Not sure the Op really has a clue how to make a game here...
Funny thing is, the factions are a mistake, so you immediately want them to make STO 2 and one of the biggest mistakes they could right away? STO2 should be all Feds, possibly you could allow for a Privateer type allegiance, but making new ships and content for multiple factions is a waste of money.
The game needs a new client/engine, who chose an engine that can't handle effects to run a game that relies on ships shooting effects out of them? And while I don't think the engine is the problem here, everything is push F to interact, there needs to be more depth there. People should be able to right click anything, scan it, inspect, hail it, and other special options other than just shooting anything and everything.
Forced teaming in MMOs = failure, especially at low levels. If you want to make group content with, in STO's case, different captain types able to do different objectives, then your queue system needs to handle recongizing missions need a certain make up, and only group players like that together.
The combat system in STO is actually pretty simple. The P2W content makes simple attacks do insane damage, and that can't be allowed to happen. To sustain a game P2W has to be minimal, new items analyzed for it's impact, and the costs need to be more than just front loaded on new ever more expensive ships.
That said if you have a chance to remake something, of course damage and all combat formulas get to be overhauled, because right now its broken. Most certainly the game needs enemies that fights like players, instead of wildly different PvE and PvP, managing multiple systems is too difficult.
Content devs desperately need to be replaced or given the tools to properly design missions. There is no reason every missions is exactly the same each time. Branches, surprised and random elements need to exist.
If you are doing a remake, you really need to think of more than just slightly tweaking an existing game. The sector map system is a mess, you should be on a bridge, access astrometrics and plot your coarse. The whole making a 2D galaxy is horrible decision on some devs parts. There are countless systems in the game like this.
You had me up until "use the same game engine". Really? They should make a new game based on a super dated engine? Uh-uh. We need a Trek game with state of the art graphics and performance.
In the world of MMOs, Star Trek Online is barely a blip on the radar. It's become a tiny niche market game supported by a handful of whales when it could be so much more than that. If it were to be re-made, it sure as hell shoudn't be re-made by Cryptic studios.
I stopped reading the OP when he claimed that "money-grabbing" was what killed TOS in Season 3.
You want to know what killed TOS? Low ratings. It didn't help that NBC had no idea what they had (a TV show with an audience so devout they'd even watch reruns raptly, and go to conventions, and cosplay as adults, was a brand-new concept then), and did their level best to cancel the show every season. (Trekkies invented the "write in to save the show" idea, too!). That last season the show was put on Fridays at 10pm - the "death slot". Roddenberry quit in frustration, because that was exactly what the network had promised him would not happen. Fred Frieberger, who by then had developed a rep as the person who oversaw last seasons, was hired to replace him, and it showed.
Had TOS been promoted the way shows are today, with commercial reminders and big toy pushes and conventions and whatnot, it might well have been able to garner the audience the network wanted to see. Sadly, that was not to be, because the network and the production company didn't know that the money was there to be squeezed. In short, the issue was precisely the opposite of what the OP supposes.
Point of contention here.
TOS died because A.C.Nielson LIED to CBS about Star Treks ratings. (politics, and bigotry killed the show. The show was THE top rated show in reality for CBS but they did not know it.) The CBS execs responded just like TV exec always have... (more sexy, more adventure, more things blowing up) and show quality in season three took a turn for the worse...
The problem is often not the studio and more the issue with the money people.
A studio might be overly ambitious, bite off more than they can chew and end up not delivering on time or budget (and some of them are just downright crooks) but its the money people that push for unreasonable release dates, statistics, and ever increasing margins. The key to a good game is the balance between letting a dev team work and controlling them with numbers... right now the numbers own STO, there is no creativity at all.
I'll be honest and say I don't think I would trust Cryptic to provide a more authentic "Trek" or a better "Trek" experience in an STO 2.0. Given what I have seen of STO 1.0, I just don't think Cryptic would be the best choice to give such an undertaking.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
I don't see the need to use or create a new game engine. I do know something about creating software products. All "Game Engines" are modified and built on by the game developers that work with them. It's not quite like opening a box of lego's and letting yer imagination run free!
It's a long process, and a new engine would delay a new STO game at least 2 years. The studio could NOT afford to cease all development of the current STO game. They have absolutely got to keep making money to be able to afford to divert funding into a re-imagining of the game.
Cryptic has a fairly unique position in the industry. They are as near as I can tell operate semi independently, even though they are wholly owned by PWE, which is in turn a subsidiary of PWI.
PWE is one of the industry leaders when it comes to F2P games, and they have certainly developed the revenue model for F2P games to the point where everyone plagiarizes their idea's (not to shabby of a kudo when you take a good look at it).
I've never had an issue with PWE/PWI buying up Cryptic. If they had not, STO would likely have goon poof by now. The previous owners had no clue about how to manage an MMO and it seriously showed. Add that on top of years of loosing money quarter after quarter....
PWE not only saved STO, they saved Atari.
It's all history now. I don't want the clock turned back (like that's even possible!).
But, I do belive that Cryptic could start work with rebuilding STO from the ground up. Again, if they keep the same game engine, this allows them to recycle all of the current games art assets, which are the single most time and resource intensive items of the product. A 3d mesh is a 3d mesh.. I have made 3d model using a number of tools (3dMax is still my favorite, though it has been a few years). Staying with the current game engine, and recycling the current assets into a new STO would shave at least 2 years off of a industry average of I believe to be about 5 years for an MMO development cycle.
Leave the current game running, AND growing. Start developing its replacement now. Rebuild the space combat system from scratch. Eliminate the systems bloat in the starship combat engine. Simplify! K.I.S.S. Players should be commanding their starship.. not running the nerking thing!
Let me note my other MMO I play. NCSoft's A I O N. Same age as STO in the US market.. Defferent setting of course... a Magic Punk fantasy MMO, as compared to STO's SciFi MMO.
This game has managed to keep me engaged since its launch. The Dev's tried an experiment in MMO play with world PvP, and PvPvE play. Theory and practice didn't mesh real well, so over the last few years the A I O N dev team has made major changes to the games internal systems due to player feed back, while STILL holding onto the core aims of Player interaction. That MMO is far better today then it was at launch, in spite of the hackers, and the issues with gold sellers. Both games though are F2P (A I O N is pure F2P.. yes there are micro transaction, and a cash shop, but most of the cash shop items are vanity items.. costumes, item skins to remodel in game items.. swords, armor etc, And a handfull of combat and item enhancing items... A much less intrusive system. And A I O N does have lock boxes!)
Now A I O N dev team is not much larger then Cryptic STO team. (and I'm assuming it is, but it could very well be much smaller!). The differences are in the mind set.
The other major difference is they have always striven to stay true to their original concept for A I O N's style of play. Something that feels lacking with STO.
Somewhere along the way STO. started feeling less and less like Star Trek. I'm honestly expecting a "More Blood and Gore" option any day now.
There are just to many parts of STO that don't feel trek. The game has far far far to much violence for the sake of violence. Might make for a possible great game, but it makes for lousy Star Trek.
And STO should have multiple factions. The DEV team never really did the Federation Klingon war justice. There were so many possible way they could have gone with it that would have pleased the PvP purest crowd no end, and been very approchable by PvE players. It's been done in other MMO's. Instead... the F-K war ended by fiat in service to the story arc. The PvP players are stuck with arena play that has no impact of the story, and very little to do but shoot each other... endlessly.. If it works for 'em great, but it really could have been so much better!
There was a comment by the same person in the threads that STO should be Federation only, while noting the the concept of cross faction co-op play around branching story lines and differing faction goals are un-realistic. I can't even begin to number and name the MMO's that have this feature. It is not uncommon! If you would like a recent example, I'll just point at WOW and the warlords of Dreanor expansion.
Ok, I'm done here... I'll try like the dickens to not toss another post in this thread.. But I'm not going to make a promise I might not be able to keep! And I'm glad it has given food for thought.
Khemaraa sends
(sorry about the constant A I O N... Apparently its a forbidden word on the cryptic forums.... I'm sure there is a story there, but it would be nice if the studio would just get over it.)
TOS died because A.C.Nielson LIED to CBS about Star Treks ratings. (politics, and bigotry killed the show. The show was THE top rated show in reality for CBS but they did not know it.) The CBS execs responded just like TV exec always have... (more sexy, more adventure, more things blowing up) and show quality in season three took a turn for the worse...
It couldn't have been CBS' most popular show.
It was on NBC.
CBS currently holds the rights after a series of sales and mergers, starting when Viacom purchased Desilu Studios (the original production company for Star Trek - apparently Lucille Ball loved the concept when it was first pitched). However, CBS has never shown any Trek series, aside from hosting the remastered episodes at CBS.com. (On the other tentacle, I think they could add it into their current corporate concepts easily, by creating SCIS: Starfleet Criminal Investigative Service. )
I don't see the need to use or create a new game engine. I do know something about creating software products. All "Game Engines" are modified and built on by the game developers that work with them. It's not quite like opening a box of lego's and letting yer imagination run free!
I have no idea how old the game engine they use is, but it's aged, and it shows.
A few former employees at Cryptic Studios pointed out as being one of the cons was the game engine that they used. It was relatively difficult to develop with. No specifics were given expect that it was an in house game engine. Regardless, making another game with the same engine would be a very bad idea.
Development time to create a game would be much longer and probably cost more if they used a new game engine no question about it, but it would be more than worth their while in the long run.
Still, no matter what, I don't see a STO 2 ever happening regardless.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
The great bird of the galaxy would likely insist on giving the non federation factions a greater breadth of story, and epic story arcs.
Gene Roddenberry never cared about "fleshing out" non-Federation factions, nor did he care about story arcs. He insisted that Star Trek would be about the greatness of humanity, and that stories would be self-contained in one episode.
Story arcs never came to Trek, until Roddenberry died.
Besides, whenever I see a poster invoke the name of Roddenberry in relation to STO about the game's current status, I stop reading beyond that due to them having no clue on how that man actually operated.
There will only be a STO 2, if Trek took off like it did in the 90s. As of right now, STO is what we will get due CBS wanting to have more of the quick buck games (I.E. Trexels, browser games).
suits only care about money and counting the beans to make sure they get the most at every turn.
if there is a new MMO for Trek, I want it set in the new Universe or the old one is fine as well... but it needs to be set in the Kirk era... NG was way to clean and frankly the captain isnt suppose to beam down anywhere in NG... it was Riker's gig.
Back then when the Fed was still newish... it was a lot of cowboy mentality or gunboat diplomacy and so stuff Kirk did was glossed over or over looked it seems...
by the time NG came along... heck by the time Kirk made admiral... it was more restricted less shoot first and more blab blab blab.
maybe set it between periods... after Archer and before Kirk... around the time of the 1st war with the Klingons. Isnt there a fan movie being made regarding a battle during that time?
I hate this game now. New ugly ships, useless old ships. Somehow the boots I used now are pointy, wtf and why? I hope someone else does the next Star Trek game, with competence and above all actual respect for its players. Cryptic and perfect world "entertainment" don't care at all. The ship "upgrade" still isn't good enough and no one I know even plays this now except for two people in denial. I wish I had the courage to tell them how they are wasting their time as I like those people too.
suits only care about money and counting the beans to make sure they get the most at every turn.
if there is a new MMO for Trek, I want it set in the new Universe or the old one is fine as well... but it needs to be set in the Kirk era... NG was way to clean and frankly the captain isnt suppose to beam down anywhere in NG... it was Riker's gig.
Back then when the Fed was still newish... it was a lot of cowboy mentality or gunboat diplomacy and so stuff Kirk did was glossed over or over looked it seems...
by the time NG came along... heck by the time Kirk made admiral... it was more restricted less shoot first and more blab blab blab.
maybe set it between periods... after Archer and before Kirk... around the time of the 1st war with the Klingons. Isnt there a fan movie being made regarding a battle during that time?
That would severely restrict everything the players could do. I mean even more so than now. No storylines could be crafted that might lead to any lasting changes in the universe - the exact problem that hamstrung ENT, and affects any prequel.
If you think the uproar over Tier 5 ships becoming obsolete was bad, wait till you see the uproar caused by STO II being announced. That is why they will not make STO II.
I wouldn't want this company to work on STO II because of the sheer ineptitudes of the team on this game. If anyone should take over this project and start on a second one I would have to say they'd need a new team, they'd need some group that doesn't have PWE or companies like Nexon breathing over their shoulder.
I would love a STO II don't get me wrong but this model of a game has got to go. unfinished buggy missing essential features that make any mmo modern while real money is directly tied to progression, should never be put into any other game, especially if they expect my money in the future!
That would severely restrict everything the players could do. I mean even more so than now. No storylines could be crafted that might lead to any lasting changes in the universe - the exact problem that hamstrung ENT, and affects any prequel.
Yes but if you set it in the new universe... there is no reason you have to use the original ST timeline of events.
Cant you just set a course for Bajor? Way before the war/occupation with the Cardassians?
If they just set it in that time frame and give em free reign to do what they want without regard to the original timeline... not like stuff in STO is canon in the prime universe.
That would severely restrict everything the players could do. I mean even more so than now. No storylines could be crafted that might lead to any lasting changes in the universe - the exact problem that hamstrung ENT, and affects any prequel.
Except there are no lasting changes in the Star Trek universe.
And Enterprise probably crashed because it was the third TNG clone, so people probably got bored with it.
Except there are no lasting changes in the Star Trek universe.
And Enterprise probably crashed because it was the third TNG clone, so people probably got bored with it.
I skipped ENT cause it seemed stupid for a show... another ship called Enterprise? Really?!
Set before Kirk/Pike and not a Constitution Class?
I am sorry but if your gonna do a show about ST, do it with a ship with a different name.
Also a ship from Earth with an Alien doc and another Vulcan on board? umm yeah pass, way to derivative and insulting of a premise that conflicts with previous history of the ip.
I don't want STO 2 done until the technology to create procedurally generated content as good as the best missions in STO and the TV episodes becomes available. So every single player will not have the same experience as another player when it comes to exploration.
Comments
Funny thing is, the factions are a mistake, so you immediately want them to make STO 2 and one of the biggest mistakes they could right away? STO2 should be all Feds, possibly you could allow for a Privateer type allegiance, but making new ships and content for multiple factions is a waste of money.
The game needs a new client/engine, who chose an engine that can't handle effects to run a game that relies on ships shooting effects out of them? And while I don't think the engine is the problem here, everything is push F to interact, there needs to be more depth there. People should be able to right click anything, scan it, inspect, hail it, and other special options other than just shooting anything and everything.
Forced teaming in MMOs = failure, especially at low levels. If you want to make group content with, in STO's case, different captain types able to do different objectives, then your queue system needs to handle recongizing missions need a certain make up, and only group players like that together.
The combat system in STO is actually pretty simple. The P2W content makes simple attacks do insane damage, and that can't be allowed to happen. To sustain a game P2W has to be minimal, new items analyzed for it's impact, and the costs need to be more than just front loaded on new ever more expensive ships.
That said if you have a chance to remake something, of course damage and all combat formulas get to be overhauled, because right now its broken. Most certainly the game needs enemies that fights like players, instead of wildly different PvE and PvP, managing multiple systems is too difficult.
Content devs desperately need to be replaced or given the tools to properly design missions. There is no reason every missions is exactly the same each time. Branches, surprised and random elements need to exist.
If you are doing a remake, you really need to think of more than just slightly tweaking an existing game. The sector map system is a mess, you should be on a bridge, access astrometrics and plot your coarse. The whole making a 2D galaxy is horrible decision on some devs parts. There are countless systems in the game like this.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
http://dtfleet.com/
Visit our Youtube channel
In the world of MMOs, Star Trek Online is barely a blip on the radar. It's become a tiny niche market game supported by a handful of whales when it could be so much more than that. If it were to be re-made, it sure as hell shoudn't be re-made by Cryptic studios.
Look at how many of the folks on the STO team are Paragon, eh? Just don't look at how many were that left. :P
Point of contention here.
TOS died because A.C.Nielson LIED to CBS about Star Treks ratings. (politics, and bigotry killed the show. The show was THE top rated show in reality for CBS but they did not know it.) The CBS execs responded just like TV exec always have... (more sexy, more adventure, more things blowing up) and show quality in season three took a turn for the worse...
A studio might be overly ambitious, bite off more than they can chew and end up not delivering on time or budget (and some of them are just downright crooks) but its the money people that push for unreasonable release dates, statistics, and ever increasing margins. The key to a good game is the balance between letting a dev team work and controlling them with numbers... right now the numbers own STO, there is no creativity at all.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
http://dtfleet.com/
Visit our Youtube channel
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
I don't see the need to use or create a new game engine. I do know something about creating software products. All "Game Engines" are modified and built on by the game developers that work with them. It's not quite like opening a box of lego's and letting yer imagination run free!
It's a long process, and a new engine would delay a new STO game at least 2 years. The studio could NOT afford to cease all development of the current STO game. They have absolutely got to keep making money to be able to afford to divert funding into a re-imagining of the game.
Cryptic has a fairly unique position in the industry. They are as near as I can tell operate semi independently, even though they are wholly owned by PWE, which is in turn a subsidiary of PWI.
PWE is one of the industry leaders when it comes to F2P games, and they have certainly developed the revenue model for F2P games to the point where everyone plagiarizes their idea's (not to shabby of a kudo when you take a good look at it).
I've never had an issue with PWE/PWI buying up Cryptic. If they had not, STO would likely have goon poof by now. The previous owners had no clue about how to manage an MMO and it seriously showed. Add that on top of years of loosing money quarter after quarter....
PWE not only saved STO, they saved Atari.
It's all history now. I don't want the clock turned back (like that's even possible!).
But, I do belive that Cryptic could start work with rebuilding STO from the ground up. Again, if they keep the same game engine, this allows them to recycle all of the current games art assets, which are the single most time and resource intensive items of the product. A 3d mesh is a 3d mesh.. I have made 3d model using a number of tools (3dMax is still my favorite, though it has been a few years). Staying with the current game engine, and recycling the current assets into a new STO would shave at least 2 years off of a industry average of I believe to be about 5 years for an MMO development cycle.
Leave the current game running, AND growing. Start developing its replacement now. Rebuild the space combat system from scratch. Eliminate the systems bloat in the starship combat engine. Simplify! K.I.S.S. Players should be commanding their starship.. not running the nerking thing!
Let me note my other MMO I play. NCSoft's A I O N. Same age as STO in the US market.. Defferent setting of course... a Magic Punk fantasy MMO, as compared to STO's SciFi MMO.
This game has managed to keep me engaged since its launch. The Dev's tried an experiment in MMO play with world PvP, and PvPvE play. Theory and practice didn't mesh real well, so over the last few years the A I O N dev team has made major changes to the games internal systems due to player feed back, while STILL holding onto the core aims of Player interaction. That MMO is far better today then it was at launch, in spite of the hackers, and the issues with gold sellers. Both games though are F2P (A I O N is pure F2P.. yes there are micro transaction, and a cash shop, but most of the cash shop items are vanity items.. costumes, item skins to remodel in game items.. swords, armor etc, And a handfull of combat and item enhancing items... A much less intrusive system. And A I O N does have lock boxes!)
Now A I O N dev team is not much larger then Cryptic STO team. (and I'm assuming it is, but it could very well be much smaller!). The differences are in the mind set.
The other major difference is they have always striven to stay true to their original concept for A I O N's style of play. Something that feels lacking with STO.
Somewhere along the way STO. started feeling less and less like Star Trek. I'm honestly expecting a "More Blood and Gore" option any day now.
There are just to many parts of STO that don't feel trek. The game has far far far to much violence for the sake of violence. Might make for a possible great game, but it makes for lousy Star Trek.
And STO should have multiple factions. The DEV team never really did the Federation Klingon war justice. There were so many possible way they could have gone with it that would have pleased the PvP purest crowd no end, and been very approchable by PvE players. It's been done in other MMO's. Instead... the F-K war ended by fiat in service to the story arc. The PvP players are stuck with arena play that has no impact of the story, and very little to do but shoot each other... endlessly.. If it works for 'em great, but it really could have been so much better!
There was a comment by the same person in the threads that STO should be Federation only, while noting the the concept of cross faction co-op play around branching story lines and differing faction goals are un-realistic. I can't even begin to number and name the MMO's that have this feature. It is not uncommon! If you would like a recent example, I'll just point at WOW and the warlords of Dreanor expansion.
Ok, I'm done here... I'll try like the dickens to not toss another post in this thread.. But I'm not going to make a promise I might not be able to keep! And I'm glad it has given food for thought.
Khemaraa sends
(sorry about the constant A I O N... Apparently its a forbidden word on the cryptic forums.... I'm sure there is a story there, but it would be nice if the studio would just get over it.)
It was on NBC.
CBS currently holds the rights after a series of sales and mergers, starting when Viacom purchased Desilu Studios (the original production company for Star Trek - apparently Lucille Ball loved the concept when it was first pitched). However, CBS has never shown any Trek series, aside from hosting the remastered episodes at CBS.com. (On the other tentacle, I think they could add it into their current corporate concepts easily, by creating SCIS: Starfleet Criminal Investigative Service.
I have no idea how old the game engine they use is, but it's aged, and it shows.
A few former employees at Cryptic Studios pointed out as being one of the cons was the game engine that they used. It was relatively difficult to develop with. No specifics were given expect that it was an in house game engine. Regardless, making another game with the same engine would be a very bad idea.
Development time to create a game would be much longer and probably cost more if they used a new game engine no question about it, but it would be more than worth their while in the long run.
Still, no matter what, I don't see a STO 2 ever happening regardless.
Gene Roddenberry never cared about "fleshing out" non-Federation factions, nor did he care about story arcs. He insisted that Star Trek would be about the greatness of humanity, and that stories would be self-contained in one episode.
Story arcs never came to Trek, until Roddenberry died.
There will only be a STO 2, if Trek took off like it did in the 90s. As of right now, STO is what we will get due CBS wanting to have more of the quick buck games (I.E. Trexels, browser games).
if there is a new MMO for Trek, I want it set in the new Universe or the old one is fine as well... but it needs to be set in the Kirk era... NG was way to clean and frankly the captain isnt suppose to beam down anywhere in NG... it was Riker's gig.
Back then when the Fed was still newish... it was a lot of cowboy mentality or gunboat diplomacy and so stuff Kirk did was glossed over or over looked it seems...
by the time NG came along... heck by the time Kirk made admiral... it was more restricted less shoot first and more blab blab blab.
maybe set it between periods... after Archer and before Kirk... around the time of the 1st war with the Klingons. Isnt there a fan movie being made regarding a battle during that time?
I would love a STO II don't get me wrong but this model of a game has got to go. unfinished buggy missing essential features that make any mmo modern while real money is directly tied to progression, should never be put into any other game, especially if they expect my money in the future!
Yes but if you set it in the new universe... there is no reason you have to use the original ST timeline of events.
Cant you just set a course for Bajor? Way before the war/occupation with the Cardassians?
If they just set it in that time frame and give em free reign to do what they want without regard to the original timeline... not like stuff in STO is canon in the prime universe.
Except there are no lasting changes in the Star Trek universe.
And Enterprise probably crashed because it was the third TNG clone, so people probably got bored with it.
I skipped ENT cause it seemed stupid for a show... another ship called Enterprise? Really?!
Set before Kirk/Pike and not a Constitution Class?
I am sorry but if your gonna do a show about ST, do it with a ship with a different name.
Also a ship from Earth with an Alien doc and another Vulcan on board? umm yeah pass, way to derivative and insulting of a premise that conflicts with previous history of the ip.
I just wanted to pop in here to say that you have the very best signature.
Shutup Wesley: First In Everything