STO vs Fan made Star Trek games and mods

[lrdnova]

As some of you may know Fan based Star Trek games and Mods have become quite popular to the Star Trek Gaming Community. So my question is, how does Star Trek Online and what we have seen so far, stand up against some other Fan Games currently in development..... here are a few links to help you compare

Star Trek Temporal Cold War:

This is a full conversion of Half Life 2 w/ Episode 1

http://www.enterprise-tcw.com/website/index.php?option=com_rsgallery2&Itemid=100053&lang=en

Star Trek Excalibur:

This is a fan based sequel to Star Trek Bridge Commander

http://www.stexcalibur.com/

CryTrek:

Star Trek Mod for Crysis

http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=18252

these are just a couple of examples, however here are some other images from the Hailing Frequency Gallery http://hailingfrequency.co.uk/boards/gallery/

all in all how does STO stand up?

[47Wasps]

I've been watching Star Trek: Excalibur since it was first announced.
What the men and women developing it have put together is incredible.
Especially the fully rendered Romulan Griffin-class bridge,which is a work of art.

But STO is a far larger undertaking,and I think it surpasses Excalibur in all ways but one,and that is graphics

[CinC-UFPForces-Cardassia]

How can this question be answered yet, given that ST:O is still heavily in development?

[lrdnova]

Well and so are some of the Mods and games that I have listed here, based on what we know of either, how do the two compare being that one set is fan made and the other is developer made

[47Wasps]

Well and so are some of the Mods and games that I have listed here, based on what we know of either, how do the two compare being that one set is fan made and the other is developer made

I think your forgetting the biggest one though.
When I think of fan-made Star Trek games,I think of the brilliant mods for Bridge Commander and Legacy
for example,The Ultimate Universe Mod for Legacy

[Cormoran]

How do they compare? They don't, apples and oranges, they're all different genre's. All we can speculate on is how much we like each individual game, and for that we gotta play them first.

[cavilier210]

wow, excalibur looks great, i hope STO tries to at least match it

[lrdnova]

You are absolutely right and here are some of there links, I intentionally left those out as they are completed Mods, but also have been around for quite some time so I was concerned that an unfair comparison would be made of the graphics engines... but yes your are absolutly right the KM 1.0 Mod for Bridge Commander and the UU mod for legacy are among the greatest ones yet... here is a link to their their Hailing Frequency Gallery


Bridge Commander:

KM 1.0
http://www.hailingfrequency.co.uk/boards/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=70

Star Trek Legacy:

Ultimate Universe Mod for ST: Legacy http://www.hailingfrequency.co.uk/boards/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=69

Keys of Legacy Mod for ST: Legacy http://www.hailingfrequency.co.uk/boards/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=68

[Varrangian]

Let's see all the "fan" made stuff is built on someone else's engine. While I applaud their efforts, they are still utilizing the work of others (professionals).

Even more important to note is that STO is an MMO, which is completely different from a stand alone single/multi-player optional game. Therefore you can't compare fan made to STO.

[TheMasterpiece]

Can someone point me towards star trek excalibur please?


On topic,

There are some tremendous mods for ST out there. The best one that comes to mind is the KM mod. Ive heard legacy has some amazing ones as well. With a large very dedicated fan base that star trek has its no surprise that some of us are putting all this time into making the best gaming experience possible.

And fans being so passionate and driven helps to create some great mods and games. At the same time STO is a star trek game unlike any other ever developed. AND cryptic is developing the game as a fan would. Watching all the shows, observing canon, etc. I believe this will add up to make STO the best star trek game ever created.

[47Wasps]

Let's see all the "fan" made stuff is built on someone else's engine. While I applaud their efforts, they are still utilizing the work of others (professionals).

Even more important to note is that STO is an MMO, which is completely different from a stand alone single/multi-player optional game. Therefore you can't compare fan made to STO.

I agree there.
For comparison to be possible,you'd have to specify what is being compared.
Graphics?
Ship design?

[lrdnova]

Let's see all the "fan" made stuff is built on someone else's engine. While I applaud their efforts, they are still utilizing the work of others (professionals).

Even more important to note is that STO is an MMO, which is completely different from a stand alone single/multi-player optional game. Therefore you can't compare fan made to STO.


agreed, however Excalibur has its own engine created specifically for this game....and does not leverage any pre-made professionally developed game...

however with regards to the others while you are correct that STO is an MMO it still full fills a multi player function where individuals can explore and battle with each other, just like Bridge Commander and Legacy's Multi player function. So while the two genres are different they do have similarities in that Multi player is an aspect of both of their game play. however that aside what about graphics, I see a lot of conversations on these boards about how much people enjoy or dislike STO's Graphics, well how does it rate (again based on what we have seen) with Fan based Star Trek games.

I agree there.
For comparison to be possible,you'd have to specify what is being compared.
Graphics?
Ship design?

good idea how about a comparison of both?

[Varrangian]

agreed, however Excalibur has its own engine created specifically for this game....and does not leverage any pre-made professionally developed game...

however with regards to the others while you are correct that STO is an MMO it still full fills a multi player function where individuals can explore and battle with each other, just like Bridge Commander and Legacy's Multi player function. So while the two genres are different they do have similarities in that Multi player is an aspect of both of their game play. however that aside what about graphics, I see a lot of conversations on these boards about how much people enjoy or dislike STO's Graphics, well how does it rate (again based on what we have seen) with Fan based Star Trek games.

If I remember correctly Excalibur started as a mod for a game, then developed into its "own". So much of the ground work is still built on the work of others.

As or the "multi-player" functionality of the other games. That is actually irrelevant, multi-player in Legacy does not make it anything like an MMO.

The reality is that an MMO creates a vast "universe" that is a "static" or "perpetual" world. Multi-player functions of single player never create vast a universe nor do they allow of the perpetual growth and development of a character/characters.

Further more, Multi-player functionality never hosts hundreds of thousands of people at once. And this here is the crux of the graphics issue. Single player games cater to just that individuals. MMO's on the other hand need to cater to a much broader spectrum of the gaming public. You see an MMO provides game play for years while single player games (even with multi-player functionality) have a much shorter shelf-life.

These are apples and oranges plain and simple.

[The_Padre]

agreed, however Excalibur has its own engine created specifically for this game....and does not leverage any pre-made professionally developed game...

however with regards to the others while you are correct that STO is an MMO it still full fills a multi player function where individuals can explore and battle with each other, just like Bridge Commander and Legacy's Multi player function. So while the two genres are different they do have similarities in that Multi player is an aspect of both of their game play. however that aside what about graphics, I see a lot of conversations on these boards about how much people enjoy or dislike STO's Graphics, well how does it rate (again based on what we have seen) with Fan based Star Trek games.



good idea how about a comparison of both?

Though an MMO potentially requires you to allow hundreds if not thousands of people to be able to play all in the same area, if Star Trek: Excalibur is capable of that then fair play to them.

[cv_coco]

Graphics can't really be compared. If you want true HD in an mmo, then you would have to render every ship in proximity in high detail plus all the effects of phasers, torpedoes, explosions, nacelle tracing etc. on top of your own ship. Your own can be rendered locally and ships further off wouldn't need a high poly count due to distance. First of all you'd have to have a serious gpu set-up to pull it off, second you'd have to sit on top of the server not to get any lag. If anyone can pull that off without creating lag half way across the world on a decent broad band connection, then I take my hat off to them. Because that would mean they have an incredibly efficient game engine the likes I haven't seen yet.
No disrespect to the fans making these mods/games, they are doing some amazing and ambitious work. I've been personally following Excalibur on and off for a while now. But it is comparing apples with oranges.

[JeanNYGUARD]

Also included on the list:

Star Trek Supremacy (Birth of The Federation 2)
http://www.startreksupremacy.com

[Trowa824]

I think I am going to check some of those out.

[-Brett-]

Ironically, considering how anal retentive fans can be, they always manage to get things wrong. Often in major ways.

Even the endless series of games that obviously paid no attention at all to the IP and got tons of things wrong came off better than most fan-made stuff I've seen.

I'd rather bet on the professionals.

[Teleon]

I think that for Star Trek Online to live up to its title, they are going to have four main focal points that are critical to the Star Trek fans. If STO fails on more than half of these focal points it will not keep Star Trek fans playing very long.

Focal point #1 is Realism-as can be understood from the Star Trek universes “content”. Star Trek Online must stay true to the Star Trek universe.

Focal point #2 is also Realism-as can be understood from the point of view toward ship to ship combat. On this topic I wish to place emphasis on players being able to do slightly more than allocate energy to sub-systems and merely maneuver their ships around whilst firing their various weapons in order to blow up their opponents ships. That is not exactly how many ship to ship engagements went. Just look at two of my most favorite Trek movies “The Wrath of Khan” and “Star Trek Nemesis”.
I hope that we will have a few more options. For example, encompassing an allied vessels damaged ship with your shields whilst you tow it. Or, how about more simple: allow ships to take huge beatings to their hulls unless a focal weak point is hit. Or even yet, allow Federation ships to work together to form detection grids against cloaked ships like the Federation did against the Romulan Star Empire.

Focal point #3, also Realism Realism with away missions or missions in general. This should be rather hard to mess up.

[b]Focal point #4 is eye candi/b]-in other wards graphics. How things look.