It's not "sunk-cost fallacy" when they can't switch engines. Yes, okay, maybe it's "physically" possible to switch, but from a purely practical perspective? It's use the one they've got, or the game dies. Personally I'm all in favor of them keeping the game running.
Right. If Gearbox was willing to pay to hire a second team to create a copy of the STO engine using Unreal 4 or 5 while also paying for the existing team to keep the game running then it would be possible to switch engines. Without that, it is not.
Even that would be quite a gamble though, who knows what the state of Star Trek will be in three to five years from now. As generic as CBS is making it nowadays, it is intrinsically closer to oversaturation than ever before, and if the shows fall out of favor then interest in the game would probably drop to pre-2020 levels again.
Also, things like the controls not responding is not as uncommon as some people think, and it will probably get better with the new compiler with better optimizations (and probably some tweaking if they can get around to it). Also, some games that have the problem are just better at hiding it, like Arche Age were you can almost tell what kind of latency various players have because their DPS suffers from failed button ticks even though the local animations conceal the fact.
In 1997, after running for only two years, Ultima Online released 'Kingdom Reborn', which included an entirely new game engine. It was free to all players.
In 2010, Square Enix re-wrote Final Fantasy XIV v.2 from square one after the fiasco of FFXIV v.1
They wrote it in secret.
In two years.
While continuing to patch v.1 regularly to try and fix some of the ridiculous problems it had.
Don't say 'it can't be done'. It has been done. More than once.
In 1997, after running for only two years, Ultima Online released 'Kingdom Reborn', which included an entirely new game engine. It was free to all players.
In 2010, Square Enix re-wrote Final Fantasy XIV v.2 from square one after the fiasco of FFXIV v.1
They wrote it in secret.
In two years.
While continuing to patch v.1 regularly to try and fix some of the ridiculous problems it had.
Don't say 'it can't be done'. It has been done. More than once.
Square Enix also is a BIGGER company than Cryptic. I think one team for FFXIV's developers are bigger than STO, Neverwinter & Champions total number of developers combined.
In 1997, after running for only two years, Ultima Online released 'Kingdom Reborn', which included an entirely new game engine. It was free to all players.
In 2010, Square Enix re-wrote Final Fantasy XIV v.2 from square one after the fiasco of FFXIV v.1
They wrote it in secret.
In two years.
While continuing to patch v.1 regularly to try and fix some of the ridiculous problems it had.
Don't say 'it can't be done'. It has been done. More than once.
Nice strawman you just knocked down.
Of course it can be done, if Gearbox is willing to put a few million in extra funding into Cryptic's budget. It's hard to say exactly how many millions if there are going to be new engines for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X.
It would also be possible to release 12+ new story episodes a year if money was no object. Just hire 2-4 complete teams to work in parallel. Easy.
Will either of those things happen? Don't hold your breath.
In 1997, after running for only two years, Ultima Online released 'Kingdom Reborn', which included an entirely new game engine. It was free to all players.
In 2010, Square Enix re-wrote Final Fantasy XIV v.2 from square one after the fiasco of FFXIV v.1
They wrote it in secret.
In two years.
While continuing to patch v.1 regularly to try and fix some of the ridiculous problems it had.
Don't say 'it can't be done'. It has been done. More than once.
Square Enix also is a BIGGER company than Cryptic. I think one team for FFXIV's developers are bigger than STO, Neverwinter & Champions total number of developers combined.
CCP are smaller then Cryptic and Eve-Online manage to do large scale engine rewrites and they are a Space MMO like STO. Plus Cryptic have done engine upgrades before like the graphic engine upgrade we had a while back. I don't see why this cannot be done again. I would love to see something like Ray Tracing added to the engine or some of the other problems in the current engine being fixed. Like the low object count that once hit causes NPC's to fade away and go invisible as the engine cannot draw them.
I don't think it is reasonable to expect very demanding, radical changes that require huge investments in a game as old as STO, certainly not when it's maintained by a relatively small team.
I must admit that I'm not really a technical person, so I'm not even sure what the benefit would be, compared to devoting the required resources (money, developer hours especially) to other things. Personally I'd rather see they expanded the team so that more can be done with the current equipment.
STO's basic strategy works fine. We just need a bit more diversity in terms of content released (it's basically TFO's and episodes now, and some maintenance/fixes) and it needs to be released more often.
So more new adventure zones, exploration, social zones, tailor expansions and playable species: basically, more places to go and more ways of playing and going there. As well as more bug fixes.
I'd be happy to pay for some of these things - if necessary, through things like fund raisers.
Stuff I'd be willing to pay for include things like tailor expansions and new premium playable species. Actual content monetisation may be more controversial so it may be best not to go there, but with the tailor and species things there's already a lot of options for players who don't want or can't spend money on the game. Those who are willing to pay, could unlock new options and give Cryptic an opportunity to monetise other things than ships (which must be where most of their income is coming from currently).
The Farpoint ship looks interesting, I hope they do put it out as an event reward (of course I like UFO mythos ships in general, like the Lukari ones and the teaser of the Farpoint one anyway). I just hope it has something besides that hideous concrete bridge that is foisted off as a bridge all too often for event ships. I get it that the bridges are a lot of work and so it is not practical to make custom ones for every ship, but just linking existing bridges could not possibly take long enough to require having the only option a monstrosity that looks like an unfinished parking garage.
It makes sense that TAS IP is a mess since it was done in partnership with Filmation which has long been defunct and its library split up and shuffled around with fragmented IP for several decades now.
Well... we still have the Summer Event coming up...
And not only was TAS a bit of a mess, but we also had the Kzinti in there, which mucked things up even more. Although the presence of one in Lower Decks may indicate that is no longer a problem.
^^^
As I understand it - Mike McMahan asked Larry Niven personally and Niven said okay to that one instance. As for Filmation; when the company went fully 'belly up' - all the TAS rights reverted to CBS/Paramount (The current Star Trek IP holder) <--- That was the reason TAS was suddenly "re-canonized". That said, there may still be some issues is Paramount (back when they were making TAS with Filmation), entered into any rights deals similar to what they did with Franz Joseph; where certain authors/creators still hold their own rights to some elements - which is pretty much the current Larry Niven/Kizinti appearing/mentions in Star Trek after TAS - "The Slaver Weapon".
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..."
I will try out the new Revamped tutorial, But I don't think I would be playing that Fed Toon past the tutorial, if only there was an Incentive like a NEW Recruitment Event, Faction or Race/Species, I know that they're not make them but I figured that it was worth mentioning.
I mean look at SWTOR when they introduced Nautolans, both New and Old players came back to make Kit Fisto clones.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,597Community Moderator
Factions are unlikely right now. New race... we've got pretty much all the known Fed races other than Denobulan. And Kelpian is still kinda on the fence AFAIK.
Honestly if people don't have a Fed Delta... I'd say that would be the best time to start a new Fed.
I'm not likely to do that as I already have a Fed Delta, and several Feds, but others don't.
Wonder how they addressed the original Delta Recruit arc basically ending in the Breen arc that is no longer mainline. Honestly should be considering Lae'nas III, but could probably do with a revamp.
Factions are unlikely right now. New race... we've got pretty much all the known Fed races other than Denobulan. And Kelpian is still kinda on the fence AFAIK.
Honestly if people don't have a Fed Delta... I'd say that would be the best time to start a new Fed.
I'm not likely to do that as I already have a Fed Delta, and several Feds, but others don't.
Wonder how they addressed the original Delta Recruit arc basically ending in the Breen arc that is no longer mainline. Honestly should be considering Lae'nas III, but could probably do with a revamp.
We're also missing Sulibans, Acamarians and the rest of the DSC faction's founding members.
Factions are unlikely right now. New race... we've got pretty much all the known Fed races other than Denobulan. And Kelpian is still kinda on the fence AFAIK.
Honestly if people don't have a Fed Delta... I'd say that would be the best time to start a new Fed.
I'm not likely to do that as I already have a Fed Delta, and several Feds, but others don't.
Wonder how they addressed the original Delta Recruit arc basically ending in the Breen arc that is no longer mainline. Honestly should be considering Lae'nas III, but could probably do with a revamp.
We're also missing Sulibans, Acamarians and the rest of the DSC faction's founding members.
Yeah, Sulibans would've been a nice inclusion for the ROM Faction. And I'm rather disappointed that we don't have DSC Andorians, Tellarites, and Saurians by now. Personally, I'd love to see Anticans and Selay as options somewhere as well. As for missing, known FED races, there are still a few others besides Denobulans. But I suppose those could be made via the Alien option.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Factions are unlikely right now. New race... we've got pretty much all the known Fed races other than Denobulan. And Kelpian is still kinda on the fence AFAIK.
Honestly if people don't have a Fed Delta... I'd say that would be the best time to start a new Fed.
I'm not likely to do that as I already have a Fed Delta, and several Feds, but others don't.
Wonder how they addressed the original Delta Recruit arc basically ending in the Breen arc that is no longer mainline. Honestly should be considering Lae'nas III, but could probably do with a revamp.
We're also missing Sulibans, Acamarians and the rest of the DSC faction's founding members.
Yeah, Sulibans would've been a nice inclusion for the ROM Faction. And I'm rather disappointed that we don't have DSC Andorians, Tellarites, and Saurians by now. Personally, I'd love to see Anticans and Selay as options somewhere as well. As for missing, known FED races, there are still a few others besides Denobulans. But I suppose those could be made via the Alien option.
I'd like to see playable Xindi. Sure, Aquatics and likely Insectoids wouldn't be doable, but one would think Arboreals, Primates, and Reptilians would work.
The Farpoint ship looks interesting, I hope they do put it out as an event reward (of course I like UFO mythos ships in general, like the Lukari ones and the teaser of the Farpoint one anyway). I just hope it has something besides that hideous concrete bridge that is foisted off as a bridge all too often for event ships. I get it that the bridges are a lot of work and so it is not practical to make custom ones for every ship, but just linking existing bridges could not possibly take long enough to require having the only option a monstrosity that looks like an unfinished parking garage.
It makes sense that TAS IP is a mess since it was done in partnership with Filmation which has long been defunct and its library split up and shuffled around with fragmented IP for several decades now.
Well... we still have the Summer Event coming up...
And not only was TAS a bit of a mess, but we also had the Kzinti in there, which mucked things up even more. Although the presence of one in Lower Decks may indicate that is no longer a problem.
^^^
As I understand it - Mike McMahan asked Larry Niven personally and Niven said okay to that one instance. As for Filmation; when the company went fully 'belly up' - all the TAS rights reverted to CBS/Paramount (The current Star Trek IP holder) <--- That was the reason TAS was suddenly "re-canonized". That said, there may still be some issues is Paramount (back when they were making TAS with Filmation), entered into any rights deals similar to what they did with Franz Joseph; where certain authors/creators still hold their own rights to some elements - which is pretty much the current Larry Niven/Kizinti appearing/mentions in Star Trek after TAS - "The Slaver Weapon".
Some of those rights went to Norway Productions too iirc. Paramount actually had little or no active role in the series after the initial negotiations, they just provided the IP rights from the live action and all the original stuff like in-house scripts, new tech, and new characters were jointly owned by Noraway Productions, Filmation, and Paramount.
So it is possible that they would have to bring in Roddenberry's estate on that too (though I doubt it would be much of a problem). That was another reason Paramount was leery about anything to do with TAS setting canon after they in essence shut Roddenberry out of everything after TMP and before TNG and just used him as a figurehead because of his popularity with the fans during that period (and the movie division still ignored him as much as possible even after TNG started).
In 1997, after running for only two years, Ultima Online released 'Kingdom Reborn', which included an entirely new game engine. It was free to all players.
In 2010, Square Enix re-wrote Final Fantasy XIV v.2 from square one after the fiasco of FFXIV v.1
They wrote it in secret.
In two years.
While continuing to patch v.1 regularly to try and fix some of the ridiculous problems it had.
Don't say 'it can't be done'. It has been done. More than once.
Square Enix also is a BIGGER company than Cryptic. I think one team for FFXIV's developers are bigger than STO, Neverwinter & Champions total number of developers combined.
There's also the matter that when said engine swap was done FF14 was brand new (less then a year old IIRC) and there had been no major content patches (indeed IIRC one the complaints was lack of content at max level if you got there), STO on the other hand is over a decade old so a full on engine swap in unlikely (now engine upgrades to the existing tech sure but it's highly unlikely we'll see STO using Unreal 5 for example).
It's has never been the case of "it's utterly and totally impossible" but rather "the amount of work needed to make it happen even for a brand new game is so astronomical that it's highly unlikely it will happen to over a decade old game like STO".
Also ARR wasn't a secret in way it's was implied here as SE did announce it in public when they started patching those issues in 1.0.
Oh while I'm at this the engines used in FF14 were both SE internal ones (Crystal Tools and Luminous) which mostly likely (due the virtue of having been made by the same developers) have more in common, then Unreal Engine (or what ever is the fad currently) and the engine STO uses.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,597Community Moderator
The Engine STO is on is an in house one that wasn't originally designed for space combat. It was adapted from the engine Champions Online uses. And issues aside, gotta admit that STO has done pretty well despite these issues.
In 1997, after running for only two years, Ultima Online released 'Kingdom Reborn', which included an entirely new game engine. It was free to all players.
In 2010, Square Enix re-wrote Final Fantasy XIV v.2 from square one after the fiasco of FFXIV v.1
They wrote it in secret.
In two years.
While continuing to patch v.1 regularly to try and fix some of the ridiculous problems it had.
Don't say 'it can't be done'. It has been done. More than once.
You have no idea what you are talking about. UO launched in 1997 so you couldn't even get that right. kingdom reborn was in 2007 and had over six years of full time development with an absolutely massive team and funding
Nobody writes an entire mmo engine and game in two years with little funding and a tiny team. Its never been done, never will be done and cannot be done
The Engine STO is on is an in house one that wasn't originally designed for space combat. It was adapted from the engine Champions Online uses
No, it was adapted from the engine city of heroes uses, which cryptic developed. This is also where the foundry came from and why it was so broken and had to be fixed after every release. It was the CoH player mission builder that had a dev had frankenstein hackjob'd into working with sto and was never rebuilt properly to actually be compatible. Hence the problems it had
You have no idea what you are talking about. UO launched in 1997 so you couldn't even get that right. kingdom reborn was in 2007 and had over six years of full time development with an absolutely massive team and funding
Nobody writes an entire mmo engine and game in two years with little funding and a tiny team. Its never been done, never will be done and cannot be done
Hmmm...you're right. I have no idea how I got my dates so far off on Ultima Online. I suppose I could blame lack of sleep and pain medications...I legitimately did try to look things up and verify my dates...hell, I'm a Charter Subscriber to UO. So I pooched that one...my bad. Not sure Origin could afford a 'massive team and funding', but I don't have those numbers.
My information on FFXIV is correct, however. Complete rewrite, ground up, two years. And while Square Enix is a large company, and may have a larger wallet, they did not have a -huge- team (305 in-house, 17 outsourced, based on 2.0 in-game credits). Their team numbers are about average for an A-List MMO. There's whole documentaries on the Realm Reborn project.
"Little funding, tiny team"...those are excuses used by people and companies who have bought into the line that it takes huge amounts of people and money to do anything. It doesn't. It takes dedicated people, and time. Apple started as three guys in a garage.
The game makes money, or it wouldn't be active. MMOs don't operate on a loss leader dynamic. Re-invest where it does the most good, for the longest amount of time. Step away from the lockboxes and the promotional ships for a bit...pretty sure the players as a group wouldn't mind, if there's a new engine with fewer glaring bugs in it for them.
And while I don't know the specifics of Gearbox/Cryptic's licensing arrangement with Paramount/CBS, I do know this: IP licensing is -never- permanent, and is -always- subject to review by the IP owner. The instant a 'little funded tiny team' comes up with a better engine, and can show it off? That license becomes the prize.
You either keep up, or get dropped for someone who can. Nature of the game, unless you own the IP outright.
You have no idea what you are talking about. UO launched in 1997 so you couldn't even get that right. kingdom reborn was in 2007 and had over six years of full time development with an absolutely massive team and funding
Nobody writes an entire mmo engine and game in two years with little funding and a tiny team. Its never been done, never will be done and cannot be done
Hmmm...you're right. I have no idea how I got my dates so far off on Ultima Online. I suppose I could blame lack of sleep and pain medications...I legitimately did try to look things up and verify my dates...hell, I'm a Charter Subscriber to UO. So I pooched that one...my bad. Not sure Origin could afford a 'massive team and funding', but I don't have those numbers.
My information on FFXIV is correct, however. Complete rewrite, ground up, two years. And while Square Enix is a large company, and may have a larger wallet, they did not have a -huge- team (305 in-house, 17 outsourced, based on 2.0 in-game credits). Their team numbers are about average for an A-List MMO. There's whole documentaries on the Realm Reborn project.
"Little funding, tiny team"...those are excuses used by people and companies who have bought into the line that it takes huge amounts of people and money to do anything. It doesn't. It takes dedicated people, and time. Apple started as three guys in a garage.
The game makes money, or it wouldn't be active. MMOs don't operate on a loss leader dynamic. Re-invest where it does the most good, for the longest amount of time. Step away from the lockboxes and the promotional ships for a bit...pretty sure the players as a group wouldn't mind, if there's a new engine with fewer glaring bugs in it for them.
And while I don't know the specifics of Gearbox/Cryptic's licensing arrangement with Paramount/CBS, I do know this: IP licensing is -never- permanent, and is -always- subject to review by the IP owner. The instant a 'little funded tiny team' comes up with a better engine, and can show it off? That license becomes the prize.
You either keep up, or get dropped for someone who can. Nature of the game, unless you own the IP outright.
You do realize that "not huge" team is still like a dozen times larger than STO has, right? Last I heard, Cryptic has a grand total of two programmers working on the game. No, Cryptic cannot pull a Realm Reborn.
In 1997, after running for only two years, Ultima Online released 'Kingdom Reborn', which included an entirely new game engine. It was free to all players.
In 2010, Square Enix re-wrote Final Fantasy XIV v.2 from square one after the fiasco of FFXIV v.1
They wrote it in secret.
In two years.
While continuing to patch v.1 regularly to try and fix some of the ridiculous problems it had.
Don't say 'it can't be done'. It has been done. More than once.
However In 2010 Square Enix DIDN'T rewrite the engine, they re-did the game is the SAME engine, using pretty much the same art assets. (And that Engine still has major database issues that hobble them in adding or updating certain functions. The original FFXIV issues weren't caused by the engine per se - it was the design and implementation of many of the original game systems. But again, they spent two years redesigning their game in the SAME engine.
As for Ultima Online - "A Kingdome Reborn" was released in 2007 - not 1999. Also they just updated the player CLIENT, not the underlying engine.
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
Even that would be quite a gamble though, who knows what the state of Star Trek will be in three to five years from now. As generic as CBS is making it nowadays, it is intrinsically closer to oversaturation than ever before, and if the shows fall out of favor then interest in the game would probably drop to pre-2020 levels again.
Also, things like the controls not responding is not as uncommon as some people think, and it will probably get better with the new compiler with better optimizations (and probably some tweaking if they can get around to it). Also, some games that have the problem are just better at hiding it, like Arche Age were you can almost tell what kind of latency various players have because their DPS suffers from failed button ticks even though the local animations conceal the fact.
In 1997, after running for only two years, Ultima Online released 'Kingdom Reborn', which included an entirely new game engine. It was free to all players.
In 2010, Square Enix re-wrote Final Fantasy XIV v.2 from square one after the fiasco of FFXIV v.1
They wrote it in secret.
In two years.
While continuing to patch v.1 regularly to try and fix some of the ridiculous problems it had.
Don't say 'it can't be done'. It has been done. More than once.
Also, thank you for posting these!
CM
Square Enix also is a BIGGER company than Cryptic. I think one team for FFXIV's developers are bigger than STO, Neverwinter & Champions total number of developers combined.
Nice strawman you just knocked down.
Of course it can be done, if Gearbox is willing to put a few million in extra funding into Cryptic's budget. It's hard to say exactly how many millions if there are going to be new engines for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X.
It would also be possible to release 12+ new story episodes a year if money was no object. Just hire 2-4 complete teams to work in parallel. Easy.
Will either of those things happen? Don't hold your breath.
I don't think it is reasonable to expect very demanding, radical changes that require huge investments in a game as old as STO, certainly not when it's maintained by a relatively small team.
I must admit that I'm not really a technical person, so I'm not even sure what the benefit would be, compared to devoting the required resources (money, developer hours especially) to other things. Personally I'd rather see they expanded the team so that more can be done with the current equipment.
STO's basic strategy works fine. We just need a bit more diversity in terms of content released (it's basically TFO's and episodes now, and some maintenance/fixes) and it needs to be released more often.
So more new adventure zones, exploration, social zones, tailor expansions and playable species: basically, more places to go and more ways of playing and going there. As well as more bug fixes.
I'd be happy to pay for some of these things - if necessary, through things like fund raisers.
Stuff I'd be willing to pay for include things like tailor expansions and new premium playable species. Actual content monetisation may be more controversial so it may be best not to go there, but with the tailor and species things there's already a lot of options for players who don't want or can't spend money on the game. Those who are willing to pay, could unlock new options and give Cryptic an opportunity to monetise other things than ships (which must be where most of their income is coming from currently).
https://crypticstudios.com/position?id=e50c0a07-64f9-4337-94a4-63122ebb0360
As I understand it - Mike McMahan asked Larry Niven personally and Niven said okay to that one instance. As for Filmation; when the company went fully 'belly up' - all the TAS rights reverted to CBS/Paramount (The current Star Trek IP holder) <--- That was the reason TAS was suddenly "re-canonized". That said, there may still be some issues is Paramount (back when they were making TAS with Filmation), entered into any rights deals similar to what they did with Franz Joseph; where certain authors/creators still hold their own rights to some elements - which is pretty much the current Larry Niven/Kizinti appearing/mentions in Star Trek after TAS - "The Slaver Weapon".
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..."
I mean look at SWTOR when they introduced Nautolans, both New and Old players came back to make Kit Fisto clones.
Honestly if people don't have a Fed Delta... I'd say that would be the best time to start a new Fed.
I'm not likely to do that as I already have a Fed Delta, and several Feds, but others don't.
Wonder how they addressed the original Delta Recruit arc basically ending in the Breen arc that is no longer mainline. Honestly should be considering Lae'nas III, but could probably do with a revamp.
We're also missing Sulibans, Acamarians and the rest of the DSC faction's founding members.
https://twitter.com/trekonlinegame/status/1062537327996588032?lang=en
Yeah, Sulibans would've been a nice inclusion for the ROM Faction. And I'm rather disappointed that we don't have DSC Andorians, Tellarites, and Saurians by now. Personally, I'd love to see Anticans and Selay as options somewhere as well. As for missing, known FED races, there are still a few others besides Denobulans. But I suppose those could be made via the Alien option.
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I'd like to see playable Xindi. Sure, Aquatics and likely Insectoids wouldn't be doable, but one would think Arboreals, Primates, and Reptilians would work.
Some of those rights went to Norway Productions too iirc. Paramount actually had little or no active role in the series after the initial negotiations, they just provided the IP rights from the live action and all the original stuff like in-house scripts, new tech, and new characters were jointly owned by Noraway Productions, Filmation, and Paramount.
So it is possible that they would have to bring in Roddenberry's estate on that too (though I doubt it would be much of a problem). That was another reason Paramount was leery about anything to do with TAS setting canon after they in essence shut Roddenberry out of everything after TMP and before TNG and just used him as a figurehead because of his popularity with the fans during that period (and the movie division still ignored him as much as possible even after TNG started).
There's also the matter that when said engine swap was done FF14 was brand new (less then a year old IIRC) and there had been no major content patches (indeed IIRC one the complaints was lack of content at max level if you got there), STO on the other hand is over a decade old so a full on engine swap in unlikely (now engine upgrades to the existing tech sure but it's highly unlikely we'll see STO using Unreal 5 for example).
It's has never been the case of "it's utterly and totally impossible" but rather "the amount of work needed to make it happen even for a brand new game is so astronomical that it's highly unlikely it will happen to over a decade old game like STO".
Also ARR wasn't a secret in way it's was implied here as SE did announce it in public when they started patching those issues in 1.0.
Oh while I'm at this the engines used in FF14 were both SE internal ones (Crystal Tools and Luminous) which mostly likely (due the virtue of having been made by the same developers) have more in common, then Unreal Engine (or what ever is the fad currently) and the engine STO uses.
You have no idea what you are talking about. UO launched in 1997 so you couldn't even get that right. kingdom reborn was in 2007 and had over six years of full time development with an absolutely massive team and funding
Nobody writes an entire mmo engine and game in two years with little funding and a tiny team. Its never been done, never will be done and cannot be done
No, it was adapted from the engine city of heroes uses, which cryptic developed. This is also where the foundry came from and why it was so broken and had to be fixed after every release. It was the CoH player mission builder that had a dev had frankenstein hackjob'd into working with sto and was never rebuilt properly to actually be compatible. Hence the problems it had
Hmmm...you're right. I have no idea how I got my dates so far off on Ultima Online. I suppose I could blame lack of sleep and pain medications...I legitimately did try to look things up and verify my dates...hell, I'm a Charter Subscriber to UO. So I pooched that one...my bad. Not sure Origin could afford a 'massive team and funding', but I don't have those numbers.
My information on FFXIV is correct, however. Complete rewrite, ground up, two years. And while Square Enix is a large company, and may have a larger wallet, they did not have a -huge- team (305 in-house, 17 outsourced, based on 2.0 in-game credits). Their team numbers are about average for an A-List MMO. There's whole documentaries on the Realm Reborn project.
"Little funding, tiny team"...those are excuses used by people and companies who have bought into the line that it takes huge amounts of people and money to do anything. It doesn't. It takes dedicated people, and time. Apple started as three guys in a garage.
The game makes money, or it wouldn't be active. MMOs don't operate on a loss leader dynamic. Re-invest where it does the most good, for the longest amount of time. Step away from the lockboxes and the promotional ships for a bit...pretty sure the players as a group wouldn't mind, if there's a new engine with fewer glaring bugs in it for them.
And while I don't know the specifics of Gearbox/Cryptic's licensing arrangement with Paramount/CBS, I do know this: IP licensing is -never- permanent, and is -always- subject to review by the IP owner. The instant a 'little funded tiny team' comes up with a better engine, and can show it off? That license becomes the prize.
You either keep up, or get dropped for someone who can. Nature of the game, unless you own the IP outright.
You do realize that "not huge" team is still like a dozen times larger than STO has, right? Last I heard, Cryptic has a grand total of two programmers working on the game. No, Cryptic cannot pull a Realm Reborn.
However In 2010 Square Enix DIDN'T rewrite the engine, they re-did the game is the SAME engine, using pretty much the same art assets. (And that Engine still has major database issues that hobble them in adding or updating certain functions. The original FFXIV issues weren't caused by the engine per se - it was the design and implementation of many of the original game systems. But again, they spent two years redesigning their game in the SAME engine.
As for Ultima Online - "A Kingdome Reborn" was released in 2007 - not 1999. Also they just updated the player CLIENT, not the underlying engine.
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..."