The biggest issue facing this game will be trying to cater for ship vs ship combat and land based combat.  I look at specialist games like EVE and Jumpgate and they have dedicated teams developing just space combat full time.  Same goes for land based games such as Tabula Rasa and Neocron etc.  Look how well they went and they had a massive amount of time poured into them.

So how can Star Trek deliver on both and have just as much depth?  My biggest fear is that the game will fail the hardcore Ship vs Ship players and vice versa on land and just deliver a grind fest with lasers. 

I so want this game to work but without massive investment and a dedicated team for both parts of the game I can see Ship vs Ship combat being quite basic and that will kill the game for me and a lot of others.

hmmm... you have a good point. but I believe that cryptic will be able to deliver good ground and space combat.... i like how they plan to make ground combat more fast paced while making ship combat more tactical...

get the space enviorment right first. the ground enviorment should be a distant second...

maybe you have not played one of the games they have, they already have land and air in very good working order, COH.   So as they said its just chaging the scene. its not like its all new to them they have a tried and tested engine... 

But as I am sure you know they have already stated this in an interview and the people that play their games also would know

I believe the biggest issues for Cryptic will be dealing with the stigma that PE brought to STO.  A lot of people won't touch this game now because of actions of PE.  We still don't know who is working on the project and if PE's management team was brought over, that would be a kiss of death to this game.

Everything is in motion, games will get polish along the way. It's a bit of a downer not having real people as your crew, but I really hope they will eventually put that in.

I think the biggest issue is going to be the fan base.  They/we are vocal and miriad of opinions .  Me personally I want to see more of  campaign style RvR space combat sim more on the line of star fleet battles, while alot of others would be up at arms about such a thing.  If I was developer I wouldnt touch this franchise with a 10 foot poles as its going to be nearly impossible to please entire fan base.

They can make a boat load of money off this license.  To me it is worth the stress and pain that comes with it.

Have to excuse my pessimism but I can see this game having a lot of instances and loading screens to cover the Space to earth transition.

E.g. Get a mission on land to survey another planet.  Loading screen - enter spaceship, Loading screen for new system, loading screen to land - finish mission then loading screen back to ship etc etc.

Loading screens can work ok in space because jumpgate's can cover them pretty well e.g. in EVE I forget there are loading screens to cover system jumps.  However in PotBS they gave up trying to make one massive world and opted for instances instead. 

How will they cover mass space exploration that covers vast areas and will planets feel limited and will they force you down 1 maybe 2 paths only? 

The closest game I can see Star Trek ending up like is PotBS... sailing around then instance to mission and land combat being forced into a small area and no real exploration. 

Not trying to be a troll but these are questions I think are really valid and should be answered by the developers. 

I think there will be instances and loading screens but just for the space-planet transitions, if it's anything like EVE you won't even notice the transition between systems and the teleportation between Ship and planet would be like using the teleporter in TR.

Planets would be the main instances, so that you feel like you discovered it and can freely explore and recruit without interferance.

This "Issue" isnt a problem, its like writing a book no? You use and do not deviate from the model you originally develope. Much like a book, you go page by page till you get to the end, thus if your model, originally has ground content and space combat content within. you use this same model for your expansion, so if you have ten space missions with 20 ground encounters the way you put those together originally stays the same, the story and content (ships, characters gameplay may change some but not much, but this is an excellent way to make sure your not cheating one side of gameplay or the other.

I just want to say i'm very irritated with Cryptic banging out something so fast.

Let's face the music, they already admit that they're using an engine from another game that's (from what I have been able to tell) just another clone of CoX only ...newer.  Well isn't that special.

There is no depth being created here, just a fast paced ADD game with a trek skin on it.

They are tipping the cash cow on us and that's just not acceptable for this IP. 

Originally posted by Faxxer

I just want to say i'm very irritated with Cryptic banging out something so fast.

 

Let's face the music, they already admit that they're using an engine from another game that's (from what I have been able to tell) just another clone of CoX only ...newer.  Well isn't that special.

There is no depth being created here, just a fast paced ADD game with a trek skin on it.

They are tipping the cash cow on us and that's just not acceptable for this IP. 

I agree with Faxxer on this.  Star Trek is probably the best known Sci-fi franchise (maybe Star Wars is but they are close).  It has unbelievable potential to capture young gamers right up to the middle aged if done right.  Its and IP that should have massive investment and have the following main areas:

* Huge exploration

* Tactical combat

* Lots of lore and RP elements

Personally I don't think crafting has to be that advanced since everything is made instantly so not sure how they are going to make it anything but automatic.

I hope its fun and very playable but I still cant help but think its going to be like PotBS where you take a land mission and it a small area that you finish and then you go back to your ship.  Star Trek has thousands of planets in the series so will they generate thousands to fly around and explore?  Probably not because its too much development so I can see you getting a mission from HQ's then you can select to access it then the loading screen comes up saying you are on 'X' Planet and you need to kill 20 Vulcan renegades etc. 

Right now I think Jumpgate is the only game that will have real exploration.

Originally posted by chryses

Have to excuse my pessimism but I can see this game having a lot of instances and loading screens to cover the Space to earth transition.

E.g. Get a mission on land to survey another planet.  Loading screen - enter spaceship, Loading screen for new system, loading screen to land - finish mission then loading screen back to ship etc etc.

Loading screens can work ok in space because jumpgate's can cover them pretty well e.g. in EVE I forget there are loading screens to cover system jumps.  However in PotBS they gave up trying to make one massive world and opted for instances instead. 

How will they cover mass space exploration that covers vast areas and will planets feel limited and will they force you down 1 maybe 2 paths only? 

The closest game I can see Star Trek ending up like is PotBS... sailing around then instance to mission and land combat being forced into a small area and no real exploration. 

Not trying to be a troll but these are questions I think are really valid and should be answered by the developers. 

Are you expecting to traverse the galaxy in real-time? See you in a couple thousand years, my friends.
 

I haven't played EVE, so I can't say anything about their load screens, but I'm really curious how STO is going to handle space travel. What do you see as you warp through space? How is the travel mechanism going to work? Will I have to get to Vulcan from Earth by way of Andoria, or can I fly right there?

Eve made it seemless when you change instances.  you are always seeing yourself move and warp.  If cryptic does that it will look good, but everyone will acuse them of copying Eve.....  Better than copying wow though.

faxx

Yep EVE has done it so well I catch myself saying it has no loading screens when in fact it does.  When passing through jumpgates its seamless and when you land I like the voice over stating you have docking permission.  So yes it can be covered up well and I guess STO could use the teleporter as a loading screen and cover it up that way.  Jumpgate was another game that covered the loading screen well.  However in EVE and especially jumpgate the solar system you are in is quite massive so you feel that you can still get lost and not be found. 

Space is the easiest form to cover up but land is harder since you need scenery everywhere.  So hope they dont make a nerfed ground version like PotBS crapped out land combat.

Originally posted by Faxxer

I just want to say i'm very irritated with Cryptic banging out something so fast.

 

Let's face the music, they already admit that they're using an engine from another game that's (from what I have been able to tell) just another clone of CoX only ...newer.  Well isn't that special.

There is no depth being created here, just a fast paced ADD game with a trek skin on it.

They are tipping the cash cow on us and that's just not acceptable for this IP.

Funny you said that.......Jack  in a interview said he didn't want the game to look like "Star Trek skin" slap on it.

IMHO......I think there is a valid reason to be concern.

From what I've heard I have given up on this game.

No player crews

Outdated GFX engine

It's being designed with the Xbox 360's limitations in mind......Which means auto targeted crap.....limited on screen clickability. And limited Graphics.

Custom races? WTF.... there are dozens of races in the federation. Why break with Cannon when it's so easy to stay cannon? Besides you must be a member of the Federation to be in starfleet.....wtf were they thinking.

I could go on and on but this game is depressing

It's gonna suck balls.

I'll just play Jumpgate Evolution Till the Battletech MMO comes out.

Originally posted by grndzro

From what I've heard I have given up on this game.

No player crews

This is true but if they included them at this point it would complicate the development cycle ten fold. They would have to make the content for each individual crewman compelling which is something that would be very hard to do. How do you make 'tactical' fun when 95% of the time there would be nothing for that player to do and they would be just standing there like a bridge ornament? If they just threw it in like a lot of people think they can it would make for a very boring game and people wouldn't play for very long. Also you have the problem of those like myself that don't want to have my game play experience limited by other players. If you're serving on a player crew on someone else's ship your going to have your whole game play experience tied to the whims of that player. No thanks.

 

Outdated GFX engine

No, just no. Stylized does not equal outdated. They want this game to be accessible to the widest possible audience. While bleeding edge graphics would be nice it would limit their prospective audience to less than 25% of the PC market. It just wouldn't be smart to limit your potential customer base in this manner. We've all seen just how well that has worked for games like AoC.

 

It's being designed with the Xbox 360's limitations in mind......Which means auto targeted crap.....limited on screen clickability. And limited Graphics.

This is just out and out bullshit. XBox is more than capable of keyboard and mouse input if the game is programmed to use them on that platform. Also a game can have more than one control scheme so no limitations will be needed for the PC version in order to incorporate an XBox version as well. As for graphics all graphics engines are scalable these days so there is no reason that the PC version has to be limited just because there is an XBox version as well.

 

Custom races? WTF.... there are dozens of races in the federation. Why break with Cannon when it's so easy to stay cannon? Besides you must be a member of the Federation to be in starfleet.....wtf were they thinking.

Sorry but we saw new races on almost every other show. This is well within canon as any time they had a mixed crowd scene on a show or movie we saw new aliens that we've never seen before. Do you even know how many planets are in the Federation according to lore? There are hundreds of which we've only seen a small percentage represented in the shows/movies. So a few new aliens isn't going to hurt the game at all and certanly wont violate canon in any way especially considering that the canon is so vague on this anyways.

 

I could go on and on but this game is depressing

It's gonna suck balls.

So you've played it already? personal experience with the game is the only way you'd know this. Condenming a game you've never even played especially one that is this early in the development cycle is just plain ignorant at best.

 

I'll just play Jumpgate Evolution Till the Battletech MMO comes out.

Sorry you've already condenmed a game you haven't even played and obviously don't know much about. Maybe you should just give them a chance to show us what they have before you jump to mis-informed conclusions about it. Saying a game is going to "suck balls" without any first hand experience with it is kinda like a kid who claims he doesn't like Spinach even though he's never tasted it.

Bren

the fact that they wrote COH was a big enough turn off for me to decide not to buy it.