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Cryptic Engine Limitations - Can it make STO all we want it to be?

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
After analyzing the games various aspects, graphics, and gameplay for a week now with several of my friends who are professional graphics and technical artists from AI institute SF CA, I personally do not think Cryptics current graphics engine will succed in making this game everything it could, or should be for a true star trek online experience. To put it in laymans terms, The graphics and engine mechanics in this game could be compaired Ladaian Tomlinson. Was in prime and good about 5-6 years ago, but is washed up now and far exceeded and outperformed by several other much, much better technologies such as Q or the HeroEngine.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    A football analogy? Seriously?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Gee, really, graphics doesnt matter. Who cares about graphics in a game? Unless its like REALLY REALLY bad I couldnt care less. Graphics is not what makes a game good or bad.

    This engine sucks because it cannot do what a modern MMORPG needs, which is extremely scripted encounters, exceptional AI, a free persistent world without loading screens and no instancing without reason.

    But more than the engine is the limiting factor, Cryptic itself is the problem. Cryptic has shown over and over again that they produce fast food games and dont support them properly. They really need to commit to making this game good, and I am wondering if they will do that thinking about how they have a new MMORPG in development.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Scay wrote:
    Gee, really, graphics doesnt matter. Who cares about graphics in a game? Unless its like REALLY REALLY bad I couldnt care less. Graphics is not what makes a game good or bad.

    This engine sucks because it cannot do what a modern MMORPG needs, which is extremely scripted encounters, exceptional AI, a free persistent world without loading screens and no instancing without reason.

    But more than the engine is the limiting factor, Cryptic itself is the problem. Cryptic has shown over and over again that they produce fast food games and dont support them properly. They really need to commit to making this game good, and I am wondering if they will do that thinking about how they have a new MMORPG in development.

    This...

    I keep seeing 'suggestion' posts popping up, as if people are under the impression that Cryptic is interested in player suggested changes.

    Small, incidental, stuff...maybe. Sweeping mechanics changes? Never going to happen.

    First, no design house would get very far without a master design document, a long term plan, in place. They are not going to scrap that based on a post on their forums...doesn't matter how many pages, or bumps, the post gets.

    Second, and more importantly, this is Cryptic. They make simple, straight forward, games with little real depth. It's what they do, it's what they have always done. They make Checkers, while people around here seem to want Chess. This is why the engine is so limited to begin with.

    If you are enjoying the game, then enjoy it and stop wishing it was some other game. it isn't, and it will not be in the future. A good 80% of the 'suggestions' I see posted would require a total rebuild/re-write of the game to achieve. Short of people leaving in droves (as in monthly subs drop below 50k), this isn't going to happen (and even then, it still may not).

    Like most modern MMOs, it had a big initial surge. Hype is everything, especially with mature IP based games. It will settle down over the next few months until it hits a stable population (probably in the few hundred thousand range) and stay there for a while. When expansions are released, there will be another brief surge, then it will stabilize again.

    This is a niche MMO, made by a company known for simple game play. Those looking for a complex, deep, gaming experience are playing the wrong game. It's that simple. I am just stunned at the number of people who obviously don’t get that when you by hamburger you shouldn’t be surprised it isn’t filet mignon.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Phaedryn wrote: »
    I am just stunned at the number of people who obviously don’t get that when you by hamburger you shouldn’t be surprised it isn’t filet mignon.


    I think people are ****ed that Cryptic took a filet mignon IP and made hamburger out of it. Not even good hamburger at that. This is like a .99 cent hamburger off the value menu...its not even a plain Whopper.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Scay wrote:
    Gee, really, graphics doesnt matter. Who cares about graphics in a game? Unless its like REALLY REALLY bad I couldnt care less. Graphics is not what makes a game good or bad.

    This engine sucks because it cannot do what a modern MMORPG needs, which is extremely scripted encounters, exceptional AI, a free persistent world without loading screens and no instancing without reason.

    But more than the engine is the limiting factor, Cryptic itself is the problem. Cryptic has shown over and over again that they produce fast food games and dont support them properly. They really need to commit to making this game good, and I am wondering if they will do that thinking about how they have a new MMORPG in development.

    So you're saying that Crytpic (or any organization for that matter) should be limited like a City in Civilization or a planet in Master of Orion II and only be able to do one single task at a time?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The development cycle of an MMO, coupled with the limitations of online play, dictate that almost any MMO engine will be at least a year or two out of date by launch.

    The best you can hope for is an engine modular enough that it can be replaced piecemeal or in whole as the game matures.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Nelzie wrote: »
    So you're saying that Crytpic (or any organization for that matter) should be limited like a City in Civilization or a planet in Master of Orion II and only be able to do one single task at a time?

    No I am saying they are. They shouldn't be, really, but thats how it is.

    They don't employ new team members all the time when they create a new game. They use the same people. Reason being, if you employ new people they dont increase your productivity but decrease it, because they have to be trained first. You can't just employ new developers and make them develop for STO tomorrow.

    Cryptic has a core development team. They transfer this development team to where they think it will produce the most profit overall. Which essentially means, after the game is released the amount of developers rapidly decreases.

    This is the state where we are now at, they will start decreasing the developers for STO down to an absolute minimum and putting all their effort into the new game.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Thamelas wrote:
    I think people are ****ed that Cryptic took a filet mignon IP and made hamburger out of it. Not even good hamburger at that. This is like a .99 cent hamburger off the value menu...its not even a plain Whopper.

    I'm beginning to think the same.


    MMO games do not tend to stray to far from their roots after launch and if they do it's often a bad thing (To cite star wars galaxies for one). Star Trek online will be the game remembered for me as the notorious load screen, voiceless, we come in peace shoot to kill single player space bar button mashing experience with a parker brothers battle ship board for an overworld map.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Yeah sure; let's make another game that eats 6.000 dollars computers for breakfast... then you'll really play on empty servers.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    SInce this is a MMO, I expect the engine for it to be slowly replaced overtime with one the better covers the growth and expansion that the players expect. A lot of mmo's slowly do this overtime, something I noticed with CoX especially.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Roach wrote: »
    SInce this is a MMO, I expect the engine for it to be slowly replaced overtime with one the better covers the growth and expansion that the players expect. A lot of mmo's slowly do this overtime, something I noticed with CoX especially.

    What leads you to think CoX ever changed engines? (hint, it hasn't)

    In fact, this is a modified CoX engine (though not modified for STO so much as for CO).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Roach wrote: »
    SInce this is a MMO, I expect the engine for it to be slowly replaced overtime with one the better covers the growth and expansion that the players expect. A lot of mmo's slowly do this overtime, something I noticed with CoX especially.

    Everquest with Shadows of Luclin replaced the whole gfx engine and models; Star Wars Galaxies did as well during NGE; many mmo's do that.

    The main problem with mmo's; is that you have many players in the same area; each wearing different things and looking different; the game's not posting 200 clones; so textures; colours etc have to be rendered differently; and loaded from network. So yeah MMO's will always look a bit more dated than they should; besides they also take a while to develop, and while the gfx might have been great at the time they started programming; things changed over the year or two.

    Anyway; contents and gameplay will always be more important than eye candy in my opinion.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Nelzie wrote: »
    So you're saying that Crytpic (or any organization for that matter) should be limited like a City in Civilization or a planet in Master of Orion II and only be able to do one single task at a time?

    Limited is the wrong word. They should be FOCUSED on a single task, maybe two. That's what CCP did with EvE, they have one other game on the backburner that they've been slowly developing for a while, but their primary focus was to make a truly deep and rich game. Their entire company is dedicated to EvE.

    I'm sorry, but this just can't be said of Cryptic. It's such a light game, it hardly qualifies as an MMO. :(
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The short answer to your question is: no. This engine is severely limited. The "Genesis" engine is nothing more than a program that uses set parameters to create slight variations of the same quest over and over again. The sheer number of instances in the game should be an indication of how limited the engine really is. Just use this game as a placeholder until SWTOR comes out then send a message to Cryptic by cancelling your sub. Don't try and look into the longterm, because 6 months into 2011 you'll be paying for expansions due to STO being a wasteland.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Kaylei wrote:
    After analyzing the games various aspects, graphics, and gameplay for a week now with several of my friends who are professional graphics and technical artists from AI institute SF CA, I personally do not think Cryptics current graphics engine will succed in making this game everything it could, or should be for a true star trek online experience. To put it in laymans terms, The graphics and engine mechanics in this game could be compaired Ladaian Tomlinson. Was in prime and good about 5-6 years ago, but is washed up now and far exceeded and outperformed by several other much, much better technologies such as Q or the HeroEngine.

    I doubt your friends somehow. Just because we don't have capes that have real physics movement doesn't say anything about outdated or having less power then it needs. Every engine is tailored to fullfill certain things. One engine goes more in one direction and another in a different one.

    In the end it only counts how you make a game.

    Tell me..what would we benefit of having a hero engine that doesn't belong to the company..that isn't home made...you are limited by what you actually can do with it. A home made engine can be altered if needed because cryptic has the source code to it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I came from Aion. The graphics in Aion alone are almost worth playing the game for.
    If this game used the same engine (cryengine) omg I would be drooling on my couch playing 23.5 hrs a day.

    edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g0dWrwsGOw Yea graphics like that but in star trek fashion.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I came from Aion. The graphics in Aion alone are almost worth playing the game for.
    If this game used the same engine (cryengine) omg I would be drooling on my couch playing 23.5 hrs a day.
    edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g0dWrwsGOw Yea graphics like that but in star trek fashion.

    Graphics are never a reason to play a game.

    For a game you need decent gameplay, good design, it needs to be fun.

    Every game that relied on pure graphics failed terribly -> Age of Conan
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The short answer to your question is: no. This engine is severely limited. The "Genesis" engine is nothing more than a program that uses set parameters to create slight variations of the same quest over and over again. The sheer number of instances in the game should be an indication of how limited the engine really is. Just use this game as a placeholder until SWTOR comes out then send a message to Cryptic by cancelling your sub. Don't try and look into the longterm, because 6 months into 2011 you'll be paying for expansions due to STO being a wasteland.

    This is the truth right here. Unless they decide to modify their engine and change direction with content. It will be just a side game to have shallow fun with. A chance to play in a game that uses the ST IP.



    I will continue to play because I am having fun and will take my time. But I will still play the other two MMO's I am playing. And will probably drop 2 of the three for SWTOR, depending on what hapens in the next year or two.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    If the future dictates that STO's engine WILL change, it wont be for quite some time. Probably long after many of us have moved on.

    Whether or not its going to change is irrelevant. Because just like someone said earlier, the gameplay in MMO's don't change very much after launch. Tweaks here and there yes. But usually nothing radical. There is of course, the odd exception, but we know what happened THERE.

    Unfortunately, this means that the gameplay will stay as shallow as it is now. Which is a shame. Another MMO with lost potential.

    For me, the instancing isn't such a big problem, its how the gameplay is presented. Ground instances are just shoot or scan. Nothing more. The stories are nice, but they don't require much in the way of user interaction. And that's what bothers me. Just look at the use of Tri-corders / ship scanners: one button to scan. That's it. When using a console on the surface: one button. Doesn't require any particular profession. Shoot and scan.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Massive amount of instances and small zone plus it feels like champions online should give you a good hint how the engine is.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Scay wrote:
    Gee, really, graphics doesnt matter. Who cares about graphics in a game? Unless its like REALLY REALLY bad I couldnt care less. Graphics is not what makes a game good or bad.

    .

    ummm.... i do. Thats why i have an big screen with gaming specs and why i have an expensive vid card... and surround sound i might add.

    some the stuff in this game looks nice and then other bits are just cheap. Like earth station looks like it escaped from 2003.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    OP:

    I get the concerns, but I think there is a gigantic over simplification of what exactly a game "engine" is... or actually, how limited they can be... It's a set of programmatic libraries generally, pre-created objects and the like...

    There is no predefined requirement to stay within just the limitations of that framework in a programming language... In fact, these days (and for the past decade-ish), you aren't really even confined to one primary programming language even... I routinely bounce between, C++ , Java, C# and VB.NET, not to mention the ancillary languages like XML , SQL, ...you name it... all in one application that works as a single unit...

    In that same application you can also invoke the Unreal engine, EA's Sports engine, DX10, PhysX (which STO uses to get the neat interactive debris you see after stuff blows up I suspect...) ...and then you could hook the engine from Hello Kitty Adventure Island if you wanted... And you can tie it all together via data accessibility, which is also pretty much universally accessible these days...

    The devs already have said they in fact use procedural C programming, I suspect they use that as the glue-language that interacts with their own custom "engine" as it were (just a bunch of libraries) , and whatever other SDK's they have available that will benefit the game and are get-able....




    There are other managerial and perhaps skill-level factors that may prevent them from reasonably expanding the game... But what code can do is pretty much without limits these days....

    Budgets on the other hand....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    While i am one for graphics... (like eve) it does not make the game play.. I remember a few years back when i first picked up GTA.. Now this games graphics where laughable.. but OMG the game rocked and that part of the game made me play and play...
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