I used to think that Romulan's would someday make it into the game as a complete faction, but I've given up all hope on that now.
Mainly because of comments made about not wanting to invest resources into the KDF faction, when it has so little players, or Comments about not developing new KDF costumes and such because of the same reason, (then some showing up in the lobi store).
Then there are the comments about the development team looking into whether making more weekly series, (immensely popular content with players BTW), is worth the expense of making them.
To me all this suggests that Cryptic simply doesn't have the resources to ever complete the KDF or at least bridge the ever expanding gulf between it and the Federation, where supposedly most of the players are now. They have to focus development on where the majority of the players are, to keep making MORE MONEY.
So that leaves the Rommies on permanent hold, which is basically saying that they will never be playable.
Instead, the best we will get is lock box ships, which are immensely profitable for Cryptic, (just guessing here), and require VERY little development time.
Keeping development on other playable races on permanent hold, keeps the demand for these lock box ships high, and dollars rolling in.
What I can't understand is Why can't they create a mini faction Romulan expansion, where a player can pay to play a Romulan, with Romulan C store ships to sell, and can chose which current faction they wished to be aligned with.
One could argue that the Romulan empire is split by the loss of Romulus, and rouge groups have aligned themselves with either faction.
That way players can finally play the Romulans, complete with all the cool ships, and Cryptic can get the Rommies in the game with very little effort. High profit on as little development expense as possible, seems to be the model Perfect World uses.
This isn't my first choice, I'd prefer a whole faction, for both the KDF and the Rommies, but sadly, I maintain no illusions that either will ever come to fruition.
But alas, it's possible that someone has weighed the possible sales of a Romulan mini faction vs the enormous earning potential of the lock box games of chance, and decided not to stray from such a profitable model.
Either way, I seriously doubt that any serious resources will EVER go into the development of the Romulans as a playable faction, it would simply require too much and take away from more profitable projects.
I just wanna play a Romulan sometime before this game goes belly up.
Frankly I'm surprised they even separate Federation and Klingon. By now, I figured they would have merged them all into one bucket allowing everyone to fly every ship.
I'm also surprised. It would really tick off many KDF players, but in the end it'd solve a lot of problems.
For example, if you bought a bunch of KDF ships, you face the conundrum that if you decide to go Fed, you have the 'lost value' of all those purchases. There is almost no synergy between purchases made on one side vs. another, so it creates some siloing and bad blood.
Practically speaking, I'd create a few KDF uniforms, add them to the Fed list, and then lump everything into an Alliance.
Of course, this would take development resources that they've already been unwilling to devote, and there's a history of being unwilling to make 'investment' development (since I maintain that spending the resources now would pay off a lot down the road).
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
The Devs said that season 7 will be a content heavy season and they are hoping to flesh out the KDF side a lot more. The F2P conversion took a lot away from season 4, essentially being an entire overhaul of MANY systems. I've been on tribble and have been very impressed with the extra features they have added to the game (the starbases are there as well as a BUNCH of other improvements). The expression 'Its always darkest before the dawn' fits STO TOO well.
Cryptic has earned utter distrust for their promises.
I hold absolutely 0 respect or stock in any promises they make until it's live. If they actually have season 7 content season? I will laud them for it. Until then, they may as well be promising a dozen new full factions.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
The Devs said that season 7 will be a content heavy season and they are hoping to flesh out the KDF side a lot more. The F2P conversion took a lot away from season 4, essentially being an entire overhaul of MANY systems. I've been on tribble and have been very impressed with the extra features they have added to the game (the starbases are there as well as a BUNCH of other improvements). The expression 'Its always darkest before the dawn' fits STO TOO well.
The Devs said that more than once since release, but never followed up on it. 45th Day Patch was fail Season 2 was fail and the F2P announcement was untrue, too.
So I won't hold my breathe on any promises for KDF content from the Devs until I see hard evidence. They have broken their promises more the once and have no problem in doing so again.
Well, I just finished reading July's ASK CRYPTIC and I have to say my hopes are up again. D. Stahl's comment about the Romulans is a bit cryptic but I do believe we will see the Romulans soon. The Romulan Star Empire is not what it once was so I would never expect a full faction anyway. Same could be said about the Cardassians. And although I'm a hardocre KDF player, I do believe the KDF is in very good shape right now. And it would be time to sign the Khitomer Accord again. After all, we all have a common enemy. We have to be ready for the Iconians.
Now why you trust the federation they are honorless as the romulans. The point is that they well not fixed the op'ed fed ships but nerf the kdf ships over and over.
Well, I just finished reading July's ASK CRYPTIC and I have to say my hopes are up again. D. Stahl's comment about the Romulans is a bit cryptic but I do believe we will see the Romulans soon. The Romulan Star Empire is not what it once was so I would never expect a full faction anyway. Same could be said about the Cardassians. And although I'm a hardocre KDF player, I do believe the KDF is in very good shape right now. And it would be time to sign the Khitomer Accord again. After all, we all have a common enemy. We have to be ready for the Iconians.
I would agree that Romulans and Cardassians are ideal candidates for some sort of mini-faction ranking, due to the decline of both empires. Treating the KDF the same way was and is stupid. The KDF certainly could be better. . .but right now, it's functional. It works, and good KDF players can beat the Feddies at least some of the time.
I would be fully in support of making a Romulan mini-faction, perhaps one restricted to end-game stuff (level 40+).
My PvP toon is Krov, of The House of Snoo. Beware of my Hegh'ta of doom.
I would love to see a new Obsidian Order - Tal'Shiar alliance.
According to the treaty the Cardassains signed with the Federation they cannot sport a military. This means that a Cardassain faction would have to be made of rogue elements wouldn't it?
And since a sizeable portion of the Romulan nation appears to be in league with the Iconians I agree that they should be an end-game faction.
Comments
Mainly because of comments made about not wanting to invest resources into the KDF faction, when it has so little players, or Comments about not developing new KDF costumes and such because of the same reason, (then some showing up in the lobi store).
Then there are the comments about the development team looking into whether making more weekly series, (immensely popular content with players BTW), is worth the expense of making them.
To me all this suggests that Cryptic simply doesn't have the resources to ever complete the KDF or at least bridge the ever expanding gulf between it and the Federation, where supposedly most of the players are now. They have to focus development on where the majority of the players are, to keep making MORE MONEY.
So that leaves the Rommies on permanent hold, which is basically saying that they will never be playable.
Instead, the best we will get is lock box ships, which are immensely profitable for Cryptic, (just guessing here), and require VERY little development time.
Keeping development on other playable races on permanent hold, keeps the demand for these lock box ships high, and dollars rolling in.
What I can't understand is Why can't they create a mini faction Romulan expansion, where a player can pay to play a Romulan, with Romulan C store ships to sell, and can chose which current faction they wished to be aligned with.
One could argue that the Romulan empire is split by the loss of Romulus, and rouge groups have aligned themselves with either faction.
That way players can finally play the Romulans, complete with all the cool ships, and Cryptic can get the Rommies in the game with very little effort. High profit on as little development expense as possible, seems to be the model Perfect World uses.
This isn't my first choice, I'd prefer a whole faction, for both the KDF and the Rommies, but sadly, I maintain no illusions that either will ever come to fruition.
But alas, it's possible that someone has weighed the possible sales of a Romulan mini faction vs the enormous earning potential of the lock box games of chance, and decided not to stray from such a profitable model.
Either way, I seriously doubt that any serious resources will EVER go into the development of the Romulans as a playable faction, it would simply require too much and take away from more profitable projects.
I just wanna play a Romulan sometime before this game goes belly up.
For example, if you bought a bunch of KDF ships, you face the conundrum that if you decide to go Fed, you have the 'lost value' of all those purchases. There is almost no synergy between purchases made on one side vs. another, so it creates some siloing and bad blood.
Practically speaking, I'd create a few KDF uniforms, add them to the Fed list, and then lump everything into an Alliance.
Of course, this would take development resources that they've already been unwilling to devote, and there's a history of being unwilling to make 'investment' development (since I maintain that spending the resources now would pay off a lot down the road).
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
I hold absolutely 0 respect or stock in any promises they make until it's live. If they actually have season 7 content season? I will laud them for it. Until then, they may as well be promising a dozen new full factions.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
The Devs said that more than once since release, but never followed up on it. 45th Day Patch was fail Season 2 was fail and the F2P announcement was untrue, too.
So I won't hold my breathe on any promises for KDF content from the Devs until I see hard evidence. They have broken their promises more the once and have no problem in doing so again.
I would agree that Romulans and Cardassians are ideal candidates for some sort of mini-faction ranking, due to the decline of both empires. Treating the KDF the same way was and is stupid. The KDF certainly could be better. . .but right now, it's functional. It works, and good KDF players can beat the Feddies at least some of the time.
I would be fully in support of making a Romulan mini-faction, perhaps one restricted to end-game stuff (level 40+).
According to the treaty the Cardassains signed with the Federation they cannot sport a military. This means that a Cardassain faction would have to be made of rogue elements wouldn't it?
And since a sizeable portion of the Romulan nation appears to be in league with the Iconians I agree that they should be an end-game faction.