This is from slightly later than 1999.
It is running off of the Quake 3 engine. This is probably an RPG mod from Elite Force 2.
RPG mods and maps was pretty popular for that game since it already has a mulitplayer mode.
But anyway, all these would be nice.
And what's incredible about these maps are they are made by either one person or a very small team just for fun.
Yeah, with Neelix and the football on the desk, it definitely was an Elite Force Mod.
This is from slightly later than 1999.
It is running off of the Quake 3 engine. This is probably an RPG mod from Elite Force 2.
RPG mods and maps was pretty popular for that game since it already has a mulitplayer mode.
But anyway, all these would be nice.
And what's incredible about these maps are they are made by either one person or a very small team just for fun.
Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force was released in 2000. It's still over twelve years old.
Interesting example, starboardnacelle. The map certainly has a fair amount of detail and functionality for multiplayer gameplay.
In practice, I'd think that most of the RP-oriented functionality would have to be stripped out to simply gameplay for the lowest common denominator - i.e. MMO gamers with average specs rather than dedicated Trek fans with top end hardware.
Besides, my understanding is that ST:Freelance was discontinued due to a lack of developers and resources - it seems that building an engine from scratch and implementing all the desired gameplay functionality.
Based on the hypothetical release schedule for this proposal, I'd say that the only major challenges Cryptic devs have are in map and asset creation. STO has the advantage of an established game engine.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
Besides, my understanding is that ST:Freelance was discontinued due to a lack of developers and resources - it seems that building an engine from scratch and implementing all the desired gameplay functionality.
Station Asteria is a completely separate project from Freelance, intended solely for the RPG-X modification.
That's actually from a multiplayer map that can theoretically fit anywhere between 32 and 64 people.
Again, MMOs aren't the same. There is more to it than just fitting X amount of players.
Not saying Cryptic couldn't make a similar environment, but the detail wouldn't be as crisp. And I could imagine that map would be limited to 5 players due to the small size.
Hello everyone. I just want to say that this is a great thread and definitely needs more momentum! There are a lot of good ideas here that I think many people would really enjoy having in the game, myself included. Especially the uniform options, the ability for more interaction with BOffs as well as fixes to make ships more canonical and properly scaled.
That being said, we should avoid quibbling with the devs on small issues, such as the viewscreen-- especially if they are taking the time to listen to what we have to say in the first place! I believe tacofangs was very patient not to get fed up with the number of people pushing for something that is clearly a minor detail, and unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. For the record, I agree that a 2D image on the viewer is fine, and what most people would be used to.
We've caught the ear of a dev here, and one who has continued to stick around and listen to our ideas, which means he is interested in what we're saying. If he says something would take too much effort to be worth the end result, or if he says that something isn't going to work with the current tech, then we should politely acquiesce and not make a big scene about it. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's working on our side and only giving us a practical opinion of what is feasible, not simply shooting down our ideas willy-nilly. Don't lose sight of the big picture!
With that bit of ranting out of the way, I'd like to suggest something. Maybe a way to pose/position your BOffs within your ship, even in a limited capacity, for the purposes of taking screenshots?
I guess my idea would involve switching over to a map with your BOffs -- maybe at the holodeck or something. Here, in this limited environment, you could position your BOffs and maybe choose between a few environments for taking the screenshot.
It'd be neat if we could give them commands to perform certain emotes or basic animations as well, and might make for some interesting pictures. Not super important, but it might make BOffs feel a bit more like people while adding something to interiors.
That being said, we should avoid quibbling with the devs on small issues, such as the viewscreen-- especially if they are taking the time to listen to what we have to say in the first place! I believe tacofangs was very patient not to get fed up with the number of people pushing for something that is clearly a minor detail, and unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. For the record, I agree that a 2D image on the viewer is fine, and what most people would be used to.
We've caught the ear of a dev here, and one who has continued to stick around and listen to our ideas, which means he is interested in what we're saying. If he says something would take too much effort to be worth the end result, or if he says that something isn't going to work with the current tech, then we should politely acquiesce and not make a big scene about it. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's working on our side and only giving us a practical opinion of what is feasible, not simply shooting down our ideas willy-nilly. Don't lose sight of the big picture!
I wouldn't regarding any of that as quibbling or "making a big scene".
We love the devs, but it's human nature not to simply take their words as-is until all other possibilities have been exhausted - dissent is a normal part of discussion.
With that bit of ranting out of the way, I'd like to suggest something. Maybe a way to pose/position your BOffs within your ship, even in a limited capacity, for the purposes of taking screenshots?
I guess my idea would involve switching over to a map with your BOffs -- maybe at the holodeck or something. Here, in this limited environment, you could position your BOffs and maybe choose between a few environments for taking the screenshot.
Our current proposal document limits custom BOff positions to which Bridge stations they are (visually) assigned to.
Family-photo style positioning of BOffs in a holodeck map, IMHO, seems to be geared more towards RPers, which has limited appeal.
It'd be neat if we could give them commands to perform certain emotes or basic animations as well, and might make for some interesting pictures. Not super important, but it might make BOffs feel a bit more like people while adding something to interiors.
"Pet" or "Companion" commands sound neat, but would probably be more appropriate on social maps where BOffs are allowed, and thus fall outside of the ship interior proposal in general.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
Hello everyone. I just want to say that this is a great thread and definitely needs more momentum! There are a lot of good ideas here that I think many people would really enjoy having in the game, myself included. Especially the uniform options, the ability for more interaction with BOffs as well as fixes to make ships more canonical and properly scaled.
That being said, we should avoid quibbling with the devs on small issues, such as the viewscreen-- especially if they are taking the time to listen to what we have to say in the first place! I believe tacofangs was very patient not to get fed up with the number of people pushing for something that is clearly a minor detail, and unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. For the record, I agree that a 2D image on the viewer is fine, and what most people would be used to.
We've caught the ear of a dev here, and one who has continued to stick around and listen to our ideas, which means he is interested in what we're saying. If he says something would take too much effort to be worth the end result, or if he says that something isn't going to work with the current tech, then we should politely acquiesce and not make a big scene about it. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's working on our side and only giving us a practical opinion of what is feasible, not simply shooting down our ideas willy-nilly. Don't lose sight of the big picture!
Now, I don't appricate that uncalled comment regarding the Viewscreen discussion. Because there was no "quibbling", just a frank discussion where there was a misunderstanding on how the idea was presented.
And if you think the 2D viewer is fine, then your opinion is welcome. But there are some players don't just want a plain flat picture, but something more alive and representative of Star Trek.
With that bit of ranting out of the way, I'd like to suggest something. Maybe a way to pose/position your BOffs within your ship, even in a limited capacity, for the purposes of taking screenshots?
I guess my idea would involve switching over to a map with your BOffs -- maybe at the holodeck or something. Here, in this limited environment, you could position your BOffs and maybe choose between a few environments for taking the screenshot.
It'd be neat if we could give them commands to perform certain emotes or basic animations as well, and might make for some interesting pictures. Not super important, but it might make BOffs feel a bit more like people while adding something to interiors.
You can already do that. I suggest you talk with the UGC guys, they are masters at it.
Now, I don't appricate that uncalled comment regarding the Viewscreen discussion. Because there was no "quibbling", just a frank discussion where there was a misunderstanding on how the idea was presented.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step out of line or anything! I wasn't trying to insult anyone.
And if you think the 2D viewer is fine, then your opinion is welcome. But there are some players don't just want a plain flat picture, but something more alive and representative of Star Trek.
I just seem to recall tacofangs stating several times that it was either this, or a "window into space," the latter of which wouldn't give the proper feel -- something with which I agree. It may be that holographic technology existed on the viewscreens, but we as the viewer did not see much of that in action, hence his statement why a 2D image would feel like the correct way to go.
Anyhow, I don't want to rekindle an argument that was already resolved! I would certainly like to see some animation on the viewscreen, or some area-related imagery when/if the devs can get to it. I just think it's important not to focus on one small detail, and instead on the larger idea of setting the proposed ideas introduced by sumghai into motion in some way, shape or form, even if not exactly as proposed.
I just seem to recall tacofangs stating several times that it was either this, or a "window into space," the latter of which wouldn't give the proper feel -- something with which I agree. It may be that holographic technology existed on the viewscreens, but we as the viewer did not see much of that in action, hence his statement why a 2D image would feel like the correct way to go.
Anyhow, I don't want to rekindle an argument that was already resolved! I would certainly like to see some animation on the viewscreen, or some area-related imagery when/if the devs can get to it. I just think it's important not to focus on one small detail, and instead on the larger idea of setting the proposed ideas introduced by sumghai into motion in some way, shape or form, even if not exactly as proposed.
Yes, no need to rekindle the fires that were once quinched.
But if you go back, he was thinking I was refering to every player bridge in the game, while I simplified it to merely mission / event bridges. Because it would require them to not only redo every player bridge, but add new technology.
Hopefully, someday they could so we can play more from our bridges and make us feel like Starfleet Captains.
First Level Customizing: Carpet, Wall, LCARS, bulkheads. Then also a ship layout where you chose the basic shape of your ship (IE round saucer, arrowhead (voyager style), etc.)
Second Level Customizing: Player customized Crew Uniforms (like we can with Fleet rank uniforms except 1 for tac, 1 for eng, 1 for sci/med, 1 for civilians)
Third Level Customizing: Player selected Shuttlecraft placed in shuttlebay. Player selected Warp Core.
Fourth Level customizing: Player created bridges. Select pre-fab general bridge shape then player adds in captain's chair, stations, etc. Can then select boffs for each station. This also removes the MSD from the bridge. Possible c-store add-on Customization would be dedication plaques.
_______________
Decks should be standardized including the following:
Deck 3: Lounge, Rec room with Poker mini-game, Holodecks that can be used to activate specifically created holonovel foundry content.
Deck 4: Sickbay, medical labs, science labs (with a mini-game/crafting attempt to build Android/lib Borg Boff - with a 1 week cool down and hard success rate), astrometrics labs (with daily particle/data sample scan mini-game), Transporter Room (foundry mission start point)
Deck 5: Main Engineering, Engineering labs, Cargo Bays, Shuttlebays (ability to interact with shuttle causing shuttle launch (just as far as going out the shuttlebay door to keep it generic enough) Then loads to player flying shuttle instead of ship. Reverse is true for changing back from shuttle to main ship. (c-store purchase)
________________
Now the big change, interior scaling. There have been countless complaints about the scale of ship interiors and Cryptic's response has always been, well we need the room for the camera. Not trying to be rude, but that it completely false, and here's why. STO has this VERY underutilized option of going into a "shooter mode" which places you into first person view, and with some very minor changes that could be adapted to work perfectly with ship interiors. All they would need to do is replace the weapon reticle with a more generic "interact" one and have the mouse buttons work as click instead of fire (IE like you can click to talk to NPCs). This would allow for much more proper scaling and add to the immersion of feeling like you're actually walking the decks of your ship.
_______________
In Conclusion:
I know all of this seems like a TON of work, but the reality is MUCH of this is already in-game, and what isn't in game shouldn't be that hard to do, other than the custom bridges, mini-games, and as for the shuttle cutscenes, they could be a later addition.
Now the big change, interior scaling. There have been countless complaints about the scale of ship interiors and Cryptic's response has always been, well we need the room for the camera. Not trying to be rude, but that it completely false, and here's why. STO has this VERY underutilized option of going into a "shooter mode" which places you into first person view, and with some very minor changes that could be adapted to work perfectly with ship interiors. All they would need to do is replace the weapon reticle with a more generic "interact" one and have the mouse buttons work as click instead of fire (IE like you can click to talk to NPCs). This would allow for much more proper scaling and add to the immersion of feeling like you're actually walking the decks of your ship.
Pretty much the Dev team has been shying away from that old camera excuse when the Belfast (Defiant) interiors were introduced. And with the great success of the TOS and Belfast interiors, they added new bridges that weren't "football fields", like the canonical Wells and Jem'Hadar interiors.
As for the Shooter-mode interactive function, that's already available.
Deck 3: Lounge, Rec room with Poker mini-game, Holodecks that can be used to activate specifically created holonovel foundry content.
Deck 4: Sickbay, medical labs, science labs (with a mini-game/crafting attempt to build Android/lib Borg Boff - with a 1 week cool down and hard success rate), astrometrics labs (with daily particle/data sample scan mini-game), Transporter Room (foundry mission start point)
Deck 5: Main Engineering, Engineering labs, Cargo Bays, Shuttlebays (ability to interact with shuttle causing shuttle launch (just as far as going out the shuttlebay door to keep it generic enough) Then loads to player flying shuttle instead of ship. Reverse is true for changing back from shuttle to main ship. (c-store purchase)
I'm going to have to disagree with that.
Each ship class (at least, the ones canonically shown) have varying deck and room layouts - it break realism and immersion to homogenize them.
Besides, the Defiant only has four decks.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
Now, even if that maintenance deck at the bottom *was* considered a Deck 5, it would be too small to fit Main Engineering, Engineering labs, Cargo Bays, Shuttlebays that voicesdark suggested.
In short, I'm not a fan of having all ship classes share the same room/deck configuration. The proposal doc may suggest rooms spread out amongst more decks, especially larger ships such as the Galaxy and Sovereign, but we can skip "uninteresting" decks e.g. those that are primarily crew quarters, trunk lines or auxiliary systems.
If we skip these unneeded decks, then the remaining ones can be spaced apart far enough so that the Jefferies tubes linking them would give the correct sense of scale and distance.
Now, this has reminded me of another issue:
The more decks one has, the more "low priority interaction" buttons that would appear at the bottom right corner when entering the turbo lift. Perhaps:
- As soon as the player enters the turbolift, a standard interact button would appear labelled "Access Turbolift Controls" or "Select Destination"
- A window would open, with a MSD-like turbolift diagram in the top half, and LCARS-style buttons with accessible deck / room descriptions at the bottom.
- The MSD would have the current deck highlighted (perhaps in an inverted color scheme).
I'll try making mockups of these turbolift dialog boxes later today for the Intrepid and Galaxy classes.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
You forget the MSD is basically the view of the interior along the centerline of the ship. So any extra decks that are located on the nacelles would not show.
Second, in DS9: "Way of the Warrior", "Rejoined", "Starship Down", "To the Death" refered to a Deck 5.
The more decks one has, the more "low priority interaction" buttons that would appear at the bottom right corner when entering the turbo lift. Perhaps:
- As soon as the player enters the turbolift, a standard interact button would appear labelled "Access Turbolift Controls" or "Select Destination"
- A window would open, with a MSD-like turbolift diagram in the top half, and LCARS-style buttons with accessible deck / room descriptions at the bottom.
- The MSD would have the current deck highlighted (perhaps in an inverted color scheme).
I'll try making mockups of these turbolift dialog boxes later today for the Intrepid and Galaxy classes.
I could see that happening. Especially if they implement interior missions, where some decks are only accessible for missions. Of course, this might be troublesome since every ship would be different.
I'd like to see a functional holodeck and be able to purchase holoprograms and be able to purchase a 3D chess set or some other game from the Star Trek universe to play aboard ship. Another thing would be some variety in design for the mess hall, engine room and etc. maybe add an Excelsior bridge and Constitution class bridge skin from The Undiscovered Country? However more features would be nice to encourage people to use bridge view more often. Ability to personalise the ready room and captain's quarters.
"I will make the Orion Syndicate face the light of justice or burn them with it." - Captainl Kyle Nathaniel Locke, U.S.S. Excalibur NCC-98105-C
No, we built the super base editor even before CoV (i.e. long before the sell off)
We heard very little praise back then for the editor, and got almost nothing but complaints. Our statistics showed that only about 10% of people used the base for anything other than a quick door to teleport around the rest of the world.
All of that is one reason we've been hesitant in doing it over again. We tried a new method with Hideouts in Champions, which seemed to be met with moderate success, but took a lot of work to build.
I've heard nothing about redoing ship interiors. My personal feeling is that there should be little customization on layout. If you have an Intrepid, you get an Intrepid class layout. If you have a Defiant, you get a Defiant class layout. But I think players should have control over a few different overall styles, textures, colors, and lighting. So all Galaxy Class ships would have the same layout, but you could choose from TNG style (beige, brightly lit) or 2409 style, or random style A, B or C. etc.
However, that is just my personal feelings on the matter, no work is being done on Interiors at the moment, and havent heard of it being added to the schedule at all. Plus, all of that would be a lot of work.
It was also a coding nightmare to hear former Paragon Studios tell it. They couldn't really touch it or update it without it breaking everything .
And partly why I imagine that AE didn't use the base creator system at all.
[ No offense to the coders who wrote it, I imagine it was a lot of effort to get it to work at all ]
[ Edit ]
I'm really not awake... I thought the thread was just 1 page, and recent, not 50 and old. So Blah.
You forget the MSD is basically the view of the interior along the centerline of the ship. So any extra decks that are located on the nacelles would not show.
Second, in DS9: "Way of the Warrior", "Rejoined", "Starship Down", "To the Death" refered to a Deck 5.
I concede. Although, it any case, voicesdark's suggestion of putting engineering on said deck wouldn't work anyway.
As promised, I've cobbled together a rough mockup of the Turbolift UI - I got lazy and only did the Intrepid class (MSD courtesy Eleanor Davenport of LCARS47.com):
As promised, I've cobbled together a rough mockup of the Turbolift UI - I got lazy and only did the Intrepid class (MSD courtesy Eleanor Davenport of LCARS47.com):
That's fairly good. But I imagine the art team would be tied up having to make MSDs for every ship. And outside of the official ones for the Intrepid, Galaxy, Sovereign, and the Defiant, they would be busy making one up for every ship.
Perhaps a simple Turbolift route map like we have with the Defiant Turbolift?
I could easily see them tie it to a map change scene, where while you are loading the next dead, you see the map move.
I'd like to see a functional holodeck and be able to purchase holoprograms and be able to purchase a 3D chess set or some other game from the Star Trek universe to play aboard ship. Another thing would be some variety in design for the mess hall, engine room and etc. maybe add an Excelsior bridge and Constitution class bridge skin from The Undiscovered Country? However more features would be nice to encourage people to use bridge view more often. Ability to personalise the ready room and captain's quarters.
I recall them wanting to do something with Holodecks a while back and tie it to Foundry missions, but that was a while ago.
And the Excelsior and ST6 Enterprise Sets is technically in game as the Prometheus bridge set. People forget that the Prometheus bridge set was a redress of the Excelsior bridge set, which in turn was the ST6 Enterprise set.
Change the colors, remove the carpeting, change the MSDs and presto.
]As promised, I've cobbled together a rough mockup of the Turbolift UI - I got lazy and only did the Intrepid class (MSD courtesy Eleanor Davenport of LCARS47.com):
That's fairly good. But I imagine the art team would be tied up having to make MSDs for every ship. And outside of the official ones for the Intrepid, Galaxy, Sovereign, and the Defiant, they would be busy making one up for every ship.
Perhaps a simple Turbolift route map like we have with the Defiant Turbolift?
I could easily see them tie it to a map change scene, where while you are loading the next dead, you see the map move.
I'd think that they'd have to make all those MSDs for the bridge display anyway. Still, it's possible that they could do it as part of a staggered release schedule (Start with basic dialog box, MSD-style maps only in C-store interior costume sets.
That could work as an intermediate solution (LOL at Deck 6), although in any case, either the MSD or the route map would need to be animated to justify being included in the window (not much point putting in a static banner graphic by itself).
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
Updated the Google Doc with the addition of the turbolift access dialog. I've left out my UI mockup, until azurianstar and I can figure out something more practical for the early iterations.
In the meantime, I'd appreciate some help from you guys in compiling a list of major ship classes and what canon styling would be used for them.
e.g. The Galaxy, Intrepid, Sovereign and Defiant all have their own unique decor sets, whilst the Prometheus class is apparently a redress of the Excelsior.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
Expanded section on 4.5 ?Shipboard Mystery? Scenarios, with specific examples.
4.5 "Shipboard Mystery" Scenario
Works in a similar manner to Starbase Officer of the Watch / System Patrol missions, except they take place/start on the player?s ship interior. Definitely more involved than simply ?Kill 5 enemies? or ?Scan 5 anomalies?.
These are triggered randomly when the player enters their own ship interior. They have the option of doing these missions (which reward EC/XP/Dil/CXP) or skipping them (no rewards).
Some missions could be created by Foundry authors, while others could be adaptations of real Trek episodes.
- A member of an unaligned species wishes to seek asylum. Once they arrive, mysterious malfunctions begin to happen, cumulating to deliberate sabotage, off-screen dialogue-only injury of a BOff or a death of a redshirt. Suspicions fall on the asylum seeker.
- A alien civilian seeks help in repairing his ship. While this is happening, representatives from two feuding governments appear, claim the alien as a notorious criminal, and demand that he/she be handed over to their respective side(s) (TNG: The Outrageous Okona)
- (Galaxy Class exclusive) One of the children accidentally wandered into sickbay / a medical lab and becomes infected with a pathogen. The crew must contain the infection before it overwhelms everyone and potentially spreads to other ships or planets.
- Security detects a transporter signature in various locations throughout the ship (opens a window to allow players to opt into PvE/PvP Boarding Action STFs)
- All is not all work and no play - two crewmembers getting married to each other ask you as the captain to officiate the wedding. (Very rare mission, rewards very large boost in Development CXP)
- A subspace anomaly / Negative Space Wedgie wreaks havoc with shipboard systems.
- A distress call is received from a Starfleet or KDF vessel (cross-faction available). You lead an away team to the ship, and discover the crew dead / incapacitated / struggling with a serious shipboard malfunction.
- A variant of the First Contact mission Jiro Sugihara gives you: Whilst travelling at warp, your ship encounters a never-seen-before alien vessel. One things leads to another, and next thing you know, both the Federation Diplomatic Corps and the alien government authorize you and your alien counterpart to initiate formal First Contact procedures.
- A crewman in found dead in his/her quarters or at his/her post. Determine the guilt of three or four suspects - possible outcomes include all innocent (terrible accident), all guilty of conspiring to murder this individual, one or more guilty of conspiracy, or merely negligence leading to death of victim.
- (Intrepid Class exclusive) A subspace anomaly / Negative Space Wedgie knocks your ship off-course into uncharted space - find a way back home (outcome is always successful, rewards based on the player's skill in dealing with the situation).
Thoughts? Ideas?
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
To be honest, I don't think the devs need to bother with making a hugely complex interior foundry. Just do some more sets with the love and attention to detail that the TOS and Belfast interiors got.
Do these and the player base will be much happier interior wise!
TMP Connie (TWOK)
Excelsior (just switch the bridge general interior design had very little difference from connie)
TNG Galaxy (even uses some of the TWOK connie corridors!)
Intrepid
Sovereign
A bridge for the Vesta would have been nice btw! For a 3 pack ship not to have one is a bit of an insult considering that ALL the lock box ships have them.
Looking for a dedicated Star Trek community? Visit www.ufplanets.com for details.
To be honest, I don't think the devs need to bother with making a hugely complex interior foundry. Just do some more sets with the love and attention to detail that the TOS and Belfast interiors got.
Do these and the player base will be much happier interior wise!
Not necessarily.
Whilst there may be fashionistas amongst the player base who would happily buy canon interior right off the bat, most players won't make this sort of investment if they can't do anything substantial in the ship interiors.
Hence the rationale for this extensive proposal - customisable interiors that have mini-games, episodes and STFs instead of being a nice and pretty but seldom used private RP zone.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
centersolace recently raised an interesting point in another thread:
Some RPers quite like the notion of individual crew quarters, which can be individually customised. Whilst I'm not 100% sure if I'd want some myself...
- How many RPers and non-RPers would want this?
- If additional crew quarters were available, how much would you pay for them? (Zen? Dil?) Would they be sold individually, or in pairs like additional BOff slots? Would it be one-size-fits-all, or a range of sizes? (Senior Officer with viewport, junior officer without viewport, enlisted bunks)
- How would these be accessed / configured ? (One possibility would be to use the shipwright UI to actually pick which dummy door on whatever deck would be replaced with a real door leading to which corresponding quarter, and that when the ship interior map loads, the quarters are already dynamically and seamlessly integrated into the map)
- In the proposed boarding action arenas, the game randomly picks an interior from one of the members of the "home" team. Should personal quarters be accessible during this event?
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
I'm sure lots of roleplayers would like that. Here is how I think Cryptic could pull it off.
Cryptic could add a fourth deck option in the ship interiors (free or unlocked) that becomes available when you are in a group or raid (once 20 people OP groups). And the Officer's Quarter deck (fourth deck) is just a plan hallway that each door goes to an individual of that group / party. (I.E. it's instanced to personal quarters of each player).
That way each player customize their personal quarters and have it saved to their STO account than putting the burden on one single player's account?
I'd think that they'd have to make all those MSDs for the bridge display anyway. Still, it's possible that they could do it as part of a staggered release schedule (Start with basic dialog box, MSD-style maps only in C-store interior costume sets.
That could work as an intermediate solution (LOL at Deck 6), although in any case, either the MSD or the route map would need to be animated to justify being included in the window (not much point putting in a static banner graphic by itself).
- If additional crew quarters were available, how much would you pay for them? (Zen? Dil?) Would they be sold individually, or in pairs like additional BOff slots? Would it be one-size-fits-all, or a range of sizes? (Senior Officer with viewport, junior officer without viewport, enlisted bunks)
- How would these be accessed / configured ? (One possibility would be to use the shipwright UI to actually pick which dummy door on whatever deck would be replaced with a real door leading to which corresponding quarter, and that when the ship interior map loads, the quarters are already dynamically and seamlessly integrated into the map)
I would have Quarters available by default, but customizing them unlockable via account wide zen purchase, or one very small dilithium purchase. Either way I would have them available all once. Unlocking them one by one is just........ eh.....
- In the proposed boarding action arenas, the game randomly picks an interior from one of the members of the "home" team. Should personal quarters be accessible during this event?
Cryptic could add a fourth deck option in the ship interiors (free or unlocked) that becomes available when you are in a group or raid (once 20 people OP groups). And the Officer's Quarter deck (fourth deck) is just a plan hallway that each door goes to an individual of that group / party. (I.E. it's instanced to personal quarters of each player).
That way each player customize their personal quarters and have it saved to their STO account than putting the burden on one single player's account?
I'm not exactly following the reasoning behind that.
By "add[ing] a fourth deck", it seems you assuming we're using the current in-game Bridge/Crew/Engineering setup, when in fact the proposal does away with this in favour of canon deck/room layouts.
I also don't see why I should find my personal quarters aboard someone else's starship (same goes for other players).
I would have Quarters available by default, but customizing them unlockable via account wide zen purchase, or one very small dilithium purchase. Either way I would have them available all once. Unlocking them one by one is just........ eh.....
I'll go for the one-off Zen or Dilithium unlock as well.
The maximum number of crew quarters unlocked is determined by the number of commissioned BOffs a player has - I say maximum as it'd also be nice to have options to have up to two BOffs share a room (if, for instance, they are couples).
In terms of the overall release schedule, I'd probably put BOff quarters at the very last stage, since they serve a primarily decorative function.
In the proposed boarding action arenas, the game randomly picks an interior from one of the members of the "home" team. Should personal quarters be accessible during this event?
Comments
Yeah, with Neelix and the football on the desk, it definitely was an Elite Force Mod.
I'm sure the Devs are well versed with Elite Force and things they could learn from it.
But mind you that single player games are far different from an MMO. You got certain budgets so you don't make it too complex for internet gameplay.
Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force was released in 2000. It's still over twelve years old.
That's actually from a multiplayer map that can theoretically fit anywhere between 32 and 64 people.
In practice, I'd think that most of the RP-oriented functionality would have to be stripped out to simply gameplay for the lowest common denominator - i.e. MMO gamers with average specs rather than dedicated Trek fans with top end hardware.
Besides, my understanding is that ST:Freelance was discontinued due to a lack of developers and resources - it seems that building an engine from scratch and implementing all the desired gameplay functionality.
Based on the hypothetical release schedule for this proposal, I'd say that the only major challenges Cryptic devs have are in map and asset creation. STO has the advantage of an established game engine.
Station Asteria is a completely separate project from Freelance, intended solely for the RPG-X modification.
Again, MMOs aren't the same. There is more to it than just fitting X amount of players.
Not saying Cryptic couldn't make a similar environment, but the detail wouldn't be as crisp. And I could imagine that map would be limited to 5 players due to the small size.
That being said, we should avoid quibbling with the devs on small issues, such as the viewscreen-- especially if they are taking the time to listen to what we have to say in the first place! I believe tacofangs was very patient not to get fed up with the number of people pushing for something that is clearly a minor detail, and unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. For the record, I agree that a 2D image on the viewer is fine, and what most people would be used to.
We've caught the ear of a dev here, and one who has continued to stick around and listen to our ideas, which means he is interested in what we're saying. If he says something would take too much effort to be worth the end result, or if he says that something isn't going to work with the current tech, then we should politely acquiesce and not make a big scene about it. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's working on our side and only giving us a practical opinion of what is feasible, not simply shooting down our ideas willy-nilly. Don't lose sight of the big picture!
With that bit of ranting out of the way, I'd like to suggest something. Maybe a way to pose/position your BOffs within your ship, even in a limited capacity, for the purposes of taking screenshots?
I guess my idea would involve switching over to a map with your BOffs -- maybe at the holodeck or something. Here, in this limited environment, you could position your BOffs and maybe choose between a few environments for taking the screenshot.
It'd be neat if we could give them commands to perform certain emotes or basic animations as well, and might make for some interesting pictures. Not super important, but it might make BOffs feel a bit more like people while adding something to interiors.
I wouldn't regarding any of that as quibbling or "making a big scene".
We love the devs, but it's human nature not to simply take their words as-is until all other possibilities have been exhausted - dissent is a normal part of discussion.
Our current proposal document limits custom BOff positions to which Bridge stations they are (visually) assigned to.
Family-photo style positioning of BOffs in a holodeck map, IMHO, seems to be geared more towards RPers, which has limited appeal.
"Pet" or "Companion" commands sound neat, but would probably be more appropriate on social maps where BOffs are allowed, and thus fall outside of the ship interior proposal in general.
Now, I don't appricate that uncalled comment regarding the Viewscreen discussion. Because there was no "quibbling", just a frank discussion where there was a misunderstanding on how the idea was presented.
And if you think the 2D viewer is fine, then your opinion is welcome. But there are some players don't just want a plain flat picture, but something more alive and representative of Star Trek.
You can already do that. I suggest you talk with the UGC guys, they are masters at it.
I just seem to recall tacofangs stating several times that it was either this, or a "window into space," the latter of which wouldn't give the proper feel -- something with which I agree. It may be that holographic technology existed on the viewscreens, but we as the viewer did not see much of that in action, hence his statement why a 2D image would feel like the correct way to go.
Anyhow, I don't want to rekindle an argument that was already resolved! I would certainly like to see some animation on the viewscreen, or some area-related imagery when/if the devs can get to it. I just think it's important not to focus on one small detail, and instead on the larger idea of setting the proposed ideas introduced by sumghai into motion in some way, shape or form, even if not exactly as proposed.
No harm.
Yes, no need to rekindle the fires that were once quinched.
But if you go back, he was thinking I was refering to every player bridge in the game, while I simplified it to merely mission / event bridges. Because it would require them to not only redo every player bridge, but add new technology.
Hopefully, someday they could so we can play more from our bridges and make us feel like Starfleet Captains.
Deck 1: Bridge
Deck 2: /Crew Quarters/Mess/Captain's Quarters
Deck 3: Recreation Deck (Lounge, Poker, holodecks)
Deck 4: Medical/Sciences/Transporter/Astrometrics
Deck 5: Engineering/Cargo Bays/Shuttle bay
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First Level Customizing: Carpet, Wall, LCARS, bulkheads. Then also a ship layout where you chose the basic shape of your ship (IE round saucer, arrowhead (voyager style), etc.)
Second Level Customizing: Player customized Crew Uniforms (like we can with Fleet rank uniforms except 1 for tac, 1 for eng, 1 for sci/med, 1 for civilians)
Third Level Customizing: Player selected Shuttlecraft placed in shuttlebay. Player selected Warp Core.
Fourth Level customizing: Player created bridges. Select pre-fab general bridge shape then player adds in captain's chair, stations, etc. Can then select boffs for each station. This also removes the MSD from the bridge. Possible c-store add-on Customization would be dedication plaques.
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Decks should be standardized including the following:
Deck 1: bridge, conference room, ready room, turbo lift(s)
Deck 2: turbolift, mess hall, captain's quarters (with tailor option locker/dresser), generic crew quarters (min 6)
Deck 3: Lounge, Rec room with Poker mini-game, Holodecks that can be used to activate specifically created holonovel foundry content.
Deck 4: Sickbay, medical labs, science labs (with a mini-game/crafting attempt to build Android/lib Borg Boff - with a 1 week cool down and hard success rate), astrometrics labs (with daily particle/data sample scan mini-game), Transporter Room (foundry mission start point)
Deck 5: Main Engineering, Engineering labs, Cargo Bays, Shuttlebays (ability to interact with shuttle causing shuttle launch (just as far as going out the shuttlebay door to keep it generic enough) Then loads to player flying shuttle instead of ship. Reverse is true for changing back from shuttle to main ship. (c-store purchase)
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Now the big change, interior scaling. There have been countless complaints about the scale of ship interiors and Cryptic's response has always been, well we need the room for the camera. Not trying to be rude, but that it completely false, and here's why. STO has this VERY underutilized option of going into a "shooter mode" which places you into first person view, and with some very minor changes that could be adapted to work perfectly with ship interiors. All they would need to do is replace the weapon reticle with a more generic "interact" one and have the mouse buttons work as click instead of fire (IE like you can click to talk to NPCs). This would allow for much more proper scaling and add to the immersion of feeling like you're actually walking the decks of your ship.
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In Conclusion:
I know all of this seems like a TON of work, but the reality is MUCH of this is already in-game, and what isn't in game shouldn't be that hard to do, other than the custom bridges, mini-games, and as for the shuttle cutscenes, they could be a later addition.
Pretty much the Dev team has been shying away from that old camera excuse when the Belfast (Defiant) interiors were introduced. And with the great success of the TOS and Belfast interiors, they added new bridges that weren't "football fields", like the canonical Wells and Jem'Hadar interiors.
As for the Shooter-mode interactive function, that's already available.
I'm going to have to disagree with that.
Each ship class (at least, the ones canonically shown) have varying deck and room layouts - it break realism and immersion to homogenize them.
Besides, the Defiant only has four decks.
5 :P
There is a maintance deck under the warp nacelles.
Minor details! :P
Not according to the (canon) Defiant-class MSD on Memory Alpha.
Now, even if that maintenance deck at the bottom *was* considered a Deck 5, it would be too small to fit Main Engineering, Engineering labs, Cargo Bays, Shuttlebays that voicesdark suggested.
In short, I'm not a fan of having all ship classes share the same room/deck configuration. The proposal doc may suggest rooms spread out amongst more decks, especially larger ships such as the Galaxy and Sovereign, but we can skip "uninteresting" decks e.g. those that are primarily crew quarters, trunk lines or auxiliary systems.
If we skip these unneeded decks, then the remaining ones can be spaced apart far enough so that the Jefferies tubes linking them would give the correct sense of scale and distance.
Now, this has reminded me of another issue:
The more decks one has, the more "low priority interaction" buttons that would appear at the bottom right corner when entering the turbo lift. Perhaps:
- As soon as the player enters the turbolift, a standard interact button would appear labelled "Access Turbolift Controls" or "Select Destination"
- A window would open, with a MSD-like turbolift diagram in the top half, and LCARS-style buttons with accessible deck / room descriptions at the bottom.
- The MSD would have the current deck highlighted (perhaps in an inverted color scheme).
I'll try making mockups of these turbolift dialog boxes later today for the Intrepid and Galaxy classes.
Second, in DS9: "Way of the Warrior", "Rejoined", "Starship Down", "To the Death" refered to a Deck 5.
I could see that happening. Especially if they implement interior missions, where some decks are only accessible for missions. Of course, this might be troublesome since every ship would be different.
It was also a coding nightmare to hear former Paragon Studios tell it. They couldn't really touch it or update it without it breaking everything
And partly why I imagine that AE didn't use the base creator system at all.
[ No offense to the coders who wrote it, I imagine it was a lot of effort to get it to work at all
[ Edit ]
I'm really not awake... I thought the thread was just 1 page, and recent, not 50 and old. So Blah.
I concede. Although, it any case, voicesdark's suggestion of putting engineering on said deck wouldn't work anyway.
As promised, I've cobbled together a rough mockup of the Turbolift UI - I got lazy and only did the Intrepid class (MSD courtesy Eleanor Davenport of LCARS47.com):
http://sumghai.deviantart.com/art/STO-ship-interior-Turbolift-UI-mockup-347672446
Please refer to the proposal document on Google Docs - everything you guys have suggested has already been covered.
Haha as I said it was a maintaince deck, like the one Riker fought the Reman Voiceroy. Minus the mysterious chasm of death, of course. :P
That's fairly good. But I imagine the art team would be tied up having to make MSDs for every ship. And outside of the official ones for the Intrepid, Galaxy, Sovereign, and the Defiant, they would be busy making one up for every ship.
Perhaps a simple Turbolift route map like we have with the Defiant Turbolift?
I could easily see them tie it to a map change scene, where while you are loading the next dead, you see the map move.
I recall them wanting to do something with Holodecks a while back and tie it to Foundry missions, but that was a while ago.
And the Excelsior and ST6 Enterprise Sets is technically in game as the Prometheus bridge set. People forget that the Prometheus bridge set was a redress of the Excelsior bridge set, which in turn was the ST6 Enterprise set.
Change the colors, remove the carpeting, change the MSDs and presto.
I'd think that they'd have to make all those MSDs for the bridge display anyway. Still, it's possible that they could do it as part of a staggered release schedule (Start with basic dialog box, MSD-style maps only in C-store interior costume sets.
Also, I presume you're referring to this, BTW?:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/defiant/defiant-turbolift.jpg
(Ctrl-F5 if hotlink warning appears)
That could work as an intermediate solution (LOL at Deck 6), although in any case, either the MSD or the route map would need to be animated to justify being included in the window (not much point putting in a static banner graphic by itself).
In the meantime, I'd appreciate some help from you guys in compiling a list of major ship classes and what canon styling would be used for them.
e.g. The Galaxy, Intrepid, Sovereign and Defiant all have their own unique decor sets, whilst the Prometheus class is apparently a redress of the Excelsior.
Thoughts? Ideas?
Do these and the player base will be much happier interior wise!
TMP Connie (TWOK)
Excelsior (just switch the bridge general interior design had very little difference from connie)
TNG Galaxy (even uses some of the TWOK connie corridors!)
Intrepid
Sovereign
A bridge for the Vesta would have been nice btw! For a 3 pack ship not to have one is a bit of an insult considering that ALL the lock box ships have them.
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Not necessarily.
Whilst there may be fashionistas amongst the player base who would happily buy canon interior right off the bat, most players won't make this sort of investment if they can't do anything substantial in the ship interiors.
Hence the rationale for this extensive proposal - customisable interiors that have mini-games, episodes and STFs instead of being a nice and pretty but seldom used private RP zone.
Some RPers quite like the notion of individual crew quarters, which can be individually customised. Whilst I'm not 100% sure if I'd want some myself...
- How many RPers and non-RPers would want this?
- If additional crew quarters were available, how much would you pay for them? (Zen? Dil?) Would they be sold individually, or in pairs like additional BOff slots? Would it be one-size-fits-all, or a range of sizes? (Senior Officer with viewport, junior officer without viewport, enlisted bunks)
- How would these be accessed / configured ? (One possibility would be to use the shipwright UI to actually pick which dummy door on whatever deck would be replaced with a real door leading to which corresponding quarter, and that when the ship interior map loads, the quarters are already dynamically and seamlessly integrated into the map)
- In the proposed boarding action arenas, the game randomly picks an interior from one of the members of the "home" team. Should personal quarters be accessible during this event?
Cryptic could add a fourth deck option in the ship interiors (free or unlocked) that becomes available when you are in a group or raid (once 20 people OP groups). And the Officer's Quarter deck (fourth deck) is just a plan hallway that each door goes to an individual of that group / party. (I.E. it's instanced to personal quarters of each player).
That way each player customize their personal quarters and have it saved to their STO account than putting the burden on one single player's account?
Yes, that's the one.
I'm not an RPer, but I want them for immersion.
I would pay either or.
I would have Quarters available by default, but customizing them unlockable via account wide zen purchase, or one very small dilithium purchase. Either way I would have them available all once. Unlocking them one by one is just........ eh.....
Absolutely.
I'm not exactly following the reasoning behind that.
By "add[ing] a fourth deck", it seems you assuming we're using the current in-game Bridge/Crew/Engineering setup, when in fact the proposal does away with this in favour of canon deck/room layouts.
I also don't see why I should find my personal quarters aboard someone else's starship (same goes for other players).
Guess that makes two of us
I'll go for the one-off Zen or Dilithium unlock as well.
The maximum number of crew quarters unlocked is determined by the number of commissioned BOffs a player has - I say maximum as it'd also be nice to have options to have up to two BOffs share a room (if, for instance, they are couples).
In terms of the overall release schedule, I'd probably put BOff quarters at the very last stage, since they serve a primarily decorative function.
Coolio. Having these personal quarters accessible during the arenas would allow for hiding places and rally points for both teams.
Let me gather my thoughts for a bit, and I'll add something to the document this weekend.