To be honest, if you look at the game without any bias to either the like it/ hate it side, the game is nowhere near releaseworthy, i think everyone is aware thats the case, it still causes bluescreen issues with certain systems and 88% of the game content isnt workable, you cant get through many missions above level 20 without hitting a bug, rollbacks, system lag, still the UI is crap and unresponsive ... its still very much a game that should only just be entering closed beta.
This is nothing bad on the game its just not in a finished state and i think most of cryptics staff would agree and would love to hold it back another 5-6 months to get it finished, but thats not going to be the case , they dont have a choice given that atari are pushing them to get it out. Most of the problems cryptic face are infact the result of a publisher taking a far to heavy role in getting the game released. Dont forget they got this game from a failing company as more of a sympathy pass off, they know the IP will bring customers but the effort of making a space MMO without a dedicated space engine (CCP certainly wont sell the eve engine) means that things take longer than expected. As such cryptic were forced into using an engine they had been working on for Champions and do a quick conversion to space to satisfy the time limits atari placed upon them. Had they not been able to give these timing estimates you can guarantee atari would have found a development house who would.
Such a conversion is messy at best, leaving alot of redundant code, you can pretty much bet alot of champions onlines features are still implemented in the code and a simple uncommenting of a few initialisers would give us all the option to fly around ground combat with our arms stretched out in a heroic pose, or fly about on a platform of ice
As such fixing bugs in a converted engine is even harder, as bugs that are thought fixed for CO may turn out to be causing more problems in STO than if they had never been fixed at all. As a programmer myself i can say that using someone else's code is hard enough, nevermind using someones code thats been made for anouther use.
STO's main challenge will be overcomming the first month of launch, theyve promised a 45 day patch that will solve all of klingons pve options, add aditional features to the game and fufill some of those promises they said theyd put in right back in 2008, If that 45 day patch turns into a 60 day patch.. people will leave, they will go for good as alot of people have been messed about by cryptic too much already and alot of people are at breaking point. The reason they added the lifetime subs by the way was because of the sheer amount of pre-orders that got canceled when people saw open beta, (something many of us in closed beta knew would happen). The game is very vulnerable at the moment and one big failure could possibly kill it, launch week will be a very dissapointing week, as cryptic never fail to suck when it comes to server management with concern to high loads, champions online was the same and if they resort to large scale game changes on release day (like CO) then again alot of people will be put off. Sadly, cryptic has built a reputation around doing things half assed, im sure they have there reasons but still theyve been alot more obvious in there failings than alot of other companies, which originally made people groan when they knew they were making this MMO and which has caused alot of apprehension in the playerbase.
Im sure alot will stick around.. i just hope this time cryptic realise that loyalty such as that has its limits, and they cant keep pissing about with it.
Ended up just using the mouse instead of the keys even though I prefer keys.