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I'm saddened, Cryptic has failed us.
AlloughN
Member Posts: 168
Its Star Trek, its a MMO, it has great (even if somwhat comic) graphics. But,, its nothing new.
I have watched almost every Star Trek movie and episode. Almost every sci-fi flick actually, BSG, Stargare, Star Wars, etc. My imagination would run wild, when I was younger, I used to build bridge "sets" out of carboard and markers. I sat at consoles, and blew up imaginary enemies, I ran down corridors (my mom used to yell at me for leaving rubber skid marks on the hallways floors) to repair a damaged system before it could explode and ruin my entire day. That is my dream, to be able to live out in detail, the life of my fantasy.
In pretty much every sci-fi MMO to date, EVE for example, you are your ship, thats it.... In Anarchy Online, you are actually a character, but you are tied to the ground.
Cryptic has a huge amount of lore, money, and not to mention to tremendous fan-base. They have the opertunity to take space MMO's to the next level, the personal one. And what do they do? A half baked approach that you usually relate to Microsoft. You are a character on planets, that they got right, but as soon as you enter your ship, you turn into a ship. Sure, boarding battle sequences put you on to a map of your bridge to fight it out, but thats not my dream, I am not tied to a bridge.
Cryptic, you have disappointed me. You have the absolute best odds, and you are failing in this area of gameplay.
I want to be a character, never, ever, a starship. I want combat to be based off my own skill, not that of my avatars skill level.
I want the other people on my ship to be players, not "bridge crew" or red-shirts. I want a unpredictable, human being at my side, not a NPC.
I want the freedom of a virtual world, like the pen and paper rpg's of old, I want the freedom of those old carboard box sets, and that black streaked hallway of my moms house. I want to be free of the standards set by the current generation of space based MMO's.
Comments
Although I agree with a lot of what you are saying there are probably limitations in development that we are not aware of. However I would prefer to see a two tier system. e.g.
1st tier - players can fly smaller ships and they are the ship because really you cant walk around on it and its just a fighter.
2nd tier - Maybe once you reach a certain level you can build, purchase a voyager or whatever that has 'player slots' so to speak. So you can either fly out on your own and 'yes' be able to walk around the main parts of the ship but then enter combat mode when you access a screen. However if you have a ship with 2 player slots then you can ask a player to take over 2 extra phase cannons and another player to look after systems. Imagine if they can fire the phase cannons manually at other ships behind you and even have a puzzle game that another player has to keep beating and by doing so gives you a buff or bonus. Loads of options....
You want an mmo that actually allows you to use your imagination AND requires skill to play? Are you mad?!
I know of a indie company that is producing a space MMO that does everything I dreamed of. You can walk through every last corridor and room in the bigger ships. Smaller ships, like fighters, you essentially enter through a hatch, and sit in a chair. The amount of players you can have on the ships are as many as you can cram aboard and still be able to walk. The ships functions are controlled by 9 main separate stations, for just traveling, you only need one player on. For maximum efficiency in combat, you need all 9 stations manned by players. Firing weapons, using shields, making repairs, upgrades, the building of the ships from the ground up are all manually done by players. And its just as immersive on the planet side. Talk about infinite possibilities..
And the setting of that game, its a real starmap, made by telescope and satellite imagery. There are over 17,000 star systems, with over 100,000 unique planets. According to the devs of that game, they havent even seen all the systems, yet alone the planets in it.
Combat, whether PvP or PvE is open, it can take place anywhere, on planets, in star systems, and even in hyperspace, or deep space, between star systems.
If a indie company, with limited resources, with its devs working on it in their spare time, can do it. It should be childs play for a big well financed company like Cryptic.
Are you referring to Crusades?
Nope, what the game I am referring to is a reality, not "in a while". It is also already availible. I outta know, I was in the beta for it.
It goes beyond seamless interaction with space a ground, it goes to a total open ended sandbox game, where anything is possible. There are no quests, no level grinds. Everything in that game is player owned, even the 3 main game factions. Imagine if in STO the Federation government was made up entirely of player elected players.
But this is about Cryptic and STO. I want to know why they are not taking STO to its fullest potential.
Oh but see here, that would only atract Trekkies.
MMO companies don't want Trekkies! They want MAINSTREAM audiences.
You and your Data cotume and "KHAAAAN" battlecry can go hide in yer basement...
History has shown that there is no corporation and MMO company in existance that "care" for the IP they buy and the fans it comes with. They want the IP for thwe name recognition, so that when they aproach the mainstream, they will be recognized...Thats all.
So, if yer smart... turn mainstream, ditch any notion of being a fan, ditch any idea of being an individual(thats soo not mainstream), and start baaa'ing..Like a sheep. Then you are mainstream, and the corporations, investors, marketings and developers would toss MMO's at you like a friggin machingun.
Or maybe its time to get a different type of MMO company. One that cares for the role play experience of each and every player, not of the individual fans or the mainstream WOW players. One that is more like a good friend than a parent.
I don't want to be a ship either. I relate to characters very well....but to vehicles...not so much.
Exactly, and most people are that way. Thats the reason your character in WOW is a CHARACTER, not a dune buggy with stone wheels.
Space is a hard (and relatively new) setting for mmorpgs. Even EVE is only considered 2nd generation, when other classes of MMO are in their 3rd and 4rth.
Its time for the next generation, the next level, the PERSONAL level.
But why would I want to be an engineer when I can be the captain?
How much fun will it actually be to hang out in engineering, waiting for the the captain to log in?
Or even be the captain waiting for the helmsman to log in so the ship can actually go some where?
Please tell us the name of this game you speak of...
You are only tied to your station by role play, the enlisted crewman who joined your guild yesterday can take any station in the ship, as long as he has the knowledge of how to use the panel. (personal knowledge, not a character skill)
I would rather be engineer than captain, there are a million things to do to keep the ship running. The CO pretty much justs sits on conn and makes decisions like whether to attack or not.
I was hoping Cryptic would use the same game model, give me something with graphics and awesome gameplay.
The game is StarQuest Online
You are only tied to your station by role play, the enlisted crewman who joined your guild yesterday can take any station in the ship, as long as he has the knowledge of how to use the panel. (personal knowledge, not a character skill)
I would rather be engineer than captain, there are a million things to do to keep the ship running. The CO pretty much justs sits on conn and makes decisions like whether to attack or not.
I was hoping Cryptic would use the same game model, give me something with graphics and awesome gameplay.
The game is StarQuest Online
I have played Starquest Online and although I do like the feature list for the game it suffers from two game crippling defects. Now most people that have played the game would automatically point to the graphics as the major flaw in the game but I don't agree. Mediocre or even poor graphics are all fine and good if the game play is good enough to make up for them but sadly in this case it doesn't. The game play mechanics are so horribly flawed I felt like I was fighting with the game constantly just to control my character and do the simplest of tasks. This is a game killer for most people including myself that just can't be overcome.
The second major flaw is the graphics. Now normally I don't complain to much about graphics if the game is fun but SQ's make Runescape's look good by comparison. I could overlook this if the game play was there but as I said before it just simply isn't.
As for STO being a disappointment I think you are judging it far to prematurely. For one thing they have stated that player ship interiors are going to play a large part in the game. At this point we just don't know what that means exactly yet. The only thing we do know is that they aren't planning on multi-player crewed ships at launch but they haven't ruled them out completely either. This game is still way too early in development to judge it one way or the other as we just don't know enough of the details to make those assumptions. Just sit back and relax and watch this game take shape. When beta starts and we know just about everything about this game then decide whether you'll like it or not. To say it's disappointing at this point is not using very good judgment as you just don't know enough to make that decision.
Bren
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I still have every faith and hope in Cryptic.
I am looking to learn more...and perhaps play this MMO.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
How long has it been since you played SQO?
i saw the gameplay trailer on the official website and there are scenes where you see the characters in some sort of fight. is that real gameplay or just hype?
The STO one?
Cryptic hasn't failed anything, until i see the finished product and get to test it out i won't pass any judgements. you have some interesting ideas for the game, maybe they already thought of them? maybe just maybe they don't have the resources and the technology isn't good enough to get that real.
i went and looked at the game you were talking about, i'm sure if cryptic lowered graphics and so fouth to 80's style programming they could add all that crap in.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
I gotta agree with scalebane here, being dissapointed in a game that we know very little about is a bit silly IMO.
As far as skill...its going to be an RPG not FPS...combat has to be based off of character skill as it should be, a small amount of twitch factor similar to WoW , WAR and a few others is ok.
As a ST fan for many years, pesonally I cant wait for this game, but I will not get my expectations up, one thing I have learned in life that has helped alot , don't expect anything and you will never be dissappointed.
Godz of War I call Thee
They want our money but not our opinion. Sad but true.
In SWG there are starships in wich you can walk around while the owner of the sarship flight it. So it's doable.
The STO one?
indeed, they said everything in that trailer is gameplay, and in some scenes there are some character fights going on. I hope is true, I dont want to be a ship all the time.
1. That trailer is real, there are character fights, but they are either on a planet, or they are on a special "bridge scene" that you only get to see if someone boards you. Other than that, as long as you arent on a planet, you are a ship.
2. Its fact, I've talked with a Cryptic dev, I got tol what I want is impossible. Thats why I started this public thread, to show them that it is possible, and that people want it.
3. The SQO engine is considered to be one of the most advanced availible. SQO's graphics are done by a seperate KX engine, Its perfectly capable of doing the latest DX10 graphics if the SQO devs wanted to make a WOW wannabee. SQO is a native 64-bit app, and it was built 2 years before Vista came out. There is nothing old about it. The graphics are low, but only because they are that way for a reason.
(Edit: I checked around, SQO was the first MMO to be natively programmed for multithreaded processors)
4. I didnt start this thread to be a recruiter for SQO, I started it because I want Cryptic to reconsider their approach to the starship side of the game.
As soon as somebody comes up with a good idea on how you can make the game fun at any given moment for each player in your crew, I'll be for this idea.
Until then, I will continue to point out that this is a half baked idea that sounds good in theory, especially whenever you ignore/omit all the details.
Paramount was going to do it.
What details have I omited/ignored?
This here might be your problem. There's no MMO company that's your friend or your parent. You know why? They're a company, and like any company, they're there to make money.
Here's a thought though. If you have no Star Trek MMO currently, and Cryptic puts one out with some of the features you want, but not all, isn't that better than nothing? You can cry about how disappointed you are or you can be thankful they're creating the only Star Trek MMO out. One will leave you feeling bitter while the other will make you happy. It's all about perspective.