mesiah

December 18, 2009 at 9:25pm

I think there is an aspect a lot of you are overlooking. It was never said that all klingon PvP was against the federation. If you want to be true to the spirit of star trek and klingons, you have to make them a war like race. If you want to be the captain of your ship as a klingon you don't wait for a promotion, you fight your captain to the death. I foresee many klingon quests, especially early on, pitting you against fellow klingons to prove you are worthy. If this is the route that cryptic has taken, then that is a beautiful design. It will allow the people who enjoy pvp to get what they want out of the game without causing grief to those who joined the federation for a more PvE experience.

 

Thats not to say missions won't overlap. Federation could be on a mission to deliver an emissary to a certain planet, while klingons are on a mission to block ships from passing. As federation you could choose to stand and fight a PvP battle, or you you could try and be elusive and get by without an all out firefight to the death. And of course for both sides looking for all out PvP I am sure there will be front line battles to participate in. Now given, this is all just speculation, but if that is how the game is laid out, then it will finally be something truly different than WoW, and I would at least give it a good 30 days to see if its enjoyable.

kiaghi7

December 18, 2009 at 2:56pm

I'm along with the OVERALL idea of the game, and I don't mind if the Klingons are -MORE- PvP oriented, but in that same breath, they shouldn't be so at the expense of an actual game experience for their faction.

One person commented that in games like WOW, practically any race is sort of a repackaging of every other race, and feels somewhat repetitive, and I do agree, but my reply to that is that at least it's there to be had...

Frankly, if/when I'm playing as a Klingon, I might well be in a "it is a good day to die" mood, but I shouldn't necessarily have that as my -ONLY- resort, particularly at lower levels (and less time played) when it's that much harder to compete both from an ability and equipment standpoint. There are checks and balances in STO to help newbies compete more evenly, but come one, realistically a more seasoned player/character is going to simply have more to draw upon. EVE online (which I like mind you) said the very same thing, that even "new players" could compete, but let's be honest, a 3-4-5 year old character is simply going to have far more capability even with identical ship and parts to a newbie who's just able to fly -insert ship name here-, it's a simple matter of fact. 

That's not to say there can't be upsets, of course there can be, and that's good, but all in all, the law of averages is going to heavily favor one over the other... But I digress...

 

I do believe a furor should be made that Cryptic is trying to phone this one in on the name of Star Trek alone, and quite frankly it's nowhere near enough to carry an MMO in this day and age with titans like WOW out there to squash it out of existence. STO isn't going to be competing directly with WOW, they are two many differences to mull over their similarities, but at the same time, the market can only expand "but so much". The game should be as rich and as developed as possible before it even leaves beta, because ALL mmo games suffer from initial batches of "one and done" crowds, who buy the game, play through their included month of subscription, and then drop the game like a bad habit.

 

If Cryptic wants people to stay, they've got to ask themselves what every customer will:

"Why should I stay?"

jcollins

December 18, 2009 at 8:20am

When I see a company's focusing on PVP, I see a company that's too lazy/cheap to put the effort into making PVE content.  They're taking the easy way out "We'll let the players make their own content!" and not paying for the resources to actually make viable content.

mrvander

December 18, 2009 at 7:31am

I'm not a fan of this "Customer-driven" design in the MMO world. It's what made Star Wars Galaxies such a piece of s**t. Of course there are going to be care-bears who want to play as Klingons but hold nothing more than a glorfiied chat session with their friends. But when developers hand over the reigns to the vocal minority, as happened with SWG, you'll end up with a piece of crap.

The message is not that they care about customers and "want to make a game the customer wants", the message is "we're chasing the almighty dollar even if we have to sacrifice all respect for the license."

jnutley

December 18, 2009 at 6:36am

There are always peeps who look at PvP as a chance to be an asshole without any blowback.  Because Blizzard made the Alliance and Horde images of each other, you had corpse camping nightelves and polite. deferential orcs. Since anybody could be mean or nice, everyone tried to "get along" and your faction was just an inconvienance you played around.

If I know, going in to STO, that a guy who picked Klingon did it so that he ONLY need be an ass to all comers, that establishes my expectations of how to relate to him.  If he can transend the backstabing sociopath stereotype, it's on him, and he'll have to do it while my phasers are locked on him.  This will lead to Feds and Klingons treating each other similarly to how it was in "Undiscovered Country"; and the number of peeps who rise above it will be few, leading to a more "real world" dynamic and better buy in of the experience by the players. 

thatmarlerguy

December 18, 2009 at 5:45am

As I see it, no company has ever given you more than one PvE experience. In WoW, for example, was leveling up any race really that different from the first one you did?  If Cryptic followed suit, they would just take all their current missions, make them sound more Klingon, and BAM! you got PvE content.

 I for one appreciate their honesty for not trying to pretend they have different PvE content for Klingons.  It makes me hope if they do build in PvE content, it'll be different and new.  I also appreciate that my PvP combat will do more than just give me some trinkets, I can finally level up.