Okay so I was browsing around a bit because I haven't read about STO for a good year.  Anyways I just found out that they have scrapped ship interiors.  This is possibly the worst decision the developers could have made.

First of all, part of what intrigued me about an MMORPG in the Star Trek universe was being able to walk around and explore the different parts of ships that we have grown to love vicariously through the various television series.  I imagined walking into engineering, seeing the warp core in its full glory, and going to the bridge with its huge viewscreen and people working away. 

Not including this is like cheating the fans in a way.  It takes a huge amount of immersiveness out of the game, and observing a ship in 3rd person really removes you from the game world. 

I can't believe they would make such a dumb decision.  I couldn't care less about this game anymore, nor could I see any possible justification for this aside from the developers being extremely lazy and lacking in talent. 

RIP Star Trek Online.

I feel the exact same way.

I am not buying STO for this very reason.

There will be plenty of other MOOs to play very soon.

PE killed their own game before it even came out, quicker than any game reviewer or hateboi ever could hope to.

Main reason I won't even look at Gods and Heroes anymore, either.

I like Star Trek but i am not one of these huge "trekie" fans or whatever you call them. I like Star Trek as a i like a lot of other series/movies/franchises. I only like sandbox-type MMOGs and STO hasn't ever been planned as one, and still is not planned as anything like a sand-box game. For that reason, when I first heard about all the non-sandbox gameplay, I was nearly totally uninterested in the game. The only thing that interested me was the fact it was Star Trek. Even with that, as I am not a "trekie" and just a normal person who likes ST, I was not anticipating the game or significantly interested in it at all. It was just another MMO that might be slightly more interesting than the rest. However, when I heard that there would be player-ship interiors and that the game would be based on heavy team-work with different players manning their stations INSIDE the ship, doing their personal vitally-important job and working together, in a star trek environment like the series/movies....it sounded incredibly refreshing and made my hype/anticipation meter for the game JUMP big time. Sure, I still was more interested in Darkfall Online (which I am under no illusion that it is *likely* it is not vaporware...maybe it is...maybe it isn't...if it is, so what...i'm not *counting* on it being released)...however other than that MMORPG, and MMORTS games (all of which are in almost non-existent states, no where near serious development atm), STO was the one right under Darkfall Online that I was most anticipating.

After I heard it would just be another EVE-Online (except without all the advanced features, without all the complexity, without all the player interaction...and the only pro over EVE will probably be a thousand times easier to get started in the game....but other than that, all cons) without player ship interiors, STO officially dropped to the very bottom of my list (even more so than it was before I heard about player-ship interiors). Why even more so? Because now instead of feeling neutral toward the company's ability to deliver on its promises and its interest in satisfying the player-base...I now have a negative feeling towards PE and I sincerely believe STO, unless the direction changes back to the original plans, will be just WoW in space (No I am not a Blizzard hater, they are just a company making a profit like all the rest, and I realize WoW is just a clone of the simple-based, boring-based, skilless-gameplay games before it) with absolutely no innovations, originality, or anything more fun than any other MMORPG out there.

I agree that this game is doomed to nothing more than "survivability" (just with a player base to justify keeping it going and thats it...perhaps it will even actually make a little profit if it is actually released) if the current plans remained unchanged. It won't be big enough to have the priviledge to be called a "success". Oh well.

well at least they made our decisions on buying the game easy.  I was giving this game real thought until i heard that they dropped ship interiors.  owell

Just another EVE Online? Yeah, because EVE lets you have a controllable character avatar, multiple people operating a single ship, beam into enemy ships, down to planets to explore ground environments and go on away missions, explore interactive space stations and tour the interiors of the large capital ships performing character based duties. Sure. Oh, WoW in space, make your mind up... which one is it? I see people doing this everywhere it's really funny, they just pull and grab bits and pieces of other MMOs and say STO is going to be like that. Well if STO can draw together the best parts of other MMOs in one package and be Star Trek, bring it on.

All the developers have stated is that during combat players will use a 3rd person view behind the ship, even on crewed ships and use a HUD that corresponds to their department, they've even followed up that statement after all the spin from the haters with a note that they'll more than likely at the very least have bridges on all player operated ships. As for creaming out your dreams, you will be able to walk into engineering, see the warp core glowing, go repair some bulkheads and stand at a workstation, or play 3D chess in ten forward, or rub yourself up in the privacy of the captain's ready room on the larger deployable capital ships, you just won't be crawling through a jeffries tube chasing down a green skinned lass for some alien sex on your own ship. Boo Hoo.

Originally posted by Star0Gazer
First of all, part of what intrigued me about an MMORPG in the Star Trek universe was being able to walk around and explore the different parts of ships that we have grown to love vicariously through the various television series.  I imagined walking into engineering, seeing the warp core in its full glory, and going to the bridge with its huge viewscreen and people working away. 

And do what?

Seriously, suppose they programed the game so that every ship contained these areas you just described?  What would you do once you got into engineering?  Stand around with clip boards and push imaginary buttons like the actors do on the TV show?

How far would you take it?  Do you program 5 or 6 rooms? Like Bridge, Eng, 10 forward, Captains quarters, holodeck and shuttle bays or do you start adding in less common rooms like auxilary control, the jeffries tubes, storage rooms or bedrooms for the rest of the crew?

And no matter how many rooms you program, once again, what are you going to do in each one of them?  They all need to have a purpose, but how many people are going to want to play a game where someone has to stay in Engineering "running the ship" while other folks sit on the Bridge and play "Captain".  Hell, in most games you can't get anyone to heal because they'd rather do DPS.

PE has decided to focus the gameplay on the roles that they figure a majority of the player base that they are hoping to draw will be interested in.  While its possible that Star Trek purists might be looking for a simulator, truth is most players will only identify with a more traditional game.  They'll probably be defined classes, Captain, Science Officer, Medical Officer etc with specific powers that bring something to each mission and encourage some groupings. (yep, just like WOW and most other commercially successful games)

What the rest of you want is a Star Trek simulation, and while that might be interesting to you, it will have almost no appeal to the mass market  (er, sort of like sandbox games)  and these guys are in this to make money. There's room for a Sci-FI based game with the mass appeal of WOW. EVE is a great game, but too complicated for the common gamer.... STO might tap that market.

Hard core Tolken fans who wanted a middle earth simulation predicted LotRO would fall on their face.  Turbine proved them wrong.  Not saying PE can't screw it all up, but it is possible to make a fun game that many will pay for.......

even if you are not one of those players.,...

Player ship interiors are still a maybe.
Hub interiors like space stations, capital ships and bases are in.

Yeah, because EVE lets you have a controllable character avatar

No but SWG did, besides Eve will be adding stations soon that lets your avatars walk around in, so it'll end up like what STO is planning at this point. SWG still had player ships with interiors though.

multiple people operating a single ship

Let's see how that works out before praising it as a plus ok? Once upon a time Pirates of the burning sea had the same ideas of having multiple people crewing a ship and in the end they gave everyone solo ships instead, and I'm sure there's a very good reason for that, something PE might not have run into yet.

beam into enemy ships

This is confirmed where? especially now with only the hub ships that will have interiors, are we going to beam over and "roleplay" where we're attacking in the ship through chat? Unless you mean we can beam over into a disabled ship that's serving as a "instance dungeon" out in space


And while we may be able to roam around the hub ships and bases, we'll have to wait and see if we can even interact with the equipment on board because we will have no control over those hubs, though it's still doubtful anyways considering they couldn't even get the interior gimmicks they planned for PSI's to a satisfactory level.


It's been over a decade for mmog's, it's about damn time developers start improving and take game features to the next level, especially when they are already present in other games. This is Star Trek and people expect much more from it,  people want certain things in because they feel it's an important aspect of Star Trek, like interiors where a good portion of the shows took place.

Well anyways they better have players quarters so I can still chase down a green skinned lass back to my room for alien sex, yeah nice defense there buddy

No but SWG did

Yay another MMO in the loop, so STO will be a cross between SWG, EVE, WOW... anymore? Like I said, if STO successfully pulls of bits and pieces that were useful and enjoyable in various other games in a single package then I'll be happy enough. SWG had interiors, so much for innovation if STO does them. But then its not like they've decided not to include PSIs because they dont have the ability to include them, it sounds very much like a concious design decision, granted one many of those following it for two years already, and with about 18 months to go before release might not like, but oh well.

This is confirmed where?

Mike Stemmle mentioned it in a recent podcast. And so what if it's mission specific, it's still an interior environment on a ship to do a mission in with your character avatar which EVE doesnt and will never have, which was my point. EVE will have space station interiors in Rev 3 perhaps? Whoopy do, you know why they are adding them? So female players can dress up their avatars in new clothes and shop at stores. They will have NO mechanics other than walking around and changing your clothes.

And while we may be able to roam around the hub ships and bases, we'll have to wait and see if we can even interact with the equipment on board because we will have no control over those hubs, though it's still doubtful anyways considering they couldn't even get the interior gimmicks they planned for PSI's to a satisfactory level.

If the hub ships are nothing more than mapped out rooms with no interactivity I'll be as disappointed as you are, but that's certainly not the impression I've been under from the information we have seen through interviews and dev posts elsewhere.

yeah nice defense there buddy

Just trying to make it sound exciting, sorry maybe I should have used an example like 'run around corridors injecting hypospray into X crewmen' or 'repair bulkhead on deck 2', yeah interior gameplay sounds so exciting. I'll be happy to explore a hub ship now and then doing that crap if I want to and admiring the magnolia corridors on my way but I dont see how it could be slightly sustainable as core gameplay on player ships.

Originally posted by Jaklet

yeah nice defense there buddy

Just trying to make it sound exciting, sorry maybe I should have used an example like 'run around corridors injecting hypospray into X crewmen' or 'repair bulkhead on deck 2', yeah interior gameplay sounds so exciting. I'll be happy to explore a hub ship now and then doing that crap if I want to and admiring the magnolia corridors on my way.

Thats what people want, as well as for the Action crowed, security combat, enginers want to upgrade systems, ETC...

Thats ST, and it would be fun, and would have somthing for every playstyle.

I am a long time Star Trek fan and was looking forward to this MMO but if there are no ship interiors there is no true immersion into the world of Star Trek which 80% of it takes place in the ship with people.

I was looking forward to having my avatar walk the corridors and make my way to engineering to take my station. Retire to my quarters to check my personal log and messages from home while admiring a relic I acquired at some strange distant planet.

Like the previous posts stated, they need to take the best of all MMOs and blend it into the world we know as Star Trek which include ship interiors.

 

I was looking forward to having my avatar walk the corridors and make my way to engineering to take my station. Retire to my quarters to check my personal log and messages from home while admiring a relic I acquired at some strange distant planet.

That sounds nice. The first time you do it. But you think that's sustainable, fun and immersive gameplay? What's different to walking around the corridors, making your way to engineering and playing with a station on a hub ship, which you'll be able to do?

What do you want, a life simulation? You want to log in at 9am and work a 12 hour shift at your engineering console, then go to your quarters and admire a relic? Yeah, that sounds worth 15 bucks a month.

This is indeed very sad news to me I'm not a huge fan but I do enjoy watching star trek from time to time mostly the old show, this has got to be in my opinion the most stupidest Idea they ever did ! that's just freaking stupid, they are honestly taken the easy way out when it  comes to development, I mean that's one of the biggest points to the game, being able to board into the ship having your own room for role-players and having some functions at the ship, engine room etc etc.

 

Have some enemy's pop up breaking threw the cargo door and trying to destroy your ship etc etc why wouldn't you want to be the best mmo out there ! I really just don't get it man what the hell are they thinking ? look don't get me wrong I really mmos if not I wouldn't be here, and  I wish the best of luck to all theses games coming out,  but come on have some innovative game play and avatars ships,  if you want to be one of the best mmos out there dammit ! but anyways lets see how it ends up when everybody gets to try it Im just so dissapointed. :(

yeah, what the hell are they thinking? I mean they so should take a hint from peeps sat in their bedrooms thinking how cool it would be to bust some alien ass on their own ship, and not act like dumb idiots with years of industry experience in making important gameplay decisions which will affect the popularity and profitability of the game that they're making, kinda like those turbine dumbasses and the failiure that is LOTRO. Oh...

These idiots don't have a clue what they're doin! They're out to make a fast buck, by making a crap game that won't sell, yeah! That'll work. We should get bloodworth and warrior and realm-reaper outta their bedrooms and into perpetual's offices, they'd know what to do!

Yay another MMO in the loop,

Only because the SWG devs decided to tinker with the game play multiple times. What other game has seen this type and amount of change over it's life time? Not like interiors was one of the faults for it being in the "loop" either, it was one of it's better features. SWG was still doing well for all it's faults, until they decided to copy the top dog out there and make it a completely new game.

so STO will be a cross between SWG, EVE, WOW... anymore?

Every game coming out will be cross of something going all the way back to Everquest and Ultima Online, but STO won't have PSI's so guess we can cross SWG off the list for the moment :P It will flying around on ships like Eve(but also with a group on one ship!), and doing missions, collecting equipment, and leveling like WoW.

if STO successfully pulls of bits and pieces that were useful and enjoyable in various other games in a single package then I'll be happy enough.

Sure if it manages to pull the best features out of the other games, that would be great. Doesn't mean we shouldn't voice our displeasure when they don't use something we want, but again hopefully they take the best features from other games and improve them, while also trying to add new things themselves as well.

Mike Stemmle mentioned it in a recent podcast.

Well that's explain that, haven't heard the podcast was waiting on the transcript for it.

EVE will have space station interiors in Rev 3 perhaps? Whoopy do, you know why they are adding them? So female players can dress up their avatars in new clothes and shop at stores. They will have NO mechanics other than walking around and changing your clothes.

If that's the weak picture you paint for hubs in Eve, what's that saying about STO hubs huh?
Eve was not a game built to be like the rest of the pve games out there, it's a heavy pvp game that's all about fighting. And yes game types do point to what type of features you want to include and the type of gamer you want to attract. Eve is still building slowly, and now they have the time and money to add in other features to continue growing the game to other gamers other than pvp'ers.

If the hub ships are nothing more than mapped out rooms with no interactivity I'll be as disappointed as you are, but that's certainly not the impression I've been under from the information we have seen through interviews and dev posts elsewhere.

All I see is a place to play in like main cities in other games, place to go bank, trade, quarters, holodeck, get quests, do tradeskills. Any other interacting with the ships themselves? again doubt it right now since they couldn't get it working on pc ships.

Just trying to make it sound exciting, sorry maybe I should have used an example like 'run around corridors injecting hypospray into X crewmen' or 'repair bulkhead on deck 2', yeah interior gameplay sounds so exciting.

Now imagine that while being boarded by an enemy vessel, or your group boarding an enemy vessel, or after they put in multiple playerable factions in the game so we get RvRvR and pvp fighting on ships. But yeah let's just keep the fun to the pilot and gunner on the ship with only external views.

I'll be happy to explore a hub ship now and then doing that crap if I want to and admiring the magnolia corridors on my way but I dont see how it could be slightly sustainable as core gameplay on player ships.

The only sustainable game play in any of these game is combat. Everything is fluff, but it's fluff that serves the purpose to keep us interested and entertained with the game.

We have heard a lot of bad news from Perpetual last few months. Basically the original vision about making a different and groundbreaking MMORPG went out the door to cater to a drastically new direction in the style of WoW and EvE (with less complexity).

Sure, nobody wants a simulation and nobody wants a game experience that is not satisfying. But STO is not the instant gratificaion Battlefield and Call of Duty type games. Teamwork and cooperation and player ship experiences were huge draws.

Everything has been thrown out the window in favor of combat, leveling, combat, and more combat.

Sure it could change, but I see a lot of bad signs and I know that Perpetual changes their tune because they either ran out of money or no longer had the guts to do something other than chase after the WoW dollar.

A Star Trek game based soley on combat? I wonder how well those have done. Hmm. Hmm. Legacy. Hmmm. Hmm.

Originally posted by Jaklet
yeah, what the hell are they thinking? I mean they so should take a hint from peeps sat in their bedrooms thinking how cool it would be to bust some alien ass on their own ship, and not act like dumb idiots with years of industry experience in making important gameplay decisions which will affect the popularity and profitability of the game that they're making, kinda like those turbine dumbasses and the failiure that is LOTRO. Oh...

These idiots don't have a clue what they're doin! They're out to make a fast buck, by making a crap game that won't sell, yeah! That'll work. We should get bloodworth and warrior and realm-reaper outta their bedrooms and into perpetual's offices, they'd know what to do!

Stating that LOTRO is a failure shows you have no idea what you are talking about.

You are over reacting to our comments, and , honestly, wasting your time with your idiotic comments.

People want meaningful game play attached to interiors of player owned ships, beyond "Hubs" that will most likely act as little more than "Cities" from other MMO's. We are talking about Star trek here.

They are traveling the road most traveled, and in most sane interpretations of the information available, making a standard MMORPG with a star trek skin.

 

Problem is, adding them later means they will only be for show, and have little gameplay attached to them.

hmm, bridge commander, hmm elite force, hmm starfleet command. hmm not successful or popular at all, and certainly not based on combat. Damn, sorry. They were! Doh

I dont want STO to be based soley on combat either, but come now! PE probably changed their mind from pandering to an exclusive hardcore because they wanted to turn a profit, god forbid a company would want to do that!

Stating that LOTRO is a failure shows you have no idea what you are talking about.

haha, thanks for showing YOU have no idea! You just proved my point. I KNOW it isn't a failure pal! see dictionary for sarcasm. But hey when turbine started making it more conventional than the middle earth online sim style crap that hardcore LOTRO fans were cravin and was dropped, everyone was screaming that it would fail miserably and be a crappy wow clone. But guess what?