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Few thoughts from Star Trek fan...
antonio
Member Posts: 40 Arc User
For some time already, I wanted to share these few opinions about the game, so excuse me if there was similar topic already.
Anyway, I was a Star Trek fan from my early teenage years and that said, I have very strong emotional connection with that series, like probably with all the things that we loved in our childhood. So I started to play this game because I love Star Trek. I was never a gamer, and I never played similar online games, so I was quite a newbie when I started. Even now, I would probably got beaten easily by the majority of gamers with much bigger skills and reflexes than me. The most important reason for me to join the game was that childish dream, which every Star Trek fan out there will probably understand, the dream of being a Starfleet captain, having my own ship and crew. Wasn't it what we always dreamt about when watching Star Trek? To be a captain, make own decisions, have our own fellow officers on the bridge and exploring universe. How many time in my childhood have I spent imagining what it would be like, what would be my ship's name, who would be my bridge officers, how interiors of my ship would look like... Now, this game gave me occasion to put those dreams on a new level. So what is the most important that I want from this game as a Star Trek fan - is a story, and a space for putting my imagination to work. Not spectacular explosions and non-stop fighting, but a good story and space for creativity. I am not the one of the people who consider this game being bad, and I read many of such opinions on different forums. No, I think that game is cool and I like it. However, there are few things that I wish to be improved, from the point of view of a Star Trek fan. Actually, my question is, how many of the players are real Star Trek fans, and how many are just gamers who want to try a game as such? I post this discussion because I am interested in your opinion about these things and your personal experience, and how you see things. So, here are some my notices, wishes, and so on (by the way, I write from the perspective of Federation player):
1) First of all, if you are a Starfleet officer, you should be dressed like one. When I run around places like Earth Spacedock, Starfleet Academy, Bajor, DS9, etc, etc, I notice many players who look so unrealistic and un-trekkie... They are extremely big or extremely little, they are dressed like clowns etc. I mean, I am not going to prohibit others to experiment like that with costumes, but come on... So, I am curious how other trekkies in the game see this question and what is your opinion. Similar thing can be said about ships, however, I understand a need to try different ships from Star Trek, not necessarily only Starfleet ones. I myself would like to try to have a Ferengi character and command a D'Kora Marauder
) As long as there are canon ships, it is ok for me.
2) What I want from this game is the ability of creating a certain story. For that matter, I like to choose my bridge officers and create them. It's fun to choose who will be my security officer, and who will be chief engineer, and so on. But I notice that many people have Elisa Flores, Kozel, and the rest, for the entire time. I am not here to judge, everyone likes different things and have different priorities, but I find it very unoriginal. I know that those guys may be quite good for playing itself, especially Elisa Flores, but that's not the most important thing to me, and I tend to discharge all of those guys and get my own, personalized crew - I enjoy this part more than missions actually. It's cool that we can edit biography of our bridge officers too, but.... What I miss here is a chance to show them to other players, and to see the ones that other players create. I mean, when I see another player and click on "info", why can't I see their bridge officers too, and their biogaphies? It would be cool thing. It may not matter much for strictly playing game, but that is this story aspect that I am talking about and that I find important for me.
3) As much as I like bridge interior designs, there are 3 problems about interiors in general in my opinion: first of all, they have no use in a game, and I think there should be ways to make those interiors more useful, to put some content in it that would make us more interested in spending time in our own ship. Second, I wish to have more possibilities to design ship interior other than bridge itself. I mean, why can't we customize what captain's office would look like, what engineering and corridors will be like, and so on? And also, their position on the ship. If they can make it for bridges, why not for the rest of the ship too? You may say that it requires a lot of work, but frankly, if I had a knowledge that would allow me to design it for the game, I would love doing it for free in my free time, just for the fun of it! And third thing, why can't we choose positions of people on the ship? I mean, why can't I decide where my bridge officers will stand, instead of them being put randomly on different positions around the bridge? And when it comes to those nameless crewmen, why aren't those our duty officers, with their name and surname, and also with the ability for us to put them on different places around the ship?
4) As much as I like episode structure of missions, what I would like to experience is a possibility for us to complete mission in our own way. What I have in mind? Well, allow us to have a different approach to resolving things - in those dialogues, give us possibility to choose one of three answers, which will not be only cosmetical, but which will really inflict the mission. I want to have a possibility to make a decision, because this is what being captain is all about, isn't it? Give me three choices, and I choose my course of action. I understand that missions have to finish more or less with the same conclusion, but allow us to come to it in different way, give us chance to take battle approach which will result in more fighting, or to take careful approach which would consist of less fighting and more running around and avoiding detection, more brain activity and so on, or for example more diplomatic approach etc.
5) Give us captain's log! When I finish mission, or some other activity, I would like to put it on a paper somewhere where it will be possible for other players to see it, to make it my story. Of course that no one would be forced to write this "log", but for us who want it, it would be a cool thing.
6) And for the end, just a little whim - I want them to finally create Ferenginar, Cardassia, and some other cool places. I hope that is awaiting us in the future of this game
I hope that someone will be willing to read this all and give it an opinion. Criticize it, give your opinions, argue with mine, tell about your impressions and so on. I would be grateful to hear it And sorry for my bad English.
Anyway, I was a Star Trek fan from my early teenage years and that said, I have very strong emotional connection with that series, like probably with all the things that we loved in our childhood. So I started to play this game because I love Star Trek. I was never a gamer, and I never played similar online games, so I was quite a newbie when I started. Even now, I would probably got beaten easily by the majority of gamers with much bigger skills and reflexes than me. The most important reason for me to join the game was that childish dream, which every Star Trek fan out there will probably understand, the dream of being a Starfleet captain, having my own ship and crew. Wasn't it what we always dreamt about when watching Star Trek? To be a captain, make own decisions, have our own fellow officers on the bridge and exploring universe. How many time in my childhood have I spent imagining what it would be like, what would be my ship's name, who would be my bridge officers, how interiors of my ship would look like... Now, this game gave me occasion to put those dreams on a new level. So what is the most important that I want from this game as a Star Trek fan - is a story, and a space for putting my imagination to work. Not spectacular explosions and non-stop fighting, but a good story and space for creativity. I am not the one of the people who consider this game being bad, and I read many of such opinions on different forums. No, I think that game is cool and I like it. However, there are few things that I wish to be improved, from the point of view of a Star Trek fan. Actually, my question is, how many of the players are real Star Trek fans, and how many are just gamers who want to try a game as such? I post this discussion because I am interested in your opinion about these things and your personal experience, and how you see things. So, here are some my notices, wishes, and so on (by the way, I write from the perspective of Federation player):
1) First of all, if you are a Starfleet officer, you should be dressed like one. When I run around places like Earth Spacedock, Starfleet Academy, Bajor, DS9, etc, etc, I notice many players who look so unrealistic and un-trekkie... They are extremely big or extremely little, they are dressed like clowns etc. I mean, I am not going to prohibit others to experiment like that with costumes, but come on... So, I am curious how other trekkies in the game see this question and what is your opinion. Similar thing can be said about ships, however, I understand a need to try different ships from Star Trek, not necessarily only Starfleet ones. I myself would like to try to have a Ferengi character and command a D'Kora Marauder
) As long as there are canon ships, it is ok for me.2) What I want from this game is the ability of creating a certain story. For that matter, I like to choose my bridge officers and create them. It's fun to choose who will be my security officer, and who will be chief engineer, and so on. But I notice that many people have Elisa Flores, Kozel, and the rest, for the entire time. I am not here to judge, everyone likes different things and have different priorities, but I find it very unoriginal. I know that those guys may be quite good for playing itself, especially Elisa Flores, but that's not the most important thing to me, and I tend to discharge all of those guys and get my own, personalized crew - I enjoy this part more than missions actually. It's cool that we can edit biography of our bridge officers too, but.... What I miss here is a chance to show them to other players, and to see the ones that other players create. I mean, when I see another player and click on "info", why can't I see their bridge officers too, and their biogaphies? It would be cool thing. It may not matter much for strictly playing game, but that is this story aspect that I am talking about and that I find important for me.
3) As much as I like bridge interior designs, there are 3 problems about interiors in general in my opinion: first of all, they have no use in a game, and I think there should be ways to make those interiors more useful, to put some content in it that would make us more interested in spending time in our own ship. Second, I wish to have more possibilities to design ship interior other than bridge itself. I mean, why can't we customize what captain's office would look like, what engineering and corridors will be like, and so on? And also, their position on the ship. If they can make it for bridges, why not for the rest of the ship too? You may say that it requires a lot of work, but frankly, if I had a knowledge that would allow me to design it for the game, I would love doing it for free in my free time, just for the fun of it! And third thing, why can't we choose positions of people on the ship? I mean, why can't I decide where my bridge officers will stand, instead of them being put randomly on different positions around the bridge? And when it comes to those nameless crewmen, why aren't those our duty officers, with their name and surname, and also with the ability for us to put them on different places around the ship?
4) As much as I like episode structure of missions, what I would like to experience is a possibility for us to complete mission in our own way. What I have in mind? Well, allow us to have a different approach to resolving things - in those dialogues, give us possibility to choose one of three answers, which will not be only cosmetical, but which will really inflict the mission. I want to have a possibility to make a decision, because this is what being captain is all about, isn't it? Give me three choices, and I choose my course of action. I understand that missions have to finish more or less with the same conclusion, but allow us to come to it in different way, give us chance to take battle approach which will result in more fighting, or to take careful approach which would consist of less fighting and more running around and avoiding detection, more brain activity and so on, or for example more diplomatic approach etc.
5) Give us captain's log! When I finish mission, or some other activity, I would like to put it on a paper somewhere where it will be possible for other players to see it, to make it my story. Of course that no one would be forced to write this "log", but for us who want it, it would be a cool thing.
6) And for the end, just a little whim - I want them to finally create Ferenginar, Cardassia, and some other cool places. I hope that is awaiting us in the future of this game
I hope that someone will be willing to read this all and give it an opinion. Criticize it, give your opinions, argue with mine, tell about your impressions and so on. I would be grateful to hear it
And sorry for my bad English. 0
Comments
For number 2: the reason most people have these boffs is that they're free. And Elisa comes with a rather exclusive ability (torp spread 3). Since they cannot be obtained again if you choose to discharge them, I tend to keep them. If there would be an option to remove them from your roster but keep them as candidates, I'd immediately replace them.
Number 3 has been requested often, but I think it was said that bridges don't sell well. It'd be nice if we could have some activities on our ship, even if it's something like playing Dabo, bank or exchange access or some other games you could play with friends. Before that happens though, we'd need full interiors for all ships first. There are many that don't have them, even though some interiors are available (Tholian and Adapted Tal Shiar maps are in the game already for example).
Number 5 is already available. I don't know if there's an option to let others read it, but if you go to your episode selection screen (default key J) there's a 'log' tab. At the bottom of that tab, there's an option to add your own logs.
Number 6... yes. We definitely need more social zones, and some activities there. Andoria has been requested often, both as the location for the Winter event or for some melee tournaments. Unfortunately, most of the new maps nowadays are mission related.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
1)I tend to give my officers faction uniforms and dont go out of my way to make really f'd up aliens. That said some of the less absurd player made races are imo welcome since its more diversity than which forehead/nose application they have. Ships I am beginning to agree on. When I first started STO I wanted a this that and the other ships many I'll never own because of absurd EC prices and my aversion to spending weeks/months grinding in this game to achieve those levels of dilithium and EC. Now tho I find I would rather fly my faction specific ships. When I warp into Mol'Rihan I want to see Romulan/Reman vessels not tholian, iconian, cardassian, and whatever.
2)I wouldn't dismiss the ones you get arbitrarily like that, especially as they aren't Tovan Khev. You can go into the tailor and completely rework their look so that they ARE yours, change their names and biographies as normal and voila. Elisa Flores is no longer Elisa Flores but your own design. Also if that part bugs you don't play a Romulan Republic character because, while you can edit his appearance, Tovan Khev is always Tovan Khev and you cant dimiss him.
3)While fun, what you are asking for here, is a monumental task in terms of development to be able to custom design bridges and interiors from the user end. Being able to place your BOFF at specific stations is quite a bit more realistic and would be very cool. Being able to place every crewman, not something Id care for. As for making the generic crewmen look like your DOFF roster, while that'd be kinda nifty, I'd think that would be FAR FAR too much effort for too little return, even for hardcore RPers.
4)This has been asked for quite often, and the Developers have given us bad excuses for answers on it each time. In the end it boils down to, can't make money off it, they won't do it.
5)As stated, its there, sorta, just not quite how you'd like it. Frankly its not something I'd care for or ever look at.
6)More social zones and reasons to go there would be cool, but I'd rather they just hire writers that didn't suck balls right now, and get to giving us episodes that don't blow. Maybe even a few episodes here and there that don't involve shooting things... Even SWTOR has a few of these, hell I did two recently in their latest episode that left me thinking how sad it was that SWTOR managed such a feat and STO didn't. I also though how sad it was that these two missions were so shocking to me because they didn't involve me committing mass murder for a change.
So I guess it's somewhat understandable that there's so many weird aliens with strange proportions or features running around. Look at how much life differs on Earth, at the bottom of the oceans for example compared to humans. How reasonable would it be to expect the majority of the Galaxy to be inhabited by species like Klingons, Andorians, Romulans and Vulcans who are more human-like than some of our real life closest relatives like chimpanzees?
I'd say that we should have options to create even weirder aliens. Of course this would require a lot of work and almost no limitations on the character creator, so of course it's unlikely to happen, but purely theoretically speaking these aliens might be more realistic than the average Vulcan or Klingon.
1. I agree strongly about the dress code. Unfortunately you will just have to learn to ignore anomalies and pretend they are very human looking aliens. I also hate the very tiny characters. 9/10 of these are attention trolls, especially the ones that look basically human.
2. I think for this the best thing for you to do would be to play foundry missions and really get into ones that are story heavy to develop your own characters' stories.
3. I'm afraid you're out of luck here. The only new bridges and interiors we will see will be based on a new ship that is in a new feature mission - like Voyager interior for Delta Rising.
4. Again the foundry will be your best option here. However, you will not be able to fully get the choose your own adventure experience you desire. If you think about it the complexity involved would mean the developers would have to create many many different episodes for each episode - which is just not going to happen.
5. You can do this now.
6. This is certainly possible - even likely.
I'd like to say thank you for sharing this post with us. It is nice to see other trekkies who care mostly about just getting to be in the world.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
adjusted the quote and now i can read it.
1. you got that option, a lot of them as a starfleet officer in char creation and the tailor.
2. you can RP if you wish by writing it out in biographical areas and filling in the blanks for your crewmen.
3. a) they are there as a cosmetic feature.
b) that wont happen, because they dont sell well and so the demand doesnt make it worth their time to consider such a thing,
c) you can assign stations to crewmen, but your ship isnt about a few people, the rest of your ship has a lot of crew men, from 50 to 4000 dependent on your ship, these other crew men also have their jobs and responsibilities. also if you watched any of the trek series, you would of noticed crew men in the background swapping each episode.
4. this hasnt happened in the past and i doubt it will, cryptic wants to keep a handle on the direction of its storyline.
5. i used to be able to write up stuff in a captains log at one point, but that was years ago, not sure if it is still possible through the journal.
6. its already brought up a few times for the ferengi homeworld, and there are some calls for the cardassians to have their own faction, which would no doubt include a greater look into cardassia prime.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Trek fans discuss canon, have their ships and crew just so, enjoy the missions and story, even RP.
Gamers obsess over stats, play the market, and talk about how WOW did it better. Constantly.
While its certainly true you can have a foot in both camps, and there is room for both, it seems like the Gamer group is driving the conent of this game, rather than the Trek fan group (of which OP is one, and has very valid concerns and points raised).
If you have fun flying a phaser-armed Excelsior for narrative missions, you aren't going to be spending a lot of money...
He did not say "effective", he said "best". Now, before I go any further, let me be clear: I am *NOT* a min/maxer. I never have been, and for that reason, I do not know all the secrets of DPS. But we both know there are people who do that to a meticulous degree. So if there is some general consensus in that community about what builds are the "best"(for whatever goal they are trying to reach), that's fine. There is no need to argue that point if the actual point you are TRYING to make is simply that you don't need the "best" build just to be able to play the game and have fun.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
I have not much insight in getting my DPS to 110%, mostly because I never leveled a Tactical to max level (Played for six years and never leveled a Tactical to max level, how about that?
My main is a Engineer and right now I am roaming the galaxy in a Odyssey T6 (Odyssey skin) with Phasers and have a tank build.
Everyone keep saying that CtrD and AP = Win win, but I go with Phasers (because canon) and with Acc.
I use phasers because it's fun and I love the color and sound, even if I know that they aint the best.
Did more geeky stuff with my Science guy, Fixed the Fleet Version of Rhode Island, got the Voyager interior, let everyone have the Voyager Uniform and got myself Ultra Rare Bridge officer which I named after the Equinox crew (Similar anyway).
That type of game-focus will never get me on the top of the DPS list, but I don't care, I want to have fun. As long as I am decent in groups and not totally worthless, then I have no problem with it.
Point is, find your own gamestyle and run with it, you are going to figure out yourself in the long run if you want to improve what you already have, cause this game has lot of options in terms of personal gameplay. Lots and lots of space/ground sets out there, and thankfully STO dosen't increase the maxlevel so often.
Most other MMO are very unforgiven on that part, but not STO.