It is actually possible for a company to be working on multiple MMO's and if done right (key words) can even cost less and save time.
For example, Cryptic can use their interpretation of the HERO System from Champions Online and apply it for Star Trek Online.  This provides a RPG system that has already been developed and implemented, saving time, resources and capital.  Additionally the same MMO platform could be used, providing more streamlining.  In effect, taking what is Champions Online, stripped of powers (since Star Trek is more with skills than powers) and skinned for Star Trek.

This is just as how book RPG's are done.  Use the Core Books (Systems) and then create genres and campaigns.  Why not the same for computers?


Should Cryptic not follow that route, then STO would be on the back-burner, getting some attention more of game design than of other things; until resources are available.  Also do not forget of additional rounds of funding.  Cryptic armed with the license could be socializing investors for STO, to allow additional resources to be made available.

they are just too big to pull it off correctly in my opinion.

 >_< ^_^
 :kill:
I'm dumbstruck by that statement.



Yeah.  A MMO maker who controls 0.8% of the MMO market has the clout to be on the same footing as CBS out of the gate.  One worthy of Viacom, Paramount or Star Trek.  Is qualified to take a risk on next-gen MMO infrastructures, Adaptive A.I., is willing to work with IBM, Sony, Toshiba, Apple and...Microsoft....can contact and will  work with NASA/JPL, DARPA, the DoE, The DoD, The Brookings Institution, The FAA  (Space div) Virgin.   Someone whoCan step into any foreign country and show them why investing in ST the MMO will be good for their country and the world.

I want someone like that.  Not someone who can barely think about launching just one aspect of a Trek MMO with a game system never created for Trek and that maybe the idea of working with the studios on sharing content might be a o.k. idea.  They ALL sure like the idea of the 69 million though!   ooooo goody goody gum drops.  Children with the means to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

I want Someone who would just call the Roddenberry family, Speilberg, Kurzweil and Steve Cole (Amarillo Design Bureau), and say: "Hey!  Let's do this! We got the entire DoD, NASA and DARPA on our side...we're brining in NATIONS as investors.

Sorry to rant but everyone thinks toooooooooooooooooo small for something sooooooooooooooo big.  You can't comprehend how to spend 100 million...let alone 800 million in a year... and up then up to and beyond  69 million a month... and make Star Trek a FIVE STAR, nation building MMO (tripple A was 'yesterday')!

I think I honestly hate that this is in game developer hands at all. lol I would honestly give this to DARPA and make it a DARPA challenge and give them three years too and see which is better.  Hell...at DARPA they will compete for a 1 MILLION dollar prize to make a car dive itself 100 miles across rough desert, to a mall, park itself and then drive home again,,,and they did it in TWO YEARS!  Why is no one telling THEM about the 69 million a month.   Terrified!?

Are they afraid ONE GUY with a string pf PS3's and Darpa could probably launch the worlds greatest Trek MMO ever??
But that won't happen because the wrong people are being thought of as those who should bring the Trek MMO to life.

People like that need to exploit Star Trek the MMO...not a self serving game developers and even more self serving investors.  (Dont' get me wrong...the investors  will have the riches of Midas for this MMO regardless.  If they do it all for themselves with no thinking on the above...I hope they choke on all the money they make.  They will pass away silently one day on piles and piles and piles of cash that never did anything beyond making themselves a sweet pillow.   Rest well...buh bye).

Wake up the short sighted studio. ( I can not help but wonder if these people will go down in history as the worst business people ever)  Creativity is supposed to be their forte.

NASA needs to BARGE in and stop being so pussy about it. Start saying "YOU!!  YOU will develop a MMO for us and like it...instead of ..."oh...wel....we'd really like a MMO but only if it does not cost much... er."   You are the smartest people on the planet and even you don't get it!

THIS situation is worse than any Star Trek episode ever. More mind-jacking than all the paradigm busters in Trek. To think of all the non-intelligence going on in the world regarding this...from governments, to government agencies, to the studios...down to simple game developers...and down to us.

I am in a mirror universe UFP where everything has gone terribly wrong.  If the Large Hadron Collider was never to be a disaster...it will be in this mirror universe.


My heart bleeds.
 :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek: :ilovestartrek:

Then again, most likely DARPA or NASA for that matter would just provide a contract bid to ...

...

game developer companies.

Mayhap they would. But the companies responding to that bid would have to meet the requirements of the contract bid proposal, and I seriously doubt that NASA, or even DARPA would be sub-contracting out bid's on "just a game". Their specs would be quite different than what a Developer would be shovelling out...game wise that is.

I have been writing NASA reps about this seriously since I joined you all back on Star Trek.com. ( hehe the old posts on the subject matter can still be found along with all the other stuff I am back to heavily ranting about now that there is an opportunity once more to speak about what we feel needs to be in STO. )

I have been aware of that information since it was released and believe I had a direct hand in it.  I'm sure they got sick to death of my emails...and if you thought Sir Cedric was bad at posting, I was unrelenting in sending mail to NASA on this.   Believe it if you want to.

Months prior to the MMO mails from me, I was outraged that they proposed to spend 100 million dollars to train new teachers to put out in the schools, with no financial return and only 'hopes' that they target enough kids to have a good science pool in 20 years.

Most of my initial letters were to express my concern against that proposal as it did not offer the financial return Star Trek: Online could bring and did not target the demographic more specifically. For not thinking of putting more practical info into a Space game the way the Department of Defense put Combat and Special Forces training and recruitment features into 'America's Army' the free game.

It seems to be working and both NASA and D.A.R.P.A. are interested and waiting.

Now we just need to wait and find out who is developing STO and if they want to consider NASA and D.A.R.P.A.'s help.