This is a real preview. Seeing this only increases your level of fail, Ryan Scott, in your pathetic, lazy, opinionated GameSpy preview. For shame.

While I’m talking about it, has the fact that cartoons are on 24/7 ruined the Saturday morning experience? I feel it has, mainly because there are no cartoons dedicated to Saturday. Even if the new episodes are on Saturday mornings, you see the same cartoons during the week. Then again, I’m not a kid anymore so I bet the young ones love it.

Finally, someone who’s making sense.

To compair games with one another games is not fair.

WoW is a great game IMO but is too much gear based than a solow enjoy the game. I mean you have to have the best gear to see end game content or have a high end guild carry you to see it.

Guildwars. Also a great game and a good value for a free to play MMO. But unlike WoW you do not have to be in a “guild” to see end game content.

EvE. Worst space game i have ever played. The controls are choppy and even though the player base is growing I can not see my self paying monthy for a once free to play game.

STO. Not even out yet. The beta players are sworn to silence. Currently the game still have alot of unanswered questions. Yet Gamer site tend to bash it with little to no info on game play.

To talk bad about STO based on prior Star Trek games is not the way to go here. To compair it to Star Wars online is not the right thing to do. I am sure Cryptic already know how and why that game failed.

Like Ophra, WoW will always be on top. But the one thing WoW has not done in a long time is keep its new and older player base happy. New of the new ex-pack for wow basicly takes away thearycrafting, a huge part of the game. They (blizzard) also has a bad habit of pushing back realse dates. Yet people swear Blizard does no worng.

The question asked already is “can cryptic beat WoW in the player base” the answer given already is No. But look at the failed MMO’s still around, Pirates of the Burning Sea, EvE, SWG, Guildwars, and countless free to play and pay to play games. I say fail because I am willing to bet that the combined player base of these games list still can not compair to WoW’s player base. Yet they are still around.

Next time Ryan please do yourself and others the favor and think before typing. I always liked your reviews but you realyly put your foot in your mouth this time.

That’s funny. Thanks for that. I certainly don’t question Ryan Scott’s professional ethics, just his intent in the preview and its completeness. And the answer is fifty bars of gold-pressed latinum.

@Byron Chen
Yes, you are totally right. I did forget Star Wars Galaxies and Guild Wars.

However, first, I think you will perhaps permit that I am not a Games Journalism professional. I am not being paid for my knowledge, experience, and time. Ryan Scott is, therefore my expectation that the preview reflect a professional intent and quality. I don’t see a lot of that here.

Second, while SWG does indeed have space and ground areas, I would count STO as one of the few MMOs that ever has ever had that distinction. In that context, that is why I qualified it as “relatively innovative”.

With regard to Guild Wars, I was relatively aware of that mechanic, that is why I qualified that the bridge officer mechanic in STO is very innovative for a STAR TREK GAME, not an MMO. I purposely did that.

Here is what no one seems to get or doesn’t think is important enough to acknowledge. To most of us who have played Star Trek games in the past, this is not an MMO that just happens to be Star Trek. It is a STAR TREK MMO!! We have always wanted a game with a persistent world ever since Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates lost most of its popularity. Starfleet Command 2 was the first Star Trek game that I am aware of that created a persistent online campaign for its players back in 2000.

So as I have said, part of my objection to the preview is that it is framed through the lens of every other MMO rather than from the history of Star Trek and of Star Trek games. The opinions expressed about the game are all wrapped up in Ryan’s view about MMOs in general. To my mind, a fresher and more informed perspective would have been from one that I have suggested.

I take your point that the preview is written for MMO players in as much that it is a preview at all and not an editorial piece on MMOs with STO as the whipping boy. That said, the fact that there is almost no acknowledgement of the history of Star Trek games in the preview, yet the entire history of MMOs is thrust upon this title in one preview based a very thin slice of the game, makes it a pretty unbalanced, uninformed, and unfair piece.

Sorry, I like Ryan as a podcaster and writer in general and I am glad that he has found his voice outside of the over-riding influence of people like Shawn Elliot, but in this particular case, I found the work disappointing to say the least.