"Space: The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
Sorry for the delayed response, I've been out of town.
I agree with what you posted, but only because it screams "storylines!" to me.
"to explore strange new worlds" - What does this entail? What do we do when we get there?
"to seek out new life" - What do we do when we find it? Just shoot it or something more meaningful?
"and new civilizations" - How do we interact with them? Again, just bomb them or is there more to it?
It's not the "to boldly go" that's the issue; it's the "what do we do when we get there" that is the question.
It's not the "to boldly go" that's the issue; it's the "what do we do when we get there" that is the question.
...and after the initial awkward introduction, discover a mutual love of pistachios, popcorn, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Use your **** imagination. :P
But there is no story to be a part of in what you describe. It's just a shoot 'em up and min-max fest, neither of which interest me. I don't like pvp, period. These "unscripted" scenarios you are describing all feel the same over time because it's just a series of battles. I like battles, but I also like a reason for doing them beyond just fighting.
"The Three Kingdoms period is just a series of battles."
"The Seven Kingdoms period is just a series of battles."
"The Sengoku period is just a series of battles."
"World War Two is just a series of battles."
Oh, wait. They are not.
Emergent storytelling is as complex as the mechanical enviroment in which it does exist.
Story brings mystery, it brings personality, it brings emotion (well-written ones do), it brings a variety of activities to further along the story beyond just having the best equipment/stats/hand-eye coordination.
A story does not need to follow a script. Do put a couple hundred competitive people and a few thousand nugus in an enviroment where there is meaningful warfare to be done and meaningful rewards to be obtained from it and you will end with more betrayals, revenges, intrigues, conspiracies, power plays, etc, than you can shake a green dragon crescent blade at.
So, no, what you are describing is not immersive to me on it's own. There is no purpose other than see who can get the best build and gear or who uses the best tactics. That's great for a FPS, not so much in an RPG. If I want to play an FPS, I'll do that in a game dedicated to that, not in an MMO.
I did never say anything about it being about combat alone.
Note as I've said before, I like combat and adventure zones and dailies and the like -- in addition to immersive storyline content. But -- for me -- simply relying on game mechanics to carry the game doesn't cut it. It gets old and repetitive. As much as I enjoy combat, it's not enough on it's own to hold my interest.
I really miss the episodic missions. I WISH they would add a new episode monthly. It would be something to look forward to.
Also with the new Trek Movie coming out this year hey should have some stories connected to that.. or at least something for celebrating it. I guess getting their TOS cloths is out of the question?
I wish there was an option to switch side.. that is a FED Captain to become part of the Klingon Empire .. or a traitor.. that there where some additional fractions. Maybe on merchant side that goes to both sides depending on where you stand.
That way.. there would actually be a reason for you to create more characters to explore the different options in your career which is dependent on what choices you make. I just hate the fact that whatever you choose as option in a mission the outcome is the same. It should not be.., for whatever option ou make in the critical point in that story a scene should play put that is a result of that option.. I am also claiming that should shape your career.
That would also mean that every fraction does NOT have the same missions available. That depending on what career (and if you switch side) you can only do the fraction related stories.
I really hate the fact we have some of the missons at KDF are basically the same as the FED ones. That should not be the case, because you get bored to fast. I realize its hard to implement if you have few missions but over time that will no longer be an issue.
I really hate the fact we have some of the missons at KDF are basically the same as the FED ones. That should not be the case, because you get bored to fast. I realize its hard to implement if you have few missions but over time that will no longer be an issue.
You know, it wouldn't be so bad if the events happened in a different order, there were different dialog options, and there maybe one or two radically different objectives.
I think if more people of my generation had ever played Dungeons and Dragons they'd realize that there's a lot of story to made in between the notes that come in a standard adventure.
There's also a reason that most people in MMOs are divided into two end game player types: RP and PVP/PVE Gear Grinders.
RPers seek to enjoy the environment and to create their own original sense of belonging to it. These things are of course supplemented by good environment and social game mechanics. Its one thing to roleplay a bard who can play better drunk than sober, but if you don't feel like there's a good bar or tavern to do it in then the RPer kind of rolls his eyes, gives it a shot, then rage quits to find a better game.
PVP/PVE Grinders live for the experience of success. They don't like story because its a pointless intellectual distraction from the validation of their senseless waste of valuable man hours in pursuit of an arbitrary status symbol. In many respects its consumer capitalism versus the liberal intelligentsia all over again.
Do you sit around and play silly games and read your stupid books or do you go out there and achieve and win and have gawdy tasteless things to demonstrate your success?
Frankly I try to be polite, but ultimately I start getting more and more annoyed with pure linear content freaks. Ultimately there is a big difference between the sandbox open world nerd versus the content nerd. The weird thing is that the sandbox nerd is easier to satisfy, but there are more content nerds so they ruin the fun of sandbox nerds because nobody ever builds a sandbox, they're too busy courting the endless needs of the more populous rollercoaster gamers.
Here's the problem with you rollercoaster lovers. You require constant new content. You consume then demand more, like some fat guy at a deli. Sandbox nerds are content to sit in the sandbox and play with the same stuff over and over and define it a new with their imaginations. Some gear, some toys, and a few nick nacks pull it together, but overall it takes much less maintenance to keep a sandbox gamer happy. You just need to give him a flexible environment to play with.
If more people had the patience to enjoy a game like SWG then there wouldn't be a need for a game like TOR or STO to disappoint everyone and lead to endless debate.
What does this have to do with story in STO? I dunno, probably not much of anything. I think the story telling in this game is laughably derivative. They mined the ever loving TRIBBLE out of every single episode of Trek they could. They rehashed everything with only the most basic of alterations and took advantage of every young character grown up into a mission string possible. Stories are wooden and generic, and when they aren't derivative of Trek they're just derivative of every unoriginal story.
Ultimately the problem isn't even the story. Thats not what makes story good. Story is about characters, personalities. The events and their details are only variables that exist to give the personalities something to vary their behavior over. In a war movie its not so much about machine guns and bunkers and death as it is about how the characters you're following interact and participate and ultimately change and grow from that experience. Most people, even many writers with years of experience, don't really get this. This is also why MMO based story is pretty much a joke as well, at least when its done in lieu of proper end user RP.
The reason so many people are ardent sandbox RPers is because they know that absent their own creative involvement and interpretation of the environment any so called story is just an empty generic plot line with no real characters to populate it. This is why STO is wooden. Heck, this is why even BW's TOR is pretty bland. An MMO is a hard place to examine complex characters because the user is the character and there are thousands, potentially millions of us who have to feel a part of it. But its not like playing a single player game where the experience is the story and the levelling is almost background and something that comes as a matter of course.
In a single player game like say KOTOR (absent many good single player Trek games I choose for the obvious comparison to TOR) you experience an identical path, with the variation of your class which is mostly superficial in most cases yet its personal because its totally wrapped up in the story. You can even have open world elements in it like with GTA. Problems arise in MMOs because you just can't balance it properly to be satisfying as a canned story. You need more combat, you need more levelling, you need to drag out the experience without spending years and years building necessary content for even a 60 hour play through.
Now that isn't to say that you can't have a better natural universe to play in than STO writes for us. But its obvious that the story is pretty lame, pretty derivative and only exposited enough to keep the trekkies from utterly revolting, at least the ones that have bothered to stay.
Why does STO reuse so many strings from Trek? Why do we have to have Miral Paris in stead of a new character? Because they trick us. We remember an episode of Trek, we fill in so many blanks that way, and they can just reference it through the mission and otherwise have massive combat content in between. Going to Empak Nor? We didn't get the passcode from a Cardassian source. No, its a chance to bust out Elim Garack. Why? Does he show up? Nope, but we use the name so Trekkies can pee their pants and think "YES YES, THIS IS STAR TREK!"
Does STO's story appeal to me? Not really. Almost every story line is just... awful. The less I read the stories, the less I feel ripped off.
I think if more people of my generation had ever played Dungeons and Dragons they'd realize that there's a lot of story to made in between the notes that come in a standard adventure.
There's also a reason that most people in MMOs are divided into two end game player types: RP and PVP/PVE Gear Grinders.
RPers seek to enjoy the environment and to create their own original sense of belonging to it. These things are of course supplemented by good environment and social game mechanics. Its one thing to roleplay a bard who can play better drunk than sober, but if you don't feel like there's a good bar or tavern to do it in then the RPer kind of rolls his eyes, gives it a shot, then rage quits to find a better game.
PVP/PVE Grinders live for the experience of success. They don't like story because its a pointless intellectual distraction from the validation of their senseless waste of valuable man hours in pursuit of an arbitrary status symbol. In many respects its consumer capitalism versus the liberal intelligentsia all over again.
I think you raise a good point with this. But both kinds of players are not wrong in their thinking, they just derive pleasure from different activities. This is why I think that New Romulus is the best thing that has happened to this game, and I hope that future content continues this trend.
The thing that makes New Romulus special is that it's set up for both RP and PvE activities. It's not perfect, and it could use some more locations with friendly NPCs and decorations set up for RP, and some rewards/trophies for PvE'ers.
We should be encouraging both kinds of play styles.
One of the ways I thought this could be done, is with a Starship Graveyard Space Adventure Zone. Take a huge space map and fill it full of derelict starships. Amidst all these wrecks, place random invisible gravatic distortions that range from harmlessly knocking your ship around, to turning your ship inside out in half a second.
Make these gravatic distortions fixed in place, and have them activated by a variety of triggers. Some would be activated simply by a ship traveling past them, others would be activated by abilities like warp plasma.
You could also put random NPC scavengers in these fields, some hostile, others friendly, some provokable. And you would have to make it a PvP Zone like Ker'rat.
An adventure zone like this would be perfect as it supports all three play styles. NPC's for PvE'ers, PvP turned on for PvP'ers, a massive zone full of destroyed ships of all types ripe for RP, and horrible, dangerous environmental hazards everyone has to worry about.
This could lead to awesome situations where two people RPing get attacked by a group of PvPers, but the PvE'er fighting the scavengers a little ways away triggers one of the gravatic distortions on purpose, killing the PvP'ers and saving the RP'ers.
I think if more people of my generation had ever played Dungeons and Dragons they'd realize that there's a lot of story to made in between the notes that come in a standard adventure.
In D&D we had total control of the storylines and mechanics. We had dice to roll, we could set up scenarios, traps, hazards, conundrums, and the like. The story could take some wild twists and turns, but the GM still had a base story and goal for the group and the means to redirect paths if necessary. If we had the ability to set those types of things up on the landscape in a PC game (set up our own glowies, traps, etc. via the game systems) that would be spectacular.
[edit]In a PnP scenario, the GM controls the NPCs (townsfolk, villains, and so forth) words and actions. The players interact with NPCs via the GM. In a PC game, the only way NPCs interact is with prescripted text and actions. This is especially important for villains and bosses. In PnP, the GM has set up the bosses and key components and handles the interaction with the players. In a PC sandbox, that side is missing, so there is a limit to the complexity and capabilities of totally unscripted characters and events.
Unfortunately, we don't. The only way for the game systems to support anything other than plain combat is through linear stories, whether dev-created or Foundry.
There are many things we can do in a PnP game that we can't do in a sandbox PC game for that reason. In a sandbox, we can RP (often just chatting for hours on end) or fight landscape critters.
Frankly I try to be polite, but ultimately I start getting more and more annoyed with pure linear content freaks. Ultimately there is a big difference between the sandbox open world nerd versus the content nerd. The weird thing is that the sandbox nerd is easier to satisfy, but there are more content nerds so they ruin the fun of sandbox nerds because nobody ever builds a sandbox, they're too busy courting the endless needs of the more populous rollercoaster gamers.
Here's the problem with you rollercoaster lovers. You require constant new content. You consume then demand more, like some fat guy at a deli. Sandbox nerds are content to sit in the sandbox and play with the same stuff over and over and define it a new with their imaginations. Some gear, some toys, and a few nick nacks pull it together, but overall it takes much less maintenance to keep a sandbox gamer happy. You just need to give him a flexible environment to play with.
I guess you would consider me a "content nerd" (although I like the sandbox aspects as well) because I want to do something more than chat and fight. I want to solve the puzzles, I want to rescue the princess (or what have you ), I want to repair the life support systems, I want to do things that sandbox-only games can't do via game mechanics only.
Ideally, I'd like to take the PnP capabilities and use them in a PC game. In PnP games there are many prewritten aspects -- it's how the group gets to them that brings in the variability and challenge for the GM.
That kind of freedom, i.e., the ability to set up objectives and goals, hazards and events and the mechanics to make them work, and then let the players create their own RP story as they begin their quest is what is lacking.
Given the choice between sitting around chat RPing and/or fighting who- or whatever happens to be around or playing a complex, lengthly, linear storyline, I'll take the episodic content.
But, like you, I would like it to be more than that.
For me, STO needs to add a significant amount of episodic content to bring it on par with other MMOs. That combined with the sandbox elements would flesh out the game and bring greater replayability. It's not an either/or concept, it's a both/and. The only real gripe I have with STO with regard to story is that there is so little of it in comparison with other games.
For my family, I do intend to set up scenarios at our starbase, etc., where we can "roll the dice" as it were to accomplish specific goals in lieu of having game mechanics to do so (e.g., I can't add a clickie to a starbase computer), but I don't have time to do that very often.
If I didn't have a job and other RL responsibilities, I would spend a lot of time creating PnP scenarios to play out in the STO environment. But I don't have that time, so I rely on the dev team or the Foundry to create stories I can jump in an play with limited playtime.
One of the ways I thought this could be done, is with a Starship Graveyard Space Adventure Zone. Take a huge space map and fill it full of derelict starships. Amidst all these wrecks, place random invisible gravatic distortions that range from harmlessly knocking your ship around, to turning your ship inside out in half a second.
Make these gravatic distortions fixed in place, and have them activated by a variety of triggers. Some would be activated simply by a ship traveling past them, others would be activated by abilities like warp plasma.
You could also put random NPC scavengers in these fields, some hostile, others friendly, some provokable. And you would have to make it a PvP Zone like Ker'rat.
An adventure zone like this would be perfect as it supports all three play styles. NPC's for PvE'ers, PvP turned on for PvP'ers, a massive zone full of destroyed ships of all types ripe for RP, and horrible, dangerous environmental hazards everyone has to worry about.
This could lead to awesome situations where two people RPing get attacked by a group of PvPers, but the PvE'er fighting the scavengers a little ways away triggers one of the gravatic distortions on purpose, killing the PvP'ers and saving the RP'ers.
This game needs more moments like that.
That would be epic! I could see Wolf 359 or NGC 1218 filling the role nicely.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
An adventure zone like this would be perfect as it supports all three play styles. NPC's for PvE'ers, PvP turned on for PvP'ers, a massive zone full of destroyed ships of all types ripe for RP, and horrible, dangerous environmental hazards everyone has to worry about.
This could lead to awesome situations where two people RPing get attacked by a group of PvPers, but the PvE'er fighting the scavengers a little ways away triggers one of the gravatic distortions on purpose, killing the PvP'ers and saving the RP'ers.
This game needs more moments like that.
Any zone that supports PvP without hard-flagging only supports other playstyles when PvPers aren't around, as this example actively demonstrates.
I guess you would consider me a "content nerd" (although I like the sandbox aspects as well) because I want to do something more than chat and fight. I want to solve the puzzles, I want to rescue the princess (or what have you ), I want to repair the life support systems, I want to do things that sandbox-only games can't do via game mechanics only.
These things can be done via mechanics alone, and if done so they will be more meaningful because both failure and success do have actual consequences for your and your guild beyond 'try again.'
Do take the idea of a castle siege. Hundreds of enemy players are outside. Several guilds did join to take your guild's fortress by force, and they did bring many mercenaries. Inside is your guild and all those mercenaries and allies it could muster before the siege did take place. They are bombarding you with, uhm, magical artillery whatchamacallits. One of these blasts do hit one of your, err, magical shield generator thingys. Oh, no! There is a breach in the shield! The first enemies do begin to pour in. Your guild mistress does send many as many characters as she can to hold them up and does send you and two others to repair the magical shield generator thingy before the improptu defense does give in.
Both emergent and procedurally gameplay are as complex as the enviroment and algorithms that do govern it. You and your two other magical engineer friends do get to the magical shield generator thingy and find to repair it you need to solve a pretty complex puzzle. Better yet, let us be sadistic: A pretty complex Rhem-like or Myst-like puzzle generated by a quite complex algorithm. There you have the puzzle. Now solve it before the defense does give in and the enemies are in your fortress, slaughtering your doods.
There is a difference between what emergent and procedural can do and what lazy developers who can't code do try to do. For example...
... do read that page. That's part of the procedurally generated exploration system a group of indie developers who did run a kickstarter is making up for their space exploration game. Do compare it with the procedurally exploration system Cryptic did make for STO and weep.
Emergent content does depend on the complexity of the enviroment. Procedurally generated content does depend on the complexity of the algorithms. That's all there is to it. Let us follow the example we did use before with Dwarf Fortress. Dwarf Fortress has neither script nor plot. It does still create situations more complex, weird, insane, and tense than most.
One of my first fortresses got under siege by goblins. I did retract the bridge that did lead to my side of the 'chasm room' I had built. The goblins had no way to get in. My dwarfs did have no way to get out. I had access to an underground river so there was no problem with the water even if the ale was running out quite fast. However, before a few days did pass, the game did inform me a Forgotten Beast did wander to the caves beneath.
I had to risk them dying of thirst (or more likely killing each other on a tantrum spiral because of it) or dying at the claws of a forgotten beast. I did choose the later. We did not come across the forgotten beast and soon afterwards the besiegers got bored and went back to goblinland. So far, so good.
Life did continue as it was. I should have taken advantage of the peace to secure the materials to build one or two wells to take water from the underground cavern without risking direct contact with the forgotten beast but I was complacent. The beast was dormant. The goblins could not break my main gate. I was secure.
Then another siege did happen. I did call everyone in, locked the games, and retracted the bridge. My dwarves went again to look for water underground instead of to the stream outside. At that moment the game did tell me ANOTHER forgotten beast did wander into the caves below.
And then both forgotten beasts did attack at the same time when they did notice Urist McFarmer drinking water on the underground lake's edge. He did run, scared, back to the fortress. The beasts did follow him. Chaos did ensue.
When the subsequent battle did end all but three of my dwarves were dead. My fortress was full of the broken bodies of dwarves, goblins, and two forgotten beasts as in my desperation I did allow passage to the gobling siege so they would soften the beasts for me. One of the survivors was a baby who died of thirst. One of the survivors was a stone carver and marksdwarf, now also governor, who did spend the rest of his days in the fortress carving the glorious story of the keep in the main halls walls so that others could know the great many epic tales that did transpire before the brutal end. When a monster did wander in the broken and bloody halls he did took his crossbow, killed the beast, and went back to carving regardless of the putrid miasma the corpses did fill the air with. The last survivor was a worthless dwarf who did spend the rest of his days in the fortress taking buckets of water to the carver so he could finish his work.
If you had been a dwarf capable of threading ropes (the only well component I did lack) and with enough foresight to secure a few of materials for one the fortress would not have fallen. No battle for you. Just intelligence, foresight, and problem solving with no need of a script. Only the mechanics of the game, the rules that did govern the simulated world, and the way the great Armok did will the events to happen.
The point being: You do not need a story for things other than 'combat' to exist. You do need mechanics that do allow for them. The complexity of the mechanics, the enviroment in which these mechanics do exist, and both the long term and short term ambitions of the players do build the story. "How do we obtain this?", "How do we manage to undertake this massive project?", "How do we kill this jerk?" You do experience it and influence it freely.
And if the other dwarves had been players too you would have needed to debate the need for materials to make ropes from with the broker, or the bookkeeper, or maybe the baroness herself. Combat? Uhm, no. Problem solving and social interaction with more depth than any pre-scripted dialogue writen by a hack can give you. Or maybe Urist McFarmer would have done the vulcan thing and run -away- from the fortress instead, leading the beasts on a merry chase that would end with him death and the beasts far away from my water source.
If the goblins had been other players things would have gotten to an entirely new level.
And let us not speak of the fortress in which my five z-levels deep, thirty by thirty tiles moat was also the only water reservoirr. I did not think that one thoroughly at all.
It is not my fault you do all seem to believe 'procedural' and 'emergent' does mean 'kill things.'
Do you want to rescue princesses? You do need nothing but an enviroment and a set of mechanics on which to abduct and rescue player controlled princesses has actual meaning or an algorithm that does generate cool princess-rescuing missions, or to have an NPC princess which has actual use for your faction so that enemy factions do want to abduct her (and maybe some evil NPC dragon superbosses too). Given the quality of the plots on MMOs the writer will probably do a far worse job by being thoroughly predictable about it.
These things can be done via mechanics alone, and if done so they will be more meaningful because both failure and success do have actual consequences for your and your guild beyond 'try again.'
Do you want to rescue princesses? You do need nothing but an enviroment and a set of mechanics on which to abduct and rescue player controlled princesses has actual meaning or an algorithm that does generate cool princess-rescuing missions, or to have an NPC princess which has actual use for your faction so that enemy factions do want to abduct her (and maybe some evil NPC dragon superbosses too). Given the quality of the plots on MMOs the writer will probably do a far worse job by being thoroughly predictable about it.
Rather than requote the entire post, I'll just hit on the key conclusions.
The "algorithm" mentioned with regard to the "NPC princess" still requires someone to script how it functions. All of the "repair this or that" examples you gave still require the mechanics to be in place and scripted. They are not player-controlled and revolve around the castle siege and combat.
If we were given the capability of generating the use of these mechanics ourselves, we could indeed write our own stories ("write" as in PnP scenario, not a fully written linear story) and this would be glorious.
However, everything you described mechanics-wise was set up by the developers; the only additional input from the player is to decide which available ones to use (which is good). This does nothing for setting up our own scenarios, our own NPCs, villains, objectives, and the like. The mechanics are still prescripted options in dev-designed battle maps.
To continue with the D&D example, the GM controls the NPCs, villains, and bosses, handling the interactions with the players and placement and purpose of said NPCs. In an MMO, we do not have this functionality. We either rely on prescripted stories from the devs or UGC group, or we simply do not do it at all. Powerful PnP-like story tools are simply not there.
The situations you describe all revolve around the combat; differing tactics to win the battle are available, but that's about it.
I have zero interest in PvP of any kind, which a lot of your examples revolve around. My overall experience in PvP has not been positive, win or lose.
What would be perfect would be a system where a player can set up their own scenarios, including NPC interactions, bosses, objectives, etc., and then let the group drive the evolution of the story to reach the objectives (like in PnP games).
Until then, if the primary options are PvP/RvR battles or episodic storylines, I'll take the storylines. Taking and retaking the same territory over and over again is not immersive to me. I do not begrudge those who do enjoy it; hopefully they don't begrudge those of us who don't.
Until then, if the primary options are PvP/RvR battles or episodic storylines, I'll take the storylines. Taking and retaking the same territory over and over again is not immersive to me. I do not begrudge those who do enjoy it; hopefully they don't begrudge those of us who don't.
I do begrudge them. If I wanted to play Capture the Flag I'd download Team Fortress and play that.
I play games to be the hero. The real world is already filled with overly competitive jackasses looking to get ahead by (metaphorically) stepping over your corpse. And I already am a cog in someone else's machine. Why would I look forward to doing the same thing in a Starfleet uniform?
Gimme new story. New story that I don't have to chase space bunnies to get. Or, if rumors are to be believed about S8, grind for purple gear just so I can grunt my way through Kerrat fifty times for a one minute cutscene. Give me motivation to keep playing.
Bleh, to the idea of continuing the game story via any other method than missions. Bleh to the power of bleh.
Story advancement should utilize all aspect of the game - which includes the PvP aspect. I, however; agree that the PvP story portion should be optional for those players who do not enjoy PvP.
Guildwars Faction has an indepth storyliine that does not necessarily force the player to partipate in PvP - However; it is part of the Faction expansion.
Cutscenes should be included with a nice story arc involving territory expansion and possibly a main re-occurring villian.
Look at the STF Into the Hive space battle - it does have decent cutscene and drama - Though I believe that the Captain of the U.S.S. Houston is the biggest idiot that ever graduated from Starfleet Academy - He almost sounds very angry, and if I am not mistaken - Klingon by nature.
Could be that the Cpt of the U.S.S. Houston is a Klingon.
Is it the Houston, or is the name randomly generated - I thought last I saw it was the U.S.S. Colorado.
Anyways got a bit off track there - Storylines should support all aspect of the game, afterall, its an MMO.
I think the story at one time was a strength. Granted, i0f you look at the missions too critically, you will see that the story is pretty 2 dimensional and there is a distinct lack of meaningful character interaction. From a literary standpoint the story is absolutely weak. And frankly there is room for a lot of improvement there.
But for a game, it's enough to carry the action, and it was a lot better than smacking rats, killing 10 bears, or doing pointless FedEx quests that I've experienced in other games. The storyline was good enough to make it feel like things were happening and you were part of it. It felt like you had a personal story that was unfolding in front of you, even though of course everyone else had the same story. If they didn't have the storyline missions and just had the current grinds, the game would be utter ****.
Had they continued to make the FEs at a basis where a new FE came out every 3-4 months, it could have been a strength to keep people playing, even if the stories themselves were only C quality.
The really sad thing, in my opinion, is that Star Trek has the depth to be a storyline driven game on par with Mass Effect or KOTOR. If you had a good storyteller, who knew the Star Trek universe, involved an absolutely amazing game could be made. However, that probably would not be an MMO.
I do begrudge them. If I wanted to play Capture the Flag I'd download Team Fortress and play that.
I play games to be the hero. The real world is already filled with overly competitive jackasses looking to get ahead by (metaphorically) stepping over your corpse. And I already am a cog in someone else's machine. Why would I look forward to doing the same thing in a Starfleet uniform?
Gimme new story. New story that I don't have to chase space bunnies to get. Or, if rumors are to be believed about S8, grind for purple gear just so I can grunt my way through Kerrat fifty times for a one minute cutscene. Give me motivation to keep playing.
Bleh, to the idea of continuing the game story via any other method than missions. Bleh to the power of bleh.
My comment was in general terms (i.e., different players have different playstyles).
Like you, I have no wish to go through a rep grind to unlock new story content. I certainly won't do it on more than one character (I have 30+).
I've seen comments from players who don't want to repeat the stories. To me, at least the stories have flavor -- meat if you will -- to them. Running around the landscape scanning the exact same things or killing the same critters repeatedly is a whole lot more boring to me than repeating immersive mission content.
Using LOTRO as an example: Not counting raids, skirmishes, and PvP, they have three major types of missions; the Epic storyline (main, deep), local story arcs and individual stories (secondary, medium depth), and "go kill 10 boars" generic fantasy MMO quests (little depth, though at least the NPC quest text has character ).
The problem I see with New Romulus style content is that it consists primarily of the "go kill 10 boars" types of quests -- kind of. Scanning the rocks, checking the readouts on devices placed about the ruins, fighting Tholians, etc., does have a little more flavor than simply killing 10 boars. It is the same mechanics, but they dressed it up a little better to make it slightly more immersive. Kudos on that.
The problem for me is that the "go kill 10 boars" missions are my least favorite. They are okay as fillers, but not main content. They get old and stale quickly.
So, if I'm going to repeat content, I'd prefer to replay the episodic content on multiple characters (or even the same one) than play "go kill 10 boars" repeatedly.
I like New Romulus; it's a nice aside and something different (I like variety). But after running through it twice, I'm done with it for a while.
Honestly, the dailies and repeatables are pretty much like the regular missions to me, falling into the light story category. Once I've played them, I've played them. I will play them again on another character later, but I'm certainly not going to just keep repeating them ad infinitum on a single character.
I think the story at one time was a strength. Granted, if you look at the missions too critically, you will see that the story is pretty 2 dimensional and there is a distinct lack of meaningful character interaction. From a literary standpoint the story is absolutely weak. And frankly there is room for a lot of improvement there.
I couldn't agree more, I am glad you mentioned the lack of meangful character interaction, which to me also means the lack of a true nemesis or hero - assuming that we're fighting alongside a heroic figure in STO.
It bothers me that there really isn't a true face of evil or opposition. Sure we have the concepts of Man VS Man (or in this case Aliens), Man VS Himself, and even Man VS Nature - yet its far too basic and shallow to be thought provoking.
But for a game, it's enough to carry the action, and it was a lot better than smacking rats, killing 10 bears, or doing pointless FedEx quests ..... The storyline was good enough to make it feel like things were happening and you were part of it. It felt like you had a personal story that was unfolding in front of you, even though of course everyone else had the same story. If they didn't have the storyline missions and just had the current grinds, the game would be utter ****.
Yet, it has soo much potential, soo much potential, that is NOT being utilized.
Had they continued to make the FEs at a basis where a new FE came out every 3-4 months, it could have been a strength to keep people playing, even if the stories themselves were only C quality.
The really sad thing, in my opinion, is that Star Trek has the depth to be a storyline driven game on par with Mass Effect or KOTOR. If you had a good storyteller, who knew the Star Trek universe, involved an absolutely amazing game could be made. However, that probably would not be an MMO.
What they are lacking is a strong Heroic and an Enemy face coupled with a strong centered theme per Season - It CAN work in an MMO, if implemented well.
I couldn't agree more, I am glad you mentioned the lack of meangful character interaction, which to me also means the lack of a true nemesis or hero - assuming that we're fighting alongside a heroic figure in STO.
It bothers me that there really isn't a true face of evil or opposition. Sure we have the concepts of Man VS Man (or in this case Aliens), Man VS Himself, and even Man VS Nature - yet its far too basic and shallow to be thought provoking.
I think the Iconians fit that role pretty well...especially since we still haven't really seen them yet.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
Storytelling in STO has evolved a great deal since launch. We've seen Cryptic experiment with new Story/Mechanics releases with the first our FEs with mixed results. Writing the same story to fit two disparate factions is difficult enough and they did not always succeed, the 2800 felt forced for the KDF. Then there were the exclusive missions for the KDF that did a better job of it, if completely isolated. Many, myself included, regard the Fek'lir arc as the best in the game.
The remastered missions was another step forward that I hope they continue with on both factions, even i one was a long sales pitch for the KDF (The Doomsday Machine). In the last year I have seen Cryptic do some interesting things with story telling, making it less obvious and allowing you to...wait for it...discover it! Storytelling via the Duty officer System. The Catian Diaspora chain tells of the schism between everyone's favorite felines. Its not traditional but it got me interesting in searching for the next assignment in the chain. There are a few other examples of this and I applaud the attempt.
The latest developments are Nukara Prime and New Romulus. Adventure Zones appear to be the future for the game and while Nukara only hints at story, a means to an end, New Romulus and it's reputation system tries to bridge the gap, telling the story of the planet's desperate residents and the forces arrayed against them. Each tier rewards you with a cutscene that furthers the story a bit more, enticing you to continue to find out what happens next. Tier unlocked instances give you snipets that link events together, the Tier one instance for example bridges the gap between "Cloaked Intentions" and New Romulus.
Cryptic is learning and while they are focused on play, aesthetics, and mechanics, they have not forgotten future story. The older stuff might not be the best but it is my hope that they will go back and remaster some of it.
My two EC.
Also known as Gingie(In game) Sskald(Gates of Sto-vo-kor)
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Comments
Sorry for the delayed response, I've been out of town.
I agree with what you posted, but only because it screams "storylines!" to me.
"to explore strange new worlds" - What does this entail? What do we do when we get there?
"to seek out new life" - What do we do when we find it? Just shoot it or something more meaningful?
"and new civilizations" - How do we interact with them? Again, just bomb them or is there more to it?
It's not the "to boldly go" that's the issue; it's the "what do we do when we get there" that is the question.
Journey through the randomly generated gravity wells, and space fire storms in order to reach the newly discovered planet...
...of the eight foot tall squid people...
...proceed to learn how to say "cease and desist" via interpretive dance...
...and after the initial awkward introduction, discover a mutual love of pistachios, popcorn, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Use your **** imagination. :P
"The Three Kingdoms period is just a series of battles."
"The Seven Kingdoms period is just a series of battles."
"The Sengoku period is just a series of battles."
"World War Two is just a series of battles."
Oh, wait. They are not.
Emergent storytelling is as complex as the mechanical enviroment in which it does exist.
A story does not need to follow a script. Do put a couple hundred competitive people and a few thousand nugus in an enviroment where there is meaningful warfare to be done and meaningful rewards to be obtained from it and you will end with more betrayals, revenges, intrigues, conspiracies, power plays, etc, than you can shake a green dragon crescent blade at.
I did never say anything about it being about combat alone.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~syberghost
Also with the new Trek Movie coming out this year hey should have some stories connected to that.. or at least something for celebrating it. I guess getting their TOS cloths is out of the question?
I wish there was an option to switch side.. that is a FED Captain to become part of the Klingon Empire .. or a traitor.. that there where some additional fractions. Maybe on merchant side that goes to both sides depending on where you stand.
That way.. there would actually be a reason for you to create more characters to explore the different options in your career which is dependent on what choices you make. I just hate the fact that whatever you choose as option in a mission the outcome is the same. It should not be.., for whatever option ou make in the critical point in that story a scene should play put that is a result of that option.. I am also claiming that should shape your career.
That would also mean that every fraction does NOT have the same missions available. That depending on what career (and if you switch side) you can only do the fraction related stories.
I really hate the fact we have some of the missons at KDF are basically the same as the FED ones. That should not be the case, because you get bored to fast. I realize its hard to implement if you have few missions but over time that will no longer be an issue.
You know, it wouldn't be so bad if the events happened in a different order, there were different dialog options, and there maybe one or two radically different objectives.
There's also a reason that most people in MMOs are divided into two end game player types: RP and PVP/PVE Gear Grinders.
RPers seek to enjoy the environment and to create their own original sense of belonging to it. These things are of course supplemented by good environment and social game mechanics. Its one thing to roleplay a bard who can play better drunk than sober, but if you don't feel like there's a good bar or tavern to do it in then the RPer kind of rolls his eyes, gives it a shot, then rage quits to find a better game.
PVP/PVE Grinders live for the experience of success. They don't like story because its a pointless intellectual distraction from the validation of their senseless waste of valuable man hours in pursuit of an arbitrary status symbol. In many respects its consumer capitalism versus the liberal intelligentsia all over again.
Do you sit around and play silly games and read your stupid books or do you go out there and achieve and win and have gawdy tasteless things to demonstrate your success?
Frankly I try to be polite, but ultimately I start getting more and more annoyed with pure linear content freaks. Ultimately there is a big difference between the sandbox open world nerd versus the content nerd. The weird thing is that the sandbox nerd is easier to satisfy, but there are more content nerds so they ruin the fun of sandbox nerds because nobody ever builds a sandbox, they're too busy courting the endless needs of the more populous rollercoaster gamers.
Here's the problem with you rollercoaster lovers. You require constant new content. You consume then demand more, like some fat guy at a deli. Sandbox nerds are content to sit in the sandbox and play with the same stuff over and over and define it a new with their imaginations. Some gear, some toys, and a few nick nacks pull it together, but overall it takes much less maintenance to keep a sandbox gamer happy. You just need to give him a flexible environment to play with.
If more people had the patience to enjoy a game like SWG then there wouldn't be a need for a game like TOR or STO to disappoint everyone and lead to endless debate.
What does this have to do with story in STO? I dunno, probably not much of anything. I think the story telling in this game is laughably derivative. They mined the ever loving TRIBBLE out of every single episode of Trek they could. They rehashed everything with only the most basic of alterations and took advantage of every young character grown up into a mission string possible. Stories are wooden and generic, and when they aren't derivative of Trek they're just derivative of every unoriginal story.
Ultimately the problem isn't even the story. Thats not what makes story good. Story is about characters, personalities. The events and their details are only variables that exist to give the personalities something to vary their behavior over. In a war movie its not so much about machine guns and bunkers and death as it is about how the characters you're following interact and participate and ultimately change and grow from that experience. Most people, even many writers with years of experience, don't really get this. This is also why MMO based story is pretty much a joke as well, at least when its done in lieu of proper end user RP.
The reason so many people are ardent sandbox RPers is because they know that absent their own creative involvement and interpretation of the environment any so called story is just an empty generic plot line with no real characters to populate it. This is why STO is wooden. Heck, this is why even BW's TOR is pretty bland. An MMO is a hard place to examine complex characters because the user is the character and there are thousands, potentially millions of us who have to feel a part of it. But its not like playing a single player game where the experience is the story and the levelling is almost background and something that comes as a matter of course.
In a single player game like say KOTOR (absent many good single player Trek games I choose for the obvious comparison to TOR) you experience an identical path, with the variation of your class which is mostly superficial in most cases yet its personal because its totally wrapped up in the story. You can even have open world elements in it like with GTA. Problems arise in MMOs because you just can't balance it properly to be satisfying as a canned story. You need more combat, you need more levelling, you need to drag out the experience without spending years and years building necessary content for even a 60 hour play through.
Now that isn't to say that you can't have a better natural universe to play in than STO writes for us. But its obvious that the story is pretty lame, pretty derivative and only exposited enough to keep the trekkies from utterly revolting, at least the ones that have bothered to stay.
Why does STO reuse so many strings from Trek? Why do we have to have Miral Paris in stead of a new character? Because they trick us. We remember an episode of Trek, we fill in so many blanks that way, and they can just reference it through the mission and otherwise have massive combat content in between. Going to Empak Nor? We didn't get the passcode from a Cardassian source. No, its a chance to bust out Elim Garack. Why? Does he show up? Nope, but we use the name so Trekkies can pee their pants and think "YES YES, THIS IS STAR TREK!"
Does STO's story appeal to me? Not really. Almost every story line is just... awful. The less I read the stories, the less I feel ripped off.
I think you raise a good point with this. But both kinds of players are not wrong in their thinking, they just derive pleasure from different activities. This is why I think that New Romulus is the best thing that has happened to this game, and I hope that future content continues this trend.
The thing that makes New Romulus special is that it's set up for both RP and PvE activities. It's not perfect, and it could use some more locations with friendly NPCs and decorations set up for RP, and some rewards/trophies for PvE'ers.
We should be encouraging both kinds of play styles.
One of the ways I thought this could be done, is with a Starship Graveyard Space Adventure Zone. Take a huge space map and fill it full of derelict starships. Amidst all these wrecks, place random invisible gravatic distortions that range from harmlessly knocking your ship around, to turning your ship inside out in half a second.
Make these gravatic distortions fixed in place, and have them activated by a variety of triggers. Some would be activated simply by a ship traveling past them, others would be activated by abilities like warp plasma.
You could also put random NPC scavengers in these fields, some hostile, others friendly, some provokable. And you would have to make it a PvP Zone like Ker'rat.
An adventure zone like this would be perfect as it supports all three play styles. NPC's for PvE'ers, PvP turned on for PvP'ers, a massive zone full of destroyed ships of all types ripe for RP, and horrible, dangerous environmental hazards everyone has to worry about.
This could lead to awesome situations where two people RPing get attacked by a group of PvPers, but the PvE'er fighting the scavengers a little ways away triggers one of the gravatic distortions on purpose, killing the PvP'ers and saving the RP'ers.
This game needs more moments like that.
In D&D we had total control of the storylines and mechanics. We had dice to roll, we could set up scenarios, traps, hazards, conundrums, and the like. The story could take some wild twists and turns, but the GM still had a base story and goal for the group and the means to redirect paths if necessary. If we had the ability to set those types of things up on the landscape in a PC game (set up our own glowies, traps, etc. via the game systems) that would be spectacular.
[edit]In a PnP scenario, the GM controls the NPCs (townsfolk, villains, and so forth) words and actions. The players interact with NPCs via the GM. In a PC game, the only way NPCs interact is with prescripted text and actions. This is especially important for villains and bosses. In PnP, the GM has set up the bosses and key components and handles the interaction with the players. In a PC sandbox, that side is missing, so there is a limit to the complexity and capabilities of totally unscripted characters and events.
Unfortunately, we don't. The only way for the game systems to support anything other than plain combat is through linear stories, whether dev-created or Foundry.
There are many things we can do in a PnP game that we can't do in a sandbox PC game for that reason. In a sandbox, we can RP (often just chatting for hours on end) or fight landscape critters.
I guess you would consider me a "content nerd" (although I like the sandbox aspects as well) because I want to do something more than chat and fight. I want to solve the puzzles, I want to rescue the princess (or what have you
Ideally, I'd like to take the PnP capabilities and use them in a PC game. In PnP games there are many prewritten aspects -- it's how the group gets to them that brings in the variability and challenge for the GM.
That kind of freedom, i.e., the ability to set up objectives and goals, hazards and events and the mechanics to make them work, and then let the players create their own RP story as they begin their quest is what is lacking.
Given the choice between sitting around chat RPing and/or fighting who- or whatever happens to be around or playing a complex, lengthly, linear storyline, I'll take the episodic content.
But, like you, I would like it to be more than that.
For me, STO needs to add a significant amount of episodic content to bring it on par with other MMOs. That combined with the sandbox elements would flesh out the game and bring greater replayability. It's not an either/or concept, it's a both/and. The only real gripe I have with STO with regard to story is that there is so little of it in comparison with other games.
For my family, I do intend to set up scenarios at our starbase, etc., where we can "roll the dice" as it were to accomplish specific goals in lieu of having game mechanics to do so (e.g., I can't add a clickie to a starbase computer), but I don't have time to do that very often.
If I didn't have a job and other RL responsibilities, I would spend a lot of time creating PnP scenarios to play out in the STO environment. But I don't have that time, so I rely on the dev team or the Foundry to create stories I can jump in an play with limited playtime.
That would be epic! I could see Wolf 359 or NGC 1218 filling the role nicely.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Any zone that supports PvP without hard-flagging only supports other playstyles when PvPers aren't around, as this example actively demonstrates.
These things can be done via mechanics alone, and if done so they will be more meaningful because both failure and success do have actual consequences for your and your guild beyond 'try again.'
Do take the idea of a castle siege. Hundreds of enemy players are outside. Several guilds did join to take your guild's fortress by force, and they did bring many mercenaries. Inside is your guild and all those mercenaries and allies it could muster before the siege did take place. They are bombarding you with, uhm, magical artillery whatchamacallits. One of these blasts do hit one of your, err, magical shield generator thingys. Oh, no! There is a breach in the shield! The first enemies do begin to pour in. Your guild mistress does send many as many characters as she can to hold them up and does send you and two others to repair the magical shield generator thingy before the improptu defense does give in.
Both emergent and procedurally gameplay are as complex as the enviroment and algorithms that do govern it. You and your two other magical engineer friends do get to the magical shield generator thingy and find to repair it you need to solve a pretty complex puzzle. Better yet, let us be sadistic: A pretty complex Rhem-like or Myst-like puzzle generated by a quite complex algorithm. There you have the puzzle. Now solve it before the defense does give in and the enemies are in your fortress, slaughtering your doods.
There is a difference between what emergent and procedural can do and what lazy developers who can't code do try to do. For example...
http://playstarbound.com/about/
... do read that page. That's part of the procedurally generated exploration system a group of indie developers who did run a kickstarter is making up for their space exploration game. Do compare it with the procedurally exploration system Cryptic did make for STO and weep.
Emergent content does depend on the complexity of the enviroment. Procedurally generated content does depend on the complexity of the algorithms. That's all there is to it. Let us follow the example we did use before with Dwarf Fortress. Dwarf Fortress has neither script nor plot. It does still create situations more complex, weird, insane, and tense than most.
One of my first fortresses got under siege by goblins. I did retract the bridge that did lead to my side of the 'chasm room' I had built. The goblins had no way to get in. My dwarfs did have no way to get out. I had access to an underground river so there was no problem with the water even if the ale was running out quite fast. However, before a few days did pass, the game did inform me a Forgotten Beast did wander to the caves beneath.
I had to risk them dying of thirst (or more likely killing each other on a tantrum spiral because of it) or dying at the claws of a forgotten beast. I did choose the later. We did not come across the forgotten beast and soon afterwards the besiegers got bored and went back to goblinland. So far, so good.
Life did continue as it was. I should have taken advantage of the peace to secure the materials to build one or two wells to take water from the underground cavern without risking direct contact with the forgotten beast but I was complacent. The beast was dormant. The goblins could not break my main gate. I was secure.
Then another siege did happen. I did call everyone in, locked the games, and retracted the bridge. My dwarves went again to look for water underground instead of to the stream outside. At that moment the game did tell me ANOTHER forgotten beast did wander into the caves below.
And then both forgotten beasts did attack at the same time when they did notice Urist McFarmer drinking water on the underground lake's edge. He did run, scared, back to the fortress. The beasts did follow him. Chaos did ensue.
When the subsequent battle did end all but three of my dwarves were dead. My fortress was full of the broken bodies of dwarves, goblins, and two forgotten beasts as in my desperation I did allow passage to the gobling siege so they would soften the beasts for me.
If you had been a dwarf capable of threading ropes (the only well component I did lack) and with enough foresight to secure a few of materials for one the fortress would not have fallen. No battle for you. Just intelligence, foresight, and problem solving with no need of a script.
The point being: You do not need a story for things other than 'combat' to exist. You do need mechanics that do allow for them. The complexity of the mechanics, the enviroment in which these mechanics do exist, and both the long term and short term ambitions of the players do build the story. "How do we obtain this?", "How do we manage to undertake this massive project?", "How do we kill this jerk?" You do experience it and influence it freely.
And if the other dwarves had been players too you would have needed to debate the need for materials to make ropes from with the broker, or the bookkeeper, or maybe the baroness herself. Combat? Uhm, no. Problem solving and social interaction with more depth than any pre-scripted dialogue writen by a hack can give you. Or maybe Urist McFarmer would have done the vulcan thing and run -away- from the fortress instead, leading the beasts on a merry chase that would end with him death and the beasts far away from my water source.
If the goblins had been other players things would have gotten to an entirely new level.
And let us not speak of the fortress in which my five z-levels deep, thirty by thirty tiles moat was also the only water reservoirr. I did not think that one thoroughly at all.
It is not my fault you do all seem to believe 'procedural' and 'emergent' does mean 'kill things.'
Do you want to rescue princesses? You do need nothing but an enviroment and a set of mechanics on which to abduct and rescue player controlled princesses has actual meaning or an algorithm that does generate cool princess-rescuing missions, or to have an NPC princess which has actual use for your faction so that enemy factions do want to abduct her (and maybe some evil NPC dragon superbosses too). Given the quality of the plots on MMOs the writer will probably do a far worse job by being thoroughly predictable about it.
Rather than requote the entire post, I'll just hit on the key conclusions.
The "algorithm" mentioned with regard to the "NPC princess" still requires someone to script how it functions. All of the "repair this or that" examples you gave still require the mechanics to be in place and scripted. They are not player-controlled and revolve around the castle siege and combat.
If we were given the capability of generating the use of these mechanics ourselves, we could indeed write our own stories ("write" as in PnP scenario, not a fully written linear story) and this would be glorious.
However, everything you described mechanics-wise was set up by the developers; the only additional input from the player is to decide which available ones to use (which is good). This does nothing for setting up our own scenarios, our own NPCs, villains, objectives, and the like. The mechanics are still prescripted options in dev-designed battle maps.
To continue with the D&D example, the GM controls the NPCs, villains, and bosses, handling the interactions with the players and placement and purpose of said NPCs. In an MMO, we do not have this functionality. We either rely on prescripted stories from the devs or UGC group, or we simply do not do it at all. Powerful PnP-like story tools are simply not there.
The situations you describe all revolve around the combat; differing tactics to win the battle are available, but that's about it.
I have zero interest in PvP of any kind, which a lot of your examples revolve around. My overall experience in PvP has not been positive, win or lose.
What would be perfect would be a system where a player can set up their own scenarios, including NPC interactions, bosses, objectives, etc., and then let the group drive the evolution of the story to reach the objectives (like in PnP games).
Until then, if the primary options are PvP/RvR battles or episodic storylines, I'll take the storylines. Taking and retaking the same territory over and over again is not immersive to me. I do not begrudge those who do enjoy it; hopefully they don't begrudge those of us who don't.
I do begrudge them. If I wanted to play Capture the Flag I'd download Team Fortress and play that.
I play games to be the hero. The real world is already filled with overly competitive jackasses looking to get ahead by (metaphorically) stepping over your corpse. And I already am a cog in someone else's machine. Why would I look forward to doing the same thing in a Starfleet uniform?
Gimme new story. New story that I don't have to chase space bunnies to get. Or, if rumors are to be believed about S8, grind for purple gear just so I can grunt my way through Kerrat fifty times for a one minute cutscene. Give me motivation to keep playing.
Bleh, to the idea of continuing the game story via any other method than missions. Bleh to the power of bleh.
Guildwars Faction has an indepth storyliine that does not necessarily force the player to partipate in PvP - However; it is part of the Faction expansion.
Cutscenes should be included with a nice story arc involving territory expansion and possibly a main re-occurring villian.
Look at the STF Into the Hive space battle - it does have decent cutscene and drama - Though I believe that the Captain of the U.S.S. Houston is the biggest idiot that ever graduated from Starfleet Academy - He almost sounds very angry, and if I am not mistaken - Klingon by nature.
Could be that the Cpt of the U.S.S. Houston is a Klingon.
Is it the Houston, or is the name randomly generated - I thought last I saw it was the U.S.S. Colorado.
Anyways got a bit off track there - Storylines should support all aspect of the game, afterall, its an MMO.
But for a game, it's enough to carry the action, and it was a lot better than smacking rats, killing 10 bears, or doing pointless FedEx quests that I've experienced in other games. The storyline was good enough to make it feel like things were happening and you were part of it. It felt like you had a personal story that was unfolding in front of you, even though of course everyone else had the same story. If they didn't have the storyline missions and just had the current grinds, the game would be utter ****.
Had they continued to make the FEs at a basis where a new FE came out every 3-4 months, it could have been a strength to keep people playing, even if the stories themselves were only C quality.
The really sad thing, in my opinion, is that Star Trek has the depth to be a storyline driven game on par with Mass Effect or KOTOR. If you had a good storyteller, who knew the Star Trek universe, involved an absolutely amazing game could be made. However, that probably would not be an MMO.
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My comment was in general terms (i.e., different players have different playstyles).
Like you, I have no wish to go through a rep grind to unlock new story content. I certainly won't do it on more than one character (I have 30+).
I've seen comments from players who don't want to repeat the stories. To me, at least the stories have flavor -- meat if you will -- to them. Running around the landscape scanning the exact same things or killing the same critters repeatedly is a whole lot more boring to me than repeating immersive mission content.
Using LOTRO as an example: Not counting raids, skirmishes, and PvP, they have three major types of missions; the Epic storyline (main, deep), local story arcs and individual stories (secondary, medium depth), and "go kill 10 boars" generic fantasy MMO quests (little depth, though at least the NPC quest text has character
The problem I see with New Romulus style content is that it consists primarily of the "go kill 10 boars" types of quests -- kind of. Scanning the rocks, checking the readouts on devices placed about the ruins, fighting Tholians, etc., does have a little more flavor than simply killing 10 boars. It is the same mechanics, but they dressed it up a little better to make it slightly more immersive. Kudos on that.
The problem for me is that the "go kill 10 boars" missions are my least favorite. They are okay as fillers, but not main content. They get old and stale quickly.
So, if I'm going to repeat content, I'd prefer to replay the episodic content on multiple characters (or even the same one) than play "go kill 10 boars" repeatedly.
I like New Romulus; it's a nice aside and something different (I like variety). But after running through it twice, I'm done with it for a while.
Honestly, the dailies and repeatables are pretty much like the regular missions to me, falling into the light story category. Once I've played them, I've played them. I will play them again on another character later, but I'm certainly not going to just keep repeating them ad infinitum on a single character.
I couldn't agree more, I am glad you mentioned the lack of meangful character interaction, which to me also means the lack of a true nemesis or hero - assuming that we're fighting alongside a heroic figure in STO.
It bothers me that there really isn't a true face of evil or opposition. Sure we have the concepts of Man VS Man (or in this case Aliens), Man VS Himself, and even Man VS Nature - yet its far too basic and shallow to be thought provoking.
Yet, it has soo much potential, soo much potential, that is NOT being utilized.
I concur.
What they are lacking is a strong Heroic and an Enemy face coupled with a strong centered theme per Season - It CAN work in an MMO, if implemented well.
I think the Iconians fit that role pretty well...especially since we still haven't really seen them yet.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
The remastered missions was another step forward that I hope they continue with on both factions, even i one was a long sales pitch for the KDF (The Doomsday Machine). In the last year I have seen Cryptic do some interesting things with story telling, making it less obvious and allowing you to...wait for it...discover it! Storytelling via the Duty officer System. The Catian Diaspora chain tells of the schism between everyone's favorite felines. Its not traditional but it got me interesting in searching for the next assignment in the chain. There are a few other examples of this and I applaud the attempt.
The latest developments are Nukara Prime and New Romulus. Adventure Zones appear to be the future for the game and while Nukara only hints at story, a means to an end, New Romulus and it's reputation system tries to bridge the gap, telling the story of the planet's desperate residents and the forces arrayed against them. Each tier rewards you with a cutscene that furthers the story a bit more, enticing you to continue to find out what happens next. Tier unlocked instances give you snipets that link events together, the Tier one instance for example bridges the gap between "Cloaked Intentions" and New Romulus.
Cryptic is learning and while they are focused on play, aesthetics, and mechanics, they have not forgotten future story. The older stuff might not be the best but it is my hope that they will go back and remaster some of it.
My two EC.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]