If you were to spend more than a couple minutes thinking about it, you'd come to the conclusion that people just plain wouldn't use it. It would be a novelty for a week, and then a largely wasted effort. And the reasons for this go back to the difference between a TV show and a video game.
"But wait!" you may say, "The bridge is the single most iconic setting in all of Star Trek." Yes, you are correct. It certainly is the most commonly seen set piece. But let's think about what's happening on that Bridge:
Kirk is looking at a giant viewscreen. Any of nearly a dozen bridge officers are looking at separate screens with all manner of data. And WE are looking at THEM. The TV show is about us watching Kirk captain the ship, while he looks at his screen and his officers look at theirs. Kirk is the captain, we are the observer.
This game, however, is about YOU captaining the ship. You are the captain AND the bridge crew. The third-person view and UI are a composite of all the information all those people are seeing, so that you can make decisions in real-time. You can see where enemies and allies are, you can see what's being fired, you can see how close a target is to death, you can see your weapons and BO abilities for quick use, all in one easy-to-read display.
Basically, you are the Captain/BOs, and you're looking at your console. If you were to get into this "functional bridge" mess, you would go back to being the observer... WATCHING your captain WATCH your bridge officers WATCH their consoles, while the consoles WATCH the battle. Like watching a video of someone reading the newspaper over someone else's shoulder. This does the exact and extreme opposite of creating immersion.
ON SHIP FUNCTIONALITY AS A WHOLE:
If you could switch your BO stations from the Ready Room, would you? Sure, for the first couple times. Then you'd realize it's so much faster and easier to do it from the UI. Just like a captain wouldn't hold a briefing just to have two people switch stations--he'd say "Hey, you two, switch." And it would be done, so they'll be ready for the next battle coming up.
Adding function won't really benefit anyone. It's on that list of things that many players THINK they want.... until they get it. So many other games have experienced that with things like "meaningful travel"--the players INSIST that it makes the game cooler when it takes a long time to get from zone to zone. And then a month later, they complain that they're having to cross the same zone 50 times, and it's taking too long.... or that the game is too "zoned," and it feels empty because there's NOBODY in the noobie area anymore (due to long travel times). And then some sort of instant travel has to be introduced to fix what they "wanted."
ON SHIP INTERIORS:
Interiors aren't about function. They're about ownership. Letting someone do something they can already do elsewhere won't help. Giving them a sense of ownership over the gamespace does. Let them customize layouts and textures and furnishings, let them make the space their own. Will every player use this? Of course not. But those players that DO will use it for a LOOOOOONG time. Look at SWG--do you know what goes on in there MOST of the time? House/Shop decorating. Not combat, not the "new" instances. People RESUBSCRIBING for a month just to look back in on that shop/house.
You don't want to design features based on what people ask for. You want to design features based on what players will USE in the LONG-TERM. It's great how often those two line up, but sometimes they just don't.
"You don't want to design features based on what people ask for. You want to design features based on what players will USE in the LONG-TERM"
lol
and being all knowing you know what all players will use in the long term? lol
3rd person view=far away= less attached
1st person view=closer= more attached
maybe ther are many that are 3rd viewer types that like to look at drapery , cool
but some would rather "sit and look at a screen" and maybe have flashing lights and smoke when a torpedo hits and amybe a fight when your ship is invaded
not sure. i suspect people know what they want- something new
crafting, leveleling, decorating, - side things i would not concentrate on
how about your head getting qall scarred anda mechanical leg,and theship computer taking over and attacking teammates and getting demoted and leveling forever because you get rid of leveling and replace it with "adventure"
I'll try to respond to what made sense in your post. Forgive me if I completely disregard the rest.
Yes, I do know that people would not USE most of these "functionality" features. Because there are already faster, easier ways to do it. Think about it--in other games, you COULD just walk from one end of the game world to the other instead of using instant travel. How many people do? None. Because there is an easier way to do it.
So, instead of going to the UI panel and switching to Bridge Officers, I could: 1. Go to Bridge. 2. Walk to the Ready Room. 3. Pull up the same UI panel. 4. Switch the Bridge Officers. 5. Go back to the Bridge. 6. Sit in the chair to return to 3rd person mode. I just tripled the number of steps, and multiplied the amount of TIME I spent doing this menial task by who-even-knows.
And after this, I can go into combat seeing a full view of my ship and environment, a sensor panel, all my BO skills and weapons and batteries, my shields, my power settings, all my allies and enemies and their health, who's firing what, and where my current objective for the mission is.
OR, I could see a tiny window showing me a 10-degree slide of the battlefield... and look at five separate BO stations for all my powers... and a separate station for sensors... and a separate station for firing weapons... and a separate console for managing shields... and I can phone down to Engineering for my power settings...
How long would I last against opponents who can remove all those tedious in-between steps and react in REAL-time?
While playing the bridge view in Bridge Commander was kinda fun and much more realistic, the third person view was always less frustrating.
Frustrating MMOs don't keep many subscribers.
However, I would enjoy the option to play which ever I was in the mood for at the time.
I played from the bridge only and loved it myself ,but to each his own . You hit the nail square, so long as these functionalities are optional, then everyone can play how they like.
The curious thing is, the most logical screens for those BOs to be looking at (especially the helmsman), would look much like the 3rd person view YOU'RE looking at.
I fully endorse this thread...the OP is right. What people really want is a single player, immersive, Star Trek game with all the bells and whistles.
Which would be freakin awesome. Take a game like Mass Effect and slap a Star Trek label on it would rock so freakin hard. You could walk to the various areas of your ship, talk to your crew, do stuff in engineering (upgrade your ship), do stuff from Astrometrics (planet scanning in ME2), all kinds of stuff.
It would be a bad TRIBBLE game.
But this is an MMO. This stuff is not possible. You can't have enemies board your shp in the middle of battle because A) the ship interior is its own instance, and there are other players possibly playing with you...while you're fighting boarders, the other players are fighting other ships...it doesn't flow well at all. Just couldn't be done in this setting. Walking around talking to your crew would be equally as pointless because these are random characters that can be swapped out at any time.
Without character backgrounds or stories, their speech would be meaningless and no one would bother talking to them. How many times to people skip NPC dialogue in this game because it's ultimately pointless because the missions are so short term? I know I do (except for the story mission dialogue, I read those)
Also, having ship interiors for the sake of interiors is ultimately pointless...how many people do you see on Risa or Quarks bar? None.
Yes, I would like to see some sort of functionality in the ship, however NOT as a replacement for the current UI. Having stations for shields and the like is also pontless because we already have this. We would need something NEW. Like customizing the ready room, or having a cargo bay that acts as the Bank (not Inventory since that's in the UI), or a crafting station.
It's a very tricky concept for a game of this type...the instancing makes it so you can't have a Bridge Commander style game...also, about BC. When you fight from the Bridge in BC, often times your helmsman steers the ship on his own and tactical officer is firing...you're just giving tactic orders...which would be pointless in this game too because that's now how it was designed.
Yes, I would like to see some sort of functionality in the ship, however NOT as a replacement for the current UI. Having stations for shields and the like is also pontless because we already have this. We would need something NEW. Like customizing the ready room, or having a cargo bay that acts as the Bank (not Inventory since that's in the UI), or a crafting station.
It's already been stated by a DEV that, if and when it come's it will not be a replacement for the current UI. and will be optional. In other words nothing will change for you unless you change it yourself.
In my opinion, Its also a fairly safe bet at this point, it will be all non-combat interior/bridge functions at best. I doubt it will be like BC. And that said depending on who you ask , the context of "functionality" is so wide and varied in meaning , that until a DEV clears it up we are all just being assumptive and speculative here , Myself included.
Personally I hope it's sector space/travel time killing kind of functionality, hails and such on the view screen. Tell my helmsman " take us here" or "avoid that contact". Sector space should never have existed in this game, thats where the interior/ bridge time should have been.
The OP's post is well worded, but not very well thought out. It essentially amounts to 'This is why bridge functionality would be nothing more than a novelty to me' with the 'me' changed to 'everyone'. It's easy to work out in your head why you think no one would do something, but this is always a mistake. You have to remember that you, personally, are a very small part of the game community. Even expanding that to encompass all of the people you play with regularly, or even all of the people who post on the boards with even semi-regularity, it still makes up only a fraction of the overall game's audience. Couple that with the fact that, by and large, the people you play and interact with will tend to have many of the same game play preferences as you (which is why you play together, of course) it can very easily lead to the illusion that the number of people who enjoy the game for completely different reasons than you or would appreciate entirely different features are a tiny minority.
It's a phenomenon that I see rear its head constantly in my game design classes at school. Hardcore PvP'ers don't understand how anything other than PvP could be fun to anyone, and dedicated PvE'ers don't understand how constant PvP could remain entertaining. I've been gulty of it myself. I remember being shocked when, during a discussion of Free To Play MMO's, we had to stop the class to explain to nearly half of it (all of who were pretty hardcore gamers) that it wasn't just free, there actually WAS a business model to it. They'd never conceived of a game supporting itself entirely from microtransactions. I spend so much time with online PC games that I had easily fallen into the illusion of believing that all gamers, even those who don't do much online gaming, were aware of how free to play MMO's worked.
Likewise, the OP seems to have fallen prey to the illusion that because he can work out in his head why he thinks it's little more than a novelty, everyone else would obviously feel the same way, and would cease to use it after, as he puts it, a week. In reality, all he's managed to work out is why he and, possibly, some people he knows wouldn't continue to use it.
Dismissing it because 'this is an MMO' is also rather naive. The fact of the matter is that, though it can sometimes seem to be happening rather slowly, MMO's are constantly evolving and there is no such thing as a mechanic that can't work, simply because it's an online game. I've seen (and it's not hard to find these if you go dumpster diving into ancient, decade old discussions from other games) equally 'well worded' explanations over the years of why things like instancing, action-oriented combat, player housing, and all sorts of other features common today could never work 'because it's an MMO' orwould only be a novelty, quickly dismissed. People STILL make arguments like that about things such as housing, despite the fact that many games now use it and are loved for it, simply because they and those around them can't conceive of why it's enjoyable. So they assume it must only be enjoyable to a vast minority and its inclusion in any game is some sort of fluke.
The simple truth is that many people would enjoy the option of a functional bridge and would use it just because it's more immersive. It isn't the people asking for it on the boards that suggests this (though that is, at least, a clue) but a number of succesful games that have revolved around this concept. If people didn't want it, it would never have been made and no one would be asking for it. And, no, STO being an MMO does not render these concepts invalid. There was a time not very long ago when the sort of missions games like STO offer were considered the sole realm of single player games, and any number of forumites would wax philosophic on why this was so and would always be so. Where is those people's reasoning now? The condescending way in which the OP assumes that he knows what everyone, or even the majority, would use or think is fun, better than they do, is rather ignorant, no matter how well worded the post. Will functional bridges be implemented? Who knows. I'd also agree, if pressed that the game doesn't really 'need' them. But would they be a complete waste of time just because there are 'easier' ways to do things? Very doubtful. For many people, this game is about, in whatever small way they can, living Star Trek. Doing things as quickly and efficiently as possible isn't the point.
While those features are all well and good (and may in fact be somewhat desirable to myself to a degree), my thinking is that the devs have more than enough things they should be worried about setting/balancing/fixing before unnecessary bells and whistles are added.
hmm Bridge commander used follow cam on target while you where sitting in the captains chair (could not walk)
Worked wonderful if you ask me.
you could always go fly from the outside, but that would be like trying to play star trek legacy (need to go wash my mouth with soap now for saying "that" word)
hmm Bridge commander used follow cam on target while you where sitting in the captains chair (could not walk)
Worked wonderful if you ask me.
you could always go fly from the outside, but that would be like trying to play star trek legacy (need to go wash my mouth with soap now for saying "that" word)
Bridge Commander was awsome, but i workes entirely diffrent. Even if they'd include a bridge fighting mode, i just wouldnt work on that game.
But the Interior could be used for a lot of other stuff, there could be exploration missions in wich you have to fight back boarding partys on your ship for example.
You have to be careful when talking about 'unnecessary' in a game. Technically, the entire game is 'unnecessary'. It exists purely for the purpose of fun. Therefore, if something adds to the fun for enough of the people playing it, it isn't unnecessary. What's unnecessary is leaving something out simply because it isn't purely practical.
Remember Progress Quest? Here you have an example of an MMO with all 'unnecessary' bits removed. Essentially, a window with some text and a series of bars that fill up.
There are a few concepts they probably haven't yet gotten to in your game design class. One of them is that there is a marked difference between what is practical for a single-player game, and what is practical for a multiplayer game. Combat from the bridge and boarding battles are fine.... when it's just you versus the AI, meaning the entire game world runs on YOUR time, and can adjust to YOUR reaction speed.
This isn't the case for STO. You choose to fight from the bridge, and everyone in 3rd person runs rings around you. This means PvP is right out. But also, in PvE, if the game is slowed down so that "bridge captains" still have a shot, the difficulty will be ridiculously low for "space captains." They'll get more bored than many of them are now.
Boarding battles are another case of a large section of the population asking for something without understanding what they're asking for. You're on a team, you're fighting a group of NPCs, and you get boarded. Now your ship is sitting still while you're fighting inside it, while every other ship is moving around and using special abilities. Guess who they'll target?
Or we're also demanding an "auto-pilot" function that not only maneuvers, but FIGHTS for use while we're boarded. That's a massive undertaking. Plus the addition of a mechanic to handle what happens when your ship is blown up after you're boarded... or to your ship after the crew is defeated... or whether you can "quit" the battle to return to the bridge if things are really bad... All of this for a mechanic that would be used a small percentage of the time.
Immersion is important in games. And it is also the most-abused concept when explaining bad features. We are confusing it with other ideas. A functional bridge makes the game "look more authentic," because it's how we remember the shows. It does not "add immersion," because it's actually putting barriers between the player and his interaction with the game world, rather than breaking them down.
Having someone use the Ready Room to assign BOs to stations makes the game slightly "more realistic." It does not "add immersion," as it requires the player to go through at least two loading screens they would otherwise not have needed to go through, all to access the same UI and accomplish the same goal. This is ADDING seams to the world rather than removing them. It's the opposite of immersion.
There are a few concepts they probably haven't yet gotten to in your game design class. One of them is that there is a marked difference between what is practical for a single-player game, and what is practical for a multiplayer game. Combat from the bridge and boarding battles are fine.... when it's just you versus the AI, meaning the entire game world runs on YOUR time, and can adjust to YOUR reaction speed.
This isn't the case for STO. You choose to fight from the bridge, and everyone in 3rd person runs rings around you. This means PvP is right out. But also, in PvE, if the game is slowed down so that "bridge captains" still have a shot, the difficulty will be ridiculously low for "space captains." They'll get more bored than many of them are now.
Boarding battles are another case of a large section of the population asking for something without understanding what they're asking for. You're on a team, you're fighting a group of NPCs, and you get boarded. Now your ship is sitting still while you're fighting inside it, while every other ship is moving around and using special abilities. Guess who they'll target?
Or we're also demanding an "auto-pilot" function that not only maneuvers, but FIGHTS for use while we're boarded. That's a massive undertaking. Plus the addition of a mechanic to handle what happens when your ship is blown up after you're boarded... or to your ship after the crew is defeated... or whether you can "quit" the battle to return to the bridge if things are really bad... All of this for a mechanic that would be used a small percentage of the time.
Immersion is important in games. And it is also the most-abused concept when explaining bad features. We are confusing it with other ideas. A functional bridge makes the game "look more authentic," because it's how we remember the shows. It does not "add immersion," because it's actually putting barriers between the player and his interaction with the game world, rather than breaking them down.
Having someone use the Ready Room to assign BOs to stations makes the game slightly "more realistic." It does not "add immersion," as it requires the player to go through at least two loading screens they would otherwise not have needed to go through, all to access the same UI and accomplish the same goal. This is ADDING seams to the world rather than removing them. It's the opposite of immersion.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that it does add barriers into the game play. I also agree that it adds steps unnecessarily, and that it makes things take time that shouldn't.
However, I disagree with you that it makes it less immersive. There is a player base who signed up for this game to role play, to live out their Star Trek adventures/ etc.. And for those people, this is the key. Wandering around the bridge, the decks, ready rooms, and anywhere else is part of the story.
No, it's not part of a streamlined gaming experience that takes us to the action right away.
But that's not necessarily what we want. And that streamlining certainly isn't more immersive.
I absolutely want to be able to walk around my ship, explore my hallways, visit my quarters, say hello to my officers in my engineering bay. That is key to me, also.
HOWEVER.
The "functionality" of the space takes a backseat to many considerations. Customization is the biggest among those.
I do not want to walk around a BORROWED ship. I want to walk around MINE.
I do not to explore someone ELSE'S hallways. I want to explore MINE.
If I have to choose between being able to use a terminal to change my weapons, and being able to decide where that terminal is and what it looks like, I want to CHOOSE more than USE. And make no mistake, with the amount of time either of these considerations will take to design, it'll be one or the other, at least for a couple years.
The key to spaces like ship interiors working in games is the player's sense of ownership. Without that, they are a momentary distraction--if you can get the job done easier, and you can't change anything about the space, what's going to bring you back, honesty? If I can use a mail terminal in a prefabricated, pre-furnished office on the ship I'm currently piloting, and I can't change any of it... how is it any different from using the mail terminal anywhere else? The only notable difference is that I'll never see anyone else while I'm there.
The developers have offered us the option of calling for function OR customization (and a few other things), but not both. My argument here is that customization is what will really work, and what makes the most developmental sense. If this is our "one shot," it would be a much better decision to be able to customize our interiors and make the ships our own.
I see the bridge being more for the RP player then the functional player. Here's my two cents: work on the KDF, and drop the allegiance BS in Gamma. That is where I would like my money to go. How about a poll asking:
Add real PvE content for KDF
Add other factions that will wither and die in Gamma because, more than likely to save time and making content, they'll be another PvP faction forced to play with their allegiance in a "Common Ground" area.
Add another poll asking for aesthetic items to appease the existing hard core base and not attract new players and those that have left
The developers have offered us the option of calling for function OR customization (and a few other things), but not both. My argument here is that customization is what will really work, and what makes the most developmental sense. If this is our "one shot," it would be a much better decision to be able to customize our interiors and make the ships our own.
I'll have to stop you there.
They offered us the option for function OR customization, as to where they should focus their intention first. At least, that's the way I saw it (it's an indicator of where they shall go). Customization will take time, so will functionality. They can't do both at the same time, so they put it up to the vote.
I agree that functionality needs to be put elsewhere than in the bridge. What you can do with your interior is something that should not replace what you can do already with existing hubs, unless those hubs are non-player-to-player interactive (i.e., using your Captain Room's computer to access mail, using your quarter's replicator instead of the one with the in the Inventory--these should duplicate, for immersion reasons, instead of replace). That is to say, vendor NPCs and banks should not be anywhere near the interior as they're going to detract from existing hubs (starbases, etc.) As your missions can be given and turned in without the need of finding that person (a great feature), these hubs are already poorly lacking in ANYTHING to do.
At the same time of "giving order" versus flying the ship yourself, the combat model will have to be reworked to allow both. It'd be a great undertaking, but one that could also bridge the time-frame gap and instancing gap. The more work that's put into this, the less opaque instancing overall becomes--which I'm in favor of.
Its funny but from the poll, and I reread that thing about 25 times before I voted, I never got... sit on your bridge and give orders... as functional ship interiors.
Instead to me it was more like the shuttle bay can launch shuttles and the transport room can transport things and the cargo bay can hold cargo, the engine room can explode, come on thats all it ever does!!!!!
And for the record that wasn't my vote anyway.
From a decoration perspective I see the interiors much the same as some of the other posters in this forum, as a housing type thing to be decorated. I played SWG for 5 yeas and as someone else commented it was mmy pride and joy to have my houses yeah I had 5 seperate large houses and all my gunboats, had all of those also decorated.
From a gameplay perspective I think they need to include flying first person from the bridge. I think that for me personnaly given the likely penalty to difficulty should make the game just about right in reguards to me and the computer fighting each other. There is a small point that in like Star Trek games that the Captaain had less to manage at that screen, there are ways around that. The little screen on the captains char should be a tactical plot reppeater to show in 3d how ships are moving about ioneself in real time.
From a common sense perspective they need to add some sort of VOIP client into the game, So I can talk to the other captains, from the bridge, and coordinate raids etc. This was one of the biggest suprises to me in the game, was no VOIP client. In STO are you serious? First question from my brother... he's something like 34 now just so you dont think I am a 13 year old, he's 2 years my senior... was can you call people on the ship and talk to them? I had to say "No. and it really suprises me that any Star Trek game would be released without that type of function."
Yes I know a great many people use VENT or TS, however in games with a built in VOIP client that works its amazingly easier to group/do raids/communicate/everything than those when your pugging as much as in STO and you have no better method than either doing without significant communication or typing, or giving them your personnal vent server information.
To the OP: I really don't need you as my spokesperson, thanks.
And that's what you are trying to become by throwing the word everyone in there OP.
Takiwa
I sorta agree with the OP ... but sorta dont. I would love to have this option, and i'd love to be able to decorate my ship ala decorating a house in SWG/EQ2/Whateverothergameshavehouses. The only thing I would hope is, that it doesnt stop them from making new things that would be more heavily used, like more/new missions, maybe some new looking maps and new AI or at least more 'tricks' for bosses and such that have to be figured out/done to defeat them rather than just shoot shoot shoot.
OP, you are assuming that creating "functional" ship interiors is a separate animal from episodic or normal mission content. It does not have to be at all. There is a possibility that a whole new type of content can be created that goes along with ship interiors.
Suppose for a moment, while you are on routine patrol in some sector, those Romulans you encounter manage to board your ship. You'll now have the option to repel the intruders.
Suppose that when you get one of those "Aid the Planet" missions, you can actually bring some of them aboard to cure their illness or heal their wounds or analyze their water purification systems to fix them instead of just beaming them supplies.
Suppose you may be able to host "diplomatic negotiations" aboard your ship, where opposing NPC factions come aboard for you to manage the negotiations.
You can have ship interiors that serve both the "player housing" types who just want to decorate and the "more mission content" types who are looking for more mission-type things to do.
There are endless possibilities that can come with ship interiors. You just need to think outside the box a little. Your assumption that they'll "just be cosmetic fluff to decorate" is not accurate.
OP, you are assuming that creating "functional" ship interiors is a separate animal from episodic or normal mission content. It does not have to be at all. There is a possibility that a whole new type of content can be created that goes along with ship interiors.
Suppose for a moment, while you are on routine patrol in some sector, those Romulans you encounter manage to board your ship. You'll now have the option to repel the intruders.
Suppose that when you get one of those "Aid the Planet" missions, you can actually bring some of them aboard to cure their illness or heal their wounds or analyze their water purification systems to fix them instead of just beaming them supplies.
Suppose you may be able to host "diplomatic negotiations" aboard your ship, where opposing NPC factions come aboard for you to manage the negotiations.
You can have ship interiors that serve both the "player housing" types who just want to decorate and the "more mission content" types who are looking for more mission-type things to do.
There are endless possibilities that can come with ship interiors. You just need to think outside the box a little. Your assumption that they'll "just be cosmetic fluff to decorate" is not accurate.
I will not be serving Romulan Ale at these events, lesson learned, thanks Capt Kirk.
I would love to negotiate a deal between the nasicans and the klingons, to the death about my holodecks thunderdome!
Like the diplomatic idea for missions ALOT.
Takiwa
It's not that I disagree with things on the ship "working," being able to do things.
The problems that people are pretending don't exist are with INTEGRATING content outside the ship with content inside the ship. Because the game was not designed with it, adding it only accomplishes adding extra steps.
Why go to a loading screen and then into a board room for a diplomatic instruction, when a pop-up interface on the normal space could serve as the viewscreen, through which countless interactions took place?
Why use a console in engineering, when you can already switch items from the U screen?
And one of the biggest--how do you expect to balance group content if one player can be boarded while the rest are still fighting outside? A boarded player's ship would be a sitting duck.
CUSTOMIZATION is the most important function of interior spaces like this. And then having things you can do in there is fine, as long as they're not trying to replace what goes on outside.
It's just that people have this flawed idea that once they can do something from inside the ship, everyone's going to be doing it, and everyone's going to be jumping on each other's ships to play. Not if they all look the same, they won't. And even then, it's not what people think.
Most of these are the same people that wanted groups to be crews--one person as captain, one as chief engineer, one as chief of security.... etc. It would be so awesome, they thought. Just like the real Trek experience, they clamored. Until it started to slowly dawn on people that everyone would want to be the captain. No one would want to sit around at a station waiting to use one of 3 abilities... or the poor Security guy, waiting for an away mission.
The steps that people are asking the game take are moving it toward a single-player experience. People do not want to pay subscription fees for those.
The problems that people are pretending don't exist are with INTEGRATING content outside the ship with content inside the ship. Because the game was not designed with it, adding it only accomplishes adding extra steps.
Why go to a loading screen and then into a board room for a diplomatic instruction, when a pop-up interface on the normal space could serve as the viewscreen, through which countless interactions took place?
Understandably. There is one instance in which this actually makes sense--flying through sector space. I absolutely detest hailing someone for a mission, reading through the background, and checking what rewards are available and then getting hit with a DSE. Same goes with typing up a Captain's Log. But I can already do that by going to my bridge, where I'll be safe, so it's not as though such a feature isn't already present.
And one of the biggest--how do you expect to balance group content if one player can be boarded while the rest are still fighting outside? A boarded player's ship would be a sitting duck.
It would require reworking ground combat so that a boarding party can be dealt with in the supposed 30-60 seconds it takes for them to go around sabotaging systems. It would take that much time to get to them before they beam out. Or, it would require space combat so that there are fewer ships, but are more difficult and involving to destroy or disable--either way, both ground and space combat would have to be synced, which would require a retroactive alteration to every mission and every ability.
Most of these are the same people that wanted groups to be crews--one person as captain, one as chief engineer, one as chief of security.... etc. It would be so awesome, they thought. Just like the real Trek experience, they clamored. Until it started to slowly dawn on people that everyone would want to be the captain. No one would want to sit around at a station waiting to use one of 3 abilities... or the poor Security guy, waiting for an away mission.
This was a result of the promise Perpetual said, that at low-levels you work as an officer aboard the ship until you earn the rank to deserve your own. It was lofty, and like any claim PE made about the development of the game, entirely unsubstantiated.
(Also, the only way to deal with interior battle during space battle is offer AI-assisted piloting. The AI can be quite tough in this game, but it creates a shallow inversion--boarding parties send back a return report in the form of debuffs and replenishment of the crew who left. Leaving the Captain's chair to fight off the boarding party isn't your job, it's your crews', and even if you did, you'd get battle reports in the form of success or failure as you fought off the boarders. You could, optionally, take control of your security squad, but that pulls focus from the player.)
We should be able to have Functionality and nice looking Interior's . Why should we suffer one or the other considering its not to much to ask for in the first place.
As previously stated, they're going to do both--they just wanted to know which one was more important to the players, so they can work on that one first.
Comments
lol
and being all knowing you know what all players will use in the long term? lol
3rd person view=far away= less attached
1st person view=closer= more attached
maybe ther are many that are 3rd viewer types that like to look at drapery , cool
but some would rather "sit and look at a screen" and maybe have flashing lights and smoke when a torpedo hits and amybe a fight when your ship is invaded
not sure. i suspect people know what they want- something new
crafting, leveleling, decorating, - side things i would not concentrate on
how about your head getting qall scarred anda mechanical leg,and theship computer taking over and attacking teammates and getting demoted and leveling forever because you get rid of leveling and replace it with "adventure"
Yes, I do know that people would not USE most of these "functionality" features. Because there are already faster, easier ways to do it. Think about it--in other games, you COULD just walk from one end of the game world to the other instead of using instant travel. How many people do? None. Because there is an easier way to do it.
So, instead of going to the UI panel and switching to Bridge Officers, I could: 1. Go to Bridge. 2. Walk to the Ready Room. 3. Pull up the same UI panel. 4. Switch the Bridge Officers. 5. Go back to the Bridge. 6. Sit in the chair to return to 3rd person mode. I just tripled the number of steps, and multiplied the amount of TIME I spent doing this menial task by who-even-knows.
And after this, I can go into combat seeing a full view of my ship and environment, a sensor panel, all my BO skills and weapons and batteries, my shields, my power settings, all my allies and enemies and their health, who's firing what, and where my current objective for the mission is.
OR, I could see a tiny window showing me a 10-degree slide of the battlefield... and look at five separate BO stations for all my powers... and a separate station for sensors... and a separate station for firing weapons... and a separate console for managing shields... and I can phone down to Engineering for my power settings...
How long would I last against opponents who can remove all those tedious in-between steps and react in REAL-time?
condescending post there but i'll bite...
i can make sense of what you are saying. unfortunatly
i am the " captain of my ship". thanks. that helps.
i do like how certain words are CAPPED like bad propaganda writing from 1948 or something
i will string the capped words together as it might have more content
lets see
"COULD TIME OR REAL"
i say "real" and skip the time TRIBBLE like decorating
While playing the bridge view in Bridge Commander was kinda fun and much more realistic, the third person view was always less frustrating.
Frustrating MMOs don't keep many subscribers.
However, I would enjoy the option to play which ever I was in the mood for at the time.
I played from the bridge only and loved it myself ,but to each his own . You hit the nail square, so long as these functionalities are optional, then everyone can play how they like.
Which would be freakin awesome. Take a game like Mass Effect and slap a Star Trek label on it would rock so freakin hard. You could walk to the various areas of your ship, talk to your crew, do stuff in engineering (upgrade your ship), do stuff from Astrometrics (planet scanning in ME2), all kinds of stuff.
It would be a bad TRIBBLE game.
But this is an MMO. This stuff is not possible. You can't have enemies board your shp in the middle of battle because A) the ship interior is its own instance, and
Without character backgrounds or stories, their speech would be meaningless and no one would bother talking to them. How many times to people skip NPC dialogue in this game because it's ultimately pointless because the missions are so short term? I know I do (except for the story mission dialogue, I read those)
Also, having ship interiors for the sake of interiors is ultimately pointless...how many people do you see on Risa or Quarks bar? None.
Yes, I would like to see some sort of functionality in the ship, however NOT as a replacement for the current UI. Having stations for shields and the like is also pontless because we already have this. We would need something NEW. Like customizing the ready room, or having a cargo bay that acts as the Bank (not Inventory since that's in the UI), or a crafting station.
It's a very tricky concept for a game of this type...the instancing makes it so you can't have a Bridge Commander style game...also, about BC. When you fight from the Bridge in BC, often times your helmsman steers the ship on his own and tactical officer is firing...you're just giving tactic orders...which would be pointless in this game too because that's now how it was designed.
Sorry for the long post
It's already been stated by a DEV that, if and when it come's it will not be a replacement for the current UI. and will be optional. In other words nothing will change for you unless you change it yourself.
In my opinion, Its also a fairly safe bet at this point, it will be all non-combat interior/bridge functions at best. I doubt it will be like BC. And that said depending on who you ask , the context of "functionality" is so wide and varied in meaning , that until a DEV clears it up we are all just being assumptive and speculative here , Myself included.
Personally I hope it's sector space/travel time killing kind of functionality, hails and such on the view screen. Tell my helmsman " take us here" or "avoid that contact". Sector space should never have existed in this game, thats where the interior/ bridge time should have been.
It's a phenomenon that I see rear its head constantly in my game design classes at school. Hardcore PvP'ers don't understand how anything other than PvP could be fun to anyone, and dedicated PvE'ers don't understand how constant PvP could remain entertaining. I've been gulty of it myself. I remember being shocked when, during a discussion of Free To Play MMO's, we had to stop the class to explain to nearly half of it (all of who were pretty hardcore gamers) that it wasn't just free, there actually WAS a business model to it. They'd never conceived of a game supporting itself entirely from microtransactions. I spend so much time with online PC games that I had easily fallen into the illusion of believing that all gamers, even those who don't do much online gaming, were aware of how free to play MMO's worked.
Likewise, the OP seems to have fallen prey to the illusion that because he can work out in his head why he thinks it's little more than a novelty, everyone else would obviously feel the same way, and would cease to use it after, as he puts it, a week. In reality, all he's managed to work out is why he and, possibly, some people he knows wouldn't continue to use it.
Dismissing it because 'this is an MMO' is also rather naive. The fact of the matter is that, though it can sometimes seem to be happening rather slowly, MMO's are constantly evolving and there is no such thing as a mechanic that can't work, simply because it's an online game. I've seen (and it's not hard to find these if you go dumpster diving into ancient, decade old discussions from other games) equally 'well worded' explanations over the years of why things like instancing, action-oriented combat, player housing, and all sorts of other features common today could never work 'because it's an MMO' orwould only be a novelty, quickly dismissed. People STILL make arguments like that about things such as housing, despite the fact that many games now use it and are loved for it, simply because they and those around them can't conceive of why it's enjoyable. So they assume it must only be enjoyable to a vast minority and its inclusion in any game is some sort of fluke.
The simple truth is that many people would enjoy the option of a functional bridge and would use it just because it's more immersive. It isn't the people asking for it on the boards that suggests this (though that is, at least, a clue) but a number of succesful games that have revolved around this concept. If people didn't want it, it would never have been made and no one would be asking for it. And, no, STO being an MMO does not render these concepts invalid. There was a time not very long ago when the sort of missions games like STO offer were considered the sole realm of single player games, and any number of forumites would wax philosophic on why this was so and would always be so. Where is those people's reasoning now? The condescending way in which the OP assumes that he knows what everyone, or even the majority, would use or think is fun, better than they do, is rather ignorant, no matter how well worded the post. Will functional bridges be implemented? Who knows. I'd also agree, if pressed that the game doesn't really 'need' them. But would they be a complete waste of time just because there are 'easier' ways to do things? Very doubtful. For many people, this game is about, in whatever small way they can, living Star Trek. Doing things as quickly and efficiently as possible isn't the point.
Worked wonderful if you ask me.
you could always go fly from the outside, but that would be like trying to play star trek legacy (need to go wash my mouth with soap now for saying "that" word)
Bridge Commander was awsome, but i workes entirely diffrent. Even if they'd include a bridge fighting mode, i just wouldnt work on that game.
But the Interior could be used for a lot of other stuff, there could be exploration missions in wich you have to fight back boarding partys on your ship for example.
Remember Progress Quest? Here you have an example of an MMO with all 'unnecessary' bits removed. Essentially, a window with some text and a series of bars that fill up.
(P.S. did I do the caps right?)
There are a few concepts they probably haven't yet gotten to in your game design class. One of them is that there is a marked difference between what is practical for a single-player game, and what is practical for a multiplayer game. Combat from the bridge and boarding battles are fine.... when it's just you versus the AI, meaning the entire game world runs on YOUR time, and can adjust to YOUR reaction speed.
This isn't the case for STO. You choose to fight from the bridge, and everyone in 3rd person runs rings around you. This means PvP is right out. But also, in PvE, if the game is slowed down so that "bridge captains" still have a shot, the difficulty will be ridiculously low for "space captains." They'll get more bored than many of them are now.
Boarding battles are another case of a large section of the population asking for something without understanding what they're asking for. You're on a team, you're fighting a group of NPCs, and you get boarded. Now your ship is sitting still while you're fighting inside it, while every other ship is moving around and using special abilities. Guess who they'll target?
Or we're also demanding an "auto-pilot" function that not only maneuvers, but FIGHTS for use while we're boarded. That's a massive undertaking. Plus the addition of a mechanic to handle what happens when your ship is blown up after you're boarded... or to your ship after the crew is defeated... or whether you can "quit" the battle to return to the bridge if things are really bad... All of this for a mechanic that would be used a small percentage of the time.
Immersion is important in games. And it is also the most-abused concept when explaining bad features. We are confusing it with other ideas. A functional bridge makes the game "look more authentic," because it's how we remember the shows. It does not "add immersion," because it's actually putting barriers between the player and his interaction with the game world, rather than breaking them down.
Having someone use the Ready Room to assign BOs to stations makes the game slightly "more realistic." It does not "add immersion," as it requires the player to go through at least two loading screens they would otherwise not have needed to go through, all to access the same UI and accomplish the same goal. This is ADDING seams to the world rather than removing them. It's the opposite of immersion.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that it does add barriers into the game play. I also agree that it adds steps unnecessarily, and that it makes things take time that shouldn't.
However, I disagree with you that it makes it less immersive. There is a player base who signed up for this game to role play, to live out their Star Trek adventures/ etc.. And for those people, this is the key. Wandering around the bridge, the decks, ready rooms, and anywhere else is part of the story.
No, it's not part of a streamlined gaming experience that takes us to the action right away.
But that's not necessarily what we want. And that streamlining certainly isn't more immersive.
HOWEVER.
The "functionality" of the space takes a backseat to many considerations. Customization is the biggest among those.
I do not want to walk around a BORROWED ship. I want to walk around MINE.
I do not to explore someone ELSE'S hallways. I want to explore MINE.
If I have to choose between being able to use a terminal to change my weapons, and being able to decide where that terminal is and what it looks like, I want to CHOOSE more than USE. And make no mistake, with the amount of time either of these considerations will take to design, it'll be one or the other, at least for a couple years.
The key to spaces like ship interiors working in games is the player's sense of ownership. Without that, they are a momentary distraction--if you can get the job done easier, and you can't change anything about the space, what's going to bring you back, honesty? If I can use a mail terminal in a prefabricated, pre-furnished office on the ship I'm currently piloting, and I can't change any of it... how is it any different from using the mail terminal anywhere else? The only notable difference is that I'll never see anyone else while I'm there.
The developers have offered us the option of calling for function OR customization (and a few other things), but not both. My argument here is that customization is what will really work, and what makes the most developmental sense. If this is our "one shot," it would be a much better decision to be able to customize our interiors and make the ships our own.
I'll have to stop you there.
They offered us the option for function OR customization, as to where they should focus their intention first. At least, that's the way I saw it (it's an indicator of where they shall go). Customization will take time, so will functionality. They can't do both at the same time, so they put it up to the vote.
I agree that functionality needs to be put elsewhere than in the bridge. What you can do with your interior is something that should not replace what you can do already with existing hubs, unless those hubs are non-player-to-player interactive (i.e., using your Captain Room's computer to access mail, using your quarter's replicator instead of the one with the in the Inventory--these should duplicate, for immersion reasons, instead of replace). That is to say, vendor NPCs and banks should not be anywhere near the interior as they're going to detract from existing hubs (starbases, etc.) As your missions can be given and turned in without the need of finding that person (a great feature), these hubs are already poorly lacking in ANYTHING to do.
At the same time of "giving order" versus flying the ship yourself, the combat model will have to be reworked to allow both. It'd be a great undertaking, but one that could also bridge the time-frame gap and instancing gap. The more work that's put into this, the less opaque instancing overall becomes--which I'm in favor of.
Instead to me it was more like the shuttle bay can launch shuttles and the transport room can transport things and the cargo bay can hold cargo, the engine room can explode, come on thats all it ever does!!!!!
And for the record that wasn't my vote anyway.
From a decoration perspective I see the interiors much the same as some of the other posters in this forum, as a housing type thing to be decorated. I played SWG for 5 yeas and as someone else commented it was mmy pride and joy to have my houses yeah I had 5 seperate large houses and all my gunboats, had all of those also decorated.
From a gameplay perspective I think they need to include flying first person from the bridge. I think that for me personnaly given the likely penalty to difficulty should make the game just about right in reguards to me and the computer fighting each other. There is a small point that in like Star Trek games that the Captaain had less to manage at that screen, there are ways around that. The little screen on the captains char should be a tactical plot reppeater to show in 3d how ships are moving about ioneself in real time.
From a common sense perspective they need to add some sort of VOIP client into the game, So I can talk to the other captains, from the bridge, and coordinate raids etc. This was one of the biggest suprises to me in the game, was no VOIP client. In STO are you serious? First question from my brother... he's something like 34 now just so you dont think I am a 13 year old, he's 2 years my senior... was can you call people on the ship and talk to them? I had to say "No. and it really suprises me that any Star Trek game would be released without that type of function."
Yes I know a great many people use VENT or TS, however in games with a built in VOIP client that works its amazingly easier to group/do raids/communicate/everything than those when your pugging as much as in STO and you have no better method than either doing without significant communication or typing, or giving them your personnal vent server information.
To the OP: I really don't need you as my spokesperson, thanks.
And that's what you are trying to become by throwing the word everyone in there OP.
Takiwa
Suppose for a moment, while you are on routine patrol in some sector, those Romulans you encounter manage to board your ship. You'll now have the option to repel the intruders.
Suppose that when you get one of those "Aid the Planet" missions, you can actually bring some of them aboard to cure their illness or heal their wounds or analyze their water purification systems to fix them instead of just beaming them supplies.
Suppose you may be able to host "diplomatic negotiations" aboard your ship, where opposing NPC factions come aboard for you to manage the negotiations.
You can have ship interiors that serve both the "player housing" types who just want to decorate and the "more mission content" types who are looking for more mission-type things to do.
There are endless possibilities that can come with ship interiors. You just need to think outside the box a little. Your assumption that they'll "just be cosmetic fluff to decorate" is not accurate.
I will not be serving Romulan Ale at these events, lesson learned, thanks Capt Kirk.
I would love to negotiate a deal between the nasicans and the klingons, to the death about my holodecks thunderdome!
Like the diplomatic idea for missions ALOT.
Takiwa
The problems that people are pretending don't exist are with INTEGRATING content outside the ship with content inside the ship. Because the game was not designed with it, adding it only accomplishes adding extra steps.
Why go to a loading screen and then into a board room for a diplomatic instruction, when a pop-up interface on the normal space could serve as the viewscreen, through which countless interactions took place?
Why use a console in engineering, when you can already switch items from the U screen?
And one of the biggest--how do you expect to balance group content if one player can be boarded while the rest are still fighting outside? A boarded player's ship would be a sitting duck.
CUSTOMIZATION is the most important function of interior spaces like this. And then having things you can do in there is fine, as long as they're not trying to replace what goes on outside.
It's just that people have this flawed idea that once they can do something from inside the ship, everyone's going to be doing it, and everyone's going to be jumping on each other's ships to play. Not if they all look the same, they won't. And even then, it's not what people think.
Most of these are the same people that wanted groups to be crews--one person as captain, one as chief engineer, one as chief of security.... etc. It would be so awesome, they thought. Just like the real Trek experience, they clamored. Until it started to slowly dawn on people that everyone would want to be the captain. No one would want to sit around at a station waiting to use one of 3 abilities... or the poor Security guy, waiting for an away mission.
The steps that people are asking the game take are moving it toward a single-player experience. People do not want to pay subscription fees for those.
by your logic we should just remove bridges all together?
Perhaps we could remove ground missions altogether as well because we can do everything we need (level up and get upgrades) without ground missions.
Perhaps we should do away with teaming, because people dont group until they have to at RA5... so clearly its not something they use...
Understandably. There is one instance in which this actually makes sense--flying through sector space. I absolutely detest hailing someone for a mission, reading through the background, and checking what rewards are available and then getting hit with a DSE. Same goes with typing up a Captain's Log. But I can already do that by going to my bridge, where I'll be safe, so it's not as though such a feature isn't already present.
It would require reworking ground combat so that a boarding party can be dealt with in the supposed 30-60 seconds it takes for them to go around sabotaging systems. It would take that much time to get to them before they beam out. Or, it would require space combat so that there are fewer ships, but are more difficult and involving to destroy or disable--either way, both ground and space combat would have to be synced, which would require a retroactive alteration to every mission and every ability.
This was a result of the promise Perpetual said, that at low-levels you work as an officer aboard the ship until you earn the rank to deserve your own. It was lofty, and like any claim PE made about the development of the game, entirely unsubstantiated.
(Also, the only way to deal with interior battle during space battle is offer AI-assisted piloting. The AI can be quite tough in this game, but it creates a shallow inversion--boarding parties send back a return report in the form of debuffs and replenishment of the crew who left. Leaving the Captain's chair to fight off the boarding party isn't your job, it's your crews', and even if you did, you'd get battle reports in the form of success or failure as you fought off the boarders. You could, optionally, take control of your security squad, but that pulls focus from the player.)