...the storyline is a railroad with zero choices of any significance (including faction affiliation, career, and species), because it's literally the best they can do.
Oh yeah, the ending of the Iconian line was absolutely cringe worthy. It was set up like you will have a choice at one point. Until the very end, I was waiting for the "Unload the quantum torpedoes on my position!" option, but nothing. Yeah, silly me thinking STO may present a Mass Effect choice. No, this is not an adventure, this is a railroad and you do what Cryptic expects you to do.
how about spending a bit less man-hours on things that don't need work because they already work, and instead, sinking that time into working on things that have been neglected while they've been rearranging click boxes and sliders in the UI??
The team working on that is not the team that would be working on the foundry, for example.
how about instead of 'investing' in copy-paste Rep systems with spiralling powercreep and cycles of introduce/nerf/introduce powercreep, how about instead of spending months on lockbox content and dumbing down of systems, they put it toward the things they advertised?
FOUNDRY was advertised. Console players were even asking when Cryptic would deliver. (turns out, never).
PvP is advertised. It's an unworkable mess.
Exploration? is advertised. With the removal of Foundry, the last vestige of an attempt to claim to honoring that one, goes with it.
10 years ago. Exploration is done via missions now, and while I don't think that fits your definition, it is to me. (Incidentally, I remember the old exploration system. That wasn't exploration. I can't speak for others, but I really only did it for the daily mission that was available back then.)
The Foundy served well, for how long it was around. But I can fully understand them going 'this is consuming more resources than it needs to, and we don't have the resources or people left to fix it.' Speaking as a hobbyist programmer, it's far too easy to fall into code debt and no longer have the ability to redeem it.
how about spending a bit less man-hours on things that don't need work because they already work, and instead, sinking that time into working on things that have been neglected while they've been rearranging click boxes and sliders in the UI??
how about instead of 'investing' in copy-paste Rep systems with spiralling powercreep and cycles of introduce/nerf/introduce powercreep, how about instead of spending months on lockbox content and dumbing down of systems, they put it toward the things they advertised?
Because these are the features that
a) Get players to actually play the game regularly and eventually spend money on.
b) are stuff that primarily involves the game designers and artists, not the programmers.
Apparently, maintaining the Foundry is something that involves Cryptic's programmers a lot more than its designers, but it's not like some other new features that designers are working on don't need programming help, too.
If certain tasks need resources from multiple specialties, you need all of them available to actually do it, and if one task draws needed resources from somewhere else, things get difficult - you don't want part of the team sit on its hand as they wait for something else to be finished. And if those waiting tasks and team members actually work on the stuff that actually pays the bill (and allows the Perfect World leadership to swim in money), then the thing that doesn't pay the bills as well might have to be given up.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It is odd that it is always the OTHER team that is working. It seems they only have an other team.
They probably have only two or three programmer teams? I dunno, I don't work for Cryptic, but IIRC, upthread they mentioned the foundry had to be a core team, whereas a UI/UX overhaul is just going to require a STO programmer. I'm not super sure why they overhauled the character creation segment when the entire game could use a UX sweep, but maybe they're working on it system by system.
The foundry was and is the only thing left that I like in their games. First they removed the Exploration now the only thing left that gave us variation for the endless grind they are trying to push down out throats. I'm not interested. I would rather have an offline version of the game whit the foundry intact so those missions could be downloaded and shared between players. At least as an option. Call it the Holodeck version of the game. I would totally hack and reverse engineer it if I could, only to have for my own pleasure. No, pouring resources on UI redesigns that is for some stupid reason worth it in their opinion. I couldn't care less about all the UI redesigns.
Let's keep the thread on the topic of the FOUNDRY, and not derail off into other systems of the game, please.
Also, there are folks still suggesting "solutions". Many of these have already been answered in the OP transcript. Please read it, or watch the video, before posting about any more "solutions". You should quickly realize that the shutdown is the solution. I hate to say that, and I don't mean to sound heartless about it, but #savethefoundry is not going to happen before April 11.
You just made my mind go numb... What is the solution for the loss of Faction-specific content and exploration-oriented missions which the foundry allowed for?
I think there are only 2 viable solutions that exist. 1) Either play the content that exists in the game the way it was meant or 2) take some time off the game and come back to it when the next content releases.
It is odd that it is always the OTHER team that is working. It seems they only have an other team.
They probably have only two or three programmer teams? I dunno, I don't work for Cryptic, but IIRC, upthread they mentioned the foundry had to be a core team, whereas a UI/UX overhaul is just going to require a STO programmer. I'm not super sure why they overhauled the character creation segment when the entire game could use a UX sweep, but maybe they're working on it system by system.
.. won't hold my breath though.
They started on the Character Creator UI because that was the easiest for Joanna to start on & she wanted to overhaul that one first. She's still new to the team so it'll take time for her to learn everything.
@sirsitsalot Try again, and try not to troll next time. Watch the video. Read the transcript. Get some knowledge. Kael has already stated that the programmers are working on several new things that will benefit all of Cryptic's games. Ignoring that fact and making such ignorant statements is willful trolling.
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The Foundry was good while it lasted, there's other ways to amuse one's self in STO
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Examination - The things that don't require programmers are what they are working on, while things like Foundry which would require programmers are being scrapped...
Conclusion - Cryptic has no programmers working for them. Because if they did, and what is being updated and maintained doesn't require programmers, then there would be programmers free to work on things that need them, such as the Foundry and a new exploration system...
That's totally false. Not all programmers are capable of the same skillset, and UGC is not a trivial skillset. (Nor is procedurally generated content.).
arc/pwi still taking away classic format, they too away explorable cluster zones, took away Alpha Memory station, overhaul crafting materials and many players hate new format, then we had reboot and then Neverwinter got same treatment of losing classic foundery just like STO are facing to lose, we had skill restructure and for away team, and duty officers, they all had overhauled.
neverwinter getting a major reboot in few more weeks, it just following same methods with STO's format. original lockboxes were easier to win epic prizes like 1 in 5 boxes ratio, and next update they add most terrible concept, adding "RNG" in almost in everything with combats, chance of looting and now, it doesnt feel like role-playing game, it feel like playing slot machine casino.
NO ONE LIKES to play gambling! Belgium was the first country to ban online gambling, and USA's congress are planning to make online gambling illegal which involved with younger children playing, some cant control and could get parents go broke.
Elderscrolls have a smarter format with lockboxes, they are only cosmetic, sold for the looks, and less RNG, only the best loots from bosses or elite chest rewards, but here STO and NWO are pretty bad that i heard someone spend 200-300 dollars and not got any newer ships or mounds. i remember NWO's first lockbox, chances was 1 in 5 chances, and now currently it feel like 1 in 250 tries or worse than that, some said 1 in 400 tries.
ARC/PWI dont care about players, just become more greedy and upped the ante, House wins, not the players.
first it was 1 in 5, and few patches later, it became 1 in 20 chances, each patch progressed, it became 1 in 400 chances, then what next? 1 in 1,000 chances?
do us a favor, stop that RNG format and bring back a real role play! most characters in Neverwinter will become cookie cutter clones. ESO's format make you character unique due to choice of "champion points" tree line. STO's captain skill tree was better way but it fall short. not much choice for customizable captains.
STO are ahead of NWO with skill tree, honestly NWO's reboot on skills feel like dead-ends.
for STO, i want Alpha Memory back and explorable zones too because these cluster missions feels like unique.
If I check other games who tried procedural content, I can't really tell one where it worked well. They ended up as boring, bland, shallow, repeating. For any good result, you have 100 bad ones. Now if someone test plays all the of them, take the better ones out, and then add the final touches by hand, well, that would work.
The only good ones I've seen were ones where it was used very carefully, most importantly? No attempt at randomized stories.
In regards to #1, Cryptic never did enough in the first place to support the Foundry authors by actually supporting the tool. In the six years I was away from the game they seriously could never add a "next" button so you could see mission #51+ on the list? I can't even imagine that functionality taking more than about an hour to program--half a day at the very most (if it requires more time than that it says more about the code being a mess than anything else). And, yes, it certainly was mentioned as a problem. A lot of things were mentioned as being problems, but back then nothing was done, and it seems nothing much was done since then.
There's a lot Cryptic could have done if they hadn't had to spend more time repeatedly fixing the Foundry than working to improve it.
And still, even when it comes to Bethesda games, which hold the crown by miles on Nexus mods, said communities still only make up a small 10-15% minority of the game's playerbase. Even after Bethesda got mods on consoles the community barely grew because the overwhelming majority of game players simply don't care, and never will care, about UGC in the first place. Which is why game devs spend little if any times making it easy for them, even when they are top dogs like Bethesda are. Garry's mod only survives, and stays successful, like it is because the ENTIRE game is built around it, and thus can focus all of its efforts on supporting that niche.
The best game I've ever seen in terms of modding support is Space Empires 5. What? never heard of it? Yeah, turns out mods are niche even among gamers. Problem with SE5 is that the base game had such serious balance issues that it's nearly unplayable and NEEDS mods to be fun to play. Which is probably why we didn't get a SE6... Most people play SE5 using what's called "Balance Mod". Yeah that does exactly what the name suggests. In fact many other modders built mods using BM as a base instead of the base game. There's one called "Warp 10" made by some weirdo obsessed with Star Trek named marhawkman….
Oh yeah, the ending of the Iconian line was absolutely cringe worthy. It was set up like you will have a choice at one point. Until the very end, I was waiting for the "Unload the quantum torpedoes on my position!" option, but nothing. Yeah, silly me thinking STO may present a Mass Effect choice. No, this is not an adventure, this is a railroad and you do what Cryptic expects you to do.
Going on an adventure does not necessitate making choices. Especially in an MMO, where the constantly updating nature of it means no dev can spend the time to create a million different ending possibles for quests(Not like Mass Effect did it either)
This is ESPECIALLY true in the case of the Iconians, were nuking them from orbit would create a temporal paradox that, if anything, would just cause you to fail the mission and be forced to replay that section until you didn't. IIRC, they did that with B'vat during the Specters arc, and so many people complained about accidentally killing B'vat and being forced to replay that part that Cryptic made it impossible to actually kill him.
In the case of the Iconians, killing them in the past would have well, butterfly effected the galaxy as we know it into non-existence.
The only good ones I've seen were ones where it was used very carefully, most importantly? No attempt at randomized stories.
They do still seem to have some procedural content in STO as certain TFO's randomize certain elements of the mission. Day's of Doom seems to randomize the enemies attacking the starbase, along with the nebula's visuals, and on the Battle of Procyon V the enemies seem to be random.
Whether or not these are done in a similar way to the old Exploration missions is another question.
"I walked away from the last great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe and watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained. No time, no space. Just me!"
Just a quick heads-up that the "Create Content" button is still there, and functional, on the character select screen. Didn't go beyond the point of reaching the Foundry character creation screen, since I didn't want to test the potential of getting stuck in a lock/crash. Might want to remove that fairly soon, to avoid confusion.
Foundry could have been extended allowing dedicated authors to creat worlds and civilizations populated with characters and activities of their own design. So if I wanted to write a series about things going on with a specific civilization, I could create their star system, then their planetary system And start populating these spaces with the elements of an on-going story. And hey... if we had the sort of exploration mechanic I champion, wrapping exploration elements in foundry-created civilizations would put those civilization in the queue for sector block generation.
With the way star systems are added into the game code for the game to recognize they are there, I doubt there would ever be a way for Foundry created systems to appear inside the randomly generated exploration system. One would need the official dev mission tools for such a thing, and we would never get those for tons of legal reasons.
I was not aware that you were a dev with an inside knowledge of how the code works.
Foundry could have had it where if a mission was configured a certain way, it would turn certain flags on. When an exploration sector block is generated and it calls for a star system with certain conditions, it would check for Foundry star systems that meet the criteria. If none are met, then the system would generate one. If they are met, then the "door" for that star system would point to the chosen Foundry star system. Of couse, this functionality would have to be coded in, and assumes what MIGHT HAVE BEEN, had it been managed by a dev team that treated Foundry as an actual part of the game as a whole rather than some sort of neglected animal chained in a corner whose owners decided to just let die.
Question is, when you're talking an exploration sector block, are you talking about a permanently generated area, or one that is only generated for someone whom is looking to play a Foundry mission in that area? The former would mean that it would have to stay around for all players and it would technically be already "discovered" while the latter would make it so that players could always have that sense of discovery.
Of course they showed interest. Those were pretty much set up so they played like part of the game as a whole, while both Foundry and Exploration always felt like sideshow attractions. Had they been treated like "family" instead of TRIBBLE stepchildren, people would have engaged with them a lot more. What real purpose did exploration serve as pat of the whole? What purpose did Foundry serve as part of the whole? They didn't. They were just there and were not supported. How could they expect any kind of serious interest when no effort is made to keep things fresh. People had been reporting bugs related to Foundry since the foundry came out and they were never fixed. Same with exploration. They never bothered to treat either system with equal importance.
The Foundry we can think of one of those tools that they likely built in their spare time and meant to come back to it if they felt that more people wanted the focus on the Foundry. Sadly, most of the focus when it came to the foundry was people looking to build missions that satisfied people's need of getting the most amount of rewards for least amount of story that could be fit into the mission in order for the rewards to qualify.
And why do you think people do this? Because there are so many boring grindfests in the game that people want to take the quickest route possible to achieve their goals. Maybe if the devs would quit with all the grinding treadmills and make the game FUN, it would be less of an issue. There will always be cheaters though. So the methods they use should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It's extreme short-sightedness for a developer to not implement a feature or function on the ground that a handful of people might cheat. The rest will not.
I don't know about you, but when it comes to some of the Featured TFOs that they brought out, I enjoyed them quite a bit. Normally I'm not one whom queues up for ground TFOs, but Pahvo Dissension is one I'd queue up for once they bring it out, simply because you never know which 3 routes the game will choose. Battle of the Binary Stars is one I'd queue up for, just to see my ship in an unreleased Discovery ship skin.
Well, they would care if the activities tied to a season's content are based there. What is the point in having social hubs, or outposts, if you don't need to interact with a mission giver in the area itself. So many things in this game are accessible from the UI. There's convenience and then there is the total removal of engagement with the gameworld. It's hard to feel invested in a gmeworld that requires little or no interaction.
They used to have social hubs designed around a season's content. When they launched Season 8, we had Dyson Joint command center, while in Delta Rising, they introduced Delta Quadrant Command. This was the last time we had an actual hub created. With the activity focused in the Alpha Quadrant, we had Deep Space 9 already in the game as a hub for that area.
The issue though with creating a new social area is that you'll need to make sure that people will bother using it. I'd say that DS9 is a popular location since you can do everything in that area, but it also happens to be the only hub in the area. However, it's also a canon area.
Upkeep would not be that bad if there was a system of diminishing requirements in effect. The older that an alliance holding is, the more self-sufficient it would be. So the bulk of upkeep would occur with the newest holdings, where the bulk of the player base would be at endgame anyway.
Upkeep on older holdings would give new players coming up through the related content would something to participate in that has purpose. And here's a novel idea for the Admiralty system. Trade routes that would allow the movement of upkeep resources from places they are stockpiled or constructed to where they are needed. Imagine that. An Admiral in STO actually doing what Admirals in Star Trek would do when they aren't visiting hero ships and pestering the hell out of their captains?
The upkeep would only be a good idea in my opinion if it was easy enough for everyone to do, but not easy enough that only one person was required to do it.
Overall progression and upkeep costs could scale based on various sets of metrics. For example, upkeep for a Cardassian holding would be in line with how many unique accounts actually play as cardassians. This would keep the costs reasonable.
Not to mention, if everyone started on different place that would necessitate unique tutorials for every single species. And that would mean there would have to be more tutorials then there are story mission in the game. That, or they would have to shuttle you off from that starting area 5 seconds after you got there to put you back into the already existing tutorial.
That could be eliminated if you start on your species homeworld if you skip the tutorial.
Se you have made up your mind to dump on anything someone suggests that isn't in line with what Cryptic is doing. And every reason you give why something is a bad idea is something that, with a little imagination, can be mitigated. All it takes is a dedicated team of developers with a desire to see their game become more than just an exercise in mediocrity. If Cryptic isn't that sort of team, then that is their own fault.
Oh well.[/quote]
What about for new players whom do not have an option to skip the tutorial?
What about for players that don't have a homeworld in the game yet? Some examples:
Federation: Bolians, Benzites, Pakleds, Caitians and Rigelians do not have a homeworld currently on the map, while Saurians, Trill, Betazoids, Ferengi, Cardassians, and Tellarites do have have a homeworld, but currently it's nothing more than a point on the map that can't be visited.
Klingons present a problem considering that while they do have Qo'noS, due to them being flagged as Federation, they cannot exactly start there.
Klingons: Nausicaans, Gorn, and Letheans do not currently have a homeworld on any map. Orions, Ferasans, Trill, and Cardassians do have a homeworld, but like Federation characters that have them, they're just points on the map.
Jem'hadar: They never technically state where they are from. I imagine they'd have to invent a "birthing pod" site.
Aliens represent a challenge considering that they don't have a homeworld. I guess they could default to Earth.
Then there's an obvious problem when it comes to Cardassians. They exist on both sides like Klingons, but how would they get handled by the game? NPCs would have to be neutral to both.
My feeling is it's a combination of all the above, and the only reason it's still a thing is the IP and that it is fun to pew pew.
YUP, and this will dillute the value of ST as IP
If I hadn't already bought a LTS I would not log in at all now
I have gone the longest without playing since the sunset announcement
Tiqchirgh 1: Which was an Exploration Map. however the end of it tied into my next one
Tiqchirch 2: S.O.T. Special Operations Team, which was my first full custom map. However, I never got to finish this out, but the end of this one tied into the next one. I also needed to go back and toss in some decorations for this map.
Tiqchirgh1, 2: Which is the colony I was building and subsequent following story line. I was still working on building that map.
Then when I started on my next project, I would have looked to see how I could've tied it to the end, or to something in the Tiqchirch 1, 2.
Just like the aforementioned loopholes people use the Foundry for, like kill accolades, or kill endeavors. If they just left it as is, we the authors would figure out how to keep working with it. I mean with the current placement icons not showing, one already has to absorb an good deal of hopping in and out of the map just to get pieces placed right. So, it's not like we aren't already doing this.
Comments
Oh yeah, the ending of the Iconian line was absolutely cringe worthy. It was set up like you will have a choice at one point. Until the very end, I was waiting for the "Unload the quantum torpedoes on my position!" option, but nothing. Yeah, silly me thinking STO may present a Mass Effect choice. No, this is not an adventure, this is a railroad and you do what Cryptic expects you to do.
The team working on that is not the team that would be working on the foundry, for example.
10 years ago. Exploration is done via missions now, and while I don't think that fits your definition, it is to me. (Incidentally, I remember the old exploration system. That wasn't exploration. I can't speak for others, but I really only did it for the daily mission that was available back then.)
The Foundy served well, for how long it was around. But I can fully understand them going 'this is consuming more resources than it needs to, and we don't have the resources or people left to fix it.' Speaking as a hobbyist programmer, it's far too easy to fall into code debt and no longer have the ability to redeem it.
It is odd that it is always the OTHER team that is working. It seems they only have an other team.
a) Get players to actually play the game regularly and eventually spend money on.
b) are stuff that primarily involves the game designers and artists, not the programmers.
Apparently, maintaining the Foundry is something that involves Cryptic's programmers a lot more than its designers, but it's not like some other new features that designers are working on don't need programming help, too.
If certain tasks need resources from multiple specialties, you need all of them available to actually do it, and if one task draws needed resources from somewhere else, things get difficult - you don't want part of the team sit on its hand as they wait for something else to be finished. And if those waiting tasks and team members actually work on the stuff that actually pays the bill (and allows the Perfect World leadership to swim in money), then the thing that doesn't pay the bills as well might have to be given up.
They probably have only two or three programmer teams? I dunno, I don't work for Cryptic, but IIRC, upthread they mentioned the foundry had to be a core team, whereas a UI/UX overhaul is just going to require a STO programmer. I'm not super sure why they overhauled the character creation segment when the entire game could use a UX sweep, but maybe they're working on it system by system.
.. won't hold my breath though.
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I think there are only 2 viable solutions that exist. 1) Either play the content that exists in the game the way it was meant or 2) take some time off the game and come back to it when the next content releases.
They started on the Character Creator UI because that was the easiest for Joanna to start on & she wanted to overhaul that one first. She's still new to the team so it'll take time for her to learn everything.
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-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
That's totally false. Not all programmers are capable of the same skillset, and UGC is not a trivial skillset. (Nor is procedurally generated content.).
neverwinter getting a major reboot in few more weeks, it just following same methods with STO's format. original lockboxes were easier to win epic prizes like 1 in 5 boxes ratio, and next update they add most terrible concept, adding "RNG" in almost in everything with combats, chance of looting and now, it doesnt feel like role-playing game, it feel like playing slot machine casino.
NO ONE LIKES to play gambling! Belgium was the first country to ban online gambling, and USA's congress are planning to make online gambling illegal which involved with younger children playing, some cant control and could get parents go broke.
Elderscrolls have a smarter format with lockboxes, they are only cosmetic, sold for the looks, and less RNG, only the best loots from bosses or elite chest rewards, but here STO and NWO are pretty bad that i heard someone spend 200-300 dollars and not got any newer ships or mounds. i remember NWO's first lockbox, chances was 1 in 5 chances, and now currently it feel like 1 in 250 tries or worse than that, some said 1 in 400 tries.
ARC/PWI dont care about players, just become more greedy and upped the ante, House wins, not the players.
first it was 1 in 5, and few patches later, it became 1 in 20 chances, each patch progressed, it became 1 in 400 chances, then what next? 1 in 1,000 chances?
do us a favor, stop that RNG format and bring back a real role play! most characters in Neverwinter will become cookie cutter clones. ESO's format make you character unique due to choice of "champion points" tree line. STO's captain skill tree was better way but it fall short. not much choice for customizable captains.
STO are ahead of NWO with skill tree, honestly NWO's reboot on skills feel like dead-ends.
for STO, i want Alpha Memory back and explorable zones too because these cluster missions feels like unique.
My character Tsin'xing
Whether or not these are done in a similar way to the old Exploration missions is another question.
"I walked away from the last great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe and watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained. No time, no space. Just me!"
Question is, when you're talking an exploration sector block, are you talking about a permanently generated area, or one that is only generated for someone whom is looking to play a Foundry mission in that area? The former would mean that it would have to stay around for all players and it would technically be already "discovered" while the latter would make it so that players could always have that sense of discovery.
The Foundry we can think of one of those tools that they likely built in their spare time and meant to come back to it if they felt that more people wanted the focus on the Foundry. Sadly, most of the focus when it came to the foundry was people looking to build missions that satisfied people's need of getting the most amount of rewards for least amount of story that could be fit into the mission in order for the rewards to qualify.
I don't know about you, but when it comes to some of the Featured TFOs that they brought out, I enjoyed them quite a bit. Normally I'm not one whom queues up for ground TFOs, but Pahvo Dissension is one I'd queue up for once they bring it out, simply because you never know which 3 routes the game will choose. Battle of the Binary Stars is one I'd queue up for, just to see my ship in an unreleased Discovery ship skin.
They used to have social hubs designed around a season's content. When they launched Season 8, we had Dyson Joint command center, while in Delta Rising, they introduced Delta Quadrant Command. This was the last time we had an actual hub created. With the activity focused in the Alpha Quadrant, we had Deep Space 9 already in the game as a hub for that area.
The issue though with creating a new social area is that you'll need to make sure that people will bother using it. I'd say that DS9 is a popular location since you can do everything in that area, but it also happens to be the only hub in the area. However, it's also a canon area.
The upkeep would only be a good idea in my opinion if it was easy enough for everyone to do, but not easy enough that only one person was required to do it.
That could be eliminated if you start on your species homeworld if you skip the tutorial.
Se you have made up your mind to dump on anything someone suggests that isn't in line with what Cryptic is doing. And every reason you give why something is a bad idea is something that, with a little imagination, can be mitigated. All it takes is a dedicated team of developers with a desire to see their game become more than just an exercise in mediocrity. If Cryptic isn't that sort of team, then that is their own fault.
Oh well.[/quote]
What about for new players whom do not have an option to skip the tutorial?
What about for players that don't have a homeworld in the game yet? Some examples:
Federation: Bolians, Benzites, Pakleds, Caitians and Rigelians do not have a homeworld currently on the map, while Saurians, Trill, Betazoids, Ferengi, Cardassians, and Tellarites do have have a homeworld, but currently it's nothing more than a point on the map that can't be visited.
Klingons present a problem considering that while they do have Qo'noS, due to them being flagged as Federation, they cannot exactly start there.
Klingons: Nausicaans, Gorn, and Letheans do not currently have a homeworld on any map. Orions, Ferasans, Trill, and Cardassians do have a homeworld, but like Federation characters that have them, they're just points on the map.
Jem'hadar: They never technically state where they are from. I imagine they'd have to invent a "birthing pod" site.
Aliens represent a challenge considering that they don't have a homeworld. I guess they could default to Earth.
Then there's an obvious problem when it comes to Cardassians. They exist on both sides like Klingons, but how would they get handled by the game? NPCs would have to be neutral to both.
Well then, I guess this particular topic can be put to rest.
YUP, and this will dillute the value of ST as IP
If I hadn't already bought a LTS I would not log in at all now
I have gone the longest without playing since the sunset announcement
In my KDF side missions. I did.
Tiqchirgh 1: Which was an Exploration Map. however the end of it tied into my next one
Tiqchirch 2: S.O.T. Special Operations Team, which was my first full custom map. However, I never got to finish this out, but the end of this one tied into the next one. I also needed to go back and toss in some decorations for this map.
Tiqchirgh1, 2: Which is the colony I was building and subsequent following story line. I was still working on building that map.
Then when I started on my next project, I would have looked to see how I could've tied it to the end, or to something in the Tiqchirch 1, 2.
Just like the aforementioned loopholes people use the Foundry for, like kill accolades, or kill endeavors. If they just left it as is, we the authors would figure out how to keep working with it. I mean with the current placement icons not showing, one already has to absorb an good deal of hopping in and out of the map just to get pieces placed right. So, it's not like we aren't already doing this.