Okay, I see some people have taken the approach that they're willing to pay in-game currency to have any of you prospective players out there thinking of picking up the game list you as a reference. What is generally left out is that money is quite easy to come by and some players have questioned whether trading energy credits in such a way is even allowed.
Here is my offer:
It is possible to save a character file with all the visual customization options pre-set. This file sits in your screenshots folder. These files can be traded between players and used by different players provided they are not renamed.
If you setup an account and choose to consider me as a reference, I will take the time to design a character to your specifications. If it requires an exclusive costume or race, I will either attempt to make due with the basic options available or talk you through the process of what version of the game to buy or what promotions you need to unlock the costume you want.
For some samples of my work with the character creation tool?
Here is an album containing some of the work I've done with character likenesses. (That last one is a stab at Leeroy Jenkins of Warcraft fame. Note the body proportions are closer to Warcraft humans.)
I'll happily attempt to recreate any Star Trek race, do a portrait of you or a friend as a bridge officer or try something more exotic. I can do body-types ranging from comically super-deformed Klingons to hulking orcs to Buzz Lightyear-style animated looks.
Use me as a reference and I'll supply you with a design (which can be used for captains or bridge officers) and work it to your satisfaction. I'd encourage that you play with the character creation tools as well but at least with this, perhaps I can give your creativity a kickstart.
And if you're still around the game after a month, hit me up and I'll design you a bridge crew. How does that sound, new folks?
And once you're in game, we'll have the added benefit of the recruitment bonuses like the ability to warp to eachothers' locations and bonus skill point gains so I'll do my best to help you out there too, either Klingon or Federation side as I have some characters that could use leveling companions and a Federation Admiral which I'd be happy to assist you with.
I'm not sure if you can reply to this thread or send private messages but I can be reached at
sto2409@gmail.com if you're interested and PMs don't work. Thanks!
Comments
Na, seriously, that's a way better offer than others made (EC are still very easy to get by). I have 2 friends interested in the game, and since I only want the holographic officer... I only need one, so if both decide to sign up, I'll send one of them to you.
I'm flattered.
I also want the Holographic Officer but as an Escort Captain, anything beyond that is a novelty for me. Don't get me wrong; I love novelty. But I've been craving the option to have Holographic BOs since day one and hope we have means of getting Holo-Officers and a Photonic Captain down the road.
So far, the Holographic Officer appears to be cross-faction and I hope that gets extended to the Romulan faction because I desperately want my Hirogen Sub-Commander (I've said before, I love that title and will keep it as I rank up) to have a Holographic crew.
I looked at your link. Good work.
Have you done any from the new film? I'd love to have Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, or Simon Pegg lookalikes on my crew
I think your Picard design is great. You might want to ... design one in the TNG: Movie uniform. And offer that to new players just trying things out.
I couldn't get mine to recognize your design at first. And then, DUH, I realized it was because I didn't have the TNG uniforms. Now that I do, your Picard shows up as an option in my "Load" screen when I'm in the tailor.
So, if you were to make a Picard from First Contact with those uni options, I bet you could offer that as part of your incentive.
My dream is a Vorta captain, and the Feds made him a holographic founder, so he adapts better to be outside the Dominion. A holo-god to worship. That would so crack me up. ^^
Anyway, is there something else I can bribe you with to create a look for my Betazoid?
Well, PM me or drop me an e-mail with the look you want or some links to actors/etc. and I'll take a stab at it.
I didn't realize that. The only thing I don't have are the Mirror Universe uniforms but whenever I've loaded a costume file that had an unavailable uniform (ie. an off duty uniform savefile in a duty slot), the facial features load and the costume defaults to a generic one.
Thanks, I'll pm.
See, I thought it would do that too. But for some reason I couldn't ever get it to be recognized. Then the other day I went and got the Collector's Edition. And suddenly it appeared in my options.
I was pleasantly surprised.
To veer a bit off topic I'll say that when I first got here to this game I wanted to see if anyone had been able to make a good Picard likeness. I noticed that my own human captain ended up having a bit of a Pike look (though my guy's a bit chubbier). And I thought two things ... 1- that was probably a subconscious thing on my part and 2- it's kind of cool that they gave us the tools to make likenesses like that.
So I wanted to find a Picard likeness, because I was compeltely failing to come up with anything good.
Eventually I stumbled upon the Sisko thread. And found your posts. And your links. And your gallery.
It was exactly what I was looking for.
And then I couldn't get it it work.
So I was pretty happy to find it working after getting the Collector's Edition.
Your Picard is pretty darn good, considering the limitations that the creator does have. Way better than the few attempts I made to create him.
This one has Picard, Dr. Bredell from Judgment Rites, the EMH Mark I and a Bolian barber.
Spock
EMH - This one was one I did to put up on my site until I found out I can't host animated files (part of what the delay has been on the site).
I have several takes on Data from a hypothetical "Path to 2409" Machinima.
Data
Data - Music dubbed in, an early test of the lip-syncing software.
Data doing the Robot - This was an experiment in the demorecord/demo-editing tool. That's a female only hairstyle that I edited into the demo.
You sure your allowed to come out with avatars like that.... ?
You know... being resemblences to REAL LIFE people and all... wouldnt Cryptic be forced to pay additional fees or open to legal action if someone takes issue ?
He never said its limited to actors. People can also mail him a photo and have him recreate them as toons. I personally have a friend looking almost exactly like Lon Suder from Voyager. No kidding, he just has no Betazoid eyes. Who can sue him for looking like that? And he sure won't sue me for taking him as a reference for my toon.
The last thread I posted these in had a developer complimenting everyone on their work.
One thing to keep in mind is... How many of these ever got past the character creator stage...? If there's no character who looks like that (and most of these designs are not in use on any of my captains) then there's no foul. None of my characters have names that refer directly to the inspirations for them or the characters they're modeled on. If I had "Captain Kirk" or "William Shatner", it might be more of an issue. If I have a captain who just looks awfully familiar, well... That's not necessarily a direct depiction, in game anyway.
My stance with the Soong-Type Android is that it's a self-portrait in Soong-Type Android makeup as I think my facial proportions, in that case, just happen to be close to Spiner's, nose bridge aside and the engine doesn't allow much modeling there. I've joked before that I'd license my likeness and voice as Data if they couldn't get Spiner. ;-)
It's not a dead on depiction but I bet I could get as close to the iconic Data as any other example of someone being recast in Star Trek; and off the top of my head, three quarters of the major Trek characters have been portrayed by more than one actor at some point and there are probably as many or more examples of that than there are cases where one actor played multiple roles. Whether it's minor characters like Braxton or someone like Spock who has been portrayed by a probably around a dozen people by now.
Off the top of my head, Picard has been played by four actors onscreen, five stand-ins/photo doubles, one live stand-in...
And in terms of Trek video games, they generally get the original casts, HOWEVER Seven of Nine was recast for Star Trek Voyager: Elite Forces and Kevin Michael Richardson played Sisko. So there's a history portraying a character or character type without necessarily being an actor's likeness too.
In genre stuff, there's Buffy, Anya, the Master and Willow all recast for the games and portrayed as somewhat looser likenesses while the rest of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast, from major to minor players, reprised their roles and issued their likeness for the game.
All kinda esoteric, I guess. Mostly, though, me goofing around in the character creator without actually hitting "submit".
I didn't feel like getting my theatrical makeup kit out.
Kinda cruddy quality but I think you can see where I get off saying that my Soong Type Android is a self-portrait.