being a cpatain of your own ship doesn't mean you can't form a fleet with some buddies and do some away missions where so and so is in charge of the team or whatever.
personally i'm looking forward to forming an armade of klingon birds of prey to gun down federation dogs wherever their mewling little garbage scowls roam the galaxy.
although it would be cool to have a gunner position tied to the commander's chair a la star trek 3.
KERPLAH?
Honestly, you dirty scumbag of a klingon impostor, i would be very much surprised if you'd be able to "amass" more than one ship.
After all, you clearly show yourself to be unfit for command, much less for command of a valuable ship of the empire, and even less of a fleet of such.
I bet you eat your g'hak after it's been killed by some braver soul than you.
And btw: it's Kahplah or Qapla' but never "kerplah"...
And should you ever cross my way, i will show you that that day is a good one for you to die!
Being forced to be a drone in a ship (group) is not my idea of fun. As an elective, it's fine, but would rather not have it be required. I can understand the desires of you diehards, but really, what you want would not make a successful game and they ARE here to make a good profit after all.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
being a cpatain of your own ship doesn't mean you can't form a fleet with some buddies and do some away missions where so and so is in charge of the team or whatever.
personally i'm looking forward to forming an armade of klingon birds of prey to gun down federation dogs wherever their mewling little garbage scowls roam the galaxy.
although it would be cool to have a gunner position tied to the commander's chair a la star trek 3.
KERPLAH?
Honestly, you dirty scumbag of a klingon impostor, i would be very much surprised if you'd be able to "amass" more than one ship.
After all, you clearly show yourself to be unfit for command, much less for command of a valuable ship of the empire, and even less of a fleet of such.
I bet you eat your g'hak after it's been killed by some braver soul than you.
And btw: it's Kahplah or Qapla' but never "kerplah"...
And should you ever cross my way, i will show you that that day is a good one for you to die!
Being forced to be a drone in a ship (group) is not my idea of fun. As an elective, it's fine, but would rather not have it be required. I can understand the desires of you diehards, but really, what you want would not make a successful game and they ARE here to make a good profit after all.
Some folks are leaders, others get upset when they don't have other people to follow around.
Personaly, I think it is too early to get all buttsore about what will be in the game when it is released.
Personally i think there should be a degree of freedom as to the whole captain vs player crew idea. I think maybe certain ships should be designed for 1 player to command as a captain and larger ships could possibly incorporate the player crew idea as they would need more maintenance. Im not entirely sure as to how the whole thing could work but its an idea. Just my 2 cents
Why aren't the player crew crowd moaning about every other MMO not being as boring and monotonous as they want STO to be. Take the likes of darkfall, you could have 1 player character but have it crewed by 10 people or more, one for each leg, one for each arm, one for each eye etc etc. It would be awesome and everyone wants to play that way where they dont have the responsibility of being a whole person.
Player crews are a horrific idea that will alienate 99% of the games possible audience, FACT. People want instant gratification and they should damn well have it, why, because theyre paying for it, they aint paying to be some whipping boy or gimp so the dom can have all the fun (although im sure that would appeal to all these trekkies wanting player crews). Do you guys honestly think that you would be happy to hand over the reigns of something you have invested your time into to some delinquent who would rather get his kicks from ramming your ship into the closest asteroid than performing whatever role he was meant to do.
Player crews are just a massive minefield of exploits, trolling and ganking, the small chance that it will work or could be fun briefly is far outweight by the effort to try and make it work, be fair and without exploits. Thats not even takin into account players goin afk or whatever in the most inopportune time. Imagine your in the middle of a fight, with a full crew youre just about going to win, then your helmsman or tactical officer goes afk or link dead and you loose your ship. Would that be fun? Would you suck it up and move on or would you throw a tantrum and remove the offender from your guild?
This is the single argument running rampant on the forums, its practically a bad troll attempt made by morons who cant see past this one issue and its getting very fuckin tired. The game offers so much more, landing on planets etc is something that pretty much no online space game has done nevermind done well then you have all the standard features for a space game aswell.
The thing about this whole PC crew thing is that at it's core there really isn't any difference. Players can still group. Players can still work together. Those that need to lead can still lead. Those that need to follow can still follow. Those that want to specialize can still specialize.
What it boils down to is some people feel that they're more entitled than others, and are acting out because they feel they weren't catered to as much as they thought they should have been.
That, and the bunch that are involved in the Star Trek sim groups that just wanted to transfer their pretend over as is.
The kind of sad part about it is that in closing their minds because of this one issue, they're probably going to miss out on the best Star Trek experience in any game to date.
Now if you concentrate on the "forced" in the meaning that without a certain class/player you cannot do anything, then i agree.
This is exactly what I meant by that statement. I actually have absolutely no problem what-so-ever with player crews as an option. But this means that all ships in the game from the smallest runabout all the way up to the dreadnaughts should be both solo and group playable with perhaps a slight advantage to a crewed ship to give people a reason to want to group. The only exception to this is I do believe that Guilds(Fleets) should be able to build a class of ship that would be a Guild ship manned by the guild members. This should be a ship only available to guilds large enough to have the resources to build it to give guilds an incentive to grow and prosper.
But I don't want player crews in STO if they are rushed into the game and implemented half assed just because a bunch of people are squaking for them. This would be a huge game killing mistake because they only have one chance to make a first impression on gamers. This is why I think Cryptic is doing the right thing. They aren't saying that there will never be player crews. They are just saying they want to get out the game in a highly polished state first so they can give player crew implementation the attention it needs to do it right at a later date. I'd rather wait for them to get it right then have them stick it in now and have it suck.
This game will fail. Piloting a starship by yourself gets borring.
1) No... Being "Crewman Ricky" on someone else's ship would be boring.
2) Having total control over your character and the interactions it has with the entire game world is what will make this game a success.
3) What you people are proposing would kill this game fast as it would be just like forced grouping which is never a good idea in a MMO.
4) MMOs are about player freedom and being on someone else's ship that you have no direct control over would be about as far away from freedom as you can get.
Bren
Actually, you both are kind of correct, but then Bren did list several points i totally disagree with:
1)
Yes, piloting a starship by yourself WILL get boring after a while.
Yes, "being Crewman Ricky" will become boring too if all he can do is hang out in 10forward or so.
This is where you both are right - the "truth" is somewhere in the middle, as always.
2)
This sentence is ok and i agree with it.
But at the same time, it does not mean you should or need to be limited to 1PC per ship.
3)
This i totally disagree with.
Player-crews ruin a ST-themed game?
I don't see that really, especially given that there is at least one game out there that does this and at least it's playerbase seems to like it.
Honestly, grouping - forced or not - in a MMORPG should be EXPECTED not dreaded.
That's an integral part of anything "massively multiplayer": to work together towards a common goal.
Now if you concentrate on the "forced" in the meaning that without a certain class/player you cannot do anything, then i agree.
However (talking ST themes), this is about a CREW's achievements, traditionally.
TOS was about a crew, not only about kirk kissing the ladies.
TNG was about a crew, not only about Picard digging up some artifacts.
DS9 was about a crew, not only about sisko's guardian role.
VOY was about a crew, not only about Janeway's return to the A-quadrant.
ENT was about a crew, not only about archer.
The common theme is CREW.
ST was never so much about a SHIP (or station) but rather about it's crew.
And not the captains had the "biggest" fanbase, but other major chars like Spock and Bones or Seven or Torres, even Quark and his kin...
And whenever a major character was sent off the bridge, for example Scotty to Engineering, then some unnamed crewman took his position.
That same unnamed Crewman made room for whoever of the major decided that he needed to work on that station.
So the concept about HOW things should happen (at least for a "trekkie" who i think are the natural "core" target audience) is pretty clearly laid out by the shows themselves.
4)
MMORPG's are about char development.
Player freedom is not the goal but the way or tool.
Being on someone else's ship?
Well, if you are part of the crew, it is YOUR ship too.
You only want to solo?
That's fine, the game should definitely offer that "ability" - the solitary players in a MASSIVELY MULTIplayer game are just too numerous to ignore, their money as good as anyone's.
But operating a galaxy-class by yourself?
Possible, yes - it was done in the shows too.
Yet: Hardly at "full capabilities".
Tying in several staions into one? Why not.
But one and the same char being equally good at operating each? rather unlikely.
That's where the ROLEplaying (and Char development) part of MMORPG come in: skills
A NPC should never be a dedicated PC's equal in (specialized) skills.
For example helm: while the computer or an NPC might be ordered to "take evasive action delta", the player might choose to instead take action delta-1 i.e. react to how the battle unfolds WITHOUT direct order from the captain.
Or an engineering example:
An NPC engineer might be fully capable of repairing the ship at 100% efficiency.
But the PC engineer might be able to work at 120% of that efficiency AND instead of "repair" a system he might jury-rig it so the desired function (fire off that one kill shot or that one extra torpedo) is achieved much faster - repair the ship later...
Fazit:
If a ST-themed game wll be limited to 1PC per ship then yes, imo it WILL fail.
At least it's "core audience".Just as it will fail commercially if one missing player would mean that the rest of the crew cannot "do anything".
Thanks but I could do without the space version of WoW's naked blue elves dancing on the table because I got some jerk in the "crew" of the ship I'm on.
Better if I can go meet others and we can interact versus having to put up with some of the crap you can see in other games like that. It'd be a bit more difficult to get away from some jerk if you're stuck on the same ship as they are and running your own ship means you can get around and away from jerks like that.
If anyone can come up with a way to make player crews work, then please share. Until then, this is the best system we have and it looks like a good game.
We don't need to come up with a way, they will work just fine. Not everybody wants to be a captain. If they were really interested in making an immersive Star Trek MMO experience, they would do player crews on a ship, but they are clearly more interested in making yet another theme park leveling game.
Correct! PE had it figured out then the project got handed off to Cryptic and they dumbed it down. There was a solid plan for player crewed ships til they screwed with it. I would love to be a weapons officer or security cheif. Not everyone wants a ship. When thinking about this issue Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind as well as that idiot Nancy Mcintyre and here retarded Nobody wants to be Uncle Owen statement. We all know what happened with that.
STO will make or break Cryptic with the way the current economy is, so they better make the right choices.
honestly, i wish this wasn't true. I liked the way it was going to be when the old studio had the rights. Where everyone is a member of the crew, not just a captain of a ship. I was looking forward to the roleplay of it, but I guess that has gone by the wayside.
Hopefully that'll change in the future, but until then I don't see myself buying this game.
This was exactly my reaction as well. To me, it's sort of comparable to the changes that were made in SWG, when Jedis went from being rare and awesome, to being easy to achieve, and super common. If everyone is a spaceship, it really drains away from the idea that I thought was the core of Star Trek as a TV show(s): that sense of camaradie on a space ship, working as a team on missions, etc. Some players could have been doctors (healers), some could be scientists (buffers), or security (combat dps), etc. Now, Star Trek Online just seems like a new spaceship game with online play... a MMO in the way Eve Online is, but I'm also not that into EVE Online, either. For fans of spaceship battle, I guess this new format is perfect for them, but it just doesn't feel like what I always thought a Star Trek MMO could have been. /sigh !
honestly, i wish this wasn't true. I liked the way it was going to be when the old studio had the rights. Where everyone is a member of the crew, not just a captain of a ship. I was looking forward to the roleplay of it, but I guess that has gone by the wayside.
Hopefully that'll change in the future, but until then I don't see myself buying this game.
This was exactly my reaction as well. To me, it's sort of comparable to the changes that were made in SWG, when Jedis went from being rare and awesome, to being easy to achieve, and super common. If everyone is a spaceship, it really drains away from the idea that I thought was the core of Star Trek as a TV show(s): that sense of camaradie on a space ship, working as a team on missions, etc. Some players could have been doctors (healers), some could be scientists (buffers), or security (combat dps), etc. Now, Star Trek Online just seems like a new spaceship game with online play... a MMO in the way Eve Online is, but I'm also not that into EVE Online, either. For fans of spaceship battle, I guess this new format is perfect for them, but it just doesn't feel like what I always thought a Star Trek MMO could have been. /sigh !
Agreed! This basicly goes against everything Jack said in the Las Vegas webcast hosted on the STO site.
honestly, i wish this wasn't true. I liked the way it was going to be when the old studio had the rights. Where everyone is a member of the crew, not just a captain of a ship. I was looking forward to the roleplay of it, but I guess that has gone by the wayside.
Hopefully that'll change in the future, but until then I don't see myself buying this game.
Emmert and Zinkievich have not ruled out the possibility of multi-crewed ships. They have stated that they won't be there for launch but it is something that they are seriously discussing and may be put in at some later date. I personally think the game will be good either way and will still provide much in the way of role playing and interaction with others regularly. I never was a big fan of PE's vision for Trek. The multi-crew part was probably the only redeeming quality their version had. The rest of it sounded like it was going to blow chunks seriously. I for one am so much happier that a real development studio with a decent track record has this IP now. This game went from a 10% chance of a successful Star Trek MMO under PE to about a 90% chance of success the day Cryptic took over.
Bren
HOw can that even work? Basically forced grouping from the start. If i need to go to dinner with my wife, what is the ship going to do?
If they provide NPC crew members, no one is going to want a real person so back to everyone is a captain idea.
honestly, i wish this wasn't true. I liked the way it was going to be when the old studio had the rights. Where everyone is a member of the crew, not just a captain of a ship. I was looking forward to the roleplay of it, but I guess that has gone by the wayside.
Hopefully that'll change in the future, but until then I don't see myself buying this game.
Emmert and Zinkievich have not ruled out the possibility of multi-crewed ships. They have stated that they won't be there for launch but it is something that they are seriously discussing and may be put in at some later date. I personally think the game will be good either way and will still provide much in the way of role playing and interaction with others regularly. I never was a big fan of PE's vision for Trek. The multi-crew part was probably the only redeeming quality their version had. The rest of it sounded like it was going to blow chunks seriously. I for one am so much happier that a real development studio with a decent track record has this IP now. This game went from a 10% chance of a successful Star Trek MMO under PE to about a 90% chance of success the day Cryptic took over.
Bren
HOw can that even work? Basically forced grouping from the start. If i need to go to dinner with my wife, what is the ship going to do?
If they provide NPC crew members, no one is going to want a real person so back to everyone is a captain idea.
Only a person who is anti-social would beleive that. Prove your point! Otherwise you and the majority that want PC ships are at odds.
While I get that having everyone be a captain might not be very 'Star Trek'-like feature, I don't want to pay to be a helmsmen taking orders from some trekkie dork.
It seems to me that the type of game everyone is asking for would be best played as a single-player game in the spirit of Oblivion. A open-ended, Star Trek game where you start out as a cadet in the academy (of whatever organization you choose to join). Then take your first job as an ensign on a ship, doing bitchwork. Choose skill specialities, such as engineering, medical, weapons, etc etc, which can dictate which career path you'll take....tactical officer, engineer...etc...leading up to your first command of a small 'sloop' class ship...then you continue your career in command of ever-increasing vessels.
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone www.spankybus.com -3d Artist & Compositor -Writer -Professional Amature
The idea of captaining your own ship is about as smart as everybody starting out as Jedi in SWG. Some of these MMO managers are as dumb as posts. These stupid <Mod edit> behinds desks (managers et al) calling the shots are what is making the MMO genre crappy.
The idea of captaining your own ship is about as smart as everybody starting out as Jedi in SWG. Some of these MMO managers are as dumb as posts. These stupid <Mod edit> behinds desks (managers et al) calling the shots are what is making the MMO genre crappy.
Except Jedi was a alpha class while in sto a leader of a ship is allways the captain despite the ship you are in and its not the rank/level.
The idea of captaining your own ship is about as smart as everybody starting out as Jedi in SWG. Some of these MMO managers are as dumb as posts. These stupid <Mod edit> behinds desks (managers et al) calling the shots are what is making the MMO genre crappy.
Except Jedi was a alpha class while in sto a leader of a ship is allways the captain despite the ship you are in and its not the rank/level.
Yeah, well, I don't like it. The idea sounds really cheesy to me. It almost seems as if they are making Eve2.
The idea of player crews sounds good in theory. But would be very hard to do. Think about how many mini games the dev's would have to create in order to make every position entertaining enough to keep people playing.
What does each crew member really do aboard the ships?
The Helmsman steers the ship. How often will he need to put in new coordinates?
The Chief engineer makes sure the ship runs well. Except for battle conditions how much work does he really have?
The communications Officer directs traffic of incomming and out going hails and calls. During a normal trip how much communicating will there be?
The first officer's job is to set schedules for the personal onboard the ship, and take over if the captain becomes unavailable. Hmm how much work will he have?
The Tactical Officer targets and fires the weapons. When not in battle what does he do?
The captain decides on what missions to take, directions to go, etc. Sounds like fun I bet. But really think about this one. Besides giving orders what does he do to occupy his time?
These are just a few of the positions that would be found on a player crew.
Since I am fairly certain that you will not be in a battle every minute of game time, and that it will still take time to get around what does the crew do? Or better yet what if the ship is at space dock getting refitted? What does the crew do then. I'm sure most would say they get smaller ships and do things on our own. which is fine. But your a crew and crews stick together right?
Also what happens if in a pvp battle you lose? What happens to the crew? I don't know myself.
Now while I think it would be possible to have missions so you can have a player crew for a short time. I just can't see having one all the time. It would take to much resources to implement it.
I think the way Cryptic is doing the game is the best way for people to have fun. There are still group missions whether for pvp, or planet exploration. That is why you have jobs like Doctor, Engineer, Security Officer etc.
As a former crew member aboard Air Force aircrafts, I can assure you that boredom sets in really fast.
well there is already at least 1 game with player crews and most of those problems are solved by makeing the game a sand box and not shoehorning people into classes that are attached to a station abd by giving 3 or 4 alternative things like discovery of new chemicals and worth wile crafting to fill in the time between meaningful PVP while traveling or in dock (dock does not take long ) imo there is no reason not to have player crews from launch all it takes is some thinking and not being lazy the technology already exists people just moan that the graphics are not pretty and its too hard to learn the game yes there are issues with player crews and not every game is perfect but i would rather see cryptic have player crews in from launch than take the lazy route and make Eve Trek Online
honestly, i wish this wasn't true. I liked the way it was going to be when the old studio had the rights. Where everyone is a member of the crew, not just a captain of a ship. I was looking forward to the roleplay of it, but I guess that has gone by the wayside.
Hopefully that'll change in the future, but until then I don't see myself buying this game.
Emmert and Zinkievich have not ruled out the possibility of multi-crewed ships. They have stated that they won't be there for launch but it is something that they are seriously discussing and may be put in at some later date. I personally think the game will be good either way and will still provide much in the way of role playing and interaction with others regularly. I never was a big fan of PE's vision for Trek. The multi-crew part was probably the only redeeming quality their version had. The rest of it sounded like it was going to blow chunks seriously. I for one am so much happier that a real development studio with a decent track record has this IP now. This game went from a 10% chance of a successful Star Trek MMO under PE to about a 90% chance of success the day Cryptic took over.
Bren
HOw can that even work? Basically forced grouping from the start. If i need to go to dinner with my wife, what is the ship going to do?
If they provide NPC crew members, no one is going to want a real person so back to everyone is a captain idea.
Only a person who is anti-social would beleive that. Prove your point! Otherwise you and the majority that want PC ships are at odds.
I seriously don't think nariusseldon read my entire post or any of my other posts before replying to it.
In my opinion, it really isn't THAT hard to mix the two game styles ...
So, let's say everyone starts out with their own ship. They can fly it and improve on their captain skills, if they want.
At any point in time, they can change the preferences of their ship to "Looking for Group - Engineer" "Looking for Crew: Helmsman" .... etc
Any other player that docks at a station/port can make their way to a terminal and mark themselves as "Looking to join as: Helmsman"
Alternatively, either player can check a drop down box with a list of players/captains that are looking for those respective positions. Then it sends out a "Bob would like to be your Gunner" or "Sue would like you to fly her ship."
If everybody accepts, then you get super-transporter'd to the Captain's bridge.
Then, whenever that 'crewman' is at his/her station, all you do is add skill bonuses together to get the improvements to the ship. So if the Captain has a skill of 100 for 'gunnery' and the Gunner really isn't that good, say 40 ... the overall total is still 140, much better than the Captain by themselves.
It still wouldn't be an absolute requirement to have a full crew. However ... having a full crew means that your small ship could become extremely powerful and add diversity throughout the universe.
They could even make the ability to Captain a certain sized ship seperate from the ability to Captain a crew. So you might be able to fly a Galaxy Class ship with a max of 10 PC crew, but you only have the skills to invite one other crew member. OR, if there are four 'levels' of the 'Leadership' skill, then for each level, you add 20% of the skills of the crew to the ship's performance.
I'm not even sure that mini-games would be necessary. In fact, it might make things worse if it was possible to fail the mini-game, then it would require skill outside of the ability of the character. Meaning, maybe I really want to be a gunner, but I'm terrible at the mini-game they require. Then I'm not ever going to be a good gunner.
The gunner is an easy one though, you could just make them act like a second firing point on the ship. They could target independent of the captain and hit with a % based off skill comparisons. So, from above, the gunner would hit with 28% (40/140) of the ship's maximum weapon damage.
Anyway, my point is, I just spent like 15 minutes thinking about it, without getting paid, and I came up with a reasonable alternative to "You MUST be a Captain."
In my opinion, it really isn't THAT hard to mix the two game styles ... So, let's say everyone starts out with their own ship. They can fly it and improve on their captain skills, if they want. At any point in time, they can change the preferences of their ship to "Looking for Group - Engineer" "Looking for Crew: Helmsman" .... etc Any other player that docks at a station/port can make their way to a terminal and mark themselves as "Looking to join as: Helmsman" Alternatively, either player can check a drop down box with a list of players/captains that are looking for those respective positions. Then it sends out a "Bob would like to be your Gunner" or "Sue would like you to fly her ship." If everybody accepts, then you get super-transporter'd to the Captain's bridge. Then, whenever that 'crewman' is at his/her station, all you do is add skill bonuses together to get the improvements to the ship. So if the Captain has a skill of 100 for 'gunnery' and the Gunner really isn't that good, say 40 ... the overall total is still 140, much better than the Captain by themselves. It still wouldn't be an absolute requirement to have a full crew. However ... having a full crew means that your small ship could become extremely powerful and add diversity throughout the universe. They could even make the ability to Captain a certain sized ship seperate from the ability to Captain a crew. So you might be able to fly a Galaxy Class ship with a max of 10 PC crew, but you only have the skills to invite one other crew member. OR, if there are four 'levels' of the 'Leadership' skill, then for each level, you add 20% of the skills of the crew to the ship's performance. I'm not even sure that mini-games would be necessary. In fact, it might make things worse if it was possible to fail the mini-game, then it would require skill outside of the ability of the character. Meaning, maybe I really want to be a gunner, but I'm terrible at the mini-game they require. Then I'm not ever going to be a good gunner. The gunner is an easy one though, you could just make them act like a second firing point on the ship. They could target independent of the captain and hit with a % based off skill comparisons. So, from above, the gunner would hit with 28% (40/140) of the ship's maximum weapon damage. Anyway, my point is, I just spent like 15 minutes thinking about it, without getting paid, and I came up with a reasonable alternative to "You MUST be a Captain."
How did it take someone nearly 2 months to post something like this? As I read through the thread (late I know)) something similar to this was all I could think of. MMO's mix solo player and multiplayer all the time.
If anyone can come up with a way to make player crews work, then please share. Until then, this is the best system we have and it looks like a good game.
We don't need to come up with a way, they will work just fine. Not everybody wants to be a captain. If they were really interested in making an immersive Star Trek MMO experience, they would do player crews on a ship, but they are clearly more interested in making yet another theme park leveling game.
Correct! PE had it figured out then the project got handed off to Cryptic and they dumbed it down. There was a solid plan for player crewed ships til they screwed with it. I would love to be a weapons officer or security cheif. Not everyone wants a ship. When thinking about this issue Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind as well as that idiot Nancy Mcintyre and here retarded Nobody wants to be Uncle Owen statement. We all know what happened with that.
STO will make or break Cryptic with the way the current economy is, so they better make the right choices.
So glad I no longer have to read this garbage on the official site any more.
Comments
Honestly, you dirty scumbag of a klingon impostor, i would be very much surprised if you'd be able to "amass" more than one ship.
After all, you clearly show yourself to be unfit for command, much less for command of a valuable ship of the empire, and even less of a fleet of such.
I bet you eat your g'hak after it's been killed by some braver soul than you.
And btw: it's Kahplah or Qapla' but never "kerplah"...
And should you ever cross my way, i will show you that that day is a good one for you to die!
Being forced to be a drone in a ship (group) is not my idea of fun. As an elective, it's fine, but would rather not have it be required. I can understand the desires of you diehards, but really, what you want would not make a successful game and they ARE here to make a good profit after all.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Honestly, you dirty scumbag of a klingon impostor, i would be very much surprised if you'd be able to "amass" more than one ship.
After all, you clearly show yourself to be unfit for command, much less for command of a valuable ship of the empire, and even less of a fleet of such.
I bet you eat your g'hak after it's been killed by some braver soul than you.
And btw: it's Kahplah or Qapla' but never "kerplah"...
And should you ever cross my way, i will show you that that day is a good one for you to die!
sniveling dog!
KERPLAH!
Some folks are leaders, others get upset when they don't have other people to follow around.
Personaly, I think it is too early to get all buttsore about what will be in the game when it is released.
Hey! Don't quote logic here, friend! We're all vulcans! Go bother those pesky Houuuumans!`
Personally i think there should be a degree of freedom as to the whole captain vs player crew idea. I think maybe certain ships should be designed for 1 player to command as a captain and larger ships could possibly incorporate the player crew idea as they would need more maintenance. Im not entirely sure as to how the whole thing could work but its an idea. Just my 2 cents
Why aren't the player crew crowd moaning about every other MMO not being as boring and monotonous as they want STO to be. Take the likes of darkfall, you could have 1 player character but have it crewed by 10 people or more, one for each leg, one for each arm, one for each eye etc etc. It would be awesome and everyone wants to play that way where they dont have the responsibility of being a whole person.
Player crews are a horrific idea that will alienate 99% of the games possible audience, FACT. People want instant gratification and they should damn well have it, why, because theyre paying for it, they aint paying to be some whipping boy or gimp so the dom can have all the fun (although im sure that would appeal to all these trekkies wanting player crews). Do you guys honestly think that you would be happy to hand over the reigns of something you have invested your time into to some delinquent who would rather get his kicks from ramming your ship into the closest asteroid than performing whatever role he was meant to do.
Player crews are just a massive minefield of exploits, trolling and ganking, the small chance that it will work or could be fun briefly is far outweight by the effort to try and make it work, be fair and without exploits. Thats not even takin into account players goin afk or whatever in the most inopportune time. Imagine your in the middle of a fight, with a full crew youre just about going to win, then your helmsman or tactical officer goes afk or link dead and you loose your ship. Would that be fun? Would you suck it up and move on or would you throw a tantrum and remove the offender from your guild?
This is the single argument running rampant on the forums, its practically a bad troll attempt made by morons who cant see past this one issue and its getting very fuckin tired. The game offers so much more, landing on planets etc is something that pretty much no online space game has done nevermind done well then you have all the standard features for a space game aswell.
The thing about this whole PC crew thing is that at it's core there really isn't any difference. Players can still group. Players can still work together. Those that need to lead can still lead. Those that need to follow can still follow. Those that want to specialize can still specialize.
What it boils down to is some people feel that they're more entitled than others, and are acting out because they feel they weren't catered to as much as they thought they should have been.
That, and the bunch that are involved in the Star Trek sim groups that just wanted to transfer their pretend over as is.
The kind of sad part about it is that in closing their minds because of this one issue, they're probably going to miss out on the best Star Trek experience in any game to date.
This is exactly what I meant by that statement. I actually have absolutely no problem what-so-ever with player crews as an option. But this means that all ships in the game from the smallest runabout all the way up to the dreadnaughts should be both solo and group playable with perhaps a slight advantage to a crewed ship to give people a reason to want to group. The only exception to this is I do believe that Guilds(Fleets) should be able to build a class of ship that would be a Guild ship manned by the guild members. This should be a ship only available to guilds large enough to have the resources to build it to give guilds an incentive to grow and prosper.
But I don't want player crews in STO if they are rushed into the game and implemented half assed just because a bunch of people are squaking for them. This would be a huge game killing mistake because they only have one chance to make a first impression on gamers. This is why I think Cryptic is doing the right thing. They aren't saying that there will never be player crews. They are just saying they want to get out the game in a highly polished state first so they can give player crew implementation the attention it needs to do it right at a later date. I'd rather wait for them to get it right then have them stick it in now and have it suck.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
1) No... Being "Crewman Ricky" on someone else's ship would be boring.
2) Having total control over your character and the interactions it has with the entire game world is what will make this game a success.
3) What you people are proposing would kill this game fast as it would be just like forced grouping which is never a good idea in a MMO.
4) MMOs are about player freedom and being on someone else's ship that you have no direct control over would be about as far away from freedom as you can get.
Bren
Actually, you both are kind of correct, but then Bren did list several points i totally disagree with:
1)
Yes, piloting a starship by yourself WILL get boring after a while.
Yes, "being Crewman Ricky" will become boring too if all he can do is hang out in 10forward or so.
This is where you both are right - the "truth" is somewhere in the middle, as always.
2)
This sentence is ok and i agree with it.
But at the same time, it does not mean you should or need to be limited to 1PC per ship.
3)
This i totally disagree with.
Player-crews ruin a ST-themed game?
I don't see that really, especially given that there is at least one game out there that does this and at least it's playerbase seems to like it.
Honestly, grouping - forced or not - in a MMORPG should be EXPECTED not dreaded.
That's an integral part of anything "massively multiplayer": to work together towards a common goal.
Now if you concentrate on the "forced" in the meaning that without a certain class/player you cannot do anything, then i agree.
However (talking ST themes), this is about a CREW's achievements, traditionally.
TOS was about a crew, not only about kirk kissing the ladies.
TNG was about a crew, not only about Picard digging up some artifacts.
DS9 was about a crew, not only about sisko's guardian role.
VOY was about a crew, not only about Janeway's return to the A-quadrant.
ENT was about a crew, not only about archer.
The common theme is CREW.
ST was never so much about a SHIP (or station) but rather about it's crew.
And not the captains had the "biggest" fanbase, but other major chars like Spock and Bones or Seven or Torres, even Quark and his kin...
And whenever a major character was sent off the bridge, for example Scotty to Engineering, then some unnamed crewman took his position.
That same unnamed Crewman made room for whoever of the major decided that he needed to work on that station.
So the concept about HOW things should happen (at least for a "trekkie" who i think are the natural "core" target audience) is pretty clearly laid out by the shows themselves.
4)
MMORPG's are about char development.
Player freedom is not the goal but the way or tool.
Being on someone else's ship?
Well, if you are part of the crew, it is YOUR ship too.
You only want to solo?
That's fine, the game should definitely offer that "ability" - the solitary players in a MASSIVELY MULTIplayer game are just too numerous to ignore, their money as good as anyone's.
But operating a galaxy-class by yourself?
Possible, yes - it was done in the shows too.
Yet: Hardly at "full capabilities".
Tying in several staions into one? Why not.
But one and the same char being equally good at operating each? rather unlikely.
That's where the ROLEplaying (and Char development) part of MMORPG come in: skills
A NPC should never be a dedicated PC's equal in (specialized) skills.
For example helm: while the computer or an NPC might be ordered to "take evasive action delta", the player might choose to instead take action delta-1 i.e. react to how the battle unfolds WITHOUT direct order from the captain.
Or an engineering example:
An NPC engineer might be fully capable of repairing the ship at 100% efficiency.
But the PC engineer might be able to work at 120% of that efficiency AND instead of "repair" a system he might jury-rig it so the desired function (fire off that one kill shot or that one extra torpedo) is achieved much faster - repair the ship later...
Fazit:
If a ST-themed game wll be limited to 1PC per ship then yes, imo it WILL fail.
At least it's "core audience".Just as it will fail commercially if one missing player would mean that the rest of the crew cannot "do anything".
Thanks but I could do without the space version of WoW's naked blue elves dancing on the table because I got some jerk in the "crew" of the ship I'm on.
Better if I can go meet others and we can interact versus having to put up with some of the crap you can see in other games like that. It'd be a bit more difficult to get away from some jerk if you're stuck on the same ship as they are and running your own ship means you can get around and away from jerks like that.
We don't need to come up with a way, they will work just fine. Not everybody wants to be a captain. If they were really interested in making an immersive Star Trek MMO experience, they would do player crews on a ship, but they are clearly more interested in making yet another theme park leveling game.
Correct! PE had it figured out then the project got handed off to Cryptic and they dumbed it down. There was a solid plan for player crewed ships til they screwed with it. I would love to be a weapons officer or security cheif. Not everyone wants a ship. When thinking about this issue Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind as well as that idiot Nancy Mcintyre and here retarded Nobody wants to be Uncle Owen statement. We all know what happened with that.
STO will make or break Cryptic with the way the current economy is, so they better make the right choices.
This was exactly my reaction as well. To me, it's sort of comparable to the changes that were made in SWG, when Jedis went from being rare and awesome, to being easy to achieve, and super common. If everyone is a spaceship, it really drains away from the idea that I thought was the core of Star Trek as a TV show(s): that sense of camaradie on a space ship, working as a team on missions, etc. Some players could have been doctors (healers), some could be scientists (buffers), or security (combat dps), etc. Now, Star Trek Online just seems like a new spaceship game with online play... a MMO in the way Eve Online is, but I'm also not that into EVE Online, either. For fans of spaceship battle, I guess this new format is perfect for them, but it just doesn't feel like what I always thought a Star Trek MMO could have been. /sigh !
This was exactly my reaction as well. To me, it's sort of comparable to the changes that were made in SWG, when Jedis went from being rare and awesome, to being easy to achieve, and super common. If everyone is a spaceship, it really drains away from the idea that I thought was the core of Star Trek as a TV show(s): that sense of camaradie on a space ship, working as a team on missions, etc. Some players could have been doctors (healers), some could be scientists (buffers), or security (combat dps), etc. Now, Star Trek Online just seems like a new spaceship game with online play... a MMO in the way Eve Online is, but I'm also not that into EVE Online, either. For fans of spaceship battle, I guess this new format is perfect for them, but it just doesn't feel like what I always thought a Star Trek MMO could have been. /sigh !
Agreed! This basicly goes against everything Jack said in the Las Vegas webcast hosted on the STO site.
http://www.startrekonline.com/videos
Emmert and Zinkievich have not ruled out the possibility of multi-crewed ships. They have stated that they won't be there for launch but it is something that they are seriously discussing and may be put in at some later date. I personally think the game will be good either way and will still provide much in the way of role playing and interaction with others regularly. I never was a big fan of PE's vision for Trek. The multi-crew part was probably the only redeeming quality their version had. The rest of it sounded like it was going to blow chunks seriously. I for one am so much happier that a real development studio with a decent track record has this IP now. This game went from a 10% chance of a successful Star Trek MMO under PE to about a 90% chance of success the day Cryptic took over.
Bren
HOw can that even work? Basically forced grouping from the start. If i need to go to dinner with my wife, what is the ship going to do?
If they provide NPC crew members, no one is going to want a real person so back to everyone is a captain idea.
Emmert and Zinkievich have not ruled out the possibility of multi-crewed ships. They have stated that they won't be there for launch but it is something that they are seriously discussing and may be put in at some later date. I personally think the game will be good either way and will still provide much in the way of role playing and interaction with others regularly. I never was a big fan of PE's vision for Trek. The multi-crew part was probably the only redeeming quality their version had. The rest of it sounded like it was going to blow chunks seriously. I for one am so much happier that a real development studio with a decent track record has this IP now. This game went from a 10% chance of a successful Star Trek MMO under PE to about a 90% chance of success the day Cryptic took over.
Bren
HOw can that even work? Basically forced grouping from the start. If i need to go to dinner with my wife, what is the ship going to do?
If they provide NPC crew members, no one is going to want a real person so back to everyone is a captain idea.
Only a person who is anti-social would beleive that. Prove your point! Otherwise you and the majority that want PC ships are at odds.
While I get that having everyone be a captain might not be very 'Star Trek'-like feature, I don't want to pay to be a helmsmen taking orders from some trekkie dork.
It seems to me that the type of game everyone is asking for would be best played as a single-player game in the spirit of Oblivion. A open-ended, Star Trek game where you start out as a cadet in the academy (of whatever organization you choose to join). Then take your first job as an ensign on a ship, doing bitchwork. Choose skill specialities, such as engineering, medical, weapons, etc etc, which can dictate which career path you'll take....tactical officer, engineer...etc...leading up to your first command of a small 'sloop' class ship...then you continue your career in command of ever-increasing vessels.
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone
www.spankybus.com
-3d Artist & Compositor
-Writer
-Professional Amature
The idea of captaining your own ship is about as smart as everybody starting out as Jedi in SWG. Some of these MMO managers are as dumb as posts. These stupid <Mod edit> behinds desks (managers et al) calling the shots are what is making the MMO genre crappy.
Except Jedi was a alpha class while in sto a leader of a ship is allways the captain despite the ship you are in and its not the rank/level.
The idea of player crews sounds good in theory. But would be very hard to do. Think about how many mini games the dev's would have to create in order to make every position entertaining enough to keep people playing.
What does each crew member really do aboard the ships?
The Helmsman steers the ship. How often will he need to put in new coordinates?
The Chief engineer makes sure the ship runs well. Except for battle conditions how much work does he really have?
The communications Officer directs traffic of incomming and out going hails and calls. During a normal trip how much communicating will there be?
The first officer's job is to set schedules for the personal onboard the ship, and take over if the captain becomes unavailable. Hmm how much work will he have?
The Tactical Officer targets and fires the weapons. When not in battle what does he do?
The captain decides on what missions to take, directions to go, etc. Sounds like fun I bet. But really think about this one. Besides giving orders what does he do to occupy his time?
These are just a few of the positions that would be found on a player crew.
Since I am fairly certain that you will not be in a battle every minute of game time, and that it will still take time to get around what does the crew do? Or better yet what if the ship is at space dock getting refitted? What does the crew do then. I'm sure most would say they get smaller ships and do things on our own. which is fine. But your a crew and crews stick together right?
Also what happens if in a pvp battle you lose? What happens to the crew? I don't know myself.
Now while I think it would be possible to have missions so you can have a player crew for a short time. I just can't see having one all the time. It would take to much resources to implement it.
I think the way Cryptic is doing the game is the best way for people to have fun. There are still group missions whether for pvp, or planet exploration. That is why you have jobs like Doctor, Engineer, Security Officer etc.
As a former crew member aboard Air Force aircrafts, I can assure you that boredom sets in really fast.
Just some food for thought.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
well there is already at least 1 game with player crews and most of those problems are solved by makeing the game a sand box and not shoehorning people into classes that are attached to a station abd by giving 3 or 4 alternative things like discovery of new chemicals and worth wile crafting to fill in the time between meaningful PVP while traveling or in dock (dock does not take long ) imo there is no reason not to have player crews from launch all it takes is some thinking and not being lazy the technology already exists people just moan that the graphics are not pretty and its too hard to learn the game yes there are issues with player crews and not every game is perfect but i would rather see cryptic have player crews in from launch than take the lazy route and make Eve Trek Online
Emmert and Zinkievich have not ruled out the possibility of multi-crewed ships. They have stated that they won't be there for launch but it is something that they are seriously discussing and may be put in at some later date. I personally think the game will be good either way and will still provide much in the way of role playing and interaction with others regularly. I never was a big fan of PE's vision for Trek. The multi-crew part was probably the only redeeming quality their version had. The rest of it sounded like it was going to blow chunks seriously. I for one am so much happier that a real development studio with a decent track record has this IP now. This game went from a 10% chance of a successful Star Trek MMO under PE to about a 90% chance of success the day Cryptic took over.
Bren
HOw can that even work? Basically forced grouping from the start. If i need to go to dinner with my wife, what is the ship going to do?
If they provide NPC crew members, no one is going to want a real person so back to everyone is a captain idea.
Only a person who is anti-social would beleive that. Prove your point! Otherwise you and the majority that want PC ships are at odds.
I seriously don't think nariusseldon read my entire post or any of my other posts before replying to it.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
In my opinion, it really isn't THAT hard to mix the two game styles ...
So, let's say everyone starts out with their own ship. They can fly it and improve on their captain skills, if they want.
At any point in time, they can change the preferences of their ship to "Looking for Group - Engineer" "Looking for Crew: Helmsman" .... etc
Any other player that docks at a station/port can make their way to a terminal and mark themselves as "Looking to join as: Helmsman"
Alternatively, either player can check a drop down box with a list of players/captains that are looking for those respective positions. Then it sends out a "Bob would like to be your Gunner" or "Sue would like you to fly her ship."
If everybody accepts, then you get super-transporter'd to the Captain's bridge.
Then, whenever that 'crewman' is at his/her station, all you do is add skill bonuses together to get the improvements to the ship. So if the Captain has a skill of 100 for 'gunnery' and the Gunner really isn't that good, say 40 ... the overall total is still 140, much better than the Captain by themselves.
It still wouldn't be an absolute requirement to have a full crew. However ... having a full crew means that your small ship could become extremely powerful and add diversity throughout the universe.
They could even make the ability to Captain a certain sized ship seperate from the ability to Captain a crew. So you might be able to fly a Galaxy Class ship with a max of 10 PC crew, but you only have the skills to invite one other crew member. OR, if there are four 'levels' of the 'Leadership' skill, then for each level, you add 20% of the skills of the crew to the ship's performance.
I'm not even sure that mini-games would be necessary. In fact, it might make things worse if it was possible to fail the mini-game, then it would require skill outside of the ability of the character. Meaning, maybe I really want to be a gunner, but I'm terrible at the mini-game they require. Then I'm not ever going to be a good gunner.
The gunner is an easy one though, you could just make them act like a second firing point on the ship. They could target independent of the captain and hit with a % based off skill comparisons. So, from above, the gunner would hit with 28% (40/140) of the ship's maximum weapon damage.
Anyway, my point is, I just spent like 15 minutes thinking about it, without getting paid, and I came up with a reasonable alternative to "You MUST be a Captain."
How did it take someone nearly 2 months to post something like this? As I read through the thread (late I know)) something similar to this was all I could think of. MMO's mix solo player and multiplayer all the time.
We don't need to come up with a way, they will work just fine. Not everybody wants to be a captain. If they were really interested in making an immersive Star Trek MMO experience, they would do player crews on a ship, but they are clearly more interested in making yet another theme park leveling game.
Correct! PE had it figured out then the project got handed off to Cryptic and they dumbed it down. There was a solid plan for player crewed ships til they screwed with it. I would love to be a weapons officer or security cheif. Not everyone wants a ship. When thinking about this issue Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind as well as that idiot Nancy Mcintyre and here retarded Nobody wants to be Uncle Owen statement. We all know what happened with that.
STO will make or break Cryptic with the way the current economy is, so they better make the right choices.
So glad I no longer have to read this garbage on the official site any more.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft