The Daily Grind: Do you want to be a ship or control a ship in STO?
Filed under: Sci-fi, Star Trek Online, The Daily Grind
Since we get the feeling that something may be announced for Star Trek fans somewhat soon, we thought it a good idea to be topical.The moment anyone begins talking about Star Trek Online we here at Massively begin to wonder whether we want to play a character on the bridge of the ship with a group of other players or whether we want to just be the ship ourselves. It's an important question because it affects how the entire game is perceived and played. So far we've had three space MMOs where the ship was the avatar. Those games are Jumpgate, Earth and Beyond Online and EVE Online. On top of that, Jumpgate Evolution will make for a fourth spaceship-centered MMO.
With that in mind, we here at Massively are hoping for something different from Star Trek Online. It seems to us that part of the draw of both MMOs and Star Trek is working together with a group of people to explore space and sometimes do battle. Still, we're not sure if we're on the minority with that opinion and would love to know what you happen to think on the subject.
With that in mind, we here at Massively are hoping for something different from Star Trek Online. It seems to us that part of the draw of both MMOs and Star Trek is working together with a group of people to explore space and sometimes do battle. Still, we're not sure if we're on the minority with that opinion and would love to know what you happen to think on the subject.

















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
koehler83 said on 8:31AM 7-08-2008
Well I think EVE online is really stupid because you are a ship. So I'll have to go with "Control A Ship" for 1000 Alex.
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ermansup said on 8:48AM 7-08-2008
I definately don't want another game where the characters are ships. But as great as the idea of commanding a single ship with your friends sounds, it has several design issues to be dealt with. Can the ships be used solo? If not then the ever so popular solo experience will suffer. And if they are soloable what will be the benefit of having multiple players in one ship. And will that benefit be equal or greater than all of the players using their own ships.
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Kilawhar said on 9:08AM 7-08-2008
I'm quite curious as to how they are going to pull this off as well, especially in light of the fact that there are a large number of people who are going to want to be "The Captain." Clearly the size of a starship leads itself to having a large number of people operate certain functions, but beyond the Pilot, Gunner and Engineer who would really be regularly called on to "do" anything during the course of a battle. Figure out two more roles and you have the WoW model "five man dungeon," which could work pretty nicely.
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Arkanaloth said on 9:17AM 7-08-2008
let's not have another Eve..
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GameZig said on 9:24AM 7-08-2008
I'm leaning a whole other way with this: Why can't we have both?
My response to this article was a little to lengthy to put in a comment, read it here:
http://gamezig.com/mmorpg/star-trek-online-mmorpg
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Ardy said on 9:40AM 7-08-2008
The original Perpetual idea of being a starfleet member who could in theory join a "crew" (guild) and help pilot a starship was a rather good one.
However... what happens to the ship when the bridge crew are all afk or asleep? Does someone usurp control? Does everyone just grind the holodeck?
Given the recent move in Cryptic to get away from enforced teaming and given the popularity of Eve, I'd be surprised if we weren't given personal starships up to a certain size to fly solo.
While I agree Star Trek is about community and working together, much like MMO's, does the mechanic of crewing and operating a ship lend itself easily to an MMO?
I have doubts.
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Ardy said on 9:50AM 7-08-2008
I think Massively ate my previous comment.
Anyway..
http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20040908 this sums up my opinion best.
I'd have to see how a ship will work with guilds/crews. I personally however would prefer the Earth and Beyond way. You have a ship and an avatar unlike in EvE where you're stuck (for now) in a pod of goo.
Yes Star Trek and MMOs are ideally about coming together and working for the good of all, but what happens if the only guy who can fly the ship goes to bed?
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UnSub said on 9:53AM 7-08-2008
I think the answer has to be "be a ship". I've spent a bit of time in Puzzle Pirates where you part of a larger ship's crew; it's fun, but while some guys are there firing cannons, you're the one down in the hold, manning the bilges. Most people won't find that very Star Trek.
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double9s said on 9:54AM 7-08-2008
Control a ship.
I thought this was a problem with Pirates otBS too. I wanted to work together with my teammates towards a tactical victory. I wanted to work together with them to build new ships that we would all sail. I wanted to take on ships full of other players of the same makeup.
Try the awesome UT2004 mod Air Buccaneers to see what it's like to work together on a single vessel. Granted it won't be easy to find other players still playing it, but you'll get the gist.
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GD Schmitz said on 10:43AM 7-08-2008
My vote is for option #3, which is neither... we should just be crew people ON the ship, but not in actual control of the ship. The way I imagine it, is "level progression" would consist of your career taking you from ship to ship, and as you get each transfer to a new vessel, your adventures would take you deeper into space on more dangerous missions.
For example, after your training missions at the Academy, at level 10 or whatever, you would start off as an ensign on a small scientific vessel, and you would go on away missions in whatever role your class/title is (science officer, security, etc). Then, when you're level 20, maybe you're on more like a Sulu-type ship. Then the end game... you're in super deep space, on an Enterprise-level ship, doing the high level away missions.
Basically, in other words, each "zone" would be a different type of ship, and for each stage of level progression, you would choose the type of ship you want to be on, until your next progression. To compare it to World of Warcraft, where there are dozens of "zones", Star Trek Online would have dozens of ships, and each ship would have different types of planets or missions you would go on, which would be instanced zones, etc.
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Sortable Turnip said on 11:04AM 7-08-2008
"Be the ship"
I've been looking for a good "spaceship" MMO since Earth & Beyond went belly-up. Eve is ok, not my favorite, but I do play it occasionally. I'm signed up for the Jumpgate Evolution beta and I hope it has better gameplay than Eve.
Being a Star Trek fan, I would hope that you get to be your own ship. I'm really looking forward to seeing it in action.
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Owen-Lars said on 11:39AM 7-08-2008
Hell yes. Whats Star Trek without being able to crew a ship? Walking around the Starship and performing your duties is one of the most enticing things about the IP. If you just board a ship and thats it then its a waste of the IP. The whole point of away missions is that they are away from your base. Whats the point of not allowing players to actually walk around their base or fly it?
For player controlled ships there should be 3 tiers. Large ships that need around 10 people to operate (captain, helm, engineers, security, science etc etc), Medium ships that need just a couple of people (captain, helm, security) then solo ships that just need one person to operate.
As well as being able to walk around and actually crew your ships im hoping that Cryptic add a lot of minigames because star trek is hardly just about fighting. Even in war times its mainly about keeping the ship up and running, finding a way to get around difficult spots and planning. The best role i'd want to play would be an engineer and it would be great if the whole class was filled with minigames to do and random challenges to accomplish to activate certain abilities.
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Lemmo said on 2:21PM 7-08-2008
I agree with this take. Per the IP, Star Trek was about the people, not the ships.
Matthew said on 11:54AM 7-08-2008
I hope they have smaller ships that individuals can pilot but also have captial ships that require a crew. UnSub said that being down in the bilges isn't very star trek but I how many times was scotty pulled everyone's bacon out of the fire? I don't think it would be much different from being a priest or medic.
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David said on 3:00PM 7-08-2008
I prefer a modified version where you can go anywhere as an avatar but on ship you are the captain and you spend points on staffing the ship in different areas. For example more points on crew in engineering would give you Scotty quality miricles :-) At any time you could 'leave the bridge' and as your avatar, walk the halls of your ship and perform tasks. I envision the ships as Deus Ex interactible style internal building zones (like the hong kong lab) where tasks and fps action could occur. Ship battles would be an outside view of the ship and space around it with a small subscreen showing various functions that you have to manage while moving your ship and targeting; this part is sort of like homeworld or sins of a solar empire.
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Ves said on 8:24AM 7-09-2008
Something that Pirates of the Carribean had. That was pretty nice. It required a full crew at some stages.
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Ves said on 8:25AM 7-09-2008
I hope to go with control a ship. Just like with SWG in space. your able to leave a position to change to another.
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Ves said on 8:27AM 7-09-2008
I hope to go with control a ship. Just like with SWG in space. your able to leave a position to change to another.
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Ves said on 8:27AM 7-09-2008
Sorry for the triple post
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John said on 11:50PM 7-09-2008
How about this?
Captain plots the course, pilot follows the course, science officer has remote viewing of the ship and sees enemies (pilot has a limited fov), engineer makes the ship go, weapons only become active at the captains command (otherwise they drain resources)(then weapons have a view like the science officers but more limited), and security is there in the case that the ship is boarded.
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