Exploration and Discovery – points awarded for planetscapes and environments explored.

Diplomacy – points awarded for the number of races you successfully repair/trade with/befriend.

Loyalty – points for fighting enemies of your own chosen race.

Heroism – points for defending friendlies or innocent neutrals from hostiles.

Engineering – points for helping broken down allies or overcoming technological obstacles/enemies.

Science – Points awarded for each race/technology encountered/scanned by tricorder.

Medicine – Points for healing and curing new alien diseases.

Cargo – Points for transportation of friendlys/goods.

Espionage – Points for scanning enemies/hacking data and transmitting to friendlys.

Commerce – Points bought with credits earned from trading.

Etc.

Looting an enemy’s hand weapon/technology should still be possible, but only if Starfleet are NPCs and players are just exploring a universe that contains Starfleet ships and stations, which you can ride in, walk around and dock with. Everyone can be captain of their own smaller fighter/freighter ships, upgrading to larger ships that may eventually exceed the size of Starfleet vessels, but noone should be able to captain a Federation Starship, merely SOS them when needed with a cost in points for a callout (no cost for running to the protective phaser-range of a starship however). Starships should also have patrol areas so weaker players may end up keeping track of the rough location of the nearest starship/starbase as a place to go for backup when fleeing attack.

Im thinking of something like a Han Solo sim except in the Star Trek universe with their aliens and ships. Maybe like those poor sods at the start of Search For Spock lol.

I’m sticking to EVE for now and quite happy.

I agree in principle, although I disagree with the example of looting. Why do you need looting? Never mind the IP — why the hell is it in other MMOs to begin with? It is not something I feel strongly about either way, but I do find its perceived necessity strange.

‘Advice #2: Make a fun game loop first’

I probably shouldn’t comment on this, as I don’t seek to loop. My friends and I go about our business as we see fit within the context of the world. Any looping is accidental. This often means taking a full year to reach so much as level 20, but I think that certainly makes for a much better experience than the miserable people who just to blow through everything and hoard at the expense of their own enjoyment and those around them.

By the way, there’s that Ferengi gameplay you imply would be unpopular.

‘Advice #3: Don’t try to make the ground and space games at the same time’

It is more interesting to play a character than a ship. That seems to be implicit in what you’re saying, and I agree. That is why I continue to insist that in space you should not be a starship, but a character in a starship. (See what I did there?)

‘Advice #4: Ignore the fans’

I wouldn’t say ‘ignore’, because I disagree with the thought that fans will pay unconditionally. Many of them will probably buy it uncondtitionally, but how many will continue to pay afterwards? I would think that subscribers would be more important for an MMO than sales, but maybe I’m mistaken.

If you are trying to make a mainstream game, put as much stock in a thousand fans as you would a thousand non-fans. If you are trying to make a niche game, it should be quite a different matter. I don’t know which approach I would personally prefer, but that is my objective assumption as to what would work best for the project.

Also, while it is true that fans are fickle, I would assert that gamers are more so.

‘Advice #5: Don’t go public too soon’

Nothing to disagree with here. You could stick to things like concept art, but then people go chant about ‘vapourware’ against all reason. Announcing too early is a mistake I think is made far too often. The worst part is that gamers don’t understand why it’s a problem, even though they are the reason it’s a problem.

Making a WoW-clone in space will garuntee money in the short term. It won’t garuntee a long lasting game, because as people mature (mentally and physically) they begin wanting something differant. The “WoW generation” will be maturing eventually. I’ve already started. But I guess that’s why you’re just a systems designer. ;-) It’s not your job to know how to make a successful long lasting MMO, just code stuff. Yet you are trying… gogo code monkey.

Regarding currency within starfleet, the single player ST games have already solved this. As a rule, they tended to use ‘prestige’, and that actually worked quite well with the cannon. Several books did all indicate that there was a level of acceptable usage of the replicators, so presumably you have to do your job to earn the right to use them, and do it well to get away with regularly ordering up some lavish gifts. This also solved one of the major problems that TNG had, as it made starfleet more political, and hence a little more interesting and less like a utopia.

Generally I agree with most of the rest of your analysis, although there are some great thoughts in the comments regarding loot finding (scanning).

Space looks to be a big problem. To be honest, I can’t see space action ever actually becoming deep enough to make it much more than “there for the ride”. Thinking about it briefly, I think an effective solution would be to have combat as a minigame whilst travelling to other locations. Skip the boring flight (although players may wish to be able to look around), and build a simple but effective small ship combat game. It was only in the era of DS9 that space combat began to get truly impressive, anyhow. For the most part, ST was less about the spaceships, and more about the people and the environments the people were in.

Speaking of which, ST’s focus on people and their environments lend itself very well to a more casual game. Combat did occur in ST, but rarely did the watcher feel like it was actually dangerous. It was fairly much harmless fun and showmanship. ST is certainly not a twitch game concept, and it’s core audience (typically in their thirties) is less inclined for twitch.

Similarly, we should address PvP, or the lack of certain forms. ST was about hope for a peaceful future, and we never really saw non-consensual PvP within the series. They always knew when they walked into danger (well, except in TOS, granted). The existance of universal translators also prevents one of the common factors in successful non-consensual PvP (a language difference, so that the opponent is impersonal and less able to offend and make you feel negatively about the experience). Some PvP should be available, but via carefully defined arenas only. It’s interesting to note that games like America’s Army claim to only let you play the good guys, and that could be useful here. When not in a gymn or other ‘fair contest’ arena, the opposition could always be presented as “bad guys” (e.g. Borg), and your team is always StarFleet.

So given A) LOTRO did what you’re suggesting and is performing below expectations, and B) skinning WoW with the ST license is a *lot* harder than with the LOTR license, don’t you think they are going to have to think outside of the box a bit here?

Making a Star Trek MMO is tough proposition, no doubt. One that I wouldn’t touch with a 20′ pole. But I couldn’t see myself working on any licensed-property MMO ever again.

//dan
PS. Regarding identifying the core gameplay loop (no disagreements there about it being the priority), I think the Puzzle Pirates gameplay could be a much better fit for the license. It’s by no means a one-to-one mapping, but the collaborative nature of “piloting a battleship collaboratively via minigames” is exactly what I’d expect a MMO Star Trek game to be like.