The thing that killed the hype for me was that everyone was to have their own ship. The simple fix for this would be to have everyone on a server on 4 different ships: federation, klingon, rom, borg. With a 2K connection limit on each server this would be about 500 people to a ship. Ships are huge people could progress like an ordinary crew member.Each week these ships would visit a new planet where characters could leave the ship and interact with the planet.

Wouldn't this be more enjoyable and easier than what they have planned?

Sorry, but what you propose sounds more like a Star Trek cruise line than a game. It would be boring as hell and would get very old very quickly. This "biggest issue" isn't that big of an issue at all. Most people that have been following this game are either perfectly OK with the way they have it planned or have at least accepted it as needed to make the game fun. The "we must have player crews or we wont play" people are a very vocal and very small minority in the overall community.

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

Sorry, but what you propose sounds more like a Star Trek cruise line than a game. It would be boring as hell and would get very old very quickly. This "biggest issue" isn't that big of an issue at all. Most people that have been following this game are either perfectly OK with the way they have it planned or have at least accepted it as needed to make the game fun. The "we must have player crews or we wont play" people are a very vocal and very small minority in the overall community.

 

Bren

No matter what the issue is Bren you seem to defend this game. Your statement above is not true. How much are shills being paid these days?

It is boring to be a crew member? Yeah right, I've always dreamed about being a freaking ship.

People who wish to be a crew member are a small minority? What fantasy land do you come from?

Find another job Bren, you're obviously not very believable as a paid shill.

While I am no fanboy of everyone being a Captain of their own ship, I have to agree with Bren here. Being one of a couple hundred people on a ship would suck beyond belief. Some lucky shmoe gets to be weapons officer while I am stuck as third supply ensign. The only way ship crews would work and keep everyone happy is if they were part of the bridge crew, other than that it would be boring as hell and might as well be Star Trek Second Life (ugh.)

I think the OP has a very good point though. People are being a bit too hard on him because it seems that they are taking him very literally without seing the spirit of the suggestion (which seems to be a very common thing for these forums).

A Starship is supposed to be a very lively and active place.

There is a certain excitement that can be generated by everyone actually being on a starship, or at least a large amount of people.

However, the criticisms still stand. The show really centered around the bridge crew and a few others strewn about the ship. Everyone else was just window dressing.

What they could have done was have every clan leader be the captain and then all the clan members become the crew. Essentially making each ship clan housing.

There is precedent for this as Lineage 2 has the leader having ultimate power. It works very well, with the leader giving permissions as he/she sees fit.

However, from what I've seen, it seems that there are many people who want to be captains but who might not want to run a clan. So there is issue with that.

The OP's suggestion wasn't a bad one, just tricky in implementation given what players might want to experience.

And sure, being the ship's 27th file clerk might not be worth 15 dollars per month.

Originally posted by daadamo

While I am no fanboy of everyone being a Captain of their own ship, I have to agree with Bren here. Being one of a couple hundred people on a ship would suck beyond belief. Some lucky shmoe gets to be weapons officer while I am stuck as third supply ensign. The only way ship crews would work and keep everyone happy is if they were part of the bridge crew, other than that it would be boring as hell and might as well be Star Trek Second Life (ugh.)

Exactly.

Oh and OP... It really makes your point seem more credible when you reply to criticism with personal attacks and all around immature behavior. 

Bren

Originally posted by Sovrath

I think the OP has a very good point though. People are being a bit too hard on him because it seems that they are taking him very literally without seing the spirit of the suggestion (which seems to be a very common thing for these forums).

A Starship is supposed to be a very lively and active place.

 

There is a certain excitement that can be generated by everyone actually being on a starship, or at least a large amount of people.

However, the criticisms still stand. The show really centered around the bridge crew and a few others strewn about the ship. Everyone else was just window dressing.

What they could have done was have every clan leader be the captain and then all the clan members become the crew. Essentially making each ship clan housing.

There is precedent for this as Lineage 2 has the leader having ultimate power. It works very well, with the leader giving permissions as he/she sees fit.

However, from what I've seen, it seems that there are many people who want to be captains but who might not want to run a clan. So there is issue with that.

The OP's suggestion wasn't a bad one, just tricky in implementation given what players might want to experience.

And sure, being the ship's 27th file clerk might not be worth 15 dollars per month.

Sovrath makes some good points here. I really wouldn't have a problem with Guild ships being manned with player crews just don't make the whole game like that. Guild ships are really the only place where I see player crews being a viable option anyways. It would be kinda like Guild raids in other games. For the average player though 90% of the time just being a member of someone else's ship would be about as exciting as watching paint dry. Games are supposed to be action oriented and I'm not going to pay $15 a month to file log reports, gaurd door #163 or push a button on a panel only when someone else tells me to.

Bren

Guard doors and log reports? Where is your imagination?

How about being a doctor, medic, selling drinks in 10-forward, engineer, transportation, scientist, building/repairing equipment, hair designer, crafting and selling, security, ...

No, No, Flight simulator, lets all be a freaking ship

Originally posted by kyme

Guard doors and log reports? Where is your imagination?

How about being a doctor, medic, selling drinks in 10-forward, engineer, transportation, scientist, building/repairing equipment, hair designer, crafting and selling, security, ...

No, No, Flight simulator, lets all be a freaking ship

OK... let me ask you this. What would a doctor do when no one is hurt? What would a medic do when there is no battle going on? What would an engineer do when nothing is broke? What would a scientist do when there is nothing to research? A bartender? A hair designer? Are you freaking serious? What exactly would a security officer do whenever? How exactly would you implement any of these professions so that they would be compelling and fun? What would any of these players actually do within the confines of MMO mechanics besides sit around and chat/RP with other players every time they log in? Most if not all of these people would be sitting around picking their noses at least 80% of the time and I don't think anyone would pay $15 a month to do that.

All of these professions would need to have compelling content to be viable in a game. You do know that this is supposed to be a game, right? What you are proposing is way beyond what is technologically possible in a MMO. Even if it was possible to have enough content to keep a whole ship's worth of professions busy would take 20 or more years to develop and no hard drive would be big enough to contain it all. The only other alternative is to have a big RP chat room with Star Trek skins... Umm... no thanks!

Maybe YOU want Star Trek Second Life but I think most would find it to be a total snooze-fest and would be leaving this game in droves. A game... yes a GAME has to have interesting and compelling content to keep their player base from jumping ship. First of all you have to keep the players ingauged in fun and interesting activities for at least 75%-80% of their time online. Any game that doesn't do this won't keep their player base for very long and will fail quickly. What you are proposing would kill this game fast and I don't know about you but I personally have realistic expectations of what to expect from this game. I want STO to succeed and this STO cruise line idea of yours would be boring as hell.

Edit: Oh and one more thing. I think you are confusing what you see on TV with what is possible in a MMO. On TV they can jump to wherever the action is. They never show someone just sitting around eating or reading a book for very long because it would make for a very boring show. They always keep the camera on where the story line is unfolding any given moment. In a MMO it is very different because you can't just jump to where the action is. You have to have compelling minute by minute content for every single character or the game will just fail miserably. This is something that the player crew people just can't seem to get a grasp on.

Bren

Well isn't everybody just up 'n doodley happy about this game! Feels nice to get so much positive feedback expecially around the holidays! its my job as ship morale officer to try and keep everyone happy. So if the bridge crew are about embark on an adventure my job is to write them a happy limerick in the local chat hahaaa tihii and wish them luck. If someone is suffering from a bug in the game I simply do emotes and hope they get distracted. Should someone feel bored I simply tell them to log out and in a few times... maybe a more fun spot will open up meanwhile. Yessiry, this is life I tell ya, prancying around this ship for a few hours typing in chat.... c'est la vie!

Seriously, I once too shared this dream of walking around in my own ship deep in space with my fellow crewmates. This was back around 2004 and PE's first version of STO... it sounded too cool to be true man. Then I thought about it.... for a looong time. What tha h*ll do you do on a ship thats fun(for more than 10 minutes) that doesnt involve combat, exploration and diplomacy ? Well, you could repair a junction thingymawingyon on deck 7 section 89 corridor 4 again.... wait for injuries in medbay... recalibrate the warp hotdog again.

What Cryptic is doing definately works for me. Im in control, I can customize ship and crew. I dont have to wait for people to log on just to get a good bridge crew. I can explore strange new worlds at will. The PC bridge crew is still a great idea for guild events or instances. But for now I belive the current idea is the best one.

Happy Holidays!!!

It not impossible to design a game that has capital ships as instances, and ones that require several players to make up the bridge crew. I think that would work. Similarly with away missions and the like. This could be much like the epic story line in LoTR.

However a successful MMO is going to need exploration of the Star Trek worlds, that could easily be done by single players soloing, or in small group. None of this is un-achiveable.

Finally, there is the epic space conflicts; and this is probably where the debate lies. It feels that there should be capital ships which have player crews; however, I suspect that the majority of players really want to captain their own ship when it comes down to it.

Obviously, a commerical company is going to make a game that they hope will appeal to the greatest number of players; and as such I think it going to be one player, one ship :(  

It could be made to work, some kind of pyramid progression on many ships in parallel, scaled by difficulty, etc.. your mission lines would be related to gaining rank, etc

But yea that might end up being more of a virtual alternate universe game instead of a space shooter

different target audiences, no biggy

 While I agree that the one person/one ship direction isn't ideal (or even desireable), I certainly don't know how you're supposed to find something for 500 people to do on one ship. Non combat classes can be fun - I certainly enjoyed them in SWG, and it's something sorely lacking in nearly every other title. But you can't force it onto people. The majority of players are going to want to be involved in the action somehow, and that's just not going to happen with 500 people on board.

A crew of 6 to 10? Well, that's another thing entirely. However, Cryptic appears to have a very limited window of time to get this game out, and as a result they're going to have to limit it for the time being.  Perhaps later.

Well... let me set the record straight. I'm not against player crews if they are done right and kept as optional content.

A player crew of 6-10 bridge officers is more than doable with today's technology. The problem lies in making it fun to be on someone else's crew. You would have to have enough unique content for each bridge position not only to keep players actually playing some kind of game(keeping busy basically) but also to make it fun. This would essentially add 6-10 smaller arcade type games all working together under the main game and would dramatically increase production time for the overall game. Also these mini-games would all have to tie into the player's character skills to make character progression worthwhile and to make sure that having the right skills for any given position would make a noticeable difference.

The main thing is you would have to make it desirable for people to use this optional content to justify adding the extra development time and resources to an already epic undertaking of a game. If you can only give each bridge position enough content to keep a player at that position actively participating for 20-40% of the time it just wouldn't be worth it. Nobody wants to play a game where you essentially do nothing most of the time but watch others having fun. You would have to give every bridge position something that not only keeps them fairly busy but also contributes to the overall goals of the given situation. This is a whole lot harder than I think anyone realizes.

Now on to what the OP is suggesting. What he wants to do would multiply all of this by a factor of about 100. This would be not only impossible but would make the development time so long that it would just be stupid to undertake such a venture. If they can't figure out how to make 6 bridge positions fun and worthwhile how in the hell are they going to do it with 100-150 different professions you would find on a typical starship? They just couldn't and most people would be left with nothing to do for a vast majority of their time spent online. It would be economic suicide to make such a game and it will never be done.

Bren

I'm a supporter of player crews. I put forward a plan on how to make 5-man bridge crews work and be fun (my idea of fun of course) to Cryptic. I know I'm not the only professional to have done that. I also posted my design and it was deleted from the official forums and I was asked not to talk about it, so hopefully they're taking it under consideration.

I really wouldn't like the idea of full ships though. I think the only time they would even make sense as it were, would be as transport, and I doubt you could find 10 people at the same location wanting the same destination within a reasonable timeframe, let alone 100. The option to charter a ship would be a much better option I feel.

However, Cryptic isn't going for the depth that many trekkies were expecting, and this is causing a lot of friction.

I personally have little interest in being captain of my own ship. I base this on my experiences in other games that offer this and the fact I always gravitate to support roles. I think of a ships captain as being like a main tank, and that's simply not for me. Naturally, I won't know for certain if Cryptics planned playstyle is appealing to me or not until I actually play the game.

the downside for klingon crew in the "i want to be crewman redshirt" idea is that klingon crew won't be able to assassinate their captains and take over the ship. instead of contant civil warfare for the klingons we will be forced to attack federation targets for our war spoils.

So who get to be the lucky 10 people on the bridge? Or are you telling me that we only get to play the red shirts?

Im fine with this and if it was STOs biggest issue well....then.....it wouldn't be in the game would it. IMO that is yours and a very small groups biggest issue.

Originally posted by darwa

I'm a supporter of player crews. I put forward a plan on how to make 5-man bridge crews work and be fun (my idea of fun of course) to Cryptic. I know I'm not the only professional to have done that. I also posted my design and it was deleted from the official forums and I was asked not to talk about it, so hopefully they're taking it under consideration.

I really wouldn't like the idea of full ships though. I think the only time they would even make sense as it were, would be as transport, and I doubt you could find 10 people at the same location wanting the same destination within a reasonable timeframe, let alone 100. The option to charter a ship would be a much better option I feel.

However, Cryptic isn't going for the depth that many trekkies were expecting, and this is causing a lot of friction.

I personally have little interest in being captain of my own ship. I base this on my experiences in other games that offer this and the fact I always gravitate to support roles. I think of a ships captain as being like a main tank, and that's simply not for me. Naturally, I won't know for certain if Cryptics planned playstyle is appealing to me or not until I actually play the game.

Pretty sure Ive seen it a few times that Cryptic is either talking about or already planning to put all PC bridge crews into the game at some point. I hink it falls into the why not category. It would just take awhile to develope though as the fans would want their to be depth to each spot and not just some shallow mini games, which is why I think we won't hear much on i till after launch or at least close to it,

Well here is one for ya.  I'm sure some of you have played SWG in the past.  How many times did you command a Star Destroyer or a Mon Calamari cruiser?  Never.  It requires too many resources to have a lot of people trying to run one ship.  Could you imagine if you were in the middle of an epic space battle and your helmsman DC'd?  ha ha that would be comedy.

Sure being part of a bridge crew would be every star trek fanbois sexual fantasy; but, you have to be realistic at the same time. 

What can you actually get away with in an online game?  Take in consideration the rest of the gaming world.  Not everyone wants to sit at a station and take orders from a captian that doesn't have his entire crew in mind.  MMORPGs require you to play with other players; but, in the end the only person you are truly concerned about is yourself and how you are going to benefit (you).  This is always the case in every MMORPG.  Deny it all you want, it's human nature.

For this reason, all the players are set on equal ground and able to aquire equal power and profit.  Seperating the players in any way is damning for any online game.  So how can you make a Star Trek game where everyone is eye to eye?

Take away the captian seat.

Originally posted by noblot

It not impossible to design a game that has capital ships as instances, and ones that require several players to make up the bridge crew. I think that would work. Similarly with away missions and the like. This could be much like the epic story line in LoTR.

However a successful MMO is going to need exploration of the Star Trek worlds, that could easily be done by single players soloing, or in small group. None of this is un-achiveable.

Finally, there is the epic space conflicts; and this is probably where the debate lies. It feels that there should be capital ships which have player crews; however, I suspect that the majority of players really want to captain their own ship when it comes down to it.

Obviously, a commerical company is going to make a game that they hope will appeal to the greatest number of players; and as such I think it going to be one player, one ship :(  

I don't see having my own ship or you having your own as a problem.