I've been grinning the whole day now that 21st is here
After a looong looong time I'm really excited about StarTrek Online... what makes it better is , its fresh on the heels of the In Darkness release
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
dominion prolly wont happen since all 3 canon ships that were used in ds9 are already available for anyone to use. Cardi's would face a similar problem cuz their 'work horse' ship is similarly available.
If I had to guess at w/e the next faction would be, prolly looking at a delta quadrant species... maybe kazon splinter faction or maybe a privateer 'generic' faction that could comprise of multiple races from the delta quadrant looking to expand trade relations to the alpha quadrant. That would certainly allow for a lot of creative liberties.
Id really really hate to see borg as playable though. some things just need to be left alone.
Fixing ship class balance
Fixing red alerts
Overhauling useless crafting
Fixing many longstanding bugs
Fixing crew mechanic
Fixing certain Boff abilities
Fixing ship roles (it's all about dps)
New STF's every few months instead of years
Elite STF versions of everything
Fixing item balance (most consoles are useless)
Fixing shield regen to make it worthwhile
...
Fixing ship class balance
Fixing red alerts
Overhauling useless crafting
Fixing many longstanding bugs
Fixing crew mechanic
Fixing certain Boff abilities
Fixing ship roles (it's all about dps)
New STF's every few months instead of years
Elite STF versions of everything
Fixing item balance (most consoles are useless)
Fixing shield regen to make it worthwhile
...
And there always that guy...
Trekking online since January 2010!
7thJointTaskForce Third Reserve Flotilla House of Sigma
I'd settle for a critical understanding on Cryptic's part about End Game , and why ppl enjoy playing the way they do VS why ppl suffer through the things Cryptic wants to force you to do .
Cardassian faction would be my ideal "expansion" in a year or so's time.
judging by what i seen, its likely 2 years away yet. but yes, adding a cardassian faction would be nice.
a storyline similar to the romulans but not the same, fleshing out the deferi and breen, more on the internal workings of the current cardassian government and the true way. in the process of starfleet taking out the key players with the alpha jem'hadar and link, cardassians made away with a cloning vat and learned to create better jem'hadar that are not cold blooded killers, but ones who can think for themselves without an overriden purpose telling them otherwise, in addition the tube is gone and a longer lifespan is given. jem;hadar can become a force for change, a productive member of society.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I would love to have crafting expanded to include the ability to craft your own starships from scratch. Start with a space frame and work from there. Once your done you will have a nice 10 console "fleet" ship that you built and spec'd and designed yourself.
Top this expansion? What exactly is there to top? The game didn't need Romulans. Another faction was low on the list of things this game needs. As another poster pointed out, there are tons of perpetually neglected issues and improvements that could be made that would easily dwarf adding Romulans. Overhauling crafting alone could quite easily be the most substantial improvement the game could make right now, and would have certainly been 10x more desirable than Romulans.
I like new content as much as the next player, but I guess I prioritize the content I'd like to see differently than some of the LoR fans.
Am I supposed to get excited about the idea of starting a new character, bearing in mind the daunting, ever-expanding, mind-numbing, grind that awaits said character (dilithium, EC, reputation, gear, etc.). They couldn't seem to handle keeping two factions on an even keel with one another, now there's three... that will play it well, surely.
At least they're revamping character traits and ship power management/+warp cores... that's probably the best thing about this update, IMO.
Cardies as playable race faction. With dominion expansion and entirely new quadrants of space. It must also have all the little races of the gamma quadrant. Battling over freeing the worlds under the dominion. I would really like to see the hunters that were chasing task from ds9. After all they were dressed as power rangers and had a beam that dropped a space stations shields in seconds.
or
Delta quadrant expansions space zone with all the races and ships in a massive battle for control. 7 years of material here to work with. Hirogen/Undine/Caretaker/ocampa/swarm/vodwar/kazon to name a few.
Or
Playable liberated borg vessels with alien semi-assimilated liberated ships. Take just about any ship and assimilating it to a borg design changing its shape and appearance, but retaining a borg and original markers. Also, have a whole faction based around this and there battle to fight the regular borg.
or
Massive pvp expansion with capturable territory and a persistent map. Something they talked about long ago. It would interact both pve and pvp based on what was captured.
or
Just thought of this for edit. How about a fluidic space expansion. Surely there must be other races other aliens to create new content with.
Just a few ideas that I think would bring a lot of players back again and again to drink the koolaid.
But he is right, though...
...and add to that, optimizing code just a Little bit. i have a strong feeling there is a lot of dirty coding going on here. -No I cannot 'prove it', so i will not come with examples, let's just say that playing for a long time, one tends to notice these Things.
This. I mean, I love LoR, and I've been waiting for it for a long time, so I'm happy, but the question is "how do you top this expansion"
So far, the story is running in circle. No news from the evil Iconian since a while, and the last FE (the 2400) have nothing to do with them.
I know we will have the return of Sela some time soon, and with it, the Iconians, but I fear it will just be few episodes about Sela, and some hints about Iconian, nothing else.
It's about time we face them. I feel like I'm playing mass effect 1 over and over again "The reaper are coming !" "we have dismissed that claim".
Granted, knowing how ME 3 is, and particularly the ending, I understand why I would want to stay on ME1, but this is STO, it can't be worse than a god like child appearing from nowhere and a 3buttons choice ignoring about everything the whole 3 games did.
I want to use the gateway in New Romulus to spy on Iconians, and finally learn the truth behind them. I want to make peace with the Klingon, to make an alliance against them. I want to tell the Undine we are not the true enemy. I want to know why the Tholians act like that, and if they are with or against the Iconians.
Playable liberated borg vessels with alien semi-assimilated liberated ships. Take just about any ship and assimilating it to a borg design changing its shape and appearance, but retaining a borg and original markers. Also, have a whole faction based around this and there battle to fight the regular borg.
so, something similar to the tal shiar adapted ships?
The next big thing needs to be the Gamma Quadrant as a post-level 50 content Expansion. They need to let us go through the wormhole and experience new things with our 3 Factions. New end-game FEs, new STFs, new Patrols, and a focus on Exploration - and a true enemy for us all in the Dominion.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
The game didn't need Romulans. Another faction was low on the list of things this game needs.
another faction is EXACTLY what STO needed... or more to the point what Cryptic needed!
New Faction = NEW SHIPS TO SELL!
they are running out of canon Federation Ships (there are maybe 5 more background ships left that might or might not sell well)
KDF Ships don't make enough money with such a low userbase, no matter how you spin it, Geko even said they lost money on some Ships (which i find hard to believe).
Cryptic is in the business of selling Ships.
You might have noticed, there are no new Bridge Packs for a while now, not much in terms of Uniforms going on anymore either (unless it is Lobi Store per character stuff).
Ships are the #1 money maker for Cryptic.
So yes, look at the Legacy Pack, look at the new LockBox and then add a 5000 Zen Scimitar Pack on top of it.
THAT is why a Romulan Faction needed to happen. $$$
Plus the foreseeable Player influx with the announcement of a new Faction, right when the new Movie came out. <- if handled right this will be the biggest PR push the game will get since F2P.
The question if more Factions will happen can only be answered by: will this stuff make them MONEY?
And what Faction could sell the most Ships?
A Dominion/Cardassian/Breen faction... well the bulk of the main Ships are here, the people who really wanted them have them by now. Also it would hurt future LockBox sales if there was a proper Faction for these Ships now, not to mention disgruntled Players who don't feel special anymore about their 500 Million EC Bug Ships and god knows how many $ some people spend on them.
(and think about it, the Dom Faction would just end up to be like the Romulan Faction doing an Alliance with FED+KDF... so what would really be the difference here to an existing LockBox Ship? the UI? a few more DOffs and BOffs and some shiny extra items?)
Nope, Dominion/Cardi/Breen Faction would not happen because there is too much negative fallout attached to it already, LockBoxes killed that faction already = not enough Ships that would still sell good.
I would want one, sure, but i don't think it would make financial sense to do one and i don't see it being any bigger & better than the Rom Faction either.
IF there is another faction EVER, it has to be something huge and abstract that is a real game changer... so yes i'd say BORG... or maybe Species 8472 (Undine)... but probably Borg.
But Cryptic would not go for the real Borg, they would go Hugh Style, liberated Borg as Geko already said in interviews = boring, will NOT top Romulans, won't give you that Tactical Cube you want either... but maybe a bunch of assimilated Ships.
i don't know
i think they should really concentrate on remastering old FED + KDF Missions now (bring them to the same level of quality as the Romulan content) and improve Endgame and Systems regularly now for a year or two again.
Not to mention that they need to get going on new and more regular Featured Episode Series
a Level Cap increase is overdue, with all the Power Creep Endgame has gotten way too easy... or Elite versions of all PvE Maps... (which has the same result of having to redo all Maps and Missions to a new higher level) and i could use 10 - 20 new PvE Maps anyway... the old ones are old and mostly boring by now. bunch of new Rep Systems that come with it and lots of gear to buy of course.
Foundry, PvP and DOff System also need some attention before anything like Exploration or Crafting is touched. (those Neverwinter updates need to be ported back to STO, Foundry for PvP Maps would be a neat thing to have... and the DOff System hasn't gotten much attention since Heretic left and is basically in maintenance and monetization mode).
I predict the next expansion will be... Borg From The Future.
Let's face it, the Borg, that all-conquering threat from the TNG era, have become a complete joke. Most DPS players can insta-pop Borg cubes. Even tac cubes are a limited threat at best.
The Borg have gone from "We can conquer the Federation with a single cube" to "Our ships are the equivalent of level 10 Forest Spiders from WoW." Truly a shameful fate for an enemy that was once so frightening.
As we've seen in First Contact, when the Borg are losing, they'll cheat - and use time travel to do so. Now, the Borg know there are awesome future-Borg in the future, thanks to that one Borg from the future on Voyager. So, current-day-Borg contact future-Borg and go "Yo, help your grandpa out." Suddenly, 29th century Borg everywhere! New and awesome Borg ships! Much tougher NPCs!
One of the best ideas to me would be a Raiders/Rogues/Mercs faction. Think "Gambit I & II", Maquis, Pirates, Neutrals. Limitless concepts here: Ships that are more bare-bones than their Fed/KDF/Rom counterparts, but maybe more slots for customization (Turn a cargo freighter into a functional cruiser, for instance). explore the unregulated side of star trek. The seedy underbelly of the Orions, the back-alley deals of the Ferengi, the brutal mugging tactics of Nausicaan pirates, Spies, Assassins, and your average cowboy smugglers.
We don't need a fancy sword and ancient mystic beliefs, when we have wide beam settings and Q.
"We don't have time to negotiate in a civilized way... Destroy them!"
"Captains log: I can take up a holding pattern while engineering locates the source of this malfunction, but this area is known to be a frequent destination of pirates. If we are detected by enemy ships, we won't be able to defend ourselves."
A real third party faction would be a great way to top it. Or maybe a new race that is you know not the abused step brother of the vulcans. I would love to see a merc/pirate faction. A new semi faction that isn't even a faction, just two races with a back story, and more detail isn't hard to top, the new content not related to the romulans could have easily been introduced before LoR in series of patches. Maybe next we could do an orion expansion, make all orions start off on there home planet, get more ships for them, but still be part of the KDF, but pretend they are a faction?
Honestly I would play an Orion subfaction story line, and I always love an excuse to use more Orion slaver pets. They could just hold all good content patches from now on, for about a year, then release them with a back story and new ships for a race already in a faction, then sell founders packs for each one, opening the flood gates for lockboxes, and cstore stuff, heck might even make KDF popular if you didn't have to play through the eyes of a Klingon by defualt.
I think they should use a species which has only had a small mention. This means that the devs can go to town on clthing, ship development, and missions/story.
Does anyone remember the Tkon Empire, mentioned in ST: TNG?
The next big thing needs to be the Gamma Quadrant as a post-level 50 content Expansion. They need to let us go through the wormhole and experience new things with our 3 Factions. New end-game FEs, new STFs, new Patrols, and a focus on Exploration - and a true enemy for us all in the Dominion.
I fully support this notion. Getting back to what Trek is at heart as well as keeping the life of the game intact.
I would like to see more Omega force content centered around an enemy other than the Borg. The Undine would make good bad guys for new STFs.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
Honestly, without throwing playable Borg and Borg ships in at some point...
(not that I'd want that)
How could there possibly be a way to top such a long awaited, highly anticipated free expansion such as the Romulans.
What would the next ideal expansion be for you in the next few years?
I expect to see a version of the hugh borg ship in a lock box eventually, maybe a sphere. I doubt playable borg though, unless you join a faction right away after ten level, I can't think of much story line they could use.
Although I don't know if I'd like them, a Cardassian faction might be interesting. Give them a side of Jem'Hadar (outcasts probably).
Personally, I'd like them to redo borg space with more end game content. after 50, you pretty much never go back except in STF form. They could add in a few random missions where you do something on one of the STF maps. One mission is a defend the starbase, using the STF map, a save the klingon/federation/romulan raiding party on the cure ground map, with bonuses for destroying or doing things. I defend the shipyards with the cure space map, or a tractor the damaged ships to the docks mission. Theres allot they could do with them, if they tried. All that could be tied into a rep system to buff whatever rep they're concerning.
"..and like children playing after sunset, we were surrounded by darkness." -Ruri Hoshino
The next big thing needs to be the Gamma Quadrant as a post-level 50 content Expansion. They need to let us go through the wormhole and experience new things with our 3 Factions. New end-game FEs, new STFs, new Patrols, and a focus on Exploration - and a true enemy for us all in the Dominion.
Agreed. Gamma Quadrant first, then the Delta Quadrant.
Comments
Borg would not top this. Or be ideal.
Cardassian faction would be my ideal "expansion" in a year or so's time.
I've been grinning the whole day now that 21st is here
After a looong looong time I'm really excited about StarTrek Online... what makes it better is , its fresh on the heels of the In Darkness release
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
Yes, hence why I mentioned that in the first place.
So even with the Card ship available currently from lock boxes, you think they would eventually come into play as the next big thing?
but on a more personal note.. borg would be just fine, I want to assimilate the whole lot of yeah
If I had to guess at w/e the next faction would be, prolly looking at a delta quadrant species... maybe kazon splinter faction or maybe a privateer 'generic' faction that could comprise of multiple races from the delta quadrant looking to expand trade relations to the alpha quadrant. That would certainly allow for a lot of creative liberties.
Id really really hate to see borg as playable though. some things just need to be left alone.
Fixing ship class balance
Fixing red alerts
Overhauling useless crafting
Fixing many longstanding bugs
Fixing crew mechanic
Fixing certain Boff abilities
Fixing ship roles (it's all about dps)
New STF's every few months instead of years
Elite STF versions of everything
Fixing item balance (most consoles are useless)
Fixing shield regen to make it worthwhile
...
sig
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5451/om71.jpg
It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
And there always that guy...
7th Joint Task Force
Third Reserve Flotilla
House of Sigma
judging by what i seen, its likely 2 years away yet. but yes, adding a cardassian faction would be nice.
a storyline similar to the romulans but not the same, fleshing out the deferi and breen, more on the internal workings of the current cardassian government and the true way. in the process of starfleet taking out the key players with the alpha jem'hadar and link, cardassians made away with a cloning vat and learned to create better jem'hadar that are not cold blooded killers, but ones who can think for themselves without an overriden purpose telling them otherwise, in addition the tube is gone and a longer lifespan is given. jem;hadar can become a force for change, a productive member of society.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I like new content as much as the next player, but I guess I prioritize the content I'd like to see differently than some of the LoR fans.
Am I supposed to get excited about the idea of starting a new character, bearing in mind the daunting, ever-expanding, mind-numbing, grind that awaits said character (dilithium, EC, reputation, gear, etc.). They couldn't seem to handle keeping two factions on an even keel with one another, now there's three... that will play it well, surely.
At least they're revamping character traits and ship power management/+warp cores... that's probably the best thing about this update, IMO.
Cardies as playable race faction. With dominion expansion and entirely new quadrants of space. It must also have all the little races of the gamma quadrant. Battling over freeing the worlds under the dominion. I would really like to see the hunters that were chasing task from ds9. After all they were dressed as power rangers and had a beam that dropped a space stations shields in seconds.
or
Delta quadrant expansions space zone with all the races and ships in a massive battle for control. 7 years of material here to work with. Hirogen/Undine/Caretaker/ocampa/swarm/vodwar/kazon to name a few.
Or
Playable liberated borg vessels with alien semi-assimilated liberated ships. Take just about any ship and assimilating it to a borg design changing its shape and appearance, but retaining a borg and original markers. Also, have a whole faction based around this and there battle to fight the regular borg.
or
Massive pvp expansion with capturable territory and a persistent map. Something they talked about long ago. It would interact both pve and pvp based on what was captured.
or
Just thought of this for edit. How about a fluidic space expansion. Surely there must be other races other aliens to create new content with.
Just a few ideas that I think would bring a lot of players back again and again to drink the koolaid.
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page
But he is right, though...
...and add to that, optimizing code just a Little bit. i have a strong feeling there is a lot of dirty coding going on here. -No I cannot 'prove it', so i will not come with examples, let's just say that playing for a long time, one tends to notice these Things.
{UFP}Thomas45 - Thomas Nixon U.S.S. Majesty Unbound
So far, the story is running in circle. No news from the evil Iconian since a while, and the last FE (the 2400) have nothing to do with them.
I know we will have the return of Sela some time soon, and with it, the Iconians, but I fear it will just be few episodes about Sela, and some hints about Iconian, nothing else.
It's about time we face them. I feel like I'm playing mass effect 1 over and over again "The reaper are coming !" "we have dismissed that claim".
Granted, knowing how ME 3 is, and particularly the ending, I understand why I would want to stay on ME1, but this is STO, it can't be worse than a god like child appearing from nowhere and a 3buttons choice ignoring about everything the whole 3 games did.
I want to use the gateway in New Romulus to spy on Iconians, and finally learn the truth behind them. I want to make peace with the Klingon, to make an alliance against them. I want to tell the Undine we are not the true enemy. I want to know why the Tholians act like that, and if they are with or against the Iconians.
so, something similar to the tal shiar adapted ships?
another faction is EXACTLY what STO needed... or more to the point what Cryptic needed!
New Faction = NEW SHIPS TO SELL!
they are running out of canon Federation Ships (there are maybe 5 more background ships left that might or might not sell well)
KDF Ships don't make enough money with such a low userbase, no matter how you spin it, Geko even said they lost money on some Ships (which i find hard to believe).
Cryptic is in the business of selling Ships.
You might have noticed, there are no new Bridge Packs for a while now, not much in terms of Uniforms going on anymore either (unless it is Lobi Store per character stuff).
Ships are the #1 money maker for Cryptic.
So yes, look at the Legacy Pack, look at the new LockBox and then add a 5000 Zen Scimitar Pack on top of it.
THAT is why a Romulan Faction needed to happen. $$$
Plus the foreseeable Player influx with the announcement of a new Faction, right when the new Movie came out. <- if handled right this will be the biggest PR push the game will get since F2P.
The question if more Factions will happen can only be answered by: will this stuff make them MONEY?
And what Faction could sell the most Ships?
A Dominion/Cardassian/Breen faction... well the bulk of the main Ships are here, the people who really wanted them have them by now. Also it would hurt future LockBox sales if there was a proper Faction for these Ships now, not to mention disgruntled Players who don't feel special anymore about their 500 Million EC Bug Ships and god knows how many $ some people spend on them.
(and think about it, the Dom Faction would just end up to be like the Romulan Faction doing an Alliance with FED+KDF... so what would really be the difference here to an existing LockBox Ship? the UI? a few more DOffs and BOffs and some shiny extra items?)
Nope, Dominion/Cardi/Breen Faction would not happen because there is too much negative fallout attached to it already, LockBoxes killed that faction already = not enough Ships that would still sell good.
I would want one, sure, but i don't think it would make financial sense to do one and i don't see it being any bigger & better than the Rom Faction either.
IF there is another faction EVER, it has to be something huge and abstract that is a real game changer... so yes i'd say BORG... or maybe Species 8472 (Undine)... but probably Borg.
But Cryptic would not go for the real Borg, they would go Hugh Style, liberated Borg as Geko already said in interviews = boring, will NOT top Romulans, won't give you that Tactical Cube you want either... but maybe a bunch of assimilated Ships.
i don't know
i think they should really concentrate on remastering old FED + KDF Missions now (bring them to the same level of quality as the Romulan content) and improve Endgame and Systems regularly now for a year or two again.
Not to mention that they need to get going on new and more regular Featured Episode Series
a Level Cap increase is overdue, with all the Power Creep Endgame has gotten way too easy... or Elite versions of all PvE Maps... (which has the same result of having to redo all Maps and Missions to a new higher level) and i could use 10 - 20 new PvE Maps anyway... the old ones are old and mostly boring by now. bunch of new Rep Systems that come with it and lots of gear to buy of course.
Foundry, PvP and DOff System also need some attention before anything like Exploration or Crafting is touched. (those Neverwinter updates need to be ported back to STO, Foundry for PvP Maps would be a neat thing to have... and the DOff System hasn't gotten much attention since Heretic left and is basically in maintenance and monetization mode).
Let's face it, the Borg, that all-conquering threat from the TNG era, have become a complete joke. Most DPS players can insta-pop Borg cubes. Even tac cubes are a limited threat at best.
The Borg have gone from "We can conquer the Federation with a single cube" to "Our ships are the equivalent of level 10 Forest Spiders from WoW." Truly a shameful fate for an enemy that was once so frightening.
As we've seen in First Contact, when the Borg are losing, they'll cheat - and use time travel to do so. Now, the Borg know there are awesome future-Borg in the future, thanks to that one Borg from the future on Voyager. So, current-day-Borg contact future-Borg and go "Yo, help your grandpa out." Suddenly, 29th century Borg everywhere! New and awesome Borg ships! Much tougher NPCs!
It'll be awesome.
We don't need a fancy sword and ancient mystic beliefs, when we have wide beam settings and Q.
"Captains log: I can take up a holding pattern while engineering locates the source of this malfunction, but this area is known to be a frequent destination of pirates. If we are detected by enemy ships, we won't be able to defend ourselves."
Honestly I would play an Orion subfaction story line, and I always love an excuse to use more Orion slaver pets. They could just hold all good content patches from now on, for about a year, then release them with a back story and new ships for a race already in a faction, then sell founders packs for each one, opening the flood gates for lockboxes, and cstore stuff, heck might even make KDF popular if you didn't have to play through the eyes of a Klingon by defualt.
Does anyone remember the Tkon Empire, mentioned in ST: TNG?
I fully support this notion. Getting back to what Trek is at heart as well as keeping the life of the game intact.
I would like to see more Omega force content centered around an enemy other than the Borg. The Undine would make good bad guys for new STFs.
I expect to see a version of the hugh borg ship in a lock box eventually, maybe a sphere. I doubt playable borg though, unless you join a faction right away after ten level, I can't think of much story line they could use.
Although I don't know if I'd like them, a Cardassian faction might be interesting. Give them a side of Jem'Hadar (outcasts probably).
Personally, I'd like them to redo borg space with more end game content. after 50, you pretty much never go back except in STF form. They could add in a few random missions where you do something on one of the STF maps. One mission is a defend the starbase, using the STF map, a save the klingon/federation/romulan raiding party on the cure ground map, with bonuses for destroying or doing things. I defend the shipyards with the cure space map, or a tractor the damaged ships to the docks mission. Theres allot they could do with them, if they tried. All that could be tied into a rep system to buff whatever rep they're concerning.
Agreed. Gamma Quadrant first, then the Delta Quadrant.