People keep forgetting that Star Trek is many different things to many different people. For every moraility tale, there was a fist fight. What's the moral of "The trouble with Tribbles?" Little furballs make the best counter-espionage agents?
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
People keep forgetting that Star Trek is many different things to many different people. For every moraility tale, there was a fist fight. What's the moral of "The trouble with Tribbles?" Little furballs make the best counter-espionage agents?
Be that as it may, allegorical episodes are part and parcel of Star Trek, in the grand tradition of the use of fiction to talk about reality. I don't agree with mhirtesc that they're the essence of Trek, but they are a major part of the franchise: one of Roddenberry's aims (besides making money: this is the guy who wrote never-used lyrics for the TOS theme just so he could own a piece of the royalties) was to do social commentary in a way he didn't feel a show with a present-day setting could manage.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Be that as it may, allegorical episodes are part and parcel of Star Trek, in the grand tradition of the use of fiction to talk about reality. I don't agree with mhirtesc that they're the essence of Trek, but they are a major part of the franchise: one of Roddenberry's aims (besides making money: this is the guy who wrote never-used lyrics for the TOS theme just so he could own a piece of the royalties) was to do social commentary in a way he didn't feel a show with a present-day setting could manage.
Yes you're right... but they had to be HIS ideas of what was right and wrong with society...
Which is fine... but some of those ideas (like Space Hippies) didn't go over so well while others did. The problem is as TOS went along he made more and more episodes more and more about his personal ideas of social commentary which drove it more and more away from what his main stream viewship wanted to want... causing it's cancellation.
Yes, it certainly had social commentary in it... as does STO... but too much or forcing it so far away what the majority of your base wants to do... ie making it all "Progressive"... tends to lead to horrible horrible buisiness decisions.
we could always go to planets that are based on Earth time periods...or have an episode where someone steal the brain of your first officer.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
we could always go to planets that are based on Earth time periods...or have an episode where someone steal the brain of your first officer.
Or we could have an FE with the return of that disease from 'The Naked Now' where we run around stunning our crew, and click f our way through developing a cure to straighten our crew out and repairing the warp core by scanning five nodes and shouting at the lone non space-drunk crewman on the bridge.
Because that is also 'the true essence of Star Trek;' an episode that more or less replicates a previous episode, has a ridiculous/low budget problem, and is objectively pointless as a story beyond 'haha they're space-drunk.'
They really shouldn't. the Vaadwaur/Kobali missions already pissed off a number of players who were either too xenophobic, or wanted to commit xenocide on the Kobali just because their RP is that of a barely-leased warmonger, or didn't want to aid the Kobali simply due to their method of procreation.
Moral dilemmas? Forget it. Too many paths players would want to take, and just result in more of a whinefest. The last one we had was way back on Nimbus; to kill or not to kill the slaver, but he was one-dimensional enough to make it inconsequential regardless of choice (though hilariously enough, your crew as a Fed doesn't call you out on it). Somewhat related, in an early KDF mission, KDF players did get the dialogue options to try and not fight the Feds when pursuing the S31 agent, but it still all defaults to kill-em-all at the end.
Politics? Even worse.
Religions? Forget it.
So that just leaves dumbed down and straightforward run-n-gun or hack-n-slash ground mission plots and straight up combat.
The most they could do is offer faction-specific optionals in faction-agnostic missions. Basically, a series of optional objectives that could make the final boss of the mission easier, and still cater to the faction some.
For example:
The scenario is to infiltrate a large enemy research facility and shut it down. There is a boss and reinforcements during the final fight, and a number of alternate paths that are only available to specific factions, if they do decide to do the optionals.
Feds could get optionals that have you free captured prisoners, who give you some info on what to expect, and a means to disable the reinforcements, by jamming the locks to the final room via some console in the research lab control room, and knocking them out by altering the vents to vent out their air supply or vent in drug-infused KO gas.
Romulans could get optionals that have them make their way to a security control room off the main path and hack the final room's defenses to gun down the reinforcements and aid you in taking down the boss. As well, being the sneaks that they are, they'd be able to bypass most of the regular fight up to the final room thanks to schematics found in that security control room.
KDF players could get optionals that have them boldly attack the reinforcements first, before taking on the boss. Another optional would be extra rewards based on how many enemies you killed; if you were so inclined to literally clean up and shut down the place (basically, head-hunting or proof of strength, for those that RP as such).
Instead of the usual pew pew pew, why not develop a mission that has some sort of contemporary storyline that hints at today's problems (god knows we have plenty to choose from)?
Link has other content on it that is slightly NSFW due to themes and language.
Anyways I read that article on cracked.com comparing Star Trek to Star Wars. One of the things they mentioned is that Star Wars is timeless...while Star Trek is accurate. In most of the TNG or TOS storylines they focus on social issues that were happening at the time that the episodes were first released. Look at some of those episodes 10, 20, 30 or 50-60 years down the road. The Kirk and Uhura on-screen kiss that happened in ToS? in the year 2015 with all the multiracial or even transgendered/same-sex relations being so commonplace that kind of stuff is now just kinda "meh". How many of these social issues were covered in TNG? and in Voyager? back then it might have been omg hot topic!!! but nowadays its old news. Even on the tech side of things like TOS communicators or the PADD. Remember how everyone thought it was so cool to see Kirk in the 60's flipping his communicator? now we have flip phones and smart phones. What about the first time we saw Picard typing on a PADD? Nowadays it is pretty common for a little kid to be watching Mickey Mouse or Twilight or surf the internet on an IPAD or other Tablet. I actually wonder what todays generation of kids think when they watch a TOS or TNG episode.
As far as devs giving us all this cool storyline, even if it isnt about stories based on IRL stuff happening. First look at the amount of story and the pacing for the new Delta stuff that we got. Is it possible that giving us lots of story is no longer sustainable for the devs? or was it just because they had so much other stuff added at the same time (ie T6 ships) as the Delta storyline? Will we be getting a content patch in the near future where the amount of chapters and episodes is the same as what Romulans got when LoR was released? or will it be the same amount and type that we got when DR was released? which was just a few storyline missions and patrol missions masquerading as storyline missions. It would be nice to get a new chapter or two with like 20-30 episodes total. But i'm not holding my breath...
Yes you're right... but they had to be HIS ideas of what was right and wrong with society...
Which is fine... but some of those ideas (like Space Hippies) didn't go over so well while others did. The problem is as TOS went along he made more and more episodes more and more about his personal ideas of social commentary which drove it more and more away from what his main stream viewship wanted to want... causing it's cancellation.
Yes, it certainly had social commentary in it... as does STO... but too much or forcing it so far away what the majority of your base wants to do... ie making it all "Progressive"... tends to lead to horrible horrible buisiness decisions.
ENh... not quite. But close. He just needed to make it more entertaining than it was. That was the key flaw, it got to be too much preachy and not enough TV show. Preachy is fine as long as people are entertained. that's where a Taste of Armageddon excelled. Sure he stuffed a "moral" into the story and had Kirk monolog about it, but the episode was entertaining.
ENh... not quite. But close. He just needed to make it more entertaining than it was. That was the key flaw, it got to be too much preachy and not enough TV show. Preachy is fine as long as people are entertained. that's where a Taste of Armageddon excelled. Sure he stuffed a "moral" into the story and had Kirk monolog about it, but the episode was entertaining.
Fair enough... I can see that and I agree... it's a balancing act I suppose. Too much "moral" and the person gets tired of being in church... too much entertainment and the moral might as well not be in there.
It seems odd that Cryptic is completely missing out on a golden opportunity to set itself apart for the usual MMO formula of "Bring me XX of TRIBBLE" quests/missions. Since the days of TOS on, part of Trek's appeal has been it's Progressive storylines. Instead of the usual pew pew pew, why not develop a mission that has some sort of contemporary storyline that hints at today's problems (god knows we have plenty to choose from)?
Honest fact: Ask 100 die hard Star trek fans what the "true essence' of Star Trek is, and you'll get 110 DIFFERENT answers.:D:eek:
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
People keep forgetting that Star Trek is many different things to many different people. For every moraility tale, there was a fist fight. What's the moral of "The trouble with Tribbles?" Little furballs make the best counter-espionage agents?
Another is Angel One. What moral is there? That executing political dissidents is wrong?
Fair enough... I can see that and I agree... it's a balancing act I suppose. Too much "moral" and the person gets tired of being in church... too much entertainment and the moral might as well not be in there.
It's also why stuff like TMP is stuffy. He tried to seel it based off idealism.... yeah no.
It seems odd that Cryptic is completely missing out on a golden opportunity to set itself apart for the usual MMO formula of "Bring me XX of TRIBBLE" quests/missions. Since the days of TOS on, part of Trek's appeal has been it's Progressive storylines. Instead of the usual pew pew pew, why not develop a mission that has some sort of contemporary storyline that hints at today's problems (god knows we have plenty to choose from)?
why not? Because ultimately cryptic does not have the writing staff required.
As far as devs giving us all this cool storyline, even if it isnt about stories based on IRL stuff happening. First look at the amount of story and the pacing for the new Delta stuff that we got. Is it possible that giving us lots of story is no longer sustainable for the devs? or was it just because they had so much other stuff added at the same time (ie T6 ships) as the Delta storyline? Will we be getting a content patch in the near future where the amount of chapters and episodes is the same as what Romulans got when LoR was released? or will it be the same amount and type that we got when DR was released? which was just a few storyline missions and patrol missions masquerading as storyline missions. It would be nice to get a new chapter or two with like 20-30 episodes total. But i'm not holding my breath...
LoR was about creating a new experience for levels 1 through 50. There was a lot more that needed to be done, to integrate a new faction into the game universe. With Delta Rising, there was a story to be told as well, but it wouldn't be near as lengthy as a new faction's story.
That said, I think the patrol missions were better than older patrols, given there was some tie-in with the ongoing story. And there was quite a lot of story on Kobali as well. Also, the devs were fairly open about there being much more to come after DR - the DR arc was only the 'beginning' in a way, and we're now seeing a return to fairly regular featured episodes being released. And they've done a lot of homework, 'cause every once in a while I'll have to look something up on Memory Alpha when they sneak in a reference I'd forgotten about.
As far as the content or style of the stories being told, I'm really quite happy with what they're putting forward these days. It's certainly action-oriented, but STO is an MMO so I'd expect more action. And even if they're not presenting any Trek-style social commentary or moral dilemmas, they're rooting the story content pretty deep in Trek lore.
It seems odd that Cryptic is completely missing out on a golden opportunity to set itself apart for the usual MMO formula of "Bring me XX of TRIBBLE" quests/missions. Since the days of TOS on, part of Trek's appeal has been it's Progressive storylines. Instead of the usual pew pew pew, why not develop a mission that has some sort of contemporary storyline that hints at today's problems (god knows we have plenty to choose from)?
Storyline in STO is more coherent than most MMO's I've played. Sure, there is plenty of the "kill X number of Y" quests but they've done a decent job of weaving them all into a fairly lengthy narrative so that you're at least reasonably engaged in a full story.
Now, given that it's a narrative that falls into the classic MMO format of being about a mute hero who travels the galaxy killing more people than Arnie in Commando, I can still see your point about this not exactly 'capturing the spirit of trek.' With a larger staff, and a larger budget, I could see the developers of STO working to appease both styles of play. But as things stand, this is the MMO we have.
I will say a happy 'no thank you' to the idea of a contemporary storyline that hints at today's problems. The last thing we need is enraged demagogues rampaging through the forum about how biased STO has become since they took a stand on a modern issue. I get plenty of that in my real life and in General Chat.
Link has other content on it that is slightly NSFW due to themes and language.
Anyways I read that article on cracked.com comparing Star Trek to Star Wars. One of the things they mentioned is that Star Wars is timeless...while Star Trek is accurate.
Hmmm. Cracked are either deliberately being offensively stupid, or catering to hyperactive teenagers. Probably both.
(For the record, I think their points are pretty accurate; it's just that the idea that not having social / philosophical / scientific elements makes something inherently "better" is a very disturbing concept).
Anyway, back OT; I don't think that the majority of missions are too bad. More complex, thoughtful stories are probably best handled in other media like GM-led RPGs. However, I would be a fan of the cross-faction stories at least branching to avoid Fed / KDF / Romulan alts all acting the same way.
I would also note that the Klingon-specific missions are actually brilliant and remain the only videogame content ever to have me getting emotional. Which is probably why they won't make any more...
Roddenberry was the Honey Badger of producing. He didn't give a sh*t what the South would think. He knew that those types of people are not the path to the future.
I find the deification of Gene Roddenberry to be... highly overrated.
He was a television producer. Yes, he wanted to make thoughtful television... but, he never really pushed the envelope to the lengths people give him credit for. The interracial kiss scene, for example... while, yes, it's very existence was significant for the time period in which it aired... there is no "social commentary" in the actual scene. Kirk and Uhura are putting on a show, so they can outsmart their captors. That's it. It's actually in the same spirit as the infamous Khan scream... Kirk wasn't truly angry with Khan, he was luring him into a trick.
Where's the story that fights against racism, and actually proclaims it's okay to be romantically involved with someone of another skin tone? Cuz' that story ain't it.
Oh, and if he truly "didn't give a s**t about the south," then the lines about God from "Who Mourns for Adonais?" or "Bread And Circuses" wouldn't have made it into the show... yet, there they are. Shoot, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" would have been named "Who Mourns for God?", had Gene not caved to the studio/network (Adonais is an affectionate term used in the Jewish & Christian faith to refer to God).
It seems odd that Cryptic is completely missing out on a golden opportunity to set itself apart for the usual MMO formula of "Bring me XX of TRIBBLE" quests/missions. Since the days of TOS on, part of Trek's appeal has been it's Progressive storylines. Instead of the usual pew pew pew, why not develop a mission that has some sort of contemporary storyline that hints at today's problems (god knows we have plenty to choose from)?
Simply put, Cryptic has the worst writers working for them, we also tend to forget that a true Trek story arc and game will be boring as hell for the general public. This is more of a space battle single player than an actual Trek MMO saga. Remember; it is only a Trek paint job with none of the spirit and concrete lore behind it.
Be that as it may, allegorical episodes are part and parcel of Star Trek, in the grand tradition of the use of fiction to talk about reality. I don't agree with mhirtesc that they're the essence of Trek, but they are a major part of the franchise: one of Roddenberry's aims (besides making money: this is the guy who wrote never-used lyrics for the TOS theme just so he could own a piece of the royalties) was to do social commentary in a way he didn't feel a show with a present-day setting could manage.
Yes you're right... but they had to be HIS ideas of what was right and wrong with society...
Which is fine... but some of those ideas (like Space Hippies) didn't go over so well while others did. The problem is as TOS went along he made more and more episodes more and more about his personal ideas of social commentary which drove it more and more away from what his main stream viewship wanted to want... causing it's cancellation.
Yes, it certainly had social commentary in it... as does STO... but too much or forcing it so far away what the majority of your base wants to do... ie making it all "Progressive"... tends to lead to horrible horrible buisiness decisions.
Simply put, Cryptic has the worst writers working for them...
I disagree. I've enjoyed Cryptic's writing. They've sourced a lot of the stuff directly from the existing lore, and worked it into playable content. IMO, that's not an easy task. Plus, they managed to give plenty of screentime to several Trek figures, while not making any of them seem wedged-in for the sake of putting them into the game.
I really, really like the story that's been developing from LoR onwards. The rise of the Republic is a fantastic arc, plus watching a broken Tal Shiar crumble, expanding into the Delta Quadrant to address the effects Voyager had out there, and now moving forward to an eventual Iconian showdown. Sounds compelling to me, and I've enjoyed the ride along the way.
Yep... and Star Trek when it was released sucked in ratings and didn't make CBS that much money.
YOU HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF STAR TREK! Let me educate you.
Star Trek was NEVER on CBS PERIOD.
Star Trek TOS / Star Trek the animated series/ Star Trek Next Generation only aired on NBC before syndication.
Later on UPN (United Paramount Network) Deep Space 9 / Voyager / Enterprise aired before syndication.
No first run Star Trek Series EVER aired on any other network outside of NBC or UPN until they were syndicated.
YOU HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF STAR TREK! Let me educate you.
Star Trek was NEVER on CBS PERIOD.
Star Trek TOS / Star Trek the animated series/ Star Trek Next Generation only aired on NBC before syndication.
Later on UPN (United Paramount Network) Deep Space 9 / Voyager / Enterprise aired before syndication.
No first run Star Trk Series EVER aired on any other network until they were syndicated.
She addressed in her next post as a mistake, read everything. TNG and DS9 were first run syndication which meant they were sold to any station that wanted to buy them. NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX in some areas.
TNG and DS9 were on Friday nights on CBS later changed to Saturday nights in my area. Second run episodes of VOY and ENT were shown at 11pm on Sat nights on CBS in my area from the late 80s to mid90s.
VOY was UPN's flagship show and ENT premiered on UPN.
She addressed in her next post as a mistake, read everything. TNG and DS9 were first run syndication which meant they were sold to any station that wanted to buy them. NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX in some areas.
TNG and DS9 were on Friday nights on CBS later changed to Saturday nights in my area. Second run episodes of VOY and ENT were shown at 11pm on Sat nights on CBS in my area from the late 80s to mid90s.
VOY was UPN's flagship show and ENT premiered on UPN.
In my area, TNG started on an ABC channel and eventually moved to the local FOX channel with DS9 beginning on said local FOX channel, so that definitely proves your "sold to any station that wanted to buy them" part.
Comments
Evidently...
Well played Sir.
Beware Gremlins?
or Knee High Mischief
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Be that as it may, allegorical episodes are part and parcel of Star Trek, in the grand tradition of the use of fiction to talk about reality. I don't agree with mhirtesc that they're the essence of Trek, but they are a major part of the franchise: one of Roddenberry's aims (besides making money: this is the guy who wrote never-used lyrics for the TOS theme just so he could own a piece of the royalties) was to do social commentary in a way he didn't feel a show with a present-day setting could manage.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Yes you're right... but they had to be HIS ideas of what was right and wrong with society...
Which is fine... but some of those ideas (like Space Hippies) didn't go over so well while others did. The problem is as TOS went along he made more and more episodes more and more about his personal ideas of social commentary which drove it more and more away from what his main stream viewship wanted to want... causing it's cancellation.
Yes, it certainly had social commentary in it... as does STO... but too much or forcing it so far away what the majority of your base wants to do... ie making it all "Progressive"... tends to lead to horrible horrible buisiness decisions.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Or we could have an FE with the return of that disease from 'The Naked Now' where we run around stunning our crew, and click f our way through developing a cure to straighten our crew out and repairing the warp core by scanning five nodes and shouting at the lone non space-drunk crewman on the bridge.
Because that is also 'the true essence of Star Trek;' an episode that more or less replicates a previous episode, has a ridiculous/low budget problem, and is objectively pointless as a story beyond 'haha they're space-drunk.'
No no NO!!
Redshirts are not random crew members they are put in the redshirt to attract enemy fire away from shatner mugging the camera
Moral dilemmas? Forget it. Too many paths players would want to take, and just result in more of a whinefest. The last one we had was way back on Nimbus; to kill or not to kill the slaver, but he was one-dimensional enough to make it inconsequential regardless of choice (though hilariously enough, your crew as a Fed doesn't call you out on it). Somewhat related, in an early KDF mission, KDF players did get the dialogue options to try and not fight the Feds when pursuing the S31 agent, but it still all defaults to kill-em-all at the end.
Politics? Even worse.
Religions? Forget it.
So that just leaves dumbed down and straightforward run-n-gun or hack-n-slash ground mission plots and straight up combat.
The most they could do is offer faction-specific optionals in faction-agnostic missions. Basically, a series of optional objectives that could make the final boss of the mission easier, and still cater to the faction some.
For example:
The scenario is to infiltrate a large enemy research facility and shut it down. There is a boss and reinforcements during the final fight, and a number of alternate paths that are only available to specific factions, if they do decide to do the optionals.
Feds could get optionals that have you free captured prisoners, who give you some info on what to expect, and a means to disable the reinforcements, by jamming the locks to the final room via some console in the research lab control room, and knocking them out by altering the vents to vent out their air supply or vent in drug-infused KO gas.
Romulans could get optionals that have them make their way to a security control room off the main path and hack the final room's defenses to gun down the reinforcements and aid you in taking down the boss. As well, being the sneaks that they are, they'd be able to bypass most of the regular fight up to the final room thanks to schematics found in that security control room.
KDF players could get optionals that have them boldly attack the reinforcements first, before taking on the boss. Another optional would be extra rewards based on how many enemies you killed; if you were so inclined to literally clean up and shut down the place (basically, head-hunting or proof of strength, for those that RP as such).
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-star-wars-better-than-star-trek/
Link has other content on it that is slightly NSFW due to themes and language.
Anyways I read that article on cracked.com comparing Star Trek to Star Wars. One of the things they mentioned is that Star Wars is timeless...while Star Trek is accurate. In most of the TNG or TOS storylines they focus on social issues that were happening at the time that the episodes were first released. Look at some of those episodes 10, 20, 30 or 50-60 years down the road. The Kirk and Uhura on-screen kiss that happened in ToS? in the year 2015 with all the multiracial or even transgendered/same-sex relations being so commonplace that kind of stuff is now just kinda "meh". How many of these social issues were covered in TNG? and in Voyager? back then it might have been omg hot topic!!! but nowadays its old news. Even on the tech side of things like TOS communicators or the PADD. Remember how everyone thought it was so cool to see Kirk in the 60's flipping his communicator? now we have flip phones and smart phones. What about the first time we saw Picard typing on a PADD? Nowadays it is pretty common for a little kid to be watching Mickey Mouse or Twilight or surf the internet on an IPAD or other Tablet. I actually wonder what todays generation of kids think when they watch a TOS or TNG episode.
As far as devs giving us all this cool storyline, even if it isnt about stories based on IRL stuff happening. First look at the amount of story and the pacing for the new Delta stuff that we got. Is it possible that giving us lots of story is no longer sustainable for the devs? or was it just because they had so much other stuff added at the same time (ie T6 ships) as the Delta storyline? Will we be getting a content patch in the near future where the amount of chapters and episodes is the same as what Romulans got when LoR was released? or will it be the same amount and type that we got when DR was released? which was just a few storyline missions and patrol missions masquerading as storyline missions. It would be nice to get a new chapter or two with like 20-30 episodes total. But i'm not holding my breath...
My character Tsin'xing
Fair enough... I can see that and I agree... it's a balancing act I suppose. Too much "moral" and the person gets tired of being in church... too much entertainment and the moral might as well not be in there.
Honest fact: Ask 100 die hard Star trek fans what the "true essence' of Star Trek is, and you'll get 110 DIFFERENT answers.:D:eek:
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
My character Tsin'xing
why not? Because ultimately cryptic does not have the writing staff required.
LoR was about creating a new experience for levels 1 through 50. There was a lot more that needed to be done, to integrate a new faction into the game universe. With Delta Rising, there was a story to be told as well, but it wouldn't be near as lengthy as a new faction's story.
That said, I think the patrol missions were better than older patrols, given there was some tie-in with the ongoing story. And there was quite a lot of story on Kobali as well. Also, the devs were fairly open about there being much more to come after DR - the DR arc was only the 'beginning' in a way, and we're now seeing a return to fairly regular featured episodes being released. And they've done a lot of homework, 'cause every once in a while I'll have to look something up on Memory Alpha when they sneak in a reference I'd forgotten about.
As far as the content or style of the stories being told, I'm really quite happy with what they're putting forward these days. It's certainly action-oriented, but STO is an MMO so I'd expect more action. And even if they're not presenting any Trek-style social commentary or moral dilemmas, they're rooting the story content pretty deep in Trek lore.
Bwwaaahahahahaahahahh
Storyline in STO is more coherent than most MMO's I've played. Sure, there is plenty of the "kill X number of Y" quests but they've done a decent job of weaving them all into a fairly lengthy narrative so that you're at least reasonably engaged in a full story.
Now, given that it's a narrative that falls into the classic MMO format of being about a mute hero who travels the galaxy killing more people than Arnie in Commando, I can still see your point about this not exactly 'capturing the spirit of trek.' With a larger staff, and a larger budget, I could see the developers of STO working to appease both styles of play. But as things stand, this is the MMO we have.
I will say a happy 'no thank you' to the idea of a contemporary storyline that hints at today's problems. The last thing we need is enraged demagogues rampaging through the forum about how biased STO has become since they took a stand on a modern issue. I get plenty of that in my real life and in General Chat.
Hmmm. Cracked are either deliberately being offensively stupid, or catering to hyperactive teenagers. Probably both.
(For the record, I think their points are pretty accurate; it's just that the idea that not having social / philosophical / scientific elements makes something inherently "better" is a very disturbing concept).
Anyway, back OT; I don't think that the majority of missions are too bad. More complex, thoughtful stories are probably best handled in other media like GM-led RPGs. However, I would be a fan of the cross-faction stories at least branching to avoid Fed / KDF / Romulan alts all acting the same way.
I would also note that the Klingon-specific missions are actually brilliant and remain the only videogame content ever to have me getting emotional. Which is probably why they won't make any more...
I find the deification of Gene Roddenberry to be... highly overrated.
He was a television producer. Yes, he wanted to make thoughtful television... but, he never really pushed the envelope to the lengths people give him credit for. The interracial kiss scene, for example... while, yes, it's very existence was significant for the time period in which it aired... there is no "social commentary" in the actual scene. Kirk and Uhura are putting on a show, so they can outsmart their captors. That's it. It's actually in the same spirit as the infamous Khan scream... Kirk wasn't truly angry with Khan, he was luring him into a trick.
Where's the story that fights against racism, and actually proclaims it's okay to be romantically involved with someone of another skin tone? Cuz' that story ain't it.
Oh, and if he truly "didn't give a s**t about the south," then the lines about God from "Who Mourns for Adonais?" or "Bread And Circuses" wouldn't have made it into the show... yet, there they are. Shoot, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" would have been named "Who Mourns for God?", had Gene not caved to the studio/network (Adonais is an affectionate term used in the Jewish & Christian faith to refer to God).
Not exactly the "Honey Badger."
Simply put, Cryptic has the worst writers working for them, we also tend to forget that a true Trek story arc and game will be boring as hell for the general public. This is more of a space battle single player than an actual Trek MMO saga. Remember; it is only a Trek paint job with none of the spirit and concrete lore behind it.
This is true.
This is also true.
I disagree. I've enjoyed Cryptic's writing. They've sourced a lot of the stuff directly from the existing lore, and worked it into playable content. IMO, that's not an easy task. Plus, they managed to give plenty of screentime to several Trek figures, while not making any of them seem wedged-in for the sake of putting them into the game.
I really, really like the story that's been developing from LoR onwards. The rise of the Republic is a fantastic arc, plus watching a broken Tal Shiar crumble, expanding into the Delta Quadrant to address the effects Voyager had out there, and now moving forward to an eventual Iconian showdown. Sounds compelling to me, and I've enjoyed the ride along the way.
YOU HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF STAR TREK! Let me educate you.
Star Trek was NEVER on CBS PERIOD.
Star Trek TOS / Star Trek the animated series/ Star Trek Next Generation only aired on NBC before syndication.
Later on UPN (United Paramount Network) Deep Space 9 / Voyager / Enterprise aired before syndication.
No first run Star Trek Series EVER aired on any other network outside of NBC or UPN until they were syndicated.
She addressed in her next post as a mistake, read everything. TNG and DS9 were first run syndication which meant they were sold to any station that wanted to buy them. NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX in some areas.
TNG and DS9 were on Friday nights on CBS later changed to Saturday nights in my area. Second run episodes of VOY and ENT were shown at 11pm on Sat nights on CBS in my area from the late 80s to mid90s.
VOY was UPN's flagship show and ENT premiered on UPN.
/wipestear
In my area, TNG started on an ABC channel and eventually moved to the local FOX channel with DS9 beginning on said local FOX channel, so that definitely proves your "sold to any station that wanted to buy them" part.