The base system is far too limited and too obviously a resource sink IMHO. Why are decorative items dribbled out at highway robbery prices in an annoying time limited fashion? Wouldn't it be a lot cooler if players could make their own base like the way they did in City of Heroes (another Cryptic game!)? I hate how everybody has exactly the same base, plus or minus the same few doodads. Why not let the players be creative and make the "invite players to your starbase" button useful?
The game should reward creativity, not grind. The current starbases are almost 100% grind with no creativity.
First off let me just say if pvp were really that popular then their own server data wouldn't back this up and therefore I would not have a basis for a logical argument, bad news is I do have a basis. Gozer himself was really frank about the current state of pvp. To say its selfish for me to say pvp it adds nothing to the game is erroneous since it doesn't I was expressing an opinion that Gozer it would seem shared as well before he left.
The fact that pvp only had him working it should tell you that at the time and even now its not high on their list of things to do. I was also looking at it from a business stand point where decisions with regard to where resources will be allocated have to be made and clearly pvp is not one of them it seems at the moment at least.
I make no apologise for being brutally honest about it at the end of the day STO is a business and thats the bottom line here, if you had carefully read what I had written I said its better to invest those resources in having a better and more stable game.
Those things would add way value in the long term than a dying pvp system which is not fun or interesting at all I have more fun in pvp on COD Black Ops than I do in STO. Also if the so called folks who you claim love pvp so much why did they not vote in the poll for it then? This is assuming of course they participated in the poll lol.
Like you I love pvp too but when its poorly executed and its not fun at all then tough questions need to be asked as to whether or not is really worth investing large amounts of time and resources into this.
Hey I was around for that while Gozer the PvP Czar thing, and I would like to say quote mining does little to add to your authority.
Context is everything. Gozer made that comment with the notion of actually making PvP bring more to the game.
I heard somewhere that most players play story content once. At the most once per toon. From a business perspective that is a poor return on investment.
PvP on the other hand, (and as Asian companies like PWE know very well), is the kind of content that keeps on giving. You make it once and it gets plaid over and over and over and over and...
If you are a pickle in a pickle jar you know every pickle's different, sort of, but really they're all just pickles...
First off let me just say if pvp were really that popular then their own server data wouldn't back this up and therefore I would not have a basis for a logical argument, bad news is I do have a basis. Gozer himself was really frank about the current state of pvp.
What does popularity have to do with it? If popularity drove this game we would not have lockboxes any more. The point is that if resources were invested into making PvP great it would bring many new players, and hardcore gamers with deep pockets at that, to this game and create its own endgame.
History has shown, Starcraft for example, that good, balanced, fun PvP increases the lifespan of a game far beyond content addition. Human adversaries are the best. This game does not have a huge PvP following for several reasons, (appealed to Star Trek fans first, not the best PvP system, no balance in consoles) that does not mean that at this time PvP would be a waste of resources. The developers have had no problems changing to Free2Play and drawing in vast numbers of free players who do not necessarily like Star Trek as much as free games. The same influx would follow the addition of a rich PvP environment. In fact, PvP would draw in new customers, where as Romulan Faction, which I want too, would appeal to existing customers primarily.
There is no reason to argue about these things though. Obviously there will be many different opinions about what each person wants added. I voted for crafting, not because it is my favorite thing in the world, but because I have seen how much a rich crafting system (Star Wars Galaxies for example) can add to a game. I would LOVE it if STO could make a PvP system similar to Battlefield 2142 Titan matches, I would never leave ... of course I am lifetime sub, lol.
I don't really agree with those who say that the Foundry can solve any issue. This isn't supposed to be a sect, right, "have faith in the Foundry and all your problems will vanish"?:D
Okay, let's be more serious now.
I don't believe the Foundry can solve any issue, because the Foundry can't have the editing levels the devs have. Okay, there is still room for great maps and good stories, but it doesn't mean that new game experiences shouldn't be added. That's why I'm in favor of adding some foundry episodes (not much) and more cryptic episodes added to the stotylines.
Heck! Cryptic episodes are more interesting to play, not because the stories are better, they are equal to Foundry episodes, but because every single new mission you add means new assets, new maps, very well balanced combat, and new ways to play the game. This is extremely important.
I'm not saying that the foundry content is inferior, but it can't replace genuine and new content. Of course, you could take several foundry eposides, but it has a limit, and TBH I fear it will be rquickly repetitive and boring if we see the same assets over and over. And no foundry author can make a decent featured episode. None of them, even if they can come up with a great story, can add new gameplay experience.
As an author myself (not the best one, but still), I enjoy finding the names of props that were used by other authors in their maps. "oh, the captivity device x is there", "oh, I know these candles", etc. I can easily imagine what a new player could think if he has the same thoughts: it's a cheap game developped by lazy devs. On the contrary, every single cryptic mission, including the worst ones, looks like a new game experience.
I love the foundry, but I strongly believe that it should remain "the foundry", something different which can't be mixed with regular content.
I think that you make some valid points here, but I'm trying to be a realist, based on the state of the game and the track record of the dev team here. It's not that foundry is the end all be all savoir of sto. But, frankly, it's all we have, if we want to see either of the following:
a. A KDF faction with tons of playable xp mission content.
b. A fleshed out Romulan faction.
Cryptic is not capable of delivering either. At best, we could hope for 1 or 2 FEs to launch a foundry-based Romulan faction. At worst, we can expect the same posts from dstahl in 2 years, after nothing at all has been done regarding the two most popular feature requests in this poll.
I'm trying to advocate for what is possible here. Players want more kdf content. There is more kdf content already made, just waiting for a mechanic that implements it. Players want a Romulan faction. The only way that will ever happen is if it's a foundry faction.
The only other alternative is for the devs to spend 2-3 seasons just focused on these two features, and even then, the Roms would probably be in a poor state.
There is simply no alternative at this point. They can't do it. They won't do it. None of it will be prioritized. It will not happen, period.
Do we want a half-arsed playable Rom species or do we want a Romulan faction? Do we want a few more KDF ships and a few more events or missions that are cross-factioned, or do we want KDF story content?
In my opinion, the only way that we'll see either of the latter happen is if Cryptic developed the mechanic for foundry xp and incorporates it into the main xp experience. And, the best that we can hope for, as far as a Rom faction, is ships, costumes, a green UI, and the bones of a faction. It will be up to us to provide the content.
That is the best that we can expect from this team. If we expect more, it will never ever happen. It will be 2015, and dstahl will still be posting the same philosophical points about what makes these things difficult. That is, if the game is still around then.
The foundry isn't our savoir. It's our only hope for new content. I wish that someone would zombie resurrect this post in Sept. of 2013. If the devs have provided more the 5 hours of story-based content by then, I will be very surprised.
I know no one probably cares about my opinion, nevertheless here is my personal wish list:
1. Improve Exploration
(I think exploration desperately needs some love.)
2. More Feature Episodes
(They where like new episodes for me, i wish they would add them, more often.)
3. More Rare ships.
(I just love ships, but on the other hand... i hate most of cryptics designs...)
4. More Foundry improvements.
(I'm not a builder myself but i love to play foundry missions. Everything that helps making better missions is a good thing.)
5. Playable Romulans.
(Not realy important for me, but it would be nice.)
Things like "more fleet missions" or "improve Duty Officer System" are really not needed, since we already got enough Fleet and DOFF stuff, lately.
Live long and prosper.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
...Similarly, there are many players who would like to play as a Romulan, but don't want that experience to be as simple as a "playable species". Playing a Romulan should mean your own story and agenda, your own ships, and your own experience. Given the games development history with the KDF, there is skepticism that a Romulan experience would be any better than what the KDF had shortly after launch. The fate of the Romulans is also a topic of debate. What has happened to them since Romulus was destroyed? Are they splintered? How many are left? Who's in charge? Any effort with the Romulans should start from a perspective of "Telling their Story" so that the design is fulfilling to fans...
With what you just here I totally agree with allow me to share my thoughts on what a Romulan faction should look like in STO.
1. The Romulan Empire may be weakened but should not be regarded as anything less than an Empire with some internal turmoil. (Nevermind that I take issue with the destruction of Romulus as canon but lets put that aside for the time being). Losing ones homeworld does not mean the end of that faction, the Romulan Empire is easily the size of the Klingon Empire and the Federation COMBINED the loss of 2 planets does not matter when you are talking about a scale that big (not to mention the Romulans had all the time in the world to evac).
2. As for Leadership the since the current Praetor is out of action there is still the Romulan Senate to consider and the Emperor (which has never been alluded to in anything canon for Romulans i believe but is still an option of temporary leadership) really this is just how you guys would like to tell that story.
3. As for telling that story its quite simple the Romulan storyline should start from one of 2 places. A: Romulus was destroyed we should take it out on everyone or B: Take extreme measures to restore Romulus (even altering the timeline is not off the table, this makes way to explain the alliance with Iconians). There is also the Klingon Invasion of Romulan space to deal with as well the splinter faction of Romulan elements attacking the Federation.
In short here is what I would think:
The Emperor takes emergency command of the Romulan Empire, declares the rogue elements at war with starfleet traitors and orders all loyal romulans to dispose of them and simultaneously push back against the Klingon invasion.
The Emperor lifts the requirement that all naval commanders must be Romulan allowing for the client races of the Empire to command ships and go to war on the behalf of the Empire.
The Tal Shiar would have to be rebuilt from the ground up to combat the Undine
another option is q-snap and put Romulans back to before the planet was destroyed. Problem solved lol
In regards to "New ships", would it be totally unreasonable to retrofit the existing (and future) C-Store ships, to include a "Free ship slot included" ? Obviously you'd have to make the Free ship slot only claimable ONCE, while the ship remains able to be claimed repeatedly (if dismissed).
I have no problems with buying new ship slots (if needed), but considering the current Zen cost for each ship, including a ship slot in the price is hardly unreasonable.
Also, i'd like Ships to have more "function" in the game. There should be more reason to take different ships into various activities, other than "This is the best cruiser" or "This is the best escort" etc. One thing I rather liked about EVE Online, was that every ship had their own role in the fleet.
I want a rich Romulan experience, which would require tools other than the foundry. While the Foundry could be used to supplement a fair number of Romulan missions, I still want some up to the quality of Doomsday.
As for the Romulan story, this is what I have been thinking for a while now.
You start as a member of a Romulan faction, fighting and subverting other factions while vying for control of the empire. As you progress your faction gets larger, finally gaining the manpower to face the Romulan-Icoian alliance. Toward the end of the storyline, (When a major patch is about to occur), you can have the Romulan-Icoian plan come to fruition. The restoration of Romulus utilizing a Space-Time shield to phase Romulus out of the past, a fraction of a second before the Hobus Super-Nova impacts it. This would work well with the story, as the Icoians are the only species to have the knowledge and the power to attempt a metaphasic space-time shield on a plantary scale.
I don't really agree with those who say that the Foundry can solve any issue. This isn't supposed to be a sect, right, "have faith in the Foundry and all your problems will vanish"?:D
Okay, let's be more serious now.
I don't believe the Foundry can solve any issue, because the Foundry can't have the editing levels the devs have. Okay, there is still room for great maps and good stories, but it doesn't mean that new game experiences shouldn't be added. That's why I'm in favor of adding some foundry episodes (not much) and more cryptic episodes added to the stotylines.
Heck! Cryptic episodes are more interesting to play, not because the stories are better, they are equal to Foundry episodes, but because every single new mission you add means new assets, new maps, very well balanced combat, and new ways to play the game. This is extremely important.
I'm not saying that the foundry content is inferior, but it can't replace genuine and new content. Of course, you could take several foundry eposides, but it has a limit, and TBH I fear it will be rquickly repetitive and boring if we see the same assets over and over. And no foundry author can make a decent featured episode. None of them, even if they can come up with a great story, can add new gameplay experience.
As an author myself (not the best one, but still), I enjoy finding the names of props that were used by other authors in their maps. "oh, the captivity device x is there", "oh, I know these candles", etc. I can easily imagine what a new player could think if he has the same thoughts: it's a cheap game developped by lazy devs. On the contrary, every single cryptic mission, including the worst ones, looks like a new game experience.
I love the foundry, but I strongly believe that it should remain "the foundry", something different which can't be mixed with regular content.
ya but thing is we lucky if we get 4 story line mission a year not to say there has been a year we got nothen again (4) mission a year im sorry but that is sad
I know no one probably cares about my opinion, nevertheless here is my personal wish list:
1. Improve Exploration
(I think exploration desperately needs some love.)
2. More Feature Episodes
(They where like new episodes for me, i wish they would add them, more often.)
3. More Rare ships.
(I just love ships, but on the other hand... i hate most of cryptics designs...)
4. More Foundry improvements.
(I'm not a builder myself but i love to play foundry missions. Everything that helps making better missions is a good thing.)
5. Playable Romulans.
(Not realy important for me, but it would be nice.)
Things like "more fleet missions" or "improve Duty Officer System" are really not needed, since we already got enough Fleet and DOFF stuff, lately.
Live long and prosper.
to me this game has enuff ships more so for the Feds as dan said you had 40 new Zstore ships addid in 6 months
and to be blunt dont even know why ships is part of the poll like cryptic / PWE going to stop doing lockboxs and Zstore ships
1. The Romulan Empire may be weakened but should not be regarded as anything less than an Empire with some internal turmoil. (Nevermind that I take issue with the destruction of Romulus as canon but lets put that aside for the time being). Losing ones homeworld does not mean the end of that faction, the Romulan Empire is easily the size of the Klingon Empire and the Federation COMBINED the loss of 2 planets does not matter when you are talking about a scale that big (not to mention the Romulans had all the time in the world to evac).
the Romulan star empire is roughly the same size as the klingon empire and cardassian empire and both KDF and RSE empires combined still can not beat the size the federation has currently, the breen from non canon is actually bigger then the romulans, and tholians even bigger then this, almost on par with the federation in sheer size.
Romulans would never abandon who they are to anyone, they are too proud to do such a thing and anyone who attempted such a thing would be on the end of a tal-shiar assassination.
Yet crewman daniels tells archer on the enterprise-J that the current incarnation of the enterprise has both xindi and romulan crew members serving aboard.......... just something for people to think about where some romulans go seeing as how it is canon.......
Yet crewman daniels tells archer on the enterprise-J that the current incarnation of the enterprise has both xindi and romulan crew members serving aboard.......... just something for people to think about where some romulans go seeing as how it is canon.......
but thats before JJ got his hand on the star trek ip
I think that you make some valid points here, but I'm trying to be a realist, based on the state of the game and the track record of the dev team here. It's not that foundry is the end all be all savoir of sto. But, frankly, it's all we have, if we want to see either of the following:
a. A KDF faction with tons of playable xp mission content.
b. A fleshed out Romulan faction.
Cryptic is not capable of delivering either. At best, we could hope for 1 or 2 FEs to launch a foundry-based Romulan faction. At worst, we can expect the same posts from dstahl in 2 years, after nothing at all has been done regarding the two most popular feature requests in this poll.
I'm trying to advocate for what is possible here. Players want more kdf content. There is more kdf content already made, just waiting for a mechanic that implements it. Players want a Romulan faction. The only way that will ever happen is if it's a foundry faction.
The only other alternative is for the devs to spend 2-3 seasons just focused on these two features, and even then, the Roms would probably be in a poor state.
There is simply no alternative at this point. They can't do it. They won't do it. None of it will be prioritized. It will not happen, period.
Do we want a half-arsed playable Rom species or do we want a Romulan faction? Do we want a few more KDF ships and a few more events or missions that are cross-factioned, or do we want KDF story content?
In my opinion, the only way that we'll see either of the latter happen is if Cryptic developed the mechanic for foundry xp and incorporates it into the main xp experience. And, the best that we can hope for, as far as a Rom faction, is ships, costumes, a green UI, and the bones of a faction. It will be up to us to provide the content.
That is the best that we can expect from this team. If we expect more, it will never ever happen. It will be 2015, and dstahl will still be posting the same philosophical points about what makes these things difficult. That is, if the game is still around then.
The foundry isn't our savoir. It's our only hope for new content. I wish that someone would zombie resurrect this post in Sept. of 2013. If the devs have provided more the 5 hours of story-based content by then, I will be very surprised.
Okay maybe it's the only way to get a Rommie faction quickly. But I'm not sure that you fully understand my point, and why I consider adding foundry episodes to the PVE list isn't something they can do without any consequences.
When you open the "community authored tab", you don't expect something unique. You know you're playing UGC and you know that the tool the authors have is limited. Given the tools we have, many missions are "high quality foundry content". It doesn't mean it's "high quality content".
Now if you add this kind of content to the regular pve list, you'll have something made with a very limited tool offered as pro content. Many times, to make an interesting mission or map, we have to use tricks that may look artificial and can be really surprising or confusing if they are offered as "cryptic content".
In other words, you're asking a company to offer low quality content because it was created with a low quality tool, and it's something far more risky than a handfull of angry fans IMO. Even if they say at the frontpage "hey, it's UGC, don't blame us", it will still be labelled cryptic and I'm not sure that offering low quality content is the best way to make games grow.
I think this is one of those cases where Dan is going to have to make some kind of hard call that upsets one group or another.
If that's the case, I think it needs to be done boldly and creatively.
Cryptic has a tendency to handle upsetting news passive aggressively.
If he's going forward with the Romulan split mini-faction thing, they need to NOT string along Romulan faction players.
Stringing along people you don't support poisons the game. Better to make a clean break, say "there are other Star Trek games for feature X, this isn't one of them," upset people rather than lead them on, generate a little controversy, and lead with the real story rather than burying the lead.
If the intent is no Romulan faction ever and for Rommies to get splintered, run full force with that "The Romulan Empire is dead and will never rise again" story. You'll make mortal enemies that way but those mortal enemies will do you more good than it would do you being a bad friend who lies or dodges subjects to keep people as friends or customers under false or unrealistic pretenses.
Okay maybe it's the only way to get a Rommie faction quickly. But I'm not sure that you fully understand my point, and why I consider adding foundry episodes to the PVE list isn't something they can do without any consequences.
When you open the "community authored tab", you don't expect something unique. You know you're playing UGC and you know that the tool the authors have is limited. Given the tools we have, many missions are "high quality foundry content".
Now if you add this kind of content to the regular pve list, you'll have something made with a very limited tool offered as pro content. Many times, to make an interesting mission or map, we have to use tricks that may look artificial and can be really surprising if they are offered as "cryptic content".
In other words, you're asking a company to offer low quality content because it was created with a low quality tool, and it's something far more risky than a handfull of angry fans IMO.
Er, I'm not sure Cryptic patrols and exploration missions would pass the ugc sniff test. My god, there are missions where I'm doing nothing but running between 5 oddly placed computer consoles in a cave, and the story of the mission makes no sense, is full of plot holes, and is generally worthy of a 1-star review.
Lots of official Cryptic content could have been made with the foundry. From what I understand, some of kind of was with the genesis random generator slot machine.
There are some things that happen in official content that aren't stuff that we can replicate: Things like a character following you or disable a ship without destroying it. And cutscenes. But, lots and lots of mission don't have that stuff at all. Technically speaking, there is not a lot of difference between a ugc mission and a Cryptic patrol, except that the ugc is usually of better quality than the Cryptic patrol.
The patrols are almost all stuff that could have been made as ugc, but ugc authors would have included better stories than "Federation dogs, die!" followed by "Eliminated 5/5 Klingon ships."
Can they really be embarrassed by ugc content if they aren't already embarrassed by the exploration clusters?
Also, a lot of the quality issues can be fixed with better assets. Like instead of us using platforms and barrels to make ugly transporters, the devs could add the most obvious prop in the history of foundry props: a transporter pad.
Now if you add this kind of content to the regular pve list, you'll have something made with a very limited tool offered as pro content. Many times, to make an interesting mission or map, we have to use tricks that may look artificial and can be really surprising or confusing if they are offered as "cryptic content".
ok let me ask this are they that different? then what the game started with dont forget this game didnt have cutscenes at the beginning every or voice oever and still alot of mission dont
not to say cryptic would have say in to what we get to vote for as the top pick
Er, I'm not sure Cryptic patrols and exploration missions would pass the ugc sniff test. My god, there are missions where I'm doing nothing but running between 5 oddly placed computer consoles in a cave, and the story of the mission makes no sense, is full of plot holes, and is generally worthy of a 1-star review.
Lots of official Cryptic content could have been made with the foundry. From what I understand, some of kind of was with the genesis random generator slot machine.
There are some things that happen in official content that aren't stuff that we can replicate: Things like a character following you or disable a ship without destroying it. And cutscenes. But, lots and lots of mission don't have that stuff at all. Technically speaking, there is not a lot of difference between a ugc mission and a Cryptic patrol, except that the ugc is usually of better quality than the Cryptic patrol.
The patrols are almost all stuff that could have been made as ugc, but ugc authors would have included better stories than "Federation dogs, die!" followed by "Eliminated 5/5 Klingon ships."
Can they really be embarrassed by ugc content if they aren't already embarrassed by the exploration clusters?
Also, a lot of the quality issues can be fixed with better assets. Like instead of us using platforms and barrels to make ugly transporters, the devs could add the most obvious prop in the history of foundry props: a transporter pad.
Well, clusters were a half-decent attempt at using the RNG to make missions. Take template, add villains, PRESTO! But, as, um, interesting as it is, it's boring compared to a decent foundry mission.
Well, clusters were a half-decent attempt at using the RNG to make missions. Take template, add villains, PRESTO! But, as, um, interesting as it is, it's boring compared to a decent foundry mission.
grrrrrrr i see this soo many times (it's boring compared to a decent foundry mission.) and make me sad for i do want to play thes good one but i want them to be apart of sto cannon so i can feel i moveing forward again in the sto story line and not stuck like i am now
not going to lie ive not played one player made mission since it came out i know i know im missing out but i see it right now as this its like books and books in star trek are not cannon so i dont mess with them to
Yet crewman daniels tells archer on the enterprise-J that the current incarnation of the enterprise has both xindi and romulan crew members serving aboard.......... just something for people to think about where some romulans go seeing as how it is canon.......
That is the trouble with those pesky time travelers... they are seeing one of many possible futures. For example in All Good Things, future Geordi mentions that the Klingons had taken over the Romulan Empire, yet crewman Daniels shows Archer a different future where everyone is working together and urges Archer that there is a chance that future might not come to pass.
There are many possible paths for the Romulans to take, not to mention that the Romulan Empire is already a bit splintered after the destruction of Romulus.
As game designers, if we were to consider adding playable Romulans, we would need to determine the perspective from which the player will beging their journey. For example, if we were to make playable Romulans a faction within Sela's fleet, then all of the mission content would put you squarely at odds with the both the Feds and Klingons. If instead players started as a refugee then perhaps there would be more opportunity to work with the Feds and KDF, while trying to resist the represive military agenda. There are a lot of different ways we can go, but it would be unlikely we could represent all the different perspectives from a single game experience.
So before we go down that path, our writing staff would work with CBS to determine the most logical path for "players" to play as Romulans and then we would ensure that the experience feels "Romulan" even though it might represent only a subset of the different viewpoints within the empire.
And before you say it again... yes we realize what the Foundry can do. We built the tools and we get it. If there is an opportunity that we feel makes sense for the game, we will pursue it.
(note: Based on subsequent posts I'm adding a comment that we recognize what Foundry authors can do too - the point was that we are not discounting the Foundry when talking about future content plans. We will incorporate the Foundry as it fits and makes sense for our future updates.)
That is the trouble with those pesky time travelers... they are seeing one of many possible futures. For example in All Good Things, future Geordi mentions that the Klingons had taken over the Romulan Empire, yet crewman Daniels shows Archer a different future where everyone is working together and urges Archer that there is a chance that future might not come to pass.
from what i got schooled on about (All Good Thongs) was that all that had happen it was in picards head it never really happen at all its was all dun by Q to see if humans had it in them to expand there minds
That is the trouble with those pesky time travelers... they are seeing one of many possible futures. For example in All Good Things, future Geordi mentions that the Klingons had taken over the Romulan Empire, yet crewman Daniels shows Archer a different future where everyone is working together and urges Archer that there is a chance that future might not come to pass.
There are many possible paths for the Romulans to take, not to mention that the Romulan Empire is already a bit splintered after the destruction of Romulus.
As game designers, if we were to consider adding playable Romulans, we would need to determine the perspective from which the player will beging their journey. For example, if we were to make playable Romulans a faction within Sela's fleet, then all of the mission content would put you squarely at odds with the both the Feds and Klingons. If instead players started as a refugee then perhaps there would be more opportunity to work with the Feds and KDF, while trying to resist the represive military agenda. There are a lot of different ways we can go, but it would be unlikely we could represent all the different perspectives from a single game experience.
So before we go down that path, our writing staff would work with CBS to determine the most logical path for "players" to play as Romulans and then we would ensure that the experience feels "Romulan" even though it might represent only a subset of the different viewpoints within the empire.
And before you say it again... yes we realize what the Foundry can do. We built the tools and we get it. If there is an opportunity that we feel makes sense for the game, we will pursue it.
Yeah I could find fun things on either path to do as playing a romulan. The thing I find funny romulan faction or not is why romulans use thalaron drones when they know it can kill them too in the physics of thalaron.
As for the foundry this is just my opinion but a game like neverwinter where it has a very small and limited story line it couldn't cross which is almost non existent for foundry creation. There is much of Star Trek we would not be able to do in the foundry without violating EULA in regard to story of the franchise and then story of the game so its extremely hard for authors to have something Star Trek and where I've seen many times people just using the foundry to try to make up fake star wars themed missions.
Yet crewman daniels tells archer on the enterprise-J that the current incarnation of the enterprise has both xindi and romulan crew members serving aboard.......... just something for people to think about where some romulans go seeing as how it is canon.......
In my mind when Archer fixed the timeline back to the way it was "supposed" to be, he also prevented the temporal cold war from ever happening and wiped out Crewman Daniels and the ENT-J* from existence, b/c really, those things should never have existed in the first place.
*I'm a huge fan of Doug Drexler, but that paper plate with a Galaxy saucer skin stretched over it was the absolute worst case of "phoning it in" that I have ever seen.
In my mind when Archer fixed the timeline back to the way it was "supposed" to be, he also prevented the temporal cold war from ever happening and wiped out Crewman Daniels and the ENT-J* from existence, b/c really, those things should never have existed in the first place.
What does popularity have to do with it? If popularity drove this game we would not have lockboxes any more. The point is that if resources were invested into making PvP great it would bring many new players, and hardcore gamers with deep pockets at that, to this game and create its own endgame.
History has shown, Starcraft for example, that good, balanced, fun PvP increases the lifespan of a game far beyond content addition. Human adversaries are the best. This game does not have a huge PvP following for several reasons, (appealed to Star Trek fans first, not the best PvP system, no balance in consoles) that does not mean that at this time PvP would be a waste of resources. The developers have had no problems changing to Free2Play and drawing in vast numbers of free players who do not necessarily like Star Trek as much as free games. The same influx would follow the addition of a rich PvP environment. In fact, PvP would draw in new customers, where as Romulan Faction, which I want too, would appeal to existing customers primarily.
There is no reason to argue about these things though. Obviously there will be many different opinions about what each person wants added. I voted for crafting, not because it is my favorite thing in the world, but because I have seen how much a rich crafting system (Star Wars Galaxies for example) can add to a game. I would LOVE it if STO could make a PvP system similar to Battlefield 2142 Titan matches, I would never leave ... of course I am lifetime sub, lol.
Just for your benefit I'm not quote mining I was simply saying that his views were in line with mine and its an academic method used in order to help support an argument which in this case for me was why pvp should be gotten rid of and I do not profess to be an authority on it just intelligent and smart enough to present a good argument .
As for popularity of course it matters since there would be no point investing resources in something within game that would not be very favored by a good majority of the players so therefore my argument stands. There is more statistical data that supports my argument and in light of the continuing problems with pvp shutting it down would be best in the long run.
That is the trouble with those pesky time travelers... they are seeing one of many possible futures. For example in All Good Things, future Geordi mentions that the Klingons had taken over the Romulan Empire, yet crewman Daniels shows Archer a different future where everyone is working together and urges Archer that there is a chance that future might not come to pass.
There are many possible paths for the Romulans to take, not to mention that the Romulan Empire is already a bit splintered after the destruction of Romulus.
As game designers, if we were to consider adding playable Romulans, we would need to determine the perspective from which the player will beging their journey. For example, if we were to make playable Romulans a faction within Sela's fleet, then all of the mission content would put you squarely at odds with the both the Feds and Klingons. If instead players started as a refugee then perhaps there would be more opportunity to work with the Feds and KDF, while trying to resist the represive military agenda. There are a lot of different ways we can go, but it would be unlikely we could represent all the different perspectives from a single game experience.
So before we go down that path, our writing staff would work with CBS to determine the most logical path for "players" to play as Romulans and then we would ensure that the experience feels "Romulan" even though it might represent only a subset of the different viewpoints within the empire.
And before you say it again... yes we realize what the Foundry can do. We built the tools and we get it. If there is an opportunity that we feel makes sense for the game, we will pursue it.
i think being part of the empress's forces would be best, who wants to be neutral or friendly with the other factions? :P
romulan characters starting at level 40 or 50, would only mean you have to make tier 5 ships for them, with access to all qued content is all i want. i just want to play romulan ships in all the end game content i play now, leveling pve content and being immersed in their story im not as interested in, same goes for true way, dominion, even breen.
you mentioned wanting to go back and do less traditional mmo stuff, well not including leveling in non starfleet factions would certainly do that, then everything would be end game content! if mini factions like i proposed sets the standard for non federation factions, people would proboly stop complaining that the kdf and understand that the federation is the immersion/RP faction and all the rest are more monster play. star trek is 95% about what happens in the federation anyway, so the game really doesn't need to focus that hard on the other faction's story. we are used to star trek not being about them. you can always back fill these factions and lower the starting level if that ever looks advantageous too.
a social zone like space dock or first city, a small square home sector block, and qued content, maybe even featured episodes once some new lines for their contacts are writen. whatever you do, don't do what you did for the kdf, try to turn a pvp monster play faction into a full immersion faction. this half way between thing that the kdf is now just doesn't please anyone.
Hey I was around for that while Gozer the PvP Czar thing, and I would like to say quote mining does little to add to your authority.
Context is everything. Gozer made that comment with the notion of actually making PvP bring more to the game.
I heard somewhere that most players play story content once. At the most once per toon. From a business perspective that is a poor return on investment.
PvP on the other hand, (and as Asian companies like PWE know very well), is the kind of content that keeps on giving. You make it once and it gets plaid over and over and over and over and...
Your right he did but I only mentioned him since he shared some of my sentiments on pvp, in my defense it could be saved then great, I was stating that if not then get rid of it and move on and re-invest those resources in other areas like content for the KDF and maybe more ships etc rather than just throwing away money on a possibly lost cause lol
The main crooks is they are a business and like any business they have a set budget and they have to decide where that money will allocated and am simply questioning whether or not is pvp really the best place to invest those resources.
Comments
The game should reward creativity, not grind. The current starbases are almost 100% grind with no creativity.
Hey I was around for that while Gozer the PvP Czar thing, and I would like to say quote mining does little to add to your authority.
Context is everything. Gozer made that comment with the notion of actually making PvP bring more to the game.
I heard somewhere that most players play story content once. At the most once per toon. From a business perspective that is a poor return on investment.
PvP on the other hand, (and as Asian companies like PWE know very well), is the kind of content that keeps on giving. You make it once and it gets plaid over and over and over and over and...
What does popularity have to do with it? If popularity drove this game we would not have lockboxes any more. The point is that if resources were invested into making PvP great it would bring many new players, and hardcore gamers with deep pockets at that, to this game and create its own endgame.
History has shown, Starcraft for example, that good, balanced, fun PvP increases the lifespan of a game far beyond content addition. Human adversaries are the best. This game does not have a huge PvP following for several reasons, (appealed to Star Trek fans first, not the best PvP system, no balance in consoles) that does not mean that at this time PvP would be a waste of resources. The developers have had no problems changing to Free2Play and drawing in vast numbers of free players who do not necessarily like Star Trek as much as free games. The same influx would follow the addition of a rich PvP environment. In fact, PvP would draw in new customers, where as Romulan Faction, which I want too, would appeal to existing customers primarily.
There is no reason to argue about these things though. Obviously there will be many different opinions about what each person wants added. I voted for crafting, not because it is my favorite thing in the world, but because I have seen how much a rich crafting system (Star Wars Galaxies for example) can add to a game. I would LOVE it if STO could make a PvP system similar to Battlefield 2142 Titan matches, I would never leave ... of course I am lifetime sub, lol.
I think that you make some valid points here, but I'm trying to be a realist, based on the state of the game and the track record of the dev team here. It's not that foundry is the end all be all savoir of sto. But, frankly, it's all we have, if we want to see either of the following:
a. A KDF faction with tons of playable xp mission content.
b. A fleshed out Romulan faction.
Cryptic is not capable of delivering either. At best, we could hope for 1 or 2 FEs to launch a foundry-based Romulan faction. At worst, we can expect the same posts from dstahl in 2 years, after nothing at all has been done regarding the two most popular feature requests in this poll.
I'm trying to advocate for what is possible here. Players want more kdf content. There is more kdf content already made, just waiting for a mechanic that implements it. Players want a Romulan faction. The only way that will ever happen is if it's a foundry faction.
The only other alternative is for the devs to spend 2-3 seasons just focused on these two features, and even then, the Roms would probably be in a poor state.
There is simply no alternative at this point. They can't do it. They won't do it. None of it will be prioritized. It will not happen, period.
Do we want a half-arsed playable Rom species or do we want a Romulan faction? Do we want a few more KDF ships and a few more events or missions that are cross-factioned, or do we want KDF story content?
In my opinion, the only way that we'll see either of the latter happen is if Cryptic developed the mechanic for foundry xp and incorporates it into the main xp experience. And, the best that we can hope for, as far as a Rom faction, is ships, costumes, a green UI, and the bones of a faction. It will be up to us to provide the content.
That is the best that we can expect from this team. If we expect more, it will never ever happen. It will be 2015, and dstahl will still be posting the same philosophical points about what makes these things difficult. That is, if the game is still around then.
The foundry isn't our savoir. It's our only hope for new content. I wish that someone would zombie resurrect this post in Sept. of 2013. If the devs have provided more the 5 hours of story-based content by then, I will be very surprised.
1. Improve Exploration
(I think exploration desperately needs some love.)
2. More Feature Episodes
(They where like new episodes for me, i wish they would add them, more often.)
3. More Rare ships.
(I just love ships, but on the other hand... i hate most of cryptics designs...)
4. More Foundry improvements.
(I'm not a builder myself but i love to play foundry missions. Everything that helps making better missions is a good thing.)
5. Playable Romulans.
(Not realy important for me, but it would be nice.)
Things like "more fleet missions" or "improve Duty Officer System" are really not needed, since we already got enough Fleet and DOFF stuff, lately.
Live long and prosper.
With what you just here I totally agree with allow me to share my thoughts on what a Romulan faction should look like in STO.
1. The Romulan Empire may be weakened but should not be regarded as anything less than an Empire with some internal turmoil. (Nevermind that I take issue with the destruction of Romulus as canon but lets put that aside for the time being). Losing ones homeworld does not mean the end of that faction, the Romulan Empire is easily the size of the Klingon Empire and the Federation COMBINED the loss of 2 planets does not matter when you are talking about a scale that big (not to mention the Romulans had all the time in the world to evac).
2. As for Leadership the since the current Praetor is out of action there is still the Romulan Senate to consider and the Emperor (which has never been alluded to in anything canon for Romulans i believe but is still an option of temporary leadership) really this is just how you guys would like to tell that story.
3. As for telling that story its quite simple the Romulan storyline should start from one of 2 places. A: Romulus was destroyed we should take it out on everyone or B: Take extreme measures to restore Romulus (even altering the timeline is not off the table, this makes way to explain the alliance with Iconians). There is also the Klingon Invasion of Romulan space to deal with as well the splinter faction of Romulan elements attacking the Federation.
In short here is what I would think:
The Emperor takes emergency command of the Romulan Empire, declares the rogue elements at war with starfleet traitors and orders all loyal romulans to dispose of them and simultaneously push back against the Klingon invasion.
The Emperor lifts the requirement that all naval commanders must be Romulan allowing for the client races of the Empire to command ships and go to war on the behalf of the Empire.
The Tal Shiar would have to be rebuilt from the ground up to combat the Undine
another option is q-snap and put Romulans back to before the planet was destroyed. Problem solved lol
I have no problems with buying new ship slots (if needed), but considering the current Zen cost for each ship, including a ship slot in the price is hardly unreasonable.
Also, i'd like Ships to have more "function" in the game. There should be more reason to take different ships into various activities, other than "This is the best cruiser" or "This is the best escort" etc. One thing I rather liked about EVE Online, was that every ship had their own role in the fleet.
you make the RSE hole again i love you!!!!!
system Lord Baal is dead
ya but thing is we lucky if we get 4 story line mission a year not to say there has been a year we got nothen again (4) mission a year im sorry but that is sad
system Lord Baal is dead
to me this game has enuff ships more so for the Feds as dan said you had 40 new Zstore ships addid in 6 months
and to be blunt dont even know why ships is part of the poll like cryptic / PWE going to stop doing lockboxs and Zstore ships
system Lord Baal is dead
the Romulan star empire is roughly the same size as the klingon empire and cardassian empire and both KDF and RSE empires combined still can not beat the size the federation has currently, the breen from non canon is actually bigger then the romulans, and tholians even bigger then this, almost on par with the federation in sheer size.
Romulans would never abandon who they are to anyone, they are too proud to do such a thing and anyone who attempted such a thing would be on the end of a tal-shiar assassination.
but thats before JJ got his hand on the star trek ip
system Lord Baal is dead
even if it were true romulans were serving in starfleet, it is not known what drove them to join.
could be like worf got saved by humans :P
system Lord Baal is dead
Okay maybe it's the only way to get a Rommie faction quickly. But I'm not sure that you fully understand my point, and why I consider adding foundry episodes to the PVE list isn't something they can do without any consequences.
When you open the "community authored tab", you don't expect something unique. You know you're playing UGC and you know that the tool the authors have is limited. Given the tools we have, many missions are "high quality foundry content". It doesn't mean it's "high quality content".
Now if you add this kind of content to the regular pve list, you'll have something made with a very limited tool offered as pro content. Many times, to make an interesting mission or map, we have to use tricks that may look artificial and can be really surprising or confusing if they are offered as "cryptic content".
In other words, you're asking a company to offer low quality content because it was created with a low quality tool, and it's something far more risky than a handfull of angry fans IMO. Even if they say at the frontpage "hey, it's UGC, don't blame us", it will still be labelled cryptic and I'm not sure that offering low quality content is the best way to make games grow.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
If that's the case, I think it needs to be done boldly and creatively.
Cryptic has a tendency to handle upsetting news passive aggressively.
If he's going forward with the Romulan split mini-faction thing, they need to NOT string along Romulan faction players.
Stringing along people you don't support poisons the game. Better to make a clean break, say "there are other Star Trek games for feature X, this isn't one of them," upset people rather than lead them on, generate a little controversy, and lead with the real story rather than burying the lead.
If the intent is no Romulan faction ever and for Rommies to get splintered, run full force with that "The Romulan Empire is dead and will never rise again" story. You'll make mortal enemies that way but those mortal enemies will do you more good than it would do you being a bad friend who lies or dodges subjects to keep people as friends or customers under false or unrealistic pretenses.
Er, I'm not sure Cryptic patrols and exploration missions would pass the ugc sniff test. My god, there are missions where I'm doing nothing but running between 5 oddly placed computer consoles in a cave, and the story of the mission makes no sense, is full of plot holes, and is generally worthy of a 1-star review.
Lots of official Cryptic content could have been made with the foundry. From what I understand, some of kind of was with the genesis random generator slot machine.
There are some things that happen in official content that aren't stuff that we can replicate: Things like a character following you or disable a ship without destroying it. And cutscenes. But, lots and lots of mission don't have that stuff at all. Technically speaking, there is not a lot of difference between a ugc mission and a Cryptic patrol, except that the ugc is usually of better quality than the Cryptic patrol.
The patrols are almost all stuff that could have been made as ugc, but ugc authors would have included better stories than "Federation dogs, die!" followed by "Eliminated 5/5 Klingon ships."
Can they really be embarrassed by ugc content if they aren't already embarrassed by the exploration clusters?
Also, a lot of the quality issues can be fixed with better assets. Like instead of us using platforms and barrels to make ugly transporters, the devs could add the most obvious prop in the history of foundry props: a transporter pad.
ok let me ask this are they that different? then what the game started with dont forget this game didnt have cutscenes at the beginning every or voice oever and still alot of mission dont
not to say cryptic would have say in to what we get to vote for as the top pick
system Lord Baal is dead
Will the boxes be the same, or are you going to make Winter Lock Boxes and Festive keys?
My character Tsin'xing
grrrrrrr i see this soo many times (it's boring compared to a decent foundry mission.) and make me sad for i do want to play thes good one but i want them to be apart of sto cannon so i can feel i moveing forward again in the sto story line and not stuck like i am now
not going to lie ive not played one player made mission since it came out i know i know im missing out but i see it right now as this its like books and books in star trek are not cannon so i dont mess with them to
system Lord Baal is dead
That is the trouble with those pesky time travelers... they are seeing one of many possible futures. For example in All Good Things, future Geordi mentions that the Klingons had taken over the Romulan Empire, yet crewman Daniels shows Archer a different future where everyone is working together and urges Archer that there is a chance that future might not come to pass.
There are many possible paths for the Romulans to take, not to mention that the Romulan Empire is already a bit splintered after the destruction of Romulus.
As game designers, if we were to consider adding playable Romulans, we would need to determine the perspective from which the player will beging their journey. For example, if we were to make playable Romulans a faction within Sela's fleet, then all of the mission content would put you squarely at odds with the both the Feds and Klingons. If instead players started as a refugee then perhaps there would be more opportunity to work with the Feds and KDF, while trying to resist the represive military agenda. There are a lot of different ways we can go, but it would be unlikely we could represent all the different perspectives from a single game experience.
So before we go down that path, our writing staff would work with CBS to determine the most logical path for "players" to play as Romulans and then we would ensure that the experience feels "Romulan" even though it might represent only a subset of the different viewpoints within the empire.
And before you say it again... yes we realize what the Foundry can do. We built the tools and we get it. If there is an opportunity that we feel makes sense for the game, we will pursue it.
(note: Based on subsequent posts I'm adding a comment that we recognize what Foundry authors can do too - the point was that we are not discounting the Foundry when talking about future content plans. We will incorporate the Foundry as it fits and makes sense for our future updates.)
from what i got schooled on about (All Good Thongs) was that all that had happen it was in picards head it never really happen at all its was all dun by Q to see if humans had it in them to expand there minds
system Lord Baal is dead
Yeah I could find fun things on either path to do as playing a romulan. The thing I find funny romulan faction or not is why romulans use thalaron drones when they know it can kill them too in the physics of thalaron.
As for the foundry this is just my opinion but a game like neverwinter where it has a very small and limited story line it couldn't cross which is almost non existent for foundry creation. There is much of Star Trek we would not be able to do in the foundry without violating EULA in regard to story of the franchise and then story of the game so its extremely hard for authors to have something Star Trek and where I've seen many times people just using the foundry to try to make up fake star wars themed missions.
In my mind when Archer fixed the timeline back to the way it was "supposed" to be, he also prevented the temporal cold war from ever happening and wiped out Crewman Daniels and the ENT-J* from existence, b/c really, those things should never have existed in the first place.
*I'm a huge fan of Doug Drexler, but that paper plate with a Galaxy saucer skin stretched over it was the absolute worst case of "phoning it in" that I have ever seen.
Raptr profile
soooooooooooo this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
system Lord Baal is dead
Just for your benefit I'm not quote mining I was simply saying that his views were in line with mine and its an academic method used in order to help support an argument which in this case for me was why pvp should be gotten rid of and I do not profess to be an authority on it just intelligent and smart enough to present a good argument
As for popularity of course it matters since there would be no point investing resources in something within game that would not be very favored by a good majority of the players so therefore my argument stands. There is more statistical data that supports my argument and in light of the continuing problems with pvp shutting it down would be best in the long run.
i think being part of the empress's forces would be best, who wants to be neutral or friendly with the other factions? :P
romulan characters starting at level 40 or 50, would only mean you have to make tier 5 ships for them, with access to all qued content is all i want. i just want to play romulan ships in all the end game content i play now, leveling pve content and being immersed in their story im not as interested in, same goes for true way, dominion, even breen.
you mentioned wanting to go back and do less traditional mmo stuff, well not including leveling in non starfleet factions would certainly do that, then everything would be end game content! if mini factions like i proposed sets the standard for non federation factions, people would proboly stop complaining that the kdf and understand that the federation is the immersion/RP faction and all the rest are more monster play. star trek is 95% about what happens in the federation anyway, so the game really doesn't need to focus that hard on the other faction's story. we are used to star trek not being about them. you can always back fill these factions and lower the starting level if that ever looks advantageous too.
a social zone like space dock or first city, a small square home sector block, and qued content, maybe even featured episodes once some new lines for their contacts are writen. whatever you do, don't do what you did for the kdf, try to turn a pvp monster play faction into a full immersion faction. this half way between thing that the kdf is now just doesn't please anyone.
Your right he did but I only mentioned him since he shared some of my sentiments on pvp, in my defense it could be saved then great, I was stating that if not then get rid of it and move on and re-invest those resources in other areas like content for the KDF and maybe more ships etc rather than just throwing away money on a possibly lost cause
The main crooks is they are a business and like any business they have a set budget and they have to decide where that money will allocated and am simply questioning whether or not is pvp really the best place to invest those resources.