Star Trek Online

This is an interesting read that was posted on Elder Game. You can read it here. Of particular interest is reply #11 from Ken Henderson who was the Art Director for STO back in the beginning of the project. His concepts along with Glen's stories and plans where what made us all fall in love with STO back in the beginning. Here is his reply but please go and read the article and the rest to get the context.

1. Ken Henderson Says:
   January 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

   I’d add one other thing. Learn from Perpetuals mistakes with the game. Cryptic’s (I’ve heard that ther ARE getting the project) experience may actually enable that but I think there are great lessons to be learned in terms of why STO was going in a certain direction, why choices were made. Just don’t ignore the development cycle that has already occurred. I have NO doubt that different choices will be made and I have a sneaking suspicion that they will be BETTER choices (based on a certain Exec Prod not being involved). BUT, a lot of hard work and discussion (3 years worth) went into the project so far… at least take a look at the premises that STO started with and the various paths they went down and / or abandoned.

   One other thing… if you do want to get the fans excited AND stay true to what Trek is about (at least on some level) then include some of the original Trek creators / contributors at least as consultants. Mike Okuda and John Eaves have a wealth of knowledge and are reasonably open to hearing about new ways to approach things. Just having them sit in on some high-level design meetings would give invaluable insight into the workings of the Star Trek universe… it’s as close as you’re gonna get to Roddenberry and you know you’d be consulting him if he were still alive.

   Other than that… get a frickin’ haircut Eric!

   ;)

Apparently the fans weren't the only ones that dislike Mr. Stinnett's design decisions! Ken's my new hero!

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

This is an interesting read that was posted on Elder Game. You can read it here. Of particular interest is reply #11 from Ken Henderson who was the Art Director for STO back in the beginning of the project. His concepts along with Glen's stories and plans where what made us all fall in love with STO back in the beginning. Here is his reply but please go and read the article and the rest to get the context.

---

1. Ken Henderson Says:
   January 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

   I’d add one other thing. Learn from Perpetuals mistakes with the game. Cryptic’s (I’ve heard that ther ARE getting the project) experience may actually enable that but I think there are great lessons to be learned in terms of why STO was going in a certain direction, why choices were made. Just don’t ignore the development cycle that has already occurred. I have NO doubt that different choices will be made and I have a sneaking suspicion that they will be BETTER choices (based on a certain Exec Prod not being involved). BUT, a lot of hard work and discussion (3 years worth) went into the project so far… at least take a look at the premises that STO started with and the various paths they went down and / or abandoned.

   One other thing… if you do want to get the fans excited AND stay true to what Trek is about (at least on some level) then include some of the original Trek creators / contributors at least as consultants. Mike Okuda and John Eaves have a wealth of knowledge and are reasonably open to hearing about new ways to approach things. Just having them sit in on some high-level design meetings would give invaluable insight into the workings of the Star Trek universe… it’s as close as you’re gonna get to Roddenberry and you know you’d be consulting him if he were still alive.

   Other than that… get a frickin’ haircut Eric!

   ;)

 

---

Apparently the fans weren't the only ones that dislike Mr. Stinnett's design decisions! Ken's my new hero!

 

Bren

Stinnett's arrogance and incompetence are known within the game development community.   Ken's advice is excellent.  Eric's comments in the blog are also very good. 

Those of "The Body" at STO.net sure don't like to be either disagreed with, ignored, or taken lightly.  The kool-aid had turned bitter, methinks.

Always been a fan of Ken since he mentioned he worked on Tranformers Beasties lol.

I think Glen also didn't exactly agree with the game direction and decided to leave too, which is too bad cause his vision got me excited about the game in the first place, I hope he can get involved with the game again at some point.

I also agree with Eric's comments to a point but disagree on two very important issues. The first is that while they should ignore the fans to a point they should not be totally alienated. Listening to any one fan or small group of fans will lead to confused and just plan bad design decisions but they should never ignore the overall feeling the fan base has toward what they are doing. Market research is only as good as your researchers so it shouldn't be your only way of getting this info. Forums on gaming and fan sites are a good source of this info to a point but also shouldn't be your only source. You have to remember that listening to any one fan or group of fans is folly at best. All the Devs should take away from these places is the overall feel and not get bogged down in the details so much.

The second point I don't agree with is, "If you can't do it right make a WoW clone so you can push it out the door." This skewed take on game development has led to some of the most dismal failures this genre has ever seen. People play WoW because it is WoW and no other WoW will do. If they make a combat centric WoW clone with Star Trek skins it will be doomed to failure as it just isn't Trek no matter how pretty they dress it up. Sure a lot of people will buy the game just on brand recognition but that isn't what keeps a MMO alive. They need people to stick around for the long haul and as soon as people realize they are just playing WoW again they will be jumping ship in droves. Star Trek needs to be truly innovative to survive and you can make a game for both casuals and hardcores alike if you just show some imagination in your game design.

Bren

I red both the first post and his follow up post. I get the feeling that this guy is a "glas half empty" kinda fella. It's mostly "can't this", "can't that" or "I wouldn't do that" or "I wouldn't do this". Only time there is a "can" or "should" it seems to be followed by "WoW", and then there's this...

"I will settle for a WoW clone with Star Trek theming."

That comment just made me, I don't know, twitch. Stop with the WoW already...

"Guys, I don’t really want to play a WoW-esque Star Trek MMO either. I want to play a game where I’m Picard-esque (I even look kinda like him… well, I’m bald anyway!) and I talk my way out of problems, and I have adventures every hour on the hour. But the game I want to play costs about $600 million to make. It’s like WoW plus EVE Online plus a few dozen adventure games worth of really deep and clever content."

I understand that it's neither cheap or easy to make an MMO but I have a hard time believing that anything that doesn't play like WoW costs too much to make. Like Bren said "show some imagination in your game design".

The problem isn't a lack of imagination, it's a lack of funtionality once a game gets too far from the WoW-esuqe style of gameplay. We need to step back and look at the things in games that are fun, that don't involve combat or direct combat, and build from them.

STO can't be about going out and killing things. It can be about going out and defending things. Thats an important distinction.

Originally posted by mrjuliano

STO can't be about going out and killing things. It can be about going out and defending things. Thats an important distinction.

Of course STO can be about going out and killing things.  And it probably will be.  They may call it 'defeat' like LOTRO but you'll still be mowing your way through Denobulan Ankle-Rippers or Antarean Disruptor Drones to level your skills up.  Why?  Because after all these years, that's still the only way the industry knows how to write an MMO that (a) sells and (b) doesn't confuse people and get scrapped.

Originally posted by mrjuliano

The problem isn't a lack of imagination, it's a lack of funtionality once a game gets too far from the WoW-esuqe style of gameplay. We need to step back and look at the things in games that are fun, that don't involve combat or direct combat, and build from them.

STO can't be about going out and killing things. It can be about going out and defending things. Thats an important distinction.

Although I do agree with you when your restrained within the small box that a level/class based system stuffs you into(WoW-esuqe) if you go with a skill based system it throws all of that out the window. In a skill based game it puts the choice into the players hands and not the developers. Skill based also allows for a multitude of ways to advance your character without combat entirely but it also allows those combat centric players to get their fix at the same time. I've said from day one that if done right Star Trek screams for a skill based system for these very fundamental reasons. Skill based would also make the game very casual friendly while at the same time it would give the hardcores their fix as well without seriously tilting the playing field in the Hardcore player's favor. It's time developers start to think outside of the extremely confined box WoW has stuffed them into so this genre can start to evolve again.

Bren