My take on the revamp should be for the foundry missions by players. No same mission twice (unless using the ready room like for other missions). If they need to be charted out in a massive amount of space, so be it. Literally thousands of different missions for the true aspect of exploration.
At least, this is what I was hoping for...
Edit: Each season = another new sector zone of exploration of missions.
I heartily endorse a combination of generated and authored exploration missions... as long as the generated missions aren't full of bugs and inconsistencies.
I think exploration sectors should include both generated and Dev-authored content, with "door" systems for Foundry missions. A mix of spawn points and fixed systems that looks more like regular sector space.
I would also like to see a better "First Contact" system (lots of good ideas in this thread) where there are persistent races in exploration sectors and you have a persistent reputiation with the races you have encountered, based on your interactions with them.
Heck, I'd like to see that idea extended to NPC reactions, where you have opportunities to acquire positive and negative reputation with neutral and enemy races that affects their initial reaction to you in any given encounter. Like perhaps a Fed character had some positive reputation with Remans and any given random spawn of Remans has a (small) chance of being non-hostile as long as there is no "kill" objective. If that could carry over into the Foundry, then branching mission objectives might someday be possible where the author can factor in reputation.
The Foundry should be set up with a template just for exploration missions. Fairly short missions with a limited number of objectives and are a self-contained story in themselves. The highest rated ones would be added to the exploration mission database as options for you to encounter on exploration missions. Encourage people to make them. Eventually we'll have hundreds if not thousands of such missions to play through. It can add on to whatever Cryptic gives us in the new exploration system. While there is a lot to rightfully complain about with the current system, the idea that you don't know what's coming next is not part of the problem. Exploration should be about coming into a system and finding out what's there and what needs to be done. If you already know all the planets there and who is there and what the issues are it's not exploration anymore. It may be fun, but it's not exploration.
The Foundry should be set up with a template just for exploration missions. Fairly short missions with a limited number of objectives and are a self-contained story in themselves. The highest rated ones would be added to the exploration mission database as options for you to encounter on exploration missions. Encourage people to make them. Eventually we'll have hundreds if not thousands of such missions to play through. It can add on to whatever Cryptic gives us in the new exploration system. While there is a lot to rightfully complain about with the current system, the idea that you don't know what's coming next is not part of the problem. Exploration should be about coming into a system and finding out what's there and what needs to be done. If you already know all the planets there and who is there and what the issues are it's not exploration anymore. It may be fun, but it's not exploration.
That idea has been suggested before, and is not bad. However, Cryptic has made it pretty clear that UGC and official content is going to be kept separate, and that no one will ever "accidentally" be playing a UGC mission. That is why they have to be accessed through a separate tab on your mission journal.
Because of that, I'm not sure how you would "tie in" UGC missions to star clusters. Ideas?
That idea has been suggested before, and is not bad. However, Cryptic has made it pretty clear that UGC and official content is going to be kept separate, and that no one will ever "accidentally" be playing a UGC mission. That is why they have to be accessed through a separate tab on your mission journal.
Because of that, I'm not sure how you would "tie in" UGC missions to star clusters. Ideas?
If there is no way to tie Foundry missions into exploration, my idea is dead. I'd have to come up with something completely different. This also means there will always be far fewer alternate missions you could undertake in an exploration system than using the Foundry to generate new ones. It probably means there will be fewer possible mission you can undertake than we have now. Either you procedurally make the missions the way they do now (hopefully with some inconsistencies written out of the algorithm) or you'll never keep up with players who keep doing all the new missions and content. Harnessing the playerbase is the only way other than randomly assigning variables that I can see that greatly increases the permutations of possible missions. If the only thing holding that back is that Cryptic says "no", then we'll end up with a less-good system of exploration in all likelihood.
I understand we don't want every single mission people make added to the system. Spelling errors and broken missions and worse would result. That's why I suggested adding the highly rated ones. But they should be separate from the regular Foundry missions so that they follow a template of some sort so that you don't get hour long single exploration missions. Maybe missions using that template could be just for exploration and be separate from the Foundry per se. If the answer to that is a blank "no, because we said so" I guess we'll just take what they give us. I'll still do it, but I'll run out of every permutation of mission just like I have now.
You absolutely CANNOT mimic real exploration with a video game. At least not yet. It all has a distinctly randomly generated feel and lacks any depth when it comes to story, environments, races, etc. Why? Because it's randomly generated!
In order to really go where no man has gone before without it feeling DULL (and it DOES) they'd have to cater to EVERYONE and design unique content for each INDIVIDUAL PERSON. There's NO WAY they can make GOOD exploration content at the massive amounts that would be needed to truly make exploration and discovery by individuals possible. Instead they can only hope to make enough so that it takes maybe a day for everything to be discovered.
All of the examples of successful exploration games have one thing in common: A lack of depth and a randomly generated feel. The reason some work is because they're designed differently and have unique aspects. You cannot make it work for a Star Trek game where you'd hope to fly around and explore strange new worlds and new civilizations UNLESS it's basically the same way as it is currently in STO which is lackluster and honestly quiet sucky.
It's literally impossible to meet the demands of you people from a game dev perspective unless you want them to just throw games like Minecraft in STO but that still wouldn't satisfy most people since there's no real story or depth and randomly generated stories suck.
Yes and no.
Yes it's impossible to have true exploration with millions of systems, billions of worlds, and hundreds of thousands of alien civilizations all fully featured, fleshed out, and with dialog options. Well... within our lifetime anyway.
However, doing realistic sector space only exploration is doable.
I liked the simple yet fun exploration of Star Control 2. Then you had the Elite 2-3 games with millions of planets compressed into 4 1.44mb floppy disks. You could land on any of them and place mining equipment. The bigger planets had atmosphere, clouds and cities, which you could see from space and land at will.
For example: http://m.blog.hu/ge/gemeskut/image/sandbox_elite/frontier01.gif
Granted that was simple and somewhat buggy but the exploration worked there and could be played on a 486DX4 120 with 8 MB of RAM.
Here we have fluff to the extreme with breath taking GFX but none of the substance that made those games good. The problem is that this is a global industry trend so you either adapt, make your own games or stop playing completely.
Why not? Once someone explores something in real life and in Star Trek it generally stays explored.
If there's a star cluster out there with a set collection of aliens, what's going to set them apart is that they're going to be aliens that the player hasn't heard of upon entering that system for the first time. Exploration isn't just about initial discovery; it's also about learning more and digging deeper about the things you know are already out there.
I personally prefer an exploration system that lets me learn more about the new aliens I encounter vs. only making superficial visits to randomly generated portraits over and over again.
Honestly... there's got to be a better way then both of the above. I think the problem is creating something that needs huge amounts of innovations and that is hard to deliver. Personally, I've suggested ideas such as putting random exploration in the hands of the players by having a Foundry Option to create missions that would specifically pop up during random exploration (and believe me, before long you'd have TONS AND TONS of exploration content) in addition to random events with positive/negative results depending on the composition of you crew (to few science officers, you might not be able to solve a science problem in time for example). I think I posted something about it while ago and eventually I'm going to post another version of it with more detail.
But seriously, make the Foundry have an option to create missions that would pop up in random exploration as your ship is moving farther and farther away from Sol.
The way I see it, what players really want seems to be mutually exclusive features.
It's possible to create 4000 cookie cutter missions, as we have now. Problem is, they're not unique enough from each other and get repetitive.
It's also possible to create a limited number of very unique places/missions.
The problem comes when trying to do both. It would be nigh impossible to create 4000 unique missions by hand, except over time and slowly add them to the game.
So, here comes the trade off. Do you want a persistent sector that you can discover on your own, fly around to a limited collection of planets, figure out who the species are, do some missions, maybe do some dailies, and then your'e done?
Or, do you want to do a practically unlimited number of missions/planets that don't have much substance?
Also, there's no such thing as unlimited exploration. Once you've found something and done all you can do there, it's done. You've seen it, you've heard it, you've explored it. Move on. Now, in real life, space is REALLY big, so there might be a million different things to explore and you could explore all your life and not see anything.
But in the game, it's impossible to have an unlimited supply of explore stuff, except by generating it pseudo-randomly...but then you lose the unique substance that gives Star Trek its charm.
Hopefully that made sense, I was kinda rambling at first.
I´ve seen a lot of good suggestions here, and i would like to play most of them,
but:
we need to stay realistic. Cryptic could not and will not develop massiv new gamemechanics, like implementing Minecrafts Terrain-Generation. And they won`t make three epic factions, which could be explored over a long term....and Cryptic hasn`t the tech to randomly generate anything.
So let`s concentrate on getting a better exploration feeling, which is in sensor range, and not searching for the ultimate exploration game on the other end of the wormhole!
It's possible to create 4000 cookie cutter missions, as we have now. Problem is, they're not unique enough from each other and get repetitive.
Part of the problem is, as it stands, I think that's a fairly generous accounting.
The asset library that the Exploration missions pull from seems to be pretty small. There's only one type of space scan-and-combat mission and only two pure-scanning, for example. Even if the debris objects from the patrols were added into the blender that would add a lot more variety. All the space combat missions have enemies in a straight line. Why isn't the other standard 'ring' model included? Etc.
Why not? Once someone explores something in real life and in Star Trek it generally stays explored.
If there's a star cluster out there with a set collection of aliens, what's going to set them apart is that they're going to be aliens that the player hasn't heard of upon entering that system for the first time. Exploration isn't just about initial discovery; it's also about learning more and digging deeper about the things you know are already out there.
I personally prefer an exploration system that lets me learn more about the new aliens I encounter vs. only making superficial visits to randomly generated portraits over and over again.
I respectfully disagree with you on this point. I actually like how exploration and deep space encounters work right now. I would rather see ground combat get fixed, a better PVP system, and more content phaser, ships, ect... from the series then fixing something that isn't broken.
Comments
At least, this is what I was hoping for...
Edit: Each season = another new sector zone of exploration of missions.
I think exploration sectors should include both generated and Dev-authored content, with "door" systems for Foundry missions. A mix of spawn points and fixed systems that looks more like regular sector space.
I would also like to see a better "First Contact" system (lots of good ideas in this thread) where there are persistent races in exploration sectors and you have a persistent reputiation with the races you have encountered, based on your interactions with them.
Heck, I'd like to see that idea extended to NPC reactions, where you have opportunities to acquire positive and negative reputation with neutral and enemy races that affects their initial reaction to you in any given encounter. Like perhaps a Fed character had some positive reputation with Remans and any given random spawn of Remans has a (small) chance of being non-hostile as long as there is no "kill" objective. If that could carry over into the Foundry, then branching mission objectives might someday be possible where the author can factor in reputation.
That idea has been suggested before, and is not bad. However, Cryptic has made it pretty clear that UGC and official content is going to be kept separate, and that no one will ever "accidentally" be playing a UGC mission. That is why they have to be accessed through a separate tab on your mission journal.
Because of that, I'm not sure how you would "tie in" UGC missions to star clusters. Ideas?
If there is no way to tie Foundry missions into exploration, my idea is dead. I'd have to come up with something completely different. This also means there will always be far fewer alternate missions you could undertake in an exploration system than using the Foundry to generate new ones. It probably means there will be fewer possible mission you can undertake than we have now. Either you procedurally make the missions the way they do now (hopefully with some inconsistencies written out of the algorithm) or you'll never keep up with players who keep doing all the new missions and content. Harnessing the playerbase is the only way other than randomly assigning variables that I can see that greatly increases the permutations of possible missions. If the only thing holding that back is that Cryptic says "no", then we'll end up with a less-good system of exploration in all likelihood.
I understand we don't want every single mission people make added to the system. Spelling errors and broken missions and worse would result. That's why I suggested adding the highly rated ones. But they should be separate from the regular Foundry missions so that they follow a template of some sort so that you don't get hour long single exploration missions. Maybe missions using that template could be just for exploration and be separate from the Foundry per se. If the answer to that is a blank "no, because we said so" I guess we'll just take what they give us. I'll still do it, but I'll run out of every permutation of mission just like I have now.
Yes and no.
Yes it's impossible to have true exploration with millions of systems, billions of worlds, and hundreds of thousands of alien civilizations all fully featured, fleshed out, and with dialog options. Well... within our lifetime anyway.
However, doing realistic sector space only exploration is doable.
and one.
For example: http://m.blog.hu/ge/gemeskut/image/sandbox_elite/frontier01.gif
Granted that was simple and somewhat buggy but the exploration worked there and could be played on a 486DX4 120 with 8 MB of RAM.
Here we have fluff to the extreme with breath taking GFX but none of the substance that made those games good. The problem is that this is a global industry trend so you either adapt, make your own games or stop playing completely.
Honestly... there's got to be a better way then both of the above. I think the problem is creating something that needs huge amounts of innovations and that is hard to deliver. Personally, I've suggested ideas such as putting random exploration in the hands of the players by having a Foundry Option to create missions that would specifically pop up during random exploration (and believe me, before long you'd have TONS AND TONS of exploration content) in addition to random events with positive/negative results depending on the composition of you crew (to few science officers, you might not be able to solve a science problem in time for example). I think I posted something about it while ago and eventually I'm going to post another version of it with more detail.
But seriously, make the Foundry have an option to create missions that would pop up in random exploration as your ship is moving farther and farther away from Sol.
It's possible to create 4000 cookie cutter missions, as we have now. Problem is, they're not unique enough from each other and get repetitive.
It's also possible to create a limited number of very unique places/missions.
The problem comes when trying to do both. It would be nigh impossible to create 4000 unique missions by hand, except over time and slowly add them to the game.
So, here comes the trade off. Do you want a persistent sector that you can discover on your own, fly around to a limited collection of planets, figure out who the species are, do some missions, maybe do some dailies, and then your'e done?
Or, do you want to do a practically unlimited number of missions/planets that don't have much substance?
Also, there's no such thing as unlimited exploration. Once you've found something and done all you can do there, it's done. You've seen it, you've heard it, you've explored it. Move on. Now, in real life, space is REALLY big, so there might be a million different things to explore and you could explore all your life and not see anything.
But in the game, it's impossible to have an unlimited supply of explore stuff, except by generating it pseudo-randomly...but then you lose the unique substance that gives Star Trek its charm.
Hopefully that made sense, I was kinda rambling at first.
but:
we need to stay realistic. Cryptic could not and will not develop massiv new gamemechanics, like implementing Minecrafts Terrain-Generation. And they won`t make three epic factions, which could be explored over a long term....and Cryptic hasn`t the tech to randomly generate anything.
So let`s concentrate on getting a better exploration feeling, which is in sensor range, and not searching for the ultimate exploration game on the other end of the wormhole!
***Advertising my suggestion***
True, free exploration with perma-death crew members
***End advertising***
Part of the problem is, as it stands, I think that's a fairly generous accounting.
The asset library that the Exploration missions pull from seems to be pretty small. There's only one type of space scan-and-combat mission and only two pure-scanning, for example. Even if the debris objects from the patrols were added into the blender that would add a lot more variety. All the space combat missions have enemies in a straight line. Why isn't the other standard 'ring' model included? Etc.
I respectfully disagree with you on this point. I actually like how exploration and deep space encounters work right now. I would rather see ground combat get fixed, a better PVP system, and more content phaser, ships, ect... from the series then fixing something that isn't broken.