I'd like to see the game get revamped too, with more emphasis on "exploring strange new worlds," "seeking out new life and new civilizations," and "boldly going where no one has gone before" and all that good stuff.
I have no idea how that would be implemented, and part of me is like, "Watch what you ask for; you might get it." And I know these things take time and cost money to implement as well. I get that.
But I'd at least like to have something more than just, for example, "fly around this planet, kill 5 groups of enemy ships, and maybe scan a few things." I know that's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the point.
I'd like to see the game get revamped too, with more emphasis on "exploring strange new worlds," "seeking out new life and new civilizations," and "boldly going where no one has gone before" and all that good stuff.
I have no idea how that would be implemented, and part of me is like, "Watch what you ask for; you might get it." And I know these things take time and cost money to implement as well. I get that.
But I'd at least like to have something more than just, for example, "fly around this planet, kill 5 groups of enemy ships, and maybe scan a few things." I know that's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the point.
check out what captain said a few posts up...he's got some great ideas on meaningful exploration/colonization.
Just want to say @captaind3 , you've got some great ideas for exploration.
And Targ: You're right, that its not really fair to compare. But, we can always learn something from other sources. Even if it's used down the road on another project. But yeah, I'm going to drop this, because Captaind3 pretty much summed up what I would like to see in regards to exploration in a game, this or other future titles.
But also like you said it doesn't have to be super complex, some doff/admiralty tie ins, along with the use of the server wide progress bar might go a long way to improving the Clusters.
If I could poll, back when they were putting fluff and story into DOFF chain assignments, how many of you guys were like. "Damn the lower decks I want to go on that mission".
I'd like to see the game get revamped too, with more emphasis on "exploring strange new worlds," "seeking out new life and new civilizations," and "boldly going where no one has gone before" and all that good stuff.
I have no idea how that would be implemented, and part of me is like, "Watch what you ask for; you might get it." And I know these things take time and cost money to implement as well. I get that.
But I'd at least like to have something more than just, for example, "fly around this planet, kill 5 groups of enemy ships, and maybe scan a few things." I know that's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the point.
I'd like to see those situations where you have both previous actions and reputation interact actually.
OK, there was that patrol mission in the Delta Quadrant where you had to defend the Talaxian convoy that had P-O'ed Vaadwaur. Then you had to set up their phaser platforms and fight Team Cobra-La off.
In my version of that in an exploration cluster, if you had had an encounter with that species before then if you explored that sector sufficiently you would've discovered their base and shut it down, you would've actually eliminated their reinforcements and then there would only be one wave. Conversely the fact that you shut down their base and destroyed most of their ships is the reason they were hitting the convoy for supplies.
On the other hand Personal Reputation in that cluster would play into it like this. If you had the highest level of say military reputation then instead of having to fight, what would happen is when you show up, they would scan your ship and say..."NOPE" and they wouldn't even attack, or would break off when you show up. I'd call the accolade "The Dreaded"
The second highest level you'd fight one wave and then the others would bug out and you get full credit for the stage. Now if you have full diplomatic reputation then you could send out a distress call and instead of fending them off alone, you'd have neighboring species joining in the mutual defense. (Which might I add is super Star Trek) and if you've fully explored the cluster and maintained relationships, ALL those species show up... and the pirates will retreat rather than fight. Call that accolade "The Common Defense".
Two ways to the same prize.
A THIRD way, is if your Captain has full diplomacy personal reputation then you could actually negotiate to get the enemy vital supplies and negotiate a truce. And NOT like the Acamar system. I mean you'd have to get through a LONG dialogue tree, and pick one of many [Diplomacy] options to get to the outcome. The best outcome would be they leave with a positive view of you, the median would be they get what they need and leave in peace but don't like you or hate you, and the worst diplomacy choice outcome would be they feel cheated and vow revenge; with a disastrous outcome being the battle.
But yes the five targets or take five scans stuff was so flat that it became meaningless.
And Ambassador Sugihara on Spacedock is meaningless. We should be setting up openings for the diplomatic core. Imagine for your Fleet Embassy if every Embassy you set up on a Cluster world would have a diplomat come through the Romulan embassy like how the Enterprise Crew shows up in the club on Spacedock? Or on our Starbase for that matter.
Next time I post: Influence and Control games. Global Events + Battlezone technology = Let's play Galactic Sphere of Influence.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Alright. In the interest of dumping ideas onto the forums I've seen lots of people want a territory control game in sector space.
The only place that's really possible is in unaligned Exploration Space.
That said me personally I'm not a PvP kinda guy. Nor does Cryptic seem to want to engage PvP on a major level. That's fine though as a this can be rather virtual anyway. This is also by necessity. There are simply less KDF and Romulan players versus Federation players. This is also consistent with canon as both empires as far as area covered are smaller than the Federation.
In the ongoing territory game, the number of colonies and new species that you have colonized or established diplomatic relationships with across all players counts towards your faction's influence. I think this could really tax any procedural or randomly generated system, because you would need a rather large number of species and areas to colonize. All 14 clusters needs to have unique indigenous aliens and unique places to set up colonies. I would reuse the heck out of Virinat, the Romulan Staging ground, even Past Iconia. Now you could start with say as few as 3 species per cluster and and probably a dozen colony sites. But that would have to be for starters.
The factors I would use is areas explored which you could basically handle in the same way as tour the galaxy. Go to this point survey, move to the next point, but as realistic as that is for a Starfleet officer's duties it's not particularly engaging now is it?
So areas explored, species contacted, colonies established. So you would start with the six steps of the colonization chains just as missions.
Choice and Consequence is something I think is heavily needed in this game, so the end game is what is the consequence for this territory control. Well they would play differently for one. Above I outlined the different ways of how diplomatic reputation vs military reputation would influence how a situation would resolve. This system would also influence how they start. For instance in the T'Ong nebula, when under Klingon control a Klingon with military reputation wouldn't get a fleet of allies that would scare off the enemy, but they would come in with guns blazing and actually trigger a bigger more epic battle. For a Starfleet officer entering a Klingon influence area, the normal diplomacy options, especially those that you would have at lower level diplomacy would actually be the wrong options, since people who are influenced by the Klingons would be more militant and respect strength more than a silver tongue. So more aggressive options that in a neutral or Starfleet or Romulan aligned area would start a fight would be needed to stave off a fight in a Klingon influenced cluster.
Conversely for a Klingon entering a Starfleet or Romulan aligned cluster, first of all Klingons would not have diplomacy at first, I would go with Prestige; this warrior is known and can do things on the strength of their reputation, only when he makes it to the maximum level then can they be called a diplomat like Kamarag.
I'm not thinking that when you actually make headway that it should change things that much. For instance a Starfleet Officer who has established allies in the T'Ong nebula, when a situation occurs that you would call in your allies it should be like in "The Defector" The formerly Klingon aligned species would show up in Klingon materiel decloaking around the new enemy, instead of in new Starfleet ships or anything.
Like I said before, colonies and alliances with new species should have set backs. Nak'hul and Iconian attacks if you DON'T show up to stop them would leave you with a weakened position and the allies would start to wonder if you're actually going to be able to protect them or whether allying with you is in their best interest. In the case of a colony if ignored long enough, if it is insufficiently developed then it would be a failed colony like Tasha Yar's homeworld, where when you beam down you're immediately attacked and you would need a different mission chain to rebuild the colony. If it is fully developed and self sustaining if you ignore it after such an attack for too long, then when you entered the system you may come under attack.
As for rewards having a cluster at 90% or better for your faction by always expanding and maintaining relationships with aliens and colonies would be like a global event. Having a whole cluster under your faction control would give XP bonuses or mark bonuses or maybe even a dilithium bonus. Or each different cluster would give a bonus to your faction. For individual captains a colony or ally would give you resources in their possession, crafting materials from a species mining their asteroid belt, dilithium for a species with a system rich in ore, food provision commodities for an agricultural world like Virinat was. You would log in and receive *boom* your daily mats, commodities, and dilithium from your colonies. Maybe each cluster could have a unique console or weapon that they have developed that all their ships have and that they gift you after a long enough period of time. And perhaps we could set up trade networks between different colonies and allies "Great River" style. But that should probably just be automatically something our assigned diplomats do.
I am rather sensitive to the dilithium trading balance here and having clusters, colonies, and allies supplying dilithium may unbalance the system, so a final tier project like building a starbase in the cluster may be needed to offset. Not so expensive that it cripples players with no dilithium, perhaps enough so that the cluster self funds. On the other hand it wouldn't be a fleet Starbase, but a Faction starbase, so literally every Fed could contribute to it. I don't know just spitballing on that, in game economics isn't my strong suit.
Now as I said the Klingons have far fewer players so it should technically be extremely difficult for them to maintain cluster control and thus earn the bonuses in a real PvP fashion, so it should probably be separate with how under control the clusters are being a matter of time investment rather than a PvP situation where you have to fight off Feds or Klingons from entering your cluster.
Alright, that's all I got on that.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I've been playing Subnautica & NMS for the last two weeks...
Neither is perfect (not a hint of Trek anywhere to be seen), but both have been quite entertaining for me.
PWE/Cryptic's Mega-play tactics for money lately, has soured me on playing STO.
I've turned to the internetz rumor-mill about Star Trek: DISCOVERY for my daily Trek fix.
<shrug>
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Adding in exploration just for exploration's sake without a goal or story line would be detrimental
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
Adding in exploration just for exploration's sake without a goal or story line would be detrimental
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
That's what Starfleet is supposed to do, you know?
^ 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
Adding in exploration just for exploration's sake without a goal or story line would be detrimental
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
True. ...and then the Borg attacked Earth.
Anyway, doing things with no real goal to them is pointless. If you explore, there MUST be a goal to it: Discovery of new peoples; small warzones; Merchant issues/ trade building; Bounty-hunting your evil twin before he blows up another planet (thinking tv show '24' concept - but with an actual storyline to it); other things I'm failing to list...
To be honest, I get bored and end up finding myself zoning out just searching for enough Doff missions to fill up my total of 20 missions sometimes - doesn't matter which ones.
I'd change a couple of critical factors with STO, but that might mean a full rewrite on how they developed the game. For instance, ever played that old game 'Fable' or 'Fable II'? Your decisions in the game literally determined not only what happened, but also the entire storyline of the game as well as what you were capable of doing during that game. No two games were the same, nor stories, really - just the basic overall arc. STO you hunt like hell for a mission, run mission, get junk, run mission again, get more junk, and repeat until you're good and royally bored. It doesn't evolve with you. I can think of two other games with the variable storyarc concept: FF7 and Baulder's Gate (series). Have to admit that I'd like to see this concept implemented in STO. Never got the chance to play the StarWars game that attempted this, so can't say anything about it as to whether they were successful or not.
PWE/Cryptic's Mega-play tactics for money lately, has soured me on playing STO.
Ouch! Well, that's the standard opinion today. Whole lot of effort for rewards that aren't really that useful. For example: the ship card on offer today as the reward for a Major Event. Would try for the R&D ship, but as a F2P on this account, it isn't worth it.
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
The consumer feedback loop. Just like any market or business model, the consumer must have a reason to do what you want them to do. If that reason isn't much of a pull on the consumer, then why would they do it? Basic Economics. Think of how it would apply to a game system. The Carrot or the Stick...
Keep the ideas flowing, Capaind3! You never know who's reading.
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
That's the problem with Too Long Didn't Read. I addressed that, in that the colonies and allies would ship resources to you. And maintaining the global goal will give the same as current rewards for global events bonus XP and Marks for the whole faction.
And also a different way to play and to address the desire for exploration with already available in game resources.
Adding in exploration just for exploration's sake without a goal or story line would be detrimental
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
I also addressed that, and the scene popped into my head there.
And I quote myself.
The factors I would use is areas explored which you could basically handle in the same way as tour the galaxy. Go to this point survey, move to the next point, but as realistic as that is for a Starfleet officer's duties it's not particularly engaging now is it?
The entire point of colonization and establishing diplomatic contact and making new friends with new species who would only have control of their solar system is that the point of exploring strange new worlds is to seek out new life and new civilizations.
First Contact missions, diplomatic engagement that doesn't revolve around our phaser (or for many Antiproton) banks, and setting other people up to explore those new worlds that we've discovered.
On that subject I'd like to see more types of worlds available for exploration. How about a class O world? Of course that would require us to be able to swim, maybe with a propeller thruster pack to pull us, but that's something they should be doing for Risa anyway. A planet with an archipelago we'd need a Risa surfboard to get around on. A Demon Class planet with no Tholians. And to just bite off Star Wars a Class J planet with a cloud city or something.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I think Cryptic wants to really avoid the whole mess that WoW, Halo and Borderlands fell into and became. That led to legal violations and lawsuits. Just a truely remarkable headache that'd take too long to discuss here.
Nothing wrong with a little one on one though.
In it's early history, STO was intending to allow the different Factions to do large scale P2P events. The P2P Battlezones are what remains of it. If you can pull up the P2P list (I don't recall if it's still accessable, like the PVE ones are), you'll see that one of the reasons that Crypic stopped development on it, was simply that STO players didn't really persue it.
It wasn't a priorty and not enough interest by the players. So why bother with the usual resulting headache?
*shrug*
You can also go over to the P2P part of this forum to find out more about it. Their current threads talk about actually removing it completely from the game. But I'm not offering any further opinion on it.
The KDF, Fed and Rom aren't at war so any P2P with any of these would seem to go against the game's current premise.
Plenty of ways to handle exploration. Meet a new civilization. They need supplies like the old Exploration clusters. You do that, open relations. You start peaceful talks if they are warp capable.
depending on how you do, you start real diplomatic relations. Then you start trade agreements, with the planet, your ship is tasked with patrolling for pirates and such to keep freedom of navigation(or hell could even give us squadrons tumdedum). Planet is brought into the federation, or RR or KDF. Hey they want a starbase and you start bringing in supplies like strategy style, then you have to defend against god knows what depending on where you are.
there's a whole chain of missions you could set up in exploration.
Or we do those rare things and get to watch a star go super nova(and get a unique title for doing so). Then there's the boring old stuff you saw from the beginning of First Contact.
BUT. For me it goes under the header of "A day in the life of a star fleet captain".
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!
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
That's the problem with Too Long Didn't Read.
One way to circumvent this is to start the essay with a summary of the essay contents. This gives the reader knowledge of the full contents before they read all of it.
Plenty of ways to handle exploration. Meet a new civilization. They need supplies like the old Exploration clusters. You do that, open relations. You start peaceful talks if they are warp capable.
depending on how you do, you start real diplomatic relations. Then you start trade agreements, with the planet, your ship is tasked with patrolling for pirates and such to keep freedom of navigation(or hell could even give us squadrons tumdedum). Planet is brought into the federation, or RR or KDF. Hey they want a starbase and you start bringing in supplies like strategy style, then you have to defend against god knows what depending on where you are.
there's a whole chain of missions you could set up in exploration.
Or we do those rare things and get to watch a star go super nova(and get a unique title for doing so). Then there's the boring old stuff you saw from the beginning of First Contact.
BUT. For me it goes under the header of "A day in the life of a star fleet captain".
RIGHT. I forgot about that.
I haven't thought of a game mechanic that wouldn't cancel the ongoing gameplay without adding more areas of exploration and new species, but at some point bringing the civilization into the Federation or the Romulan Republic.
The Klingon Empire would like conquer the civilization at some point.
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
That's the problem with Too Long Didn't Read.
One way to circumvent this is to start the essay with a summary of the essay contents. This gives the reader knowledge of the full contents before they read all of it.
That's fair.
I usually just post train of thought style so indexing my posts isn't a natural inclination, but I'll look to do that in the future.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Considering the NMS devs blatantly lied to people about their game to the point that Steam is issuing refunds, I don't think NMS should be emulated.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Anyway I can understand the frustration people have with the game. PC players (most of them) couldn't even get it to launch on day one.
Like I said earlier though, it's far from perfect, but it's been the best 7/10 game I've ever played. And the OST is incredible. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game. At least most people agree on that judging from youtube comments.
One thing I found that NMS did an excellent job on is that you actually feel the vastness of space when you're flying from planet to planet in system.
It can take you 5mins+ to travel from one planetary body to another within system at "Pulse Drive speed" (max speed in system), that same 5mins, if travelled at non-Pulse Drive speed could literally take you years to get there. STO space travel feels absolutely claustrophobic in comparison.
Which is unfortunately the one thing STO cannot change, they have their maps and way of travel firmly cemented into the system already, and that would be the most arduous of things to change in game. So I don't even need/want that "Distance" feel here in STO. But it sure is impressive, and I would hope if they ever make an STO 2, this would be something taken into consideration.
Like anything in life, those with a grievance will scream the loudest. Myself, I'm really enjoying the journey and don't have many complaints.
It certainly wont be something I replay over and over more then once or twice, but its been an entertaining game for me the last couple weeks. I'll be happy I experienced it first hand. Rather then having others make up my mind for me.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
Next up on the Hype train;
Red Dead 3
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Gears of War 4
Mass Effect Andromeda
Etc,etc,etc
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
I have not played NMS and I while I have been interested in playing the game since I first heard about 9 - 12 months ago I have definitely not been ridding the hype train.
I do not think it is fair to compare NMS to ME3. ME3 on the whole had a pretty decent launch with not many missing features or broken performance. I have to state I did not play ME3 until around 3 months after it launched so I am not aware of any thing that would be considered game breaking from a performance point of view. However, I do know of the Day One DLC controversy regarding Javik (the last surviving Prothean). But that is just one feature, not a laundry list of many. Excluding the ending, the only gripe I remember having was that ME3 was more of a 3rd person action game rather than a 3rd person RPG game. I think ME2 had the right mix.
On the other hand NMS seems to have numerous performance issues on the PC based on what I have read. That is kinda ironic since NMS was initially developed as a PC game if what I have read is true. Then there are the missing features a lot of people have complained about and there was even an exhaustive list on Reddit of all the promised features that were not in the retail game.
Sure, both games have ending that basically sucks, but that is as far as I would go with the comparison between ME3 and NMS for someone who has actually not played NMS yet. It's still piqued my interest, but I am going to wait for a price drop and more importantly patches to incorporate messing features into the game.
Regarding the "missing features" I would say there are at least two ways of looking at...
#1 - Gamer's point of view - I guess all the interviews and demonstrations of the game during the development process (which I did not bother to read / watch), NWS was supposed to have a lot features there compared to what actually was in the retail version of the game. Naturally, people who were super hyped about the game expected to see all those features or at least a majority of them. But sadly, that was not the case and they felt cheated, lied to and probably even betrayed by the developer.
#2 - Developer's point of view - Everyone knows developing games is a lot easier said than done. Hello Games promised a lot and wanted to give it's target audience the best game they can deliver to the best of their abilities. I am not sure when NMS was originally expected to be released prior to the announcement the game was also going to be released for the PS4. But since Sony was flipping the bill for providing promotional and marketing support, I suppose Sony had a hand in deciding when the game is to be released. That creates a problem... the game might have been rushed out the door to meet Sony's deadline expectations. At that point the developer could have been forced to release what is known as a MVP.
No, this is not sports so MVP does not mean "Most Valuable Player". Instead it means "Minimal Viable Product", where Sony is more or less forcing Hello Games to release a product that can be considered "playable", but not complete. It kinda reminds me of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II that was being developed by Obsidian. Lucas Arts force Obsidian to cut development time of the game so that it can be released for holiday sales in December 2004 rather than what was probably going to be a Spring 2005 release.
Star Wars: KOTOR II was originally supposed to have a total of 3 acts to the game, but due to time constraints mandated by LucasArts executives Obsidian had no choice but to cut content from the game to meet the December 2004 release date. Fortunately, the cut content assets was included on the DVD (if I remember correctly) and later various fan made "Restoration Projects" were in the works to flesh out KOTOR II's story with the cut content. I think the most recent project is The Sith Lords Restored.
Anywaste... the truth is probably the combination of #1 and #2 or perhaps something else. In any case I'll just wait for more patches to be released and a price drop before I decide to buy the game. That assumes at that time I am still interested in playing the game.
STO will never be able to do a good procedurally generated content system with the limitations of an ancient engine and the lack of dedicated server space to process each and every different area to a good degree. At best, it'd just be a series of mix-and-match maps with different objectives, NPCs, and buildings or flora and fauna.
And furthermore, STO will never allow original naming of random new species or real choices that affect your game on the level of Mass Effect's choices (even including the corrected freedom of choice final endings).
Considering the NMS devs blatantly lied to people about their game to the point that Steam is issuing refunds, I don't think NMS should be emulated.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Anyway I can understand the frustration people have with the game. PC players (most of them) couldn't even get it to launch on day one.
Like I said earlier though, it's far from perfect, but it's been the best 7/10 game I've ever played. And the OST is incredible. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game. At least most people agree on that judging from youtube comments.
One thing I found that NMS did an excellent job on is that you actually feel the vastness of space when you're flying from planet to planet in system.
It can take you 5mins+ to travel from one planetary body to another within system at "Pulse Drive speed" (max speed in system), that same 5mins, if travelled at non-Pulse Drive speed could literally take you years to get there. STO space travel feels absolutely claustrophobic in comparison.
Which is unfortunately the one thing STO cannot change, they have their maps and way of travel firmly cemented into the system already, and that would be the most arduous of things to change in game. So I don't even need/want that "Distance" feel here in STO. But it sure is impressive, and I would hope if they ever make an STO 2, this would be something taken into consideration.
Like anything in life, those with a grievance will scream the loudest. Myself, I'm really enjoying the journey and don't have many complaints.
It certainly wont be something I replay over and over more then once or twice, but its been an entertaining game for me the last couple weeks. I'll be happy I experienced it first hand. Rather then having others make up my mind for me.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
Next up on the Hype train;
Red Dead 3
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Gears of War 4
Mass Effect Andromeda
Etc,etc,etc
Keep your expectations to a dull roar.
Count me among those furious at Mass 3's ending. I still haven't played through on the any of my other four characters after the first.
But, it was still a hell of a Trilogy. And Mass Effect Andromeda is bringing me home again.
I think the easiest thing for an STO2 would definitely be to open up the final frontier. I'll give them massive credit for Quadrant space though. That was a huge improvement to me and I appreciate the effort.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
I have not played NMS and I while I have been interested in playing the game since I first heard about 9 - 12 months ago I have definitely not been ridding the hype train.
I do not think it is fair to compare NMS to ME3. ME3 on the whole had a pretty decent launch with not many missing features or broken performance. I have to state I did not play ME3 until around 3 months after it launched so I am not aware of any thing that would be considered game breaking from a performance point of view. However, I do know of the Day One DLC controversy regarding Javik (the last surviving Prothean). But that is just one feature, not a laundry list of many. Excluding the ending, the only gripe I remember having was that ME3 was more of a 3rd person action game rather than a 3rd person RPG game. I think ME2 had the right mix.
On the other hand NMS seems to have numerous performance issues on the PC based on what I have read. That is kinda ironic since NMS was initially developed as a PC game if what I have read is true. Then there are the missing features a lot of people have complained about and there was even an exhaustive list on Reddit of all the promised features that were not in the retail game.
Sure, both games have ending that basically sucks, but that is as far as I would go with the comparison between ME3 and NMS for someone who has actually not played NMS yet. It's still piqued my interest, but I am going to wait for a price drop and more importantly patches to incorporate messing features into the game.
Regarding the "missing features" I would say there are at least two ways of looking at...
#1 - Gamer's point of view - I guess all the interviews and demonstrations of the game during the development process (which I did not bother to read / watch), NWS was supposed to have a lot features there compared to what actually was in the retail version of the game. Naturally, people who were super hyped about the game expected to see all those features or at least a majority of them. But sadly, that was not the case and they felt cheated, lied to and probably even betrayed by the developer.
#2 - Developer's point of view - Everyone knows developing games is a lot easier said than done. Hello Games promised a lot and wanted to give it's target audience the best game they can deliver to the best of their abilities. I am not sure when NMS was originally expected to be released prior to the announcement the game was also going to be released for the PS4. But since Sony was flipping the bill for providing promotional and marketing support, I suppose Sony had a hand in deciding when the game is to be released. That creates a problem... the game might have been rushed out the door to meet Sony's deadline expectations. At that point the developer could have been forced to release what is known as a MVP.
No, this is not sports so MVP does not mean "Most Valuable Player". Instead it means "Minimal Viable Product", where Sony is more or less forcing Hello Games to release a product that can be considered "playable", but not complete. It kinda reminds me of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II that was being developed by Obsidian. Lucas Arts force Obsidian to cut development time of the game so that it can be released for holiday sales in December 2004 rather than what was probably going to be a Spring 2005 release.
Star Wars: KOTOR II was originally supposed to have a total of 3 acts to the game, but due to time constraints mandated by LucasArts executives Obsidian had no choice but to cut content from the game to meet the December 2004 release date. Fortunately, the cut content assets was included on the DVD (if I remember correctly) and later various fan made "Restoration Projects" were in the works to flesh out KOTOR II's story with the cut content. I think the most recent project is The Sith Lords Restored.
Anywaste... the truth is probably the combination of #1 and #2 or perhaps something else. In any case I'll just wait for more patches to be released and a price drop before I decide to buy the game. That assumes at that time I am still interested in playing the game.
Minimal Viable Product. Wouldn't be the first time Sony pushed that though. That's what happened with the launch of Street Fighter V as they wanted it available for the EVO or another tournament so they pushed the game out before the story mode or in game store were complete.
STO will never be able to do a good procedurally generated content system with the limitations of an ancient engine and the lack of dedicated server space to process each and every different area to a good degree. At best, it'd just be a series of mix-and-match maps with different objectives, NPCs, and buildings or flora and fauna.
And furthermore, STO will never allow original naming of random new species or real choices that affect your game on the level of Mass Effect's choices (even including the corrected freedom of choice final endings).
Well an engine overhaul isn't in the cards that's for damn sure. Part of the reason the game was able to be made at all was because Cryptic could build it in their own engine in a short period of time Piggybacking on Jaguar's statement, STO itself was an MVP game at launch. Perpetual sat on the license without making progress for so long STO had a severely truncated development time. But improvements to the engine will never be able to generate the kind of improvements they would get from a new engine.
STO has experimented with choice based gameplay, the Delta Quadrant mission where the Vaadwaur refugees just want away from the fighting and a nice place to start over actually will determine what kind of Vaadwaur reinforcements you get at Vaadwaur Prime for the final battle. The game simply will judge based on your last decision in that mission. Ultimately it's a series of yes/no or score based decisions in the engine that will be referenced by the system later. So choice IS actually possible in STO.
For my ideas I was actually thinking that the content as far as species wouldn't be fully procedurally created as a matter of quality, but the devs would create several sets of aliens for each cluster just with common scenarios to unite them, First Contact, embassy creation, deal violation, enemy attack, pirate raid, convoy escort, etc. Three species you could contact at launch and every season they add new species to each exploration cluster quadrant each season.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Considering the NMS devs blatantly lied to people about their game to the point that Steam is issuing refunds, I don't think NMS should be emulated.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Except its not really multiplayer at all, because people DID find eachother and it turned out they can't actually see eachother no matter what.
The problem with NMS is the hype that has been created over the years. So we created in our minds a version of NMS that didn't exist. As a procedurally generated universe it has succeeded.
As far as anyone believing it was actually multiplayer, it is as much multiplayer as Spore is. If I encounter a world that has been discovered by someone else, then I can see what they named the solar system, planets, plants, waypoints, and animals. However, a multiplayer game can't exist if you are able to load a previous saved game.
Comments
I have no idea how that would be implemented, and part of me is like, "Watch what you ask for; you might get it." And I know these things take time and cost money to implement as well. I get that.
But I'd at least like to have something more than just, for example, "fly around this planet, kill 5 groups of enemy ships, and maybe scan a few things." I know that's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the point.
check out what captain said a few posts up...he's got some great ideas on meaningful exploration/colonization.
If I could poll, back when they were putting fluff and story into DOFF chain assignments, how many of you guys were like. "Damn the lower decks I want to go on that mission".
Thanks for the positive feedback folks, I appreciate it. Let me see if I can pull anything else out.
I'd like to see those situations where you have both previous actions and reputation interact actually.
OK, there was that patrol mission in the Delta Quadrant where you had to defend the Talaxian convoy that had P-O'ed Vaadwaur. Then you had to set up their phaser platforms and fight Team Cobra-La off.
In my version of that in an exploration cluster, if you had had an encounter with that species before then if you explored that sector sufficiently you would've discovered their base and shut it down, you would've actually eliminated their reinforcements and then there would only be one wave. Conversely the fact that you shut down their base and destroyed most of their ships is the reason they were hitting the convoy for supplies.
On the other hand Personal Reputation in that cluster would play into it like this. If you had the highest level of say military reputation then instead of having to fight, what would happen is when you show up, they would scan your ship and say..."NOPE" and they wouldn't even attack, or would break off when you show up. I'd call the accolade "The Dreaded"
The second highest level you'd fight one wave and then the others would bug out and you get full credit for the stage. Now if you have full diplomatic reputation then you could send out a distress call and instead of fending them off alone, you'd have neighboring species joining in the mutual defense. (Which might I add is super Star Trek) and if you've fully explored the cluster and maintained relationships, ALL those species show up... and the pirates will retreat rather than fight. Call that accolade "The Common Defense".
Two ways to the same prize.
A THIRD way, is if your Captain has full diplomacy personal reputation then you could actually negotiate to get the enemy vital supplies and negotiate a truce. And NOT like the Acamar system. I mean you'd have to get through a LONG dialogue tree, and pick one of many [Diplomacy] options to get to the outcome. The best outcome would be they leave with a positive view of you, the median would be they get what they need and leave in peace but don't like you or hate you, and the worst diplomacy choice outcome would be they feel cheated and vow revenge; with a disastrous outcome being the battle.
But yes the five targets or take five scans stuff was so flat that it became meaningless.
And Ambassador Sugihara on Spacedock is meaningless. We should be setting up openings for the diplomatic core. Imagine for your Fleet Embassy if every Embassy you set up on a Cluster world would have a diplomat come through the Romulan embassy like how the Enterprise Crew shows up in the club on Spacedock? Or on our Starbase for that matter.
Next time I post: Influence and Control games. Global Events + Battlezone technology = Let's play Galactic Sphere of Influence.
The only place that's really possible is in unaligned Exploration Space.
That said me personally I'm not a PvP kinda guy. Nor does Cryptic seem to want to engage PvP on a major level. That's fine though as a this can be rather virtual anyway. This is also by necessity. There are simply less KDF and Romulan players versus Federation players. This is also consistent with canon as both empires as far as area covered are smaller than the Federation.
In the ongoing territory game, the number of colonies and new species that you have colonized or established diplomatic relationships with across all players counts towards your faction's influence. I think this could really tax any procedural or randomly generated system, because you would need a rather large number of species and areas to colonize. All 14 clusters needs to have unique indigenous aliens and unique places to set up colonies. I would reuse the heck out of Virinat, the Romulan Staging ground, even Past Iconia. Now you could start with say as few as 3 species per cluster and and probably a dozen colony sites. But that would have to be for starters.
The factors I would use is areas explored which you could basically handle in the same way as tour the galaxy. Go to this point survey, move to the next point, but as realistic as that is for a Starfleet officer's duties it's not particularly engaging now is it?
So areas explored, species contacted, colonies established. So you would start with the six steps of the colonization chains just as missions.
Choice and Consequence is something I think is heavily needed in this game, so the end game is what is the consequence for this territory control. Well they would play differently for one. Above I outlined the different ways of how diplomatic reputation vs military reputation would influence how a situation would resolve. This system would also influence how they start. For instance in the T'Ong nebula, when under Klingon control a Klingon with military reputation wouldn't get a fleet of allies that would scare off the enemy, but they would come in with guns blazing and actually trigger a bigger more epic battle. For a Starfleet officer entering a Klingon influence area, the normal diplomacy options, especially those that you would have at lower level diplomacy would actually be the wrong options, since people who are influenced by the Klingons would be more militant and respect strength more than a silver tongue. So more aggressive options that in a neutral or Starfleet or Romulan aligned area would start a fight would be needed to stave off a fight in a Klingon influenced cluster.
Conversely for a Klingon entering a Starfleet or Romulan aligned cluster, first of all Klingons would not have diplomacy at first, I would go with Prestige; this warrior is known and can do things on the strength of their reputation, only when he makes it to the maximum level then can they be called a diplomat like Kamarag.
I'm not thinking that when you actually make headway that it should change things that much. For instance a Starfleet Officer who has established allies in the T'Ong nebula, when a situation occurs that you would call in your allies it should be like in "The Defector" The formerly Klingon aligned species would show up in Klingon materiel decloaking around the new enemy, instead of in new Starfleet ships or anything.
Like I said before, colonies and alliances with new species should have set backs. Nak'hul and Iconian attacks if you DON'T show up to stop them would leave you with a weakened position and the allies would start to wonder if you're actually going to be able to protect them or whether allying with you is in their best interest. In the case of a colony if ignored long enough, if it is insufficiently developed then it would be a failed colony like Tasha Yar's homeworld, where when you beam down you're immediately attacked and you would need a different mission chain to rebuild the colony. If it is fully developed and self sustaining if you ignore it after such an attack for too long, then when you entered the system you may come under attack.
As for rewards having a cluster at 90% or better for your faction by always expanding and maintaining relationships with aliens and colonies would be like a global event. Having a whole cluster under your faction control would give XP bonuses or mark bonuses or maybe even a dilithium bonus. Or each different cluster would give a bonus to your faction. For individual captains a colony or ally would give you resources in their possession, crafting materials from a species mining their asteroid belt, dilithium for a species with a system rich in ore, food provision commodities for an agricultural world like Virinat was. You would log in and receive *boom* your daily mats, commodities, and dilithium from your colonies. Maybe each cluster could have a unique console or weapon that they have developed that all their ships have and that they gift you after a long enough period of time. And perhaps we could set up trade networks between different colonies and allies "Great River" style. But that should probably just be automatically something our assigned diplomats do.
I am rather sensitive to the dilithium trading balance here and having clusters, colonies, and allies supplying dilithium may unbalance the system, so a final tier project like building a starbase in the cluster may be needed to offset. Not so expensive that it cripples players with no dilithium, perhaps enough so that the cluster self funds. On the other hand it wouldn't be a fleet Starbase, but a Faction starbase, so literally every Fed could contribute to it. I don't know just spitballing on that, in game economics isn't my strong suit.
Now as I said the Klingons have far fewer players so it should technically be extremely difficult for them to maintain cluster control and thus earn the bonuses in a real PvP fashion, so it should probably be separate with how under control the clusters are being a matter of time investment rather than a PvP situation where you have to fight off Feds or Klingons from entering your cluster.
Alright, that's all I got on that.
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
My character Tsin'xing
Neither is perfect (not a hint of Trek anywhere to be seen), but both have been quite entertaining for me.
PWE/Cryptic's Mega-play tactics for money lately, has soured me on playing STO.
I've turned to the internetz rumor-mill about Star Trek: DISCOVERY for my daily Trek fix.
<shrug>
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
That's what Starfleet is supposed to do, you know?
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True. ...and then the Borg attacked Earth.
Anyway, doing things with no real goal to them is pointless. If you explore, there MUST be a goal to it: Discovery of new peoples; small warzones; Merchant issues/ trade building; Bounty-hunting your evil twin before he blows up another planet (thinking tv show '24' concept - but with an actual storyline to it); other things I'm failing to list...
To be honest, I get bored and end up finding myself zoning out just searching for enough Doff missions to fill up my total of 20 missions sometimes - doesn't matter which ones.
I'd change a couple of critical factors with STO, but that might mean a full rewrite on how they developed the game. For instance, ever played that old game 'Fable' or 'Fable II'? Your decisions in the game literally determined not only what happened, but also the entire storyline of the game as well as what you were capable of doing during that game. No two games were the same, nor stories, really - just the basic overall arc. STO you hunt like hell for a mission, run mission, get junk, run mission again, get more junk, and repeat until you're good and royally bored. It doesn't evolve with you. I can think of two other games with the variable storyarc concept: FF7 and Baulder's Gate (series). Have to admit that I'd like to see this concept implemented in STO. Never got the chance to play the StarWars game that attempted this, so can't say anything about it as to whether they were successful or not.
Ouch! Well, that's the standard opinion today. Whole lot of effort for rewards that aren't really that useful. For example: the ship card on offer today as the reward for a Major Event. Would try for the R&D ship, but as a F2P on this account, it isn't worth it.
The consumer feedback loop. Just like any market or business model, the consumer must have a reason to do what you want them to do. If that reason isn't much of a pull on the consumer, then why would they do it? Basic Economics. Think of how it would apply to a game system. The Carrot or the Stick...
Keep the ideas flowing, Capaind3! You never know who's reading.
= ^.^ =
That's the problem with Too Long Didn't Read. I addressed that, in that the colonies and allies would ship resources to you. And maintaining the global goal will give the same as current rewards for global events bonus XP and Marks for the whole faction.
And also a different way to play and to address the desire for exploration with already available in game resources.
I also addressed that, and the scene popped into my head there.
And I quote myself.
The entire point of colonization and establishing diplomatic contact and making new friends with new species who would only have control of their solar system is that the point of exploring strange new worlds is to seek out new life and new civilizations.
First Contact missions, diplomatic engagement that doesn't revolve around our phaser (or for many Antiproton) banks, and setting other people up to explore those new worlds that we've discovered.
On that subject I'd like to see more types of worlds available for exploration. How about a class O world? Of course that would require us to be able to swim, maybe with a propeller thruster pack to pull us, but that's something they should be doing for Risa anyway. A planet with an archipelago we'd need a Risa surfboard to get around on. A Demon Class planet with no Tholians. And to just bite off Star Wars a Class J planet with a cloud city or something.
I think Cryptic wants to really avoid the whole mess that WoW, Halo and Borderlands fell into and became. That led to legal violations and lawsuits. Just a truely remarkable headache that'd take too long to discuss here.
Nothing wrong with a little one on one though.
In it's early history, STO was intending to allow the different Factions to do large scale P2P events. The P2P Battlezones are what remains of it. If you can pull up the P2P list (I don't recall if it's still accessable, like the PVE ones are), you'll see that one of the reasons that Crypic stopped development on it, was simply that STO players didn't really persue it.
It wasn't a priorty and not enough interest by the players. So why bother with the usual resulting headache?
*shrug*
You can also go over to the P2P part of this forum to find out more about it. Their current threads talk about actually removing it completely from the game. But I'm not offering any further opinion on it.
The KDF, Fed and Rom aren't at war so any P2P with any of these would seem to go against the game's current premise.
depending on how you do, you start real diplomatic relations. Then you start trade agreements, with the planet, your ship is tasked with patrolling for pirates and such to keep freedom of navigation(or hell could even give us squadrons tumdedum). Planet is brought into the federation, or RR or KDF. Hey they want a starbase and you start bringing in supplies like strategy style, then you have to defend against god knows what depending on where you are.
there's a whole chain of missions you could set up in exploration.
Or we do those rare things and get to watch a star go super nova(and get a unique title for doing so). Then there's the boring old stuff you saw from the beginning of First Contact.
BUT. For me it goes under the header of "A day in the life of a star fleet captain".
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
My character Tsin'xing
I spent the first part of this post reading thinking, what is he talking about Pay to Play. PvP Player vs Player.
RIGHT. I forgot about that.
I haven't thought of a game mechanic that wouldn't cancel the ongoing gameplay without adding more areas of exploration and new species, but at some point bringing the civilization into the Federation or the Romulan Republic.
The Klingon Empire would like conquer the civilization at some point.
That's fair.
I usually just post train of thought style so indexing my posts isn't a natural inclination, but I'll look to do that in the future.
My character Tsin'xing
Just google "No Man's Lie".
My character Tsin'xing
My fault. Sry. I'm still used to the old format abbrevs, so tend to use ones that mean different things now.
P2P used to mean Player-to-Player.
But that was from before the whole pay-to-play stuff came about.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Anyway I can understand the frustration people have with the game. PC players (most of them) couldn't even get it to launch on day one.
Like I said earlier though, it's far from perfect, but it's been the best 7/10 game I've ever played. And the OST is incredible. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game. At least most people agree on that judging from youtube comments.
One thing I found that NMS did an excellent job on is that you actually feel the vastness of space when you're flying from planet to planet in system.
It can take you 5mins+ to travel from one planetary body to another within system at "Pulse Drive speed" (max speed in system), that same 5mins, if travelled at non-Pulse Drive speed could literally take you years to get there. STO space travel feels absolutely claustrophobic in comparison.
Which is unfortunately the one thing STO cannot change, they have their maps and way of travel firmly cemented into the system already, and that would be the most arduous of things to change in game. So I don't even need/want that "Distance" feel here in STO. But it sure is impressive, and I would hope if they ever make an STO 2, this would be something taken into consideration.
Like anything in life, those with a grievance will scream the loudest. Myself, I'm really enjoying the journey and don't have many complaints.
It certainly wont be something I replay over and over more then once or twice, but its been an entertaining game for me the last couple weeks. I'll be happy I experienced it first hand. Rather then having others make up my mind for me.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
Next up on the Hype train;
Red Dead 3
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Gears of War 4
Mass Effect Andromeda
Etc,etc,etc
Keep your expectations to a dull roar.
I have not played NMS and I while I have been interested in playing the game since I first heard about 9 - 12 months ago I have definitely not been ridding the hype train.
I do not think it is fair to compare NMS to ME3. ME3 on the whole had a pretty decent launch with not many missing features or broken performance. I have to state I did not play ME3 until around 3 months after it launched so I am not aware of any thing that would be considered game breaking from a performance point of view. However, I do know of the Day One DLC controversy regarding Javik (the last surviving Prothean). But that is just one feature, not a laundry list of many. Excluding the ending, the only gripe I remember having was that ME3 was more of a 3rd person action game rather than a 3rd person RPG game. I think ME2 had the right mix.
On the other hand NMS seems to have numerous performance issues on the PC based on what I have read. That is kinda ironic since NMS was initially developed as a PC game if what I have read is true. Then there are the missing features a lot of people have complained about and there was even an exhaustive list on Reddit of all the promised features that were not in the retail game.
Sure, both games have ending that basically sucks, but that is as far as I would go with the comparison between ME3 and NMS for someone who has actually not played NMS yet. It's still piqued my interest, but I am going to wait for a price drop and more importantly patches to incorporate messing features into the game.
Regarding the "missing features" I would say there are at least two ways of looking at...
#1 - Gamer's point of view - I guess all the interviews and demonstrations of the game during the development process (which I did not bother to read / watch), NWS was supposed to have a lot features there compared to what actually was in the retail version of the game. Naturally, people who were super hyped about the game expected to see all those features or at least a majority of them. But sadly, that was not the case and they felt cheated, lied to and probably even betrayed by the developer.
#2 - Developer's point of view - Everyone knows developing games is a lot easier said than done. Hello Games promised a lot and wanted to give it's target audience the best game they can deliver to the best of their abilities. I am not sure when NMS was originally expected to be released prior to the announcement the game was also going to be released for the PS4. But since Sony was flipping the bill for providing promotional and marketing support, I suppose Sony had a hand in deciding when the game is to be released. That creates a problem... the game might have been rushed out the door to meet Sony's deadline expectations. At that point the developer could have been forced to release what is known as a MVP.
No, this is not sports so MVP does not mean "Most Valuable Player". Instead it means "Minimal Viable Product", where Sony is more or less forcing Hello Games to release a product that can be considered "playable", but not complete. It kinda reminds me of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II that was being developed by Obsidian. Lucas Arts force Obsidian to cut development time of the game so that it can be released for holiday sales in December 2004 rather than what was probably going to be a Spring 2005 release.
Star Wars: KOTOR II was originally supposed to have a total of 3 acts to the game, but due to time constraints mandated by LucasArts executives Obsidian had no choice but to cut content from the game to meet the December 2004 release date. Fortunately, the cut content assets was included on the DVD (if I remember correctly) and later various fan made "Restoration Projects" were in the works to flesh out KOTOR II's story with the cut content. I think the most recent project is The Sith Lords Restored.
Anywaste... the truth is probably the combination of #1 and #2 or perhaps something else. In any case I'll just wait for more patches to be released and a price drop before I decide to buy the game. That assumes at that time I am still interested in playing the game.
And furthermore, STO will never allow original naming of random new species or real choices that affect your game on the level of Mass Effect's choices (even including the corrected freedom of choice final endings).
I dig. I figured that out after a while. It was still funny though. And away from gaming it's still peer 2 peer. No need to apologize at all.
Count me among those furious at Mass 3's ending. I still haven't played through on the any of my other four characters after the first.
But, it was still a hell of a Trilogy. And Mass Effect Andromeda is bringing me home again.
I think the easiest thing for an STO2 would definitely be to open up the final frontier. I'll give them massive credit for Quadrant space though. That was a huge improvement to me and I appreciate the effort.
Minimal Viable Product. Wouldn't be the first time Sony pushed that though. That's what happened with the launch of Street Fighter V as they wanted it available for the EVO or another tournament so they pushed the game out before the story mode or in game store were complete.
Well an engine overhaul isn't in the cards that's for damn sure. Part of the reason the game was able to be made at all was because Cryptic could build it in their own engine in a short period of time Piggybacking on Jaguar's statement, STO itself was an MVP game at launch. Perpetual sat on the license without making progress for so long STO had a severely truncated development time. But improvements to the engine will never be able to generate the kind of improvements they would get from a new engine.
STO has experimented with choice based gameplay, the Delta Quadrant mission where the Vaadwaur refugees just want away from the fighting and a nice place to start over actually will determine what kind of Vaadwaur reinforcements you get at Vaadwaur Prime for the final battle. The game simply will judge based on your last decision in that mission. Ultimately it's a series of yes/no or score based decisions in the engine that will be referenced by the system later. So choice IS actually possible in STO.
For my ideas I was actually thinking that the content as far as species wouldn't be fully procedurally created as a matter of quality, but the devs would create several sets of aliens for each cluster just with common scenarios to unite them, First Contact, embassy creation, deal violation, enemy attack, pirate raid, convoy escort, etc. Three species you could contact at launch and every season they add new species to each exploration cluster quadrant each season.
Except its not really multiplayer at all, because people DID find eachother and it turned out they can't actually see eachother no matter what.
As far as anyone believing it was actually multiplayer, it is as much multiplayer as Spore is. If I encounter a world that has been discovered by someone else, then I can see what they named the solar system, planets, plants, waypoints, and animals. However, a multiplayer game can't exist if you are able to load a previous saved game.