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Star Trek Online News - Crew and Bridge Officer Details
Posted by Michael Bitton on Oct 13, 2009 | 65 comments in our forums
Details on the crew and bridge officers in Star Trek Online have been revealed in an update published on the Star Trek Online website.
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Crew is basically a ship statistic representing your ships "red shirts" and the amount of crew your ship has determines the efficiency with which a variety of tasks are performed. Crew will be required for repairing hull or subsystem damage, repelling boarding parties, attacking on boarding operations (which have now been revealed to serve the function of damaging an enemy ships subsystems), and more. The amount of crew you have on hand will determine how effective they are at performing these tasks, and they can be injured or killed in battle. Crew members that are injured will become unavailable until they are fully healed in your ships sick bay, and the rate at which they are healed and put back into service is dependent on your ships medical equipment and your Science Officers' skills.
Each ship class can hold a different amount of crew, with the smallest ships being able to hold as little as 50 crew, while large cruisers can hold crew of up to 1,000.
Details on the Bridge Officers role in gameplay are a bit less specific, though we are assured they will play a "key role" in ship operations. Each ship will have a variety of stations of different types available to it, with different ship classes favoring differing focuses on their allotment of stations. For example, a Science vessel may be comprised of mostly Science stations, while Escort ships focus on Tactical stations, and Cruisers on Engineering stations.
Naturally, a Science Officer can only man a Science station and so forth. There is another caveat, however. Each station will also have a maximum rank associated with it, and a Bridge Officer accessing a station that is lower ranked than he is will only be able to utilize his skills earned up to the rank of the station. For example, a Science officer at Commander rank would only be able to access his skills up to the Lieutenant rank if he accesses a Lieutenant ranked station.
...this just doesn't sound...right...
I do see the rationale behind designing ships to be basically solo-elements, but that imho doesn't really capture the Star Trek idea. So it boils down to Cryptic doing a space MMO in a Star Trek skin to make quick cash, rather than trying to capture the spirit of the shows. And before someone comes to say "but it would be boring or technically unfeasable", then I'd like to say "If you can't do it right, don't bother doing it at all". Well, my opinion anyway - I'm sure they'll produce something that a bunch of people will be able to enjoy.
I've been highly critical of Cryptic's approach to STO, but this system of CREWS makes sense to some extent. Even if we had, as I desired, large multi-crewed ships populated by guilds, you'd really need to represent the vast number of remaining crew members, or NPCs, in some fashion. To this extent, a statistic representing them works. It reminds me of a few submarine simulations I've played actually, where ancillary crew members are shuttled between positions and simply provide increased efficiencies or capabilities.
Having said that, the Bridge Officer system still feels dodgy to me, especially if I'm only playing a UI overlay like EVE.
What? No medical officers? Only science officers? Yeah, hey Data, Jadzia, Spock, you can stay. Crusher, Bashir, McCoy, and the Doctor, you guys don't exist anymore.
Great job capturing the spirit of Star Trek Cryptic! I can't wait to see the game bomb like Champions did.
Please, mess this game up more for Star Trek fans, being 18 atm, I still grew up watching TNG, and I still probably know more about Star Trek then any of the guys over at Cryptic do. Fuck, give me a programming team, I'm currently studying Game Design with honours, I will make a better MMO than these guys.
Anyone else getting the feeling this is a bit of a Pirates of The Burning Sea clone? What is Cryptic doing to keep this out of that category?
I like the Idea of Red shirts running around the ship... But for me to Forgive the Stupidity of makeing this "Eve-Lite" you will need there to be 20 or so Diffrent areas for my crew to lvl up in. IE the Core bridge crew and their Subordants. The Enginering department is not run by Jordy and 20 red shirts. They are skilled people Jordy picked and had a hand in training. They are skilled enough for him to Leave Enginering, Take a shower and goof off on the Holodeck. They can even handle what he tells them via comlink so he can be on the bridge in major battles, or while scanning some moon.
They might pull it off... But I have a feeling as a Trekie I will be passing on this.
I know how do you feel.
This almost starts to sound like an RTS, with managing your crew like a resource. Puts a rather different face on things.
Oh yeah, we also need a Pirates! mini-game when a boarding attempt occurs :P
It's pretty clear that they don't give a damn about the IP. When the lead devs said all Trek fans want to be the captain and indicated how much of the game was combat - I knew they didn't get it.
It's pretty clear that they don't give a damn about the IP. When the lead devs said all Trek fans want to be the captain and indicated how much of the game was combat - I knew they didn't get it.
I agree, I think Perpetual was on better road than Cryptic.
Insert generic jab at Cryptic not getting "The Show" here in spite of my lack of information on the game, first hand experience of the game or, really, experience designing and make any game let alone an MMO. Clearly that will show'em I can do better!
In my opinion it sounds like an strategy game. It may be fun. Im can't know if it will be fun or not just by reading it. But I think that a most common approach to the "fill up your spaceship" problem would have been better. Why not reinvent the wheel and take the tank, dps, healer design to space?. Nobodye made it yet and it could have been a lot of fun. I mean:
Tank: Manage the ship direction, select the ships route. Flying strategy. Owner of the ship / Captain.
Dps: Manage the laser cannons or whatever they are named.
Healer: Manage the shields and repair the ship.
This could have been a lot of fun and involve a lot of player interaction. While the design of Cryptic sounds fun, it looks more as a design of a single player strategy game. We still need to try it to see if its fun, it could be it is, but it can make the game be too much solo friendly, you will have enought to do managing your crew you will have no time to talk to other players.
It's pretty clear that they don't give a damn about the IP. When the lead devs said all Trek fans want to be the captain and indicated how much of the game was combat - I knew they didn't get it.
Exactly this. They don't give a damn about the IP.
They just want to get it out as fast as possible and make some quick bucks on suckers who will bite on their Lifetime and 6-month sub offers. Just like they did with Champions Online.
Cheers
Im a Star trek fan and I think it sounds good. Dont know what you morons complain about? Sure, it will probably be "wow-in-space" kinda themeparkish game, but hey, not every game can be as popular as EVE you know... ;)
Calling someone moron based only on thing that they do not share your point of view is really pathetic and it shows your lack of intellect.
I have always enjoyed the shows and movies. I am a fan, but not the type that would go to a convention or anything.
From what I have seen, they got the look of the IP down, but that's about it. What made the show great, was the interaction between the crew members. They became a family on your TV. Watch it enough, and you felt like one of them. Usually, when one character's weakness got them in trouble, it was always some other character's strength that saved the day.
This idea that everyone will be a captain, and piloting their own ship. I don't like it one bit, and it will more than likely cause me to pass on this release. To me, its all about the players being the crew. Them saying that this approach was unusable is total BS. Its harder, yes. It would require more design, yes. But in my opinion would have made something unique to MMORPGs and true to the IP.
It could have been so amazing. Crafter type people could have played engineers, did maintenance and upgrades to the ship and its subsystems. Combat oriented people could play security and tactical officers. Flight simulator type players could be the pilots. Social players could play various other roles on the ship including doctors, etc.
Depending on estimated players at release, I would have had a certain amount of ships per faction available to become crew for. I would have based the tutorial on Star Fleet, designed similar things for the other factions. Depending on your performance through the tutorial I would have allowed the best "scores" to have priority to the better ships.
The ships and their captains, that is harder. Not sure I would make that player or system run. But in the end, that would have been a fun problem to tackle from a design point of view.
Those are just some quick ideas. I am sure there are plenty more to be had with an IP like Star Trek.
I think Cryptic took the easy way out, and lied about this everyone wants to be captain crap. Like some people have stated before, I think they are more interested in quick money pay out from IP interested players, than in making something original or true to the IP.
Having not played this game, I cannot know any of this for sure. These are just my impressions thus far from watching the development.
The design is so much less than a good Trek MMORPG could have been, that it annoys me.
I agree. It so is NOT like Star Trek, which always was a lot about social things within the crew.
Agreed! They also need to stop screwing up Star Trek with this crap. 3 types of officers, and they're little more than a set of stats?
In ST:TO, we had tons of officers. Weapons, Navigation, Medical, Science, Engineering, Tactical, Communications, so on, so forth. That's what I really wanted to see in STO, and it would help carry the spirit a little more. They better still have those randomly generated planets, because the combat and exploration are the only other bits they have left to capture, after screwing up the space stuff.
Originally posted by Greyed
Insert generic jab at Cryptic not getting "The Show" here in spite of my lack of information on the game, first hand experience of the game or, really, experience designing and make any game let alone an MMO. Clearly that will show'em I can do better!
Oh, so now all a company has to do is make a game better than what the consumers can make? Wow, that must mean EVERY game is good. No. I don't care if I can't make anything, I expect them to make a quality game. Like someone else on these boards said "If it can't be done right, don't bother doing it at all." It seems that they can't do Star Trek right, if it's difficult, so be it, but that's no excuse for a subpar game. They chose to do it, they tried, if they fail, they fail, no excuses. As I said, I don't give half a horse shit if I can do better, that doesn't matter. What matters is that the game DOES capture the spirit of Star Trek, because they did choose to do a STAR TREK game.
As for first hand experience with the game, no, few people have had that. That doesn't mean that the system that is very clearly described, the Bridge Officers, is stupid. Star Trek didn't have just 3 bridge officers. Again, as I said before, Star Trek had many officers, not 3.
Calling someone moron based only on thing that they do not share your point of view is really pathetic and it shows your lack of intellect.
You just did the same thing only with more sophistication heh.
IRT topic; I think I will have to play it to see how it flows but from what i've been hearing from the people who have given the game a try, it seems like the mechanics work quite well.
I'm sure I'll probably get flamed for this, but I still think it would have been a lot cooler design for the game if it took 'guilds' to run large ships... if the game leant more towards a 'simulation' feel. I could be totally wrong... we'll see what Cryptic does.. but after playing Champions Online, I'm not expecting anything revolutionary or even really impressive...
While that is understandable, its just not reasonable. Not only would it make a lot of people NOT play, having to make sure your whole guild is on just to fly or even a certain amount. That and the certain jobs on the ship would be way too tedious or just incredibly boring. They chose what fits best for everyone, and sorry but manning your own ship is still pretty frickin sweet...
This would be an AWESOME idea. Yeah, it would end up with a much smaller player base but could be really cool... REALLY COOL.
You have no imagination at all. You might be right for the job of MMO dev.
So, crew = power bar. Officers = sloted skill.
Agree completely. Saying everyone wants to be a captain is like saying everyone wants to lead a guild. No, some people are content to just let other people lead and play how they like to.
Even if we toss this out and continue on with the players always being captain, there still needs to be some sort of interaction with your red shirts. Make them more than just "stats" that run things and are kicked off the ship when you need more of a particular skill. Is it really that hard to interact with NPCs on a level beyond "click accept or decline after reading block of text"?
Bottom line is i want to be a captain of a ship not some schmo under another players command. Personally i wouldnt have fun that way with the game and not in it to "role Play". If i wanted to be under someone else's command ill just do overtime at my RL job. Who wouldnt want to be Cpt Janeway, Kirk, Sisko, Archer, or Picard? Cryptic is doing fine job and the criticisms of the crew situation to me are little unfounded.
(AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Chases Deanna Troi with plunger)
You can't chase Deanna, she's on her OWN ship.
So many clueless posts in this thread, if you've spend the time to read at least half the stuff regarding the game on their official site, you'll probably have a somewhat different view of things.
You know why most of ST related games failed? Because devs spendt so much time creating something that looks like ST rather than making something that feels like ST.
The game hasn't started closed beta yet and it's getting raped by "all knowers" already.
I think the whole crew stuff is good, you may seem them as just "powers", but hell, tell me a game where your "skills" have the level of customization that the bridge officers will have, and on top of that you can do ground mission with them.
Also, regarding the 3 major careers (engineering/tactical/science), each has different subpaths, you want to be a medic, good, specialize in medical science and so on. Get your facts first before posting.
That's the point - this game will look like Trek, but won't feel like Trek.
[quote]Originally posted by MMO_Doubter
Most people in here are moaning about the game not being Trek, not that it doesn't feel like Trek (hard to make that assumption when the game hasn't been even tested by outsiders yet).
You can't chase Deanna, she's on her OWN ship.
Thats fine for the ppl who want to role play, but comapnies dont make games that are successful for a niche group of role players. You would also be (possibly) subject to guild rules or worse someone else's whim if you ever get promoted, become captain or get your own ship. If that ever happened or cryptic made it that way i wouldnt play the game and im pretty sure most other players maybe looking to try the game wouldnt either or quit soon after.
Could you imagine picking up the box in the store with this on it? "Be a crewmember on a Federation or Klingon ship and work your way up to being in command of your own ship?" LOL that sell......not! Cryptic could implemnet and option for players under one ship but an option only.
BTW the ST novels arent canon and Deanna Troi doesnt have her own ship.
(AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH dances on Picard's chair)
Already pre-ordered my collector edition woot!
That's the point - this game will look like Trek, but won't feel like Trek.
What one person "feels" is Trek and and other's are different things, but not wrong.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH stops to Look at Wesley Crusher...fires Plungers to nut sack)
I wasn't referring to the novels. I was pointing out that anyone playing STO who wanted to 'be' Deanna Troi' would be forced to be on her own ship, rather than part of a crew.
Also: what's canon about away teams comprised of several captains?
I wasn't referring to the novels. I was pointing out that anyone playing STO who wanted to 'be' Deanna Troi' would be forced to be on her own ship, rather than part of a crew.
Sorry but the game is built attract different types of players not just the hard core ST fans. Like i said they could implement an option for player who want to do this and they can do it.
Also: what's canon about away teams comprised of several captains?
What!!!??? Several captains have worked to gether on away teams have not seen the movies?
(AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH ..stops and looks at 7 of 9.....falls in love.....)
(AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH ..stops and looks at 7 of 9.....falls in love.....)
Most Star Trek adventures are one problem, one ship, one captian and one crew. Very seldom is there more than one of any of these except problems.
Most Star Trek adventures are one problem, one ship, one captian and one crew. Very seldom is there more than one of any of these except problems.
You and many others are being extremely linear here and focusing on the limitation from 1 captain or crew's perspective. Star Trek has many ships...many crews...many problems from varing races and empires. Im sorry folks but forced grouping and limiting play on the whims of others being online isnt cool or going to last long.
(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH Dances with 7 of 9)
While that is understandable, its just not reasonable. Not only would it make a lot of people NOT play, having to make sure your whole guild is on just to fly or even a certain amount. That and the certain jobs on the ship would be way too tedious or just incredibly boring. They chose what fits best for everyone, and sorry but manning your own ship is still pretty frickin sweet...
Your counter arguments have been debunked countless times, both here and on the STO forums. Your entire guild would NOT have to be on...any vacant stations could be filled with NPCs, like the night crew. As for the tedious jobs, that's a complete strawman argument -- pointing out an obvious deficiency to tear down the whole concept. Quite intellectually dishonest really. Of course you wouldn't create the Star Ship Janitor position; that's a no brainer. But one could create enough of the interesting crew positions to make the system viable.
That is if a company had the will and the vision to do so.
And yet I can look at what BioWare is doing, and the info they have released and say with a resounding YES, that BioWare understands Star Wars, and that SW:TOR feels like the Star Wars universe.
Now I happen to think Cryptic is a skilled company that has unfortunately made some really bad decisions with STO. I think they could have done for Star Trek what BioWare is doing for Star Wars. But alas, they have decided not to.
And yet I can look at what BioWare is doing, and the info they have released and say with a resounding YES, that BioWare understands Star Wars, and that SW:TOR feels like the Star Wars universe.
Now I happen to think Cryptic is a skilled company that has unfortunately made some really bad decisions with STO. I think they could have done for Star Trek what BioWare is doing for Star Wars. But alas, they have decided not to.
Its more that they are cutting corners on design to meet thier obligation to Paramount in the time allotted. I would go as far as say Chamipions probably suffered its crappy launch as a result of Paramount's insistance on staying on schedule. This is a theme that rang true for another "Star" MMO.
tbh i would play this game if they took a SWG approach (not saying i want the game exactly like it). As in you're main person is yourself .... and you build a starship and pilot it with others, not giving every single person in the game their own starship. I dunno it loses its feel when there are a couple hundred thousand other people just like you with a ship. It also may not be completely star trek since alot of the episodes were spent on the ship, but i would enjoy the fact owning and captaining/piloting a ship meant something.
False dichotomy...It is not inconceivable to design a game that appeals to hard core ST fans AND other types of players. Of course one HAS to draw the line somewhere with these so-called 'other types of players' since including Grandma who enjoys a nice game of Bridge with her friends probably can't be persuaded.
To me it makes more sense to design the game for ST Fans, and then grow the size of your net to capture other players. Why? Because how many of you self-ascribed 'other players' are going to abandon your current game, you know the game that the devs designed for that 'other player', and join on to Star Trek? And then when the next game comes along that's designed for 'other players', you'll jump the Star Trek ship for that one, and so on, and so on. If you design the game for Star Trek Fans, then you have them locked in. They won't be going anywhere. Whereas many of the fly-by-night 'other players' will be soon gone no matter what you design.
Most Star Trek adventures are one problem, one ship, one captian and one crew. Very seldom is there more than one of any of these except problems.
You and many others are being extremely linear here and focusing on the limitation from 1 captain or crew's perspective. Star Trek has many ships...many crews...many problems from varing races and empires. Im sorry folks but forced grouping and limiting play on the whims of others being online isnt cool or going to last long.
(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH Dances with 7 of 9)
...and once you have played out the limited content on your three different Captains (Eng., Sci, Command), you leave without a care to what the game offers further.
(7 pull you close and says, "Resistance is futile, you will be assimulated" as she injects you with Borg Nanites. You then become another MMO drone.)
False dichotomy...It is not inconceivable to design a game that appeals to hard core ST fans AND other types of players. Of course one HAS to draw the line somewhere with these so-called 'other types of players' since including Grandma who enjoys a nice game of Bridge with her friends probably can't be persuaded.
To me it makes more sense to design the game for ST Fans, and then grow the size of your net to capture other players. Why? Because how many of you self-ascribed 'other players' are going to abandon your current game, you know the game that the devs designed for that 'other player', and join on to Star Trek? And then when the next game comes along that's designed for 'other players', you'll jump the Star Trek ship for that one, and so on, and so on. If you design the game for Star Trek Fans, then you have them locked in. They won't be going anywhere. Whereas many of the fly-by-night 'other players' will be soon gone no matter what you design.
Totally agree, Cerion.
Focus niche market, then broaden out much like EVE.
I like the direction crytic is going and hope they don't ever head in the direction of crewing a startship, way too boring for me. Since you guys just can't quit crying over the direction maybe this would help silence your unwarrented critisim, call it Star Fleet battles! I love that old board game and if they want to head in that direction its fine by me. At least my crowd won't whine everyday because they added in contant such as planet exploration and crew member NPC's! I actually celebrate the additions!
False dichotomy...It is not inconceivable to design a game that appeals to hard core ST fans AND other types of players. Of course one HAS to draw the line somewhere with these so-called 'other types of players' since including Grandma who enjoys a nice game of Bridge with her friends probably can't be persuaded.
To me it makes more sense to design the game for ST Fans, and then grow the size of your net to capture other players. Why? Because how many of you self-ascribed 'other players' are going to abandon your current game, you know the game that the devs designed for that 'other player', and join on to Star Trek? And then when the next game comes along that's designed for 'other players', you'll jump the Star Trek ship for that one, and so on, and so on. If you design the game for Star Trek Fans, then you have them locked in. They won't be going anywhere. Whereas many of the fly-by-night 'other players' will be soon gone no matter what you design.
Just because you cannot conceive it, does not make it inconceivable. Appealing to varying audiences is the key to a successful MMO. The fact is, there just aren't enough Star Trek nerds out there to make the game viable on it's own. Without a broad audience, it will fail.
"To me it makes more sense to design the game for ST Fans, and then grow the size of your net to capture other players. "
You assume to much as I'm betting most of with opposing views are Star Trek fans also. I've been a fan since the late 60's and I certainly don't want anything to do with a game that based on crew members. No matter how many times you guys say what each crew member will do durning a mission it always equates to BORING in my opinion. I'd rather play a red shirt and die fast then hang around the bridge/engine room/etc pretending to do some repetitive mudane task required just to provide me with busy work. How much do you really thinkl they can add to mission to somehow keep every member busy doing something that is both meaningful and FUN? I forsee 90% boredom and 10% action if a game was truely based on crew members. The crew member idea is appealing to the "old camping crowd" of EQ as it more a social event/gathering, you won't see any major company trying to please such a minority.
The crew of your ship should be more than a simple stat. That is the easy way out. Of course I'm not surprised. Virtually everything Cryptic puts out about STO is garbage in my opinion.
Ha ha! Forward thinking and sound reasoning are not something you typically find in dev teams...at least not when they have to think about paying back that 50 mil their employer borrowed to make the game in the first place.
You're saying that there aren't a few hundred thousand Star Trek fans who would be in to playing a Star Trek MMO? Let's not get carried away with WoW numbers. They are an outlier. Success of an MMO does not have hinge on having over a million subs, nor over a half million. Of course different people have different ideas of success but any western developer going in to match or beat WoW's numbers or even get a million subs has unrealistic expectations.
Not saying that tookg and hope you find a developer who wants to go in that direction. At the same time Cryptic never wanted to go in that direction and so complaining about it now sounds like sour grapes. When the old developer was headed in a direction you favored, i took a look, saw it as totally off base of anything I was remotely interested in and left the site. What i didn't do is complain daily on how they were not going in the direction i wanted, after all they told me up front what their vision was. Bottom line is this game isn't for the "crewmember" crowd so get over it!
I will certainly say that there are not a few hundred thousand Star Trek fans who will play this game. There are plenty of fans, but how many of them will be into this game?
Look at how poorly Star Trek movies regularly do in theaters? The success of the recent film was mostly due to it's appeal to a larger audience.
...I wasn't quoting you. However, I'll respond to your response to a response you thought was to you.
I didn't say I was part of the crew member crowd. I said I think that crew should be more than a stat. My feathers aren't ruffled about not being able to play a crew member on a ship. I find the direction development has taken to be unfavorable, and express that through this forum and the official one, but that doesn't mean I'm being unreasonable in my opinion and need to "get over it" like I'm in some sort of fit of rage.
Not only will STO do well, it will probably exceed at least a few expectations. Looking at what they are trying to accomplish as well as setting the timeline ahead of Nemesis was a brilliant idea. The ships being talked about that can be attained by rank and by accomplishment is really incredible. STO will not only have Star Trek fans playing but it will most assuredly bring in Sci-fi lovers/gamers as well. It may not be as huge a hit as Star Wars The Old Republic Online will do, but I feel it will hold itself in pretty good stead. I predict numbers around or better than City of Heroes for STO... and that ain't shabby!
This would be an AWESOME idea. Yeah, it would end up with a much smaller player base but could be really cool... REALLY COOL.
And it'd only cost 1000 bucks a month since its subscriber base would be so small.
"but that doesn't mean I'm being unreasonable in my opinion and need to "get over it" like I'm in some sort of fit of rage."
Was too harsh, but don't understand why the constant complaining daily of a game that wasn't designed for those that are complaining. If Cryptic had said the game mechanics were being designed around crew members and than they dropped it or butchered it, than some critisicm would be valid. Even than daily complaining about it would be over the top in my opinion, say your peace and move on. I did that when SWG went in another direction, said my piece and moved on.
As I'm not one who is posting daily, or even reading the forums daily, I can only surmise that it's because they are offering counter-points to the arguments presented to them. Would it not be over the top for supporters of game X to post daily if it's over the top for its detractors to post daily?
If they were actually addressing problems with what the designers were trying to accomplish, that could be useful. Complaining about a aspect of the game the designers aren't including is over the top. This site is known for its trolls complaining about every new game, but this is a new low in my opinion. People daily complaining about stuff thats was never meant to be in the game is even odd for this site.
There are millions of Trek fans out there. IMO, a combat-heavy, RP-lite MMO will appeal to far fewer of them than a player crew and story-focused game would.
There are millions of Trek fans out there. IMO, a combat-heavy, RP-lite MMO will appeal to far fewer of them than a player crew and story-focused game would.
a crew focus sounds fun but i ask you "what happens when your tactical officer has to take his kid to the dentist?"
do you really want a pug crew half the time? What if you play in off hours on a non standardized schedual?
After reading through some of the website, I think the only real problem is that they have everyone be Captain. If I got to design my ship and bridge officers and then play any or all of the bridge officers, that would be ok. For example, I make my ship the Enterprise and staff it with bridge officers Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty. I then get to have away teams of the bridge officers (plus a red shirt for fodder) using any combination of the bridge officers (since away teams are limited to 5 members) but am not required to take the captain (which is required now according to the devs).
Alternatively, I could play any of my bridge officers in other away teams or in other play locations (like space stations or ships with other players). The idea would be that the officers are my alts on the server that I can play individually or in a group. As it is now, you play a Captain and your bridge officers are pets (that you can trade with other captains), and if you go on a mission with other players, you play your captain.
There are millions of Trek fans out there. IMO, a combat-heavy, RP-lite MMO will appeal to far fewer of them than a player crew and story-focused game would.
There are millions out there... But how many of them are gamers? How many of those are MMO gamers? And how many of those will choose this game as the MMO they choose to pay monthly for?
I think the number is 12. Maybe 13 on a good day.
Having a broad appeal is the key to the success of this game.
that's actually a really nice tweak
"Make it so!"
People can bash Cryptic and this game all they want ... its their right, and that seems to be the preccupation of most the people who post on MMORPG.
But I will choose to wait and see what they do with a very difficult IP.
No matter what they do, there will be people disappointed and who will flame them.
The sim'ers will be disappointed because its not enough of a Sim. The WoW'ers will be disappointed because its NOT enough like WoW.
The Star Trek fans will be upset because there's too much combat, the non-trekkies will be upset because there is not enough focuse on uber gear and combat.
The carebear player will be upset because there isn't enough focus on exploration and diplomacy, he PvP crowd will be upset because resources were used to put exploration and diplomacy in the game.
How about we accept that Cryptic took an IP that had crashed and burned under Perpetual and are actually finally giving us a game ... and let's see what that game is before we classify it as an Epic Failure.
Rather than rooting for the game's failure, how about we root for its success so that other developers see the potential market for the genre (possibly even the IP).
(Zepath on the STO Forums)
I agree with your outlook.
Coming from a sim'er mind set, having tasted Pre-CU, I expected a Star Trek game to cater first to the hardcore Trekkie (Trekker) that would engross themselves in the nerdgasm aspect of such a game. A characteristic that has followed its fandom and been often made light of. Why can I say this is? I am such a Star Trek fan. I wanted that challenge.
That all understood, I would hope this game would be a kind of substitute but add something missing in the current crop of MMO's. I do look forward to this game and will no doubt try it. Cryptic needs to really invest themselves in producing a finished bug free launch. CO's launch has made some even more leary of this game.
I have posted in the past that Star Trek is a very difficult IP to do a MMO for the crew situation. I guess I was right with that. Stargate SG-1 is perfect for a MMO, however, Stargate Worlds has trouble from a developer support and financing direction. Sad really.
STO will not be a breakout WOW killer but lets hope it does a good showing in the general market. Paramount is going to get what they pay for.