SpaceSimCentral

I have some reservations about articles like this since this could be a good thing to reward and get people into a improved STO since there has been plenty of content updates and patches since releases. Or it could mean that subscription rates are not what Cryptic expected?Here is a link to the original article: http://www.startrekonline.com/node/1594
Quote:
We're continually providing new ways for you to save money and enjoy Star Trek Online. Here are some great deals we currently have available.Veteran RewardsVeteran Rewards are our special thank you to players who've invested their time with us. Some rewards available are:* Free Full Respecs.* Exclusive Costume Pieces.* Free Additional Character Slots.For a full list of Veteran Rewards, check out our Veteran Rewards page.Free Trial WeekendTaking a break from Star Trek Online? Have a friend you think would enjoy the game? Take advantage of our periodically free trial weekends, where you can play Star Trek Online completely unrestricted.Our first free trial weekend, called the Welcome Back Weekend, is available to our former players. Welcome Back Weekend begins Friday, May 7, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific and ends Monday, May 10, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific.For more information, please check out our free trial weekend page.Refer a FriendWe know you love Star Trek Online. We want to help you bring your friends to the game. With our Refer a Friend program, you can earn rewards for introducing your buddies to the game.You can earn special items, Cryptic Points and more. Visit our Refer a Friend page to learn more.Star Trek Online DemoNew to Star Trek Online? Considering making a purchase? We're so sure you'll love the game, we want to give you the chance to play it for free. Visit our demo page (coming soon) to learn how to create a Cryptic account and begin playing Star Trek Online.

I played this game from the start, and I played for two and a half months.Although I enjoyed it very much, it has/had some mayor flaws:
[*:1htasfqj]Waaaaaay to easy to get to Max Character Level. Even when doing ALL missions, and taking my time doing so, I had 3 characters at max level, and 2 halfway when I quit[*:1htasfqj]To little endgame content. Although there is more of it now, I still feel like it's not enough. This combined with the above means there's little to do when you get your character to max level. (PvP, a couple of (long) repeatable missions) and fleet actions[*:1htasfqj]The missions that you do to get to max level get boring the 3rd time you do em.[*:1htasfqj]Missions can be repetitive even the first time you do em.[*:1htasfqj]Ground combat was way boring.[*:1htasfqj]Seriously bad programming. Let me explain this one in detail:


This is not something that influences your game in any way, but this is a CPU/GPU hog. Mind you, I played this stutter free with all details to the max on my Q6600@2.3Ghz / 8GB / GTS8800 but the temperatures and load level where way higher then any other game I ever played on this rig, including games with lots of eyecandy, like X3:TC. Loads were around 80% ON ALL 4 CORES and my GPU temp ran up to 80 degrees Celsius. I have NEVER seen ANY other game do thisNow it seems like I'm bashing this game, so I feel like I must point out some of the good points:
[*:1htasfqj]I really had a blast on my first 2 playthroughs.[*:1htasfqj]The storyline missions are mostly really well written, some of em feel like yer interactively watching a ST:TNG episode.[*:1htasfqj]PvP combat can be very fun if you get a good group together.[*:1htasfqj]Graphics are quite good.[*:1htasfqj]Personalizing yer own starship and avatar is very fun to do.[*:1htasfqj]IT'S STAR TREK, COMMON!!![*:1htasfqj]Community is really great and Cryptic listens to content requests from it's audience. Most of the things added were community requested.Regarding D1's statement of low sub levels, the main prob is allot of people left after one or two months because some of the reasons I mentioned above, and because some F-ups Cryptic/Atari made that drew bad blood.EDIT: I sure as h*ll will be taking advantage of this offer BTW

Some nice examples there Braindead.I wrote a beta review for STO when I played the beta for about 2wks or so and I played at a slow pace a few hours here and there and I leveled fairly quickly. I didn't want the same experience that I got in Age of Conan where I was max level after 2-3wks. I'm not a lvl grinding lover but game companies need to slow the leveling pace in games. And with AoC not having end game content I left and now they come out with a pay expansion haha. But STO has unlimited potential in story and missions and your right it looks great. The away mission combat could be improved I will give you that and I didn't really like the whole sector/quadrant map to move to new areas. I would have much rather prefered free movement.I am a huge Star Trek fan and I really wanted to play the game but I saw the writing on the wall when I played the beta and I didn't want to invest the time and get frustrated again like I did with Age of Conan. Cryptic needs to make attaining rank a bit more difficult or a bit more grind in the mid lvls.Companies forget that maybe not all people want to PvP all the time... some people like to do some vert in-depth questing. I thought STO's questing engine was quite entertaining and had fun doing them and wanted to have quests that could take me several days to do not hours or mins. I think MMO's really need a great questing system or just make them totally open based and let there be a random quest generator.Generally people don't mind grinding if the grinding is fun. It is when you go to the same area every day and do the same quest over and over to level. Of course that sucks and that's why people quit. I have never played any other Cryptic MMO's before so I have no opinions on their past games `. But they do have a gem here if the devote the time to make it good.I recently went back to play Dungeon & Dragons Online and had some fun with it. Yeah its F2P with micro transactions but the game is very polished now and the questing/grouping are very fun.One thing that would draw me to play STO would be actual exploration of the universe, not quests just open the game universe up and let us explore and seek out new life