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Bridge options
azucar
Member Posts: 20
I like that we all have bridges for our ships and that you can change them to fit your taste..but besides it just being a doll house what is it for? and why haven't we got options to do more on them?
one of the main aspects of all star trek shows and movies is that the bridge plays a huge role in the story
and in the action of all the shows and movies. a few questions after 2 years we haven't got as of yet.
1. why can't we plot a course from the bridge?
2. why can't we use the " On Screen " { the screen that's on all our ships } to turn in or accept missions?
3. why can't we have a fewer ahead option to watch planets and stars pass by as we move passed them on the screen ?
and since were on this topic why isn't there a tactical view that we can make use of the screen while on the bridge?
all these seems like a no brainier when you think about and would certainly add to the immersion being in the star trek universe.
so as a note to the devs and the rest of the community how would you like to have these options and how do you think it would help star trek online?
thank you for your time and thoughts
Comments
Your suggestions are very good ones and these have all been suggested since before STO went into open BETA. If you poke around on the official STO forums, you may be able to find all the old posts on the subject. The most common response from Cryptic was that it would take an inordinate amount of work (and therefore not cost effective) to make bridges functional in the way that you have suggested, which means they will not be adding any meaningful functionality to them in the forseeable (eg. never) future.
It is a shame too as a big part of Trek takes place on the bridge of a starship.
Might be able to find some in the forums here too.
But you'd think they could at least make them a sensible size.
A lot of what you're complaining about was covered long ago. You forgot my favorite threadnaught 3-D flight combat. Games made and done and everyone seems to agree it's not bad . Which means since it's free I'll play , but I wouldn't pay for this steaming pile of dung and it might be amusing for a short period. The games been a money losing enterprise ( pun ) since launch. You just can't compensate for poor game design , that's why PW made Crpytic go back and redo the NWN version they planned on releasing. They were going to release a reskinned version of CO and we all know how that worked out the first time. The third time would have been a disaster.
They cannot make them a sensible size. Cryptic has already posted that the issue has to do with the camera inside their game engine. Personally, I think it is an excuse on their part. The Prometheus Bridge pack are close to what "normal" scale would be for a bridge. Cryptic simply does not wat to make the effort to correct them, which is a shame.
Click the link below and watch the 30 second tv ad that ran at launch. It has 3 scenes of commanding from the bridge (4 if you count the Klingon). At about 18 seconds in there's a scene that depicts exactly what the OP wanted. And that's all you'll ever see of that sort of action. STO wasn't created to be an immersive experience for Trekies. It was a hack job of CO, and it plays like it. Two years in and the game is still lacking.
http://www.ign.com/videos/2010/01/29/star-trek-online-pc-games-clip-commercial-30-second-tv-spot
wow now that's just shamless in my way of thinking. when I watch this im thinking yeah i wanna play that! but when i log in im looking for that game. where is it ?
Don't they just show a bunch of people standing up in cinematic style and shaking fists at the screen?
You can emote that if you want lol
No, they show a bunch of people standing up in a cinematic style and shaking fists in front of a
"WORKING VIEW SCREEN" from the bridge.
Activision did a far, far better job using the bridge a decade ago with Star Trek: Bridge Commander. You could switch between engineering, command or tactical views on the bridge. You could also switch cameras and get a better exterior view of the starship combat than you'll ever have with STO.
I always find it amazing how folks can be so "blown away" by the ship combat in STO. It really is nothing new. Again, this was already done much better in Star Trek: Bridge Commander. Had Cryptic actually tried to build a decent space game rather than porting over CO and re-skinning it, they may have been able to do it right. In terms of ever getting bridge combat or any meaningful functionality on your bridge, that ship has sailed. Search through the official STO forums for Dev posts on the subject. It would require an engine rework/rewrite which will never happen.
I never expected it to be bridge commander tbh.
You know it wouldnt be hard to make the game play directly from the bridge itself. The Odyssey class screen is huge and can show the whole frontal arc if it was made that way. All you would need is a more defined tactical map off to the side and have an icon bar over the heads of your BOFF's around you.
Thinking back to bridge commander, I tried setting it up with voice commands. It worked somewhat, but now voice recognition is so much better it could actually work .
Nor should it be Bridge Commander. However, Bridge Combat and overall use of the ship interiors could be designed and executed much, much better than it is in STO. PC games a decade ago could do it.
Yeah it could, i guess *shrug*
in a way i feel like were going backwards with star trek games. bridge commander came out in 2002.
and STO came out in 2010. how can there not be an option to have a bridge options? but what we got was a doll house.
if the games from the far past can pull it off why can't STO?
That excuse of theirs is pure bs; the easiest fix for those 'camera issues' would be to do what every other game that has had them does: Let the player scroll into first person mode. I've lost track of the number of MMOs where I zone in or out of the building with my camera scrolled all the way out, and there's some issue. Every time that happens, scrolling the camera in fixes it.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Because Cryptic tried to develop two MMOs with overlapping schedules, foolishly agreed to the very short time limit CBS gave them, and then Jack came along and demanded that Klingons be in at launch when they clearly didn't have enough time to finish the Federation side.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
You forgot to mention that CO was initially meant to be a console game with a Marvel moniker inconjunction with Microsoft . I suppose it was aimed at DCUO. Then Marvel pulled the plug , Cryptic was left with an optimized engine of CoX for console use.
Cryptic was in a panick at that point , landed CO and projected that it wasn't going to be as well recieved as a Marvel version. They noticed the ST Ip became availible and took on the project without modifying the release date. Hence your above statement .Cryptic also needed capital to finance the development of their two games . Atari bought Jack's sales pitch and Cryptic , but Atari's the bad guys for keeping Cryptic to it's contractual obligations.
I even recall both games being advertised as future console releases . Problem was that Cryptic hadn't finalized an agreement with Microsoft and Microsoft wasn't going to play softball with Cryptic over pricing. So back just before Beta ( STO ) began it was announced that the game would be PC only. So here you had a console game engine , meant for a comic book setting , never intended to be in first person view adapted for a sci-fi game. They never worked on the camera coding because they never forsaw it being an issue for the original intended purpose . Marvel's version of CoX. Ground combat first person is really a mechanic from CO ,and it's over the shoulder. Bottom line , they made horrible design decisions , based on promises that should never have made nor kept. Cryptic should be a case study in how not to do business in the gaming industry.
It was my understanding that the release date was insisted upon by CBS, being the originally scheduled release date that Perpetual was supposed to hit. Then again that could be Cryptic's usual spin on how it's always someone else's fault, and not theirs.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
It's a two way street . CBS doesn't get money if the game is never made or the IP taken on as a project. I have to agree this seems more like a tale woven by Craptic, to justify a poor product. It seems it's everyone elses fault , but Craptic.