And there is the fact that Star Trek is more about the space combat than recycling the old ground-combat done in numerous TV and Films. Aside from Stargate SG1 and Star Wars, no other series/film really dealt with starship combat. That's why folk like Star trek.....and the odd bit of exposition from characters. They are not watching it for ground combat....which rarely ever gets proper screen time, and the only big ground battles happened in DS9. The ship is as much the lead character as the lead character is.
Well... there was also Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica (both versions), Wing Commander (doubt very many people know there was an old cartoon as well as a movie besides the games)...
As for Ground combat, there's only a few Star Trek games that portray that, chief among them being the two Elite Force games. But here's the thing, STO is not a shooter. Its an RPG. So the combat style will align more with games like TOR or even FF14 (there are ranged DPS classes in FF14 like Machinist) rather than Fortnite or Elite Force. The only game that kinda bridged RPG and Shooter was Mass Effect. And unfortunately I don't think the game engine can support that kind of gameplay.
Oh my god!!! I can't believe I forgot BSG, but B5 I really struggled to watch it, and the CGI was so bad back then, so never really rated it's space combat compared to ST's model based shots, and OG BSG reused the same 4 or 5 shots so many times that really spoils it if you binge watch the series; you have to watch one episode a week like the olden-days.... I had no idea WC did a cartoon!! I love those WC games and still play them now and again.
And there is the fact that Star Trek is more about the space combat than recycling the old ground-combat done in numerous TV and Films. Aside from Stargate SG1 and Star Wars, no other series/film really dealt with starship combat. That's why folk like Star trek.....and the odd bit of exposition from characters. They are not watching it for ground combat....which rarely ever gets proper screen time, and the only big ground battles happened in DS9. The ship is as much the lead character as the lead character is.
Well... there was also Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica (both versions), Wing Commander (doubt very many people know there was an old cartoon as well as a movie besides the games)...
As for Ground combat, there's only a few Star Trek games that portray that, chief among them being the two Elite Force games. But here's the thing, STO is not a shooter. Its an RPG. So the combat style will align more with games like TOR or even FF14 (there are ranged DPS classes in FF14 like Machinist) rather than Fortnite or Elite Force. The only game that kinda bridged RPG and Shooter was Mass Effect. And unfortunately I don't think the game engine can support that kind of gameplay.
Oh my god!!! I can't believe I forgot BSG, but B5 I really struggled to watch it, and the CGI was so bad back then, so never really rated it's space combat compared to ST's model based shots, and OG BSG reused the same 4 or 5 shots so many times that really spoils it if you binge watch the series; you have to watch one episode a week like the olden-days.... I had no idea WC did a cartoon!! I love those WC games and still play them now and again.
I was fine with BB5 CG.
Joe Straczynski wasn't. He found out later that the CGI was being produced at a relatively low resolution in 4:3 format, while the rest of the show was filmed in 16:9, and he hadn't been told. He's really annoyed at the version on DVD, which is (let's see if I can remember this from his Twitter) produced from PAL recordings given to the BBC, then transferred to NTSC laserdisc, then directly from that to NTSC DVD. I don't know what that means, but it produces CGI scenes that give him literal headaches.
The CGI in nBSG was pretty good; the original BSG, back in '79, had about the best CGI and model work that could be expected with the technology available at the time, which today constitutes "damning with faint praise".
BSG original used models and motorized cameras, I vaguely recall they had limits on the arcs the fighters could move in because of the camera. The weekly show space shots were often recycled clips from the 3-hour pilot/movie by Star Wars' John Dykstra - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dykstra#Battlestar_Galactica
The effects were good for 1978, but that was 44 years ago.
> @rattler2 said: > And I should point out that Environmental Artists are not Character Artists. Different skillset.
Kael in the last livestream said all but two artists have worked on ship design at least once in STO. So I think that means although these designers have different specializations, it doesn’t mean they are incapable of doing anything else. It also seems to show how much of STO really is dedicated to the monitization of ship pixels, right. Everyone has to be able to assist or at least has had the opportunity to play shipwright.
The CGI in nBSG was pretty good; the original BSG, back in '79, had about the best CGI and model work that could be expected with the technology available at the time, which today constitutes "damning with faint praise".
Did the Orginal BSG have any CGI at all in it, you got remember that back then even on a movie budget the Death Star briefing was about the best CGI you could get (yes technically ANH came out 2 years prior but this was well before the CGI revolution of the late 1990s and early 2000s).
The CGI in nBSG was pretty good; the original BSG, back in '79, had about the best CGI and model work that could be expected with the technology available at the time, which today constitutes "damning with faint praise".
Did the Orginal BSG have any CGI at all in it, you got remember that back then even on a movie budget the Death Star briefing was about the best CGI you could get (yes technically ANH came out 2 years prior but this was well before the CGI revolution of the late 1990s and early 2000s).
There was no CGI at all in OG BSG. The series suffered from the old attitude 'Sci-fi didn't sell', so didn't get the funding, that's why the same dog-fights from the pilot were repeatedly used throughout it's run. Even Buck Rogers suffered a similar issue, re-using OG BSG's sound effects.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
No, oBSG did use what passed for CGI back then - but not often, as the hand-animated blaster effects and such were in fact superior at the time. (They used CGI blaster shots from the fighters primarily because it was actually cheaper than paying animators to do it - and then reused those shots over and over because they didn't have the money to do it anew later.)
I had presumed that what was first discussed in this regard was nBSG, which did use a lot of pretty good CGI in its production. I've come to learn that there are some younger viewers who don't know there was a BSG in 1979. Which is probably good for them, because it means they never watched Galactica 1980...
Kael in the last livestream said all but two artists have worked on ship design at least once in STO. So I think that means although these designers have different specializations, it doesn’t mean they are incapable of doing anything else. It also seems to show how much of STO really is dedicated to the monitization of ship pixels, right. Everyone has to be able to assist or at least has had the opportunity to play shipwright.
I was referring to character, as in humanoid characters on the ground that are expected to flex and move. Not ships. What does ship art have to do with environmental vs character?
No, oBSG did use what passed for CGI back then - but not often, as the hand-animated blaster effects and such were in fact superior at the time. (They used CGI blaster shots from the fighters primarily because it was actually cheaper than paying animators to do it - and then reused those shots over and over because they didn't have the money to do it anew later.)
I had presumed that what was first discussed in this regard was nBSG, which did use a lot of pretty good CGI in its production. I've come to learn that there are some younger viewers who don't know there was a BSG in 1979. Which is probably good for them, because it means they never watched Galactica 1980...
Galactica 1980.....what an oddball that was
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
No, oBSG did use what passed for CGI back then - but not often, as the hand-animated blaster effects and such were in fact superior at the time. (They used CGI blaster shots from the fighters primarily because it was actually cheaper than paying animators to do it - and then reused those shots over and over because they didn't have the money to do it anew later.)
I had presumed that what was first discussed in this regard was nBSG, which did use a lot of pretty good CGI in its production. I've come to learn that there are some younger viewers who don't know there was a BSG in 1979. Which is probably good for them, because it means they never watched Galactica 1980...
Galactica 1980.....what an oddball that was
From what I've heard no one involved in that was really satisfied with the end result, granted I've heard this only second hand as 1980 was 2 years before I was born.
The CGI in nBSG was pretty good; the original BSG, back in '79, had about the best CGI and model work that could be expected with the technology available at the time, which today constitutes "damning with faint praise".
Did the Orginal BSG have any CGI at all in it, you got remember that back then even on a movie budget the Death Star briefing was about the best CGI you could get (yes technically ANH came out 2 years prior but this was well before the CGI revolution of the late 1990s and early 2000s).
There was no CGI at all in OG BSG. The series suffered from the old attitude 'Sci-fi didn't sell', so didn't get the funding, that's why the same dog-fights from the pilot were repeatedly used throughout it's run. Even Buck Rogers suffered a similar issue, re-using OG BSG's sound effects.
OG BSG had movie level state of the art VFX for 1978. It was probably the most expensive show ever done up to that point and time, and the amazing thing WRT it Bridge and video display was that they were all hooked into actual mini computers and the displays worked in real time and were synched to the 24 frame film cameras used; meaning that there was no post production compositing.
It's one reason George Luccas was so pissed at John Dykstra at the time and sued Universal so fast because at the start of BSG 1978 John Dykstra took the techniques and even some of the actual equipment he used on STAR WARS, refined it a bit, and used it on BSG1978.
During the lawsuit, Dykstra return said equipment but Universal paid for him to recreate it for their in house VFX studio they started at the time.
Bottom Line: For the time pweriod BSG1978 was not done 'on the cheap'; nor did it use sub standard VFX techniques. Everything they were doing post production wise was state of the art for the day; and VERY expensive.
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..."
> @rattler2 said:
> And I should point out that Environmental Artists are not Character Artists. Different skillset.
Kael in the last livestream said all but two artists have worked on ship design at least once in STO. So I think that means although these designers have different specializations, it doesn’t mean they are incapable of doing anything else. It also seems to show how much of STO really is dedicated to the monitization of ship pixels, right. Everyone has to be able to assist or at least has had the opportunity to play shipwright.
From what the devs have shown in Ten Forward and said other times, ship design itself is probably the most straightforward of the 3D model making operations and the steps are more compartmentalizable for each department involved, so it would be the easiest for other departments to make models for.
The ship models generally don't flex or have joints (yes, I know a very few do), they don't seem to re-use a lot of components that are stored without much organization on a hard drive somewhere and depend on human memory to find anything, and they don't routinely have a lot of layers that have to work together with the minimum of clipping even when using parts designed for a totally different ship.
Character modelers have to contend with the clothing layers (and it is not an easy thing at all, I had a store in Second Life around 2010 and what they do here is way beyond what I used to make for that) and probably have to deal with a lot of the same stuff as the other departments. The environmental toolset for this game is primitive almost beyond belief from what they have shown of it (there is a Ten Forward that goes on a deep dive on what they have to do to make building and ship interiors and whatnot, so they have shown a lot), and the environmental department has to deal with that to get anything done.
The CGI in nBSG was pretty good; the original BSG, back in '79, had about the best CGI and model work that could be expected with the technology available at the time, which today constitutes "damning with faint praise".
Did the Orginal BSG have any CGI at all in it, you got remember that back then even on a movie budget the Death Star briefing was about the best CGI you could get (yes technically ANH came out 2 years prior but this was well before the CGI revolution of the late 1990s and early 2000s).
There was no CGI at all in OG BSG. The series suffered from the old attitude 'Sci-fi didn't sell', so didn't get the funding, that's why the same dog-fights from the pilot were repeatedly used throughout it's run. Even Buck Rogers suffered a similar issue, re-using OG BSG's sound effects.
OG BSG had movie level state of the art VFX for 1978. It was probably the most expensive show ever done up to that point and time, and the amazing thing WRT it Bridge and video display was that they were all hooked into actual mini computers and the displays worked in real time and were synched to the 24 frame film cameras used; meaning that there was no post production compositing.
It's one reason George Luccas was so pissed at John Dykstra at the time and sued Universal so fast because at the start of BSG 1978 John Dykstra took the techniques and even some of the actual equipment he used on STAR WARS, refined it a bit, and used it on BSG1978.
During the lawsuit, Dykstra return said equipment but Universal paid for him to recreate it for their in house VFX studio they started at the time.
Bottom Line: For the time pweriod BSG1978 was not done 'on the cheap'; nor did it use sub standard VFX techniques. Everything they were doing post production wise was state of the art for the day; and VERY expensive.
Star Trek TOS was much the same way, it used top-shelf, movie grade SFX. And not just a little bit here and there, they needed a lot of it, most TV shows at the time might have had as much as a dozen optical effects while an episode of TOS could use hundreds (in fact, they used too many for even the biggest optical effects companies to handle on their own and it was not unusual for them to have to send parts of shows to every Optical SFX house in Hollywood to stay on schedule (which is the real reason for all the different phaser beam colors and whatnot, it is amazing that they could keep it all straight as well as they did).
And like with BSG, all that was not cheap, they had a very large budget for a TV series once NBC picked the series up. Not only was the "shoestring budget" relitive (high for TV but very, very tight if you look at it as a sixty-minute movie), but also most of the original sets were made back before the show was picked up by the network.
Desilu was not a major studio (and which mostly made comedies and cop shows), so building those sets had to be done mostly with materials on hand, which meant no metal walls or floor grids the way movies would have done it, a lot of drywall and painted wood (but unlike the myth, very little cardboard), the absolute minimum of always-on optical effects (like the main viewscreen on the bridge) they could get away with, and minimal electronic functionality to sell the viewers on the idea that it could be the way a ship in the far future looked.
And if you compare TOS as it originally aired to other science fiction productions of the time, even movies, it has held up incredibly well even without the remastering it received (TOS-R) later.
From what I've heard TOS effects and sets don't start to break down until you watch in HD at higher resolutions, resolutions that even the best TV sets in the 1960s wouldn't have so you can't really blame them for not preparing for that.
Yeah it's kind of like how Star Trek ships are small when compared to ships from other Scifi franchises, but if you stood next to Star Trek ship it wouldn't be tiny at all, everything is relative.
And please ignore the suggestion to change the game to a FPS (PPS) for ground missions. If I wanted to play a mindless kiddy game, I'd go play.. well.. any FPS game.
There's no need to fear about STO switching to FPS. If people want to FPS, they can hit "B" and zoom in.
Also, as for the various devs taking a hand at designing ships, I'm fairly certain they mean the technical aspects of ship design (the numbers, seating, consoles, etc.), not the art/modeling design of the ships.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
[quote]After some thought I think I'm just craving more STO, new STO.
*I do think there's less new content in total- but the new content that does come is the best content so far.
*I miss the old days of each story arc being more involved and new game mechanics being added.
*I also have anxiety that STO wont be around forever- and I want it to be refit to be more attractive to modern/younger gamers.
The rest of my tone and suggestions are probably just death anxiety.[/quote]
I share your sentiments, for the most part, except I do not feel that STO is in any danger of dying. Star Trek has never been more present than it is now. Multiple shows being produced at the same time. And while Season 3 of Picard might wrap up his story arc, it will likely open the door for more shows using veteran Trek actors set in that era. Even moving into some of the plot elements of Early STO like the Undine threat that ultimately leads into the Iconian War. There was a lot of good material in STO's early days. And already some elements of STO have been canonized in new trek.
With so much potential hooks into official show plotlines tied so closely with STO's prime timeline era, we could find ourselves getting the scoop on galactic events in a show, and then jump in the game to see how things pan out following the events in the show.
Until Discovery, STO never had the honor of running parallel to an actively produced Trek show. If anything is under-utilized, it is tying ingameplay with the shows in settings that fit the show's context. For example, Age of Discovery gave us a basic galaxy map that we were confined to before transitioning to the 25th century and being rolled into 25th century starfleet. Strange New Worlds carries on the timeline Discovery introduced. I see it as a missed opportunity for Cryptic to just leave the age of discovery galactic map content un-expanded. An entire series of pre-TOS storylines could be produced here, pulling from the shows set in that era for foundational elements.
Frankly, they could make the era a gameplay loop, involving show-introduced SCENARIOS to engage in rather than full-blown episodic missions. It's been said that they have to be careful about stepping on CBNS's toes with content based on currently active shows. That's nwhy the focus should not be trying to tell stories about what happens next in terms of broad-stroke events, but rather how our characters react with the status quo of the known galaxy as seen in the shows. That status quo would change ase actual episodes of a show introduce new elements and replace older ones.
Another missed opportunity would have been to occasionally continue adding Romulan Republic-specific events between the last mission in the initial RR arc and the event where we choose UFP or KDF. There would be no PvP material, and again, the content could come in the form of scenarios more than full blown storyline episodes. For RR characters that have already transitioned, those scenarios could be placed in the available missions category and would be treated as more or less flashbacks, so contextually, they are always pre-transition.
In the thread about spicing up the game, I talked about how the Fleet Holding mechanic could be adapted to introduce long-runing events where players participate in the construction of locations through contributions to projects. Actually building the new Romulan Republic capitol city using this mechanic could have been the thing that those wishing to remain in the pre-transition period longer could have been allowed to do. Of course once the city is completed, new RR characters created would get an abbreviated version of its progression process making it a personal holding for them that they can advance through relatively quickly, ultimately landing them in the completed hub, where the gameplay loops would be about helping the city maintain its infrastructure, which would in turn factor into variables and statistics that impact gameplay in the post-transition period.
Similar thing goes with the TOS-era aspect of the game. Gameplay loops set in the TOS environment that give players a reason to experience that environment with their character they created there as long as they want. Again through scenarios that fit the era.
To me, Star Trek represents a galaxy of possibilities. STO just doesn't feel like it's exploring those possibilities to the fullest, even in context with Cryptic's work-focus constraints. We kn ow they are a small team, and their budget doesn't give them uch in the way of creative autonomy.
They seem to feel like when we ask for the game to be expanded upon that they are expected to write manifestos, when brief statements will do.
Some of us expect that level of development. But it just isn't practical with how things are. And even writing brief statements regularly would require some reprioritization in the development process. Ship sales are THE priority. But there is so much more to Star Trek than just ships. So there should be so much more to STO as well. Getting the suits that control the budget to see this is the real challeng. One which Cryptic needs to undertake if it will ever happen. Our voice does not reach the ears of those deciding how the budget is handled. We can only send our thoughts and opinions up the line to Cryptic. If they see any merit in them, it is up to them to present MARKETABLE scenarios to their bosses to get the funding those elements would need to become real development projects.
Others here have talked about how many hats everyone at Cryptic have to wear. Too many responsibilities heaped on too few people can only result in stagnation.
Star Trek as an IP has grown exponentially over the past few years. STO has remained static during that time. The suits at the top are comfortable with the status quo. They have no perceived reason why it needs to change. As long as we the players keep spending real money on Zen to buy the ships they release, either in the form of expensive bundles or lockboxes, the status quo will be maintained.
No... Not spending money on Zen until they prioritize something else is not the answer. The game needs steady income to remain live. The suits just need to be convinced that additional branches of gameplay material can be made profitable as well.
It's a fine line that needs to be treaded delicately, and in smaller steps at first, eventually coming into full stride if/when increased profits are indicated.
Some people want Bull-in-a-China-Shop changes to development. Practically speaking, that sort of action would destroy more than it fixes or builds...
I don't mind the ground combat but it is easy and can get boring. When fighting Borg, I expect waves of enemies that get harder. Not all ground needs to use the same formula though. Event he same applies to space. Do we need a few dozen waves of enemies in every mission? Not in my opinion. It would be nice if there could be the optional environmental hazard thrown in that you could use to help defeat some enemies or choose not to and mow them down yourself. The space walk mission on the outside of DS9 is different. Long, but at least it's different for that part of it. The very easy maze of Jefferies Tubes when rescuing the Enterprise C was also a nice change.
One thing the game lacks in my opinion, is the ability to play as the enemy. I get that most people are here for Fed's Online. I have had some fleet mates that literally had a dozen characters, all Fed, and couldn't be bothered with anything else. I like the look of the new Terran ESD. That could easily be a social map for a Terran faction. We have plenty of Terran themed ships to buy already in the C-Store and in lock/promo boxes. All it would need is some mission content and a portal or some way into the main STO universe. I always thought the option to side with the Tal Shiar instead of the Republic was a missed opportunity as well. We have next to nothing for Strange New Worlds content so far and a chance to get some of those amazing actors to lend their talents to the game as well. Talking to the Federation Supply Crates in the original Khitomer STF was some great dialog! I wish the original STF's would be returned to the game in their full (both space and ground) combination with some new rewards. They were good content for their time.
Klingons started out as the "PvP faction" and people hated it.
And they simply can not dedicate time to developing a lot of exclusive content. Everyone needs to play the same stuff.
There won't be a Mirror-Universe (or any other) faction that exists only to PvP against everyone else. A Mirror-Universe faction that exists as PvP enemies of the rest of the players and that also has its own 1-65 mission content is an even bigger fantasy.
Berman has said in interviews that they tried to avoid armed ground combat whenever possible in the shows because in order for them to do the "tool" uses of the weapons (like disintegrating door-sized holes in bunker walls, clearing cave-ins, heating large rocks to glowing, etc.) meant they were just too ridiculously overpowered to do firearm-style combat realistically.
In fact, if you listen to the technobabble in The Mind's Eye and do the math it turns out that (from a raw energy standpoint) the amount of energy that comes out of the emitter of one of those SMG-sized phaser-3s from the early part of TNG is about the same as the muzzle energy per second of the combined output of four M2 .50cal machine guns firing full auto in antiaircraft configuration (which is actually a bit low for the effects they showed when using the phasers as tools). And all that is packaged in an easy to carry weapon that is capable of keeping up that rate of fire for at least the fifty seconds or so they showed one firing on the test bench in that episode and probably longer since it did not run out of energy, they just shut it off after the tests were done.
With that kind of power (and the fact that phasers have the creeping disintegration and stun effects) it would be irrelevant where you hit a person with one, STO already takes considerable liberties for playability purposes in making it take several shots instead of all of them being one-shot kill or stun like the shows.
Right? But someone thinks that there should be hit locations as if that would matter? As if a phaser blast to the torso is going to be less lethal than one to the head.
I kinda agree that the development has been slow and inconsistent. I miss the era of big expansions. Delta Rising, Victory is Life, Legacy of Romulus, etc.
Instead we get a mission or two every 6 months.
As much as the Patrols in Delta Rising were annoying, it actually helped a lot having to work to level up and unlocking the story instead of rushing through it.
I also dislike the incessant focus on the new shows. Why? Because outside of Picard those shows are set like two centuries before the game. It's as if people started wearing 17th century military uniforms today and suddenly began to ride horse carriages and carry muskets.
Stick to the time period we're in. We have like 2 time traveling starts by now and that is a little ridiculous especially since those starts are like 15 years apart canonically.
References to the other shows isn't a bad thing as much as I dislike the new trek, but it feels like every since Discovery came out, original content has almost dried up, and this game has just been stories focused on the new shows.
Admittedly, I do enjoy the current Mirror universe story and look forward for more. I just wish we could go back to getting expansions inbetween the content drought.
I dislike the focus on the new shows as well, but...
I am not a kid. Some would even call me old. I think that the current Trek has problems, and I'll leave it at that.
But it is the Trek that is out there. If Cryptic thinks that that is a doorway to attract new players I won't fault them.
I don't know how effective that strategy might be, but I certainly understand them wanting to attract potential players that may see the new Trek and become interested as a result, especially since the people that were enjoying Trek before the newest stuff came out probably made their choice to play or not play long ago.
I also don't know how much influence Paramount and/or CBS might exert on the license.
If they want to use the game to try and increase attention on the show then what is Cryptic supposed to do? They just make the content using the new (old) stuff and hope for the best.
Oh, and I hate the Mirror Universe stuff.
As a single episode of TOS it was fine. As some concept to try and jam into every iteration of Trek it is awful.
And while we all have our opinions, I think that the writing for the in-game Mirror content has ranged from mediocre to awful. I'll leave it at that.
After some thought I think I'm just craving more STO, new STO.
*I do think there's less new content in total- but the new content that does come is the best content so far.
*I miss the old days of each story arc being more involved and new game mechanics being added.
*I also have anxiety that STO wont be around forever- and I want it to be refit to be more attractive to modern/younger gamers.
The rest of my tone and suggestions are probably just death anxiety.
I share your sentiments, for the most part, except I do not feel that STO is in any danger of dying. Star Trek has never been more present than it is now. Multiple shows being produced at the same time. And while Season 3 of Picard might wrap up his story arc, it will likely open the door for more shows using veteran Trek actors set in that era. Even moving into some of the plot elements of Early STO like the Undine threat that ultimately leads into the Iconian War. There was a lot of good material in STO's early days. And already some elements of STO have been canonized in new trek.
With so much potential hooks into official show plotlines tied so closely with STO's prime timeline era, we could find ourselves getting the scoop on galactic events in a show, and then jump in the game to see how things pan out following the events in the show.
Until Discovery, STO never had the honor of running parallel to an actively produced Trek show. If anything is under-utilized, it is tying ingameplay with the shows in settings that fit the show's context. For example, Age of Discovery gave us a basic galaxy map that we were confined to before transitioning to the 25th century and being rolled into 25th century starfleet. Strange New Worlds carries on the timeline Discovery introduced. I see it as a missed opportunity for Cryptic to just leave the age of discovery galactic map content un-expanded. An entire series of pre-TOS storylines could be produced here, pulling from the shows set in that era for foundational elements.
Frankly, they could make the era a gameplay loop, involving show-introduced SCENARIOS to engage in rather than full-blown episodic missions. It's been said that they have to be careful about stepping on CBNS's toes with content based on currently active shows. That's nwhy the focus should not be trying to tell stories about what happens next in terms of broad-stroke events, but rather how our characters react with the status quo of the known galaxy as seen in the shows. That status quo would change ase actual episodes of a show introduce new elements and replace older ones.
Another missed opportunity would have been to occasionally continue adding Romulan Republic-specific events between the last mission in the initial RR arc and the event where we choose UFP or KDF. There would be no PvP material, and again, the content could come in the form of scenarios more than full blown storyline episodes. For RR characters that have already transitioned, those scenarios could be placed in the available missions category and would be treated as more or less flashbacks, so contextually, they are always pre-transition.
In the thread about spicing up the game, I talked about how the Fleet Holding mechanic could be adapted to introduce long-runing events where players participate in the construction of locations through contributions to projects. Actually building the new Romulan Republic capitol city using this mechanic could have been the thing that those wishing to remain in the pre-transition period longer could have been allowed to do. Of course once the city is completed, new RR characters created would get an abbreviated version of its progression process making it a personal holding for them that they can advance through relatively quickly, ultimately landing them in the completed hub, where the gameplay loops would be about helping the city maintain its infrastructure, which would in turn factor into variables and statistics that impact gameplay in the post-transition period.
Similar thing goes with the TOS-era aspect of the game. Gameplay loops set in the TOS environment that give players a reason to experience that environment with their character they created there as long as they want. Again through scenarios that fit the era.
To me, Star Trek represents a galaxy of possibilities. STO just doesn't feel like it's exploring those possibilities to the fullest, even in context with Cryptic's work-focus constraints. We kn ow they are a small team, and their budget doesn't give them uch in the way of creative autonomy.
They seem to feel like when we ask for the game to be expanded upon that they are expected to write manifestos, when brief statements will do.
Some of us expect that level of development. But it just isn't practical with how things are. And even writing brief statements regularly would require some reprioritization in the development process. Ship sales are THE priority. But there is so much more to Star Trek than just ships. So there should be so much more to STO as well. Getting the suits that control the budget to see this is the real challeng. One which Cryptic needs to undertake if it will ever happen. Our voice does not reach the ears of those deciding how the budget is handled. We can only send our thoughts and opinions up the line to Cryptic. If they see any merit in them, it is up to them to present MARKETABLE scenarios to their bosses to get the funding those elements would need to become real development projects.
Others here have talked about how many hats everyone at Cryptic have to wear. Too many responsibilities heaped on too few people can only result in stagnation.
Star Trek as an IP has grown exponentially over the past few years. STO has remained static during that time. The suits at the top are comfortable with the status quo. They have no perceived reason why it needs to change. As long as we the players keep spending real money on Zen to buy the ships they release, either in the form of expensive bundles or lockboxes, the status quo will be maintained.
No... Not spending money on Zen until they prioritize something else is not the answer. The game needs steady income to remain live. The suits just need to be convinced that additional branches of gameplay material can be made profitable as well.
It's a fine line that needs to be treaded delicately, and in smaller steps at first, eventually coming into full stride if/when increased profits are indicated.
Some people want Bull-in-a-China-Shop changes to development. Practically speaking, that sort of action would destroy more than it fixes or builds...
It's like folk think Cryptic can act as fast as Q as well. I mean, maybe if someone hands them a couple of hundred million, then maybe radical stuff can be achieved, but as Cryptic have said, they can only work with what they have, and to be honest, if this game was handled by a large game studio, players would be literally have to pay out their backsides for everything.....(Yeah, I'm looking right at you EA! ).
STO, thankfully, is not being trodden on by current shows not touching much in established canon, so it looks like CBS has given Cryptic free-hand in the ongoing of the 25th Century, and it's being slowly interwoven into canon. I do not however agree than the game should explore more TOS, simply because that is SNW's territory now, meaning STO's TOS era cannot be touched until SNW ends, otherwise Cryptic will be retconning left, right and centre (#bringbackechebyoubarstewards ).
Current STO timeline must follow the same path for everyone. As much as it would be great to have a greater effect on the path you take, it's gonna require mapping multiple instances for every possibility given. AFAIK, it's only little changes Cryptic have done, such as Captain Kira on DS9 and a couple of extremely minor changes to sectors depending on whether you've done certain missions. Doing them on a large scale is most probably too complex a task for a small team.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
I'm at the point where there is little motivation to invest any money into the game without some significant content added to the game, and I'm not talking new ships. We are in desperate need of new story content that's more than the 30 minute episode trickle that's been the Terran storyline, new TFOs, additions to the star maps, etc etc. Not to mention the lack of polish in general, skills that just aren't useful anymore in both space and ground, the Winter event as been the same for how many years now, and the graphics. If STO has been making the money they say it has, it needs to be invested back into the game. It's my understanding that Embracer Group, which now owns Cryptic, has a history of giving their studios the resources needed to succeed. The first thing Cryptic should do, IMO, is take a few pages from Digital Extremes and Warframe when it comes to how a free-to-play game should be done.
Well, this conversation is no longer productive, as it had pretty much died, only to have the OP return to revive the thread to continue trolling. /thread
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I was fine with BB5 CG.
The CGI in nBSG was pretty good; the original BSG, back in '79, had about the best CGI and model work that could be expected with the technology available at the time, which today constitutes "damning with faint praise".
The effects were good for 1978, but that was 44 years ago.
> And I should point out that Environmental Artists are not Character Artists. Different skillset.
Kael in the last livestream said all but two artists have worked on ship design at least once in STO. So I think that means although these designers have different specializations, it doesn’t mean they are incapable of doing anything else. It also seems to show how much of STO really is dedicated to the monitization of ship pixels, right. Everyone has to be able to assist or at least has had the opportunity to play shipwright.
Did the Orginal BSG have any CGI at all in it, you got remember that back then even on a movie budget the Death Star briefing was about the best CGI you could get (yes technically ANH came out 2 years prior but this was well before the CGI revolution of the late 1990s and early 2000s).
There was no CGI at all in OG BSG. The series suffered from the old attitude 'Sci-fi didn't sell', so didn't get the funding, that's why the same dog-fights from the pilot were repeatedly used throughout it's run. Even Buck Rogers suffered a similar issue, re-using OG BSG's sound effects.
I had presumed that what was first discussed in this regard was nBSG, which did use a lot of pretty good CGI in its production. I've come to learn that there are some younger viewers who don't know there was a BSG in 1979. Which is probably good for them, because it means they never watched Galactica 1980...
I was referring to character, as in humanoid characters on the ground that are expected to flex and move. Not ships. What does ship art have to do with environmental vs character?
Galactica 1980.....what an oddball that was
From what I've heard no one involved in that was really satisfied with the end result, granted I've heard this only second hand as 1980 was 2 years before I was born.
OG BSG had movie level state of the art VFX for 1978. It was probably the most expensive show ever done up to that point and time, and the amazing thing WRT it Bridge and video display was that they were all hooked into actual mini computers and the displays worked in real time and were synched to the 24 frame film cameras used; meaning that there was no post production compositing.
It's one reason George Luccas was so pissed at John Dykstra at the time and sued Universal so fast because at the start of BSG 1978 John Dykstra took the techniques and even some of the actual equipment he used on STAR WARS, refined it a bit, and used it on BSG1978.
During the lawsuit, Dykstra return said equipment but Universal paid for him to recreate it for their in house VFX studio they started at the time.
Bottom Line: For the time pweriod BSG1978 was not done 'on the cheap'; nor did it use sub standard VFX techniques. Everything they were doing post production wise was state of the art for the day; and VERY expensive.
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..."
From what the devs have shown in Ten Forward and said other times, ship design itself is probably the most straightforward of the 3D model making operations and the steps are more compartmentalizable for each department involved, so it would be the easiest for other departments to make models for.
The ship models generally don't flex or have joints (yes, I know a very few do), they don't seem to re-use a lot of components that are stored without much organization on a hard drive somewhere and depend on human memory to find anything, and they don't routinely have a lot of layers that have to work together with the minimum of clipping even when using parts designed for a totally different ship.
Character modelers have to contend with the clothing layers (and it is not an easy thing at all, I had a store in Second Life around 2010 and what they do here is way beyond what I used to make for that) and probably have to deal with a lot of the same stuff as the other departments. The environmental toolset for this game is primitive almost beyond belief from what they have shown of it (there is a Ten Forward that goes on a deep dive on what they have to do to make building and ship interiors and whatnot, so they have shown a lot), and the environmental department has to deal with that to get anything done.
Star Trek TOS was much the same way, it used top-shelf, movie grade SFX. And not just a little bit here and there, they needed a lot of it, most TV shows at the time might have had as much as a dozen optical effects while an episode of TOS could use hundreds (in fact, they used too many for even the biggest optical effects companies to handle on their own and it was not unusual for them to have to send parts of shows to every Optical SFX house in Hollywood to stay on schedule (which is the real reason for all the different phaser beam colors and whatnot, it is amazing that they could keep it all straight as well as they did).
And like with BSG, all that was not cheap, they had a very large budget for a TV series once NBC picked the series up. Not only was the "shoestring budget" relitive (high for TV but very, very tight if you look at it as a sixty-minute movie), but also most of the original sets were made back before the show was picked up by the network.
Desilu was not a major studio (and which mostly made comedies and cop shows), so building those sets had to be done mostly with materials on hand, which meant no metal walls or floor grids the way movies would have done it, a lot of drywall and painted wood (but unlike the myth, very little cardboard), the absolute minimum of always-on optical effects (like the main viewscreen on the bridge) they could get away with, and minimal electronic functionality to sell the viewers on the idea that it could be the way a ship in the far future looked.
And if you compare TOS as it originally aired to other science fiction productions of the time, even movies, it has held up incredibly well even without the remastering it received (TOS-R) later.
Yeah it's kind of like how Star Trek ships are small when compared to ships from other Scifi franchises, but if you stood next to Star Trek ship it wouldn't be tiny at all, everything is relative.
Also, as for the various devs taking a hand at designing ships, I'm fairly certain they mean the technical aspects of ship design (the numbers, seating, consoles, etc.), not the art/modeling design of the ships.
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*I do think there's less new content in total- but the new content that does come is the best content so far.
*I miss the old days of each story arc being more involved and new game mechanics being added.
*I also have anxiety that STO wont be around forever- and I want it to be refit to be more attractive to modern/younger gamers.
The rest of my tone and suggestions are probably just death anxiety.[/quote]
I share your sentiments, for the most part, except I do not feel that STO is in any danger of dying. Star Trek has never been more present than it is now. Multiple shows being produced at the same time. And while Season 3 of Picard might wrap up his story arc, it will likely open the door for more shows using veteran Trek actors set in that era. Even moving into some of the plot elements of Early STO like the Undine threat that ultimately leads into the Iconian War. There was a lot of good material in STO's early days. And already some elements of STO have been canonized in new trek.
With so much potential hooks into official show plotlines tied so closely with STO's prime timeline era, we could find ourselves getting the scoop on galactic events in a show, and then jump in the game to see how things pan out following the events in the show.
Until Discovery, STO never had the honor of running parallel to an actively produced Trek show. If anything is under-utilized, it is tying ingameplay with the shows in settings that fit the show's context. For example, Age of Discovery gave us a basic galaxy map that we were confined to before transitioning to the 25th century and being rolled into 25th century starfleet. Strange New Worlds carries on the timeline Discovery introduced. I see it as a missed opportunity for Cryptic to just leave the age of discovery galactic map content un-expanded. An entire series of pre-TOS storylines could be produced here, pulling from the shows set in that era for foundational elements.
Frankly, they could make the era a gameplay loop, involving show-introduced SCENARIOS to engage in rather than full-blown episodic missions. It's been said that they have to be careful about stepping on CBNS's toes with content based on currently active shows. That's nwhy the focus should not be trying to tell stories about what happens next in terms of broad-stroke events, but rather how our characters react with the status quo of the known galaxy as seen in the shows. That status quo would change ase actual episodes of a show introduce new elements and replace older ones.
Another missed opportunity would have been to occasionally continue adding Romulan Republic-specific events between the last mission in the initial RR arc and the event where we choose UFP or KDF. There would be no PvP material, and again, the content could come in the form of scenarios more than full blown storyline episodes. For RR characters that have already transitioned, those scenarios could be placed in the available missions category and would be treated as more or less flashbacks, so contextually, they are always pre-transition.
In the thread about spicing up the game, I talked about how the Fleet Holding mechanic could be adapted to introduce long-runing events where players participate in the construction of locations through contributions to projects. Actually building the new Romulan Republic capitol city using this mechanic could have been the thing that those wishing to remain in the pre-transition period longer could have been allowed to do. Of course once the city is completed, new RR characters created would get an abbreviated version of its progression process making it a personal holding for them that they can advance through relatively quickly, ultimately landing them in the completed hub, where the gameplay loops would be about helping the city maintain its infrastructure, which would in turn factor into variables and statistics that impact gameplay in the post-transition period.
Similar thing goes with the TOS-era aspect of the game. Gameplay loops set in the TOS environment that give players a reason to experience that environment with their character they created there as long as they want. Again through scenarios that fit the era.
To me, Star Trek represents a galaxy of possibilities. STO just doesn't feel like it's exploring those possibilities to the fullest, even in context with Cryptic's work-focus constraints. We kn ow they are a small team, and their budget doesn't give them uch in the way of creative autonomy.
They seem to feel like when we ask for the game to be expanded upon that they are expected to write manifestos, when brief statements will do.
Some of us expect that level of development. But it just isn't practical with how things are. And even writing brief statements regularly would require some reprioritization in the development process. Ship sales are THE priority. But there is so much more to Star Trek than just ships. So there should be so much more to STO as well. Getting the suits that control the budget to see this is the real challeng. One which Cryptic needs to undertake if it will ever happen. Our voice does not reach the ears of those deciding how the budget is handled. We can only send our thoughts and opinions up the line to Cryptic. If they see any merit in them, it is up to them to present MARKETABLE scenarios to their bosses to get the funding those elements would need to become real development projects.
Others here have talked about how many hats everyone at Cryptic have to wear. Too many responsibilities heaped on too few people can only result in stagnation.
Star Trek as an IP has grown exponentially over the past few years. STO has remained static during that time. The suits at the top are comfortable with the status quo. They have no perceived reason why it needs to change. As long as we the players keep spending real money on Zen to buy the ships they release, either in the form of expensive bundles or lockboxes, the status quo will be maintained.
No... Not spending money on Zen until they prioritize something else is not the answer. The game needs steady income to remain live. The suits just need to be convinced that additional branches of gameplay material can be made profitable as well.
It's a fine line that needs to be treaded delicately, and in smaller steps at first, eventually coming into full stride if/when increased profits are indicated.
Some people want Bull-in-a-China-Shop changes to development. Practically speaking, that sort of action would destroy more than it fixes or builds...
Klingons started out as the "PvP faction" and people hated it.
And they simply can not dedicate time to developing a lot of exclusive content. Everyone needs to play the same stuff.
There won't be a Mirror-Universe (or any other) faction that exists only to PvP against everyone else. A Mirror-Universe faction that exists as PvP enemies of the rest of the players and that also has its own 1-65 mission content is an even bigger fantasy.
Right? But someone thinks that there should be hit locations as if that would matter? As if a phaser blast to the torso is going to be less lethal than one to the head.
I dislike the focus on the new shows as well, but...
I am not a kid. Some would even call me old. I think that the current Trek has problems, and I'll leave it at that.
But it is the Trek that is out there. If Cryptic thinks that that is a doorway to attract new players I won't fault them.
I don't know how effective that strategy might be, but I certainly understand them wanting to attract potential players that may see the new Trek and become interested as a result, especially since the people that were enjoying Trek before the newest stuff came out probably made their choice to play or not play long ago.
I also don't know how much influence Paramount and/or CBS might exert on the license.
If they want to use the game to try and increase attention on the show then what is Cryptic supposed to do? They just make the content using the new (old) stuff and hope for the best.
Oh, and I hate the Mirror Universe stuff.
As a single episode of TOS it was fine. As some concept to try and jam into every iteration of Trek it is awful.
And while we all have our opinions, I think that the writing for the in-game Mirror content has ranged from mediocre to awful. I'll leave it at that.
It's like folk think Cryptic can act as fast as Q as well. I mean, maybe if someone hands them a couple of hundred million, then maybe radical stuff can be achieved, but as Cryptic have said, they can only work with what they have, and to be honest, if this game was handled by a large game studio, players would be literally have to pay out their backsides for everything.....(Yeah, I'm looking right at you EA!
STO, thankfully, is not being trodden on by current shows not touching much in established canon, so it looks like CBS has given Cryptic free-hand in the ongoing of the 25th Century, and it's being slowly interwoven into canon. I do not however agree than the game should explore more TOS, simply because that is SNW's territory now, meaning STO's TOS era cannot be touched until SNW ends, otherwise Cryptic will be retconning left, right and centre (#bringbackechebyoubarstewards
Current STO timeline must follow the same path for everyone. As much as it would be great to have a greater effect on the path you take, it's gonna require mapping multiple instances for every possibility given. AFAIK, it's only little changes Cryptic have done, such as Captain Kira on DS9 and a couple of extremely minor changes to sectors depending on whether you've done certain missions. Doing them on a large scale is most probably too complex a task for a small team.
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