Aesthetic vs Functionality

[ExAstris]

The title is not referencing the playability of the game versus its graphical capabilities.

Instead I am referring to both avatar and ship models. In traditional mmo's, your 'gear' determines much of your stats, and upon donning said gear you are made to look as that particular gear does.

This is something I hope STO avoids, both on the character models, and on their ships. If I want to put a certain pair of warp engines on my ship, but hate the way they look, I don't want to have to sacrifice the design aesthetic of my vessel to get the stats on those hideous nacelles. I want to be able to 'equip' them for the stats they provide, but leave the model unscathed. Similarly, I don't want to have to wear an awkward looking belt because it gives my captain the best stat boost. Equip it for the stats sure, but forcably render it? no.

Cryptic has a solid track record in this department so far. One of the things I loved about CoX was that your characters appearance and abilities were entirely separate. Characters felt far more unique and personal in that environment instead of the "you are your gear" flavor of most other games.

I'm confident Cryptic will lean away from forced gear rendering given their design philosophy, but I haven't seen this particularly stated by Cryptic or discussed here, so I thought I'd bring it up.

Cheers :cool:

[RookActual]

I really love RPGs that allow you absolute freedom with your character avatar. Especially when you make the build of the character look like hulk, then dump all your points into speed and agility, and the character is about as physically strong as a muppet with no hand in it.

[Trekkie]

I definitely agree with this to some extent, but I think it might be difficult to implement certain ship parts that you can put on your ship without appearing. I definitely think that this is a good idea for characters though, because except for a few distinguishing features I think it will feel more like Star Trek if most of the characters look relatively similar.

[RookActual]

I definitely agree with this to some extent, but I think it might be difficult to implement certain ship parts that you can put on your ship without appearing. I definitely think that this is a good idea for characters though, because except for a few distinguishing features I think it will feel more like Star Trek if most of the characters look relatively similar.

Well, Starship Creator and SCW2, for all of their flaws, did do an interesting job of showing how the same class of vessel can operate very differently from ship to ship, without physically distinguishing them. There are some things, I suppose, like nacelles that just have to be built differently. I think the Devs are going to make it at least somewhat cohesive with aesthetic and practicality. Not every piece of equipment you have will be obvious, but some others will.

[Manx]

I have seen a couple of threads about whether customizing your ships appearance should have an impact on its performance, with a lot of opposing views on the subject; a possible compromise (dirty word, I know, sorry) has formed in my mind.

Suppose choosing a particular ship component (say a set of nacelles) does not have a immediate and direct impact on how well your ship performs, but will alter the theoretical maximums/minimums. As I understand it, there are going to be lots of internal customization options, which will have the real impact on performance (engine upgrades and such); so maybe with one set of nacelles you can upgrade maximum top speed further, while with another set you can't upgrade maximum speed as much, but can upgrade sustainable cruising speed further.

Engineering hull would be another example; with a larger hull you could, in theory, put in a larger and more powerful warp core; giving you a faster ship at warp. On the other hand, a larger warp core would also increase the ships mass meaning a reduced capability at impulse. The hull its self, despite being larger, would not have much of an impact on the ships performance; aside from the additional hull plating, unless you put extra stuff in it, it is just empty space devoid of mass.

[LAR]

This topic reminds me a bit of a recent review for Soul Calibur 4 I think. It was a fighting game at the very least. The reviewer was talking about the create a character ability and how since the stat bonuses are tied to specific articles of clothing you end up making two different character. One of them looks cool but can't really be used in a serious fight and the other one is good at fighting but looks like a their closet threw up on them.

Later,
LAR

[dussan2]

I'm hoping they stick with all the stat giving items be internal and let me play around with the aesthetics of my ship as I see fit.

[Darksider]

Im hoping that functionality is totally seperate from the aesthetic. As a fan of TOS I dont want to be punished in terms of game play abilities just because I want to rock the classic look of my avatars and ships! :)

[Tribbler]

The title is not referencing the playability of the game versus its graphical capabilities.

Instead I am referring to both avatar and ship models. In traditional mmo's, your 'gear' determines much of your stats, and upon donning said gear you are made to look as that particular gear does.

This is something I hope STO avoids, both on the character models, and on their ships. If I want to put a certain pair of warp engines on my ship, but hate the way they look, I don't want to have to sacrifice the design aesthetic of my vessel to get the stats on those hideous nacelles. I want to be able to 'equip' them for the stats they provide, but leave the model unscathed. Similarly, I don't want to have to wear an awkward looking belt because it gives my captain the best stat boost. Equip it for the stats sure, but forcably render it? no.

Cryptic has a solid track record in this department so far. One of the things I loved about CoX was that your characters appearance and abilities were entirely separate. Characters felt far more unique and personal in that environment instead of the "you are your gear" flavor of most other games.

I'm confident Cryptic will lean away from forced gear rendering given their design philosophy, but I haven't seen this particularly stated by Cryptic or discussed here, so I thought I'd bring it up.

Cheers :cool:

If I am not mistaken, didn't I read somewhere that when you get "nacelles" that you have the choice of what they look like?

If this means that when you are at a spaceport, and you are outfitting your ship with new modifications, you get to choose from the nacelle designs and other properties. I think it was from the October magazine article just released on the STO game.

[Neogunmetal]

I can understand wanting to have complete control over what you and your ships look like but there needs to be some kind of uniformaty per ship class. You cant have little warp engines on a huge battle cruiser jsut cause you like the way the little ones look, but scaling could take care of that....Variety is the spice of life!!!

[THORN74]

I have seen a couple of threads about whether customizing your ships appearance should have an impact on its performance, with a lot of opposing views on the subject; a possible compromise (dirty word, I know, sorry) has formed in my mind.

Suppose choosing a particular ship component (say a set of nacelles) does not have a immediate and direct impact on how well your ship performs, but will alter the theoretical maximums/minimums. As I understand it, there are going to be lots of internal customization options, which will have the real impact on performance (engine upgrades and such); so maybe with one set of nacelles you can upgrade maximum top speed further, while with another set you can't upgrade maximum speed as much, but can upgrade sustainable cruising speed further.

Engineering hull would be another example; with a larger hull you could, in theory, put in a larger and more powerful warp core; giving you a faster ship at warp. On the other hand, a larger warp core would also increase the ships mass meaning a reduced capability at impulse. The hull its self, despite being larger, would not have much of an impact on the ships performance; aside from the additional hull plating, unless you put extra stuff in it, it is just empty space devoid of mass.

i dont think you are going to be able to control ur warp speed. Every other ST game has had dif speeds at impulse but only 1 warp speed. i really dont see any real need to change that. i dont think you are going to have combat at warp speed and with worm holes and traswarp conduits i dont think its nessacary in the game to travel at different warp speeds.

granted that doesnt seem very canon, but i belive most of ur ship controls outside of combat are going to be AI controlled. so i dont think choosing a nacelle will have any berring on ur warp speed as much as it will on available warp power. one pair would allow for greater total power over another, inturn allowing for stronger sheild, weapons, scanners, etc...

[Flatfingers]

One of the things I loved about CoX was that your characters appearance and abilities were entirely separate.

It's believed that the fantasy MMORPG Hero's Journey from Simutronics (the people who make the HeroEngine MMORPG development kit being used by BioWare and ZeniMax Online to build their anticipated online games) will go this route as well.

Past comments indicated that characters in Hero's Journey would be able to wear any clothing, armor, or gear they like that's normally available to them, and that any special abilities would come from equipping said wearables with magical artifacts called "wyr." So you'd be able to completely customize your look as you like without having to sacrifice functionality -- just remove one wyr and replace it with something else with different stats. (There might be some give in this implementation; it's possible that some wearables could have more wyr slots than others. Still, the basic concept is there.)

Cryptic might go a similar route with Star Trek Online: everything with a visual look gets implemented as a container, while the operational features would be determined by non-visible components plugged in to the visual element. So if you're a naval architect with Starfleet, you'd (for example) be able to pick any warp nacelle that's appropriate for the hull you're working with. The actual functional stats would come from an "invisible" warp coil object that can be inserted into all nacelles. So if you want (and can afford) better performance, you'd just swap out the invisible stat-providing piece for something better; the visual look would remain unchanged.

Alternately (and this is actually the route I expect Cryptic to go), they could dream up a primary stat for each type of object and then provide multiple visual looks for each object type. So there might be ten different-looking Warp 8 nacelles for Starfleet, ten different Warp 9 nacelles, six Class III hand phasers, and so on. This allows for variation of appearance with no difference in the key underlying stat. That's easier in a programming sense than the "plug-in" approach described above, but it would mean that most objects are unitary -- Engineering-oriented characters wouldn't be able to break down complex objects into multiple components to try to use different components to get different effects or optimize usage aspects. And that would be a shame.

Finally, a thought: if players will be able to customize their ships, and a typical ship will have several elements that can be changed out, and there are several visual versions of each element... will players compete to see who can build the ugliest ship?

Will it be possible to build in Star Trek Online a ship that is even uglier than the "Curry type (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Curry_type)" abomination?

/boggle

:D

--Flatfingers

[Stu1701]

The title is not referencing the playability of the game versus its graphical capabilities.

Instead I am referring to both avatar and ship models. In traditional mmo's, your 'gear' determines much of your stats, and upon donning said gear you are made to look as that particular gear does.

This is something I hope STO avoids, both on the character models, and on their ships. If I want to put a certain pair of warp engines on my ship, but hate the way they look, I don't want to have to sacrifice the design aesthetic of my vessel to get the stats on those hideous nacelles. I want to be able to 'equip' them for the stats they provide, but leave the model unscathed. Similarly, I don't want to have to wear an awkward looking belt because it gives my captain the best stat boost. Equip it for the stats sure, but forcably render it? no.

Cryptic has a solid track record in this department so far. One of the things I loved about CoX was that your characters appearance and abilities were entirely separate. Characters felt far more unique and personal in that environment instead of the "you are your gear" flavor of most other games.

I'm confident Cryptic will lean away from forced gear rendering given their design philosophy, but I haven't seen this particularly stated by Cryptic or discussed here, so I thought I'd bring it up.

Cheers :cool:

I agree, I hate it when I have to choose between what looks good on my character and something that gives a better stat boost.

[RookActual]

I agree, I hate it when I have to choose between what looks good on my character and something that gives a better stat boost.

I always enjoyed the idea that what you wore was a reflection of your abilities. Until I realized very few developers have remotely the same tastes as I do. This is why I like for cosmetic things to merely have ability slots you can customize to an extent.

[RanizMurjuri]

I'm Confused.

I thought ship designs and refits were all part of a solid state.
Warp cores require starbases or shipyards to replace.
But still has to fit the original design.

On the other hand Modifying a Warp core or engine can be done without modifying the ships looks.


Someone correct me if i'm wrong.

[RookActual]

I'm Confused.

I thought ship designs and refits were all part of a solid state.
Warp cores require starbases or shipyards to replace.
But still has to fit the original design.

On the other hand Modifying a Warp core or engine can be done without modifying the ships looks.


Someone correct me if i'm wrong.

You're not. People are still looking at the ship as 'a suit of armor' instead of more like the Character that it's going to be.

[Jare]

I'd like to see separation between asthetics and performance for sure with the characters. I definitely don't want to see "magic boots of agility" that can make my character more powerful when I wear them. Weapons, on the other hand should have a link between performance and appearance, as a phaser shouldn't funtion the same way a projectile weapon does.

With the ships, I don't mind a little bit of the particular designs of the parts dictating to some degree the performance. It stands to reason that certain configurations would have strengths and weaknesses based on what parts are in use.

It'd be useful tactically to be able to examine a ship's configuration and be able to derive some information about it's capabilities. Although, I suppose scanners can serve that purpose either way. And I do want to have a lot of options when it comes to selecting a ship design, so I don't mind if they make performance independent of configuration when it comes to ships.

[RookActual]

I'd like to see separation between asthetics and performance for sure with the characters. I definitely don't want to see "magic boots of agility" that can make my character more powerful when I wear them. Weapons, on the other hand should have a link between performance and appearance, as a phaser shouldn't funtion the same way a projectile weapon does.

With the ships, I don't mind a little bit of the particular designs of the parts dictating to some degree the performance. It stands to reason that certain configurations would have strengths and weaknesses based on what parts are in use.

It'd be useful tactically to be able to examine a ship's configuration and be able to derive some information about it's capabilities. Although, I suppose scanners can serve that purpose either way. And I do want to have a lot of options when it comes to selecting a ship design, so I don't mind if they make performace independant of configuration when it comes to ships.

I think there should be a few obvious modifications....nacelles being the only major one that comes to mind. And independent modular superstructures like the Nebula's Torpedo/Sensor structure.

[Flatfingers]

I think there should be a few obvious modifications....nacelles being the only major one that comes to mind. And independent modular superstructures like the Nebula's Torpedo/Sensor structure.

I'm going to guess that "rollbars" will be well-represented among our ship customization options. :)

--Flatfingers

[RookActual]

I'm going to guess that "rollbars" will be well-represented among our ship customization options. :)
--Flatfingers

I like them when the ship seems to be designed with them in mind....but that Sovereign with them, it really does not look at all appealing to me. In fact, I really didn't like a lot of what they did to that Sovereign.

[Urantia]

will players compete to see who can build the ugliest ship?[/B]
Will it be possible to build in Star Trek Online a ship that is even uglier than the "Curry type (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Curry_type)" abomination?

/boggle

:D

--Flatfingers

You can almost count on it....every MMO always has a player that sets their "char" up to be as ugly and/or offensive as possible...purely to aggitate others or just to be sociopathic. I sincerely hope this will be limited here. While I do not want to limit legit players, I am so anti-sociopathic I will always vote for things that hinder their love (or should I say apathy?) to destroying the game we all love (or will love-I hope)

Certainly appearance is a subjective thing, but I am confident most know what I am talking about.

[RookActual]

You can almost count on it....every MMO always has a player that sets their "char" up to be as ugly and/or offensive as possible...purely to aggitate others or just to be sociopathic. I sincerely hope this will be limited here. While I do not want to limit legit players, I am so anti-sociopathic I will always vote for things that hinder their love (or should I say apathy?) to destroying the game we all love (or will love-I hope)

Certainly appearance is a subjective thing, but I am confident most know what I am talking about.

It's easy to tell when someone has different tastes than you, or no taste at all, but very easy to discern when someone mutilates their avatar/equipment just to cause controversy and bring attention to themselves that they later get miffed about. Which, somehow, reinforces their behavior. Which makes no sense to me at all.

[Urantia]

It's easy to tell when someone has different tastes than you, or no taste at all, but very easy to discern when someone mutilates their avatar/equipment just to cause controversy and bring attention to themselves that they later get miffed about. Which, somehow, reinforces their behavior. Which makes no sense to me at all.

I agree...granted I would never pay them any mind or try and reinforce their failed attempts at psychopoly. Just noting and agreeing with the poster I quoted. Ideally there will be realistic limitations on such players.....then of course these same players will be flying around in the USS-Leetzor etc lol. While it is more than expected, I suppose I am dreaming of a game devoid of it....and would support any system to limit it.

[RookActual]

I just love when people do things intentionally to draw attention to themselves, knowing it's likely to be hostile, that they in turn get hostile.

[Urantia]

I just love when people do things intentionally to draw attention to themselves, knowing it's likely to be hostile, that they in turn get hostile.

Aye....talk about "silly" hehe

[RookActual]

Now, I'd be lying if I claimed I never did something silly in an MMO. The first day the game was in beta I had my entire outfit in ANTS, the slowest vehicle, with no weapons, and only purpose is to transport an energy source....racing around the sancutary. Then, I airlifted six of them on top of the orbital drop ship launch facility and we had Royal Rumbles. Then we went to war with the Ants.....then again, it was an FPS, so that kind of chicanery is pretty much expected from everyone, considering the crowd.

[ExAstris]

I kinda like the trailer version of the sovereign, gives it a slightly more weaponized look thats just feels appropriate. Also, the more blocky sections make it feel a bit more bulky helping to move it away from that mid sized recon cruiser feel, and towards the "this thing will kill you" look.

But to address the point about an opponents visual being a cue as to his capabilities, it surely isn't necessary that it be direct model representation that does this. The ship itself will be a huge hint as to what they are capable off, and if more detail is needed, then various forms of scanner warfare will likely be a great way to gather info on your opponents fittings and capabilities.

Hey, thats a good idea, why not have an automatic box in the corner of your screen with the target info just like most mmo's have, except your scanning and ewar skills could let it occassionally blip information about your opponents loadout and/or skills?
If you and/or your ship are terrible at ewar/scanning, then you might never get any reading. But if you and/or your ship completely outclass your opponent's basic ewar you might get a Nemesis like rundown in the corner of your screen the moment you click on it as your target (52 disruptor banks, 27 photon torpedo launchers, primary and secondary shields).

EDIT: Picard's response to the above readout, "She's a DEV ship!"

[jasonadlai]

I know this discussion is primarily about ships, but since characters were briefly mentioned...

I truly hope that there is no equipment akin to "magic items" in other games. There are so many items in the Star Trek universe that could be created to provide for a fun and entertaining experience. Let's just use those.

Besides, every MMO out there ups the character to inhuman standards. I hope Cryptic keeps these characters distinctively human. No super-human characters running around. I want to rely on skill and superior technology to survive. I don't want to survive just because I'm "higher level" and have "more cool stuff" than everyone else...

In that regard, I kind of hope the game is more open, too. Obviously everyone is trained to use the equipment back at Starfleet Academy. I don't want to have to wait until endgame to use an assault rifle or something along those lines. I want to be able to use that stuff... well, whenever it makes sense.