Star Trek Online - "Boldly going where Everyone has gone before"

[Akkori]

Holo-deck? Game over.

[jpark]

Not working in this industry - I truely wonder - what kind of responses they think they must have gathered in their market research in assessing the attractiveness of this game design.

Junk.

[Daeven]

Market research? MARKET RESEARCH? Ha! Their market research was some twit not wearing pants getting on a table and declaring that sine Wow has 230923059203489 subscribers, STO will win because they'll make Wow. With ray guns. and 7 of 9. And nifty space effects. And since 'trekkies' are drooling retards they will be able to print their own money since it won't really matter what they make. As long as it is Wow with ray guns.

[Mrbloodworth]

Not working in this industry - I truely wonder - what kind of responses they think they must have gathered in their market research in assessing the attractiveness of this game design.

Junk.

They had it posted up for a bit, but it was multiple choice, with some very vague category's.Im a trecky, and im quite disappointed with this.

[lesion]

As long as it is Wow with ray guns.

and 7 of 9.

[CharlieMopps]

http://www.cactus.org/~nystrom/startrek.html

I stand corrected. There was 1 good startrek game... and that was it. I forgot all about that one.

[stray]

The few adventure titles that were made back in the 90's were good (hell I liked those before I even watched the shows), Bridge Commander was good, and the pinball game was good (if you feel like counting that).

[schild]

Fuck, this thread title is funny.

[Murgos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek 

[schild]

This is why I lolled at this thread.

[Aez]

Fuck, this thread title is funny.

It's pure comedy gold.

Now that the game I've been waiting for years is releasing (end of the month...), watching all those shitty teams (doing shitty games) crash and burn is really entertaining.  It's like if every salesmans that ever bullshited you had to do press releases on how bad their product really is.  It's like the American car industry getting raped afters years of raping their consumers.  I love capitalism.

BTW: great job on the spell check.  It detected that my shitty was missing a t.

[Mrbloodworth]

This is why I lolled at this thread.

Yeah, it does not make me any more confident, its a shame to, this is one IP i was waiting for to be MMO'ized. ( I know i know, IPs make bad MMO's , we had this conversation)

[Venimor]

This is why I lolled at this thread.

Yeah, it does not make me any more confident, its a shame to, this is one IP i was waiting for to be MMO'ized. ( I know i know, IPs make bad MMO's , we had this conversation)

As one who works in the MMO field, I can say that there needs to be a circuit-breaker installed between a 'beloved IP' and 'game studios that think they can do that IP justice in an MMO format'. Even with the right vision in place, even with a reasonably non-destructive creative atmosphere in place, there is still a world of difference between the linear narratives offered by an IP which are familiar to its fans, and the kind of experience that is offered by an MMO (or even a single-player game, I've worked on IP-based games like that, too).

I am generally amazed at the appalling lack of imagination that is mobilized to produce these IP monstrosities. Clue to the clueless: If you're the head of a game studio, and you think that getting an IP license relieves you of the burden of having to be imaginative, on the grounds that the 'heavy lifting of storytelling and worldbuilding has already been done', think again. If anything, the transition of an IP to MMO format means there is more work to be done, not less. The meta-narrative of IP plotlines and stories have already been used, and many new ones must be created in order to give the MMOG-version of the IP enough depth to satisfy hundreds of thousands of fanatical fans who are dying to invest and live in your take on a world which they love.

Another clue: When you have more than enough talented people to do the job right, try to involve them in the creative process!! Don't drive them away with shitheel middle managers who don't know how to delegate, how to accept and process constructive criticism, how to defend creative decisions made by others, or even how to cognitively interpret obvious environmental stimuli. I'm not sure if management is the problem with STO, but given the fact that good management is in cripplingly short supply in the industry, that would be my bet. It's usually the only explanation that explains why (brilliant IP + intelligent devs + a decent design doc + plenty of cash) != roaring success. The end-stage of bad MMO management is when certain fatal, final deadlines are approaching, and there is still backpedaling and revamping to be done, and team members at all levels start throwing each other under a bus in order to not be part of the first wave that gets blamed for the imminent cratering. Those are the kinds of stories that never get told.

Star Trek Online will probably fail, and fail hard. I've heard a number of times that Gods and Heroes was the better-designed of Perpetual's two projects, but that was six months ago. There's such a thing as the Star Trek Curse, and it's real. I've faced it repeatedly and barely survived. If you work on a Star Trek game, you might as well be getting stalked by Keyser Soze.

[Venimor]

Also wish to point out that I have no idea whatsoever of what's really going on with Perpetual internally, nor does my opinion of STO have much to do with anything except good old fashioned 'I've seen this happen before'. Repeatedly.

I've been connected with four Trek games in my career, and all I can say is, the worst kind of crap seems to come out of nowhere to put them out of commission or ruin their development enough to make them fail. 9/11, for example. Trek games are cursed.

[rk47]

IMO, phaser combat is just too 'sterile'; imagine the implementation for ground combat mechanics, add to the fact that they have to have space battle mechanic makes me wonder if they are going to go for an 'away team' style of ground play, ala Granado Espada / Sword of the New World party of 3.

[Venkman]

The thing that always gets me about licensing is how the act of securing the license and maintaining that relationship is often a separate functional unit within a company, with only a cursory link to the people actually doing the work of extending that IP into a new realm. Licensing should never be separate from creative in my opinion. I know licensing agents will claim it's because creatives are a bunch of mouthbreathing unclean basement dwellers who don't know how to think at a business level nor how to conduct themselves professionally in meetings. They are flat-out wrong, but sometimes it serves their own career or internal-political goals to push that perception up a chain that wouldn't know any better anyway.

The split between managing a license and executing against it has contributed to more disasters than any lack of creativity or executional issues has ever.

But people continue to think immersive costly video games can be managed the same way as T-Shirts and watches.

[UnSub]

IMO, phaser combat is just too 'sterile'; imagine the implementation for ground combat mechanics, add to the fact that they have to have space battle mechanic makes me wonder if they are going to go for an 'away team' style of ground play, ala Granado Espada / Sword of the New World party of 3.

The problem with Star Trek as an IP is that it's all about the heroic bridge crew working together to solve the problem-of-the-week. To accurately recreate that experience, you'd need to force teaming (with everyone taking on a different crew role) in high pressure situations. MMOs don't do forced teaming in high pressure situations very well at all.

But thus far, the design decisions I've read about STO go too far the other way and straight into linear MMO solo questing territory as an advancement methodology. Ignoring the Trekkies crying out about the design decisions (because it is actually a good idea to make a game fun first and for more than just hard-core Trekkies), PE appears to have brought nothing new to the table at all.

[Triforcer]

You Klingons have ruined your own lands, you'll not ruin mine!

[Numtini]

I played that game on teletype before monitors were commonplace.  Sadly, I think that is as good as Star Trek games are likely to ever get.

Me too, I still wonder why no one ever asked why we were using so much paper.

In my experience, because everyone at all connected to the computer center was doing the same thing including the director.

[Mrbloodworth]

Entry 4.0 - "Polling the Crew"
Stardate 61330.6 (November 12th, 2007)

Welcome back to the STO DevLog, our regular look into the development of Star Trek Online, the only game that dares to reveal what happens when good tribbles go bad!

This month we thought it would be fun to peer into the minds of the STO team, to find out what they think about Star Trek. Surveys were sent out, and answers were sent in... by the crate load. Here's just a small sampling of we like to call:

Polling the Crew: Selected Reponses from the STO Team Survey

Which of Star Trek's alien races do you most identify with?

We got a wide variety of responses to this question:

    "Those creatures in TNG that only speak in binary."

    "Antedeans. Fish-like, that's me."
    Can't We All Relate to these Guys?

    "Cardassians. I totally dig potentially redeemable villains."

    "The Romulans. They're mysterious, politically-driven, mischievous and cunning. Of course, as they appear on TNG, they're mostly militant jerks, but the fact that the series has focused on brewing internal debates shows they have redeeming characteristics."

    "I like the Andorians. They're blue, they're cool, and they have fricking antenna on their heads."

Our favorite warrior race got a lot of love, of course:

    "Klingons, they're ruff and gruff and their women have the most amazing pair of assets."

    "Klingon. I've always found the open machismo of their culture interesting."

    "Klingons. Sometimes I get a little out of control, too......"

[schild]

Goddamnit. I hate trekkies. They are possibly my least favorite nerd deviant subset. We're talking lower than furry here.

[Mrbloodworth]

Goddamnit. I hate trekkies. They are possibly my least favorite nerd deviant subset. We're talking lower than furry here.

REALLY?

 

[schild]

Yes, really.

[Ratman_tf]

Yes, really.

Are there even any Trekkies left? I thought Voyager killed them off, and then Enterprise raped their corpses...

[Lum]

Yes, really.

Are there even any Trekkies left? I thought Voyager killed them off, and then Enterprise raped their corpses...

We're in hiding, waiting for J. J. Abrams to save us.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yes, really.

Are there even any Trekkies left? I thought Voyager killed them off, and then Enterprise raped their corpses...

We're in hiding, waiting for J. J. Abrams to save us.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yes, really.

Well looks like you get to have some joy today.

Report: Perpetual Entertainment Liquidating Assets

Gravity Discloses Liquidation of Perpetual Entertainment, Inc.

[Lum]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Yeah, I forgot to green my text, I was in a hurry.

I'm a die-hard Trekker and even I think the license should be given about a decade or so off. Enterprise had a promising start (back to the "Kirk visits strange new worlds, kicks ass and gets space chicks" formula) and got bad fast. REAL fast. I mean, come on. Vampire space nazis. If at any point a script you write contains the words "vampire space nazis" you should switch to porn immediately.

Star Trek would really benefit from a back to basics Ron Moore-style BSG reboot (heck, even Moore could do it, he's gonna be free in a year) but from what I've read Abrams is bending over backwards trying to fit a "reboot-style" movie into canon, which will serve only to piss off literally everyone.

[Yoru]

Yes, really.

Well looks like you get to have some joy today.

Report: Perpetual Entertainment Liquidating Assets

Gravity Discloses Liquidation of Perpetual Entertainment, Inc.

Gamasutra should fact-check some more.

This is non-news.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yes, really.

Well looks like you get to have some joy today.

Report: Perpetual Entertainment Liquidating Assets

Gravity Discloses Liquidation of Perpetual Entertainment, Inc.

Gamasutra should fact-check some more.

This is non-news.

Didn't they state what razor did, in the article?

The date on which Gravity stated the notice was sent, October 10th, is the same day that Perpetual announced that its PC MMORPG Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising would be put on hold indefinitely.

[Yoru]

Not entirely. Read through the first three paragraphs carefully. The Gamasutra article frames it as if the company is being shut down and liquidated, as if it was a new development. Instead, it's just an SEC filing that reflects what already occurred (consignment of PE, Inc. to PE, LLC. for liquidation of assets). It fails to mention things like how the development of Star Trek is essentially unaffected by this development.

It's bad reporting through the omission of information, but then, crappy journalism in the gaming press? NEVAR!! 

[Ratman_tf]

Star Trek would really benefit from a back to basics Ron Moore-style BSG reboot (heck, even Moore could do it, he's gonna be free in a year) but from what I've read Abrams is bending over backwards trying to fit a "reboot-style" movie into canon, which will serve only to piss off literally everyone.

I bet they find a way for the reboot Enterprise to have a holodeck. Maybe the Ferengi could sell them one?

[Mrbloodworth]

Just wanted to post an update from Gamasutra. You can find it on the original article.

[UPDATE: Perpetual's third-party PR contacts have indicated to Gamasutra that they are no longer representing the San Francisco firm, and can therefore offer no input into these claims.]

[geldonyetich2]

Prediction: This game either never gets out of the starting gate or suffers the same fate as Star Wars Galaxies because fan expectation exceeds anything any game developer can create.

(Yeah, I know my track record for predictions is  .)

[Venkman]

Not entirely. Read through the first three paragraphs carefully. The Gamasutra article frames it as if the company is being shut down and liquidated, as if it was a new development. Instead, it's just an SEC filing that reflects what already occurred (consignment of PE, Inc. to PE, LLC. for liquidation of assets). It fails to mention things like how the development of Star Trek is essentially unaffected by this development.

It's bad reporting through the omission of information, but then, crappy journalism in the gaming press? NEVAR!! 

Actually, I think Gamasutra does think Perpetual is being shut down in addition to the prior action relating to G&H. They're pretty specific about it, though their final paragraph is implying STO is an open question.

In the context of the latest "DevLog" though, does anyone here think there's active activity on STO? And I put "DevLog" in quotes for a specific reason.

My guess is Perpetual as a company is done and they're waiting either for 2008 or some grace period after G&H was canned to make the claim.