Wow. I can't believe I read through this entire thread.
First, tons of negative speculation and whining about the things you don't like now, didn't like in the past, and hope to not like in the future.
Second, you only know the tiny parts that dstahl has given. Yes - tiny parts. You can't know what it will be - or if you will like it - until it's released. But you go on planning to not like it in advance.
Third - lots of personal insults and flaming going on. Complete disrespect and contempt for each other.
Fourth - total speculation because you have no information. This is just making up stories and it seems most prefer the bad stories.
There is really only one solution. And it's not for dstahl to tell us more.
Dstahl - stop. Stop saying more because that just gives people more ammunition to whine. Because you can never say enough to satisfy people. Just keep quiet.
No the only answer...
Wait.
That's really all anyone can do. You can't know until you experience what's to come. And that won't be until May 21.
Show me where you polled the game''s playerbase to arrive at this conclusion?
All the people who were looking forward to LoR + all the people who are upset vs. a handful of hardcore defenders making biased and illogical arguments speaks for itself.
Yes, we do. And you repeating that we don't eleventy billion times won't change that.
Unless you are claiming Stahl is flat out lying, then we know enough to make valid criticisms against this.
I think that its only a small percentage like maybe 3-4% who feel like they hate the new romulans and stuff and act like profits will take a dive if they stop playing when really they are insignificant compared to the rest of us.
Yes, desiring a product that isn't tepid and a waste of time is certainly entitlement.
How dare I strive for quality! Full mediocre ahead!
If you consider alienating a substantial amount of your paying customers to be a "good compromise", then why would I disagree?
Define 'substantial' in this case. I suspect that while there are certainly a few people like you who are worked up 'to a large or great extent', and feel that your emotions are 'real, not illusory' and your arguments against it are 'strongly built, sturdy', I think that in raw numbers you would have to concede that Romulan fans who will quit over this are not 'considerable in quantity', and thus Cryptic will continue to be 'possessed of means - well off'.
Of course, I'm not cool enough to play a game that doesn't meet my high standards, just so that I can complain about it. I actually like this game, so I guess my arguments are automatically disqualified since I clearly have bad taste.
Sadly, this isn't the first time the devs have pulled a bait-and-switch. Remember the season 7 launch when they told us they were keeping the Dil rewards in, took it out anyways, with no mention of it in the patch notes and only put it back after the forums blew up?
It seems to be a common tactic for Cryptic when it's time for news and promotion. They come out with a big announce and lots of hype, interviews and news spots with the various gaming sites. They present the best bits of information in the best light. "What you've all been waiting for, the thing you asked for the most, it's here! New! Playable Romulan Faction! Romulans and Remans!" Then after everyone's hyped they slip in all the fine print. "PS You have to join one of the other factions, no starbase of your own, no romulan fleet, Remans have to be unlocked, etc".
Let's face it, Cryptic has no qualms about misleading the players.
I think the worst part is that some of us can see the disasters coming down the road. Dastahl seemed to imply that Romulans would get their own starbases and own actual faction one day. Unfortunately we all know that when that day comes, it won't be possible because of the decisions they made in this implementation. They claim one of the reasons we're not getting a full faction now is because they don't want us to have to start over? What do you think's going to happen later on? Do you think it'd be easier to make a whole new faction, or take all the Romulans out of the FED/KDF for a faction later on? They are painting themselves into a corner based on mistakes they made in the past.
Romulans will never ever be a solo faction because by that point it'll be "too difficult" to separate them. Destroy your hopes now so you don't get disappointed later.
For goodness sakes, please remember that this forums has guidelines. Please tone down the rhetoric or this thread will get locked. Going out of bounds is going to lead to infractions.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of assumptions being made in this thread that are way out of whack for how it is actually implemented. Many posts are stating opinions about something that no one in the public has played yet.
Give the hard working team some credit for everything they've been working on by reserving your opinions until you actually play it. It will be free to play and free to download the expansion. If you want to judge something you haven't played just based on a description, then sorry, you're missing some of the best content we've ever made.
If you don't like it, don't play a Romulan. It isn't required that you play a Romulan. Yes we've been talking about how we would implement other factions in the game for a while, and as I said then, plans can change. Even since that Reddit chat, we actually did the work to make Romulans their own faction.
Many people are hearing "choose an ally" and thinking that you become FED or KDF and that is not true. You remain a Romulan. You don't lose your identity. You don't lose your faction's goal. Your ally is there to help you - to give you tech - to give you ships and help you stand up against the Tal Shiar. Even in game right now, New Romulans are looking to both Klingons and the Federation to help, and this is just an extension of that. So it is not about you dropping what your goals are and reporting into Admiral Quinn now. You report to the Romulan Republic.
This also allows for cross faction teaming. Something that encourages group gameplay and can be fun. Want to go play some Romulan missions, but don't want to be a Romulan? Go team up with one and help them with their missions. Want to help fight the silent enemy? Queue up together and go fight together. We've made a commitment that when we make fun new events, they are for everyone to play. Yes the "Star Trek Rules" bend sometimes when we have Feds and KDF grouping up to fight the Borg, but it can also be a lot of fun and leads to a more lively MMO.
Anyone who wants a 3rd queue faction hasn't played a Klingon. As I said before, that isn't good for the game. We allow cross faction teaming because it allows more people to play together.
Play Legacy of Romulus and either enjoy it or not. The proof will be whether or not the game continues to grow and if people enjoy it as much as we think they will. Fortunately, our continued future success is not based on what people think of something they haven't even played yet.
We look forward to showing you everything we've been working on very soon. This is why we're working the extra time to get things setup and ready on TRIBBLE. We're almost there.
I did, but you ignored my post. Main thing was that you've created a completely false dichotomy. The choice never was between "something" and "nothing".
Sorry, I got distracted by the nonsense, and overlooked your response which was, in fact, on point and reasonable.
That's not to say that I don't disagree with it, however. I suspect you are being overly optimistic about what was really possible both in terms of resources spent and players gained, and I strongly suspect you are being overly pessimistic about what Cryptic's development process was like behind closed doors.
Those are just my suspicions, though, and I think it's one of those things that is going to be forever unknowable. I just really don't think any objective market analysis would've supported the work it would've taken to make what some people are asking for, and I further think that if the research had been done and demonstrated that the only way for Cryptic to experience a net gain in paying players was with the kind of investment you're talking about, then there's a good chance Cryptic would've said 'TRIBBLE it, make a lock box ship' and called it a day.
We will see in may how this decision by Cryptic plays out, I am expecting a tidal wave of tear in bound , a lot people will be inspecting a Romulin"Green"faction as stated in the Legacy of Romulis webpage. Could be wroung, we will see.
For goodness sakes, please remember that this forums has guidelines. Please tone down the rhetoric or this thread will get locked. Going out of bounds is going to lead to infractions.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of assumptions being made in this thread that are way out of whack for how it is actually implemented. Many posts are stating opinions about something that no one in the public has played yet.
Give the hard working team some credit for everything they've been working on by reserving your opinions until you actually play it. It will be free to play and free to download the expansion. If you want to judge something you haven't played just based on a description, then sorry, you're missing some of the best content we've ever made.
You might want to practice what you preach, and not mislead us with teasers and countdowns that directly led people to assume things that apparently you did not intend.
If you don't like it, don't play a Romulan. It isn't required that you play a Romulan. Yes we've been talking about how we would implement other factions in the game for a while, and as I said then, plans can change. Even since that Reddit chat, we actually did the work to make Romulans their own faction.
We WANT to play Romulans.
We just don't want to play watered down I Can't Believe It's Not Romulans that go running to the cover of other factions at the first sign of trouble.
Many people are hearing "choose an ally" and thinking that you become FED or KDF and that is not true. You remain a Romulan. You don't lose your identity. You don't lose your faction's goal. Your ally is there to help you - to give you tech - to give you ships and help you stand up against the Tal Shiar. Even in game right now, New Romulans are looking to both Klingons and the Federation to help, and this is just an extension of that. So it is not about you dropping what your goals are and reporting into Admiral Quinn now. You report to the Romulan Republic.
If that were true, then why is the decision to join a faction "permanent"?
This also allows for cross faction teaming. Something that encourages group gameplay and can be fun. Want to go play some Romulan missions, but don't want to be a Romulan?
Hey, I want to play a KDF mission as a Fed.
What do you mean I can't? I want to!
Go team up with one and help them with their missions. Want to help fight the silent enemy? Queue up together and go fight together. We've made a commitment that when we make fun new events, they are for everyone to play. Yes the "Star Trek Rules" bend sometimes when we have Feds and KDF grouping up to fight the Borg, but it can also be a lot of fun and leads to a more lively MMO.
Anyone who wants a 3rd queue faction hasn't played a Klingon. As I said before, that isn't good for the game. We allow cross faction teaming because it allows more people to play together.
Play Legacy of Romulus and either enjoy it or not. The proof will be whether or not the game continues to grow and if people enjoy it as much as we think they will. Fortunately, our continued future success is not based on what people think of something they haven't even played yet.
And if I play it and still have these criticisms? What then? You can't use that defence forever.
It is not my fault that I and many like me have not liked anything we've heard at all.
The fact is, we feel disappointed, and we feel mislead. Whatever comes of this we've already had many of our thoughts and ambitions for the Romulan faction squashed, and we have a right to be upset.
All the people who were looking forward to LoR + all the people who are upset vs. a handful of hardcore defenders making biased and illogical arguments speaks for itself.
None of that guarantees they'll stop supporting the game because of it. Just because you are doesn't mean you can impose that sentiment upon others, regardless of whether or not their posting follows your own.
You want logical? The KDF playerbase, both casual and hardocre, based on numbers supplied by Cryptic, is around %18. It's not unreasonable to assume Romulan numbers, being another popular but comparatively niche faction, would be similar. Let's say the number of players willing to play Romualsn is roughly the same as the KDF - %20 or so. You can't guarantee every one of those feels slighted enough to cease their support of Cryptic. A tiny fraction may post on the forums, but they don't necessarily represent the larger population's opinion.
Plainly said, you can't prove or support your claim. You can't back it up with any hard data, just circumstantial evidence based on a very small sampling. Mine is at least based on previously established data and reasonable assumptions based on existing precedent - all you have is a list of angry posters.
This makes your statement about illogical arguments ironic.
I think that its only a small percentage like maybe 3-4% who feel like they hate the new romulans and stuff and act like profits will take a dive if they stop playing when really they are insignificant compared to the rest of us.
I suspect they will find a way to make money, one way or the other. More lockboxes and C-Store items, if nothing else. Romulan Marks in the C-Store maybe, they've made them so so slow to gather that some people will pay for them.
Worst case is they do really poorly on their direct metrics, then use that experience to justify not adding more factions. Kind of like they do with ships--make escorts the most entertaining to fly, then use the lack of cruiser sales to justify making more escorts. Or the way PVP is unbalanced and unrewarding, then use the lack of partiicipation to justify avoiding work on it.
Seems to me the best way to monetize would be to open up the fleets and starbases, nobody wants to grind for that dilithium. But they would have to fix PVP first and that aint happening. More return on less investment to just slap some missions and ships onto the existing factions
For goodness sakes, please remember that this forums has guidelines. Please tone down the rhetoric or this thread will get locked. Going out of bounds is going to lead to infractions.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of assumptions being made in this thread that are way out of whack for how it is actually implemented. Many posts are stating opinions about something that no one in the public has played yet.
Give the hard working team some credit for everything they've been working on by reserving your opinions until you actually play it. It will be free to play and free to download the expansion. If you want to judge something you haven't played just based on a description, then sorry, you're missing some of the best content we've ever made.
If you don't like it, don't play a Romulan. It isn't required that you play a Romulan. Yes we've been talking about how we would implement other factions in the game for a while, and as I said then, plans can change. Even since that Reddit chat, we actually did the work to make Romulans their own faction.
Many people are hearing "choose an ally" and thinking that you become FED or KDF and that is not true. You remain a Romulan. You don't lose your identity. You don't lose your faction's goal. Your ally is there to help you - to give you tech - to give you ships and help you stand up against the Tal Shiar. Even in game right now, New Romulans are looking to both Klingons and the Federation to help, and this is just an extension of that. So it is not about you dropping what your goals are and reporting into Admiral Quinn now. You report to the Romulan Republic.
This also allows for cross faction teaming. Something that encourages group gameplay and can be fun. Want to go play some Romulan missions, but don't want to be a Romulan? Go team up with one and help them with their missions. Want to help fight the silent enemy? Queue up together and go fight together. We've made a commitment that when we make fun new events, they are for everyone to play. Yes the "Star Trek Rules" bend sometimes when we have Feds and KDF grouping up to fight the Borg, but it can also be a lot of fun and leads to a more lively MMO.
Anyone who wants a 3rd queue faction hasn't played a Klingon. As I said before, that isn't good for the game. We allow cross faction teaming because it allows more people to play together.
Play Legacy of Romulus and either enjoy it or not. The proof will be whether or not the game continues to grow and if people enjoy it as much as we think they will. Fortunately, our continued future success is not based on what people think of something they haven't even played yet.
We look forward to showing you everything we've been working on very soon. This is why we're working the extra time to get things setup and ready on TRIBBLE. We're almost there.
Live Long and Prosper.
While I agree with everything you have said I doubt it will stop their complaining. This is beginning to turn out like that thread about the requirement for JHAS for the hangar pet but at least a dev has intervened in this thread.
But that's the point. Civil wars can end. New leaders can rise. New nations can be forged.
Saying this must be the end of the entire Star Empire and that only D'Tan's hippy commune is a viable base to form a (half-assed) faction from is silly.
Many people are hearing "choose an ally" and thinking that you become FED or KDF and that is not true. You remain a Romulan. You don't lose your identity. You don't lose your faction's goal. Your ally is there to help you - to give you tech - to give you ships and help you stand up against the Tal Shiar. Even in game right now, New Romulans are looking to both Klingons and the Federation to help, and this is just an extension of that. So it is not about you dropping what your goals are and reporting into Admiral Quinn now. You report to the Romulan Republic.
If that's the case, if players report to the Romulan Republic, then why are individual ship captains getting to choose with whom they personally want to ally?
That is not how it works. In no military do individual ship captains get to dictate foreign policy based on their own whims. If the faction has its own goals, how is having their own people kill each other at the behest of foreign powers going to accomplish them? The only thing that could possibly do is weaken the Romulans. Not only will they be literally killing themselves, but why would anybody trust them when they're blatantly playing both sides?
How is this a faction, and not a loose brotherhood of space-pirate Pandaren?
For goodness sakes, please remember that this forums has guidelines. Please tone down the rhetoric or this thread will get locked. Going out of bounds is going to lead to infractions.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of assumptions being made in this thread that are way out of whack for how it is actually implemented. Many posts are stating opinions about something that no one in the public has played yet.
Give the hard working team some credit for everything they've been working on by reserving your opinions until you actually play it. It will be free to play and free to download the expansion. If you want to judge something you haven't played just based on a description, then sorry, you're missing some of the best content we've ever made.
If you don't like it, don't play a Romulan. It isn't required that you play a Romulan. Yes we've been talking about how we would implement other factions in the game for a while, and as I said then, plans can change. Even since that Reddit chat, we actually did the work to make Romulans their own faction.
Many people are hearing "choose an ally" and thinking that you become FED or KDF and that is not true. You remain a Romulan. You don't lose your identity. You don't lose your faction's goal. Your ally is there to help you - to give you tech - to give you ships and help you stand up against the Tal Shiar. Even in game right now, New Romulans are looking to both Klingons and the Federation to help, and this is just an extension of that. So it is not about you dropping what your goals are and reporting into Admiral Quinn now. You report to the Romulan Republic.
This also allows for cross faction teaming. Something that encourages group gameplay and can be fun. Want to go play some Romulan missions, but don't want to be a Romulan? Go team up with one and help them with their missions. Want to help fight the silent enemy? Queue up together and go fight together. We've made a commitment that when we make fun new events, they are for everyone to play. Yes the "Star Trek Rules" bend sometimes when we have Feds and KDF grouping up to fight the Borg, but it can also be a lot of fun and leads to a more lively MMO.
Anyone who wants a 3rd queue faction hasn't played a Klingon. As I said before, that isn't good for the game. We allow cross faction teaming because it allows more people to play together.
Play Legacy of Romulus and either enjoy it or not. The proof will be whether or not the game continues to grow and if people enjoy it as much as we think they will. Fortunately, our continued future success is not based on what people think of something they haven't even played yet.
We look forward to showing you everything we've been working on very soon. This is why we're working the extra time to get things setup and ready on TRIBBLE. We're almost there.
Live Long and Prosper.
Thank you or the clarification and I continue to look forward to the expansion and all it has to offer. Don't let the haters get you down Dan. We love what you and the team have worked so hard to build.
Also known as Gingie(In game) Sskald(Gates of Sto-vo-kor)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Again, my two concerns are that limiting the alien generator in pieces available and only to gold players makes no real sense. The New Romulans are clearly not xenophobic because they're allowing Klingons to teach them mokbara. And limiting the alien generator only to gold members, but not to silver players on the other two factions, basically encourages silver players to make aliens on Fed and KDF and then take their Romulan ships over THERE, swarming the other two factions with Romulan ships that doesn't make sense. What does it achieve? Not much. Just aggrivation. No one is going to go gold for the alien gen on Romulans, so just unlock it.
Secondly, I'm really concerned about New Romulans shooting other New Romulans in PVP because of this "allying", of side chosing in the war. The New Romulan government should be neutral. If their fleet is split amongst itself, it'll be chaos.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] I am a Cheestah.
Check out my Foundry missions
Fed: "To Helna and Back", "Rema Donna", "Animations with Helna", "Mudd's Weapons", "Waiting for Wednesday", "Monolith"
KDF: "Time the Enemy", "Time the Ally", "Time the Traitor"
The problem is we're not being given enough information, and the information we're being given we find hard to trust. It's not our fault that we don't have all the information, we're only going on what we've been given. It's certainly your right to keep that information, but you can't blame us for not knowing it unless you'd rather we not discuss it at all.
Many of us are feeling like Romulans lose their identity based on the information we've been given. The fact that we are joining our ally's fleets instead of having our own, using their starbases, using their tech. I imagine we get their boffs/doffs too.
The issue doesn't come from this happening while we are leveling. I'm certainly fine with allying Fed/KDF during leveling and for the story. Unfortunately we have no information on what happens at the end of the story, after the leveling. Now that we're strong enough to stand on our own, why are we still dependent on our ally?
We certainly want to avoid queues, but why not just make all factions queue together? That way the KDF won't be disadvantaged. The reason they're underpopulated is because they've been unfinished for so long, not because people just don't like them. Why split Fed/KDF in some missions but not others? As you said, a bend of the canon for the sake of everyone's gameplay is better than segregation.
I also think you'd rather have us voicing our concerns over the expansion now rather than having it come out of nowhere on launch. By then the fox is already in the henhouse. I know I personally wish we certainly had a much more open dialogue. We're trying to give you feedback based on the information we have right now. Some might not believe it, but we want the game to be fun as well.
If that were true, then why is the decision to join a faction "permanent"?
I suspect from a game play perspective the answer to this has a lot to do with not allowing Romulan players to side with one faction, purchase one of their ships (or simply use one of the account-wide ships they've already purchased), and then switching factions back, bringing the ship with them. Alternately, it may simply be that the tech for "assigning" a faction relationship is different than the tech it would take to let you "switch" relationship.
From a story perspective there are any number of reasons why your character may choose to stick it out with one side rather than flip-flop. Maybe you were assigned by the Romulan Republic to 'keep tabs' on your ally and make sure they had the Romulans' best interests at heart, and switching sides would be abandoning that mission (or even treason). Maybe you've come to honor the people you fought along side, even while you feel their government is weak, easily duped, and/or barbaric. Maybe you've finally 'broken in' this set of allies and you don't feel like training another set of marginally acceptable pets. There's plenty of reasons you could use to justify it, if you wanted.
There is only one problem I see with all of this and am not trying to go "out of bounds" or anything but the destruction of romulus really puts more plot holes in this than anything else. The stage that is set is that romulans are virtually on the edge of becoming extinct but yet they are basically how the KDF was during early part of TNG at a civil war Romulan Republic vs the Tal Shiar. In reality the day these new romulans are commissioned if they die technically they can't respawn and I'm sure they will have large crews on the ships but where do they come from?
Are we to pretend that there were actually millions that escaped the destruction of the homeworld and that being that billions died in the explosion that they are just comparing it to what it once was? Its just never set right with me how it was based because it was just a here's a new planet... take your orders from the rock guy... and then a few cut scenes that just told you for the most part of what you already knew from the FE series about the romulans.
I'm not trying to put down the hard work I'm just trying to see the "Star Trek" in the hard work that is done. My only other fear is that the KDF has basically lost any momentum that it may have had so unless I see something in the game to contradict that I think some hard work will initially go into the Romulan Republic but I think when the purple magic of selling romulan ship dries up it'll be another KDF with nothing new coming out for it.
Edit: Oh yeah I could careless about the Allied faction thing because its a trend we saw so much in TNG and DS9 is that for example like Dukat sided with the federation and then out of nowhere he joins the dominion. So we could always see something like that happen with any faction. We could even have it with Fed and KDF resigning the Khitomer accords and then break out to war again. My only thing I'm thinking is the integrity of the franchise when stuff like the KDF or Romulans or any future factions because I don't want it seen as a cow to milk and unfinished and then nothing comes out of what you expect it to be.
The fact is, we feel disappointed, and we feel mislead. Whatever comes of this we've already had many of our thoughts and ambitions for the Romulan faction squashed, and we have a right to be upset.
You should really replace "we" with "I" because I don't feel the same way or agree with you.
I agree there is a lot of flaming going on, some members in particular are leading it, which to be honest is a total waste and not what this thread is for. Agree to disagree and move forward.
The problem is we're not being given enough information, and the information we're being given we find hard to trust. It's not our fault that we don't have all the information, we're only going on what we've been given. It's certainly your right to keep that information, but you can't blame us for not knowing it unless you'd rather we not discuss it at all.
Many of us are feeling like Romulans lose their identity based on the information we've been given. The fact that we are joining our ally's fleets instead of having our own, using their starbases, using their tech. I imagine we get their boffs/doffs too.
The issue doesn't come from this happening while we are leveling. I'm certainly fine with allying Fed/KDF during leveling and for the story. Unfortunately we have no information on what happens at the end of the story, after the leveling. Now that we're strong enough to stand on our own, why are we still dependent on our ally?
We certainly want to avoid queues, but why not just make all factions queue together? That way the KDF won't be disadvantaged. The reason they're underpopulated is because they've been unfinished for so long, not because people just don't like them. Why split Fed/KDF in some missions but not others? As you said, a bend of the canon for the sake of everyone's gameplay is better than segregation.
I also think you'd rather have us voicing our concerns over the expansion now rather than having it come out of nowhere on launch. By then the fox is already in the henhouse. I know I personally wish we certainly had a much more open dialogue. We're trying to give you feedback based on the information we have right now. Some might not believe it, but we want the game to be fun as well.
I can't agree with this more. May hopefully will show us all that it's not as bad as it seems. The ship thing is my own gripe, other than that and with more KDF content on the way it seems like it will be a great release.
Support the Game by Supporting the KDF, equality and uniqueness for all factions!
Comments
Show me where you polled the game''s playerbase to arrive at this conclusion?
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
First, tons of negative speculation and whining about the things you don't like now, didn't like in the past, and hope to not like in the future.
Second, you only know the tiny parts that dstahl has given. Yes - tiny parts. You can't know what it will be - or if you will like it - until it's released. But you go on planning to not like it in advance.
Third - lots of personal insults and flaming going on. Complete disrespect and contempt for each other.
Fourth - total speculation because you have no information. This is just making up stories and it seems most prefer the bad stories.
There is really only one solution. And it's not for dstahl to tell us more.
Dstahl - stop. Stop saying more because that just gives people more ammunition to whine. Because you can never say enough to satisfy people. Just keep quiet.
No the only answer...
Wait.
That's really all anyone can do. You can't know until you experience what's to come. And that won't be until May 21.
So really, it's May beneath the Raptor's Wings.
All the people who were looking forward to LoR + all the people who are upset vs. a handful of hardcore defenders making biased and illogical arguments speaks for itself.
Yes, we do. And you repeating that we don't eleventy billion times won't change that.
Unless you are claiming Stahl is flat out lying, then we know enough to make valid criticisms against this.
Define 'substantial' in this case. I suspect that while there are certainly a few people like you who are worked up 'to a large or great extent', and feel that your emotions are 'real, not illusory' and your arguments against it are 'strongly built, sturdy', I think that in raw numbers you would have to concede that Romulan fans who will quit over this are not 'considerable in quantity', and thus Cryptic will continue to be 'possessed of means - well off'.
Of course, I'm not cool enough to play a game that doesn't meet my high standards, just so that I can complain about it. I actually like this game, so I guess my arguments are automatically disqualified since I clearly have bad taste.
It seems to be a common tactic for Cryptic when it's time for news and promotion. They come out with a big announce and lots of hype, interviews and news spots with the various gaming sites. They present the best bits of information in the best light. "What you've all been waiting for, the thing you asked for the most, it's here! New! Playable Romulan Faction! Romulans and Remans!" Then after everyone's hyped they slip in all the fine print. "PS You have to join one of the other factions, no starbase of your own, no romulan fleet, Remans have to be unlocked, etc".
Let's face it, Cryptic has no qualms about misleading the players.
I think the worst part is that some of us can see the disasters coming down the road. Dastahl seemed to imply that Romulans would get their own starbases and own actual faction one day. Unfortunately we all know that when that day comes, it won't be possible because of the decisions they made in this implementation. They claim one of the reasons we're not getting a full faction now is because they don't want us to have to start over? What do you think's going to happen later on? Do you think it'd be easier to make a whole new faction, or take all the Romulans out of the FED/KDF for a faction later on? They are painting themselves into a corner based on mistakes they made in the past.
Romulans will never ever be a solo faction because by that point it'll be "too difficult" to separate them. Destroy your hopes now so you don't get disappointed later.
And you are making up stories to fill in the gaps.
Then acting like your stories are true.
And justifying decisions based on that.
And still flaming each other at the same time.
Makes me proud to play the same game.
smh
Keep in mind that there are a lot of assumptions being made in this thread that are way out of whack for how it is actually implemented. Many posts are stating opinions about something that no one in the public has played yet.
Give the hard working team some credit for everything they've been working on by reserving your opinions until you actually play it. It will be free to play and free to download the expansion. If you want to judge something you haven't played just based on a description, then sorry, you're missing some of the best content we've ever made.
If you don't like it, don't play a Romulan. It isn't required that you play a Romulan. Yes we've been talking about how we would implement other factions in the game for a while, and as I said then, plans can change. Even since that Reddit chat, we actually did the work to make Romulans their own faction.
Many people are hearing "choose an ally" and thinking that you become FED or KDF and that is not true. You remain a Romulan. You don't lose your identity. You don't lose your faction's goal. Your ally is there to help you - to give you tech - to give you ships and help you stand up against the Tal Shiar. Even in game right now, New Romulans are looking to both Klingons and the Federation to help, and this is just an extension of that. So it is not about you dropping what your goals are and reporting into Admiral Quinn now. You report to the Romulan Republic.
This also allows for cross faction teaming. Something that encourages group gameplay and can be fun. Want to go play some Romulan missions, but don't want to be a Romulan? Go team up with one and help them with their missions. Want to help fight the silent enemy? Queue up together and go fight together. We've made a commitment that when we make fun new events, they are for everyone to play. Yes the "Star Trek Rules" bend sometimes when we have Feds and KDF grouping up to fight the Borg, but it can also be a lot of fun and leads to a more lively MMO.
Anyone who wants a 3rd queue faction hasn't played a Klingon. As I said before, that isn't good for the game. We allow cross faction teaming because it allows more people to play together.
Play Legacy of Romulus and either enjoy it or not. The proof will be whether or not the game continues to grow and if people enjoy it as much as we think they will. Fortunately, our continued future success is not based on what people think of something they haven't even played yet.
We look forward to showing you everything we've been working on very soon. This is why we're working the extra time to get things setup and ready on TRIBBLE. We're almost there.
Live Long and Prosper.
Please point to anything I have said that is "made up".
I'm waiting.
Sorry, I got distracted by the nonsense, and overlooked your response which was, in fact, on point and reasonable.
That's not to say that I don't disagree with it, however. I suspect you are being overly optimistic about what was really possible both in terms of resources spent and players gained, and I strongly suspect you are being overly pessimistic about what Cryptic's development process was like behind closed doors.
Those are just my suspicions, though, and I think it's one of those things that is going to be forever unknowable. I just really don't think any objective market analysis would've supported the work it would've taken to make what some people are asking for, and I further think that if the research had been done and demonstrated that the only way for Cryptic to experience a net gain in paying players was with the kind of investment you're talking about, then there's a good chance Cryptic would've said 'TRIBBLE it, make a lock box ship' and called it a day.
You might want to practice what you preach, and not mislead us with teasers and countdowns that directly led people to assume things that apparently you did not intend.
We WANT to play Romulans.
We just don't want to play watered down I Can't Believe It's Not Romulans that go running to the cover of other factions at the first sign of trouble.
If that were true, then why is the decision to join a faction "permanent"?
Hey, I want to play a KDF mission as a Fed.
What do you mean I can't? I want to!
And if I play it and still have these criticisms? What then? You can't use that defence forever.
It is not my fault that I and many like me have not liked anything we've heard at all.
The fact is, we feel disappointed, and we feel mislead. Whatever comes of this we've already had many of our thoughts and ambitions for the Romulan faction squashed, and we have a right to be upset.
Well...
None of that guarantees they'll stop supporting the game because of it. Just because you are doesn't mean you can impose that sentiment upon others, regardless of whether or not their posting follows your own.
You want logical? The KDF playerbase, both casual and hardocre, based on numbers supplied by Cryptic, is around %18. It's not unreasonable to assume Romulan numbers, being another popular but comparatively niche faction, would be similar. Let's say the number of players willing to play Romualsn is roughly the same as the KDF - %20 or so. You can't guarantee every one of those feels slighted enough to cease their support of Cryptic. A tiny fraction may post on the forums, but they don't necessarily represent the larger population's opinion.
Plainly said, you can't prove or support your claim. You can't back it up with any hard data, just circumstantial evidence based on a very small sampling. Mine is at least based on previously established data and reasonable assumptions based on existing precedent - all you have is a list of angry posters.
This makes your statement about illogical arguments ironic.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
I suspect they will find a way to make money, one way or the other. More lockboxes and C-Store items, if nothing else. Romulan Marks in the C-Store maybe, they've made them so so slow to gather that some people will pay for them.
Worst case is they do really poorly on their direct metrics, then use that experience to justify not adding more factions. Kind of like they do with ships--make escorts the most entertaining to fly, then use the lack of cruiser sales to justify making more escorts. Or the way PVP is unbalanced and unrewarding, then use the lack of partiicipation to justify avoiding work on it.
Seems to me the best way to monetize would be to open up the fleets and starbases, nobody wants to grind for that dilithium. But they would have to fix PVP first and that aint happening. More return on less investment to just slap some missions and ships onto the existing factions
While I agree with everything you have said I doubt it will stop their complaining. This is beginning to turn out like that thread about the requirement for JHAS for the hangar pet but at least a dev has intervened in this thread.
you are like a romulan sister
system Lord Baal is dead
If that's the case, if players report to the Romulan Republic, then why are individual ship captains getting to choose with whom they personally want to ally?
That is not how it works. In no military do individual ship captains get to dictate foreign policy based on their own whims. If the faction has its own goals, how is having their own people kill each other at the behest of foreign powers going to accomplish them? The only thing that could possibly do is weaken the Romulans. Not only will they be literally killing themselves, but why would anybody trust them when they're blatantly playing both sides?
How is this a faction, and not a loose brotherhood of space-pirate Pandaren?
Thank you or the clarification and I continue to look forward to the expansion and all it has to offer. Don't let the haters get you down Dan. We love what you and the team have worked so hard to build.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Secondly, I'm really concerned about New Romulans shooting other New Romulans in PVP because of this "allying", of side chosing in the war. The New Romulan government should be neutral. If their fleet is split amongst itself, it'll be chaos.
Check out my Foundry missions
Fed: "To Helna and Back", "Rema Donna", "Animations with Helna", "Mudd's Weapons", "Waiting for Wednesday", "Monolith"
KDF: "Time the Enemy", "Time the Ally", "Time the Traitor"
The problem is we're not being given enough information, and the information we're being given we find hard to trust. It's not our fault that we don't have all the information, we're only going on what we've been given. It's certainly your right to keep that information, but you can't blame us for not knowing it unless you'd rather we not discuss it at all.
Many of us are feeling like Romulans lose their identity based on the information we've been given. The fact that we are joining our ally's fleets instead of having our own, using their starbases, using their tech. I imagine we get their boffs/doffs too.
The issue doesn't come from this happening while we are leveling. I'm certainly fine with allying Fed/KDF during leveling and for the story. Unfortunately we have no information on what happens at the end of the story, after the leveling. Now that we're strong enough to stand on our own, why are we still dependent on our ally?
We certainly want to avoid queues, but why not just make all factions queue together? That way the KDF won't be disadvantaged. The reason they're underpopulated is because they've been unfinished for so long, not because people just don't like them. Why split Fed/KDF in some missions but not others? As you said, a bend of the canon for the sake of everyone's gameplay is better than segregation.
I also think you'd rather have us voicing our concerns over the expansion now rather than having it come out of nowhere on launch. By then the fox is already in the henhouse. I know I personally wish we certainly had a much more open dialogue. We're trying to give you feedback based on the information we have right now. Some might not believe it, but we want the game to be fun as well.
I suspect from a game play perspective the answer to this has a lot to do with not allowing Romulan players to side with one faction, purchase one of their ships (or simply use one of the account-wide ships they've already purchased), and then switching factions back, bringing the ship with them. Alternately, it may simply be that the tech for "assigning" a faction relationship is different than the tech it would take to let you "switch" relationship.
From a story perspective there are any number of reasons why your character may choose to stick it out with one side rather than flip-flop. Maybe you were assigned by the Romulan Republic to 'keep tabs' on your ally and make sure they had the Romulans' best interests at heart, and switching sides would be abandoning that mission (or even treason). Maybe you've come to honor the people you fought along side, even while you feel their government is weak, easily duped, and/or barbaric. Maybe you've finally 'broken in' this set of allies and you don't feel like training another set of marginally acceptable pets. There's plenty of reasons you could use to justify it, if you wanted.
Are we to pretend that there were actually millions that escaped the destruction of the homeworld and that being that billions died in the explosion that they are just comparing it to what it once was? Its just never set right with me how it was based because it was just a here's a new planet... take your orders from the rock guy... and then a few cut scenes that just told you for the most part of what you already knew from the FE series about the romulans.
I'm not trying to put down the hard work I'm just trying to see the "Star Trek" in the hard work that is done. My only other fear is that the KDF has basically lost any momentum that it may have had so unless I see something in the game to contradict that I think some hard work will initially go into the Romulan Republic but I think when the purple magic of selling romulan ship dries up it'll be another KDF with nothing new coming out for it.
Edit: Oh yeah I could careless about the Allied faction thing because its a trend we saw so much in TNG and DS9 is that for example like Dukat sided with the federation and then out of nowhere he joins the dominion. So we could always see something like that happen with any faction. We could even have it with Fed and KDF resigning the Khitomer accords and then break out to war again. My only thing I'm thinking is the integrity of the franchise when stuff like the KDF or Romulans or any future factions because I don't want it seen as a cow to milk and unfinished and then nothing comes out of what you expect it to be.
You should really replace "we" with "I" because I don't feel the same way or agree with you.
Fyi Its called a play on words, its a form of humor.
I can't agree with this more. May hopefully will show us all that it's not as bad as it seems. The ship thing is my own gripe, other than that and with more KDF content on the way it seems like it will be a great release.