So, question.. regarding the canon characters in STO, it seems like we're getting a lot of "that one guest star who was in one episode", and we're not getting too many Major Characters. There seems to be some kind of legal dilemma here, but I'm not sure what it is.
The obvious exception here is Worf, who kind of actually looks like worf.. and Spock, who kind of actually looks like Spock. Bones looks like bones.
Then you have Scotty, who doesn't look like Scotty.. Holo leeta, who doesn't look like Leeta.. the list goes on.. Taris, Sela, the female changeling, Klag..
Then there are a whole slew of characters that were children, but are now adults, and so would not resemble themselves anyway.. Q jr, Naomi Wildman, Icheb and all.
So, what gives? I can understand that the laws behind likenesses are complicated.. but you'd think that the actors themselves would have the rights to their own likenesses, so why doesn't Leeta look like Masterson?
And also.. why doesn't Scotty look like Doohan, while Mccoy looks like Kelley?
Now that they have Denise Crosby coming in, will Sela look like Sela?
It's not a matter of it being a problem, but of cost. Final Unity had a ridiculous budget for a game with a really small scope - strip out the Star Trek license and it would have been a small low budget game with unusually good graphics for a DOS game, one of the first to require an FPU. Armada, like all of Activision's Trek games, also had a massive budget. Activision lost money on most of its Star Trek games, and even its most successful ones had less success at higher cost than a generic military shooter, leading to their very public hissy fit, lawsuit, and then losing the license in 2003. Same pattern with Zenimax's run of Trek games - budgets rivaling an Elderscrolls game with a fraction of the sales to show for it. They at least skipped the hissy fit and confessed they'd overinvested, releasing too many games in too short a time for the niche they filled. MMOs have additional considerations potentially driving the cost even higher, hence why most that do have extensive voice acting use developers or other people already on the team instead of guild actors... Not all of them with the cheesy results STO does.
As for Doohan: Your estate does not die with you. Whoever controls his estate, be that an heir or an appointed trustee or a corporation he created before dying to own his likeness for him (don't see this much with actors, more common with artists or writers, but still possible) controls his likeness.
Certainly it has to do with money, but from my non-expert perspective it seems inconsistent how this is handled in games.
In Example: Star Trek TNG: A Final Unity has the likenesses of the entire TNG cast and their voices.
Elite Force has most, if not all of the Voyager cast likenesses and voices..
there are other examples of course.
Armada has Patrick Stewart's likeness and voice.. it didn't seem to be a problem for those games to obtain the rights to Star Trek likenesses.
And what about Scotty? Doohan isn't alive, so who controls the rights to his Star Trek likeness?
And what about cases like Morn, who the makeup is clearly not a person, it doesn't really matter who's inside morn's suit, its gonna look like Morn.
How it's handled and the fees involved can vary from game to game, most games are stand alone and the actors may recieve a flat fee or a percentage of the profits for X years, in the instance of most Star Trek games, many of them were licensed by the copyright holder whilst the show was aired so depending on the contract with the actor they may have had the rights to license the actors likeness and voice for the games.
Now we're talking 10 years since the last official Star Trek production from the TNG era, most of the contracts signed are now null and void meaning that it'd be down to the individual actors to decide if they want their likeness and voice ingame and if and how much they want to charge for it.
Actors wearing prosthetics are an entirely different matter altogether and can depend on how recognisable the actor is whilst wearing the prosthetics, but most prosthetics, especially ones like Morn, have their appearance licensed to the copyright holder rather than the actor.
The royalties were likely a fixed rate based on sales. But an MMO is considered live content and that may change things. Their image would be perpetually out there.
I would argue that no matter how they are displayed, their images are perpetually out there. You could go back and play any of those old Trek games and see their likeness.
Heck, all you have to do is pick up a star trek paperback to see their likenesses perpetually out there.
I don't understand why there would be a difference in licensing a likeness for a MMO vs a single player game. There doesn't appear to be any difference in the voice acting side of things..
There's a difference between being able to go back and play them and an MMO. You actually can't buy most of those Star Trek games anymore, they're no longer sold new. Likewise with those paperbacks. Books likewise are not printed indefinitely, you can't buy older Trek books new. Anyplace you get either one from is on the other side of the first sale doctrine, the actors already got their likeness paid from it.
MMOs on the other hand, are "sold new" as long as they're operating. There will never be a point at which the only way to play STO is by digging through the bargain bin of a used game store hoping to get lucky. It's either new or no longer exists.
Combine CBS's stranglehold on the IP with Cryptic's scattershot (at best) writing and an inability to actually make anyone who looks like anything in the STO character creator, and you've got what we get ingame.
From what I remember a while back, a dev stated that they are not part of the Screen Actors Guild, or do not support it (cannot remember which). Therefore getting actors that are part of said guild is quite difficult.
Money I am sure comes into it, it would depend on the stature of the actor. Getting Denise Crosby to do a voice role is markedly different to getting Brent Spiner or Patrick Stewart himself in the game....
Combine CBS's stranglehold on the IP with Cryptic's scattershot (at best) writing and an inability to actually make anyone who looks like anything in the STO character creator, and you've got what we get ingame.
The reason we don't get Picard hair is for that same reason because of likeness rights.....they did a great job with morn who you cant make in the character creator
Wikipedia brain extension. If we had this conversation yesterday morning while wikipedia was offline for server maintenance, my contribution to this thread would look more like this.
You never need to be an expert to understand a situation when you have several petabytes of sourced, reviewed, and indexed information available. You never need to resort to, "Hmm... I don't really SEE any difference at first glance, therefore I assume there is none."
One thing at a time, I hope we get more guest starts from the show, I mean I've seen Patrick Stewart TRIBBLE his voice on other shows lately so maybe down the road he might come by.
And I know Michael Dorn will do anything, so just throw some lock box money at him.
Personally, I would like to see STO create their own interesting characters that are NOT based off of previous Star Trek characters. Actually develop a real personality for them and make them distinctive. This can take place over several "seasons". We don't need to have Chekhovs high school sweethearts third child from her second husband second cousin twice removed.
Personally, I would like to see STO create their own interesting characters that are NOT based off of previous Star Trek characters. Actually develop a real personality for them and make them distinctive. This can take place over several "seasons". We don't need to have Chekhovs high school sweethearts third child from her second husband second cousin twice removed.
And they can't even do that right....They had an Andorian already established in the game Thelin Captain of the U.S.S. Kirk, but instead of reusing him they made a brand new Andorian Va'Kel Shon and gave him the Enterprise. :mad:
And they can't even do that right....They had an Andorian already established in the game Thelin Captain of the U.S.S. Kirk, but instead of reusing him they made a brand new Andorian Va'Kel Shon and gave him the Enterprise. :mad:
Well, to be fair, if they did as you suggest, they'd have to re-write existing mission content - whiich really does get them much of an ROI. I think they've done okay introducing new characters (like the captain and crew of the Enterprise-F; Admiral Quinn, Akira Sulu, etc.)
Hell, in the 47 year history of Star Trek, we've had plenty of 'one off bigshots' introduced (that were either large Federation historical figures, or role models for many of the cast characters) - who got an episode or a few lines of dialogue devoted to their exploits - but after that, we never heard of them again in most cases.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Well, to be fair, if they did as you suggest, they'd have to re-write existing mission content - whiich really does get them much of an ROI. I think they've done okay introducing new characters (like the captain and crew of the Enterprise-F; Admiral Quinn, Akira Sulu, etc.)
Hell, in the 47 year history of Star Trek, we've had plenty of 'one off bigshots' introduced (that were either large Federation historical figures, or role models for many of the cast characters) - who got an episode or a few lines of dialogue devoted to their exploits - but after that, we never heard of them again in most cases.
But part of the problem of this games characters is that most are either characters from DS9, Voyager or TNG or are the "great-great somethings" of a character. Akira Sulu is a perfect example of that. They need to be creative and make their own (and likable) characters
Personally, I would like to see STO create their own interesting characters that are NOT based off of previous Star Trek characters. Actually develop a real personality for them and make them distinctive. This can take place over several "seasons". We don't need to have Chekhovs high school sweethearts third child from her second husband second cousin twice removed.
This is what happens when you leave Cryptic to their own devices.. they come up with Finnegan's great granddaughter.
To get a voice actor from the shows and license their likeness is, in the cases of most of the popular characters, going to be quite expensive. A standalone game can justify that because people will want to buy the game and play it.
A free to play MMO? It is really hard to figure out exactly how much in new sales it would generate. Cryptic probably does not want to shell out a ton of money to add something to the game that is not necessarily going to pay for itself, as much as I am sure they would love to as Star Trek fans.
My bet is Denise Crosby was willing to license her character and do the acting for a lot less than Brent Spiner or Patrick Stewart.
To get a voice actor from the shows and license their likeness is, in the cases of most of the popular characters, going to be quite expensive. A standalone game can justify that because people will want to buy the game and play it.
A free to play MMO? It is really hard to figure out exactly how much in new sales it would generate. Cryptic probably does not want to shell out a ton of money to add something to the game that is not necessarily going to pay for itself, as much as I am sure they would love to as Star Trek fans.
My bet is Denise Crosby was willing to license her character and do the acting for a lot less than Brent Spiner or Patrick Stewart.
^^^
Yep - and remember, they're bringing Denise Crosby in for content related to the game's Third Anniversary celebration (IE - a event that will get a lot of press in gaming circles and may, as a result, bring more new players in to try that game as a result <--- And that's why they're willing to pony up the extra funds for it; as it amounts to an stronger advertisement for the game at a time they'll also get some 'free press' due to the Anniversary.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
the 22nd Century had Archer, and crew....the 23rd century had Kirk, and crew, the 24th century had Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and crew....the 25th century needs it's own characters.
the 22nd Century had Archer, and crew....the 23rd century had Kirk, and crew, the 24th century had Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and crew....the 25th century needs it's own characters.
The obvious exception here is Worf, who kind of actually looks like worf.. and Spock, who kind of actually looks like Spock. Bones looks like bones.
Then you have Scotty, who doesn't look like Scotty.. Holo leeta, who doesn't look like Leeta.. the list goes on.. Taris, Sela, the female changeling, Klag..
So, what gives?
I asked a character artist I know in the industry about this a few months ago. I was asking why it's kind of tough making a unique face in STO compared to some other games.
Apparently the reason lies with that 'complexion' category we have in STO. There's essentially less than half a dozen textures for faces of a given gender (generic, asian, aged, etc.). Imagine taking the most aged skin and trying to create Betty White. It's simply not happening. Without actual new textures for the faces, you can morph individual features and colors, but the skin itself is pretty much the same.
In contrast, although City of Heroes didn't have as much face-morphing ability, they had dozens of actual different face textures. We've had plenty of uniforms, but almost no texture updates. For example, a wrinkly Ferengi face that suddenly gets smooth at the neckline and is not incorporated into the body texture skin. It was enough of a fight to just get Trill spots to go 'all the way down' way back when.
I'm pretty sure their character artists are fully onto z-store uniforms now as opposed to adding hair, complexions, or additional body textures. Or on Neverwinter. >_>
So, what gives? I can understand that the laws behind likenesses are complicated.. but you'd think that the actors themselves would have the rights to their own likenesses, so why doesn't Leeta look like Masterson?
I believe in Leeta's case, it's just limitations of the existing tools; it is intended to be her likeness, and they licensed it from her. It's her doing the voice as well.
If the character looks at all like the actor, it must be licensed; even if limitations of the engine mean it doesn't look very much like them, it's an attempt to model their image. If they haven't licensed the likeness, you won't see the character at all. Any character you see in the game that is modeled after an adult actor is licensed. I wouldn't know what the terms of any of those licenses were, since I don't work for Cryptic.
Now, if the actor was a child, and the character is all grown up, they can use him or her, because it's not the actor's likeness; this is, as has been pointed out, the case with several characters in the game.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Comments
In Example: Star Trek TNG: A Final Unity has the likenesses of the entire TNG cast and their voices.
Elite Force has most, if not all of the Voyager cast likenesses and voices..
there are other examples of course.
Armada has Patrick Stewart's likeness and voice.. it didn't seem to be a problem for those games to obtain the rights to Star Trek likenesses.
And what about Scotty? Doohan isn't alive, so who controls the rights to his Star Trek likeness?
And what about cases like Morn, who the makeup is clearly not a person, it doesn't really matter who's inside morn's suit, its gonna look like Morn.
As for Doohan: Your estate does not die with you. Whoever controls his estate, be that an heir or an appointed trustee or a corporation he created before dying to own his likeness for him (don't see this much with actors, more common with artists or writers, but still possible) controls his likeness.
How it's handled and the fees involved can vary from game to game, most games are stand alone and the actors may recieve a flat fee or a percentage of the profits for X years, in the instance of most Star Trek games, many of them were licensed by the copyright holder whilst the show was aired so depending on the contract with the actor they may have had the rights to license the actors likeness and voice for the games.
Now we're talking 10 years since the last official Star Trek production from the TNG era, most of the contracts signed are now null and void meaning that it'd be down to the individual actors to decide if they want their likeness and voice ingame and if and how much they want to charge for it.
Actors wearing prosthetics are an entirely different matter altogether and can depend on how recognisable the actor is whilst wearing the prosthetics, but most prosthetics, especially ones like Morn, have their appearance licensed to the copyright holder rather than the actor.
I would argue that no matter how they are displayed, their images are perpetually out there. You could go back and play any of those old Trek games and see their likeness.
Heck, all you have to do is pick up a star trek paperback to see their likenesses perpetually out there.
I don't understand why there would be a difference in licensing a likeness for a MMO vs a single player game. There doesn't appear to be any difference in the voice acting side of things..
MMOs on the other hand, are "sold new" as long as they're operating. There will never be a point at which the only way to play STO is by digging through the bargain bin of a used game store hoping to get lucky. It's either new or no longer exists.
Money I am sure comes into it, it would depend on the stature of the actor. Getting Denise Crosby to do a voice role is markedly different to getting Brent Spiner or Patrick Stewart himself in the game....
The reason we don't get Picard hair is for that same reason because of likeness rights.....they did a great job with morn who you cant make in the character creator
You never need to be an expert to understand a situation when you have several petabytes of sourced, reviewed, and indexed information available. You never need to resort to, "Hmm... I don't really SEE any difference at first glance, therefore I assume there is none."
What does that make us?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
One thing at a time, I hope we get more guest starts from the show, I mean I've seen Patrick Stewart TRIBBLE his voice on other shows lately so maybe down the road he might come by.
And I know Michael Dorn will do anything, so just throw some lock box money at him.
And they can't even do that right....They had an Andorian already established in the game Thelin Captain of the U.S.S. Kirk, but instead of reusing him they made a brand new Andorian Va'Kel Shon and gave him the Enterprise. :mad:
Well, to be fair, if they did as you suggest, they'd have to re-write existing mission content - whiich really does get them much of an ROI. I think they've done okay introducing new characters (like the captain and crew of the Enterprise-F; Admiral Quinn, Akira Sulu, etc.)
Hell, in the 47 year history of Star Trek, we've had plenty of 'one off bigshots' introduced (that were either large Federation historical figures, or role models for many of the cast characters) - who got an episode or a few lines of dialogue devoted to their exploits - but after that, we never heard of them again in most cases.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
But part of the problem of this games characters is that most are either characters from DS9, Voyager or TNG or are the "great-great somethings" of a character. Akira Sulu is a perfect example of that. They need to be creative and make their own (and likable) characters
This is what happens when you leave Cryptic to their own devices.. they come up with Finnegan's great granddaughter.
To get a voice actor from the shows and license their likeness is, in the cases of most of the popular characters, going to be quite expensive. A standalone game can justify that because people will want to buy the game and play it.
A free to play MMO? It is really hard to figure out exactly how much in new sales it would generate. Cryptic probably does not want to shell out a ton of money to add something to the game that is not necessarily going to pay for itself, as much as I am sure they would love to as Star Trek fans.
My bet is Denise Crosby was willing to license her character and do the acting for a lot less than Brent Spiner or Patrick Stewart.
all the borg children would be by now (drones have a restricted use time)
Yep - and remember, they're bringing Denise Crosby in for content related to the game's Third Anniversary celebration (IE - a event that will get a lot of press in gaming circles and may, as a result, bring more new players in to try that game as a result <--- And that's why they're willing to pony up the extra funds for it; as it amounts to an stronger advertisement for the game at a time they'll also get some 'free press' due to the Anniversary.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Like.. kurland?
Ohh God Noo Never Mind I Take It All Back!!
(^^all CAPS)
Bring me Picard, Worf, and the billions of the TRIBBLE descendents of Kirk.
I asked a character artist I know in the industry about this a few months ago. I was asking why it's kind of tough making a unique face in STO compared to some other games.
Apparently the reason lies with that 'complexion' category we have in STO. There's essentially less than half a dozen textures for faces of a given gender (generic, asian, aged, etc.). Imagine taking the most aged skin and trying to create Betty White. It's simply not happening. Without actual new textures for the faces, you can morph individual features and colors, but the skin itself is pretty much the same.
In contrast, although City of Heroes didn't have as much face-morphing ability, they had dozens of actual different face textures. We've had plenty of uniforms, but almost no texture updates. For example, a wrinkly Ferengi face that suddenly gets smooth at the neckline and is not incorporated into the body texture skin. It was enough of a fight to just get Trill spots to go 'all the way down' way back when.
I'm pretty sure their character artists are fully onto z-store uniforms now as opposed to adding hair, complexions, or additional body textures. Or on Neverwinter. >_>
zen
I believe in Leeta's case, it's just limitations of the existing tools; it is intended to be her likeness, and they licensed it from her. It's her doing the voice as well.
If the character looks at all like the actor, it must be licensed; even if limitations of the engine mean it doesn't look very much like them, it's an attempt to model their image. If they haven't licensed the likeness, you won't see the character at all. Any character you see in the game that is modeled after an adult actor is licensed. I wouldn't know what the terms of any of those licenses were, since I don't work for Cryptic.
Now, if the actor was a child, and the character is all grown up, they can use him or her, because it's not the actor's likeness; this is, as has been pointed out, the case with several characters in the game.
Billions??
I don't think even Kirk was that prolific?