what you guys forget about player crews is the fact that only 1 person is actually in charge of a ship, anyone that doesnt go along with the captain is to be court marshelled and even executed on site in case of the klingons/romulans/cardassians, only the federation doesnt have the death penalty for treasoninsubordination. you can entirely player crew the ground content, but for a ship to function its almost like a borg hive, the captain orders the drones around and they obey, whether they like it or not, even in the shows the most resistence yould see was a good idea being suggested, and even that wasnt constant. more often they were asked for solutions if the captain was out of options. after wow ruined the mmo crowd do you really think player crews being forced would work at all? really? little timmy sonofabitch wont take orders, hell he wont even listen to his parents..
You could say the exact same thing about group battles individually in MMOs with the Tank-Healer-DPS system. Tank is up in the face of the bad guy, and that blocks his vision. Healer is playing whack-a-mole, and that takes the vast majority of his attention. So really you only have 3 or fewer people REALLY watching the fight. And coordinating them is so hard too! I mean, if there are two or more enemies, they have to be on the same page about who they are going after and how they are doing it! How can anyone do that!? Why!? Pfft. It's not hard at all.
It's clear that people who object to having player crews in this game either haven't played MMORPGs before, or are soloers by choice. WoW has vehicles that require multiple people, and coordination is not a problem. True, they don't have 4 or 5-man vehicles yet,
They DO have those airships in the Isle of Conquest BG though, which have many gun stations on their decks. I would not be surprised to see Blizzard add sailing ships with a similar arrangement in the future.
It shames the rest of the industry when WoW adds features like this as an afterthought.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
what you guys forget about player crews is the fact that only 1 person is actually in charge of a ship, anyone that doesnt go along with the captain is to be court marshelled and even executed on site in case of the klingons/romulans/cardassians, only the federation doesnt have the death penalty for treasoninsubordination. you can entirely player crew the ground content, but for a ship to function its almost like a borg hive, the captain orders the drones around and they obey, whether they like it or not, even in the shows the most resistence yould see was a good idea being suggested, and even that wasnt constant. more often they were asked for solutions if the captain was out of options. after wow ruined the mmo crowd do you really think player crews being forced would work at all? really? little timmy sonofabitch wont take orders, hell he wont even listen to his parents..
Then he can play another game. Not every MMO is for every MMO player.
Of course, he could just captain his own ship alone.
In other MMORPGs, anyone who screws around and doesn't follow orders in a dungeon or raid gets kicked from the guild. Where's the difference?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
False Analogy. We have plenty of games where people get to play marines and foot soldiers. We don’t emulate the long days of hiking with a hundred pounds on your back in the scorching sun do we? We don't emulate days of sitting in the cold getting trench foot do we? These are games; you designed them to be fun. Having player crews would have been difficult, but not impossible to implement. It would have required a lot of creative people doing a lot of creative work to make a playable system. The truth here is that Cryptic had limited time, and investors that want to see something successful. Player crews could have been done, and they could have been done well. But it would have taken more resources, and time, and imagination than obviously Cryptic was privy too. It also would have been a risk, even if they got it right. Investors don't like risks. Although if you look at the history of things, the ones that do risk sometimes end up being the most successful ones. Personally I could see a player crew system working, but it could never be the only way to play the game. I think it would work in PvP better than in PvE, but that all depends on how the star ship combat system is designed.
A crew would work brilliantly on a battlestar galactica game, where you launch fighters and so on in a fight. A truly huge ship like that could even be close to it's own server.
But the star trek ships are harder. You could still make it work but you would need some geniuses to pull it off, and Cryptic is far from that.
I remember reading one the devs stating that they would have had to make too many mini-games in the game to make player crews work. I think this was why they dint attempt it, because it would require there to be fairly detailed mini-games for each position in order to make it fun and workable. So clearly it was a resource motivated decision.
However, I can see a scenario where the mini-games could be really fun especially if they were about having good cooperation in order to play the best. This could have been designed to be not much different than raiding is in most MMO's. One guy heals, one guy’s controls dps, one guy buffs/debuffs, and maybe the captain controls maneuvering and tries to get the best group tactics.
Each position could also have more minor mini controls that help in the overall strength of the ship. Your Engineer could not only fix your ship and the shields, but also be in charge of what system gets what power so as to be able to react to what the captain is doing. Good communication would mean on the fly maneuvers that other single players would be too hard pressed to accomplish. The Tactical guy could target weapons on specific areas, and control where the shields are going, moving power around on the fly for the tactical situation, perhaps even having limited buffs and debuffs of his own character as is in the game now. If the player crewed ships were big enough you could even have cross over on some systems, like each player getting their own phaser to play with, for instance. It would not be easy as I said, but I also think it could be a blast of fun if you made it work, everyone working together.
That being said, I have had an idea about a MMO like game of what you are suggesting in the vein of Battlestar Galactica for some time now. Having the addition of fighters would make the whole idea more practical for an MMO, with that I totally agree.
what you guys forget about player crews is the fact that only 1 person is actually in charge of a ship, anyone that doesnt go along with the captain is to be court marshelled and even executed on site in case of the klingons/romulans/cardassians, only the federation doesnt have the death penalty for treasoninsubordination. you can entirely player crew the ground content, but for a ship to function its almost like a borg hive, the captain orders the drones around and they obey, whether they like it or not, even in the shows the most resistence yould see was a good idea being suggested, and even that wasnt constant. more often they were asked for solutions if the captain was out of options. after wow ruined the mmo crowd do you really think player crews being forced would work at all? really? little timmy sonofabitch wont take orders, hell he wont even listen to his parents..
Then he can play another game. Not every MMO is for every MMO player.
Please follow your own advice. This game isn't for you.
Trek fans are more than plentiful enough to make a faithful MMORPG thrive. When you make concessions to non-fans, you drive fans away. Those are the players who would have stuck with the game for a long time, but it's clear from Cryptic's prior performance, that long-term is not part of the plan.
That's hilarious. Star Trek doesn't have enough loyal fans to keep a Star Trek television show on the air. And don't give me this "Enterprise was crap" bullshit either, not only was it exceptional (season4) at the time it was canned, but we got 7 seasons of Voyager. 7 god damned seasons of that garbage...trek is dead...trekkies are nitpicking facists...the only way for this franchise to survive is the move past them.
The success of Star Trek 11 all but drives this point home.
ROFL. Funny but so very true. Trekkies have been nitpicking since The Wrath of Khan. (OH MY GOD! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL SPOCK! THEY CAN'T DO THAT!) The movie franchise didn't even get good until Rodenberry was demoted and Harve Bennet,an outsider, was brought in to run it. History repeated itself when Rick Berman was pushed aside and JJ Abrahms was brought in. Yeah, you'll piss off a small percentage of the die-hards, but you'll gain a whole new audience that wouldn't have given your franchise a second thought because of all its baggage.
Trek fans are more than plentiful enough to make a faithful MMORPG thrive. When you make concessions to non-fans, you drive fans away. Those are the players who would have stuck with the game for a long time, but it's clear from Cryptic's prior performance, that long-term is not part of the plan.
That's hilarious. Star Trek doesn't have enough loyal fans to keep a Star Trek television show on the air. And don't give me this "Enterprise was crap" bullshit either, not only was it exceptional (season4) at the time it was canned, but we got 7 seasons of Voyager. 7 god damned seasons of that garbage...trek is dead...trekkies are nitpicking facists...the only way for this franchise to survive is the move past them.
The success of Star Trek 11 all but drives this point home.
ROFL. Funny but so very true. Trekkies have been nitpicking since The Wrath of Khan. (OH MY GOD! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL SPOCK! THEY CAN'T DO THAT!) The movie franchise didn't even get good until Rodenberry was demoted and Harve Bennet,an outsider, was brought in to run it. History repeated itself when Rick Berman was pushed aside and JJ Abrahms was brought in. Yeah, you'll piss off a small percentage of the die-hards, but you'll gain a whole new audience that wouldn't have given your franchise a second thought because of all its baggage.
Lets face it though....it takes ALOT more people to keep a network TV or big budget movie alive then it does an MMORPG. Could you imagine if a prime time TV show only got 80,000 viewers or a movie only sold 80,000 tickets/dvd's total?
Comments
what you guys forget about player crews is the fact that only 1 person is actually in charge of a ship, anyone that doesnt go along with the captain is to be court marshelled and even executed on site in case of the klingons/romulans/cardassians, only the federation doesnt have the death penalty for treasoninsubordination. you can entirely player crew the ground content, but for a ship to function its almost like a borg hive, the captain orders the drones around and they obey, whether they like it or not, even in the shows the most resistence yould see was a good idea being suggested, and even that wasnt constant. more often they were asked for solutions if the captain was out of options. after wow ruined the mmo crowd do you really think player crews being forced would work at all? really? little timmy sonofabitch wont take orders, hell he wont even listen to his parents..
They DO have those airships in the Isle of Conquest BG though, which have many gun stations on their decks. I would not be surprised to see Blizzard add sailing ships with a similar arrangement in the future.
It shames the rest of the industry when WoW adds features like this as an afterthought.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Then he can play another game. Not every MMO is for every MMO player.
Of course, he could just captain his own ship alone.
In other MMORPGs, anyone who screws around and doesn't follow orders in a dungeon or raid gets kicked from the guild. Where's the difference?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
A crew would work brilliantly on a battlestar galactica game, where you launch fighters and so on in a fight. A truly huge ship like that could even be close to it's own server.
But the star trek ships are harder. You could still make it work but you would need some geniuses to pull it off, and Cryptic is far from that.
I remember reading one the devs stating that they would have had to make too many mini-games in the game to make player crews work. I think this was why they dint attempt it, because it would require there to be fairly detailed mini-games for each position in order to make it fun and workable. So clearly it was a resource motivated decision.
However, I can see a scenario where the mini-games could be really fun especially if they were about having good cooperation in order to play the best. This could have been designed to be not much different than raiding is in most MMO's. One guy heals, one guy’s controls dps, one guy buffs/debuffs, and maybe the captain controls maneuvering and tries to get the best group tactics.
Each position could also have more minor mini controls that help in the overall strength of the ship. Your Engineer could not only fix your ship and the shields, but also be in charge of what system gets what power so as to be able to react to what the captain is doing. Good communication would mean on the fly maneuvers that other single players would be too hard pressed to accomplish. The Tactical guy could target weapons on specific areas, and control where the shields are going, moving power around on the fly for the tactical situation, perhaps even having limited buffs and debuffs of his own character as is in the game now. If the player crewed ships were big enough you could even have cross over on some systems, like each player getting their own phaser to play with, for instance. It would not be easy as I said, but I also think it could be a blast of fun if you made it work, everyone working together.
That being said, I have had an idea about a MMO like game of what you are suggesting in the vein of Battlestar Galactica for some time now. Having the addition of fighters would make the whole idea more practical for an MMO, with that I totally agree.
Then he can play another game. Not every MMO is for every MMO player.
Please follow your own advice. This game isn't for you.
That's hilarious. Star Trek doesn't have enough loyal fans to keep a Star Trek television show on the air. And don't give me this "Enterprise was crap" bullshit either, not only was it exceptional (season4) at the time it was canned, but we got 7 seasons of Voyager. 7 god damned seasons of that garbage...trek is dead...trekkies are nitpicking facists...the only way for this franchise to survive is the move past them.
The success of Star Trek 11 all but drives this point home.
ROFL. Funny but so very true. Trekkies have been nitpicking since The Wrath of Khan. (OH MY GOD! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL SPOCK! THEY CAN'T DO THAT!) The movie franchise didn't even get good until Rodenberry was demoted and Harve Bennet,an outsider, was brought in to run it. History repeated itself when Rick Berman was pushed aside and JJ Abrahms was brought in. Yeah, you'll piss off a small percentage of the die-hards, but you'll gain a whole new audience that wouldn't have given your franchise a second thought because of all its baggage.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
That's hilarious. Star Trek doesn't have enough loyal fans to keep a Star Trek television show on the air. And don't give me this "Enterprise was crap" bullshit either, not only was it exceptional (season4) at the time it was canned, but we got 7 seasons of Voyager. 7 god damned seasons of that garbage...trek is dead...trekkies are nitpicking facists...the only way for this franchise to survive is the move past them.
The success of Star Trek 11 all but drives this point home.
ROFL. Funny but so very true. Trekkies have been nitpicking since The Wrath of Khan. (OH MY GOD! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL SPOCK! THEY CAN'T DO THAT!) The movie franchise didn't even get good until Rodenberry was demoted and Harve Bennet,an outsider, was brought in to run it. History repeated itself when Rick Berman was pushed aside and JJ Abrahms was brought in. Yeah, you'll piss off a small percentage of the die-hards, but you'll gain a whole new audience that wouldn't have given your franchise a second thought because of all its baggage.
Lets face it though....it takes ALOT more people to keep a network TV or big budget movie alive then it does an MMORPG. Could you imagine if a prime time TV show only got 80,000 viewers or a movie only sold 80,000 tickets/dvd's total?