It’s not that the news of Star Trek Online’s Klingon faction being PvP-only (or, at least, primarily PvP) is particularly recent, but as Cryptic is beginning to focus on this aspect of their upcoming title, it’s bound to bring out more than a few strong opinions regarding the subject, such as:
- People who were hoping to play factions other than Starfleet/Federation and get the full game experience
- People who were hoping for other playable factions (such as Romulan, Borg, etc.) that won’t be there on release
- People who are suspicious that this is a sign that Cryptic’s had to cut some serious corners to get STO out on time
- People who couldn’t care less, one way or the other
Valid feelings, all. I never thought that there’d be too many Klingon players anyway, so it’s not a dumb thing to focus primarily on the Starfleet game and to adjust to the thought that PvP races are sort of “bonus” content for the game.
And then Jack Emmert goes and dumps a whole bucketful of gasoline on the issue:
“Secondly, yes, Klingon gameplay is almost entirely PvP. We are trying to get some PvE in (there’s already a tad bit). And, if the players demand it, we’ll add more content (like episodes). I want us to be agile as a company and respond to what the customers want.
Third, I’ll reiterate my point in the other thread. I’m most excited about playing a Klingon. I love combat in a bird of prey. Klingons are getting attention – from me. It’s not as much as I’d want, but we have a foundation that we can grow into. If people like the federation gameplay, we can put that in for the Klingons. If players have a different set of requests for klingons, we can do that instead. We can make STO into the game that YOU want.
I’ll close with that. MMORPG’s aren’t just about release. They’re about community and the years of gameplay. Disappointed that there isn’t more Klingon gameplay? Play STO, tell us what you’d like and we can deliver that. Every passing day, we can make STO into what the fans want.”
I’m really split on how to take this statement. Positive Syp says, “Hey, at least he’s addressing it head-on — and he’s striking the right notes. Agile company. Respond to customer demands. He likes Klingons.” Positive Syp thinks that no matter why Cryptic went this route, they’re kind of damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t speak about it, so might as well start the conversation and avoid the appearance of ignoring this potential point of contention. Positive Syp (but not OVERLY Positive, I’ll leave that to the pros) thinks that if Cryptic is kind of smart to bide their time and see what type of demand there might be for Klingon PvE content.
Then there’s Negative Syp, that Grinchy Scrooge of the season. He says, “Well, now they’re in for it. He’s opened his mouth and basically dared players to bombard them with petulant requests for more content, and if they don’t deliver, they’re screwed.” Negative Syp thinks that if there’s one thing that MMO gamers are particularly skilled at, it’s demanding what they want from developers.
So I don’t know who to listen. But if you’re curious more about Cryptic’s thinking on the subject, check out this article at MMORPG.com.
Or you could see this as them not knowing how to make a fun Klingon experience for players, which is quite damning. “If you don’t like what little we’ve given you, tell us what you want!” primarily works if you can weed out the crappy feedback, which I doubt will work very well. Design by committee leads to a lot of bad decisions. Design by community can be much worse.
I thought this was a pretty good idea actually. There were never going to be all that many people who wanted to play Klingons in comparison to Federation and most of the ones who do probably want to PvP, and so going the monster play route just makes sense.
If anything, I’m more sad there aren’t going to be more Federation RP options and more of a hierarchy there. I think if you play Fed you probably want to feel part of a proper fleet.
To me it really sounds like they are cutting corners more than anything else to hit a rushed launch date. My biggest concern is how it could affect pvp seeing as how it’s federation against klingon. The more I read the more i’m afraid the neutral zone won’t be a popular place to pvp but it’s one of the aspects I am interested in the most.
I feel that cryptic made the right move on this one. The Klingons in the ip where always ‘that’ lawful evil group. Honorable but with much internal struggles. A theme park mmo would have much trouble, if not a nearly impossible time of expressing this with out special subsystems, inter guild warring for instance. As I have heard nothing about cryptic adding anything like this to set the faction apart it is best for them to go pve-light and not try and provide content that doesn’t play to the strengths of the faction.
Sure we all know that Klingons like to fight for power in house. Sure we all know that they are space samurai.
But adding pve content to match the much more pve-centric Starfleet isn’t going to provide the the feel that anyone who is looking to play a Klingon, especially in the late to end game.
I think this is a wise decision. As they point out in the MMORPG article, they only have so many resources. I think it’s more important to have one smashing good faction at launch than two mediocre factions. My only major gripe is not making Romulans a playable faction. They’re one of my favorite Trek antagonists.
“Disappointed that there isn’t more Klingon gameplay? Play STO, tell us what you’d like and we can deliver that. Every passing day, we can make STO into what the fans want.”
Yeah, except that’s not really how things work.
If i don’t like Verizon, I don’t sign up for a contract with them and hope and pray they listen to me about the crappy service in my area.
I just go with a competitor.
@Sven: The company might actually be better off if players behaved that way. Historically, they’re more likely to buy the game anyway and be shocked that it doesn’t live up to the press coverage. Then the game gets terrible word of mouth and alienates a large portion of its most interest players.
There is a fifth issue, namely what effect this decision will have on PVP balance. Without PVE content, players might view the Klingons as a second-class alt that they log into when they feel like doing some PVP, rather than persistent characters that they should be investing some time in. If very few players view their Klingon as their main, there won’t be many Klingons to fight. Cryptic will then be free to say that the Federation overpopulation proves that people aren’t interested in playing Klingon PVE content that they had no intention of making anyway.
It seems extraordinarily naive. If someone plays and they don’t want Klingon pve content they are now obligated to nerd rage on the forums for whatever it is they do want.
Either that or it’s deeply subtle, a way of driving people to get passionate about a game many of us see as a placeholder to kill time with while waiting for TOR.
Sounds like STO is a game that I won’t be going near for at least a year in order to see how well the dev team can execute. I’ve been burned by “the Next Grand Idea” in Hellgate and AoC and now separate races for PvP or PvE seems like the next Grand Idea If STO doesn’t fail, then the one-year mark ought to see it stabilized enough for me to enjoy.
Not sure why anyone would think “not many players would want to play Klingons.” They’re only one of the primary alien factions that have been around since the birth of the IP. That’s right up there with saying “we don’t expect many players to want to play Horde when there’s the nice, pretty Alliance to play instead.”
As noted above however, it would be a problematic faction to design for and stick to the canon lore allowing for power struggles within that faction, which in game terms would essentially mean Klingon-only free-for-all PvP or something very similar.
I never saw Klingons as intrinsically evil, despite being cast as the villain until the TNG era (and even then a few times) they’re just a more “primitive” battle-focused race. Which, quite frankly, fits in perfectly with MMORPG content, both PvE and PvP because MMORPG’s are primarily *about* combat. Your Federation quests might tell you you’re exploring, seeking knowledge, gathering science data, etc. but the bottom line is that just like every other MMORPG you’ll get your quest then kill everything that moves until it’s complete. Klingons would rather enjoy that, don’t you think?
Bottom line:
Game is not finished, they couldnt get the other side done on time, go screw yourselves
CO all over again
I try to keep in mind that what a developer wants and what a publisher demands are sometimes two diametrically opposed things. However, as a long time Star Trek fan and especially Klingon fan I feel like someone has just pooped in the punchbowl. As much as I like pvp in other games, the extreme cost of pvp in Eve Online is why I quit.
Great article as always syp.
Julie
I’ll second Scott’s comment, and add that if they *are* going with a primarily PvP race, they really need to go the Guild Wars route and give them a lot of toys right out of the box.
On the other hand…
On the other hand, Fran (my co-host) and I are such big fans of Star Trek they would have to go along way before we weren’t avid fan girls.
Julie
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Definitely sounds like they are cutting corners. Originally I was really looking forward to having proper races and sides, all of my favs from the ST universe, but it now it just sounds very weak. Becoming less excited about STO every time I read stuff like this
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