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A Hypothetical Question...
sirsitsalot
Member Posts: 2,803 Arc User
It has been suggested many times that without the Star Trek brand on this game, it couldn't survive.
Hypothetically speaking, if a sci-fi-oriented MMO were to come out that did not bear the name "Star Trek", but were to in fact offer all the things that a Star Trek MMO should offer but currently doesn't, would it fare any better?
Hypothetically speaking, of course...
Hypothetically speaking, if a sci-fi-oriented MMO were to come out that did not bear the name "Star Trek", but were to in fact offer all the things that a Star Trek MMO should offer but currently doesn't, would it fare any better?
Hypothetically speaking, of course...
"There can be no meeting of the minds between two parties
if both parties are not willing to meet in the middle."
-Ambassador Samuel J. Stone
if both parties are not willing to meet in the middle."
-Ambassador Samuel J. Stone
Post edited by sirsitsalot on
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Yeah, but if you ignore the fanbase's ridiculous ranting you will find that just about anything can work in the Star Trek universe with only some minor tweeking.
if there was a scifi game out that was all story mission drive, like sto and tor, and didn't force me to pvp or do boring sim-grinds for hours a day, i'd play it. i don't care if i know the ip or not. i'm not here because i'm a trekkie. i'm here because i like story-based scifi gaming. i'm only a casual star trek or star wars fan.
Interestingly, one of the features I liked the most was the ability to direct your crew. You could, for instance, send them to the galley, change shift, move them into shuttles, fighters, transport them, send them to mine, etc. You got to watch them on a screen as they moved around.
It gave the sense that you were actually commanding a capital ship and had a crew.
In STO (and yes, I'm a whale and a complete STO addict) I often feel like I work for my crew and/or that I am alone on my ship. I despise being bossed around by my landing party.
When STO came out with those missions where you could send your DOFFS to assist (the dominion missions), I thought we were getting somewhere. Sadly, that tech never resurfaced.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
At the end of the day the town was never really saved. You beat them back, you eventually get bored and leave to find something else more fun to do, and they come back for someone else to beat back. it's just a never ending open world mission. and you running off to make arrows, or whatever, was just a sim-grind: simulate doing something 'real' while mechanically tieing up your play time in a grind.
and if you really liked that play style you wouldn't need to be looking back at uo. you'd still be playing it.
if you can't bring yourself to go and play existing sandbox games a 'hypothetical' non-star trek ip sandbox game isn't going to grab you either. face it, you're here because this game is star trek. if you were interested in other sandbox scifi games you'd be out playing eve and elite rather then on this forum.
Playing this game is like playing a Reman Dilithium Miner locked in the bowels of Remus. No light, just grinding dilithium in the dark for your greedy masters....
Anyway, to get back to the original topic, what a game promises and delivers isn't always tied to an IP. In theory, a game that was almost like what we have now, but better could potentially do well if it had something interesting to attract players, and a means to retain them. A part of that would be listening to player feedback, though like all MMOs, it's impossible to make everyone happy, and sometimes, depending on code, time constraints, manpower, etc, sacrifices have to be made.
The short answer, is that an MMO that's almost like STO but better, is not likely to succeed without something iconic to make it stand out.
STO, like someone mentioned early on, has the blessing and curse of "Star Trek" to attract and retain enough players, at the cost of having to play by the rules of CBS (then after that, playing by PWE's rules). Compared to that, what would a theoretical space game have that would attract and retain players without tying itself to a noted brand or a noted publisher/company?
It's not a fantasy game, where you stare at the TRIBBLE of your character for hours on end as they sexily cast a spell or go full Hercules as a finisher (stereotyping here), or could sell blatantly "sexy, flawless elves and armor that the skimpier they are, the higher the DEF rating" and "buff, he-men and their armor that the more impractically ornate they are, the higher the DEF rating", among other smaller but collectively easier bits (RIFT has Rifts, **** has flight, Blade and Soul and half the distinctly Asian-themed MMOs have atypical magic abilities or playstyles).
It's a space game, where most of the time you'd be staring at nothing but stars, ships, and hangar bays; maybe nothing more than just a head of an NPC on your communicator. Where the real customization is not at the personal character level (unless you choose to have this aspect), but that of your ship? With that in mind, what kind of ships would sell the game? What sort of gameplay would keep a player that has to spend the majority of the time staring at their ship's aft?
There's a lot of major and minor things that make or break MMOs not tied to any major brand or publisher. It's frankly easier to sell an original fantasy MMO; look at just how many there are out there to choose from, and how they all manage to retain a playerbase, compared to the few space sci-fi MMOs.