Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[Lantyssa]

Is it though? COH is a Cryptic game and it's pretty fun with a few major areas that needed improvement the last time I played. I know CO is supposed to be poor but still, we have 1 good, 1 bad. Turbine had Asheron's Call 2 on its list of games before LOTRO.

You have one old Cryptic game, where most of the staff supporting it stayed behind when they spun it off, and you have the new Cryptic game from a few months ago which was amature hour.

There hasn't been years between releases with time to clean up their internal processes.

[rattran]

I'm a fan of the old Star Trek, but every bit more info that leaks out...

[Riggswolfe]

Ok, here's a question which you might not be able to answer. The preview stuff I've read seems intriguing but I keep hearing these "whispers" of issues with the game. I'm guessing since it's still under NDA we're talking gossip that's not on official sites but is there anything you can point to me that's not NDA breaking?

Next week I'll know for myself and if the game seems as sucky as some of you seem to think I'll just cancel my preorder but I am curious if this is your guys usual cyncism or something else.

[tazelbain]

I haven't seen this much doom-casting since Vanguard.

[Riggswolfe]

I haven't seen this much doom-casting since Vanguard.

Well, the Vanguard doomcasting turned out to be accurate. I guess my issue is we're on a jaded gamer site so I expect...well...jaded cynicism to pretty much everything which makes it hard to tell what's "real" doomcasting and what's typical for this site. If that makes sense. :)

[Montague]

I'm not in beta but if it were free I'd check this out. 

I know cryptic simply doesn't build deep enough games for me to enjoy thoroughly.  I'm more of a function over form person, so I'll take a complex system over a pretty coat of paint.  It's also evident as people are frothing over which pets/titles they're getting that this is likely going to be a very shallow experience.  I hope I'm wrong, but history is showing me otherwise.

There might be a reason why Cryptic/Atari is pushing the preorder goodies.

[Endie]

I haven't seen this much doom-casting since Vanguard.

Well, the Vanguard doomcasting turned out to be accurate. I guess my issue is we're on a jaded gamer site so I expect...well...jaded cynicism to pretty much everything which makes it hard to tell what's "real" doomcasting and what's typical for this site. If that makes sense. :)

It certainly does.  I don't take much interest in the MMO forum here any more because the groupthink outweighs the valid opinions.

[Ghambit]

Hrmph.  Vanguard was definitely more of a trainwreck than STO... cmon now
And though I would've much preferred a "complex" Trek MMO, that doesnt mean Cryptic's latest simpleton blend automatically smells of Targ poo.  Am I jaded though?  Of course.

Worth a cup of Starbucks to try out for a week (if you're not an FP sub)?  sure.

[Kitsune]

The thing that makes me not buy a Star Trek MMO is the ridiculous personal combat.  You do not shoot a dude in the face ten times with a phaser to kill him.  Which is a shame, because the ship combat looks nice.  This isn't fucking Everquest, though, you don't tickle a guy with a rusty dagger until he dies of boredom; people are carrying weapons that DISINTEGRATE HOUSES.  One hit is it, unless you're a douche and dial them down to the lowest power setting to 'only' set people on fire for fun, ala Lore shooting Dr. Crusher.

[01101010]

The thing that makes me not buy a Star Trek MMO is the ridiculous personal combat.  You do not shoot a dude in the face ten times with a phaser to kill him.  Which is a shame, because the ship combat looks nice.  This isn't fucking Everquest, though, you don't tickle a guy with a rusty dagger until he dies of boredom; people are carrying weapons that DISINTEGRATE HOUSES.  One hit is it, unless you're a douche and dial them down to the lowest power setting to 'only' set people on fire for fun, ala Lore shooting Dr. Crusher.

Set phasers to "bit of a cough" setting...   

[Numtini]

The thing that makes me not buy a Star Trek MMO is the ridiculous personal combat.  You do not shoot a dude in the face ten times with a phaser to kill him.

 

*Numtini's head explodes*

[Trippy]

Time for my usual "Don't talk about the game if you are under NDA" link posting:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13793.0

[Lantyssa]

For the record, I'm not in and have no insider knowledge.  I'm playing Carnac the Magnificent.  If I'm wrong I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Ratman_tf]

The thing that makes me not buy a Star Trek MMO is the ridiculous personal combat.  You do not shoot a dude in the face ten times with a phaser to kill him.  Which is a shame, because the ship combat looks nice.  This isn't fucking Everquest, though, you don't tickle a guy with a rusty dagger until he dies of boredom; people are carrying weapons that DISINTEGRATE HOUSES.  One hit is it, unless you're a douche and dial them down to the lowest power setting to 'only' set people on fire for fun, ala Lore shooting Dr. Crusher.

Oh fuck you. Phasers do whatever the scripts needs them to do. Why should the game be any different?

[Triforcer]

The thing that makes me not buy a Star Trek MMO is the ridiculous personal combat.  You do not shoot a dude in the face ten times with a phaser to kill him.  Which is a shame, because the ship combat looks nice.  This isn't fucking Everquest, though, you don't tickle a guy with a rusty dagger until he dies of boredom; people are carrying weapons that DISINTEGRATE HOUSES.  One hit is it, unless you're a douche and dial them down to the lowest power setting to 'only' set people on fire for fun, ala Lore shooting Dr. Crusher.

Are people STILL hung up on this?  If that's your standard, you can't buy pretty much any game with any fighting that has ever existed.

[Nebu]

Are people STILL hung up on this?  If that's your standard, you can't buy pretty much any game with any fighting that has ever existed.

Don't most FPS have an instagib mode? 

Diku MMO's really screwed up the point of HP's from P&P games.   I want more games with a Bio-One type system.  In other words, YES, I'm still hung up on having to shoot someone 20 times in the face with a fucking phaser set on "Kill". 

[Triforcer]

Explain to me how you can have compelling MMO combat when everything is one-shotted.  And if your answer starts with " I never said I wanted that, 99% of hits should read "miss" and the NPC should flinch slightly" then please don't bother- its the same system, with more boring feedback, that would please .1% of people at the expense of pissing off 99.9%.  

[Ratman_tf]

Newtonian physics! 

[Endie]

Later PnP RPGs deal with this just fine.  My favourite is D20 Traveller: if you're wearing armour in a fight with guns or big, fuck-off fusion rifles then you're grinding the guy down, wearing him out, crippling his armour and causing bruising or scorching through the armour that eventually renders him vulnerable to a coup-de-grace.

If, of course, you brought cotton to a laser-fight, you skip to the end.

[Kageru]

Phasers make perfect sense in the star trek universe. Where weaponry is so powerful peace and understanding are even more important. And the focus is on convincing people not to shoot.

Which is cool... but terrible for an MMO where you're going to end up having to kill 5,000 sentient beings to ding.

[Ratman_tf]

Which is cool... but terrible for an MMO where you're going to end up having to kill 5,000 sentient beings to ding.

Which is why the perfekt STMMO is where you earn XP by playing Star Trek trivia. I swear to god the Trekkies would eat that shit up with a spoon.

[eldaec]

Phasers make perfect sense in the star trek universe. Where weaponry is so powerful peace and understanding are even more important. And the focus is on convincing people not to shoot.

Which is cool... but terrible for an MMO where you're going to end up having to kill 5,000 sentient beings to ding.

The brave developer would shift almost all the xp away from kills and on to quest objectives, and then not act shocked when players seek ways to complete missions with minimum fuss.

[UnSub]

Later PnP RPGs deal with this just fine.  My favourite is D20 Traveller: if you're wearing armour in a fight with guns or big, fuck-off fusion rifles then you're grinding the guy down, wearing him out, crippling his armour and causing bruising or scorching through the armour that eventually renders him vulnerable to a coup-de-grace.

If, of course, you brought cotton to a laser-fight, you skip to the end.

That's kinda the same thing though. "Sure, you shot him with an anti-matter laser that cuts through diamond like butter, but his armour soaks up some so in another 10 shots he might be dead. Ignore the man behind the curtin." As Triforcer says, it's all a set-up to avoid 1-shot kills that make combat less fun in RPGs / MMOs (and most titles generally unless the combat is fast enough to get you back in the game quickly).

The STO answer is shields. Everyone has personal force shields so they can take a few hits. Plus I can't believe that it's acceptable for any fantasy game to allow people to be stabbed 20 times through the chest with Excalibur and walk away unscathed, but that sci-fi has to bend to some kind of one-shot "pew pew I got you with a neutron phazer you're dead" mentality.

I'm looking forward to the NDA coming down.

[Koyasha]

I don't really find it particularly acceptable in fantasy and with swords either, which I'm sure I mentioned somewhere else in another thread when this same topic came up.  I think the entire idea where games decided they had to display people hitting each other is ludicrous, and a much better approach would have been to go with a movie fight-scene type of thing where there's lots of sword-clashing and blocking and parrying and rolling, but not a heck of a lot of repeatedly stabbing.  But at least with a sword you can potentially excuse the fact that you hit the enemy and still didn't kill him by saying you merely inflicted a surface cut that didn't go deep, even if the enemy isn't wearing armor at all.

In sci-fi, particularly Star Trek where a single shot is very, very well established to bring down most normal types of humanoid or creature one might encounter, it's vastly more jarring.  In say, Star Wars, this wouldn't be as big an issue (with blasters, anyway) since those have been established to be nowhere near as damaging as a phaser or disruptor set to kill has been in Star Trek.  A Star Wars blaster will leave you with a plasma burn or something, a Star Trek phaser, whether you get hit in the chest or the little toe, you're supposed to be rendered into subatomic particles.

[Triforcer]

By the year 2409, personal shield technology has been vastly enhanced due to trade with the Willzykians of the Horsehead Nebula.  Phaser technology has not kept pace with this breakthrough.  The best scientists of all the major Alpha Quadrant powers are searching for a way to improve phasers, but as yet the dynamics of troop-to-troop combat are vastly different than in the past. 


....there, I solved it.  Cryptic, don't mail my check, wire the royalties directly. 

[UnSub]

a much better approach would have been to go with a movie fight-scene type of thing where there's lots of sword-clashing and blocking and parrying and rolling, but not a heck of a lot of repeatedly stabbing.

MxO tried this - it wasn't a lot of fun.

But at least with a sword you can potentially excuse the fact that you hit the enemy and still didn't kill him by saying you merely inflicted a surface cut that didn't go deep, even if the enemy isn't wearing armor at all.

You can do this with pretty much anything. Doesn't make it less dodging the issue in taking out what is not fun about simulationist reality and turning it into a game. Personally I'll take game over simulation because I'm in this for the fun, not to recreate a better life for myself in a virtual world.

In sci-fi, particularly Star Trek where a single shot is very, very well established to bring down most normal types of humanoid or creature one might encounter, it's vastly more jarring.  [...], a Star Trek phaser, whether you get hit in the chest or the little toe, you're supposed to be rendered into subatomic particles.

Let's ignore all those episodes of Star Trek where they decided not to pay for the extra special effects and the people shot with phasers just fell to the floor for a second. Or "First Contact" where the Borg had shields so phasers meant very little to them. Or anyone, anywhere who survived a phaser hit. What you are asking for in-game is a one-shot kill system. Or a system where your character misses 95% of the time. Does either sound fun to you?

Besides, this is Star Trek, where the most highly qualified and trained staff on military vessels beam away from the safety of their ships and into dangerous situations, protected only by the power of their matching polyester tracksuits when confronting unknown, hostile enemies. Who they will then engage in hand-to-hand combat. And win. It really isn't about realism.

....there, I solved it.  Cryptic, don't mail my check, wire the royalties directly. 

Congratulations! You've just received a lifetime sub to STO!

[Venkman]

a much better approach would have been to go with a movie fight-scene type of thing where there's lots of sword-clashing and blocking and parrying and rolling, but not a heck of a lot of repeatedly stabbing.

MxO tried this - it wasn't a lot of fun.

Agreed. At the same time, if they could do it like Arkham Asylum, that may be something. There's a germ of an idea there about masses of mobs being approached any number of ways, rather than the usual stuff.

Which is cool... but terrible for an MMO where you're going to end up having to kill 5,000 sentient beings to ding.

Which is why the perfekt STMMO is where you earn XP by playing Star Trek trivia. I swear to god the Trekkies would eat that shit up with a spoon.

This.

[Nebu]

Explain to me how you can have compelling MMO combat when everything is one-shotted.  

MMOs aren't about compelling combat... at least we haven't seen one with it do date. 

One-shotting something in a game could be rewarding if a) the risk of getting killed once you initiated combat was high and b) it took a great deal of skill to hit something.   I just think that ground combat with lasers will never be something that interests me in an MMO due to the fact that I still have to hit something for 20hp at a time until it's dead.  The whole concept is just wrong and doesn't belong smashed into a diku box.   

[Ratman_tf]

Let's ignore all those episodes of Star Trek where they decided not to pay for the extra special effects and the people shot with phasers just fell to the floor for a second. Or "First Contact" where the Borg had shields so phasers meant very little to them. Or anyone, anywhere who survived a phaser hit.

I don't think they've shown anybody get disintegrated since the early seasons of TNG. Bottom line is that it sucks to tell an action story where everyone sets their phasers to wide angle disintegrate and everyone goes poof!

[Tannhauser]

This http://i50.tinypic.com/avt1k8.jpg is the uniform I want, but it looks like I have to buy Season 3 of TOS on Blu-Ray.  Feh.  I wonder if they will sell it at their online store as a microtransaction.

I guess I'm going to pre-order so I can start playing Tuesday ( ) just don't know which one to get.  Wal-Mart one seems most uber and I'm reading there will be a lot of Gamestop Constitution-class ships out there.

Oh and there is ME2 and Bioshock 2...full time gaming.

[Triforcer]

This http://i50.tinypic.com/avt1k8.jpg is the uniform I want, but it looks like I have to buy Season 3 of TOS on Blu-Ray.  Feh.  I wonder if they will sell it at their online store as a microtransaction.

Tannhauser, read page 22 of this thread.  Every code in every TOS Season 3 DVD set is the same and anyone can input it at the STO website to enable the jacket. 

[rattran]

And, buy Season 3 of TOS on Bluray. It's good fun.

[Tannhauser]

Now that everyone has it I don't want it. :)  But seriously, thanks guys, guess I missed that.  I also like how they mis-spelled the "Wrath of Kahn".

Is this a Blazing Saddles MMO?  You mean I get to wear Madeline Kahn's bustier and garters? 

[Ghambit]

Oh boy, this thread will be most entertaining when the NDA falls.

[Tannhauser]

It's Kahn on their website where I used the key for the red uniform.  Kahn.