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How STO could have been...
ChromeBallz
Member UncommonPosts: 342
Given the years the concept could have been refined. You could have several people on one ship. The captain gives the orders, the rest of the bridge crew carries them out. You could have people playing around with detailed shield and weapon configurations, truly engaging in a game of wits against the NPC's or other players.
Just to name one example, the shields mechanics. You could vary the frequency to get less damage from enemy weapons aswell as diverting power from one section to another. In a risky move you could even try to turn off the aft shields to try and teleport something onto the other ship or in it's vicinity. You could extend the shields around friendly ships, weakening them in the process but providing protection if the other ship's shields are down.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg, and JUST shield game mechanics! Add in weapons and weapon types, deflector control, tractor beams, transporters and one or two people in engineering doing their own thing to keep the power going... The potential is there, but apparently Cryptic didn't bother with it.
And that's purely for combat on a starship. I haven't even begun about exploration and away missions, hubs, diplomacy and social structures between players.
Not to mention another trap Cryptic fell in to: Why can't you join the Cardassians, Ferengi, Vulcans (as they still run independant missions from the Federation), Romulans... The option isn't even there, and you're forced to fight in yet another 2-faction war just like in every single other MMO out there.
Making your own race shouldn't have been possible either. Customizing appearance? Yes. Making your own race? No.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
Comments
You have no idea what your talking about.
Almost every successfull MMO today, started the same way.
[Mod edit]
I think a lot of what you want will likely come as STO evolves. HOwever the name of the game at this point is ensure a solid foundation from which you can grow.
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
And sadly it seems they're failing at that.
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Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
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Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
Now, I could be wrong on this but I'm just recalling from a long time ago.
The original Star Trek Online plan - before Cryptic took the game into their hands - was just that, or something along those lines. Orginally you'd have your entire ship readily accessiable (Cryptic plans to get there) and you could walk about the ship freely. They never said details on the ships and game play but they did state that every player was required. You'd need sickbay personel, you'd need engineers - and so forth. Of course they also were important for away missions, every player was required and it was highly team-oriented. And it was that which made me instantly fall in love with Star Trek Online.
Originally I figured to myself, that a big ship like in the movies was going to be guild-like or further, higher level - in the earlier stages they'd have to find away for smaller ships. That was what I first thought.
What you are asking would no doubt be good (to some, maybe many), but its actually very diffacult to do if you further look into it. It would have taken much longer to develop and as time would advance, so would technology and thus STO would have been outdated and then the graphics and engines would have to be updated before release, it is a vicious cycle I'm afraid. You are right, it could have been a great deal more, and I still feel it will have that expandability in the coming while, but currently we have STO as Cryptic made it. Since Cryptic has the IP we can't see another coming out unless Cryptic is involved - as I said, I have the faith in the expandability. As I said elsewhere on the forum... you need a solid base before you can expand, and thats what Cryptic is doing, to avoid that concept is like building the pyramids from the tip instead of the base - that just doesn't happen.
Today we have STO, it might not be in all its glory but we have it - I for one am pleased with it, but that's just me.
EDIT: What you are asking is for 'Star Trek Bridge Commander Online' - unfortuntly a different thing all together.
Cryptic already proved that it's not the direction they want to take the game in. It's combat, combat and more combat, in the same style as they did in City of Heroes and Champions Online. The open beta is rife with it, there's no subtlety to anything - Target and fire, that's it, even using WASD controls for your ship.
The chances of STO surviving long enough and actually 'evolving' are very, very slim. They will most likely only add more content to pander to the same gameplay - IE, more ships to choose and more ships to shoot, aswell as more away missions to shoot things in.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
Well, even if I don't purchase STO at launch, I will be surely watching how this game develops over time.
I have all these nerdgasmic dreams about how the player crew gameplay could have been, and in order not to hunt the solo people they could have made it an unique group play experience that isn't about the trinity but rather about actual controls, ships as you've mentioned, a whole detailed system for weapons, engines, auxiliary power, damage control, and being the captain.
I'm already with low expectations about TOR but we'll see how they make their theme park, there's just this enormous challenge that is to make a MMO for a huge classic IP that is way beyond the current MMOs simplicity.
Cryptic already proved that it's not the direction they want to take the game in. It's combat, combat and more combat, in the same style as they did in City of Heroes and Champions Online. The open beta is rife with it, there's no subtlety to anything - Target and fire, that's it, even using WASD controls for your ship.
The chances of STO surviving long enough and actually 'evolving' are very, very slim. They will most likely only add more content to pander to the same gameplay - IE, more ships to choose and more ships to shoot, aswell as more away missions to shoot things in.
Dude, I cant believe your that clueless. The content was left out of OB for stress test purposes. Talk to anyone that has been in the CB and they will tell you exploration and diplomatic missions are in there.
But ya the game is set in a WAR TIME... dont tell me you didnt know that, and yet you whinne about the game being mostly about combat, why in the world would you expect the game to be mostly exploration when they have flat told you it would be around combat?
Its called Trolling!!
About factions, maybe it was inevitable. Still it makes no sense to shoehorn every single race in Star Trek into two factions warring with each other, taking the Ferengi and Orion Syndicate as examples. They're traders, and profit most from trading, not choosing sides and dying for someone who might not even be paying them. At least Ferengi won't do that anyway.
About races, it's more about the design choices Cryptic made. It feels much more like they decided you should be able to make your own race just because the engine allows it, rather than have it be a tangible and thought out game design choice. While Star Trek does play host to a lot of races, it doesn't make sense if there's hundreds of thousands of races with a population of 1 or 2. It simply feels like they wanted that part of the Champions engine to play some part in STO and they shoehorned it in just to make themselves happy.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
I agree with the OP. This MMO could have been so much more. Every successfull MMO today? Which ones? CO? AoC? Warhammer? They all start off by ripping off a popular IP and making a single player game and trying to call it a MMO?
This game has almost nothing star trekkie about it. Take away the starfleet uniforms, the ships and you pretty much have Champions online. Small instaced worlds, a horrible grid with billboards called space, and single planet solar systems that you can't even land on.
[Mod edit]
Actually, as I understand it, All Perpetual did was "talk" about what they were going to do. They did a few renderings and if they actually did do any coding, according to cryptic, there was nothing there viable for them to use. So here you had a company who had the IP for what? 5 years, and all we ever got out of it was a few pictures and a lot of promises that they never intended on keeping. So here we are a couple years later with another company who is RELEASING the game to the public on Feb 2. I don't know about everyone else, but I would rather be able to play a game then just sit around talking about it like Perpetual did. Even if it means its completely different than their way of thinking. And I have to say that I think cryptic has done a good job for the short amount of time they have had the IP. Many still call doom and gloom for the game and I think they are full of crap. The game is going to thrive and only get better with age. So let em spread their doom, Us that are playing it, knows better.
Cryptic already proved that it's not the direction they want to take the game in. It's combat, combat and more combat, in the same style as they did in City of Heroes and Champions Online. The open beta is rife with it, there's no subtlety to anything - Target and fire, that's it, even using WASD controls for your ship.
The chances of STO surviving long enough and actually 'evolving' are very, very slim. They will most likely only add more content to pander to the same gameplay - IE, more ships to choose and more ships to shoot, aswell as more away missions to shoot things in.
Dude, I cant believe your that clueless. The content was left out of OB for stress test purposes. Talk to anyone that has been in the CB and they will tell you exploration and diplomatic missions are in there.
But ya the game is set in a WAR TIME... dont tell me you didnt know that, and yet you whinne about the game being mostly about combat, why in the world would you expect the game to be mostly exploration when they have flat told you it would be around combat?
Its called Trolling!!
Closed beta seemed to be rather limited. The missions may have been there but if you can't play for more than 3 hours a week because the rest of the time the servers are down - That may simply mean there's so few of them they don't want to show it in OB. I don't expect it to be either expansive nor good once retail comes along, i'd bet some money on that.
The game being set during war-time is an obvious choice to justify the heavy emphasis on combat. The thing is that the game deviates from Star Trek even here. You can't even negotiate, talk or whatever with the people you're shooting. I can't find the threat at the moment, but someone else mentioned that STO has a very "we come in peace, shoot to kill"-like feel to it, which is decidedly not Star Trek.
And the emphases doesn't have to be on exploration at all, but it seems to play no part at all in STO. The exploration missions you do get invariably end up with you shooting other ships that you found.
I am simply wondering why STO is even called that. If it were an entirely new IP it might have made sense, but so far the game isn't like Star Trek at all. It could just as well have been called "Desperate Housewives Online" and it still would have made more sense than associating it with Star Trek.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
Pretty much a pointless post from a rabid fanboy?
I agree with the OP. This MMO could have been so much more. Every successfull MMO today? Which ones? CO? AoC? Warhammer? They all start off by ripping off a popular IP and making a single player game and trying to call it a MMO?
This game has almost nothing star trekkie about it. Take away the starfleet uniforms, the ships and you pretty much have Champions online. Small instaced worlds, a horrible grid with billboards called space, and single planet solar systems that you can't even land on.
Wow, That sounds a lot like Eve to. How long has Eve been out and you still cant even walk around on the space stations? You sill can't do anything but look at the planets! Yeah, whatever. The game is good, its not without its problems but it is at least fun and sure feels like star trek to me. So, here is hoping that one day, you to can actually be happy, playing a video game.
At the end of the day, no mmo has ever been perfect on launch.
That said, Star Trek never really interested me in the first place.
Star GATE on the other hand...:D
Guild Wars 2 Thief Guide - Elder Scrolls Online Guide
I'll agree with you on these points because it is similiar to how I feel the Ferengi should be in this game and I stated as such on the official boards many times. Now we did have NOG on DS9 who joined starfleet, but the majority of Ferengi are about profit. Glad you brought the Orions up because that could be a rival faction for the Ferengi. Those two factions could be created for the non-combat folks who always want to try and do business in the Star Trek universe. I was always rebuffed because the argument against it was "Federation doesn't need money." To which I always reminded them that the Federation was the only one who "claimed" to not need money even though I saw this rule broken many times.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Pretty much a pointless post from a rabid fanboy?
I agree with the OP. This MMO could have been so much more. Every successfull MMO today? Which ones? CO? AoC? Warhammer? They all start off by ripping off a popular IP and making a single player game and trying to call it a MMO?
This game has almost nothing star trekkie about it. Take away the starfleet uniforms, the ships and you pretty much have Champions online. Small instaced worlds, a horrible grid with billboards called space, and single planet solar systems that you can't even land on.
Wow another clueless wonder.. my point was many successfull MMOs started out buggy, did you even read the post, it wasnt very long...LOL
The rest of your post is just opinion, nothing more, no substance at all. Move along.
Cryptic already proved that it's not the direction they want to take the game in. It's combat, combat and more combat, in the same style as they did in City of Heroes and Champions Online. The open beta is rife with it, there's no subtlety to anything - Target and fire, that's it, even using WASD controls for your ship.
The chances of STO surviving long enough and actually 'evolving' are very, very slim. They will most likely only add more content to pander to the same gameplay - IE, more ships to choose and more ships to shoot, aswell as more away missions to shoot things in.
Dude, I cant believe your that clueless. The content was left out of OB for stress test purposes. Talk to anyone that has been in the CB and they will tell you exploration and diplomatic missions are in there.
But ya the game is set in a WAR TIME... dont tell me you didnt know that, and yet you whinne about the game being mostly about combat, why in the world would you expect the game to be mostly exploration when they have flat told you it would be around combat?
Its called Trolling!!
Hope that's true and they bring it out for open beta! It just may be the element that gets me to buy it at launch instead of when the box is in the bargain bin.
Cryptic already proved that it's not the direction they want to take the game in. It's combat, combat and more combat, in the same style as they did in City of Heroes and Champions Online. The open beta is rife with it, there's no subtlety to anything - Target and fire, that's it, even using WASD controls for your ship.
The chances of STO surviving long enough and actually 'evolving' are very, very slim. They will most likely only add more content to pander to the same gameplay - IE, more ships to choose and more ships to shoot, aswell as more away missions to shoot things in.
Dude, I cant believe your that clueless. The content was left out of OB for stress test purposes. Talk to anyone that has been in the CB and they will tell you exploration and diplomatic missions are in there.
But ya the game is set in a WAR TIME... dont tell me you didnt know that, and yet you whinne about the game being mostly about combat, why in the world would you expect the game to be mostly exploration when they have flat told you it would be around combat?
Its called Trolling!!
Closed beta seemed to be rather limited. The missions may have been there but if you can't play for more than 3 hours a week because the rest of the time the servers are down - That may simply mean there's so few of them they don't want to show it in OB. I don't expect it to be either expansive nor good once retail comes along, i'd bet some money on that.
The game being set during war-time is an obvious choice to justify the heavy emphasis on combat. The thing is that the game deviates from Star Trek even here. You can't even negotiate, talk or whatever with the people you're shooting. I can't find the threat at the moment, but someone else mentioned that STO has a very "we come in peace, shoot to kill"-like feel to it, which is decidedly not Star Trek.
And the emphases doesn't have to be on exploration at all, but it seems to play no part at all in STO. The exploration missions you do get invariably end up with you shooting other ships that you found.
I am simply wondering why STO is even called that. If it were an entirely new IP it might have made sense, but so far the game isn't like Star Trek at all. It could just as well have been called "Desperate Housewives Online" and it still would have made more sense than associating it with Star Trek.
OMG. I can't believe you went there. You are a star ship captain, your not a member of the council. Your not out negotiating a treaty with the klingons, they are leaving that in far more capable hands than you. Heck, in one mission, I helped a klingon defeat a common enemy and he thanked me for helping and warned me at the same time that, next time we met in battle he would kill me. Thats EXACTLY the kind of things that went on in star trek. Your mind is just to closed to what you wanted it to be, that you can't even see it has those elements, at least on some level, in the game.
As for exploration, what do you think your doing on those missions? Have you been to those planets or those solar systems before? Your freaking exploring them as your doing missions. Sure, its not wide open exploration but if you open your eyes and look, again, it is there. Sorry you don't like the game, but it is far from the way your describing it. It simply didn't fall under what YOU wanted from star trek. Again, not a bad thing, but please, don't try to make it out as a $5 wii game, because its not.
This thread is about how STO is not 'worthy' of the Star Trek name. Neither i nor anyone else in this thread have even mentioned bugs.
Now who exactly is clueless here? Read the thread before replying.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
This thread is about how STO is not 'worthy' of the Star Trek name. Neither i nor anyone else in this thread have even mentioned bugs.
Now who exactly is clueless here? Read the thread before replying.
Your expectations make you clueless. In YOUR opinion STO in not worthy of the name, and yes you guys are siting bugs and other stuff as proof of YOUR opinions.
I simply pointed out the truth, that all MMOs start out this way, and the rest is only your opinion, which is bases on a few days of BETA testing,,, its laughable!
Actually, as I understand it, All Perpetual did was "talk" about what they were going to do. They did a few renderings and if they actually did do any coding, according to cryptic, there was nothing there viable for them to use. So here you had a company who had the IP for what? 5 years, and all we ever got out of it was a few pictures and a lot of promises that they never intended on keeping. So here we are a couple years later with another company who is RELEASING the game to the public on Feb 2. I don't know about everyone else, but I would rather be able to play a game then just sit around talking about it like Perpetual did. Even if it means its completely different than their way of thinking. And I have to say that I think cryptic has done a good job for the short amount of time they have had the IP. Many still call doom and gloom for the game and I think they are full of crap. The game is going to thrive and only get better with age. So let em spread their doom, Us that are playing it, knows better.
(Sorry about my 'null' post - internet was being sluggish and posted it because of the fidgety browser.)
I agree with you Doomsday. It was all talk, I was just saying that was the orginal -planned- concept for the game, so what if Cryptic deviates from it? Its not big deal and yes, I would rather play then talk. But as I said, to go about including everything the OP mentioned would have taken much longer then 2 years and in this industry/genre if an MMO takes longer then 2 years to develop there's a very large chance it will be problematic or dodgy - technology advances. Most MMOs are released and then improved upon.
But, like you said - it was talk. I'd like something I can play
a) What's so special about being a captain when everyone else is a captain too? Not to mention when, in a few months time, every single player you meet will be an admiral. How immersive and believable.
b) I'm not talking about negotiating on behalf of the Federation. I'm talking on a ship to ship level.
c) So you found a mission where you got a henchman to shoot stuff. It doesn't change the gameplay. The mission might aswell have another federation ship helping you out instead - The "conversation" you had is just a big tease.
d) If it was truly exploration, then why are there constantly other federation ships in my mission areas?
I admit that true exploration is hard to do, but i have to point out (yet again) that i never said it should be the focus of the game. It should be an option, an option you don't have in STO.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
Could have been, should have been, may have been, blah blah blah. Ok I'm playing what is and I am enjoying myself immensely. You don't like the game? Ok that's fine, simple, don't play. Honestly I don't give a rats ass about your opinion, lol. In my eyes, my opinion is the one that matters to me. And I'm having fun. The bottom line is fun. This opinion is safe when used as directed. May be void in some states.
I'm old not dead. (Nov8tr is pronounced innovator)
Name a single bug that has been mentioned in the thread. I can't find any.
Another thing is that open beta is representative of how the game will look, play and feel for at least the first year, no matter how much the developers and publisher will want you to believe otherwise. It's always been that way and i very much doubt STO will break that tradition.
And lastly, this thread is all about expectations. Your only contribution so far has been your own opinion that i am clueless, aswell as not actually reading the thread seeing as you keep going on about bugs while no one in the thread has mentioned any.
Edit: Not going to bother replying to you anymore, apparently you registered only today just to flame at people for disagreeing with you.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA