So they've created a system that allows them to make fantastic missions, but it takes too long to make them so we just won't do it? How is this efficient? What is the point of all these assets if they can't use them to immerse their players in the game world? I truly hope that he was talking about more complex FEs (which often use new mechanics, etc.), not regular episode arcs.
In fairness, part of the issue, I think, is that everything is instanced. I know a content designer for another major MMO has told me on a number of occasions that landscape missions -- even those with cool mechanics and storyline -- are a lot easier and less resource-intensive to make than instances.
Cryptic is also caught between a rock and a hardplace: Some of us contend that they should be able to reuse and combine existing assets to create new content. As long as the storyline and activities are different, there is no reason why the same landscape, base, etc., can't be used again for a new story.
However, then they run into players who complain that because the environment looks the same, it's not really a different mission. This is false, of course, but it can become a perception issue.
Part of the problem is that STO with it's development time constraints released with less storyline content and fewer missions than most other MMOs do -- and they have not been able to make up the gap.
What they seem to be doing instead is driving people rapidly to the level cap and making this and "endgame" MMO. That is, turning out easier to make dailies for teams with minimal story and such, and expecting us to just play them over and over and over again. That is not what I look for in an MMO.
I still hold out high hope for Season 7 being a story-focused season as DStahl said. The mechanics and system development they've done adds still more that can be used to create tremendous storyline and mission content.
I think this is a great summation of the issues.
I think Fleet Starbases and the DOff system are great ways of coping with the limitation, as are the event content. But I think it can be pushed further.
I was working on a design doc awhile back for something I'd call a "first person DOff system" but it's simply too much work for something I'm not doing for close friends or for a living. I hope Cryptic is thinking along similar lines, at least.
It would be my dream (but its not going to happen unless I buy out cryptic) That you would truly have a choice in what you play. Instead of just being able to play the feds, you could play who ever, and go were ever. But alas, gamers don't write universes that big.
Yeah. My guess is that one FE series takes upwards of $250 million in cash, which is too much to give away for free or not to be replayed heavily
I'm going to say you are overshooting that... by a lot.
Assuming the content guys and artists are paid a generous $100,000 per year and you have two working per episode, a five episode FE would come to ~$115,000 in labor over six weeks. Add in the labor of a team of ten programmers and IT specialists being paid the same generous $100k, and that total goes up to $230,000.
Labor is the most expensive part of any project. But let's be generous and say marketing, testing, and deployment doubles that cost, you are still only looking at less than $500,000.
$250,000,000 in cash to create a five episode FE? There are games that don't get that amount for their entire development. $500,000 or $1,000,000.... maybe. And I reiterate that the above numbers are generous. It's just to make the math easier. Most designers are paid a lot less.
Release a $20 ship at the same time and it'd only take 25,000 people purchasing it to pay for the FE.
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___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
yah agreed OP
i don't care for any lvl 1 - 50 grind
actually i prefer to start a new klingon char because i can have him faster at Endgame, the only thing that makes me not do klingons all the time is that the Feds get all the shiny Ships that i want to fly.
also lvl 50 factions would open up the possibility for many many more factions in STO
call it Monsterplay factions if you want but i would totally go for that!
even if those factions only get Foundry Mission content i would still totally go for that.
BUT i would expect completely new game mechanics from a new species.
I have a hard time believing that Tholians, Undine or Borg would have Tactical/Science/Engineering officers just like Starfleet.
more variety is needed in the game and what better place to start that than a new Faction?
I'm going to say you are overshooting that... by a lot.
Assuming the content guys and artists are paid a generous $100,000 per year and you have two working per episode, a five episode FE would could ~$115,000 in labor over six weeks. Add in the labor of a team of ten programmers and IT specialists being paid the same generous $100k, and that total goes up to $230,000.
Labor is the most expensive part of any project. But let's be generous and say marketing, testing, and deployment doubles that cost, you are still only looking at less than $500,000.
$250,000,000 in cash to create a five episode FE? There are games that don't get that amount for their entire development. $500,000... maybe. And I reiterate that the above numbers are generous. It's just to make the math easier. Most designers are paid a lot less.
I was going with closer to ten and a payroll of $80k. But you have to factor in things like payroll taxes, which spikes the number up quite a bit for the employer. So with benefits, that's around 90,000. There are potentially extra benefits, worker's comp, paid sick days, etc. So $100k from the employer's POV is possible.
That works out to two grand, per employer, per week.
Assume twenty-five people working five weeks, you're looking at a quarter of a million dollars, not counting any other expenses and not counting lost income from other revenue generating projects they could be doing.
I assumed the FEs took "the whole team" around five weeks.
Granted, I bet some folks like QA get paid less but I also wasn't factoring in lost revenue from folks who could be on the C-Store or doing bug fixes (to retain customers), etc.
Also, what I just did was a generous estimate for one episode.
If EACH EPISODE takes 5 weeks of labor, even if it's only five people, that's a quarter of a million for the full series.
It's enough money that they NEED to be replayed heavily.
This is one reason why I've been disappointed whenever I hear other story content advocates say that they only replay a mission once or twice and that they still want more new ones.
yah agreed OP
i don't care for any lvl 1 - 50 grind
actually i prefer to start a new klingon char because i can have him faster at Endgame, the only thing that makes me not do klingons all the time is that the Feds get all the shiny Ships that i want to fly.
One man's grind is another man's game (which works both ways, of course).
1-50 levels of playable, immersive storyline missions is far more entertaining for me than running the same relative handful of raids or dailies repeatedly. A lot of what is refered to as "endgame" is the very definition of repetitive, hamster wheel grind to me.
Some players have no interest in story or immersion; they just want a few different scenarios to do combat and get gear so they can do more combat better. I get that. I even fall into that category on occasion (bad day at work: go home and blow something up in game).
However, that can get very tedious for me. It engages that combat side, but not the imaginative side. Storylines and missions do that. I like a combination of things to do (story, combat, exploration, duty officers, etc), but engaging story is by far my favorite part.
And while I enjoy teaming on occasion, forced grouping is anathema to me.
I like the idea of starting off at the Captain (RSE Commander?) level. If there's no progression whatsoever, it's a bit boring.
I also like the idea of a Romulan player accessing another faction's storylines as an "undercover" agent, although a lot of the dialogue would be really off.
A Rom faction would be the perfect excuse to do other-faction content by introducing the time-tested Star Trek notion of a "surgical tailor". My idea is that you could do missions that unlock a "surgical alteration" tailor slot to resemble certain races. Once you've been surgically altered to look like an Orion, for example, you can do KDF missions and even access the Klingon homeworld as if you were KDF. Of course you could even have access to a variety of holoemitters to make your ship look like that of another faction.
Heck, you could even start a Romulan character off as a deep cover operative. Let them effectively function as a Starfleet or KDF officer until they level up into the high-level Romulan content.
It would take some nasty coding to pull off, but it might be less time-intensive than trying to build a full set of missions.
Exactly! It saves Cryptic development time to a great deal and gives Romulans somewhat of that unique twist that makes players want to play them. Not only do they get cool gadgets and abilities with spying, but the ability to do both factions already existing content!
For instance, with the first Klingon Arc with Romulan involvement, you change the story that you are the ones doing the sabotaging and ultimately betraying the House of Torg (like how the Romulans basically abandoned the House of Duras).
Then you end up getting involved with the Federation at Mid-Levels and getting the Romulan-side of the Federation-Romulan Missions.
After that, you start getting to the core of the matter by learning that the Iconians are directing things and lead to a preview of the in-game Iconians. Which would be something that would surely get people to play Romulans just to see in person!
I think the Romulan FE would be just fine for a Romulan player if you take the viewpoint that everything going on in the FE is a secret Tal-Shiar plot and that Romulan players aren't part of the Tal-Shiar. Some dialogue changes/additions might (probably) be required... but again less involved than a full re-do.
I think that general principle, assuming that players are NOT directly members of the Tal-Shiar, is necessary from a storytelling perspective. It lets mission creators (Cryptic and otherwise) assume that the Tal-Shiar is the bad guy in any mission that might involve a Romulan player. At that point, Romulan vs Romulan is at least plausible.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I think the Romulan FE would be just fine for a Romulan player if you take the viewpoint that everything going on in the FE is a secret Tal-Shiar plot and that Romulan players aren't part of the Tal-Shiar. Some dialogue changes/additions might (probably) be required... but again less involved than a full re-do.
I think that general principle, assuming that players are NOT directly members of the Tal-Shiar, is necessary from a storytelling perspective. It lets mission creators (Cryptic and otherwise) assume that the Tal-Shiar is the bad guy in any mission that might involve a Romulan player. At that point, Romulan vs Romulan is at least plausible.
So...
How do you think players would react if they started at level 1, there was a brief tutorial mission where you seek out a Tal Shiar operative, you find out your drink was spiked, cue a cutscene of you blacking out...
... And then you wake up at level 50 in a Captain's chair, with a bridge officer asking you, "Shall we kill another 10,000 civilians or do you think we've made our point, sir?"
Then you find out what you did while leveling. :-)
I would go green whether with 1 or maybe only 15 levels of Romulan play.
As it is, I have a Ferengi Female that I leveled pretty much from 7-35 using just the DOFF system. I wound up getting a D'kora and wanted her to be able to pilot it so I started doing random planet patrol missions which got her up to VA. Got her in the D'kora and started to head out to Borg/Undine space but didn't have access to the Episodes because I hadn't bothered to do the content while leveling.
Now, in between the fleet missions and the fleet marks festivals, she's out there exploring the galaxy, episode by episode, while keeping the SB projects funded and ticking away.
I would definitely do something like this with a "flying green machine". Just give me some resources to use during the extremely shortened "Welcome to Green" introduction to the Romulan faction and I'll hit the spacelanes with cloak on.
3rd Anniversary coming up next February and Season 7 - "<insert story title here>" planned for release sometime this winter could have some profoundly wonderful cascading effects on the playerbase.
Okay. That makes more sense. I was thinking "are you honestly telling me it costs more to make five levels in Star Trek Online than it does to make a Star trek movie?"
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
Okay. That makes more sense. I was thinking "are you honestly telling me it costs more to make five levels in Star Trek Online than it does to make a Star trek movie?"
I still had a broad range (not having actual numbers) but I can't imagine a full FE series costing less than $250k... and I could see it costing as much as $1.5M. I suspect the actual number is close to the middle of those numbers.
You could still produce a VERY impressive 12 episodes a year sci-fi series for what I'd imagine it would cost to do an FE every week.
I think that's probably a wakeup call at some level, where Cryptic would say, "We just don't see the money onscreen." That's something people discuss a lot about movies, whether you can see the money on the screen.
For non-repeatable content, Cryptic would get more bang for its buck, probably, just releasing cinematic cutscenes with known actors. But they'd have to abandon the whole game business model to do that and that just won't happen.
If they're going to invest in non-repeatable story (whether it CAN be repeated is only partially relevant here; the question is whether people WILL repeat it), the content needs to be cheaper. If they're going to invest in big, splashy stuff, it needs to be highly repeatable.
I think that's where we're at and that we'll see both.
But story content people play a few times has to be much more budget conscious and content that makes your eyes pop out needs to be highly, highly replayable.
I still had a broad range (not having actual numbers) but I can't imagine a full FE series costing less than $250k... and I could see it costing as much as $1.5M. I suspect the actual number is close to the middle of those numbers.
You could still produce a VERY impressive 12 episodes a year sci-fi series for what I'd imagine it would cost to do an FE every week.
I think that's probably a wakeup call at some level, where Cryptic would say, "We just don't see the money onscreen." That's something people discuss a lot about movies, whether you can see the money on the screen.
For non-repeatable content, Cryptic would get more bang for its buck, probably, just releasing cinematic cutscenes with known actors. But they'd have to abandon the whole game business model to do that and that just won't happen.
If they're going to invest in non-repeatable story (whether it CAN be repeated is only partially relevant here; the question is whether people WILL repeat it), the content needs to be cheaper. If they're going to invest in big, splashy stuff, it needs to be highly repeatable.
I think that's where we're at and that we'll see both.
But story content people play a few times has to be much more budget conscious and content that makes your eyes pop out needs to be highly, highly replayable.
It can be more efficient, you're talking about making new ways to play the game, not regular missions.
Just check "Diplomatic orders", it looks quite cheap, the space map is fine but pretty empty, and the ground maps looks like someone heavily used a random generator. But it's a good mission anyway, because the story is ok.
No one needs all new shiny effects on a new faction, only stories, because for some of us it's the most enjoyable part of the game, even if many poor rewards prevent us from playing them again and again (some credits as reward would be a good idea for instance).
By the way, the most expensive content must be interior maps, not space ones : guess why most of the new grindy content is based on space gameplay. Because you can cut costs here.
How do you think players would react if they started at level 1, there was a brief tutorial mission where you seek out a Tal Shiar operative, you find out your drink was spiked, cue a cutscene of you blacking out...
... And then you wake up at level 50 in a Captain's chair, with a bridge officer asking you, "Shall we kill another 10,000 civilians or do you think we've made our point, sir?"
Then you find out what you did while leveling. :-)
To be clear, if you could effectively run thru Fed content as a "deep cover" operative, I would propose that you'd convert to the high-level Romulan content at Captain level and have some kind of progression as a Romulan character.
ACTUALLY... what would be cool would be acting as a Fed from Ensign thru Lieutenant, then go deep cover in the KDF from Lt. Commander to Commander, and then hit some actual Romulan content.
Won't happen. Too many people wouldn't like it and start raging. But it would be a way to allow players to use the existing content to level up and progress instead of -BOOM- I'm a level 50 Romulan Vice Admiral with cruddy equipment.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Let players progress in either Starfleet or KDF, whichever they choose, then at some high level give them an option to convert that character over to a Romulan coming out of deep cover.
I can imagine the coding for that transfer being nightmarish... but again, it's something that can be automated and customized and doesn't require 40-50 unique missions to establish a faction.
I'm reconciled to the fact that IF we ever do get a Romulan faction, even the bare minimum necessary to retrofit them into the existing game will be a massive undertaking. They'll need their own set of DOFFs, BOFFs, ships, costumes, starting areas, Foundry missions, etc. Most or all of the cross-faction story missions will have to be revisited to add dialog options for Romulans for them to remotely make sense.
And the longer they wait, and the more faction-sensitive systems they introduce, the more cross-faction missions they create, the worse that problem will get. Trivial, it ain't.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I do not agree at all. What good will this do if we just skip almost everything? And...endgame? You mean nothing but the few STF's and timed events we have? Man I think the KDF would live longer than a faction introduced this way.
The details I agree with, it's just the "unlock at X rank/level" that I do not agree with. Equal content or no point in STO as an MMO.
Comments
I think this is a great summation of the issues.
I think Fleet Starbases and the DOff system are great ways of coping with the limitation, as are the event content. But I think it can be pushed further.
I was working on a design doc awhile back for something I'd call a "first person DOff system" but it's simply too much work for something I'm not doing for close friends or for a living. I hope Cryptic is thinking along similar lines, at least.
I'm going to say you are overshooting that... by a lot.
Assuming the content guys and artists are paid a generous $100,000 per year and you have two working per episode, a five episode FE would come to ~$115,000 in labor over six weeks. Add in the labor of a team of ten programmers and IT specialists being paid the same generous $100k, and that total goes up to $230,000.
Labor is the most expensive part of any project. But let's be generous and say marketing, testing, and deployment doubles that cost, you are still only looking at less than $500,000.
$250,000,000 in cash to create a five episode FE? There are games that don't get that amount for their entire development. $500,000 or $1,000,000.... maybe. And I reiterate that the above numbers are generous. It's just to make the math easier. Most designers are paid a lot less.
Release a $20 ship at the same time and it'd only take 25,000 people purchasing it to pay for the FE.
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
i don't care for any lvl 1 - 50 grind
actually i prefer to start a new klingon char because i can have him faster at Endgame, the only thing that makes me not do klingons all the time is that the Feds get all the shiny Ships that i want to fly.
also lvl 50 factions would open up the possibility for many many more factions in STO
call it Monsterplay factions if you want but i would totally go for that!
even if those factions only get Foundry Mission content i would still totally go for that.
BUT i would expect completely new game mechanics from a new species.
I have a hard time believing that Tholians, Undine or Borg would have Tactical/Science/Engineering officers just like Starfleet.
more variety is needed in the game and what better place to start that than a new Faction?
I was going with closer to ten and a payroll of $80k. But you have to factor in things like payroll taxes, which spikes the number up quite a bit for the employer. So with benefits, that's around 90,000. There are potentially extra benefits, worker's comp, paid sick days, etc. So $100k from the employer's POV is possible.
That works out to two grand, per employer, per week.
Assume twenty-five people working five weeks, you're looking at a quarter of a million dollars, not counting any other expenses and not counting lost income from other revenue generating projects they could be doing.
I assumed the FEs took "the whole team" around five weeks.
Granted, I bet some folks like QA get paid less but I also wasn't factoring in lost revenue from folks who could be on the C-Store or doing bug fixes (to retain customers), etc.
Also, what I just did was a generous estimate for one episode.
If EACH EPISODE takes 5 weeks of labor, even if it's only five people, that's a quarter of a million for the full series.
It's enough money that they NEED to be replayed heavily.
This is one reason why I've been disappointed whenever I hear other story content advocates say that they only replay a mission once or twice and that they still want more new ones.
One man's grind is another man's game (which works both ways, of course).
1-50 levels of playable, immersive storyline missions is far more entertaining for me than running the same relative handful of raids or dailies repeatedly. A lot of what is refered to as "endgame" is the very definition of repetitive, hamster wheel grind to me.
Some players have no interest in story or immersion; they just want a few different scenarios to do combat and get gear so they can do more combat better. I get that. I even fall into that category on occasion (bad day at work: go home and blow something up in game).
However, that can get very tedious for me. It engages that combat side, but not the imaginative side. Storylines and missions do that. I like a combination of things to do (story, combat, exploration, duty officers, etc), but engaging story is by far my favorite part.
And while I enjoy teaming on occasion, forced grouping is anathema to me.
Exactly! It saves Cryptic development time to a great deal and gives Romulans somewhat of that unique twist that makes players want to play them. Not only do they get cool gadgets and abilities with spying, but the ability to do both factions already existing content!
For instance, with the first Klingon Arc with Romulan involvement, you change the story that you are the ones doing the sabotaging and ultimately betraying the House of Torg (like how the Romulans basically abandoned the House of Duras).
Then you end up getting involved with the Federation at Mid-Levels and getting the Romulan-side of the Federation-Romulan Missions.
After that, you start getting to the core of the matter by learning that the Iconians are directing things and lead to a preview of the in-game Iconians. Which would be something that would surely get people to play Romulans just to see in person!
I think that general principle, assuming that players are NOT directly members of the Tal-Shiar, is necessary from a storytelling perspective. It lets mission creators (Cryptic and otherwise) assume that the Tal-Shiar is the bad guy in any mission that might involve a Romulan player. At that point, Romulan vs Romulan is at least plausible.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
So...
How do you think players would react if they started at level 1, there was a brief tutorial mission where you seek out a Tal Shiar operative, you find out your drink was spiked, cue a cutscene of you blacking out...
... And then you wake up at level 50 in a Captain's chair, with a bridge officer asking you, "Shall we kill another 10,000 civilians or do you think we've made our point, sir?"
Then you find out what you did while leveling. :-)
As it is, I have a Ferengi Female that I leveled pretty much from 7-35 using just the DOFF system. I wound up getting a D'kora and wanted her to be able to pilot it so I started doing random planet patrol missions which got her up to VA. Got her in the D'kora and started to head out to Borg/Undine space but didn't have access to the Episodes because I hadn't bothered to do the content while leveling.
Now, in between the fleet missions and the fleet marks festivals, she's out there exploring the galaxy, episode by episode, while keeping the SB projects funded and ticking away.
I would definitely do something like this with a "flying green machine".
3rd Anniversary coming up next February and Season 7 - "<insert story title here>" planned for release sometime this winter could have some profoundly wonderful cascading effects on the playerbase.
<straightens tunic> "...make it so..."
Okay. That makes more sense. I was thinking "are you honestly telling me it costs more to make five levels in Star Trek Online than it does to make a Star trek movie?"
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
I still had a broad range (not having actual numbers) but I can't imagine a full FE series costing less than $250k... and I could see it costing as much as $1.5M. I suspect the actual number is close to the middle of those numbers.
You could still produce a VERY impressive 12 episodes a year sci-fi series for what I'd imagine it would cost to do an FE every week.
I think that's probably a wakeup call at some level, where Cryptic would say, "We just don't see the money onscreen." That's something people discuss a lot about movies, whether you can see the money on the screen.
For non-repeatable content, Cryptic would get more bang for its buck, probably, just releasing cinematic cutscenes with known actors. But they'd have to abandon the whole game business model to do that and that just won't happen.
If they're going to invest in non-repeatable story (whether it CAN be repeated is only partially relevant here; the question is whether people WILL repeat it), the content needs to be cheaper. If they're going to invest in big, splashy stuff, it needs to be highly repeatable.
I think that's where we're at and that we'll see both.
But story content people play a few times has to be much more budget conscious and content that makes your eyes pop out needs to be highly, highly replayable.
It can be more efficient, you're talking about making new ways to play the game, not regular missions.
Just check "Diplomatic orders", it looks quite cheap, the space map is fine but pretty empty, and the ground maps looks like someone heavily used a random generator. But it's a good mission anyway, because the story is ok.
No one needs all new shiny effects on a new faction, only stories, because for some of us it's the most enjoyable part of the game, even if many poor rewards prevent us from playing them again and again (some credits as reward would be a good idea for instance).
By the way, the most expensive content must be interior maps, not space ones : guess why most of the new grindy content is based on space gameplay. Because you can cut costs here.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
To be clear, if you could effectively run thru Fed content as a "deep cover" operative, I would propose that you'd convert to the high-level Romulan content at Captain level and have some kind of progression as a Romulan character.
ACTUALLY... what would be cool would be acting as a Fed from Ensign thru Lieutenant, then go deep cover in the KDF from Lt. Commander to Commander, and then hit some actual Romulan content.
Won't happen. Too many people wouldn't like it and start raging. But it would be a way to allow players to use the existing content to level up and progress instead of -BOOM- I'm a level 50 Romulan Vice Admiral with cruddy equipment.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Let players progress in either Starfleet or KDF, whichever they choose, then at some high level give them an option to convert that character over to a Romulan coming out of deep cover.
I can imagine the coding for that transfer being nightmarish... but again, it's something that can be automated and customized and doesn't require 40-50 unique missions to establish a faction.
I'm reconciled to the fact that IF we ever do get a Romulan faction, even the bare minimum necessary to retrofit them into the existing game will be a massive undertaking. They'll need their own set of DOFFs, BOFFs, ships, costumes, starting areas, Foundry missions, etc. Most or all of the cross-faction story missions will have to be revisited to add dialog options for Romulans for them to remotely make sense.
And the longer they wait, and the more faction-sensitive systems they introduce, the more cross-faction missions they create, the worse that problem will get. Trivial, it ain't.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The details I agree with, it's just the "unlock at X rank/level" that I do not agree with. Equal content or no point in STO as an MMO.