The next Star Trek MMORPG: Another Epic Fail?

[Barrister]

Is there a crafting system in this game?

Supposedly, but I've seen few details.

I think it involves taking peices of random alien stuff you find and fixing them up into components for this or that.

[Tamas]

So, cruiser is tank, escort is support, science is what?

Or cruiser is DPS, escort is tank?

[Barrister]

Cruiser is tank, escort is DPS, science is... support.

I'm a little fuzzy on science.  I think it has (depending on ship and your own build) debuff and maybe healing capabilities.

[Grey Fox]

In beta I'll try all of them.

In Live, Tank probably.

[Berkut]

Sigh, the more I hear about this, the more I suspect it will end up as WoW in space.

Tank? Are you kidding me?

I don't recall ships healing each other in any ST I have ever seen.

[Tamas]

For me it'll depend on how much beta lags. If not, tank, if yes, support.

[Tamas]

Sigh, the more I hear about this, the more I suspect it will end up as WoW in space.

Tank? Are you kidding me?

Well, hopefully its just player skills, and not that a cruiser will have less DPS than a frigate, for example

[Barrister]

Sigh, the more I hear about this, the more I suspect it will end up as WoW in space.

Tank? Are you kidding me?

I don't recall ships healing each other in any ST I have ever seen.

It *is* going to be a lot like WoW in space.  They are setting out to make a MMO, and are following a lot of the most successful modes of doing so.

For tank and DPS the model works pretty well for ship combat.  The Cuiser/Tank (think Enterprise D) is a very large, tough ship that attracts a lot of attention and can take a lot of damage.  The Escort/DPS (think Defiant) is smaller and can't take as much damage, but can dish out a ton.

As I said I'm a little fuzzy on the exact abilities of a science-type vessel (think Voyager).  I know they can have tractor beams (slow enemy ships), can detect cloaked ships, can maybe cut through/lower enemy shields.  I'm not sure they have any "healing" capability, but that could make sense in ST.  Perhaps it's a "sheild regenerating field", or they can beam engineers over to assist in repairing ship systems.

It's confusing though since STO doesn't have exact 'classes', and is much more a skill-based game, so you can have all kinds of different combinations.  There are classes of ships, but even that can greatly change based on the captain, the bridge officers, and the subsystems installed.

[Berkut]

Sigh, the more I hear about this, the more I suspect it will end up as WoW in space.

Tank? Are you kidding me?

Well, hopefully its just player skills, and not that a cruiser will have less DPS than a frigate, for example

Why can't an MMO shake up the tank/healer/dps/buff/debuff paradigm? More importantly, why can't they ditch the basic strategy in every single MMO-type game of concentration of fire that leads to that paradigm?

Every single game boils down to getting the "bad guys" to focus on one target, and then keeping that target alive while everyone else kills the bad guys. BORING!

I would much rather see specialization in a very different way, especially in a space combat game. There needs to be some reason to not focus fire, for one. Declining damage as multiple targets engage the same target, due to sensor interference or something?

Specialization is good - tank/dps/healer specialization is tired.

[grumbler]

   1. Acastus
   2. Admetus
   3. Aethalides
   4. Amphion
   5. Ancaeus
   6. Argus
   7. Ascalaphus
   8. Atalanta
   9. Autolycus
  10. Bellerophon
  11. Butes
  12. Calais
  13. Canthus
  14. Castor
  15. Cytissorus
  16. Echion
  17. Erginus
  18. Euphemus
  19. Euryalus
  20. Heracles/Hercules
  21. Hylas
  22. Idas
  23. Idmon
  24. Iolaus
  25. Iphitos
  26. Jason
  27. Laertes
  28. Laocoon
  29. Lynceus
  30. Medea
  31. Melas
  32. Meleager
  33. Mopsus
  34. Nestor
  35. Oileus
  36. Orpheus
  37. Palaemon
  38. Palaimonius
  39. Peleus
  40. Philoctetes
  41. Phrontis
  42. Poeas
  43. Polydeuces (or Pollux)
  44. Polyphemos
  45. Poriclymenus
  46. Talaus
  47. Telamon
  48. Theseus
  49. Tiphys
  50. Zetes

These were the Argonauts.  There are some acceptable-or-better names there.  Argonaut is itself a great name, of course, but will be taken.

[Syt]

Argos would be more appropriate, though.

[Barrister]

Why can't an MMO shake up the tank/healer/dps/buff/debuff paradigm? More importantly, why can't they ditch the basic strategy in every single MMO-type game of concentration of fire that leads to that paradigm?

While I agree with you it'd be nice to see an entirely different paradigm, it'd be rather hard to do.  And it's very unlikely on a "AAA" title, with what is likely a very expensive license for the Star Trek name.  The problem with trying something completely new is it very often fails, whereas by following the tried and true you increase your chances of the game being "fun", even if derivative.

You have to look at smaller more independent companies to come up with the innovative new concepts.  It's not going to be a Star Trek game.

But that being said, this game does break quite a bit of new ground.  It's the only game (besides PotBS, which wasn't successful) to have both ship combat, and ground combat.  It's one of very few space MMOs.  This is a lot riskier than, say, Warhammer was, which followed very closely to the MMO standard.

[Barrister]

These were the Argonauts.  There are some acceptable-or-better names there.  Argonaut is itself a great name, of course, but will be taken.

Would would someone name their ship after a second-rate CFL franchise?   



Apparently because this is a single server, which will hopefully have 100,000s of players, ship names are not unique.  I think your registry number will be unique (as in NCC 176543), but I'm not certain.

Apparently because of this, and because the game is instanced (there might be multiple copies of, say, Sector 001 at the same time) the game will always try and not put you in an instance with a ship of the same name.

[crazy canuck]

The more I read BB's posts the more I am thinking I might have to pre-order this.

[Barrister]

The more I read BB's posts the more I am thinking I might have to pre-order this.

You should probably pay more attention to Katmai's posts than mine, since he's actually played the game.   

I've just gotten all keyed up for this and have read as much as I could get my hands on.