EVE and WoW sitting in a tree...

[Fluxion]

How to make STO one of the greatest successes in MMO history? It needs to be the love-child of EVE Online and World of Warcraft. If you take the best of both of what those two MMO's do right, you have the perfect model for one great STO game (IMHO).

What does EVE do right?


Beautiful to look at. Seriously gorgeous spacescapes and starship models.
Free-roaming format. You can go wherever you want. To any planet, space station, celestial body, etc. in a very gargantuan galaxy. The only thing that stops you is how dangerous the area is that you want to go to.
The ability to modify EVERYTHING. From the most simple starship system to a massive selection char skills, to a robust player-driven economy.
Space combat. Very well designed combat system/physics. Easy to learn, difficult to master (cliche alert!).


Throw in interiors, planet-side and station-based missions and you have a space-based game doing a lot of things right.

What does WoW do right? That's a very easy list to write:

It's fun. I know, I know, lots of folks are ready to argue this with me. But how can you argue with 10 million subscribers? People don't play it because Blizzard advertised it better than others, or because everyone was so in love with the property (if that were the guarantee of success, SWG would not be on the verge of cancellation). The truth is, there is a ton of things to do, the game caters (better than any other MMO to date) to as many different players and play-styles as possible. You can group, you can solo, you can PVP you can explore, you can craft, you can heal, you can dps, you can tank, you can stealth, you basically can do whatever is fun for you.
It's accessable. Both in it's learning-curve (EVE drops the ball there) and it's system requirements. That means not only do you have a large base of players that WANT to play the game, but players that CAN play the game.


I'm not saying STO should be a WoW clone, or even an EVE clone. I'm saying that if you take what those to games do so well and introduce them to each other, get them to start dating, get married and give birth to STO....well, you're going to have one damn successful kid there. :)

[Dustnite]

Beautiful to look at. Seriously gorgeous spacescapes and starship models.
Free-roaming format. You can go wherever you want. To any planet, space station, celestial body, etc. in a very gargantuan galaxy. The only thing that stops you is how dangerous the area is that you want to go to.
The ability to modify EVERYTHING. From the most simple starship system to a massive selection char skills, to a robust player-driven economy.
Space combat. Very well designed combat system/physics. Easy to learn, difficult to master (cliche alert!).



I agree with the comparison, although the combat in EvE online was one of the things I hated so much. It was just so shallow. Essentially I would set distance and it would autofire, yay..

I agree that they should take large chunks of EvE and inject them into STO except improve upon the leveling system and the combat system.

[TheDart]

I similarly agree with all of the EVE points save the one about the combat. I find EVE's combat really, really dull - it really just doesn't engage me enough. I don't feel like I'm participating in it. On the other hand, EVE is one of the rare games where you can say "I don't like the combat in this game. I'm going to ignore it." and your gameplay and advancement are in no way hindered.

SWG was like that, too, though I enjoyed its combat a lot, back in the old days. The lack of balance, while gamebreaking, was actually part of why SWG was so fun. Weird, I know, and THAT part shouldn't be repeated, but it was fantastic at the time. XD

I'm hoping the devs will be able to find ways to make all types of combat in STO engaging and exciting, whether it's you or your ship doing the fighting. As long as it isn't a case of point-click-wait, I'm happy.

[Cyjack]

Player driven economy games are garbage. They pretty much mandate that every other aspect of the game must be as punitive and fleeting as possible in order to contrive some sort of value to the "economy", so that players have some sort of value for their mundane production skills, which isn't even the fun part of the game. Making that one aspect viable, requires making all other aspects suck, and its *still* never balanced.

Its certainly not why anyone would pick up a Star Trek game to play. That works for Eve, but is nothing that I'd want to see in STO. I don't want to pay to work a second job in STO, I want an *adventure*.

[Dustnite]

Player driven economy games are garbage. They pretty much mandate that every other aspect of the game must be as punitive and fleeting as possible in order to contrive some sort of value to the "economy", so that players have some sort of value for their mundane production skills, which isn't even the fun part of the game. Making that one aspect viable, requires making all other aspects suck, and its *still* never balanced.

Its certainly not why anyone would pick up a Star Trek game to play. That works for Eve, but is nothing that I'd want to see in STO. I don't want to pay to work a second job in STO, I want an *adventure*.

That's true I probably wouldn't want to see a such a focus on player economy as in EvE. I was actually thinking more of movement, exploration, and way it was coded.

[Ziana]

Every game that has come before has done some things right, and had some things that could be improved on.

WoW didn't pop out of nowhere. Blizzard looked at Everquest, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Ultima Online and all the other major MMOs to get ideas. They took the best elements of each, and polished and improved them in the way that they're so good at (which is why they're the top game development studio in the world).

Cryptic or any other game developer would be foolish not to do the same thing. See what works, what people enjoy, take those, and make them even better.

[J.L.Picard]

STO needs to stay the hell away from anything EvE. They had the perfect approach to things in the last ingame screen pic(the one with the ship orbiting a planet and the com menu open and talking to some alien) EvE took modern sea warfare and put it in space which i found really bad, the research took literally months to get through and it was only made worse by the limited amount of things you could research at any one time. STO needs its own approach that works for the STO universe and it has to feel like ST.

[Daggaroth]

another thing that eve online does right is it appeals both to the hard core gamers and the casual gamers by allowing your skills to continue to train even when you are not online.

people who have a busy life dont always have time to sit and play a computer game for 10 - 24 hours a day and as a result they loose intrest in games that require constant grinding

eve online allows you to train when your offline but it also requires you to buy the skill books which means you need to log on and make money to continue your progression

[J.L.Picard]

BNooks are for androids Teachers are for humaoids.

[dsteele7]

I completely understand where you're coming from here and frankly I hope to see them also inject a similar level of customization and innovation as was seen in their first project (correct me if I'm wrong), City of Heroes. Sure, at first it had it's quirks, but what game doesn't? As someone that has played on and off the CoX franchise since just after CoH Beta and was in the CoV beta as well and someone that has played WoW for a few years, I really have to say that I'm happy to see Cryptic as the Devs for this game!

If you look at CoH/CoV from day one to just before the sell to NCSoft I have to say Cryptic has proven it's good with its game communities and also willing to learn and change things!

Overall I'm excited.

[Envaris]

Player driven economy games are garbage. They pretty much mandate that every other aspect of the game must be as punitive and fleeting as possible in order to contrive some sort of value to the "economy", so that players have some sort of value for their mundane production skills, which isn't even the fun part of the game. Making that one aspect viable, requires making all other aspects suck, and its *still* never balanced.

Its certainly not why anyone would pick up a Star Trek game to play. That works for Eve, but is nothing that I'd want to see in STO. I don't want to pay to work a second job in STO, I want an *adventure*.

I honestly really like EVE's player driven economy. But that's more a personal taste. I get a thrill from watching a simulated market behave so much like the real ones. However, being a Star Trek fan I don't think the economy (if any) should have any central role in the game. Star Trek (in all it's series) never deals with questions of economic growth (except when the Berlin Wall fell down). So why should the game? In the Star Trek universe at least mankind has everything they need to meet all their needs. The joy of discovery and growth is what drives mankind.

[incardine]

That's true I probably wouldn't want to see a such a focus on player economy as in EvE. I was actually thinking more of movement, exploration, and way it was coded.


If I recally my Trek Trivia, the Federation is a post-monetary economy. They have evolved beyond the use of money.

Most material needs are easily satisfied through the use of Replicators.

In a Trek novel I read about Bajor, it mentioned how trade is primarily concerned with commerse with hard-to-replicate items, industrial goods for colonies, and luxury/handmade items.

With matter/anti-matter generators and Dilithium crystals, power seems limitless and practically free.

Just what will players be actually crafting?

Maybe we will make Replicator patterns?

[Intrepid]

Intrigueing idea that you have brought up incardine. People creating replicator patterns seams like a good idea for a craft. Of course there must be other crafts. You cant just replicate an entire ship. So perhaps engineering or assembling or something of the sort that can take replicated parts and make something out of them.

As with other people, I also do not believe the market/economy should take precedence over other gameplay such as exploration.

[Dext]

if they make this game at all like wow it would not be worth playing

[AdmiralHocking]

What does EVE do right?


Beautiful to look at. Seriously gorgeous spacescapes and starship models.
Free-roaming format. You can go wherever you want. To any planet, space station, celestial body, etc. in a very gargantuan galaxy. The only thing that stops you is how dangerous the area is that you want to go to.
The ability to modify EVERYTHING. From the most simple starship system to a massive selection char skills, to a robust player-driven economy.
Space combat. Very well designed combat system/physics. Easy to learn, difficult to master (cliche alert!).


Throw in interiors, planet-side and station-based missions and you have a space-based game doing a lot of things right.

I agree with most of the points about EVE Online, although I personally thought the combat was extremely boring. As someone already said in this thread, all you do is sit X Kilometers away from your target, click a button and watch your ship automatically blow the target up.

Combat in STO would need to be closer to that of Bridge Commander IMO, although not quite so much single player driven.


They had the perfect approach to things in the last ingame screen pic(the one with the ship orbiting a planet and the com menu open and talking to some alien)

You mean that screenshot of; Pokemon: World of Spacecraft?

if they make this game at all like wow it would not be worth playing

Having played (and quit) World of Warcraft I would have to agree - I found the game fun at first, however it became extremely repetitive and boring.

All the quests consisted of go over there and kill X many of those creatures, then travel across the map, do it again and come back to me in an hour. Or kill so many of these ugly green things until one of them drops a diamond, take that diamond across the map - then come back to me an hour later.

I think STO should take a leaf from the likes of "Deep Space Nine: The Fallen" in terms of it's foot based gameplay.

[MillerEP]

I think that they'll miss out a HUGE oppurtunity and a lot of people if they don't make it a bit more savage and pvp focused. You can only run the same instance over and over before you start to loose interest. Which brings me to another point....Please don't make it heavily instance based, I wanna be able to zoom by other ships and see them from my viewscreen, not always be running single player instances.

[Signalsgt]

If I recally my Trek Trivia, the Federation is a post-monetary economy. They have evolved beyond the use of money.

Most material needs are easily satisfied through the use of Replicators.

In a Trek novel I read about Bajor, it mentioned how trade is primarily concerned with commerse with hard-to-replicate items, industrial goods for colonies, and luxury/handmade items.

With matter/anti-matter generators and Dilithium crystals, power seems limitless and practically free.

Just what will players be actually crafting?

Maybe we will make Replicator patterns?

Replicate parts, craft finish items would be my bet.

You can replicate the pieces of a widget, but it still takes a human to put it together correctly.

[Zizi]

If I recally my Trek Trivia, the Federation is a post-monetary economy. They have evolved beyond the use of money.

This is actually a misleading point that has always bugged me, because while much has been made of "we don't have money in the Federation", it's not really the case. Commerce still happens, people still sell and buy things in shops, and so on-- we see it all the time. On several occasions, if I'm remembering correctly, 'credits' are referenced throughout Trek, and while that has a nice sound as if it isn't money, that's exactly what it is anyway. What the Federation doesn't have is currency, and specifically hard currency, as all transactions are handled electronically rather than through passing physical bills and coins back and forth(latinum being more of an external thing in dealing with other cultures than something the Federation uses internally). But money's still there, whatever the dialogue claims.

Most material needs are easily satisfied through the use of Replicators.

In a Trek novel I read about Bajor, it mentioned how trade is primarily concerned with commerse with hard-to-replicate items, industrial goods for colonies, and luxury/handmade items.

With matter/anti-matter generators and Dilithium crystals, power seems limitless and practically free.

Just what will players be actually crafting?

Maybe we will make Replicator patterns?

Despite this, there's a wide berth of things that are NOT replicated and still preferred that way. Engineers are constantly seen hand-assembling things, if from replicated components, rather than simply replicating the entire item in-situ. Some things are just preferred non-replicated(Picard at one point states a preference for non-replicated Earl Grey, for instance, Wines are still made in vineyards, Garek still hand-tailors clothing, and so on). Some things just don't replicate, the most notable of those probably being Dilithium, which must be mined or similar. And then you get into large things, like starships, which are simply too large to replicate(the TNG technical manual has a footnote discussing this about a dozen pages in, where they suggest that small things are simple to replicate, but the energy cost rises exponentially as size gets larger).

The point is, if you really take a close look at the shows... there's a wealth of opportunity for crafting options beyond replicator patterns, even without getting terribly creative about it.

[JoeCold]

I agree with OP in general concept, if not all the particular bullet points. Another poster made a good point about Blizzard "borrowing" bits and pieces of all that had come before WoW. Also a good point.

I'd like to add two points to this:

1) Cryptic has done an excellent job of targeting the niche gamer - focusing and expanding upon an element of the mainstream and centering a game on it. It is a strategy that does not allow for the mass subscriber base of a WoW, but a very loyal subscriber base that remains relatively constant for years. I do not know if that is there intent with STO, but the point is they may not choose to grab pieces of many other successful games. Rather, they may choose to take an element that fits into the Star Trek concept well and focus the entire game around that.

2) The Star Trek universe is uniquely suited to a sci-fi RvR MMO. It has such well firmly established races and conflicts. I seriously doubt they will take it in that direction as it would be a complete re-design from what they purchased, but I think it could be great.

[Sinclair]

I agree with the opening poster.

If EVE was renamed STO and given Trek ship models it would likely grow subscriptions 100 times over.

Add in the ability to have an Avatar other than a ship, go on away missions, control ships a little more intimately, and maybe even walk around on ships,, then STO would be the one Trek game to rule them all.

[Ric_Adbur]

That's true I probably wouldn't want to see a such a focus on player economy as in EvE. I was actually thinking more of movement, exploration, and way it was coded.

Right. Player Economy should be the lowest priority of this game. The Federation has long since done away with currency. They work to better themselves and the Federation. If there is an economy, it should be nothing more than a barter system to trade one piece of loot for another.

For the other races, though, I cannot speak. I don't know whether or not the Klingons and other major powers still use money, but I suspect they might.

Either way, Star Trek's focus is on issues of morality, exploration, and cooperation. You shouldn't have to worry whether or not you can buy the equipment you need. It shouldn't be that kind of game.

[Elvyne]

Problem is, wow is not fun. It is a boring grind fest of a game. Players stick to it cuz its so simple. It is so dumbed down anyone can play it with ease and little effort. that is wow and that is why people stick to it.

Also i dont consider Blizzard to be the top gaming company of the world, Square Enix is still better then them and so are several others. However they are in the top 5 atleast.

To make STO succesfull is to strive away from a dumbed down version atleast (keeps the kiddies away)

and ofcourse make it huge. Startrek's universe always has been huge and thus reflecting that in the game is something that needs to be done. But I like the customisable things from eve and everything else you could do with it. like the Op said. wich could be extremely fun in the game thats called STO.

but stay away from WoW. Dont copy anything from them. not even 1 rep grind quest seriously.