But hey, if you think this is worthy of Star Trek lore then all the power to you. Just dont think you will have many trekkies with you as STO is nothing but an instanced space shooter with no real exploration, diplomacy, research or anything else that trekkies are used to in Star Trek. Heck, just watch ten random episodes and tell me how many minutes are actual combat.

The entire last two season of DS9 was set in the dominion war and there was a lot of combat. And since we are playing a game and not a simulator, having a lot of combat makes sense. But then I guess you didn't like Starfleet Command,Armada  or any other trek game since those were mostly combat as well. We're playing a game here.

Star Wars is mostly about combat, Star Trek is not and will never be. And what is ironic is that SWG (pre NGE) was much more Star Trek than this game.

SWG launched without the ability to go into space. How is that being more like Star Trek ? It was certainly nothing like Star Wars without Tie Fighters and speederbikes. And with STO I'm not crashing to my destop or rubberbanding all across the galaxy like I did with SWG. Wait a minute, I wasn't going across the galaxy in SWG at launch was I? Unless I took a shuttle to another planet.

Originally posted by ktanner3

But hey, if you think this is worthy of Star Trek lore then all the power to you. Just dont think you will have many trekkies with you as STO is nothing but an instanced space shooter with no real exploration, diplomacy, research or anything else that trekkies are used to in Star Trek. Heck, just watch ten random episodes and tell me how many minutes are actual combat.

The entire last two season of DS9 was set in the dominion war and there was a lot of combat. And since we are playing a game and not a simulator, having a lot of combat makes sense. But then I guess you didn't like Starfleet Command,Armada  or any other trek game since those were mostly combat as well. We're playing a game here.

Star Wars is mostly about combat, Star Trek is not and will never be. And what is ironic is that SWG (pre NGE) was much more Star Trek than this game.

 

SWG launched without the ability to go into space. How is that being more like Star Trek ? It was certainly nothing like Star Wars without Tie Fighters and speederbikes. And with STO I'm not crashing to my destop or rubberbanding all across the galaxy like I did with SWG. Wait a minute, I wasn't going across the galaxy in SWG at launch was I? Unless I took a shuttle to another planet.

ironically, an SWG planet is bigger than an STO area. xD.

Originally posted by Toquio3

What I find strange is that, while EVE's galaxy is so incredibly vast (over 8000 systems + unkown wormholes), STO's is incredibly small (someone said on these forums you can cover it in 15 minutes). How can games set in so similar genres perform so differently? Technologically speaking. Cant cryptic afford whatever machines CCP is using? I mean, I would imagine that if you're going to do alot of instancing, you can actually make your world bigger, not smaller.

It all comes down to how the engine has been designed from the ground up. The engine for STO is based on instances. So in essence it is all in the code.

Originally posted by AmonSul

If 100 persons before you have gone to where you are going, but in another identical instance, then that is not exploring. That is grinding for exp and running a themepark show.

...and if you go non-instancesd you get to wait in line behind those 100 persons, argue with a dozen of them about who's turn it is, and then wait an hour for the respawn only to have it ninja-ed by someone else who flew in at the last second.

Yeah. That's immersive alright.

The trick is in a healthy balance between instancing and non-instancing. Immersion can be shot by both too much and too few instancing.

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Originally posted by Burntvet
I seem to remember seeing 50 ships or more in good many episodes (several from DS9 come to mind off the top of my head) and more than 50 people on a space station. And more than 5 people on an away mission... on most of them.
Instances are easy to program, resource, and relative hard to screw up. That is why they are used as they are. Open world mechanics are hard.
 
 

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Actually DS9 had several fleet battles involving some 50 thousand ships IIRC... :p

Yes, space is vast, but that doesn't mean instancing is the best choice (it is the cheapest and simplest choice though). Fallen Earth showed that you don't need instances to have quite a solitary gameplay, a huge world with lots of different and non-sequential "hotspots" works. I won't reward a software house going the simplest way and then selling for a more-than-full-box-and-subscription-price. This game is way poorer in design and gameplay than any random cheap korean f2p.

Actually, IP is *everything* in this game. Should it come out with a new, different lore, it would be a total failure.

Originally posted by NotNiceDino

Originally posted by AmonSul

If 100 persons before you have gone to where you are going, but in another identical instance, then that is not exploring. That is grinding for exp and running a themepark show.

 

...and if you go non-instancesd you get to wait in line behind those 100 persons, argue with a dozen of them about who's turn it is, and then wait an hour for the respawn only to have it ninja-ed by someone else who flew in at the last second.

Yeah. That's immersive alright.

Good point. Nothing spells immersion like having to wait for the big boss to magically reappear after he has been killed hundreds of times already. See how easy it is to nitpick and make a big deal out of nothing?

Originally posted by Toquio3

What I find strange is that, while EVE's galaxy is so incredibly vast (over 8000 systems + unkown wormholes), STO's is incredibly small (someone said on these forums you can cover it in 15 minutes). How can games set in so similar genres perform so differently? Technologically speaking. Cant cryptic afford whatever machines CCP is using? I mean, I would imagine that if you're going to do alot of instancing, you can actually make your world bigger, not smaller.

Space is mostly empty, a fact that CCP has always been good at using to their advantage. They managed to make EVE look great (especially for a game of its era) without a whole lot of pixels or even concept art. STO, to be fair, also has its away team missions, which I'm guessing took a lot more resources to make than the space-based ones. A shame since so many of us find ground combat to be the weakest aspect of STO.

I personally don't mind instancing, as long as it's not overused. But I think "sector space" was a bad idea of enormous proportions. It's cramped and silly looking, behaves nothing like actual space, and the fish tank look of the thing reminds you that, with a limited z-axis, STO space movement works more like a submarine than an actual spaceship.

Originally posted by TheAesthete

Originally posted by Toquio3

What I find strange is that, while EVE's galaxy is so incredibly vast (over 8000 systems + unkown wormholes), STO's is incredibly small (someone said on these forums you can cover it in 15 minutes). How can games set in so similar genres perform so differently? Technologically speaking. Cant cryptic afford whatever machines CCP is using? I mean, I would imagine that if you're going to do alot of instancing, you can actually make your world bigger, not smaller.

 

Space is mostly empty, a fact that CCP has always been good at using to their advantage. They managed to make EVE look great (especially for a game of its era) without a whole lot of pixels or even concept art. STO, to be fair, also has its away team missions, which I'm guessing took a lot more resources to make than the space-based ones. A shame since so many of us find ground combat to be the weakest aspect of STO.

I personally don't mind instancing, as long as it's not overused. But I think "sector space" was a bad idea of enormous proportions. It's cramped and silly looking, behaves nothing like actual space, and the fish tank look of the thing reminds you that, with a limited z-axis, STO space movement works more like a submarine than an actual spaceship.

Also Eve has been around for what 5 years now? I didn't play it at launch but I assume they had fewer systems back then.

Originally posted by Toquio3

What I find strange is that, while EVE's galaxy is so incredibly vast (over 8000 systems + unkown wormholes), STO's is incredibly small (someone said on these forums you can cover it in 15 minutes). How can games set in so similar genres perform so differently? Technologically speaking. Cant cryptic afford whatever machines CCP is using? I mean, I would imagine that if you're going to do alot of instancing, you can actually make your world bigger, not smaller.

Instancing is the poor devs sollution for a vast world. Instead of creating actual content, like say more than one faction (no I dont consider Klingon a full faction), where people can spread out they create a tiny world and just makes tons of instances of said world.

The reason Eve dont need instances is because the world is HUGE and thus people naturally spread out but it takes time to design thousands of sectors so lazy, untalented, developers just take one zone and make XX identical copies.

The benefit is that you all play in the same world but do you really? If the population is scattered over 100 pararell instances (some of which are locked from to the "outside") are they really playing in the same world?

Technically yes, but from immersion perspective no. Why? Because you rarely see more than 10 people in the same zone as you are (except in fleet instances and starbases where the limit is 50) and 10 people (sometimes even less) around me in almost every zone is not enough for me to get immersed in a virtual world.

Originally posted by Mopar63

You know I see a lot of people bashing STO for the heavy use of instancing

???  Heavy use?  STO has ZERO persistent world, it is entirely instanced and nothing more than a series of semi private maps.  I am not saying this alone ruins the game but be accurate in discussing the game, it doesn't 'heavily use' instancing it is 100% instanced with no world to speak of.

Originally posted by AgtSmith 

???  Heavy use?  STO has ZERO persistent world, it is entirely instanced and nothing more than a series of semi private maps.  I am not saying this alone ruins the game but be accurate in discussing the game, it doesn't 'heavily use' instancing it is 100% instanced with no world to speak of.

You think the game would function with hundreds of thousands of players in the same location at once?  NO game is capable of that.  Even EVE Online has separate zones, all of which have a population limit.  Once that limit is reached, you are completely locked out of the zone.  And most of the systems in EVE are just copies of each other.  The same space backdrop and planet designs are used over and over again.  And in Empire space, nothing is permanent, so therefor not persistant.

Other games separate players in a different way: Servers.  World of Warcraft limits the number of players in a giver server to mere hundreds at once.  If the limit is reached, you're stuck in a queue.  And if it's during a holiday you could be waiting hours to get into the game.  Is this optimum?  In STO, you can play with ANYONE who has the game.  You can change freely between zone servers.  You and your group will stay in the same zone server once together.  It allows for many players to be together, without limiting who gets to play with whom.

Every game has some way of breaking up server load.  All modern MMORPG's have high server stress, and the graphics quality of the games requires limiting how many players are on the screen at once.  If you tried having everyone on the same zone at the same time, there is no machine in the world that could run the client (and this is true for any recent AAA MMORPG).

If you have a better way of allowing all the players to interact without locking up both server and client, you better patent it because you're going to be rich!

Originally posted by AmonSul

Originally posted by Toquio3

What I find strange is that, while EVE's galaxy is so incredibly vast (over 8000 systems + unkown wormholes), STO's is incredibly small (someone said on these forums you can cover it in 15 minutes). How can games set in so similar genres perform so differently? Technologically speaking. Cant cryptic afford whatever machines CCP is using? I mean, I would imagine that if you're going to do alot of instancing, you can actually make your world bigger, not smaller.

 

Instancing is the poor devs sollution for a vast world. Instead of creating actual content, like say more than one faction (no I dont consider Klingon a full faction), where people can spread out they create a tiny world and just makes tons of instances of said world.

The reason Eve dont need instances is because the world is HUGE and thus people naturally spread out but it takes time to design thousands of sectors so lazy, untalented, developers just take one zone and make XX identical copies.

The benefit is that you all play in the same world but do you really? If the population is scattered over 100 pararell instances (some of which are locked from to the "outside") are they really playing in the same world?

Technically yes, but from immersion perspective no. Why? Because you rarely see more than 10 people in the same zone as you are (except in fleet instances and starbases where the limit is 50) and 10 people (sometimes even less) around me in almost every zone is not enough for me to get immersed in a virtual world.

i lol'd. Have you played eve? The game with sky boxes with a space back drop and some generic planets in. I personally do not wish to play a trek game in which I am constantly in the same bit of space as 100's of other captains.

Exploration> ZzZz woopeee lets scan this gas cloud for stuff, lets chart this system..... wont work. You ever played any of the elite games? Huge world full of generic stuff, after a bit of running around it's the same same same.

There are exactly two ways to do it for any game with a population going into hundred thousands.

a) have a sensible limit on the people in a given area by instancing.

b) have a sensible limit on the people in a given area by limiting the amount of people in your gameworld itself by using servers.

People dont have a issue with instances here, they have a issue with the single server approach by STO cause intancing is a direct result of that. Just think about it, how many auctionators would there have to be if there where 5k people in the auction house? And wtf are 5k captains doing in a spacedock trading stuff/running around. Not to mention that even the biggest stations starfleet has wouldnt support this population, so many people would simply not fit into any station, atleast not with collision detection like STO has.

And if they wouldnt chop the world into instances, how would explain that every battle is a huge fleetbattle with dozen or even hundreds of ships? And would that be fun if all you got was laggy monsterfleets onehitting npcs like lemmings? This open world approach only works in WoW because the serverpopulation is tiny, it has no chance in hell working on a Star trek mmo on a single server cause everyone wants to be in earth spacedock or DS 9 or memory alpha.

If you just thought about it you would have known STO would be like this many months ago, cause it is literally the only way to have done it in this case.

P.S.: The discussion of single server vs many servers is a whole different can of worms.

Originally posted by Mopar63

Originally posted by sanedor

Originally posted by Mopar63

. The vastness of space and the need to cover so much area and exploration

 

the red part shows where it all fails in STO, nothing more to say really just a PEW PEW space shooter...

 

Your arguement falls apart because it is IMPOSSIBLE to accurately reflect the Star Trek universe without some concessions. I mean during Kirks time there was what 12 Constitution Class Cruisers? There are always concessions made for MMOs and yet for some reason that same curtiousy does not extend to STO?

I mean the arguements I have seen on this forum are NUTS. I can tear apart every MMO made to the same level as the haters use here.

If you do not like the game do not play it, why is this so hard for people?

Your argument falls apart because STO takes place long after DS9 and the rest of the Star Trek universe. They have NO concessions other than basic lore.  Try to know what timeline you're in before arguing there were only 12 Constitution class ships in Kirks' time when Kirk has been dead a LONG time in STOs' time.

In STOs' time, the Federation is AT WAR. There SHOULD be ships all around Federation space as well as patrolling the other sectors. Which is why seeing a couple in an instance here and there DOES NOT fit their own damn design.

Also, basic lore shows that all Startfleet personnel wore the same uniform type. They didn't order Kirk and Picard replicas' for a "small latinum fee" from the Academy shop.

STO is a joke for any real Trek fan. Luckily, it's not a joke for the average PEWPEWIPWNEDJ00N00B playerbase, otherwise it would have already tanked.

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Originally posted by Rocketeer

People dont have a issue with instances here, they have a issue with the single server approach by STO cause intancing is a direct result of that. Just think about it, how many auctionators would there have to be if there where 5k people in the auction house? And wtf are 5k captains doing in a spacedock trading stuff/running around. Not to mention that even the biggest stations starfleet has wouldnt support this population, so many people would simply not fit into any station, atleast not with collision detection like STO has.

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People somehow stick to the idea that everyone must follow the same path, kill the same mobs, do the same missions, stay in the same stations. You don't. As in RL people don't all live in the same city, in a simulated world there should be enough stuff for people to do different things in different areas, then perhaps travel, trade local resources.
Some would never leave the areas they were born. Others would travel around the known world. Some would be as bold to travel where few would ever go. Eve showed it was possible: make a huge universe, seed it with different resources, create local content and let people play and interact. Of course you could make a theme-park version of Eve with lots of guided content, and that'd be also a nice idea.

Why limit the player so much with instances? Just because you are too lazy to make more content?

Originally posted by ryuga81

 

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Originally posted by Rocketeer

People dont have a issue with instances here, they have a issue with the single server approach by STO cause intancing is a direct result of that. Just think about it, how many auctionators would there have to be if there where 5k people in the auction house? And wtf are 5k captains doing in a spacedock trading stuff/running around. Not to mention that even the biggest stations starfleet has wouldnt support this population, so many people would simply not fit into any station, atleast not with collision detection like STO has.

---

 

People somehow stick to the idea that everyone must follow the same path, kill the same mobs, do the same missions, stay in the same stations. You don't. As in RL people don't all live in the same city, in a simulated world there should be enough stuff for people to do different things in different areas, then perhaps travel, trade local resources.
Some would never leave the areas they were born. Others would travel around the known world. Some would be as bold to travel where few would ever go. Eve showed it was possible: make a huge universe, seed it with different resources, create local content and let people play and interact. Of course you could make a theme-park version of Eve with lots of guided content, and that'd be also a nice idea.

Why limit the player so much with instances? Just because you are too lazy to make more content?

This doesnt work in the Startrek IP. Everyone wants to visit earth spacedock, or DS9, half the point of the startrek IP is showing us wellknow places we recognize from the series. And eve has over 8k systems now, and even in Wormhole space, the most inaccesible of them all you will still hardly ever find empty systems.

And again, even if it was possible, seeing 50 captains running around DS9 already is a big concession, but cramming thousands of people into quarks would just be stupid.

Also the poster above who said that in kirks time there have been 12 constitutions is correct. Yeah sure its the future etc, but we are flying constitution refits. Which kinda implies that its old constitutions that got refitted for duty again due to the war, that still wouldnt explain thousands of them zipping around a starbase that probably doesnt even have empty dockingplaces for more than a dozen of them. It could maybe explain 50 of them, again its unlikely but atleast not flatout impossible.

I think people completly misjudge just how many players STO has, the only real comparsion is EvE, and eve is heavily decentralized, which the Startrek IP is not.

Originally posted by Rocketeer

Originally posted by ryuga81

 

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Originally posted by Rocketeer

People dont have a issue with instances here, they have a issue with the single server approach by STO cause intancing is a direct result of that. Just think about it, how many auctionators would there have to be if there where 5k people in the auction house? And wtf are 5k captains doing in a spacedock trading stuff/running around. Not to mention that even the biggest stations starfleet has wouldnt support this population, so many people would simply not fit into any station, atleast not with collision detection like STO has.

---

 

People somehow stick to the idea that everyone must follow the same path, kill the same mobs, do the same missions, stay in the same stations. You don't. As in RL people don't all live in the same city, in a simulated world there should be enough stuff for people to do different things in different areas, then perhaps travel, trade local resources.
Some would never leave the areas they were born. Others would travel around the known world. Some would be as bold to travel where few would ever go. Eve showed it was possible: make a huge universe, seed it with different resources, create local content and let people play and interact. Of course you could make a theme-park version of Eve with lots of guided content, and that'd be also a nice idea.

Why limit the player so much with instances? Just because you are too lazy to make more content?

 

This doesnt work in the Startrek IP. Everyone wants to visit earth spacedock, or DS9, half the point of the startrek IP is showing us wellknow places we recognize from the series. And eve has over 8k systems now, and even in Wormhole space, the most inaccesible of them all you will still hardly ever find empty systems.

And again, even if it was possible, seeing 50 captains running around DS9 already is a big concession, but cramming thousands of people into quarks would just be stupid.

Also the poster above who said that in kirks time there have been 12 constitutions is correct. Yeah sure its the future etc, but we are flying constitution refits. Which kinda implies that its old constitutions that got refitted for duty again due to the war, that still wouldnt explain thousands of them zipping around a starbase that probably doesnt even have empty dockingplaces for more than a dozen of them. It could maybe explain 50 of them, again its unlikely but atleast not flatout impossible.

 

I think people completly misjudge just how many players STO has, the only real comparsion is EvE, and eve is heavily decentralized, which the Startrek IP is not.

Totally disagree. The Star Trek IP is in no way confined or centralized. There are tons of different positions in just Star Fleet, not to mention the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassian and the innumerous different races and cultures in the game.

And what is wrong with 50 captains running around in DS9? Star Fleet is a military, one which for sure has more than 50 captains and DS9 can for sure accomodate houndreds of VIPs if it is even close to size of a RL first class hotel or village resort.

Furthermore I strongly doubt that Earth Starbase can only accomodate a dozen of starships. What kind of military would that be if they can only support that few starships? As a comparison only ONE nation (US) and one branch in that nation (the Navy) has over 280 larger ships, ranging from Frigates to Super Carriers. Imagine if you combined the entire worlds production and how many ships that could be produced then. Yeah RL examples are always iffy but Im just saying that 50 ships is nothing for Starfleet, most likely they had several houndreds of ships under their command. And Earth Spacedock being the central point it would surprise me greatly if it could not accomodate a large proportion of those and if it could not would most likely have several starbases to do that (several means not instances of same existing in pararell realities).

As for personel, how many people does Pentagon building house? The answer is over 20.000. No reason why a future military starbase would not be able to accomodate atleast that many personel.

So no, Star Trek IP is in no way constricting STO, that excuse will not fly.

Im glad they went with instancing.  Wouldnt feel like star trek with hundreds of people around camping a spawn.  Plus missions would be simple like most mmogs, since STO has heavy instancing they can use alot of scripts.  And while the majority of missions (not by alot) is kill everyone atleast I dont have to kill the same mob over and over to get some cheesy item for a nobody cook or blacksmith.

And I would rather have STOs travel than EvEs.  While playing eve I watched TV and read my books more than I actualy played the game.  I fell for the hype, complicated my @55  sure it took a few more brain cells but not much.  Was hoping it would be like the ole mech games in middle school the ones where you decked out ur character and calculated ur stats on graph paper.  Anyways.....

I agree with the op, glad they went with instancing.

Believe it or not everyone doesnt like EvE. And believe it or not everyone doesnt find eve a mental exercise.

Originally posted by EvolvedMonky

Im glad they went with instancing.  Wouldnt feel like star trek with hundreds of people around camping a spawn.  Plus missions would be simple like most mmogs, since STO has heavy instancing they can use alot of scripts.  And while the majority of missions (not by alot) is kill everyone atleast I dont have to kill the same mob over and over to get some cheesy item for a nobody cook or blacksmith.

And I would rather have STOs travel than EvEs.  While playing eve I watched TV and read my books more than I actualy played the game.  I fell for the hype, complicated my @55  sure it took a few more brain cells but not much.  Was hoping it would be like the ole mech games in middle school the ones where you decked out ur character and calculated ur stats on graph paper.  Anyways.....

I agree with the op, glad they went with instancing.

 

Believe it or not everyone doesnt like EvE. And believe it or not everyone doesnt find eve a mental exercise.

Those are false choices and strawman arguments.

The choices are not between Eve or STO

Instancing or "houndreds camping the same mob"

The question is if you can create a Star Trek world without instancing everything and the answer is ofcourse you can. All you need is to have enough content and space for people to spread out. Many MMORPGs have several different, races, starting points and leveling paths and so could a Star Trek MMOG.

You could have a Federation faction, a Klingon faction, a Romulan Faction, a Dominion Faction and with each seperate starting zone. 

Also you could have several different leveling paths so that not all Romulans, Fed, Klingon and Dominion players congregate in the same zone.

Furthermore you could have large zones with several POI so that people naturally spread out.

That is not unheard of and has been done in MMOGs since Everquest 1. It has 6-7 different races and several different leveling paths and much larger zones than in STO.

WoW had at launch, several different races and starting points aswell as alternate leveling paths and large zones.

As a comparison STO has only one faction and starting point, the Feds, and relatively tiny zones. If you design a game like that then ofcourse you need to overinstance everything because you are funelling all players into the same leveling tunnel. But that are choices they made and is in no way the only way to go (and Eve is not the only other way to do things).

When you design a game you can be innovative, sure, but instancing everything and having only one real leveling path is not my idea of innovation.