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The REAL issue of STO: the absence of bridge interaction
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
Outside of many small and diverse issues, THE fundamental issue for me as Trekkie is the absence of the bridge as focus of the going ons. THAT is why for me the game does not deliver anything I regard as a Trek game. In every Star Trek show (with the exception of DS9, where its a station), the bridge is the heart and soul of the story. The stories focus around the bridge crew, and NEVER a single captain. Now since Cryptic decided to make us all Captain, the least thing they should have done, would be to make the NPC crew somewhat active.
For instance, why in the name of the Maker did they make a totally generic MMO-ish popup window in space? There is no bridge view with you as captain in chair, giving an order to "hail them" or what, nothing on the screen, no comments from anyone of the crew, no debates, no Captain asking for "any suggestions" or going to the briefing room to discuss a strategy, nothing. Yes it would have taken the development cycle long, prolly another year. But heck, wasn't development of STO already short? Two years since Cryptic took it over? So what would have been to wrong in adding another year to giving you crew faces, voices and things to do, and not just pop up some quest giver in space like in ANY generic MMO before?
Or say, when I am beamed down to a planet, my Science officer is behind me, and a POPUP window gives me his comments. WHY? I mean, he is right behind me, could you not make a camera to some speech bubble or what, and maybe he says something, and the tactic officer disagrees or adds and they have some fake conversation... something, ANYTHING to make it less generic like another popup window like he wasn't behind me but on the other side of the galaxy??
I am sorry if that sounds nit picking to some, and outside of this it is the way too great emphasis on killing stuff that makes this feel SO un-Trekkie. In Star Trek, there were episodes like "Data's day", which were about no crisis whatsoever, but just about Data and his place in the world. Or that where Riker was abducted and in some fake reality. Trek was about SO MANY cool stories and things. I mean, yes a MMO has combat heavy by it's very nature, but even in a MMO I expect something different that "kill X Klingons/Orions/Nausicaans" and no hailing, no diplomacy, no strategy talk with your crew, nothing. Just go in, kill them all and get your gold reward aka Federation Merits.
THAT IS NOT STAR TREK!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
I agree. It doesn't feel like startrek at all. It's just Champions Online in space. The space flight is slow and boring and there is no bridge view. You spend the whole time flying in a circle trying to get LOS on the enemy so you can fire one torpedo. The UI looks and operates like crap. The inventory menu is exactly the same as CO. The items you can collect are lame and confusing and their icons look just as crappy as they do in CO. The new uniforms look like crap and don't even resemble startrek uniforms except for the STNG movie uniforms and even then you still look like something out of anarchy online. Ground combat and movement and graphics look like they were pulled straight out of some 14 year olds startrek parcel on Second Life. Cryptic needs to just give up and start making accounting software or something.
You shouldnt feel like you are nitpicking, your 100% correct. As a Star Trek fan you were let down with STO, and as an MMO fan you were also let down.
To those that think this game will sell 500,000 boxes and Cryptic will keep on truckin, I would hate for you to be right.
When SWG came out, it was a niche, it did right by both Star Wars fans and MMO fans, but only the Hardcore of both groups. It had, what? 200,000 at its peak?
It STO gets anywhere past that it will be from simple modern hype and nothing else, from uniformed buyers who would rather lavishly spend money on the newest toy rather than one something that will give them any type of real enjoyment.
For me here is a lot more to it... but you do nail a huge issue.
Its not so much the lack of bridge interaction so much as how thats an indicator of the raw simplicity of the whole thing. If you sat and watched a couple of eps from each ST series on TV then proposed that you could reduce that experience down to something that would seem simple on a console and yet be a good game, most fans would laugh.
The sad thing is they would be right to laugh, as Cryptic has demonstrated... you cant.
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"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
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"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
I agree, it shouldnt be too hard for them to put an image on screen while in the bridge. I still dont fully understand the reasoning behind having a bridge at this point
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
My motivation to play the game was seriously hurt when I saw you would WARP OUT OF YOUR BRIDGE when you went back to tactical view. It's good I see I'm not the only one that would like the option of first-person view of the captain looking at where we are in a monitor screen along with several others showing ship status.
Not to mention all the crew living interaction experience was reduced to... quest popup windows.
hahahaha.. so you guys were expecting Bridge Commander? Or some kind of Star Trek simulator?
Its a game, and a darn good one. Your expectations is what let you down, not Cryptic.
This is why I wish they had waited until after launch to do the bridge, as they originally intended. The people clamouring for the bridge interiors aren't going to be satisfied with anything less than a view screen and captain's chair that is available to be seen at all times.They want to be able to sit in the captain's chair like Kirk or Picard and bark orders while the ship is in the middle of a mission.They should have just held firm to their original plan and worked on more content for the Klingons along with any bug issues. Instead we have a group of people angry about lack of Klingon content to go with a group of angry people that were never going to be satisfied in the first place unless you made the game a Star Trek simulator.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
It would have been nice to at least have had different types of windows, and maybe even backgrounds for the characters; ex: your crewmates having the bridge background that you paid hard earned energy for. On the other hand, just make a "onscreen looking" frame for hails from contacts on planets and stations.
Another thing I don't get is why you can't build your own bridge crew like you would a character? Is it an issue with racial abilities? The randomizer works pretty well, so anyone who didn't care to go over every aspect of their crews look could just click through and be done. But to me, the crew is part of the customization of the ship.
These two things often have me confused as to whether I'm talking to the Mission Contact or my crew. A different look for the dialogue window between onscreen and crew members would go a long way without requiring a ton of dev time.
It would have been nice to at least have had different types of windows, and maybe even backgrounds for the characters; ex: your crewmates having the bridge background that you paid hard earned energy for. On the other hand, just make a "onscreen looking" frame for hails from contacts on planets and stations.
Another thing I don't get is why you can't build your own bridge crew like you would a character? Is it an issue with racial abilities? The randomizer works pretty well, so anyone who didn't care to go over every aspect of their crews look could just click through and be done. But to me, the crew is part of the customization of the ship.
These two things often have me confused as to whether I'm talking to the Mission Contact or my crew. A different look for the dialogue window between onscreen and crew members would go a long way without requiring a ton of dev time.
I agree to a lot of these complaints, but they are not show stoppers and many of them will probably be included over time. With that said though, Lets look at combat and bridge views. with the way combat is implemented in this game, and I hate to say it, it would be damn near impossible to keep the enemy on your screen while your fighting. It would be virtually impossible for that to work. Now, with that said, I to agree with the pop up stuff. I don't want starfleet hailing me with text. I want an on screen view of who ever it is hailing me and them actually talking to me. Help bring me into the story more. They definitely need a ton more voice acting in the game. Even though I really want these things, the game is still plenty fun for me, and I can only hope that over time, these things can be incorporated.
they are reasonable expectations simply because the IP demands these sort of things.
Cryptic, knowing their own limitations and inability to deliver should have been managing peoples expectations. But they have not. Instead they have hyped the bajeezuz out of it, and led people to believe that this really is a star trek experience. And yes, maybe modeling an mmo after bridge commander instead of generic_mmo would have been a good start. Saying it cannot really be like star trek and its "just a game" is becoming one of the favored fanboy copy/paste responses it seems.
Wow. I am shocked. For once, a fairly constructive thread and not a flame-fest. Yes, people have been posting different complaints, but they aren't real complaints from what I've read. This however is a real complaint.
You speak truth on many levels OP, and I seriously hope you are taking this thread and posting it on the beta forums for suggestion purposes. I'm sure the DEVs would enjoy seeing something constructive. (not going to lie, I haven't seen the forums over in STO - but its probably fairly fried.)
EDIT: The bridges will be remedied of course, but they should have waited and not included it. Whats the point in a social hub? I mean I'm all for RP and what not, but there's not much functionality. But that will be changed.
I am in agreement with the OP as well. Although I like the game thus far, the useless bridge and simple interaction with your "bridge" officers brings a bit of lackluster to the table.
the absence of the bridge interaction bothers me, too. i don't suppose anybody knows if cryptic plans to add that in the future?
i really wish i had a better feel on how cryptic intends to evolve this game... looking at their other current mmo properties (city of heroes and champions online... are those the only ones?) doesn't really give me a comfortable feeling on how well they will embellish and deepen the sto experience... in looking at threads and posts for champions online, it looks like cryptic siphoned off alot of support and development of that game towards sto and i guess they'll do the same to sto when they jump to their next big project, whatever that might be.
i really want sto to succeed. i'm pretty tired of the fantasy mmo's and there's just not any current scifi mmo's that interest me. i don't know what future mmo blizzard or ccp have in the works. i was kinda hoping they'd be more scifi based. the new star wars mmo looks interesting, but it looks more ground combat based.
I played CoX a long time, but it was disheartning to see how little they evolved that game over all the time, EVEN tho it was the only superhero MMo at the time.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I think they dropped the ball on this one. I think the game should have been like Battleship 3000 meets Start Trek Bridge commander. I should be able to use a functioning bridge and should be able to beam down to any Planet and explore.
The space battles dont even seem like star Trek to me. I have never seen so much fighting in the Star Trek universe. One of my main complaints against the TNG show was Picard was such a wimp he would never fight anyone he would always out think them.
This is not in the game what so ever. They have missed what this universe is all about and just took the Star Trek setting and made it into something it is not. I have never seen any of the shows or movies focus on ship combat time after time after time. I think 1 or 2 missions in 10 should be about ship combat.
The focus of the shows are really never about the ships but about the crew having to solving some type of problem. To bad 90% of the game so far is flying in circles and mashing buttons. I wish I even had a choice like in SWG if I wanted to do Ship missions or stay on the ground. I dont see why I cant even walk around on a ship and have quests and missions on my ship like something wrong with my warp drive I need to fix it. Maybe you have to do an away mission to get the parts you need to fix the problem.
Stuff like that is what I was looking for and I can say I wont be a subscriber unless they figure out what people want out of a Start Trek game but I can assure you this, it is not what I thought it was going to be and I am extremely disappointed in it.
they are reasonable expectations simply because the IP demands these sort of things.
Cryptic, knowing their own limitations and inability to deliver should have been managing peoples expectations. But they have not. Instead they have hyped the bajeezuz out of it, and led people to believe that this really is a star trek experience. And yes, maybe modeling an mmo after bridge commander instead of generic_mmo would have been a good start. Saying it cannot really be like star trek and its "just a game" is becoming one of the favored fanboy copy/paste responses it seems.
They might have been reasonable expectations, except Cryptic never, ever claimed that STO would be that kind of game. They always promoted the WAR theme, with bits of exploration and roleplay elements for you hard core trekkies.
Thats why I get all riled up, you guys are complaining about something that was NEVER promised to you in the first place!
So, when a butt load of people all expect the same thing, its our fault we were let down, not Cryptic?
if it was a small minority of people, dude i'd agree
but a lot and I mean a lot of people were expecting it to be kind of like Eve meets Bridge Commander, while its kinda fun A LOT of us were expecting more.
read the official forums, theres a ton of people that agree
Bridge is a massive problem. I thought that this one here was a straight slap in the face and not a very hard thing to fix.
I created a Klingon toon. Beamed onto the bridge and what do I see? Not one Klingon but me!! My crew was made up entirely of humans wearing federation uniforms...!!!!! WTF?
A bridge crew game would be about the most boring thing ever. The tactical guy gets to click/shoot a yellow blip on his green display, while everyone else only gets to rock back and forth in synchronization whenever the ship takes a hit. You fly blind because you can only see about 1 percent of your surrounding environment on the viewscreen. That's probably ok for killing the one warbird that happens to be piloted by a drunken ewok, but the bad guys sitting in your 99 percent blindspot didn't want to fly with an ewok anyways, and they tell you so just around the time they vaporize you. No, I think Cryptic did alright with the camera view and the 1 captain is better than the sum of many bridge officers thing. It may not be realistic, but it makes it a playable game.
Exactly, couldn't of said it better myself. As much as we all want to pretend we are actually in the trek universe, its still a game. Maybe someday they will make a Star Trek simulator, until then try to have some fun.
http://www.massively.com/2010/01/15/exclusive-allods-online-dev-tour-astral-ships-and-the-end-game/3#comments
Ship Features and Roles
For navigation, there is a scanner or radar of sorts that acts as a 3D map of your ship's route and an indicator of any astral demons that may be closing in on the attack.. It is the navigator's job to tell the pilots where to go. The pilots depend on the navigator's expertise with the scanner to get them to their next allod, although the pilots can also bring up the main map (M key) to show a map of your location, including nearby allods.
There are several stations to each ship that can be manned by players, and each of these stations has a very specific role. Basically, anything with a chat bubble above it is operational by a player. Your character's class does not play a part in which role you choose on the ship, so jump to your preferred station and know your role!
First, there's the actual wheel that controls the ship's movement. At this station, you can either have one man control three different aspects of steering, or have three players each control one. There's a station for thrust, one for side-to-side turning and one for up and down movements. While in navigation mode, you'll have a small navigational "skill bar" of sorts in place of your normal skill bar. These navigational icons let you control direction, thrust speed and something called Interhub Jumping, where you can jump between locations within a sector. This feature is especially useful for trying to find a nearby allod (floating island).
The gunners are stationed on each side of the ship and it is their duty to destroy anyone -- or anything -- that sets out to attack them. Firing the cannons are interesting in themselves because they're not loaded with magical heat-seeking ammo. These cannons fire straight where you aim them, so the coordination between the pilots (to bank the ship or turn it a certain way) are essential to how the gunners can fire their cannons.
The ship's shield is also an important station on the ship as someone must monitor the defenses at all times.
The reactor is a very special part of the ship that has a role just as important as anything else. The reactor regulates heat on the ship's engines, and if it overheats, the ship will explode. Managing this heat is crucial to your ship's -- and crew's -- survival. When the reactor is shut down to cool off, the ship cannot move. So timing this cooldown allowance within a safe zone is important.
As you can tell, group coordination is everything when it comes to effective ship navigation and operation. Voice chat and good communication between players is essential to coordinating the perfect crew.
I will have to disagree with you. I've pointed this out before and I will anytime someone tries to use your argument. It can be fun and it can work and it is being done
Just not by Cryptic with STO, you know the guys that were expected to deliver this kind of thing lol.
A guilds expected to man a ship, not a single individual or a pick up group. A f2p can do it, why can't a pay to play based on an IP built around this very concept?
It's simple they weren't ready to add such a thing to the game, and they did to try and please a portion of those following the development. I wouldn't doubt if all it is, is something they put together early on in development as a reference or prototype for something to come later in the games life.
It's a mix of both players unable to wait for things to come later in a games life, and an inability on the devs part to stick to their plan.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
http://www.massively.com/2010/01/15/exclusive-allods-online-dev-tour-astral-ships-and-the-end-game/3#comments
Ship Features and Roles
For navigation, there is a scanner or radar of sorts that acts as a 3D map of your ship's route and an indicator of any astral demons that may be closing in on the attack.. It is the navigator's job to tell the pilots where to go. The pilots depend on the navigator's expertise with the scanner to get them to their next allod, although the pilots can also bring up the main map (M key) to show a map of your location, including nearby allods.
There are several stations to each ship that can be manned by players, and each of these stations has a very specific role. Basically, anything with a chat bubble above it is operational by a player. Your character's class does not play a part in which role you choose on the ship, so jump to your preferred station and know your role!
First, there's the actual wheel that controls the ship's movement. At this station, you can either have one man control three different aspects of steering, or have three players each control one. There's a station for thrust, one for side-to-side turning and one for up and down movements. While in navigation mode, you'll have a small navigational "skill bar" of sorts in place of your normal skill bar. These navigational icons let you control direction, thrust speed and something called Interhub Jumping, where you can jump between locations within a sector. This feature is especially useful for trying to find a nearby allod (floating island).
The gunners are stationed on each side of the ship and it is their duty to destroy anyone -- or anything -- that sets out to attack them. Firing the cannons are interesting in themselves because they're not loaded with magical heat-seeking ammo. These cannons fire straight where you aim them, so the coordination between the pilots (to bank the ship or turn it a certain way) are essential to how the gunners can fire their cannons.
The ship's shield is also an important station on the ship as someone must monitor the defenses at all times.
The reactor is a very special part of the ship that has a role just as important as anything else. The reactor regulates heat on the ship's engines, and if it overheats, the ship will explode. Managing this heat is crucial to your ship's -- and crew's -- survival. When the reactor is shut down to cool off, the ship cannot move. So timing this cooldown allowance within a safe zone is important.
As you can tell, group coordination is everything when it comes to effective ship navigation and operation. Voice chat and good communication between players is essential to coordinating the perfect crew.
I will have to disagree with you. I've pointed this out before and I will anytime someone tries to use your argument. It can be fun and it can work and it is being done
Just not by Cryptic with STO, you know the guys that were expected to deliver this kind of thing lol.
A guilds expected to man a ship, not a single individual or a pick up group. A f2p can do it, why can't a pay to play based on an IP built around this very concept?
100% agree, im really glad you linked Allods too, its sad that a game like that can pull off something like this, and Cryptic cant.
That would be like expecting McDonald's to serve you a steak dinner. Sure steak over burgers any day, but I think I'll stick to outback or any other steakhouse. It's a lot better when it's not microwaved.
If you have a hard time with the analogy, I'll simply say why would you expect cryptic to deliver anything deep outside of a character creator? I had fun in STO, but I think it's because I knew what to expect when going in. Same old cryptic gameplay with a new twist, which was surprisingly fun: ship combat.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
http://www.massively.com/2010/01/15/exclusive-allods-online-dev-tour-astral-ships-and-the-end-game/3#comments
Ship Features and Roles
For navigation, there is a scanner or radar of sorts that acts as a 3D map of your ship's route and an indicator of any astral demons that may be closing in on the attack.. It is the navigator's job to tell the pilots where to go. The pilots depend on the navigator's expertise with the scanner to get them to their next allod, although the pilots can also bring up the main map (M key) to show a map of your location, including nearby allods.
There are several stations to each ship that can be manned by players, and each of these stations has a very specific role. Basically, anything with a chat bubble above it is operational by a player. Your character's class does not play a part in which role you choose on the ship, so jump to your preferred station and know your role!
First, there's the actual wheel that controls the ship's movement. At this station, you can either have one man control three different aspects of steering, or have three players each control one. There's a station for thrust, one for side-to-side turning and one for up and down movements. While in navigation mode, you'll have a small navigational "skill bar" of sorts in place of your normal skill bar. These navigational icons let you control direction, thrust speed and something called Interhub Jumping, where you can jump between locations within a sector. This feature is especially useful for trying to find a nearby allod (floating island).
The gunners are stationed on each side of the ship and it is their duty to destroy anyone -- or anything -- that sets out to attack them. Firing the cannons are interesting in themselves because they're not loaded with magical heat-seeking ammo. These cannons fire straight where you aim them, so the coordination between the pilots (to bank the ship or turn it a certain way) are essential to how the gunners can fire their cannons.
The ship's shield is also an important station on the ship as someone must monitor the defenses at all times.
The reactor is a very special part of the ship that has a role just as important as anything else. The reactor regulates heat on the ship's engines, and if it overheats, the ship will explode. Managing this heat is crucial to your ship's -- and crew's -- survival. When the reactor is shut down to cool off, the ship cannot move. So timing this cooldown allowance within a safe zone is important.
As you can tell, group coordination is everything when it comes to effective ship navigation and operation. Voice chat and good communication between players is essential to coordinating the perfect crew.
I will have to disagree with you. I've pointed this out before and I will anytime someone tries to use your argument. It can be fun and it can work and it is being done
Just not by Cryptic with STO, you know the guys that were expected to deliver this kind of thing lol.
A guilds expected to man a ship, not a single individual or a pick up group. A f2p can do it, why can't a pay to play based on an IP built around this very concept?
100% agree, im really glad you linked Allods too, its sad that a game like that can pull off something like this, and Cryptic cant.
To me it's just amazing that Allods Astral Ship combat works pretty dang close to Star Trek ship combat. You even have someone that has to man the reactor in case it starts to go critical so they can shut it down to keep the ship from exploding lol. Sounds a lot like a "Scotty" to me.
The fact that you can disable and board ships was another nice feature that STO is missing in my eyes. It urks me a little that this little free to play is delivering on what I was expecting from STO XD.