Originally posted by ericbelser

Depends on how you see the game. To me, "away teams" seem like a fairly optional part of the game and one that is strangely divorced from the space game. 

They may be "optional" to you, but away teams are a great ST universe asset, often a good way to show the interaction between characters.

Having multiple PCs aboard a ship would offer extra immersion to the game, but at the risk of losing out a lot of players due to the fact that they couldn't spend enough online time with the rest of the crew. It shouldn't feel like raiding, having to rely on 4-5 people to achieve your goals, though it seems some people have problems getting away from that preconception.

This is supposed to be a game, not a job.

Hello Everyone,

We like as you know to keep things civil here at MMORG.COM and I ask that it stay's that way here in this thread. Keep it constructive and too topic and it can continue. If not , you know the outcome.

Thank you,

Guardious

I think that STO will do just fine. 

I've been folowing it since April, and am anxiously awaiting for it's release.

I know that ship interiors will not be in at launch, and I certainly understand that

a ship won't host multiple players.  I agree with Cryptic in this regard - There's really

no way that they could implement this feature and make it fun.

I think people should try the game out before serving judgement.

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

In entertainment venues, the words "You Can't" are not a good recipie for success. This is the core of why I think STO is going to be a huge dissappointment for many fans. Because of the genre we are dealing with, people are going to come into the game with  expectations to be able to do certain things.... when they find out this is not supported, there is going to be a huge let down factor.

To illustrate, imagine this hypothetical conversation between Cryptic and a potential fan.

Fan - "I'm so stoked, I'm finaly going to be able to play an MMO where I can be the Chief Engineer aboard a starship in the Trek universe".

Cyptic - "I'm sorry but you can't play the Chief Engineer, you MUST be the Captain of your ship."

Fan - "What about my freind Bob, we played the FASA rpg...and he liked to play the Captain and I liked playing the Engineer. If I have to be Captain what does he play aboard our ship?"

Cryptic - "You can't play aboard the same ship with Bob, every ship is crewed by only a single player who MUST be Captain...all other positions MUST be filled by NPC's".

Fan - "That stinks. Well can I at least invite Bob aboard to show him all the tinkering I've done with the engines down in Engineering?"

Cryptic - "Sorry but you can't. Players can't beam over to other players ships. The only Player that can be aboard your ship is. You."

Fan - " So I can't be the Chief Engineer and I can't invite anyone aboard my ship. So what do I do when I tinker with stuff down in Engineering. Do I have to take screenshots to send them to other players to show off Engineering aboard my ship."

Cryptic - "I'm sorry but there IS no Engineering aboard your ship....or rather I should say it's not represented in game.... none of the interior areas aboard your ship are represented....so you can't go there, show them to anyone or tinker with any of the equipment there."

FAN - "So what happens in a fight when my front shield goes down and I do a half-loop to put my aft shields to the enemy. If cant goto Engineering, how do I get my front shield-back online? Does my NPC Engineer do it for me automaticaly?"

Cryptic - "Uhm...you can't do a half-loop in this game... we only support WASD movement and an elevator function.... there is no pitch or roll control"

FAN - "So what happens when I loose my front shield facing? How can I quickly manuver my ship so that I'm not exposing a weakend shield."

Cryptic - "Oh Don't worry about that.... shield facings are irrelevant... you can instantly transfer power to any shield facing you want by pressing a button on your hot-bar."

FAN - "Shield facings are irrelevant....and I'm limited in the control of movement and positioning of my ship. So what determines victory in Space Combat?"

Cryptic - "Ah well, if you do more damage to your opponent then they have hit points...er, I mean shield energy and structural points. Then you win!"

FAN - "Uhm.....so where do tactics come into play?"

Cryptic - "Oh that's easy... Depending upon your class... and upon the Pets...er I mean Bridge Crew you have equiped during the fight....you have certain specials on your hot-bar that buff you or debuff your enemies or let you do more powerfull attacks.... just like in WOW.... for instance there is a Photon Torpedoes of Doom special attack you can get that lets you fire 40 torpedoes all at once!"

FAN - "Photon Torpedos of Doom.... specials....this is SCIENCE Fiction we are talking about, not Magic right??? Don't torpedo tubes have a certain built in rate of fire.... how can you explain how stuff like that is supposed to work?? "

Cryptic - "Oh....easy.... we don't"
 

As far as ship interiors go, Cryptic's actual answer is "Not at launch"

Every game has "You can't" stuff. If games didn't have that, it would be legitimate to call that game a LIFE. Cuz there are not gonna be any kind of distinction between game and life anymore - since u can do everything u can do in life.

P.S. Most of the stuff listed is out-dated or wrong interpretation anyway.:) The game has many features and is worth a try.

there's prolly a good reason why you cant do it in the first place.

WOW...pretty much everyone here is so negative...think positive or STFU...we dont want to hear your endless whining!

If you don't have anything positive to say...go back to playin' WoW and EVE...at least give Cryptic a chance. After all the game hasn't been released yet....

The first time I head the words "Star Trek Online", I imagined creating a character on whatever races home planet you picked, then either joining a guild who can acquire a ship by some means, or joining the federation when you can be assigned to a ship by Starfleet.  Either way, I was sure it would be ships full of players, working together exploring space.

Then I realized that they would probably make it stupid, just like every other game it seems these days.  Sure enough, after hearing that ever player would have their own ship and every player would be the captain, I instantly lost all interest in the game, which was quite a feat on their part considering I'm a fan of the series.

A ship crewed with real players would never leave port.   Where the hell is  my helmsman - oh hes not home from work yet.

Oh ok then Mr checkov  you have the helm - when youve quite finished jumping up and down like an idiot and where the hell is my scienece officer disapeared to ? Oh yeah hes got bad lag captain. What a joke - Cryptic are doing the best and only really viable option open to them . END OF

Originally posted by malcombex

A ship crewed with real players would never leave port.   Where the hell is  my helmsman - oh hes not home from work yet.

Oh ok then Mr checkov  you have the helm - when youve quite finished jumping up and down like an idiot and where the hell is my scienece officer disapeared to ? Oh yeah hes got bad lag captain. What a joke - Cryptic are doing the best and only really viable option open to them . END OF

If by helmsman you mean the guy that normally sits at the helm, yea he might be dead IRL for all the crew knows.  That doesn't mean that posts should be inflexible.  The capt. could give an order to plot a course, and if no one is at the helm, any qualified member of the crew should be able to fill that position.

Imagine if Chekov were acting as though he was out of his mind, jumping up and down at his station, what do you think Kirk would have done?  He would have had him removed and gave another crew member orders to man the helm.

Have you ever played the Half-Life mod 'Natural Selection'?  When the match starts the players decide on the captain, who sits in the command seat and gives orders RTS style to the rest of the people who are playing FPS style.  The game works pretty well actually.  If people start disobeying orders and the mission is lost, then those players look bad towards the team, and so people typically work together and follow orders.  If the commander gives an order to a player to build a sensor, but that player just stares at the floor, the commander will give the command to someone else and get on the mic asking what the hell this guy is doing.  If he keeps being an idiot than he will probably be kicked from the server.

There are typically enough people on at any given time to play matches, likewise guilds in STO could 'handle' different types of ships depending on the size and competence of the guild.  None of that is stopping mister floor examiner from getting his own little craft, but to think that HE will be the captain of a STARSHIP along with everyone else is just dumb.

Almost everything about the world of Star Trek revolves around teamwork.  How fitting that as a modern MMO, it is now every man for himself.

Yeah i agree with you in theory ,but the point im trying to make is that the majority of players will themselves make that version of star trek online unplayable.You would find certain types of people purposely trying to ruin that experience simply because they can. Let alone rl issues getting in the way. I pesonally love the idea of teamwork on some simulated vessel out in deep space but it just wont translate into todays mmo market. so i agree with what cyptic are doing.

Originally posted by heremypet 

Almost everything about the world of Star Trek revolves around teamwork.  How fitting that as a modern MMO, it is now every man for himself.

Very well put. Every player is entitled to run his own Enterprise, I guess.

I get the impression that people who think player crews can't work have little or no experience grouping in other MMOs. Team work, leadership, co-ordination? They seem to be foreign concepts to the solo captain squad.

Originally posted by malcombex

Yeah i agree with you in theory ,but the point im trying to make is that the majority of players will themselves make that version of star trek online unplayable.You would find certain types of people purposely trying to ruin that experience simply because they can. Let alone rl issues getting in the way. I pesonally love the idea of teamwork on some simulated vessel out in deep space but it just wont translate into todays mmo market. so i agree with what cyptic are doing.

No offense...but pretty much every RAID or serious Dungeon in every MMO I've ever played required a reasonable amount of team-work from a group of players to complete successfully.  Yet when doing a ship-based mission in a Star Trek MMO.... that level of teamwork and cooperation suddenly becomes impossible to achieve ????   Please DO EXPLAIN?

I have plenty of experience with groups and raids , so i fully understand how they work .Im not saying theres any problem with this or acheiving common goals should be  outlawed. All im saying is that The equivelant to a raid would be multiple ships(avatars) focusing on a common goals.On the other hand being reliant on other members of your crew would be a nightmare ,as you would have to wait for each other to log on - all agree on the mission - all be happy with roles or be booted then look for replacements - it would take all night to leave port. come on guys why do you think the devs are doing it this way.

Originally posted by malcombex

All im saying is that The equivelant to a raid would be multiple ships(avatars) focusing on a common goals.On the other hand being reliant on other members of your crew would be a nightmare ,as you would have to wait for each other to log on - all agree on the mission - all be happy with roles or be booted then look for replacements - it would take all night to leave port.

That makes absolutely NO sense.

I ran a guild in Guild Wars for two years (and in many other games as well) and I can tell you there were plenty of times when I had announced a specific event on a specific night and we still ended up waiting around for a perticular person to log on or for some specific detail to be debated until a solution was found. That is simply the nature of grouping and team work in MMOs. Your assumption that giving everyone their own ship will solve this makes no sense to me. In Guild Wars we all had our "own ships" in a manner of speaking, any of us could have simply decided that grouping and guilds were not worth the effort and gone off to solo. And yet somehow people still joined my guild and went to great efforts to work as a team to accomplish things, even when it meant spending time waiting around or fighting over details. Why would it somehow be different in STO? I don't buy it.

I want to say how crazy it would be to design some mini-games for all of the potential different crew positions there are in some of the ST cannon.

However, I think it would just fall on deaf ears.  So, with that in mind. 

Who is going to play the Bar Tender in 10 forward? 

I imagine the mini game to be something like that arcade beer sliding game.  Sounds like fun, and if the inertial dempeners go out the bar will actually tilt making the game harder!

Will the engineer sit and press buttons when the captain types out a message to him/her in chat. 

Since you like theoretical conversations.......

Here is my theoretical conversation between players on a ship:

CPTN: fk11 fu11 wwwwwwwwaaaaaaaassssssss

ENGNR: ???? full power to sheilds?

CPTN: no!!!! fill the <bkspce><bkspce><bkspce><bkspce><bkspce> full power to threwqstrs!  <bkspce><bkspce><bkspce> thrusters!

ENGNR: OK!

CPTN: Well?  where are the f'in thrad <bkspce><bkspce><bkspce> thrusters!!!!!

ENGNR: You did not say ENGAGE!

SHIP:BOOM!!!

KLNGN: LOLZ!!!211!! NOOBFED!!

Resulting in my theoretical conversation on the Cryptic STO forumns;

PLYR: We should not have to type out full speed ahead to other playerrs on the ship.

CRPTIC: OK we will implement voice chat!

PLYR: No!  I keep forgetting to hit transmit on mic!  It needs to be a button.

CRPTIC:  So, you want to click a button that tells another player they need to click a button?

PLYR:  Yes!!!!

CRPTIC: What if I take the player out and you click a button and an NPC does the job!

PLYR: NO!!!!  You will d00m thegame! this is epic fail!!!  STO suxx!!!!! 

Originally posted by malcombex

I have plenty of experience with groups and raids , so i fully understand how they work .Im not saying theres any problem with this or acheiving common goals should be  outlawed. All im saying is that The equivelant to a raid would be multiple ships(avatars) focusing on a common goals.On the other hand being reliant on other members of your crew would be a nightmare ,as you would have to wait for each other to log on - all agree on the mission - all be happy with roles or be booted then look for replacements -

Just the way grouping for dungeon runs works - but STO would have the option of filing spots with NPC crew. You aren't even trying to think of this idea working.

it would take all night to leave port. come on guys why do you think the devs are doing it this way.

Because they are lazy and unimaginative, and trying for a big score with a dumbed-down game.

Even that would be fine - if they were not baiting Trek fans with the IP.

Originally posted by NovaKayne

I want to say how crazy it would be to design some mini-games for all of the potential different crew positions there are in some of the ST cannon.

 

However, I think it would just fall on deaf ears.  So, with that in mind. 

 

Who is going to play the Bar Tender in 10 forward? 

 

I imagine the mini game to be something like that arcade beer sliding game.  Sounds like fun, and if the inertial dempeners go out the bar will actually tilt making the game harder!

 

Will the engineer sit and press buttons when the captain types out a message to him/her in chat. 

 

Since you like theoretical conversations.......

Here is my theoretical conversation between players on a ship:

CPTN: fk11 fu11 wwwwwwwwaaaaaaaassssssss

ENGNR: ???? full power to sheilds?

CPTN: no!!!! fill the <bkspce><bkspce><bkspce><bkspce><bkspce> full power to threwqstrs!  <bkspce><bkspce><bkspce> thrusters!

ENGNR: OK!

CPTN: Well?  where are the f'in thrad <bkspce><bkspce><bkspce> thrusters!!!!!

ENGNR: You did not say ENGAGE!

SHIP:BOOM!!!

KLNGN: LOLZ!!!211!! NOOBFED!!

 

Resulting in my theoretical conversation on the Cryptic STO forumns;

PLYR: We should not have to type out full speed ahead to other playerrs on the ship.

CRPTIC: OK we will implement voice chat!

PLYR: No!  I keep forgetting to hit transmit on mic!  It needs to be a button.

CRPTIC:  So, you want to click a button that tells another player they need to click a button?

PLYR:  Yes!!!!

CRPTIC: What if I take the player out and you click a button and an NPC does the job!

PLYR: NO!!!!  You will d00m thegame! this is epic fail!!!  STO suxx!!!!! 

 

You are suggesting ridiculous strawman extremes in order to make the current design seem like the only option.

Voice chat is indeed the way to run a player crewed ship - just as millions of players use voice chat programs to play various MMOs right now.

Originally posted by NovaKayne

PLYR: We should not have to type out full speed ahead to other playerrs on the ship.

CRPTIC: OK we will implement voice chat!

PLYR: No!  I keep forgetting to hit transmit on mic!  It needs to be a button.

CRPTIC:  So, you want to click a button that tells another player they need to click a button?

PLYR:  Yes!!!!

CRPTIC: What if I take the player out and you click a button and an NPC does the job!

Better yet, lets take out that whole nasty "button clicking" mess completely. We will just set it up so that as soon as the player logs into the game they instantly get a message saying "YOU WIN!" without even having to do anything! Instant gratification without any work... except for the $15 a month fee... gotta have that still. And the cash shop, cause you gotta have that armor upgrade so you look good when you see the "you win" screen.

The sad part is, this is probably a pretty close approximation of the design philosophy at Cryptic...