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[Interview] Star Trek Online: Things Are Great in Roddenberry's World
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
It's hard to believe but Star Trek Online is poised on the edge of its third anniversary. We managed to catch up with Executive Producer Dan Stahl to talk about STO. See what he had to say and then leave your thoughts in the comments.
MMORPG: Hey Daniel, it’s been a while! Can you tell us what you’ve been up to on STO? How’re things going in the world that Roddenberry created?
Daniel Stahl: We had a great Holiday and turnout for our annual Winter Event. Even though the team has been hard at work on our next big update, we are also preparing the Holodeck for our Three-year Anniversary Celebration.
Read more of Bill Murphy's Star Trek Online: Things Are Great in Roddenberry's World.
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Comments
The space combat part is pretty well done. The ground combat is not as good but better than it was when first released. But it has nothing to do with Star Trek....unless your vision of Star Trek is mass murdering every ship you come across.
I dont have a problem with this type of a game, but I DO have a problem if it blocks other Star Trek MMOs that want to focus on the true essence of the series. Kind of the same thing with Cryptic getting the rights to the Forgotten Realms for their little action orientated game.
They make decent games, but the Forgotten Realms/Star Trek iP demand a better, more fully devleoped game not based just on rinky-dink combat.
Ah there is a bit more content of the 'diplomacy' mission variety, if you can really call them that, which have come in since release but I agree it's not quite captured the essence of the Trek universe. I do think they have managed to expand it as best they could within the limitations of the truly crappy engine they started off with. I do cringe in anticipation of what shallow as p*** treatment they've given the treasured D&D IP. So far it too looks far too action button kill kill stylee and not enough 'tinderbox and 50' rope'-y for my liking. I don't hold out a lot of hope.
Roddenberry's world? LOL
I am sure he would be turning in his grave if he knew what travesty of space-shooter game was representing his IP in the MMO world. This MMO is a disgrace to the Star Trek franchise.
My gaming blog
People who want a "true" Star Trek MMO seem to think that every Starfleet officer lives the life of Kirk, Picard, Sisko, or Janeway.
99% of them spend most of their time surveying gaseous nebulas and transporting VIPs and science teams.
Oh, and the other 1% of the time they are getting blown to hell by Borg/Klingons/Romulans/Dominion etc. for the 4 "hero" captains to come investigate/save/avenge.
Space shooter, kill-kill, mass-murdering ships? Lol. I barely fire off my phasers 2-3 times a week
Nice interview, I just have some problems the Foundry part:
MMORPG: The Foundry in STO is one of the game’s most under-appreciated features (at least by those on the outside).
Daniel Stahl: We feel that we have just started to scratch the surface because from what we’ve seen thus far, the Foundry has huge potential.
Ok, maybe I'm not the average player type, but in the last year cca. 50% of my playtime was in the Foundry... under-appreciated, bollocks
Foundry, DOff assignments, colonization, diplomacy and other assingment chains marks the true science captain way...
Happy 3rd one STO, let's dock in ESD and drink all the Nog's Nog what's left from Q's wonderland
Edit: I missed from the science duty list the tribble gene-splicing, luckily this chart made me remember
http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=809441
4billion, that's a huge pile of tribbles...
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Pretty much this. Like many, I wait for the day this game closes so the IP can be used by a different company that does not put out shallow, low end, lock-box gambling crap. Such a great Sci-Fi IP deserves much better than this.I think these 2 combined
To be fair, the 99% aren't why the franchise is popular.
And Cryptic needs to read it a few more times....I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Yep this game has changed quite a bit from its start.
Almost more stuff to do then to keep up with....and they keep adding more things...
I cant tell you how much time i spent getting my own ferengi cruiser and ferengi crew....
And no you dont have to spend real cash to play....just have to play the game...and use the ingame markets...you can literaly trade ingame cash for the cash shop cash.
Like most perfect world games yes they have the gambling boxes....
By the way there is one mission in this game they have no where else in any other game...not even close to it......its called "Quell the Mutiny" you select one officer of yours and you execute them...and then are given a random new officer to replace it.....sorry this mission alone makes me laugh everytime.
One thing that has not changed or it has but is still bad....the crafting...if you have done it on star trek you know how lame it is.
Also they still are using level banding with the QUEs for pvp and the special encounters....thus still is lame when you want to tackle the crystaline entity as you can only play with others of your level...
They used to jump your level up...or lower it on the stuff...so you could do everything even at the lowest levels or highest levels....but the level banding really made the QUE system totaly lame.
No wonder, everybody wants to participate at the anniversary
1800 is good, i was ~2500 for an hour, then I rather left and did the quests this morning. (when I closed the client, it was around 2500/13000... the forum was on fire as well because of the issue. Just imagine the unlucky fella who was the 13000th... )
But for a happier subject, the Temporal Ambassador quest is funny and great, with references both ingame and for Trek ("He's dead, Jim. -Who's Jim?
" ), and both the Ent-C and the retrofit are decent ships. It's a better mission than the 2nd anniversary one was with the Galaxy I think, and just like the Galaxy one, Temp.Ambassador also has only 1 combat part - but that fits to the story well. (just noting it to the "lame space-shooter game" type posters 
)
Q's party invite is the usual short mission with the reward of the usual gift boxes and party gun (upgraded, shoots now Enterprise-shaped balloons... I know, I know... but it's Q)
Edit: and the Temp.Amb. quest has an additional reward "Yesterday's Enterprise" uniform which turns out to be only a chest piece and a belt... I think officers wore more than that even on yesterday's Enterprise
Think i might have to check this out again..
Not sure where you're going with this. You think people should be ok with playing the role of Star Trek's equivalent of Robin? Would you go see a movie about that? 2 hours of surveying gaseous nebulas sounds kickass.
Well, in general conflict (violence) is kind of a last resort for Starfleet. Well, maybe not Kirk...
But that wouldn't make for a very exciting GAME for a lot of people, so they make violence and conflict a big / huge part of the GAME.
Also, if everyone in the GAME plays a "hero" character - i.e. you really can't ever die and always "save the day" etc. - it's not very realistic to portray large scale events such as war. In the wars they've portrayed in Star Trek - the Federation pretty much is always the underdog and getting it's ass kicked.
Dominion War would have been lost without allying with the Klingons and Romulans, for example.
Borg "war" was never really a war - it was the Federation always getting its ass handed to it except for Picard and Janeway.
Moral of the story is that the only way to really do Star Trek as a MMO that does the IP and the "vision" of Rodenberry true justice - is to make it the largest, most in depth, and high budget/quality sandbox MMO in existance.
It's that "dream game" people (myself included) always fantasize about but will realistically never get made.
So instead, we get a game that is fun to play and full of action and adventure (though it is a bit repetitive) and you get something that is a lot more late-season DS9 or Voyager (or JJ Abrams Star Trek) and a lot less TNG, Original Series.