Yeah. It's just because Cryptic is stupid for not spotlighting the Bumpy-headed Space Vikings from day one, and so are the other players who want to play the focus of the IP and not the Bumpy-headed Space Vikings. Because if they were smart everyone would be playing Bumpy-headed Space Vikings and they'd have to rename the game "Bumpy-headed Space Vikings Online".
That's definitely more valid than, "the interest just isn't there".
And get back to me when the Federation green space hookers get to wear the green space hooker bikinis like their Bumpy-headed Space Viking counterparts.
For me, it's simply that post Star Trek 3, Klingons as an archetype, are basically lawless, cutthroat pirates. Generally portrayed through the early seasons of TNG as animals. As the series wore on, and into DS9, the Klingons got a little more of the "Noble Savage" treatment, but never returned to the "Federation's match, built on Conquest" as was portrayed in TOS.
As such, however, their portrayal in the IP reminds me a little too much of the schoolyard bullies of my youth, with their taunts and insinuating insults.
It's because of this "Klingon Banter" that the entire faction has really never appealed to me in the IP. The post-ST3 "lack of respect for their enemies, and quite often their allies as well". Never passing up an opportunity, for example, to call someone weak. Since 'The Klingons" (post ST3) didn't appeal to me, the STO 'predominantly pvp' Klingon faction didn't much appeal to me either.
*note, I say Post-ST3 Klingons. It;s certainly true that the Klingons have always been "piratish" but in TOS, Klingons were cutlass wielding, swashbuckling pirates like you might expect of Erroll Flynn. After ST3, with the introduction of TNG, the Klingons got a major reworking and became dirty, smelly pirates who would just as soon stab their captain in the back over an insult, as their enemy. Both of whom they would spit on.
ST3 is an anomaly, for two reasons. One, Kruge was clearly a rogue, and was a "Klingon behaving badly" when he went after Genesis. Two, (most importantly) the Klingons in ST3 were originally written as Romulans. (which is the real reason there's a bird painted on that green "bird of prey"). This certainly explains Kruge's killing his weapons officer for being "an animal". It's funny that this behaviour, and the overwhelming sense of Honor and Duty that were traditionally the purview of the Romulans, became associated with the Klingons.
Yeah right here because they messed up at the start then Cryptic said well we start at 25 because a lack of content. Their reason for a lack of content is because a small player base. The reason for a small player base is because there was a lack of content at the start. It is just a catch 22.
As it was all ready mentioned, the majority of fans of the Star Trek franchise lean towards the Federation side. In the series, the Klingons were nothing more then plot devices used as a back drop for morale dilemas, character development or atmosphere during episodes.
TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and even the Animated series were about what? Federation people doing Federation things, so why is it a surprise that people would be attracted to playing...Federation?
Okay, that aside. Cryptic dropped the ball on KDF and here's my opinion.
There is a fanbase for Klingons.
The various series had in some sense developed the Klingons culturally, historically and created enough canon basis for Cryptic to make them into a solid faction.
The KDF is a massive pool that Cryptic could have creatively developed. Instead they fell into the trap of using the KDF as they(all the other franchises) always have, a backdrop for the Federation.
So, yes having no content is part of the problem, but reality is the type and quality of the content is just as much to blame. As long as the KDF doesn't have its own long, indepth personalized story from start to finish, it will always feel like its playing second fiddle to the Federation.
I think the Klingon Empire should have another Civil War to shake up the one dimensional playstyle currently offered. I also think Cryptic needs to add desirable incentives for playing Klingons-be it as good guys or bad.
Cryptic will never get the Klingon playerbase up to par without help because the Federation is just too popular to play.
ST3 is an anomaly, for two reasons. One, Kruge was clearly a rogue, and was a "Klingon behaving badly" when he went after Genesis. Two, (most importantly) the Klingons in ST3 were originally written as Romulans. (which is the real reason there's a bird painted on that green "bird of prey"). This certainly explains Kruge's killing his weapons officer for being "an animal". It's funny that this behaviour, and the overwhelming sense of Honor and Duty that were traditionally the purview of the Romulans, became associated with the Klingons.
That's because Kruge saw the script ahead of time, and jumped in his Delore... er Bird of Prey and hit 88mi... warp 8.8 to go back in time and rewrite them as Klingons.
(If you remember who played Kruge, this might actually be funny. :P )
1) Star Trek shows and movies have always focused on Starfleet, and more specifically, humans in Starfleet. Most Startrek fans would like to be someone like Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Janeway, not Worf or Martok, as badass as they latter may have been, they had never as much screentime as the human heroes of Starfleet.
2) The KDF was never made into a fully fledged faction worthy of play. From the start, you first needed to make a Starfleet Officer to play, and you had no PVE missions at all. They called it the "PvP faction", pretending this could make it a fully actualized faction.
3) The KDF isn't the KDF that we got to know in the shows. It's some weird multi-racial mix. I figure this will irriate some Klingon purists just as much as the fact that they didn't get a full faction storyline to begin with.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It's a downward spiral. It may have evened out over time, but not with Cryptic producing significantly more content with the Feds in mind. It kills retention.
The fewer things Cryptic implements for the Klingons, the fewer Klingons will stick around why they see the fed side showered in goodies.. The fewer Klingons that stick around, the fewer things Cryptic implements for Klingons.
Their are only a few ways of fixing it.
1) Merge the sides through some alliance and let them use each others stuff. (CBS probably won't go for it)
2) Create major incentives. (cryptic won't do it because it alienates their major cash cow, fed players). They can't even stop themselves from bleeding a handful of Klingon exclusives over.
3) throw major money behind fleshing out the faction and coercing people into playing it, while hoping you don't lose a ton of money. This is a big gamble and honestly I don't see it happening
The reality is they will do nothing. The Klingons will alway be a red headed step child groveling for the fewer and fewer scraps tossed its way. That's just the money talking.
This, unfortuantly, is probably the sad truth.
Lord Krueg
KBF CO We are the Dead
join date Aug 2008
For me, the killer is the garish red UI. I just wish they can tone down the use of red every where, perhaps pick a color that's closer to brown for the user interface.
The concept of "Klingons are the baddies of Star Trek Online" has failed. Painting Klingons as bad guys hurt the faction to begin with. Lots of people don't want to play the "evil" side.
That "bad guy" concept hurt the potential for a larger Klingon customer base. Cryptic should have kept the progressive theme from canon and made the Klingons allies of the Federation. And focused on space & ground game play differences between the two.
This coupled with the ability to create a Klingon from Level 1, and enough story to get to 50 would have given Cryptic many more customers inside the KDF.
I like it quite a bit. But I'm a green lady with a Jem'Hadar first officer who doesn't PVP, and all my ships are Marvel names. The first toon I ever made was a B5 G'kar knockoff. It's my fun-time side. But I do play it more than my Feds.
Don't have any particular fondness for Klingons themselves, but they're on my crew.
=/\=Transwarp 10.0 Victory Achieved on 26-July-2012, Six Months After F2P =/\=
...for me it boils down to not being able to start as KDF from day one. As it stands now, new players start as feds, and must unlock the KDF. Human nature alone would account for lower population...taking the easiest path available whenever possible means the vast majority of new players would simply continue as feds, even with the option to make KDF characters.
The next major factor would be the red UI the KDF has. Many players have complained that it's a strain on the eyes. I don't really notice it when I'm playing my KDF characters until I switch over to the fed side. The fed's blue UI is much easier to look at than the KDF's red, no question. I would suggest that the default UI color be changed to a neutral gray with red or blue trim depending on faction.
I also don't think you can discount the amount of airtime KDF characters got in the shows and movies as opposed to federation characters. The most famous KDF character wore a Federation uniform, after all. Fans of Star Trek tend to identify more with the Federation.
That being said, it's not hopeless for PW/Cryptic to make the KDF more popular to both new and existing players. I would point to the popularity of the Horde in WoW and the Empire in SWTOR as examples of the 'bad guys' being equally or more popular than the 'good guys'.
Bottom line is, you get out what you put in. And there is no question in my mind that Cryptic/PW has failed to put enough resources into the KDF to make it a viable alternative to the Federation.
Your thoughts?
Major reasons are in my opinion:
1. Red UI.
2. Red UI.
3. Red UI.
(Red is tiresome for eyes. I'd really like to see an option to customize at least UI colors)
4. Repetitive leveling up due to lack of content, especially after fleet actions have been placed into queues with a minimum size as start up requirement.
The klingons are not the bad guys of STO. They are as just as manipulated as the feds by the undine and have been turned to war against both feds and to conquest in the wake of the RSE falling into near ruin.
And forget not that even the current EP stated that the KDF was cut off and left tostagnate at the release of the game.
It was treated unfairly, made scapegoat on occassion and never given true effort in trying to build it up.
Those Klingon fans who saw the writing on the wall during beta and release left because of cryptics lack of attention but plethora of excuses. Many left during that time and now due to the same.
One posters claim that everyone loves the federation is not true.
I like star trek only because its one story in world of scifi that exists today, but love the klingons. Every ridged, bloodwhine drinking, glory of combat, honor holding one of them.
I hate how cryptic has ****ed them up.
Oh, and the red UI is lame and wimpy excuse. The fed blue UI is far more painful to me but didnt let it keep me from playing my only fed toon to level cap at the time before tbrowing myself fully into the KDF.
If a color is the excuse given by some, all it shows is that you never really wanted to play Klingon to begin with...
IMHO, to make a second faction work in a Star Trek two faction MMO, the solution probably should have been a Typhon Pact-like group containing everyone outside the Federation, teaming up against the Federation.
Not just Orions and Gorn under KDF rule. But a collection of mini-factions with a shared questline. That would have had a prayer at approaching or breaking 50%.
Klingons on their own don't. And, yes, we have fewer Klingons than we would have had with full content and Klingon purists are put off for a number of reasons.
I think the best route would have been a full PvE faction which contains the KDF, the RSE, the Cardassian True Way Separatists, etc. as members, each with ships, costumes, and a few thematic side missions setting up how that alliance works and where each sovereign empire falls into the larger strategic alliance.
The next major factor would be the red UI the KDF has. Many players have complained that it's a strain on the eyes. I don't really notice it when I'm playing my KDF characters until I switch over to the fed side. The fed's blue UI is much easier to look at than the KDF's red, no question. I would suggest that the default UI color be changed to a neutral gray with red or blue trim depending on faction.
I also don't think you can discount the amount of airtime KDF characters got in the shows and movies as opposed to federation characters. The most famous KDF character wore a Federation uniform, after all. Fans of Star Trek tend to identify more with the Federation.
That being said, it's not hopeless for PW/Cryptic to make the KDF more popular to both new and existing players. I would point to the popularity of the Horde in WoW and the Empire in SWTOR as examples of the 'bad guys' being equally or more popular than the 'good guys'.
Bottom line is, you get out what you put in. And there is no question in my mind that Cryptic/PW has failed to put enough resources into the KDF to make it a viable alternative to the Federation.
Quoted the relevant parts of your post, most of which I agree wholeheartedly on. Other than the lack of content on KDF side, as well as the fact that players must first level a FED character to 25, I too would like to see a UI overhaul (both in function, and appearance).
A brushed metal look to the UI (instead of the solid blue and solid red we have now), with a blue/red trim would look great in my opinion. In the same batch of UI changing, i'd like to see department colors added to the ability icons (gold for Engineering, red for Tactical, blue for Science), in order to break up the monotony of having the same color everywhere.
Ultimately, I would love to see a 25th century take on the LCARS design we all know and love from the Star Trek series, but that would be a long-term goal. In the very least, adding the ability to change UI color and/or increase/decrease saturation of the UI would certainly help for the current appearance.
1) The Star Trek IP is mainly focused on the Federation. Because of this, most players will mainly play Fed.
2) Cryptic royally botched the KDF faction in STO. Because of this, even less people play KDF than would have if it had been done right.
When you combine these 2 reasons, you have a very small KDF playerbase.
1: I disagree with you here. Like the OP said, both the Horde (WoW) and Empire (SWTOR) are fairly popular, despite their source material focusing primarily on the Alliance (W@rcraft-games) and Rebel Alliance / Republic (Star Wars old/new trilogy).
FAIL! Can't spell W a r c r a f t as a solid word, without it getting tagged as "profanity"
And in my opinion, seeing episodes from a Klingon perspective, could turn out to be rather interesting. I enjoyed the few episodes on the tv shows, which focused primarily on the Klingons. TNG's "A Matter of Honor" and DS9's "Soldiers of the Empire" / "Once More Unto the Breach" were all very good episodes I thought.
2: This point, I wholeheartedly agree on. Until Cryptic makes good on making the KDF a full-fledged faction, with the ability to start at level 1, KDF will never be on equal footing to Federation, and there would be little point in adding any additional factions. I'd be willing to pay for a full-fledged Expansion Pack with for example the Romulan Faction, if I knew that they would have full mission content from levels 1 through 50.
Another thing is, players who want to play KDF must first level to 25 on FED side, in order to start at level 20 as KDF, effectively forcing players to level 55 times to reach level 50 as KDF.
1: I disagree with you here. Like the OP said, both the Horde (WoW) and Empire (SWTOR) are fairly popular, despite their source material focusing primarily on the Alliance (W@rcraft-games) and Rebel Alliance / Republic (Star Wars old/new trilogy).
I'm not sure which Star Wars you watched, but the ones I watched constantly jumped back and forth between Reb and Imp scenes, and the main character of all 6 movies actually went from being a "good guy" to a "bad guy" and then back again. I'm not familiar with W4rcr4ft's story, but I do know it isnt based on half a dozen movies that jump back and forth between the 2 faction's stories like I previously mentioned. The point is, while the story of SW was focused on both faction's, the story of Trek is 99% focused on the Federation.
The.Grand.Nagus
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: NPW Forums
I've watched all 6 movies. And it's only 1 character that went from good, to bad, to good again. The Hero of the original trilogy (now labeled as 4, 5 and 6), never went to the "dark" side as far as I know.
The "99% focus on Federation" bit i'll agree on. Just because the shows/movies focused primarily on the Federation, doesn't mean that games need to be held to the same constraint. It's far easier to give a Human actor a wrinkled nose, or a slightly furrowed forehead, than it is to give the same Human actor a full-fledged Klingon makeup look. The galaxy is full of aliens, and yet we almost only ever see Humans on the shows. Could it be because it's Human actors?
Point is, this is a game. It has no need for "budgetary constraints" when designing various alien species.
Just because the shows/movies focused primarily on the Federation, doesn't mean that games need to be held to the same constraint.
That may be true, but it doesnt change the fact that because the Trek IP is 99% Fed focused, the majority of players are going to be Fed inclined. Yes, more people would have played KDF if the faction had been better designed, but they still would have been a minority compared to the Feds.
The.Grand.Nagus
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: NPW Forums
That may be true, but it doesnt change the fact that because the Trek IP is 99% Fed focused, the majority of players are going to be Fed inclined. Yes, more people would have played KDF if the faction had been better designed, but they still would have been a minority compared to the Feds.
Which is why I think:
A) They should have had a faction agnostic content path with subobjectives and mechanics to make the factions distinct. In this scenario, faction populations are largely irrelevant.
OR
They should have had an alliance (not under any one group's rule) of ALL the enemy factions. True Way, Dominion, Romulans, Klingons, Bajoran separatists, etc. all allied against the Federation. (That would take one heck of a story, both why they were willing to do this and why the Federation hasn't fallen yet.) Each sub-faction of the anti-Federation group would have its own costumes and ships and its own central hub... But there'd be a Typhon Pact-like council of the leaders, coordinating them all.
A) They should have had a faction agnostic content path with subobjectives and mechanics to make the factions distinct. In this scenario, faction populations are largely irrelevant.
OR
They should have had an alliance (not under any one group's rule) of ALL the enemy factions. True Way, Dominion, Romulans, Klingons, Bajoran separatists, etc. all allied against the Federation. (That would take one heck of a story, both why they were willing to do this and why the Federation hasn't fallen yet.) Each sub-faction of the anti-Federation group would have its own costumes and ships and its own central hub... But there'd be a Typhon Pact-like council of the leaders, coordinating them all.
OR
C) Launched 1 year later after they had time to develop a full faction specific leveling path for both factions, and then focused on end game content post launch. Of course, that wasnt an option, but we're talking in hypotheticals anyway so this is just another.
The.Grand.Nagus
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: NPW Forums
C) Launched 1 year later after they had time to develop a full faction specific leveling path for both factions, and then focused on end game content post launch. Of course, that wasnt an option, but we're talking in hypotheticals anyway so this is just another.
I know it's an unpopular sentiment but I think that would have been a colossal loss. You get and retain, I dunno, an extra 25k Klingon players but torpedo the first year's revenue. I doubt the math would ever support that.
The problem is, they have been (and I think had to ) triage some of the loudest and most passionate Star Trek fans. Now... As for HOW they triaged them, it was a mess.
But, heck, I think even Fed content suffered for being so Fed centric. The faction flavoring of content made it seem military, like Star Trek: Call of Duty. I'm NOT talking about the level of action or amount of shooting but in terms of how everything is structured around orders and military objectives. Kirk did a lot of shooting too, as did Voyager, but ALL of the Captains, including Picard, tended to act like they didn't have superiors, like they happened upon situations where they were the final authority.
Whereas in game, everything gets delineated into these military objectives, assigned by superiors.
A truer representation of Trek, IMHO, would have had the quest givers almost never be Starfleet affiliated. Which would have played well to faction neutral thinking. And if you ever did get orders, the ideal would be to violate them for higher rewards.
Even Fleet Starbases reflect a very military thinking on Cryptic's part whereas Trek tends to be more anarchic.
In TMP, WoK, SfS, Voyage Home, Final Frontier, Undiscovered Country, First Contact, and Insurrection, the entire plot is centered around disobeying orders or subverting Starfleet's orders and assignments.
In Generations and Nemesis, command is largely irrelevant and only makes token appearances.
Starfleet Command should be more like, "Hey! Where are you? What are you doing? Oh. That's cool, I guess. We just wondered what you were doing with that warship we gave you."
Starfleet command's presence is WAY overstated in STO... and that causes the content that is developed to require alternate text to be faction agnostic, if it can be made faction agnostic at all. And it causes the faction agnostic content that is there to feel like reskinned Fed content.
Whereas in the shows, being in Starfleet is irrelevant to what they do and only somewhat relevant to how they do it.
In my opinion, the relatively small number of KDF players has very little to do with anything Cryptic has done. Most people in STO are looking for more content and they usually create more than one character. If they found the KDF faction appealing, they would take advantage of whatever content was available, even if it was limited. They would play KDF less, but it would be more or less proportional to the amount of content for each faction.
I do have a KDF character, but I do not play it as much as my Starfleet characters and I was playing STO for over a year before I started it. I do not know how many people feel the same way I do, but this is my explanation of why I do not play KDF more. One thing I should mention is that my KDF captain is not a Klingon. My crew has one token Klingon BOFF and no Klingon DOFF's. (There were a lot of executions.) I do take some Klingon colonists, but only to sell them to Orion slavers. The only way I could interest myself in the KDF faction was to play the character as a subversive to the Klingons.
In most other MMO's, I have preferred playing the evil factions to the good ones. For me, the problem with Klingons is they are not portrayed as evil, even though I would consider people like them evil in real life. They are violent, but honorable. In my beliefs, it is better to be non-violent than violent and compassion is always more important than honor. I would rather play a character that confirms those beliefs than one that contradicts them. To me, a character that is recognized as evil still confirms them.
While these are just my own feelings, they are a possible explanation for the lack of interest in the KDF faction.
"These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise"
/thread
Good one! I totally agree. Besides some episodes Star Trek was focused mainly on the Federation/Starfleet.
To me the main audience of this game are people who want to play Picard rather than Martok. That's why you see a Galaxy Class in the forum or the Starfleet guy on the STO Box.
The missing lvl1 to lvl25 mission content might be another reason. But the main reason to me is just the thing I wrote above. Even if there would be this mission content I really doubt that Klingon playerbase would become equal.
Comments
Yeah. It's just because Cryptic is stupid for not spotlighting the Bumpy-headed Space Vikings from day one, and so are the other players who want to play the focus of the IP and not the Bumpy-headed Space Vikings. Because if they were smart everyone would be playing Bumpy-headed Space Vikings and they'd have to rename the game "Bumpy-headed Space Vikings Online".
That's definitely more valid than, "the interest just isn't there".
And get back to me when the Federation green space hookers get to wear the green space hooker bikinis like their Bumpy-headed Space Viking counterparts.
As such, however, their portrayal in the IP reminds me a little too much of the schoolyard bullies of my youth, with their taunts and insinuating insults.
It's because of this "Klingon Banter" that the entire faction has really never appealed to me in the IP. The post-ST3 "lack of respect for their enemies, and quite often their allies as well". Never passing up an opportunity, for example, to call someone weak. Since 'The Klingons" (post ST3) didn't appeal to me, the STO 'predominantly pvp' Klingon faction didn't much appeal to me either.
*note, I say Post-ST3 Klingons. It;s certainly true that the Klingons have always been "piratish" but in TOS, Klingons were cutlass wielding, swashbuckling pirates like you might expect of Erroll Flynn. After ST3, with the introduction of TNG, the Klingons got a major reworking and became dirty, smelly pirates who would just as soon stab their captain in the back over an insult, as their enemy. Both of whom they would spit on.
ST3 is an anomaly, for two reasons. One, Kruge was clearly a rogue, and was a "Klingon behaving badly" when he went after Genesis. Two, (most importantly) the Klingons in ST3 were originally written as Romulans. (which is the real reason there's a bird painted on that green "bird of prey"). This certainly explains Kruge's killing his weapons officer for being "an animal". It's funny that this behaviour, and the overwhelming sense of Honor and Duty that were traditionally the purview of the Romulans, became associated with the Klingons.
..GORNS SMELL :O
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They do.
TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and even the Animated series were about what? Federation people doing Federation things, so why is it a surprise that people would be attracted to playing...Federation?
Okay, that aside. Cryptic dropped the ball on KDF and here's my opinion.
There is a fanbase for Klingons.
The various series had in some sense developed the Klingons culturally, historically and created enough canon basis for Cryptic to make them into a solid faction.
The KDF is a massive pool that Cryptic could have creatively developed. Instead they fell into the trap of using the KDF as they(all the other franchises) always have, a backdrop for the Federation.
So, yes having no content is part of the problem, but reality is the type and quality of the content is just as much to blame. As long as the KDF doesn't have its own long, indepth personalized story from start to finish, it will always feel like its playing second fiddle to the Federation.
Thus players will stick with the Federation.
Cryptic will never get the Klingon playerbase up to par without help because the Federation is just too popular to play.
That's because Kruge saw the script ahead of time, and jumped in his Delore... er Bird of Prey and hit 88mi... warp 8.8 to go back in time and rewrite them as Klingons.
(If you remember who played Kruge, this might actually be funny. :P )
2) The KDF was never made into a fully fledged faction worthy of play. From the start, you first needed to make a Starfleet Officer to play, and you had no PVE missions at all. They called it the "PvP faction", pretending this could make it a fully actualized faction.
3) The KDF isn't the KDF that we got to know in the shows. It's some weird multi-racial mix. I figure this will irriate some Klingon purists just as much as the fact that they didn't get a full faction storyline to begin with.
This, unfortuantly, is probably the sad truth.
KBF CO
We are the Dead
join date Aug 2008
That "bad guy" concept hurt the potential for a larger Klingon customer base. Cryptic should have kept the progressive theme from canon and made the Klingons allies of the Federation. And focused on space & ground game play differences between the two.
This coupled with the ability to create a Klingon from Level 1, and enough story to get to 50 would have given Cryptic many more customers inside the KDF.
Don't have any particular fondness for Klingons themselves, but they're on my crew.
The answer is simple:
Star Trek has always been about a starfleet crew exploring the unknown and their own humanity.
1. Red UI.
2. Red UI.
3. Red UI.
(Red is tiresome for eyes. I'd really like to see an option to customize at least UI colors)
4. Repetitive leveling up due to lack of content, especially after fleet actions have been placed into queues with a minimum size as start up requirement.
And forget not that even the current EP stated that the KDF was cut off and left tostagnate at the release of the game.
It was treated unfairly, made scapegoat on occassion and never given true effort in trying to build it up.
Those Klingon fans who saw the writing on the wall during beta and release left because of cryptics lack of attention but plethora of excuses. Many left during that time and now due to the same.
One posters claim that everyone loves the federation is not true.
I like star trek only because its one story in world of scifi that exists today, but love the klingons. Every ridged, bloodwhine drinking, glory of combat, honor holding one of them.
I hate how cryptic has ****ed them up.
Oh, and the red UI is lame and wimpy excuse. The fed blue UI is far more painful to me but didnt let it keep me from playing my only fed toon to level cap at the time before tbrowing myself fully into the KDF.
If a color is the excuse given by some, all it shows is that you never really wanted to play Klingon to begin with...
R.I.P
Join the STFHelp channel
Not just Orions and Gorn under KDF rule. But a collection of mini-factions with a shared questline. That would have had a prayer at approaching or breaking 50%.
Klingons on their own don't. And, yes, we have fewer Klingons than we would have had with full content and Klingon purists are put off for a number of reasons.
I think the best route would have been a full PvE faction which contains the KDF, the RSE, the Cardassian True Way Separatists, etc. as members, each with ships, costumes, and a few thematic side missions setting up how that alliance works and where each sovereign empire falls into the larger strategic alliance.
Quoted the relevant parts of your post, most of which I agree wholeheartedly on. Other than the lack of content on KDF side, as well as the fact that players must first level a FED character to 25, I too would like to see a UI overhaul (both in function, and appearance).
A brushed metal look to the UI (instead of the solid blue and solid red we have now), with a blue/red trim would look great in my opinion. In the same batch of UI changing, i'd like to see department colors added to the ability icons (gold for Engineering, red for Tactical, blue for Science), in order to break up the monotony of having the same color everywhere.
Ultimately, I would love to see a 25th century take on the LCARS design we all know and love from the Star Trek series, but that would be a long-term goal. In the very least, adding the ability to change UI color and/or increase/decrease saturation of the UI would certainly help for the current appearance.
1: I disagree with you here. Like the OP said, both the Horde (WoW) and Empire (SWTOR) are fairly popular, despite their source material focusing primarily on the Alliance (W@rcraft-games) and Rebel Alliance / Republic (Star Wars old/new trilogy).
FAIL! Can't spell W a r c r a f t as a solid word, without it getting tagged as "profanity"
And in my opinion, seeing episodes from a Klingon perspective, could turn out to be rather interesting. I enjoyed the few episodes on the tv shows, which focused primarily on the Klingons. TNG's "A Matter of Honor" and DS9's "Soldiers of the Empire" / "Once More Unto the Breach" were all very good episodes I thought.
2: This point, I wholeheartedly agree on. Until Cryptic makes good on making the KDF a full-fledged faction, with the ability to start at level 1, KDF will never be on equal footing to Federation, and there would be little point in adding any additional factions. I'd be willing to pay for a full-fledged Expansion Pack with for example the Romulan Faction, if I knew that they would have full mission content from levels 1 through 50.
Another thing is, players who want to play KDF must first level to 25 on FED side, in order to start at level 20 as KDF, effectively forcing players to level 55 times to reach level 50 as KDF.
I'm not sure which Star Wars you watched, but the ones I watched constantly jumped back and forth between Reb and Imp scenes, and the main character of all 6 movies actually went from being a "good guy" to a "bad guy" and then back again. I'm not familiar with W4rcr4ft's story, but I do know it isnt based on half a dozen movies that jump back and forth between the 2 faction's stories like I previously mentioned. The point is, while the story of SW was focused on both faction's, the story of Trek is 99% focused on the Federation.
The.Grand.Nagus
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The "99% focus on Federation" bit i'll agree on. Just because the shows/movies focused primarily on the Federation, doesn't mean that games need to be held to the same constraint. It's far easier to give a Human actor a wrinkled nose, or a slightly furrowed forehead, than it is to give the same Human actor a full-fledged Klingon makeup look. The galaxy is full of aliens, and yet we almost only ever see Humans on the shows. Could it be because it's Human actors?
Point is, this is a game. It has no need for "budgetary constraints" when designing various alien species.
That may be true, but it doesnt change the fact that because the Trek IP is 99% Fed focused, the majority of players are going to be Fed inclined. Yes, more people would have played KDF if the faction had been better designed, but they still would have been a minority compared to the Feds.
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Which is why I think:
A) They should have had a faction agnostic content path with subobjectives and mechanics to make the factions distinct. In this scenario, faction populations are largely irrelevant.
OR
OR
C) Launched 1 year later after they had time to develop a full faction specific leveling path for both factions, and then focused on end game content post launch. Of course, that wasnt an option, but we're talking in hypotheticals anyway so this is just another.
The.Grand.Nagus
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I know it's an unpopular sentiment but I think that would have been a colossal loss. You get and retain, I dunno, an extra 25k Klingon players but torpedo the first year's revenue. I doubt the math would ever support that.
The problem is, they have been (and I think had to ) triage some of the loudest and most passionate Star Trek fans. Now... As for HOW they triaged them, it was a mess.
But, heck, I think even Fed content suffered for being so Fed centric. The faction flavoring of content made it seem military, like Star Trek: Call of Duty. I'm NOT talking about the level of action or amount of shooting but in terms of how everything is structured around orders and military objectives. Kirk did a lot of shooting too, as did Voyager, but ALL of the Captains, including Picard, tended to act like they didn't have superiors, like they happened upon situations where they were the final authority.
Whereas in game, everything gets delineated into these military objectives, assigned by superiors.
A truer representation of Trek, IMHO, would have had the quest givers almost never be Starfleet affiliated. Which would have played well to faction neutral thinking. And if you ever did get orders, the ideal would be to violate them for higher rewards.
Even Fleet Starbases reflect a very military thinking on Cryptic's part whereas Trek tends to be more anarchic.
In TMP, WoK, SfS, Voyage Home, Final Frontier, Undiscovered Country, First Contact, and Insurrection, the entire plot is centered around disobeying orders or subverting Starfleet's orders and assignments.
In Generations and Nemesis, command is largely irrelevant and only makes token appearances.
Starfleet Command should be more like, "Hey! Where are you? What are you doing? Oh. That's cool, I guess. We just wondered what you were doing with that warship we gave you."
Starfleet command's presence is WAY overstated in STO... and that causes the content that is developed to require alternate text to be faction agnostic, if it can be made faction agnostic at all. And it causes the faction agnostic content that is there to feel like reskinned Fed content.
Whereas in the shows, being in Starfleet is irrelevant to what they do and only somewhat relevant to how they do it.
I do have a KDF character, but I do not play it as much as my Starfleet characters and I was playing STO for over a year before I started it. I do not know how many people feel the same way I do, but this is my explanation of why I do not play KDF more. One thing I should mention is that my KDF captain is not a Klingon. My crew has one token Klingon BOFF and no Klingon DOFF's. (There were a lot of executions.) I do take some Klingon colonists, but only to sell them to Orion slavers. The only way I could interest myself in the KDF faction was to play the character as a subversive to the Klingons.
In most other MMO's, I have preferred playing the evil factions to the good ones. For me, the problem with Klingons is they are not portrayed as evil, even though I would consider people like them evil in real life. They are violent, but honorable. In my beliefs, it is better to be non-violent than violent and compassion is always more important than honor. I would rather play a character that confirms those beliefs than one that contradicts them. To me, a character that is recognized as evil still confirms them.
While these are just my own feelings, they are a possible explanation for the lack of interest in the KDF faction.
Fleets - Federation: No Fleet - KDF: Yan-Isleth
2. dstahl HATES Klingons
'Nuff said .........
"Dan and Cryptic have spoken out the sides of their mouths so much I expect beads, whiskey and Polio blankets for the KDF any day now." - Roach
Good one!
To me the main audience of this game are people who want to play Picard rather than Martok. That's why you see a Galaxy Class in the forum or the Starfleet guy on the STO Box.
The missing lvl1 to lvl25 mission content might be another reason. But the main reason to me is just the thing I wrote above. Even if there would be this mission content I really doubt that Klingon playerbase would become equal.
Now that is absolutely hilarious. XD