new screen shot

[ransomwk]

http://uploads.startrekonline.com/sto_screen_073109_12.jpg


good look at a pistol, and there seems to be a lot of heat coming off that beam, or might that distortion be a by-product of some anti-borg tweekage?

[Antagonist]

http://uploads.startrekonline.com/sto_screen_073109_12.jpg


good look at a pistol, and there seems to be a lot of heat coming off that beam, or might that distortion be a by-product of some anti-borg tweekage?

i want to know what species that is....anyway, where did you find this?

[RogueEnterprise]

i want to know what species that is....anyway, where did you find this?

Check out the front page.

[Angelphoenix12]

i want to know what species that is....anyway, where did you find this?

to me looks like a custom character. i too would like to know where this screen came from, it looks great. :)

[ransomwk]

It came from the front page.

[Varrangian]

Interesting... there is a lot there to be dissected. Not sure the spikes and hair combo works for me, but whatever floats people's boats.

Is that distortion along the right hand side of the doorway? If that's being caused by that phaser/gun I'm impressed with that little detail.

[RemyBlack]

Also It looks like a Klingon base or outpost? Maybe...not sure. But to be rading an outpost when the Borg show up would rock. hehe.

[KODudna]

It looks like the starfleet officer further into the hallway is carrying the new, what I shall dub, "anti-borg phaser pistol" for the purpose of this post, as well as the more traditional federation hand phaser. You know, the banana ones.

[ransomwk]

Interesting... there is a lot there to be dissected. Not sure the spikes and hair combo works for me, but whatever floats people's boats.

Is that distortion along the right hand side of the doorway? If that's being caused by that phaser/gun I'm impressed with that little detail.

The distortion follows the beam from the weapon, note however that the second phaser beam in the background does not have a similar effect. I'm thinking these are either two different weapons, the same weapon with different modifications, or an example of a skill used by the character holding the weapon in the foreground.

Then again it might just be that the second beam is too far away for the distortion to be rendered by the hardware / software.

[thefrayl]

It does look very nice. The only complaint I have is with the hands. They look very awkward for some reason.

I have the overwhelming urge to hunt down some Borg now.

[ransomwk]

It does look very nice. The only complaint I have is with the hands. They look very awkward for some reason.

I have the overwhelming urge to hunt down some Borg now.

Hands are supposedly hard to animate. I noticed in this shot that the guy in the foreground is experiencing some clipping...the trigger guard is inside his middle finger, his thumb is in the handle, and his trigger finger is outside the trigger guard despite the trigger obviously having been pressed.

[Manta2015]

It's not a graphics-heavy MMO ~ they have to hold back, so don't expect Dead-Space/Crysis graphics etc... but erm... it's still a tad bit unimpressive looking ~ Any newer game has excellent hand-animations, as blocky as these hands are I can't see the trouble (the gun is literally floating on his palm, while fingers clip the trigger/handle) Interesting character design though.


-Manta-

[LebowskyBob]

With the clipping and hand-animations...I'd just relax and think about how they aren't even in beta yet. My guess is that they will clear that all up by the time STO is ready to launch. Let's face it, those hands look too much like the vanilla TES3 hands to be the finished product in STO.

[Manta2015]

Indeed ~ Polish and refinement is yet to take place, so yup -- can't wait =)

[mwood1387]

Even if those graphics are the finished product (which I seriously doubt) who's going to be that zoomed in to their character anyway. Its a glamour shot. The natural 3rd person cam will probably be zoomed out enough that no one would even notice if their characters pinky is a little wonky.

[mendal]

This is the copy post that I made in the official screenshot thread.

1. I am pretty sure I can see a personal shield on that Borg.
2. What is that skin on the Borg's back? Did the fed phaser melt his back metallic cover?
3. That female in a tight green suit is aiming at the Borg as well and not at that fed's hand in red uniform.
4. That leads me to believe that phaser fire (and probably other beam weapons) won't form a laser like line right away when fired but rather propagate at a speed visible to the player's eye.
5. Both phaser shots are done from top holding positions (in front of the face).
6. The blue lady on the very left is not ready to fire since her hand is not raised at all in comparison to the fed in the red uniform.
7. I wonder how much time does it require for the fed in the red to raise his hand and start firing.
8. point 4 and point 7 combined form the actual speed of firing in my opinion.
9. what is that shine around the Borg's head?

Big thanks for the screen shot.

[ransomwk]

Just noticed another thing, their stance when shooting a pistol is crap lol

Not that anyone in Star Trek has ever really done it right....except the MACOs, but they always held rifles.

[Koroth]

Just noticed another thing, their stance when shooting a pistol is crap lol

Not that anyone in Star Trek has ever really done it right....except the MACOs, but they always held rifles.

The guy in the foreground is ok, he appears to be looking down his sights. And he doesn't have to worry about recoil, so one handed is fine at that range. His problem is the beam isn't shooting straight out the front of his phaser (although if it was he'd miss. He seems to be aiming high and left of the Borg.)

That female in the green has an awful stance, though. She looks like she's never held a weapon in her life. That would scare the hell out of me if I was the man in red and black.

The distortion effect on the one beam looks nice, and the drone itself. That effect looks just like what I'd expect a borg personal shield to look like when hit.

The shot could be better if the avatar's arm aimed at their current target, center mass, where (apparently) the beam is going to hit. That way the beam would always fire 'straight' out of the weapon.

- Koroth

[Varrangian]

The guy in the foreground is ok, he appears to be looking down his sights. And he doesn't have to worry about recoil, so one handed is fine at that range. His problem is the beam isn't shooting straight out the front of his phaser (although if it was he'd miss. He seems to be aiming high and left of the Borg.)

That female in the green has an awful stance, though. She looks like she's never held a weapon in her life. That would scare the hell out of me if I was the man in red and black.

The distortion effect on the one beam looks nice, and the drone itself. That effect looks just like what I'd expect a borg personal shield to look like when hit.

The shot could be better if the avatar's arm aimed at their current target, center mass, where (apparently) the beam is going to hit. That way the beam would always fire 'straight' out of the weapon.

- Koroth

By the female in green, do you mean the model farthest to the left? It appears to be a mirror image of the foreground character as far as the stance goes.

With the aiming on the foreground character, I'm wondering if the beam is hitting something around the area of the doorway that has changed the trajectory of the beam. Notice that the beam does not start out distorted, but gets worse as it travels. That might also be some sort of "special" weapon or skill.

[R4mp4ge]

the phasers look like pistols... actual pistols... not the handles hacked off of a plastic vacume cleaner... now if only they would make them shoot strait.

[ransomwk]

The guy in the foreground is ok, he appears to be looking down his sights. And he doesn't have to worry about recoil, so one handed is fine at that range. His problem is the beam isn't shooting straight out the front of his phaser (although if it was he'd miss. He seems to be aiming high and left of the Borg.)

That female in the green has an awful stance, though. She looks like she's never held a weapon in her life. That would scare the hell out of me if I was the man in red and black.


The trick is that he's not very stable.

For example, I have a nerf gun here which I held for a while in the same stance as the picture, after about 15 seconds holding it up like that I started to wobble a tad. Factor in adrenaline and a racing heart from a fight and that stance will start to fall apart quick.

When I got trained on the M-9 I was taught a stance which I later found to be called a "weaver stance". Body turned sideways to the target to present a smaller target, primary arm straight, weapon supported by the off hand. First time I ever handled an M-9 (first time holding a pistol too) I landed 39 shots out of 40 on a man sized target....with about 20 of them in the neck and a few more in the face and center mass..

The folks in this shot just don't look like they're familiar with weapons, which might be expected from engineering and science characters. The one in the back with the rifle seems to know what he's doing. Maybe he's the only one in the group with tactical training?


A real set of iron sights might be nice too, instead of that gray block coming up from the top of the weapon.

[TruthSeer]

Looking at the hands, they look like they would fit better if it was a regular phaser that they were holding as opposed to the pistols.


When I got trained on the M-9 I was taught a stance which I later found to be called a "weaver stance". Body turned sideways to the target to present a smaller target, primary arm straight, weapon supported by the off hand. First time I ever handled an M-9 (first time holding a pistol too) I landed 39 shots out of 40 on a man sized target....with about 20 of them in the neck and a few more in the face and center mass..

Then again you weren't given the standard Starfleet training which says to stand out in the open (especially in doorways/hallways) and make your self as big a target as possible.

[Musterion]

Could the weapons be placeholders still?

[TruthSeer]

Could the weapons be placeholders still?

I really hope so.

[RemyBlack]

I think there is a lot more polish to be done yet. I think the shot looks great but i say this becaus when I looked at the CO screens there was no hand clipping of any kind. At least that I could see. The fingers were even going through the trigger houseing. Check them out they look cool, espically the duel-weild guns.

[LordDave]

I don't like it.
The lighting shader is too... shiny. Especially on the Borg. Makes them look like plastic dolls.

[Azurian]

Don't forget their headsets, Dave. It makes the Borg look terrible and cheap! Like that design is "all size fits all" for any and all races.

Just noticed another thing, their stance when shooting a pistol is crap lol

Not that anyone in Star Trek has ever really done it right....except the MACOs, but they always held rifles.

You know, I never paid attention to that. They do have terrible stances! :eek:

Looking at the hands, they look like they would fit better if it was a regular phaser that they were holding as opposed to the pistols.

OMG you're right!

It so much reminds me of my old GI Joes and Star Wars Action Figures, how they had that barely opened hand. :eek:

[Zepath]

I wouldn't hold my breath for a change in the hands ... hands are very very difficult to deal with in graphics.

Consider, in order to do that so you guys don't complain, they would have to create a set of hands for every weapon in the game.

Now that not so tough in a game like WoW or Warhammer, where weapons are limited to a certain classes/races, and all hands look the same in those races (you can just make the hands part of the weapon graphic).

But here, where the character can be any of a 1000 different textures/color combination, they can't do that so they cup the hand best they can, and just put the weapon there.

[Azurian]

Actually it's easier than you think. I'm just hoping they only modeled a proper grip for a Type 2 Phaser and the artist hasn't gotten around to making a proper pistol grip.

But I'll tell you, if Cryptic doesn't fix that, well the little things add up.

[Koroth]

By the female in green, do you mean the model farthest to the left? It appears to be a mirror image of the foreground character as far as the stance goes.

You may be right, which brings to mind which city this game is being developed in. It doesn't shock me that yet another MMO has female avatars standing with their hips cocked. My lip still curls, but it isn't a surprise. Them doing that with male avatars... :rolleyes:

The trick is that he's not very stable.

If the male's lower body is in the same position as the female's, then I agree about stability. At the time, I was assuming something more normal was going on below the frame.

For example, I have a nerf gun here which I held for a while in the same stance as the picture, after about 15 seconds holding it up like that I started to wobble a tad. Factor in adrenaline and a racing heart from a fight and that stance will start to fall apart quick.

I was thinking of the screenshot as a still picture of an event in motion, where the male would move his body if he had to keep firing at the Borg (and might have had a reason not to have two hands on his weapon). But thinking about it, you're probably right. This isn't a still frame from a movie after all. So, the shooter's pistol stances are just plain odd.

M-9...

...is a firearm, and its stances reflect that. Not that theywouldn't work with a phaser, but not all of the reasons for them still apply to a weapon that has no recoil and continous beam fire. That said, they'd look much better than this.

- Koroth