[GamerSerg]

Currently I have every type of captain at level 65... Fed, KDF, Rom-Fed, Rom-KDF, Dominion, Tos-Fed, Disc-Fed, I've got them all max. Part of the reason I played all those alts is because they offered a different experience. Sometimes I'm in the mood to drop out of cloak and unleash a rapid fire cannon burst in my KDF Bird of Prey. Sometimes, I want to feel like a Starfleet captain with my Fleet Gagarin beam boat, sometimes I want to roleplay a TNG Romulan in a D'deridex and so on.

Currently, to do that I have to play alts. The down side is having to level reputations, doff ranks, get gear, traits etc but on the other hand it lets me play different ships, build, etc. Now, if everything is available to everyone, I really have no reason to ever play any character other than my main. With one character, I can jump into a Bird of Prey or a D'Derdex or whatever and I already have all the rep traits unlocked and lobi consoles. I don't have to deal with transfering dilithium or crafting / buying skills for alt boffs. But is that a good thing? It's not like you actually see your captain or boffs in space so it really doesn't matter what character you are using.

So, for me this kills alts. I might make another KDF if the recruit event rewards are good but after that there is no real reason to ever spend any meaningful time on any character other than my main who can now fly any ship and use anything. Alts are now just mules or dil farming.

From a broader game sense, I also agree that this change starts to make it feel a lot less like a star trek game. Aside from a very few rare cases where someone might temporarily captain another ship for an episode or two, there is no cannon reason for a starfleet officer to be permanently assigned as captain of a bird of prey for example. Officers do serve on different ships throughout their career so switching ships within faction is reasonable but cross faction makes no sense. Given the wide variety of random uniforms, alien species, and fly any ship this is slowly becoming just a space mmo game and not Star Trek.

[Sorotia]

I agree, we need a new Star Trek MMO that comes at it from a different perspective, but still allows us to be a hero in our own story and fly the ship (or ships) we like. Star Trek Online has been a great game for this, but it has become outdated with little REAL life being poured into it.

Trouble is not many studios want to make a big MMO anymore, and SWTOR is proof that you can have a massive budget and massive ip and things still go wrong. (Though IMO they really shot themselves in both feet by deciding to put it on the hero engine)

Even if it were STO 2 it would have the potential to be better because they'd be able to fully work with all their own assets instead of using hand-me-downs and I'd accept that as a excuse to why STO has been so slow these last few years

[Three of Seven]

Trouble is not many studios want to make a big MMO anymore, and SWTOR is proof that you can have a massive budget and massive ip and things still go wrong. (Though IMO they really shot themselves in both feet by deciding to put it on the hero engine)

Even if it were STO 2 it would have the potential to be better because they'd be able to fully work with all their own assets instead of using hand-me-downs and I'd accept that as a excuse to why STO has been so slow these last few years

Amazon are developing an MMO due out this year - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_(video_game) - so I'd say this is a big company trying to make a big MMO, have to see how that one goes. It is however a big project to make, and run an MMO, needs some real funding behind it, which I don't think STO really has anymore, Neverwinter is the studios big focus.

Making an MMO with an original idea is probably much easier than trying to fit one around someone elses licence. There are some big names in the MMO world, and SWOTOR isn't doing too badly, they are 8 out of 10 on this list - https://bestreamer.com/gaming/most-played-mmorpg-2019/ - STO doesn't make that list, but Neverwinter does.

This is also this list - https://mmo-population.com/list - it has an estimated total player count if you click on a title, and an estimated daily count, which is the number you see visible. But these are all numbers, and don't really say anything about how a game is to play, it does show that there are still a lot of MMOs out there though.

And to round off my post, STO Classic would be more enjoyable than current STO for me personally.

[ForTheGamer]

Thing is, if they were to do an STO 2, it would be after Discovery and we'd be past the 32nd century in time. As they wouldn't want to step on anything as they really try their damnedest to make sure what we play at least has some semi-canon to it.

[Bar'ol]

Quite the heated discussion haha. Personally for me it wont matter. Im not huge dpa chaser and many here know that. I dont play the exchange nore even bother with it. If im dkf I use what I can in the theme of the davtion I play. Doesnt mean I wont use reputation stuff because I do. Most ships I buy were for traits only, if only you could juat buy the trait haha, this just opens up exclusive faction traits.

On another note Cryptic been wanting this for a very long time. CBS always stopped them not sure what cryptic did to convince them to finally allow it.

[Heyallo]

Cryptic been wanting this for a very long time. CBS always stopped them not sure what cryptic did to convince them to finally allow it.

Cashy Money

[Petrarch]

On another note Cryptic been wanting this for a very long time. CBS always stopped them not sure what cryptic did to convince them to finally allow it.

The cynic in me says they've been told they're not getting the licence renewed and it's now all hands on deck to wring as much cash out of the game until it expires. A last hurrah so to speak.

[Jestersmith]

The cynic in me says they've been told they're not getting the licence renewed and it's now all hands on deck to wring as much cash out of the game until it expires. A last hurrah so to speak.

Can't see them attracting the voice stars they have for the game and paying them what it will have cost if that was the case myself personally, despite that people thinking the game is dead it's far from it still has a decent number of players and still bringing in new ones and with the current shows and also the upcoming ones I can't see that changing anytime soon.

[darthnovawave]

---Comment withdrawn due to misinterpretations----

[Three of Seven]

As much as people grumble about the cost of legendary bundles in STO, a year of a WOW subscription costs about as much as that and once you stop paying you lose everything.

I'm sorry, but that's flat out wrong, here's the 10th anniversary legendary bundle, if we look at the cheapest one, on the sale price of 19,500 Zen, this comes out to ~£120 because I have to buy the 12,000 (+1,200 bonus) and the 6,000 (+360 bonus) to get to the required amount of Zen.

1 year of WoW (2 6-month reoccuring sub payments) is £104.28, and if you pay monthly, it comes to £119.88, which we can round up to ~£120. So for the cost of a year's WoW sub, you can get the cheaper 10th Anniversary pack, if you bought it on sale. If you don't get the bundle at the opening sale price, it sets you back 30,000 Zen, which is ~£176 if you buy the 24,000 (+3,600 bonus) and the 2,400 packs to get to the amount of required Zen.

This makes WoW cheaper for a years subscription, which give acsess to a game, not just an item/bundle in a game. You also don't lose everything if you don't pay your subscription, you just can't play the game anymore. If I resub now, everything I had will still be there if I ever went back to play WoW.

[Chris Wilkinson]

Don't get me wrong, I sunk money into the legendary bundle as I liked the idea of having access to a lot of the ships I liked and since then, haven't really felt the need to buy many more.

I do agree that they've got to find a way to make money, and lets be honest, this year of Klingon hasn't exactly been a fantastic event. I know that when they released new UFP ships you tend to find that you get a new KDF one at the same time normally, however, I feel like after the initial story for each of the factions, there's very little that separates them.

If you look at TOR, each of the stories for each class is different to some degree which is a lot of fun, it makes the game more replayable even in a lone experience. But STO, once you play through the episodes as one character, the only reason to do so again is mostly for any gear.

That's why it kind of makes sense in some ways that they remove that barrier between the factions and pretty much admit that it's pretty much a single game. That's my take on it though

[Jestersmith]

this year of Klingon hasn't exactly been a fantastic event.

That's a fact but then the Pandemic hasn't helped either though even with that I think we still could/should have seen more content in some way though they really need to up the content adding to the game all the remastering stuff is nice and all but it needs more than that.

[Chris Wilkinson]

That's a fact but then the Pandemic hasn't helped either though even with that I think we still could/should have seen more content in some way though they really need to up the content adding to the game all the remastering stuff is nice and all but it needs more than that.

Ohh I totally understand that the pandemic has caused a slowdown in the work they can do, but at the same time, you would've thought they'd have had some of the content made before they even announced it. Like stay ahead of the game so to speak

[Mack]

Are you seriously comparing the centuries long struggle for racial, gender and sexuality equality to Cryptic deciding to do away with realism and canonicity? They are not comparable.

[Sul-Matuul]

You can't realistically compare STO to a game like WOW; they are in different leagues; and totally different game monetisation styles.

WOW has a dev team of potentially hundreds or staff and massive financial backing to go with it; having always been a subscription model of some type.

STO by though has a dev team of maybe a few 10's of people, with possibly even less that that available at the moment with them stuck at home.

The two games simply are not even close in terms of what each can offer. WOW is considerably better funded and likely a million times more popular. The fact that you need to pay just to play the game gives them a massive requirement to actually build big events and expansions to justify the costs. But it also means if players don't like what they are getting they've already given you their money. Players "need" to pay to play so they have little choice to do anything else.

STO is F2P so it must rely on players "wanting" to spend money on the game rather than needing to do so just to get to play. You can do everything in STO for free if you like; but they need to make money so their target customer base is the "collector" style of players who wish to have their own style in the game and play it their own way.

If STO2 went down the model of WOW would it be as popular? I have no idea. Would it offer the same open ended experience STO currently does? No idea either; but would players pay to play and then pay on top to buy the same volume of ships they can currently access?
Personally I'd like STO to keep going but get bigger team. I don't want to have to start subscribing to the play; I simply don't have the funds for that. Currently with STO I can play how I want, meet friends, and decide what I want to spend on without any pressure; plus nothing anyone else does affects my way of playing.