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Star Trek Online: Some Thoughts on "Capturing the Essence"
MMORPG.com Star Trek Online Correspondent Troy Hammers writes this editorial discussing how Cryptic will capture the essence of Star Trek in their upcoming MMO.
What is Star Trek? That question is extremely hard to answer with one word. What can you put into a Star Trek game? Just about everything: Captain's Logs, Starships, Aliens, Humanity, Neutral Zones and everything in-between. If I were a developer I would have trouble figuring out where to start...at first.
When talking about Star Trek, to me, it's pretty simple where to start. It is the basis of every sitcom, movie and cartoon that you can probably even think of: People. We especially like people who can drop kick some major tail like James T. Kirk, or people like William Riker who can just about sweet talk any lovely female he comes across with his Lumberjack beard. Call me a Cryptic fan boy, but from what I can tell, it's pretty clear they are answering the call in this area.
Let's explore this just a little; When Perpetual had the IP, I liked the fact you could act as a certain part of the crew such as Tactical, Security or even a Medical Doctor. All of your friends working together to defeat a common foe all on one ship. Wow, on paper and explaining this to a Star Trek fan or any Sci-Fi enthusiast, you think this could be the greatest game ever made. However, I found it hard to possibly try to make this work with each individual person working as a crew - on different parts of ship's operations and everyday work. You can name as many ways as you want and make this happen, such as players all logging on at the same time and manning your vessel, but in the end, for people who have things to do, it won't work. I can only imagine while fighting the Borg, your Security Officer says "SORRY GUYS GOTTA GO WALK THE DOG!" Now unable to fire phasers at the Borg Cube at the right time, you get hammered! Your bridge crew fall to the ground from damage to your ship, your ship blows up in the biggest epic fail possible and the next thing you know everyone has to respawn and then travel 100 light years back to a shipyard, blah, blah, blah you get my point.
Let's look at Cryptic's approach to people. You start as a “Captain” of your own ship, or at least acting Captain, with a possible lower rank such as Ensign (from what we know details on ranks are bit iffy). Granted everyone does not want to be a Captain, they understand that. I understand that. I'm sure it was a difficult decision to make while taking over Star Trek Online, but using the various Star Trek shows, it's pretty clear they are based around people of command. In addition to the people in command, they have a "supporting cast" which usually consists of the bridge crew or others in a position to command. In STO, are you in command? Check. Do you have a bridge crew at your side? Check. Can you customize your bridge crew? Finally, the most important character of your supporting cast, you ship. Can you customize your ship and gain greater ones? Check.
The rest is icing on the cake. Cryptic, at least from what I can see, understand that people are the most important aspects of making Star Trek Online work. In saying this, I'm not meaning they are making a Star Trek TV series into a video game. What about exploration? One of Star Trek's greatest feats has been exploration. Has Cryptic expressed interest in making exploration a big part of the game? Check. However, I'm a tad skeptical on how this will pan out. I've heard reports of randomly generated planets and/or systems, but I don't know how it will all come together. Another question that lingers in my mind is the "end game". Let's say, for example, you max out your character and ship to the highest levels possible. Then what? I can see exploring, but not all the time. PvP will be huge, understandably, but I'm not sure if that will keep everyone hooked. I wish I could comment on the player economy or the way it works, but we don’t know much about that yet. What we do know is that there will be a galactic economy using some form of money or something else of value, but we don't know to what extent or how it works yet (insert Ferengi comments here). I really wish some crafting information were available, unfortunately we don't know too much about that yet either. One thing to be really, really excited about will be episodic content in patches or updates that will be released. I can only imagine some of the missions you could be sent on, such as commandeering the newest edition of the Enterprise, or doing a mission with Data's brother, B-4.
An observation I have made reading the boards is the amount of people stating negative things about the graphics/game engine used by Cryptic. Huh? Have you seen the screenshots?! If not:
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Have you seen the trailer?! I don't need my eyes checked, but to me they look pretty good. Granted it's an engine they have used before, but it works. It's a smart business move to make STO work on a wide range of computers (Insert Mac/Linux complaints here). I would say a good way to find out how STO will generally look is to look at Cryptic's upcoming product, Champions Online, which to my knowledge is the same game engine that will be used in STO. I can only imagine the individual wanting to buy STO, saying "I heard the graphics are way too intense for my PC, I'll pass" I'm going to bet a lot of gamers pass up Crysis for that exact reason, I know I have. I would even argue graphics have a part in Word of Warcraft's success, because it runs on a wide variety of systems.
More details are to come about STO, so stay tuned to MMORPG.com for the latest updates and rants from yours truly!
Yea, I can sorta see why Cryptic changed the way people will play together.. that's fine, but i still dont' wanna be captain... :)
I play mainly in Linux mainly because I choose not to run windows anymore. Just my personal thing. If STo doesn't run either natively or through Wine. I just won't buy it. That's my general mindset now. If it doesn't run in Linux, I'm not buying it.. :)
In concern with your comment about the games graphics. No one is denying that the game looks fabulous! The graphics are great, very sharp.
My personal issue with the graphics is one that many of us share; as well as a continuing trend in the gaming industry itself that not all of us like. The biggest issue with STO, and SW:TOR for that matter is not how Great the graphics are, but the Style they look. While the outside space shots do look good, All of the interior screen shots look like Cell-Shaded pictures stolen from Champions Online, and both City Of -'s.
I personally don't like cell shading much. And for a very strong Star Trek fan, this does not capture the 'feel' of Star Trek for me. In fact it puts me off from it.
The Same exact reason I am no longer interested in SW:TOR are the stylistic graphics. It does not FEEL like Star Wars to me. SWG did that well in my opinion...(until NGE at least.)
My $0.02
well put and i completely agree, although i do have a problem with some of the ship models but hopefully that's just down to the screenshots that where taken
I'm actually not sure I would want to compare the graphics of Champions Online with STO. It's not a big secret that one of the two major things that I don't like about CO is the cell-shading. It just makes everything look crappy. It makes CoH shine in comparison. However, the STO trailer does make things look more interesting. Personally, I'd like to see a few more gameplay movies before making any buy/not-buy decisions though!
I just hope the game gets published and I get to play it one of these days. The graphics look good for the most part, but as someone else pointed out there is some of it that looks a bit comic bookish. Now I am a huge fan of Star Trek, but even I never got into the comic books or cartoons. They were just lame, in my opinion. I think most people associate the IP's look with the tv episodes.
And one other thing that puzzled me. What 'sitcoms' was the author of this post referring to? I've seen all the tv episodes, read hundreds of novels, been to quite a few conventions, bla bla bla. I'm a big trek fan. But I'm not sure what he was referring to when he said 'sitcoms'. Anyone have an idea?
One final closing comment. I can see what he meant by pointing out the flaws in Perpetuals game design. I can see some flaws in Cryptics as well. Probably cryptic has a better design, but hopefully at some point they allow us to walk around on the ships. Maybe this will be an expansion, where we could be part of a crew doing tasks or quests, either designed for solo or group play.
someone's blind as a bat if they think those graphics look stunning. They look to be at least 10 years out of date, the stylized look is cruddy at best, heck the freighter screenshot they had out was so bad that you couldn't tell it was a screenshot, looked more like a hand drawn cartoon image.
Sorry the graphics in thsi game suck, please don';t try to explain it away and say they're "Stunning" when they are so far from even remotely nice.
As for the game itself, it's obvious they're going the wrong way with it and will lose lot's of players within the first 30 days of play, lot's of eye candy to be sure, but they will be hollow easter bunnies, good on the outside, nothing on the inside.
Ships with multiple stations that can be run by players or npc's. That's how simple and workable that is. Someone wants to solo all the time, fine, group of friends want to play a crew, fine. Someone has to bug out for dinner, npc takes over that station, fine.
It is completely workable.
There is no good excuse for not having multi-player ships except for the dev not wanting to put in the effort.
I think they meant sitcoms in general. Sitcoms, movies, and cartoons are all about people. Just refering to how Star Trek was about the people.
10 Years I don't think is valid. Heres a look at Half-Life, a game that was cutting edge in graphics for its day, released in 1998:
Or even a MMORPG, such as Everquest released in 1999:
I think it safe to say from what we have seen, that the graphics in STO are well above these levels. I hope everyone enjoyed the article!
I'd have to agree with the others here about the cartoon or comic book like style of the graphics. It seems like in MMOs, characters either look like cartoons or they look like they're made out of plastic. Artists have the tools with present day technology to achieve very near photo-realistic graphics, but I think with MMOs they have to step it back a bit because of the very large areas and high number of characters that need to be rendered at once in the game.
I'm much more concerned about gameplay and story in STO than the graphics, anyway. There have been some comments made by the Devs that have made my inner Trek geek cringe because it makes it sound like they don't really know much about Star Trek, and that's far more serious than the graphics IMO.
Im going to agree here with the other posters that there seems to be something missing or not right with the looks and how Cryptic is making the game. So far its not giving me any warm and fuzzy feelings.
Honestly that screenshot looks like it belongs in Cowboy Bebop, not Star Trek.
(btw Cowboy Bebop is fabulous but we're talkin Trek here)
As previously noted it's not the quality of artwork, it's the Style that's inappropriate for the Trek franchise.
Sadly I have to agree as well. Nothing about any of the released screenshots thus far has me excited about this game. It looks like a game they are rushing to get out quickly, just so they can sell their engine to other companies that want to release a quick souless MMORPG in under 2 years of development. Such a waste of an IP that has been begging to be made.
I am going to disagree with most of you that have posted on this thread. I think (newest screens included) the game looks great, not cartoony at all. Cell shading is in Champions because it was the comic-book look they were going for, STO looks absolutely nothing like it.
I actually played the pen and paper Champions game back in the day, still own the rule book somewhere. Anyways. Cell shaded for a Comic book RPG to make it look like a cartoon.. I can make the connection.
The graphics for STO, quite a bit different
I dont know if Star Trek was only to be transformed as space combat pew pew game with instanced planet missions as figleafs. Those planet missions sound an awful lot as the absymal CoH missions. Why not make even Star Trek a mix game of planets and space combat like SWG + JtLS expansion? Something along those lines, with 50% planet life and OPEN planets and 50% space mission. As it sounds I am going to spent most of the time staring at black space, BEING my ship and thats quite uninteresting to me, Star Trek IP or not.
I dont think it looks bad. Nor does it look uber. It's not an issue here, but I fear it will be another PotBS or CoH. Generally ok, but relatively narrowed down. Not the vast world the Star Trek idea could - and IMVPO SHOULD - have been.
So far, all the posts here provide some valid concerns.
Personally, I think it's a bit early to actually tell how it will actually work out. So far, I've got confidence in Cryptic and STO as well as Bioware with their TOR development. One thing we can all agree on is that we're hoping both games will release as a quality product -- true to Star Trek and Star Wars respectively.
As for "leading edge," I'd much rather have both of them release their MMO with great mechanics, great stories/true to the lore and decent graphics in games that work well, on the various OS's, on computers with 3-4 year old specs.
One thing for sure, many of us will be following the progress of both STO and TOR. Here's hoping it goes well!
Agreed.
I really don't mind the graphics - I play MMOs for memorable gameplay, if I want great CGI I will go to a movie. But every single Trek show was about a team of people on one ship, not an armada of Captains and their lesser minions. I'm sorry, that doesn't feel like Trek to me. I was hoping to have ships with full PC bridge crews using their superior teamwork to beat larger numbers of single-pilot vessels. But really, what does this give me that EVE Online doesn't do better? Disappointing.
You nailed it. I don' think you capture the feel of Star Trek without the ships' interiors. The feel that comes with interaction between "people" that admitedly gives the whole feel to the genre, takes place on board starships.
If some day they add interiors I wiil play.
I agree that a lot of the feel of Star Trek comes from the interior scenes, but what would MMORPG players do in a ship's interior? In the shows, people gather in the same room (or a corridor or elevator) to talk, but in a MMORPG, they are just going to use the chat channel anyway, I think.
My favorite moments in the show are ship interior moments, but I'm not sure that a MMORPG can replicate those scenes.