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

[tazelbain]

I want to play the naive android who learns to love

[Venimor]

STO really needs a design outside of the Diku format.

Star Fleet Battles/Starfleet Command the MMO. 

It's been done.

(Mind you, it could be done a lot better. OMG PERSISTENT BATTLES, PRODUCTION, MILITARY PROMOTIONS, INVASIONS... you know, kind of like WW2OL. But in space.)

OMG LOLZ. "Cracker-class cruisers"?   I wonder if they have the same guy naming ships who snuck in the USS Skorzeny into SFC1.

[Lum]

Eh...

1) Combat in Star Trek itself (the series) was basically naval combat in space. See the Enterprise/Reliant battle at the end of Wrath of Khan (OMG KIRK CAN THINK IN THREE DIMENSIONS you know, like a fighter pilot and stuff) not to mention the whole Romulans as submarines thing. So it's a pretty good simulation.

2) By the time of Orion Pirates the feedback was at a pretty good place; you got readouts on if you were overspending your energy budget (which is the true measure of SFB geekery) and instant feedback on damage done if you unloaded with your weapons on your target. Couldn't ask for much else, except maybe automated anti-drone/plasma torp fire or something (not sure if that ever got added). Loading a DDG with MIRV'd out drones and taking names at close range isn't terribly Star Trek canon but it IS fun.

3) SFC3 was an attempt to make the series casual friendly and really went into a bad place -- among other ill concieved dumbings down, you couldn't ever completely destroy weapons platforms (they would just be 'damaged') so battles went on forever and ever.

That being said I never played online, because Dynaverse never really got good enough to motivate me to. And yeah the mod community is somewhat mildly retarded. "Cracker" isn't that bad though - it's trying to use Nato-style Fed code names for Romulan ships, similar to the MiGs "Foxbat", "Foxhound", "Flagon", and everyone's favorite, "Fagot". The link, amusingly enough, goes to "Cabbage", not "Cracker".

[Trippy]

STO really needs a design outside of the Diku format.

Star Fleet Battles/Starfleet Command the MMO. 

[...]half-assed board game design[...]

Heretic! Burn him!

[Venimor]

Eh...

1) Combat in Star Trek itself (the series) was basically naval combat in space. See the Enterprise/Reliant battle at the end of Wrath of Khan (OMG KIRK CAN THINK IN THREE DIMENSIONS you know, like a fighter pilot and stuff) not to mention the whole Romulans as submarines thing. So it's a pretty good simulation.

2) By the time of Orion Pirates the feedback was at a pretty good place; you got readouts on if you were overspending your energy budget (which is the true measure of SFB geekery) and instant feedback on damage done if you unloaded with your weapons on your target. Couldn't ask for much else, except maybe automated anti-drone/plasma torp fire or something (not sure if that ever got added). Loading a DDG with MIRV'd out drones and taking names at close range isn't terribly Star Trek canon but it IS fun.

3) SFC3 was an attempt to make the series casual friendly and really went into a bad place -- among other ill concieved dumbings down, you couldn't ever completely destroy weapons platforms (they would just be 'damaged') so battles went on forever and ever.

That being said I never played online, because Dynaverse never really got good enough to motivate me to. And yeah the mod community is somewhat mildly retarded. "Cracker" isn't that bad though - it's trying to use Nato-style Fed code names for Romulan ships, similar to the MiGs "Foxbat", "Foxhound", "Flagon", and everyone's favorite, "Fagot". The link, amusingly enough, goes to "Cabbage", not "Cracker".

Random thoughts:

a) I think they did add the automated anti-drone/anti-plasma point-defense system by Orion Pirates.

b) SFC2 Dynaverse was only ready for testing in the last three or four weeks of production, IIRC. Went from 'Train Wreck' to 'somewhat playable' in that time.

c) They should have made the series an computerized analog of the board game instead of a ham-fisted RTS port. Fewer headaches. I think it was Interplay's development director at the time who insisted that it had to be an RTS (to compete with Starcraft).

[Ghambit]

Umm, isnt the code not being transferred a good thing?

p.s.
I'm still working on that STO game design I talked about earlier, and I just had to put it down for awhile...  I almost started cutting on myself in frustration

[UnSub]

At the high level, easy-to-say-devil-is-in-the-details things that STO needs, it comes down to:

1) Exploration. The universe needs to be vast (Q-webbing to simulate the end of the universe only works for so long) and 3D. Planets should provide instances for exploration and for when things need to be dealt with in-avatar.

2) Combat. Space combat needs to be tactical yet real-time. And in 3D. Ground combat can use how Tabula Rasa and Planetside as examples of the right and wrong ways to do something.

3) Diplomacy. Vanguard's mini-game is one example of how it could be handled. I also think Paradroid's droid take-over mini-game could be updated and used.

4) You need to be able to fly a spaceship by yourself, but Star Trek is a show about a team. As such, I could see the player as captain of their ship who has a number of AI shipmates, but these AI shipmates can be replaced by human players who get bonuses in performing the actions of medical, comms, security, etc. So you can solo, but if you want to play coop, you can. Yes, it makes everyone under the captain a support class, but I'm not sure how to try to compromise the soloers vs those who want the full Trek communal experience. Away teams could also be made up of human and AI 'redshirts'.

5) Set 20 years into Trek's future past Voyager. This was the only thing that PE was doing right on STO. Build ON the existing continuity, not WITHIN it.

If they can capture those things (and not screw up too many of the other details) then you're probably going towards capturing what ST is about while still being a fun game to play.

[tmp]

1) Exploration. The universe needs to be vast (Q-webbing to simulate the end of the universe only works for so long) and 3D. Planets should provide instances for exploration and for when things need to be dealt with in-avatar.

2) Combat. Space combat needs to be tactical yet real-time. And in 3D. Ground combat can use how Tabula Rasa and Planetside as examples of the right and wrong ways to do something.

3) Diplomacy. Vanguard's mini-game is one example of how it could be handled. I also think Paradroid's droid take-over mini-game could be updated and used.

Klingon_NPC_01: "Find and hunt tribbles for their tails*. Bring us 10 as offering of peace."

*) yes i know.

[Signe]

I was sort of looking forward to this game, hoping I could be like that woman who floated around saying, "looooove"  until I realised that she was from an episode of Lost in Space. 

[Ratman_tf]

Nargle garble. Obviously this game needs to find a developer that can survive the Trek Curse before any kind of meaningful game design can take place. 

[tazelbain]

Three Rings is in San Franisco.
They already have the ship metaphor.
Star base = Islands.
add away mission instances.
Replace puzzles with new Puzzles that fit Star Trak IP.

Not saying it would be easy, just that they have a logical starting point that no one else has and they have experience in the field.

[Montague]

At the high level, easy-to-say-devil-is-in-the-details things that STO needs, it comes down to:

1) Exploration. The universe needs to be vast (Q-webbing to simulate the end of the universe only works for so long) and 3D. Planets should provide instances for exploration and for when things need to be dealt with in-avatar.

2) Combat. Space combat needs to be tactical yet real-time. And in 3D. Ground combat can use how Tabula Rasa and Planetside as examples of the right and wrong ways to do something.

3) Diplomacy. Vanguard's mini-game is one example of how it could be handled. I also think Paradroid's droid take-over mini-game could be updated and used.

4) You need to be able to fly a spaceship by yourself, but Star Trek is a show about a team. As such, I could see the player as captain of their ship who has a number of AI shipmates, but these AI shipmates can be replaced by human players who get bonuses in performing the actions of medical, comms, security, etc. So you can solo, but if you want to play coop, you can. Yes, it makes everyone under the captain a support class, but I'm not sure how to try to compromise the soloers vs those who want the full Trek communal experience. Away teams could also be made up of human and AI 'redshirts'.

5) Set 20 years into Trek's future past Voyager. This was the only thing that PE was doing right on STO. Build ON the existing continuity, not WITHIN it.

If they can capture those things (and not screw up too many of the other details) then you're probably going towards capturing what ST is about while still being a fun game to play.

Exploration sounds good but would be almost impossible for an MMO. Within 72 hours of release there would be websites with every single star system mapped out and the MMOGtards will head to the planets with the best missions/rewards/experience and all the rest will never be touched.

[Venimor]

STO really needs a design outside of the Diku format.

Star Fleet Battles/Starfleet Command the MMO. 

[...]half-assed board game design[...]

Heretic! Burn him!

(sigh) okay.... it was a stellar awesomesauce board game, perfectly balanced. You can play it with your mom, your scoutmaster, and any random human being, and have a really good time. That part where Romulan starter ships like the Snipe were unplayable, that's just the lies of the voices in my head what are griefin' me when I forget to take my meds (I shouldn't forget to take my medication). Where it took a fanbase like Trek gamers to lovingly overlook all the glaring design flaws and apocryphal material, and miserably-written missions expansion after expansion... then loudly bitch at the SFC design team trying to implement what they wanted... that was some creepy alternative universe that Stephen Hawking discovered. 

[Venimor]

Umm, isnt the code not being transferred a good thing?

p.s.
I'm still working on that STO game design I talked about earlier, and I just had to put it down for awhile...  I almost started cutting on myself in frustration

Working on Star Trek games does that to you. Try to stop before you start cutting on *others* in frustration.

[Venimor]

Nargle garble. Obviously this game needs to find a developer that can survive the Trek Curse before any kind of meaningful game design can take place. 

The Trek curse is scalar, and it scans for your company's Achilles heel and fires everthing it has at it. Doesn't matter how big a surfboard you have, it will wipe you out.

I could post some RPG stats for it, if people want to play the home game.

[UnSub]

According to w00t Radio's DJ Jester (who may just lose any contact into Cryptic if the leak is true) Cryptic have the STO IP and are looking to pick up some Perpetual devs. Also apparently Cryptic's PR have been in contact with some Star Trek sites about doing something with them later on.

Still no official confirmation, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Venkman]

Who exaclty is even left at Cryptic these days, given the 100% retention of those folks offered jobs by NC?

[Trippy]

The execs and those that are/were working on Marvel Online.

[Venkman]

Oh, ok that makes sense then. New project to replace Maybe.

[Moosehands]

http://www.warcry.com/forums/read/118.53397

And that's pretty much the end of that.

[Samprimary]

boldly going away

[UnSub]

Who exaclty is even left at Cryptic these days, given the 100% retention of those folks offered jobs by NC?

My rough understanding of Cryptic's employee numbers is that around 30 devs were working on CoH/V, but the overall company size was closer to 200.

I'm pretty sure that Micheal Lewis (Cryptic's CEO) said that the CoH/V shifts amounted to only 15% of their staff.

Even without MUO and STO, Cryptic had at least one other project they were working on, if not two. (I say 'had' because I don't know if those projects are still active.)

[AngryGumball]

Anyone know if Binky was one of those people gone from Perpetual now with the final strike? Where he ended up which company now?

[schild]

He's at SOE doing PR.

[AngryGumball]

Should I be shocked that 8 minutes later not only do you know what I wanted to know but you answered me in the middle of the night?
Or just continue to bow down to your superior knowledge?


But then you failed me on UT3.

But then you were king with Journeyman.

Ohh the troubles such a peasant as I go thru. :P

[schild]

Also, he was already gone before that last hammer fell. What did you need him for?

[Venimor]

At the high level, easy-to-say-devil-is-in-the-details things that STO needs, it comes down to:

1) Exploration. The universe needs to be vast (Q-webbing to simulate the end of the universe only works for so long) and 3D. Planets should provide instances for exploration and for when things need to be dealt with in-avatar.

2) Combat. Space combat needs to be tactical yet real-time. And in 3D. Ground combat can use how Tabula Rasa and Planetside as examples of the right and wrong ways to do something.

3) Diplomacy. Vanguard's mini-game is one example of how it could be handled. I also think Paradroid's droid take-over mini-game could be updated and used.

4) You need to be able to fly a spaceship by yourself, but Star Trek is a show about a team. As such, I could see the player as captain of their ship who has a number of AI shipmates, but these AI shipmates can be replaced by human players who get bonuses in performing the actions of medical, comms, security, etc. So you can solo, but if you want to play coop, you can. Yes, it makes everyone under the captain a support class, but I'm not sure how to try to compromise the soloers vs those who want the full Trek communal experience. Away teams could also be made up of human and AI 'redshirts'.

5) Set 20 years into Trek's future past Voyager. This was the only thing that PE was doing right on STO. Build ON the existing continuity, not WITHIN it.

If they can capture those things (and not screw up too many of the other details) then you're probably going towards capturing what ST is about while still being a fun game to play.

Exploration sounds good but would be almost impossible for an MMO. Within 72 hours of release there would be websites with every single star system mapped out and the MMOGtards will head to the planets with the best missions/rewards/experience and all the rest will never be touched.

At the risk of giving the world hints for how to do something that cannot and should not be attempted...

1) Exploration could be done with cutting-edge tech that can generate plausible star systems, trigger points for instances on POI's in those star systems, and allow players to place starbase infrastructure or whatever. Then you need a way to plot those freshly created star system 'zones' onto a navigation map that multiple users would be able to zip around on. Complicated and far ahead of its time, but it would have to be a well-designed, automated tool to get the sheer number of star systems necessary to have Trek-like sense of exploration. There would be an argument as to memory resources and whether players should be confined to Class-M worlds or not (like the focus of the original show was constrained), maybe a year of parallel dev time to get that system up and running assuming you've got a full-size team. A system only gets generated if a guild-crew actually goes there, it remains instantiated only if someone builds something there. Feasible, but would require excellent planning and next-level implementation tools.

2) Combat would have to iron out an acceptable realtime/cinematic/quasi-realistic style and move forward with something that probably won't please everyone, but would the naysayers just STFU for a minute and let the team design it. It'll be more like Pirates of the Burning Sea than SFC, with the cinematic flavor of Star Trek II's combat as a primary referent (rough modeling on 18th century ship-to-ship combat paradigm, truncated z-axis, ships can't point straight up or down, but they can lift themselves up or down a small degree to fool those who can't think in three dimensions). 

3) Star Trek diplomacy is not like real-world diplomacy, so you can talk to PvE races/starships and go with hostile, polite, or obsequious conversation options and manage the aliens' faction up, down, left, right, within fifteen minutes or so (just like on the show). PvP diplomacy is done on the chat window and with weapons.

4) 90% of the likely players (if not more) are gonna wanna be the ship's captain. A 1-20 newbie leveling experience where you graduate from the Academy and get some experience rising through the ranks before you actually get your own ship might work, but apprenticeships on some higher-ranking player's ship's Science or Engineering console just isn't going to work for a variety of reasons. Some of the bridge crew jobs might be slightly fun or interesting (Scotty's job, maybe), but all of the other jobs are really just reading off input coming from the game, or performing vital functions that the captain could be doing just as easily, since they are his orders they're carrying out anyway. Paying $14.95 a month to RP the experience of being someone else's subordinate in an MMO doesn't appeal to that many people. I think the only way to handle this is through grouping: anyone who joins a given captain's group must automatically use a support-staff 'alt' that reflects a useful expertise like science, engineering, medical, or security. These alts are basically along for the ride and can RP during a starship trip, but actually appear in avatar form during away-team instances.

5) I kind of disagree with this point. Building on the continuity is just as problematic as building within it, some reasons are the same, others are different. If you're going to be setting it 25 years after Voyager or the year before Kirk's conception, there's got to be a compelling story reason for putting it there, and the licensor is unlikely to take risks with the amount of established, if occasionally convoluted, lore without a cleverly-constructed case built around an interesting story. That amount of backstory work is screenplay-level, not to mention the amount of additional writing toil involved in generating content.

With half the art needing to be redone, the sheer amount of conceptual scope and depth that needs to be present to give the Trek gamers the kind of buzz they are looking for, the coding and content development and design work, that's about six years of excellently-planned, well-organized work for the average-sized MMO studio. That's too long. It's too expensive. No one should do this. It's a cursed license.

[Trippy]

At the risk of giving the world hints for how to do something that cannot and should not be attempted...

1) Exploration could be done with cutting-edge tech that can generate plausible star systems, trigger points for instances on POI's in those star systems, and allow players to place starbase infrastructure or whatever. Then you need a way to plot those freshly created star system 'zones' onto a navigation map that multiple users would be able to zip around on. Complicated and far ahead of its time, but it would have to be a well-designed, automated tool to get the sheer number of star systems necessary to have Trek-like sense of exploration. There would be an argument as to memory resources and whether players should be confined to Class-M worlds or not (like the focus of the original show was constrained), maybe a year of parallel dev time to get that system up and running assuming you've got a full-size team. A system only gets generated if a guild-crew actually goes there, it remains instantiated only if someone builds something there. Feasible, but would require excellent planning and next-level implementation tools.

Don't worry you aren't revealing any secrets -- Starflight did this sort of thing, uh, 22 years ago.

[Ghambit]

4) 90% of the likely players (if not more) are gonna wanna be the ship's captain. A 1-20 newbie leveling experience where you graduate from the Academy and get some experience rising through the ranks before you actually get your own ship might work, but apprenticeships on some higher-ranking player's ship's Science or Engineering console just isn't going to work for a variety of reasons. Some of the bridge crew jobs might be slightly fun or interesting (Scotty's job, maybe), but all of the other jobs are really just reading off input coming from the game, or performing vital functions that the captain could be doing just as easily, since they are his orders they're carrying out anyway. Paying $14.95 a month to RP the experience of being someone else's subordinate in an MMO doesn't appeal to that many people. I think the only way to handle this is through grouping: anyone who joins a given captain's group must automatically use a support-staff 'alt' that reflects a useful expertise like science, engineering, medical, or security. These alts are basically along for the ride and can RP during a starship trip, but actually appear in avatar form during away-team instances.

I tend to disagree with this fact.  You're assuming all ships are created equal in your 90% statement.  Fact is, they're not.  If a group can bring orders of magnitude more firepower to an engagement by having a fully PC crewed capital ship rather than a runabout, then obviously the players will do what they have to do to obtain and pilot the capital ship, including having only one captain.

Players will do what they have to do to earn the right to pilot the ships they want to pilot.  Just because people want to be the captain doesnt mean they'll necessarily sacrifice gameplay to do it.  It's kinda like saying "everyone wants to be raid leader" in WoW so no one will raid.  Frankly, not everyone wants to be raid leader... because they have a higher goal then their own aims to lead.  Phat lewts and phat gameplay trumps phat egos more times than not.  Assuming STO gameplay for non-captains is deep enough then it's safe to say it'd follow a similar path.

I'm not even going to get into the actual resource elements involved in even obtaining a large ST starship.  Needless to say, you're obviously not going to have a million Galaxy class ships milling about the galaxy.  That'd be dumb even if they were pilotable by 1 Captain... basically, no one would like it.

Ultimately, you need to view STO ships as "Levels" and not simply vehicles.  In my design that I was working on basically every ship was a dynamically streamed Level and not merely something you hopped into to get around.  Some of these levels needed large crews to effectively progress in, others didnt. 

Anyways, no slight to you but I just think you're not giving a potential STO playerbase enough credit.  The players will play what is most appealing to them within the design of the game.   If the game is designed shytilly and the best (most fun and effective) gameplay to be had is as captain, then your statement is correct.  But you'd really have to bork up the game for that fact to be true IMO.  To this end, it's more a factor related to game design rather then player needs.

[tmp]

4) 90% of the likely players (if not more) are gonna wanna be the ship's captain. A 1-20 newbie leveling experience where you graduate from the Academy and get some experience rising through the ranks before you actually get your own ship might work, but apprenticeships on some higher-ranking player's ship's Science or Engineering console just isn't going to work for a variety of reasons. Some of the bridge crew jobs might be slightly fun or interesting (Scotty's job, maybe), but all of the other jobs are really just reading off input coming from the game, or performing vital functions that the captain could be doing just as easily, since they are his orders they're carrying out anyway. Paying $14.95 a month to RP the experience of being someone else's subordinate in an MMO doesn't appeal to that many people.

Puzzle Pirates manage to pull it off quite nicely. The key appears to be, all the crew station works are mini-games that are actually fun on their own. While each station is quite independent from each other, the performance of each crew member translates directly into ship attributes, allowing the captain to pull off harder stunts in combat etc.

[Archimedian]

4) 90% of the likely players (if not more) are gonna wanna be the ship's captain. A 1-20 newbie leveling experience where you graduate from the Academy and get some experience rising through the ranks before you actually get your own ship might work, but apprenticeships on some higher-ranking player's ship's Science or Engineering console just isn't going to work for a variety of reasons. Some of the bridge crew jobs might be slightly fun or interesting (Scotty's job, maybe), but all of the other jobs are really just reading off input coming from the game, or performing vital functions that the captain could be doing just as easily, since they are his orders they're carrying out anyway. Paying $14.95 a month to RP the experience of being someone else's subordinate in an MMO doesn't appeal to that many people.

Puzzle Pirates manage to pull it off quite nicely. The key appears to be, all the crew station works are mini-games that are actually fun on their own. While each station is quite independent from each other, the performance of each crew member translates directly into ship attributes, allowing the captain to pull off harder stunts in combat etc.

I tend to agree I could in theory come up with a class concept for a "star ship" with multicrew, this is assuming you make these mini games interesting.

Helmsman, basically a dodge tank.
Weapons, the mage.
Comms, the CC class for multiple JNPC engagements.
Scotty / Jordi, err engineering, the healer.
Spok / Data, err science officer mitigation tank or defensive weapon CC.
Doc, could in theory be a back up type healer or a pure healer if you have both ship and crew stations take damage.
And finally the captain.....what does kirk do?  Picard....I guess I'd make them a buffing class with "diplomacy" side game or something.

This would fall into the non standard MMO roles.  Some one to take down a photon torpedo as a defensive tank?  Umm don't know any games that do that...

The question is can any one make these roles engaging to create a colaborative mini game fun to play?  Do you then have that as a side mini game or the main focus?  Do you make the away / planet exploration your main goal?  Do you have lots of space ships?

I can see why lacking a definitive vision or the resources to properly execute a gazillion concepts you could come up with for this IP would be daunting.  it really just needs to end up in the right hands, is there a Gene Roddenberry of MMOs?

As a complete side note, while checking on the spelling of Gene's last name, I had no idea his middle name was Wesley.  If some one made an MMO where the game play involved only a virtual version of Wesley and you leveled by how hard you kicked him in the balls, I'd pay to play that.

[Venimor]

At the risk of giving the world hints for how to do something that cannot and should not be attempted...

1) Exploration could be done with cutting-edge tech that can generate plausible star systems, trigger points for instances on POI's in those star systems, and allow players to place starbase infrastructure or whatever. Then you need a way to plot those freshly created star system 'zones' onto a navigation map that multiple users would be able to zip around on. Complicated and far ahead of its time, but it would have to be a well-designed, automated tool to get the sheer number of star systems necessary to have Trek-like sense of exploration. There would be an argument as to memory resources and whether players should be confined to Class-M worlds or not (like the focus of the original show was constrained), maybe a year of parallel dev time to get that system up and running assuming you've got a full-size team. A system only gets generated if a guild-crew actually goes there, it remains instantiated only if someone builds something there. Feasible, but would require excellent planning and next-level implementation tools.

Don't worry you aren't revealing any secrets -- Starflight did this sort of thing, uh, 22 years ago.

Yeah. Starflight was the awesome, and one that deserves a skillful remake.

The depth of the interstellar/interplanetary navigation system was so elegant, it's always a bit surprising that no one's done a better job of implementing this with today's tech. Mass Effect's nav system was nice, but too limited in scope. Starfleet Academy / Klingon Academy had depth, but they overdid the plumbing and then hid it behind a nav map feature that no one needed to use. SFC's dynaverse campaign map blew. Space Rangers 2... sorta cool, but other design flaws wear the player down before they can get to their fun.

[Azaroth]

4) 90% of the likely players (if not more) are gonna wanna be the ship's captain. A 1-20 newbie leveling experience where you graduate from the Academy and get some experience rising through the ranks before you actually get your own ship might work, but apprenticeships on some higher-ranking player's ship's Science or Engineering console just isn't going to work for a variety of reasons. Some of the bridge crew jobs might be slightly fun or interesting (Scotty's job, maybe), but all of the other jobs are really just reading off input coming from the game, or performing vital functions that the captain could be doing just as easily, since they are his orders they're carrying out anyway. Paying $14.95 a month to RP the experience of being someone else's subordinate in an MMO doesn't appeal to that many people.

Puzzle Pirates manage to pull it off quite nicely. The key appears to be, all the crew station works are mini-games that are actually fun on their own. While each station is quite independent from each other, the performance of each crew member translates directly into ship attributes, allowing the captain to pull off harder stunts in combat etc.

I tend to agree I could in theory come up with a class concept for a "star ship" with multicrew, this is assuming you make these mini games interesting.

Helmsman, basically a dodge tank.
Weapons, the mage.
Comms, the CC class for multiple JNPC engagements.
Scotty / Jordi, err engineering, the healer.
Spok / Data, err science officer mitigation tank or defensive weapon CC.
Doc, could in theory be a back up type healer or a pure healer if you have both ship and crew stations take damage.
And finally the captain.....what does kirk do?  Picard....I guess I'd make them a buffing class with "diplomacy" side game or something.

This would fall into the non standard MMO roles.  Some one to take down a photon torpedo as a defensive tank?  Umm don't know any games that do that...

The question is can any one make these roles engaging to create a colaborative mini game fun to play?  Do you then have that as a side mini game or the main focus?  Do you make the away / planet exploration your main goal?  Do you have lots of space ships?

I can see why lacking a definitive vision or the resources to properly execute a gazillion concepts you could come up with for this IP would be daunting.  it really just needs to end up in the right hands, is there a Gene Roddenberry of MMOs?

As a complete side note, while checking on the spelling of Gene's last name, I had no idea his middle name was Wesley.  If some one made an MMO where the game play involved only a virtual version of Wesley and you leveled by how hard you kicked him in the balls, I'd pay to play that.

Geordi is a Paladin.

[tmp]

I tend to agree I could in theory come up with a class concept for a "star ship" with multicrew, this is assuming you make these mini games interesting.

Helmsman, basically a dodge tank.
Weapons, the mage.
Comms, the CC class for multiple JNPC engagements.
Scotty / Jordi, err engineering, the healer.
Spok / Data, err science officer mitigation tank or defensive weapon CC.
Doc, could in theory be a back up type healer or a pure healer if you have both ship and crew stations take damage.
And finally the captain.....what does kirk do?  Picard....I guess I'd make them a buffing class with "diplomacy" side game or something.

This would fall into the non standard MMO roles.  Some one to take down a photon torpedo as a defensive tank?  Umm don't know any games that do that...

To offer some slightly alternative approach, here's breakdown of Puzzle Pirates crew stations... they seem to be more interlocked than the 'classic' MMO team setup, which makes sense given they're used to power single entity:

* bilge station -- removes water gathered in the ship. The amount of water affects ship speed. The more water, the slower it goes.
* carpenter station -- patches holes in the hull. Damaged hull increases rate of water intake.
* sail station -- performance contributes to ship speed.
* cannon station -- loads the guns, so the ship captain has something to use during the battle. The better performance the more frequent the ship can fire.
* navigation -- multiplies the effect of sailing stations. During the battle maneuvers the ship and fires cannons.

nice part is the player isn't locked in one "class", they can play whatever puzzle they like, are good at, or the one that happens to be needed most to get the ship throughout encounter in one piece.

[Venimor]

4) 90% of the likely players (if not more) are gonna wanna be the ship's captain. A 1-20 newbie leveling experience where you graduate from the Academy and get some experience rising through the ranks before you actually get your own ship might work, but apprenticeships on some higher-ranking player's ship's Science or Engineering console just isn't going to work for a variety of reasons. Some of the bridge crew jobs might be slightly fun or interesting (Scotty's job, maybe), but all of the other jobs are really just reading off input coming from the game, or performing vital functions that the captain could be doing just as easily, since they are his orders they're carrying out anyway. Paying $14.95 a month to RP the experience of being someone else's subordinate in an MMO doesn't appeal to that many people. I think the only way to handle this is through grouping: anyone who joins a given captain's group must automatically use a support-staff 'alt' that reflects a useful expertise like science, engineering, medical, or security. These alts are basically along for the ride and can RP during a starship trip, but actually appear in avatar form during away-team instances.

I tend to disagree with this fact.  You're assuming all ships are created equal in your 90% statement.  Fact is, they're not.  If a group can bring orders of magnitude more firepower to an engagement by having a fully PC crewed capital ship rather than a runabout, then obviously the players will do what they have to do to obtain and pilot the capital ship, including having only one captain.

I assumed nothing of the sort. If I were really interested in designing a Trek MMO, which I have indicated is a bad idea with near-maniacal urgency, I’d probably give the starter captain a choice of starter ships, which could be customized towards various roles. I would certainly give the player captains something sexier and less asinine than a shuttlecraft on their first time out of the spacedock.

But what you’re calling for with this capital-ships-requiring-bridge-crew-to-function-better feature, is essentially ‘runabout zerging’. The dude with the brand-new Archimedian-class cruiser that needs a minimum of four players to operate is at a grave disadvantage to the ships that require only a single player. The guilds made up of runabouts are going to have the most fun in this world, people are going to give up on capital ships until the bridge crew requirement is disabled in the very first patch you’ll have to upload on Launch+3. The captain going linkdead is bad enough, but it will be really frustrating to have vital function-operating crew logging in and out, going linkdead, etc. That will break the experience. One ship, one mind, one DSL connection, one captain! A bridge-crew requirement is just too pedantic and makes the experience of owning a capital ship an exercise in clusterfuckery. Why is it considered fun to wait around for other human players to get their shit together and start operating my ship, when I could be out in a one-player runabout, having fun now without the un-fun organizational hassle?

Players will do what they have to do to earn the right to pilot the ships they want to pilot.  Just because people want to be the captain doesnt mean they'll necessarily sacrifice gameplay to do it.  It's kinda like saying "everyone wants to be raid leader" in WoW so no one will raid.  Frankly, not everyone wants to be raid leader... because they have a higher goal then their own aims to lead.  Phat lewts and phat gameplay trumps phat egos more times than not.  Assuming STO gameplay for non-captains is deep enough then it's safe to say it'd follow a similar path.

This paragraph collapsed under the weight of the paralogical statements it was trying to convey. It started off okay, then it seemed like the crazy pills were kicking in.

Not everyone wants to be a raid leader, because not everyone can be a raid leader AND because not everyone NEEDS to be a raid leader, in order to go raiding. The status of being a raid leader is something that tends to go toward those people who are good at assuming power over others and using that power effectively. This is different from the more-attainable status-oriented desire to be a ship captain, which is the only role in the Star Trek IP that is analogous to kind of experience an MMO player wants – to be the star of the show. Make Star Trek captaincy as hard to get as a Jedi character in SWG (pre-NGE), or even as a raid leader, and you’re going to have problems. The only way to find success is to make it be a game about starship captains. Not enough people will be enthralled by the notion of playing a deckhand or a security goon or a fresh-faced ensign navigator.

Sorry, maybe the ratio of ‘phat lewts/phat gameplay trumping phat egos’ is balanced in games you’ve played before, but in Star Trek the egos will certainly be coming to town with crazy looks in their eyes. Only the more well-organized (read: scaryfanaticsauce) fan clubs led by the power-nerd with control issues will do well with this ‘bridge crew’ business. Everyone else will chafe.

(and yes, I did check out the Pirate Puzzle thing… putting in little Tetris-style javapuzzles or something like them isn’t going to cut the mustard, it’s going to have to be relevant to the actual IP-related functions the actual bridge crewmen perform, or all these fans who take their IP so seriously are going to cry foul)

I'm not even going to get into the actual resource elements involved in even obtaining a large ST starship.  Needless to say, you're obviously not going to have a million Galaxy class ships milling about the galaxy.  That'd be dumb even if they were pilotable by 1 Captain... basically, no one would like it.

But then you’re slapping another arbitrary, unfun limit on how many of a certain kind of ship there can be. Everyone who levels to the cap is going to buy a Galaxy-class (or whatever the coolest antimatter-guzzling monster turns out to be) from the shipyard, and you’ll have to keep introducing Bigger-Better-Faster-Hotter starships to keep everyone happy, each expansion.

Ultimately, you need to view STO ships as "Levels" and not simply vehicles.  In my design that I was working on basically every ship was a dynamically streamed Level and not merely something you hopped into to get around.  Some of these levels needed large crews to effectively progress in, others didnt. 

What if a player gets attached to a certain class of ship or style of play that that ship tends to provide? They level out of that, and find they aren’t enjoying the game as much, and your rigid level-gating-of-ship-classes feature becomes an exit-door.

BTW – referring to the ‘needs’ and ‘effectiveness’ of your unimplemented, unplayed design is not possible until you have a working build of your game, with actual human players testing it. Until that point, it’s not just counting angels dancing on the head of a pin, it’s talking to them and asking them who you should kill tomorrow.

Anyways, no slight to you but I just think you're not giving a potential STO playerbase enough credit.  The players will play what is most appealing to them within the design of the game.   If the game is designed shytilly and the best (most fun and effective) gameplay to be had is as captain, then your statement is correct.  But you'd really have to bork up the game for that fact to be true IMO.  To this end, it's more a factor related to game design rather then player needs.

No slight to you either, but whatever your design is, whatever you think most Star Trek fans are going to go for, you’re going to find that some will like it, most of them won’t, some of the ones who won’t may get really nasty with you, because to them, you represent someone whose will can be changed to their liking if they just apply enough pressure on you… especially when it might be the only time a Trek MMO gets made. The myriad tastes and perceptions of the fanbase, the fanaticism it has for the IP, the internal inconsistencies of the IP material, and the failure of the IP to lend itself to gaming in a relevant, straightforward way makes Star Trek the most difficult license in the human experience to create a game around. Trying to divine what this supposedly-monolithic playerbase wants and will be happy to pay $14.95 a month for is an exercise in futility. In short: the fans lie. 

My statement is correct because a Star Trek MMO cannot help but be designed shittily – games in general, and the MMO format particular doesn’t lend itself to the material in a way that will guarantee financial success for the developer without ignoring vast chunks of that material, and minimizing others. To make a Trek game fun, you have to get around the IP. To make a Trek game true to the IP, you have to dull down the fun. You can please gamers, or you can please Trek fans. Whatever balance you end up striking, will still nerf the gameplay to some extent, and the title ends up being a watered-down version of a better, non-Trek oriented game.

Creating a Trek MMO is folly. It is a cursed license. Every joule of energy spent on this reality-detached consideration represents energy not being spent on worthier concerns such as raising awareness of the CO2 content of our atmosphere, being involved in the political process, or preventing people from unlawfully removing tags from their mattresses.