Aristes

There are better settings than Star Trek, even though I've long said that good writers could create a solid tv series or rpg from the setting. The fact that it's a communist utopia simply makes the entire premise a lie. Once viewers, readers, or players buy into the setting, however, it really doesn't matter. I can watch a Star Trek show or movie and enjoy it. I haven't played a Star Trek game I've enjoyed, but then again I haven't played a Star Trek game that I can remember. The problem with the idea behind Star Trek's utopian setting is that the entire premise relies on humanity not acting like humans. However, as folks have rightly noted, there is internal conflict and external threat in the Star Trek universe. Humans in the Star Trek setting act like humanity as we know it now, so it really doesn't matter that the setting is a pie in the sky utopian crapfest. What really matters is that it can still come to good use. If the discussion amounts to 'they should make a Star Trek game,' then I'm going to be dismissive, but I'll still follow the title and buy it if it looks good. That's exactly what I did with KotOR, and I was quite happy to play it. If the discussion is 'they should make a Star Trek game, what do you think?' then I'm going to suggest alternatives that appeal to me personally. That's how I took Calax' comments. His underlying reasoning might be uneven, but I tend to agree with his thinking overall even if I don't feel quite as strongly about it as he does. Yes, the communist utopia concept of Star Trek is inherently flawed, but you rightly say that it can still serve as the basis for a great game. That's because a good design team can take a popular setting and do wonderful things with it. I'm not going to let my views on the system stop me from playing a game I would enjoy. I would, however, prefer a game set in a different universe. Like Cthulu.

If you can provide higher resolution screenies, that might help, bro. The screen shots I see here are neither stylized nor conventionally appealing. They're pretty lackluster all around. When I think of something 'stylized,' I think of something that conveys an exotic or unusual artistic direction in order to underscore the 'style' of the work. There's nothing really stylistic about the screenies. The writing doesn't seem bad. About on par with some games, so I can say I might purchase the game. Is it out already. I read through the thread and noticed that the first few pages are really old. A lot of posts seemed to be about Volourn. The latter half seems to be more of a philosophical discussion regarding indie vs commercial game development. I find it interesting, but now I'm confused as to the release date.

I agree. We need also the Techno Union and the Intergalactic Banking Clan. Awesome! I am clearly filled with so much fail today.... Star TREK! Star TREK!!! I laughed out loud at the whole exchange. To be fair, however, a Star Wars vs Star Trek would be awesome. Kind of like Superman v The Hulk! Let's do it!

Moments -- Emerson Drive

No, I bound the hooker's wrists and mouth in case she wakes up in the trunk on the way to the dump site. You, sir, are an evil wretch! I meant to visit that hooker and now I can't.

You repaired your machine gun with it? Anyhow, if you were doing duct work, you could have called me. I worked in Heating and Air Conditioning for a little over a year. I'm listening to music and getting ready to waste time this Sat. playing WoW. The in-laws are celebrating their 45th today, so we've got to meet them for dinner tonight.

DS9 is a very popular series. Thought I prefered Babylon 5, which aired at the same time. The big thing is that I tend to watch shows that people around me watch. That's because I tend to recreate by playing video games, so I don't care much about what's on tv. Of the Star Trek shows that I've seen, I prefer DS9. I've heard good things about Babylon 5, but I've never seen it.

Wow, for some reason I didn't think DS9 was very popular among the Star Trek crowd. I'm even more surprised that so many of us agree. This isn't one of the signs of the apocalypse, is it?

Yeah, like the PnP RPG. You don't go into a Cthulu game expecting to kick ass and name names. You go in expecting to run like hell and hope you don't hear any true names.

I like Deep Space 9, and I've generally enjoyed Star Trek over the years, but the setting is horrible. As long as the devs don't dwell on the pie in the sky utopian crapfest that underpins everything in the Star Trek universe, I'd be happy to play the game. Gritty? Star Trek is one step above Pollyanna on the Grit scale. Nevertheless, the writers have made some good use of the setting. I'm far more interested that Shadowrun idea or even the Green Lantern RPG. Hell, if we forget the latest Terminator movie (only because it takes the series to new levels of goofiness) then a Terminator RPG could be really fun. How about a (well done) Cthulu RPG? huh? huh? How about that?!

Arrived home.

I still think Dalaran is a pain. Yeah, WoW ain't perfect, but it's pretty damned stable, especially in view of the scale. I have a lot of respect for Blizzard. They make games I like to play. However, I would like to ditch WoW for something better on the MMO side, but there really isn't much chance. I'm still weighing LotRO, but I've been doing that for a while. Someday. I still hope we get a good modern spy/paranormal. That would be wonderful.

See, I would like more info and some basis for discussion, but I can certainly accept waiting to hear more until the devs decide it's time to let slip the dogs of geekdom. No problem. I can accept the argument that BIS is playing close to the vest better than I believe they have no substantial work done yet.

Hey, congrats bro! I'm at my mom and dads, so I really only have access to WoW. Not a lot of time to play stuff anyhow, but I've managed to game a little.

This game is not scheduled for release years from now. As I understand it, the release date is sometime in the fall of 2010. They ought to have soemthing to show for the project by now. Frankly, while I'd enjoy talking about the game and speculating about what the devs are going to do, I don't really care all that much if they play tight lipped. There are other games to discuss. No biggie. Just don't tell me that the devs don't have anything to show for a title they're allegedly shipping in less than 18 months. If that's really the case, then I don't have a lot of faith they're going to do a very good job of it.

The only difference between a lot of what you said, N_R, and what Hurley's said in the past is the ceiling idea. Hurlshot has long maintained that it is not only difficult to create an MMO in terms of investment and technical expertise, but that it also requires a lot of dogged determination to keep it running. For example, I enjoyed Warhammer, but I found it unstable. No matter how much time folks have to play, how willing they are to pay for concurrent subscriptions, or their interest in multiple settings, folks don't want to pay for a subscription for a game they simply cannot access for whole chunks of time. Personally, I think the WoW phenomenon has both paved some of the way for and held back the MMO market. Sure. ...But I also understand that setting makes a difference. For example, if WoW weren't marching around with it's millions of users, then folks wouldn't make these ridiculous claims that an MMO isn't successful if it doesn't have millions of users. In addition, I don't think the market is completely tapped. Someone needs to come online with an MMO with a good setting, good game mechanics, and the expertise to keep it running. WoW isn't just a phenomenal because they took advantage of the Warcraft games. Blizzard didn't just luck into the market. Blizzard has a huge world that, despite the howls any time a server is offline for a couple of hours, remains by and large extremely stable. WoW doesn't have have any real advantage over NWN or Star Wars in terms of setting. However, I am always skeptical of the new game coming up to dethrone WoW because, no matter what advantages they have, they generally have a lot of problems on the technical side. Nevertheless, I think we will see someone else come out with huge sustainable numbers eventually.

They're on Steam. Chop chop! When I get home, for sure!

I think games more and more are actually penalizing good paths more and rewarding evil paths more. Of course, they do it in the most stupid and assinine ways possible. The latest posts in the punctuation thread are a good example. I think a lot of developers are starting to see that folks who want to be really good or evil are willing to do so regardless. I thought Mask of the Betrayer managed to nail this idea. I think being truly good and truly evil should be difficult in a game. It should be easier to play the middle ground. Most of the rewards for playing good or evil should be outside of gameplay. That is to say, I don't think they should give the best gameplay mechanic rewards, but instead give wonderful story rewards. A few good gameplay rewards are always nice for the PC, but make folks suffer for trying to be the all around saint or the complete and utter scum bag. Most folks in real life are punished for being extreme. However, I don't want a game deciding what's good or evil in the first place, which makes this whole concept moot in my opinion. Instead of forcing us to view certain actions as right or wrong, let us take those actions with reasonable consequences and then let us decide.

Thank God for the Bomb --- Ozzy Soon to follow Black Sabbath --- Iron Man (Still my favorite of all the stupid, over the top, and ridiculous Sabbath songs.) Much better is Iron Maiden. "Run to the hills. Run fooooor yoooooouuur liiiiiiife. Run tooo the hiiiills. Run fooooor yoooooouuuuur liiiiiife."

What's this about Emus? I thought the idea behind Max Payne was good, but I only had one of the games. It was Max Payne 2 on the Xbox. I have since ditched my xbox since I could never get the hang of the xbox controller, especially for shooters. I have been thinking of getting the first two games for PC, though.

American McGee's Alice was a good game! Wait. Damn it! That was a caterpillar.

Well, I formatted my mom's desktop and lap-top. She's giving the laptop to my brother, who can put whatever OS he wants on the damned thing. I didn't bother explaining to my mom and dad that he has the equipment and expertise to nab info off the damned thing if he wanted anyhow and I didn't feel like formatting it multiple times. Anyhow, they should have let him have it without the wipe since it's not like he's going to steal their credit card account numbers. My brother is a complete ****, but he's still a loyal member of this family. The desktop, I reinstalled the OS from the OEM disks I used when I built the system some four years ago. The rig was working fine, but my nephews got a virus on it and, since I think a clean install is good every now and then anyhow, I built it up again. Still no anti-virus yet. Probably use Viper when we put one on. Otherwise, I have the drivers and critical XP updates installed already. I updated Adobe flash and installed shockwave just because those tend to be popular on webpages and keeping them up to date is generally wise. Either that or not letting them load, which is also a pain in the ass. Since I'm only here for a few days, I also did some painting and moved the furniture for them. Same ol' same ol', really.

I think reflecting consequences for choices the player makes on behalf of the PC is perfectly reasonable. In fact, I don't think the suggested consequence is gutsy at all. Ho hum. Been there. Done that. How about something that takes real balls? How about the corporate council isn't cartoonishly evil? How about the earth friendly ewoks aren't loveably good? Maybe give the player choices and then show that, while his heart might have been in the right place, siding with those tree hugging ewoks undermined the economy so thoroughly that civil unrest led to millions upon millions of deaths and the aftermath of the war was more devastating to the environment than those evil corporate could could have matched in a hundred years? The second someone takes a capitalistic view in a CRPG, you know who one of the villains is right away. Sure, they might just be stupidly greedy rather than outright evil, but that's only if they're under the control of the real UBG.

So, if the game were hitting the street in October, they shouldn't have screen shots because they just announced it yesterday? The bottom line is, you'd hope they'd done something for the game by now. Maybe they want to play tight lipped because... well... the fate of the free world depends on it or something, but the game is coming out in less than 18 months? Whether they want to show or tell us, they really oughta have something.

taks, you're a maniac. Shryke, pay close attention to what will happen to you soon. GD: :haksthumbsup: