I was reading an interview with Mike and Denise Okuda on Star Trek: Infinite Space, a Free to Play browser game set in the DS9 timeline. As the bigger Trek fans may know, the Okuda's are some of the foremost authorities on Star Trek. I don't want to start a war between games here, but I did want to highlight a quote from the article:
"Q: Transferring a vastly complex universe like Star Trek to a game is a challenge by its own.
A: What would be the most important thing to keep the "feeling of Star Trek? Thats a tough question. Star Trek is the sum of many, many elements , from story and character, to the thrill of discovery , to the power of science and technology to improve our lives. To us, the visuals of the ship and character designs are very important. But even more important are the core values of Star Trek : The adventure of exploration, delight in the diversity of life-forms in the galaxy, and the ethical strength of the characters who are always willing and able to defend themselves very effectively, even though they never go out looking for a fight."
I was wondering what the forum thought of this. Do you guys think the Star Trek Online team captured these aspects? In my opinion, going by these guidelines, results have been mixed. However, I think they made a great game, and from what I can tell, once the Featured Episodes start coming out more often, getting these weekly episodes could be like experiencing a whole new Star Trek show. Discuss!
(Here is the original article:
http://trekmovie.com/2011/04/12/star-trek-infinite-space-qa-with-mike-denise-okuda/)
Comments
The Good:
They captured the Look of Star Trek very well
The Bad:
In most cases, they did not get the mood at all. Foremost: Starfleet has never been a "shoot first, ask later"-Fleet. But here in every case we do exactly that. We NEVER try to solve a problem. Instead we get rewarded for continuous killing.
Some of the newer episodes are much better ("Mine enemy", where you are "only" killing 9 Romulans if you choose the diplomatic path), but in overall: If the ships werent Trek-ships, I would not recognize this game as a ST game.
There are too many missions where we do not ask the hard questions on why to use violence and how to come to a more peaceful solution. Too many exploration missions default to a purely combat approach. If they really wanted to nail Startrek, there would be a way to resolve most conflicts with a mix of carefully applied violence and diplomacy. Starfleet officers show strength when neccessary, but they will strive for a diplomatic solution at every point.
And when I play on the KDF side, the Federation looks like a bunch of villains that launch unprovoked attacks. Sorry, that's inacceptable. You can do better than that. You can make me look like a honarable warrior that is doing his duty for the Empire _and_ make the Starfleet guy act diplomatic and determined without making him in a comic book villain or a coward.
In my experience stay away, VERY FAR AWAY from ANYTHING that has GameForge attached to it. Horrid support all around, the arm that deals with cash shop payments uses templated messages and do not help you if you have issues buying thier credits. More often than not you have to pay double. Updates are very few and far between (thats for client games, not browser). There are too many terrible board moderators playing favorites and tripping on power, very few GMs (applicants get denyed more often than not), and staff have violated the company's own ToS recently and covered it up on top of lying to players. And god forbid you EVER have a dissenting opinion over there. And people think here is bad..
End of rant.
On to the game:
I think STO has kept up with the aspects of the shows for the most part. Like it's been said, the Federation has never been "shoot first" but with the addition of the Diplomacy missions that helps negate some of that feeling. I would like to see in the future the diplomacy aspect fully integreated into the storylines instead of feeling totally separate. The exploration missions also help break up the feeling of fighting all the time, but I also feel that those missions should be integrated instead of feeling separate. I have not been over on the KDF side very much, I only have a Lt8 over there so I can't really say much. But the look of Star Trek has been nailed, imo. There are some beautiful things that you can see in this game that I think rival the shows/movies.
Agree 100%,
However the devil is in the details, with all the bugs and glitchyness and rushed content and lack of bug fixing progress it makes the game soo annoying....maybe I need to just hit the seasons get all the limited edetion content and play no more and maybe just maybe if they figure out a balance between pushing content and stable content I might really enjoy it....
Example: you could spend 5 months making it perfect but your fans would kill you for lack of content, or do it in a a few weeks and have it all half done glitch and tweeky as a 8yr old living on coffee and sugar cubes
Trying to figure out that balance is a very difficult thing to do as you said concentrating on content leaves out bug fixes and vice versa. As the saying goes: You can't please all people all the time, just some people some of the time.
i think they got an allright mix of it all.
The going in and shooting first is in most cases your own fault because you KNOW thats an enemy to kill and you hit Spacebar the second you're in range. If you wait for it the NPC will shoot first.
Also we are at war and know who our enemys are, most of the time we are under orders to Patrol / Defend a System (the stupid patrol and *exploration sector-battle* missions mostly).
What i would like to see are NPC ships that are up to my Level when it come to fighting players.
I would like epic 5 - 15 minutes taking 1 on 1 Battles, instead of killing 5 *mobs* in Flyby-Screensaver mode.
Also i would like to have a communications option, much like in that one Breen Daily, just not with answers that work 100% everytime, but with maybe a 25% chance to not shoot each other if you say the right words.
That would certainly make it feel more TREK, but i don't know how much FUN that would be for an MMO to talk more then do Pew Pew... so... whatever, ITS A GAME...
...and honestly i don't believe that ST Infinite Space will do that any diffrent.
(and by the way, from the screenshots i've seen so far the Scale of the Ships is even worse then in STO).
What do i mean? Look at deep space encounters and most patrol missions. In these we generally fight against races who are at war with us. We do not encounter members of the enemy faction and say 'lets discuss this over dinner'. The way we should react is how things were in DS9, which in my opinion painted a more realistic outlook of politics and factional relations in star trek anyway.
In other cases, we are attacked first or are defending someone else who is under attack. We dont wait to ask questions in these cases. As a starfleet captain, i would be expected to use diplomacy first, but im also expected to take immediate and appropriate action. Certain episodes of TOS is a good example of this. In these cases, we cant dandy about waving peace flags while dying or watching others die.
Exploration clusters are the exception, and probably where most of this 'shoot first' feeling comes from. Yeah, we do shoot and kill everything in sight there, which is not the only problem with exploration clusters (Borg artifacts from the their 3rd Dynasty comes to mind). Which is why im glad Cryptic is looking to replace them or upgrade them with something better.
You start your character as a cadet in the Academy and spend the next four years learning/training, etc.
After you graduate, you get your first assignment which may or may not even be aboard a starship doing mundane things as an ensign.
As time goes on, you can work your way up to command (probably 2 or so expansions later). So now you have your first ship where the chances of sending out a new captain to do anything exciting will be limited to a couple of years worth of cataloging gaseous anomalies.
So let's say around a 5th expansion, the war is full on and you're now ordered to support the fleet on the frontline. You've waited for this moment to prove your mettle as a command officer. Your ship moves in formation with the rest of the fleet to engage the Klingon forces...
Ten seconds into the battle, your ship explodes in a brilliant flash (afterall, unless you're the main cast of the shows, your chances of survival are slim to none). Game over. Now you get to start a new cadet and plug away for another four years...maybe this time you'll rethink the career choice (Does starfleet have a bartending school?)
While I'm being facetious at times, that would pretty much sum up a close simulation of Trek. So yeah, I'll take the game as it is anyday.
It is made for you. It comes to mind one of the "explore X nebula" where you are attacked, contact Star Fleet Command and you are allowed "weapons free" or directly ordered to engage the hostile ships.
Similarly, if you are moving around a confilct zone, you are expected to engage enemies, not invite them to tea.
As for the "real" Star Trek feeling, a lot of people would hate having a realistic ratio of missions.
You might get like 10 "scan space anomalies" missions, 4-5 "Aid the planet", and a similar number of ground "scan archeological site/flora samples/potential ore deposits" before getting ONE combat assignment.
If you pay attention to the beginning of most episodes in TOS and TNG, the ship was going to or coming from some place to do something absolutely booooring when the "conflict" of the episode happens. And most of those "conflicts" do NOT involve pew-pew, be it on ground or space. There is the hint of violence in a lot of them, but Star Fleet members are supposed to choose the less violent path ALWAYS.
DS9 is different in the fact that it is a station anchored in a highly conflictive zone, with a higher potential for battles and enemy encounters. And VOY is even more exceptional in the fact that we are talking about one ship stranded in unexplored territory, where every hail is potentially a First Contact mission and they don't have the means to allow Star Fleet to do the moral judging. It's all up to Janeway's training and philosophy how every situation is handled.
People tend to remember the episodes and setups that suit them, not all of them. So, an episode where the REAL mission is to record information about a once-in-a-lifetime scientific event but then "stuff happens", people will remember the "stuff", but not the originally stated mission.
May be the STOverse should be a little more sensitive to the environment, having the chances for missions related to what is actually around, like the Klingon-Fed or Romulan-Fed border having more chances for combat than for peaceful missions, while Delta Volanis, for example, should have a very low "violent" missions chance.
I agree that there should be a higher number of "moral" decision episodes, not just about the Prime Directive, but about a lot more issues, but then some people would complain that their moral decisions do not affect the game in any way, while others would complain in the lines that "for getting preached upon, they'd rather go to the church" and demand more pew-pew.
Oh, and some people wouldn't care, as long as they have their T5 connie with matching bridge, uniforms and interiors.
As someone said, you cannot please all people all the time, but just most people some of the time.
the weeklies were the first real massive leap that got the players back on board, the Foundry is the best tool for Captain ethics to recycle the same old moral quandries.
no matter how good the game gets your always gonna have that real vocal guy that gets angry about his open jacket uniform not having a suede texture.
its the nature of the IP, too many people think their vision of trek is the only viable one.
Compound on that the fact that Cryptic listens to every Fed player request for ships, outfits, bonus item - whether they fit anything or not - and you can tell that Cryptic stopped going for a Star Trek feel a long time ago. Especially if the Okuda's are talking about a browser based game, and haven't said much of anything about STO.
Why are we still at war with the Klingons?
We've seen that the Undine were responsible for the whole Gorn/Klingon war.....I would have sent a peace delegation to the Klinks long ago....."Sorry, you were right, your invasion was justified. Now, let's lay that aside, you earned what you got, and let's figure out how to deal with the real threats, namely the Undine, the Borg and the Iconians". Possibly the Dominion as well.
Yet here we are....still plinking away at each other. We could even keep "war games" in to test tactics between the KDF and the federation. Since PvP is in such a bad state, it would make more sense.
But this is a game you know?
Cryptic had to get the game working before a launch date
As we have started to see the idea of branching coversations and puzzles are just starting to be added to the game.
So with these elements not included at the launch, it couldn't possible have been much of a star trek experince other then all action all the time.
Hopefully we will continue to see additional non violent solutions added, and perhaps more interesting things in remastered episodes as well
People, and organizations change, especially over timeperiods of 20-40 years. TNG was the zenith of the peace by any means way of life for the federation, and the dominion war brought that crashing down. I've found that even in STO, given the provocations, the federation remains remarkably restrained, given what it could, and arguably should do.
Okay, if you really need to have me fight 5 enemy ships or NPC groups because this is a game, there should be a mission part or another mission where we contact them and resolve the conflict in some matter. Maybe after I killed the entire Widrab away team, they will call me and say "okay, let's talk it seems we ... misjudged you. Err, Could you please stop killing my man and can we find a peaceful approach?"
The Dominion was not brought down by slaughtering every single Jem'Hardar and Founder. It was brought down by fighing them until they were willing to surrender.
Maybe it's okay to disintegrate Klingon and Borg left & right, but the random NPC of the exploration mission? Why not stun them?
Why not fight enemy ships until they give up and surrender, instead of until they explode violently?
The instancing turned me off initially, and navigating through interplanetary space wasn't what I expected, but for the most part, I bought this game so I could hop in a starship, outfit her with engines, deflectors and shields and weapons, and start barbecueing some Klingons. I found plenty of challenges by trying to figure out how to accomplish missions without harming any enemies, or at least minimizing the casualties. But war is war, and it was a great setting for the game.
If it had been all explorations and first contacts, I'd have bailed months ago. I wanted space combat, mixed with some away missions, and they delivered.. in droves.
Will be interesting to see how far the Okudas' game "misses the target" of the TV shows as well.
TV shows aren't video games. Video games aren't TV shows. They must be created differently.
You've apparently not watched the last few seasons of DS9. See...when you're at war, you tend to fight your enemy. And if you go look at the premise of STO, we're at war with the Klingons. If anything, there's not enough conflict.
I think this perfectly sums up the essence of what defines Star Trek. While I like the game, and understand that to make a decent game requires solid combat, I think as the dev team focuses on the long term goals of making it have a rich "Trek" feel, they need to aim for those core values.
Am I happy with the game so far? Yep, most definitely. However I think everyone (Dev team included) would agree that there are lots of ways to improve the game and make it feel more Trek-like. The whole point of an MMO (from what I can tell) is that you're never finished, it's continually changing and growing. I hope the guys in charge of directing that change view the quote above as a great place to start on how to continue in making this the best "Star Trek" game out there.
Though there have been times in both the movies and series where it is decided by the captain that it is absolutely positively time for the enemy to die, it wasn't the majority. I completely understand this from a gaming point of view, though it gets a little confusing after a while as to why I am killing by the thousand and shaking it off like it's nothing when there was an occasional chance to avoid it all by three seconds of dialogue.
Another thing, why do I need to keep beaming to a starbase to do mono y mono combat when I can simply blow it up from space? The Coloseum episode really annoyed me on so many fronts. One, if I am beaming to a satelite that is a direct threat to my ship and crew, I'm not doing a logic puzzle and leaving. No. I'm beaming over planting spacial charges and blowing it to kingdom freaking come. And two, if I have a telepathic captain, how did the pointy-eared moron pull one over on me? The game lacks a basic logic that the series usually had, barring a few really confusing episodes.
What the heck is with all the TOS era stuff in the era we're in? Kills the game! It's like the prequel stuff in Galaxies! Am I in Empire Strikes Back, KoTOR, or Ep. 3? Find myself asking here "Which movie am I in" or "Which series am I in?" and it demolishes the immersion.
Lack of iconic people and places kill it too. No Starfleet Academy, for that matter planetside Earth, no ground on Bajor, and a total lack of Trillus Prime, Betazed and any number of home worlds represented in the series. Not so much as a bar or anything one can beam to. Trek wasn't all space all the time and did frequently re-visit "home" as it were. While Risa and Vulcan are nice, it's not Earth. Likewise, we all have our favorite characters. Sure, some are dead or MIA in canon at this point, but just as many are not. We're stuck with the minor characters aside from a few chance encounters. What about having daily quests to kill Borg given by Admiral Janeway, a Diplomatic mission from Picard or a trip into the wormhole that ends with dialogue with Sisco? I know about rights and all, and it becomes self defeating when your product starts killing itself with its own legality.
Overall, just some better writing and better forethought about why it is I am beaming to a starbase I have tri-cobalts I could be killing it with and stuff like acknowledging telepathic ability would make it all aces in my book. Maybe a couple of missions on my own ship as well where I don't feel like I'm back in pre-school playing doll house with the girls because all the other cool toys were taken.
I know it seems harsh, but for a game I wished to exist for like 10 years... it is admittedly a let down at present.
Oh. AND ADD ROMULANS!
Edit:
I can describe it perfectly. Yes, this game captures the feeling of Trek. Though, it's in the same way a Trek Convention does. Follow me here, you just might agree. There are people in costumes and in really convincing makeup and some really nice model ships on display that look flawlessly like the "real" ones. But the immersion stops there. Your mind tells you it's a bunch of people in costume, plastic and LED ships and just some convention center people made over for the weekend and that at best you'll see a fleeting glimpse of somewhere iconic in a poster. Once and a while you meet an actor, but they are behind red velvet rope and at best, if you're lucky you might get an autograph, a handshake or a "live long and prosper" from Mr. Nemoy. Around you, people talk about their favorite episodes and a few roleplay... five feet away is a person selling auditorium nachos killing the vibe while a man dressed as TWoK Kirk discusses tactics with a man dressed in a mockup of an STO BO1 style uniform like it is totally normal and meanwhile Mr.Scot's talking shop with the repair guy that works at the convention center. And don't even get me started on the souvenir shop in this convention.
Just how I feel. Yes, I enjoy playing. No, it's not Trek.
Pretty much this. Every ST game I've played has been battle based. STO is probably one of the least battle based ST games I've played. I think as a MMO they have room to do more non-battle stuff, like expand on the Diplomacy system and do some more interesting stuff with exploration, and I think as far as story goes they are hitting it pretty good, but at the end of the day many gamers are going to wind up bored if all they do is go talk to some NPCs, pick some choices, and then they are done.