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choices for sto: a great mmorpg that gets released, or a star trek simulator that never is realized.
warrior41
Member Posts: 65
No, I do not want a WoW in space, or a Legace Online or a Bridge Commander Online. But a good Star Trek MMORPG does not have to be those, and it appears Cryptic's STO will not be those, because there will be ship interiors for your ships, and there will be exploration, and social acitivites, in addition to combat, and in addition to Trek locations and flavor.
No, I did not like Star Trek Legacy, but that was a crap game.
Yes, I was fascinated by Perpetual's early vision of the game, back in 2004 and 2005. However, their amibition was so high that it never was more than a pipe dream. The photorealistic graphics was scrapped, the true to Federation gameplay that emphasises player crews within ships, was scrapped. Everything PE wanted to do was scrapped until STO was nothing but a crappy MMORPG.
Now Cryptic Studios will get the job done. And Trek fans can be happy, really.
I would like to have played Perpetual's early MMO. But I also want to do more than blog about a game, I want to play it. And the best chance to play it is to have realistic expectations. Cryptic will get the job done and may mostly everyone happy.
I support them.
Comments
good for you! cryptic are making pe's game except there will be no multiple player operated ships whatsoever. i know you loved pe's game so much which is why you will love cyrptics. oh sorry, they changed a few details. yes this is a totally different game< silly me
Wow Graff, keep typing like that and you'll be as cool as the capslock kid here soon :P
I don't see anything PE was trying to do becoming a reality... Somehow jumping into a captian's chair as a noob does not sound right .. and who ever heard of a starship without a crew....? from what i have seen we are headed for "Heros in Space" ...no wonder the hype meter dropped so far down.
Anyone got any extra dilithium crystals by chance?
Love Conquers All
This will likely be spammed in-game. Many times.
I just died a little on the inside.
Why can't they just combine Ultima Online(sandbox) and Starfllet Command (the Interplay game) ???
Something like would make most people happy, nothing will make everyone happy
No player crews is what kills me about this game.
I remember playing a MUD years ago, in the MOO format. Where No Man Has Gone Before. It was one of the top StarTrek MUDs and it was just so much fun being apart of a ships crew.
Some of us fans just want to see a ST MMO come to reality.
Sure it won't have everything that everyone wants, but that is impossible to do. The same thing can be said about every MMO in existance, none of them are perfect. And we can hardly expect Cryptic to put in all the features that PE had planned, they are two different companies, after all.
It doesn't bother me that all the stations are not going to be occupied by my close friends that play games, we are all in our late 30s early 40s with families, jobs and busy lives so there would be too many times where we can't all play at the same times. I just want an expansive ST universe that I can explore in, fight in and experience.
The game is years away from completion, so nothing is written in stone, yet. Cryptic is still working out all the ideas and are getting input by the ST fans. I have faith that even if the game isn't EXACTLY the way I picture an STO game to be, it will still be fun and exciting to experience.
I wanted to be a ship's engineer myself and work in the bowels of a starship (yes I am a Scotty fan), but I won't be dissapointed because I will still be able to play an MMO based on my absolutely favorite IP.
Perpetual's only ambition was to rip off investors, IMHO. However, I did like the ship interiors that were shown. So far Cryptic's graphics are disappointing. Hopefully they will lean more towards the realistic than the WoW when the game is released.
Correction. "Year" away, as in one. Fall 2009.
They can't possibly do the game a lot of us will want, so they're going to make the game they can make, and hope that it's enough for people to play. It might be, it might not be. We'll have to wait and see.
This might be slightly off topic, but your title about a Star Trek simulator that is never realized reminded me of a book I bought at a radio supply store back in the 1970s.
It was one of the very first computer books I ever bought and I believe it was titled "The Complete Starship".
If I recall correctly the book detailed ideas about how one could build a physical bridge that looked something like the old Enterprise, equip it with computers and other electronics of the day and then create a game where different people had different roles (helmsman, navigator, captain, weapons officer, science officer, engineer, etc.). Each player had his station on the bridge and his own instruments. These instruments may not have been only a computer monitor and keyboard but also dials, buttons, gauges, etc. all tied back to the simulation computer.
The game was for a group of people to play through a tactical simulation presented by the simulation computer like a Klingon attack or something similar. It never really said specifically how to program the simulation to accomplish this but obviously the guy who wrote the book had spent a lot of time thinking about creating an immersive Star Trek experience. Part of it read like a very high level architecture document with flow charts and the like (again, this is from memory) but little if any actual code.
One of the things that is really interesting to me as I remember some of these 70s era large-scale computer game design books (and there weren't many of them) is how small a role the computer really played. It was a part of the game but not necessarily the only part or even the main part. It was still a very analog world back then and special electronic peripherals and stand-alone electronics played a big part in the design. Books like this were largely an intellectual exercise because who had the money for one computer much less a whole room full of them?
Engineers seemed to think about social games much differently back then. Immersion could not take place through graphics and computer networks so other means were envisioned. Humans in the same room, playing roles, interacting with computers, machinery and each other in pursuit of a common goal. Social gaming was envisioned as a very FIRST person experience. It was also envisioned as something the participants had a large role in both creating and maintaining. They were mainly games that had an ending resulting in victory or defeat for the entire social group.
The games were meant to be events to look forward to... something that happened only when everyone could get together, maybe weekly or monthly. Planning and preparation for the game event were the part of the game that players could perform on their own time. The actual game events were to be relatively rare and memorable rather than something that happened every night at the flick of a switch.
Today, most modern MMOs that I can think of are THIRD person experiences where you control an avatar and his interaction with a virtual 3D world. That is a very different experience but one made possible by relatively cheap, ubiquitous and powerful PCs. This has made social gaming accessible to far more people (after all the Starship simulator of the 70s was vaporware) but I think there is something to be said for some of the original social gaming ideas of the analog age.
Its too bad that the starship simulation was never made. I really would have liked to have played it because I think most of what I am really missing from MMORPGs today has more to do with the first person and analog aspects of gameplay than the digital.
Anyway, just some random thoughts that came to mind after reading the thread.
I think that the reality of having a mulitplay star ship is just not going to work; as nice as it is in theory. Look at Star Wars, just about everyone wants to play a jedi. In Star Trek, you are always going to get the vast percentage of player base wanting to be captain.
So, if we start from that premise, we have a crew of pets. Customisable and scalable, star with a shuttle craft with a co-pilot, right up to the big boys with a large bridge crew. Pet behaviour (and talent/skills) can be control and point spread. Expert gunner (creates high DPS), expert engineer creates "tank class" space craft.
Same for first person, couple of Red shirt pets, maybe a higher science guy etc.
Star Trek first person shooters, and space simulators, have both been successful in the past, with decent design, then I believe that both can co-exist in a MMO.
For me, they need to have PvP/RvR; this is only way a large MMO will be successful. At the end of the days, players want to be Feds killing borg, Klingon killing everything, and Borg assimluating anything they can get their hand on. Now that would be a top MMO
i deleted the rest of the quote because it was all just crap once you do some reserch and dont play STO go and play SQO and best thing is this one is relesed and working and not a hope for by a big publisher who said its too hard where an indy company with no buget did it 2 years ago
Everyone thought Legacy was a crap game....I was so wanting to play it before it was released, bought it and was really disappointed, a buggy, unfinished game, with no real multiplayer support or servers....
Bridge Commander though well with mods like the Kobayshi Maru Mods made the game playable in multiplayer and a lot of other great mods by the community made the game a lot more playable as well I still have it installed on my harddrive and fire it up when I feel playing some multiplayer at time. Only problem I had with this game was the constant memory leaks that plauged the skirmishes and multiplayer and constant crashes.
This is just a thought but perhaps this might work... first picture Star Wars Galaxies jump to lightspeed where Ace pilots command a large ship with a minimum crew of about 5 people. Not exactly a long range starship but it does have the elements of community and the more favored group bonus. If you're familiar with the game you know the "Ace" rank is the only rank that can pilot these ships, so training in Star Fleet would have to be endured however lower level players could go on missions as crew manning what ever station was their profession.
Secondly let's look at Guild Wars where an individual can recruit "henchmen" (NPC chars) that know their job and will perform even die for you... some how combining these features might make STO a reality that still has the feel of a Star Trek universe, but as it was said... nothing is in stone yet...
aeneA
Love Conquers All
Quote from FireFly2003:
"So Say We All.... William Adama
For the number of times that SOE has destroyed the game I loved, even after it was very clear it was not what the majority wanted, I feel that they should start making donations to us- Paradox (SWG)"
Only took EA Games one time to destroy the game I loved, even after it was taken off line they still won't let any other company rebuild it... I feel they should start making concessions to us too- double paradox (E&B)
aeneA
Love Conquers All
Star Trek Online is going and will be the best MMORPG ever created
So true
I like the optimism. Unless they go bust, I'm sure they will produce something playable; however, the biggest problem I feel is integrating first person and ships.
Don't get me wrong, I would like to a ship crewed by players; however, having played MMOs for five years, it is my experience that players like soloing, and getting group together is always a pain, specifically if you have to have a tank, damage dealer, healer etc. before you can start.
As far as Starship simulators go, Starfleet Command (based on the tabletop game) was by far the best (other than the neutered DS version), and you could select and train the crew (NPC) as you went along. If they utilised was was good in that game, then they would be going a long way toward producing something really good. Obviously if you are really into spaceships, then there is Eve, but that is hardly for the casual gamer, and the Star Trek universe would obviously pull in a huge fanbase (who would never play Eve or even other MMOs)
Correction. "Year" away, as in one. Fall 2009.
They can't possibly do the game a lot of us will want, so they're going to make the game they can make, and hope that it's enough for people to play. It might be, it might not be. We'll have to wait and see.
Development team who listens to it's fanbase/testers?
Never seen such a critter.