So i just finished me3, and i have to say, why bioware why didn't you make sto. now i know some will say that me and sto are just different so they cant be compared, i disagree. things sto should be more like me in
1. ship interiors - nice looking, crew scattered in their areas, were you can go and they chat with you, not game effecting but imperative and entertaining.
2. scanning - ping a local area, would be nice if random events would happen, ship in distress, salvage, just random things, but would make running around the universe a little funner.
3. Map - while yes flying around in space is alright in sto, but really its just pointless, id prefer a top down map with little ships flying around if the detail on ground maps were as nice as me3s and I'm sure with a little work they could do some nice space fights the same way.
4.Away team - id love to have a smart away team, even the team selection is so much nicer over there
dlc is biowars equivalent to the c-store, sept better priced and generally better bang for you buck. all i can really say that if they ever turn me into a online game, id be the first to jump of the sto wagon, granted sto might become funner in the long run but with cryptics money grabbing now a days, i doubt it'll ever truly be worth it. i love trek but i hate playing another space game and my first thought is why cant my sto be this nice.
so while some of you might say that you cant compare the two games, your telling me that if someone put out a full fledged star trek mod for me3 you wouldn't look at it vs sto and be a little disappointed in cryptics performance.
Well, Mass Effect isn't an MMO, some things may not translate as well. (A big problem with ME3 is - where would you meet other players? Only on the Citadel?)
But I already find it sad that TOR has so many things that a Startrek Online should have had. Why is TOR the "story MMO" and not STO? I mean, on some level I know - it's budget. But...
It is easier to create a single-player trilogy that's based on a strong storylines and interesting characters than an MMO experience based on the same focus. However, Cryptics' goals were always completely different than BioWares'.
Cryptic wants to make new online games on a short-term development cycle with low budgets that emphasize gameplay, customization and gear over meaningful and emotional story-telling. Where-as BioWare always see themselves as story-tellers first and foremost and their games are meant to entertain you through the storyline and your interactions with different NPCs' rather than merely how you're able to dispatch your enemies and how cool you look while doing so.
I daresay though that both companies have a lot to learn from one another. No one is perfect.
Indeed, they are separate games, and more than that, they are completely separate concepts.
I agree that there are lots of things we can learn from them, they make some amazing games. Many people here play/have played the Mass Effect series, and you can bet that has some influence on how we build things.
However, as LoP mentioned, telling a meaningful story, with a good arc, where the world around you changes, is much easier in a single player environment. In an MMO, where you have many people, re-running the same stories for years, including brand new players, just now starting the arc that you completed multiple years ago, it is very difficult to make meaningful and lasting changes to the world (galaxy in our case).
We're definitely trying to get more of a proper narrative story woven into STO, as seen in the FEs, and for the most part, it seems that most people agree that the newer FEs are better content overall than what we may have launched with.
1. ship interiors - nice looking, crew scattered in their areas, were you can go and they chat with you, not game effecting but imperative and entertaining.
The Normandy's interior is very nice, no doubt. And I, as an Artist am definitely influenced by their designs. However, this is a single ship. It is a hero prop of which they only had to make one (per game). It had a ton of time and resources devoted to it, and it shows. However. It's also tiny. Much smaller than a ST Starship is, and much smaller than anything we could get away with inside our ships. In addition, we have to support many more ship interiors. If we only had one ship interior, with no customization, we could probably get it to a similar level as the Normandy.
2. scanning - ping a local area, would be nice if random events would happen, ship in distress, salvage, just random things, but would make running around the universe a little funner.
I agree, random events, stranded ships, etc. could be pretty cool. I don't really like how they handled the system scanning in ME3, with the reapers coming in and all that, but a similar mechanic could be implemented in STO. I think STO would be better served with random events that just show up in Sector Space, with a visual/audio cue to their existence/location, rather than players having to actively scan for them.
3. Map - while yes flying around in space is alright in sto, but really its just pointless, id prefer a top down map with little ships flying around if the detail on ground maps were as nice as me3s and I'm sure with a little work they could do some nice space fights the same way.
The ME system maps always seemed a little hokey to me. I like the look of their system maps, but having a little Normandy actively flying about, and able to fly through suns, and planets and such, just didn't do much for me. Yes, we could implement some sort of top down view of sector space. . . but to what point? Is it just the behind the ship view that you dislike? There's really no way to extend this to STO Systems, as you have to fight in System Space. The Normandy, for all her good looks, and supposed firepower, never fights anything outside of cutscenes.
4.Away team - id love to have a smart away team, even the team selection is so much nicer over there
Their team selection is much nicer. We can look into improving ours, but I don't think their way would work very well for STO. It covers the whole screen, and pauses the whole game while you are in selection mode. This may be ok when it's just you, but once you're teamed up with someone, and have to select from all of your collective Boffs, this becomes problematic. I think that the UI we have now could be improved, but I don't think that the ME style of picking a team (i.e. full character representation, pausing the game, etc.) would work in STO.
dlc is biowars equivalent to the c-store, sept better priced and generally better bang for you buck.
I disagree that DLC is their C-store. DLC is DLC. Yes, they're making some money off of it, but it is not their primary method of making money. There are also only a couple of DLC's available, versus a full store like ours where there are hundreds of options available to you, at various price ranges. I'm not arguing for or against the store idea in principle, just that DLC != C-store.
so while some of you might say that you cant compare the two games, your telling me that if someone put out a full fledged star trek mod for me3 you wouldn't look at it vs sto and be a little disappointed in cryptics performance.
If someone wanted to put out a Star Trek mod of ME3, I would be ALL OVER IT! That sounds amazing!
But no. . . I wouldn't be comparing it to STO, except in some superficial Star Trek comparisons. They would be entirely separate games, with entirely separate gameplays.
Cryptic and BioWare are out to make two different styles of games. Until The Old Republic launched, BioWare had not delved into the MMO market. A single player game is much easier to publish than an MMO. A fact made clear by TOR's semi-rocky start.
Tumerboy would it be feasible to see a similar "readiness campaign" for an upcoming Iconian invasion?
Resource gathering, diplomatic campaigns to gather allies, first strikes against Iconian beach-heads, etc?
In theory you could take some of the game play elements that worked for the Mass Effect Saga and incorporate it into STO.
I think what is evident with ME is the cash thats been thrown at it. But comparing STO and ME is like comparing apples and banana's while both are fruit they are both very different.
I've been a big fan of ME since the first one came out a few years back. But sadly TOR was a disappointment for me, IMHO if TOR was the 3rd game in the KOTOR series it would have been one of the top games of the decade.
I do think though that Cryptic have improved STO alot, the new FE's were great and I hugely enjoyed playing them, which shows what can be done with a fairly small dev team. (well done guys!)
Personally I do wonder what the game would be like if the same amount of money was used on STO as say TOR or ME with the same sized dev teams as well, that would be interesting.
Thing is Tumerboy, what brought me back time and again to play City of Heroes (and Villains) back in the day was Cryptics' game mechanics and the super-heroic antics of my characters. This also is what partially brings me back to play a Mass Effect game, the gameplay with its powers and weapons and cover-system.
But... Mass Effect, and indeed any BioWare game to-date, have more than gameplay mechanics going for them though. They have characters that I want to interact with. They have NPC's that feel like they matter to me and more importantly I matter to them! And... somehow, BioWare managed to introduce and integrate this into SWTOR in ways I was hoping Cryptic would do with STO, utilizing our Bridge Officers.
In STO however, I just never get that feeling, you know? And that's a strong deal-breaker for a game that's based on a franchise that was built from a TV show that was very heavily character-based. This is the trouble I have with STO, it just doesn't benefit as much from Cryptics' strengths as we would both like it to. It would however benefit immensely from strong characters that make repeat appearances and somehow can relate, comment and be involved in all the storyline our Ships and Captains go through.
I'm not saying I know how to accomplish this, but I have a strong feeling that Diplomatic missions and the DOff system aren't leading us in the right direction.
I fully agree with you, and I would love to see that level of interaction with characters in STO. I want to feel more for them.
For me, I think one of the main reasons I care so much for the characters in the Mass Effect series, is because they actually talk to me. They have voices for everything they say. There is no reading involved, and beyond having voices, they have custom facial animations for those voices. They do custom animations for cut scenes on a very regular basis. Characters have a voice, a personality, not just because they were written that way, but because they are played that way.
Voice Over work in STO has been a contentious issue of late. Obviously we're trying to include more, but there's no way we can compete with the Bioware's of the world on that level, with the kinds of budgets/times they have for voice over, and custom animation for everything.
So, let me ask you this then. Is it possible to make you care that much for a character that you can only interact with through text?
So, let me ask you this then. Is it possible to make you care that much for a character that you can only interact with through text?
Obviously. Or else gaming would've died away when all games were either Pong or ZORK.
Kidding aside though, yes. I do think characters can make players care about them through written dialog alone but that's a lot to ask from modern-day players! A lot of people these days want to be shown rather than told so what you said, Tumerboy, about emoting (facial expressions and gestures as an example) is crucial to bringing a character to life.
Long ago when I was playing STO in closed-beta I thought to myself how cool it would be if the actual face of my Science Officer (just an example) would appear for a few seconds, with a worried expression when the shields took a substantial enough hit. Something like that would make me feel that my ship and its crew are more like the Normandy and her crew rather than mere place-holders for character-powers, minions to command, and cardboard cut-out used to tell me what's going on from time to time.
Another thing that feels missing to me is something like the Loyalty Missions that BioWare has utilized in Dragon Age, Mass Effect and SWTOR. The concept is simple, use the NPC as the Quest Giver, and convince the player they have something to gain (or lose) depending on how they handle the situation. So you see... it's not just the voice-overs... it's realizing you're not utilizing what you already have in ways that would bring your players back for more.
The biggest problem with all this however is that these techniques are more work for Cryptic into aspects that Cryptic may not be willing to explore just yet because your Engine is what it is and its focus is not on story-telling through NPC's and allowing the player to explore (and affect) their surrounding as a part of the story but rather as artificially placed parts of scripted missions, and even then in ways that do not leave the player in control but rather the level-designer, something that to me feels very detrimental to what I perceive STAR TREK to involve.
For me, voiceovers are nice, but sometimes with stuff going on in RL, I'll have to turn the volume down, or might miss something, so captions are important for me, and I can live without voiceovers. The biggest turn off for me is when there are inconsistent voiceovers.
Take the latest FE. Some voiceovers are consistent, nearly word for word what the text is. Some are large chunks of the text, but then other large chunks get left out. Some characters that had voice acting in the cutscenes, but nothing in their mission dialog (Eraun and the Founder in the last mission, for example). But the worst is the random filler stuff, that rotates between a few preset options, that often has little to no bearing on anything the character is actually saying.
Another way that characters don't help me relate to them is the terrible emote choices in cut scenes. There's got to be a way of actually making the character do an action that is natural and fits what they're saying and how they're saying it; whether that's choosing emotes better or doing custom animation, I don't know.
Obviously. Or else gaming would've died away when all games were either Pong or ZORK.
Kidding aside though, yes. I do think characters can make players care about them through written dialog alone but that's a lot to ask from modern-day players! A lot of people these days want to be shown rather than told so what you said, Tumerboy, about emoting (facial expressions and gestures as an example) is crucial to bringing a character to life.
The 3rd and 4th FE had several gestures in them - and they really didn't fit Startrek. Maybe they work in a comic book / comic animation. But I don't think they work for Startrek. They are just too exaggerated.
Long ago when I was playing STO in closed-beta I thought to myself how cool it would be if the actual face of my Science Officer (just an example) would appear for a few seconds, with a worried expression when the shields took a substantial enough hit. Something like that would make me feel that my ship and its crew are more like the Normandy and her crew rather than mere place-holders for character-powers, minions to command, and cardboard cut-out used to tell me what's going on from time to time.
The dialog UI has a place for the character's head that is animated. I could see a minature version of that appearing somewhere in the screen, as a kind of "communication window". Just show that and a brief "bark". (Generic stuff like "Shields at 50 %" or "Transfering Shield Strength" should be mangeable, even for Cryptic).
Another thing that feels missing to me is something like the Loyalty Missions that BioWare has utilized in Dragon Age, Mass Effect and SWTOR. The concept is simple, use the NPC as the Quest Giver, and convince the player they have something to gain (or lose) depending on how they handle the situation. So you see... it's not just the voice-overs... it's realizing you're not utilizing what you already have in ways that would bring your players back for more.
If I were to design Startrek Online 2, I would make Bridge Officers less generic. Bioware has what - 4 or 5 companions per class? 30 Bridge Officers with different personalities and maybe even "barks" (or even fully fledged voice over, depending on the budget.) sounds doable. Each with a few story missions to do.
But then, I'd probably also change how away teams work - Its unusual for an MMO, but I think if we were to send a TNG type away team (e.g. without the Captain) and have the player steer a BO might have yielded better results, and allowed more flexibility.
I was thinking about this myself since I've just finished ME3 I really care for those characters especially such as Garrus and Talia over 3 games.
I like the previous posters idea of having less generic Bridge Officers in the first instance and having a group selection from each variation but I also love the customisation in Cryptic for my officers and at this point it'd be counter-productive and time consuming to change.
Personally I'd love to see missions centred around our Boffs where we get the missions from them and that would relate to them so random missions such as:
Go for Drinks on Drozna with Operations Head - Make them their favourite Drink (Like in the mission with Scotty and the Lassie)
Go for Drinks with First Officer - Get Drunk - Black Out -First Officer accused of Murder- Find out what happened.
Sister/Brother/Family Member of Bridge Officer X in trouble - Help Rescue from Group/Bad Guy/Facility 40281082418 detainee/Cult/etc etc
Boff member in debt to Orion Syndicate - Compromises security - Execute Boff (Or help them settle there debt)
Have some Chain missions possibly like with Doff Assignments, I love Chain missions, I want more for me I'm rather Jealous of My Doffs.
Also on this note I actually feel more disposed for some of my Doffs than Boffs, Like my trader Nexxi - He's a loveable Ferengi who always manages to get me exceptional deals on goods a true Ferengi at heart.
So, let me ask you this then. Is it possible to make you care that much for a character that you can only interact with through text?
Can you? Yes, authors do it all the time in book series. The problem here is that we don't have a specific cast to care about in STO. Even if we did? I'm not sure your current writing staff would be up to the task, based off of what we've seen thus far.
If I could thumb up Tumerboy's first post I would, I wholeheartedly agree to the analysis.
Also, if STO was made by Bioware, and was anything like their games, then you'd find a game with 100% story and no room for you to actually play it and do what YOU want. Just look at TOR, which is very much a massively single player experience inhabited by others following the exact same story at you.
I fully agree with you, and I would love to see that level of interaction with characters in STO. I want to feel more for them.
For me, I think one of the main reasons I care so much for the characters in the Mass Effect series, is because they actually talk to me. They have voices for everything they say. There is no reading involved, and beyond having voices, they have custom facial animations for those voices. They do custom animations for cut scenes on a very regular basis. Characters have a voice, a personality, not just because they were written that way, but because they are played that way.
Voice Over work in STO has been a contentious issue of late. Obviously we're trying to include more, but there's no way we can compete with the Bioware's of the world on that level, with the kinds of budgets/times they have for voice over, and custom animation for everything.
So, let me ask you this then. Is it possible to make you care that much for a character that you can only interact with through text?
For me, sure.
And I feel I can create those characters, not just in published fiction I've done, but in-game.
I have a mammoth mission called "Yesterday is Tomorrow."
It's relevant for two reasons.
One is because I built in a sortof relationship system with two NPCs who assist you. One male, one female. You can flirt with either one. They respond. There's a section of the mission that plays out differently (4 different paths, not counting romantic options) based on how you respond to them.
The other is because I have never seen players respond so well to a villain in STO as players in that mission did to my villain. You get to kill him in a unique way. I played it with some podcasters for an exhibition screening of the mission and the chat room went crazy for almost the entire mission with people begging for a chance to kill that guy.
I think there are some issues with doing this for existing bridge officers, unfortunately. Among other reasons, because there is simply too much variety in normal bridge officers.
HOWEVER, I think it would be doable to rework the game somewhat to have a special officer (like a DOff but backwards) who you build a relationship with.
The way I see this working is that missions get changed to have 3 BOffs and 1 special officer.
The special officer is pre-named, pre-scripted, voiced, and has relationship options baked in. There are multiple ones you can get but only 1 you can have at a time. They have special mission behaviors.
I seem to have trouble getting the idea across but I liken the special officer to a mix of the Kingdom Hearts world specific companions and Mass Effect characters. I'd also be inclined to have missions that feature certain characters (Drake, Thomas Riker's kid, maybe Miral Paris) allow you to claim the special character.
I've also said that as a classically trained actor with some voiceover credits who is non-union, I'd be very receptive to doing a number of voices for this sort of thing at virtually any budget Cryptic could muster, schedule permitting. I don't have a home studio but I have a friend with a pro studio and I'd honestly love to do what some of the podcasters have done and tour Cryptic if folks wanted more control.
But then, I'd probably also change how away teams work - Its unusual for an MMO, but I think if we were to send a TNG type away team (e.g. without the Captain) and have the player steer a BO might have yielded better results, and allowed more flexibility.
This ^^
I have always found it odd that the Captain goes on so many mundane assignments. Being able to decide another BO to lead the team is something sorely needed
I fully agree with you, and I would love to see that level of interaction with characters in STO. I want to feel more for them.
For me, I think one of the main reasons I care so much for the characters in the Mass Effect series, is because they actually talk to me. They have voices for everything they say. There is no reading involved, and beyond having voices, they have custom facial animations for those voices. They do custom animations for cut scenes on a very regular basis. Characters have a voice, a personality, not just because they were written that way, but because they are played that way.
Voice Over work in STO has been a contentious issue of late. Obviously we're trying to include more, but there's no way we can compete with the Bioware's of the world on that level, with the kinds of budgets/times they have for voice over, and custom animation for everything.
So, let me ask you this then. Is it possible to make you care that much for a character that you can only interact with through text?
Absolutely. VAs and complex animations are the icing. As seen in the not-as-great parts of ME games and allegedly some of The Old Republic show, if the framing of your scene is "off" (whether a certain type of convo happens in a preposterous setting, or the camera zooms in on Miranda's rear when you're trying to take her seriously), if there's no weight to the dialogue and solid characterization...the bells and whistles are meaningless. Old RPGs got along just fine w/o those things by working with what was in their means, and expertly using cues.
IE the blog post from Kurland's perspective about resolving the 2800 conflict. His talking about the stress his crew's gone through and wanted to posthumously award Karen Andrews w/a medal was more potent than much of the actual delivered dialogue throughout the FE series (and I liked most of it, mind you).
Sorry for the hyperbole earlier. Obviously it CAN be done, and HAS been done on older games. But today's market is not the market of yesteryear. Hand any kid today Super Mario Bros, and watch him drop it by 2-3.
I'm not saying that our writing couldn't be better, I'm sure it could. But as a visual & auditory dude, I will never get absorbed into characters through text like I will through them actively speaking/acting on screen. I'm not much of a reader, and yes, some books have gotten me fully invested into their characters, but that takes chapters to get to that point. It's not something that happens in a couple of paragraphs.
Sorry for the hyperbole earlier. Obviously it CAN be done, and HAS been done on older games. But today's market is not the market of yesteryear. Hand any kid today Super Mario Bros, and watch him drop it by 2-3.
I'm not saying that our writing couldn't be better, I'm sure it could. But as a visual & auditory dude, I will never get absorbed into characters through text like I will through them actively speaking/acting on screen. I'm not much of a reader, and yes, some books have gotten me fully invested into their characters, but that takes chapters to get to that point. It's not something that happens in a couple of paragraphs.
I think short dialogue can be some of the best. I'd rather have pop-ups like some of your missions have that dialogue boxes for those but, still...
I think a really solid solution is that Mass Effect/Kingdom Hearts World Companion hybrid, a set of super-BOs who had a dash more flavor and get their own dedicated BO slot.
Sorry for the hyperbole earlier. Obviously it CAN be done, and HAS been done on older games. But today's market is not the market of yesteryear. Hand any kid today Super Mario Bros, and watch him drop it by 2-3.
I'm not saying that our writing couldn't be better, I'm sure it could. But as a visual & auditory dude, I will never get absorbed into characters through text like I will through them actively speaking/acting on screen. I'm not much of a reader, and yes, some books have gotten me fully invested into their characters, but that takes chapters to get to that point. It's not something that happens in a couple of paragraphs.
Well, let me try to reframe it by detailing what I really like about the last FE and other feedback:
- The environmental work for Bajor, Facility 4028, the space walk, the shot in the 1st ep of the 2800 pouring out of the nebula? Incredible.
Too many games (NOT just MMOs) will just toss you in a bland landscape and expect the player to accept that as the world. Here, Cryptic didn't just hand us a nondescript skin, they fleshed living, believable places that I'm clamouring to see more of. I wouldn't mind revisiting a different area of the prison facility, or watching a cutscene of the Bajoran festival sometime.
- One way to overcome some of your limitations is to just bring some of the characters back, and show some kind of progress if possible.
Amer had such a small role in the Klingon Front, but seeing him again as an escaping prisoner during the FE excited me; I wanted to hunt him down like Balak (Bringing Down the Sky DLC) from ME1. Maybe give have the new Enterprise captain pull a Sisko and grow a beard after a couple of seasons to show the passage of time, or casually hail the player to talk about how his crew's still figuring out the Belfast; promote Kurland and upgrade his outfit, or show Karen Andrews' getting jettisoned into space as he renames a wing of DS9 in her honor or something.
- Don't underestimate the quiet or emotional moments; they're character defining. I love the bombastic sequences, but I feel like some of the dialogue felt a bit meandering, as if you guys felt it was an obligation to voice/write it. Now, I felt like Kurland was a real person I was corresponding with and seeing the stress of trying to save his station taking its toil on him. He's no soft-cannon place holder--DS9 is HIS station. On the other hand, though I liked their voices, I never once believed there was legitimate tension or admiration between Kar'Ukan, Loriss, and the Founder.
I fully agree with you, and I would love to see that level of interaction with characters in STO. I want to feel more for them. {snipped}...
So, let me ask you this then. Is it possible to make you care that much for a character that you can only interact with through text?
Yes. But you (Cryptic) would have to hire at least one *really* good writer. It may not be in Cryptic's budget to do so because of the glaring difference in quality that would be created between current and new quests.
While I would love to see "better" stories/characters, from a business stand point I could not endorse it for STO.
Recurring characters can help, yes. They must be more than mere mission givers. Admiral Quinn returns a lot, but we don't develop a relationship with him. I couldn't even say if he has a personality.
Warning: Spoilers if you didn't play through the Cardassian Front missions (not the FE) yet or watched Deep Space 9:
The Cardassian missions have one mission where a Bajoran/Cardassian hybrid reveals itself to be one of Gul Dukat's illegitamte children and wants to free Pagh Wraitsh. She totally comes out of nowhere. It would have been so much better if we had heard and talked with her in previous missions. She gets introduced in the mission as a good guy and then immediately turns bad. That just lessens the impact.
A rather well done betrayal in Startrek was Eddington's turn to the Maquis. He was on several missions, he was in a (positive) conflict with some of the character. We saw him as one of us, maybe not perfectly sympathetic, but definitely a Starfleet officer of high integrity. And then - he suddenly sabotages the ship and defects to the Maquis. Whoa! Didn't see that coming.
That's the kind of writing I want to see in STO. And that can be done without voice overs and all. Not everyone will notice it - some people just click through dialogs without reading anything at all. But those that do will appreciate it and enjoy it.
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One rather awesome idea that was promoted by posters after the launch was Bridge Officer Story arcs.
I think the basic idea was.
1) Add some personality traits to Bridge Officers. Similar to the traits of Duty Officers, actually.
2) Then use this traits to key off certain events/dialog by the BOFF in missions.
3) Create some missions set around these personality traits.
You could still have totally random BOs, but the personality traits would allow you to create some more or less generic missions.
I believe Cryptic's response to the topic was that it sounded interesting, but they wanted us to tell the story of our BOs. But the only way to do that is to play-pretend, that's not enough. That's almost like saying: "Oh, you only get this generic starship model, we want you to rolepaly that it's actually a Galaxy-Class cruiser".
Now, with the Foundry, maybe we could actually have this. Unfortunately, we can't do stuff that would be good for that, like taking the character's BO and using his model for an NPC.
...that takes chapters to get to that point. It's not something that happens in a couple of paragraphs.
But Tumerboy, it's the same for a TV show really, and so it's the same for games that actually want you invested in their storylines and characters.
Expecting us to be excited about a bunch of characters simply because they're voiced and gesture at us is like instant-gratification wishful thinking on the part of the Developer, know what I mean?
it kinda goes back to me saying how the ship interiors can be designed differentyl, with a different mindset altogether. the insides are meant to be a social zone when in reality they dont have to be. i dont know about others but i have NEVEr invited anyone on my ship, why? CUZ THERES NO GOOD REASON TO!
That being said, there can be ALOT done in terms changing the inside, making it more personable, interacting with your crew, hooking up the tech to have the crew wear the same uniform that your boffs are. CHATTING with your boffs.
What would be the point of that you can ask? Ok no, you dont have to chat with your crew or do any of that, you can also choose to not make money either. These could be SELLING points of the game. Think of SWTOR (which i play btw), and of course the mass effect series.
They have voice overs right? Voice overs and animations can be expensive, i understand that. WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO INSTEAD?! THINK ABOUT THE OLD FINAL FANTASY games!!!
We didnt get to chat with them like we do today with mass effect, yet i still cared for the characters, i still WANTED them to have the best gear etc. And that was all done through overhead dialouge boxes, no voice over.
Think about older games and how they were sucessful, think about the interiors, they dont have to a social zone, thus ALLOWING you to SCALE IT RIGHT!! lol something EVERYONE has asked for.
Take the extra effort to do the interiros right, make them matter. Charge for them if you have to, if its nice ill buy it! I know you can make good interiors cuz weve seen it! The new bridge, breathtaking btw, the romulan refugee map, the prison map in the new FE.
So, let me ask you this then. Is it possible to make you care that much for a character that you can only interact with through text?
Yes!
Actually ME3 is a single player game while STO is an MMORPG.
STO is great in itself and the foundry idea is just BRILLIANT!
Just that there's little interaction with the crews and the little value of having an interior. I do hope the interior will be made more useful and interesting.
Personally I'd love Bridge commander like ability of controlling the battle from the bridge view. It would be very very cool. Perhaps little value for PvP but for PvE it will be gold.
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But I already find it sad that TOR has so many things that a Startrek Online should have had. Why is TOR the "story MMO" and not STO? I mean, on some level I know - it's budget. But...
Cryptic wants to make new online games on a short-term development cycle with low budgets that emphasize gameplay, customization and gear over meaningful and emotional story-telling. Where-as BioWare always see themselves as story-tellers first and foremost and their games are meant to entertain you through the storyline and your interactions with different NPCs' rather than merely how you're able to dispatch your enemies and how cool you look while doing so.
I daresay though that both companies have a lot to learn from one another. No one is perfect.
I agree that there are lots of things we can learn from them, they make some amazing games. Many people here play/have played the Mass Effect series, and you can bet that has some influence on how we build things.
However, as LoP mentioned, telling a meaningful story, with a good arc, where the world around you changes, is much easier in a single player environment. In an MMO, where you have many people, re-running the same stories for years, including brand new players, just now starting the arc that you completed multiple years ago, it is very difficult to make meaningful and lasting changes to the world (galaxy in our case).
We're definitely trying to get more of a proper narrative story woven into STO, as seen in the FEs, and for the most part, it seems that most people agree that the newer FEs are better content overall than what we may have launched with.
The Normandy's interior is very nice, no doubt. And I, as an Artist am definitely influenced by their designs. However, this is a single ship. It is a hero prop of which they only had to make one (per game). It had a ton of time and resources devoted to it, and it shows. However. It's also tiny. Much smaller than a ST Starship is, and much smaller than anything we could get away with inside our ships. In addition, we have to support many more ship interiors. If we only had one ship interior, with no customization, we could probably get it to a similar level as the Normandy.
I agree, random events, stranded ships, etc. could be pretty cool. I don't really like how they handled the system scanning in ME3, with the reapers coming in and all that, but a similar mechanic could be implemented in STO. I think STO would be better served with random events that just show up in Sector Space, with a visual/audio cue to their existence/location, rather than players having to actively scan for them.
The ME system maps always seemed a little hokey to me. I like the look of their system maps, but having a little Normandy actively flying about, and able to fly through suns, and planets and such, just didn't do much for me. Yes, we could implement some sort of top down view of sector space. . . but to what point? Is it just the behind the ship view that you dislike? There's really no way to extend this to STO Systems, as you have to fight in System Space. The Normandy, for all her good looks, and supposed firepower, never fights anything outside of cutscenes.
Their team selection is much nicer. We can look into improving ours, but I don't think their way would work very well for STO. It covers the whole screen, and pauses the whole game while you are in selection mode. This may be ok when it's just you, but once you're teamed up with someone, and have to select from all of your collective Boffs, this becomes problematic. I think that the UI we have now could be improved, but I don't think that the ME style of picking a team (i.e. full character representation, pausing the game, etc.) would work in STO.
I disagree that DLC is their C-store. DLC is DLC. Yes, they're making some money off of it, but it is not their primary method of making money. There are also only a couple of DLC's available, versus a full store like ours where there are hundreds of options available to you, at various price ranges. I'm not arguing for or against the store idea in principle, just that DLC != C-store.
If someone wanted to put out a Star Trek mod of ME3, I would be ALL OVER IT! That sounds amazing!
But no. . . I wouldn't be comparing it to STO, except in some superficial Star Trek comparisons. They would be entirely separate games, with entirely separate gameplays.
Tumerboy would it be feasible to see a similar "readiness campaign" for an upcoming Iconian invasion?
Resource gathering, diplomatic campaigns to gather allies, first strikes against Iconian beach-heads, etc?
In theory you could take some of the game play elements that worked for the Mass Effect Saga and incorporate it into STO.
I've been a big fan of ME since the first one came out a few years back. But sadly TOR was a disappointment for me, IMHO if TOR was the 3rd game in the KOTOR series it would have been one of the top games of the decade.
I do think though that Cryptic have improved STO alot, the new FE's were great and I hugely enjoyed playing them, which shows what can be done with a fairly small dev team. (well done guys!)
Personally I do wonder what the game would be like if the same amount of money was used on STO as say TOR or ME with the same sized dev teams as well, that would be interesting.
But... Mass Effect, and indeed any BioWare game to-date, have more than gameplay mechanics going for them though. They have characters that I want to interact with. They have NPC's that feel like they matter to me and more importantly I matter to them! And... somehow, BioWare managed to introduce and integrate this into SWTOR in ways I was hoping Cryptic would do with STO, utilizing our Bridge Officers.
In STO however, I just never get that feeling, you know? And that's a strong deal-breaker for a game that's based on a franchise that was built from a TV show that was very heavily character-based. This is the trouble I have with STO, it just doesn't benefit as much from Cryptics' strengths as we would both like it to. It would however benefit immensely from strong characters that make repeat appearances and somehow can relate, comment and be involved in all the storyline our Ships and Captains go through.
I'm not saying I know how to accomplish this, but I have a strong feeling that Diplomatic missions and the DOff system aren't leading us in the right direction.
For me, I think one of the main reasons I care so much for the characters in the Mass Effect series, is because they actually talk to me. They have voices for everything they say. There is no reading involved, and beyond having voices, they have custom facial animations for those voices. They do custom animations for cut scenes on a very regular basis. Characters have a voice, a personality, not just because they were written that way, but because they are played that way.
Voice Over work in STO has been a contentious issue of late. Obviously we're trying to include more, but there's no way we can compete with the Bioware's of the world on that level, with the kinds of budgets/times they have for voice over, and custom animation for everything.
So, let me ask you this then. Is it possible to make you care that much for a character that you can only interact with through text?
Kidding aside though, yes. I do think characters can make players care about them through written dialog alone but that's a lot to ask from modern-day players! A lot of people these days want to be shown rather than told so what you said, Tumerboy, about emoting (facial expressions and gestures as an example) is crucial to bringing a character to life.
Long ago when I was playing STO in closed-beta I thought to myself how cool it would be if the actual face of my Science Officer (just an example) would appear for a few seconds, with a worried expression when the shields took a substantial enough hit. Something like that would make me feel that my ship and its crew are more like the Normandy and her crew rather than mere place-holders for character-powers, minions to command, and cardboard cut-out used to tell me what's going on from time to time.
Another thing that feels missing to me is something like the Loyalty Missions that BioWare has utilized in Dragon Age, Mass Effect and SWTOR. The concept is simple, use the NPC as the Quest Giver, and convince the player they have something to gain (or lose) depending on how they handle the situation. So you see... it's not just the voice-overs... it's realizing you're not utilizing what you already have in ways that would bring your players back for more.
The biggest problem with all this however is that these techniques are more work for Cryptic into aspects that Cryptic may not be willing to explore just yet because your Engine is what it is and its focus is not on story-telling through NPC's and allowing the player to explore (and affect) their surrounding as a part of the story but rather as artificially placed parts of scripted missions, and even then in ways that do not leave the player in control but rather the level-designer, something that to me feels very detrimental to what I perceive STAR TREK to involve.
Take the latest FE. Some voiceovers are consistent, nearly word for word what the text is. Some are large chunks of the text, but then other large chunks get left out. Some characters that had voice acting in the cutscenes, but nothing in their mission dialog (Eraun and the Founder in the last mission, for example). But the worst is the random filler stuff, that rotates between a few preset options, that often has little to no bearing on anything the character is actually saying.
Another way that characters don't help me relate to them is the terrible emote choices in cut scenes. There's got to be a way of actually making the character do an action that is natural and fits what they're saying and how they're saying it; whether that's choosing emotes better or doing custom animation, I don't know.
The dialog UI has a place for the character's head that is animated. I could see a minature version of that appearing somewhere in the screen, as a kind of "communication window". Just show that and a brief "bark". (Generic stuff like "Shields at 50 %" or "Transfering Shield Strength" should be mangeable, even for Cryptic).
If I were to design Startrek Online 2, I would make Bridge Officers less generic. Bioware has what - 4 or 5 companions per class? 30 Bridge Officers with different personalities and maybe even "barks" (or even fully fledged voice over, depending on the budget.) sounds doable. Each with a few story missions to do.
But then, I'd probably also change how away teams work - Its unusual for an MMO, but I think if we were to send a TNG type away team (e.g. without the Captain) and have the player steer a BO might have yielded better results, and allowed more flexibility.
I like the previous posters idea of having less generic Bridge Officers in the first instance and having a group selection from each variation but I also love the customisation in Cryptic for my officers and at this point it'd be counter-productive and time consuming to change.
Personally I'd love to see missions centred around our Boffs where we get the missions from them and that would relate to them so random missions such as:
Go for Drinks on Drozna with Operations Head - Make them their favourite Drink (Like in the mission with Scotty and the Lassie)
Go for Drinks with First Officer - Get Drunk - Black Out -First Officer accused of Murder- Find out what happened.
Sister/Brother/Family Member of Bridge Officer X in trouble - Help Rescue from Group/Bad Guy/Facility 40281082418 detainee/Cult/etc etc
Boff member in debt to Orion Syndicate - Compromises security - Execute Boff (Or help them settle there debt)
Have some Chain missions possibly like with Doff Assignments, I love Chain missions, I want more for me I'm rather Jealous of My Doffs.
Also on this note I actually feel more disposed for some of my Doffs than Boffs, Like my trader Nexxi - He's a loveable Ferengi who always manages to get me exceptional deals on goods a true Ferengi at heart.
Terra~
I seem to have drinking on the mind.
Can you? Yes, authors do it all the time in book series. The problem here is that we don't have a specific cast to care about in STO. Even if we did? I'm not sure your current writing staff would be up to the task, based off of what we've seen thus far.
Also, if STO was made by Bioware, and was anything like their games, then you'd find a game with 100% story and no room for you to actually play it and do what YOU want. Just look at TOR, which is very much a massively single player experience inhabited by others following the exact same story at you.
For me, sure.
And I feel I can create those characters, not just in published fiction I've done, but in-game.
I have a mammoth mission called "Yesterday is Tomorrow."
It's relevant for two reasons.
One is because I built in a sortof relationship system with two NPCs who assist you. One male, one female. You can flirt with either one. They respond. There's a section of the mission that plays out differently (4 different paths, not counting romantic options) based on how you respond to them.
The other is because I have never seen players respond so well to a villain in STO as players in that mission did to my villain. You get to kill him in a unique way. I played it with some podcasters for an exhibition screening of the mission and the chat room went crazy for almost the entire mission with people begging for a chance to kill that guy.
I think there are some issues with doing this for existing bridge officers, unfortunately. Among other reasons, because there is simply too much variety in normal bridge officers.
HOWEVER, I think it would be doable to rework the game somewhat to have a special officer (like a DOff but backwards) who you build a relationship with.
The way I see this working is that missions get changed to have 3 BOffs and 1 special officer.
The special officer is pre-named, pre-scripted, voiced, and has relationship options baked in. There are multiple ones you can get but only 1 you can have at a time. They have special mission behaviors.
I seem to have trouble getting the idea across but I liken the special officer to a mix of the Kingdom Hearts world specific companions and Mass Effect characters. I'd also be inclined to have missions that feature certain characters (Drake, Thomas Riker's kid, maybe Miral Paris) allow you to claim the special character.
I've also said that as a classically trained actor with some voiceover credits who is non-union, I'd be very receptive to doing a number of voices for this sort of thing at virtually any budget Cryptic could muster, schedule permitting. I don't have a home studio but I have a friend with a pro studio and I'd honestly love to do what some of the podcasters have done and tour Cryptic if folks wanted more control.
This ^^
I have always found it odd that the Captain goes on so many mundane assignments. Being able to decide another BO to lead the team is something sorely needed
Absolutely. VAs and complex animations are the icing. As seen in the not-as-great parts of ME games and allegedly some of The Old Republic show, if the framing of your scene is "off" (whether a certain type of convo happens in a preposterous setting, or the camera zooms in on Miranda's rear when you're trying to take her seriously), if there's no weight to the dialogue and solid characterization...the bells and whistles are meaningless. Old RPGs got along just fine w/o those things by working with what was in their means, and expertly using cues.
IE the blog post from Kurland's perspective about resolving the 2800 conflict. His talking about the stress his crew's gone through and wanted to posthumously award Karen Andrews w/a medal was more potent than much of the actual delivered dialogue throughout the FE series (and I liked most of it, mind you).
I'm not saying that our writing couldn't be better, I'm sure it could. But as a visual & auditory dude, I will never get absorbed into characters through text like I will through them actively speaking/acting on screen. I'm not much of a reader, and yes, some books have gotten me fully invested into their characters, but that takes chapters to get to that point. It's not something that happens in a couple of paragraphs.
I think short dialogue can be some of the best. I'd rather have pop-ups like some of your missions have that dialogue boxes for those but, still...
I think a really solid solution is that Mass Effect/Kingdom Hearts World Companion hybrid, a set of super-BOs who had a dash more flavor and get their own dedicated BO slot.
Well, let me try to reframe it by detailing what I really like about the last FE and other feedback:
- The environmental work for Bajor, Facility 4028, the space walk, the shot in the 1st ep of the 2800 pouring out of the nebula? Incredible.
Too many games (NOT just MMOs) will just toss you in a bland landscape and expect the player to accept that as the world. Here, Cryptic didn't just hand us a nondescript skin, they fleshed living, believable places that I'm clamouring to see more of. I wouldn't mind revisiting a different area of the prison facility, or watching a cutscene of the Bajoran festival sometime.
- One way to overcome some of your limitations is to just bring some of the characters back, and show some kind of progress if possible.
Amer had such a small role in the Klingon Front, but seeing him again as an escaping prisoner during the FE excited me; I wanted to hunt him down like Balak (Bringing Down the Sky DLC) from ME1. Maybe give have the new Enterprise captain pull a Sisko and grow a beard after a couple of seasons to show the passage of time, or casually hail the player to talk about how his crew's still figuring out the Belfast; promote Kurland and upgrade his outfit, or show Karen Andrews' getting jettisoned into space as he renames a wing of DS9 in her honor or something.
- Don't underestimate the quiet or emotional moments; they're character defining. I love the bombastic sequences, but I feel like some of the dialogue felt a bit meandering, as if you guys felt it was an obligation to voice/write it. Now, I felt like Kurland was a real person I was corresponding with and seeing the stress of trying to save his station taking its toil on him. He's no soft-cannon place holder--DS9 is HIS station. On the other hand, though I liked their voices, I never once believed there was legitimate tension or admiration between Kar'Ukan, Loriss, and the Founder.
Yes. But you (Cryptic) would have to hire at least one *really* good writer. It may not be in Cryptic's budget to do so because of the glaring difference in quality that would be created between current and new quests.
While I would love to see "better" stories/characters, from a business stand point I could not endorse it for STO.
/tears.
Warning: Spoilers if you didn't play through the Cardassian Front missions (not the FE) yet or watched Deep Space 9:
The Cardassian missions have one mission where a Bajoran/Cardassian hybrid reveals itself to be one of Gul Dukat's illegitamte children and wants to free Pagh Wraitsh. She totally comes out of nowhere. It would have been so much better if we had heard and talked with her in previous missions. She gets introduced in the mission as a good guy and then immediately turns bad. That just lessens the impact.
A rather well done betrayal in Startrek was Eddington's turn to the Maquis. He was on several missions, he was in a (positive) conflict with some of the character. We saw him as one of us, maybe not perfectly sympathetic, but definitely a Starfleet officer of high integrity. And then - he suddenly sabotages the ship and defects to the Maquis. Whoa! Didn't see that coming.
That's the kind of writing I want to see in STO. And that can be done without voice overs and all. Not everyone will notice it - some people just click through dialogs without reading anything at all. But those that do will appreciate it and enjoy it.
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One rather awesome idea that was promoted by posters after the launch was Bridge Officer Story arcs.
I think the basic idea was.
1) Add some personality traits to Bridge Officers. Similar to the traits of Duty Officers, actually.
2) Then use this traits to key off certain events/dialog by the BOFF in missions.
3) Create some missions set around these personality traits.
You could still have totally random BOs, but the personality traits would allow you to create some more or less generic missions.
I believe Cryptic's response to the topic was that it sounded interesting, but they wanted us to tell the story of our BOs. But the only way to do that is to play-pretend, that's not enough. That's almost like saying: "Oh, you only get this generic starship model, we want you to rolepaly that it's actually a Galaxy-Class cruiser".
Now, with the Foundry, maybe we could actually have this. Unfortunately, we can't do stuff that would be good for that, like taking the character's BO and using his model for an NPC.
But Tumerboy, it's the same for a TV show really, and so it's the same for games that actually want you invested in their storylines and characters.
Expecting us to be excited about a bunch of characters simply because they're voiced and gesture at us is like instant-gratification wishful thinking on the part of the Developer, know what I mean?
That being said, there can be ALOT done in terms changing the inside, making it more personable, interacting with your crew, hooking up the tech to have the crew wear the same uniform that your boffs are. CHATTING with your boffs.
What would be the point of that you can ask? Ok no, you dont have to chat with your crew or do any of that, you can also choose to not make money either. These could be SELLING points of the game. Think of SWTOR (which i play btw), and of course the mass effect series.
They have voice overs right? Voice overs and animations can be expensive, i understand that. WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO INSTEAD?! THINK ABOUT THE OLD FINAL FANTASY games!!!
We didnt get to chat with them like we do today with mass effect, yet i still cared for the characters, i still WANTED them to have the best gear etc. And that was all done through overhead dialouge boxes, no voice over.
Think about older games and how they were sucessful, think about the interiors, they dont have to a social zone, thus ALLOWING you to SCALE IT RIGHT!! lol something EVERYONE has asked for.
Take the extra effort to do the interiros right, make them matter. Charge for them if you have to, if its nice ill buy it! I know you can make good interiors cuz weve seen it! The new bridge, breathtaking btw, the romulan refugee map, the prison map in the new FE.
I know Dan Stahl played The Sims series and The Sims Social games.
I can readily envision the mechanics of how to bring that to STO and still accommodate some unique STO mechanics.
Just talking about this makes me want to apply.
Yes!
Actually ME3 is a single player game while STO is an MMORPG.
STO is great in itself and the foundry idea is just BRILLIANT!
Just that there's little interaction with the crews and the little value of having an interior. I do hope the interior will be made more useful and interesting.
Personally I'd love Bridge commander like ability of controlling the battle from the bridge view. It would be very very cool. Perhaps little value for PvP but for PvE it will be gold.