And I think a number of Eric's quotes really explain what was going on at at Perpetual and eventually Cryptic.
Purists want a game that meets this requirement, but your average WoW player would be pretty disappointed by a game without loot, money, trading, and auction houses.
... the universe works pretty differently in each show, and you can only understand the big picture of Star Trek by taking every show into account. But they don’t want you to do that. (e.g., “Don’t use Voyager episodes as canon, that show ruined Star Trek!”) In other words, it’s basically impossible to make all Star Trek fans happy, or even a majority of them.
"A lot of people get seasick when navigating in 3D. It’s one of the things they teach you in any gaming school. Cryptic had to know this. So they made a very specific choice: “Fuck those guys! We’re making a 3D space game for the nerds who like epic space battles.”
"In order to do Star Trek right, you need to make two games in one. You need to make a space game and a ground game. This means Star Trek is a “double game.” What’s Star Trek without space battles? What’s Star Trek without away teams exploring strange new worlds? You need both. This is almost impossible to pull off, especially by a team that doesn’t have a stable engine to work from."
You can actually "hear" it. Eric I am sure is a great designer, but he and cryptic suffered from being way too "in the box".
Eric and Cryptic both came at it by trying to make ST fit into a specific MMO game paradigm rather than making a ST game.
They discussed the issues that should be different in a ST MMO, and then rationalized why they should not be different.
The development team listened to fans and beta testers. Then ignored anything they had to say that wasn't simply cosmetic - basically on the premise that they could never satisfy the enthusiasts - just like Eric said. So they copped out. There seemed to always be excuses.
They made assumptions (just like Eric) about what kind of games people wanted to play versus what kind of game ST folk wanted to play. They very much wanted to aim for non-ST gamers because they felt they needed them. But they also wanted ST fans. They obviously hadn't seen a Venn diagram.
The engine was not the right one to use - and I would be kind to Cryptic on this had they not volunteered to do the job. They should have licensed another.
Some on the development team had never really watched ST and none of them had seen all of the versions much less every episode. They were not trekkies. They openly made that clear and set about seeing every episode (a credit to them).
To cryptic's credit, they accomplished about 4 years worth of work in 2 - but the rollout was really really bad. The game went gold before it was complete. Cryptic's response as I recall was that was normal for MMO's - which evolve. But the PVE was flat and unrewarding and the PVP was under-developed. It was a huge turn off for many early players and many left and didn't come back.
Eric and Cryptic both came at it like they were making ST fit into a specific game paradigm they had been taught. They were trying to follow aspects of EVE and WoW (while denying it - maybe even to themselves) that make a "popular game". But you know what? EVE and WoW were successes, not because they followed the proper game development paradigm, but because the didn't - they actually established paradigms. Nowhere was that type of attitude needed more than in the development of STO. They boldly went where everyone had gone before - and where many had failed before.
In the end, STO is a decent space game. It looks like ST. They got the cosmetics right. But unless they made huge and dramatic changes in the last 2 years, it doesn't feel like ST and didn't from the beginning. The space combat is simplistic and lacks strategy and drama - it's basically an arcade game. That may be "fun" - but it is not Star Trek. Star Wars maybe - not ST. The ground interactions improved dramatically, but they don't evolve and the balance was off.
Anyways, that my review. I know come folks really like STO - and they should continue to. It's obviously fun for some. It is certainly pretty. But I hope if there is ever another multiplayer ST game, it's done by a group that is more indoctrinated into ST and less into following rules about gaming development that were established by those that succeed by not following them. The next multiplayer ST game?:
- The feel first, the look second.
- Don't do what "they" did. They already did it.
- Be bold or be gone - make the game fit ST, not ST fit the game.
- Hire trekkies as consultants (and keep a lot of salt in your pocket).
- Sweat the big stuff - Let the players deal with the ST philosophy, but capture the "function" of the ST universe (you can have an economy - just not one based on money).
- Don't be afraid to make the players think and work. STO = FAIL here.
- Play SFB and other/similar games a year before you really nail down the game outline.
- Pick an era - an early one - and then evolve forward, not just outward.
