I think its high time we go back to the true purpose of Star Trek Exploration.
The "exploration" of Star Trek was about exploring the human condition, not the exploration space.
Space exploration was just a mcguffin used to get the crew in contact with alien species that served as expies of various aspects of humanity, be they political, religious, environmental, social, etc., and then had the crew confront these aliens, and point out what was wrong with whatever that alien race was based on. However, many of the aliens the crew encountered were alien races already known to the Federation before the episode in question. They weren't about exploring space, but dealing with an alien species already known to them.
Starfleet is more a nasa like space program, with miltary like traits to it. But officially isn't classified as a military even though unofficially it obviously acts like one. The Main focus of starfleet is exploring strange new worlds seeking new life and civilizations and bodly go where noone has gone before. That is the motto and also the captains oath that they swear and something all starfleet captains must recite for any federation ship really. Its starfleets missions to explore strange new worlds and seek them out. That is starfleets core mission. That is why Kirk Spock and the others have been saying this in the shows and movies and why picard said it. "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before. Depending on what mission they are on, they might add the words her five year mission or ten year mission or leave it out if its the ships main purpose. As such starfleets mission is this, "to seek out life, not destroy it Janeway had to say that to another captain.
Guess what we get to do, we get to destroy life instead of seeking out new lifeforms most of the time in sto. Even if its a mcguffin its official lore and the core point of what Star Trek is about. the Meaning of Trek is a a long arduous journey.
Star Trek, traveling a long arduous Journey across the stars. As well as exploring the human condition you were right on that but in the show itself its more then just that its also about exploring what hasn't be been encountered before. In the Form of new aliens some with their unique histories and some having nothing in common with humans. In the form of making peaceful contact with those that have managed to go faster then light. It has not always been that in the shows. There is many different focus points and basically for the first time with their new show focus on two points of view in discovery with the Klingon side getting a focus and not just starfleet. Discovery is focusing more then just the human condition its exploring the Klingon and Alien conditions which is a welcome change.
> @somtaawkhar said: . > > There is really nothing to be gained from an "exploration" system that couldn't equally be gained from just using already existing Trek aliens.
There is, randomization. Using all the existing aliens requires writing for them and hand-placing them everywhere. A exploration system (at leadt the way I like to see it) would throw ALL of the STO aliens in a blender and give you something new and unknown every time. Ideally automated so the system does ot on it's own. You don't know which weapon type, abilities and stats the aliens you find during exploration will have be they friend or foe. While the mission templates would be generic, you would deal with your unique aliens that could be saved and reoccur during your story (or the random seed reset if you get an enemy you don't like).
STOs problem is that everything is old and known by the time you reach the end game.
^ 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
> @somtaawkhar said: > > > > If its random then aliens wouldn't reoccur, as there would be nothing saved for future use. There also wouldn't be a story as you can't write a story based on "random", much less without falling into "Third Borg Dynasty" problems. > > This not getting into the fact that most powers are based on some sort of overall template made the aliens they originally deigned those powers for, and a developer isn't going to intentionally make aliens weaker by breaking those templates. Not to mention many powers used by alien races only make sense for certain aliens. One should never see Tholian, Borg, Undine, Iconian, Na'Kuhl, Tzenkethi, and several other alien races powers used outside of those races because they all use highly specialized tech built by species with rather unique cultures/physiology that led them to create that tech in the first place. Any exploration system would have to cut out a massive chuck of the available powers, both player and enemy based, because they don't make sense for them to have.
You didn't seem to understand what I was talking about at all, which might be my own fault.
Since STO does not have any endgame content aside from running set pieces over and over again, a exploration system the way I personally would like to see it would offer a randomized experience doing old style exploration mission templates with unknown variables thrown in. This is done while maintaining a kind of progress earning gear, accolades, a "reputation" anything really.
Aliens you meet are aliengens with mixed abilities taken from all the enemies in gamr. Even Borg. Look at it like a bonus "hard/chaos mode" after beating the game. The aliens you encounter get "saved" in your personal exploration journey and come up as friends/enemies during these mission chains as you "write" your own story. Like a "arch enemy" mevhanic. You could reset your progress and get new encounters when your randos are too OP or you don't like them, but essentially doing this you play the game, earn evetything you do right now but in a open-ended mode that might hold some surprises.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
The biggest thing that irks me about these discussions is that people try to frame is as some sort of failing of Cryptic's when, looking at any other game that attempts the same, they ALL fail at it. Even WoW, and SWTOR, games with significantly larger faction emphasis, have had most post-release content be faction neutral. The most recent SWTOR release, which restarts more Jedi vs Sith conflict, lets Sith players do the Jedi side stuff if they want, and vice-versa, using the narrative device of "well, you can betray your side!", and both side's content is generally seen as pretty mediocre. WoW's newest expansion, which also does the same with restarting the Alliance vs Horde dynamic, has been massively crapped on for neither side having particularly great or substantive content.
The problem with trying to maintain faction exclusive content is that you are basically asking Devs to develop two versions of the game at the same time, which means both versions get half the content and work then had they just made everything cross faction. This just results in two crappy games instead of one good one. While Cryptic isn't a particularly large studio, this idea that if they had more money and a larger staff they would be able to do it is fundamentally dishonest and misrepresentative of the actual problem at hand. The REAL problem is a simple limitation of technology that would allow for such ease of making new content that any dev team could actually accomplish making two games at once, much less accomplish it well.
Right. Which is to say it isn't a failing at all. Cryptic hasn't tried to make a multi-faction game and failed, they've intentionally made the game as much single-faction as they can (somewhat limited by archaic restrictions coded in the beginning of development that are too much work for too little gain to fix now). Because it's better this way. It doesn't matter how much content is produced, "all of it" is always more content for a player to have access to than "some of it."
Their only failing IMO is using the word "faction" where they should've switched to using "origin story," certainly no later than when they started making "factions" that were nothing but a custom tutorial. And that simple word substitution is the real end to the argument about faction-agnostic content.
You want to say all those things? Then say all those things. I've had some pretty choice words for the higher-ups from time to time, especially that racist biznatch T'Nae. Sure, it can fetch some odd looks from other people in the room, but that's their problem, not yours.
But since, just as in most episodes of the shows, that won't change the plot, there's no need to burden this game further by trying to take into account every single possible response a player can make. Instead, the dialog written on the screen (which evidence indicates less than half the playerbase actually reads, else they wouldn't have some of the questions they have) leaves your personal speech options pretty much open.
I respectfully disagree. I dislike having characters sound out-of-character. Either use a different character, i.e. let PCs who aren't a straight-played Fed or more rarely Klingon have a couple extra lines, or use a different plot. They used to do that: e.g. Vulcans get special lines in that sidequest with the Romulan ambassador on Vulcan, Bajorans get special lines to the Cardassian ambassador (who should not have been retconned to Garak) in "Surface Tension". Romulans should have similarly gotten the option to wholeheartedly approve of Rai Sahen's gambit in "Operation Cooperation Conspiracy", KDF PCs should have the option to not constantly blather about honor, glory and knot-tying since most of the available species are canonically mercenaries just there for the latinum, and everybody should have the option to tell House Pratfall what a godawful plan Emperor HoH-for-Brains going gallivanting off to attack a person of mass destruction with a pointy stick is (not even most Klingons are that stupid).
And Patrick's right: the missions are written mostly from a Federation perspective. Reference both missions that involve a plot-cloak: most Federation ships don't have their own cloaking devices, but most KDF and Rom ships do. Morgan t'Thavrau commands an imirrhlhhse'ehn D'Deridex, she doesn't need Quark bringing a cruddy secondhand cloaking device along.
And the best part? Coming up with an extra line or two just takes a few minutes in the writing room and maybe a couple extra takes in the VO booth if you're determined to voice the entire mission with Trek actor cameos (which I couldn't care less about).
"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"
> @somtaawkhar said: > Except > A. Players didn't leave because the game was faction agnostic, but because the general gameplay had been nerfed to hell > B. The newest expansion, which ISN'T faction agnostic, WAS ONE OF THE WORST RECEIVED YET AND EVERYONE HATED IT MORE THEN MOST PAST EXPANSIONS. Attempting to make the game less faction agnostic got more negative fan reaction because going non faction agnostic means less quality and substantive content for everyone.
You're neglecting the part where said newest expansion had one of those two factions doing some pretty damn evil acts against the other faction (culminating in the equivalent of, say, glassing Earth or Qo'noS from orbit). Using half your players as the "black" in a black and white morality situation, in a setting that has previously run mostly on gray and grey morality, is a pretty surefire way to cheese people off.
The problem wasn't factioned content, it was the quality or lack thereof.
"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"
You didn't seem to understand what I was talking about at all, which might be my own fault.
Since STO does not have any endgame content aside from running set pieces over and over again, a exploration system the way I personally would like to see it would offer a randomized experience doing old style exploration mission templates with unknown variables thrown in. This is done while maintaining a kind of progress earning gear, accolades, a "reputation" anything really.
Aliens you meet are aliengens with mixed abilities taken from all the enemies in gamr. Even Borg. Look at it like a bonus "hard/chaos mode" after beating the game. The aliens you encounter get "saved" in your personal exploration journey and come up as friends/enemies during these mission chains as you "write" your own story. Like a "arch enemy" mevhanic. You could reset your progress and get new encounters when your randos are too OP or you don't like them, but essentially doing this you play the game, earn evetything you do right now but in a open-ended mode that might hold some surprises.
This is a nice idea and I'd probably play this in addition to the normal content.
The main problems I see are development time and extra server resources. If you want the aliengens to be persistent that mean a lot of extra database storage per character to remember your history.
This also is a reply to @somtaawkhar from before: This I can see and agree, the chances of a new game mode like this being developed on top of existing mechanics are slim, but I would say it'd be worthwhile for diversity and longevity of the game. Having this mode as a alternative way pf earning marks would be not the biggest issue as non-stop events still allow for a lot of 'universal mark' content even after the RA nerf.
^ 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
You're neglecting the part where said newest expansion had one of those two factions doing some pretty damn evil acts against the other faction (culminating in the equivalent of, say, glassing Earth or Qo'noS from orbit). Using half your players as the "black" in a black and white morality situation, in a setting that has previously run mostly on gray and grey morality, is a pretty surefire way to cheese people off.
The problem wasn't factioned content, it was the quality or lack thereof.
The writing pissed people off yes, but there have been more general complaints about both side's content being TRIBBLE, a result of them having to split an expansion between two separate lines, then anything else.
This same is true of SWTOR's newest release, which I also mentioned in the post. It does the same factional split, compared to past expansions more shared storyline, and both stories in the new content are seen as pretty dull, and the gameplay meh.
You will never get particularly good content when you force the team, no matter how large, to basically have to do two expansions at once. Both sides will just get half an expansion, with half the story, half the content, and half the quality, then had they just done one story.
*takes some clippers to the post*
but both decisions fit with the suits in the suites, both going homogenous to save money, and reversing it, are mistakes. In my experience (admittedly with Tabletop) once a game's jumped the shark (which Blizzard and that other studio did in going Homogenized), the audience doesn't come back. a similar phenomena we saw with TSR, and again with White Wolf Studios. both companies effectively killed successful franchises by making sweeping, largely cost-cutting, changes. WoTC took a bath on D&D 4th Edition and DDO still isn't making much money (does it still even exist?)
Yep. Turns out another company bought up DDO and LOTRO from Turbine in 2016. Company called Standing Stone Games. All the servers are still there from before. I hadn't booted up the game since 2012, decided to clear my head of STO some, maybe find my smile again(since I don't have it with STO anymore). And a bunch of stuff has been added since I last played. New adventure areas, quest packs, epic level stuff, cosmetic options, new races, classes, enhancement/class changes. They still give out the freebie item every Thursday as well. And daily dice rolls for free stuff.
Yep. Turns out another company bought up DDO and LOTRO from Turbine in 2016. Company called Standing Stone Games. All the servers are still there from before. I hadn't booted up the game since 2012, decided to clear my head of STO some, maybe find my smile again(since I don't have it with STO anymore). And a bunch of stuff has been added since I last played. New adventure areas, quest packs, epic level stuff, cosmetic options, new races, classes, enhancement/class changes. They still give out the freebie item every Thursday as well. And daily dice rolls for free stuff.
Neverwinter is still the better D&D MMO, even if constant item level gating has made it increasingly difficult to do newer stuff.
That's debatable. I would take DDO's item/race/cosmetic/class options and atmosphere over the mess of the 4th edition shoehorning with Neverwinter. I would take Shan-To-Kor, Three Barrel Cove, and the dungeon stuff that includes Gary Gygax's narrations for example, or the options to dual-wield a khopesh/Flametongue or firing a great crossbow, or slapping Frostbrand against something with a character over the one fighting style per toon that Neverwinter has. Are the graphics and textures old and dated compared to Neverwinter's? Sure. The game has been around about as long as WoW, if not longer. But then again, 4th edition was a garbage D&D release. Let's hear what merits you think that Neverwinter has, if it's so much better to you.
Within the far future, given D'tans Movement to reunify the Vulcans, Romulans, Remans, might also be the most famous for doing much more coming up with the foundation of Galactic Unification among different powers.
I do not think the Alpha Quadrant Alliance would not have been possible without the republic, the federation and Klingon empire working together might not have been possible without them either.
During the one mission it is said the romulans have joined the federation so at some point the romulan republic might be joining the federation. And in the same mission we see a federation ambassador in a kdf outfit. So basically at some point the way they are going with it both the Romulans and the Klingon Join the Federation and the federation expands in republic and klingon space.
They really need to destroy the barrier between factions and also QoL update social things like LFG and such and map channels that don't go out to every instance.
They really need to destroy the barrier between factions and also QoL update social things like LFG and such and map channels that don't go out to every instance.
Well they would need to hire the right programers who could even do so, maybe rehire those that made the code if they no longer work at cryptic. It would be nice to see faction barriers gone after a certain point in the storyline, but they would have to work with very difficult code, and a lot of the programmers don't want to do it because of those reasons. This is the main reason why factions are still separated by federation and kdf gamewise even though they are all part this big alliance.
Let's hear what merits you think that Neverwinter has, if it's so much better to you.
Generally I find that Neverwinter has more fluid gameplay, less of a mess of an item/skill/power system, there is a generally more cohesive narrative(even thous modules themselves aren't particularly linked together), and I can actually play it without having to fork over a million dollars just to get anything beyond the absolute most basic features.
I will admit I haven't played DDO since it was given over to Standing Stone games, but Turbine was abysmal when it came to nickle and diming the players for every single thing. LOTRO was especially terrible with this, forcing the players to grind the starter areas a million times just to get enough Turbine point to buy even one small module, which itself didn't have enough points in it to buy another one, forcing you to either hand over what was, at one point, literally hundreds of dollars to be able to play the game, or make a million alts and replay the intro areas over and over. Turbine, DDO, and LOTRO, had some of the singular most scummy business practices that makes most of those Korean grind-fest MMOs look fair.
I also generally prefer Forgotten Realms as a setting compared to Eberron, and past experiences with other D&D games like Icewind Dale, Baldur's gate, and Neverwitner Nights, have given me a fondness for the setting and lore. And while I know DDO does cross over into the Forgotten Realms, it isn't the same.
On this part, we agree. I love Faerun's setting, but on occasion I get a craving for the technomancy feel for DDO. I haven't played any of the Enhanced Edition versions(wondering if I should buy them), or Neverwinter Nights 2, so I don't know what changes were done with those.
I would say that EA/Mythic/Bioware's business practices regarding SWTOR was more scum. With getting the quest modules for DDO/LOTRO, it's just like dumping cash for a new zen store ship, or grabbing R&D promo packs. You can do stuff in game to grind the points out, or whip out the Walletmaster +12 to speed things up. But you unlock the quest modules across your entire account, as opposed to something for one character. I never felt pressure to take out a loan on my car to snag quest modules for DDO, however.
What they could do, is do more to balance out the major three factions.
Federation has a lot of ships, kdf has a bunch of bugged ships and Romulan ships and bridge officers are op. An upgrade to the kdf, updating missions to have different dialog depending on the faction doing them for many of the cross faction missions.
Adding maybe Romulan republic shipyards and making them look as if they have upgraded and built up even more.
More canon and ingame outfits we see with kdf and romulans that we don't have access to in the game. Maybe a new kind of Republic Uniform but not doing the whole, replacing all the existing unforms thing they did with the federation. When they replaced all those uniforms even though in game canon gamewise it was around delta rising they replaced those uniforms with the Odyssey. They went ahead and did the replacements for those uniforms for all the other federation missions to the odyssey uniforms when they should have kept the anteres and other federation uniforms they were using during those timeperiods.
I am tired of all the focus being on ships when there is outfits and as a roleplayer would like to have and just can't get more outfits. I know ships make them money but also new outfits for romulans and kdf I would buy if they were willing to convert those seen on the npcs for us players. and if they can't do that allow romulans to access most of their allied factions uniforms and comm badges. Why not since they are already using most if not all of their allies most advanced ships.
Comments
Starfleet is more a nasa like space program, with miltary like traits to it. But officially isn't classified as a military even though unofficially it obviously acts like one. The Main focus of starfleet is exploring strange new worlds seeking new life and civilizations and bodly go where noone has gone before. That is the motto and also the captains oath that they swear and something all starfleet captains must recite for any federation ship really. Its starfleets missions to explore strange new worlds and seek them out. That is starfleets core mission. That is why Kirk Spock and the others have been saying this in the shows and movies and why picard said it. "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before. Depending on what mission they are on, they might add the words her five year mission or ten year mission or leave it out if its the ships main purpose. As such starfleets mission is this, "to seek out life, not destroy it Janeway had to say that to another captain.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Captain's_Oath
Guess what we get to do, we get to destroy life instead of seeking out new lifeforms most of the time in sto. Even if its a mcguffin its official lore and the core point of what Star Trek is about. the Meaning of Trek is a a long arduous journey.
Star Trek, traveling a long arduous Journey across the stars. As well as exploring the human condition you were right on that but in the show itself its more then just that its also about exploring what hasn't be been encountered before. In the Form of new aliens some with their unique histories and some having nothing in common with humans. In the form of making peaceful contact with those that have managed to go faster then light. It has not always been that in the shows. There is many different focus points and basically for the first time with their new show focus on two points of view in discovery with the Klingon side getting a focus and not just starfleet. Discovery is focusing more then just the human condition its exploring the Klingon and Alien conditions which is a welcome change.
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>
> There is really nothing to be gained from an "exploration" system that couldn't equally be gained from just using already existing Trek aliens.
There is, randomization. Using all the existing aliens requires writing for them and hand-placing them everywhere. A exploration system (at leadt the way I like to see it) would throw ALL of the STO aliens in a blender and give you something new and unknown every time. Ideally automated so the system does ot on it's own. You don't know which weapon type, abilities and stats the aliens you find during exploration will have be they friend or foe. While the mission templates would be generic, you would deal with your unique aliens that could be saved and reoccur during your story (or the random seed reset if you get an enemy you don't like).
STOs problem is that everything is old and known by the time you reach the end game.
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>
>
>
> If its random then aliens wouldn't reoccur, as there would be nothing saved for future use. There also wouldn't be a story as you can't write a story based on "random", much less without falling into "Third Borg Dynasty" problems.
>
> This not getting into the fact that most powers are based on some sort of overall template made the aliens they originally deigned those powers for, and a developer isn't going to intentionally make aliens weaker by breaking those templates. Not to mention many powers used by alien races only make sense for certain aliens. One should never see Tholian, Borg, Undine, Iconian, Na'Kuhl, Tzenkethi, and several other alien races powers used outside of those races because they all use highly specialized tech built by species with rather unique cultures/physiology that led them to create that tech in the first place. Any exploration system would have to cut out a massive chuck of the available powers, both player and enemy based, because they don't make sense for them to have.
You didn't seem to understand what I was talking about at all, which might be my own fault.
Since STO does not have any endgame content aside from running set pieces over and over again, a exploration system the way I personally would like to see it would offer a randomized experience doing old style exploration mission templates with unknown variables thrown in. This is done while maintaining a kind of progress earning gear, accolades, a "reputation" anything really.
Aliens you meet are aliengens with mixed abilities taken from all the enemies in gamr. Even Borg. Look at it like a bonus "hard/chaos mode" after beating the game. The aliens you encounter get "saved" in your personal exploration journey and come up as friends/enemies during these mission chains as you "write" your own story. Like a "arch enemy" mevhanic. You could reset your progress and get new encounters when your randos are too OP or you don't like them, but essentially doing this you play the game, earn evetything you do right now but in a open-ended mode that might hold some surprises.
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Their only failing IMO is using the word "faction" where they should've switched to using "origin story," certainly no later than when they started making "factions" that were nothing but a custom tutorial. And that simple word substitution is the real end to the argument about faction-agnostic content.
I respectfully disagree. I dislike having characters sound out-of-character. Either use a different character, i.e. let PCs who aren't a straight-played Fed or more rarely Klingon have a couple extra lines, or use a different plot. They used to do that: e.g. Vulcans get special lines in that sidequest with the Romulan ambassador on Vulcan, Bajorans get special lines to the Cardassian ambassador (who should not have been retconned to Garak) in "Surface Tension". Romulans should have similarly gotten the option to wholeheartedly approve of Rai Sahen's gambit in "Operation Cooperation Conspiracy", KDF PCs should have the option to not constantly blather about honor, glory and knot-tying since most of the available species are canonically mercenaries just there for the latinum, and everybody should have the option to tell House Pratfall what a godawful plan Emperor HoH-for-Brains going gallivanting off to attack a person of mass destruction with a pointy stick is (not even most Klingons are that stupid).
And Patrick's right: the missions are written mostly from a Federation perspective. Reference both missions that involve a plot-cloak: most Federation ships don't have their own cloaking devices, but most KDF and Rom ships do. Morgan t'Thavrau commands an imirrhlhhse'ehn D'Deridex, she doesn't need Quark bringing a cruddy secondhand cloaking device along.
And the best part? Coming up with an extra line or two just takes a few minutes in the writing room and maybe a couple extra takes in the VO booth if you're determined to voice the entire mission with Trek actor cameos (which I couldn't care less about).
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
> Except
> A. Players didn't leave because the game was faction agnostic, but because the general gameplay had been nerfed to hell
> B. The newest expansion, which ISN'T faction agnostic, WAS ONE OF THE WORST RECEIVED YET AND EVERYONE HATED IT MORE THEN MOST PAST EXPANSIONS. Attempting to make the game less faction agnostic got more negative fan reaction because going non faction agnostic means less quality and substantive content for everyone.
You're neglecting the part where said newest expansion had one of those two factions doing some pretty damn evil acts against the other faction (culminating in the equivalent of, say, glassing Earth or Qo'noS from orbit). Using half your players as the "black" in a black and white morality situation, in a setting that has previously run mostly on gray and grey morality, is a pretty surefire way to cheese people off.
The problem wasn't factioned content, it was the quality or lack thereof.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
This is a nice idea and I'd probably play this in addition to the normal content.
The main problems I see are development time and extra server resources. If you want the aliengens to be persistent that mean a lot of extra database storage per character to remember your history.
Sadly, that means it won't happen.
>
> Sadly, that means it won't happen.
This also is a reply to @somtaawkhar from before: This I can see and agree, the chances of a new game mode like this being developed on top of existing mechanics are slim, but I would say it'd be worthwhile for diversity and longevity of the game. Having this mode as a alternative way pf earning marks would be not the biggest issue as non-stop events still allow for a lot of 'universal mark' content even after the RA nerf.
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Yep. Turns out another company bought up DDO and LOTRO from Turbine in 2016. Company called Standing Stone Games. All the servers are still there from before. I hadn't booted up the game since 2012, decided to clear my head of STO some, maybe find my smile again(since I don't have it with STO anymore). And a bunch of stuff has been added since I last played. New adventure areas, quest packs, epic level stuff, cosmetic options, new races, classes, enhancement/class changes. They still give out the freebie item every Thursday as well. And daily dice rolls for free stuff.
That's debatable. I would take DDO's item/race/cosmetic/class options and atmosphere over the mess of the 4th edition shoehorning with Neverwinter. I would take Shan-To-Kor, Three Barrel Cove, and the dungeon stuff that includes Gary Gygax's narrations for example, or the options to dual-wield a khopesh/Flametongue or firing a great crossbow, or slapping Frostbrand against something with a character over the one fighting style per toon that Neverwinter has. Are the graphics and textures old and dated compared to Neverwinter's? Sure. The game has been around about as long as WoW, if not longer. But then again, 4th edition was a garbage D&D release. Let's hear what merits you think that Neverwinter has, if it's so much better to you.
I do not think the Alpha Quadrant Alliance would not have been possible without the republic, the federation and Klingon empire working together might not have been possible without them either.
During the one mission it is said the romulans have joined the federation so at some point the romulan republic might be joining the federation. And in the same mission we see a federation ambassador in a kdf outfit. So basically at some point the way they are going with it both the Romulans and the Klingon Join the Federation and the federation expands in republic and klingon space.
Well they would need to hire the right programers who could even do so, maybe rehire those that made the code if they no longer work at cryptic. It would be nice to see faction barriers gone after a certain point in the storyline, but they would have to work with very difficult code, and a lot of the programmers don't want to do it because of those reasons. This is the main reason why factions are still separated by federation and kdf gamewise even though they are all part this big alliance.
On this part, we agree. I love Faerun's setting, but on occasion I get a craving for the technomancy feel for DDO. I haven't played any of the Enhanced Edition versions(wondering if I should buy them), or Neverwinter Nights 2, so I don't know what changes were done with those.
I would say that EA/Mythic/Bioware's business practices regarding SWTOR was more scum. With getting the quest modules for DDO/LOTRO, it's just like dumping cash for a new zen store ship, or grabbing R&D promo packs. You can do stuff in game to grind the points out, or whip out the Walletmaster +12 to speed things up. But you unlock the quest modules across your entire account, as opposed to something for one character. I never felt pressure to take out a loan on my car to snag quest modules for DDO, however.
Federation has a lot of ships, kdf has a bunch of bugged ships and Romulan ships and bridge officers are op. An upgrade to the kdf, updating missions to have different dialog depending on the faction doing them for many of the cross faction missions.
Adding maybe Romulan republic shipyards and making them look as if they have upgraded and built up even more.
More canon and ingame outfits we see with kdf and romulans that we don't have access to in the game. Maybe a new kind of Republic Uniform but not doing the whole, replacing all the existing unforms thing they did with the federation. When they replaced all those uniforms even though in game canon gamewise it was around delta rising they replaced those uniforms with the Odyssey. They went ahead and did the replacements for those uniforms for all the other federation missions to the odyssey uniforms when they should have kept the anteres and other federation uniforms they were using during those timeperiods.
I am tired of all the focus being on ships when there is outfits and as a roleplayer would like to have and just can't get more outfits. I know ships make them money but also new outfits for romulans and kdf I would buy if they were willing to convert those seen on the npcs for us players. and if they can't do that allow romulans to access most of their allied factions uniforms and comm badges. Why not since they are already using most if not all of their allies most advanced ships.