Getting around the Klingonness, when ur not a klingon?

tritan2409

Was kind of wondering how people went about dissmissing the oddites that come up with the mission texts/introductions/addresess etc when it spouts about klingon values/customs and traditions when your character is, erm....NOT a klingon?

I know the erm..sub races within the empire will be expected to adopt certain customs and adhere to certain traditions, but its something i have always had a struggle with (in my own head atleast) and wondered that if it is an issue for you too, how do you get around the klingonness if you will?

Always bugged to the the extent of not being able to "get into" the KDF toons unless i make a Klingon, which i feel is a shame.

Any ideas on how i can defeat my problem?

orangeitis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE4eW0fJyp4

What Martok implies there is that whomever lives within the Klingon society should, and probably does adhere to Klingon customs regardless of species.

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mirrorchaos

tritan2409 wrote: »

Was kind of wondering how people went about dissmissing the oddites that come up with the mission texts/introductions/addresess etc when it spouts about klingon values/customs and traditions when your character is, erm....NOT a klingon?

I know the erm..sub races within the empire will be expected to adopt certain customs and adhere to certain traditions, but its something i have always had a struggle with (in my own head atleast) and wondered that if it is an issue for you too, how do you get around the klingonness if you will?

Always bugged to the the extent of not being able to "get into" the KDF toons unless i make a Klingon, which i feel is a shame.

Any ideas on how i can defeat my problem?

made mention of this shortly after LoR launched, guess what happened? it will be the same deal with this thread too...

warmaker001b

Ideally, dialogue and interactions for the KDF should by stylized between the members. STO's KDF is not a homogenized entity like the Federation and its Starfleet. When you join the Federation, your people lose their identity and independence, and get absorbed into the larger body (except for Humans). The KDF is composed of entirely different entities working together. The KDF itself, the Nausicaans, Orion, and the subjugated Gorn. All have entirely different leadership, organization, etc. So yes, it gets annoying when my Orion and Nausicaan talk like a Klingon warrior.

But to truly give the races within the KDF faction that truly unique feel, it will take a lot of work. Basically take all the missions that the KDF can play and multiply the work to add additional dialogue by 5:

Klingons
Joined Trill
Orion
Gorn
Nausicaan

You can make the case for Joined Trill dialogue to be absorbed with the Klingons, but still, the others are vastly different cultures and values, and would not be talking like the Klingons. It's a lot of work to do.

angrytarg

warmaker001b wrote: »

(...) When you join the Federation, your people lose their identity and independence, and get absorbed into the larger body (except for Humans). (...)

That is not correct. The Federation is, well, a federation. All member worlds keep their habits, culture and sovereignity. It's just that their militaries get absorbed into Starfleet to provide for a space faring science, exploration and defense organization which profits from all member world's expertise, technology and manpower and to reduce the threat of those worlds to wage war on each other, providing stability to the UFP as a whole.

In fact, I think your adventures playing a non-starfleet UFP citizen would be vastly different from playing a Starfleet officer.

@OP: I concur. The KDF should not be treated like a "Red Starfleet".

nynik

Granted NPC/mission text will not always sync with player character immersion for factors beyond Cryptic's control, but it doesn't mean that Cryptic shouldn't try to do better. After all, they are employing a full time writer and have developed the technology to change dialogue/mission text depending on the player character species. Heck, they even cleaned up the Klingon missions recently (relatively) and STILL a Klingon Empire aligned Romulan Republic character is referred to as a Klingon subject!

It isn't about getting over the Klingonness if you don't play a strictly loyalist member of the Empire (culturally), it's more about getting over Cryptic's quality threshold given their budget.

doffingcomrade

nynik wrote: »

Heck, they even cleaned up the Klingon missions recently (relatively) and STILL a Klingon Empire aligned Romulan Republic character is referred to as a Klingon subject!

To be fair, Romulans aren't even supposed to *BE* in Klingon missions. They can't accept the missions, can't be shared the missions, and can really only get into them by sneaking in while grouped with a Klingon doing them. A Romulan playing those missions is basically just playing a holodeck simulation of the mission, in which case this seems reasonable enough.

artan42

I don't bother, I just act as though my Alien is being heavily sarcastic when saying the lines.

davidwford

warmaker001b wrote: »

Ideally, dialogue and interactions for the KDF should by stylized between the members. STO's KDF is not a homogenized entity like the Federation and its Starfleet. When you join the Federation, your people lose their identity and independence, and get absorbed into the larger body (except for Humans). The KDF is composed of entirely different entities working together. The KDF itself, the Nausicaans, Orion, and the subjugated Gorn. All have entirely different leadership, organization, etc. So yes, it gets annoying when my Orion and Nausicaan talk like a Klingon warrior.

I think a better analogy is that the KDF is like the allied powers in WW2. There is a senior leadership that is comprised of officers from all of the forces and nations that made up the alliance. Further down, the field units were NOT mixed, but coordinated with each other to achieve overall strategic goals.

The Federation, on the other hand is more like a combined force consisting of Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard units. While in the field, there is one chain of command, and it is a single unified and cohesive organization.

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bendalek

doffingcomrade wrote: »

To be fair, Romulans aren't even supposed to *BE* in Klingon missions. They can't accept the missions, can't be shared the missions, and can really only get into them by sneaking in while grouped with a Klingon doing them. A Romulan playing those missions is basically just playing a holodeck simulation of the mission, in which case this seems reasonable enough.

Fairness doesn't come into it ... Many of the missions, particularly those at higher levels, and of course, all of the 'episode" ones are 'generic' ones that ALL factions play, however in all but the very low level starter missions, as a Romklink, you are constantly referred to as Klingon.

This is immensely jarring from a RP point of view ... Heck they even offer you Blood Wine! Why not Romulan Ale? ...

With Fed characters, as someone has already mentioned, the dialogues are a lot more 'generic' and rarely us Race Specific terminology.

I still chuckle at my Orion Captain and her all Orion crew, running through Sto'Vo'Kor in their ... ahem ... Traditional outfits ... It was funny, but ultimately it was also terribly immersion breaking.

orangeitis

bendalek wrote: »

This is immensely jarring from a RP point of view ... Heck they even offer you Blood Wine! Why not Romulan Ale? ...

The same reason that humans don't only offer Terran beverages?

bendalek

orangeitis wrote: »

The same reason that humans don't only offer Terran beverages?

Because Cryptic is to lazy to insert a simple line of code to determine player Faction and/or Race and then offer the "correct" beverages? ... You may be right ...

mikoto8472

Well, to be fair my KDF character is an ex-Borg Klingon female.

So the "Klingonish" lines fit me perfectly, however I can see why Captains who play non-Klingons have a problem. And honestly it affects my BOFFs. While I only have one Orion and one Gorn in my bridge crew, it is occasionally noticeable when they speak and act like a Klingon.

But my workaround is fairly simple. My bridge officers have spent years in the Empire, at least since they were children or teenagers. They've been immersed in Klingon culture and surrounded by Klingons and their speech.

Combine that with the fact they're KDF and have gone through several years of intensive Klingon Officer training at the Academy and I figure its little wonder they've adopted Klingon behaviour and Klingon curses.

If 'blending in' a bit gets you noticed and/or promoted/given good missions, its understandable they may adopt Klingon behaviour-at least on the surface. What they do in their own quarters is none of my business.

shadokitty

How I get around it is, I figure, my characters were raised in Empire space.

stofsk

This is one of the reasons I'm hesitant to make a new KDF character that isn't klingon. I'd like to play a gorn flying a varanus, or a ferasan captaining a Bird of Prey or Raptor. I'd like to but I feel as though the storyline doesn't cater towards non-klingons.

kimmym

I play an Orion on the KDF side.

I just took it as "While you live with us, you live as us." and just accepted that I was expected to live like a Klingon sometimes.

It was a little awkward doing the Nimbus missions, tho...

bluegeek

I've wished for a long time that the different Klingon races were treated differently. Not only different responses, but culturally relevant missions.

For that matter, the same problem exists in the Federation. The game should treat a Tellarite or a Vulcan differently than it treats a Human.

But let's be honest. Most of the time the game can't tell the difference between a male character and a female one.

It's not that the game doesn't "know" that you're a Gorn, or a Vulcan female. The tailor, for one, is intimately aware of faction, race, and gender. Has to be in order to present the proper costume options.

The problem is that metadata isn't exposed as hooks that a content author can use to modify the scenario. And also that Cryptic really doesn't want to go to the trouble of designing dialog and optionals for every variation -- it's time consuming, and time is money.

But I wish they'd expose it to the Foundry so that Foundry authors could do it if they wanted to.

mikoto8472

Very true Bluegeek.

On my Starfleet Captains I've kept T'Vrell, but I've had to switch around my bridge officer layout as I can't take T'Vrell the Vulcan speaking and behaving like an emotional human woman anymore.

shpoks

kimmym wrote: »

I play an Orion on the KDF side.

I just took it as "While you live with us, you live as us." and just accepted that I was expected to live like a Klingon sometimes.

It was a little awkward doing the Nimbus missions, tho...

This is pretty much how I look at it. I made a backstory for my Ferasan that perfectly complements with the Klingon feel and atmosphere, so I'm good with that one.
Other then the Ferasan, all of my non-Klingon chars. are pirates so they are well versed into pretending to play nice with the KDF and all the "Honor, glory, qapla'!" stuff, for their own gain so they can get a 'get outa jail free card' and the benefits of being in the KDF, while doing all the kinds of misschiefs they wanna do when they're out in space.

I do see the basic issue, however. Sometimes it is difficult to immerse yourself in the experience when it directly contradicts with the profile and the species of your character.

bluegeek

mikoto8472 wrote: »

Very true Bluegeek.

On my Starfleet Captains I've kept T'Vrell, but I've had to switch around my bridge officer layout as I can't take T'Vrell the Vulcan speaking and behaving like an emotional human woman anymore.

Ah, Bridge Officers are an entirely different kettle of gagh.

One thing to have the mission logic check the faction/career/species/gender of your captain and tweak the dialog or optionals a bit.

The game doesn't even do that universally.

But to check to see if the Sci BOFF that's speaking is actually a Gorn and change the mission dialogue accordingly? Bit more complicated and a lot more work on the part of the content author to write the extra dialogue. I'd love to see that, but I think it will be a long time coming if ever.

davidwford

shpoks wrote: »

This is pretty much how I look at it. I made a backstory for my Ferasan that perfectly complements with the Klingon feel and atmosphere, so I'm good with that one.
Other then the Ferasan, all of my non-Klingon chars. are pirates so they are well versed into pretending to play nice with the KDF and all the "Honor, glory, qapla'!" stuff, for their own gain so they can get a 'get outa jail free card' and the benefits of being in the KDF, while doing all the kinds of misschiefs they wanna do when they're out in space.

I do see the basic issue, however. Sometimes it is difficult to immerse yourself in the experience when it directly contradicts with the profile and the species of your character.

Bascially, your non-Klingon characters are privateers with letters of marque from the Empire.

mimey2

davidwford wrote: »

Bascially, your non-Klingon characters are privateers with letters of marque from the Empire.

That's kinda how I see my Lethean I have. The Empire asks him to kill Borg, he kills Borg. Or anyone else. If it is what the Empire needs, and if he is paid at the end, that's all he cares about.

orangeitis

bluegeek wrote: »

Ah, Bridge Officers are an entirely different kettle of gagh.

One thing to have the mission logic check the faction/career/species/gender of your captain and tweak the dialog or optionals a bit.

The game doesn't even do that universally.

But to check to see if the Sci BOFF that's speaking is actually a Gorn and change the mission dialogue accordingly? Bit more complicated and a lot more work on the part of the content author to write the extra dialogue. I'd love to see that, but I think it will be a long time coming if ever.

It is pretty awesome when it does happen. Even little dialog changes are neat. In the Nimbus III Gorn mission, if you're playing a Gorn, it gives you the option of hailing their leader to tell him how much BS it is ruling a mere canyon.