I'm genuinely amused by the fact that - much as with Champions, perhaps a good deal of my opinion regarding the game comes from the fact that I haven't experienced graphical glitches, crashing, or random disconnections.
I can totally believe there's plenty of those for most folks, but for me it's, like...I can remain connected for hours at a stretch without any problems. I've been disconnected from the server maybe...twice?
Since I haven't experienced that frustration, my opinion is probably much more positive simply because of that. But yeah, considering how overloaded the servers are right now, I definitely believe this could be a problem. It's merely one I haven't personally experienced. Nonetheless, it's quite apparent that they really have to improve their server infrastructure before the game goes live. They've said they are adding more hardware, but we'll see how tha turns out.
Anyway...finding your ground avatar standing in the cold vacuum of space, or a mini-Starship parked on the surface of a planet ...is quite common though, and purely lag-related. Possibly the most harmless and amusing bug ever...it'll flip to the proper avatar generally within a few seconds of this happening, but it makes for great screenshots. =D
It's also worth mentioning that since I did play Champions, and Star Trek Online shares the same global chat server...even in STO beta, I already am hooked up to community global channels and a friends list. This makes a very significant difference to my experience - as Sofa points out, there's a lot of idiots in zone chat. But then there's a lot of idiots in zone chat in any MMO. If STO suffers from a lack of community, so does every MMO out there - you can't compare to your experience with CoH or any other game you've played, 'cause you've already made friends in that game.
I still recall City of Heroes (or indeed, World of Warcraft, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, pretty much every MMO I've tried), being a very lonely place without a guild or similar group. A good global channel community can substitute for an guild/supergroup, but either way I mean a literate self-selecting community beyond J. Random People In Your Vicinity.
Also note that zone chat is going to be particularly bad during the beta test and launch of any new MMO, based on the couple beta/launch experiences I've had - generally there'll be a lot of critique and gamer bitching. This is simply a fact of life.
-- Acyl
I can totally believe there's plenty of those for most folks, but for me it's, like...I can remain connected for hours at a stretch without any problems. I've been disconnected from the server maybe...twice?
Since I haven't experienced that frustration, my opinion is probably much more positive simply because of that. But yeah, considering how overloaded the servers are right now, I definitely believe this could be a problem. It's merely one I haven't personally experienced. Nonetheless, it's quite apparent that they really have to improve their server infrastructure before the game goes live. They've said they are adding more hardware, but we'll see how tha turns out.
Anyway...finding your ground avatar standing in the cold vacuum of space, or a mini-Starship parked on the surface of a planet ...is quite common though, and purely lag-related. Possibly the most harmless and amusing bug ever...it'll flip to the proper avatar generally within a few seconds of this happening, but it makes for great screenshots. =D
It's also worth mentioning that since I did play Champions, and Star Trek Online shares the same global chat server...even in STO beta, I already am hooked up to community global channels and a friends list. This makes a very significant difference to my experience - as Sofa points out, there's a lot of idiots in zone chat. But then there's a lot of idiots in zone chat in any MMO. If STO suffers from a lack of community, so does every MMO out there - you can't compare to your experience with CoH or any other game you've played, 'cause you've already made friends in that game.
I still recall City of Heroes (or indeed, World of Warcraft, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, pretty much every MMO I've tried), being a very lonely place without a guild or similar group. A good global channel community can substitute for an guild/supergroup, but either way I mean a literate self-selecting community beyond J. Random People In Your Vicinity.
Also note that zone chat is going to be particularly bad during the beta test and launch of any new MMO, based on the couple beta/launch experiences I've had - generally there'll be a lot of critique and gamer bitching. This is simply a fact of life.
-- Acyl