Overly Positive

While it seems that my love affair with Star Trek Online may be coming to an end at some point in the near future, the game itself is not without some saving graces. Sure, I’ve discovered that ship combat consists of slamming the “fire at will” key while speaking in badly imitated Picard-speak, and the away missions look and sound suspiciously like their superhero title Champions Online. But the really “ooh, neat” part comes from a weakness that has existed since I was putting together Gundam models in my earlier years – and that’s customizing my ship.

Admittedly, Star Trek Online will have a strength in that Cryptic has always been good about allowing people to pimp their shiz, so to speak. From models to color schemes to interchangeable items, the look of someone’s ship is almost as important to the game’s success as making sure that one phaser array build isn’t OP. Why is something so cosmetic so important? Well, being able to pimp your ride is just another way for players to express their uniqueness and originality among others. If anything, many players in MMOs fear being just another person in the crowd, and want on some level to distinguish themselves. Facetious as it is, a ship’s look is going to help with that.

Obviously, Star Trek Online wasn’t the first to feature ship -pimping features. EVE, which has been around forever, has a variety of models and items to pick from that both serve as unique look as well as functionality. Before that, now-defunct MMO Earth and Beyond from Westwood allowed ship makeup to be determined from a combination of ship weaponry, speed, and overall look. Today, people still want to pimp their rides, sometimes much more than they would their characters – because having a tricked-out character is one thing, but having a tricked-out ship or vehicle is entirely another.

It’s definitely true that being able to change your ship to having a pink stripe with black overlay is not going to entertain you for too long. After all, there are limits to how customization can honestly affect gameplay experience. That doesn’t mean that spending resources on it is a waste of time, as some MMO players claim to believe. At some point, looks do matter – otherwise we’d all be satisfied with text-based MMOs with words instead of graphics. The eye candy factor of a game, whether on a surface level or not, is a part of a game’s selling point, and whether you are aware of it or not, you’re inevitably affected by it. That being said, there’s nothing wrong with embracing your inner fashion whore as you outfit your ride with what is the equivalent to spinning rims and hydraulics. Just be prepared to be just as big of a target, too.

Over at their blog, Keen talks a little bit about his first Star Trek Online impressions, and how it “being Star Trek” sort of helps a little bit with dealing with potential problems with the game. The cons outweigh the pros, Keen opines, but it’s going to be played for at least a little bit because of the Star Trek feel.

Some people think that dressing up a game with a nice looking Intellectual Property dress is a bad thing, that it creates bias for players and causes problems long term, but I don’t seem to think so. Intellectual Property is, for better or worse, one of the driving marketing forces behind why geeks purchase certain things. Sure, you could sell, for example, a regular toaster, but slap a Cylon head on it and allow it to literally make imprinted Battlestar Galactica toast and you’ve got guaranteed interest even if the toast gets burned to a crisp. As jaded as they sometimes can be, geeks have a propensity towards merchandise and items that elicit feelings of joy and love for what they’re into, and IP sells that to the nines.

There’s also the idea that MMOs themselves are currently, on some level or another, “paying to beta test”. I’m an optimistic guy, folks, don’t get me wrong, but I also know about managing my expectations and realizing inevitable pitfalls aren’t always so bad. What a good or recognizable IP does, really, is help people come to the same conclusion, consciously or unconsciously. If Star Trek Online goes through growing pains (which it most certainly will), the frustration of not being able to play certain races, crash in an instanced zone, or get killed over and over in PvP will be somewhat made palatable by the fact that you are actually piloting a Federation ship or leading an away team. I can’t say that this is honestly such a terrible thing – for developers, it gives them breathing room to see what the problems behind their design are and to adjust, and for players, the (temporary) enhancement for retention rate will keep folks in the game for longer than normal.

Besides, if anything, history will teach lessons about MMO marketing, design, and implementation, so if STO somehow struggles after its initial IP charm, then later titles like Star Wars: The Old Republic, which will have the same issues, will tread more carefully. MMO releases are, if anything, a learning experience for developers, so if IP love just happens to work out, then that’ll be a huge driver towards creating more enjoyable (and hopefully more polished) games.