Summary of What we Need

[solutionine@gmail.com]

Preface:
Now if you follow the current trend in MMO development, you will find that there are severl key points missed in the development and/or distribution of their potentially awesome gaming content. There are a wide array of factors that play in to the possible and/or extended success of Star Trek Online or the potential failure that this delicate title can have. To anyone looking this over, I am taking this from a Starfleet point of view. I am assuming that the other factions will have a similar model.

[solutionine@gmail.com]

First off, I don't want to play an online multiplayer game where the community has no say, input, or pull on what needs, or can be in the game. Leaving everything soley up to developers and their staff meetings is road for failure. Listen to your community! While one (or a few) person's voice can disappear for a while in a crowd, that one voice can turn into thousands like wildfire. Your community is your most valued asset to success.
When it comes to development, you can never give too much. In some cases, the more details, nuiances, quirks, etc... the better.

Yes we want the ability to roam the ships as much as possible. Sure there's your key areas:
- Bridge
- Sick Bay
- Engineering
- Stellar cartography
- Cargo Bays
- Holodecks
- Mess Hall
- Shuttle Bays
- Transporter Rooms

That and any of the connecting hallways. But don't stop there... there is so much more "ship" that can be shown. Random crew quarters, libraries, schools, hydroponic gardens, the brig, armories... you name it, it's there for you to use.

Now we come to the matter of game progression. Where to start? This idea of the "Everyone is going to be captain now"?... I'm hoping just a bad marketing ploy. But where to begin?

San Francisco: Earth - Starfleet Academy
You begin a new cadet, freshly entered into the academy. No rank, no direction just you and whomever else is around. This is a main starter hub, you have your quarters, possible lecture halls complete with interactive consoles for acquiring your "assignments" to progress your character within the academy and gain the skills you need to become a member of Starfleet. Time in this area should be brief (by comparison to the while of the game) but still long enough to get a feel for how the game is played: personal combat, ship combat, mission taking, skill/merit acqusition. Total "beginner level" time... oh average of 3-6 hours of content. Give or take a number of factors. Here you can form relationships, start duty squads (guilds?)

So now you're ready to become part of a crew. However you have two avenues to travel. Enlisted, or Commissioned. Traditionally if you complete the academy training you are commissioned. If you have only recieved a sort of vocational and basic training in whatever field you're looking into. You are Enlisted. In most cases a CO(commissioned officer) will always out rank and EC(enlisted crew-man) Heck the difference between enlisted and commissioned could be a matter of guilded or unguilded...

...

I'm sorry, that was a bad thought, but at least I addressed it as so.
That being stated, what division are you looking for?
• Command
• Ops
• Sciences

Now there are many avenues to explore within these 3 divisions.
Command [RED]: duty officer, executive officer, leadership/diplomatic positions, etc...
Now my reasoning is that you will not see too many of this division. Not everyone can be a leader. Perhaps you have to be a leader of a guild to even be qualified by starfleet to even train into this classification, I could see where that would be annoying... but there's sense in it. In fact that thought would work better for just becoming a captain.

Ops [GOLD]: Helm, security, engineering, gen. ship functions
I would see this as the bulk of starfleet. You need a lot of competent people to run a starship.

Sciences [BLUE]: Doctors, cartographers, biologists, researchers, etc...
I'm just gonna say it. If you wanna be the "healer" (Doctor) this is your route. Anywhere in the sciences is a good useful place to be.

How do you get off of Earth? Well, I would suppose that once you complete whatever skill training/leveling that you were progressing through it is time for you to put that knowledge to good use, or start fresh and learn a different "trade". This will be discussed later. Enlisted crew will just have to meet what ever neccessary requirements they have for their certifications. Commissioned crew will probably need to pass a "field exam". Possibly the almighty Kobayashi Maru in a holodeck simulation or something equally as challenging for a "bridge crew" or "Away team" or whatever you want to call your groups in the grouping system.

Now that's done you have the option to choose your station. Possibly by using a merit system of sorts. You gain/acquire points during your academy training and you can use these to "buy" or "bid" your way onto a ship/starbase or what have you.

Next is Space Dock. I'm sure there are a few things that can be done around there before you leave or are "shipped off". You might even run into other people going to the same ship.

You're sent off to your ship and now you have duties. Depending on the profession you initially chose, these will undoubtedly vary. They could be anything to remedial ship tasks to signing up for a wide array of possible away missions or holodeck training. This is your chance to tour the ship/base you've chosen. Get to know it. Right now you're only a lowbie in the command chain, but given a suitable amount of time you will quickly gain rank. Keep in mind, unless you, began in the command division, your chances of getting captain are going to get harder the farther you progress down your own tree of skill sets.

Lets skip through all of the quests (missions) and talk about endgame. Who knows what can go here, but you could say that there is something going on in this part of the galaxy that threatens the Federation and their Starfleet. This is your real chance to step up and polish off those skills that you have been grinding away at for the past while... this is where Captains are born.

[RandomRedshirt]

I am liking what I am reading here. It follows along a same arc of approach that I have been taking with what I called "My Vision For STO".

(Link to my "Vision" can be found in my signature.)

[0wl]

A great vision and article for i truly enjoyed reading it, well most hehe! :)

[solutionine@gmail.com]

Now leveling... honestly I'm not sure. I had the idea of a type of merit system. A point system that rewards you within your faction for doing a job well done. Completing a mission within the bounds of the prime directive for example. Whatever your specific division may entail when it reguards duties. The faster/more efficient you complete your duties the more merit points you are awarded. You can use these points to help you learn skills book passage on shuttles to wherever, change duty stations from ship to ship to base. There's a wide range of applications (and yes, drawbacks) for this type of system.

Personal Combat:
Away missions, PvP... (/sigh) and holodecks. These would be the primary avenues for personal combat. Depending on the situation there could be some "world" combat on the ships. Say... a borg invasion.
...
...
...
You know I wish I had a more mechanical mind when it came to these things. The only problem with personal combat I see is that any abilities would have to be racial. Differences between humans, andorians, vulcans, klingon, etc... would be a difficult thing to concieve without the idea of magic in the world. I'm going to leave this up to idea and speculation. Because honestly... I have none.

Ship Combat: Now I love the idea of being able to modify the shield harmonics, polarize the hull, utilize the main deflector, re adjust the targetting scanners for a specific type of target or energy composition. Yes I want that Complexity. I wand the ability for as many people that wish to come along to do so as well and be able to do a job within the bounds of whatever theyve spent their skill points on within their profession. (I'm not going to first choice a science officer to take a tactical position) I would see ship to ship combat as a neccessity to further expand game play, but not a primary focus... at least not how I've envisioned it thus far.

Changing roles/Commissions:
This would have to controlled by some sort of considerable expenditure in player resources. Either more time and/or "currency" (merit points?) spent in order to do this. Yes it should be brought up that through naural game play progression at some point or interval, if given the option, (given the requirements are met) a player can "change classes" for free or for a discount up to a point within said progression. That means I can say... I want to move up from my security duty roster to look into engineering. Well I could have been taking academy training (that you would have access to) and earned some credit into engineering. Now given that this is stil an ops position, my class adjustment wouldn't natually be as difficult as say, going from a botanist to working their way into command reds and becoming captain one day.

Movement:
This regards space travel. Now ultimately Starfleet has a time table for each ship. That does not mean that you can't go wherever you want. Remember those points you've been stocking up on for doing your duties and following orders? Hell, "rent" a shuttle and take a vacation to Risa :D Find what shuttle away missions for survey, study, etc... to earn you some more points.
As a captain, I suppose that you would have a bit more flexibility on the ships movements. But you have to remember that you are not the only one on the ship. And you have duties as well. I'm not sure how that would exatly be thought out but it cant be a terribly difficult process. I would have to sit on that.

"Raids/Instances"
Away Missions and Holodecks:
That easy. Now depending on your character progression you would be available to sign up for away missions or holodeck training and/or reenactment (for training purposes :D) holodecks should be use sparingly IMO as they can be a very easy avenue for lazy game design. Make your players get together and prepare themselves for a real planetary away mission. Make it relevant to whatever story arc is moving the content.
Ask these questions?
- Why am I on this planet
- What can be found here outside the mission parameters
- Have I seen something like this before
- How does this relate to the missions that I have been taking?
These are only a few of the issues with gameplay regarding grouping.

Money:
Um... well... there's latinum, but good luck finding an abundant supply on a federation starship. More on this...


I believe that this covers a few basics, Next... RP and story content.

[eNDIE]

"First off, I don't want to play an online multiplayer game where the community has no say, input, or pull on what needs, or can be in the game."

BIG misstake that just leads to the downfall of a game because its mostly the whiners that demands things on the forums wich leads to nerf after nerf and then we fget a game with no challenge at all. Just let Cryptic do their thing and it will be fine.

[ClickBouyow]

Good observations. I suspect that most of it has already been decided. It will be interesting to see the final release and how your observations compare.

[Word2BigBird]

I am 100% sold on wanting to walk around the ship, doing menial tasks to begin with. Even if everyone on the ship is the same rank (level)... each of them can do exactly what you are doing, it doesn't matter. You are still feeling like you are a apart of the crew.

[solutionine@gmail.com]

What is going on in the galaxy? I am to assume this is post Nemesis. Seeing as there is little or no story content after this (aside from elseworld futures) this is the best place to start. First we have to consider the state of the galaxy.
- The Federation: a bit more wary of the "older" races but still the same go get em cowboys all the same.
Races: Human, Andorian, Vulcan, Klingon, Bajoran, Trill, Ferengi... more to come

- Romulans: At an uneasy peace talk time with the federation. The first in generations of conflict between the federation, the romulans and the klingons.
Races: Romulan, Reman, Human, Vulcan

- Klingon Empire: Crippled after the dominion wars but no where near at the end of themselves. Striving to keep their foot hold on the beta quadrant and taking interest in the new found weakness of the Romulan Empire. Not pleased with the fact that teh Federation is being diplomatic with the romulans.
Races: Klingon

- Cardassia / Maquis: New found friends, or silent enemies, the Cardassians have much to pay for after their occupation of Bajor and attempted conquest over the alpha quadrant with the help of the dominion. The Maquis have been the only ones that they can turn to, and on the same coin the Maquis could gain a lot of "political" power bu siding with the Cardassians.
Races: Cardassian, Human, Bajoran, Romulan, Vulcan, Klingon, Trill, Vorta, Jem'Hadar, etc...

**Expansion Content**
[Gamma Quadrant]
- The Dominion: Driven from the alpha quadrant but far from defeated. Perhaps they've just been biding their time waiting for the right moment to strike again and amass their forces. We finally have a need to travel through the wormhole and investigae the remnants of the dominion. We may even find something far more dangerous deep in the Gamma Quadrant.

**Expansion Content**
[Delta Quadrant]
- BORG INVASION! We've been so busy in the Gamma Quadrant that we never saw them coming. The Borg are now back on our side of the galaxy and they are looking to add to their ranks. Ride the Borgs newly established and rebult Transwarp conduits through to the delta quadrant in a new base of operations that has been established to create a combative force against the borg.

simple, non?

[solutionine@gmail.com]

"First off, I don't want to play an online multiplayer game where the community has no say, input, or pull on what needs, or can be in the game."

BIG misstake that just leads to the downfall of a game because its mostly the whiners that demands things on the forums wich leads to nerf after nerf and then we fget a game with no challenge at all. Just let Cryptic do their thing and it will be fine.

Yes but without these people we would also have no way to adress real problems in game that would need to be fixed. For example the AoC female human lower DPS issue that will now get your account banned if it's even mentioned.

If a company starts doing that mess instead of addressing the problem and even at least makes me think that they might care and will possibly fix the issue in the future, I'm out.

[solutionine@gmail.com]

I am 100% sold on wanting to walk around the ship, doing menial tasks to begin with. Even if everyone on the ship is the same rank (level)... each of them can do exactly what you are doing, it doesn't matter. You are still feeling like you are a apart of the crew.

Exactly! Have duty rosters for those solo oriented people (with plenty to do) but also have a wide range of away missions and other tasks that you get bonuses for having more people with you.

[0wl]

That would be great indeed!

[Yavin_Prime]

"First off, I don't want to play an online multiplayer game where the community has no say, input, or pull on what needs, or can be in the game."

BIG misstake that just leads to the downfall of a game because its mostly the whiners that demands things on the forums wich leads to nerf after nerf and then we fget a game with no challenge at all. Just let Cryptic do their thing and it will be fine.

I realy have to agree with this, I like what your writing (mabey not the Enlisted/Commissioned stuff but the bulk is good). My big problem with having Cyrptic listen to any of us is that many of us have our own idea of what STO could be. Its the dev teams responsability (after all they have the liscence) to take what they want to do and what they can do and make the best STO with those factors in mind.

I like the team behind WAR, they keep the community in the loop, listen to their testers and do what they think is right. It so k to listen to the community but thats what SOE did with SWG (or so I've been told time and time again) and the game ended up crashing. With that said its ok to have them at least read and consider feedback, but I trust them to build a fun interesting game.

When it comes down to it I realy hope they throw the "trekies" a bone, give us PSIs (on some level) and keep going with the "make everyone happy" attitude. I think whats important when writing posts like this is to consider Cryptics position in all of this, they have investors that want to see things, they have players that want to see things... a lot of "invisable" forces are at work here so just don't be upset if they don't rush to the forums for ideas and feedback. From the screenshots and artwork it looks like they've literaly pickedup PEs project and moved it forward with thier own engine and ideas, so its clear to me they have a path.

[Fluxion]

Now we come to the matter of game progression. Where to start? This idea of the "Everyone is going to be captain now"?... I'm hoping just a bad marketing ploy. But where to begin?

In my opinion, you have to allow everyone to be a captain. Only hardcore Trek-fans are interested in experiencing the dull (when compared with being the captain) climb up the ranks to starship command. The lowest common denominator of MMO player will not put up with being an Ensign grinding thru missions scrubbing the warp core injectors for long. That would translate into few subscribers and another failed MMO. As a hardcore fan myself, I want this game to be as complete and in-depth a translation of the Star Trek universe as possible. I want to feel like I'm living in this world. But I also want it to succeed financially so that it doesn't go the way of Earth & Beyond or Star Wars Galaxies (soon to be defunct). It deserves to have a subscriber base more akin to WoW, and less like EVE's.

[solutionine@gmail.com]

In my opinion, you have to allow everyone to be a captain. Only hardcore Trek-fans are interested in experiencing the dull (when compared with being the captain) climb up the ranks to starship command. The lowest common denominator of MMO player will not put up with being an Ensign grinding thru missions scrubbing the warp core injectors for long. That would translate into few subscribers and another failed MMO. As a hardcore fan myself, I want this game to be as complete and in-depth a translation of the Star Trek universe as possible. I want to feel like I'm living in this world. But I also want it to succeed financially so that it doesn't go the way of Earth & Beyond or Star Wars Galaxies (soon to be defunct). It deserves to have a subscriber base more akin to WoW, and less like EVE's.

See that's the problem. Making everyone captain from the get go is removing a core component of character progression: Starfleet Academy. Are you seriously telling me that you want to completely serious in the fact of skipping that whole "just starting out" experience? If that's the case you can just gtfo right now because you provide no benefit to the community and you are gravely mistaken.

Who would want to start out WoW as a max level character with 0 skills and abilities? That would suck worse than all get out, on top of the fact that you wouldn't even know why you are there. That is the point of starting at the bottom. To build your character and understand why your character has ended up where they are by endgame.

And to Yavin:
I'm not saying that cryptic bow to every whim of teh community, but just to not leave us out of the loop and consider what feedback that is given to them to improve on even a miniscule aspect of the game like a spatial anomaly being read by the sensors as... ketchup or something.

[Cyclone_Jack]

Sure there's your key areas...But don't stop there... there is so much more "ship" that can be shown.

I agree and disagree, if at all possible. This comes down to a time factor, really, and many of these 'filler areas' can be added post-launch. Yes, I think having a fully explorable ship where I can go from deck to deck and roam the corridors would be pretty cool, especially if these areas can be modified/customized (to an extent). At the same time, I don't really think it's necessary to find my way to the Waste Processing/Recycling Center or to the Navigation Deflector Control Room, at least not at launch.

You begin a new cadet, freshly entered into the academy.

This I like. The 'tutorial' if you would. Something to allow the player to experience the different avenues available to them. I could try out Engineering and find that it just doesn't suit my playstyle and then go try out being a Doctor or a Soldier (Security?). Would you make this a short single player experience, like Tabula Rasa, or have this as part of the MMO? I ask because I can see the 'Starbases' as the various 'Starting Zones', so to speak.

I'll have to add in a small 'lore breakage' in here though. In the case you and your buddies ended up on different Stations, there should be a 'fast travel' way of getting together, at least initially. No need to waste travel time so early in the game. Perhaps characters under a certain rank can speak to a specific individual to access transport to another Starbase. Again, this would allow new players the ability to check out the different Starbases to see which one they want to mark as 'home base' and give friends an easy way to get on the same page easily.

Away missions, PvP... (/sigh) and holodecks.
I see this as any number of combinations of combat, diplomacy, exploration, search and rescue, and more. Not everything is about combat and this would be one game where Charisma isn't a 'dump stat', lol. For combat, I see a combination of ranged (phasers) and melee, perhaps using a cover system. I doubt it will be an FPS, but something more along the lines of Tabula Rasa, though hopefully better done.

Ship Combat
I think this is a good vision. Here is where having real people manning their stations would give an advantage to those who are just using NPCs and soloing. PCs are always (ok, well, usually) better than NPCs. However, sometimes someone cannot log in to fill a role, and sometimes people just aren't in the mood to group, and NPCs fill this gap easily.

Changing roles/Commissions
Here's where it gets tricky. I see two sides. Side one says, allow player to change roles/archetypes by paying a fee. The fee pays for 'whatever training they needed to go through'. Side two says, a Tank cannot just become a Healer. That is, one that has played and learned how to be an Engineer cannot just click a button and know how to be a good TacOps. Side one is more casual friendly and adopts the path of MxO or SWG. Side two is more traditional and adopts the path of 'reroll if you want a different AT'.

There could, however, be a compromise. Allow a player to choose a Primary and Secondary role. One could train as an Engineer and also take up Medicine. This would allow the player to fill another role in a pinch. Since a player's Secondary role isn't as refined as their Primary role, they could be swapped out with a little more ease. Also, since a player has been training a bit in their Secondary role, it would be an easier transition to allow a player to take their Secondary role and make it their Primary role. This would allow the Engineer/Medic to become an Engineer/TacOps, work on some TacOps training and then ease into a TacOps/Engineer roll. It's a little more work on the part of the player, but makes more sense and eases the player into the role where they have some experience in such tasks.

[aaradun]

Interesting read,

Personally i don't think everyone should be able to fly ship. If done well, flying ship would require multiple people to operate (So that during a voyage people are require to do certian task depending on their class/skill).

The captain would be in a way the group leader, he would also need to fill a role in the ship (ideally one of the one on the decks. either navigation or in charge of weapons). Since really the captain other then being the diplomat and giving order doesn't do much on a ship.

The engineer would be the healer of the ship in a way, he is the one that is in charge of making sure the ships stays alive and that the guns have power.

The Comm officer, really not sure how that would fit in a MMO world per say, so that would be typically filled by a NPC in my mind (or the captain). Really, all they doing is listeing for chatter and transmitting orders/comms to other

The Navigator, he is the one in charge of well moving the boat around.

The Weapon Officer, well obvious he's the one that fire guns

The Science officer would be the one in charge of doing exploration while navigating, and during battle he would be the one typically that would try and find breach in other ship so that his team can exploit it (a debuffer of some sort).

Granted i don't think a ship needs all these poisition filled to fly, and should be filled with NPC when you can't crew a full ship. But when it's not filled by a player the position will not work as well.

But with all this said, i don't tink most people should ever captain a large size ship. At most they can captain smaller vesell, but to pilot the bigger one you will need a crew to activelly fly them.

To be honest i would rather play as a crew on an NPC ship, and be given mission by the captain or officers to do thinkgs on the ship or during away mission. It would make things more interesting to me at least at earlier level, eventually being able to fly a ship would be fun but that should be far down the road once you've raised in ranks a lot.

I'm curious to see how they plan on doing all this, i'm very exicited i can't wait. I used to have fun when i was running a mush based on star trek way back when, and hopeing to have that kind of fun again.

[misterglass]

I do agree the Community should have some say, but not any control.

I'm a big fan of Tabula Rasa. The devs talk to the community on a daily basis, so you know they listen. However they still do what they think is best. If there is a large uprising against a change, they don't back off but just work with the community to either make them understand it's for the best or work out why everyone hates it. Community feedback - any player control over the game = great

I have no idea what I want from this game. I know it went through lots of changes early in development, but I believe Cryptic can make a very fun game!


I think earlier they intended people to be a "crew." I had thought this idea eventually got scrapped because it's boring. As much as people love to do it, you don't get the excitement and thrill of being in command. EVE had a good progression from fighter to capital ship.
We'll have to see though. It's too late to change the gameplay I imagine as they're demoing it in a week!

[Fluxion]

See that's the problem. Making everyone captain from the get go is removing a core component of character progression: Starfleet Academy. Are you seriously telling me that you want to completely serious in the fact of skipping that whole "just starting out" experience? If that's the case you can just gtfo right now because you provide no benefit to the community and you are gravely mistaken.

Wow. Did you just tell me to GTFO? Just because my (politely stated) opinion is contrary to yours, you feel I "provide no benefit to the community?" :-) Okay man. Might want to think about ramping back on the caffeine there. :rolleyes:

Who would want to start out WoW as a max level character with 0 skills and abilities? That would suck worse than all get out, on top of the fact that you wouldn't even know why you are there. That is the point of starting at the bottom. To build your character and understand why your character has ended up where they are by endgame.


The problem I see here is that you're equating RANK (Captain, a title/position) with CHARACTER LEVEL. Character level is usually supposed to represent the character's relative experience and skill base in relation to the group of players as a whole. All RL captains are not equal in experience or skill. Therefore, in game terms, you can have "Level 1" captains, and "Level 70 captains. All the players start out in EVE and Pirates of the Burning Sea as CAPTAINS, with lots and lots of skill sets to master and "levels" to attain. It could work in a similar way in STO.

[RandomRedshirt]

In my opinion, you have to allow everyone to be a captain. Only hardcore Trek-fans are interested in experiencing the dull (when compared with being the captain) climb up the ranks to starship command. The lowest common denominator of MMO player will not put up with being an Ensign grinding thru missions scrubbing the warp core injectors for long. That would translate into few subscribers and another failed MMO. As a hardcore fan myself, I want this game to be as complete and in-depth a translation of the Star Trek universe as possible. I want to feel like I'm living in this world. But I also want it to succeed financially so that it doesn't go the way of Earth & Beyond or Star Wars Galaxies (soon to be defunct). It deserves to have a subscriber base more akin to WoW, and less like EVE's.

Not to sound harsh, but the simple solution to this issue is:

Don't make the game for the lowest common MMO denominator.

That might **** people off, but 2 things are assured that back up my idea:

1. Recent studies have show that for an MMO to be profitable, they only need 75,000 to 150,000 subscribers. I bet I could go a long ways towards filling up those 75,000 slots with people just off the boards, and a great many of them want the Starfleet experience like you and I, not a rehash of Legacy.

2. If production capital is a concern when having fewer subscribers, charge a bit more for the game! If I could be assured that I would get the game that my fleet and I want to play, that helps us live out our dream, but it's gonna cost me $80 to $100 bucks instead of $50 or less, I would gladly pay it. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Ok, let the flaming begin! :looks around for Dustnite:

[PhantomPhoton]

Not to sound harsh, but the simple solution to this issue is:

Don't make the game for the lowest common MMO denominator.

That might **** people off, but 2 things are assured that back up my idea::

+1
I can find carbon copy poor quality MMOs anywhere. For Star Trek the bar is set to a higher standard imho.