Okay, question for everyone who's posted in this thread:
How many of you would log out, and not come back (at least until the event was over), if they took you at your word and forced the war on you?
No queues except those relating to the war; no difficulty below Advanced; and if you fail any of the "optionals", that's it you're done (like it was before).
No more Borg, Tholian, etc fleet actions - all Iconians, all the time.
No Foundry. There's a war on, no time for holodeck fantasies!
All the other battlezones, ground and space, are closed.
All the existing DOff assignments, chains, etc replaced with maybe a dozen new assignments, all of them relating to the war.
All the existing story missions, 1-50 and Delta Rising, replaced by a dozen or so missions where you fight the Iconians... over and over and over. And they're always at least +2 to you (on Normal - it's worse on Advanced, etc). That's your new leveling path.
While flying through sector space, you have ... let's say a 50% chance per minute of being engaged by Herald ships, or boarded by a bunch of Constructs, Thralls etc who pop directly onto your ship via gateways, and who you have to fight on your bridge and interior.
All the social zones on high alert and locked down; Qo'Nos, in particular, would be under constant siege. (You want to use the bank or other services, KDF players? Sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else.)
You want to fight Iconians? Okay, that's what you get to do. And nothing else.
Sound like fun?
EDIT:
Oh, and I just thought of another item for the list - you may not always be able to get all the Components and Regenerators you need to fix all those injuries you'll be racking up. (Wartime supply shortages, y'know?) So over time, your ship and characters will become more and more crippled, until they're basically combat ineffective. For that added touch of realism.
Since I am part of an established organization with well defined logistics bases, chains and procedures, I seriously doubt I'd have the difficulty you propose getting proper supplies.
Since I have access to replicator technology, as well as Crafting, I can make for myself what the logistics chain cannot currently supply.
I have been playing this game long enough to well remember when the primary Threats to peace in the galaxy were the Borg and the Undine. I spent nearly every moment in the game working like mad to prepare my ship and crew for those battles and had little time for anything else in game.
Back in those days, it was quite exciting and more than a little intimidating to see the <Red Alert> symbol appear on my HUD. It meant the Borg were nearby and something bad was about to happen unless I did something about it. They were everywhere back then. And the Dilithium reward was a lot higher for defeating them as well. Further, there were far fewer 'Chrome' aspects to the game, so player skill counted for a great deal more.
As a member of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment back in the Eighties stationed on what was the Inner German Border, I woke up every single day knowing if WWIII started in Europe I would begin my day out numbered about five to one and I had a life expectancy of about forty five minutes if I was really good at my job. That was in the Real World for about seven years. So I am most definitely not intimidated by the +2 difference you mention.
Like many others who have posted in this thread, my reaction after the long build up to S10 and subsequent release can be summed up in the questions, "Wait, what? That's all you got?"
My level 60 ENG char dropped the Herald in Uneasy Allies with three attacks. Three. Not even the best three he has. The Herald actually conducted a tactical withdrawal against my KDF Lethean Science char. With the Elachi minions attempting a blocking action to give the Herald time to reload and recharge. Which did no good at all. And my Sci Guy is only average at best. He has no Uber gear and his BOffs are similar to him in gear and equipment.
What you so hysterically describe in a vain attempt to score points with the audience would at least be a challenge. I'd have to work a little more than I do now. The fight would be extended by at most a few minutes and I might actually die once. But since I can respawn to my heart's content, like Scar in BSG, I can learn from my mistakes with merely a minor inconvenience.
Doing so might even be mildly interesting.
What I really want are some more missions which I can frakkin' play! I don't want to read about the War Which Isn't One in clever blogs designed to tug my heartstrings into empathy with an NPC or two. Having actually written one of those letters Shon was composing, I can state with some certainty his having a tough time with it is entirely true and also badly overblown.
But merely reading about the Herald War instead of playing missions which are part and parcel of it is disappointing. LoR had great content. I was totally immersed in the storyline of getting Mol'Rihan up and running by defeating the Tholian threat. And I fought Tholians at every turn.
I do not think it is too much to ask my experiences against the Heralds mirror that. Especially after all the hype and brou-ha-ha.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
It would be nice if high level players (say the first one that enters determines the roll, as it does with Fleet Alert queues) got Heralds instead of the normal Red Alert and Fleet Queue NPCs.
So instead of Borg Red Alerts, you have Herald ships appear. In the Tholian Red Alert, Tholians are getting massacred by Herald ships.
And in Fleet queues, Fleet Alert sees a chance of T4 and T5 Starbases get raided by Heralds instead.
Would also be nice if there were traveling, homing Herald attack groups wandering throughout the Quadrants similar to the older Enemy Encounters; targeting high level players first then low level ones; scaled of course based on the player, but granting XP boosts similar to Red Alerts. Some would be unwinnable; intended to merely "sink" and delay you. Of course, there'd be a 5 to 10 minute grace period between repeated attacks so as to not quite sour a new player's experience and ruin that of some more experienced players (and to also time-gate grinding them for XP). Grouped players could opt to aid one of their members if they're attacked by Heralds; serving as both a shortcut to the location of one player and a way to get a nice boost of XP.
War is hell but a Commander is no good in a diminished state.
In ancient times, when you lost men you didn't mourn them as we do today, you avenge them and take down the enemy or die trying.
In many ways the Klingons have the right mentality, there is a time to mourn and time to kill, this is a time to kill. Mourn the dead after battle.
Considering the primary tactic of the Iconians and their Heralds is "hit as a truck and teleport away once the objective is completed or the enemy is humiliated", it's gonna be hard and likely one of the reasons Shon is feeling down.
He loses men and before he can properly "avenge" them, the Heralds go away blowing raspberries.
The problem is, the Iconian War was built up to be the culmination event of the game and no one is seeing this IN GAME. I agree with others in this thread that there should be more integration of the Iconian war in all aspects of the game. I also understand the 'phasing' issue with new players coming in and doing other missions and not wanting them to be 'forced' into a war when they are still fighting the Klingons in early missions.
There is a happy medium here, things that can be done to give the feel of the war all over but not force your character to participate unless you choose to.
1) Ambience: Have the sick bays full of wounded, the posters we all love posted on walls of social zones, damage to bases and buildings that show signs of a recent battle. Floating damaged ships in system space would be good too. This would not interfere with a new players ability to play through the game, just make them curious to find out whats going on.
2) ADD ICONIAN DOFF MISSIONS, the doff system is in DESPERATE NEED of new missions to spice things up and adding Iconian missions would make you feel your contributing to the war efforts in some way
3) I like the space encounters on the map now there should be a lot more added and many of them should include the Iconians and the ones that have to do with fighting Iconians should have greater reward than those that do not.
These 3 things are not that difficult to add, would make it feel like the war was all around you and the players would not be saying what war? It would avoid the phasing problem and not force anyone into an emersion based forced war that wasn't ready for it. But there would be things for people who want to join the effort against the Iconians and want to feel that there is actually a war going on.
Think of some great DOFF missions and Deep Space Encounters that could be added that would really make it feel like there is a war happening, I am sure we can think of lots of them!
Normally; I don't try supporting Perfectworld "MUCH" since "Delta Rising". However, with that being said, since coming back to STO I have to admit the Season 10 Expansion is starting to get interesting. Although yes there have been Launcher issues for me, plus the occasional graphics lag. The story, changes to the game, make me say, "Awh hell with it. I'm playing this game." Even though it's a KDF Tactical I just created and started playing. I still have yet to try my old Fed Tactical also, I am starting to get real impressed with the storyline for this expansion. If they can keep this up, and make it more interesting then yes there is hope that STO just might actually get really good. Keep up the good work Perfectworld and Cryptic. AND FIX THE GLITCHES WILL YOU!
I just have to throw out there that while these Tales of the War are cool and well written... they just don't seem to fit in with what I'm experiencing in the game.
They paint this picture of a grim, hard fought war we're not on the winning side of... they're well written and add some great flavor to the latest season release...
However in the game... what war? I'm really not a fan of queued missions... and while the story missions are good they're not something that are dominating my time in game. When I'm playing STO, it's still very much Delta Rising... exploring the delta quadrant, running missions on the Kobali planet... etc. I haven't seen an Iconian in a long time...
Without the Iconian War permeating every aspect of the game it really doesn't feel like we're losing a war with the Iconians. While I understand it's extremely unlikely any type of significant changes will be made to enhance the flavor of what is in game as it stands now, here are a few ideas that would make me feel more like I'm losing a war with the Iconians...
1) More NPC chatter regarding this war... damaged NPC ships around social zones and the "sick bays" at those zones full of wounded
2) Borg and Tholian sector "invasions" really need to be Iconian invasions... or add Iconian ships to them to give the impression the Iconians are here to wipe everyone out. Same goes for deep space encounters. How can we be losing a war yet I can travel the entire explored area of space and not find a single Iconian?
3) Random Iconian spawns in the adventure zones... these guys in theory should be able to show up anywhere at any time... why not show up on Defera or the Dyson BZ for example?
4) This might be very controversial but I think it could work... what about randomly spawning Iconians outside the major social hubs in space and on the ground. Most social zones are populated enough that a few groups wouldn't be too much of an interference with players who simply want to work the exchange or do their banking/mailing. Again, probably a controversial topic but would really make it feel like we're at war and the enemy could strike anytime, anywhere. Similar to how the random encounters work on Nimbus only make them something you have to intentionally ignore rather than happening outside anyone's field of view.
5) Try to make it look like we're at war... battle damage on the social zones, debris in sector space... frazzled looking NPC contacts with some updated dialog to reflect the toll the war is taking on everyone.
6) Update everything in game related to Iconians to the Delta Recruit server wide mission tracker.. I'm guessing once the Delta Recruit event is over that is on the horizon but at the very least it would encourage players to at least participate in the Iconian War.
I understand everything through the end of the Iconian War has already been planned out and these type of additions are not practical to turn around before we win the war... however if the intent is to really add some rich flavor to the current state of the game these types of little touches would go a long way to bringing everything together and syncing up nicely with the Tales of War blogs...
I have to admit I do like the changes to STO and the story, but you do have a point there. They want that close feel to the game of losing a member of your crew? COME ON PERFECTWORLD! Look at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Star Trek: First Contact, just to name a few. I can totally see about getting that feel and immersion of the effects of the Iconian War. I say give it some time it might come in. After all, this expansion isn't that old. But yes be nice to see the effects of the war. Hell look what happened when they had the Undine attack ESD and because of that episode, Feds got a new refurbished ESD.
The problem is, the Iconian War was built up to be the culmination event of the game and no one is seeing this IN GAME. I agree with others in this thread that there should be more integration of the Iconian war in all aspects of the game. I also understand the 'phasing' issue with new players coming in and doing other missions and not wanting them to be 'forced' into a war when they are still fighting the Klingons in early missions.
There is a happy medium here, things that can be done to give the feel of the war all over but not force your character to participate unless you choose to.
1) Ambience: Have the sick bays full of wounded, the posters we all love posted on walls of social zones, damage to bases and buildings that show signs of a recent battle. Floating damaged ships in system space would be good too. This would not interfere with a new players ability to play through the game, just make them curious to find out whats going on.
2) ADD ICONIAN DOFF MISSIONS, the doff system is in DESPERATE NEED of new missions to spice things up and adding Iconian missions would make you feel your contributing to the war efforts in some way
3) I like the space encounters on the map now there should be a lot more added and many of them should include the Iconians and the ones that have to do with fighting Iconians should have greater reward than those that do not.
These 3 things are not that difficult to add, would make it feel like the war was all around you and the players would not be saying what war? It would avoid the phasing problem and not force anyone into an emersion based forced war that wasn't ready for it. But there would be things for people who want to join the effort against the Iconians and want to feel that there is actually a war going on.
Think of some great DOFF missions and Deep Space Encounters that could be added that would really make it feel like there is a war happening, I am sure we can think of lots of them!
It's funny you bring that up including when the last time I played this was when Delta Rising first came out. That's when I put my hat on the coat hanger and said, "See ya!" Course now after coming back and starting to play the Klingon side more, yes it does have me intrigued but forcing someone straight into the conflict in a story without fully understanding it playing it through does take away the build up like a crescendo in music would take new players away from understanding the full scope of things.
They really should have used the existing technologies, some of which were already in the game, especially "Phasing" tech.
They have all the other MMOs to learn from on how not to implement phasing tech. One great example is LotRO. How to implement it, we have GW2 and WoW.
In GW2, they use phasing for local and world events. Depending on the interaction of the players to key quests, a local or world event will be triggered. Then depending on the result of the local/world event, the immediate area, zone, or zones (plural), even the whole server will be updated to the reflect the new status quo.
In WoW, they used phasing to update the world environment. If a character is on a particular quest, s/he will see the area for that quest phased-in the quest related "timeline" without affecting the other players who haven't done or were already done with those quest chains.
GW2 and WoW both avoided the fail implementation of phasing by LotRO.
Which again, is already in STO -- non-instanced ground missions already have some form of phasing. They just have to implement it in space, and in other areas, like New Romulus for example, it was devastated by the war! Yet everytime I land, it's in the past!
Really sad. The Iconian War was great but the immersion is non-existent.
Comments
Since I am part of an established organization with well defined logistics bases, chains and procedures, I seriously doubt I'd have the difficulty you propose getting proper supplies.
Since I have access to replicator technology, as well as Crafting, I can make for myself what the logistics chain cannot currently supply.
I have been playing this game long enough to well remember when the primary Threats to peace in the galaxy were the Borg and the Undine. I spent nearly every moment in the game working like mad to prepare my ship and crew for those battles and had little time for anything else in game.
Back in those days, it was quite exciting and more than a little intimidating to see the <Red Alert> symbol appear on my HUD. It meant the Borg were nearby and something bad was about to happen unless I did something about it. They were everywhere back then. And the Dilithium reward was a lot higher for defeating them as well. Further, there were far fewer 'Chrome' aspects to the game, so player skill counted for a great deal more.
As a member of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment back in the Eighties stationed on what was the Inner German Border, I woke up every single day knowing if WWIII started in Europe I would begin my day out numbered about five to one and I had a life expectancy of about forty five minutes if I was really good at my job. That was in the Real World for about seven years. So I am most definitely not intimidated by the +2 difference you mention.
Like many others who have posted in this thread, my reaction after the long build up to S10 and subsequent release can be summed up in the questions, "Wait, what? That's all you got?"
My level 60 ENG char dropped the Herald in Uneasy Allies with three attacks. Three. Not even the best three he has. The Herald actually conducted a tactical withdrawal against my KDF Lethean Science char. With the Elachi minions attempting a blocking action to give the Herald time to reload and recharge. Which did no good at all. And my Sci Guy is only average at best. He has no Uber gear and his BOffs are similar to him in gear and equipment.
What you so hysterically describe in a vain attempt to score points with the audience would at least be a challenge. I'd have to work a little more than I do now. The fight would be extended by at most a few minutes and I might actually die once. But since I can respawn to my heart's content, like Scar in BSG, I can learn from my mistakes with merely a minor inconvenience.
Doing so might even be mildly interesting.
What I really want are some more missions which I can frakkin' play! I don't want to read about the War Which Isn't One in clever blogs designed to tug my heartstrings into empathy with an NPC or two. Having actually written one of those letters Shon was composing, I can state with some certainty his having a tough time with it is entirely true and also badly overblown.
But merely reading about the Herald War instead of playing missions which are part and parcel of it is disappointing. LoR had great content. I was totally immersed in the storyline of getting Mol'Rihan up and running by defeating the Tholian threat. And I fought Tholians at every turn.
I do not think it is too much to ask my experiences against the Heralds mirror that. Especially after all the hype and brou-ha-ha.
So instead of Borg Red Alerts, you have Herald ships appear. In the Tholian Red Alert, Tholians are getting massacred by Herald ships.
And in Fleet queues, Fleet Alert sees a chance of T4 and T5 Starbases get raided by Heralds instead.
Would also be nice if there were traveling, homing Herald attack groups wandering throughout the Quadrants similar to the older Enemy Encounters; targeting high level players first then low level ones; scaled of course based on the player, but granting XP boosts similar to Red Alerts. Some would be unwinnable; intended to merely "sink" and delay you. Of course, there'd be a 5 to 10 minute grace period between repeated attacks so as to not quite sour a new player's experience and ruin that of some more experienced players (and to also time-gate grinding them for XP). Grouped players could opt to aid one of their members if they're attacked by Heralds; serving as both a shortcut to the location of one player and a way to get a nice boost of XP.
In ancient times, when you lost men you didn't mourn them as we do today, you avenge them and take down the enemy or die trying.
In many ways the Klingons have the right mentality, there is a time to mourn and time to kill, this is a time to kill. Mourn the dead after battle.
Considering the primary tactic of the Iconians and their Heralds is "hit as a truck and teleport away once the objective is completed or the enemy is humiliated", it's gonna be hard and likely one of the reasons Shon is feeling down.
He loses men and before he can properly "avenge" them, the Heralds go away blowing raspberries.
There is a happy medium here, things that can be done to give the feel of the war all over but not force your character to participate unless you choose to.
1) Ambience: Have the sick bays full of wounded, the posters we all love posted on walls of social zones, damage to bases and buildings that show signs of a recent battle. Floating damaged ships in system space would be good too. This would not interfere with a new players ability to play through the game, just make them curious to find out whats going on.
2) ADD ICONIAN DOFF MISSIONS, the doff system is in DESPERATE NEED of new missions to spice things up and adding Iconian missions would make you feel your contributing to the war efforts in some way
3) I like the space encounters on the map now there should be a lot more added and many of them should include the Iconians and the ones that have to do with fighting Iconians should have greater reward than those that do not.
These 3 things are not that difficult to add, would make it feel like the war was all around you and the players would not be saying what war? It would avoid the phasing problem and not force anyone into an emersion based forced war that wasn't ready for it. But there would be things for people who want to join the effort against the Iconians and want to feel that there is actually a war going on.
Think of some great DOFF missions and Deep Space Encounters that could be added that would really make it feel like there is a war happening, I am sure we can think of lots of them!
"It is a good thing that war is so terrible, else we should grow to enjoy it too much."
I think a general said it, but not sure which one.
>:P
I have to admit I do like the changes to STO and the story, but you do have a point there. They want that close feel to the game of losing a member of your crew? COME ON PERFECTWORLD! Look at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Star Trek: First Contact, just to name a few. I can totally see about getting that feel and immersion of the effects of the Iconian War. I say give it some time it might come in. After all, this expansion isn't that old. But yes be nice to see the effects of the war. Hell look what happened when they had the Undine attack ESD and because of that episode, Feds got a new refurbished ESD.
It's funny you bring that up including when the last time I played this was when Delta Rising first came out. That's when I put my hat on the coat hanger and said, "See ya!" Course now after coming back and starting to play the Klingon side more, yes it does have me intrigued but forcing someone straight into the conflict in a story without fully understanding it playing it through does take away the build up like a crescendo in music would take new players away from understanding the full scope of things.
They really should have used the existing technologies, some of which were already in the game, especially "Phasing" tech.
They have all the other MMOs to learn from on how not to implement phasing tech. One great example is LotRO. How to implement it, we have GW2 and WoW.
In GW2, they use phasing for local and world events. Depending on the interaction of the players to key quests, a local or world event will be triggered. Then depending on the result of the local/world event, the immediate area, zone, or zones (plural), even the whole server will be updated to the reflect the new status quo.
In WoW, they used phasing to update the world environment. If a character is on a particular quest, s/he will see the area for that quest phased-in the quest related "timeline" without affecting the other players who haven't done or were already done with those quest chains.
GW2 and WoW both avoided the fail implementation of phasing by LotRO.
Which again, is already in STO -- non-instanced ground missions already have some form of phasing. They just have to implement it in space, and in other areas, like New Romulus for example, it was devastated by the war! Yet everytime I land, it's in the past!
Really sad. The Iconian War was great but the immersion is non-existent.
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