Star Trek

So far the way I hear it is that everyone is going to have to be Starfleet.  I'm calling it right now that if this is the case, STO will (unfortunately) bomb.  I think that they should follow the example of World of Warcraft and have opposing factions that you can choose from.  For instance:

1.  If you choose Starfleet, you can 'duke it out' with the Romulans or Cardassians.

2.  If you choose Romulans, you can fight against Klingons, Starfleet, Cardassians, Bajorans (really anybody 'cause Romulans don't like any1 else, right?)

3.  Ferengi missions can be geared more towards merchant marine or smuggling.

4.  Klingons would be able to fight off renegade Cardassians, expansionist Romulans or track down Ferengi smugglers.

5.  Everybody could fight the Borg.  Or run away.  Come to think of it, run away seems a more likely option!!

My point being this:  limiting our options as gamers (and Trek fans) to just Starfleet will make the game pretty weak.  If I have to go out and buy expansions like they're talking about just to give the game the depth it should have in the first place, it seems a little to profit-driven for me.  

Anyway, the true PvP option in an MMO is what gives a game that extra pizazz, whether you like to constantly run with your flag up or not, its pretty cool to know that 'these' are my allies and 'those' are the bad guys and we're all actual players not some mindless automaton pc controlled characters.  

Anyway, thats all I got.  Comment away if you like, I am done.

I believe that as a minimum at the start, you should have the option of being Starfleet or a civilian, assuming that only a Federation point of view will be available initially. There needs to be a conflict point between players in the game, not just against some unknown threat. I don't think anyone proposes having mutinous crews phasering each other all over the place (Mirror universe, anyone?) but there are numerous examples in the series where pirates, criminals, and civilians have come into conflict with the main characters.

Being a civilian should open up a number of interesting possibilities. This could be the area where those looking for PvP action thrive. As a criminal, you are under constant threat of being identified by a scanner or security person while on a planet or base, or in space, being run down by a Starfleet vessel and arrested. The risks are very high for this sort of job but so might be the rewards. Perhaps you can be like a Ferengi and trade your information to the Federation for a price. Perhaps you can try to steal the information you need to succeed elsewhere. The "rogue" is a part of Star Trek culture as much as Starfleet is. Why not have them?

You have to remember this too, PE is trying to get a very huge universe within Star Trek, put out as a playable game. They picked to go Starfleet at launch, just to get the core game up and running, as far as the factions go, they will come in the form of expansions.

But nothing is set in stone right now, as we have seen with a few changes here and there, so we might see factions within Star Fleet at launch. Anyone remember the Marque?

The PE DEVs are shown they are listening to the ideas on PvP in STO, and have shown they are working on something the will happened outside of the Holo Decks. One thing that comes to mind is what happened between Kirk and Khan in the second movie, you had two federation ships, but one was taken over by a Pirate type, and you know what happened next.

I am not saying I know what is going on, but all I am saying is lets give them a chance.

It would help if they had their website up and running, at least it would be a focus point for ideas and thoughts between the fans and the DEV team.

Originally it was the plan to have at the very least s small privateer aspect to the game, that was scrapped. Klingons are due to get their own faction in an expansion pack or post-launch publish.
However, Perpetual have hinted that we will have 'real' PVP. It has not been revealed how, only that we will. There is some connection to that and the 'mini factions' within starfleet. The factions ranging from those more paranoid of invasion and those much more traditional (From a Star Trek perspective) in their peaceful, optimistic outlook. Real PVP as opposed to holodeck PVP. I don't know that lack of PVP could break any game called 'Star Trek Online'. I think the days of the old MMOGs relying on this to entertain a significant amount of the playerbase are coming to an end. I hope they are, because PVP is only of dire interest to a minority of players as their first choice, most else would do most anything else given a decent alternative. RPG combat with players is not all that enjoyable.
In any case, given all of STO's missions will be hand-crafted and that Klingons are so amazing different, it makes the game hard to produce. If you have them, it could only be them. Development was already delayed.
Also, splitting the playerbase into too many factions makes it a purely combat-centric game to me.

Factions

I personally hate being ganked by enemy players. But it does add that extra caution you need to heed, while preforming on your quest/mission.

The important point to this to me is that the player opposition shouldn't be there just to "gank" you because you're there. There needs to be a fully-developed reason for you being an opposing player character, not just there to be a griefer. In fact, I think there needs to be substantial risks and penalties associated with being in the "griefer" class as opposed to being the enemy opposition (like the Romulans, etc.).

Sad as it is to say this, it's a fact that the anarchists and wannabe-mass murderers among us enjoy ruining the online gaming experience enough for everyone that their effect on the game outweighs their numbers. Everyone has played a game where a few people have totally destroyed the game by their anti-social behavior. Either the game structure or the game developers/management won't allow any type of control for fear of losing revenue. My vote in this regard is to have that control. The Federation is governed by rule of law, not anarchy. Starfleet even more so. The heavy hand of Federation or Starfleet Security should hit any offenders like a ton of bricks, and depending on the offense, cart you away for "re-education".

Guess why there's so little overt violent criminal behavior in the Federation as we know it? When security forces can identify your very DNA with a tricorder, track your every movement, and use transporters to put you in a security cell instantly, there's just no incentive for it. Sure, there are countermeasures to all that, but that draws even more unwelcome attention to yourself by the fact of having it.

I can't see having a major criminal element inside the Federation, outside of the already-existing cartels (Orions, etc.) These generally keep well under the radar and avoid overt violence but they do have their place. My vote is for fleshing out the other opposition races, but I realize you can only do so much at game start. Get the game mechanics working then start the race expansions as soon as possible, otherwise we'll have expert Federation players going up against rookie-level enemies for some time.

Quote (GreenIce @ July 31 2006, 12:06 pm)

Perpetual have hinted that we will have 'real' PVP. It has not been revealed how, only that we will.

I think they said it would be done through the holodeck.  I think....

Quote (Alan69 @ Aug. 02 2006, 9:27 am)

Quote (GreenIce @ July 31 2006, 12:06 pm) Perpetual have hinted that we will have 'real' PVP. It has not been revealed how, only that we will. I think they said it would be done through the holodeck.  I think....

Quote (GreenIce @ July 31 2006, 12:06 pm)

However, Perpetual have hinted that we will have 'real' PVP. It has not been revealed how, only that we will. There is some connection to that and the 'mini factions' within starfleet. The factions ranging from those more paranoid of invasion and those much more traditional (From a Star Trek perspective) in their peaceful, optimistic outlook. Real PVP as opposed to holodeck PVP.

Thus why I added that, holodeck pvp has always been in design, but recently they said 'real pvp' would be present. http://boards.startrek.com/communi....9;st=15
You can find Glen's post on it as the 9th post on that page.

Quote (Perpetual_Glen @ May 11 2006, 1:00 pm)

There's no new focus on PvP; we merely recognize that many people want to engage in some form of PvP and want it to be "real" (i.e. not in the holodeck).  While the holodeck will provide some casual matches, we've got something more "solid" in the works that still jibes with Trek and is definitely an evolutionary step up.  That said, our focus is still on creating a deep, compelling, cooperative, PvE experience. More in time.

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If I have to go out and buy expansions like they're talking about just to give the game the depth it should have in the first place, it seems a little to profit-driven for me. ¿

I hope you know that there has to be a reasonable limit to both time and money they could dedicate to build content. While yeah it would be nice to have the alpha beta gamma delta quadrants in, all major races with their own worlds and specific race content, full pvp faction war between all those major sides, they just don't have the money and more importantly time to implement all that in one go, meanwhile not earning one dime from customers for all that work. They are first building the core game focused on the Federation, like most of the series have done, and then will build around that.


I hope you guys know that there have been games designed with no pvp in mind and basically one sided pve and been successful. I'll toss out one of the more successful ones, Everquest. Don't think that a game HAS to have pvp in order to be successful, because almost half of WoW's servers are also PvE. Also I don't think pvp is as big of a deal as most people may think, even the pvper's like spending a good deal of time in pve content earning new toys to play with.

Now did having two factions in WoW contribute to it's success? Sure it did. But I don't think it's something that will hurt STO. Besides of which STO will probably have faction pvping eventually anyways with the expansions. I also think that the type of customers STO draws will be a slightly different from WoW crowd. Many Star Trek fans/gamers are also more interested in other aspects of Star Trek such as diplomacy/trading/exploring rather than all out combat that a lot of WoW fans have been breed on from years of playing blizzard's other combat filled strategy games on battle.net

I think STO can be successful at launch with only the Federation side to play. What will dictate this will be how well they build the game systems and content, it's gotta be fun and stable to draw players in.

Keep in mind WoW's factions are basically carbon copies. WoW also relies on traditional MMOG quests. Deliver, kill 400 rats etc. Like I said above, if your prime motive for player interaction is to fight them, wouldn't it be a waste? The problem is, they can't really do another faction and take months with it whilst ignoring the game, if you have a team making this content for months you need returns on it. Hopefull it won't be very expensive.
MMOGs like this are very new (Only example remotely like STO is Earth and Beyond, now defunct) and EQ clones are very old. Making this to making WoW is much harder.

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Keep in mind WoW's factions are basically carbon copies.

Yup, and that's the other problem faced with trying to build multiple factions in the given time. Would it be acceptable to run into a cave on Kronos only to see the same cave over on Romulus with basically the same quests different wording/item collect on both sides? All of WoW's starting areas are basically copycat areas, and later on in the game the sides tend to merge and hunt in the same areas. That's not exactly possible in Star Trek unless you populate the neutral zone with content, or have the sides on the same side. I think when it's all said and done, people will be happier having distinct sides to play, we'll just have to wait to experience it.

E&B was a good game, needed a tad bit more work to make it great, it's too bad they had EA(the destroyer of game franchises/studios) behind them.

When was the last time the Federation got into a long war where open engagement was the rule?

Even if there were opposing factions, the rules of engagement for the starfleet players would be appaling

This would be extremely hard to do.

With WoW, the horde and alliance are differnt. but the same. Neither side can overpower.

With star trek.... starfleet vs borg or carrdassians... it would be hell.
i so wish it could happen

but there so differnt it would take months to years to competely balance the class.