Originally posted by Cerion But hey, I've come to appreciate how genius the original SWG Devs were -- brilliant system designers (not so great at content designing, though, heh). Maybe multi-player ships are just too damn hard for the Cryptic devs to design. Nothing to be ashamed of...can't all be Einsteins in the developing world.
Maybe they are Bob Einsteins.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Okay, so given everyone must be a captian - What if I wanted to be a real ship commander and delegate away team responsibilities to my second? How would that play out?
(That would probably be too much Star Trek for this startrek game)
Okay, so given everyone must be a captian - What if I wanted to be a real ship commander and delegate away team responsibilities to my second? How would that play out? (That would probably be too much Star Trek for this startrek game)
It's pretty clear that the devs and the fans of this game are satisfied with a very shallow treatment of the IP. Which is a real shame, because there is more than enough source material to provide a very rich and deep MMORPG experience.
WoW in space, indeed. Starships are mounts, and crew are pets. Blech.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
" This collection game encourages people to seek out, create or trade for the officer with the ideal configuration of eight skills for them."
Hmm...wouldn't this basically lead to the selling of tradeable officers, thus creating a "slave market" so to speak? This isn't your daddy's Star Trek...it's great grandpa's.
Sounds more like professional Baseball and Football teams. Unless you think they are "SLAVES" too.
1) It's not standard Fantasy. I like D&D every so often, not enough to make a $15/month commitment to it.
2) The learning curve isn't too steep: As nicely detailed as EVE online is, when you have a regular job it feels like more work. How long do you really have to grind asteroid/missions/skills to get to a "comfortable middle"? Also the end game is PVP which I can't really stand.
3) It's not a watered-down, yet-shinier version of a game I already play: Champions doesn't interest me, the power system is more flexible than City of Heroes but there is much less content than City of Heroes had "AT LAUNCH". Even with different characters the missions get old fast and all it details is "X character is better/worse at this content than Y character".
I'm also interested in Star Wars: TOR, and I can like both and not feel like they are the same thing since BioWare probably isn't going to have robust space combat. If I want to fly a Starship, I'll play STO, if I want to mow down dudes with a Lightsaber I'll play SWTOR.
Although with STO I would like to try the game for 1/2 a day first before shelling out money for it.
Maybe I read it wrong but it didnt seem like you could trade officers for parts...more like trading officers for officers.
That's what I meant, yes. You can trade officers with other players. If you prefer... "Reassign them."
Originally posted by Cerion
DANA wrote: " Bridge Officers provide players with a more iconic and complete Star Trek experience. Part of the fantasy is to be the Captain and while some out there would no doubt love to travel the galaxies in the role of Ship’s Doctor, that’s not exactly compelling gameplay for the average player. " Informative article over all, but then you had to take it down ten notches by parroting this over-used strawman argument. First of all, no Ship's Doctor class/profession was ever developed, so how do you know if something is compelling or not if it wasn't even created? You also say "part of the fantasy" is to be a Captain. Well 'part of the fantasy' is to run ones ship from an interior. Another 'part of the fantasy' is to have player crews. Cryptic, and journalists, have created this circular argument that is beyond frustrating. Without proof or evidence, its assumed that being a Captain is the ONLY part of the fantasy that matters. Finally, "Bridge officers provide players with a more iconice and complete Star Trek experience..." More iconic than what? Not having them? And if Iconic was so damn important, then Cryptic would have developed a system for player crews because that is even MORE Iconic.
This isn't a staw man argument, it's common sense. I know there are really hardcore Trek fans who would love to do this, but honestly, I've yet to hear one of these purists present a suggestion for compelling gameplay. On the show, they had "jobs" and performed them. We didn't watch them do those mundane thing. In a game, you would have to.
Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions?
There simply is not enough content there to drill that deep on any reasonable development timeframe.
Being a Captain is not the only part of the fantasy that matters, it's the only part that would be fun in a video game for a mass audience. You'll probably pick on the sentence "mass audience," but the fact is that Cryptic likely wants more people than just hardcore Trek fans to play the game.
Dana Massey Formerly of MMORPG.com Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
You'll probably pick on the sentence "mass audience," but the fact is that Cryptic likely wants more people than just hardcore Trek fans to play the game.
That's the problem. Trek fans will leave when they see how shallow the treatment of the IP is, and casuals will leave for the next shiny new MMO that comes out.
The point of most of my complaints about this game is that they shouldn't have taken on the IP if they were going to be so lax and unfaithful to the source material.
Just make your own space battle MMO, Cryptic. But no, they will trick Trek fans into buying this with hopes of playing a Trek MMO, which this is not.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
DANA wrote: " Bridge Officers provide players with a more iconic and complete Star Trek experience. Part of the fantasy is to be the Captain and while some out there would no doubt love to travel the galaxies in the role of Ship’s Doctor, that’s not exactly compelling gameplay for the average player. " Informative article over all, but then you had to take it down ten notches by parroting this over-used strawman argument. First of all, no Ship's Doctor class/profession was ever developed, so how do you know if something is compelling or not if it wasn't even created? You also say "part of the fantasy" is to be a Captain. Well 'part of the fantasy' is to run ones ship from an interior. Another 'part of the fantasy' is to have player crews. Cryptic, and journalists, have created this circular argument that is beyond frustrating. Without proof or evidence, its assumed that being a Captain is the ONLY part of the fantasy that matters. Finally, "Bridge officers provide players with a more iconice and complete Star Trek experience..." More iconic than what? Not having them? And if Iconic was so damn important, then Cryptic would have developed a system for player crews because that is even MORE Iconic.
This isn't a staw man argument, it's common sense. I know there are really hardcore Trek fans who would love to do this, but honestly, I've yet to hear one of these purists present a suggestion for compelling gameplay. On the show, they had "jobs" and performed them. We didn't watch them do those mundane thing. In a game, you would have to.
Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions?
I'll second that.
There was an episode of Babylon 5 called 'View from the Gallery (I think)'. It followed the work day of a couple of maintenance guys. Yes they had to go fix a couple of things (1 stuck elevator?) but you also saw them eat lunch and 'buff' the floor. Not much in the way of mini-game's.
"Yo Engineer, got a clogged toilet in room 556. Fix it."
Originally posted by Nebless I'll second that. There was an episode of Babylon 5 called 'View from the Gallery (I think)'. It followed the work day of a couple of maintenance guys. Yes they had to go fix a couple of things (1 stuck elevator?) but you also saw them eat lunch and 'buff' the floor. Not much in the way of mini-game's. "Yo Engineer, got a clogged toilet in room 556. Fix it."
Strawman.
No one is calling for the ability to play maintenance crew. That's a far cry from being Spock, Riker, Scotty, or LaForge. Who all had episodes devoted to them.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
This long time Trekker greatly approves of what Cryptic is doing. Is it perfect? Does it have everything hardcore Trekkers and Trekkies want? No.. but guess what... no game will EVER have what everyone wants.
I just hope I can get into Open Beta!! Lets go STO!! :-)
Originally posted by Dana This isn't a staw man argument, it's common sense. I know there are really hardcore Trek fans who would love to do this, but honestly, I've yet to hear one of these purists present a suggestion for compelling gameplay. On the show, they had "jobs" and performed them. We didn't watch them do those mundane thing. In a game, you would have to.
Well, I had a post on this...I thought I outline compelling gameplay (heck, you could even have it setup so a friend could visit your ship/crew for a while and see what they are like if you wanted). Anyhow, here's a reposting of what I said:
Hmm, there should have been something along the lines of personalities for the crew at least. Not only can you not play Bashir, you can't even have him on your crew. All doctors are the same, more or less, after all.
I almost wonder (well, instant brainstorm) if they shouldn't have done something where you don't play anything in particular per se. You aren't a member of the crew, you aren't the ship, you aren't quite all of them together either. Instead are identified with a ship and crew, and you can control the ship (in combat for instance) or a member of the crew, but only one at a time. Then quests and such basically pit you with problems that you have to solve utilizing the crew, but the crew will act independently of you to an extent (based on their personalities). That let's some crew members doing boring stuff that takes a long time while you control one of the people more involved in the action at the moment (and later you can get the info from the guy doing the boring stuff). Sometimes the focus of things might be on a planet, sometimes it might be in space, sometimes it might be on the ship, and sometimes a combination of all of those, but in any case you can zoom in on the action and control one of your "people/things" to help resolve the situation. If you use that person to talk to someone else, then the dialogue options are appropriate for that person's personality (if you have Worf try to be a diplomat it won't be nearly as effective as Picard..unless perhaps they are Klingons or something). I think that might have been pretty awesome to play. A lot of potentially for very interesting multi-player interaction.
Now, I suppose some people might try to claim STO is this, but without personalities for the crew and with the fact it identifies you as the captain and no internal ship problems, it loses out a lot (fails in other ways too). That said, not having personalities is the major loss as you're simply not going to identify as strongly with the crew. They should have spent another year or two and developed some procedural technology for personalities and crew interactions at the very least.
DANA wrote: " Bridge Officers provide players with a more iconic and complete Star Trek experience. Part of the fantasy is to be the Captain and while some out there would no doubt love to travel the galaxies in the role of Ship’s Doctor, that’s not exactly compelling gameplay for the average player. " Informative article over all, but then you had to take it down ten notches by parroting this over-used strawman argument. First of all, no Ship's Doctor class/profession was ever developed, so how do you know if something is compelling or not if it wasn't even created? You also say "part of the fantasy" is to be a Captain. Well 'part of the fantasy' is to run ones ship from an interior. Another 'part of the fantasy' is to have player crews. Cryptic, and journalists, have created this circular argument that is beyond frustrating. Without proof or evidence, its assumed that being a Captain is the ONLY part of the fantasy that matters. Finally, "Bridge officers provide players with a more iconice and complete Star Trek experience..." More iconic than what? Not having them? And if Iconic was so damn important, then Cryptic would have developed a system for player crews because that is even MORE Iconic.
This isn't a staw man argument, it's common sense. I know there are really hardcore Trek fans who would love to do this, but honestly, I've yet to hear one of these purists present a suggestion for compelling gameplay. On the show, they had "jobs" and performed them. We didn't watch them do those mundane thing. In a game, you would have to.
Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions?
I'll second that.
There was an episode of Babylon 5 called 'View from the Gallery (I think)'. It followed the work day of a couple of maintenance guys. Yes they had to go fix a couple of things (1 stuck elevator?) but you also saw them eat lunch and 'buff' the floor. Not much in the way of mini-game's.
"Yo Engineer, got a clogged toilet in room 556. Fix it."
Originally posted by Dana Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions? There simply is not enough content there to drill that deep on any reasonable development timeframe.
This is such a narrow view, and it seems to me that it come from having limited knowledge about Star Trek. This is probably the same view that Cryptic has. The more I hear about the game, the more I feel like they have a passing knowledge about Star Trek, but like Dana, they think it's all about the captain and the rest of the crew are just there to tinker with engines or mend broken bones.
Fans of Star Trek know that most episodes of Star Trek focused on characters other than the captain, and followed them through various challenges they had to face, and believe it or not episodes about the doctor were never about treating runny noses. As an example off the top of my head, there was an episode of Deep Space Nine where Chief O'Brian is kidnapped by the Cardassians. Just because he is an engineer doesn't mean all of his challenges have to be about balancing ship power or repairing ruptured conduits.
The game looks great and sounds interesting. I can't wait to get my hands on it.
In regards to the bridges, I understand what they are saying about the bridge size, but I think maybe they look a little too big still. There was a closeness on the bridge in the shows that allowed the captain to give orders without shouting. In this game, the distances would have you almost shouting to be heard over the typical background noise of standard bridge operations. But it's a game and I guess we have to make allowances.
I am wondering if this will be out around the same time as the Star Wars mmo. It will be rough playing Fallen Earth, trying STO and then giving the Star Wars mmo a go. Just think if the Star Trek game and the Star Wars game were great games. Omg....that would be so awesome and suck at the same time because there is only so much time to play these games
Game will be release 02-02-2010, so I feel that far from ST-ToR release.
I can't complain about the looks as they do look pretty decent, I also felt it was once again a good informative article about Bridges & Bridge officers, but somehow I am still not getting a MMORPG fibe from the game other then the game so far gives me a Multiplayer or Action Online Game fibe.
Also I still feel that they fall short on what is Star Trek, like others have said why is it that they asume everyone want's to be a captain, is this like Star Wars where they asume everyone want's to be a jedi.
But hey...I am a niche MMORPG gamer, give me a game with the IP like Star Wars or Star Trek or Stargate and make sure these worlds are true from what we know and let me take my own route in any of these galaxies/universes.
If I want to feel like some hero there are plenty of games in the single/mulitplayer area that provide this, where MMORPG should be about a diverse community.
Overall I feel they definitly are taking the most limited way to represent something like Star Trek, but again I still hope Cryptic will proof me wrong, but for now I doubt that from info that is given.
Being a Star- Trek/Wars/Gate fan at the moment can't see these upcoming games take me away from FE, I will play them, no doubt, but for now don't feel I can play them in a MMORPG way, but more like the way I play multiplayer games.
DANA wrote: " Bridge Officers provide players with a more iconic and complete Star Trek experience. Part of the fantasy is to be the Captain and while some out there would no doubt love to travel the galaxies in the role of Ship’s Doctor, that’s not exactly compelling gameplay for the average player. " Informative article over all, but then you had to take it down ten notches by parroting this over-used strawman argument. First of all, no Ship's Doctor class/profession was ever developed, so how do you know if something is compelling or not if it wasn't even created? You also say "part of the fantasy" is to be a Captain. Well 'part of the fantasy' is to run ones ship from an interior. Another 'part of the fantasy' is to have player crews. Cryptic, and journalists, have created this circular argument that is beyond frustrating. Without proof or evidence, its assumed that being a Captain is the ONLY part of the fantasy that matters. Finally, "Bridge officers provide players with a more iconice and complete Star Trek experience..." More iconic than what? Not having them? And if Iconic was so damn important, then Cryptic would have developed a system for player crews because that is even MORE Iconic.
Exactly.
I've seen fan pages devoted to Dr. Julian Bashir. I'm willing to bet that the fan who made that page would prefer to be like her hero rather than a captain. Why are all these people assuming that everone just loves the captains and wants to be one of them? What about all thev fans of Scotty or Data or Spock? They're being left out in the cold because people like Cryptic are making brash assumptions that really have no basis in reality. And that does not bode well for this game...
Indeed, I would like to hang out at Quark's bar and drink some glowy drinks. Some gamers do want a simple shoot em up, but there are millions of people who would become gamers if they were told that the Star Trek Universe has become real, or at least as real as our current technology allows. Creating something like I envision would probably take tons of time and resources and by the time its released would already be outdated. We can at least hope for upgrades and perhaps complete revamping of STO down the road.
Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions?
There simply is not enough content there to drill that deep on any reasonable development timeframe.
This is such a narrow view, and it seems to me that it come from having limited knowledge about Star Trek. This is probably the same view that Cryptic has. The more I hear about the game, the more I feel like they have a passing knowledge about Star Trek, but like Dana, they think it's all about the captain and the rest of the crew are just there to tinker with engines or mend broken bones.
Fans of Star Trek know that most episodes of Star Trek focused on characters other than the captain, and followed them through various challenges they had to face, and believe it or not episodes about the doctor were never about treating runny noses. As an example off the top of my head, there was an episode of Deep Space Nine where Chief O'Brian is kidnapped by the Cardassians. Just because he is an engineer doesn't mean all of his challenges have to be about balancing ship power or repairing ruptured conduits.
That's fine. I understand that the other characters are interesting, no one disputes that.
The question for you and anyone who wants to have player crews is a simple one:
Present to me compelling day-to-day gameplay for the ship's engineer? The doctor? The Security Officer?
What would they do during the average play session? What would their typical 10 minute gameplay experience entail? Why would this be fun?
Further to that, if I am in combat as a Captain and want to turn left. What would my experience then be if I had a player crew? Would the entire Captain gameplay experience consist of being on teamspeak trying to get other people on my ship to fire the phasers and turn the thing?
Seriously, I've heard lots of examples from the show of why crew is awesome, but I've yet to see one compelling gameplay idea that would be remotely practical or fun.
Dana Massey Formerly of MMORPG.com Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Thats true it is very focused on PvP, but the other options are being added to, not removed.
(also in reply to KillKip)
The link you gave points to an OLD patch, where they announced.dedicated colony buildings, a truly good idea (bad implementation, but the idea is.good, has to be, it was mine anyways).
alas, but for three buildings it remained at the announcement, that is not even half-done - hence why i said they miss FOCUS..
No follow-up patch mentioned any further buildings, nor much else (nothing really, except for a plan to introduce galactic market).
Nothing was added to that since then either, instead they concentrated on stuff like "joystick usage" and "shuttles" - more or less irrelevant features, aside from the "nice to look at" aspect.
(in reply to KillKip: why would i want to fly with a shuttle when i can port, except for the looks of it? How were shuttles "needed" when one task (economy is not even half-done?)
As to the removing:
They all but completely REMOVED the need for non-PvP occupations (mining, building) from their game with that change to mining and refining yields; where before it was a "full-time occupation" to mine and build, you do it now more as an afterthought in a fraction of the time. all that is left now, basically, is the cargo-hauling, and even that is um... crap (unless you run cargos to your OWN colonies) since what do you want the cash for anyways?
This is why i say they miss direction, they SAY they want to go this way but DO go another way.
Or perhaps they *do* have direction and just failed to communicate it?
I could say more, but this is the STO not the SQO forums - if you wish to discuss this further, send a PM or open a thread in the SQO forums on this site.
To people like Elikal, who ask "what would the (PC) crew do all day?":
Duh...
Ever heard of secondary occupations?
What did Beverly Crusher do when she was on the Bridge of the Enterprise? Or Troi?
Especially with limited bridge space (as others have mentioned, perhaps tied to the ship size) that tends to become a non-issue.
You have x number of bridge stations, if no PC is on, the NPC takes the job (likewise if the PC goes LD/logs off).
This would broaden up the PC-crewed ship's selection of abilities (as i understand the current STO combat system) on one hand, and would create (more of) a "trek feeling" on the other hand.
I figure with 2 or 3 tactical stations, an engineer would not have much time to ask what he's to do as he'll be busy enough re-routing all the energy to where it is needed...
This isn't a staw man argument, it's common sense. I know there are really hardcore Trek fans who would love to do this, but honestly, I've yet to hear one of these purists present a suggestion for compelling gameplay. On the show, they had "jobs" and performed them. We didn't watch them do those mundane thing. In a game, you would have to.
Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions? There simply is not enough content there to drill that deep on any reasonable development timeframe. Being a Captain is not the only part of the fantasy that matters, it's the only part that would be fun in a video game for a mass audience. You'll probably pick on the sentence "mass audience," but the fact is that Cryptic likely wants more people than just hardcore Trek fans to play the game.
"Seriously, what would you do?":
Engineer, during combat: Watch weapon heat/efficiency, re-rout energy as primary occupation, sending repair/maintenance crew crew as secondary "battleoccupation" (more than one "mini-game", with a station-specific UI).
Engineer, non-comabt: Re-align Dilithium Crystals to maximize output, repair that blown plasma relais, spend time in the "workshop" (gaining XP, tradeskilling whatever)
Medic, during Combat (off-Bridge, ship-wide) treat wounded that are teleported into sickbas (NPCs that got burnt by a plasma leak or whatever, random events); in case of boardings, use life-support to distribute gas (weaken/"debuff" intruders).
Medic, during combat, on bridge: Occupy some science station or whatever secondary skill he has. Perhaps man the scanners to analyze the opposing ship's crew, searching for weaknesses (cross-check with the ship-database)
Medic, non-combat: prepare+distribute his meds ("buffs" for personal combat), synthesize materials (tradeskilling) or use animals (milk snakes to get their poison for antidotes or whatever), maintain the ship's database entries on chemicals and lifeforms...
These are just examples, ofc.
What does a group in another MMO do when not in combat?
Right, wait for mobs to spawn or travel across zones to get to (new) hunting grounds.
In a ST.-game, you socialize (chat) while the ship is in transit (galaxy-map) or prepare your char or use the time to tradeskill...
Certainly more exciting than merely hit the FWD key to steer your avatar/mount towards the next zone as you do in other games, is it not?
The problem is NOT to find things for people to do, the REAL problem is the laziness of Dev's (and perhaps budget constraints) to implement them.
"There simply is not enough content there to drill that deep on any reasonable development timeframe."
That sentence is BS, really.
And if it is true (it seems to be, currently), it's solely atributed to the Dev's laziness and the suit's unwillingness to "live up" to Gene's idea.
The more detailed the content is, the higher the immersion factor (you feel "at home" on your ship).
And what is "reasonable" both in terms of budget as well as timeframe, is in the eye of the beholder.
It is MY firm belief that money spent on CONTENT is never wasted, and that time spent on CONTENT is time well spent, usually.
And IF there is really a problem with that, why not create a holodeck (editor/scripting kind of thing) instead and let the players create their own "content" during the "downtimes"?
I am sure a security officer would LOVE to script a "boarding action" instance if he could - that would be development time wisely spent since it removes basically ALL downtime-related issues that might come up.
(During downtimes, people would either script or use other people's script - do a "holomission" while the ship is in ransit, perhaps even earn XP for it...)
"Being a Captain is not the only part of the fantasy that matters, it's the only part that would be fun in a video game for a mass audience":
Nonsense!!!
As it is, the focus on combat missions at best aims at the teens as a target-group, NOT at "trekkies" who are, usually, at least in their 30s and quite "nerdy" as a rule of thumb (but it's them that have got the money...)
NPC bridge crews are ok, as an OPTION.
But at the same time, people (and especially "trekkies" ) would want at least the OPTION to have PC crews (do something with their RL friends, TOGETHER), and if given the proper tools they'd FIND stuff to do during "downtimes", just as they do in other MMO's.
Heck, people (read: Trekkies) are making their own fictions and MOVIES, for god's sake.
Do you REALLY, honestly think that playing "picard" all day and meeting other people in the game only happening via meeting up with their ships/doing AWAY-missions together does REALLY cut it for a TREKKIE?
Heck, even the "mass audience" you are mentioning?
To ME, one cannot really be that ignorant - more like it's a mindless repetition of what Dev's and suits use as an excuse for them NOT working on content that's been asked by their "natural" target-audience.
Originally posted by Dana Seriously, I've heard lots of examples from the show of why crew is awesome, but I've yet to see one compelling gameplay idea that would be remotely practical or fun.
Full player crews might not be a lot of fun, but that doesn't mean you should have crews with no personality. It also doesn't mean you should have crews with no internal dynamics. There is a vast spectrum of possibilities here, and Cryptic went with a very bland options (that admittedly requires little work). They could easily have worked and done something to make sure crew members weren't just a collection of combat stats, a rank, a face, and a class.
Comments
Maybe they are Bob Einsteins.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Okay, so given everyone must be a captian - What if I wanted to be a real ship commander and delegate away team responsibilities to my second? How would that play out?
(That would probably be too much Star Trek for this startrek game)
It's pretty clear that the devs and the fans of this game are satisfied with a very shallow treatment of the IP. Which is a real shame, because there is more than enough source material to provide a very rich and deep MMORPG experience.
WoW in space, indeed. Starships are mounts, and crew are pets. Blech.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Sounds more like professional Baseball and Football teams. Unless you think they are "SLAVES" too.
Unless they have 'no-trade' clauses in their contracts, they pretty much are.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
If you get to do that as a Klingon, I want to be Picard so I can shoot Wesley the first time he whines!
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
I'm slowly warming up to the game and here's why:
1) It's not standard Fantasy. I like D&D every so often, not enough to make a $15/month commitment to it.
2) The learning curve isn't too steep: As nicely detailed as EVE online is, when you have a regular job it feels like more work. How long do you really have to grind asteroid/missions/skills to get to a "comfortable middle"? Also the end game is PVP which I can't really stand.
3) It's not a watered-down, yet-shinier version of a game I already play: Champions doesn't interest me, the power system is more flexible than City of Heroes but there is much less content than City of Heroes had "AT LAUNCH". Even with different characters the missions get old fast and all it details is "X character is better/worse at this content than Y character".
I'm also interested in Star Wars: TOR, and I can like both and not feel like they are the same thing since BioWare probably isn't going to have robust space combat. If I want to fly a Starship, I'll play STO, if I want to mow down dudes with a Lightsaber I'll play SWTOR.
Although with STO I would like to try the game for 1/2 a day first before shelling out money for it.
I was thinking ahead to the trade chat spam...
"WTS Rank 4 BO with +5 tactical and great teeth"
That's what I meant, yes. You can trade officers with other players. If you prefer... "Reassign them."
This isn't a staw man argument, it's common sense. I know there are really hardcore Trek fans who would love to do this, but honestly, I've yet to hear one of these purists present a suggestion for compelling gameplay. On the show, they had "jobs" and performed them. We didn't watch them do those mundane thing. In a game, you would have to.
Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions?
There simply is not enough content there to drill that deep on any reasonable development timeframe.
Being a Captain is not the only part of the fantasy that matters, it's the only part that would be fun in a video game for a mass audience. You'll probably pick on the sentence "mass audience," but the fact is that Cryptic likely wants more people than just hardcore Trek fans to play the game.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Disgruntled Trolls never able to stop being fucking obvious.
That's the problem. Trek fans will leave when they see how shallow the treatment of the IP is, and casuals will leave for the next shiny new MMO that comes out.
The point of most of my complaints about this game is that they shouldn't have taken on the IP if they were going to be so lax and unfaithful to the source material.
Just make your own space battle MMO, Cryptic. But no, they will trick Trek fans into buying this with hopes of playing a Trek MMO, which this is not.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
This isn't a staw man argument, it's common sense. I know there are really hardcore Trek fans who would love to do this, but honestly, I've yet to hear one of these purists present a suggestion for compelling gameplay. On the show, they had "jobs" and performed them. We didn't watch them do those mundane thing. In a game, you would have to.
Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions?
I'll second that.
There was an episode of Babylon 5 called 'View from the Gallery (I think)'. It followed the work day of a couple of maintenance guys. Yes they had to go fix a couple of things (1 stuck elevator?) but you also saw them eat lunch and 'buff' the floor. Not much in the way of mini-game's.
"Yo Engineer, got a clogged toilet in room 556. Fix it."
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Strawman.
No one is calling for the ability to play maintenance crew. That's a far cry from being Spock, Riker, Scotty, or LaForge. Who all had episodes devoted to them.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
This long time Trekker greatly approves of what Cryptic is doing. Is it perfect? Does it have everything hardcore Trekkers and Trekkies want? No.. but guess what... no game will EVER have what everyone wants.
I just hope I can get into Open Beta!! Lets go STO!! :-)
Well, I had a post on this...I thought I outline compelling gameplay (heck, you could even have it setup so a friend could visit your ship/crew for a while and see what they are like if you wanted). Anyhow, here's a reposting of what I said:
Hmm, there should have been something along the lines of personalities for the crew at least. Not only can you not play Bashir, you can't even have him on your crew. All doctors are the same, more or less, after all.
I almost wonder (well, instant brainstorm) if they shouldn't have done something where you don't play anything in particular per se. You aren't a member of the crew, you aren't the ship, you aren't quite all of them together either. Instead are identified with a ship and crew, and you can control the ship (in combat for instance) or a member of the crew, but only one at a time. Then quests and such basically pit you with problems that you have to solve utilizing the crew, but the crew will act independently of you to an extent (based on their personalities). That let's some crew members doing boring stuff that takes a long time while you control one of the people more involved in the action at the moment (and later you can get the info from the guy doing the boring stuff). Sometimes the focus of things might be on a planet, sometimes it might be in space, sometimes it might be on the ship, and sometimes a combination of all of those, but in any case you can zoom in on the action and control one of your "people/things" to help resolve the situation. If you use that person to talk to someone else, then the dialogue options are appropriate for that person's personality (if you have Worf try to be a diplomat it won't be nearly as effective as Picard..unless perhaps they are Klingons or something). I think that might have been pretty awesome to play. A lot of potentially for very interesting multi-player interaction.
Now, I suppose some people might try to claim STO is this, but without personalities for the crew and with the fact it identifies you as the captain and no internal ship problems, it loses out a lot (fails in other ways too). That said, not having personalities is the major loss as you're simply not going to identify as strongly with the crew. They should have spent another year or two and developed some procedural technology for personalities and crew interactions at the very least.
This isn't a staw man argument, it's common sense. I know there are really hardcore Trek fans who would love to do this, but honestly, I've yet to hear one of these purists present a suggestion for compelling gameplay. On the show, they had "jobs" and performed them. We didn't watch them do those mundane thing. In a game, you would have to.
Seriously, what would you do? In Engineering would you constantly play a mini-game about balancing power to the various systems? Would the doctor treat runny noses of NPCs between missions?
I'll second that.
There was an episode of Babylon 5 called 'View from the Gallery (I think)'. It followed the work day of a couple of maintenance guys. Yes they had to go fix a couple of things (1 stuck elevator?) but you also saw them eat lunch and 'buff' the floor. Not much in the way of mini-game's.
"Yo Engineer, got a clogged toilet in room 556. Fix it."
LOL good one... anyone for a spoo sandwich?
You can have your fill Feb 2010.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
This is such a narrow view, and it seems to me that it come from having limited knowledge about Star Trek. This is probably the same view that Cryptic has. The more I hear about the game, the more I feel like they have a passing knowledge about Star Trek, but like Dana, they think it's all about the captain and the rest of the crew are just there to tinker with engines or mend broken bones.
Fans of Star Trek know that most episodes of Star Trek focused on characters other than the captain, and followed them through various challenges they had to face, and believe it or not episodes about the doctor were never about treating runny noses. As an example off the top of my head, there was an episode of Deep Space Nine where Chief O'Brian is kidnapped by the Cardassians. Just because he is an engineer doesn't mean all of his challenges have to be about balancing ship power or repairing ruptured conduits.
Captain Pwnage: So how is the phaser training going for your new Tactical Officer?
Captain NOOB: Really well actually, he's got 7 of 9!
Game will be release 02-02-2010, so I feel that far from ST-ToR release.
I can't complain about the looks as they do look pretty decent, I also felt it was once again a good informative article about Bridges & Bridge officers, but somehow I am still not getting a MMORPG fibe from the game other then the game so far gives me a Multiplayer or Action Online Game fibe.
Also I still feel that they fall short on what is Star Trek, like others have said why is it that they asume everyone want's to be a captain, is this like Star Wars where they asume everyone want's to be a jedi.
But hey...I am a niche MMORPG gamer, give me a game with the IP like Star Wars or Star Trek or Stargate and make sure these worlds are true from what we know and let me take my own route in any of these galaxies/universes.
If I want to feel like some hero there are plenty of games in the single/mulitplayer area that provide this, where MMORPG should be about a diverse community.
Overall I feel they definitly are taking the most limited way to represent something like Star Trek, but again I still hope Cryptic will proof me wrong, but for now I doubt that from info that is given.
Being a Star- Trek/Wars/Gate fan at the moment can't see these upcoming games take me away from FE, I will play them, no doubt, but for now don't feel I can play them in a MMORPG way, but more like the way I play multiplayer games.
Exactly.
I've seen fan pages devoted to Dr. Julian Bashir. I'm willing to bet that the fan who made that page would prefer to be like her hero rather than a captain. Why are all these people assuming that everone just loves the captains and wants to be one of them? What about all thev fans of Scotty or Data or Spock? They're being left out in the cold because people like Cryptic are making brash assumptions that really have no basis in reality. And that does not bode well for this game...
Indeed, I would like to hang out at Quark's bar and drink some glowy drinks. Some gamers do want a simple shoot em up, but there are millions of people who would become gamers if they were told that the Star Trek Universe has become real, or at least as real as our current technology allows. Creating something like I envision would probably take tons of time and resources and by the time its released would already be outdated. We can at least hope for upgrades and perhaps complete revamping of STO down the road.
This is such a narrow view, and it seems to me that it come from having limited knowledge about Star Trek. This is probably the same view that Cryptic has. The more I hear about the game, the more I feel like they have a passing knowledge about Star Trek, but like Dana, they think it's all about the captain and the rest of the crew are just there to tinker with engines or mend broken bones.
Fans of Star Trek know that most episodes of Star Trek focused on characters other than the captain, and followed them through various challenges they had to face, and believe it or not episodes about the doctor were never about treating runny noses. As an example off the top of my head, there was an episode of Deep Space Nine where Chief O'Brian is kidnapped by the Cardassians. Just because he is an engineer doesn't mean all of his challenges have to be about balancing ship power or repairing ruptured conduits.
That's fine. I understand that the other characters are interesting, no one disputes that.
The question for you and anyone who wants to have player crews is a simple one:
Present to me compelling day-to-day gameplay for the ship's engineer? The doctor? The Security Officer?
What would they do during the average play session? What would their typical 10 minute gameplay experience entail? Why would this be fun?
Further to that, if I am in combat as a Captain and want to turn left. What would my experience then be if I had a player crew? Would the entire Captain gameplay experience consist of being on teamspeak trying to get other people on my ship to fire the phasers and turn the thing?
Seriously, I've heard lots of examples from the show of why crew is awesome, but I've yet to see one compelling gameplay idea that would be remotely practical or fun.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
(also in reply to KillKip)
The link you gave points to an OLD patch, where they announced.dedicated colony buildings, a truly good idea (bad implementation, but the idea is.good, has to be, it was mine anyways).
alas, but for three buildings it remained at the announcement, that is not even half-done - hence why i said they miss FOCUS..
No follow-up patch mentioned any further buildings, nor much else (nothing really, except for a plan to introduce galactic market).
Nothing was added to that since then either, instead they concentrated on stuff like "joystick usage" and "shuttles" - more or less irrelevant features, aside from the "nice to look at" aspect.
(in reply to KillKip: why would i want to fly with a shuttle when i can port, except for the looks of it? How were shuttles "needed" when one task (economy is not even half-done?)
As to the removing:
They all but completely REMOVED the need for non-PvP occupations (mining, building) from their game with that change to mining and refining yields; where before it was a "full-time occupation" to mine and build, you do it now more as an afterthought in a fraction of the time. all that is left now, basically, is the cargo-hauling, and even that is um... crap (unless you run cargos to your OWN colonies) since what do you want the cash for anyways?
This is why i say they miss direction, they SAY they want to go this way but DO go another way.
Or perhaps they *do* have direction and just failed to communicate it?
I could say more, but this is the STO not the SQO forums - if you wish to discuss this further, send a PM or open a thread in the SQO forums on this site.
To people like Elikal, who ask "what would the (PC) crew do all day?":
Duh...
Ever heard of secondary occupations?
What did Beverly Crusher do when she was on the Bridge of the Enterprise? Or Troi?
Especially with limited bridge space (as others have mentioned, perhaps tied to the ship size) that tends to become a non-issue.
You have x number of bridge stations, if no PC is on, the NPC takes the job (likewise if the PC goes LD/logs off).
This would broaden up the PC-crewed ship's selection of abilities (as i understand the current STO combat system) on one hand, and would create (more of) a "trek feeling" on the other hand.
I figure with 2 or 3 tactical stations, an engineer would not have much time to ask what he's to do as he'll be busy enough re-routing all the energy to where it is needed...
"Seriously, what would you do?":
Engineer, during combat: Watch weapon heat/efficiency, re-rout energy as primary occupation, sending repair/maintenance crew crew as secondary "battleoccupation" (more than one "mini-game", with a station-specific UI).
Engineer, non-comabt: Re-align Dilithium Crystals to maximize output, repair that blown plasma relais, spend time in the "workshop" (gaining XP, tradeskilling whatever)
Medic, during Combat (off-Bridge, ship-wide) treat wounded that are teleported into sickbas (NPCs that got burnt by a plasma leak or whatever, random events); in case of boardings, use life-support to distribute gas (weaken/"debuff" intruders).
Medic, during combat, on bridge: Occupy some science station or whatever secondary skill he has. Perhaps man the scanners to analyze the opposing ship's crew, searching for weaknesses (cross-check with the ship-database)
Medic, non-combat: prepare+distribute his meds ("buffs" for personal combat), synthesize materials (tradeskilling) or use animals (milk snakes to get their poison for antidotes or whatever), maintain the ship's database entries on chemicals and lifeforms...
These are just examples, ofc.
What does a group in another MMO do when not in combat?
Right, wait for mobs to spawn or travel across zones to get to (new) hunting grounds.
In a ST.-game, you socialize (chat) while the ship is in transit (galaxy-map) or prepare your char or use the time to tradeskill...
Certainly more exciting than merely hit the FWD key to steer your avatar/mount towards the next zone as you do in other games, is it not?
The problem is NOT to find things for people to do, the REAL problem is the laziness of Dev's (and perhaps budget constraints) to implement them.
"There simply is not enough content there to drill that deep on any reasonable development timeframe."
That sentence is BS, really.
And if it is true (it seems to be, currently), it's solely atributed to the Dev's laziness and the suit's unwillingness to "live up" to Gene's idea.
The more detailed the content is, the higher the immersion factor (you feel "at home" on your ship).
And what is "reasonable" both in terms of budget as well as timeframe, is in the eye of the beholder.
It is MY firm belief that money spent on CONTENT is never wasted, and that time spent on CONTENT is time well spent, usually.
And IF there is really a problem with that, why not create a holodeck (editor/scripting kind of thing) instead and let the players create their own "content" during the "downtimes"?
I am sure a security officer would LOVE to script a "boarding action" instance if he could - that would be development time wisely spent since it removes basically ALL downtime-related issues that might come up.
(During downtimes, people would either script or use other people's script - do a "holomission" while the ship is in ransit, perhaps even earn XP for it...)
"Being a Captain is not the only part of the fantasy that matters, it's the only part that would be fun in a video game for a mass audience":
Nonsense!!!
As it is, the focus on combat missions at best aims at the teens as a target-group, NOT at "trekkies" who are, usually, at least in their 30s and quite "nerdy" as a rule of thumb (but it's them that have got the money...)
NPC bridge crews are ok, as an OPTION.
But at the same time, people (and especially "trekkies" ) would want at least the OPTION to have PC crews (do something with their RL friends, TOGETHER), and if given the proper tools they'd FIND stuff to do during "downtimes", just as they do in other MMO's.
Heck, people (read: Trekkies) are making their own fictions and MOVIES, for god's sake.
Do you REALLY, honestly think that playing "picard" all day and meeting other people in the game only happening via meeting up with their ships/doing AWAY-missions together does REALLY cut it for a TREKKIE?
Heck, even the "mass audience" you are mentioning?
To ME, one cannot really be that ignorant - more like it's a mindless repetition of what Dev's and suits use as an excuse for them NOT working on content that's been asked by their "natural" target-audience.
Full player crews might not be a lot of fun, but that doesn't mean you should have crews with no personality. It also doesn't mean you should have crews with no internal dynamics. There is a vast spectrum of possibilities here, and Cryptic went with a very bland options (that admittedly requires little work). They could easily have worked and done something to make sure crew members weren't just a collection of combat stats, a rank, a face, and a class.