You know something? There's a problem with this game... it doesn't feel real.
Sure, the new upgrades to ESD makes it look fantastic,
but, now with the war over... why don't we see missionaries on other worlds? A Klingon missionary on Earth, either starfleet command or ESD, preaching about honour, telling war stories? Like that guy outside the Great Hall.
Where's the art? the culture? Drozona is a start. It feels seedy, and wow oh boy is the chats there rated R...
We have political debates, why not create a map on Earth, where the Federation Council is. You stand in the council chambers, see the president and can debate with others in the chatroom for the Federation Council. The view can be of Paris, 25th century.
You can do it as a daily, if you want. Get in and debate, preselected answers of course, for topics of STO. You could debate Vulcans, Terrans, Andorians, Bajorans, Terrilites (I would love to see the dialogue for Terrilites).
Rewards? Fleet marks, low of course. Players can submit topics and responses for the debating NPCs to Cryptic and if selected, can win prizes. Heck we could even stage a Picard vs Kirk debate. Depending on what you selected, the NPC could give a different answer, or say TRIBBLE you and end it. Marks are higher the longer you're in the debate.
A shuttle to your fleet starbase could be found in there, as well as a shuttle to the major outposts (S39, DS9, K-7 and the Klingon Homeworld if you have immunity).
For the Klingons, something like what Andoria should be... a room where you can have a meele match with any NPCs, or other players. All abilities except meele are disabled. If you got lunge, it's meele and enabled

. Bloodwine shall be made available (not the sort you buy from the bartender) it can be an interact and the more you drink, the more damage you do, but the more liable you are to miss. Drinking more bloodwine also raises your ability to gain fleet marks. Being extremely drunk and winning a duel gets you more marks. Basically you stagger around, more miss and the screen gets a little bit blurry (except for chatbox). Klingons would have this reduced.
Now, the opposing factions can partake in either events. However, Federations drinking would... just be bad, in its entirely. Debates would be more likely to end and it would be possible to be struck by your opponent.
If fleet marks isn't appealing, well, you could gain diplomatic points for the debates and military points for the duels.
thoughts?
Comments
You can't really have missionaries and political debates on a planet when for most of the players the war is still going.
Call me crazy, but maybe that has something to do with it all being pretend. Being make-believe. Being...wait for it...not real.
Imaginary things tend to not feel real, and there's a very solid reason for that.
No, they dont. They are terrible. Sorry.
Come on, you know exactly what the OP is talking about.
@ OP: I agree. It would be nice to feel some progression in the world according to your own progress. For instance, despite completing the story arc, the Devidians will NEVER be removed from Drozana station etc. - Cryptic did make quite a lot of mistakes before the game even launched, and their choice what they want to do with the world and stories was one of them.
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Thank God! I have mission in the Foundry that needs reviews. The war with Klingons figures into the plot. I'd feel pretty stupid if the war was now over.
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Um, because for new players that just start playing STO today, and haven't gone through the whole storyline sequence yet; it's still 2409; and teh war is still raging
As for the rest, seriously, 'Star Trek' itself is as much fantasy as it is science fiction in that characters NEVER deal with experience reletavistic effects, etc. As for the suggestion of 'debate' missions; hell even in the recent FE, the stuff that gets a thumbs down is the amount of exposition in the opening sequence, like ending arguments, telling delegates to go to their seats; so I'm sure a 'debate system' (which has to have canned setups/responses, etc. wouldn't go over well or get used a lot, and game developer time would probably be better spent elsewhere.
As for a KDF duel area, I think it would be great if they instituted the ability to consensually PvP in the open areas of the KDF First City and KDF Academy maps. They have such a setup for the open public areas in 'Champions Online' so it's not a game engine limitation; spo yeh, that IMO would be a nice addition and fit thre KDF faction lore, etc.
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But the meele pvp i want
And this is why holodecks should be implemented.
Only current-season content and episodes should be playable out in the actual galaxy. So, for example, no Borg STFs. Those already happened. But we'd have holodecks to revisit previous states of the game, replay old missions, etc. Also, the galaxy should be a dangerous, unpredictable place. Grinding there shouldn't even be possible. If you just want to make some marks, you go to the holodeck. If you want to have a fun adventure, you're more likely to actually head out.
As for character progression? There are a few ways to handle this, but I'd say here's how to do it. Every season, make a new tutorial. Then, have Admiral Quinn (or whoever) tell the player to go to the holodeck, and review records of the events of the last year or few years, from the perspective of the captains and crews who took part in those events. Oh, and new unique crew members. Only Romulan characters who were created during LoR should have gotten Tovan, for example.
This way, each season has a distinct player character who is created during it. Really, the time during which the character was created should affect everything that is done. For example, a character created at launch would play Surface Tension as a seasoned veteran, who fought the Klingons and the Borg, and participated in all the events leading up to the Undine invasion. But a newly-minted character would just be tagging along, not interacting directly with Tuvok or anyone -- probably not even getting most of the story, just reacting to events. Then, once this character got to level 50, he'd be able to head into the holodeck and play all the variants of the mission.
Basically, we need to pin these things down. We need actual player characters who are real in-universe, so that we as players are taking on the mantle of an in-universe character, rather than having this current weird nebulous state of affairs.
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