Dear Cryptic,
I started playing this game in the open beta release, I even pre-ordered the game when I heard about it. And I have been actively playing since launch, with some pauses in between now and then.
If you want to earn more money, you need to change your menu a bit. I personally need a more varied diet of content. So, to start, let’s take a trip through memory lane.
When the game lunched, we had no real connection to any Star Trek TV shows or movies. Star Trek Online started out in the future, the Federation was at war with the Klingon Empire. And this is what the game focused on.
The only real connection we had to Star Trek was names, references, starship models and uniforms etc.
Back in those days, we paid to play. The missions were straight forward, defeat enemies, interact with objects, scan something. Read a wall of text and go on to the next.
As the game continued to mature, we eventually got cutscenes, audio dialog and actual Star Trek actors and their characters in the game to interact with. Missions became more complex and focused more around storytelling, with the added cutscenes and audio dialogues every mission felt more and more like an action paced Star Trek episode.
But lately we’ve been in kind of a rut, since the debut of Star Trek Discovery and Picard. That seems to be the only thing you guys can focus on, all the content being released is Discovery and Picard related. Also, it seems you guys are taking much longer to create basic episodes, which seem a shame since they have all had subpar writing and value lately. It’s all just a swarm of enemies and constant bickering.
The writing as of late has been quite subpar, I mean. Come on. We, our characters are heroes to our faction. And we stumble and fall, we are shocked when faced with danger. And we get accused of treason? And got to “clear out name” … What was that all about?
Actually, the writing is quite bad and seems to fit with the entire theme of Discovery and Picard. But here’s a little bomb shell, some of us absolutely hate Star Trek Discovery and Picard, but let’s not crawl down into the rabbit hole of why. That’s not what this topic is about.
Now as Star Trek Picard and Discovery is what’s on the air these days, I understand you guys need to focus and pork out content. Because some new players might join the game, some might be introduced to the Star Trek franchise for the first time through these shows.
But please, just create some new missions. Start a new arc focused in this century, focused on the lore Star Trek Online has developed without the need to rely on Discovery or Picard for a plot or characters. Give is something fresh, something unique.
Like this game has done so much in the past, lately my bank account has been closed to Cryptic because you are absolutely not offering anything of interest. The last good content this game had was the Victory is Life arc, that was absolutely amazing.
Maybe you should bring back some of the missions that were deleted? In order to be polished? It can’t be that hard to get these ready. Or just focus on something unique with the lore as mentioned.
You guys made the mistake of removing the foundry, simply because you were unable or unable to keep the people who kept the system running employed. The foundry, for all its flaws was a gift to this game.
Star Trek has always inspired fan created content and characters, being able to interact with player made content was inspirational to say the least. But you pulled the cord and killed it, simply because you were unable to keep it running.
Fine, but when you made that decision. You must understand, without players creating content for one another, you need to step up your game.
Like mentioned, there is nothing appealing to me or many other players. We log on, rush through the endeavours and take up server bandwidth without leaving a dime. That’s not good for business.
Bring back the exploration clusters? Create a system that will randomly generate maps, characters and dialog for us to explore. That’s exactly what the old system did, just very poorly.
Look at Rise of the Tomb Raider, it has something called Endurance mode with a system that is able to generate random maps, random objectives and so forth. Each map is almost unique, the system generates them with little to no flaws or issues.
And you might be saying, well. The game engine can’t handle it, it’s too old. Well, another trip through memory lane. You had the exact same excuse about the game engine, when you were first trying to experiment with audio dialog and cutscenes, etc.
But here’s the good news, even though some of the latest missions have had subpar writing. The quality of missions and gameplay has improved significantly over the years. So good job team, as mentioned Victory of Life was awesome.
The models of various starships have been updated as well, lightning 2.0 while needing some more work. Also overhauled the game a ton, and lately server bandwidth issues have been cleared up a lot as well.
You’re doing a lot of things right Cryptic, we just want more content. Well, more importantly varied content. Not all of us are enjoying Discovery and Picard, give us something else as well. I understand you need to use those sources, as it’s what’s on the air.
Just give us others a break, the game is no fun when its just Discovery and Picard with the same predictable plot twists and issues.
Thank you.
0
Comments
But it has been non-stop Discovery for the last 2 years...STO has never dedicated so long to a single arc, not even the biggest threat to the galaxy, the Iconians. Are these Klingons from the 23rd century more dangerous and established than the Iconians?
But back to the OP, it ain't going to happen...the Devs these days are all about minimizing effort and maximizing profit...I wouldn't expect them to add much else in the future other than more gamble box and c-store ships with more back to back to back grind event busy work.
When they do add something it's piggybacked by another way to make them money...got Discovery Klingons and almost immediately after they announced a new gamble box
I don't think they piggybacked off that. We are a bit overdue for a new lockbox. Its possible that they wanted to wait for the anniversary to drop the new one, as we are getting quite a bit of content.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
"There's No Way Like Poway!"
Real Join Date: October 2010
Lower Decks
^ Click image to listen to my favorite Trek theme song! ^
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/xbox/star-trek-online/news/detail/11357703-ten-years-of-sto-infographic
i like the progression, keep up the good work team. more new trek.
Yeah, I just don't get it. To me, way, WAY too little of the game has been focused on TNG, even from the get-go - early STO was always very heavily DS9 fixated (which is fine, but let's be honest - many of us cut our teeth on TNG). They also do almost nothing involving the Star Trek I-VI era (like... is there any content in the game tailored to that very important timeframe?), and, aside from the TOS-themed start, there's nothing built around the original show, either.
I personally (but realize this isn't universal) am in the camp that believes that all Star Trek since 2009 has been abject garbage, that either threw all the science and lore out the window for cheap thrills (Abramsverse), or actively crapped on the optimistic tone and largely-episodic 'you don't need to worry over this next week' style of Trek from TOS through Enterprise. Discovery is, at its very best, a bad, ultra-PC Game of Thrones in space; Picard is a laughable attempt to use the name power of a few key star to hook fans, only to grind their spirits down with its pointlessly-dark, ultra-pessimistic take on the future of the galaxy.
There should be little surprise that a huge portion of the fanbase not only rejects nutrek, but is more than a bit road-weary regarding STO's fixation on it.
Good point.
J'Ula isn't a very convincing enemy. And it means that most Discovery content feels shoehorned in. This is especially true for missions like the simulations.
At least with the Temporal expansion, they incorporated the events into the storyline. While I disliked that we had to side with the temporal agents who obviously only told us part of the story and clearly weren't neutral benefactors who were just there for our sake - at least the story was tied in well with the rest of the game.
There was a much better build-up in the past. Which made the enemies far more threatening. Discovery content on the other hand seems rushed and forced into the game. The quality overall isn't necessarily bad - maps look great, ships look nice, some characters got some much needed development - but the story hasn't been that believable and good. It's getting better now that we're actually focussing on the current Klingon Empire again and its internal struggles. But the whole J'Ula arc, which brought us that struggle, was just bad story-wise.
I agree with this sentiment, as I've briefly indicated above already regarding the story.
We need some new events in our timeline. While the environments in missions like Battle of the binary stars look simply amazing, it doesn't do much to continue the story. Same for the mission that takes place above Mars.
Likewise, it's great for fans of the Klingons that they get some attention, but we know what our future will be. It's not struggle between the members of the Alliance. It's good that we see some of that as it would be unlikely that further progress would be without any disagreements - but I really hope we can move on soon.
STO has depicted a promising future in episodes quite some time ago already and I hope we can explore some of that again. That future should be taken as our departing point for new, interesting stories and unexplored worlds - instead of just letting us know that it will happen sometime in the future, while we keep focussing on pointless conflicts that will ultimately not matter much. As said, it's good that we're seeing some of it, but it shouldn't last too long.
STO has also never previously run in lock step with a currently airing show.
They are keeping pace with the CURRENT Star Trek Shows.. it's a no brainer and it should continue. I would fully expect the J'ula storyline to end soon and don't be surprised if the next major arc jumped to the future to deal with the Emerald Chain.
The game follows the show.. again, no brainer.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Two things are happening.
1. it has been stated time and again, the devs were running out of ideas (I can't see it personally, but we will take that in consideration) along comes Disco and Picard. now we have two shows IN PRODUCTION to draw story lines from.
2. There are, believe it or not, new players who don't much know about nor care about TOS TNG DS9 and voyager because they came into Star Trek watching DISCO. you going to turn off new fans? not a smart move. now should we do something to break it up/shake it up? absolutely. a pause to revisit some old friends, like the gangster planet, or the amusement park planet. they don't have to be "story arcs", just fun little diversions.
bottom line is there ais plenty of content for TNG DS9TOS and VOY.. maybe someone out there has crunched number on percentage of content for each series, but like it or not, there isn't much Picard content (yet) and once YOK / Ju'la is done, we can expect more Picard.
I'll take that bet.
I am unsure when it will happen.. they might do a Mirror Leeta thing first, which I would also be totally cool with.. but make no mistake, we're going forward at some point. All of Discovery's material going forward will be set in that time, no way they are going to leave all that story on the table.
They will likely be stories where we go forward and then come back.. but I am completely convinced that we'll be dealing with the Chain one way or another soon.
> I'll take that bet.
>
> I am unsure when it will happen.. they might do a Mirror Leeta thing first, which I would also be totally cool with.. but make no mistake, we're going forward at some point. All of Discovery's material going forward will be set in that time, no way they are going to leave all that story on the table.
>
> They will likely be stories where we go forward and then come back.. but I am completely convinced that we'll be dealing with the Chain one way or another soon.
I'll be skipping that content, then. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I'm not going to squander my time on nutrek - not when I can just log on, do my patrols/rep, and then go play some other game that doesn't choose to embrace a story that's actively insulting to fans. There's more to life than CBS' bad fanfiction.
That's your right, the rest of us will happily enjoy the content. The only insult I have seen to Trek fans are haters that claim they speak for the entire fan base, but that's another issue.
You're right, I must be the only person who hates Disco.
Dat ratio. But you go ahead and reinsert your head into the sand, guy.
Never said you were the only one genius. There are plenty more whiny little complainers just like you out there. Now please stop derailing the thread.
For any future replies, just refer to my signature below the banner. Thanks.
Except, of course, that the direct implication of "the rest of us" was that I was alone. See, that's how words work, bud - you say or type something, and then it's not up to the rest of us to sift through your fumbling attempts at communication to root out what you claim you actually meant. You get one shot, and what you say is what is conveyed. In this case, it was almost instantly proven wrong, and here we are.
But, let's be honest here: you knew exactly what you were doing - it's the same thing that "whiny little complainers" feebly attempts to do: diminish an opposing position that you cannot reconcile. People who don't like a thing - and who can describe in an extremely complex and even eloquent fashion why they don't like that thing - must be collectively written off because, well, you do like it. And their opinion - heck, even their existence - hurts you. What a tough life.
https://i.imgur.com/leWTCAI.jpg
And then, of course, rather than actively refute why the thing you love is so widely scorned, it's the "talk to the hand" play. Classic. Classic.
Careful with those stones in glass houses.
So people who don't like something YOU like are whiners? But you whining about them is not whining and we should all respect your opinion while you absolutly don't respect the opinion of others?
Got it.
On Topic: Some non STP/STDisco content would be really really nice....i'm absolutly on board with the OP.
I'd like to see some content set in the classic films era. The game has almost nothing during that 15ish year time period from TMP to The Undiscovered Country.
Certainly not.
The thread was on topic, I wasn’t the one that started derailing it with a sermon of my opinions of Discovery. The ‘whining’ was the initial post that had no place in the thread. Everyone is welcome to their opinion, I have no issue with that.
Now, back on topic.. if something like a Mirror Leeta story line is coming that might be a nice change of pace. While it’s obviously going to be a focus to have content centered around the story lines of the current shows, variety is always a good thing. Breaking things up by revisiting some DS9 content sounds like a good idea, but clearly the game will continue to focus on the current shows. I expect to see a similar focus once Strange New Worlds or the Section 31 show starts to air as well.
Also what makes you think J'mpok is gonna allow you to just walk in and challenge him.
You got to remember that as far as anyone in KDF knows (before the reveal in "Partisans" that is) it was J'Ula who fired the mycelial weapon at Khitomer and we've seeming allied with her, so no KDF ship is gonna take chances of us getting in range of Qu'nos or J'mpok, after all everything "Khitomer Discord" to "Partisans" happens in fairly short time IIRC only month at most of in-game time and closer to a week or 2, most the Klingon Empire would be at shock from the Khitomer attack and thus unable to think straight and J'mpok would be exploiting this make sure no one is asking what if you had a reason to join J'Ula that doesn't make forfeit your honor.
Also remember that lorewise our ship isn't that much more powerful then your average KDF ship, chances of you fighting your way to J'mpok thru the KDF Fleet at Qu'nos is minimal at best.
As for challenging J'mpok before "Khitomer Discord" there isn't really no reason to at least if you don't want to spend all your reign fighting off challenges who think you took the Chancellorship due to personal greed and nothing more.
So it makes perfect sense if you think about more then 2 seconds.
This is a hunch and no fact to support it as of yet, but I think op your real objection is them taking time to improve the KDF side. Also several of your facts in your op were way off. The original game was no where near as bland as your pretending, the problem was allot of it was unfinished when launched. If people only saw the galaxy class at launch lol. Voice in missions is more recent then your acting. Also the Foundry was being exploited for rewards, they cut down on the rewards in foundry missions, and it kind of died. At least from my point of view, I never saw it as a huge success that your saying it was.
As for bringing back older missions from launch and re polishing them. Hell yes on this point I agree. The original Romulan and Klingon war for the Fed side was far far more interesting then what is currently out, and it took longer to complete. I would also like to see the sector blocks returned with the interaction with transwarp gates, to me when they got rid of that it was sort of immersion breaking. The galaxy stopped feeling big. Exploration zones using the old Genesis would be good too, good way to get ground trophies for killing certain species. I love the Breen head on my wall.