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Star Trek Online: Latest Information Recap
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Star Trek Online Correspondent Troy Hammers writes this look at what's been going on recently in the world of Cryptic's crack at making an MMO from the popular IP.
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"Guess who's coming to dinner" - Pavel Chekov
That is of course the folks at Cryptic and all the STO followers, the big dogs have definitely eaten the last few weeks. There has been tons of new information on Star Trek Online with lots of gameplay footage and hands on impressions from the demo at PAX. With so many updates with PAX, PC Gamer Magazine and the Official Star Trek convention in Vegas, it's hard to soak it all in. PC Gamer shined a light on the game with multiple different covers, the first since the Game Informer article last fall.
Read the Latest Information Recap
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
"STO will be the closest any Trek game has come in bringing the experience to the players."
No, Its a ST DIKU version of Earth and beyond. This isn't star trek. Amazingly, you can take nine hits from a Klingon with a Bat'leth, even as a red shirt. This will be the game that brings standard MMO's to the trek fans, who won't like it. I also foresee parking issues at popular space stations, as everyone is a captain. It also seems to take 4 ships to beam down 4 players to a mission. Awesome.
The game has gone from suck, to blow.
Why they think the third time of using this format will do any better then the first two....
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I am by no means a Trek nerd - I have watched the major movies, TNG and a bit of Voyager and of course the original series - but even with this new material presented here I am still left with the impression that the developers just don't get what Star Trek is about... Looks like straight-forward arcade action to me, whereas a complex 'metagame' is what would make a Star Trek game truly "star-trekky".
An awful lot of MMOs seem to treat the IP as little more than a lure to snag buyers who don't know any better.
Not surprising, as feature films have been doing a lot of that lately - Underdog, Get Smart, GI Joe, Dragonball, etc.
I am on record here as saying that Trek is probably not a good IP for an MMO. I can't really imagine a more group-reliant setting than flying around the galaxy many light years from any other posible teammates.
The game (to catch the spirit of Trek) would require almost exclusively group content. I could see players assigned to a 'ship' and having only that small pool of characters to group with (having NPCs to replace offline players). That would be a very interesting and unusual system to have in an MMO. I would be interested in trying something like that, but I don't think it would be all that popular.
Cryptic's STO looks like it might be a decent space battle game, but it won't be Trek, by any means.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Reading is FUN-demental
it was stated that each player is a captain and they have a comand crew they beam down with. So its you + npc companions...
Humm now where havei heard that concepts before...
Oh right...
Guild Wars
I agree with the article, if not just to oppose all the hate & glad to see the info out
I don't like any of cryptic's current titles, but as a Star Trek fan...what they've provived with the MMO seems interesting to see at the least. It has reuse from other MMOs, it won't be anywhere what the fans want completely, it will have RMT, and there will be infinite amounts of hate...
But regardless, it's at least something to be unique as a 'sum of its parts' and maybe something to hold those who are currently "MMOless" till later next year,or (being extemely optimistic) maybe longer. I look forward to the beta to see its current condition and see if its polish is as smooth as the facade seems at this moment in time...and of course its always fun finding some qwerky bugs here & there
I am going to sit back and take the wait and see approach, I can't bash it because I have never played it, I hope that either STO or the Old Republic is worth playing, I am really burned out on the whole sword and shield mmo's I need some SciFi..
I like some of the concepts I read about, I have been playing mmo's for over 10 years, I have seen the hype around games, and none of them have lived up to the hype, so I don't get hyped over anything, I am not a dev so I don't try to be, I play the game for the fun factor, if I enjoy the game thats all I care about... crossing fingers for a fun Star Trek based game, thats all I am looking for....:)
Amen.
Frankly, STO sounds pretty good to me thus far.
It sounds like not only a fairly good IP-to-MMO conversion (imo) but also just a fun game structure regardless of whether it is Star Trek or some other, wholly original sci-fi universe. The fact that it is such a familiar IP to many means some people will never be satisfied with it, as happened with LotRO.
But I'm inclined to be very lenient regarding "IP-correctness" provided the game is fun to play.
"Star Trek Online will be the first MMORPG to feature space and ground combat at launch."
-Not correct.
StarQuest featured space, ground, AND inside ship/station character combat at launch.
Say what they want about a real trek experience, I'll believe it when I feel it. Can't wait to try it for myself, I hope their not overhyping that fact because Star Trek is to awesome to be ruined in another bad game.
I'm a big Star Trek fan and I will not be playing this game. Poor, poor design decisions.
Yeah same deal here. could be a great game but just in the hands of the wrong company
Yeah same deal here. could be a great game but just in the hands of the wrong company
I have a feeling that almost any real fan of Star Trek (and not the new movie, which was good but wasnt Star Trek) will not like the direction of this game. As it looks right now i wont be playing this game and thats a huge dissapointment because i wanted it to have a Star Trek feel not a Star Wars one. I hope that someone designs a MMO that could do Star Trek justice but i highly doubt that it will happen.
Cryptic isn't selling this game. Which isn't surprising because it doesn't look like they have much to work with. I like how he said they weren't interested in a game where you had to run down to the transporter room or mess with a wrench in engineering; translation = half assed.
So far I haven't heard anything in or about this game that excites me. I watched the video that was linked and seeing the ship stuck in outside view just made me loose more interest. I was really looking forward to playing this, but I refuse to waste anymore money on half assed attempts to make a quick buck of the IP's name.
At least Bioware is selling their game. Even as I tried to do a wait and see type approach to Swtor, I got caught up in what they were selling.
"It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees,"
Problems with a Star Trek MMO : 1) There is no money within the Federation. Hello matter replicators! 2) Most Federation Star ships are the products of the expert labor of millions of people backed by the technical knowledge of entire planets. They are "given out" to a very narrow set of people who have undergone intense selection and training AND are part of a military-style chain of command. No one goes off to "do his own thing" with a Federation warship. 3) Star ships seem to require a crew of 50+ highly trained people. 4) Ranged weapons are capable of killing people on the surface of planets when fired from orbit above a planet. 5) Transport technology is capable of relocating people from any one location to any other location within a few seconds.
Yeah, sounds like a great setting for an MMO where I get to go off on my own and blast stuff and loot the corpses. Right. <sarcasm />
While possibly delivering a satisfying video game experience, I don't see how what's being offered so far could possibly deliver a satisfying Star Trek MMORPG experience.
Im sorry but if they want to appeal to Star Trek fans (which is secondary to selling as many subs as possible) they should have spent 5 years developing a "sandbox" World Simulator MMORPG. There would be combat (ground and Space) but of equal importance is science, exploration and diplomacy based on the culture you choose. Ships command structure semi controled by NPC orders from Starfleet but governed with player interaction. Ships could be handled in clusters of players with teams solving problems. Its not always one hero, one solution. Kirk knew he was only as good as his ship and crew in a spot. He needed a comptent Scotty to beam him out, a top rated McCoy to shoot him Tri-oxyen and Spock to meld with that alien chick to make sure she was getting his meaning. These same characters are now just souless NPC AI's on board a ship with only one player in this MMO.
I know, I know ... "But science and diplomacy are no fun and all I want to do is shoot Klingons." Then you just don't get what Star Trek is about. All you will get is another MMOG combat system with a faux Star Trek skin.
"I will not play a MMO that makes my gameplay dependent on others." Then you don't want to share your love of MMO's or Star Trek with others? If you are playing to build great experiance for yourself then show off to others who solo, why? No body will care to look at your badge list or your bio. More than likely they have done the same things as you.
Star Trek is about challenges but it looks like Cryptic didn't see it that way in development. Thats been the history of most Star Trek electronic games.
The list is really too long on how it delievers a Trek experience, more so than any Trek game to date, based of what were seeing. I understand some of the concerns, but I think some of you will really miss out if you already pan it.
Star Trek Online Correspondent
MMORPG.com
"I don't fear failure. I only fear the slowing up of the engine inside of me which is saying, "Keep going, someone must be on top, why not you?"
-Patton
Hey- I thought Get Smart was a really fun movie!
I agree with everything else though... Seeing wayyyy too many external shots of the ships lately.
Strap the captain's chair to the hull, folks!
I'm just waiting for a F2P overhyped sandbox WoW clone with full PVP, epic raid bosses, instanced group content, and Crysis-quality graphics to come out. That, or something fun.
What a bunch of sour pusses! Other than they aren't going to let us group on the same ship and play a crew member of a starship (couldn't be more boring in my opinion), they seem to be on track with what makes a game fun! All you doom and gloom bunch only think of Star Trek with a limited Federation point of view, you miss the whole boat of the Klingon intrique! If you read the reviews you would know there is going to be plenty of exploration that will be almost limitless as they seem to have a planet generator. What possible fun could there be travelling through space as a communicator/helmsman/redshirt/whatever, 99% of the time you would have absolutely nothing to do while travelling through lonely space or in the missions for that matter? Well I suppose you could split screen your computer and whine on MMorpg.com all the while your playing a totally boring game lol! I'll play the Klingon side and conquer you weaklings, should be an easy task as you Federation types have a singluarly limited view of what this game should be or is about!
I for one am very much looking forward.
Thanks for the recap.
I am owner of Hailing Frequency, so I just wanna say thanks to Troy for posting up our content!
Errr - You folks here that are poo-pooing Star Trek Online, saying that -"this is not the game that Star Trek folks want" - I just wanna take a moment to say, that as a guy who is in touch with the day to day workings of Star Trek Gaming - you are wrong.
I have 2400 members of my forum who are all dedicated Star Trek Gamers and are all looking forward to Star Trek Online. We have over 40,000 listeners to our Star Trek Gaming Podcast every month, 95% of which are hard core trek fans and 87% of which are looking forward to STO (according to recent surveys).
So those handful of you who are not looking forward to STO because its not EXACTLY the game you want? Either go play something else, or make your own game - but dont presume to say that you know what "Star Trek Fans" as a whole group want, because you are in the minority and you are wrong.
Anyway - Thanks once again to Troy for posting up our stuff, if you folks want more STO PAX Goodie - check out this 8 minute GAMEPLAY video we took and this 20 minute interview we did with Craig Zinkevich when we had lunch with him
www.youtube.com/watch
www.youtube.com/watch
hailingfrequency.com - the number 1 source for information and discussion on STO and Star Trek Gaming
Wow I forgot about Hailing Frequency, used to frequent there a lot for Armada 1 and 2. Was part of ACH (clanhunters) back in the day.
Thanks for the links! I agree ST:O will appeal to many a fan.
The list is really too long on how it delievers a Trek experience, more so than any Trek game to date, based of what were seeing. I understand some of the concerns, but I think some of you will really miss out if you already pan it.
For all that the Star Trek universe entails, I don't see much more other than using lore names and graphics. And though I don't think I'm panning it, since I'm not saying the game will be bad, just that imo it doesn't seem to live up to the Star Trek IP based on what I know, I'll give any MMO a shot with a free trial. So I won't be missing out, if they pull it off. But in the context of an MMORPG, from what I've seen offered, I see a simplistic space combat sim + single player rpg with multiplayer.
Like I said, could be fun video game, but doesn't come close to what I expect from an MMORPG based on Star Trek.
I agree with MMO_Doubter, the IP feels pasted on top of the game they wanted to make just for the lure.
Ahh, the plaintive cry of the fanboi: You can't discuss our game! Go Away!
Look, discussing the good and bad of the game, ESPECIALLY during its dev cycle is precisely what these forums are about. Besides as admitted "dedicated Star Trek gamers" that are "all looking forward to" STO, not only can your opinion be discounted because its silly to think a game you know so little about is going to be so good, and that everyone who doesn't agree is wrong, but also being so admittedly biased, you prove MMO_Doubter's idea that the IP is being used as a lure.
How come I have the feeling that, and this is just my assumption, by the way the posts are going, none of you know what a "genuine Star Trek Experience" is?
I am not saying Cryptics take is a good one, I just see it spewed over and over again. What do you expect the universe, or more importantly, the gameplay, to be like? I enjoyed the series, and I like the last movie a lot (which "isn't" Star Trek) to a lot of people. Well what the hell is Star Trek? Because if I just pin it to the older series, or even some of the books, there is no way in hell I want to play any adaptation of that.
They were great stories, that in my opinion, suck as any sort of playable media. The combat was always boring as hell in the movies/series, because that wasn't what it was about.
Every time I listen to Trekky fans argue, they all have severely different opinions on what canon/series they enjoyed the best and why. How is anyone going to please them with a game adaptation from who-knows-where inspiration.
I think it'll be a neat game. Screw what I know about Star Trek, or don't know, which is a lot more, if the fun factor is there, I couldn't give a rat's ass how true to "Star Trek" it is. It's Cryptic's Star Trek. It'll never be any one elses.