STO developers sued for fraud

[Jessop]

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/15616

^Looks like some naughty stuff has been going down at Perpetual Entertainment. WIll this game see the light of day? Doubt it.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It's just a filed complaint. We'll see what we'll see.

 

[Jessop]

a complaint filed from a very reputable company within the gaming industry which point for point matches some very mysterious goings on at Perpetual Entertainment since October. Perpetual pissed away 9 million dollars of one investor's money and is struggling to secure more for STO. They don't even have a publisher yet. With this accusation and case hanging around their neck, things aren't looking good.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

This could be the end of STO. If the title gets ensnared in a messy court case, it could be tied up for years, at which point it would be obselete before ever being released.

 

[Rat Boy]

It's dead, Jim.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Jessop said:
a complaint filed from a very reputable company within the gaming industry which point for point matches some very mysterious goings on at Perpetual Entertainment since October.

Well, then, let's just dispense with the court and git th' rope - shall we?

 

[CaptJimboJones]

North Pole-aris said:

Jessop said:
a complaint filed from a very reputable company within the gaming industry which point for point matches some very mysterious goings on at Perpetual Entertainment since October.

Well, then, let's just dispense with the court and git th' rope - shall we?

Since when was it decreed that people can't speculate about the status of a video game? "Innocent before proven guilty" applies to the court system, not to public discourse. :thumbsup:

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

CaptJimboJones said:
"Innocent before proven guilty" applies to the court system, not to public discourse.

The ability and willingness to distinguish between allegation and fact is a good idea for everyone, all the time.

 

[ChessMess]

The released an interview that includes a screenshot featuring the third person aspect of the game.

As always info is at: http://startrek-games.com

 

[CaptJimboJones]

North Pole-aris said:

CaptJimboJones said:
"Innocent before proven guilty" applies to the court system, not to public discourse.

The ability and willingness to distinguish between allegation and fact is a good idea for everyone, all the time.

That's true, of course, and indeed is good advice. But given the events surrounding this game, it doesn't seem unreasonable to speculate that perhaps all is not well in the ST:O world.

Hey, I hope I'm wrong. Trek desperately needs a successful, great game after the failure of Legacy.

 

[CommodoreKong]

The current Penny Arcade comic is about Star Trek Online.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I guess it wouldn't be Star Trek without some kind of drama about whether it will be produced. So maybe it is a sign that things are normal. I read the material though (the stories not the court papers), and they (Perpetual) definetly have a Ferengi or two on their ass.
I think this Star Trek Online idea will be successful if they can pull it off in a fairly decent manner. (Fan modders will do the rest) Online games' success is derived from their communities, so I think it may be a strong, perennial hit. We've seen Shatner doing a WoW ad - case in point! As long as they make it mod-able to a high degree. The easier it is to mod, the longer it will stay strong.
Even if Perpetual has to bite a bullet, as it appears they may deserve, if they can pull through this and get STO out, they will have perpetual $$$ for some time.
Hell, even Legacy, with its problems, was largely ironed out by the fans, and its a fun, challenging game now with the worst of its gremlins modded out.
STO will be big, I think.

 

[CommodoreKong]

^I don't play MMOs so I'm not 100% sure about this, but I don't think you can mod them aside from simple mods that don't affect the game world or other players.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I don't play MMO's much, either, so I may just be releasing gas.
Neverwinter Nights is pretty well known for its scenario editor. The sequel, NWN2, I have played through, and tinkered with its editor.

For Trek, the element I haven't seen in a long time, if ever, is fun exploration. Something that embodies the "5-year mission". Similar to how the great Starflight was. I don't know if there was ever a better Trek-ish game than that.

 

[Ronald Held]

I am unfamilar with Starflight. can you explain more about it?
I agree that there has been too little explorations in some recent games.

 

[webb3201]

MMO games are not open to modifications of gameplay as a standard game would be. You have to have a consistent player experience across an entire subscriber base and that requires tight controls. The only things you can mod are typically User Interfaces.

As to this game in particular, the costs of kicking off a successful MMORPG are huge, not only in developing the game, but in the supporting infrastructure. It would seem doubtful that this one has a chance to be a big hit without some major backing at this point. In fact, I suspect this one will not even hit the market.

To be successful in the MMORPG world (World of Warcraft like success), you have to be able to interest a huge number of players. I just dont see Trek being able to do that. Look at games like LOTR Online, and Star Wars Galaxies which are both underperforming titles. Both seemed to have a large interested fanbase, both had some strong starting succes, and both have medicore market share.

I would much rather have a great 4x game in the Trek universe than mess with this.

 

[ktanner3]

webb3201 said:
MMO games are not open to modifications of gameplay as a standard game would be. You have to have a consistent player experience across an entire subscriber base and that requires tight controls. The only things you can mod are typically User Interfaces.

As to this game in particular, the costs of kicking off a successful MMORPG are huge, not only in developing the game, but in the supporting infrastructure. It would seem doubtful that this one has a chance to be a big hit without some major backing at this point. In fact, I suspect this one will not even hit the market.

To be successful in the MMORPG world (World of Warcraft like success), you have to be able to interest a huge number of players. I just dont see Trek being able to do that. Look at games like LOTR Online, and Star Wars Galaxies which are both underperforming titles. Both seemed to have a large interested fanbase, both had some strong starting succes, and both have medicore market share.

I would much rather have a great 4x game in the Trek universe than mess with this.

Don't know about the situation with LOTR. But SWG failed because of the business practices of SOE. They released the game unfinished with millions of buggy missions and lag.They completely changed the game twice in the two years I played,so you had to keep relearning the interface all over again. It was always laggy,so big huge battles like you saw in the movies were impossible. Every six months or so they would completely make your weapons weaker,so all that work done to aquire it was flushed down the tubes.And probably their biggest sin was the jedi system they implemented for a game that was supposed to be set during Episode 4. It basically went from a mature game and community to the "uber ain't it cool crowd" to ruin the GCW with hundreds of lightsabers, thus turning the Galactic Civil war into the Jedi/Sith war.Had it been left alone and not constantly changed all the time, SWG would have been much bigger than WOW.

 

[IDIC]

I have said from the beginning when I found out that a little no name company was developing it that I seriously doubted it would go live. They couldnt get Gods and Heroes to work and that was their own intellectual property. How can we expect them to get a much more massive game to work.

Anyway, I am going to expect the worse so I will not be disappointed when I find out that it has been canned.

 

[CaptainStoner]

Ronald Held said:
I am unfamilar with Starflight. can you explain more about it?
I agree that there has been too little explorations in some recent games.

Sent a PM on that. This game, Starflight, is probably the best PC game ever made. Modern graphics can't touch the gameplay of this monster. If I remember the back package, 270 star systems with more than 500 planets...on two 360k 5 1/4" floppies!!!
There was also Starflight 2, a close sequel. Not quite the magic of the original.
Protostar was an attempt by the authors at Starflight 3, but it lacked the charm.
A modern Starflight 3 fan project has long been stalled.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

And lets not forget that code wheel, which could be used a pizza tray.