What Kind Of Star Trek MMO Do You Want? 100
Via Gamecloud, a Nielsen survey on the Star Trek Online site giving some interesting insight into what kind of game people want. From the article: "Another surprise was that the Borg is the most appealing opposing player faction. We knew the Borg would be a popular enemy, but we didn't expect that actually playing as a Borg drone would be so appealing. Though it was a surprise, I think we can understand why they would be a popular player faction. In fact, these results would appear to contradict the overall conclusion that faction value is marginal. One explanation is in the wording of the question. We asked people to select their favorite opposing faction. I can only guess that this wording had the effect of swaying people away from the Federation. Still, this point clearly deserves more research." Interesting to see some thought going into player reaction to development plans.
Re:Representing the non-MMO players: (Score:3, Funny)
"I just thought I'd wander into a topic that doesn't interest me and spend 20 seconds posting that I don't care about the topic."
Godlike sysadmins (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Godlike sysadmins (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Godlike sysadmins (Score:1)
Forget the massive multiplayer stuff... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Forget the massive multiplayer stuff... (Score:5, Funny)
"Starfleet crew?"
Re:Forget the massive multiplayer stuff... (Score:1)
Duh, starfleet (Score:1)
Wheres the Founders? (Score:2)
Re:Wheres the Founders? (Score:1)
i know! (Score:2, Funny)
cross-reference data? (Score:2)
I also find it sad there wasn't a cowboy neal question for every category that had an answer of Wesley [slashdot.org]. Cause who wouldn't want to be a traveler. heh
Ensigns.. (Score:5, Funny)
Also just make sure you don't announce a major game overhaul the day after an expansion goes on sale!
Re:Ensigns.. (Score:1)
Re:Ensigns.. (Score:1)
Not taking their own advice? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, there were cases where the survey results were being ignored. For example, ground combat was listed as a fairly low priority, yet it still seems to be part of the core design. In another question, people responded that they really wanted to play Klingons, yet it looks like they're not part of the initial races to be offered.
There's always tension in surveys, deciding what really reflects people's interest and what is simply a badly worded question. Hopefully they'll be careful with this one. It would be a shame if they had another Star Wars Galaxies on their hands, deciding that virtually no one could play Jedi even though that's what everyone wanted to do.
Re:Not taking their own advice? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not taking their own advice? (Score:1)
What do I want? (Score:5, Funny)
Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:5, Interesting)
The challenge for Star Trek Online, or whatever they call it, is to break out of the traditional MMORPG mode by balancing combat more evenly against other game elements and offering new modes of progression. My own suggestion would go something like this:
Players start out by picking an affiliation to one of the game's factions. Probably Federation, Romulan, Klingon and a couple of other races if the devs have time. I'm not really sure Borg would work. Players start out with a 1 man shuttlecraft, the bare minimum of skill to find it and a couple of whatever resource unit the game decides to use as currency (which is a major issue in itself). From here, players can choose to develop their character (who would start as a blank template - no class selection) through their actions. Participating in exploration, combat, trading etc would all increase the player's stats in that field. So far, so Galaxies. You've got people running around on planets exploring, encountering monsters, trading with eachother and so on.
However, where the Star Trek franchise really has the potential to turn into a great MMO is in the social and interstellar sections of the game. What I'd really like to see, and what would make me vastly more likely to buy the game, would be some kind of co-operative ship-control system. Make it so the smallest ships, shuttles and whatnot, can be flown by a single player, but also make it so that they're fairly useless except as runabouts.
However, make it so that controlling a starship requires a team of players, each with their own specialisations. So, for example, a specialist helmsman would be able to turn a starship more efficiently and execute more complicated manoeuveurs. Make it so that master engineers could coax more speed from a ship's engine and repair shields faster. For the stuff that doesn't directly involve turning or shooting a ship, use minigames whose difficulty scales depending on the player's skill level. Remember Paradroid for the C64? The minigame you played to take over an enemy droid? Have stuff like that for engineering, sensors and whatnot, with the difficulty scaling depending on both the player and the size/type of the ship. Imagine fighting a battle between two capital ships where not only do you have 1 player turning and one shooting, but you've got other players in the background doing their own thing to keep the ship functioning effectively.
Now extend it so that you can do more than just fight each other ships. Add appropriate minigames etc to incentivise research, exploration, negotiation etc and, most importantly, MAKE IT FUN.
Now add in an optional military command system (I'd have players start as Civilians with the option of joining their faction's military) and you've got a game I might consider playing.
The moon on a stick would be nice, as well.
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:3, Interesting)
Or you could just play Puzzle Pirates today, and just use your imagination to make it space-themed.
couple of whatever resource unit the game decides to use as currency (which is a major issue in itself)
Yes... especially as it's pretty clear if you actually look that the Federation is communist [stardestroyer.net]. (What human, operating wi
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:3, Funny)
Or you can shave off and name each of your pubes and just use your imagination to make that space themed.
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:3, Funny)
True, but that's not very multiplayer.
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:1)
It would like a UO RP shard. What need to be made is a real MMORPG and stop making MMO:hack&slash, saying it is RP cause you can levelup and say yes or no to take a quest when you clearly know that if you don't take it you are missign experience.
What MMO are missing today is true or nearly true Role play, where you can, like this, decide that your character will be a cook, or a musician, not a LV60 Almighty Wizard of the Apocalypse. You just have to create
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
It's a game that based solely around crafting where you strive to create civilation. There is no combat but that doesn't mean you can't resources and trading to limit other players and gain more power in the world.
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:1)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:4, Funny)
You're going to end up with a big problem. There are going to be a lot more people who want to be Captain Kirk than Mr. Checkov. And who wants to be that super-devoted engineering crewman from Star Trek II? He doesn't even get to hang out on the bridge and he dies 45 minutes into the film. he doesn't even get a decent Starfleet uniform. He looks more like a Stormtrooper.
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:1)
That guy was a cadet. The poor guy was still an undergrad.
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Says who? Does everyone who plays WOW play a Warrior or Paladin? Those are the guys on the front lines skewering enemies at close range. Yet there are plenty of shamen, rogues, and priests out there. Obviously, people are going to want to branch out and play different roles. Being captain is nice, but it's not the captain who can repair the warp core during a romulan attack, and it's not the captain who can repel boa
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:1)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Now THAT is an interesting idea. Treat a starship crew like a clan/guild, and let the captain naturally rise from the ranks, like the leader of a guild. As long as the trappings are kept Trek-like, that could be a very cool game mechanic.
As for the issue of many players not wanting to be anything other than captain, I think that it's up to the game designers to make sure that the other "classes" are very inte
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2, Funny)
As per a bunch of people piloting a starship
Captain: Engineer, we need more speed!
Error Engineer's connection has been lost.
(commedy insues)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:1)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
So far, I can't get Media Player, Quicktime, or VLC Player to figure it out...
Li'l help please!
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Wouldn't they just use latinum? As in the gold pressed latinum the Ferengi use, it's the only money I've ever seen in the show.
Or a pure trade economy perhaps?
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
Borg might work when done right. Borg don't have any individuallity, so a player shouldn't be controlling a single Borg, instead a Borg-player should control a whole ship with hundreds or thousands of Borg, more like a game of StarCraft then a MMORPG. It might get hard to balance the whole thing, but if done right it could be quite interesting.
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
1)Get rid of the leveling alltogether. I shouldn't have to grind doing X exploring or Y combat to raise my skills. Just get rid of them. At most, keep skills binary- you have it or you don't. Or give us a fixed amount of customization points on creation, without having to grind to earn them.
2)For every person who wants to be the engineer, there will be 10 captains. Similar problems are found in other games with healers. Forcing ships to have many people of different special
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
I think this could work, and I especially think that I would like my position as an engineer a lot better if I could see the ships while they're fighting, and see my newly-tuned impulse-drive glow even a brighter blue as we pull our evasive maneuvers.
As a side-note, on
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:1)
> efficiently and execute more complicated manoeuveurs. Make it so that master
> engineers could coax more speed from a ship's engine and repair shields faster.
You're describing ship's crews and ship-to-ship combat in Yohoho Puzzle Pirates [puzzlepirates.com], an already existing MMORPG
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:1)
That's exactly what they're doing. Check the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] and this FAQ [startrek-online.net] for more details.
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
To clarify what I'm talking about, it would be akin to Diablo's random dungeon generator. Every time you start a new game from the beginning, the dungeons are laid out differentl
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:1)
Star Trek is going to be very boring if I'm the engineer and all I do during an epic space battle is run from console to sparking exploding console and press the "fix" button. Star Trek doesn't work if you're just one lowly ensign. It's just not fun.
Now, take a completely different approach to the MMO formula, and you have something interesting:
Your main character is your ship. You level the ship up, get new crew, and eventually scrap it for a mor
Re:Forget other players. Here's what I want. (Score:2)
That's a good idea, and it's been done in a 1943 Earth setting. You can play for free at http://www.navyfield.com./ [www.navyfield.com]
Make death permanent for these characters. The game isn't over, I've just lost a character I really cared about.
Until mysteriously-dropped internet connections are a distant memory, you can't do that in a game. The worst players would accept is a day of "hospitalization" f
Your Game Exists (Score:2)
All of these tasks are accomplished by, you gu
I'd like a MMOG version of the HW SoA mod... (Score:2)
First news (Score:2, Funny)
The second they get out enough info I am gonna create a fan site. Maybe that way I can get into the beta.
I know that just about everyone who had a WoW fansite was allowed into the alpha and beta testing.
Re:First news (Score:1)
Here is my list: (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Realistic ships. By god, they have documented each varient of the enteprise down to the excact inch and they better not make any mistakes.
3. Non-loot oriented. Well... Unless you play as the Ferengi faction, but Federation member shouldn't have to buy armor or their own equipment (unless they are stranded on a planet and have to buy a phase modulater from a Ferengi at twice the price and to triangulate their coordinates via subspace to a passing vessel, but not on the ships).
4. Make it open ended and that you always have the choice of which planet to go to.
5. Make it so the players crew the ships. Not some NPCs.
That's all I got.
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2, Funny)
He did when he stole it.
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
Re:Here is my list: (Score:1)
Yeah, drives them away. That's why EQ is out of business and WoW has only 34 [portlandmercury.com] players left.
In reality, those two games are parts of genres which have hardly any gameplay outside of levelling- like it or not, that's what their players want.
Re:Here is my list: (Score:1)
In essence, your list there has discribed a multiplayer version of Starship Creator. Just hop in the pretty ship you clicked up, and watch if fly around and do some stuff. We're all Captains of Sovergn class ships, because why pick anything but the best?
I agree with you on the tech specs of the ships though, it's not like
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
But this is Star Trek! The Federation does not have money among itself. (Other factions do however.)
Rank should not be based on arbitrary skill rankings and combat.
Maybe if you accomplish a set number of diplomatic/scientific/or security missions you get to raise your rank from Ensign to captain, but not "go kill 1000 mobs and you get to be captain".
If any Federation mission involves
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
Not in a StarTrek world where the next replicator is only five foot away.
### it would not be compelling to play without them.
How course it would be, given some good game design, some stupid braindead leveling might work well to stretch a game out, but its not necesarry to create a compelling game, for me its quite the reverse, stupid leveling borse me to death. If a game ever requires me to activly 'level' I turn it off and swit
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
Re:Here is my list: (Score:1)
If I remember correctly it's something like reputation with your faction, the higher the reputation the more likely you will get your command etc. Also, chars won't have money as such. If you're Federation you will be supplied with everything.
But if you start saving on money (credits) you can then buy fancy items (e.g. remember how Picard had relics in his room? I reckon they'll do something like that. You could buy fancy looking relics or something lik
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
It would be *immense*. I would get just as much satisafaction of being a cog in the system for the Captain as I would be act
Re:Here is my list: (Score:2)
Mostly agree there. I'd say put in a very short training portion of the game, over in a few hours, where one zips through their career prior to being a captain of a ship in a few hours. You'd have to follow orders, perform a few menial tasks (and some exciting ones too), but then you get your own ship. Maybe not the finest ship in
I strongly favor the Pakleds. (Score:1)
Re:I strongly favor the Pakleds. (Score:2)
Change of Pace (Score:1)
Re:Change of Pace (Score:1)
Re:Change of Pace (Score:2)
Look at the top three races in their poll. I'm not saying that variety is bad, but I wouldn't look for it here.
Kaaaaaaaahhhnnnnnnn! (Score:3, Funny)
Every time ANY ship fires in the game, the camera system MUST zoom in on a shaking captain grunting the word "FIRE!" through clenched teeth and shaking his fist.
Mechanical skills will be completely unnecessary for the Engineer class, but Irish/Scottish accents will be mandatory.
Likewise, medical skills will be completely unnecessary for the medic class, but their "quirky" trait must be off the charts.
All science officers get horny at exactly the same time, once every 7 game years. Their super strength and berserker mentality will make them able to take over ships at will.
Machines should fail when most needed. Teleporters should only have a 1 in 50 chance of working.
All intergalactic wars must begin with some ridiculous premise that makes us think about today's society.
Every patch should cause all rules to be completely re-written. If one race is bitter enemies with another race, that should be flip flopped causing them to be friends. If the Prime Directive was followed last revision, it must be "loosely interpreted" in the new patch.
I think that about covers it...
Comprehensive. (Score:1)
Re:Comprehensive. (Score:1)
Star Trek HMO (Score:2)
Re:netrek (Score:1)
IT HAS TO BE SAID.... (Score:1)
What would be great is (Score:1)
sweet....
The Unknown Ensign (Score:2)
How would I do a Trek MMO? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hm. Actually, let's take that a step further: As I collect experience points, eventually I'm going to eclipse a certain total. Once that happens, the game will offer me command of a pretty ratty ship. I can either take the command, or continue on with the ship I'm currently on. I can put in for a transfer to another guild if I like-- it'll become pretty obvious which ships are the elite ships in the game, but the other guild has to accept me.
As my XP increases, Starfleet (or whoever's side I'm on) would offer me better ships. I get promoted, as opposed to "gaining levels". The way you get around the "Everyone wants to be Captain Kirk" problem is you _let 'em_. A few hours of play would net you enough XP to be offered a garbage scow or something like that. Rank n00bs, who need a ship to be crew on to gain XP, will happily join you. If you suck as a Captain, you wind up in command of this garbage scow for a good long while, where a good Captain will keep a good crew and pick up XPs and be offered command of better vessels.
But if you suck as a Captain, you're not stuck there, and you don't have to be one. Sign on with a "guild" (read: some other ship's crew) and you can collect XP and get bennies doing one of the other jobs available on a starship.
I don't (Score:3, Insightful)
It's as if the socialists who write it can't easily bring themselves to consider people outside of their species collective. Like there's something broken in their heads.
Compare Serenity, where people can be good, bad or indifferent - or even Star Wars, where species mix it in together on the basis of shared individual goals, and where a shared planetary culture creates different individuals. A lot of SW characters are from Tatooine, but they aren't all "Tattooine-ians".
actually that is one of the Myths (Score:2)
I Love Lucie didn't just have an interracial kiss but the first and for a long time only mixed marriage on TV. The fact that no one noticed it show just how well they did it/
Re:actually that is one of the Myths (Score:2)
A white/Cuban marriage, even though it took some effort to get on the air, simply wasn't anywhere near as shocking as a single interrac
Re:actually that is one of the Myths (Score:2)
BORG Autonomy??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Likewise Klin
Borg PLAYERS?!? (Score:2)
The only way to accurately portray the Borg would be if they were all directed by one massively-multitasking director. Of necessity, that would make them controlled by the server (though I suppose you could distribute decisions among peers) -- In other words, Borg would have to be NPCs.
I suppose y
Re:Borg PLAYERS?!? (Score:1)
DS9 Love (Score:1)
Monthly fee for Geekdom??? (Score:1)
Insert Shameless Plug Here (Score:2)
Yeah, it's a MUSH, but it's one of the longest-running Star Trek themed MU*s out there, that hasn't completely shat upon the concept of Star Trek.
Been running for almost a decade, and it's still going strong, with continuing plotlines stemming from the dawn of the game, just about. Political intrigue, space combat, exploration, it's all there, along with almost every known race in Star Trek canon (straight from the old FASA source books, if I remember correctly).
Rather than wait ye