My belief is that Cryptic is working on exploration, perhaps as a low-priority back-burner project, but they will not speak of it or even hint at it until it's a near certainty, due to nerdrage backlash when any project is delayed or abandoned. Whether or not that's true, I do know that there are explorers and explorer sympathizers on the development team who would love to implement an expanded system, given the opportunity.
Never hurts to float ideas. I've been an advocate for a detailed colonization system, even if it would entail a fair amount of development resources. There's an entire 'Creator' player archetype that is left out of core MMO theory, and it is a significant market opportunity (as Minecraft discovered to its great profit).
Yeah, it'd be really cool to see a new version that was better.
The ones used in the Dragon Quest games avoid the idiocy issue by making things LESS random rather than more. IE they place map tiles and fill in any gaps to make the tiles connect together. But they don't generate the actual tiles at random. Also, the way they handle re-theming is to use variables and give each theme an asset for each variable(small rock, tree etc.). This is not to say this system never produces dumb things, just that it does so rarely.
the one use in STO was more like the one from Diablo 2 which often made maps that were utterly nonsensical.
Yeah, it'd be really cool to see a new version that was better.
The ones used in the Dragon Quest games avoid the idiocy issue by making things LESS random rather than more. IE they place map tiles and fill in any gaps to make the tiles connect together. But they don't generate the actual tiles at random. Also, the way they handle re-theming is to use variables and give each theme an asset for each variable(small rock, tree etc.). This is not to say this system never produces dumb things, just that it does so rarely.
the one use in STO was more like the one from Diablo 2 which often made maps that were utterly nonsensical.
I could be persuaded to embrace a good tileset approach.
Ultimately, what I would like to see (probably in some other game) is a planet generation system that starts from accretion of the stellar disk, generates landforms via simulated plate tectonics, erosion, meteor impacts and other inputs, evolves an entire biome adapted to that particular alien landscape, and presents a world that is not only internally-consistent on the surface, but has a complete planetary history baked into the crust... and is a fun environment to play in.
Be a nice little spare-time project for somebody with degrees in astrogeophysics, ecology, computer science and game design.
this would work well using the planets around the stars as points in the system too. Not a bad Idea OP. Ignore all of the negativity. Hey it is always worth brining up an idea that can help the game. What can it hurt. Also a good idea is a good idea so if cryptic thinks this is they way they will go im sure they will consider this. If watched them bend over backward a couple times to make the community happy such as ship interiors and saucer separation.
Things that where not that important, but cryptic does want a happy community. I mean we all know they want to make money right. No point in trying to go out of their way to make people mad. but some people will always be mad. Need to prove something to everyone they meet. Somepoint they will learn they don't have to prove them self to everyon and stop being so confrontational with others.
That comes with age, experience, or wisdom. Some people take longer then others to figure this out.. There is a right time and place for everything. I hope that this idea hits in the right heads at the right time for your sake.
Good luck to you Op and keep brining up more Ideas.
Retired Rear Admiral-Jay Maverick-
Known simply as -Maverick-
Klingons should Beware of Maverick.
Maverick loves a fight and tends to be victorious even as the underdog.
He has an aptitude for tactics,guerrilla warfare and security.
"United Federation of Planets"
12th Fleet - Intelligence Division "Khalija" - Alpha Group
Not on Current Assignment.-On Retirement leave at Leach Lake in Minnesota
Another one of these threads eh? Well, I guess I'll say again, if you want exploration, there are other games that provide such features. I know of at least one game that's all you do.
Anything offered is pointless. I won't be as mean as some people here, but Cryptic does its thing, it has been like this sense day one. The best I see would be some type of card game (doff system and/or the new ship thingy system) which involves you to send ship(s) to explore something, and get a random reward. Maybe a rep spin off? Dunno how that would work though.
I liked the old exploration system in ways. It needed a revamp but it was removed instead, leading me to believe *if* we get an exploration system, it'll be something completely different. I wouldn't hold my breath on anything at this point.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Yeah, yeah. The line for No Man's Sky is over there.
*grins* I'm in that line. Several others as well. There's a lot of innovation coming down the pipeline. I'd dearly love to see Star Trek Online be part of that trend, rather than stuck in the rut of the status quo with occasional "new" systems that are just remixes of existing systems. The way things are and have always been... well that's, in the immortal words of Jean Luc Picard, "Not good enough, damn it! Not good enough!"
And to repeat something I said in another thread, saying that something is impossible doesn't make it impossible. It just means that you're probably not going to be the one who does it.
Having read over the OP in more detail it is essentially the old exploration system combined with a new currency (exploration marks) and a shop for said currency.
As i recall, the problem with the "old" exploration maps generator was the relative small number of map variations and te fact that it interfered with other content in the game.
I would like to see the federation counterpart for "empire defense" make a comeback, but it should not be rushed with all the potential havoc which comes with it.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Having read over the OP in more detail it is essentially the old exploration system combined with a new currency (exploration marks) and a shop for said currency.
As i recall, the problem with the "old" exploration maps generator was the relative small number of map variations and te fact that it interfered with other content in the game.
I would like to see the federation counterpart for "empire defense" make a comeback, but it should not be rushed with all the potential havoc which comes with it.
and also the immense size of the data. allegedly it took up almost as much data as the entire rest of the game. For semi-random, and rather repetitive missions.
Having read over the OP in more detail it is essentially the old exploration system combined with a new currency (exploration marks) and a shop for said currency.
As i recall, the problem with the "old" exploration maps generator was the relative small number of map variations and te fact that it interfered with other content in the game.
I would like to see the federation counterpart for "empire defense" make a comeback, but it should not be rushed with all the potential havoc which comes with it.
and also the immense size of the data. allegedly it took up almost as much data as the entire rest of the game. For semi-random, and rather repetitive missions.
That sounds like merely the result of very lazy and poor programming. Take a look at Elite: Dangerous.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Having read over the OP in more detail it is essentially the old exploration system combined with a new currency (exploration marks) and a shop for said currency.
As i recall, the problem with the "old" exploration maps generator was the relative small number of map variations and te fact that it interfered with other content in the game.
I would like to see the federation counterpart for "empire defense" make a comeback, but it should not be rushed with all the potential havoc which comes with it.
and also the immense size of the data. allegedly it took up almost as much data as the entire rest of the game. For semi-random, and rather repetitive missions.
That sounds like merely the result of very lazy and poor programming. Take a look at Elite: Dangerous.
Yeah, it probably would have been better optimized if it hadn't been so rushed. The maps could probably have been done better with a more complex use of templating. This would probably also have reduced the size of the data. But it's just not the way STO is coded. Maps in STO generally aren't modular. So all the exploration cluster maps were also non-modular.
It would be nice to see exploration return, I'm just not holding my breath.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
Someone mentioned this game the other day. I went and read a bunch of reviews on it and, despite them all saying it was a great SIM (which is not what STO is), they all said it was basically boring. Any randomly generated missions will always end up being repetitive and boring. You would have to have so many variables to pick from in order to even have a chance at this not occurring that it wouldn't be time or financially feasible not to mention the mountain of bugs that would come along with it.
Not sure why people keep talking about the old system. Cryptic seems to have been pretty clear that it will never happen. Anything they might do now would be entirely new.
I don't think people really understand what the genesis system was. It was basically a list of presets that allowed cryptic to generate a lot of maps really quickly. But that's the thing, the maps were pre-generated. The Genesis system was never used after the game came out. The game simply populated the map with entities that missions would use. It was not a very good system.
Let's be honest the "exploration" was pretty terribad. I don't support the removal of content, but those random missions sucked.
Which is entirely subjective. "Let's be honest" implies some kind of empiric state. A lot of people liked them, though.
Baseline problem is a different undertanding of what a game is supposed to offer. I'd bet people that liked games since the more "free" era of procedually generated games, roguelikes and 4X strategy liked the Clusters alright although of course there was room to improve them (keep in mind Cryptic stated they literally abandoned the clusters the second they went live). On the other end you have more recent players who just want rewards rewards rewards for their oh so valuable time they waste on a game. Fast food content if you will. That's not what a system like the OP suggests would be.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
"The clusters were boring the clusters were bad, Elite: Dangerous is boring" .... For YOU.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
I don't think people really understand what the genesis system was. It was basically a list of presets that allowed cryptic to generate a lot of maps really quickly. But that's the thing, the maps were pre-generated. The Genesis system was never used after the game came out. The game simply populated the map with entities that missions would use. It was not a very good system.
Well, they did make missions in several batches, and used different mission scripts for each batch. But yeah, after publish, the missions never really changed. A few small detail might have, such as the color of the flowers... But nothing substantial.
@angrytarg who liked them? I want to talk to this person. There were two mission's. Scan these few things or kill these few enemies. I'm not against bringing back exploration, but it would need to be WAY better then it was.
@angrytarg who liked them? I want to talk to this person. There were two mission's. Scan these few things or kill these few enemies. I'm not against bringing back exploration, but it would need to be WAY better then it was.
It wasn't quite that simple. Granted it wasn't much more complex, but it was complex enough to be interesting for about 5 reps.
Trust me I know what they were about...I did those dull missions to get the accolades. They were not fun mission's and those were the only two variations, but on different maps.
Trust me I know what they were about...I did those dull missions to get the accolades. They were not fun mission's and those were the only two variations, but on different maps.
Only if you over simplify.
One of the space missions was to kill a group, wait for 2 more to spawn, kill them, wait for two more. The idea being that you were protecting a small starbase.
While you do end up killing 5 enemy mobs, it plays much differently than the one where you warp in and there's 5 mobs in an asteroid belt waiting for you to kill them.
I'm not saying they were fun, but they did make a decent break from the regular monotony.
@angrytarg who liked them? I want to talk to this person. There were two mission's. Scan these few things or kill these few enemies. I'm not against bringing back exploration, but it would need to be WAY better then it was.
I did. I made screenshots with some interesting aliengen races I met, I explored abandoned space stations with some stranger I grouped with building perimeters and securing the rooms one by one, I enjoyed fighting something else besides Borg, Tholians or Cardassians, I discovered astonishing vulcanoid planets and rich vegetation and I miss doing that.
You do stuff to get rewards as efficient and quickly as possible. I like to play a game, I'd suppose that's the key difference here.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Having read over the OP in more detail it is essentially the old exploration system combined with a new currency (exploration marks) and a shop for said currency.
As i recall, the problem with the "old" exploration maps generator was the relative small number of map variations and te fact that it interfered with other content in the game.
I would like to see the federation counterpart for "empire defense" make a comeback, but it should not be rushed with all the potential havoc which comes with it.
and also the immense size of the data. allegedly it took up almost as much data as the entire rest of the game. For semi-random, and rather repetitive missions.
That sounds like merely the result of very lazy and poor programming. Take a look at Elite: Dangerous.
Elite Dangerous doesn't create missions, just maps. Of course, it's also technology developed 5 years after STO.
Same thing for Star Citizen and, as far as I can, see No Man's Sky.
It's pretty impressive what can be done in terms of map generation. Apparently Star Citizens current generator procedurally generates an entire planet as you aproach and land on it - of course only the parts you can actually see are generated. But they got their own team in Germany working on the project and Star Citizen is in development now for more years than Cryptic had for STO AFAIK. And also a much larger budget. (And the planet they showed in a recent video was not habitated and didn't even seem to have life, basically just a giant stone desert.)
But still, no mission content there. Just a map.
Cryptics efforts probably also directed on creating mission templatse with exchangable elements. (The Borg were not the only species after artifacts of their 3rd Dynasty.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
@angrytarg I remember scanning ancient pillars, or ship remains, and or killing a few groups of enemies while scanning things. Implying that I dont enjoy playing the game is a fallacy. I enjoy playing the game, but I didn't enjoy the mind numbing junk like what that old system generated. There just wasn't enough variety with the mission. Obviously, cryptic agrees with my assessment of how bad that content was otherwise they wouldn't have removed it.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
(..,)
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I agree
You just mentioned that despite disliking them so much you pulled through them to get an accolade. I interpreted that as not playing to have fun but to collect rewards which is where your criticism came from. One could make the point that if someone grinds content just to get x, all content becomes dull and tortuting.
EDIT: Cryptic's opinion isn't really a good way to support any kind of opinion. Their official reasonf or removing them was that people got lost and desperate in the clusters and the missions weren't of the same "high quality" other content is which, looking as the other content, is not an argument they thought through that much. The only honest statement about the clusters and Genesis was made by taco, I guess, who once stated that they abandoned the system the second it went live and nobody ever worked on that in the following years. It was meant as a system to auto generate content so they could hit the deadline - never the less, this system was even mentioned by name as one of the selling points of STO on the packaging itself...
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I am one of those who never really liked the old exploration but started to miss it when they removed it.
My problem with the missions where the length of it. it was not 4 or 5 group of enemy, but 6 to 7.
I remember those bloody science corridors and that you had to kill 5 groups and then a elite group.
Then the asteroid bashing moving forward and taking out 6-7 enemy groups. by going a straight line throug the map.
And the anomalies on the maps where always placed in weird locations, sometimes way behind your starting point.
Otherwise I had a good time with it, it was a perfect thing to play through for an hour just to do Duty officers and get some dihlitium. Even if you experience the same missions over and over again ,there were (almost) different scenery.
With all that said, they should really make it a priority, Get the Genesis coding and start making enhancement.
(..,)
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I agree
You just mentioned that despite disliking them so much you pulled through them to get an accolade. I interpreted that as not playing to have fun but to collect rewards which is where your criticism came from. One could make the point that if someone grinds content just to get x, all content becomes dull and tortuting.
EDIT: Cryptic's opinion isn't really a good way to support any kind of opinion. Their official reasonf or removing them was that people got lost and desperate in the clusters and the missions weren't of the same "high quality" other content is which, looking as the other content, is not an argument they thought through that much. The only honest statement about the clusters and Genesis was made by taco, I guess, who once stated that they abandoned the system the second it went live and nobody ever worked on that in the following years. It was meant as a system to auto generate content so they could hit the deadline - never the less, this system was even mentioned by name as one of the selling points of STO on the packaging itself...
There was also another aspect some dev mentioned much later - it slowed down their build process. That can be quite significant impact on development, because you build a lot ot test new features or to fix bugs, and if you need any hotfixes, such things can also stand in the way.
I don't know if there are any similarities to the Foundry republishing process - that can go for several days now. I figure it wasn't that bad. Or at least... I hope it wasn't.
I think the quality aspect is still quite valid - there were always maps where you could fall through the floor, buildings that would float, objects or enemies almost or entirely unreachable. This isn't somethnig that they generally allow mission maps to behave like - even if they get released with such bugs, they are usually adressed quickly. And it can be adressed quickly because people were just actively working on it. it's not stuff that has been sleeping hidden for weeks until someone encounters it and decides to report it.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
The ones used in the Dragon Quest games avoid the idiocy issue by making things LESS random rather than more. IE they place map tiles and fill in any gaps to make the tiles connect together. But they don't generate the actual tiles at random. Also, the way they handle re-theming is to use variables and give each theme an asset for each variable(small rock, tree etc.). This is not to say this system never produces dumb things, just that it does so rarely.
the one use in STO was more like the one from Diablo 2 which often made maps that were utterly nonsensical.
My character Tsin'xing
I could be persuaded to embrace a good tileset approach.
Ultimately, what I would like to see (probably in some other game) is a planet generation system that starts from accretion of the stellar disk, generates landforms via simulated plate tectonics, erosion, meteor impacts and other inputs, evolves an entire biome adapted to that particular alien landscape, and presents a world that is not only internally-consistent on the surface, but has a complete planetary history baked into the crust... and is a fun environment to play in.
Be a nice little spare-time project for somebody with degrees in astrogeophysics, ecology, computer science and game design.
Things that where not that important, but cryptic does want a happy community. I mean we all know they want to make money right. No point in trying to go out of their way to make people mad. but some people will always be mad. Need to prove something to everyone they meet. Somepoint they will learn they don't have to prove them self to everyon and stop being so confrontational with others.
That comes with age, experience, or wisdom. Some people take longer then others to figure this out.. There is a right time and place for everything. I hope that this idea hits in the right heads at the right time for your sake.
Good luck to you Op and keep brining up more Ideas.
Known simply as -Maverick-
Klingons should Beware of Maverick.
Maverick loves a fight and tends to be victorious even as the underdog.
He has an aptitude for tactics,guerrilla warfare and security.
"United Federation of Planets"
12th Fleet - Intelligence Division "Khalija" - Alpha Group
Not on Current Assignment.-On Retirement leave at Leach Lake in Minnesota
Anything offered is pointless. I won't be as mean as some people here, but Cryptic does its thing, it has been like this sense day one. The best I see would be some type of card game (doff system and/or the new ship thingy system) which involves you to send ship(s) to explore something, and get a random reward. Maybe a rep spin off? Dunno how that would work though.
I liked the old exploration system in ways. It needed a revamp but it was removed instead, leading me to believe *if* we get an exploration system, it'll be something completely different. I wouldn't hold my breath on anything at this point.
And to repeat something I said in another thread, saying that something is impossible doesn't make it impossible. It just means that you're probably not going to be the one who does it.
As i recall, the problem with the "old" exploration maps generator was the relative small number of map variations and te fact that it interfered with other content in the game.
I would like to see the federation counterpart for "empire defense" make a comeback, but it should not be rushed with all the potential havoc which comes with it.
My character Tsin'xing
That sounds like merely the result of very lazy and poor programming. Take a look at Elite: Dangerous.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
My character Tsin'xing
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Not sure why people keep talking about the old system. Cryptic seems to have been pretty clear that it will never happen. Anything they might do now would be entirely new.
Which is entirely subjective. "Let's be honest" implies some kind of empiric state. A lot of people liked them, though.
Baseline problem is a different undertanding of what a game is supposed to offer. I'd bet people that liked games since the more "free" era of procedually generated games, roguelikes and 4X strategy liked the Clusters alright although of course there was room to improve them (keep in mind Cryptic stated they literally abandoned the clusters the second they went live). On the other end you have more recent players who just want rewards rewards rewards for their oh so valuable time they waste on a game. Fast food content if you will. That's not what a system like the OP suggests would be.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
One of the space missions was to kill a group, wait for 2 more to spawn, kill them, wait for two more. The idea being that you were protecting a small starbase.
While you do end up killing 5 enemy mobs, it plays much differently than the one where you warp in and there's 5 mobs in an asteroid belt waiting for you to kill them.
I'm not saying they were fun, but they did make a decent break from the regular monotony.
My character Tsin'xing
I did. I made screenshots with some interesting aliengen races I met, I explored abandoned space stations with some stranger I grouped with building perimeters and securing the rooms one by one, I enjoyed fighting something else besides Borg, Tholians or Cardassians, I discovered astonishing vulcanoid planets and rich vegetation and I miss doing that.
You do stuff to get rewards as efficient and quickly as possible. I like to play a game, I'd suppose that's the key difference here.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Tactical Team sucked, once upon a time. I got it buffed. Don't think for a minute that Cryptic ignores forum feedback.
Elite Dangerous doesn't create missions, just maps. Of course, it's also technology developed 5 years after STO.
Same thing for Star Citizen and, as far as I can, see No Man's Sky.
It's pretty impressive what can be done in terms of map generation. Apparently Star Citizens current generator procedurally generates an entire planet as you aproach and land on it - of course only the parts you can actually see are generated. But they got their own team in Germany working on the project and Star Citizen is in development now for more years than Cryptic had for STO AFAIK. And also a much larger budget. (And the planet they showed in a recent video was not habitated and didn't even seem to have life, basically just a giant stone desert.)
But still, no mission content there. Just a map.
Cryptics efforts probably also directed on creating mission templatse with exchangable elements. (The Borg were not the only species after artifacts of their 3rd Dynasty.)
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I agree
You just mentioned that despite disliking them so much you pulled through them to get an accolade. I interpreted that as not playing to have fun but to collect rewards which is where your criticism came from. One could make the point that if someone grinds content just to get x, all content becomes dull and tortuting.
EDIT: Cryptic's opinion isn't really a good way to support any kind of opinion. Their official reasonf or removing them was that people got lost and desperate in the clusters and the missions weren't of the same "high quality" other content is which, looking as the other content, is not an argument they thought through that much. The only honest statement about the clusters and Genesis was made by taco, I guess, who once stated that they abandoned the system the second it went live and nobody ever worked on that in the following years. It was meant as a system to auto generate content so they could hit the deadline - never the less, this system was even mentioned by name as one of the selling points of STO on the packaging itself...
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
My problem with the missions where the length of it. it was not 4 or 5 group of enemy, but 6 to 7.
I remember those bloody science corridors and that you had to kill 5 groups and then a elite group.
Then the asteroid bashing moving forward and taking out 6-7 enemy groups. by going a straight line throug the map.
And the anomalies on the maps where always placed in weird locations, sometimes way behind your starting point.
Otherwise I had a good time with it, it was a perfect thing to play through for an hour just to do Duty officers and get some dihlitium. Even if you experience the same missions over and over again ,there were (almost) different scenery.
With all that said, they should really make it a priority, Get the Genesis coding and start making enhancement.
There was also another aspect some dev mentioned much later - it slowed down their build process. That can be quite significant impact on development, because you build a lot ot test new features or to fix bugs, and if you need any hotfixes, such things can also stand in the way.
I don't know if there are any similarities to the Foundry republishing process - that can go for several days now. I figure it wasn't that bad. Or at least... I hope it wasn't.
I think the quality aspect is still quite valid - there were always maps where you could fall through the floor, buildings that would float, objects or enemies almost or entirely unreachable. This isn't somethnig that they generally allow mission maps to behave like - even if they get released with such bugs, they are usually adressed quickly. And it can be adressed quickly because people were just actively working on it. it's not stuff that has been sleeping hidden for weeks until someone encounters it and decides to report it.