It's not a factor of me liking/disliking being called "Admiral", it's more that this is a minuscule issue when it comes to improving game quality. Isn't there something about the game that is more irksome to you than a title? I didn't say you couldn't say so, all I have been saying is get used to being an Admiral.
That's your opinion...and that's fine.
For me...this is something that really hurts immersion.
I can overlook the occasional bug...but when you're really trying to get into the game and read all the dialog...having the NPC's call you "Admiral" is more "irksome"...in my opinion.
I completely understand your "get used to being an Admiral"...as it is something I definitely have to do to continue playing right now...but there's no reason that should stop me from adding my voice to those who want a change.
That being said...I will also post about bugs I feel that need to be fixed when I do come across them.
It's not like I have to choose between letting the devs know about my dislike of this or my dislike of certain bugs.
It's a relatively MINOR thing to change, hardly the amount of work that would significantly derail a developer from other fixes/changes. As has been said earlier, they already made a change of equal workload, when they made the player start at "Ensign 0" instead of "Ensign 1", thereby reducing the maximum displayed level from "Vice Admiral 51" to "Vice Admiral 50".
It should be an even simpler fix, if you consider the possibility of changing "Ensign 0" to "Commander 0", and "Lieutenant 1" and above, to "Captain 1" and above, maxing out at "Captain 50".
What's more bothersome to me, is that there should be some way to FORCE NPCs to address you by your chosen Title. I for one would love to see NPC dialogs popup, where they address me as "Ambassador Darkthunder" rather than just Admiral. The issue here is, the game has a ton of titles to choose from, most of which wouldn't be appropriate in NPC contact dialog. Only ranks, and specific titles such as "Ambassador" would be appropriate.
Doesn't it bother you more that game dialogue drops ships out of cloak, most of the racial boff advantages to translate into game play and other serious game-play bugs?
Staying at Captain and using Clearance levels, as suggested in an earlier post, makes a sense. Influence or Reputation works too. Not every Captain has the pull or record necessary to be able to get themselves posted to a cutting edge ship of the line.
It also becomes very silly when you don't do Episodes until you're level 50. (*cough*) When I get kidnapped or detained, I think "Really? You're kidnapping a flag officer? That's your brilliant plan to stay unnoticed by the Federation?"
It's also really, really weird that Captain James Kurland gives mission orders to Rear Admirals.
The thing is, this shouldn't even be hard to change. It's all just text.
I can understand posting a "lowly" Commander, or even Captain to Deep Space Nine, at a time when the Federation was merely there to administrate the base, and where the primary mission of the station commander, was to guide the Bajoran people into joining the Federation.
But now, we are at a time of war with the Klingon Empire, Undine infiltrators everywhere. Kurland has been a Captain for 3 years now. It's high time, he get a proper promotion to Admiralty (i'd suggest Rear Admiral Upper Half).
An Admiral generally commands a fleet, or outpost or starbase, while a Captain is usually in charge of solely his/her ship. Which of this scenarios best apply's to STO?
But now, we are at a time of war with the Klingon Empire, Undine infiltrators everywhere. Kurland has been a Captain for 3 years now. It's high time, he get a proper promotion to Admiralty (i'd suggest Rear Admiral Upper Half).
It's not really a war, and it's still 2409, it's only been a few months in game time.
Why must it be an "either/or", whamhammer? Can't I be annoyed by BOTH gamebreaking bugs, and cosmetic discrepancies?
Frankly, after 3 years I have doubts as to Cryptic's "bug fixing capabilities". They are more adept at adding new bugs, than fixing the old ones.
You can be annoyed by both, but I would suggest focusing on the problem that will go more miles when fixed than countless threads over a title preference.
I vaguely feel like that's a fallacy of some sort, though I'm not sure.
I'm sure that the dialog/display only ever references a variable ("player rank"), so simply changing what that variable is pointed to will give different titles. Then they just need to make sure their art assets match so it says Captain (50) instead of Rear Admiral (50) or something. That's assuming that the display isn't just the "player rank" variable next to the "player level" variable.
It's a minor text change to a table, potentially a minor art change. That's not going to take the same staff, time, or effort as fixing major programming or balance issues.
Yes, the leveling is to fast...but that is how STO makes its money...Tier 5 ships run between $15 and $50 a piece in the Z store...must be a VA to get a Tier 5 ship...its simple economics.
In the words Tony Soprano
Its only Business, Whatta you gonna do?
Qa'pla
"Sips her PWE Koolaide and looks at alllll the goodies in the Z store"
Badname Betty (PvP...PvE...STF...Trophy Hunter...Latnium Collector...Federation)
Commander Morgana (PvP...PvE...STF...KDF)
1000 day vet and LTS
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] STO Join date: 7 Feb 2010
Does anyone else believe that you gain this rank too fast/early?
Personally...I wish you never attained the rank of Admiral in the game...as it feels odd for an Admiral to be doing the things you do.
However, at the very least...I think you shouldn't be Admiral rank till level 50.
Really you are an Admiral? huh Thought we were all only VICE Admirals but what ever.
I know there was talk of it but I've never seen anyone beyond 50... Though congrats sir on getting to Admiral.
----
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you haven't paid any attention at all to the story in STO huh? The fact everything got decimated when we joined.... The fact this is all a holodeck program our ensigns created? The fact our ensigns know nothing of the daily duty of a vice admiral?
actually it works just fine pretend this is a single player game and you are the only Vice Admiral Player thus it works perfectly as there are not 105834982394234 vice admirals running but a single one you ... since apparently all the npcs get bumped right up to Fleet Admiral the cheeky TRIBBLE
the only problem with our rank is that in the modern navy Admirals do not directly Captain a single ship we really need a boff Captain with our ship serving more as a Command Ship for when they finally give us actual flag officer duties should an actual admiral step onto for example a carrier he or she would not be in direct command of the ship the existing Captain would still be in command but that ship would then serve as the Admiral's flagship
i think one of the major reasons why modern day admirals do not directly captain a ship as opposed to more historical legends like Horatio Nelson is that we consider this people to valuable to risk also with the advance in technology it's also safer for the said admiral to be in a command center watching via satellite or some other form of overview
Really you are an Admiral? huh Thought we were all only VICE Admirals but what ever.
I know there was talk of it but I've never seen anyone beyond 50... Though congrats sir on getting to Admiral.
----
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you haven't paid any attention at all to the story in STO huh? The fact everything got decimated when we joined.... The fact this is all a holodeck program our ensigns created? The fact our ensigns know nothing of the daily duty of a vice admiral?
I said Admiral Rank because the topic is about how the NPC's address you.
When you get to Rear Admiral...they call you Admiral.
They don't call you "Rear Admiral Lower Half or Rear Admiral Upper Half"...they call you Admiral.
We should just have levels and be able to chose the rank we are addressed as ourselves.
Having a Ensign, Lieutenant (JG), Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander in command of their own ships is silly, as are Rear Admiral (UH), Vice Admiral, and (If it gets extended up here) Admiral.
Commander, Captain and Commodore (RA LH) in command of a ship is feasible though.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
We should just have levels and be able to chose the rank we are addressed as ourselves.
Having a Ensign, Lieutenant (JG), Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander in command of their own ships is silly, as are Rear Admiral (UH), Vice Admiral, and (If it gets extended up here) Admiral.
Commander, Captain and Commodore (RA LH) in command of a ship is feasible though.
It's technically possible, but will require them to touch every single mission in the game. Even if they do something to let them do that touching programmatically (I have an old post somewhere in which I proposed a method; other good ones have been proposed as well), it's still going to require a lot of human eyeball work to find errors.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
It's technically possible, but will require them to touch every single mission in the game. Even if they do something to let them do that touching programmatically (I have an old post somewhere in which I proposed a method; other good ones have been proposed as well), it's still going to require a lot of human eyeball work to find errors.
The one time I used Foundry (so far) has told me it's just a [Rank] placeholder in text?
Now, if you decouple this [Rank] from the players level and get the data from elsewhere, like a player-decided rank-equivalent... I fail to see where the problem is.
Being cheap you could just use the players title, but you'd have mission text like "Greetings, Frosty Charactername!" - so a seperate rank (that could use the current level ranks, unlocked through levels) might help (and could be done without obstructing anything or forcing any change on players).
Honestly I'm so puzzled about where the problem is I'm beginning to suspect I missed the point.
actually it works just fine pretend this is a single player game and you are the only Vice Admiral Player thus it works perfectly as there are not 105834982394234 vice admirals running but a single one you ... since apparently all the npcs get bumped right up to Fleet Admiral the cheeky TRIBBLE
You still end up with a Captain sending you off on apparently menial missions, instead of you (the flag officer) taking over his desk and sending him to do it.
(Apparently menial, because it always ends up complicated afterwards with lots of shooting and things exploding.)
Even with all players being Captains, there is still progress to be made within the same rank. Newly promoted Captains don't just immediately get access to the best ships in the line (unless JJ Abrams is in charge of your storyline*), they have to work their way up, even as Captains. Picard's first command (as Captain) wasn't the Enterprise, it was the Stargazer. Levels should represent security clearance or seniority within rank, where you would have level 1 Captains to level 50 Captains (currently).
Not true: it's all about the connections. Kirk got on a Starship-class ship as a new captain (as the youngest in the fleet, he had to have some connections). The Connie, as the movies showed us, was one of the best ships of its time, despite what Gene might have thought originally (and he changed his mind all the time). Picard was on the TRIBBLE-bucket Stargazer, lost it, and then suddenly got a brand-new ship-of-the-line Galaxy? No, he had connections (you don't get to be known as a master diplomat by being a starship captain, after all). Oh, and about the Stargazer - Picard took command after being promoted from Lt. Com. - so he was a Commander as Captain of the Stargazer. Sisko got the Defiant because he knew Admirals (and especially Leyton), and was part of the Defiant design project. Janeway's first ship was Voyager, a brand-new high-tech ship, because her father was an admiral (though dead, so no conflict of interest like with Riker), and she was buddies with Admiral Paris. Even Archer got the Enterprise because he was the son of the famous Archer.
A couple thoughts if I may. It does seem a little bit ridiculous that we are all admirals. But is it not also strange if we have a million captains? Also why is there an urge to stay at captain? Jane way didn't. And she was probably one of the best captains considering she destroyed the Borg and made it home. I pose two options, one is like others have said get to stay at captain if you wit just go up in grade. So you still level still get cool gear and ships, but get to keep title of captain. Another, and this would take some time. Why not when you get to captain level 40 you start the star fleet command story arc. And you get a choice stick with captiain, or do admiral stuff. This arc would take you all the way too fleet admiral someday with level 100 maybe instead of a ship you would just move around the sector riding with Npc starships, or even your own. Like you would get alerts, you would run off to ds9 and solve some problem. And if there was combat involved you could offer to go along with the away a team. At admiral you could promote one of your bridge offfficers too captain, and when ever you wanted to go smehwere for special admiral missions you would hitch a ride with that guy. Idk much Star Trek cannon but there has to be a supreme government over star fleet right? Federation council? Ooh how about that's the end game you get to take a seat on that....?. But maybe once you get to rear admiral missin exp starts to lower? But mission difficulty keeps getting harder and longer. Make it Mean something to be an admiral in star fleet. I like the idea. The Star Trek cannon allows for it, and we can't all be captains either,,
I am of the opinion that there is only a few Vice Admirals not thousands. All the various events that we do in the game were accomplished by me not other people as well. So I met Q Jr. and the Prophets not anyone else. I repelled the Jem'Hadar Invasion. I discovered the Iconian's influence on the Undine and Tal Shiar. All the actions that I have done have made me a Vice Admiral.
A couple thoughts if I may. It does seem a little bit ridiculous that we are all admirals. But is it not also strange if we have a million captains? Also why is there an urge to stay at captain? Jane way didn't. And she was probably one of the best captains considering she destroyed the Borg and made it home.
Janeway was a Captain for more than 7 years.
Also...for me...it's not about the fact that every other player is an Admiral as well...it's about my own character being an Admiral.
Whether every player is a Captain or an Admiral...I just want to be a Captain.
I personally never want to be an Admiral in this game.
This is why I agree with the idea of leveling progress just being numbers...1-50...but at certain points in the process...you can unlock Rank Titles...Commander, Captain, Admiral...etc...
Rank Titles are different than your Title that you can currently choose.
They would flag the NPC dialog to call by whatever Rank Title you have picked.
It would solve the issue of having an NPC address me as
"Greetings This far, No Further Darkthunder..." or "Greetings Utopia Planitia Staff Darkthunder..:"
I would suggest that for any flag officer (Rear Admiral Lower Half and above), an NPC would simply refer to the player as "Admiral [PlayerName]", while still having a visual indicator that the player is either Rear Admiral Lower/Upper Half, Vice Admiral or full Admiral.
Becoming Captain should be a "goal" for any player, but since we have a game where the player starts out as taking command of a ship with no bridge staff, it makes perfect sense to have the player -always- have the rank of Captain. There would have to be extraordinary measures to get promoted to Admiralty. "Years of service" being one of more prominent.
I am of the opinion that there is only a few Vice Admirals not thousands. All the various events that we do in the game were accomplished by me not other people as well. So I met Q Jr. and the Prophets not anyone else. I repelled the Jem'Hadar Invasion. I discovered the Iconian's influence on the Undine and Tal Shiar. All the actions that I have done have made me a Vice Admiral.
Exactly. It makes no less sense for us all to be Vice Admirals than it does for there to be hundreds of thousands of us doing the same missions of consequence.
However, it does make little sense for Commanders to be ordering Vice Admirals around except in very limited circumstances, and any wording change that takes that into account also has to account for the times that it's a Lt. Commander getting ordered around. It's a messy problem to solve without simply shifting the silly from one place to another.
I'm starting to think charging for content may be necessary in any true fix, which isn't a nice thought. But without actually restricting missions to specific ranks, regardless of whether those are tied to levels, I don't see how you can write dialog for quest givers with personality to accommodate both ordering a subordinate to do something and asking a superior to do it, except for very specific situations that simply can't apply to all, or even a majority of, missions.
If you DO tie all the content to specific ranks, you have to have a lot more story content, or a lot more grind in between stories at low levels, or you have to charge for content to afford to write it all.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Exactly. It makes no less sense for us all to be Vice Admirals than it does for there to be hundreds of thousands of us doing the same missions of consequence.
However, it does make little sense for Commanders to be ordering Vice Admirals around except in very limited circumstances, and any wording change that takes that into account also has to account for the times that it's a Lt. Commander getting ordered around. It's a messy problem to solve without simply shifting the silly from one place to another.
I'm starting to think charging for content may be necessary in any true fix, which isn't a nice thought. But without actually restricting missions to specific ranks, regardless of whether those are tied to levels, I don't see how you can write dialog for quest givers with personality to accommodate both ordering a subordinate to do something and asking a superior to do it, except for very specific situations that simply can't apply to all, or even a majority of, missions.
If you DO tie all the content to specific ranks, you have to have a lot more story content, or a lot more grind in between stories at low levels, or you have to charge for content to afford to write it all.
Charging for content to "fix" this issue makes no sense.
People in this thread have already proposed a "better fix" but just simply allowing players to choose their Rank that they wish to be addressed by NPC.
There is no need to change any of the current dialog...as it is already set up to address you by whatever Rank you have.
Also...as for your first sentence...it's much easier for players (or me at least) to overlook/suspend the disbelief the fact that basically every other player in the game is running through the same content.
This is about my own playthrough. I could care less about the fact that hundreds of other players just ran said mission.
This is my characters story.
I overlook the fact that there are countless other players at the same rank...because you are not forced to interact with those players.
However, to enjoy the gameplay and a level of immersion...reading the dialog goes a long way.
But is it not also strange if we have a million captains?
No. Not in the slightest. One captain per ship, like in the real world. There are barely any flag officers in comparison. Admirals are primarily administrative positions, such as the chief of naval operations, the vice chief of naval operations, or the commandant of the coast guard.
Because Captains helm starships, Vice Admirals do not. When Janeway became a Vice Admiral, she no longer commanded a starship. If you click into all the Vice Admirals, you'll see many references to how they formerly commanded ships before being promoted.
"Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship because while you're there, you can make a difference." - James T. Kirk, 2371
People seem to have misconceptions of what it means to be a naval Captain, perhaps due to too many war movies and video games associated with the army. Army Captains are just OF-2, a equivalent of a naval Lieutenant. Naval Captains are OF-5, the equivalent of an army Colonel. They're considerably more senior - Captain Va'Kel Shon represented (and made decisions for) all of Starfleet during "Second Wave".
People in this thread have already proposed a "better fix" but just simply allowing players to choose their Rank that they wish to be addressed by NPC.
Which doesn't address the fact that some missions have mid-level rank people ordering low-level people around. If you do those missions as a Vice Admiral, and choose to be called Vice Admiral, you've got Commanders ordering Vice Admirals. The only easy way to fix that is to make the missions not repeatable and rank-gate them. The only way to do that without having a ton of content disappear for a lot of the player base is to bring in a big source of new income that is DIRECTLY tied to quest development, so that it's rational to spend money on new quest development, and the only reliable way to do THAT is charge for content.
Then there's the problem of Boff ranks. Wouldn't do to have you decide you're to be called "Lieutenant" with your entire bridge crew all at Commander, so now you've got to deal with THAT system too.
It's not as simple as somebody throws in code to let you pick your rank. If it was, they would have coded it ages ago.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Which doesn't address the fact that some missions have mid-level rank people ordering low-level people around. If you do those missions as a Vice Admiral, and choose to be called Vice Admiral, you've got Commanders ordering Vice Admirals. The only easy way to fix that is to make the missions not repeatable and rank-gate them. The only way to do that without having a ton of content disappear for a lot of the player base is to bring in a big source of new income that is DIRECTLY tied to quest development, so that it's rational to spend money on new quest development, and the only reliable way to do THAT is charge for content.
Then there's the problem of Boff ranks. Wouldn't do to have you decide you're to be called "Lieutenant" with your entire bridge crew all at Commander, so now you've got to deal with THAT system too.
It's not as simple as somebody throws in code to let you pick your rank. If it was, they would have coded it ages ago.
Well you can already set your title to "Lieutenant" and have your entire bridge crew all at Commander...so that really doesn't matter.
Again...the missions where we already have commanders ordering vice admirals to do things really isn't the point of this thread and topic.
It's simply about letting the player set their own rank...so that those who don't want to be regarded as Admirals...don't have to be.
Really...when it comes down to it...I would go ahead and bet on that fact that everyone who doesn't want to be regarded as an Admiral...just wants to be a Captain.
I'm not assuming how easy or hard it might be...but allowing players to somehow have the choice to be Captains instead of Admirals is what "we" (or at least I) want.
I could care less who is giving me what mission...I only care about the fact that I'm listed as an Admiral and they refer to me as an Admiral.
Comments
That's your opinion...and that's fine.
For me...this is something that really hurts immersion.
I can overlook the occasional bug...but when you're really trying to get into the game and read all the dialog...having the NPC's call you "Admiral" is more "irksome"...in my opinion.
I completely understand your "get used to being an Admiral"...as it is something I definitely have to do to continue playing right now...but there's no reason that should stop me from adding my voice to those who want a change.
That being said...I will also post about bugs I feel that need to be fixed when I do come across them.
It's not like I have to choose between letting the devs know about my dislike of this or my dislike of certain bugs.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Doesn't it bother you more that game dialogue drops ships out of cloak, most of the racial boff advantages to translate into game play and other serious game-play bugs?
Frankly, after 3 years I have doubts as to Cryptic's "bug fixing capabilities". They are more adept at adding new bugs, than fixing the old ones.
It also becomes very silly when you don't do Episodes until you're level 50. (*cough*) When I get kidnapped or detained, I think "Really? You're kidnapping a flag officer? That's your brilliant plan to stay unnoticed by the Federation?"
It's also really, really weird that Captain James Kurland gives mission orders to Rear Admirals.
The thing is, this shouldn't even be hard to change. It's all just text.
I can understand posting a "lowly" Commander, or even Captain to Deep Space Nine, at a time when the Federation was merely there to administrate the base, and where the primary mission of the station commander, was to guide the Bajoran people into joining the Federation.
But now, we are at a time of war with the Klingon Empire, Undine infiltrators everywhere. Kurland has been a Captain for 3 years now. It's high time, he get a proper promotion to Admiralty (i'd suggest Rear Admiral Upper Half).
An Admiral generally commands a fleet, or outpost or starbase, while a Captain is usually in charge of solely his/her ship. Which of this scenarios best apply's to STO?
It's not really a war, and it's still 2409, it's only been a few months in game time.
You can be annoyed by both, but I would suggest focusing on the problem that will go more miles when fixed than countless threads over a title preference.
I'm sure that the dialog/display only ever references a variable ("player rank"), so simply changing what that variable is pointed to will give different titles. Then they just need to make sure their art assets match so it says Captain (50) instead of Rear Admiral (50) or something. That's assuming that the display isn't just the "player rank" variable next to the "player level" variable.
It's a minor text change to a table, potentially a minor art change. That's not going to take the same staff, time, or effort as fixing major programming or balance issues.
In the words Tony Soprano
Its only Business, Whatta you gonna do?
Qa'pla
Badname Betty (PvP...PvE...STF...Trophy Hunter...Latnium Collector...Federation)
Commander Morgana (PvP...PvE...STF...KDF)
1000 day vet and LTS
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] STO Join date: 7 Feb 2010
Really you are an Admiral? huh Thought we were all only VICE Admirals but what ever.
I know there was talk of it but I've never seen anyone beyond 50... Though congrats sir on getting to Admiral.
----
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you haven't paid any attention at all to the story in STO huh? The fact everything got decimated when we joined.... The fact this is all a holodeck program our ensigns created? The fact our ensigns know nothing of the daily duty of a vice admiral?
the only problem with our rank is that in the modern navy Admirals do not directly Captain a single ship we really need a boff Captain with our ship serving more as a Command Ship for when they finally give us actual flag officer duties should an actual admiral step onto for example a carrier he or she would not be in direct command of the ship the existing Captain would still be in command but that ship would then serve as the Admiral's flagship
i think one of the major reasons why modern day admirals do not directly captain a ship as opposed to more historical legends like Horatio Nelson is that we consider this people to valuable to risk also with the advance in technology it's also safer for the said admiral to be in a command center watching via satellite or some other form of overview
Admirals. Admirals everywhere.
Also, every Dahar Master has the privilege to have a statue of hisself be placed in the Hall of Heroes in Qo'noS.
It will have to be enlarged.
He's dead, Jim.
I said Admiral Rank because the topic is about how the NPC's address you.
When you get to Rear Admiral...they call you Admiral.
They don't call you "Rear Admiral Lower Half or Rear Admiral Upper Half"...they call you Admiral.
Fixed and not really just steal Wow's phasing technology
Having a Ensign, Lieutenant (JG), Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander in command of their own ships is silly, as are Rear Admiral (UH), Vice Admiral, and (If it gets extended up here) Admiral.
Commander, Captain and Commodore (RA LH) in command of a ship is feasible though.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
It's technically possible, but will require them to touch every single mission in the game. Even if they do something to let them do that touching programmatically (I have an old post somewhere in which I proposed a method; other good ones have been proposed as well), it's still going to require a lot of human eyeball work to find errors.
or maybe they can change it to Dog, cat, bird, hen......na I couldn't care less.
The one time I used Foundry (so far) has told me it's just a [Rank] placeholder in text?
Now, if you decouple this [Rank] from the players level and get the data from elsewhere, like a player-decided rank-equivalent... I fail to see where the problem is.
Being cheap you could just use the players title, but you'd have mission text like "Greetings, Frosty Charactername!" - so a seperate rank (that could use the current level ranks, unlocked through levels) might help (and could be done without obstructing anything or forcing any change on players).
Honestly I'm so puzzled about where the problem is I'm beginning to suspect I missed the point.
He's dead, Jim.
(Apparently menial, because it always ends up complicated afterwards with lots of shooting and things exploding.)
Not true: it's all about the connections. Kirk got on a Starship-class ship as a new captain (as the youngest in the fleet, he had to have some connections). The Connie, as the movies showed us, was one of the best ships of its time, despite what Gene might have thought originally (and he changed his mind all the time). Picard was on the TRIBBLE-bucket Stargazer, lost it, and then suddenly got a brand-new ship-of-the-line Galaxy? No, he had connections (you don't get to be known as a master diplomat by being a starship captain, after all). Oh, and about the Stargazer - Picard took command after being promoted from Lt. Com. - so he was a Commander as Captain of the Stargazer. Sisko got the Defiant because he knew Admirals (and especially Leyton), and was part of the Defiant design project. Janeway's first ship was Voyager, a brand-new high-tech ship, because her father was an admiral (though dead, so no conflict of interest like with Riker), and she was buddies with Admiral Paris. Even Archer got the Enterprise because he was the son of the famous Archer.
Though I generally agree with your suggestion.
Janeway was a Captain for more than 7 years.
Also...for me...it's not about the fact that every other player is an Admiral as well...it's about my own character being an Admiral.
Whether every player is a Captain or an Admiral...I just want to be a Captain.
I personally never want to be an Admiral in this game.
This is why I agree with the idea of leveling progress just being numbers...1-50...but at certain points in the process...you can unlock Rank Titles...Commander, Captain, Admiral...etc...
Rank Titles are different than your Title that you can currently choose.
They would flag the NPC dialog to call by whatever Rank Title you have picked.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
It would solve the issue of having an NPC address me as
"Greetings This far, No Further Darkthunder..." or "Greetings Utopia Planitia Staff Darkthunder..:"
I would suggest that for any flag officer (Rear Admiral Lower Half and above), an NPC would simply refer to the player as "Admiral [PlayerName]", while still having a visual indicator that the player is either Rear Admiral Lower/Upper Half, Vice Admiral or full Admiral.
Becoming Captain should be a "goal" for any player, but since we have a game where the player starts out as taking command of a ship with no bridge staff, it makes perfect sense to have the player -always- have the rank of Captain. There would have to be extraordinary measures to get promoted to Admiralty. "Years of service" being one of more prominent.
Exactly. It makes no less sense for us all to be Vice Admirals than it does for there to be hundreds of thousands of us doing the same missions of consequence.
However, it does make little sense for Commanders to be ordering Vice Admirals around except in very limited circumstances, and any wording change that takes that into account also has to account for the times that it's a Lt. Commander getting ordered around. It's a messy problem to solve without simply shifting the silly from one place to another.
I'm starting to think charging for content may be necessary in any true fix, which isn't a nice thought. But without actually restricting missions to specific ranks, regardless of whether those are tied to levels, I don't see how you can write dialog for quest givers with personality to accommodate both ordering a subordinate to do something and asking a superior to do it, except for very specific situations that simply can't apply to all, or even a majority of, missions.
If you DO tie all the content to specific ranks, you have to have a lot more story content, or a lot more grind in between stories at low levels, or you have to charge for content to afford to write it all.
Charging for content to "fix" this issue makes no sense.
People in this thread have already proposed a "better fix" but just simply allowing players to choose their Rank that they wish to be addressed by NPC.
There is no need to change any of the current dialog...as it is already set up to address you by whatever Rank you have.
Also...as for your first sentence...it's much easier for players (or me at least) to overlook/suspend the disbelief the fact that basically every other player in the game is running through the same content.
This is about my own playthrough. I could care less about the fact that hundreds of other players just ran said mission.
This is my characters story.
I overlook the fact that there are countless other players at the same rank...because you are not forced to interact with those players.
However, to enjoy the gameplay and a level of immersion...reading the dialog goes a long way.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because Captains helm starships, Vice Admirals do not. When Janeway became a Vice Admiral, she no longer commanded a starship. If you click into all the Vice Admirals, you'll see many references to how they formerly commanded ships before being promoted.
"Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship because while you're there, you can make a difference." - James T. Kirk, 2371
People seem to have misconceptions of what it means to be a naval Captain, perhaps due to too many war movies and video games associated with the army. Army Captains are just OF-2, a equivalent of a naval Lieutenant. Naval Captains are OF-5, the equivalent of an army Colonel. They're considerably more senior - Captain Va'Kel Shon represented (and made decisions for) all of Starfleet during "Second Wave".
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Which doesn't address the fact that some missions have mid-level rank people ordering low-level people around. If you do those missions as a Vice Admiral, and choose to be called Vice Admiral, you've got Commanders ordering Vice Admirals. The only easy way to fix that is to make the missions not repeatable and rank-gate them. The only way to do that without having a ton of content disappear for a lot of the player base is to bring in a big source of new income that is DIRECTLY tied to quest development, so that it's rational to spend money on new quest development, and the only reliable way to do THAT is charge for content.
Then there's the problem of Boff ranks. Wouldn't do to have you decide you're to be called "Lieutenant" with your entire bridge crew all at Commander, so now you've got to deal with THAT system too.
It's not as simple as somebody throws in code to let you pick your rank. If it was, they would have coded it ages ago.
Well you can already set your title to "Lieutenant" and have your entire bridge crew all at Commander...so that really doesn't matter.
Again...the missions where we already have commanders ordering vice admirals to do things really isn't the point of this thread and topic.
It's simply about letting the player set their own rank...so that those who don't want to be regarded as Admirals...don't have to be.
Really...when it comes down to it...I would go ahead and bet on that fact that everyone who doesn't want to be regarded as an Admiral...just wants to be a Captain.
I'm not assuming how easy or hard it might be...but allowing players to somehow have the choice to be Captains instead of Admirals is what "we" (or at least I) want.
I could care less who is giving me what mission...I only care about the fact that I'm listed as an Admiral and they refer to me as an Admiral.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]