Originally posted by Interitus And it's not like people were unreasonable, more ideas then i can count were put forward on how to make feasible multipassanger ships with officers, but Cryptic didn't seem to care.
Looks like MMO devs are now competing with Mythic for 'biggest sabotage of a major IP'.
Cryptic WILL care when Trek fans stay away in droves. The game is looking nothing like ST to me.
I honestly don't think ST is good subject matter for an MMO. The aspects which appeal to fans will not appeal to the general MMORPG crowd, and vice-versa.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
YOU... SHOULD NEVER... EVER... EVER TRUST A GAME DEVELOPER!!! NEVER! They are theives and liars the whole lot of em.
[Insert Cryptic fanboy speech here.]
Bren
I will admit that I liked CoX and the way that Cryptic ran it with only a few minor exceptions. They may be better than say... EA or Ubisoft.
BUT...
YOU...
SHOULD NEVER...
EVER...
EVER
TRUST A GAME DEVELOPER!!!
NEVER!
They are theives and liars the whole lot of em. Life experience has tought me that this is ALWAYS true.
(Protip: Go to a private investigator someday and ask him to run a criminal background check on your favorite employee of your favorite game developer. I think you will be shocked by what you learn.)
You must have played Darkfall. Did AV screw you that bad...?
You must have played Darkfall. Did AV screw you that bad...?
No, I wasn't fooled by Darkfall. I had seen that exact same song and dance once before.
The game that got me was Shadowbane. Same stunt as Darkfall but five years sooner.
Dark and Light almost trapped me as well, but I escaped that one and got my refund at exactly the right moment. I'll never make the same mistake again... because I'll never make the mistake of trusting a game developer again.
I Havnt seen ONE space mmorpg where you can see the interior. It's obviously a luxury at the high end and it bothers me too mew
Star Wars Galaxies.
As for ships being too complicated. This was brought on by Cryptics approach. Many people didn't want the "everyone's a captain" system. People wanted to be Engineers or Science Officers. The blueprints for these ships exsist on a multitude of websites. The Expansion for Elite Force even had an entire explorable version of Voyager. But their biggest mistake which basically forces them to not be able to use ship interiors is planets. For whatever reason they added in planet surfaces which takes up space you could have used on ships. I don't know about anyone else, but when I watch Star Trek, the majority of it seems to take part on the ship.
And it's not like people were unreasonable, more ideas then i can count were put forward on how to make feasible multipassanger ships with officers, but Cryptic didn't seem to care.
I agree. I first didn't understand either why they had to implement planet surfaces but not ship interiors. If you have watched Star Trek then you would know that the majority of the time is spend on either the bridge or space stations (depending on which series you are watching). Planet surfaces is a much less common scenario so why they implement that but not ship interiors?
Easy, most devs these days seem to follow the path of least resistance, development time cost money so they figure they need to get something out fast so they can reap the profits. The time where creating a good game is over and now it is 99% about making profit so interesting features will lose out to profitable features and planet surfaces is far easier to implement than a ship interiors since the former has been done in all other MMORPGs where as the latter has been done in, what one MMORPG (SWG)?
That's the downside with a big name company like Turbine/Cryptic/Blizzard getting their hands on a license. They are far more interested in earning profit than making a good game with new, untested, innovative features. Just the state of the gaming industry I guess.
Cryptic does not seem to be your typical development studio. They have always been pretty open and honest about their games in the past and haven't really given us any reason not to trust them.
YOU...
SHOULD NEVER...
EVER...
EVER
TRUST A GAME DEVELOPER!!!
NEVER!
They are theives and liars the whole lot of em.
Especially Cryptic, who...
... sneak microtransactions into a game at the last minute, don't tell anyone, allow the news to get out via beta preview articles, continue not saying anything for months, censor threads on their forums where potential players ask for details, send staff into other mmos to recruit beta players, and use the word "demystifying" in a profane fashion...
Originally posted by Dani-AD I Havnt seen ONE space mmorpg where you can see the interior. It's obviously a luxury at the high end and it bothers me too mew
SWG as was mentioned, but also Earth & Beyond. Of course 3rd person or chase was always more enjoyable imo.
---
As for everyone being a captain, I don't think that is a big problem since most captains had actual skills other than saying "make it so" hehehe
But of course I simply have Klingon mentality and want to force Settlers to give me things... :P
Starfleet can just go bobble around with bridge crew games while I hop planet to planet bringing glory to my new empire… oh did I say that hah
I don't recall Earth & Beyond having interiors for SHIPS. They had them for space stations when you docked but it was actually pretty lame. The stations I visited generally had one room with a few NPCs and that was it. Overall I would say that the entire game was pretty lame and most features were only half-assed like that. Perhaps some of the larger ships that only high level players could get had interiors that I'm not aware of (I quit pretty quickly when it became obvious how much the game sucked) but I still doubt it would have been a worth while feature. I guess what I'm getting at is that we shouldn't be comparing this game to Earth & Beyond because there was a reason that game was the first major MMO to be shut down.
There is another game which has ship interiors and even makes players work in teams to operate starships. I won't mention its name though as its reputation is only better than Earth & Beyond because fewer people have heard of it.
I don't recall Earth & Beyond having interiors for SHIPS. They had them for space stations when you docked but it was actually pretty lame. The stations I visited generally had one room with a few NPCs and that was it. Overall I would say that the entire game was pretty lame and most features were only half-assed like that. Perhaps some of the larger ships that only high level players could get had interiors that I'm not aware of (I quit pretty quickly when it became obvious how much the game sucked) but I still doubt it would have been a worth while feature. I guess what I'm getting at is that we shouldn't be comparing this game to Earth & Beyond because there was a reason that game was the first major MMO to be shut down. There is another game which has ship interiors and even makes players work in teams to operate starships. I won't mention its name though as its reputation is only better than Earth & Beyond because fewer people have heard of it.
Actually EnB was cool, but the reason it was shut down was because EA wanted to push resources to SIMS Online of which they renamed EA Land and then shut down, and SIMS always being a limited release (only US servers). EnB never even had an expansion after two years which is like EA trying to kill the game off from the start. EnB certainly had SHIP interiors (every ship did), I have screenshots, maybe you didn’t play it or just played the demo for a few days? EnB was a fun game, just EA destroyed it as they do.
See? EnB had a bridge in every ship, and why don’t people remember? Because exterior view is always best, it’s what people generally play with all the camera rotations, not inside looking out. And who wants to run around an SWG floating house yacht? Really…
Actually EnB was cool, but the reason it was shut down was because EA wanted to push resources to SIMS Online of which they renamed EA Land and then shut down, and SIMS always being a limited release (only US servers). EnB never even had an expansion after two years which is like EA trying to kill the game off from the start. EnB certainly had SHIP interiors (every ship did), I have screenshots, maybe you didn’t play it or just played the demo for a few days? EnB was a fun game, just EA destroyed it as they do. See? EnB had a bridge in every ship, and why don’t people remember? Because exterior view is always best, it’s what people generally play with all the camera rotations, not inside looking out. And who wants to run around an SWG floating house yacht? Really…
I owned Earth & Beyond and played for several weeks. I don't recall it being a very "cool" game since the majority of the content seemed to revlove around leveling up and earning money so you could replace your current ship with another ship that was "better" by sole merit of the fact that it was bigger. For all intents and purposes it was Everquest in space, only with a lot less content. Compare this to a game like EvE where some of the best and most popular ships in the game are also some of the smallest and it takes many different types of ships to create an effective fighting force and you can see where Earth & Beyond had only a very loose understanding of what makes a space MMO truly great.
And I'm still 95% sure that there were no SHIP interiors. The way you keep calling the "interior" of ships in Earth & Beyond a "view" makes me think that you don't really know what an interior is. An interior is an actual AREA of the game world where your CHARACTER can walk about and preform actions. An alternate "view" of your ship where you can see the cockpit/bridge but you still are flying the ship in space is not an interior, its just a view. People asking for ship interiors expect them to be able to do MUCH more than simply provide an alternate viewpoint from which to fly your ship.
And who wants to run around an "SWG floating house yacht"? Apparently a lot of people do since they keep asking for games which inculde this feature. And from what I recall of my time in SWG, houses were quite popular (I had one myself) and if you had given people the option of using a SHIP as their house I think that is an option that MANY people would have gladly taken.
Originally posted by Raltar I owned Earth & Beyond and played for several weeks. I don't recall it being a very "cool" game since the majority of the content seemed to revlove around leveling up and earning money so you could replace your current ship with another ship that was "better" by sole merit of the fact that it was bigger. For all intents and purposes it was Everquest in space, only with a lot less content. Compare this to a game like EvE where some of the best and most popular ships in the game are also some of the smallest and it takes many different types of ships to create an effective fighting force and you can see where Earth & Beyond had only a very loose understanding of what makes a space MMO truly great. And I'm still 95% sure that there were no SHIP interiors. The way you keep calling the "interior" of ships in Earth & Beyond a "view" makes me think that you don't really know what an interior is. An interior is an actual AREA of the game world where your CHARACTER can walk about and preform actions. An alternate "view" of your ship where you can see the cockpit/bridge but you still are flying the ship in space is not an interior, its just a view. People asking for ship interiors expect them to be able to do MUCH more than simply provide an alternate viewpoint from which to fly your ship. And who wants to run around an "SWG floating house yacht"? Apparently a lot of people do since they keep asking for games which inculde this feature. And from what I recall of my time in SWG, houses were quite popular (I had one myself) and if you had given people the option of using a SHIP as their house I think that is an option that MANY people would have gladly taken.
You obviously not only didn’t play EnB for any noteworthy amount of time, but you also didn’t read my post in regards to there being not enough content. You compare it to EQ but with no content, but EQ is over ten years old and has too many expansions to count. EA killed EnB by not releasing any expansions in it’s short two year run. What do you expect?!? But playing for a couple weeks, you never got into any of the content for the game other than the newbie training.
By your definition of what true space ship interiors are, the only game in existence that has a “true” interior is SWG and their flying house yacht (one non-combat ship). What could you do with that? Drop furniture and have dorky nerd parties with your friends… lol. That is the comparison you make to?
As for EnB that you claim you played… if only for a few weeks or demo whatever… It had the bridge and controls. When you would open the map, it would come out of the console in the ship bridge, different look from the 3rd person view. When the ship pitched your character would lean with the ship etc. When you used your controls, your character would play along with your commands.
This idea you have is fantasy. What do you think you would do walking around, fix warp coils and other mundane work? It’s too novelty, junk that will be discarded for chase cams, short cut keys and tactical engagements. Making interiors like SWG is a huge waste of development time, just so people can drop a sofa and pretend and score points with some ships counselor or something.
You obviously not only didn’t play EnB for any noteworthy amount of time
The classic fanboy defense: "You didn't like the game?!? You obviously didn't play it long enough to get to the good part!"
And its lesser malformed clone: "You must have only played the free trial!" which actually makes even less sense as the whole point of a free trial is to allow the gamer to sample the features of the game. If the trial doesn't cast those features in such a light that would make people actually buy the game then that would seem to indicate that the game really may not be that good, or the developers simply couldn't make the game appear any good.
Drop it already. It was a shitty game. 90% of the people who tried it must have thought so because they all quit the game around the same time I did. That was why EA never made any expansions for it or released new content. Nobody would have been there to play the new content so why pay develoeprs good money to develop content that won't be seen? Blaming the death of a game nobody liked on the fact that there was no expansion for it is like saying that Asheron's Call 2 failed because it didn't have an expansion. Asheron's Call 2 failed because it was a shitty game that had nothing in common with the original. Earth & Beyond failed for similar reasons.
And you pretty much admitted you were wrong about EnB having ship interiors. I already pointed out that an alternate viewpoint to fly your ship from is not an "interior" by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing your character do stuff on an empty bridge that you have no control over is not an interior and as you pointed out yourself it was a worthless feature which nobody used... which actually describes most of the features of EnB now that you mention it.
Now you also claim that SWG is the ONLY game to use ship interiors? Guess who didn't read my post? I already pointed out there is another game out there which has ship interiors. I didn't mention its name before out of fear of calling down the wrath of fanboys from that game into this forum, but since we are already being assaulted by an Earth & Beyond fanboy I suppose things can't really get any wrose (unless an Auto Assualt fanboy stops by next) so here it is... StarQuest Online also has ship interiors. Not just an alternate view of the ship, an actual AREA inside of ships where players can walk around, interact and operate the ship. The game has some issues but we won't get into that here, suffice to say you were wrong. SWG was NOT the only game with REAL ship interiors.
I'm not going to get caught up in a big debate about what people would do with ship interiors. Because honestly I've never even played a game where I got to see any ship interiors. I played SWG, but I was never rich enough to buy the ships that were large enough to get interiors. And I haven't played StarQuest. So ship interiors or no ship interiors, it really doesn't matter to me. Some people clearly seem to like them though, which is probably why someone made StarQuest, why people whined until SWG added ship interiors and why people are still starting threads in this forum to complain that STO won't have ship interiors. Whatever they would use them for is their business as far as I'm concerned. I'm just pointing out that some people like them even if you don't.
1. You said you played it for a few weeks. This is an MMORPG, not an FPS! There is no way you could have gotten past newb levels to evaluate the game content.
2. I didn’t admit that there were no ship interiors, there were! I just explained to you a portion of the quality of the interior. Do you comprehend what the word “interior” means? It’s opposite to exterior. Try driving you car (if you are old enough to have one) from the exterior position. There is a difference, you will find out.
3. I have no real experience with StarQuest Online so I have no comment on that game. See, there is a difference between reviewing a game system with actual game time experience and simply making inaccurate speculations after playing a game for a few weeks from the newbie perspective. I suppose playing any game for more than a few weeks makes one a “fanboy” in your book though.
4. Another point, previously mentioned, comparing EnB to EverQuest, funny you should mention that but think forced grouping is somehow not an EQ type of system. You have ships that require 2-6 players to man, you get EQ in space, without a doubt. Yet, whether one liked forced grouping in EQ (I did), in a starship it would simply be a dismal failure. Yeah right, get a bunch of pick-up group members to not have their own play agenda and blissfully follow orders of one player. It’s an idea rooted in fantasy, nothing like it is, or how it always turns out in mmorpg’s where it never produces an enjoyable experience unless you have no life and play games your every waking moment. This isn’t RL, it’s a limited game, limited time, with limited interaction and limited control (you can't force-control other players). All you would have is small armadas of ships attacking their own side, bumping into planets and churning out 1337 speak. At least with all players being captains with varying skills (all captains have skills you know...), there could easily be epic tactical engagements like in DS9 (btw which was set almost entirely on a space station). They doing something like Starfleet Command for the ships would be far more fun than playing bridge games.
And by the way, maybe that is why I liked EnB just to mention, it was more like a cross between Starfleet Command and Wing Commander (much like WC in fact).
The exact same stuff I said last time... but now I have FOUR bullet points! HA HA HA! FEEL MY WRATH!
In reply to #1: Still the same Fanboy defense. If the developer can't make his game fun to play within a few WEEKS of gameplay then it simply isn't a fun game. Who in their right mind wants to play a game where you are still stuck in the "newb levels" after two weeks? That makes no sense to me and I'm assuming it made no sense to all the other people who disliked EnB and decided to quit.
In reply to #2: OHHHHHH! An Analogy! I love these!
First off, yes I have a car. Its a Jeep actually. Let me tell you about the "interior" of my Jeep. For starters, its an actual AREA of the world which I live in. This means that I can go and occupy that area of the world at will. Even better still, I don't have to actually be DRIVING the Jeep to occupy the interior. I can go and sit in the dirver seat without ever starting the Jeep. I can go sit in the passenger seat. I can sit in the back seat. Since its a Jeep and I take the soft top off in the summer I could even stand up, stick my head out the roof and yell at people driving by if I wanted to. Other people could come and sit in it too if they wanted. They could even do it when I'm not there. I can look in the glove box, mess with my tools I keep in the back, take the spare tire off of the tire carrier and do a whole huge list of other things. Pretty much anything you can do inside a vehicle I could do it in the "interior" of my Jeep, without ever having to be driving it...
Now let me ask you something a about the "interior" of your space ship in EnB. Could you occupy it at any time you wanted? Could you occupy it WITHOUT having to be flying the ship? Could other people visit the "interior" of your ship? Did you have the ability to move around in it, interact with objects inside of it or do any of that other stuff I can do in my Jeep? NO, you can't? I didn't think so. Thats because its not a REAL AREA of the game world. Its just another viewpoint for flying your ship, which is why it only existed and could only be seen while you were flying the ship. Clearly not an interior, just an optional viewpoint for flying.
In reply to #3: I have no experience with Starquest either! But if you recall, I only mentioned its existance to disprove your claim that SWG was the only game with ship interiors. Lets see if I can remember how that turned out... oh yeah! You were WRONG!
In reply to #4: I already said I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about what people do with ship interiors. Again, I'm just pointing out for you that they do exist, some people do like them and that is a fact you simply have to accept, like it or not.
There is nothing that should be particulary more difficult about making interior areas of a starship.... then making any of the other "instanced areas" that Cryptic is designing for thier away team missions.... A play space is a play space...regardless of whether it's a "dungeon" or the interior of your space-ship.
Now it MIGHT be a little difficult, just in terms of sheer volume, to design the full interior of something the size of an Enterprise class vessel including every last Jeffries tube (although SQO, a much smaller indy developer seems to have managed that just fine...despite other issues the game has). However, I don't think most of us on the interior side....would insist on that.
Probably most people would be satisfied just having a few key areas of a vessel (bridge, engineering, sickbay, etc) put in...with turbolifts connecting them.... could even treat each as a seperate instance. You wouldn't even neccesarly have to have more then 1 or 2 types of these designed per Race (thus all Fed vessels could use 1 of 2 bridge models).... you wouldn't even have to make them customizable.
Leaving aside whether it's a good game-play decision or not for the moment..... there is nothing about that from a technical perspective or resource usage perspective that should be particulary daunting.... I'd even call it a routiene task for an MMO these days. The only reason why it might be difficult from a technical perspective would be if they already purchased a pre-built engine (say from PE) that doesn't support modding that in....but I have no idea whether that is the case.
Making such areas "customizeable" shouldn't be beyond the pale for an AAA Developer either......most MMO's these days do manage to be able to put together some sort of "Housing" system for players.....and that's all that adding "customization" to interiors really is.
Now as far as functionality and controls for flying the ship are concerned.... that might be another issue.....but I don't think that would be too large of a hurdle to leap IF Cryptic WANTED to do so. Again look at SQO..... a small indy developer who was able to do this....and there are plenty of other games (MMO & FPS) like Battlefield series and WWII Online that support multi-player controled vehicles. So it shouldn't be that big of a hurdle from a technical/resource perspective to do.
It really, IMO, comes down to a design decision about the type of game Cryptic wants to make...as opposed to the type of game they COULD make. Needless to say, I'm very dissapointed with the directions they've chosen....but everyone is different and has different tastes...I'm sure they are making SOME people happy....how many, we'll get to see when the game launches....assuming Cryptic is able to take it to launch (which I'm sure they probably can).
Probably most people would be satisfied just having a few key areas of a vessel (bridge, engineering, sickbay, etc) put in...with turbolifts connecting them.... could even treat each as a seperate instance. You wouldn't even neccesarly have to have more then 1 or 2 types of these designed per Race (thus all Fed vessels could use 1 of 2 bridge models).... you wouldn't even have to make them customizable. Leaving aside whether it's a good game-play decision or not for the moment..... there is nothing about that from a technical perspective or resource usage perspective that should be particulary daunting.... I'd even call it a routiene task for an MMO these days.
I agree. It sounds a lot like the "Hall of Monuments" from Guild Wars. It was an instanced area that any character could enter, but the contents of the area and what you were able to do there changed based on the accomplishments of each character. I see no reason why the STO developers could not inculde similar instanced areas in their game to represent starship interiors.
This does not mean I'm going to endorse this idea or refuse to play the game if it is not inculded. I'm just saying that I see no reason why it cannot be done.
(And as I understand it, the game engine and all other work done by PE was thrown out. Cryptic started over with the Hero engine if I recall correctly.)
See? EnB had a bridge in every ship, and why don’t people remember? Because exterior view is always best, it’s what people generally play with all the camera rotations, not inside looking out. And who wants to run around an SWG floating house yacht? Really…
SWG had some ships with interiors, like here. And you could send someone off to the turrents on another part of the ship while the pilot stayed at the controls--like here. It was a LOT of fun. Ship interiors added another level of depth and gave you a place to rp when you didn't want to play the game, it became its own game to many.
Here's another ship from SWG. So as you see from the video, it can be done. If its not added, then vote with your money and don't buy it untl it is. That is the best way to be heard.
"It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees,"
See? EnB had a bridge in every ship, and why don’t people remember? Because exterior view is always best, it’s what people generally play with all the camera rotations, not inside looking out. And who wants to run around an SWG floating house yacht? Really…
SWG had some ships with interiors, like here. And you could send someone off to the turrents on another part of the ship while the pilot stayed at the controls--like here. It was a LOT of fun. Ship interiors added another level of depth and gave you a place to rp when you didn't want to play the game, it became its own game to many.
Here's another ship from SWG. So as you see from the video, it can be done. If its not added, then vote with your money and don't buy it untl it is. That is the best way to be heard.
This is exactly what I feel. Without ship interiors you lose the feeling of immersion and depth.
So disappointed with the way Cryptic has handled this.
Probably most people would be satisfied just having a few key areas of a vessel (bridge, engineering, sickbay, etc) put in...with turbolifts connecting them.... could even treat each as a seperate instance. You wouldn't even neccesarly have to have more then 1 or 2 types of these designed per Race (thus all Fed vessels could use 1 of 2 bridge models).... you wouldn't even have to make them customizable. Leaving aside whether it's a good game-play decision or not for the moment..... there is nothing about that from a technical perspective or resource usage perspective that should be particulary daunting.... I'd even call it a routiene task for an MMO these days.
I agree. It sounds a lot like the "Hall of Monuments" from Guild Wars. It was an instanced area that any character could enter, but the contents of the area and what you were able to do there changed based on the accomplishments of each character. I see no reason why the STO developers could not inculde similar instanced areas in their game to represent starship interiors.
This does not mean I'm going to endorse this idea or refuse to play the game if it is not inculded. I'm just saying that I see no reason why it cannot be done.
(And as I understand it, the game engine and all other work done by PE was thrown out. Cryptic started over with the Hero engine if I recall correctly.)
This is true that they could easily do ship interiors as private instances and I believe that eventually they will. What I get from what Cryptic has said on the issue is that they want fully functional and customizable interiors when they do it and that will take some time to implement. They could very easily put in some pretty window dressing interiors but if all those pretty LCARS displays do nothing you better believe people would bitch up a storm. While I too am very disappointed in their decision to leave interiors out at launch I at least kinda see where they are coming from on the issue. I've decided ultimately to give them a chance to come through eventually but if they don't have them in the game within a year after launch I don't see myself sticking around much beyond that.
Probably most people would be satisfied just having a few key areas of a vessel (bridge, engineering, sickbay, etc) put in...with turbolifts connecting them.... could even treat each as a seperate instance. You wouldn't even neccesarly have to have more then 1 or 2 types of these designed per Race (thus all Fed vessels could use 1 of 2 bridge models).... you wouldn't even have to make them customizable. Leaving aside whether it's a good game-play decision or not for the moment..... there is nothing about that from a technical perspective or resource usage perspective that should be particulary daunting.... I'd even call it a routiene task for an MMO these days.
I agree. It sounds a lot like the "Hall of Monuments" from Guild Wars. It was an instanced area that any character could enter, but the contents of the area and what you were able to do there changed based on the accomplishments of each character. I see no reason why the STO developers could not inculde similar instanced areas in their game to represent starship interiors.
This does not mean I'm going to endorse this idea or refuse to play the game if it is not inculded. I'm just saying that I see no reason why it cannot be done.
(And as I understand it, the game engine and all other work done by PE was thrown out. Cryptic started over with the Hero engine if I recall correctly.)
This is true that they could easily do ship interiors as private instances and I believe that eventually they will. What I get from what Cryptic has said on the issue is that they want fully functional and customizable interiors when they do it and that will take some time to implement. They could very easily put in some pretty window dressing interiors but if all those pretty LCARS displays do nothing you better believe people would bitch up a storm. While I too am very disappointed in their decision to leave interiors out at launch I at least kinda see where they are coming from on the issue. I've decided ultimately to give them a chance to come through eventually but if they don't have them in the game within a year after launch I don't see myself sticking around much beyond that.
Bren
I also feel the same way as you do, BUT one point though.
Adding ship interiors as a "private instances" seems iffy to me. See, I want the ship interiors to still be connected to the space environment around it. For example, in Star Wars Galaxies when you were in your yacht or whatever you could look out the windows and see the planets and stars of the space zone you were in. I want that to be in STO too. I want you to be able to look outside the bridge viewscreen and see the planet you are orbiting in real time. Same with all the windows and your Quarters windows.
Probably most people would be satisfied just having a few key areas of a vessel (bridge, engineering, sickbay, etc) put in...with turbolifts connecting them.... could even treat each as a seperate instance. You wouldn't even neccesarly have to have more then 1 or 2 types of these designed per Race (thus all Fed vessels could use 1 of 2 bridge models).... you wouldn't even have to make them customizable. Leaving aside whether it's a good game-play decision or not for the moment..... there is nothing about that from a technical perspective or resource usage perspective that should be particulary daunting.... I'd even call it a routiene task for an MMO these days.
I agree. It sounds a lot like the "Hall of Monuments" from Guild Wars. It was an instanced area that any character could enter, but the contents of the area and what you were able to do there changed based on the accomplishments of each character. I see no reason why the STO developers could not inculde similar instanced areas in their game to represent starship interiors.
This does not mean I'm going to endorse this idea or refuse to play the game if it is not inculded. I'm just saying that I see no reason why it cannot be done.
(And as I understand it, the game engine and all other work done by PE was thrown out. Cryptic started over with the Hero engine if I recall correctly.)
This is true that they could easily do ship interiors as private instances and I believe that eventually they will. What I get from what Cryptic has said on the issue is that they want fully functional and customizable interiors when they do it and that will take some time to implement. They could very easily put in some pretty window dressing interiors but if all those pretty LCARS displays do nothing you better believe people would bitch up a storm. While I too am very disappointed in their decision to leave interiors out at launch I at least kinda see where they are coming from on the issue. I've decided ultimately to give them a chance to come through eventually but if they don't have them in the game within a year after launch I don't see myself sticking around much beyond that.
Bren
I also feel the same way as you do, BUT one point though.
Adding ship interiors as a "private instances" seems iffy to me. See, I want the ship interiors to still be connected to the space environment around it. For example, in Star Wars Galaxies when you were in your yacht or whatever you could look out the windows and see the planets and stars of the space zone you were in. I want that to be in STO too. I want you to be able to look outside the bridge viewscreen and see the planet you are orbiting in real time. Same with all the windows and your Quarters windows.
This was done in SWG so it can be done in STO.
That's my only issue. And I just may be wrong.
Private instances can be linked to the outside game world in that manner. In fact the interiors on the POB ships in SWG are private instances I believe. The only thing is you can't directly influence the outside game world from inside the private instance. The instance itself has to do that. This is why just like SWG the only way you could affect the game world would be by interfacing with the instance itself(The ship's various controls).
I also agree that not including ship interiors in the game is a HUGE mistake on Cryptic's part...
Even with the everyone's a captain approach, players will still want to walk around and explore their ship. The inability to do that will totally destroy the Star Trek feeling of this game. It will also massively decrease its popularity. I am very surprised that Cryptic cannot see that...
I will still pick up this game and give it a try, but I have to say that I was much less interested as soon as I read about this. It is just such a shame that such a goldmine of an IP is being handled by a company who obviously doesn't have what it takes to deliver it properly... or is too clueless to know what that means.
See? EnB had a bridge in every ship, and why don’t people remember? Because exterior view is always best, it’s what people generally play with all the camera rotations, not inside looking out. And who wants to run around an SWG floating house yacht? Really…
SWG had some ships with interiors, like here. And you could send someone off to the turrents on another part of the ship while the pilot stayed at the controls--like here. It was a LOT of fun. Ship interiors added another level of depth and gave you a place to rp when you didn't want to play the game, it became its own game to many.
Here's another ship from SWG. So as you see from the video, it can be done. If its not added, then vote with your money and don't buy it untl it is. That is the best way to be heard.
I also agree that not including ship interiors in the game is a HUGE mistake on Cryptic's part... Even with the everyone's a captain approach, players will still want to walk around and explore their ship. The inability to do that will totally destroy the Star Trek feeling of this game. It will also massively decrease its popularity. I am very surprised that Cryptic cannot see that... I will still pick up this game and give it a try, but I have to say that I was much less interested as soon as I read about this. It is just such a shame that such a goldmine of an IP is being handled by a company who obviously doesn't have what it takes to deliver it properly... or is too clueless to know what that means.
I think you people are just the vocal minority.
I'd like a interactive bridge myself, but could care less about the rest of the ship.
Even that isn't some I care about enough to cry about, not having.
Comments
Looks like MMO devs are now competing with Mythic for 'biggest sabotage of a major IP'.
Cryptic WILL care when Trek fans stay away in droves. The game is looking nothing like ST to me.
I honestly don't think ST is good subject matter for an MMO. The aspects which appeal to fans will not appeal to the general MMORPG crowd, and vice-versa.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
[Insert Cryptic fanboy speech here.]
Bren
I will admit that I liked CoX and the way that Cryptic ran it with only a few minor exceptions. They may be better than say... EA or Ubisoft.
BUT...
YOU...
SHOULD NEVER...
EVER...
EVER
TRUST A GAME DEVELOPER!!!
NEVER!
They are theives and liars the whole lot of em. Life experience has tought me that this is ALWAYS true.
(Protip: Go to a private investigator someday and ask him to run a criminal background check on your favorite employee of your favorite game developer. I think you will be shocked by what you learn.)
You must have played Darkfall. Did AV screw you that bad...?
No, I wasn't fooled by Darkfall. I had seen that exact same song and dance once before.
The game that got me was Shadowbane. Same stunt as Darkfall but five years sooner.
Dark and Light almost trapped me as well, but I escaped that one and got my refund at exactly the right moment. I'll never make the same mistake again... because I'll never make the mistake of trusting a game developer again.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
I don't know, I'll believe cryptic can pull this off when I see it, other than that I just don't think they have what it takes to make the game work.
Star Wars Galaxies.
As for ships being too complicated. This was brought on by Cryptics approach. Many people didn't want the "everyone's a captain" system. People wanted to be Engineers or Science Officers. The blueprints for these ships exsist on a multitude of websites. The Expansion for Elite Force even had an entire explorable version of Voyager. But their biggest mistake which basically forces them to not be able to use ship interiors is planets. For whatever reason they added in planet surfaces which takes up space you could have used on ships. I don't know about anyone else, but when I watch Star Trek, the majority of it seems to take part on the ship.
And it's not like people were unreasonable, more ideas then i can count were put forward on how to make feasible multipassanger ships with officers, but Cryptic didn't seem to care.
I agree. I first didn't understand either why they had to implement planet surfaces but not ship interiors. If you have watched Star Trek then you would know that the majority of the time is spend on either the bridge or space stations (depending on which series you are watching). Planet surfaces is a much less common scenario so why they implement that but not ship interiors?
Easy, most devs these days seem to follow the path of least resistance, development time cost money so they figure they need to get something out fast so they can reap the profits. The time where creating a good game is over and now it is 99% about making profit so interesting features will lose out to profitable features and planet surfaces is far easier to implement than a ship interiors since the former has been done in all other MMORPGs where as the latter has been done in, what one MMORPG (SWG)?
That's the downside with a big name company like Turbine/Cryptic/Blizzard getting their hands on a license. They are far more interested in earning profit than making a good game with new, untested, innovative features. Just the state of the gaming industry I guess.
My gaming blog
YOU...
SHOULD NEVER...
EVER...
EVER
TRUST A GAME DEVELOPER!!!
NEVER!
They are theives and liars the whole lot of em.
Especially Cryptic, who...
... sneak microtransactions into a game at the last minute, don't tell anyone, allow the news to get out via beta preview articles, continue not saying anything for months, censor threads on their forums where potential players ask for details, send staff into other mmos to recruit beta players, and use the word "demystifying" in a profane fashion...
SWG as was mentioned, but also Earth & Beyond. Of course 3rd person or chase was always more enjoyable imo.
---
As for everyone being a captain, I don't think that is a big problem since most captains had actual skills other than saying "make it so" hehehe
But of course I simply have Klingon mentality and want to force Settlers to give me things... :P
Starfleet can just go bobble around with bridge crew games while I hop planet to planet bringing glory to my new empire… oh did I say that hah
Kaplah!
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
I don't recall Earth & Beyond having interiors for SHIPS. They had them for space stations when you docked but it was actually pretty lame. The stations I visited generally had one room with a few NPCs and that was it. Overall I would say that the entire game was pretty lame and most features were only half-assed like that. Perhaps some of the larger ships that only high level players could get had interiors that I'm not aware of (I quit pretty quickly when it became obvious how much the game sucked) but I still doubt it would have been a worth while feature. I guess what I'm getting at is that we shouldn't be comparing this game to Earth & Beyond because there was a reason that game was the first major MMO to be shut down.
There is another game which has ship interiors and even makes players work in teams to operate starships. I won't mention its name though as its reputation is only better than Earth & Beyond because fewer people have heard of it.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
Actually EnB was cool, but the reason it was shut down was because EA wanted to push resources to SIMS Online of which they renamed EA Land and then shut down, and SIMS always being a limited release (only US servers). EnB never even had an expansion after two years which is like EA trying to kill the game off from the start. EnB certainly had SHIP interiors (every ship did), I have screenshots, maybe you didn’t play it or just played the demo for a few days? EnB was a fun game, just EA destroyed it as they do.
See? EnB had a bridge in every ship, and why don’t people remember? Because exterior view is always best, it’s what people generally play with all the camera rotations, not inside looking out. And who wants to run around an SWG floating house yacht? Really…
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
I owned Earth & Beyond and played for several weeks. I don't recall it being a very "cool" game since the majority of the content seemed to revlove around leveling up and earning money so you could replace your current ship with another ship that was "better" by sole merit of the fact that it was bigger. For all intents and purposes it was Everquest in space, only with a lot less content. Compare this to a game like EvE where some of the best and most popular ships in the game are also some of the smallest and it takes many different types of ships to create an effective fighting force and you can see where Earth & Beyond had only a very loose understanding of what makes a space MMO truly great.
And I'm still 95% sure that there were no SHIP interiors. The way you keep calling the "interior" of ships in Earth & Beyond a "view" makes me think that you don't really know what an interior is. An interior is an actual AREA of the game world where your CHARACTER can walk about and preform actions. An alternate "view" of your ship where you can see the cockpit/bridge but you still are flying the ship in space is not an interior, its just a view. People asking for ship interiors expect them to be able to do MUCH more than simply provide an alternate viewpoint from which to fly your ship.
And who wants to run around an "SWG floating house yacht"? Apparently a lot of people do since they keep asking for games which inculde this feature. And from what I recall of my time in SWG, houses were quite popular (I had one myself) and if you had given people the option of using a SHIP as their house I think that is an option that MANY people would have gladly taken.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
You obviously not only didn’t play EnB for any noteworthy amount of time, but you also didn’t read my post in regards to there being not enough content. You compare it to EQ but with no content, but EQ is over ten years old and has too many expansions to count. EA killed EnB by not releasing any expansions in it’s short two year run. What do you expect?!? But playing for a couple weeks, you never got into any of the content for the game other than the newbie training.
By your definition of what true space ship interiors are, the only game in existence that has a “true” interior is SWG and their flying house yacht (one non-combat ship). What could you do with that? Drop furniture and have dorky nerd parties with your friends… lol. That is the comparison you make to?
As for EnB that you claim you played… if only for a few weeks or demo whatever… It had the bridge and controls. When you would open the map, it would come out of the console in the ship bridge, different look from the 3rd person view. When the ship pitched your character would lean with the ship etc. When you used your controls, your character would play along with your commands.
This idea you have is fantasy. What do you think you would do walking around, fix warp coils and other mundane work? It’s too novelty, junk that will be discarded for chase cams, short cut keys and tactical engagements. Making interiors like SWG is a huge waste of development time, just so people can drop a sofa and pretend and score points with some ships counselor or something.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
The classic fanboy defense: "You didn't like the game?!? You obviously didn't play it long enough to get to the good part!"
And its lesser malformed clone: "You must have only played the free trial!" which actually makes even less sense as the whole point of a free trial is to allow the gamer to sample the features of the game. If the trial doesn't cast those features in such a light that would make people actually buy the game then that would seem to indicate that the game really may not be that good, or the developers simply couldn't make the game appear any good.
Drop it already. It was a shitty game. 90% of the people who tried it must have thought so because they all quit the game around the same time I did. That was why EA never made any expansions for it or released new content. Nobody would have been there to play the new content so why pay develoeprs good money to develop content that won't be seen? Blaming the death of a game nobody liked on the fact that there was no expansion for it is like saying that Asheron's Call 2 failed because it didn't have an expansion. Asheron's Call 2 failed because it was a shitty game that had nothing in common with the original. Earth & Beyond failed for similar reasons.
And you pretty much admitted you were wrong about EnB having ship interiors. I already pointed out that an alternate viewpoint to fly your ship from is not an "interior" by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing your character do stuff on an empty bridge that you have no control over is not an interior and as you pointed out yourself it was a worthless feature which nobody used... which actually describes most of the features of EnB now that you mention it.
Now you also claim that SWG is the ONLY game to use ship interiors? Guess who didn't read my post? I already pointed out there is another game out there which has ship interiors. I didn't mention its name before out of fear of calling down the wrath of fanboys from that game into this forum, but since we are already being assaulted by an Earth & Beyond fanboy I suppose things can't really get any wrose (unless an Auto Assualt fanboy stops by next) so here it is... StarQuest Online also has ship interiors. Not just an alternate view of the ship, an actual AREA inside of ships where players can walk around, interact and operate the ship. The game has some issues but we won't get into that here, suffice to say you were wrong. SWG was NOT the only game with REAL ship interiors.
I'm not going to get caught up in a big debate about what people would do with ship interiors. Because honestly I've never even played a game where I got to see any ship interiors. I played SWG, but I was never rich enough to buy the ships that were large enough to get interiors. And I haven't played StarQuest. So ship interiors or no ship interiors, it really doesn't matter to me. Some people clearly seem to like them though, which is probably why someone made StarQuest, why people whined until SWG added ship interiors and why people are still starting threads in this forum to complain that STO won't have ship interiors. Whatever they would use them for is their business as far as I'm concerned. I'm just pointing out that some people like them even if you don't.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
1. You said you played it for a few weeks. This is an MMORPG, not an FPS! There is no way you could have gotten past newb levels to evaluate the game content.
2. I didn’t admit that there were no ship interiors, there were! I just explained to you a portion of the quality of the interior. Do you comprehend what the word “interior” means? It’s opposite to exterior. Try driving you car (if you are old enough to have one) from the exterior position. There is a difference, you will find out.
3. I have no real experience with StarQuest Online so I have no comment on that game. See, there is a difference between reviewing a game system with actual game time experience and simply making inaccurate speculations after playing a game for a few weeks from the newbie perspective. I suppose playing any game for more than a few weeks makes one a “fanboy” in your book though.
4. Another point, previously mentioned, comparing EnB to EverQuest, funny you should mention that but think forced grouping is somehow not an EQ type of system. You have ships that require 2-6 players to man, you get EQ in space, without a doubt. Yet, whether one liked forced grouping in EQ (I did), in a starship it would simply be a dismal failure. Yeah right, get a bunch of pick-up group members to not have their own play agenda and blissfully follow orders of one player. It’s an idea rooted in fantasy, nothing like it is, or how it always turns out in mmorpg’s where it never produces an enjoyable experience unless you have no life and play games your every waking moment. This isn’t RL, it’s a limited game, limited time, with limited interaction and limited control (you can't force-control other players). All you would have is small armadas of ships attacking their own side, bumping into planets and churning out 1337 speak. At least with all players being captains with varying skills (all captains have skills you know...), there could easily be epic tactical engagements like in DS9 (btw which was set almost entirely on a space station). They doing something like Starfleet Command for the ships would be far more fun than playing bridge games.
And by the way, maybe that is why I liked EnB just to mention, it was more like a cross between Starfleet Command and Wing Commander (much like WC in fact).
Peace out.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
In reply to #1: Still the same Fanboy defense. If the developer can't make his game fun to play within a few WEEKS of gameplay then it simply isn't a fun game. Who in their right mind wants to play a game where you are still stuck in the "newb levels" after two weeks? That makes no sense to me and I'm assuming it made no sense to all the other people who disliked EnB and decided to quit.
In reply to #2: OHHHHHH! An Analogy! I love these!
First off, yes I have a car. Its a Jeep actually. Let me tell you about the "interior" of my Jeep. For starters, its an actual AREA of the world which I live in. This means that I can go and occupy that area of the world at will. Even better still, I don't have to actually be DRIVING the Jeep to occupy the interior. I can go and sit in the dirver seat without ever starting the Jeep. I can go sit in the passenger seat. I can sit in the back seat. Since its a Jeep and I take the soft top off in the summer I could even stand up, stick my head out the roof and yell at people driving by if I wanted to. Other people could come and sit in it too if they wanted. They could even do it when I'm not there. I can look in the glove box, mess with my tools I keep in the back, take the spare tire off of the tire carrier and do a whole huge list of other things. Pretty much anything you can do inside a vehicle I could do it in the "interior" of my Jeep, without ever having to be driving it...
Now let me ask you something a about the "interior" of your space ship in EnB. Could you occupy it at any time you wanted? Could you occupy it WITHOUT having to be flying the ship? Could other people visit the "interior" of your ship? Did you have the ability to move around in it, interact with objects inside of it or do any of that other stuff I can do in my Jeep? NO, you can't? I didn't think so. Thats because its not a REAL AREA of the game world. Its just another viewpoint for flying your ship, which is why it only existed and could only be seen while you were flying the ship. Clearly not an interior, just an optional viewpoint for flying.
In reply to #3: I have no experience with Starquest either! But if you recall, I only mentioned its existance to disprove your claim that SWG was the only game with ship interiors. Lets see if I can remember how that turned out... oh yeah! You were WRONG!
In reply to #4: I already said I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about what people do with ship interiors. Again, I'm just pointing out for you that they do exist, some people do like them and that is a fact you simply have to accept, like it or not.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
There is nothing that should be particulary more difficult about making interior areas of a starship.... then making any of the other "instanced areas" that Cryptic is designing for thier away team missions.... A play space is a play space...regardless of whether it's a "dungeon" or the interior of your space-ship.
Now it MIGHT be a little difficult, just in terms of sheer volume, to design the full interior of something the size of an Enterprise class vessel including every last Jeffries tube (although SQO, a much smaller indy developer seems to have managed that just fine...despite other issues the game has). However, I don't think most of us on the interior side....would insist on that.
Probably most people would be satisfied just having a few key areas of a vessel (bridge, engineering, sickbay, etc) put in...with turbolifts connecting them.... could even treat each as a seperate instance. You wouldn't even neccesarly have to have more then 1 or 2 types of these designed per Race (thus all Fed vessels could use 1 of 2 bridge models).... you wouldn't even have to make them customizable.
Leaving aside whether it's a good game-play decision or not for the moment..... there is nothing about that from a technical perspective or resource usage perspective that should be particulary daunting.... I'd even call it a routiene task for an MMO these days. The only reason why it might be difficult from a technical perspective would be if they already purchased a pre-built engine (say from PE) that doesn't support modding that in....but I have no idea whether that is the case.
Making such areas "customizeable" shouldn't be beyond the pale for an AAA Developer either......most MMO's these days do manage to be able to put together some sort of "Housing" system for players.....and that's all that adding "customization" to interiors really is.
Now as far as functionality and controls for flying the ship are concerned.... that might be another issue.....but I don't think that would be too large of a hurdle to leap IF Cryptic WANTED to do so. Again look at SQO..... a small indy developer who was able to do this....and there are plenty of other games (MMO & FPS) like Battlefield series and WWII Online that support multi-player controled vehicles. So it shouldn't be that big of a hurdle from a technical/resource perspective to do.
It really, IMO, comes down to a design decision about the type of game Cryptic wants to make...as opposed to the type of game they COULD make. Needless to say, I'm very dissapointed with the directions they've chosen....but everyone is different and has different tastes...I'm sure they are making SOME people happy....how many, we'll get to see when the game launches....assuming Cryptic is able to take it to launch (which I'm sure they probably can).
I agree. It sounds a lot like the "Hall of Monuments" from Guild Wars. It was an instanced area that any character could enter, but the contents of the area and what you were able to do there changed based on the accomplishments of each character. I see no reason why the STO developers could not inculde similar instanced areas in their game to represent starship interiors.
This does not mean I'm going to endorse this idea or refuse to play the game if it is not inculded. I'm just saying that I see no reason why it cannot be done.
(And as I understand it, the game engine and all other work done by PE was thrown out. Cryptic started over with the Hero engine if I recall correctly.)
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
SWG had some ships with interiors, like here. And you could send someone off to the turrents on another part of the ship while the pilot stayed at the controls--like here. It was a LOT of fun. Ship interiors added another level of depth and gave you a place to rp when you didn't want to play the game, it became its own game to many.
Here's another ship from SWG. So as you see from the video, it can be done. If its not added, then vote with your money and don't buy it untl it is. That is the best way to be heard.
"It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees,"
SWG had some ships with interiors, like here. And you could send someone off to the turrents on another part of the ship while the pilot stayed at the controls--like here. It was a LOT of fun. Ship interiors added another level of depth and gave you a place to rp when you didn't want to play the game, it became its own game to many.
Here's another ship from SWG. So as you see from the video, it can be done. If its not added, then vote with your money and don't buy it untl it is. That is the best way to be heard.
This is exactly what I feel. Without ship interiors you lose the feeling of immersion and depth.
So disappointed with the way Cryptic has handled this.
I agree. It sounds a lot like the "Hall of Monuments" from Guild Wars. It was an instanced area that any character could enter, but the contents of the area and what you were able to do there changed based on the accomplishments of each character. I see no reason why the STO developers could not inculde similar instanced areas in their game to represent starship interiors.
This does not mean I'm going to endorse this idea or refuse to play the game if it is not inculded. I'm just saying that I see no reason why it cannot be done.
(And as I understand it, the game engine and all other work done by PE was thrown out. Cryptic started over with the Hero engine if I recall correctly.)
This is true that they could easily do ship interiors as private instances and I believe that eventually they will. What I get from what Cryptic has said on the issue is that they want fully functional and customizable interiors when they do it and that will take some time to implement. They could very easily put in some pretty window dressing interiors but if all those pretty LCARS displays do nothing you better believe people would bitch up a storm. While I too am very disappointed in their decision to leave interiors out at launch I at least kinda see where they are coming from on the issue. I've decided ultimately to give them a chance to come through eventually but if they don't have them in the game within a year after launch I don't see myself sticking around much beyond that.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
I agree. It sounds a lot like the "Hall of Monuments" from Guild Wars. It was an instanced area that any character could enter, but the contents of the area and what you were able to do there changed based on the accomplishments of each character. I see no reason why the STO developers could not inculde similar instanced areas in their game to represent starship interiors.
This does not mean I'm going to endorse this idea or refuse to play the game if it is not inculded. I'm just saying that I see no reason why it cannot be done.
(And as I understand it, the game engine and all other work done by PE was thrown out. Cryptic started over with the Hero engine if I recall correctly.)
This is true that they could easily do ship interiors as private instances and I believe that eventually they will. What I get from what Cryptic has said on the issue is that they want fully functional and customizable interiors when they do it and that will take some time to implement. They could very easily put in some pretty window dressing interiors but if all those pretty LCARS displays do nothing you better believe people would bitch up a storm. While I too am very disappointed in their decision to leave interiors out at launch I at least kinda see where they are coming from on the issue. I've decided ultimately to give them a chance to come through eventually but if they don't have them in the game within a year after launch I don't see myself sticking around much beyond that.
Bren
I also feel the same way as you do, BUT one point though.
Adding ship interiors as a "private instances" seems iffy to me. See, I want the ship interiors to still be connected to the space environment around it. For example, in Star Wars Galaxies when you were in your yacht or whatever you could look out the windows and see the planets and stars of the space zone you were in. I want that to be in STO too. I want you to be able to look outside the bridge viewscreen and see the planet you are orbiting in real time. Same with all the windows and your Quarters windows.
This was done in SWG so it can be done in STO.
That's my only issue. And I just may be wrong.
I agree. It sounds a lot like the "Hall of Monuments" from Guild Wars. It was an instanced area that any character could enter, but the contents of the area and what you were able to do there changed based on the accomplishments of each character. I see no reason why the STO developers could not inculde similar instanced areas in their game to represent starship interiors.
This does not mean I'm going to endorse this idea or refuse to play the game if it is not inculded. I'm just saying that I see no reason why it cannot be done.
(And as I understand it, the game engine and all other work done by PE was thrown out. Cryptic started over with the Hero engine if I recall correctly.)
This is true that they could easily do ship interiors as private instances and I believe that eventually they will. What I get from what Cryptic has said on the issue is that they want fully functional and customizable interiors when they do it and that will take some time to implement. They could very easily put in some pretty window dressing interiors but if all those pretty LCARS displays do nothing you better believe people would bitch up a storm. While I too am very disappointed in their decision to leave interiors out at launch I at least kinda see where they are coming from on the issue. I've decided ultimately to give them a chance to come through eventually but if they don't have them in the game within a year after launch I don't see myself sticking around much beyond that.
Bren
I also feel the same way as you do, BUT one point though.
Adding ship interiors as a "private instances" seems iffy to me. See, I want the ship interiors to still be connected to the space environment around it. For example, in Star Wars Galaxies when you were in your yacht or whatever you could look out the windows and see the planets and stars of the space zone you were in. I want that to be in STO too. I want you to be able to look outside the bridge viewscreen and see the planet you are orbiting in real time. Same with all the windows and your Quarters windows.
This was done in SWG so it can be done in STO.
That's my only issue. And I just may be wrong.
Private instances can be linked to the outside game world in that manner. In fact the interiors on the POB ships in SWG are private instances I believe. The only thing is you can't directly influence the outside game world from inside the private instance. The instance itself has to do that. This is why just like SWG the only way you could affect the game world would be by interfacing with the instance itself(The ship's various controls).
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
Was it an instance? I don't think it was because you could also see other player ships if they pulled up beside you.
"It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees,"
I also agree that not including ship interiors in the game is a HUGE mistake on Cryptic's part...
Even with the everyone's a captain approach, players will still want to walk around and explore their ship. The inability to do that will totally destroy the Star Trek feeling of this game. It will also massively decrease its popularity. I am very surprised that Cryptic cannot see that...
I will still pick up this game and give it a try, but I have to say that I was much less interested as soon as I read about this. It is just such a shame that such a goldmine of an IP is being handled by a company who obviously doesn't have what it takes to deliver it properly... or is too clueless to know what that means.
SWG had some ships with interiors, like here. And you could send someone off to the turrents on another part of the ship while the pilot stayed at the controls--like here. It was a LOT of fun. Ship interiors added another level of depth and gave you a place to rp when you didn't want to play the game, it became its own game to many.
Here's another ship from SWG. So as you see from the video, it can be done. If its not added, then vote with your money and don't buy it untl it is. That is the best way to be heard.
Those look awesome. What happened to that game?
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I think you people are just the vocal minority.
I'd like a interactive bridge myself, but could care less about the rest of the ship.
Even that isn't some I care about enough to cry about, not having.