It's not the Devs I have problem with, I think for the most part they do the best they can with a aging engine and game. I only really dislike some of the business practices. I wouldn't complain about stuff I believe is missing if I didn't enjoy the game and think it could be that much better given time and resources. Even though I really need Vorta to like the new faction(never been a huge jem'hadar fan), I have been enjoying the new content.
Overall the game is great, but it's not with out its flaws, like I'm sure the devs know about and want to fix the public queue problem(long queue times). I know I have heard them talk about it so it is on their minds which is more then I can say about older MMOs I played in the past.
Normally I'm the first one to give the dev's a hard time about things. Generally, on the bugs and mechanics side of things. The whole DPS race thing never ranks highly on my list of good things, it ranks #1 on my list of things that ruin a game. That being said.
I have to say, from past experiences with expansions here, ViL has been by far the smoothest. The daily patching shows they are waning to get this one more squared away than others. The content doesn't feel rushed, like it was thrown together just to fill the space it takes up. Legacy of Romulas was the last time the content didn't feel rushed.
So for the dev's here, keep up the good work. This is how content should look and feel.
For the writers, however, you all need to sit down and think. An enemy that can be taken care of in one season, such as the Hur'q here. is boring. Not even mid-season, and already we know how to make peace with them. Really? This is the best you can do? You all need to settle in and work on making real enemies, real problems that need to be solved. Ones that take longer than a season.
Very nice work in doing the tightrope with the Dominion Ship releases. You guys did a couple important things right.
1. You did not trivialize the purchase of players who have gotten the canon Lobi / Lockbox / Promo Dominion Ships like the T6 JHDC, T6 Bugship. Sure, the Dominion players get a Free Bugship, but it is the T5 version and not the T6. This was pretty key to me as speculation in the past by players about any possible Dominion Faction / Sub-Faction would run into the problem... How do you give Dominion ships when most of their canon ships are already cross-faction Lockbox / Lobi, etc. ships?
2. You went through the work on making new ships, though I do wish there were more optional ship parts.
3. Wingmen Mechanics are a great addition to the Dominion ships, further lending to the feeling of numbers and units that the Dominion heavily leveraged in the Dominion War.
Outside some annoying bugs in some of the Gamma missions, it's been pretty good so far. Especially Quark's Lucky Seven.
I am also curious, why no playable Vorta? They would have been very sensible player character classes since they are seen as leaders of Dominion forces.
Some forum entries have suggested they may show up as a playable race for LTS. Since Jem'Hadar Captains do not have access to a Tier 5 or Tier 6 LTS ship or the LTS Shuttle they may be planning this, but have been busy getting VIL launched. Usually Additional bonus content for LTS show up when it goes on sale.
They said in yesterday's Livestream that they originally intended for most Dominion races to be playable, but changed their minds as the story developed and it began to make less and less sense for non-Jem'Hadar. They did say though that they are open to doing it in the future, with one possibility (he was only throwing ideas around, not making promises) being an unlockable after completing the entire story once it's all been released.
Given what they're working with, for the most part they make a fun and entertaining game and I appreciate the time and effort they put into giving us a Star Trek experience.
That being said there's room for improvement. I sort of wish they'd get their writing sorted out since there are some awful mistakes or plot inconsistencies in some places. And of course then there are the bugs.
But those are minor quibbles, for the most part, good work Devs!
I think this is a pretty decent expansion so far, and I love the DS9 revamp but would really appreciate if the buggy NPC trains were fixed/removed (psst psst)
"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."
Shout-out to @tacofangs and the rest of art team, y'all did a fantastic job on the DS9 redesign. That is a gorgeous map.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Joined up right after the game went f2p. I must say that the game, while having a few difficulties, has managed to continually improve or try to improve. The amount of love this game has is amazing. I've loved all the work you lot have put in and as a guy studying to get into game design.
Again, thank you guys so much for your work. It is amazing that you've actually been able to do what you do.
And also, not just the developers, the entire team (voice actors included) have been great.
I've had a lot of sad and frustrating moments over the years and STO helped me through those. Truly, thank you for the experience you've all provided for me.
The new DS9, despite some ppl with crappy video cards complaining, is nothing short of a small marvel! There are way too many NPC's on it, though, with horrible pathing.
And Quark's Lucky Seven is no doubt the best episode they've ever written! And the players love it! :P No, seriously, they do!
I've been playing this game longer than I've been alive (yes, time travel). And I keep coming back because it's sometimes just a lot of fun.
The new expansion is enjoyable. There are a couple of problems with it so far (like BOFF pathing for one), but overall, it's a lot of fun. It's a really cool moment to hear some of our old DS9 people talking again in Star Trek-isms and that's just awesome. As long as the devs get around to fixing some of the problems, then in a few weeks, we probably won't even remember them all that well.
I like how they're tying a lot of the earlier threads of stories into the new story line as well. Unlocking "secrets" is always a lot of great fun for a franchise like Star Trek. One thing I still wish they would incorporate again (something not done since early missions in this game) is the concept of out of the way things to find, even if it's little story things (like in the early Starfleet adventure of the Kuvah'Magh where there is a side area in the final battle spot (before you go into the building) where you can see the Klingon ship that landed, causing all of the problems) or in the early Vulcan mission where you find a resource point at an old artifact down the road from the last battle). Those types of things are always cool, and I loved in the past when they got put into the game because it gave people who aren't there just to pew pew something to do as well.
I am looking forward to playing through the rest of the episodes of the new content, and it's always great to see they're trying to push the story further.
Fleet Admiral Duane Gundrum, U.S.S. Merrimack
Fleet Admiral Ventaxa Proxmire, U.S.S. Shaka Walls Fell
Blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/?page_id=1990
Foundry series: Bob From Accounting & For the Sake of the Empire
I will say this.. I was on a long break from STO for a few months.
I 'came back' but was only playing a few hours a week, mostly just a few days of Admiralty and some stuff with the great people in my fleet.. otherwise I was pretty much completely disinterested with STO.
Since VIL, I have played more then I have played in a very long time. Friday I pretty much played all day and evening.
I can sit here and point out things that were good and I can nit pick things that were bad.. but in the end the team behind VIL gave me reasons to play again and renewed my interest in the game. Obviously, they're doing at least something right because I am not the only one.
The last 3 or 4 days are the most people I have seen online on STO since probably Legacy of Romulus. It's not uncommon at all to see 5 or 6 zones all completely full... more so at peak times. Red Alerts queues pop instantly, Gamma BZ is active and this is the most people I have seen in the Undine and Terran BZ in well.. ever.
So kudos to the team, people keep saying STO is dying and that it won't be alive much longer. Gotta tell ya, I'm not seeing it happening anytime soon. They keep people coming back.
Ok, folks, this is a dev appreciation thread. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Seriously, anything else really is off topic. And backhanded compliments ("I really liked/loved this, but...") are not compliments. They're criticisms. You want to criticize, you have the whole rest of the forum for that.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
New semi Faction...awesome idea of using Jemies
Great Story line....probably BEST EVER...Keep those guys in the payroll.
New Ships
New part of the galaxy added
Ds9 ease of finding stores.
My only minor dislike is Ds9 "inside" design...keep bumping into things (hopefully will be looked over some more?). However, the store signage, graphics and ease of finding stuff is so much better.
I want to re-iterate: the new DS9 really is gorgeous!
I've heard ppl complain about things being too dark, or too 'hazy' somehow. To those peeps I can only say: get a decent video card. I recently got myself a Aorus GTX 1080 Ti, and everything looks stunning, really, and runs uebersmooth. Now that the 'trains' of packed NPC's are gone (thanks for that!), I realize I'm really enjoying being at DS9. And Ops is beautiful too. And I love that cosy area Roxy is in (in fact, LOL, I may have a wee girl-crush on Roxy; and now she's got a voice to boot!). That entire deck is fantastic, and I continually marvel at the level of detail, the lighting, and the quality of the design.
It would appear the Devs pulled all the stops, designing DS9. And the players love it! Why, I certainly do. Cryptic, if there's any lesson to be learned from this, then it's this: interiors matter! (*hint*). If ViL consisted of nothing more than the new DS9, it would have been worth it to me.
I do appreciate them and I know ATM they are flooded with hard work - and need to prioritize, and fix bugs they are not likely even responsible to, just sometimes I "rant" some or otherwise frustrated, sorry
P.S. Dev can be nice and helpful and sometimes discover what the issue is really fast and help personally - I did notice that.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
The first TV-episode I remember seeing was "Best of Both Worlds:part II" and TNG and early DS9 was a big part of my late childhood early to mid teens.
I'm not normally nostalgic but to be able to play something that was such a big part of my life during the 90s is amazing beyond words and it's also really amazing that the devs were able to capture that feeling.
I want to re-iterate: the new DS9 really is gorgeous!
I've heard ppl complain about things being too dark, or too 'hazy' somehow. To those peeps I can only say: get a decent video card. I recently got myself a Aorus GTX 1080 Ti, and everything looks stunning, really, and runs uebersmooth. Now that the 'trains' of packed NPC's are gone (thanks for that!), I realize I'm really enjoying being at DS9. And Ops is beautiful too. And I love that cosy area Roxy is in (in fact, LOL, I may have a wee girl-crush on Roxy; and now she's got a voice to boot!). That entire deck is fantastic, and I continually marvel at the level of detail, the lighting, and the quality of the design.
It would appear the Devs pulled all the stops, designing DS9. And the players love it! Why, I certainly do. Cryptic, if there's any lesson to be learned from this, then it's this: interiors matter! (*hint*). If ViL consisted of nothing more than the new DS9, it would have been worth it to me.
The TOS AOY bit was one of my favorites, personally speaking. And K-13 is my fav station, and having the "Farpoint Creatures" is extra good. My video card is a bit old, but I turned down some of the settings, and it's fine (only Binary Stars chokes up a LITTLE bit...though Kael said they wanna keep the game playable to folks with older computers), and now one can enjoy DS9 without Lighting 2, which is a plus for me.
And in my praise thread, I sooooo love the new animations like the eating and drinking, and the new cut scenes, add some life to the characters and give a bit of well needed cartoonyness.
As for interiors mentioned above:
My request, give K-7 a face lift. And I personally feel it should have TOS style interiors.
Comments
While a lot of games would be phoning it in at this point, it seems like they are actually making the game more Trek like as it progresses.
As long as they keep going in this direction, I'm not going anywhere. Great job!
Overall the game is great, but it's not with out its flaws, like I'm sure the devs know about and want to fix the public queue problem(long queue times). I know I have heard them talk about it so it is on their minds which is more then I can say about older MMOs I played in the past.
I have to say, from past experiences with expansions here, ViL has been by far the smoothest. The daily patching shows they are waning to get this one more squared away than others. The content doesn't feel rushed, like it was thrown together just to fill the space it takes up. Legacy of Romulas was the last time the content didn't feel rushed.
So for the dev's here, keep up the good work. This is how content should look and feel.
For the writers, however, you all need to sit down and think. An enemy that can be taken care of in one season, such as the Hur'q here. is boring. Not even mid-season, and already we know how to make peace with them. Really? This is the best you can do? You all need to settle in and work on making real enemies, real problems that need to be solved. Ones that take longer than a season.
1. You did not trivialize the purchase of players who have gotten the canon Lobi / Lockbox / Promo Dominion Ships like the T6 JHDC, T6 Bugship. Sure, the Dominion players get a Free Bugship, but it is the T5 version and not the T6. This was pretty key to me as speculation in the past by players about any possible Dominion Faction / Sub-Faction would run into the problem... How do you give Dominion ships when most of their canon ships are already cross-faction Lockbox / Lobi, etc. ships?
2. You went through the work on making new ships, though I do wish there were more optional ship parts.
3. Wingmen Mechanics are a great addition to the Dominion ships, further lending to the feeling of numbers and units that the Dominion heavily leveraged in the Dominion War.
Outside some annoying bugs in some of the Gamma missions, it's been pretty good so far. Especially Quark's Lucky Seven.
I am also curious, why no playable Vorta? They would have been very sensible player character classes since they are seen as leaders of Dominion forces.
Given what they're working with, for the most part they make a fun and entertaining game and I appreciate the time and effort they put into giving us a Star Trek experience.
That being said there's room for improvement. I sort of wish they'd get their writing sorted out since there are some awful mistakes or plot inconsistencies in some places. And of course then there are the bugs.
But those are minor quibbles, for the most part, good work Devs!
"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."
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Again, thank you guys so much for your work. It is amazing that you've actually been able to do what you do.
And also, not just the developers, the entire team (voice actors included) have been great.
I've had a lot of sad and frustrating moments over the years and STO helped me through those. Truly, thank you for the experience you've all provided for me.
And Quark's Lucky Seven is no doubt the best episode they've ever written! And the players love it! :P No, seriously, they do!
The new expansion is enjoyable. There are a couple of problems with it so far (like BOFF pathing for one), but overall, it's a lot of fun. It's a really cool moment to hear some of our old DS9 people talking again in Star Trek-isms and that's just awesome. As long as the devs get around to fixing some of the problems, then in a few weeks, we probably won't even remember them all that well.
I like how they're tying a lot of the earlier threads of stories into the new story line as well. Unlocking "secrets" is always a lot of great fun for a franchise like Star Trek. One thing I still wish they would incorporate again (something not done since early missions in this game) is the concept of out of the way things to find, even if it's little story things (like in the early Starfleet adventure of the Kuvah'Magh where there is a side area in the final battle spot (before you go into the building) where you can see the Klingon ship that landed, causing all of the problems) or in the early Vulcan mission where you find a resource point at an old artifact down the road from the last battle). Those types of things are always cool, and I loved in the past when they got put into the game because it gave people who aren't there just to pew pew something to do as well.
I am looking forward to playing through the rest of the episodes of the new content, and it's always great to see they're trying to push the story further.
Fleet Admiral Ventaxa Proxmire, U.S.S. Shaka Walls Fell
Blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/?page_id=1990
Foundry series: Bob From Accounting & For the Sake of the Empire
I 'came back' but was only playing a few hours a week, mostly just a few days of Admiralty and some stuff with the great people in my fleet.. otherwise I was pretty much completely disinterested with STO.
Since VIL, I have played more then I have played in a very long time. Friday I pretty much played all day and evening.
I can sit here and point out things that were good and I can nit pick things that were bad.. but in the end the team behind VIL gave me reasons to play again and renewed my interest in the game. Obviously, they're doing at least something right because I am not the only one.
The last 3 or 4 days are the most people I have seen online on STO since probably Legacy of Romulus. It's not uncommon at all to see 5 or 6 zones all completely full... more so at peak times. Red Alerts queues pop instantly, Gamma BZ is active and this is the most people I have seen in the Undine and Terran BZ in well.. ever.
So kudos to the team, people keep saying STO is dying and that it won't be alive much longer. Gotta tell ya, I'm not seeing it happening anytime soon. They keep people coming back.
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
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What I like:
New semi Faction...awesome idea of using Jemies
Great Story line....probably BEST EVER...Keep those guys in the payroll.
New Ships
New part of the galaxy added
Ds9 ease of finding stores.
My only minor dislike is Ds9 "inside" design...keep bumping into things (hopefully will be looked over some more?). However, the store signage, graphics and ease of finding stuff is so much better.
Kudos!
I've heard ppl complain about things being too dark, or too 'hazy' somehow. To those peeps I can only say: get a decent video card. I recently got myself a Aorus GTX 1080 Ti, and everything looks stunning, really, and runs uebersmooth. Now that the 'trains' of packed NPC's are gone (thanks for that!), I realize I'm really enjoying being at DS9. And Ops is beautiful too. And I love that cosy area Roxy is in (in fact, LOL, I may have a wee girl-crush on Roxy; and now she's got a voice to boot!). That entire deck is fantastic, and I continually marvel at the level of detail, the lighting, and the quality of the design.
It would appear the Devs pulled all the stops, designing DS9. And the players love it! Why, I certainly do. Cryptic, if there's any lesson to be learned from this, then it's this: interiors matter! (*hint*). If ViL consisted of nothing more than the new DS9, it would have been worth it to me.
P.S. Dev can be nice and helpful and sometimes discover what the issue is really fast and help personally - I did notice that.
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
Facebook / Twitter / Twitch
I'm not normally nostalgic but to be able to play something that was such a big part of my life during the 90s is amazing beyond words and it's also really amazing that the devs were able to capture that feeling.
So thank you at bottom of my heart.
The TOS AOY bit was one of my favorites, personally speaking. And K-13 is my fav station, and having the "Farpoint Creatures" is extra good.
And in my praise thread, I sooooo love the new animations like the eating and drinking, and the new cut scenes, add some life to the characters and give a bit of well needed cartoonyness.
As for interiors mentioned above:
My request, give K-7 a face lift. And I personally feel it should have TOS style interiors.
>_>
<_<
~takes note on the Roxy character~