Bad news for STO...

[Jabe Adaks]

What Daron was referring to was 2D movement. This is indeed our baseline for movement - it's the starting point from which players can diverge when they need to. This means that players will be able to steer the ship without having to take three dimensions into account, in general. Some people have reacted as if this was a travesty of canon, but that isn't true at all. Actually, we're modeling exactly what we see in the shows. You rarely see a battle where one of the vessels is pointed upside down or rotated 90 degrees. Heck, the number of times we've seen the Enterprise in a vertical direction can be counted on one hand. Most of the time, the ship is shown in a 2D plane, facing off against other enemies in roughly the same 2D plane. This is because Star Trek battles are not about dog-fighting and outmaneuvering. They're about strategy and outthinking one's opponent.

So basically what they are saying is that because the show was written poorly and with limited thought and imagination - the game has to be done the same way too.

Quite frankly space combat in most scifi battle scenes, including Star Wars and BSG is dumb. Everyone seems to be in some kind of agreed upon upright plane of fighting. Which is tactically retarded.

http://startrek.perpetual.com/2005/11/space_combat.html

Jabe

[Krusshyk]

Star Trek battles are not about dog-fighting and outmaneuvering. They're about strategy and outthinking one's opponent.

Not really. Outthinking and out strategizing your opponent requires a little more thought than going face to face with an enemy and trading pot shots.

Fire all photon torpedos AND fire all phaser banks. A brilliant strategy.

[E-bo Obi]

That sucks ass. Ground based missions better be really kickass and not just a bunch of tar monsters that kill the good looking characters.

[Sai'nu]

They've had this info floating around for at least a couple of months now. I'd noted it when I logged onto that little Pre-STO site to start a bridge crew.

My thoughts---lame way to go. He seems to be forgetting that the number of times that the Enterprise went vertical or into some crazy manuever to outmanuever another ship is when people really went, "Wow, I wish I could do that!" Which you'd think they'd want to emulate in the game.

I'm figuring their just copping out for whatever will run more smoothly in their game though. Is it easier for them to use 2D instead of 3D to lessen the number of bugs in the game or some such thing like that? But, regardless, this sounds like their looking more at a game like Starfleet Command and it's board game creator Star Fleet Battles for this. Complex, but two dimensional.

I'm just surprised that their overlooking the most important qoute from the movies on this though....

Spock, "He's using two dimensional thinking, Captain."

Enterprise floats down and comes up behing the U.S.S. Reliant to give Khan an Ass Whoopin'!

[Jabe Adaks]

Yeah I am way behind ont he STO blogs. I've consciously stayed away from them for fear of hearing ths same things over that I've heard from other devs. I still got hope although I am very skeptical. I was skeptical before reading this and now I am not any more or any less skeptical, just worried.

Jabe

[E-bo Obi]

KHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sai'nu]

/agree


KHAAAAAAN!!!


And... I still hope I don't have to camp eight borg to make a phaser or some dipstick idea like that. : p

[E-bo Obi]

I'm hoping to get stuck on a barren planet with a lizard. I would find surface supplies of the necessary minerals to fashion a crude shot gun and take down this enemy!

[X'an Shin]

I can definitely see why they did away with it.

In WWIIO you could climb up to something like 20,000 feet. While realistic, it created gameplay problems where planes travelling at that height were in no position to support ground troops. You couldn't even bomb effectively at that height.

But what players would do was fly around up at like 14,000 feet, and then they'd start a crazy dive approach like 4 towns out from a town that was being attacked by air, and they'd boom and zoom the other planes there all day long.

An effective strategy, but well, not very fun.

It was a LOT more fun to fly under 2-4k feet, and be able to engage any encouter at will. You could get low and fly between trees and under bridges, or you could climb a bit and just not engage as 4k was still high enough to keep anyone from climbing fast to your position.

I think if they allowed for crazy Y access space travel, you'd wind up with the same sort of thing; a lot of players uselessly using "high altitude" space for the only purpose of ganking players who were just trying to go from point A to point B.

I can see allowing for a great deal of "relative" Y travel, like, you should be able to pilot your ship up and down to fly over or under another ship, but I'd hate to see crazy-assed upside down vs. vertical encounters.

Additionally, if they aren't going to allow PvP in space, I can REALLY see why they'd restrict Y, because you don't want all of your players simply bypassing all of the mobs/ships/traps/encounters just to fly to the "good stuff."

[MrDooo]

I'm hoping to get stuck on a barren planet with a lizard. I would find surface supplies of the necessary minerals to fashion a crude shot gun and take down this enemy!

Oh, my God... Oh, my God, are you telling me you're pregnant?

[E-bo Obi]

I'm hoping to get stuck on a barren planet with a lizard. I would find surface supplies of the necessary minerals to fashion a crude shot gun and take down this enemy!

Oh, my God... Oh, my God, are you telling me you're pregnant?

Yes. I thought I was quite clear.