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Star Trek Online: Exclusive: Jack Emmert Talks Klingons
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Cryptic COO Jack Emmert took some time to talk to MMORPG.com about the Klingon faction and what they're really all about. We got all the details on this controversial announcement that they'd be a PvP-centric faction, including the first reveal of exactly what races you get to pick from. It isn't just Klingons.
;)
“With any video game there are always hard choices to make,” said Emmert by phone as he walked around their Los Gatos, California office complex. “It’s just a simple matter of you have a certain amount of time and you have a certain size team and you have to make decision about how you’d make the best product at launch.”
The decision was thus made to make sure that the Klingon faction was a big part of launch. He admitted that there was no way with an IP as big as Star Trek that they could do everything everyone, himself included, wanted. He lamented the lack of Romulan and Cardassian factions specifically as things he’d have loved to have included given unlimited time and money.
Read it all here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
The issue is in the second quotation, "It’s just a simple matter of you have a certain amount of time ....."
How many companies do we see that have undesirable time constraints put on game projects. Whoever is in change needs to be more flexible with the time line so we would see idea's come reality at release and not half attempts with an add on / update later on.
You can do anything you want even with a Trek IP within reason, if time is the main thing against you - wise up and change it across the industry. Even admission is there. So why not take the right course of action to make the most popular adjustments for launch and delay a bit longer. It is often community feedback that has been saying the same thing for a while. A few month push back won't ruin a launch. Trek fans have been waiting long enough for something right and I was first looking for an ST mmo back in 1999 and all this time later the most ideal PVP situation is not realised for launch fruition.
I can live with it, even the 10v10 limit, but I would like to see a focus here throughout the summer/autumn next year.
hmmmmmmmm
romulans would have been my race of choice
what could have been
but who knows - - - one day (i'll wait on this game 'til then)
Great article. Answered a bunch of questions.
Need pictures of the ships!
I like what I read. Thanks for the article Dana.
I lowered my expectations, then was pleasantly surprised by what Emmrt had to say. I'm stoked!
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Thank you for that Dana! It was an interesting read.
Do you have any possibility to ask follow-up questions? I'm particularly curious about the borg officer, especially since you said you assumed "it" would be like seven-of-nine but isn't. Does that mean this one is not obtained via pre-ordering, since the pre-order one does look like seven-of-nine, and cannot be customised to look any different?
I'm actually pretty cool with this. I'm less comfortable that this is due to a lack of time rather than a design choice, but I think it sort of works with Klingons. I do find it pretty funny though that the type of MMO Gamer who dresses like a Klingon at conventions, and can speak Klingon fluently is also the least likely to enjoy PvP. I have no trouble seeing the Klingon race dominated by trash-talking 11-15 year olds while the truely obsessive Klingon fans are stuck RPing a Klingon or half-Klingon Starfleet Captain(which I assume is possible).
Of course I wished they waited and added more but budget is always a problem when you're trying to build something. That being said I applaud Jack Emmert for coming clean in the interview and airing out his side of the story to the community, that goes a long way in making me not despise the company for their actions.
Will I buy it on release? No, MMO's require such an investment anymore it's not worth jumping in blindly. Honestly after Conan and WAR it will take some amazing word of mouth, not just good reviews, to get me to come on board.
I wonder if was Atari or Cryptic that is pushing the dev team for this. Well, can't say I didn't expect it. They were working on two big games at the same time - Champions and STO. I wondered how they could do both at the same time.
Listening to that podcast I get the feeling they still have a ways to go. They expect this to launch with polish in early 2010?
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I've been a fan of Eve for some time. I checked out STO as a lark a month and a half ago. I was fully expecting to scoff at it and go back to Eve. That being said, everything I've seen about STO has me stoked for launch. After I saw the leaked beta footage I was hooked. This article is just one more reinforcement that it will be good to "go where no man has gone before!"
"It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." -- Winston Churchill
So, according to the above... The "neutral zone" is same with the War Zone and even that will be made up of 10 vs 10 instances?
Perhaps the neutral zone is a Space Sector Map with all the instanced War Zones, arenas and scenarios inside.
Initially I was trepidatious about this change, however, now I realize that it really isn't simply a hollow shell of a faction as I'd thought. The fact that they've molded it into a mostly pvp faction does two good things. Firstly it offers a different type of gameplay instead of just having a mirror of the federation gameplay. Secondly, it allows them to fully flesh out another part of the gameplay (pvp) instead of it just being like pve except against players.
One of the things I thought was coolest about WoW was that the horde and the alliance sides were two different sides. Now with everything being basically cross-polinated, horde and alliance are simply just mirrors of eachother with different skins. It appears with STO, the Feds and the Klings will actually be two different gameplay styles (for the most part), something no game that I know has ever really done. This could turn out quite awesome.
Also, we should remember that while Cryptic is in charge of making the game, they obviously have a lot of people (Atari and such) to answer to with respect to timing and promotion and the like. It's quite possible that Cryptic could have created the "perfect" ST MMO, but it might have also taken another 3 years, by which point the investors may have pulled out or whatever. I would much rather have a pretty good game now over a perfect game in 3+ years.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
Klingons cannot be called a full fledged faction because everything released to date says they don't have episodic content. If faction B has all the content faction A does except X, it's not a full faction within that game.
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.
“When you go into that system it will spawn a PvP arena map and then you fight it out,” Emmert explained.
All PvP in Star Trek Online, initially, will take place in instances. This, for one, eliminates the problems of population imbalance, which could really get out of control in a single shard game."
WRONG. Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG!.
Mr Emmert, get yourself a PotBS trial account and play French or Spanish. Go to an instanced Port Battle.
Then tell me again how instances eliminate the problems of population imbalance?
The fact is that you need to have a sufficient number of players willing to play the Klingons in the first place to make this work.
And you have effectively put paid to that by having a Klingon side that is effectively only a "monster" race.
Sure, there will be a few die hards who will play Klingon, Klingon and nothing but... but for the most part people will play Klingon once. They will go to a PvP match, in a ship they are not 100% familiar with (since they have been flying a Fed ship) and get PWNED. And for most, that will be the end of the story.
Then they will try PvP in their Fed Ship - and either (depending on how you have designed the game)
go into an instance vs an outnumbered Klingon force (of most likely first time klingons) which they will LOLPWN!
OR
go into a queue to fight the only 10 dedicated Klingon players online and will be left staring at a "You are 1029 of 3217 in the queue... estimated wait 2hrs 43mins..." screen. Driving still more away from PvP.
Talk to some other developers - like FLS. Listen to what they say you clown.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
I agree with the first of what Avery said. Who exactly is in charge of these of managing the clock on these products. They ALL seem to not have enough time to put in the core features they promised in the manner they promised.
I mean jeeze! Are the shareholders and CEOs and publishers really low balling every company on the time it takes to do what they list in the initial game design document as some of this site's guest writers suggest? Or are the teams universally that crappy at time management? Or does the amount of time spent creating little bits and pieces to show at shows taking away from necessary productivity?
As for whether or not to include the Klingons in this half-manner, I dunno. Emmert is right and it is by know means something that he has miraculously shed light on in the fact of if you don't have it in at launch what makes you think I'm going to buy your game 6 months later when you've put it in then? Sure, some people may go for it, but others like myself will always see it as a compromise to get more box sales when it wasn't important enough in the overall vision of your game that it had to be included at launch.
There were a number of us kicking and screaming for Funcom to re-think their stance on having a robust combat system (when I say robust I qualify it with SWG or UO) in AoC. Some months after launch, and after most of us had quit the game, they announce that they are looking at modifying the system, presumably to have more depth. Think I'd go back to it now? Nope.
Some people will moan that "you're only cheating yourself blah blah...". Well, no, not really. I can live without MMOs thankfully. And after (uh-oh, here it comes again, "Don't look Ethel!!" but it was too late...) my experience with the whole SOE and NGE business, I know for a fact that what I want isn't honestly top priority on any of the companies list. That known, I also know that I don't owe ANY of them any amount of loyalty what-so-ever.
I don't "owe" them to try their game out 6 months to a year after launch when they are hurting for subscribers and finally decide to add in systems that I enjoy in hopes of snagging me up. No. If I and my gameplay weren't important enough to them to incorporate the things I like from the start, then I don't play their game. Ever. They made a business decision to not target me with the game, which is cool. In turn, they can't get upset if their decision doesn't bring them in the numbers they want, so they change the game (losing some subs) to target me but I decline their invitation.
The only thing I owe an MMO company is to have the correct credit card number attached to my account and to not overdraw said card so that they get paid once a month. Any loyalty that is garnered is done so from that company having all the gameplay mechanics/systems in game at launch (understanding they may need more tweaking) that I enjoy at a level of depth I enjoy and continuing to build on a fun an enjoyable experience for me using those mechanics/systems. Turbine had loyalty from me until they did what they did to DDO and then chose to release LOTRO and forgo doing anything ever again with Asheron's Call.
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Chavez y Chavez
Good interview but I gotta agree with the above. I'm still hopeful here but it sounds like they are waiting to make some serious choices as in:
Loot will come about in three core ways: PvE encounters, rewards for PvP encounters (the game tells you the reward for, say, an Arena and you can win it) and also loot within PvP combat. They are not sure on the exact mechanic yet, Beta will determine this, but there will be loot for people to get. For example, it is possible that when you destroy another player ship it will drop something, even though the player them self didn’t actually lose anything.
They've got roughly two months to launch and are waiting for beta to possibly implement this? At this point I'd think they'd be thinking polish before all else especially with such a short closed beta. I really appreciate the player driven changes but they are too short on time to be focusing on anything besides getting this thing out the door in decent shape, quit waiting and make a call, just like they did with the Klingons. If I pick this up I'll still be going Kilngon, when I can, but this game is quickly falling into the WAR category: I might enjoy it in a year or so when they add a few things they couldn't get to at launch. But we'll see what beta brings...
Played in some form:
UO til tram, AC, EQ, AO, WW2O, PS, SB, CoH, AC2, Hor, LoTRO, DDO, AoC, Aion, CO, STO
Playing: WoW (for gf), WAR
Waiting For: SWTOR, FFXVI
Hoping For: DCUO, Secret World, Earthrise
-S- (UO Sonoma)
Exactly.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
I was very upset two days ago. I admit I was overboard, but I was upset by what I had been reading about not having Klingons as a starter race. That being said. This article brings to light some great information. I still want to see more PVE content for Klingons, BUT..that will come with time and expansions. I must be patient, and wait for the good things to come. STO looks like a very good game, and I believe will be a good game at launch. I will still not be there on that special day, but will wait to see how bugs are fixed, and how the community ideas are used.
Daviar Killsway
Smuggler for hire
Looking for a guild in SWTOR
Agreed! I'm so happy with what Emmert said, I cancelled my pre-order!
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
I feel better that Jack came clean for why this is happening. I have faith in Cryptic. I also like that he said that they'll listen to the player base for direction...
Overall I am not as upset as I thought I would be. The mere fact that this is a Star Trek game and an mmo leads us to unlimited possibillites over time. This can become one awesome game over the next couple years and well into the future.
I think it is worth trying. I am disappointed that Klingons will not have more PvE content. I am just hoping that Klingon PvP doesn't become a gank-fest. I'll just have to reserve my opinion until I actually see it.
QAPLA!!!
I could not agree more!
I plan on playing a toon for both factions. Even though I don't normally enjoy PvP. This is different; it's an attitude thing.
Just like that scene from the movie when the Klingon Commander (Jim from Taxi
) orders his men to board the Enterprise and his first reminds him that they are outnumbered.
WE ARE KLINGONS!!!!
I hope I get some actual Klingons to play with when I get there. Sheesh.
And for those who say that they don't want to PvP all the time, well neither do I! Hence my Federation counterpart.
While I don't disagree that game companies should be allowed all the time they need to get a game just 'right' I'm sad to say that the real world doesn't work that way. The timetables are really set by the investors and and the IP holder so contracts are signed agreeing to this before the developer see's one shiny dime of investor money or the IP in question. Sometimes in extreme cases they can get the investors to give them another month or two but what some people are asking for(6 months to a year delay) where STO is concerned is just not feasible and just won't happen. Cryptic had their timetable set for them when they got the IP license from CBS and the funding for the game from investors. They are under contract to meet that deadline. It sucks, yes but it is the reality of it all. In a perfect world developers would have all the time and money they need to make perfect games but we don't live in that world now do we?
As for the article it was very enlightening and explains a lot, not only about the decisions they have made but why they were made as well. Sure, I too wanted the Klingons to be a faction that was playable from the start but perhaps that will come in time. I will still play and reserve my judgment of the game until I've had that chance.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
im glad lots of you out there do love the federation, good for you. dam carebears j/k. i am sad that romulans and cardassians will end up being 6months to a year down the road as expansion material, but we have to accept the fact that in todays mmo market the people paying for the game developement demand product out making money back asap. has cryptic made some stinky shit in the past? god knows they have, but as long as i can play my klingon and indescriminantly blow shit up im a very happy little pyromaniac! Q'Plau, dam the torpedoes RAMMING SPEED!!!!!!!!
Yeah, so support that Developer with your money in the mean time because all the stuff they promise will happen 'soon'(TM)?
...
Look, seriously, good on you if you like what is on offer, now, at release.
But my advice would be don't buy on promises of what the game could be, could become or planned additions / features.
When you buy a game you get what is in the box. Anything else, any promises, any plans are just 'potential'.
Every MMO ever has 'potential'.
But very few ever realise that potential.
And gamers that throw money at these Developers don't send the message "we support what you are trying to do..."
They send the message "We are prepared to pay for the crap you just served up."
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.