Comments on: Star Trek Online and the Traveling Problem

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:48:05 +0000

Right, you’d have to fly your ship to the system and orbit the planet first. But again, that could easily be warp speed (map travel) and *poof* you’re at the planet. Transport (map travel) to the surface and *poof* you’re doing normal MMO stuff like Kill Ten Gorn.

The series/movies/novels all had various limitations on transporters not being able to get a lock on people to get them into or out of situations, as well, so I can see it being used as a limitation of where you can go at a certain rank (similar to limiting progress by level in level-based games) or from being an easy out of a bad situation.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:56:40 +0000

Some good ideas here, but just wanted to comment on the concept that people can beam “anywhere”. I think there would be some limitation on this, in Trek lore. For example, you can beam down to a planet from your ship, yes, but you couldn’t beam down to that planet if your ship was on the other side of the galaxy, or something. There would be limits.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:27:26 +0000

The transporter and warp drive concepts are both a great way to get rid of the mythical “meaningful travel” which never really existed to begin with. Notice WAR doesn’t have it either? Concentrate on the fun, not the tedium.

Klingon attack somewhere? Gather up your Federation friends and warp to their location to fight. That’s the fun part. Or would you rather group up then spend 3 hours watching stars fly by while at warp 9 for the sake of so-called realism? That’s called tedium.

Transport down to a planet with your NPC (or player) crew for an Away Mission to ‘Kill Ten Tribbles’ and bring back ’5 Undamaged Tribble Furs’ as proof to the quest NPC. Get in the mission, however, and as Aram suggested, the transporter will be blocked so you don’t have an easy emergency escape until the mission is complete.

It’s Guild Wars’ “map travel” but with Trek’s lore as the reason it works.

By: Aram Zucker-Scharff

Aram Zucker-Scharff — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:25:27 +0000

In the TV show there were plenty of things that could block transporters, odd mineral formations, overloaded engines, ion storms, weird fields, not to mention the fact that you can’t beam through things that are shielded. I’m sure plenty of them will show up in the game.

If you are looking to figure out what’s going on in STO, you should check out my blog Boldly Play.

By: Qix

Qix — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:16:52 +0000

Im about on par with you for Star Stek experiance, but it seems to me that the teleporter is the perfect way to do instances. I mean, if the quest is to find some random thing/place/person, then you don’t know where it is exactly. So you get teleported to the instance. Same with warp drives.

These things could also work like the griffons do in WoW. Fast travel (well, much faster, but you see my point), but only to places you have been before.