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

[Rishathra]

In my youth, I was a relatively hardcore Trekkie - yes, Trekkie, fuck that Trekker bullshit - but I kind of fell off the wagon as the years went by, because there was, in the long run, very little deviation from the "formula."  It got boring.

So I have to admit to actually liking those screenshots, for no other reason than they are doing something at least slightly different from what I have seen from Star Trek for the last decade.  I've also read some of the reasons that the developers have posted as to why they changed this and did that differently.  To me, they seem like pretty good ones.  Making the races more stylized makes sense because for the most part, it really was just slightly different facial makeup jobs that differentiated the various races, and with essentially an unlimited "makeup/costume effects" budget, it's a good idea to run with it.

Also, rather the re-stylizing the game into something no one wants, why not just make the extra effort, apply a few more polygons and model the aliens correctly?

Except that modelling the aliens correctly would mean making them look like humans with prosthetics.  There's also the reality that in almost all mmo's, while it's cool that you can sit there at character creation for hours and fiddle with details like eye separation, freckle patterns, and nose flair, these details are for the most part completely unnoticed by other players in the game.  So it stands to reason that with the relatively minor cosmetic differences between the alien races, it would make most of them almost impossible to differentiate at a distance, without some level of artistic stylization.

As to LCARS, I'm enough of a Trekkie to want as much of it in the interface as possible, but the developer brought up some good reasons why it can't just be injected into this game unaltered.

Remember, LCARS was made twenty years ago, before modern computer GUI standards had been established yet. You know, things like movable windows, scrollbars, drop down menus simply didn't exist back then, at least not in the mainstream (mac doesn't count, sorry). Heck, LCARS was intended to be used by touching it with your fingers, or speaking --- not using a mouse and keyboard. Not only that, but really it was intended to replace the TOS bridge control surfaces which were covered in pentiometers, sliders and blinking lights! So it's been a really interesting challenge to take the graphic design and interface style of LCARS, and apply it to the needs of a sophisticated, modern application like an MMO.

There's been a lot of speculation on here about what the UI might be like, or how LCARS will work on terminals a la Doom 3. And I can't talk about anything that might provide clues about gameplay, but I can say this:

Be prepared for a new LCARS style. Think modern, slick, clean, and elegant. Think shiny, black, and serious. Think iPhone. It's going to feel good. The design of the UI has been driven directly by the needs of gameplay. The last thing we want is the for the UI to get in the way of actually playing the game.

So, I see and accept that LCARS needs to be adapted to be able to function in a modern MMO.  Whether it will be a good adaption or crap, I cannot say.

Granted, all of this is mostly theoretical anyways.  All of the signs point to Perpetual punting this thing bigtime.  The ideas themselves seem OK to me, but the execution will probably be horrid.

[tmp]

Tech has little to do with it. Compare the models. Look at her eyes.Ask any woman about the hips in that game...look at the skin tones... I understand that Tech was a problem back then...but there is some hard core stylization going on there. There were game put out at the same time that were not styleised, and did approach photorealism.

Bit of unfair comparison since neither of the other two screenshots you posted actually show the eyes and such. (and the Creed screenshot doesn't show much skin too boot, the few bits that do show don't look that much different from EQ2 skin shader, tbh) Overall though from what i recall EQ2 certainly aimed at photoreal appearance, and the looks were expected to improve as the players would eventually get computers powerful enough to handle it all. What they didn't take into account was very poor quality of both modeling and texturing used for their content. It wasn't deliberate stylization, but rather simply not enough skill to reach the desired effect. They really did believe that generic materials thrown onto shapes is enough to make things appear real. And so you get the fake Poser-like look out of it, while better looking games generally look better because artists take time to hand-craft the appearance of individual assets.

[Ratman_tf]

[geldonyetich2]

Call me a crazy (everybody else does) but if they couldn't pay for those people without selling a game first, why did they hire them?  Seriously, it's a beta, how much customer service do you need to post, "Yeah, it's broke, dump the bugs on the pile over here"?

[Venkman]

If I understand correct, their PR efforts weren't about getting beta testers, but rather, getting Preview coverage from the enthusiast press. And they worked out some deal that gave the PR company a commission based on the number of active accounts G&H had at some time post launch. When a performance commission like that is worked out, it's generally because they negotiated to provide the up-front services for less money. So when PE "sold" their rights to P2, shut down G&H and when bankrupt (I think it was a Chapter 11?) with the first iteration of PE, the PR group basically realized they'd never ever see that commission (which is where the $80k to $280k range in the suit comes from).

I'd have never signed up for that sort of financial arrangement with an MMO company though, especially one working on their first one. The industry itself is just too volatile at the small-time level.

[Ghambit]

The reason Assassin's Creed looks good (and they made the game is a short time-frame) was because they used next-gen 3D apps (like XSI and Zbrush... zbrush in particular) along with a newer game engine (Scimitar, kinda like Unreal 3 I guess) and used good talent.  They literally painted this game together and the engine was able to flesh it out so you didnt need a mainframe-sized system to run it.

Devs have the tools now to make GREAT looking games and still have them run on somewhat "normal" systems.  At the very least, they can optimize games to play on basically anything. (figuratively speaking)

And you cant tell me you'd rather have stuff like this:


over this:


or this:



or even this:



Granted, the 1st pic is in 2D and the rest are in 3D, but the stylization still hits home.  And note, the last 2 were done with a crappy old engine. 

[Morat20]

The reason Assassin's Creed looks good (and they made the game is a short time-frame) was because they used next-gen 3D apps (like XSI and Zbrush... zbrush in particular) along with a newer game engine (Scimitar, kinda like Unreal 3 I guess) and used good talent.  They literally painted this game together and the engine was able to flesh it out so you didnt need a mainframe-sized system to run it.

Granted, the 1st pic is in 2D and the rest are in 3D, but the stylization still hits home.  And note, the last 2 were done with a crappy old engine. 

When it comes to games -- I'd rather have the game I can run, not the game that requires hundreds -- or thousands -- of dollars in PC upgrades to play. Pretty is nice, but being able to play beats pretty in a heartbeat.

One reason I'm finally giving in and switching to consoles.

[Ratman_tf]

When it comes to games -- I'd rather have the game I can run, not the game that requires hundreds -- or thousands -- of dollars in PC upgrades to play. Pretty is nice, but being able to play beats pretty in a heartbeat.

One reason I'm finally giving in and switching to consoles.

Yep. Despite my recent upgrade, I am still far away from current gaming hardware standards, so all that pretty shiny gets turned off anyway. So, for this insignificant consumer, all the time and effort to make a really great looking game are totally wasted on me.

[Fordel]

And you cant tell me you'd rather have stuff like this:

Yes, yes I can.


I can't stand the fake 'photo realism' graphics everyone seems to be trying to put out. The animation isn't there yet, the colours aren't there yet and everything 'feels' like dead plastic. Plus, my machine wouldn't have a shot in hell of running any of it to begin with.


They are real good at rendering trees though, I'll give them that. 

[CharlieMopps]

Guys, you can build a "Good" computer for around $500
You can build one that will play any game on the market at "High" quality settings for $1000 (not including monitor or an OS)

Why people order shit computers from DELL or HP for $800 that they could have built for $300 is beyond me... then they realize their videocard sucks so they run down to bestbuy and spend $400 on some Nvidia card that was selling on Newegg for $250 over a year ago. But then their crappy DELL PSU fails to provide enough power and the computer reboots over and over... so they run down to compusa and buy a $200 "Compusa" brand 500Watt power supply... that is ironically made so cheaply their computer now sounds like poorly tune Hoover Vacume. 

It takes about an hour to build a PC. And its not very complicated.

[Venkman]

You just summarized the reason the console video game business has been kicking the PC gaming business in the teeth for years. $500 for a computer you hope you were smart enough to get the right components, drivers and updates for versus $500 for a complete gaming rig. Building PC is only easy for those who've done it a bunch of times. This is not to say consoles are better than PCs. My two favorite genres don't even exist in any meaningful sense there (RTS and MMOG). That won't be the case forever, but it is for now.

I'm a PC gamer, but have neither the time to learn to build my own, nor the patience to constantly be fighting whatever I screwed up while trying. To me, a "serious" PC gaming rig is going to cost $1500 at any given time, as high as $2000 if you're trying to future-proof it a bit (buy a quad core with 2 CPUs for now, buy something that can do SLI/crossfire but with only one card, etc). I'm certainly no expert, but I've also never seen a real gaming PC (with a warranty) that could run Crysis and COD4 like I can at the $1000 range.

[Trippy]

You can do it for $1000 for just the PC. $500 is not possible unless you are recycling components from another machine.

[SnakeCharmer]

My PC, which cost right about $900 to build (not including the cost of the OS), runs Crysis and CoD4 at 1440x900 without a hitch.  I guess maybe the sticker of DQ's argument was warranty - which mine has - just through individual manufacturers or NewEggs RMA policy.  To be honest, I haven't found a game that it won't run on the highest settings without dropping the fps too low - with the exception of Tabula Rasa, and even then it 'only' drops down to low 30s fps. 

Unless AoC blows me away in March, I can't see upgrading the vid card (EVGA 7950 GT KO) to a DX10 capable card as well as Vista for about another year.  Even then, that may not happen unless SP2 is out. 

[Venkman]

Nah, the stickler in my post was about the hassle of building a PC for someone who's not a tech. It's "easy" for people who've done it. For others, they need to have the time and the patience to learn it. I applaud, and of jealous of, those who do. For me though, I wanted that it-just-works console-like feel while being able to play Crysis at 1600x1020 with everything pushed to the right Maybe before my kids cut into my personal gaming time...

@Trippy: $1000 for just the box and fairly expandable for the next two years (or so), purchased as a complete package? Or $1000 for a future-proofed (somewhat) build-your-own box?

[Trippy]

$1000 is build-your-own. The breakdown is something like:

$250 video card (8800GT)
$200 CPU (E6750)
$100 motherboard
$50 memory
$100 drives (HD + DVD-RW)
$100 case + PS
$100 misc.
$100 OS

If you aren't comfortable upgrading your CPU you can swap the video card and CPU budgets around and buy a nicer CPU initially and then plan on upgrading the video card sooner rather than later.

If you buy from a "white box" store you'll have to pay for assembly and testing so you'll have to skimp on a few things or give up the "misc." category.

[stray]

I know my way around PC's, and I still don't care to go that route. I just like to have an appliance. Not some clunky piece of hardware to geek out on. So it's back to Macs and consoles for me.

I caved in around 2003 and got a PC again, but that just ended up being a pain in the ass generally. It was also the last good period for PC games probably... The swan song if you will. Now, there's only a handful of "exclusive" things on PC worth taking a look at. Umm.. Supreme Commander and the Witcher. Really not sure what else?? Anyhow, I can play those through Bootcamp. MMO's? Fucking forget about it. Don't care if I could run 'em or not (although I could...if, somehow, hell freezes over and I'm compelled to). Bioshock is too much for my Mac, but that's doable on the Xbox. I can play just about everything else on Steam though..

[Venkman]

Ah, ok. What would the assembling and testing premium run from a "white box" store?

Trying to see the difference between that and the $2k I spent at iBuyPower. I probably spent more than I needed to, but man do I feel it was worth it (for me, not everyone, ymmv, you might be a building expert, etc  ).

[SnakeCharmer]

but man do I feel it was worth it

That's all that matters, really - is that you're happy with it.

I'm 'OK' with building PCs.  Not great.  But OK.  Better than average.  And probably, I run into a few more technical snafus than you would / do - and it's *usually* driver related. 

Which usually is directly attributed to my own impatience.

My next rig will probably be a Dell / Gateway / ibuypower / Alien 'custom' build sans the monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

[Trippy]

Mwave.com charges $80 for assembly and testing of a complete system. Some places will charge a lot more than that, though.

[CharlieMopps]

You can do it for $1000 for just the PC. $500 is not possible unless you are recycling components from another machine.

Case + Power supply: $49
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144039
Motherboard $73 (onboard sound and lan)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131042
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Brisbane 2.7GHz $115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103210
2 Gig Memory $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134488
160Gig HD $53
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148230
Radeon HD 3850 256MB Vid card $169
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102714

That system would play any currently made game at Medium or better settings.
Total: $509

For a high end system:
Radeon HD 3850 512MB Currently out benchmarks every other card on the market and is only an extra $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161215
A better case for $50 more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129033
A nicer hard drive with that new duel write thingy for $120 more
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136131
etc... etc...


edit: I should mention that I threw that together in like 5min. So don't go building something based on my list. Do your own research first.
Edit again: Found a better vid card for $10 more

[Merusk]

You can realign your car yourself, overhaul your tranny and in fact, do body work if you have a wreck and save a fortune.  You're all clueless twits who enjoy wasting their money if you don't do it.

See what I did there?  See why folks buy Dells/ HPs/ Whatever now or simply say "fuck it" and buy consoles?

[CharlieMopps]

You can realign your car yourself, overhaul your tranny and in fact, do body work if you have a wreck and save a fortune.  You're all clueless twits who enjoy wasting their money if you don't do it.

See what I did there?  See why folks buy Dells/ HPs/ Whatever now or simply say "fuck it" and buy consoles?

all of which takes hours, days, even weeks.

Building a computer from scratch takes about 10min. An hour if your totally clueless. The last computer I built I had my wife do while I watched. Took her about 30Min. I only had to help her get the CPU fan attached. She hadn't owned a computer until we met 2 years ago.

Installing the OS? Well, thats a pain but oh well.

[CharlieMopps]

$1000 is build-your-own. The breakdown is something like:

$250 video card (8800GT)
$200 CPU (E6750)
$100 motherboard
$50 memory
$100 drives (HD + DVD-RW)
$100 case + PS
$100 misc.
$100 OS

If you aren't comfortable upgrading your CPU you can swap the video card and CPU budgets around and buy a nicer CPU initially and then plan on upgrading the video card sooner rather than later.

If you buy from a "white box" store you'll have to pay for assembly and testing so you'll have to skimp on a few things or give up the "misc." category.

I did skip the OS and the CD drives. You can get one of those DVD burners that puts pictures on the DVD cover for like $30 now... You can get a CD/DVD Reader for arround $10
As far as the OS goes... come on... you can find XP laying everywhere. If you don't already have at least Windows XP Home... yea, you'll need to spend another $80. But seriously, ask around at work. Someones bound to have an XP disk for some DELL/Gateway computer they threw away years ago.

[Fordel]

That system would play any currently made game at Medium or better settings.

What is the point then? I can play the 'awesome' graphics game but never get to actually see said graphics?

[Venkman]

Ultimately it depends on what you want. The joy of knowing you're gaming on something you built, or the joy of gaming on something you spent a crapload of money on to push the edge.

I can appreciate the joy of building. I like to work with wood, and have built a number of things for the house. To an item, none of this stuff did I make for cheaper than what I could have bought at Target. But then, I'm also not building stuff out of that crappy particle board/veneer nonesense their suppliers use. You're lucky to get a year out of it, and only then if you don't put much weight on it.

Different strokes and all that. Stray used the word "appliance". That how I see computers. I'm not going to build a fridge or oven either

Of course, I'm not going to upgrade them either. But this is the first time I bought a machine with upgrade (to quad core and a new vid card/crossfire if that works out) in mind. Still may end up having guessed wrong

[Morat20]

You can realign your car yourself, overhaul your tranny and in fact, do body work if you have a wreck and save a fortune.  You're all clueless twits who enjoy wasting their money if you don't do it.

See what I did there?  See why folks buy Dells/ HPs/ Whatever now or simply say "fuck it" and buy consoles?

Don't forget the ever important "Warranty". I could keep a dozen reciepts, try to remember or record a dozen different warranty terms, or I can shell out 300 bucks for a three-year "We don't ask questions, we just ship you a replacement part" warranty.

Which comes in damn handy at times, depending on your situation -- pets and kids can greatly increase the chance of damage. :)

[Ratman_tf]

It cost around 300 bones to upgrade my win98 box to this:

Gaming Rig
Motherboard: Asus M2A-VM
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.0GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Hard Drive: 160 GB
Video Card: Radeon X1550 Series
Monitor: ViewSonic G90f
Sound Card: SB Live! Wave Device
Speakers/Headphones: Altec Lansing 5.1
Keyboard: Generic
Mouse: Microsoft Optical USB
Mouse Surface: Mouse Pad Pro X360 ver. 2119
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)

And it will probably stay that way for another year. I just don't have the money to dump into it right now.

[UnSub]

Building a computer from scratch takes about 10min. An hour if your totally clueless.

Putting you new computer together yourself: 1 hour.

Trying to figure out why the damn thing won't work: 2 days.

Taking it to a computer shop where they can put it together for you and make it work: priceless.

[Trippy]

Case + Power supply: $49
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144039
Motherboard $73 (onboard sound and lan)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131042
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Brisbane 2.7GHz $115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103210
2 Gig Memory $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134488
160Gig HD $53
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148230
Radeon HD 3850 256MB Vid card $169
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102714

That system would play any currently made game at Medium or better settings.
Total: $509

You left off the OS.

[CharlieMopps]

You left off the OS.

I mentioned that in a follow up post...

[Murgos]

And you cant tell me you'd rather have stuff like this:

Yes, yes I can.

Actually, Wrex was animated quite well I thought.  I was pretty impressed by the level of animation in Mass Effect overall, really.

[tkinnun0]

Actually, Wrex was animated quite well I thought.  I was pretty impressed by the level of animation in Mass Effect overall, really.

Now, multiply Wrex by the number of aliens-of-the-week you're going to need... I'm rather intrigued by the prospect of 2D avatar artwork. For one, a chance to use my imagination. For another, with 3D you can never be sure if a subtle expression on a character's face was intended or the result of aliasing.

[Akkori]

Don't forget the ever important "Warranty". I could keep a dozen reciepts, try to remember or record a dozen different warranty terms, or I can shell out 300 bucks for a three-year "We don't ask questions, we just ship you a replacement part" warranty.

Which comes in damn handy at times, depending on your situation -- pets and kids can greatly increase the chance of damage. :)

Well, for those who happen to have their computers in a safe-zone, warranties are crap. By the time anything you buy breaks, it's probably time to upgrade anyway. Even if it's only 6 months. As for the parts list, I would personally splurge a bit more on the power supply. Spend a few extra bucks and get a good one, or you may come to regret it (voice of experience here)!

I've built every computer I have owned for the past 7 years, but only 2 new architectures. I am a slow adopter of new CPU sockets, and am still on the 478 right now. I am eyeballing a PCI-Express system, which I have tooled out to be about $800, but I will be bringing over my relatively new 120gb HDD and oldish Audigy 4 sound card (btw, I have NEVER been able to really tell any diff between on-board sound and $400 sound cards. THe only benefit to not using on-board sound is cpu use). This new Express system will be pretty beefy for an average user. No AlienWare by any means, but I will be able to run any game out there for a year or so to come with no modifications.

It really isn't that hard. It's all color-coded and special shaped connectors, and rarely even any more little damn dip switches to play with.

[Mrbloodworth]

The reason Assassin's Creed looks good (and they made the game is a short time-frame) was because they used next-gen 3D apps (like XSI and Zbrush... zbrush in particular) along with a newer game engine (Scimitar, kinda like Unreal 3 I guess) and used good talent.  They literally painted this game together and the engine was able to flesh it out so you didnt need a mainframe-sized system to run it.

The apps have little to do with it. Its all in the art and the artist. A tool is only the means to an end, and do not automatically apply "Awesome" to anything created in them. You can achieve the same results in most other (AAA) 3d applications, just differently. I'm not sure what you mean by "The engine just fleshes it out", engines only do what you tell them to, a crappy figure in a high end engine is still a crappy figure..

I will also go so far as to say that most modern engines are WASTE FULL, TECH is used all to often to attempt to cover up crappy artwork. In fact, a good artiest can achieve incredible looking  effects using refined, measured, and conservative techniques, Most Graphics "WOW" factor is in the art.

[Furiously]

I disagree on the warranty, if you buy top of the line, your computer can last 2-4 years without needing replacements on most components. Having my $600 video card and $200 motherboard and $170 memory all go bad in the last year. Even replacing them I would have paid $170 for the videocard, $117 for the motherboard and $70 for the memory. Warranty saved me a good deal of money there. I just wonder how many people overclock the heck out of their systems then replace their stuff at my expense.