New Featured Episode: Broken Circle

pwlaughingtrendy

We're excited to announce our latest Featured Episode Broken Circle! Join the Alliance in a desperate battle to save their future from the Iconian menace in Season 10.5!

You can learn more about our episode here: http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/9451413

~LaughingTrendy

pwlaughingtrendy

Jaddua wrote:

But our time just ran out

chroma01

YEAAAAAAAH!

mhall85

Neat.

Early morning for announcements, too, Trendy!!! Are we already done for the day??

pwlaughingtrendy

mhall85 wrote: »

Neat.

Early morning for announcements, too, Trendy!!! Are we already done for the day??

Heck no! We got more coming!

solarwraith

I do wish there were some visible sign of this war, as it is now it might as well be a simulated war on a holodeck. Something similar to the Star Trek Destiny novels is what I had in mind, political upheaval, broken worlds, etc...just not with the ridiculous death count from the books. Probably too much for this old game to handle.

[Deleted User]

Also... have some drunk Troi!

zobovor

After the first four weeks, it will be available for level 60 players only

Geko said something about wanting to push down the next FE's to Level 50 , to aid with leveling issues .
Any idea as to when we can expect that to happen ?

hypl

All this talk of being defeated. Meanwhile I've been destroying the Heralds left and right. They fall before our might.

Enough of these lies. What sort of propaganda game are you trying to play here?

sador

"We've"(the players) have been beating them. But that can only account for what, 10 or 15 ships to our 1(despite appearances the storyline is the one player ship not this mythical fleet of thousands) and they have a nearly unlimited number of ships and personnel. And the lore from the missions states that overall the Alliance has been losing left, right and center.

sqwished

hypl wrote: »

All this talk of being defeated. Meanwhile I've been destroying the Heralds left and right. They fall before our might.

Enough of these lies. What sort of propaganda game are you trying to play here?

For all we know the Heralds could be produced the same way the Jem'Hadar were. And at the height of the dominion war the Founders were breading legions of them by the day. And according to General Martok they had the ability to build ships at an impressive rate.

Bigger question is can the servers deal with all the on screen action from such an "all out attack" against a supposedly superior force without lagging to standstill. Also why am I getting a message keep popping up from Vanilla saying the server/forums are over capacity?

synfoola

But Sector Space seems so quiet...

jcsww

pwlaughingtrendy wrote: »

mhall85 wrote: »

Neat.

Early morning for announcements, too, Trendy!!! Are we already done for the day??

Heck no! We got more coming!

Is that what is causing the in-game disconnects and forum issues? :P I really hope some fixes for the game just dumping mass quantities of people out at random times along with whatever is causing the forum to display, "Something went wrong" error.

mustrumridcully0

I have to agree with what people said elsewhere - there is a strong disconnect with the Iconian War storyline and what is actually happening in game.

For once, we're enjoying Risa.
The Red Alerts are all about Borg or the occassional Iconian attack force.

The Iconians pretty much happen only in a few select queues and the storyline missions. That's all very... inconsistent. And unsatisfying.

I doubt we can "save" this storyline anymore. If you had Iconian/Herald Red Alerts or DEep Space Enemy Contacts planned, you would have released them already.

But please, if there ever is another interstellar war storyline going on ... remember this. It just doesn't feel right if the alleged threat is not constantly visible.

crypticarmsman

I have to agree with what many have said above. While I have VERY MUCH enjoyed the new FEs; the fact the Alpha and Beta Qudrant worlds are supposed to be in an all out war is very much missing from the metagame. Like players above have said, we have the Risa summer event; and sector space is rather quite with the occassional Borg or Thlian Red Alerts (I enjoy those too, but that's not the point.

IMO - it would be nice if teh Dev team had SOMETHING in the metagame directly relating to this all out war (in previous 'Galaxy Spanning' events you guys added the Borg and Tholian RAs and the Elatchi invasions); but this time around there's no new randomly occurring Iconian anything. Yes, we have the queued events, but that's more player controlled content per se.

You'd think with such a major culmination of the STO Iconian war storyline, we'd get an Iconian RA or some meta random event popping, but that seems to have been overlooked buy the STO design team for this part of the story; and that's unfortunate (IMO). (The FEs have been VERY ENJOYABLE for me though, I hope you all keep that up at least going forward.)

veryth12

hypl wrote: »

All this talk of being defeated. Meanwhile I've been destroying the Heralds left and right. They fall before our might.

Enough of these lies. What sort of propaganda game are you trying to play here?

You have to keep in mind that during the Dominion War, Sisko and his crew were pretty much winning at most of what they did, but the war as a whole was going poorly. The same is true for the Iconian War, we as players might do ok here and there, but we are the exception.

I do agree though that it does not really feel like we are at war. It would have been neat for them to add to the red alerts so they are like the tholian one where it starts as a borg red alert and then the tholians show up and kick the borg's butt real fast before attacking the players.

hypl

What if it's all been a lie? The alliance wants to perpetuate propaganda about a losing war to the masses, when in fact we've been winning the whole time. Or Cryptic could pull a "Living Witness" where accounts of the Iconian War from future historians were incorrect.

stobg2015

I get what some people are saying about lack of immersion where the war is concerned. We would not be surfing on Risa. Every major social hub would probably be smoking ruins if the Iconian forces were as fearsome as the FE's would have us believe. THEY obviously don't need starbases.

But we're not all playing the same content at the same time. I've spent most of my available time working through all of the mission arcs so I can unlock my Delta Recruit benefits. Should ESD be unavailable for my use during that time because the Iconians have blown it to atoms? Especially since from that character's point of view, the Solanae sphere hasn't even been opened yet and the Undine haven't attacked yet. I'm giving this as an example, not because I think the game revolves around my personal immersion experience.

Everybody's immersion is going to suffer, one way or the other. From Cryptic's point of view, the fewer temporary changes they have to make the better. I'm not saying they shouldn't. But there's no avoiding the "bang for the buck" decisions that means every thing they do is something else they don't have time to do, no matter how much sense it might make to flesh out the plotline.

zeatrex

We are in a war, but it is not just use with the Iconians... In fact, just because we are sub-siding with the Klingons and Romulan doesn't mean they can't be a threat till. There can be Tal Shiar space sector alerts, rouge Dominion sector space alerts, Hirogen sector space alerts, Vaadwaar sector space alerts and yes of course - Iconian sector space alerts. I mean we can even have a defecting house of the Klingons or some Mirror Universe alternative Federation ships tossed in the sector space scenarios also... But no.

We just got Borg and Tholians, I mean if you people just try to add some more sector space alerts, life in the game would be grand! All the sector space alerts do not have to give marks from the reputation system, you can make a nice balance, like for example;

Mirror Universe Alternative Federation can rewards just fleet marks.
Klingons can reward Dilithium.
Hirogen can rewards large sum of Energy Credits (I'm fine getting just 10,000 from one every 30 minutes).
Vaadwaar can rewards x2 Experience/Skill points, instead of 2,000 or so we get, they can give 4,000.
Tal Shiar can reward a balance of all the above.
Iconian can reward Iconian marks.

I mean seriously, where is the innovation of the developers to give us the most action possible in the game, let's go man - up your imagination to work, I don't even work for you all and I can thing of the simplest things that can make a difference, come on now!

leviathan99

Just a thought but would it be possible to adapt the new FE model to old FEs during the down weeks between new FEs?|

Spotlight, say, Cutting the Chord with a Reman BO reward returned and option of spec point and tech upgrade. That would buy you guys time between FEs.

Maybe cycle other episodes with new rewards into the mix.

But it'd be nice if every week had a spotlight.

captmorenzo

So... this is it, this is the end; the moment that Captain Archer saw in enterprise. Let's Fracking DO This!

khamseenair

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

Just a thought but would it be possible to adapt the new FE model to old FEs during the down weeks between new FEs?|

Spotlight, say, Cutting the Chord with a Reman BO reward returned and option of spec point and tech upgrade. That would buy you guys time between FEs.

Maybe cycle other episodes with new rewards into the mix.

But it'd be nice if every week had a spotlight.

I'd like this idea. I'm desperately waiting for them to do another FE rerun event, though even one at a time in between the new content would be better than nothing! I have several new toons made since the last rerun event (over a year ago now) and I really want to be able to pick up the rewards on them. ​​

veryth12

zeatrex wrote: »

We are in a war, but it is not just use with the Iconians... In fact, just because we are sub-siding with the Klingons and Romulan doesn't mean they can't be a threat till. There can be Tal Shiar space sector alerts, rouge Dominion sector space alerts, Hirogen sector space alerts, Vaadwaar sector space alerts and yes of course - Iconian sector space alerts. I mean we can even have a defecting house of the Klingons or some Mirror Universe alternative Federation ships tossed in the sector space scenarios also... But no.

We just got Borg and Tholians, I mean if you people just try to add some more sector space alerts, life in the game would be grand! All the sector space alerts do not have to give marks from the reputation system, you can make a nice balance, like for example;

Mirror Universe Alternative Federation can rewards just fleet marks.
Klingons can reward Dilithium.
Hirogen can rewards large sum of Energy Credits (I'm fine getting just 10,000 from one every 30 minutes).
Vaadwaar can rewards x2 Experience/Skill points, instead of 2,000 or so we get, they can give 4,000.
Tal Shiar can reward a balance of all the above.
Iconian can reward Iconian marks.

I mean seriously, where is the innovation of the developers to give us the most action possible in the game, let's go man - up your imagination to work, I don't even work for you all and I can thing of the simplest things that can make a difference, come on now!

With the changes to sector spece, they added a lot more events on the sector space map. Sure, the Red Alerts themselves are limited to the older ones, but the random enemy encounters on the sector map seem a lot better in general.

gradii

This storyline is looking like the most rushed, poorly written piece of TRIBBLE I've ever seen honestly.
I know whoever's in charge of writing this is trying,
but please, let someone else write this and do something you're good at.

farmallm

Just got to love the propaganda. What war? What threat? Your fighting the Vaadwaur to help defeat them, not the heralds or Iconians. There is no troops or ships. Where is the battlezone for ground, or red alert / enemy encounter?

Got to love how they fake the stories. This is no war. Its just a minor enemy to take down and move on to the next.

jcsww

farmallm wrote: »

Just got to love the propaganda. What war? What threat? Your fighting the Vaadwaur to help defeat them, not the heralds or Iconians. There is no troops or ships. Where is the battlezone for ground, or red alert / enemy encounter?

Got to love how they fake the stories. This is no war. Its just a minor enemy to take down and move on to the next.

The quoted is kind of my stance on things. Nothing feels like a war! The only time I actually felt like a major war-like event was going on in STO was back at the end of open beta. The Borg were everywhere and they were massacring everything in their path! This was one of the most frustrating but also epic in conveying that something major was happening. Yes, it was just some fun the dev's were having with us at the time but honestly, that is what war needs to be more like in this game. In comparison to anything canon in Trek, it felt like being a part of Wolf 359 and we were definitely on the losing end! Sectors of space invaded by very tough enemies that are everywhere! Could something be done like that, to really push the war into the faces of every player after completing a particular trigger episode?

furiontassadar

Just wanted to echo the above sentiments of pretty much everyone else above. There is a *massive* disconnect with the desperate war story you guys are trying to portray in the FEs, and the reality everywhere else in the game.

Like Mustrum said, it seems like if you had something more for the Iconian War planned, gameplay-wise anyway, you probably would have already rolled it out by now, or at the very least talked about it coming out at some point, so I guess I can only hope that you guys take what you've learned during this story arc, and try to portray things a bit better in any future conflicts.

With that out of the way, I did want to say that I am looking foreword to the possibility of Nog, Paris, and Seven bumping elbows, though given the dark tone of the next episode and the fact that all three are there, I can't help but wonder if we're being set up for a "In this episode: Someone dies!" kind of thing.

Sarek1701

I agree there is a bit of a disconnect between the war and the in game state. ESD got blown up and we now have a totally reconstructed one overnight (in game, it could be something like a few months we don't see). The lack of Herald Red Alerts is a big part of the problem. Really, though, the only world we see on the surface regularly is Qo'noS, which was destroyed in an STF. I would love to see some sort of damage there on the playable map with construction crews repairing stuff.

One point to make is that we don't know the timeline of the events outside a general chronological order from the sequence of FEs. There could be months separating missions. Another point is that the war hasn't really hit the homeworlds of the major factions all that hard. Most of the losses have been in space and ground battles mentioned off screen. There haven't been any major attacks on Vulcan, Earth proper, or New Romulus as far as I know.

As to the Risa stuff. Everyone needs shore leave at some point during the war. Too much stress is bad for crews in combat situations. Think of it like Citadel DLC from ME3. Time to go get some reapers, but first, vacation!

vengefuldjinn

Jaddua Ross wrote: »

" we have come to our final, most desperate hour. - We must put into motion our last resort. " "Featuring the voice talents of Aron Eisenberg as Nog, Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris and Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine."

Not Denise Crosby too? So where does Sela fit into all this ? Didn't she send me an impassioned communique, where she ranted about how she wanted to make the Iconians pay for what they did to Romulus ?
Are we just dropping the Sela Iconian connection part of the story ?

You know, I just had a thought, it would be fun if a dev dropped in Earth spacedock, or Q'onos, or Risa, for a little monster/Iconian play.

There was a time, when they used to do that sorta thing... occasionally.... It was really spontaneous... and.... FUN too .

gulberat

furiontassadar wrote: »

Just wanted to echo the above sentiments of pretty much everyone else above. There is a *massive* disconnect with the desperate war story you guys are trying to portray in the FEs, and the reality everywhere else in the game.

Like Mustrum said, it seems like if you had something more for the Iconian War planned, gameplay-wise anyway, you probably would have already rolled it out by now, or at the very least talked about it coming out at some point, so I guess I can only hope that you guys take what you've learned during this story arc, and try to portray things a bit better in any future conflicts.

With that out of the way, I did want to say that I am looking foreword to the possibility of Nog, Paris, and Seven bumping elbows, though given the dark tone of the next episode and the fact that all three are there, I can't help but wonder if we're being set up for a "In this episode: Someone dies!" kind of thing.

Same here, unfortunately. At least with the Klingons and the Borg, there was a sufficient number of episodes to feel like there was a threat. Even getting ganked by the Vaadwaur all the time in the Delta Rising episodes made me feel like this was a massive conflict, and despite all my complaints with how the patrols were executed, at least there was enough time to feel like it built up to a truly massive, almost Dominion War-style battle. Heck, same thing with the Undine: the buildup to "Mindscape" was (other than tacking "Mindscape" on to DR instead of treating it as a standalone FE) was really capitalized on well.

I don't feel like we've had that with the Iconians. From a writing standpoint it is even MORE important with the Iconians given the degree of buildup and the fact that we've been told they're above ALL other enemies we've faced thus far. Unless I am proven wrong, and I hope I will be but am not sure that will happen...I really hate to say this, but I am getting to the point where I am feeling like the fanfic group I am a part of has done a better job creating that sense of tension, chaos, and a truly apocalyptic war.

Maybe, with luck, this is not the final episode in the arc. But it sure sounds like it could be. And if it is, I don't think that's enough.

farmallm

jcsww wrote: »

The quoted is kind of my stance on things. Nothing feels like a war! The only time I actually felt like a major war-like event was going on in STO was back at the end of open beta. The Borg were everywhere and they were massacring everything in their path! This was one of the most frustrating but also epic in conveying that something major was happening. Yes, it was just some fun the dev's were having with us at the time but honestly, that is what war needs to be more like in this game. In comparison to anything canon in Trek, it felt like being a part of Wolf 359 and we were definitely on the losing end! Sectors of space invaded by very tough enemies that are everywhere! Could something be done like that, to really push the war into the faces of every player after completing a particular trigger episode?

To me the Elachi in the Romulan starting story proved to be a threat to be dealt with. Later the Voth was good. I spent a lot of time in space and on the ground. Later the Vaadwuar showed a threat and the ground and their interaction in the patrols was great.

All of these captured the threat of a major enemy. And captivated me in the story and fun of the game. Where the Heralds and Iconians are minor like the Breen.

Granted I don't think a full server invasion is a good thing. As others hadn't got that far. A couple battlezones for ground would be good. Along with some red alerts/ enemy encounters would be perfect. To me if possible. After you hit a certain part of the story. I would have a random ship show up to fight you. From sector space, and even in patrols or doing other content. To "harass" you. To show they are there and we are at war.