It just ocurred to me earlier today, that it's all instanced. I mean, as far as I can tell, only the Earth base is fairly "massive" if by massive you mean 100 people. Actually I've yet to see more than 50 people in one instance. Now, someone clarify for me, is this anything like Guild Wars? I remember hearing how that was all played through instances and that it was FREE. Sure you had to pay for certain "expansions", but you didn't have to pay a monthly fee.  
 
STO seems an awful lot like a regular online game. With persistent elements, sure, but is it any more massive than MAG? More massive than a server that someone leaves on forever? (at least in between patches).  
 
And is the amount of people something that qualifies an MMO?

Maybe if you had hundreds of other user's starships in your game space doesn't really accomplish anything game-wise.  They might have something like this set up for some giant mission or raid, but I doubt it would be useful to have it that way all the time.  A jumble of starships would probably bump into each other a lot in the game & ruin the suspension of disbelief.

Ummm, how about following Star Trek canon? 100's of starships in battle wouldn't happen...

 
And is the amount of people something that qualifies an MMO? I mean, there are a whole lot of other things that STO does that something like TF2 doesn't do. Things like object permanence, handling crazy amounts of that x crazy amounts of people + trying to keep it alll synchronized is not cake territory."

...Makes me wish STO was more Diablo-like with its online.

Instanced MMOs are a Cryptic calling card at this point. Just look at Champions Online. The Giant Bomb crew even bring this point up on I believe the most recent Bombcast. Since the entire game is instanced it really has the feel of being a single player experience unless you actively group with other people. The single player feeling is further perpetuated by the fact that you can just bring your own five person crew with you wherever you go. It really does look like it is a single player game with you building up a party. The only things that look like you actively interact with other players is on public starbases and fleet actions.

It's pretty massive to me. I've been on the screen with 40 other ships at once. It brought back feelings of the good old days of raiding.

" Ummm, how about following Star Trek canon? 100's of starships in battle wouldn't happen... "

" @britdevil said:

" Ummm, how about following Star Trek canon? 100's of starships in battle wouldn't happen... "

Happened yesterday on the set phasers video. So I've never understood the appeal of MMOs but very little of the questing I've seen in the game so far seems to fit with why MMO games are MMOs instead of just single player games. No competing factions is the big standout. "

The biggest issue with the game is if you come from a "traditional" MMO like WoW.  WoW only uses instances for dungeon and raid zones (except for some unique quest-related events) so you're always seeing players running around and the cities are full of people.  It also allows for world exploration that is seamless.  Going to a game that doesn't do that is a big shock, and while it's perfectly understandable why other games use the "fishbowl" method of zones, it takes time to adjust.  Being in an environment like Space - particularly the Star Trek space - makes this less harsh, since beaming to a place or warping to a sector is something that masks the transition.  When I tried Conan I was completely turned-off by the instancing and the fact that I couldn't walk to the next area and explore on my own, I had to take a caravan to "port" my way to the other area.  In that setting it was horrible and I quit after my trial, but in this setting, it plays to the limits of the technology.
 
Guld Wars was free for one reason, to try and get people from WoW.  It was a business decision to make money from the initial box, and micro-transactions for stuff, rather than a subscription.  STO is a subscription for one reason, Star Trek.  The fanbase is made up mostly of educated males with lots of disposable time and income, both of which they already devote much of by way of merchandise, games, dvds, and so forth.  It's there to be a place that type can live in, a 24/7 Star Trek world they can do stuff in, something they will gladly pay for. (myself included).

Star Trek Online is very much like Guild Wars but in a science fiction / space opera setting and without the great PvP aspect to the game for players to enjoy.

its massively instance based

@warxsnake said:

"its massively instance based "

That makes a lot of sense, I think that should be like a new genre of these types of games.