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Minor QoL Suggestion - putting BOff paper dolls in social hubs

sumghaisumghai Member Posts: 1,072 Arc User
edited November 2014 in Star Trek Online General Discussion
Just a small idea I had the other day.

Presumably, while your player character stops visits a social hub (e.g. ESD, Qo'noS, New Romulus Command), your ship's BOffs might also have their own business to attend to, or perhaps they want to take some shore leave.

My suggestion is that when a player is currently at a social hub, his/her BOffs are also shown, but in the following manner:

- Taking ESD as an example, define a series of locations / poses for a new category of NPCs (e.g. someone lounging at Club 47, someone visiting the Infirmary for a checkup)

- Look at the player's default away team to determine which BOff paper doll costumes should be used.

- Apply these BOff paper doll costumes to these NPCs, so that each player only sees their own BOffs. (In case the player has not set a default away team, replace these with standard NPC costumes and names).

- These BOff NPCs cannot be interacted with, and will only have a little name/rank/bio info popup like other standard NPCs.

This is potentially far less memory intensive than every player beaming down with an entire entourage from their Away Team at the same time, while also adding a little atmosphere to social zones.

Thoughts? Bacon?
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
Post edited by Unknown User on

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    mightybobcncmightybobcnc Member Posts: 3,354 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    sumghai wrote: »
    - Apply these BOff paper doll costumes to these NPCs, so that each player only sees their own BOffs.

    Unfortunately it is not possible for something to be displayed to 1 player only. Another forumite had the idea that your player ship should appear inside the shipyard window at ESD and a dev (tacofangs I believe it was) explained that the tech for it doesn't exist.
    Joined January 2009
    Finger wrote:
    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.
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    sumghaisumghai Member Posts: 1,072 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    mightybobcnc wrote: »
    Unfortunately it is not possible for something to be displayed to 1 player only. Another forumite had the idea that your player ship should appear inside the shipyard window at ESD and a dev (tacofangs I believe it was) explained that the tech for it doesn't exist.

    I see.

    Well, there goes that idea.
    Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
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    kjwashingtonkjwashington Member Posts: 2,529 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    mightybobcnc wrote: »
    Unfortunately it is not possible for something to be displayed to 1 player only. Another forumite had the idea that your player ship should appear inside the shipyard window at ESD and a dev (tacofangs I believe it was) explained that the tech for it doesn't exist.

    To my knowledge, there are some things that work in this way (or at least in a similar fashion). I remember reading a dev post saying that the tribbles on starbases can be turned off for one person, but on for another.
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    mightybobcncmightybobcnc Member Posts: 3,354 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    kjwashington wrote: »
    To my knowledge, there are some things that work in this way (or at least in a similar fashion). I remember reading a dev post saying that the tribbles on starbases can be turned off for one person, but on for another.

    True, but I think that's because the tribbles are physics objects which are all done client-side.
    Joined January 2009
    Finger wrote:
    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.
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    tiro100tiro100 Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    It's sad that the tech wouldn't allow this, I really liked this idea.
    Playing STO on and off since January 2nd, 2011!
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    bloodyrizbloodyriz Member Posts: 1,756 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Actually it may not exist in this game, but it does exist. The MMO Earth and Beyond displayed each players ship in the hanger when docked. But that was the only ship they would see.
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    We come in peace, SHOOT TO KILL!
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    erei1erei1 Member Posts: 4,081 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    bloodyriz wrote: »
    Actually it may not exist in this game, but it does exist. The MMO Earth and Beyond displayed each players ship in the hanger when docked. But that was the only ship they would see.
    OFC the tech exist. LOTRO have an entire town you can rebuild step by step, and obviously, the progress is not shared amongst players. And that's a tech they took from WoW, I heard.
    Also, during the TESO beta, I saw the same tech being used.


    Unfortunately, it is my understanding the coding behind STO is a real mess. No blame, they had little time to complete the game, and they had to take over another gaming company. It's already amazing they made it work. So, adding new tech is something they seems to be real shy to do, for example species respec and stuff like that.

    Technically, everything is possible, it's just a matter of time, which also mean, money. Do you want to have an entire season which focus on your idea ? Perhaps, but I don't think that's true for the majority.
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    maxvitormaxvitor Member Posts: 2,213 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Other than having your Boffs following you around I don't know what else they could do, it's a little different in a single player instance, like the Temporal Ambassador mission where your Boffs are mixed in with the surrounding characters, but it gets a lot more complicated in a high population social zone and even if they could do it, who knows how it would affect server latency dealing with all of those players Boffs wondering around, would it really be worth it for something that's just an esthetic gimmick?
    If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
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    sumghaisumghai Member Posts: 1,072 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    erei1 wrote: »
    Do you want to have an entire season which focus on your idea ? Perhaps, but I don't think that's true for the majority.

    Like I said, this is a suggestion for a small Quality of Life (QoL) feature. Not sure which part of my OP implies that I wish to "have an entire season which focus on [my] idea".
    maxvitor wrote: »
    Other than having your Boffs following you around I don't know what else they could do, it's a little different in a single player instance, like the Temporal Ambassador mission where your Boffs are mixed in with the surrounding characters, but it gets a lot more complicated in a high population social zone and even if they could do it, who knows how it would affect server latency dealing with all of those players Boffs wondering around, would it really be worth it for something that's just an esthetic gimmick?

    I believe you've misunderstood me.

    The BOffs aren't actually BOffs, but selected social hub NPCs that take on the appearance of the current player's BOffs.

    They're not supposed to follow you, or move anywhere at all for that matter.
    Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
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    leviathan99#2867 leviathan99
    leviathan99#2867
         Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    I'd be happy if they just had a non-combat pet power, only usable in social hubs, that takes on the appearance of your first officer or maybe even a random BOff.

    It would just be the non-targetable non-combat pet AI you summon dogs/cats/epohhs with. But only usable in social hubs and costumed like a BO.

    And as a funny thought, I wonder if Security Team could be tweaked to use the visuals for BOs not in your away team, similar to how ship interior BOs show a costume preference towards equipped BOffs.
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    sumghaisumghai Member Posts: 1,072 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    stoleviathan99 wrote: »
    I'd be happy if they just had a non-combat pet power, only usable in social hubs, that takes on the appearance of your first officer or maybe even a random BOff.

    It would just be the non-targetable non-combat pet AI you summon dogs/cats/epohhs with. But only usable in social hubs and costumed like a BO.

    I'd be down for that, actually.
    stoleviathan99 wrote: »
    And as a funny thought, I wonder if Security Team could be tweaked to use the visuals for BOs not in your away team, similar to how ship interior BOs show a costume preference towards equipped BOffs.

    Perhaps *one* of the Security Team members is whatever unused Tactical BO, so it looks like they're leading a team of redshirts?
    Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
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