Star Trek Online

[Scott Tortorice]

This looks interesting:

[YOUTUBE]U3Ug52fz5_k[/YOUTUBE]

You can find out more about the game here.

I say 'bah!' to all this namby-pamby Star Trek stuff! 'Suffer not the xenos to live!' is my motto! Down with the Federation! Up with Warhammer 40K, the MMO! :skull:

BTW: Vigil Games is working on the 40K MMO. Unfortunately, no news yet....

 

[Michael Dorosh]

On the contrary, Scott, with the number of MMOs out there, I think a variety in the styles of play is vital. Star Trek's outlook and environment is so unique - and more importantly so unique and richly textured, much like Tolkien's universe, it makes it a natural for an MMO. Unlike, say, Lucas' Star Wars universe, which broad but shallow and everyone existed really for one purpose - to fight the good guys - you have a set of good guys (the Federation) whose purpose from the start was to engage in "quests". Each episode of any of the series was a "quest", be it a science survey, a diplomatic standoff with a potentially hostile race, or a military mission against a known enemy.

I've never had any interest in investigating an MMO - who has the time? But this is the first time something has gotten me interested in finding out more.

 

[jwb3]

Not to mention, who that grew up watching reruns of TOS didn't dream of being a starship captain, for one race or another?


John

 

[Scott Tortorice]

When this game was first announced, it got little more than a yawn from me. Basically, I was expecting EVE in the ST universe. But I was poking around the official forums and found some tantilizing bits of info:

Starship battles are tactical and slow-pace ("like tall ships"); you will be able to give commands such as "Repair a hull breach on deck X" or "Reroute energy from engines to weapons".

Ground-based combat will be more fast-paced, with both melee and ranged attacks. Defensive options like using personal shields and ducking for cover will be available.

You can pick your ship name and registry number.

Ship interiors will probably be limited to missions, at start, but hopefully at some point in time you'll be able to bring other players aboard to socialize with them.

The game takes place in outer space, onboard ships and planetside.

You can do away missions with your NPC crewmembers or with other players. Your away team will consist of five characters (PCs or NPCs).

You will have a fully customizable and partially controllable Bridge Crew, similar to "pets" in many MMOGs

You will also have tens, even hundreds of lower ranking officers; your "redshirts".

You will receive bonuses depending on your crewmembers' races/species.

Members of the alien races you encounter may join your crew.

You control how your NPCs progress.

You can transfer power between a ship's various systems, and do things like balance shield power.

This would make STO a very sophisticated game! Basically a cross between EVE and Silent Hunter! What is more, there seems to be a lot of exploration content, and not just combat. I really like this idea because I have yet to play a sci-fi game that captures the essence of what I find in an issue of Sky & Telescope. I don't want outer space just to be a pretty background for combat, I want a living universe where I can engage in some astronomical research, if I want. STO may deliver just that.

If, and its a big 'if', they can pull this off, STO might be a huge leap forward for the MMO genre.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

This is interesting:

Eve Is From Mars, STO Is From Venus

Put down the disruptors and the bat’leths my Klingon friends. You know this to be true even in your warrior hearts.

Eve Online is from Mars and STO is from Venus.

PvP is the bloody beating heart of Eve Online. Eve is where the libertarians and survivalists and neoconservatives go. Dog eat dog. Capitalism is the only true system of economics and trade makes the universe go 'round. The universe is a hostile place so one must be willing to preempt, to walk "the dark side", to be wary of intruders. Shoot first. Never apologise. They'd do it to you if you didn't do it to them first. If someone trusts you, you're doing them a favor by screwing them over as it teaches them a lesson they'll learn sooner or later anyhow. Don't fly anything you can't afford to lose. Pod pilots are the superior, immortal, race above humanity that will rule its destiny. Theology is merely a tool for war. Liberal cultures are corrupt and hypocritical and prone to disintigrate without an enemy to rally them. Never trust CONCORD (Eve's equivalent of the United Nations). They're up to something.

PvE will be at the core of STO. STO will be where you'll find idealists, scientists, socialists and diplomats. The Federation welcomes new ideas. It never shoots first. We almost all will belong to it (Over 70%, in an informal poll, wish to be Federation and nearly 60% PvE Federation alone). The most innovative systems in the game are procedurally generated missions and worlds for PvE, along with competative PvE in the Neutral Zone, and we're promised violence will not always be the answer to resolving situations. The Federation thinks of capitalism as a quaint phase in human evolution and has solved the problems of inequality and hunger through replicator technology (if not, perhaps, on the colonial frontiers). Crafting may well take the shape of tinkering on and improving one's own starship rather than grinding out mass quanities of goods for resale. Every player will have NPC crewmen, the bridge crew/away team, to cultivate and nurture. There may be multiplayer ships eventually, if not at launch, further stressing cooperation and mutual dependance....

Does this mean that STO will be the type of game that only touchy-feely liberals will like?!? All kidding aside, there is more than a little truth to the above comparison.

 

[Redwolf]

WTF is PvE? WTM TLAs!

 

[Dr Zaius]

WTF is PvE?

PvP = player vs. player
PvE = Player vs. environment.

In MMO terminology, PvE usually refers to going on scripted storyline adventures, missions, or quests. The exact form of PvE differs from one MMO to the next.

In EVE Online, when players talk about PvE they usually mean taking on scripted missions from corporate agents controlled by the AI. While you may encounter and fight other players during the course of these missions, that's incidental. The main point in a mission is to accomplish the PvE task assigned by the agent. World of Warcraft offers quests instead of missions, but it's the same basic idea.

The main point behind PvE is to offer different ways to enjoy the game because not everyone likes multiplayer PvP combat. PvE generally appeals to the type of gamer who prefers single player games over mutiplayer combat. In essence, gamers who exclusively run PvE missions or quests are playing in "single player mode" -- at least to the extent that outlaws and pirates will allow them to do so. Gamers who choose to play PvE exclusively are often referred to as "carebears" by PvPers, as PvE is generally considered to be less demanding and somewhat less risky. People will debate that issue until the cows come home.

Some PvE is a hybrid type of gameplay which could incorporate multiplayer to some extent. For instance, a really difficult scripted mission in EVE might require 5-10 players to band together in order to defeat the AI fleet.

Warhammer Online and EVE Online have a heavy emphasis on PvP while World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online have a lot of PvE. But all of them have both PvP and PvE, so there is a little something for most players.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Where a game like Star Trek could break some of the paradigms Don talks about is in creating a "thinking man's" set of quests - multi-player, but 'cerebral' in nature, so that instead of battling monsters or NPCs, you might have 3 or 4 simultaneous science missions which need to be accomplished (in actual terms, these might be puzzles - if anyone played "Judgment Rites" or some of Interplay's earlier Star Trek fare from 15 years ago or so, you will know what I mean), which could lead to true multi-player quests, yet reduce the need for "combat". In essence, you have a multi-player puzzle.

The problem with that is that they would I presume they would take longer to program, test, debug, etc. and who knows how appealing they would be. ST is a hugely recognizable franchise, so if it was anything else, I'd think anyone suggesting a "puzzle" game with no combat would be out of their minds. But something for the ST throngs just might work.

Not exclusively; I think there is still an appeal to ship-to-ship combat, and going face-to-face with alien creatures - I'm sure everyone wants to fight the Gorn on Cestus III for themselves, or his great-grandson - and of course the best game will have elements of all these things. Too many "puzzles" would be dull - I found the Interplay games got to be a bit frustrating, and the ship-to-ship combat a welcome relief, though the interface was so clunky that it wasn't much fun when one finally got to that point.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Hmm...investigating the link, I actually owned Judgment Rites, but the one I played most was the 25th Anniversary game which preceded it.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

On the official STO forum, I posted my hope that STO would have just as much science as it would combat - in the best tradition of Star Trek. I wasn't sure of the response I would get, but it turns out that more than a few people agree that more hard science and less "pew-pew" combat would make STO a better and more unique game! So there's hope!

I am going to try and get an interview with the devs. Stay tuned....

 

[Redwolf]

Wait, are these the guys who did "The Daedalus Encounter" in 1995?

 

[Scott Tortorice]

No, this is being made by Cryptic, a company with previous MMO experience.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Ten Ton Hammer has an interesting interview with Craig Zinkievich, exec producer of STO:

Exclusive STO Interview with Craig Zinkievich – Ships and the Impact of Bridge Officers

Highlight:

Ten Ton Hammer: With the bridge crew, how large of an influence do they have on the overall abilities of a given ship class? Do they reflect the innate abilities of the ship, or enhance them? How will that relationship work?

Craig Zinkievich: It’s an interesting, parasitic relationship between the ship and the bridge crew. One of the things that the ship configuration defines are how many of what type of bridge officers can be on that ship when you’re in space flying that ship. You’ll have your stable of guys, but which ones are active or which ones are actually on the bridge is specified by the configuration or class of your ship.

Having said that, the coolest powers that are in the game currently for me are bridge officer powers, the things that your bridge officer has. You ask your Worf to line up the photon torpedo spread, you ask your Data to realign your deflector dish to send energy pulses back at the person who’s attacking you. So it feeds upon itself – the ship defines what sort of officers you can have on the bridge or what kind of permutations you can have, but then your officers really affect the way that your ship functions.

So if you get a more escort class ship, you’ve got more tactical guys, you’ve got more pew-pew. If you’ve got a science ship you probably have more seats for science officers on the bridge, and so the science guys can actually bring their really cool skills to the ship.

and

Ten Ton Hammer: Are the bridge officers another of the customization elements that players will acquire throughout various aspects of normal gameplay?

Craig Zinkievich: Definitely. You’ll pick up different members as you play, or you’ll run across unique alien races that have unique, cool skills that you can’t get any other way. And whether or not you take one of those guys and recruit him into Starfleet or whether you ask him to train one of your bridge officers in those skills is really up to you. I mean, you don’t want to start off with Spock and then have to cut Spock loose just because you found some phat loot. So you’ll be able to train up your bridge officers. Some people don’t care, but personally I do – the attachment to the bridge officers is a big part of the game.

But the skills that they learn, the bridge officers will level up those skills. You get points that you’ll spend to say, look with this guy I want this skill to be better. They rank up along with you, so you have to promote them throughout the game. So there’s a lot of advancement for your bridge officers as well as you.

This game is starting to sound really cool.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

And then Captain Jellico comes along and demands you go to a four-shift rotation and your best tactical officer is in bed when the Borg attack and you're totally screwed, man.

 

[Redwolf]

if the guy says "cool" one more time I'm gonna phaser his behind back to Orion.

Anyway,he officer systems sounds cool, but the combat model starts to sound goofy. Deflector array as a weapon?

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Another interview:

CHOICE CUTS: Star Trek Online

Highlights:

EBA: What about the economy in the game? How is that being handled?

CZ: We’re still iterating with our economy implementation, so I’m wary to talk in details.

But we're looking to develop an economy that is deep but very much in the Trek genre. Gathering resources, inventing technology and understanding alien technology - and then trading those items and knowledge - will be the basis of the economy.

EBA: What new details can you tell us about the ground/space combat in the game and how will it be different/better than other MMOs?

CZ: Space combat is very measured and strategic. Positioning is extremely important, and you have time to take actions such as re-routing power to shields or weapons, or weakening an opponent's aft shields and then maneuvering to take advantage of that. We want it to feel as much like Star Trek combat as possible, and we're taking inspirations from some of the great fights such as Khan and Kirk in the Mutara Nebula and the battles of the Dominion War.

On the ground, choosing the right members of your crew for your away team is very important. The make-up of your team helps define how you play and what options you have. And when you're playing in a team, your skills and equipment choices will be a major factor that affects your role in the mission.

This is really starting to sound quite unique. I wonder how they are going to convert this for the Xbox? I'm surprised no one has asked that question yet.

 

[Dr Zaius]

I look forward to the day that space-based games dominate the MMO genre. I love fantasy, too, but it's tiresome watching everyone try to imitate WoW.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

I look forward to the day when fantasy and sci-fi are but two sub-genres out of many. The MMO can go in so many non-traditional directions that have yet to be explored. I would love to see an espionage/covert action MMO one day. Thousands of people running around and spying on each other, passing encrypted notes, along with dirty tricks and such, could make for an epic game. A wargame MMO, along the lines of Mount & Blade, would also be great. That is, being able to raise an entire army of bots to wage war on an epic scale would also provide a unique MMO experience. A Monopoly-styled MMO game could also be fun: start out with a small business and build it up to be a trans-national corporation. It would be like EVE's corps, but have far more business details and options.

I think the best way for MMOs to go truly mainstream is to leave the "fantastic" behind and try to come up with games that mimic the more exciting parts of the real world.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

if the guy says "cool" one more time I'm gonna phaser his behind back to Orion.

Anyway,he officer systems sounds cool, but the combat model starts to sound goofy. Deflector array as a weapon?

The more options the better. My criticism of Combat Mission was that infantry didn't have enough to do - I wanted options to blow holes in a wall, scale the wall, mousehole, close assault a tank, send off a scout, interrogate a prisoner, etc. Make it more interesting than SHOOT, CRAWL, HIDE, RUN AWAY. I would expect the same of a ship-to-ship combat simulator. Who wants to play if all you can do is order PHASER-PHOTON-HIDE IN NEBULA-WARP TO SAFETY? I'd love some other creative options and the ability to "think outside the box". Hide in a planet's magnetic pole to throw off enemy sensors. Use the Picard Maneuver (i.e. travel faster than the speed of light and fool enemy ships with false sensor readings into shooting where you were instead of where you are). etc.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

The more options the better. My criticism of Combat Mission was that infantry didn't have enough to do - I wanted options to blow holes in a wall, scale the wall, mousehole, close assault a tank, send off a scout, interrogate a prisoner, etc. Make it more interesting than SHOOT, CRAWL, HIDE, RUN AWAY. I would expect the same of a ship-to-ship combat simulator. Who wants to play if all you can do is order PHASER-PHOTON-HIDE IN NEBULA-WARP TO SAFETY? I'd love some other creative options and the ability to "think outside the box". Hide in a planet's magnetic pole to throw off enemy sensors. Use the Picard Maneuver (i.e. travel faster than the speed of light and fool enemy ships with false sensor readings into shooting where you were instead of where you are). etc.

To early to tell yet, but Cryptic seems well aware of the importance of all the nitty-gritty ship op details that Trekkers so love. Hopefully, some will make it into the game. From the interviews, it already seems that STO will have the most sophisticated ship to ship combat model yet.