Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[Dtrain]

I'm watching a bunch of Federation Officers fighting Klingons that can take muliple phaser shots, combat that make no use of cover, and a pace that gives enough time to close to melée to do sweep kicks. This feels like some other game with a Star Trek skin.

And this is exactly why nobody has had any hope for this title. 1 shot kills at close range do not make for a good game, and with the exception of the occasional climactic ship to ship battle, or gladiator episode, Star Trek is not about combat. In brief, Star Trek is usually about exploration and discovery from a utopian perspective in a science fiction setting. That, and good story telling.

Even single player games have a problem representing these themes - has there ever been a good Star Trek video game? Ponder that one a moment.

An MMO Star Trek is doomed. Star Trek fans won't like it because of the MMO conventions the game is forced to adopt. MMO fans won't like it because of the concessions made to the IP.

[Mrbloodworth]

ST IP mmo isn't doomed. They just refuse to do it right. This is the third time this same system has been tried.

[tazelbain]

And no one is going risk a big MMO budget on fundamentally restarting a MMO from scratch design-wise that would be required to do Star Trek.

[Mrbloodworth]

Three times so far. Each, has failed (well, ill hold off on this one). Awesome risk management. "Lets try that again, it will work this time"

[01101010]

Three times so far. Each, has failed (well, ill hold off on this one). Awesome risk management. "Lets try that again, it will work this time"

I'm thinking of a word that goes along with this theme....hmmmm.   

[Ghambit]

Even single player games have a problem representing these themes - has there ever been a good Star Trek video game? Ponder that one a moment.

This statement tells me you havent played most of the Trek games (as we know, there ARE some good Trek games), nor do you have much experience with single-player games in the last 20 years.  There are games aplenty that represent (or have represented) the themes you're talking abouty.  Are they MMOs though?  not usually.

All you're doing is lining up more excuses for (cough) studios.  It can be done, has been done, just isnt being done right now.  Not real intelligent blaming an IP or "Gaming" for that matter.

Look, the core problem of all our MMO woes right now is that there really is only a small group of Developers with the money to produce a game.  And these developers generally suck ass; as has been discussed many times over.  I kind of look at it like the music industry in the 90's.  There really were only a few "bigwigs" with enough money/power to push out artists effectively... but it had to be done their way with only their bottom line being a topic of discussion - therefore, pop music in general got seriously watered down (as a function of Risk).  The same thing has been happening with gaming the past 10 years post-EQ/halo.

The only way Trek was going to get done right is with a singular private entity with a lot of disposable income wanting to make a game.  It had to be independent and lightweight with lots of vision and knowledge of what worked well in the past.  Since Paramount is a greedy Hollywood coorporation (very greedy mind you; always have been), there was no way they were going to hand the IP to a small house.  So in that way the Trek game was doomed from the get-go.

Basically what the game needed was a gaming version of Roddenberry.

[Dtrain]

Ghambit, I think we're arguing the same side of the issue. Unless YOU'S TROLLIN', in which case, proceed.

Nobody is going to take a major IP and the right to make an MMO and take a risk with it. (At least not anybody who gets the right to take a major IP and make it into an MMO.) And if it's still not implicit, I'm not making excuses for the industry - I'm blaming the industry for the inevitable failure of this game.

I'm curious though, what do you consider a good Star Trek game?

[Ghambit]

Ghambit, I think we're arguing the same side of the issue. Unless YOU'S TROLLIN', in which case, proceed.

Nah, I'm not trollin - just want to get the facts straight and our heads in the right places.  Let's leave our flaming bags of poo at Cryptic's (and Perpetual's) doorstep, not the Trek IP.

Nobody is going to take a major IP and the right to make an MMO and take a risk with it. (At least not anybody who gets the right to take a major IP and make it into an MMO.) And if it's still not implicit, I'm not making excuses for the industry - I'm blaming the industry for the inevitable failure of this game.

Bioware.  Although it's not much of a risk given their pedigree, they're at their core a pretty risk-taking studio and were pretty small and avant-garde at inception, until getting eaten by Bono and EA.  In this way, really the risk was only lessened by ownership.  Yah, there are many that think SWTOR will crash and burn like Porkins in his x-wing but hey - they tried.

 
I'm curious though, what do you consider a good Star Trek game?

As I've said.   Both Eilte Forces (especially part 2) were very well received games.  People actually still play EF2 today either in a quakelike sense or as a Starship simulator.  And all these people (including myself) wonder why the tenets of that game werent ever ported into an MMO.

Starfleet Command (basically Starfleet Battles online) was also good.  Bridge Commander was pretty good also; picture Sub Command in space (with voice commands if you're slick).   If you wanna get your 4x strat. game on, go play Birth of the Federation... which is actually a pretty good game, albeit pretty simple.
Into RTS? try Armada 1 & 2; but these are basically your standard C&C in space with Trek Skins (both are heavily moddable also.)    I'd say Legacy was decent but its release was a nightmare and only after being heavily modded is it of any value.

My cocktail napkin designs basically incorporated the best of the above Trek titles into an MMO.  What's funny is that these games are like what... 6+ years old?  And scattered through the past 10 years are variations on a theme that were utter shite - largely a function of the openness of the Trek IP (where anybody could've made a Trek game).

So, like I've been saying.  The "failures" of Trek gaming are really no fault of the IP itself.  It's the fault of having such open IP-permissions (way more open than Star Wars) and the fault of misguided development coupled with lack of fundage.  Sure, there is no one game that can capture Trek in its entirety... but shit, there's no one TV SHOW (or movie) that can do it either.  You have to pick your poison and do it well, not just create watered-down generic everyman garbage.  Trek and "generic" dont play well together.

(dons asbestos suit and hunkers down)

[LK]

Bioware was smart and made their own Trek-like IP that was suited for games. No licensed crap for them.

[UnSub]

So, like I've been saying.  The "failures" of Trek gaming are really no fault of the IP itself.  It's the fault of having such open IP-permissions (way more open than Star Wars) and the fault of misguided development coupled with lack of fundage.  Sure, there is no one game that can capture Trek in its entirety... but shit, there's no one TV SHOW (or movie) that can do it either. 

Bolded the key point. You can't make a Star Trek game that will make everyone happy. The key strengths of the IP are also the source of its key weaknesses.

[Evildrider]

They just started taking beta apps, if people are interested.

[Ghambit]

So, like I've been saying.  The "failures" of Trek gaming are really no fault of the IP itself.  It's the fault of having such open IP-permissions (way more open than Star Wars) and the fault of misguided development coupled with lack of fundage.  Sure, there is no one game that can capture Trek in its entirety... but shit, there's no one TV SHOW (or movie) that can do it either. 

Bolded the key point. You can't make a Star Trek game that will make everyone happy. The key strengths of the IP are also the source of its key weaknesses.

You cant make any game (IP or not) that'll make everyone happy.  Has nothing inherently to do with some arbitrary show, book, or movie that it's based on.  Therefore, logic dictates "key strengths" of said IP cannot in this Universe also be a key weakness.  The weakness lies in improper design/implementation of said strengths.  Aside from all of this, I'd be happy just to have a quality game simply based in a Trek 'verse.  It doesnt have to have all the bells, and whistles and can even diverge from Canon similar to the latest film.  It's more important that it's just a good game.  Cryptic so far seems to be doing both in the comfort of mediocrity, yielding nothing.

And imo the whole "Trek IP are doomed" has become a canned response.  Reminds me of when everyone said everything George Lucas touches turns to gold.  Lesson is even good IPs can be turned to shit and bad ones turned to roses.  Take the Intellect out of the IP and the IP fails regardless.

[Ghambit]

Stuff's starting to come in from PAX:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A089C01D0A32C19

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiABzxLfLvM

[Severian]

Stuff's starting to come in from PAX:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A089C01D0A32C19

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiABzxLfLvM

Well, this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCE8q6StGdQ from the playlist gives a very different impression of the space combat than the laserium pew pew in the Gamescom presentation.

[Fordel]

I do like that they have the whole front and rear shields thing.

[FatuousTwat]

They just started taking beta apps, if people are interested.

Haven't they for a while now? I thought I had already signed up...

Fake edit: Nope, guess I had just made an account on the site. Thanks.

[Venkman]

So once more we see shades of PotBS rather than the pew pew from marketing spin. This is more "realistic", and more in line with the IP. No good close-up footage on the ground game yet, but it looks like what we've seen. So, meh.

I was interested in why they had a Miranda class ship still in commission after 150 years, but that's a minor quibble. And I take geekpride in the fact that this occurred to me before seeing the comments

[Samprimary]

So. Anyone trying for the beta?

[WindupAtheist]

If we're talking Trek gaming in general, I'd just like to say that I will totally fight anyone who says Birth of the Federation wasn't a good game. I loved playing as the Cardassians, forming an alliance with the Federation, being their best pals throughout the entire game, then Pearl Harboring the fucking shit out of the Sol system and rolling them up practically before they could finish going "WHAT THE FUUUUU--"

[FatuousTwat]

So. Anyone trying for the beta?

Signed up, but no invite yet, if that is what you are asking.

[Malakili]

As far as I know, the beta hasn't started yet, so I don't think they've sent any invites out.  I could be wrong, of course.   Anyway, I am (very) cautiously optimistic about this game cause a lot of what I've heard sounds pretty cool.  Of course, whether or not it actually translates into gameplay is another thing entirely

[Khaldun]

I'm the opposite. This is an IP that calls for inventive development and some clear design choices very early on. This developer isn't capable of either.

[Malakili]

I'm the opposite. This is an IP that calls for inventive development and some clear design choices very early on. This developer isn't capable of either.

Well, there are some neat things like, being able to find new star systems, skill based advancement system, Bridge Officer NPCs that you gain on your ship as you advance in rank, etc that are actually fairly decent looking.   I'm willing to give it a chance.  What I am majorly worried about, however, is the "ground" game.  The Champions engine works fine for champions, but I don't know feel like it would give the feeling I'd want for Star Trek...so they need to do something with it.

[UnSub]

The thing that gets me thinking that STO is going to run into huge issues was the discussion about content generation and Cryptic's preference for doing hand-crafted locations, but also theoretically letting player exploration be 'meaningful' so that you can be the first to discover a location that is then 'unlocked' for the rest of the player base.

It can't happen. It just can't. I absolutely get that there needs to be hand-crafted content, but the bulk of STO needs to be procedurally generated - both the missions and the universe. For missions, you can easily start with "There is a distress signal" and then throw a flowing set of related missions that can suit the various ST situations, with a mix of space battles, away team battles and diplomacy (again, something else that hasn't been discussed / seen in STO yet).

For the universe, take the Star Control route of basing the layout on the galaxy on the very simple astrophysics principles that define the rl universe, with your hand crafted bits distributed as you want. That at least gives you the shape of the galaxy, which you can limit (should you need to) with some Q webbing to stop players going beyond a certain (particularly long, to maintain the illusion) distance.

Instead, what I think we'll see will be quite a bit of instancing, with warp drive serving as a convenient jumping mechanism to hide those mechanics. Actual exploration will be in the eyes of the character, not the player.

[Kageru]

Making procedurally generated content that is balanced, challenging and meaningful is hard. And Cryptic don't seem to have any talents in designing novel game mechanics that actually work.

Expecting more than groups porting into instances and killing klingons while grinding towards the 5000 kills needed for their "Klingon killer" perk is probably over-optimistic.

[UnSub]

Making procedurally generated content that is balanced, challenging and meaningful is hard. And Cryptic don't seem to have any talents in designing novel game mechanics that actually work.

Expecting more than groups porting into instances and killing klingons while grinding towards the 5000 kills needed for their "Klingon killer" perk is probably over-optimistic.

[Khaldun]

Back when I still expected MMO designers to move steadily towards innovation, I remember on the SWG beta boards talking about how you could implement a "Jedi system" that could try to connect Jedi unlocks with the actual behavior of players in game. I pointed out that you could create a pretty complete tracking system that would watch for players who gave away most of their money or kept very little money, who played a support role in groups, whatever you decided was "Jedi-like" behavior within the terms of the game system. Then you could build a weighting algorithm that would build variable tipping points for players according to a random seed and spawn some "pre-Jedi" quests or missions that had some kind of ethical branching point built into them. Obviously over time players would dope out how to beat this system and you'd either have to adjust it or settle for a lot of people being Jedi. I didn't seriously expect them to do anything this intricate, but then, I didn't expect them to do anything as horrifically dumb as what they ended up doing as far as Jedi go.

But this game. Among the many things that are going to fail about it is if they don't do something to build in the Federation's ethical strictures into the gameplay. That practically defines the Federation and the IP: a huge majority of its narratives are about coping with/living up to/subtly evading the ethical restrictions that Starfleet and the Federation impose on their crews. I can see a lot of ways to do this. I can't see Cryptic even understanding the idea of doing this, let alone pulling it off.

[Soln]

for the record, I remember those threads.  They led to some interesting theories and attempts to unlock Jedi in the game (e.g. by tipping creds, training other players).  Sadly, Jedi content wasn't even in the game at that point.  But yeah, mystery unlocking I think is pretty cool, if it's designed well and not just for powergamers/racers.

[Malakili]

Among the many things that are going to fail about it is if they don't do something to build in the Federation's ethical strictures into the gameplay.

No need to worry about people violating Starfleet's rules, just don't give the players the ability to break them 

Seriously though, thats my prediction of how they'll deal with it.

[Sobelius]

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!

Single biggest beef I've had with most Sci Fi, not just Trek -- unless they've got their ships/fire/defenses covering every piece of a sphere, you can get through them. That, or go around them. Never understood why ships didn't just come at the Enterprise's "underside", since none of its weapons arrays seemed to be able to fire in that direction.

[Malakili]

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!

Single biggest beef I've had with most Sci Fi, not just Trek -- unless they've got their ships/fire/defenses covering every piece of a sphere, you can get through them. That, or go around them. Never understood why ships didn't just come at the Enterprise's "underside", since none of its weapons arrays seemed to be able to fire in that direction.

Yeah, Space is big.... you would think that people would have a pretty hard time finding each other, and having a REALLY easy time not being found if they weren't near a planet.  I can imagine controlling some critical areas around a planet that give you long/good lines of sight or something that let you control a lot of the planet, but of course its all part of a STORY.  A bunch of fleets of warships that just ignore each other makes for crappy TV/Movies/Video games.

[Khaldun]

I think you have to accept that Star Trek pew pew, to make any sense at all, involves the voluntary engagement of two groups of opposing vessels unless it involves defense/assault of a planet or fixed asset like a space station. E.g., you've agreed to have a fight, so fight. Now, on the other hand, that's pretty much counter to the vast majority of real military conflicts--the number of conflicts that involve two approximately equal forces agreeing to meet on a more or less neutral battlefield where neither has an advantage in terrain, supply or anything else is vanishingly small.

At least Star Wars' imaginary pew pew technobabble involves some sort of hyperspace or warp interdiction (in the EU at least).

[UnSub]

whatever you decided was "Jedi-like" behavior within the terms of the game system.

Judging from the prequels, Jedi-like behaviour is acting like a smug prick to everyone who isn't a Jedi and generally emo-ing up the place. So SWG may have been successful in that regard.

[WindupAtheist]

I think you have to accept that Star Trek pew pew, to make any sense at all, involves the voluntary engagement of two groups of opposing vessels unless it involves defense/assault of a planet or fixed asset like a space station. E.g., you've agreed to have a fight, so fight. Now, on the other hand, that's pretty much counter to the vast majority of real military conflicts--the number of conflicts that involve two approximately equal forces agreeing to meet on a more or less neutral battlefield where neither has an advantage in terrain, supply or anything else is vanishingly small.

At least Star Wars' imaginary pew pew technobabble involves some sort of hyperspace or warp interdiction (in the EU at least).

And the pew pew battles in the SW movies all involved the defense/assault of a planet or fixed asset like a space station anyway. 

[Khaldun]

whatever you decided was "Jedi-like" behavior within the terms of the game system.

Judging from the prequels, Jedi-like behaviour is acting like a smug prick to everyone who isn't a Jedi and generally emo-ing up the place. So SWG may have been successful in that regard.

Yeah, for sure. The prequels make the Jedi look like serious assholes. In some alternate universe, Lucas would have actually meant to do that, so as to show that their fall was at least partly their own fault. In this universe, I don't think Lucas has a clue that's how it ended up coming off. But the Jedi of the prequels could be really well represented in MMO terms--they're basically poopsock raider hardcores. "lolz jango fett u n00b..."