.

Originally posted by wolfmann

Originally posted by AlloughN

I know of a indie company that is producing a space MMO that does everything I dreamed of. You can walk through every last corridor and room in the bigger ships. Smaller ships, like fighters, you essentially enter through a hatch, and sit in a chair. The amount of players you can have on the ships are as many as you can cram aboard and still be able to walk. The ships functions are controlled by 9 main separate stations, for just traveling, you only need one player on. For maximum efficiency in combat, you need all 9 stations manned by players. Firing weapons,  using shields, making repairs, upgrades, the building of the ships from the ground up are all manually done by players. And its just as immersive on the planet side.  Talk about infinite possibilities..

And the setting of that game, its a real starmap, made by telescope and satellite imagery. There are over 17,000 star systems, with over 100,000 unique planets. According to the devs of that game, they havent even seen all the systems, yet alone the planets in it.

Combat, whether PvP or PvE is open, it can take place anywhere, on planets, in star systems, and even in hyperspace, or deep space, between star systems.

If a indie company, with limited resources, with its devs working on it in their spare time, can do it. It should be childs play for a big well financed company like Cryptic.

 

Oh but see here, that would only atract Trekkies.

MMO companies don't want Trekkies! They want MAINSTREAM audiences.

You and your Data cotume and "KHAAAAN" battlecry can go hide in yer basement...

 

History has shown that there is no corporation and MMO company in existance that "care" for the IP they buy and the fans it comes with. They want the IP for thwe name recognition, so that when they aproach the mainstream, they will be recognized...Thats all.

 

So, if yer smart... turn mainstream, ditch any notion of being a fan, ditch any idea of being an individual(thats soo not mainstream), and start baaa'ing..Like a sheep. Then you are mainstream, and the corporations, investors, marketings and developers would toss MMO's at you like a friggin machingun.

 

And so far everygame that has tried to attract mainstream has pretty much failed or fell short of their expectations.... people that care about Star Trek are Star Trek Fans... not Joe Schmo looking to play the game for a month or 2 then move to the next game. If you want a long term commitment to the game and its playerbase make it for the real fans of the IP and not the rest of the market that dont even like Star Trek...

Originally posted by firefly2003

Originally posted by wolfmann

Originally posted by AlloughN

I know of a indie company that is producing a space MMO that does everything I dreamed of. You can walk through every last corridor and room in the bigger ships. Smaller ships, like fighters, you essentially enter through a hatch, and sit in a chair. The amount of players you can have on the ships are as many as you can cram aboard and still be able to walk. The ships functions are controlled by 9 main separate stations, for just traveling, you only need one player on. For maximum efficiency in combat, you need all 9 stations manned by players. Firing weapons,  using shields, making repairs, upgrades, the building of the ships from the ground up are all manually done by players. And its just as immersive on the planet side.  Talk about infinite possibilities..

And the setting of that game, its a real starmap, made by telescope and satellite imagery. There are over 17,000 star systems, with over 100,000 unique planets. According to the devs of that game, they havent even seen all the systems, yet alone the planets in it.

Combat, whether PvP or PvE is open, it can take place anywhere, on planets, in star systems, and even in hyperspace, or deep space, between star systems.

If a indie company, with limited resources, with its devs working on it in their spare time, can do it. It should be childs play for a big well financed company like Cryptic.

 

Oh but see here, that would only atract Trekkies.

MMO companies don't want Trekkies! They want MAINSTREAM audiences.

You and your Data cotume and "KHAAAAN" battlecry can go hide in yer basement...

 

History has shown that there is no corporation and MMO company in existance that "care" for the IP they buy and the fans it comes with. They want the IP for thwe name recognition, so that when they aproach the mainstream, they will be recognized...Thats all.

 

So, if yer smart... turn mainstream, ditch any notion of being a fan, ditch any idea of being an individual(thats soo not mainstream), and start baaa'ing..Like a sheep. Then you are mainstream, and the corporations, investors, marketings and developers would toss MMO's at you like a friggin machingun.

 

And so far everygame that has tried to attract mainstream has pretty much failed or fell short of their expectations.... people that care about Star Trek are Star Trek Fans... not Joe Schmo looking to play the game for a month or 2 then move to the next game. If you want a long term commitment to the game and its playerbase make it for the real fans of the IP and not the rest of the market that dont even like Star Trek...

 

I disagree. Only way to make a successful game is to make it appeal to more then just the trekkies. Problem with catering to trekkies is that if you do anything that they think doesn't fit with star trek canon they may leave or it. You know the truly hard core ones would. But, if you can appeal to a wider audience you can feel a bit safer knowing that you have players who are there because they like your game.

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie
 

I disagree. Only way to make a successful game is to make it appeal to more then just the trekkies. Problem with catering to trekkies is that if you do anything that they think doesn't fit with star trek canon they may leave or it. You know the truly hard core ones would. But, if you can appeal to a wider audience you can feel a bit safer knowing that you have players who are there because they like your game.

I think you are too correct.

It's safer to go with regular people who just like the game as opposed to a die hard group who probably know the canon far better than you who will call you on every little decision that you make and in the end will leave the game in a huff if it isn't exaaaaaactly like they have always dreamed about it in their minds.

Of course, I'm still a believer that the gameworld has to be true to the IP. But sometimes you have to allow mmo conventions in order to make the game work.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie
 

I disagree. Only way to make a successful game is to make it appeal to more then just the trekkies. Problem with catering to trekkies is that if you do anything that they think doesn't fit with star trek canon they may leave or it. You know the truly hard core ones would. But, if you can appeal to a wider audience you can feel a bit safer knowing that you have players who are there because they like your game.

 

I think you are too correct.

It's safer to go with regular people who just like the game as opposed to a die hard group who probably know the canon far better than you who will call you on every little decision that you make and in the end will leave the game in a huff if it isn't exaaaaaactly like they have always dreamed about it in their minds.

Of course, I'm still a believer that the gameworld has to be true to the IP. But sometimes you have to allow mmo conventions in order to make the game work.

I agree to a point with this. These "Die Hard Trekkies" that everyone keeps bringing up are actually a very vocal minority in the overall Star Trek community. Don't get me wrong as these are the ones that will scream the loudest when the developers step outside of canon. These people are a very small subset of the ST community and it won't really matter if these people get disgruntled and leave. Most of the overall community are very forgiving when it comes to lore and canon and will be more than satisfied as long as the game has an overall "Trek" feel to it.

No. The only way Cryptic could possible screw this up is to make a totally combat centric alien gank fest as that would be very un-Trek like. So far from what I've seen they are not taking this direction so it shouldn't be a problem.

Bren

I made almost an identical post to the OP’s, I think last year or maybe 2 years ago about Perpetual Entertainments design decisions and was wondering why a tiny Indy developer managed to achieve almost everything they and most other people thought was impossible.

I was also hesitant to directly link to SQ’s website because of the usual dismissive “graphics suck” or “not being the captain is boring” comments when its only an example of a working proof of concept that shows it is possible.

But I do think that SQ is fundamentally flawed in some areas like the learning curve, necessary time commitment and the death penalty, but they could be adjusted to make it more appealing to the casual market and are not inherently fundamental problems to the basic core design principles.

Anyway I’ve resigned myself to the fact that :

In space, no one can hear you screaming about the importance of star ship interiors or multiple player crew ships, including whoever’s developing STO at the time.

And that I will almost certainly play STO whenever and by whoever its finally finished by just because its Star Trek anyway, but for how long depends entirely on what design decisions they have made.

Originally posted by Polarization

But I do think that SQ is fundamentally flawed in some areas like the learning curve, necessary time commitment and the death penalty, but they could be adjusted to make it more appealing to the casual market and are not inherently fundamental problems to the basic core design principles.

Those aren't flaws. They're differences. IDIC.

Some ideas should remain an idea instead of becoming a MMORPG.

Star Trek howver, I have no opinion.  I like watching Star Trek: Voyager during my excercise run in the living room.  I can run around for an hour if I watch it as I run (It is a big living room).  I don't even feel tired, power of distraction is amazing.

As a game however, I don't see myself playing it.  Might give it a shot like all other games, but we'll see.

Originally posted by AlloughN

 

I want the other people on my ship to be players, not "bridge crew" or red-shirts. I want a unpredictable, human being at my side, not a NPC.

I want the freedom of a virtual world, like the pen and paper rpg's of old, I want the freedom of those old carboard box sets, and that black streaked hallway of my moms house. I want to be free of the standards set by the current generation of space based MMO's.

Well, have u ever considered that 95% of the players (or some lopsided) number would want to be the captain? There won't be many who are willing to "being at your side" and do your bidding.

Would u like to play a red shirt? or worse yet, a comm officer that does nothing but says "hailing freq open"

Personally, I'd like to see something like this:

When I'm solo playing, I play as captain my ship with an NPC crew.  When I'm playing with a group, I get to be a member of the crew on the leader's ship.

Originally posted by AlloughN

Nope, what the game I am referring to is a reality, not "in a while". It is also already availible. I outta know, I was in the beta for it.

It goes beyond seamless interaction with space a ground, it goes to a total open ended sandbox game, where anything is possible. There are no quests, no level grinds. Everything in that game is player owned, even the 3 main game factions. Imagine if in STO the Federation government was made up entirely of player elected players.

But this is about Cryptic and STO. I want to know why they are not taking STO to its fullest potential.

 

is it starquest?  or is it another game?  cuz whatever it is, i'd like to try it.

Originally posted by AlloughN

Its Star Trek, its a MMO, it has great (even if somwhat comic) graphics. But,, its nothing new.

I have watched almost every Star Trek movie and episode. Almost every sci-fi flick actually, BSG, Stargare, Star Wars, etc. My imagination would run wild, when I was younger, I used to build bridge "sets" out of carboard and markers.  I sat at consoles, and blew up imaginary enemies, I ran down corridors (my mom used to yell at me for leaving rubber skid marks on the hallways floors) to repair a damaged system before it could explode and ruin my entire day.   That is my dream, to be able to live out in detail, the life of my fantasy.

In pretty much every sci-fi MMO to date, EVE for example, you are your ship, thats it.... In Anarchy Online, you are actually a character, but you are tied to the ground.

Cryptic has a huge amount of lore, money, and not to mention to tremendous fan-base. They have the opertunity to take space MMO's to the next level, the personal one. And what do they do? A half baked approach that you usually relate to Microsoft. You are a character on planets, that they got right, but as soon as you enter your ship, you turn into a ship. Sure, boarding battle sequences put you on to a map of your bridge to fight it out, but thats not my dream, I am not tied to a bridge.

Cryptic, you have disappointed me. You have the absolute best odds, and you are failing in this area of gameplay.

I want to be a character, never, ever, a starship. I want combat to be based off my own skill, not that of my avatars skill level.

I want the other people on my ship to be players, not "bridge crew" or red-shirts. I want a unpredictable, human being at my side, not a NPC.

I want the freedom of a virtual world, like the pen and paper rpg's of old, I want the freedom of those old carboard box sets, and that black streaked hallway of my moms house. I want to be free of the standards set by the current generation of space based MMO's.

I agree, this a F'ING MMO. 

Let me guess what we need.

Helmsman

Science OF

Tactical

Security

Chief and so on before the ship can do anything!

I don't want to pilot a 200+(even 8,20,100) crew wessel by myself. 

Cryptic! Please wake up and go back and visit this before you ruin this game!

Crafting same thing: You have to earn technology.  

Example: You and your 300 guild mates. Some craft and others pilot the wessels and get to higher tier mineral areas. you build bases ,stations and whatnot. Then you get crafting stations. Hell even put a crafting station on the ship.In a/instance

Ships are built at Starports/hangars!  Figured I'd let you in on that secrete.

The crafters earn the right to craft a Voyager or a Brown Variant Valdore. It will not be an easy task (or at least it shouldn't be)

Make the crafting engaging with stimulai it should be groundbreaking to any craftin in MMO to-date.

 let the noobs start in smaller Pick up group like wessels (non DS9 Defiant etc). They can queue for a 5 player wessel and go earn exp and get some sell loot.  When they have enough credentials they can become a crewman and train and specialise for what the Captain of the Guild/ship the Vessel needs and actualy have or be earning the expertise needed to be apart of a better wessel and it's crew. I'm sure you could have UFOP (Klingon Acadamy etc) as NPC starter guilds( federations,clan ,corp wtfever). Guilds looking for new or replacement crew members could look at these new players see how they are progressing and use this as a recruitment pool. Others who like to solo could possibly do like Guildwars did with NPC crewman. They might not be good at 1 thing but, they are good enough for a solo'r and not overpwered if done right (PVE only). MMO's are not for solo(lonewolf) type players but, there is money in it as having them a subscriber.

Seriously, I would love to meet the guy incharge of ideas over there. I don't think he has a clue about what an successful MMO is.

Use your brains over there!

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by AlloughN

 

I want the other people on my ship to be players, not "bridge crew" or red-shirts. I want a unpredictable, human being at my side, not a NPC.

I want the freedom of a virtual world, like the pen and paper rpg's of old, I want the freedom of those old carboard box sets, and that black streaked hallway of my moms house. I want to be free of the standards set by the current generation of space based MMO's.

 

Well, have u ever considered that 95% of the players (or some lopsided) number would want to be the captain? There won't be many who are willing to "being at your side" and do your bidding.

Would u like to play a red shirt? or worse yet, a comm officer that does nothing but says "hailing freq open"

 

What nariusseldon said, while you might make assumptions about what you would like to do in a game, your statements in this post were all about you being in charge of a real crew. You don't want an MMO, you want to be a crew member on a starship in the ST world and i don't think any game you play will you give you that level of immersion until the holographic suite actually exists.

With everything i've seen about the level of cooperation between random players in a game, what are the odds that:

A) They're going to let you be in charge without any knowledge or trust in your abilities,

B) You won't end up with some griefer blowing your hangar doors at a vital moment and screwing up your game.

C) People won't just join, muck about, quit, join, hurl aabuse, quit, join screw something up, quit.

It's a good dream to have a game that gives you that immersion, but it's just that, a dream.

While having a player crew sounds great, and I could enjoy that to a point. I always seem to be the leader of my groups. While playing in a fantasy MMORPG being group leader is alot different than being captain of a player controlled crew abourd a ship.

In my groups as leader, even though I may decide tactics I am participating by combat at the same time. Now as captain of my player crew aboard the USS Thor, What is my job? Just give orders? Think up tactics on the fly? While everyone at the stations, tactics, engines, science etc, all has something to do. Some sort of mini game I would think on long travels through space. This to me, just seems boring.

Now being captain of my own ship with npc crews also would seem boring, But I do know that I will actually be operating the flight of my ship and monitoring ship npc crews. Seems more fun. I would not even begin to think about monitoring real life crews cause I would not to make them feel stupid or inept. When your talking about playing leader with others you have to start worrying about their ego's. It is very easy to bruise someone's ego where they won't enjoy playing and would definitely not want to play with that captain.

So I feel that Cryptic is going the right way with everyone is a captain. You can still lead a squadron and still have things to do personally besides just giving orders. At least for me this will be fun.

The game is not even in alpha stage yet,  How on earth could anyone know what its going to be like?

And to be honest,  I dont wanna be some Shmuck on your bridge,  nor do I want to be a toon working on some other players ship!...

Get real, I want my own ships.. dont wanna be no deck hand.

Originally posted by AlloughN

Its Star Trek, its a MMO, it has great (even if somwhat comic) graphics. But,, its nothing new.

I have watched almost every Star Trek movie and episode. Almost every sci-fi flick actually, BSG, Stargare, Star Wars, etc. My imagination would run wild, when I was younger, I used to build bridge "sets" out of carboard and markers.  I sat at consoles, and blew up imaginary enemies, I ran down corridors (my mom used to yell at me for leaving rubber skid marks on the hallways floors) to repair a damaged system before it could explode and ruin my entire day.   That is my dream, to be able to live out in detail, the life of my fantasy.

In pretty much every sci-fi MMO to date, EVE for example, you are your ship, thats it.... In Anarchy Online, you are actually a character, but you are tied to the ground.

Cryptic has a huge amount of lore, money, and not to mention to tremendous fan-base. They have the opertunity to take space MMO's to the next level, the personal one. And what do they do? A half baked approach that you usually relate to Microsoft. You are a character on planets, that they got right, but as soon as you enter your ship, you turn into a ship. Sure, boarding battle sequences put you on to a map of your bridge to fight it out, but thats not my dream, I am not tied to a bridge.

Cryptic, you have disappointed me. You have the absolute best odds, and you are failing in this area of gameplay.

I want to be a character, never, ever, a starship. I want combat to be based off my own skill, not that of my avatars skill level.

I want the other people on my ship to be players, not "bridge crew" or red-shirts. I want a unpredictable, human being at my side, not a NPC.

I want the freedom of a virtual world, like the pen and paper rpg's of old, I want the freedom of those old carboard box sets, and that black streaked hallway of my moms house. I want to be free of the standards set by the current generation of space based MMO's.

 i don't think your thinking things through. Who do you think really wants to pay money to be your redshirt, or your communitcations officer? Sure you'll be the captain and all but really you think everyone else wants to be your crew waiting in sick bay for someone to get hurt ot in engineering for a fire to start? Think about it. Its not just about your enjoyment its about every paying customers enjoyment and what your suggesting be the norm would be a terrible yawn feast from pretty much eveyone else who has to play as your underling. Perhaps they should add full loot PVP so that way you can have that unpredictable human being at your side phaser you when they get bored to tears following your commands.

 Don't be sad, it was a failure from the start when cryptic first annouced they would be the new devs for star trek, they only know how to make budget mmo's for kids.

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by AlloughN

Its Star Trek, its a MMO, it has great (even if somwhat comic) graphics. But,, its nothing new.

I have watched almost every Star Trek movie and episode. Almost every sci-fi flick actually, BSG, Stargare, Star Wars, etc. My imagination would run wild, when I was younger, I used to build bridge "sets" out of carboard and markers.  I sat at consoles, and blew up imaginary enemies, I ran down corridors (my mom used to yell at me for leaving rubber skid marks on the hallways floors) to repair a damaged system before it could explode and ruin my entire day.   That is my dream, to be able to live out in detail, the life of my fantasy.

In pretty much every sci-fi MMO to date, EVE for example, you are your ship, thats it.... In Anarchy Online, you are actually a character, but you are tied to the ground.

Cryptic has a huge amount of lore, money, and not to mention to tremendous fan-base. They have the opertunity to take space MMO's to the next level, the personal one. And what do they do? A half baked approach that you usually relate to Microsoft. You are a character on planets, that they got right, but as soon as you enter your ship, you turn into a ship. Sure, boarding battle sequences put you on to a map of your bridge to fight it out, but thats not my dream, I am not tied to a bridge.

Cryptic, you have disappointed me. You have the absolute best odds, and you are failing in this area of gameplay.

I want to be a character, never, ever, a starship. I want combat to be based off my own skill, not that of my avatars skill level.

I want the other people on my ship to be players, not "bridge crew" or red-shirts. I want a unpredictable, human being at my side, not a NPC.

I want the freedom of a virtual world, like the pen and paper rpg's of old, I want the freedom of those old carboard box sets, and that black streaked hallway of my moms house. I want to be free of the standards set by the current generation of space based MMO's.

 

 i don't think your thinking things through. Who do you think really wants to pay money to be your redshirt, or your communitcations officer? Sure you'll be the captain and all but really you think everyone else wants to be your crew waiting in sick bay for someone to get hurt ot in engineering for a fire to start? Think about it. Its not just about your enjoyment its about every paying customers enjoyment and what your suggesting be the norm would be a terrible yawn feast from pretty much eveyone else who has to play as your underling. Perhaps they should add full loot PVP so that way you can have that unpredictable human being at your side phaser you when they get bored to tears following your commands.

This game will be a failure.

I agree with many of the above posters. I can't think of too many people that want to pay $50 and a month;y script to sit in someone elses ship and hail other ships all night or scan other ships all night. That sounds really boring.  Where it works though is on the ground missions grouping there with different specialties will make for good grouping.

I also think its a little too early to tell whether or not the game will fail or not.

I was just gonna post a comment similar to above, if they made a game that required people to man individual stations on a ship the game would appeal to no more than a handful of rabid fanboys craving total immersion. The rest of the MMO population would just look at it and frown, people want bang for their buck, thats why AoC and WAR failed, they don't offer anything for your buck after the first chunk of the game is over with.

People will not pay a monthly fee to perform the most monotonous tasks so someone else can fly around and blow stuff up and generally have the fun that the communications officer is missing out on.

It's the exact same situation as Bioware face with Jedi, you can either get rid of jedi completely and appeal to the hardcore or you can let everyone be jedi and appeal to the masses and no company is ever going to give up money to appease a handful of hardcore.

I know for a fact if I subscribed to SWO I would want to captain my own ship, not be a slave to some moron who at the end of the day will be gettin far more value for money than myself. I hope they let us explore the insides of the ships etc and they most likely will but forcing people to group up and perform meanial tasks will never make a good game.