhaps they will listen, perhaps not, but I have to try.

I love MMO's and have played and beta tested many, starting long ago with Asheron's Call. I beta tested City of Heroes, by Cryptic, and initially loved it. My wife, who is an extremely casual gamer, also loved CoH and we played it for about 4 months after release.

One of our unanimous concerns with CoH (and something I pray Cryptic does not repeat in STO!) is early repetitiveness of missions and instances. I know that CoH grew tremendously with expansions and updates over time, but for a LONG time, it was, "run mission in canned warehouse/office tileset mission, rinse, repeat," ad infinitum. That got old, quickly, even with amazing powers, flying, etc.

As I see posts about not having starship interiors and the like, I am reminded of City of Heroes at launch, and this worries me. In this day and age, there are so many good gaming options out there, you really have to engage folks and keep them engaged, or like me, they will move on. And often, when you have lost a subscriber, you may not get a second chance. CoH offered me many free weekends, etc to return. I dabbled once but never seriously returned. The gaming world (especially MMO's) move pretty quick, and it's easy to be left behind.

Cryptic can learn not only from their own mistakes, but from those of other companies, as well. I enjoyed Star Wars Galaxies for a time, as well, but it too, had canned missions. You went to a terminal and literally selected "deliver," or "destroy." And that was, frankly, awful, over a long term. and amongst other things, drove me from that game.

I say this as a Star Trek fanboy, and past appreciator of Cryptic. I know they are a good company, and have been impressed with their work. The idea of instances is great, but if I have to go on 100 instanced starships, and they all feel recycled every time or only slightly varied, that is going to grow old quickly. I realize they have only x amount of resources before launch, and so I appeal to Cryptic, please consider using those resources to provide variety in instances and missions.

If Star Trek Online can deliver, I assure you, you will have a rabid fanboy on your hands right here! Thanks for reading,

[StealthBlue]

I really hope STO isn't insanely instanced like AoC on a Eve sized scaled. That would be horrible.

[Sashian]

I agree Loxius, I too played CoH for about 4 months and got bored with it. I spent 7 years In Everquest (Beta 1 tester) even became a Senior guide. The reason EQ lasted for so long was the varied environment of the game. Now I play EVE and have been for 3 years, you could get some great ideas from that game. I have been following the development of STO since it was started by that other company. Their original Idea was sound and could take STO to the forefront of the MMO world. Don'-t give us repeat instances, let us walk and work on our ships, let us build an outstanding universe together.

If you can pull this off you will have me for life. I am the universes biggest ST fan. Star Trek (all forms) Rules.

[Varrangian]

I really hope STO isn't insanely instanced like AoC on a Eve sized scaled. That would be horrible.

I agree Loxius, I too played CoH for about 4 months and got bored with it. I spent 7 years In Everquest (Beta 1 tester) even became a Senior guide. The reason EQ lasted for so long was the varied environment of the game. Now I play EVE and have been for 3 years, you could get some great ideas from that game. I have been following the development of STO since it was started by that other company. Their original Idea was sound and could take STO to the forefront of the MMO world. Don'-t give us repeat instances, let us walk and work on our ships, let us build an outstanding universe together.

If you can pull this off you will have me for life. I am the universes biggest ST fan. Star Trek (all forms) Rules.

The game will be instanced. There is one simple reason for this. You never watched a Trek show and saw 40 Enterprises orbiting the same planet.

That being said, do a little digging and you'll discover that STO will have procedurally generated worlds and from what they've said no two worlds will be the same.

Top this off with their episodic content model and you really do have a game that is appropriate for Trek.

[Hagon]

I started a thread along these same lines quite awhile back, voicing pretty much the same concerns.

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=9162

Zinc responded thus

During the development and servicing of CoH, we learned tons about how important variety is in an MMO. Not just that - but the places where players really appreciate it - and where the effort isn't noticed as much.

I'm really pleased with how we're approaching that problem in STO. I'm confident that the breadth of variety in the away team missions will blow people away. It's already stunned people internally - it's awesome!

That eased my concerns somewhat.

[Powerhelm]

I think this is where a Lifetime Subscription option can help tremendously. Get a chunk of Lifetime subbers prior to launch and shortly after launch and that gives you an immediate and much larger burst of early income allowing them to keep on more of those temp development people (who usually get laid off after the game ships) longer and getting some more content out early and flaws fixed early...

It's already stunned people internally - it's awesome!

I'm pretty sure this is said about CoH, Auto Assault, Age of Conan, Vanguard, Asheron's Call 2, Tabula Rasa....one of these is not like the others though still similar...:p

[JacobFlowers]

For discussion, of course, but I mainly wanted to reach out to Cryptic and share some thoughts about another of their products. Perhaps they will listen, perhaps not, but I have to try.

I love MMO's and have played and beta tested many, starting long ago with Asheron's Call. I beta tested City of Heroes, by Cryptic, and initially loved it. My wife, who is an extremely casual gamer, also loved CoH and we played it for about 4 months after release.

One of our unanimous concerns with CoH (and something I pray Cryptic does not repeat in STO!) is early repetitiveness of missions and instances. I know that CoH grew tremendously with expansions and updates over time, but for a LONG time, it was, "run mission in canned warehouse/office tileset mission, rinse, repeat," ad infinitum. That got old, quickly, even with amazing powers, flying, etc.

As I see posts about not having starship interiors and the like, I am reminded of City of Heroes at launch, and this worries me. In this day and age, there are so many good gaming options out there, you really have to engage folks and keep them engaged, or like me, they will move on. And often, when you have lost a subscriber, you may not get a second chance. CoH offered me many free weekends, etc to return. I dabbled once but never seriously returned. The gaming world (especially MMO's) move pretty quick, and it's easy to be left behind.

Cryptic can learn not only from their own mistakes, but from those of other companies, as well. I enjoyed Star Wars Galaxies for a time, as well, but it too, had canned missions. You went to a terminal and literally selected "deliver," or "destroy." And that was, frankly, awful, over a long term. and amongst other things, drove me from that game.

I say this as a Star Trek fanboy, and past appreciator of Cryptic. I know they are a good company, and have been impressed with their work. The idea of instances is great, but if I have to go on 100 instanced starships, and they all feel recycled every time or only slightly varied, that is going to grow old quickly. I realize they have only x amount of resources before launch, and so I appeal to Cryptic, please consider using those resources to provide variety in instances and missions.

If Star Trek Online can deliver, I assure you, you will have a rabid fanboy on your hands right here! Thanks for reading,


Loxius, I very much appreciated this post, and agree with your sentiments. What I am about to say, I say with trepidation...

but I am OKAY with Cryptic taking 5 years to develop this game. I would rather have a gem, than something rushed to the masses that eventually piddles out. You are correct that in the MMO world, publishers rarely are given a second chance.

I think WoW was in development for 5 years before it was released. Blizzard created a grand world but stopped short with depth. Right now, I think the MMO that will have a long lasting power besides WoW is EVE because they have genuinely created a massive universe. It is sleek, and stylish, and there is simply so much depth. No only by the story line and such, but a lot of the depth is even created by the players themselves.

Anyway, I don't necessarily want STO to be like EVE. I do want STO however to be: well developed, immersive, detail oriented, and I think the only thing that will keep it afloat: ground breaking.

[mirkrim]

I am OKAY with Cryptic taking 5 years to develop this game. I would rather have a gem, than something rushed to the masses that eventually piddles out.

I would be okay with it too, but unfortunately with all the hint-dropping that's been going on about release date, I'm afraid the game is already set to release (likely) this year, with NO interiors except for instanced missions. What good is extensive character customization if half the time you're staring at a ship avatar?

[USS_Parallax]

All MMOs have that quest/mission repetitiveness problem.

Ways to hide it:
Story, tell a good story behind it and you won't care!
Mission Diversity, give the greatest diversity in missions possible. The days of kill X of these quests as every odd numbered mission are coming to a close.
Gameplay Diversity, doing the same thing from level 1 to 100 is boring. Give us different ways to play constantly. ST:O already is doing this a bit by offering both on foot and starship battles.

[Tranchera]

Do a little digging and you'll discover that STO will have procedurally generated worlds and from what they've said no two worlds will be the same.
I hope they do it well, otherwise it'll be way too easy to spot a "random" world.

What I'd rather they do is actually design and build enough worlds that someone would only run into random worlds if they ventured out of the main play area around Earth and Q'onos, and everything in between.

[Varrangian]

I hope they do it well, otherwise it'll be way too easy to spot a "random" world.

What I'd rather they do is actually design and build enough worlds that someone would only run into random worlds if they ventured out of the main play area around Earth and Q'onos, and everything in between.

The entire game is going to be about venturing out of the main play area. This is Star Trek - Seek out new life and new civilization. Not - Hang out around your home planet.

There will be static worlds, Earth, Qo'noS, Vulcan and Risa have been mentioned as well as DS9, but a big point of the game is discovering new worlds. This can't be done with static content.

[Loxius]

Thanks for the replies folks, and its nice to know I am not alone in my thoughts!

I never said do not instance. It will, of course, be necessary. It was nice to see that Dev mention that they had learned from CoH. Really, at the end of the day, that is precisely all I can ask!

However, I have to warn you, from SWG beta and others, I have heard devs in previous games hype or talk about how excited folks are internally about features. SWG did a LOT of things wrong, mainly rushing to launch way before the game was finished, but one thing they did right was create a lot of tools with which players could create their OWN content.

Housing, placeable loot and possessions, vehicles, governments, these things all made a nice sandbox in SWG, which was fortunate, because there was precious little in game content! As for CoH, the powers, the enemies, task forces (instanced dungeon chains), were great. Even in games I left sadly I can point out much good.

The biggest thing they can do wrong, and I hear it echoed so frequently on these forums, is rush to release. We have Blizzard and WoW, well-known as releasing "when it's ready." You cannot say there is no precedent for companies taking there time and it paying off for them. That said, I pray that the devs of STO are under management and a production company to whom this point can be argued.

Thanks for your thoughts!