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Star Trek Online: DevLog 5.0
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
The official site for Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online has published a new DevLog titled "Interactions in Action". Along with the log is a new in-game screen.
Hola, STO fans, and welcome back to the DevLog! There's something darned cool lurking in this entry, so let's skip the endearingly goofy banter and get right to it...
Over the past few DevLogs we've primarily focused on a sampling of the low-level processes of STO development, taking a peek at terrain generation, object design, and version testing, among other things.
Today we'd like to seriously shift gears, and start revealing a little bit about the actual game systems themselves. We'll start with a deceptively simple game mechanic that's deucedly difficult to nail down: the Interaction System.
What's the Interaction System you ask? In a nutshell, the Interaction System controls every non-combat, player-to-NPC interaction in the game. If you want to talk to a Ferengi shopkeeper, it goes through the Interaction System. Need to get some additional phaser training at the local Starfleet Academy? That's the Interaction System. Want to beam down to a planet? Interaction System. Responding to a distress call from a crippled starship? That's the Interaction System, too. In fact, when one is done tallying up the mission givers, trainers, vendors, Transwarp Terminal operators, Dahar Masters, helpful cadets and informative colonists, you'll find that there are just about as many peaceful interactions in Star Trek Online as the phasers-and-bat'leths variety. Put plainly, the Interaction System is the glue that holds all the other systems of STO together, transforming a bunch of disconnected (though spectacularly well designed and balanced) phaser fights into an actual game, so it's vitally important that we get it "just right."
;)
Read it all here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
oh noooooooo it looks like WoW graphics bahhh!
Ajax
there was a topic in the STO section any chance it can get merged here. Altho its kinda rantish from yours truly.
sorry. I wasn't really trying to be rantish. I don't think anything overly out of hand might wanna proof if it does get merged. Think there was one post by me I was sure that would get reported. But it didn't. So i guess it was not overly out of hand.
look at the astroids its friggin eve 2 graphics. whippie, thanks anyway!
if u look REALLY REALLY REALLY close at the surface of the ship...it almost looks like a sketch. To me it dont look like a real in game pic...theres no tags on any of the corners that would normaly say "Work in progress" or "not final build" just to prove its authentic...i think they think we are dumb or something.
You know, you're right. All around the ship, like they didn't completely clean up the layer before pasting from photoshop.
That ship looks photoshopped.
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Retired from: Neocron, Everquest, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, RF Online and Final Fantasy VII
Currently Playing : EvE Online.
That ship looks photoshopped.
So Sorry I meant Eve trinity....Happy now! So take a deep breath and go back to eating your fritos, ok? Thanks
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**** THEM!
The semi circular edges from the pasted ship is the most visible against the planet's coloring.
I can't believe they'd doctor their first in game screenshot.
Well, actually I can.
Dark and Light.
Ummm.... yeah..... almost believable devs.
But just......not.
No thanks.
If you want to talk to a Ferengi shopkeeper, it goes through the Interaction System.
"Please deposit 25 cents to talk to this merchant. <Deposit> <Cancel>"
Need to get some additional phaser training at the local Starfleet Academy?
"Please deposit 2 dollars for additional phaser training. <Deposit> <Cancel>"
Want to beam down to a planet?
"Please deposit 1 dollar to beam down to the planet. <Deposit> <Cancel>"
Responding to a distress call from a crippled starship?
"Please deposit 1.25 dollars to respond to this distress call. <Deposit> <Cancel>"
In fact, when one is done tallying (Tally??? Freudian slip?) up the mission givers, trainers, vendors, Transwarp Terminal operators, Dahar Masters, helpful cadets and informative colonists, you'll find that there are just about as many peaceful interactions in Star Trek Online as the phasers-and-bat'leths variety. All of which will be microtransacted for maximum enjoyment factor! After all, microtransactions enable the casual user to keep up with the hard core types! And who can afford 15 bucks a month? With microtransactions, you'll be forking that much over every day! So much easier to afford (my new Ferrari!).
Heheh.
This is a much better devlog than those previous, kudos to PE.
and another thing im surprised no one pointed out...was the ship itself..any and EVERY ST fan would take one look at that ship and would say that it wasnt modeled properly. Its wayyyy to quished together around the middle to back...not alot of ships in the federation fleet are like that...i think a few science starships are..but that ship is kinda like the sovereign class starships with minor modifications.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
Dubious as to whether it's faked or not, but any Trek nerd will tell you (me I guess) that a warp-capable starship cannot have hull between the warp nacelles. The nacelles require empty space between them in order to properly form a warp field bubble.
Otherwise those poor people standing on the decks when the warp field forms will get sort of squished, vapourised, etc..
Back to the drawing board PE..
As for people calling this a 'fake', don't expect much less from them here. Anything PE does gets trashed by this crowd.
Sure, put him on the line and I'll tell him
Personally I don't think the image is faked, though. It looks like an object texture to me, and if they have the texture skin, why bother copying it and pasting it over a model when they could just skin it onto the 3D object. No logic to that, and though I have no love for PE, I think naming the image fake is going a bit overboard on the PE bashing..
Edit: even the Enterprise E follows the canon technology designs. Voyager had nacelles that swept up so that they could create a warp field, and even the Defiant has angled-down nacelles. Look at any ship in Star Trek canon, they all follow that principle. As far as I can remember at least. Romulan Warbirds have a big fat empty space between nacelles, Klingons have down-swept wings, Dominion ships have nacelles that sit low on winglets.. etc, etc..
Fake pic or not, I don't care for the ship design. As a Star Trek fan, I was never ga ga over the Enterprise E.
Of course, I am one that believes dipolmancy involves a phaser and a smirk.
With that, you figure out which ship I want.
This Voyager-esque design doesn't "trip my trigger". As my ol' pappy would say, "Kinda looks like a monkey humped over a football."
Sure, put him on the line and I'll tell him
Personally I don't think the image is faked, though. It looks like an object texture to me, and if they have the texture skin, why bother copying it and pasting it over a model when they could just skin it onto the 3D object. No logic to that, and though I have no love for PE, I think naming the image fake is going a bit overboard on the PE bashing..
Edit: even the Enterprise E follows the canon technology designs. Voyager had nacelles that swept up so that they could create a warp field, and even the Defiant has angled-down nacelles. Look at any ship in Star Trek canon, they all follow that principle. As far as I can remember at least. Romulan Warbirds have a big fat empty space between nacelles, Klingons have down-swept wings, Dominion ships have nacelles that sit low on winglets.. etc, etc..
Someone said it looked pasted if you looked at it closely, so I did. And I saw an dotted line edge made of many semicircles. Look closely, as in get your face close to the screen, and you will see them, especially where the planet's color meets the ship model's edge.I'm just responding to what my I saw, not bending over backwards to bash PE. I agree that is very strange to doctor their first in game screenshot, but all I'm commenting on what I saw. I'm not trying to guess as to why they did it.
Is it possibly bloom effect that's causing it? I must admit I'm not really seeing it, but then my eyes are kinda tired..
While the ship's nacelles may be incorrect for Trek lore, we don't know if they also angle down for warp flight.
You guys are crazy though about the fake image. The 'semicircles' and other weird things are called 'artifacts'. Whenever you reduce the file size of a jpg, it reduces the quality and you get those strange dots.
Give a man fire and he''s warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he''s warm the rest of his life.
Wow. An incredibly painful read that basically said, "We have this thing called the Interaction System, we think it is a cool thing and it is surely not going to be mocked as being just another pretentious rename of a thing usually called "A User Interface", or UI. Be amazed at us as we pretend our future customers are dumber than a box of rocks."
I am just as big a trek fan as a PE hater. I really hope someone else ends up with the IP. I really do not expect anyone to due the IP justice that it deserves, but I would trust anyone else to deliver more than PE.