Sounds like they have a pretty robust resource share with CBS, so they likely have access to Picard and Kirk if they so chose. CBS won't be paying the bill Shatner and Stewart would command and the return on investment wouldn't be terrific. Pulling audio lines from episodes for such characters would also be seen as such a major sham given their place in Star Trek.
So, I'll plainly say to the OP: Yes, Cryptic is outright refusing to place them in game without real VOs by the actors AND they don't want to or cannot afford the cost of doing so. And I, for one, am glad. I'd rather have a whole free expansion rather than 3 missions where Picard gives me 3 lines dialog to go kill X enemy.
I think that the voice talent used thus far has been dodgy in some instances, although it is always fun to see former Trek veterans reprise their iconic roles.
For my money Matt Winston, Michael Dorn, JG Hertzler, Tony Todd, Denise Crosby and Levar Burton settled back into their roles the best ingame. Most of the Voyager gang (not all) were great during Delta Rising, and out of the Victory is Life group Andrew Robinson was a smash as Garak. The others were a mixed bag with some sounding like they literally just read their lines, rather than perform them (ahem, Nana Visitor, cough).
Perhaps avoiding the biggest former Trek names would be desirable and sticking with secondary characters like Martok and/or Daniels is the way to go down the road?
Their best bet for captain would probably be patrick stewart (after all if he slums it with american dad sto would be a step up) but if he's not filming he's off touring so would be hard to get hold of even before fees came into play.
STO's biggest issue is they do seem to funnel too much money into getting established lead characters from the shows into the game rather than creating their own or utilising the lesser known ones who were in a single episode but could be fleshed out.
On the one hand it's great to have them in game, some more than others, but on the other hand with the funds not going into the actual gameplay development you end up with a slew of acting talent being wasted as a thin veneer over wobbly and often broken gameplay.
STO's biggest issue is they do seem to funnel too much money into getting established lead characters from the shows into the game rather than creating their own or utilising the lesser known ones who were in a single episode but could be fleshed out.
On the one hand it's great to have them in game, some more than others, but on the other hand with the funds not going into the actual gameplay development you end up with a slew of acting talent being wasted as a thin veneer over wobbly and often broken gameplay.
Yeah, this sums up my own feelings pretty closely.
When's the last time we heard from Captain Shon or Miral Paris? What happened to Ja'rod making a push for J'mpok's throne? STO's original characters keep getting pushed aside or retired outright for the sake of an unending stream of cameos meant to grab headlines, rather than commit to a compelling original story in the Star Trek universe.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
Refusing? No. Several years ago when I offered to help Cryptic get Denise and Brent it wasn't about the money. No one really cares about the money. It is about a compelling role. Cryptic hasn't written a compelling role for any of the Captains.
That directly contradicts what Geko has said in multiple interviews. He has directly stated that due to the cost of certain high profile actors like Shatner and Stewart they could not realistically get them for the game.
Refusing? No. Several years ago when I offered to help Cryptic get Denise and Brent it wasn't about the money. No one really cares about the money. It is about a compelling role. Cryptic hasn't written a compelling role for any of the Captains.
That directly contradicts what Geko has said in multiple interviews. He has directly stated that due to the cost of certain high profile actors like Shatner and Stewart they could not realistically get them for the game.
Well, nix, what I've learned is that contracts are a real thing, you can't use someone's likeness in a game without getting the contract signed, and Bill Shatner is pretty high-maintenance and needs him some money.
Stewart just has really high standards for the parts he does. If they have to integrate his new show, however, that leaves open the possibility that he might do some tie-in VO, similar to how we got the DS9 crew for ViL, or Mary Wiseman for AoD.
Shon was in
-Midnight: In the Iconian War arc
-The Temporal Front: In the Future Proof arc
-Scylla and Charybdis: In the New Frontiers arc
-Storm Clouds Gather: In the Gamma Quadrant arc
Va'Kel Shon has been in each of the last 4 arcs, at least once, and has appeared in many of the lore blogs.
Okay, but he hasn't played a noteworthy role in any of those stories. Most of the time he just stands in the background, or drops a few one-liners at most.
The original Klingon War storyline was dropping hints that he would challenge J'mpok one day, though they retconned that out a while ago. Would have been nice.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
American Dad makes a lot more money than STO, and they can pay Stewart a lot more than STO can.
American dad is lucky to pull in 1 million viewers per episode in the US, which barely makes the effort worthwhile, if at all.
Whatever you may think, the chances are that TBS is likely to cut American dad loose after season 17 because at the rate of decline? it will be lucky to make 500,000 viewers at that point. No, i very much doubt American dad could pay for Patrick Stewart by itself and i doubt it ever could. TBS is probably paying for Patrick and to them being apart of Warnermedia? meeting Patrick's demands is chump change to them.
I doubt PWI is likely to advance the costs to cover Patrick coming to STO, and Cryptic couldn't pay for him no matter what.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Works for me. Every time they bring in one of the old canon characters I feel like my captain's story grinds to a halt so everybody can ooh-aah over the cameo.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
So first of all, please stop with all the off topic stuff that has nothing to do with my question.
Second of all, it looks like 90% of the people replying are missing my point. I'm not asking about cost, or whether actors had issues with CMs, or anything like that.
I'm asking is Cryptic actually able to use these characters (like the mobile games are doing) but REFUSING to do so if they can't get the actor to do custom VO lines?
That is the topic of the thread, not all that other stuff.
Here's what you don't get. CBS doesn't have a blanket agreement to just use an actors likeness in every product they make or license. IF mobile games are using a a certain actor's likeness, it's because that dveloper (through CBS or another means) got an agreement to use said likeness and the actor (and his representing agent) were PAID for the privilege to do so (IE it COSTS money).
When STO started development, CBS helped arrange (and probably helped pay for) both Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto to do VO work for the game and use Nimoy's likeness for Spock.
After that, Cryptic on it's own got Chase Masterson to do some VO and use her likeness for their Dabo mini-game and the 'Leeta' Dabo hologram.
^^^
At that point I think they figured that was a real coup, and probably the best they were going to do with regard to getting actual Trek characters and VO into the game.
The PWE bought them, and pujt more money into the game; and expanded the game marketing by allowing Cryptic to have a presence at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention and usually a panel to promote the game and any new Expansion/Content they were working on.
At the Con it appears they put feelers out, and had the money to afford Denise Crosby, and we got the 'Temporal Ambassador' mission.
Over the last few years Cryptic has nmanaged to afford other Star Trek talent; so obviously Cryptic and PWE have felt the ROI on that level of investment has paid off for them; but it's VERY expensive and not something they do lightly.
Given their success with getting actual Star Trek actors to reprise their characters for VO work, at this point ADDING a well known character WITHOUT also getting the actor to do VO probably isn't seen as a good ROI in that they'd still need to negotiate to use the actor's likeness - but if that was all they got, STO players would probably question: "Hey why couldn't you get them to do VO too? <---- And that would deflate some enthusiasm for the content as it's pretty much expected that IF they add a known character, said character should also be speaking in game like the rest of the know characters.
So, yeah, given that situation, it makes sense that unless they can get an actor to do both, it's not worth the cost to just get rights to the likeness alone if they can't get the actor to do VO.
And Cryptic has in the past used recorded audio from a Star trek show to try and shoehorn VO in, and it's HORRIBLE and sticks out like a sore thumb. As a TOS fan, I was extremely disappointed they chose to use TOS voice cklips for Sulu, Uhura, and even Spock (as Leonard Nimoy had already passed away and I doubt he could have sounded like Spock from the TIOS era anyway).
They did it again for Odo in the final mission that would lead into their "Victory Is Life" expansion (Odo: "We have to talk..")
\^^^
I can understand this because thy wanted to do a BIG tease, and had to get something in for now (Because they were still working on the actual expansion and it would be a lot of cost to get René Auberjonois out for one line and then have him come back when the rest of the actual script is written - you want it one set of productive sessions and done); and it t was a really short clip.
That said, the "Agents of Yesterday" TOS stuff I mentioned and Odo's one short line were easily recognizable as lifted clips (the lower overall audio quality was extremely noticeable. As far at the AoY TOS clips they used, I as a BIG TOS fan would have preferred they just leave those characters silent. I did think it was great they got Walter Koenig to do new VO for the game, and WISH they'd maybe gotten George Takei and Nichelle Nichols involved in some way too - but I know cost was a factor as we had to settle for members of the Star Trek Continues group - many of whom are professional U.S. voice actors in games and many dubbed into english Anime - but it was disappointing more of the original cast weren't/couldn't be used.<-- And again, I'm sure it came down to cost and ROI.)
So, yeah, bottom line: With all the Star Trek actors they've managed to get, at this point to just use a character likeness with no VO from the actor just isn't worth it as many players would now be asking "Why add such a character if we can't have the actor's voice?" - and it wouldn't serve the marketing needs of the game in a positive way.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
And Cryptic has in the past used recorded audio from a Star trek show to try and shoehorn VO in, and it's HORRIBLE and sticks out like a sore thumb. As a TOS fan, I was extremely disappointed they chose to use TOS voice cklips for Sulu, Uhura, and even Spock (as Leonard Nimoy had already passed away and I doubt he could have sounded like Spock from the TIOS era anyway).
They did it again for Odo in the final mission that would lead into their "Victory Is Life" expansion (Odo: "We have to talk..")
I can understand this because thy wanted to do a BIG tease, and had to get something in for now (Because they were still working on the actual expansion and it would be a lot of cost to get René Auberjonois out for one line and then have him come back when the rest of the actual script is written - you want it one set of productive sessions and done); and it t was a really short clip.
Actually if you replay that mission or play it new on another alt, now that ViL is in, I'm pretty sure they fixed that and have an actual 'new' VO from Auberjonois rather than one snitched from the show, but that's just a minor side point.
Not that difficult for ENT cast to come to STO: setup a game canon timeline shortly after Enterprise, give Enterprise styled ships a chance with a subtle hint of DSC style creeping in, say 2170's. put Captain Reed in charge of say the USS Holloway? his first officer is Commander Travis Mayweather and Commander Hoshi Sato is the 3rd officer.
You go back in time because you are destined to, defeat some time travelling bad guys with the Holloway involved, an accident occurs and their ship ends up stranded in 2410 after a time travel accident, it turns out they were always meant to travel to 2410 and remain there and the destined actions in the timeline complete as they should. this opens access for them and their ENT styled ship to be upgraded to standard and ready to come back for more in future missions.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I may be in the minority here but maybe we should ask if some characters should even return at all? Given that this takes place in 2409/2410 and Voyager returned to Earth is what.. 2378? That's a 31 year difference for those characters. Not to mention characters that were already on the older side such as Garak and O'Brien. Kira Nerys was born in 2343 so that would make her nearly 100 and that's a hard 100 given her time under Cardassian rule. Worf is 100 given his bday of 2340, although as exemplified by Kor, Klinks can live a long time. Martok has to be well over 100. Just sayin' maybe some of the show characters need to be retired because time is their enemy in this period.
Novels pull all sorts of TRIBBLE. We saw McCoy in the first ep of TNG, however, and he was retired and quite elderly. (And funny and irascible - "I don't see no points on them ears, boy, but you sound like a Vulcan!"
"I am an android, sir."
"Hmph. Almost as bad.")
PS Stewarts fee is paid by McFarlane's production company not fox or TBS or Warner media.
Which makes your previous point without purpose since this is what i was looking for, and only this. Since it is done by Macfarlane's company i need to know what their operating budget is like of course.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I may be in the minority here but maybe we should ask if some characters should even return at all? Given that this takes place in 2409/2410 and Voyager returned to Earth is what.. 2378? That's a 31 year difference for those characters. Not to mention characters that were already on the older side such as Garak and O'Brien. Kira Nerys was born in 2343 so that would make her nearly 100 and that's a hard 100 given her time under Cardassian rule. Worf is 100 given his bday of 2340, although as exemplified by Kor, Klinks can live a long time. Martok has to be well over 100. Just sayin' maybe some of the show characters need to be retired because time is their enemy in this period.
Humans in Trek can live to be 150+. The novels have Bones, Uhura, and others from the TOS era living to 2377, two years after The Dominion War ended, and beyond.
-Uhura was working for Starfleet Intelligence as of 2377, at 138 years old.
-Bones was working in 2381, at 154 years old, to help P'jem following the Borg invasion.
-Sulu was elected Federation president at over 130 years old.
At 74 years old in 2409 Janeway is only middle aged.
To compare, the average lifespan of humans today is around 80. By this standard 2409 Janeway would only be 40 in today's world.
Kira Nerys was born in 2343 so that would make her nearly 100
2409-2343=66, which is not nearly 100.
Making a list of the humans, and near human species, main characters, their Star Trek age, and their modern day age
-Tuvok = 145 = 58(note this calculation uses the Vulcan lifespan of 200 years instead of the human's 150)
-Picard = 104(Trek Years) = 55.4(Current Day years)
-Beverly = 85 = 44.8
-O'Brien = 81 = 43.2
-Chakotay = 80 = 42.4
-Riker = 74 = 39.4
-La'Forge = 74 = 39.4
-Janeway = 74 = 39.4
-Deanna = 73 = 38.9
-Neelix = 72 = 38.4
-Data = 71 = 37.8
-Worf = 69 = 36.8
-Bashir = 68 = 36.2
-Kira = 66 = 35.2
-Tom Paris = 63 = 33.6
-B'elanna = 60 = 32
-Harry Kim = 60 = 32
-Seven = 59 = 31.4
-Ezri = 55 = 28.8
And we know Vulcans live longer then humans, and Klingons live just as long as humans. Seven of Nine will live longer due to her Borg bits. Data, and the Doctor, could theoretically live forever due to being robots/holograms.
Canon disagrees with your calculations.
All Good Things clearly shows an elderly Admiral Riker already in the year 2395.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
I may be in the minority here but maybe we should ask if some characters should even return at all? Given that this takes place in 2409/2410 and Voyager returned to Earth is what.. 2378? That's a 31 year difference for those characters. Not to mention characters that were already on the older side such as Garak and O'Brien. Kira Nerys was born in 2343 so that would make her nearly 100 and that's a hard 100 given her time under Cardassian rule. Worf is 100 given his bday of 2340, although as exemplified by Kor, Klinks can live a long time. Martok has to be well over 100. Just sayin' maybe some of the show characters need to be retired because time is their enemy in this period.
Humans in Trek can live to be 150+. The novels have Bones, Uhura, and others from the TOS era living to 2377, two years after The Dominion War ended, and beyond.
-Uhura was working for Starfleet Intelligence as of 2377, at 138 years old.
-Bones was working in 2381, at 154 years old, to help P'jem following the Borg invasion.
-Sulu was elected Federation president at over 130 years old.
At 74 years old in 2409 Janeway is only middle aged.
To compare, the average lifespan of humans today is around 80. By this standard 2409 Janeway would only be 40 in today's world.
Kira Nerys was born in 2343 so that would make her nearly 100
2409-2343=66, which is not nearly 100.
Making a list of the humans, and near human species, main characters, their Star Trek age, and their modern day age
-Tuvok = 145 = 58(note this calculation uses the Vulcan lifespan of 200 years instead of the human's 150)
-Picard = 104(Trek Years) = 55.4(Current Day years)
-Beverly = 85 = 44.8
-O'Brien = 81 = 43.2
-Chakotay = 80 = 42.4
-Riker = 74 = 39.4
-La'Forge = 74 = 39.4
-Janeway = 74 = 39.4
-Deanna = 73 = 38.9
-Neelix = 72 = 38.4
-Data = 71 = 37.8
-Worf = 69 = 36.8
-Bashir = 68 = 36.2
-Kira = 66 = 35.2
-Tom Paris = 63 = 33.6
-B'elanna = 60 = 32
-Harry Kim = 60 = 32
-Seven = 59 = 31.4
-Ezri = 55 = 28.8
And we know Vulcans live longer then humans, and Klingons live just as long as humans. Seven of Nine will live longer due to her Borg bits. Data, and the Doctor, could theoretically live forever due to being robots/holograms.
Canon disagrees with your calculations.
All Good Things clearly shows an elderly Admiral Riker already in the year 2395.
He was elderly on the outside. Skin gets weathered and wrinkled based on what you put it through. Internally, though, it's canonically possible with most species to replace failed organs and tissue with cloned or cybernetic duplicates (Picard would've died at the Academy otherwise).
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
I may be in the minority here but maybe we should ask if some characters should even return at all? Given that this takes place in 2409/2410 and Voyager returned to Earth is what.. 2378? That's a 31 year difference for those characters. Not to mention characters that were already on the older side such as Garak and O'Brien. Kira Nerys was born in 2343 so that would make her nearly 100 and that's a hard 100 given her time under Cardassian rule. Worf is 100 given his bday of 2340, although as exemplified by Kor, Klinks can live a long time. Martok has to be well over 100. Just sayin' maybe some of the show characters need to be retired because time is their enemy in this period.
Kira 2343 to 2410 = 67 years old (Hardly close to 100)
Worf 2240 - 2410 = 70 years (Again, old, but hardly close to 100)
Plus, it's the 24th Century and bajor has access to Federation medical technology and we've seen humans/humanoids live past 130 on TNG and STILL be in Starfleet.
Hell Picard graduated the Academy in the 2320ies; and per STO's "Path to 2409" retired in 2385 (at the request of the Federation President to become the Ambassador to Vulcan. That means was was commanding the Enterprise well into his 80ies.
Again, I agree that see all these really long lived characters return bucks the percentages, but it's what the Star Trek franchise has been doing since the TOS Feature film days and continued with TNG and DS9 (Dr, McCoy in the TNG Pilot, and the TOS klingons Kang, Koloth and Kor still shown being active Warriors on multiple episodes of DS9.)
Hell, we're soon going to be SEEING a near 100 year old Picard in the new Star Trek series based on the character, and starring Patrick Stewart, who's now 78 years old himself.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Comments
So, I'll plainly say to the OP: Yes, Cryptic is outright refusing to place them in game without real VOs by the actors AND they don't want to or cannot afford the cost of doing so. And I, for one, am glad. I'd rather have a whole free expansion rather than 3 missions where Picard gives me 3 lines dialog to go kill X enemy.
For my money Matt Winston, Michael Dorn, JG Hertzler, Tony Todd, Denise Crosby and Levar Burton settled back into their roles the best ingame. Most of the Voyager gang (not all) were great during Delta Rising, and out of the Victory is Life group Andrew Robinson was a smash as Garak. The others were a mixed bag with some sounding like they literally just read their lines, rather than perform them (ahem, Nana Visitor, cough).
Perhaps avoiding the biggest former Trek names would be desirable and sticking with secondary characters like Martok and/or Daniels is the way to go down the road?
STO's biggest issue is they do seem to funnel too much money into getting established lead characters from the shows into the game rather than creating their own or utilising the lesser known ones who were in a single episode but could be fleshed out.
On the one hand it's great to have them in game, some more than others, but on the other hand with the funds not going into the actual gameplay development you end up with a slew of acting talent being wasted as a thin veneer over wobbly and often broken gameplay.
Yeah, this sums up my own feelings pretty closely.
When's the last time we heard from Captain Shon or Miral Paris? What happened to Ja'rod making a push for J'mpok's throne? STO's original characters keep getting pushed aside or retired outright for the sake of an unending stream of cameos meant to grab headlines, rather than commit to a compelling original story in the Star Trek universe.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
That directly contradicts what Geko has said in multiple interviews. He has directly stated that due to the cost of certain high profile actors like Shatner and Stewart they could not realistically get them for the game.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Well, there are 2 possibilities:
1) Geko is lying
2) You might not have as much information as Geko
I'm going to go with number 2.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Stewart just has really high standards for the parts he does. If they have to integrate his new show, however, that leaves open the possibility that he might do some tie-in VO, similar to how we got the DS9 crew for ViL, or Mary Wiseman for AoD.
Okay, but he hasn't played a noteworthy role in any of those stories. Most of the time he just stands in the background, or drops a few one-liners at most.
A. She was a baby in Voyager, doesn't really count.
B. The Iconian War ended three years ago.
The original Klingon War storyline was dropping hints that he would challenge J'mpok one day, though they retconned that out a while ago. Would have been nice.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
American dad is lucky to pull in 1 million viewers per episode in the US, which barely makes the effort worthwhile, if at all.
Whatever you may think, the chances are that TBS is likely to cut American dad loose after season 17 because at the rate of decline? it will be lucky to make 500,000 viewers at that point. No, i very much doubt American dad could pay for Patrick Stewart by itself and i doubt it ever could. TBS is probably paying for Patrick and to them being apart of Warnermedia? meeting Patrick's demands is chump change to them.
I doubt PWI is likely to advance the costs to cover Patrick coming to STO, and Cryptic couldn't pay for him no matter what.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
When STO started development, CBS helped arrange (and probably helped pay for) both Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto to do VO work for the game and use Nimoy's likeness for Spock.
After that, Cryptic on it's own got Chase Masterson to do some VO and use her likeness for their Dabo mini-game and the 'Leeta' Dabo hologram.
^^^
At that point I think they figured that was a real coup, and probably the best they were going to do with regard to getting actual Trek characters and VO into the game.
The PWE bought them, and pujt more money into the game; and expanded the game marketing by allowing Cryptic to have a presence at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention and usually a panel to promote the game and any new Expansion/Content they were working on.
At the Con it appears they put feelers out, and had the money to afford Denise Crosby, and we got the 'Temporal Ambassador' mission.
Over the last few years Cryptic has nmanaged to afford other Star Trek talent; so obviously Cryptic and PWE have felt the ROI on that level of investment has paid off for them; but it's VERY expensive and not something they do lightly.
Given their success with getting actual Star Trek actors to reprise their characters for VO work, at this point ADDING a well known character WITHOUT also getting the actor to do VO probably isn't seen as a good ROI in that they'd still need to negotiate to use the actor's likeness - but if that was all they got, STO players would probably question: "Hey why couldn't you get them to do VO too? <---- And that would deflate some enthusiasm for the content as it's pretty much expected that IF they add a known character, said character should also be speaking in game like the rest of the know characters.
So, yeah, given that situation, it makes sense that unless they can get an actor to do both, it's not worth the cost to just get rights to the likeness alone if they can't get the actor to do VO.
And Cryptic has in the past used recorded audio from a Star trek show to try and shoehorn VO in, and it's HORRIBLE and sticks out like a sore thumb. As a TOS fan, I was extremely disappointed they chose to use TOS voice cklips for Sulu, Uhura, and even Spock (as Leonard Nimoy had already passed away and I doubt he could have sounded like Spock from the TIOS era anyway).
They did it again for Odo in the final mission that would lead into their "Victory Is Life" expansion (Odo: "We have to talk..")
\^^^
I can understand this because thy wanted to do a BIG tease, and had to get something in for now (Because they were still working on the actual expansion and it would be a lot of cost to get René Auberjonois out for one line and then have him come back when the rest of the actual script is written - you want it one set of productive sessions and done); and it t was a really short clip.
That said, the "Agents of Yesterday" TOS stuff I mentioned and Odo's one short line were easily recognizable as lifted clips (the lower overall audio quality was extremely noticeable. As far at the AoY TOS clips they used, I as a BIG TOS fan would have preferred they just leave those characters silent. I did think it was great they got Walter Koenig to do new VO for the game, and WISH they'd maybe gotten George Takei and Nichelle Nichols involved in some way too - but I know cost was a factor as we had to settle for members of the Star Trek Continues group - many of whom are professional U.S. voice actors in games and many dubbed into english Anime - but it was disappointing more of the original cast weren't/couldn't be used.<-- And again, I'm sure it came down to cost and ROI.)
So, yeah, bottom line: With all the Star Trek actors they've managed to get, at this point to just use a character likeness with no VO from the actor just isn't worth it as many players would now be asking "Why add such a character if we can't have the actor's voice?" - and it wouldn't serve the marketing needs of the game in a positive way.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Actually if you replay that mission or play it new on another alt, now that ViL is in, I'm pretty sure they fixed that and have an actual 'new' VO from Auberjonois rather than one snitched from the show, but that's just a minor side point.
You go back in time because you are destined to, defeat some time travelling bad guys with the Holloway involved, an accident occurs and their ship ends up stranded in 2410 after a time travel accident, it turns out they were always meant to travel to 2410 and remain there and the destined actions in the timeline complete as they should. this opens access for them and their ENT styled ship to be upgraded to standard and ready to come back for more in future missions.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
"I am an android, sir."
"Hmph. Almost as bad.")
Which makes your previous point without purpose since this is what i was looking for, and only this. Since it is done by Macfarlane's company i need to know what their operating budget is like of course.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Canon disagrees with your calculations.
All Good Things clearly shows an elderly Admiral Riker already in the year 2395.
He was elderly on the outside. Skin gets weathered and wrinkled based on what you put it through. Internally, though, it's canonically possible with most species to replace failed organs and tissue with cloned or cybernetic duplicates (Picard would've died at the Academy otherwise).
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Kira 2343 to 2410 = 67 years old (Hardly close to 100)
Worf 2240 - 2410 = 70 years (Again, old, but hardly close to 100)
Plus, it's the 24th Century and bajor has access to Federation medical technology and we've seen humans/humanoids live past 130 on TNG and STILL be in Starfleet.
Hell Picard graduated the Academy in the 2320ies; and per STO's "Path to 2409" retired in 2385 (at the request of the Federation President to become the Ambassador to Vulcan. That means was was commanding the Enterprise well into his 80ies.
Again, I agree that see all these really long lived characters return bucks the percentages, but it's what the Star Trek franchise has been doing since the TOS Feature film days and continued with TNG and DS9 (Dr, McCoy in the TNG Pilot, and the TOS klingons Kang, Koloth and Kor still shown being active Warriors on multiple episodes of DS9.)
Hell, we're soon going to be SEEING a near 100 year old Picard in the new Star Trek series based on the character, and starring Patrick Stewart, who's now 78 years old himself.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."