Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[UnSub]

On Cryptic Studios' website there is a counter going backwards.

The artwork behind it is taken directly from materials developed for Perpetual Entertainment for Star Trek Online.

Cryptic will announce STO on / around July 28, it seems.

[Ratman_tf]

[Reg]

What? I thought it was Turbine's job to be given incredibly valuable IP to make mediocre games from.

[Reg]

Did you ever actually say why it was such a "piece of shit IP" that nobody could possibly ever make a decent game from or is this just a pronouncement from on high?

[Murgos]

Did you ever actually say why it was such a "piece of shit IP" that nobody could possibly ever make a decent game from or is this just a pronouncement from on high?

There has been quite a bit of discussion over the years but mostly it boils down to that the IP is so overly constraining that it has to be nearly impossible to develop a working, 'fun' MMO style game from it.

[shiznitz]

Did you ever actually say why it was such a "piece of shit IP" that nobody could possibly ever make a decent game from or is this just a pronouncement from on high?

Let me try:

1) How can combat be fun? Point and shoot your phaser?
2) Does someone have to be Wesley Crusher or do we all get to be captains? The problems with either are legion.
3) Loot?
4) How do you make travel interesting and immersive without Eve's "pick a destination and read a book"?
5) Why would anyone be a human?

[sam, an eggplant]

To boldly go where what, four or five studios have gone before?

[Fordel]

Maybe if they reversed polarity's!

[Draegan]

I still think that the best way to make an MMO for Star Trek would be to give everyone a Captain Kirk mask, a webcam, and some video interfacing software and let them scream engage at each other.  Voila!  Star Trek MMO.

[Miasma]

Entire game takes place on the holodeck allowing them to just reskin The Sims.  They could have also purchased the Gods and Heroes assets and have the whole game take place during one of those unfortunate back in time mishaps.

[Rishathra]

Maybe if they reversed polarity's!

You can't do that when there is a fluctuation in the antimatter containment field

[Reg]

This is not an IP where I have to say 'why.'

Sorry. It's just too obvious as to why it's not a good IP.

Ah ok. It seems like a great big, fully realized universe with legions of fans who would be anxious to play the game if it were approached with a little originality and imagination. Then again, you can't go too far wrong underestimating MMOG developers. They'll probably give it to Koster to build or something.

[tazelbain]

Simple.  Auto Assault.  The Call of WoW will be too great for Cryptic to be able to resit trying to force Star Trek into a Diku box.  Auto Assult screwed up the classic Auto Deul/Car Wars idea in the same way.  It may have the dressings of Star Trek, but running around in your little ship, killing space rats, turning space quests, grinding your rank levels is never going to be even a little bit like Star Trek.  

[eldaec]

CoH2^H^H^H^H Champions Online interests me more, and Champions just looks like another mmog, only dumbed down for consoles.

But as for Star Trek...

2) Does someone have to be Wesley Crusher or do we all get to be captains? The problems with either are legion.

It'll either be 'everyones a space ship' or everyone's a marine running about shooting each other a TV remote. It will play at least as much like Star Trek as SWG is like Star Wars.

tbh, you wouldn't want it to be like Star Trek, because then every second mission would have to involve nothing but navel gazing space-angst over how some pissant android or science officer has been infected by a space-virus in order to keep the episode budget down and save up for the end-of-season pew pew episode.

4) How do you make travel interesting and immersive without Eve's "pick a destination and read a book"?
5) Why would anyone be a human?

4) No different to any other mmog. There will be quick/easy travel because CCP are the only dev team with balls, and even they added jump clones.
5) What? Same reason as always, because some people always pick humans.

[Fordel]

Never mind the fact Startrek PEW PEW makes *NO* sense what so ever.


"We have to break through the Cardassian line!" What line asshole, you are in space, pick a direction that isn't straight into them!

[Reg]

That's where you have it wrong. It's a series of universes built into one ship flying around the universe dealing with a tiny bit of pew pew here and there, less than 4 substantial races and not a single planet of any actual consequence. If it weren't for very select actors, that show would've been DOA. It's tough to do bad when Shatner and Stewart.

I disagree.

There've been five long running TV series about it, over a dozen movies, and countless books. There's all the background information any nerd could ever possibly want. More than enough to make a MMOG out of.

[Reg]

If you somehow think Star Trek as WoW as Star Trek is viable, then whatever. More power to you. I think, nay, I *KNOW* that's crazy, stupid, and a waste of a license.[

You don't *KNOW* anything. It's just your opinion and nothing more.

[sam, an eggplant]

Totally agree, I wouldn't make a diku out of it. I could see something like EVE online working with a star trek skin but again that would be a waste of a license.

What I'd really like to see is a star trek MMO focused upon episodic highly scripted stories. Pricing would be identical to Guild Wars' original model; you buy the box and get free online play, then quarterly they release new content packs containing 40+ hours of high quality content for an additional charge. It wouldn't be a traditional MMO with mechanics geared around retention making players login for hours each day. As each episode is released you would play through it once or twice at your own pace, then stop until the next one comes around. Traditional character advancement would be entirely complete by the time you finish roughly 3/4 of the retail box game and become a captain of your own starship. The character advancement mechanic isn't core to the game; it's used to introduce abilities gradually so new players aren't overwhelmed and then discarded. The gameplay would be its own reward, as each quarter you get 40 hours of AAA quality content to enjoy with your friends.

The world would be heavily instanced with hubs like guildwars. Each player would gain flags based upon how they handled previous episodes which would lead to branching gameplay. Say in episode 4 "The guns of cardassia" you chose to uphold the prime directive and let the blue-skin natives of Generico IV discover a virus that killed all their tomatoes; in future episodes they would break out from their world and develop into shrewd traders, trying to capture the tomato market for themselves. Or if you helped them out and destroyed the virus, they would remain on their planet, enjoying their bountiful tomato crop, and never enter the galaxy at large. And so on. I like the idea of instances changing, like that starter town in LOTRO after the attack but based upon the player's choices. This would also greatly aid in replayability.

But really, this is my ideal model for all new MMOs and nobody seems interested in doing it. Content creation is just too expensive, I guess.

[Reg]

That's what I meant by using some imagination and originality. Star Trek as a standard diku would bore me to tears even if it were well done.

[Draegan]

You should probably now follow up with a post with the words "think out of the box"  and "it's easy".

I dare you.

[Bzalthek]

Until they are capable of delivering a system that will procedurally generate thousands of huge worlds, and develop the AI for all the races and creatures to poulate those worlds, I see any MMO deriving from the Star trek license as an abortion.  The television series was a fun watch, but it was driven by the acting of a few which would continuously run across new challenges.  Sometimes those challenges would be a revisitation from the familiar, but with a new twist.  This won't happen in an MMO.  They will deliver a static world, or universe, rather.  In a very short time the new will be gone, and we are left without the only thing which made star trek great.

[Sir T]

The only games that were anyway decent in star trek were Trekmuse, a text only MUSE that was around when I was in college (and was bloody fantastic) and star fleet command which was based on a board game. And even treckmuse added the Gorn as a playable race. A good decision and gave some variety. Neither followed the conventions of the standard IP. Aside from Star Fleet command III... which was shit.

Shcild is right. The IP is garbage. You might as well pulp your money and save yoruself the pain.

Ps And eve only works becasue the people playing it are addicts. I was one of them and I was too. Paying for that amount of pain is ludicrious.

[Draegan]

The TrekMUSE I knew was full of mouthbreathers who learned how to speak fluent Klingon then yelled at you when you asked questions in English.

[sam, an eggplant]

You should probably now follow up with a post with the words "think out of the box"  and "it's easy".

I dare you.

You don't think my post qualified as introducing a small degree of innovation into the genre? It wasn't thinking out of the box? Or were you replying to Schild?

[Ratman_tf]

Make it a cross between Gaia and Puzzle Pirates, but with bettar 3-D graphics. You can do your ship combat and away missions, but the focus of the gameplay is on earning badges for your Trek trivia knowledge integrated into the mini-games. And lots of cybering.

Fucking money hats.

I predict these guys will try to do some kind of DIKU clone and wind up with SWG all over again, though. Or maybe LOTRO if they're lucky.

[Hartsman]

There are two IPs on my personal nightmare list of Properties I've Enjoyed A Lot That Would Be Difficult As Hell To Make A Good MMO For:

1) Star Trek
2) Dune


Not saying it's impossible, but more that the obvious, broad-stroke appeal doesn't jive well with anyone's ability to make something sufficiently aligned with expectation. 

Especially in properties like ST, which has such a fragmented audience, each with a potentially conflicting vision of What It's All About.

I do wish 'em luck, though.

[Draegan]

You should probably now follow up with a post with the words "think out of the box"  and "it's easy".

I dare you.

You don't think my post qualified as introducing a small degree of innovation into the genre? It wasn't thinking out of the box? Or were you replying to Schild?

I was replying to the post right before mine.

[Oban]

2) Dune

Ah, I can just see the forums now...

WHY ARE STONE BURNERS NOT AVAILABLE ON FFA PVP SERVERS AT LAUNCH?!! 

DUNE DEVS NEED TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, IT'S EASY!!!

[Reg]

I was replying to the post right before mine.

And a stupid reply it was too.

[eldaec]

DUNE DEVS NEED TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, IT'S EASY!!!

I heard social dynamics when combined with cutting edge AAA gameplay will elevate simple play to a level never reached in game development.

Just sayin.

[tmp]

Until they are capable of delivering a system that will procedurally generate thousands of huge worlds, and develop the AI for all the races and creatures to poulate those worlds, I see any MMO deriving from the Star trek license as an abortion.

If the game was supposed to mimic the TV series, that part would be actually pretty easy. You'd only need small patch of terrain per planet, populated with few humanoids, all characterized by single (and the same) trait.

[tazelbain]

Ya, it could be more like Myst.

[Sir T]

The TrekMUSE I knew was full of mouthbreathers who learned how to speak fluent Klingon then yelled at you when you asked questions in English.

You joined the Klingons? No wonder. I started as a Klingon myself, but swapped pretty quickly.

The trekmuse pop spread

Feds who all thought they were Kirk
Kilingons who all thought they were Worf.. only really baddass versions of Worf. You know. Quapla.
Cardiassians who were all assholes.
Much smaller numbers of Romulans and Gorns who were Roleplayers and generally laughed at the rest of them and kicked the crap out of them.
Oh and the ferangi that were all prostitutes and into tinysex. No wonder I forgot about them...

I was a Romulan. :)

I remember one time I logged into to simpsace in a Romulan destroyer and there was a Cardassian Heavy and light cruiser sitting on the standard entry point, ganking every ship that logged in. and yelling "Hahahahahahaaaa Cardassians rule the Muse" every time they blew up some guy. Unfortunately for them, rollowing rommie standard procedure I logged in outside sensor range of the standard entry point, set myself up and cloaked.

And sneaked up on them.

And decloaked at full speed, rammed 4 photon torps up the pipe of the CL at point blank with all my phasers. The CL  blew up instantly and I recloaked. "Heh" was all I said and the CA pilot screamed obscenities at me.

Sadly I was a fraction of a second too slow on my run on the CA and it got me. Ahh well.

Yeah the idiot quotient on that game was fairly high, but there was good fun to be had occasionally.

[Merusk]

If you thought SWG was a clusterfuck that pissed off SW fanbois.. zomg I can't imagine any game EVER making ST fanbois happy.  Anyone who tries to make a game with this IP has to ignore those fans. It killed SWG and it WILL kill any ST mmo.

See, the problem is like SW, ST is too broad.  At its core it means too many different things to too many different people.

1) Races:  You have to include a deep political structure for each race/ faction.  Starfleet, Romulans, Klingon Empire, Cardassians, that DS9 group whose name escapes me, Ferengi, and others.

2) Exploration:  For all the "Fleshed out" stuff you have to include an whole lot of exploration.  As someone else mentioned, that was the primary idea behind the original series.  For all the fans of "Political Trek" (which is what you can call anything after season 2 1/2 of TNG) there are an equal number who want that wonder of the original series (and that Voyager and Enterprise tried to recapture.. badly.) 

3) Engineering.  Fuck, who doesn't want to be Scotty or Geordi.  Grinding out some miracle fix at the last minute that saves the ship.  Instead I guarantee we'll get health bars and patch-kits. Fuuuuuck that.

4) Morality:  One of the things I love about ST was it's political and moral plays.  The aspects that let Roddenberry step back and examine things and pick at them with a "why is it this way" mentality.  Anything lacking that is NOT ST to me.

5) The universe is TOO broad.  For every item you include, every planet, every race, every reference there will be at least 3 people saying "Why include that and not this?!"    You got this with SWG and they were only focused on a very specific time frame between two movies.  They'd said they were going to ignore large parts of the EU, and they STILL got tons of bitching, even for shit that wasn't part of that time frame! (Include the VONG or this game sux!!)

How's that for a list of "why this IP sucks as an MMO property".

[Ratman_tf]

1) Races:  You have to include a deep political structure for each race/ faction.  Starfleet, Romulans, Klingon Empire, Cardassians, that DS9 group whose name escapes me, Ferengi, and others.

Dominion.

And then you'd have to include all the sub-factions that were largely the focus of the politics. Vulcans, Andorians and Bajorans, to name the big small players.