the biggest problem I've seen with most theme-park MMOs is you're "the hero," just like everyone else. Everyone is a special snowflake, chosen, unique, and all lined up to do the exact same content.
It's that way because it's worked, though.
And you're not there to see someone else be the special snowflake.
As long as you aren't roleplaying with someone who for some odd reasons treats missions as their roleplay canon, it's no different that getting upset to see that someone else playing Mass Effect 3 is ALSO the hero when they play.
And you're not there to see someone else be the special snowflake.
As long as you aren't roleplaying with someone who for some odd reasons treats missions as their roleplay canon, it's no different that getting upset to see that someone else playing Mass Effect 3 is ALSO the hero when they play.
To an extent - it depends how open world it is. Instancing does help a lot.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays http://samonmaui.blogspot.com As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
Also, looking at Star Trek, most ships were pretty dull and boring. Now, if your course intersected with the Enterprise l, you knew problems were on the way. You went from the USS Minding My Own Business to USS McGuffin.
If playing videogames has taught me anything, it's that people are incredibly boring. Look all the ships called some variant of "Enterprise", how imaginative. :P
I think the reason this game (and games in general) doesn't feel like Star Trek, is that it doesn't look like Star Trek. Videogame designers feel the need to make things needlessly complex, with overblown detail. While that befits something like Star Wars, with Star Trek, it looks really silly.
Star Trek has always had a very simple and clean style with lots of bright colours. Or at least for the Federation. Bad guy ships are what tend to be dark and grimy, with lots of black and only one colour to accent it (See Borg and Klingon's).
That's not the case with this game. The Federation has weird protrusions on everything, particularly those stupid, stupid, STUPID suits of armor. The Borg are a dull, drab, boring gray. Seriously, how do you ruin the Borg? (Besides that!!!!!) The Klingons look reasonably close, but there's far too much red, and everything's so big. I remember BoP's being very small and claustrophobic on the inside.
DS9 is too bright, and overall, every Federation environment has too much blue, when in the series there was much more off-whites, grays and reds.Go back to the colourful LCARS!!! The Blue ones suck!! Stop pretending they look good! They don't!!!
I have played some cracking Star Trek games in the past. I do not think it is Star Trek at fault per say, but like many ip's, it is what that particular development team does with what is provided.
Many people loved SWG, but hated SW:TOR. Is is still Star Wars, but two completely different games.
Same could be said for movies as well, even books or any media.
As for sto, well who can you blame? We never get the whole story behind some of the more stupid decisions made by either cryptic, CBS ,Atari and now PWE.
I doubt we will ever know, but sto is suffering by some very bad management by someone....
If playing videogames has taught me anything, it's that people are incredibly boring. Look all the ships called some variant of "Enterprise", how imaginative. :P
I think the reason this game (and games in general) doesn't feel like Star Trek, is that it doesn't look like Star Trek. Videogame designers feel the need to make things needlessly complex, with overblown detail. While that befits something like Star Wars, with Star Trek, it looks really silly.
Star Trek has always had a very simple and clean style with lots of bright colours. Or at least for the Federation. Bad guy ships are what tend to be dark and grimy, with lots of black and only one colour to accent it (See Borg and Klingon's).
That's not the case with this game. The Federation has weird protrusions on everything, particularly those stupid, stupid, STUPID suits of armor. The Borg are a dull, drab, boring gray. Seriously, how do you ruin the Borg? (Besides that!!!!!) The Klingons look reasonably close, but there's far too much red, and everything's so big. I remember BoP's being very small and claustrophobic on the inside.
DS9 is too bright, and overall, every Federation environment has too much blue, when in the series there was much more off-whites, grays and reds.Go back to the colourful LCARS!!! The Blue ones suck!! Stop pretending they look good! They don't!!!
TL;DR: F%&$ Hexagons, seriously, F*&% them.
To be fair...
Here's my understanding/impression.
Cryptic got the license. They said, "Great! Our own version of Star Trek! We get to design our own series!"
And they put the call out for designers. And they got people fluent in game art and got at least one of the artists from the Pirates of the Carribean series. And said, "Make everything look as dramatic as possible! Let's do everything they couldn't do on a TV budget!"
And the net result was, well, that nothing looked dramatic because everything did. Nothing stood out because everything did. They dialed back the business in stages, added accent lighting, made character textures more subtle.
And I think Tacofangs knows the score, as did CapnLogan by the end and JamJamz now.
And you can see that with everything built since the game's one year anniversary. But the old stuff sticks out and still gets used.
The lower Starbase levels are basically the old style, with touch-ups but the main level is Tacofangs. So is Utopia Planitia. He had a hand in the Bajor map (clean-up on that was his first project, I think).
I think Cryptic was caught up thinking of the game as being played from an RTS camera perspective for one. And that they should reinvent everything to look "big budget." And maybe that the simplicity of the shows' sets "wouldn't play well to gamers" or "was only because the shows didn't have money." And they've been taking notes and changing ever since launch because they had the wrong angle on a lot of that.
I haven't read all 7 pages of this thread, so sorry if somethig i mention has been discussed before.
Here just my 0,05 Eurons.
What i don't like about most Star Trek games is the extreme high focus on combat and battles. People who haven't watched a series and only know the games have to think that Star trek is something like Star Wars.
Bridge Commander, Starfleet Command I-III, Armada I and II, Legacy, Elite Force I & II, almost every Star Trek game in the last 10 years is centered around fighting, killing and destruction, yawn...
Besides STO there is no Star Trek game where you (in theory) can choose your ship, select a Crew and create a captain and head on to explore the huge vastness of Space.
The sad thing is, STOs exploration system is way too limited and space itself isn't big at all.(in fact it's tiny)
STO's exploration missions consist roughly of ten different missions (I assume) with vayring enemies and that's it. Besides that it isn't even real exploration it's just another kind of combat missions.
The only Star Trek games that deserve to be called "StarTrek Game" where the ST:25th anniversary, it's successor and TNG: the Final Unity (which is by far my favourite).
Curiously there has been NO Star Trek RPG i can remember.
I just wish there was a Star Trek game, which is more like a Star Trek open world RPG.
Think of it like Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind or even GTA.
A Game, where you can create and customize a Captain and some Officers and the ship itself, just like in STO. Where you have to micro manage your ship and being able to equip it with a vast range of different equipment.
Being able to fly the ship in space and control a group of explorers on a planets surface.
Solve mysteries, fight a few battles once in a while, build a outpost to expand your range. Meet some friendly (or unfriendly) aliens. Negotiate with them to settle some beneficial contracts that affect the further game. Mostly things you can do in a 4x game just from the perspective of a Starship captain.
All this doesn't have to be boring, if it is made good.
But it shouldn't be like a Bioware RPG, where you have to strictly play a storyline and the game ends with it. It should be more like a simulator, a huge universe (and i really mean H U G E) and no clearly defined end. There could be hundeds of different missions created on the run, each time having a small variation or twist. This could be made with a random mission generator which combines different story elements every time the game presents you a mission.
I want to immerse in it for weeks, months or even years, while the game universe develops even further. I hate it when a game i like suddenly ends as soon as i have accustomed to it. Heck, it doesn't even have to be a 3d game, i would be happy if there where a Starflight like game featuring all that.
Just give me a vast universe, a ship and a crew.
The sad thing is, there is virtually NO game like that (believe me i am looking for years for a game like that). The only games that comes even close to something like that was Starflight I&II in the 80's. No game company has attempted to create a modern game like it.
Just imagine what possibilities and how enormous such a game could be with todays processing power.
Such a game would fit perfectly for a Star Trek game, but game companies rather produce the 99999th Space battle game, just because they don't want to take any risk.
Since the big sucess of MMOs, games tend to become more and more the same. I miss the days where (some) Game developers where willing to take risks because Games where more a art than just buisness for them.
All you get today are big promises (which are rarely kept in the first place) and MMO conversions of once great games. Game companies seem to think everyone wants either to play with other people and do something like E Sports* or wants to play something like interactive movies (like most biowares games) which are finished after 15 hours gameplay. * no matter, if it fits to the game world or not.
To be honest i don't care much for MMOs, almost every game company seems trying to create one nowadays. (And ruining their beautyful game worlds AND virtually preventing themselves from making further good singleplayer games.)
In fact i deeply hate MMOs. If i wanted to meet other people i would go out of my house and meet some real friends, but when playing a game on my Computer i want to be left alone. There is virtually no immersion possible when the player next to you calls himself "xxxOWNEDxxx", jumps around like a fool or does some other silly stuff.
My point is for most dedicated MMO players, the game world is secondary. It's more a stage to show off, more like a big contest which is about who has the better equipment or other stuff.
I also hate that most endgame content in MMOs can't be done alone. Everything has to be balanced and made to fit for PvP or group playing, which ruins most of the game worlds diverseness (and in case of STO, ruining Trek ships in general by pressing them in Stone/Paper/ Scissor mechanics).
All that wouldn't be a problem if there where singleplayer games, featuring a similar size, dimensions and volume.
But one of the big differences between MMOs and single player games is that MMOs tend to have a much bigger game world where you have much more freedom than in most single player games.
Sorry if i went too much off topic.
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i find it difficult to find the right words in my native language.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Its actually both. Trek is mainly story driven, and most MMO gamers prefer action to reading. So that is a major challenge in itself. However, Cryptic is far from blameless in their handling of the game's development.
And they put the call out for designers. And they got people fluent in game art and got at least one of the artists from the Pirates of the Carribean series. And said, "Make everything look as dramatic as possible! Let's do everything they couldn't do on a TV budget!"
And the net result was, well, that nothing looked dramatic because everything did. Nothing stood out because everything did. They dialed back the business in stages, added accent lighting, made character textures more subtle.
And I think Tacofangs knows the score, as did CapnLogan by the end and JamJamz now.
And you can see that with everything built since the game's one year anniversary. But the old stuff sticks out and still gets used.
The lower Starbase levels are basically the old style, with touch-ups but the main level is Tacofangs. So is Utopia Planitia. He had a hand in the Bajor map (clean-up on that was his first project, I think).
I think Cryptic was caught up thinking of the game as being played from an RTS camera perspective for one. And that they should reinvent everything to look "big budget." And maybe that the simplicity of the shows' sets "wouldn't play well to gamers" or "was only because the shows didn't have money." And they've been taking notes and changing ever since launch because they had the wrong angle on a lot of that.
That would not surprise me in the slightest if this is what happened. And you want to know what? The lower Starbase levels look hideous. Ops level looks alright, but I have issues with it for other reasons (See: Too much Blue). Though, all in all, I think Hathon of all things is the most Trek-like of all the environments. It looks like a dolled up street in California. Which is what most of Star Trek was. :P
Speaking of which, we need a model of this somewhere in the game. Just sayin'.... :P
Making Star Trek into a big budget series is missing the point of the series in the first place. Yes, I am so totally looking at you, Star Trek: The SlowMotion Picture.... Even movies that had bigger budgets, like First Contact, put the budget where it should have been. In First Contacts case that was making the Borg TRIBBLE-your-pants-worthy.
I always thought it was funny how the Star Wars game is all about talking, with no real space battles, and the Star Trek game is all about space battles, with no real talking.
I always thought it was funny how the Star Wars game is all about talking, with no real space battles, and the Star Trek game is all about space battles, with no real talking.
Agreed.
As much as people love the space battles here, I think you could frankly represent the shows pretty well with space battles that are just short cutscenes and fleshed out ground gameplay whereas Star Wars never struck me as an IP about relationships or complex story and it NEEDS gripping space battles.
I mean, I'd wager that while people have vivid memories of the Dominion War, the vast majority of space ship footage in Trek was stock footage that didn't show the ships doing anything. Heck, most of the fighting in Generations was stock footage.
Whereas Star Wars always seems to devote at least 20 minutes a movie to space battles.
I have enjoyed many of the previous Star Trek games. That said, the one that was the absolute most like Trek, was the 25th Anniversary. It had a little pew pew but, there was a lot of puzzles to figure through.
That would not surprise me in the slightest if this is what happened. And you want to know what? The lower Starbase levels look hideous. Ops level looks alright, but I have issues with it for other reasons (See: Too much Blue). Though, all in all, I think Hathon of all things is the most Trek-like of all the environments. It looks like a dolled up street in California. Which is what most of Star Trek was. :P
Speaking of which, we need a model of this somewhere in the game. Just sayin'.... :P
Making Star Trek into a big budget series is missing the point of the series in the first place. Yes, I am so totally looking at you, Star Trek: The SlowMotion Picture.... Even movies that had bigger budgets, like First Contact, put the budget where it should have been. In First Contacts case that was making the Borg TRIBBLE-your-pants-worthy.
There was one set that got heavy use in TNG and DS9 (and maybe Voyager) as the "alien planet set with clay buildings."
I've been saying for a year, at least, that they ought to look at taking that set and others like it and remaking them in game, kitted out to be renovated several ways.
Take the approach they use with the character creator and apply it to maps. Ie. a broad template based on an IP asset with lots of details that can be fiddled with. If anybody complains that the show-covered village looks like the desert village, point out:
A) It's based on a set the shows reused.
Get Kestrel to write a funny little in-joke about how some architect's design was determined to be optimal once it was realized that most alien cultures independently designed cities that are the same shape. The major powers' city designs, one architect theorizes, are heavily influenced by pride and aesthetic values rather than efficiency and most everyone outside the big empires has decided to build cities with the same layout.
I remember the old Trek game for NES (25th anniversary) it was mostly ground stuff, you figuring out how to get things done - It was mostly puzzles and it felt very Trek. The best part of that is the one space combat mission it had was effing great, but I think it was great because the game didn't evolve around it. I might be going a little off subject, but I think that's why video games and movies alike are kinda going down hill and getting redundant - There's no build up any more. When something awesome happens it should be occasional, otherwise it becomes boring quick.
I agree, but I have no doubt this would be hard to pull off and would not be in everyone's taste.
I remember playing the Star Trek 25th Anniversary video game when I was a kid, I loved it. It felt like I played through a Star Trek episode.
Almost had forgotten about that game, ah the memories
I agree, but I have no doubt this would be hard to pull off and would not be in everyone's taste.
I remember playing the Star Trek 25th Anniversary video game when I was a kid, I loved it. It felt like I played through a Star Trek episode.
Almost had forgotten about that game, ah the memories
Loved 25th Anniversary. I recall playing another TOS game, but I don't remember what it was called. It wasn't anywhere near as good as 25th Anniversary, though.
TNG: Final Unity and Birth of the Federation were some of my other favorites. I remember playing a lot of Final Unity and hating that Data kept making some stupid suggestion that would get us all blown up in a supernova or the like.
In reference to the actual topic (and I haven't read all the responses), STO is much more combat-driven than I would like with sometimes little emphasis on story. I really enjoyed the recent Dominion series because it had a lot of focus on the storyline and text-driven missions, particularly the one on Bajor. This is more what I think of when I think Star Trek, and its more of how I would think Star Trek would translate better to the game world.
In response to some other posts I did read, I'm a little confused by people who don't want Star Trek Online to involve playing with other people. Why would you play an MMO if you wanted a single-player game? If the primary intention in the game is to have a single-player experience, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that you find the content lacking.
the most "star trek like" feeling i got in this game was "Of Bajor", and most people hated it. it's hard to make an interesting diplomatic mission. honestly i wish they had more diplomatic missions with themes of real life issues similar to the star trek episodes.
Even though Cryptic gave us these massive ship interiors, they didn't plan on giving us anything to do in them. Majority of "Star Trek's" episodes deal with missions that start on the ship, and then they make their way to a far off planet. Each episode starts off with a captain's log entry. We are missing the smaller pieces of the series, which were hallmark signatures of the franchise.
"Captain's Log..."
"Stardate 000000... We are heading to the blah blah system in response to a call for help..."
Why didn't Cryptic make on ship episodes?
Why didn't they add the signature captain's log entries at the start of each episode?
In response to some other posts I did read, I'm a little confused by people who don't want Star Trek Online to involve playing with other people. Why would you play an MMO if you wanted a single-player game? If the primary intention in the game is to have a single-player experience, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that you find the content lacking.
True, but single-player games generally end. MMOs keep going, 24/7, and have semi-regular updates of new content. They might enjoy the solo game. Not as much of a problem here, but there are times when "nobody" is on, or someone's schedule is erratic so they can't commit. Hell, having kids means a player might need to drop out without notice (as they should) because they have a more immediate, pressing concern. All this without getting into elitism, no less.
As such, the ability to play solo in a MMO is rather important, I think. Also, at least in other games, being able to solo grouped content is a unique challenge for min/maxers for whom normal content has gotten too easy for.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays http://samonmaui.blogspot.com As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
the most "star trek like" feeling i got in this game was "Of Bajor", and most people hated it. it's hard to make an interesting diplomatic mission. honestly i wish they had more diplomatic missions with themes of real life issues similar to the star trek episodes.
Sadly, if that's the case, then that will likely discourage further development of that sort of content. Just like in RPGs I've played, combat is much faster and easier to grasp, and easier to play after a beer or three than something involving remembering who said what, who needs what, etc.ld be wrong.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays http://samonmaui.blogspot.com As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
The problem is, imho, that Trek favors single player games. The series has always been about 1 ship and crew so single player games make sense.
MMOs, on the other hand, are designed with teaming/multiplayer missions in mind. This is the exact opposite of what Trek has always been.
I think it's a twofold problem with MMOs in that regard.
If it's single player, you can focus on many ships or just a few depending on the genre of the game. (For example, Armada supports Armadas.) In fact, most prior Trek games were THE Trek game for a certain genre, whether interactive movies, FPS, RTS, etc.
Multiplayer, it could be interesting to have an MMO about a single crew or starbase and would certainly be deeper. But the problem there is that an MMO is too big for that and it can inhibit travel unless shuttles play a big role.
I would kinda like a game where you progress through ship assignments as a junior officer like cities in WoW or GW and the space combat is instead focused on you and your shuttle, which you take on assignments.
So instead of going back to ESD, you go back to the Enterprise (or the Farragut or your ship of choice; endgame could have options between big IP ship assignments) where you are a Lt. with a tricked out shuttle.
Almost like Elite Forces' Hazard Team but for every ship and with each Lt. being issued a shuttle and permission to come and go.
I think it would make the world feel both bigger and more authentic and would make even a Romulan BoP seem pretty imposing, much less a cube.
The thing with STO is that while your ship may be a crafting table or a trophy room, it just isn't designed to be a home where you can randomly encounter people, both NPCs, and live players.
The thing with STO is that while your ship may be a crafting table or a trophy room, it just isn't designed to be a home where you can randomly encounter people, both NPCs, and live players.
And that's a big part of Trek that's missing.
If only there was a setting where you COULD do just that.... maybe a space station somewhere?... perhaps even based around the fleet your character is assigned to... surely if such a place existed it would be full of lively NPCs, it'd be a veritable hub of content!
My one wish is that there would be a way to complete missions (specifically encounters with other factions) without resorting to shooting automatically. I mean, I wish there was an option to hail any ship in the game, maybe even involving some sort of text based mini game where your diplomacy skill determines whether you are able to talk your way out of the situation (almost like the Deferi mission where you rescue hostages from a Breen ship without even powering weapons). Obviously some people, like B'Vat, are always going to be hostile to you, but others might be persuaded to leave peacefully, maybe in exchange for some commodity, or just by realising that they're outmatched. Or perhaps utilise your science abilities to create distractions to evade the potentially hostile ship. Just doing that would make the game seem a lot more like the Trek universe from the TV shows, in my opinion of course.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
If only there was a setting where you COULD do just that.... maybe a space station somewhere?... perhaps even based around the fleet your character is assigned to... surely if such a place existed it would be full of lively NPCs, it'd be a veritable hub of content!
That isn't Trek. Trek is doing that on your own ship. You barely see starbases in Trek.
DS9 is different because the crew there is station crew.
My one wish is that there would be a way to complete missions (specifically encounters with other factions) without resorting to shooting automatically. I mean, I wish there was an option to hail any ship in the game, maybe even involving some sort of text based mini game where your diplomacy skill determines whether you are able to talk your way out of the situation (almost like the Deferi mission where you rescue hostages from a Breen ship without even powering weapons). Obviously some people, like B'Vat, are always going to be hostile to you, but others might be persuaded to leave peacefully, maybe in exchange for some commodity, or just by realising that they're outmatched. Or perhaps utilise your science abilities to create distractions to evade the potentially hostile ship. Just doing that would make the game seem a lot more like the Trek universe from the TV shows, in my opinion of course.
that's what I said . The very first mission- after the tutorial - has you shooting ships and then some more ships ( and yet another bunch of ships ) and when I first started playing I was actually waiting for the "hail ship" button because it's rare for any captain in the ST universe to shoot to kill ....they usually give the option of surrender or disable the ship and board it .However : there are quite a few missions letting you do exactly that later in the game . But it should be default behavior instead of shooting everything . It can't be very hard to implement either as those ship-interiors are templates already ( for playable ships at least)
Another thing I find to be utterly counter-immersive is the lack of surprise :
- sector space distress calls are borg invasions 99% of the time ..in the ST universe a Borg encounter was frightening because it was a surprise and you knew you had little or no chance to beat a cube . They should have made a borg-cube a very rare raid-boss with great loot-drops , not a common feature .The same goes for species 8472
- when you beam down to a planet in the explore systems missions you have to analyze some plants 99% of the time .
Comments
It's that way because it's worked, though.
And you're not there to see someone else be the special snowflake.
As long as you aren't roleplaying with someone who for some odd reasons treats missions as their roleplay canon, it's no different that getting upset to see that someone else playing Mass Effect 3 is ALSO the hero when they play.
To an extent - it depends how open world it is. Instancing does help a lot.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
If playing videogames has taught me anything, it's that people are incredibly boring. Look all the ships called some variant of "Enterprise", how imaginative. :P
I think the reason this game (and games in general) doesn't feel like Star Trek, is that it doesn't look like Star Trek. Videogame designers feel the need to make things needlessly complex, with overblown detail. While that befits something like Star Wars, with Star Trek, it looks really silly.
Star Trek has always had a very simple and clean style with lots of bright colours. Or at least for the Federation. Bad guy ships are what tend to be dark and grimy, with lots of black and only one colour to accent it (See Borg and Klingon's).
That's not the case with this game. The Federation has weird protrusions on everything, particularly those stupid, stupid, STUPID suits of armor. The Borg are a dull, drab, boring gray. Seriously, how do you ruin the Borg? (Besides that!!!!!) The Klingons look reasonably close, but there's far too much red, and everything's so big. I remember BoP's being very small and claustrophobic on the inside.
DS9 is too bright, and overall, every Federation environment has too much blue, when in the series there was much more off-whites, grays and reds.Go back to the colourful LCARS!!! The Blue ones suck!! Stop pretending they look good! They don't!!!
TL;DR: F%&$ Hexagons, seriously, F*&% them.
Many people loved SWG, but hated SW:TOR. Is is still Star Wars, but two completely different games.
Same could be said for movies as well, even books or any media.
As for sto, well who can you blame? We never get the whole story behind some of the more stupid decisions made by either cryptic, CBS ,Atari and now PWE.
I doubt we will ever know, but sto is suffering by some very bad management by someone....
To be fair...
Here's my understanding/impression.
Cryptic got the license. They said, "Great! Our own version of Star Trek! We get to design our own series!"
And they put the call out for designers. And they got people fluent in game art and got at least one of the artists from the Pirates of the Carribean series. And said, "Make everything look as dramatic as possible! Let's do everything they couldn't do on a TV budget!"
And the net result was, well, that nothing looked dramatic because everything did. Nothing stood out because everything did. They dialed back the business in stages, added accent lighting, made character textures more subtle.
And I think Tacofangs knows the score, as did CapnLogan by the end and JamJamz now.
And you can see that with everything built since the game's one year anniversary. But the old stuff sticks out and still gets used.
The lower Starbase levels are basically the old style, with touch-ups but the main level is Tacofangs. So is Utopia Planitia. He had a hand in the Bajor map (clean-up on that was his first project, I think).
I think Cryptic was caught up thinking of the game as being played from an RTS camera perspective for one. And that they should reinvent everything to look "big budget." And maybe that the simplicity of the shows' sets "wouldn't play well to gamers" or "was only because the shows didn't have money." And they've been taking notes and changing ever since launch because they had the wrong angle on a lot of that.
Here just my 0,05 Eurons.
What i don't like about most Star Trek games is the extreme high focus on combat and battles. People who haven't watched a series and only know the games have to think that Star trek is something like Star Wars.
Bridge Commander, Starfleet Command I-III, Armada I and II, Legacy, Elite Force I & II, almost every Star Trek game in the last 10 years is centered around fighting, killing and destruction, yawn...
Besides STO there is no Star Trek game where you (in theory) can choose your ship, select a Crew and create a captain and head on to explore the huge vastness of Space.
The sad thing is, STOs exploration system is way too limited and space itself isn't big at all.(in fact it's tiny)
STO's exploration missions consist roughly of ten different missions (I assume) with vayring enemies and that's it. Besides that it isn't even real exploration it's just another kind of combat missions.
The only Star Trek games that deserve to be called "StarTrek Game" where the ST:25th anniversary, it's successor and TNG: the Final Unity (which is by far my favourite).
Curiously there has been NO Star Trek RPG i can remember.
I just wish there was a Star Trek game, which is more like a Star Trek open world RPG.
Think of it like Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind or even GTA.
A Game, where you can create and customize a Captain and some Officers and the ship itself, just like in STO. Where you have to micro manage your ship and being able to equip it with a vast range of different equipment.
Being able to fly the ship in space and control a group of explorers on a planets surface.
Solve mysteries, fight a few battles once in a while, build a outpost to expand your range. Meet some friendly (or unfriendly) aliens. Negotiate with them to settle some beneficial contracts that affect the further game. Mostly things you can do in a 4x game just from the perspective of a Starship captain.
All this doesn't have to be boring, if it is made good.
But it shouldn't be like a Bioware RPG, where you have to strictly play a storyline and the game ends with it. It should be more like a simulator, a huge universe (and i really mean H U G E) and no clearly defined end. There could be hundeds of different missions created on the run, each time having a small variation or twist. This could be made with a random mission generator which combines different story elements every time the game presents you a mission.
I want to immerse in it for weeks, months or even years, while the game universe develops even further. I hate it when a game i like suddenly ends as soon as i have accustomed to it. Heck, it doesn't even have to be a 3d game, i would be happy if there where a Starflight like game featuring all that.
Just give me a vast universe, a ship and a crew.
The sad thing is, there is virtually NO game like that (believe me i am looking for years for a game like that). The only games that comes even close to something like that was Starflight I&II in the 80's. No game company has attempted to create a modern game like it.
Just imagine what possibilities and how enormous such a game could be with todays processing power.
Such a game would fit perfectly for a Star Trek game, but game companies rather produce the 99999th Space battle game, just because they don't want to take any risk.
Since the big sucess of MMOs, games tend to become more and more the same. I miss the days where (some) Game developers where willing to take risks because Games where more a art than just buisness for them.
All you get today are big promises (which are rarely kept in the first place) and MMO conversions of once great games. Game companies seem to think everyone wants either to play with other people and do something like E Sports* or wants to play something like interactive movies (like most biowares games) which are finished after 15 hours gameplay.
* no matter, if it fits to the game world or not.
To be honest i don't care much for MMOs, almost every game company seems trying to create one nowadays. (And ruining their beautyful game worlds AND virtually preventing themselves from making further good singleplayer games.)
In fact i deeply hate MMOs. If i wanted to meet other people i would go out of my house and meet some real friends, but when playing a game on my Computer i want to be left alone. There is virtually no immersion possible when the player next to you calls himself "xxxOWNEDxxx", jumps around like a fool or does some other silly stuff.
My point is for most dedicated MMO players, the game world is secondary. It's more a stage to show off, more like a big contest which is about who has the better equipment or other stuff.
I also hate that most endgame content in MMOs can't be done alone. Everything has to be balanced and made to fit for PvP or group playing, which ruins most of the game worlds diverseness (and in case of STO, ruining Trek ships in general by pressing them in Stone/Paper/ Scissor mechanics).
All that wouldn't be a problem if there where singleplayer games, featuring a similar size, dimensions and volume.
But one of the big differences between MMOs and single player games is that MMOs tend to have a much bigger game world where you have much more freedom than in most single player games.
Sorry if i went too much off topic.
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i find it difficult to find the right words in my native language.
That would not surprise me in the slightest if this is what happened. And you want to know what? The lower Starbase levels look hideous. Ops level looks alright, but I have issues with it for other reasons (See: Too much Blue). Though, all in all, I think Hathon of all things is the most Trek-like of all the environments. It looks like a dolled up street in California. Which is what most of Star Trek was. :P
Speaking of which, we need a model of this somewhere in the game. Just sayin'.... :P
Making Star Trek into a big budget series is missing the point of the series in the first place. Yes, I am so totally looking at you, Star Trek: The SlowMotion Picture.... Even movies that had bigger budgets, like First Contact, put the budget where it should have been. In First Contacts case that was making the Borg TRIBBLE-your-pants-worthy.
More this. Less this. More this. Less this. More this. Less this. More of this! Less of THIS!!!
We savvy?
Agreed.
As much as people love the space battles here, I think you could frankly represent the shows pretty well with space battles that are just short cutscenes and fleshed out ground gameplay whereas Star Wars never struck me as an IP about relationships or complex story and it NEEDS gripping space battles.
I mean, I'd wager that while people have vivid memories of the Dominion War, the vast majority of space ship footage in Trek was stock footage that didn't show the ships doing anything. Heck, most of the fighting in Generations was stock footage.
Whereas Star Wars always seems to devote at least 20 minutes a movie to space battles.
There was one set that got heavy use in TNG and DS9 (and maybe Voyager) as the "alien planet set with clay buildings."
I've been saying for a year, at least, that they ought to look at taking that set and others like it and remaking them in game, kitted out to be renovated several ways.
Take the approach they use with the character creator and apply it to maps. Ie. a broad template based on an IP asset with lots of details that can be fiddled with. If anybody complains that the show-covered village looks like the desert village, point out:
A) It's based on a set the shows reused.
I agree, but I have no doubt this would be hard to pull off and would not be in everyone's taste.
I remember playing the Star Trek 25th Anniversary video game when I was a kid, I loved it. It felt like I played through a Star Trek episode.
Almost had forgotten about that game, ah the memories
Loved 25th Anniversary. I recall playing another TOS game, but I don't remember what it was called. It wasn't anywhere near as good as 25th Anniversary, though.
TNG: Final Unity and Birth of the Federation were some of my other favorites. I remember playing a lot of Final Unity and hating that Data kept making some stupid suggestion that would get us all blown up in a supernova or the like.
In reference to the actual topic (and I haven't read all the responses), STO is much more combat-driven than I would like with sometimes little emphasis on story. I really enjoyed the recent Dominion series because it had a lot of focus on the storyline and text-driven missions, particularly the one on Bajor. This is more what I think of when I think Star Trek, and its more of how I would think Star Trek would translate better to the game world.
In response to some other posts I did read, I'm a little confused by people who don't want Star Trek Online to involve playing with other people. Why would you play an MMO if you wanted a single-player game? If the primary intention in the game is to have a single-player experience, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that you find the content lacking.
Even though Cryptic gave us these massive ship interiors, they didn't plan on giving us anything to do in them. Majority of "Star Trek's" episodes deal with missions that start on the ship, and then they make their way to a far off planet. Each episode starts off with a captain's log entry. We are missing the smaller pieces of the series, which were hallmark signatures of the franchise.
"Captain's Log..."
"Stardate 000000... We are heading to the blah blah system in response to a call for help..."
Why didn't Cryptic make on ship episodes?
Why didn't they add the signature captain's log entries at the start of each episode?
True, but single-player games generally end. MMOs keep going, 24/7, and have semi-regular updates of new content. They might enjoy the solo game. Not as much of a problem here, but there are times when "nobody" is on, or someone's schedule is erratic so they can't commit. Hell, having kids means a player might need to drop out without notice (as they should) because they have a more immediate, pressing concern. All this without getting into elitism, no less.
As such, the ability to play solo in a MMO is rather important, I think. Also, at least in other games, being able to solo grouped content is a unique challenge for min/maxers for whom normal content has gotten too easy for.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
The problem is, imho, that Trek favors single player games. The series has always been about 1 ship and crew so single player games make sense.
MMOs, on the other hand, are designed with teaming/multiplayer missions in mind. This is the exact opposite of what Trek has always been.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
I think it's a twofold problem with MMOs in that regard.
If it's single player, you can focus on many ships or just a few depending on the genre of the game. (For example, Armada supports Armadas.) In fact, most prior Trek games were THE Trek game for a certain genre, whether interactive movies, FPS, RTS, etc.
Multiplayer, it could be interesting to have an MMO about a single crew or starbase and would certainly be deeper. But the problem there is that an MMO is too big for that and it can inhibit travel unless shuttles play a big role.
I would kinda like a game where you progress through ship assignments as a junior officer like cities in WoW or GW and the space combat is instead focused on you and your shuttle, which you take on assignments.
So instead of going back to ESD, you go back to the Enterprise (or the Farragut or your ship of choice; endgame could have options between big IP ship assignments) where you are a Lt. with a tricked out shuttle.
Almost like Elite Forces' Hazard Team but for every ship and with each Lt. being issued a shuttle and permission to come and go.
I think it would make the world feel both bigger and more authentic and would make even a Romulan BoP seem pretty imposing, much less a cube.
...that's so ridiculous I'M WISHING FOR THAT NOW. @_@
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And that's a big part of Trek that's missing.
Age, that is it right there.
If only there was a setting where you COULD do just that.... maybe a space station somewhere?... perhaps even based around the fleet your character is assigned to... surely if such a place existed it would be full of lively NPCs, it'd be a veritable hub of content!
There are several Star Trek RPG.
One of my favorites is Prime Directive available in both plain and GURPS, that handles the neat aliens from the Animated Series as well.
There is also an older more complex multi-book Star Trek RPG by Last Unicorn games that covers all the series.
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
That isn't Trek. Trek is doing that on your own ship. You barely see starbases in Trek.
DS9 is different because the crew there is station crew.
that's what I said . The very first mission- after the tutorial - has you shooting ships and then some more ships ( and yet another bunch of ships ) and when I first started playing I was actually waiting for the "hail ship" button because it's rare for any captain in the ST universe to shoot to kill ....they usually give the option of surrender or disable the ship and board it .However : there are quite a few missions letting you do exactly that later in the game . But it should be default behavior instead of shooting everything . It can't be very hard to implement either as those ship-interiors are templates already ( for playable ships at least)
Another thing I find to be utterly counter-immersive is the lack of surprise :
- sector space distress calls are borg invasions 99% of the time ..in the ST universe a Borg encounter was frightening because it was a surprise and you knew you had little or no chance to beat a cube . They should have made a borg-cube a very rare raid-boss with great loot-drops , not a common feature .The same goes for species 8472
- when you beam down to a planet in the explore systems missions you have to analyze some plants 99% of the time .