StarDestroyer.Net BBS

After something of a lack of info following the release of the screenshots a few months ago (seen here), there've been a few interesting updates that reveal quite a lot about where the game is at.

First was this development update last week from the executive producer: http://www.startrek-online.net/messageb ... php?t=5556

a quick excerpt;

In a few weeks, we’ll have the space combat refined to the point where we’ll have a basic set of skills, effects, damage model, AI, and cameras to the point where we can truly start to evaluate and refine our space combat model. Given that we can already log multiple players into a server and see each other in the game, having combat up and running means the we’ll be able to begin weekly team play sessions so everyone can get in on playing and refining the combat experience until it is something truly special. And while ground combat is also working at an early stage, we’re more focused on space combat at the moment because that’s where we see the most risk and opportunity.

Then was this enormous interview that was originally done via podcast this weekend but has been transcribed (by myself! ugh): http://www.startrek-online.net/index.ph ... transcript

An excerpt;

Daron: Well I can say that is our intention, there will be side missions that allow all players to engage in traditional profession based activities, but every player will be able to be involved in combat which is the basis of this game, though that doesn’t mean we don’t have plenty of other non-combat activities, but moving through the game involves combat which is typical of most Star Trek games and when players get together and they play and they realise the different department functions, engineers might be supporting their party or crew with skills and abilities that relate to their department, same goes for medical and security and science, and then when they come back there will also be activities that are very department orientated and less combat orientated.

Game is coming along nicely it would seem, there's a lot to read but should be interesting if you've been following production.

At least they're unlikely to fuck it up as badly as LucasArts fucked up Star Wars Galaxies.

Darth Wong wrote:At least they're unlikely to fuck it up as badly as LucasArts fucked up Star Wars Galaxies.

Sony Online Entertainment.

Darth Wong wrote:At least they're unlikely to fuck it up as badly as LucasArts fucked up Star Wars Galaxies.

Depends. For Star Wars you can have a lot of content by just shooting stuff. However, that doesn't really work as well with Star Trek, so what's a guy going to do? Spend all day reconfiguring the shield emitter to project a harmonic position pulse to destabalize the static chronoton grid so the ship can punch a hole in the event horizen? From what I got from the website, it takes a bunch of people to fly a ship. Sure it's cool for the captaiin, the pilot, or the tactical officer, but who'se going to voulenteer for engineer or scanner duty?

It's no less interactive than a raid in WoW. As a healer, I clicked on people's red health bars and pushed a button. With a bit of UI windowdressing, instead of Druid of the Claw Nephtys 'Healing Touch Rank 5 on the Mage', Ensign Nephtys 'Remodulated the Class 5 Phase Interval on the Phaser'.

Except it'll look like Star Trek, but have MMO-standard combat. Jarring much?

"You have blown up a Tholian Battlecruiser. You gain 300 XP!"

"Yes, now I only need to blow up four more battlecruisers before I can get to Level 23!!"


And thus, the Federations's reputation for being a diplomatic peace loving race evaporates like the morning mist. They should have made it so you play the Klingons instead. Then you have an excuse for blowing lots of stuff up.

Yogi wrote:"You have blown up a Tholian Battlecruiser. You gain 300 XP!"

"Yes, now I only need to blow up four more battlecruisers before I can get to Level 23!!"


And thus, the Federations's reputation for being a diplomatic peace loving race evaporates like the morning mist. They should have made it so you play the Klingons instead. Then you have an excuse for blowing lots of stuff up.

This is an MMO remember.
Replace that 4 with 40 and level 23 with level 3.

Yogi wrote:"You have blown up a Tholian Battlecruiser. You gain 300 XP!"

"Yes, now I only need to blow up four more battlecruisers before I can get to Level 23!!"


And thus, the Federations's reputation for being a diplomatic peace loving race evaporates like the morning mist. They should have made it so you play the Klingons instead. Then you have an excuse for blowing lots of stuff up.

Expansion.

Sure it's cool for the captaiin, the pilot, or the tactical officer, but who'se going to voulenteer for engineer or scanner duty?

Maybe they don't assume volunteers?

If nothing else, if those posts are actually there I hope that they'll be useful, and someone's gonna have to repel boarders (if shields go offline or somehow a shuttle makes its way in Battlefront II style -- though I never got why my vehicles had a habit of exploding after I left them...).

I know just how this'll turn out:

"Captain's Log - We have arrived at our destination after a long journey at Warp 2. Apparently our Chief Engineer doesn't have the required "XP" to make us go any faster. Whatever that means."

"Captain's Log - Klingon ships ambushed us! We took heavy damage but managed to get away due to a phenomenon my science officer tells me is known as "server lag". We recieved an odd transmission from the Klingons as we fled. "LOL WE OWNZ0RD U N00BZ!!". I'm at a loss to explain this wide-spread stupidity."

"Captain's Log - It's getting worse, we were attacked again. During this, half my crew has vanished. The ones who remain report that just before they disappeared, they were heard to be saying "brb dinner." or "wtf I'm lagging". I feel I am forced to call Starfleet Headquarters for assistance.

"C.. captain's Log - The madness has spread to Earth! Open communicating with Starfleet HQ and informing them of the situation with the Klingons, their response was "WTF HAX!!" and they promised to "pwnzor teh Klingot nubz".

"Capt.. oh to hell with it. My first officer just informed me that he will "report teh Klingoffs 4 griefing". He also said that the ship has been renamed to "U.S.S. niNJ@ @sS@s1nz NCC-1337 and that he had to "logoff because his parents told him to." I've had enough of this! Nobody will speak english anymore. Only gibberish! Madhouse, it's a madhouse! I'm going to beam myself into space.. then it'll stop!"

Ghost Rider wrote:Expansion.

It's not that playing multiple races is all that great, it's that combat isn't something the Federation prides itself for, but in an MMORPG it'll be actively be sought out. It just feels very un-Trekish.

Would it not be 'rectified' by encouraging a combined approach? (Not combined arms, but at least accepting that someone's got to fill the support roles.)

I was thinking more 'zomg drop shield proc on me u fag', 'learn to nuke tard', 'w00t +2% shield dish' and shit like that. I wonder if they'll have WoW-style loot rolls?

Can you imagine how awesome the Holodeck would make this?

LFG 40M for Moriarty.

Want to Farm: Pakleds need conn

WTS: cardassian loogs

LFG - running wormhole

500gold to Romulus, join at storage.

Ahh, the comedy writes itself. Does anyone seriously think it won't end up like this? In the end, the setting is less important to how you play than the rules - and people always end up taking the path of least resistance. Or will players hold back from sploits and scams because it's Star Trek?

Let's see how this would end up in MUD form, the low-graphics precursor to MMO, shall we?

Ferengi Trader hits you for 36.
Ferengi Trader hits you for 23.

>Attack Trader
You fire your phaser at the Ferengi Trader, but he casually steps out of the way.
Ferengi Trader hits you for 26.
Ferengi Trader misses you.

>Cast 'Phaser Barrage' Trader
Your phaser barrage hits the trader for 42. You lose 15 Tech Points.
Ferengi Trader gains 'Phaser Radiation Burn'.
Ferengi Trader casts 'Shipping Crate'.

>Attack Trader
You fire your phaser at the Ferengi Trader, but it is nullified by Ferengi Trader's active shipping crate spell.
Ferengi Trader takes 12 damage from Phaser Radiation Burn.
Ferengi Trader dies.
You gain 35 XP

>Loot Trader
You gain 50 Latinum
You gain [Bloody Detatched Ferengi Ear]

They should have had this back in the way in TOS, where someone could fight for the Federation, Klingons, or Romulans as they struggle to control the galaxy. Instead, everyone plays for the Federation, making PVP rather difficult except on the Holodeck, which eliminates ALL consequences for fighting.

Oh come on - even in ship-to-ship PvP, there aren't going to be serious repercussions beyond 'shit need a new ship'. I'd be VERY surprised if the game allowed EVE-style 'podding'.

But Neph, that was awesome. I bet ST:O will have 'Starfleet uniform 4' with 'packing crate insets, +5 vs phasers'. Actually, 'Picard's Uniform of Combat, +5 vs Phasers, scares Q' sounds more MMO-y.

What would be classic is if after dropping Moriarty, he drops a *Flintlock pistol, +20 VS Borg
It's true, this is just funny from start to finish if they try and drop WoW into Star Trek and call it day.

Onto other things, how could you make those extra ship roles intresting? First officer does what? Rub his beard and hmm importantly?
Lets try and work it out shall we?
Captain of course orders the ship around, party leader no question
First Officer... lets skip him for now

I can at least see the Engineer having to run around with his trusty roll of ducktape trying to seal up the warpcore, since he breathed on it to hard and the containment field failed.... errr I mean use the "Trans-dilitium phyiscal bonding element to increase containment"

Acutaly that's the Science officers job, depending on how much Technobabble he uses to describe what everyone else is doing, they get +X on their skill checks, Thus Mr Science officer becomes our protype bard

Weapon's officer no shit, he's got the guns! Let's hope he can aim better than Worf or Sisko.

Helm, drive the ship, pray he does not want to try a "smugglers turn" he "saw in a movie once"

So that's Captain, Engineer and Science, and Weapons, helm officer out of the way, that leaves Comm's and First mate.

Ok Comm's.... a thirteen year old kid spouting leet at the other ship(Which will of course also be using a 13 year old leet speaker to translate) could fill this spot but keeping him amused is going to be hard.

And first mate? Dunno, beard stroke still sounds like the only option for him.

I'd want a First officer with 'put foot on conn console, lean and rub beard while hmming'. That's probably level 40 right there, at least. Maybe 37 with some min/maxing.

I'm interested in what the apparently PILES of people are supposed to do. Not just the Chief Engineer - all the engineers. Are they going to be playing logic puzzles to reroute the scooby-dooby to the fluma-fluma?

Stark wrote:I'd want a First officer with 'put foot on conn console, lean and rub beard while hmming'. That's probably level 40 right there, at least. Maybe 37 with some min/maxing.

I'm interested in what the apparently PILES of people are supposed to do. Not just the Chief Engineer - all the engineers. Are they going to be playing logic puzzles to reroute the scooby-dooby to the fluma-fluma?

They'll get to crawl around Jeffries Tubes a whole lot.

I'm telling you Stark, the Chief Engineer will have the most intresting job, cursing and screaming, while sprinting around the engine room, with a futuristic arch weilder in one hand, a roll of duck-tape in the other, and some chewing gum and bailing wire in his pockets as he tries to keep the warp core from breaching and killing everyone.

I imagine it would be the real life equivlant of being doused in gasoline while you juggle flaming torches while you slide across an ice rink on roller-skates.... (How's THAT for a visual?)

The only thing I can think of is if you have AI controled crewmen ala-Silent Hunter III who assited you in your duties and who you must keep an eye on. But who also follow you from ship to ship. So our hypothetical Chief engineer could have an AI controled engineer crew who would follow you around and gain experience as you do, prehaps giving you access to special technobabble abilities.
Hypothetical vision
I can see it if they "blind" the crew, so that only the Engineer knows how the ship is doing damage control wise and plays a mini-game where he manages the core, while sending repair crews out to fix things.

Meanwhile your Science officer has the best "eyes" can see the ship and the rest of space and can relay the visual or damage date he's getting to the rest of the crew(IE that last shot killed their hyperdrive, we could run for it, repair now and they could not follow, or their port shields are gone, move us over there to realy pound them!)

While your weapons officer is shooting @#$@$. Maybe he could also be wonking with weapons loadouts and torpedo spreads and aiming mechanisms.

Your Helm is trying to do a 520 Ollie into a foward Superman with the ship... best stop him before he runs into that moon. You could also restrict him to visual and warp sensors only so he can't see the medium to long range. This makes your science/sensor officer much more important, while your Helm is going to Warp places and pilot once your within visual range, he can't see the "short-long range areas"

Now that I think about it, your First mate could be your "fill-in guy" IE rather than posing with his foot on the conn whilst beard stroking. He could be helping out down in engineer, or acting as a second pair of eyes for the science officer, but be "limited" in all these rolls.

Hopefuly the Captain would have something useful to do aside from ordering everyone around and polising his head.

That still leaves comms as the do nothing person, and the question is raised, what happens if there are borders? Who deals with it? Not the weapons officer hopefuly! He should be shooting the enemy, a possible job for the first mate... or even have him leading the attack on the other ship.

That kind of co-ordination would be quite rare, I'd think.
And no matter how interesting the other jobs are, EVERYONE will want to be the weapons guy to blow stuff up or the Captain because they think it's cool and that somehow they'll get to have sex with green ladies.
It'll be just another grind-fest farce.

Yes, I'm jaded with MMOs. I hate them I hate them I hate them! I want them to die!

Nephtys wrote:Let's see how this would end up in MUD form, the low-graphics precursor to MMO, shall we?

Ferengi Trader hits you for 36.
Ferengi Trader hits you for 23.

>Attack Trader
You fire your phaser at the Ferengi Trader, but he casually steps out of the way.
Ferengi Trader hits you for 26.
Ferengi Trader misses you.

>Cast 'Phaser Barrage' Trader
Your phaser barrage hits the trader for 42. You lose 15 Tech Points.
Ferengi Trader gains 'Phaser Radiation Burn'.
Ferengi Trader casts 'Shipping Crate'.

>Attack Trader
You fire your phaser at the Ferengi Trader, but it is nullified by Ferengi Trader's active shipping crate spell.
Ferengi Trader takes 12 damage from Phaser Radiation Burn.
Ferengi Trader dies.
You gain 35 XP

>Loot Trader
You gain 50 Latinum
You gain [Bloody Detatched Ferengi Ear]

Actually. When I was doing that through text ten years ago it was a lot more complicated. And it wasn't turn based... it was real time .

It will end up like WTS WTB LFG LFR etc etc... but there's a chance that they'll make something wonderful. Everybody's looked at the screens right? They look incredible and I wouldn't mind having a phaser fight. But after awhile I can see the novelty really wearing thin. A long while for me though.

As for wanting to be the weapons guy... no way, all the fun's in the FPS. Wouldn't it be so cool to beam onto a bridge and kill the entire crew with your phaser bfg and level ten borg personal shield while the Captain fumbles for his tiny Type I? That's what I want, fuck flying.