Welcome. I hope your arrival is an indication that Cryptic has taken serious notice of what has been happening since DRs release and will be correcting the problems soon. I hadn't seen those two posts so I do hope that they tune it upwards enough from where it is now in rewards and down in HP, etc.
Good luck and here's to hoping you will make a positive impact on STO.
I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself. I am the newest addition to the Star Trek Online team here at PWE. I've very recently taken on the role of Product Manager.
I want to say that I'm very excited to join the team, interact with all of you, and hopefully help everyone make STO even greater than it already is.
I want to thank all of you for your feedback and support for STO.
In the meantime, if you have questions for/about me feel free to reply to this post. I'll grab a few of the good questions and answer them in between all of the work being done for STO.
Thanks and great to meet you all!
Aaron "Adamanteus" Biedma
Product Manager
Star Trek Online
Welcome!
I look forward to hear what you have to say. Hopeful that you're hear to help improve the game AND the morale. As such, my signature says it all.
But I really think a lack of diversity in the offerings is the heart of the monetization problem for STO. You have ships, and/or gambles. That is it aside from occasional one time purchase services. But without harming the lockbox sales which have gobbled up everything from boosters to costumes, or content like a mission they refuse to charge for directly, what is left to provide?
That is definitely one thing.
From what I can remember, devs didn't know prior to launch how much ships would be the hot seller. They had a rough patch with fairly limited devs and a short window to get F2P out and, as a result, they kept doubling down on what they saw as their cash cows and never had a chance to experiment enough with other models.
I always heard that ground costumes by themselves were an underperformer. But I think the closest we ever got to ground bundles of equal proportionate value to space bundles was probably the EV suit, which was per character. Space sales include: A costume, a baked in playstyle, and typically a weapon or gear piece. I think ground costumes would do a lot better if every one came bundled with, say, a BOff, a weapon, and a kit power. Maybe account-wide, 1k ZEN. The BOff wouldn't always have to be something that special.
That would see more utility if Bridge Officers used kit modules rather than the weird training system. I feel like decking out away teams is an underlooked side of ground monetization. We always get overcharged for ground items if you imagine us buying up 5 of them. The purchases always seem designed around us only wanting 1 of something. Set bonuses are always captain based rather than away team based.
Also, space weapons all benefit one another but ground weapons don't typically carry passive bonuses (technically bonii) or stats across away teams, which yields reduced utility. A space Acc or CritH mod on a weapon benefits 5-8 other weapons. A ground CritH mod doesn't benefit other weapons, not even our captain's spare.
While expose/exploit is a cool idea for a mechanic, ground weapons and tactics often have negative synergy or insanely positive synergy.
5 Undine wrist cannons? That's almost god mode. 5 Relativity stun pistols or a mix of Relativity pistols and rifles? The benefits cancel eachother out. You could end up putting a whole enemy group in stasis or the enemy in stasis might eat up the rifle's stray beam attacks.
Swords are far superior to other melee weapons. This isn't even like the beams vs. cannons debate in space that can go in waves based on buff/nerf cycles. Swords proc more, yield more control, and automatically move your character in position for the next strike. Playing with swords is vaguely reminiscent of the Batman: Arkham games as you can bounce around enemies like a pinball, dealing stray AoE. Whereas using a Lirpa or a Bat'leth requires manual positioning. It's literally like controls from a different game.
These may sound like complaints but they're really just feedback/observations.
I always heard that ground costumes by themselves were an underperformer. But I think the closest we ever got to ground bundles of equal proportionate value to space bundles was probably the EV suit, which was per character. Space sales include: A costume, a baked in playstyle, and typically a weapon or gear piece. I think ground costumes would do a lot better if every one came bundled with, say, a BOff, a weapon, and a kit power. Maybe account-wide, 1k ZEN. The BOff wouldn't always have to be something that special.
You raise a very good point. The ships can appeal to a wider audience because of the console, the costume, the account wide nature, and so on. I do agree a ground 'bundle' would do well if properly created and included the variety you listed like a kit, module, boff, costume, account wide, and so on. Problem is they already have those things for sale in the game, in lockboxes. But I would be extremely interesting and likely to purchase a bundle like what was just described and currently have little to no interest in those things in lockboxes. Actually them being in lockboxes flat out irritates me at times.
On another note I have dabbled in alot of F2P games. One thing that always struck me as odd in STO's model is the ships price directly linked to tier with no variation aside from the innate confusion T5/T5fleet/etc created. Other games offer new champions, heroes, warframes, etc, at a variety of price points some 4x more expensive than the lowest priced ones. I know STO has lower tier ships at lower prices but they are not a good comparison.
If they released a new ship, say a Joint Strike Intelligence Corvette (T6) that all races could use (they banded together and designed it as the prototype Intel ship then went their separate ways to make their own variations) and sold it for $10 how many would buy it. Let it have a ship trait to unlock but no console and possibly only a single costume with few or no customization options. Less work to create, lower price point for the players. I really think one reason ships don't sell very well if too many are released to close together is that they all cost so much!
Heck you could even go crazy and just make KDF ships roughly 20% cheaper than Fed/Rom and give them the 'cost conciencous we don't need bells n whistles just GUNS' appeal. Many F2P games go this route offering a economical but spartan faction for players which describes KDF in STO pretty well aside from the economical part.
The question should be what do we not do. We have many hats that we put on and change even minute to minute. We interface with all of the different teams/departments to get stuff done, do a lot of game and data analysis, and keep the bio-neural gel packs in their optimum efficiency so to speak. Plus a lot more of top of all of that.
You do realise that the bio-neural gel packs don't give out the correct power levels as per the list of known issues last patch ;O), joking aside welcome to the game. My questions would be, what is your background with reference to your experience and skill set? What do you think you can bring to the game and community? And when is exploration coming back? (tired of killing all the time).
The video covers some good points on why but the bottom line is that it would be good to have more conversions.
Agreed.
Developers have previously shared with us that around 5% of STO players buy anything at all, ...
There used to be something called the 40/60 split when I studied in college. Of course, times were hard then - weighing the clam shells during transactions and dodging dinosaurs trying to take your lemonade jug, but ... The general idea was that you could stock 40 items and sell them at a $60 or make the same amount selling 60 items at $40. But on the curve, to charge more or less would undercut sales and cause extended storage of the item. Bad for warehousing come tax day. MMO sales has tended to ignore this because they don't have to alot physical and taxable space to the storage of the virtual items that do not exist until purchased. Enter the problem, items that exceed market value still don't sell. A good part of why only about 5% of the gamers make purchases could have largely to do with the excessive costs of those things for purchase. Drop prices by half and you will see a larger target market for sales - if not half, then at least a third. The game I play at Funcom puts our fresh content for sale every month. They put special items on sale daily. The approach to customer service and pricing here is such that I don't even bother to check anymore. But when a single ship costs as much as my Water and Sewer bill, an entry bundle costs more than my electric bill or nearly two months worth of gas for heating, cooking, and hot water, then there is an issue. For the cost of a ship, I can make lunch from scratch for 20 days. The prices are insane.
I believe what you need is a sensational value (for the player, low cost to Cryptic) purchase in the neighborhood of $1-5. ... The goal here is to get primary buyers, To get people to actually pay personally with a credit card.
A part of the problem is they have complicated the in game economy so much that for those 5% that min-max DOff, Dilithium farming, etc. extreme advantages and exponential power creep are near immediate results. At the same time, the difference between these and the casual player is no longer a gap, it is now a subspace rupture. ANet planned their Purchase to Play games with the understanding that players would be involved in other games. By not trying to command and conquer their player base, but provide consistent equitable access to all anytime they wanted to pick up and play their game, the player base became solid - and even demanded non-pay to win content they could purchase. People will pay reasonable, non-budget breaking amounts, for conveniences. They won't pay excessive amounts just to catch up with that guy who is galaxies ahead of them. They also will not pay excessive amounts for so-called conveniences that are created by providing a negative game experience to begin with - such as buy more storage because we starved you for it. Buying more storage because you are a packrat, and it doesn't cost a weeks worth of lunches, is different.
Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~ Cecil Beaton
When is the Typhoon coming? You said you would consider it when you would increase the level cap, and I believe it's going to become playable soon, as there is a lot of support for that ship coming from us players. Can you please give us any info about it?
Congratulation/Condolences on joining the forums as a dev. If you plan on being on as a regular I Would like to warn you of your fate. There are two outcomes.
1) You open Pandora's thread before you realize it is too late and by time you close it all the evil would have escaped and only hope will be left, trapped inside. Never to pear back inside due to fear.
2) You continue to engage in forum until you go slowly insane, forever warped and unable to quite as it becomes like a drug eating away at your mind, continually needed you next adrenalin fix. To see living proof please refer to Tacofangs. You will find at one time he was a normal person living a care free life until he was mutated into the troll you see today. Simply tragic.
Now that your prospects have been laid out my only question I have for you is "what your history as a trek fan?" Feel free to insert favourite series captains etc.
Ha...for #2, coworkers have told me the same thing about other games I've managed and I haven't been driven insane yet.
As a Trek fan history, seen all of the movies (both new and old), haven't quite made it through all of the TOS episodes but TNG, DS9, and Voyager have been seen multiple times. I'm currently watching an episode or two of DS9 most days and I'm in season 5 at the moment. Never got into the books even though I'm a voracious reader. Would you recommend them?
Push some heavy pvp development and changes. Pvp is the true final endgame for sto not regrinding the same pve content over and over. Fix pvp watch old pvpers return and the cash start rolling back in. Plain and simple PVP should be the "product" your job should be focusing on. Anything else will just keep this game on a steady downhill slope.
Back when I joined this game in season 2 there was always pvp at ALL ranks pretty much constantly throughout the whole day. Both ground and space q's were popping at tier 1 to tier 5. So don't tell me there is no interest in pvp in this game. Something caused all that to gradually disappear. What could possibly have driven other players away? You think it's the players that just gave up? Or perhaps this company has done many things that choked it's playerbase out of pvp.
It really depends on the books, to be completely honest. If you can say a bit more about your tastes in books I might be able to steer you in the right direction.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Ha...for #2, coworkers have told me the same thing about other games I've managed and I haven't been driven insane yet.
As a Trek fan history, seen all of the movies (both new and old), haven't quite made it through all of the TOS episodes but TNG, DS9, and Voyager have been seen multiple times. I'm currently watching an episode or two of DS9 most days and I'm in season 5 at the moment. Never got into the books even though I'm a voracious reader. Would you recommend them?
The books are good but they take time to get into (especially post 2002-2003 or so) because they are all part of one large continuity so you have to read a number of previous books before reading the latest books.
I'd recommend the following reading order to get caught up.
Ha...for #2, coworkers have told me the same thing about other games I've managed and I haven't been driven insane yet.
As a Trek fan history, seen all of the movies (both new and old), haven't quite made it through all of the TOS episodes but TNG, DS9, and Voyager have been seen multiple times. I'm currently watching an episode or two of DS9 most days and I'm in season 5 at the moment. Never got into the books even though I'm a voracious reader. Would you recommend them?
Do something for PvP and the playerbase will treat you like a God!
Ha...for #2, coworkers have told me the same thing about other games I've managed and I haven't been driven insane yet.
As a Trek fan history, seen all of the movies (both new and old), haven't quite made it through all of the TOS episodes but TNG, DS9, and Voyager have been seen multiple times. I'm currently watching an episode or two of DS9 most days and I'm in season 5 at the moment. Never got into the books even though I'm a voracious reader. Would you recommend them?
I would recommend Peter David's books above all else.
They're gimmick-y (less gimmick-y than Shatner's) but they have an artistic flair too and his older ones (the Imzadi books) ended up influencing the shows in subtle ways.
With most of the series, I'd say there are diminishing returns.
I really adore Shatner's Ashes of Eden. It's just a good yarn. The Return is gimmick-y. Avenger ties up some loose ends. As you move into Mirror Kirk and Kirk's quarter-Klingon, quarter-Romulan, hermaphroditic messiah son and Kirk as the James Bond of Starfleet, it goes over the deep end in some weird ways. I'm sure the Reeves-Stevens team did most of the writing but the ideas are weird enough that I think they had to originate from Shatner. There's something dark and sad about what the Mirror Kirk does.
The books on tape are a hoot if nothing else to hear Shatner's impressions of Alexander Siddig, Patrick Stewart, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Kate Mulgrew.
A good one off was done by a guy I respect (who mostly does comics now) named Chris Roberson. It's a What If...? about a world where Soong's androids went into mass production and it works as a straight up sci-fi novel. There's some stuff with Iconian tech in there too.
I am a fan of the IDW comics. Prior stuff from DC and Marvel could be almost super-hero-y. (DC even had a Borg named Enab who looked like the Batman villain Bane.) The best comics stuff was by Peter David and has been collected. One about Kirk facing an old rival towards the end of his career. One about the TNG crew traveling to a universe where the Borg defeated Starfleet. Peter David's stuff (comics and novels) has lots of weird timehopping and insane fleshing out of minor TNG characters but I'd say he handles it pretty artfully and I think you'd walk away from it with tons of ideas for ships and gadgets for STO, as most of his stories have some kind of ancient artifact, prototype ship, or experimental weapon.
His New Frontier stuff echoes the work he did on the Babylon 5 TV show. New Frontier is like a Star Trek: Babylon 5 hybrid built using minor TNG characters, animated series characters, and generally memorable one offs. Robin Lefler (Ashley Judd's character) has a very involved plotline. The captain from the series, McKenzie Calhoun, is married to Shelby from Best of Both Worlds and is arguably the most popular original captain from the books. He's actually a character in STO, albeit one who doesn't do anything. Most of his crew are a mix of original characters and one off TNG guest stars.
Do something for PvP and the playerbase will treat you like a God!
To be honest based on what they have for pvp and the fact that most mmorpgs these days have a larger pvp team than all of cryptics teams combined I would say they are not going to be committed to ever doing any actual pvp that is on par with other mmorpgs or better.
Two Star Trek books I urge every Trek-fan to read are in the Department of Temporal Investigations series by Christopher L. Bennett: "Watching the Clock" and "Forgotten History"
Time travel and alternate timeline stories are heavily ingrained in Trek and these two books take many of those stories, extend them, and tie them together so neatly you'll be amazed. They should be required reading for anybody trying to write a time travel story set in the Star Trek universe and they set the bar for any future treatment really, really high.
Among other things, you'll learn why James T. Kirk is the #1 bogeyman for every time cop. They're pretty fun reads if you can get through some of the theoretical chrono-speak without getting a headache.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Two Star Trek books I urge every Trek-fan to read are in the Department of Temporal Investigations series by Christopher L. Bennett: "Watching the Clock" and "Forgotten History"
Time travel and alternate timeline stories are heavily ingrained in Trek and these two books take many of those stories, extend them, and tie them together so neatly you'll be amazed. They should be required reading for anybody trying to write a time travel story set in the Star Trek universe and they set the bar for any future treatment really, really high.
Among other things, you'll learn why James T. Kirk is the #1 bogeyman for every time cop. They're pretty fun reads if you can get through some of the theoretical chrono-speak without getting a headache.
The Rihannsu cycle.
/thread
:cool:
Also, the IKS Gorkon books are pretty good if you like Klingons. Destiny is sort of OK, if you don't mind its dissing of Picard and constant sucking up to the Voyager characters...but Typhon Pact is full of more holes than a Dutch dam made of Swiss cheese.
Shatnerverse stuff isn't bad, but the warring continuities plus Shatner's ego can get annoying.
DS9 relaunch is OK for a bit then drops into the Pit of Stupid.
Imzadi is a classic, must-read for a TNG fan and especially a Riker fan. Diane Duane's TNG MU novel and the very good DS9 MU novels are also good choices.
Enterprise stories are meh, but they have Shran fairly often and Shran is my perfect blue-skinned darling boy and I won't hear a word against him.
Now that we have the formalities out of the way, I will proceed with my list of deman... er requests.
When will you fix the things I want fixing and when will you fix them? If you dont fix them soon you are no better than the people who didn't fix them before you.
I have taken the liberty of bringing along this Santa suit - please but it on. (waits).
*sits on your knee*
I will now reel of my list of wishes, please take careful note and be sure to implement them at your (my) nearest convenience.
*Dusts self off*
Well...
I think that concludes our business for the time being. I shall leave you with this flame retardent leotard for future interactions with the community
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
1. I sure do. At the very least I try to fit in at least an hour a day playing just like all of you. I don't give myself anything using powers. If I want something from the C-store then I have to purchase it and experience everything just like you.
2. I have a 50+ Fed and have actually been spending more time leveling a Romulan character at the moment.
if you really want to experience everything just like me, roll a kdf main and...
who am i kidding?
Also, the IKS Gorkon books are pretty good if you like Klingons. Destiny is sort of OK, if you don't mind its dissing of Picard and constant sucking up to the Voyager characters...but Typhon Pact is full of more holes than a Dutch dam made of Swiss cheese.
Shatnerverse stuff isn't bad, but the warring continuities plus Shatner's ego can get annoying.
DS9 relaunch is OK for a bit then drops into the Pit of Stupid.
Imzadi is a classic, must-read for a TNG fan and especially a Riker fan. Diane Duane's TNG MU novel and the very good DS9 MU novels are also good choices.
Enterprise stories are meh, but they have Shran fairly often and Shran is my perfect blue-skinned darling boy and I won't hear a word against him.
i am still a huge fan of peter david's new frontier series. both books and comics. the comics fit into the time liine but are not required.
Ha...for #2, coworkers have told me the same thing about other games I've managed and I haven't been driven insane yet.
Got it already there but in denial. good to know.
I have only read a few of the book but there are some definite good ones. I'm just not a book person. You definitely need to get threw TOS even though it hasn't aged well and then TAS. Or at the very least watch Whom Gods Destroy and then Prelude to Axanar.
Comments
Good luck and here's to hoping you will make a positive impact on STO.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Campaign: The Battle of Neverwinter - NWS-DOQXFA4ZD
Prologue: A not so simple plan - NW-DCJG75B9D
Welcome!
I look forward to hear what you have to say. Hopeful that you're hear to help improve the game AND the morale. As such, my signature says it all.
That is definitely one thing.
From what I can remember, devs didn't know prior to launch how much ships would be the hot seller. They had a rough patch with fairly limited devs and a short window to get F2P out and, as a result, they kept doubling down on what they saw as their cash cows and never had a chance to experiment enough with other models.
I always heard that ground costumes by themselves were an underperformer. But I think the closest we ever got to ground bundles of equal proportionate value to space bundles was probably the EV suit, which was per character. Space sales include: A costume, a baked in playstyle, and typically a weapon or gear piece. I think ground costumes would do a lot better if every one came bundled with, say, a BOff, a weapon, and a kit power. Maybe account-wide, 1k ZEN. The BOff wouldn't always have to be something that special.
That would see more utility if Bridge Officers used kit modules rather than the weird training system. I feel like decking out away teams is an underlooked side of ground monetization. We always get overcharged for ground items if you imagine us buying up 5 of them. The purchases always seem designed around us only wanting 1 of something. Set bonuses are always captain based rather than away team based.
Also, space weapons all benefit one another but ground weapons don't typically carry passive bonuses (technically bonii) or stats across away teams, which yields reduced utility. A space Acc or CritH mod on a weapon benefits 5-8 other weapons. A ground CritH mod doesn't benefit other weapons, not even our captain's spare.
While expose/exploit is a cool idea for a mechanic, ground weapons and tactics often have negative synergy or insanely positive synergy.
5 Undine wrist cannons? That's almost god mode. 5 Relativity stun pistols or a mix of Relativity pistols and rifles? The benefits cancel eachother out. You could end up putting a whole enemy group in stasis or the enemy in stasis might eat up the rifle's stray beam attacks.
Swords are far superior to other melee weapons. This isn't even like the beams vs. cannons debate in space that can go in waves based on buff/nerf cycles. Swords proc more, yield more control, and automatically move your character in position for the next strike. Playing with swords is vaguely reminiscent of the Batman: Arkham games as you can bounce around enemies like a pinball, dealing stray AoE. Whereas using a Lirpa or a Bat'leth requires manual positioning. It's literally like controls from a different game.
These may sound like complaints but they're really just feedback/observations.
You raise a very good point. The ships can appeal to a wider audience because of the console, the costume, the account wide nature, and so on. I do agree a ground 'bundle' would do well if properly created and included the variety you listed like a kit, module, boff, costume, account wide, and so on. Problem is they already have those things for sale in the game, in lockboxes. But I would be extremely interesting and likely to purchase a bundle like what was just described and currently have little to no interest in those things in lockboxes. Actually them being in lockboxes flat out irritates me at times.
On another note I have dabbled in alot of F2P games. One thing that always struck me as odd in STO's model is the ships price directly linked to tier with no variation aside from the innate confusion T5/T5fleet/etc created. Other games offer new champions, heroes, warframes, etc, at a variety of price points some 4x more expensive than the lowest priced ones. I know STO has lower tier ships at lower prices but they are not a good comparison.
If they released a new ship, say a Joint Strike Intelligence Corvette (T6) that all races could use (they banded together and designed it as the prototype Intel ship then went their separate ways to make their own variations) and sold it for $10 how many would buy it. Let it have a ship trait to unlock but no console and possibly only a single costume with few or no customization options. Less work to create, lower price point for the players. I really think one reason ships don't sell very well if too many are released to close together is that they all cost so much!
Heck you could even go crazy and just make KDF ships roughly 20% cheaper than Fed/Rom and give them the 'cost conciencous we don't need bells n whistles just GUNS' appeal. Many F2P games go this route offering a economical but spartan faction for players which describes KDF in STO pretty well aside from the economical part.
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You do realise that the bio-neural gel packs don't give out the correct power levels as per the list of known issues last patch ;O), joking aside welcome to the game. My questions would be, what is your background with reference to your experience and skill set? What do you think you can bring to the game and community? And when is exploration coming back? (tired of killing all the time).
There used to be something called the 40/60 split when I studied in college. Of course, times were hard then - weighing the clam shells during transactions and dodging dinosaurs trying to take your lemonade jug, but ... The general idea was that you could stock 40 items and sell them at a $60 or make the same amount selling 60 items at $40. But on the curve, to charge more or less would undercut sales and cause extended storage of the item. Bad for warehousing come tax day. MMO sales has tended to ignore this because they don't have to alot physical and taxable space to the storage of the virtual items that do not exist until purchased. Enter the problem, items that exceed market value still don't sell. A good part of why only about 5% of the gamers make purchases could have largely to do with the excessive costs of those things for purchase. Drop prices by half and you will see a larger target market for sales - if not half, then at least a third. The game I play at Funcom puts our fresh content for sale every month. They put special items on sale daily. The approach to customer service and pricing here is such that I don't even bother to check anymore. But when a single ship costs as much as my Water and Sewer bill, an entry bundle costs more than my electric bill or nearly two months worth of gas for heating, cooking, and hot water, then there is an issue. For the cost of a ship, I can make lunch from scratch for 20 days. The prices are insane.
A part of the problem is they have complicated the in game economy so much that for those 5% that min-max DOff, Dilithium farming, etc. extreme advantages and exponential power creep are near immediate results. At the same time, the difference between these and the casual player is no longer a gap, it is now a subspace rupture. ANet planned their Purchase to Play games with the understanding that players would be involved in other games. By not trying to command and conquer their player base, but provide consistent equitable access to all anytime they wanted to pick up and play their game, the player base became solid - and even demanded non-pay to win content they could purchase. People will pay reasonable, non-budget breaking amounts, for conveniences. They won't pay excessive amounts just to catch up with that guy who is galaxies ahead of them. They also will not pay excessive amounts for so-called conveniences that are created by providing a negative game experience to begin with - such as buy more storage because we starved you for it. Buying more storage because you are a packrat, and it doesn't cost a weeks worth of lunches, is different.
Some of these folks can get quite... ... ah... creative.
BCW.
When is the Typhoon coming? You said you would consider it when you would increase the level cap, and I believe it's going to become playable soon, as there is a lot of support for that ship coming from us players. Can you please give us any info about it?
Ha...for #2, coworkers have told me the same thing about other games I've managed and I haven't been driven insane yet.
As a Trek fan history, seen all of the movies (both new and old), haven't quite made it through all of the TOS episodes but TNG, DS9, and Voyager have been seen multiple times. I'm currently watching an episode or two of DS9 most days and I'm in season 5 at the moment. Never got into the books even though I'm a voracious reader. Would you recommend them?
Back when I joined this game in season 2 there was always pvp at ALL ranks pretty much constantly throughout the whole day. Both ground and space q's were popping at tier 1 to tier 5. So don't tell me there is no interest in pvp in this game. Something caused all that to gradually disappear. What could possibly have driven other players away? You think it's the players that just gave up? Or perhaps this company has done many things that choked it's playerbase out of pvp.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Are you a Taylor Swift fan ?
What ship would you like to see in game?
What's your favourite mission in game?
What's your favourite pokemon?
Do you prefer space or ground combat?
Who's your favourite villain in game?
Also, hi.
The books are good but they take time to get into (especially post 2002-2003 or so) because they are all part of one large continuity so you have to read a number of previous books before reading the latest books.
I'd recommend the following reading order to get caught up.
1.DS9 relaunch through the Soul Key. (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine_%28Pocket%29#Relaunch)
2.A Time To Series (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_A_Time_to...)
3.Star Trek Titan though Sword of Damocles. (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Titan)
5.Articles of the Federation (http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Articles_of_the_Federation)
6.Voyager relaunch through Enemy of my Enemy. (http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Voyager_relaunch)
7.TNG relaunch through Greater than the Sum. (http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/TNG_relaunch)
8.Destiny Trilogy (http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Destiny).
9.Typhon Pact series (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Typhon_Pact)
Do something for PvP and the playerbase will treat you like a God!
I would recommend Peter David's books above all else.
They're gimmick-y (less gimmick-y than Shatner's) but they have an artistic flair too and his older ones (the Imzadi books) ended up influencing the shows in subtle ways.
With most of the series, I'd say there are diminishing returns.
I really adore Shatner's Ashes of Eden. It's just a good yarn. The Return is gimmick-y. Avenger ties up some loose ends. As you move into Mirror Kirk and Kirk's quarter-Klingon, quarter-Romulan, hermaphroditic messiah son and Kirk as the James Bond of Starfleet, it goes over the deep end in some weird ways. I'm sure the Reeves-Stevens team did most of the writing but the ideas are weird enough that I think they had to originate from Shatner. There's something dark and sad about what the Mirror Kirk does.
The books on tape are a hoot if nothing else to hear Shatner's impressions of Alexander Siddig, Patrick Stewart, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Kate Mulgrew.
A good one off was done by a guy I respect (who mostly does comics now) named Chris Roberson. It's a What If...? about a world where Soong's androids went into mass production and it works as a straight up sci-fi novel. There's some stuff with Iconian tech in there too.
I am a fan of the IDW comics. Prior stuff from DC and Marvel could be almost super-hero-y. (DC even had a Borg named Enab who looked like the Batman villain Bane.) The best comics stuff was by Peter David and has been collected. One about Kirk facing an old rival towards the end of his career. One about the TNG crew traveling to a universe where the Borg defeated Starfleet. Peter David's stuff (comics and novels) has lots of weird timehopping and insane fleshing out of minor TNG characters but I'd say he handles it pretty artfully and I think you'd walk away from it with tons of ideas for ships and gadgets for STO, as most of his stories have some kind of ancient artifact, prototype ship, or experimental weapon.
His New Frontier stuff echoes the work he did on the Babylon 5 TV show. New Frontier is like a Star Trek: Babylon 5 hybrid built using minor TNG characters, animated series characters, and generally memorable one offs. Robin Lefler (Ashley Judd's character) has a very involved plotline. The captain from the series, McKenzie Calhoun, is married to Shelby from Best of Both Worlds and is arguably the most popular original captain from the books. He's actually a character in STO, albeit one who doesn't do anything. Most of his crew are a mix of original characters and one off TNG guest stars.
To be honest based on what they have for pvp and the fact that most mmorpgs these days have a larger pvp team than all of cryptics teams combined I would say they are not going to be committed to ever doing any actual pvp that is on par with other mmorpgs or better.
Two Star Trek books I urge every Trek-fan to read are in the Department of Temporal Investigations series by Christopher L. Bennett: "Watching the Clock" and "Forgotten History"
Time travel and alternate timeline stories are heavily ingrained in Trek and these two books take many of those stories, extend them, and tie them together so neatly you'll be amazed. They should be required reading for anybody trying to write a time travel story set in the Star Trek universe and they set the bar for any future treatment really, really high.
Among other things, you'll learn why James T. Kirk is the #1 bogeyman for every time cop. They're pretty fun reads if you can get through some of the theoretical chrono-speak without getting a headache.
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The Rihannsu cycle.
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:cool:
Also, the IKS Gorkon books are pretty good if you like Klingons. Destiny is sort of OK, if you don't mind its dissing of Picard and constant sucking up to the Voyager characters...but Typhon Pact is full of more holes than a Dutch dam made of Swiss cheese.
Shatnerverse stuff isn't bad, but the warring continuities plus Shatner's ego can get annoying.
DS9 relaunch is OK for a bit then drops into the Pit of Stupid.
Imzadi is a classic, must-read for a TNG fan and especially a Riker fan. Diane Duane's TNG MU novel and the very good DS9 MU novels are also good choices.
Enterprise stories are meh, but they have Shran fairly often and Shran is my perfect blue-skinned darling boy and I won't hear a word against him.
Now that we have the formalities out of the way, I will proceed with my list of deman... er requests.
When will you fix the things I want fixing and when will you fix them? If you dont fix them soon you are no better than the people who didn't fix them before you.
I have taken the liberty of bringing along this Santa suit - please but it on. (waits).
*sits on your knee*
I will now reel of my list of wishes, please take careful note and be sure to implement them at your (my) nearest convenience.
*Dusts self off*
Well...
I think that concludes our business for the time being. I shall leave you with this flame retardent leotard for future interactions with the community
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Joined January 2009
if you really want to experience everything just like me, roll a kdf main and...
who am i kidding?
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i am still a huge fan of peter david's new frontier series. both books and comics. the comics fit into the time liine but are not required.
I'm sort of ambivalent on Peter David, but I can admit that he's damn good.
I still swear by Diane Duane, though.
Got it already there but in denial. good to know.
I have only read a few of the book but there are some definite good ones. I'm just not a book person. You definitely need to get threw TOS even though it hasn't aged well and then TAS. Or at the very least watch Whom Gods Destroy and then Prelude to Axanar.