Well the debate continues on and while the mechanics of the game may be said and done, I think there are certainly some things we could see some changes in:
1) Naming your ship : I would agree with almost everyone that we need to have a ship list of names to choose from, rather than type one in, for the very reason of abusive naming conventions people employ and it IS abusive whether we realize it or not.
2) Naming our bridge crew: Why? again for the same reasons noted above, would you let someone name your child Meatshield2 or crewman #6.
Of course not, but this will happen if the devs allow people to name their crewman. Part of the reason we get players in MMO's with idiotic names in the first place is you pick a name and you get the nessage "sorry that name has already been taken". Eventually players get fed up and dont even try to come up with a proper name, they want to play. So intead just give us a roster of people with names to chose from. It will be bad enough choosing our own avatars name as is.
3) Exterior ship customization: If people really want to distinguish themselves from the pack they should do it through gameplay, not how the ship looks. Since we will be following the military doctrine of the feds or the klingons then the ship should appear as they were DESIGNED to be. The ship is not a superhero costume and this game is not a dressed up version of such. if anything you should be able to add a single decal to the ship somewhere that shows what guild your in and thats all and located somewhere where it could be seen, but not grossly huge.
4) Interior ship customization: this one I like, I think it would be nice to make some changes to the bridge layout to a degree. I would certianly give the tactical officer a chair to sit on if I was in command of a galaxy class starship as an example, so he or she isnt standing there for hours on end.
5) Initial setup: I see big problems with this, most people are going to want to play when they have installed the game, not spend an hour or two customizing and thinking up names for crewman, ship and self. I can forsee a lot of people bitterly complaining they cant just go in and start blasting or exploring as the case may be. All of this has to do with what I mentioned above, though granted the ship customization may be somewhat limited at the start of the game. It will have to be streamlined at least initially when making your first avatar.
6) Create your own species : This is just plainly a bad idea in along list of bad ideas, if players can get away with making tentacle monsters and cartoon characters or worse for a species.....they will. and believe me they will. Let's head this problem off at the pass and just remove this option. Or failing that put severe limits to it.
7) Guilds : While I certianly intend to join a guild, guilds should not be the focus of ANY MMO Players not in a guild or have no intention of joining one should not be penalized for doing so. Not everything should hinge on them either, be it research and development, or that a 'discovery' can only be utilized by a guild. In most trek episodes, more often than not problems were solved by the very experienced crew of a starship, so trek online needs to reflect this.
Well these are the most pertinent ones in my mind that need to change, I may post here again, if I feel there is something I missed or in answer to your comments. Agree or disagree? I would love to read anyones comments on this....
