Indeed Klingons, Orions, Nausicaans, Jem'Hadar, Romulans and Cardasians are "safe" evil so their "evil" acts are mostly guilt free, Terrans (or the Tzenkethi) do acts that are clearly and obviously Evil like killing civilians without prompting.
I wouldn't call them "evil" then. More Neutral. Klingons still have their Honor, and there is no Honor in killing those who can't fight back. And before B'Vat is brought up, he was without Honor and only cared about escalating the war to a point it could never end. And of course J'mpok is without Honor as well as he willingly backstabs not only Martok, but a War Hero (the player) for his own personal gain in his mad bid to be Emperor. J'ula was redeemed after realizing she made a big mistake and fought against a tyrant. Does that excuse her entirely for her actions? Maybe not, but not everything is a binary black/white view. There's a LOT of shades of gray. And a lot of interesting characters dwell in that realm of gray.
Yeah that's kind of my point often when I see people saying they want an evil faction what they mean is that they want a faction with all coolness factor of an evil faction but without the actions that could cause moral issues with them, that or they want an excuse to be trolls but STO doesn't allow that kind of trolling so that's probably not a factor here.
It's rare that people actually want a truly vile and evil faction that kicks puppies because the puppy happened to be in range of their foot.
It's rare that people actually want a truly vile and evil faction that kicks puppies because the puppy happened to be in range of their foot.
Jeeze ... we don't want to be that evil! We just want to be genocidal maniacs hell bent on the downfall of the corrupt Federation! We'll be sure to save the puppies before the planet is obliterated.
Its unlikely Kael will ever be able to talk about the non-Trek crossover that STO almost did, and why it fell through. Mentions something like Doctor Who would've stood out as non Trek...
I know it would be an absolute pain in legal terms but I would love to have STO crossover with Star Wars. I see it clearly, in my mind, B1 droids or stormtroopers are ensign level enemies and Inquisitors and Vader are captain level ground enemies. And we all know how Star Wars ships would scale in space. A Star Destroyer would have a great many hitpoints...
Its unlikely Kael will ever be able to talk about the non-Trek crossover that STO almost did, and why it fell through. Mentions something like Doctor Who would've stood out as non Trek...
I know it would be an absolute pain in legal terms but I would love to have STO crossover with Star Wars. I see it clearly, in my mind, B1 droids or stormtroopers are ensign level enemies and Inquisitors and Vader are captain level ground enemies. And we all know how Star Wars ships would scale in space. A Star Destroyer would have a great many hitpoints...
Executor would be Borg Unimatrix level at absolute minimum; that thing is nineteen kilometers of death.
Star Destroyers might've been imposing back when the game was relatively new and there were very few big ships in it...but now, there are so many ships with official, semi-official or Cryptic official lengths well in excess of 1600 meters (which is what Star Destroyers are - the Imperator/Imperial class, anyway) that most players would be dwarfing them.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Ok, this is not a Star Wars forum, and this is derailing the thread.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Hope the Klingon War stuff comes back. Right now...I don't call it 'streamlining', I call it abridged.
Agreed completely. As it is, it's now been 5 years since the content was removed 'for revamping'.
Kael, it would be greatly appreciated if you let whomever is responsible know that there's a contingent of players, old and newer, who want to experience these missions. IF they were keyed into the Available tab so we can just play them as is (or was), you cats at Cryptic would find there'd be way less pressure about actually revamping them.
Hope the Klingon War stuff comes back. Right now...I don't call it 'streamlining', I call it abridged.
Agreed completely. As it is, it's now been 5 years since the content was removed 'for revamping'.
Kael, it would be greatly appreciated if you let whomever is responsible know that there's a contingent of players, old and newer, who want to experience these missions. IF they were keyed into the Available tab so we can just play them as is (or was), you cats at Cryptic would find there'd be way less pressure about actually revamping them.
Other hand, I don't want it back if my computer's going to freeze literally every time I look in the wrong direction (more or less toward the sea) on - geeze, what planet was Lt. Paris on? Rigel IV, something like that. Absolutely necessary to go there for the plot progression, absolutely frustrating as all get-out to work through.
As for data regarding the unpopularity of an EEE-VILLL faction, data gathered from other games does tend to support that contention. Fallout 76, for instance, was first conceived as an EvE-style world of massive open combat, but the playerbase tended to want to work together, not against each other, to the point that six months into the game PvP was relegated to an opt-out status, then later to opt-in (and if you opt out of it, you're literally untouchable by other players, to the point that one way to try to get another player's attention in-game is to shoot at them until they turn to look at you). Their battle royale mode, Nuclear Winter, also proved insufficiently popular to maintain. (In point of fact, one of the latest additions to the game is a chest just outside Vault 76 where new players can pick up items donated by veteran players. Contrary to the expectations of some, it's become quite popular as a place to, frankly, get rid of things that are useless at high level like .38-cal ammo and Diluted Stimpacks, and few if any higher-level players pilfer items from it for themselves.) And my roommate, who plays the Division games a fair bit, has been complaining about how often there's a daily goal to eliminate rogue agents in the Dark Zone, where PvP happens, but he can't find anyone in there. Most of the remaining player base would rather fight bad guys than be bad guys.
Does more TFOs getting advanced and elite options include event TFOs?
Cheers.
Only when that event isn't running, but yes, the entire discussion about Advanced and Elite TFO versions was about TFOs that were orginally added with Events.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,687Community Moderator
As for data regarding the unpopularity of an EEE-VILLL faction, data gathered from other games does tend to support that contention. Fallout 76, for instance, was first conceived as an EvE-style world of massive open combat, but the playerbase tended to want to work together, not against each other, to the point that six months into the game PvP was relegated to an opt-out status, then later to opt-in (and if you opt out of it, you're literally untouchable by other players, to the point that one way to try to get another player's attention in-game is to shoot at them until they turn to look at you). Their battle royale mode, Nuclear Winter, also proved insufficiently popular to maintain. (In point of fact, one of the latest additions to the game is a chest just outside Vault 76 where new players can pick up items donated by veteran players. Contrary to the expectations of some, it's become quite popular as a place to, frankly, get rid of things that are useless at high level like .38-cal ammo and Diluted Stimpacks, and few if any higher-level players pilfer items from it for themselves.) And my roommate, who plays the Division games a fair bit, has been complaining about how often there's a daily goal to eliminate rogue agents in the Dark Zone, where PvP happens, but he can't find anyone in there. Most of the remaining player base would rather fight bad guys than be bad guys.
Not only that, I think the old City of Villians didn't fair as well as City of Heroes did.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
As for data regarding the unpopularity of an EEE-VILLL faction, data gathered from other games does tend to support that contention. Fallout 76, for instance, was first conceived as an EvE-style world of massive open combat, but the playerbase tended to want to work together, not against each other, to the point that six months into the game PvP was relegated to an opt-out status, then later to opt-in (and if you opt out of it, you're literally untouchable by other players, to the point that one way to try to get another player's attention in-game is to shoot at them until they turn to look at you). Their battle royale mode, Nuclear Winter, also proved insufficiently popular to maintain. (In point of fact, one of the latest additions to the game is a chest just outside Vault 76 where new players can pick up items donated by veteran players. Contrary to the expectations of some, it's become quite popular as a place to, frankly, get rid of things that are useless at high level like .38-cal ammo and Diluted Stimpacks, and few if any higher-level players pilfer items from it for themselves.) And my roommate, who plays the Division games a fair bit, has been complaining about how often there's a daily goal to eliminate rogue agents in the Dark Zone, where PvP happens, but he can't find anyone in there. Most of the remaining player base would rather fight bad guys than be bad guys.
Not only that, I think the old City of Villians didn't fair as well as City of Heroes did.
No idea about CoH/CoV popularity ratio, but in DCUO the villain HQs were never as busy as the hero ones, and in that game the player-character villains were not as "evil" as usual since there is a kind of gray triangle to everything because while the heroes and villains do their usual things and conflict with each other, there is also a major alien invasion going on so there is a (very often ignored) truce/alliance against the invaders which complicates things. It also makes for some good informal roleplay between heroes and villains, who are both enemies and allies at the same time.
As for data regarding the unpopularity of an EEE-VILLL faction, data gathered from other games does tend to support that contention. Fallout 76, for instance, was first conceived as an EvE-style world of massive open combat, but the playerbase tended to want to work together, not against each other, to the point that six months into the game PvP was relegated to an opt-out status, then later to opt-in (and if you opt out of it, you're literally untouchable by other players, to the point that one way to try to get another player's attention in-game is to shoot at them until they turn to look at you). Their battle royale mode, Nuclear Winter, also proved insufficiently popular to maintain. (In point of fact, one of the latest additions to the game is a chest just outside Vault 76 where new players can pick up items donated by veteran players. Contrary to the expectations of some, it's become quite popular as a place to, frankly, get rid of things that are useless at high level like .38-cal ammo and Diluted Stimpacks, and few if any higher-level players pilfer items from it for themselves.) And my roommate, who plays the Division games a fair bit, has been complaining about how often there's a daily goal to eliminate rogue agents in the Dark Zone, where PvP happens, but he can't find anyone in there. Most of the remaining player base would rather fight bad guys than be bad guys.
Not only that, I think the old City of Villians didn't fair as well as City of Heroes did.
The only game I've seen wherein an "evil" faction was well-received is Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Sith Empire is rather more nuanced than the reflexive puppy-punting we see from, say, the Terran Empire. I do admit to wishing they could have done the Romulan Star Empire, but that's partly irritation at how the reboot films handled things, plus me being a big fan of Diane Duane's work.
As for data regarding the unpopularity of an EEE-VILLL faction, data gathered from other games does tend to support that contention. Fallout 76, for instance, was first conceived as an EvE-style world of massive open combat, but the playerbase tended to want to work together, not against each other, to the point that six months into the game PvP was relegated to an opt-out status, then later to opt-in (and if you opt out of it, you're literally untouchable by other players, to the point that one way to try to get another player's attention in-game is to shoot at them until they turn to look at you). Their battle royale mode, Nuclear Winter, also proved insufficiently popular to maintain. (In point of fact, one of the latest additions to the game is a chest just outside Vault 76 where new players can pick up items donated by veteran players. Contrary to the expectations of some, it's become quite popular as a place to, frankly, get rid of things that are useless at high level like .38-cal ammo and Diluted Stimpacks, and few if any higher-level players pilfer items from it for themselves.) And my roommate, who plays the Division games a fair bit, has been complaining about how often there's a daily goal to eliminate rogue agents in the Dark Zone, where PvP happens, but he can't find anyone in there. Most of the remaining player base would rather fight bad guys than be bad guys.
Not only that, I think the old City of Villians didn't fair as well as City of Heroes did.
The only game I've seen wherein an "evil" faction was well-received is Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Sith Empire is rather more nuanced than the reflexive puppy-punting we see from, say, the Terran Empire. I do admit to wishing they could have done the Romulan Star Empire, but that's partly irritation at how the reboot films handled things, plus me being a big fan of Diane Duane's work.
Stellaris springs to mind as a game that has player based evil empires empires that are well received. Along with Start Trek Infinity which has the Romulan and Cardassian empires although I am not sure Romulan are evil more devious. The Cardassians empire though is a well received evil empire.
As for data regarding the unpopularity of an EEE-VILLL faction, data gathered from other games does tend to support that contention. Fallout 76, for instance, was first conceived as an EvE-style world of massive open combat, but the playerbase tended to want to work together, not against each other, to the point that six months into the game PvP was relegated to an opt-out status, then later to opt-in (and if you opt out of it, you're literally untouchable by other players, to the point that one way to try to get another player's attention in-game is to shoot at them until they turn to look at you). Their battle royale mode, Nuclear Winter, also proved insufficiently popular to maintain. (In point of fact, one of the latest additions to the game is a chest just outside Vault 76 where new players can pick up items donated by veteran players. Contrary to the expectations of some, it's become quite popular as a place to, frankly, get rid of things that are useless at high level like .38-cal ammo and Diluted Stimpacks, and few if any higher-level players pilfer items from it for themselves.) And my roommate, who plays the Division games a fair bit, has been complaining about how often there's a daily goal to eliminate rogue agents in the Dark Zone, where PvP happens, but he can't find anyone in there. Most of the remaining player base would rather fight bad guys than be bad guys.
Not only that, I think the old City of Villians didn't fair as well as City of Heroes did.
The only game I've seen wherein an "evil" faction was well-received is Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Sith Empire is rather more nuanced than the reflexive puppy-punting we see from, say, the Terran Empire. I do admit to wishing they could have done the Romulan Star Empire, but that's partly irritation at how the reboot films handled things, plus me being a big fan of Diane Duane's work.
Yeah it has to be a bit more nuanced, The Sith Empire in SWTOR is just as self-destructive, genocidal, xenophobic and evil as the Terran Empire, but with Sith Politics involved, a Terran might backstab their Captain for personal gains, while Someone in the Sith Empire would do it out of Fear because their Insane Space Wizard boss told them to or they'll start murdering people,
you'll even have cases where you'll be ordered to shoot down another Imperial ship because your sith boss hates the sith that ship works for, over petty reasons like for examples eating your boss' sandwich or because your boss is simply bored, Sith politics are weird but also interesting at the same time.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,687Community Moderator
Yeah it has to be a bit more nuanced, The Sith Empire in SWTOR is just as self-destructive, genocidal, xenophobic and evil as the Terran Empire, but with Sith Politics involved, a Terran might backstab their Captain for personal gains, while Someone in the Sith Empire would do it out of Fear because their Insane Space Wizard boss told them to or they'll start murdering people,
you'll even have cases where you'll be ordered to shoot down another Imperial ship because your sith boss hates the sith that ship works for, over petty reasons like for examples eating your boss' sandwich or because your boss is simply bored, Sith politics are weird but also interesting at the same time.
Not only that, you can actually make Light Side choices even as a member of the Sith Empire. I got a Sith Warrior who comes across more like a Jedi, confused the hell out of a young Jedi who joined up with me because how can a Sith be more Jedi than a Jedi, probably enraged Lord Chubby Mask (I mean Darth Baras the Wide... I mean Darth Baras) even MORE because of her apparently hidden Light Side alignment and her snark at how good his lungs were...
Basically... my character was a Light Side Sith Revanite who wanted to change the Empire for the better recognizing that Dark Side alone was self destructive.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Again, this is NOT a Star Wars game forum. This discussion is more suited for Ten Forward.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
It's bad for immersion if one franchise's universe is affected by something that only takes place in the same universe in real life.
In other words: the only reason someone from Star Wars or Transformers can show up in the Star Trek universe, is because real life connects these. Not because there are supposed to be any Autobots flying between Vulcan and Earth or anything. So by linking them, you constantly remind whoever's watching or playing that nothing what they're experiencing is real.
Which they know of course, but isn't the purpose of most media to tell believable stories and to make them seem real?
I know its not about Star Wars, I'm just talking about a potential Evil Faction, an Evil Faction not only depends on the Evilness, it also depends on the Popularity and Dialogue choices, so far the remaining Evil groups that are Still Evil are the Terrans, The Borg and maybe The real Dominion.
I guess I could rebuild the Tal Shiar with all this newly aquired mirror borg tech (maybe make better Borg implants, with built in regeneration crystals and Thalaron explosive failsafe), I can use on Federation civilians.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Crossovers are fine if done properly. The main stumbling block for crossovers is cross-conversion of the tech and culture and whatnot in a way that makes sense for BOTH sides, a definitely non-trivial effort that a lot of TV (and game) studios don't really have the time and resources to do a thorough job of (and even some novelists struggle to make all the connections and contrasts and stuff with enough depth and nuance to be believable) but good ones do happen.
That said, you might be surprised at how crazy the combinations can be and still be able to pull it off with a natural and seamless flair. For example, on TV there was a crossover episode that tied the science-grounded CSI-like show Bones with the urban fantasy/supernatural drama TV show Sleepy Hollow that, despite having a big dose of the typical craziness of the latter show, came out well and would fit very smoothly into either of the shows.
A big part of it was that the writers cooperated well and the script was cleverly enough written so that no one in the two casts ever broke character, instead each side interpreted the situation from the viewpoint of their particular paradigms (and thought the other side was a bit squirrely) but were able to solve the situation by working it from both sides.
Crossovers are fine if done properly. The main stumbling block for crossovers is cross-conversion of the tech and culture and whatnot in a way that makes sense for BOTH sides, a definitely non-trivial effort that a lot of TV (and game) studios don't really have the time and resources to do a thorough job of (and even some novelists struggle to make all the connections and contrasts and stuff with enough depth and nuance to be believable) but good ones do happen.
That said, you might be surprised at how crazy the combinations can be and still be able to pull it off with a natural and seamless flair. For example, on TV there was a crossover episode that tied the science-grounded CSI-like show Bones with the urban fantasy/supernatural drama TV show Sleepy Hollow that, despite having a big dose of the typical craziness of the latter show, came out well and would fit very smoothly into either of the shows.
A big part of it was that the writers cooperated well and the script was cleverly enough written so that no one in the two casts ever broke character, instead each side interpreted the situation from the viewpoint of their particular paradigms (and thought the other side was a bit squirrely) but were able to solve the situation by working it from both sides.
I would also mention the Star Trek and Planet of the Apes crossover comic, as another example of a crossover done right, it worked because both Original series were Iconic and rooted in the 60s, at first they were puzzled on how it would work by getting together two seperate visions of the future, but then they realized alternate timelines were a part of Star Trek.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,687Community Moderator
As a fanfiction author with crossover experience...
I can say with confidence that you can do a crossover with anything. However the KEY is HOW you tie them together. If that hook is believable... you got a shot. Its easy to just mash two things together and call it a day. The real trick is finding a believable way to connect the two.
In my Stargate/Sailor Moon crossover, I had a couple. The Lunar Kingdom was connected to the Ancients, the rookie OC was a reservest Scout that was basically the backup plan if the main team fell, and SG-1 was called in by the Japanese to investigate the disappearance of the Scouts.
In my Star Trek (Kelvin Timeline)/Sailor Moon crossover, I actually used Nero's attack on Vulcan to justify the Scouts being born in the 23rd Century. Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey to explain why Serena was Pike's daughter basically rather than the old "Scouts lived into the 23rd Century" bit. The only one who lived that long was Setsuna, because of her status as basically a Guardian of Time. (She set up Starfleet Intelligence too).
So it is possible to do anything, but if you're gonna do it, make the hook believable.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
And they do that by telling stories. Which, in the case of fiction, generally have to be immersive or no one would be interested in them anyway. Especially if we're talking about a sci fi franchise that has historically strived to be of the more serious kind.
Cross-overs don't really fit there, because they break immersion and, hence, threatens the reputation of your franchise. And thereby your revenue.
True, some people might like it, but I think we all know that the Trek fanbase is generally very protective of what does and what doesn't belong in the Star Trek universe. A cross-over is likely to be only appreciated by a small portion of the fanbase and might even cause resentment with many more people.
As a fanfiction author with crossover experience...
I can say with confidence that you can do a crossover with anything. However the KEY is HOW you tie them together. If that hook is believable... you got a shot. Its easy to just mash two things together and call it a day. The real trick is finding a believable way to connect the two.
In my Stargate/Sailor Moon crossover, I had a couple. The Lunar Kingdom was connected to the Ancients, the rookie OC was a reservest Scout that was basically the backup plan if the main team fell, and SG-1 was called in by the Japanese to investigate the disappearance of the Scouts.
In my Star Trek (Kelvin Timeline)/Sailor Moon crossover, I actually used Nero's attack on Vulcan to justify the Scouts being born in the 23rd Century. Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey to explain why Serena was Pike's daughter basically rather than the old "Scouts lived into the 23rd Century" bit. The only one who lived that long was Setsuna, because of her status as basically a Guardian of Time. (She set up Starfleet Intelligence too).
So it is possible to do anything, but if you're gonna do it, make the hook believable.
Of course it's going to depend on how believable you can make stuff.
But previous cross-overs inlcuded stuff from a franchise that has huge anthropomorphic cars living on and destroying significant parts of Earth multiple times over. Yet we never hear anything about these events within the Star Trek universe.
Based on that, I think it'd be best if they didn't try it again. Obviously others are thinking differently about it, but I've found it more difficult to take Trek seriously after the 'anything goes' mentality became the rule at CBS because they weren't really producing much themselves and were more interested in some easily made revenue.
I just think that whoever's in charge of these decisions are too easily ignoring the potential damage to the brand and fans' immersion if things get too silly.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,687Community Moderator
But previous cross-overs inlcuded stuff from a franchise that has huge anthropomorphic cars living on and destroying significant parts of Earth multiple times over. Yet we never hear anything about these events within the Star Trek universe.
Star Trek does have a baked in explanation. World War III.
Again... how you tie them together. Why didn't we hear about it? World War III happened. Threw everything for a loop.
And with Star Trek, the other method of crossover events is anomalies or multidimensional shenanigans. For example with the X-Men, USS Enterprise-E got pulled into a conflict with Kang the Conqueror immediately after the events of First Contact. A year later, the X-Men get pulled into the Star Trek universe in time to help with a mutant crisis on another planet and once again get to fight alongside the crew of the Enterprise against aliens wanting to use that world's mutants as bioweapons.
Star Trek The Next Generation/X-Men comic: Second Contact
Star Trek The Next Generation/ X-Men novel: Planet-X
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
There was also an X-Men/TOS comics crossover, in which the X-Men were catapulted across the multiverse to NCC-1701. Memorable moments included Spock dropping Wolverine with a nerve pinch, and both Bones and Beast reacting with surprised annoyance to Chapel's startled shout of "Doctor McCoy?!?"
On the topic of Crossovers, they're now totally possible with this current Story Arc, the characters just have to be from an AU, Alternate Timeline, Cloning or summoned by Q, Like I could argue that SNW and TOS are alternate timelines, TOS takes place in a timeline without Borg Time Travelers, while ENT, Disco and SNW take place in a timeline after the events of First Contact.
Comments
It's rare that people actually want a truly vile and evil faction that kicks puppies because the puppy happened to be in range of their foot.
Jeeze ... we don't want to be that evil! We just want to be genocidal maniacs hell bent on the downfall of the corrupt Federation! We'll be sure to save the puppies before the planet is obliterated.
I know it would be an absolute pain in legal terms but I would love to have STO crossover with Star Wars. I see it clearly, in my mind, B1 droids or stormtroopers are ensign level enemies and Inquisitors and Vader are captain level ground enemies. And we all know how Star Wars ships would scale in space. A Star Destroyer would have a great many hitpoints...
Executor would be Borg Unimatrix level at absolute minimum; that thing is nineteen kilometers of death.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
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Agreed completely. As it is, it's now been 5 years since the content was removed 'for revamping'.
Kael, it would be greatly appreciated if you let whomever is responsible know that there's a contingent of players, old and newer, who want to experience these missions. IF they were keyed into the Available tab so we can just play them as is (or was), you cats at Cryptic would find there'd be way less pressure about actually revamping them.
As for data regarding the unpopularity of an EEE-VILLL faction, data gathered from other games does tend to support that contention. Fallout 76, for instance, was first conceived as an EvE-style world of massive open combat, but the playerbase tended to want to work together, not against each other, to the point that six months into the game PvP was relegated to an opt-out status, then later to opt-in (and if you opt out of it, you're literally untouchable by other players, to the point that one way to try to get another player's attention in-game is to shoot at them until they turn to look at you). Their battle royale mode, Nuclear Winter, also proved insufficiently popular to maintain. (In point of fact, one of the latest additions to the game is a chest just outside Vault 76 where new players can pick up items donated by veteran players. Contrary to the expectations of some, it's become quite popular as a place to, frankly, get rid of things that are useless at high level like .38-cal ammo and Diluted Stimpacks, and few if any higher-level players pilfer items from it for themselves.) And my roommate, who plays the Division games a fair bit, has been complaining about how often there's a daily goal to eliminate rogue agents in the Dark Zone, where PvP happens, but he can't find anyone in there. Most of the remaining player base would rather fight bad guys than be bad guys.
Only when that event isn't running, but yes, the entire discussion about Advanced and Elite TFO versions was about TFOs that were orginally added with Events.
Not only that, I think the old City of Villians didn't fair as well as City of Heroes did.
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No idea about CoH/CoV popularity ratio, but in DCUO the villain HQs were never as busy as the hero ones, and in that game the player-character villains were not as "evil" as usual since there is a kind of gray triangle to everything because while the heroes and villains do their usual things and conflict with each other, there is also a major alien invasion going on so there is a (very often ignored) truce/alliance against the invaders which complicates things. It also makes for some good informal roleplay between heroes and villains, who are both enemies and allies at the same time.
The only game I've seen wherein an "evil" faction was well-received is Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Sith Empire is rather more nuanced than the reflexive puppy-punting we see from, say, the Terran Empire. I do admit to wishing they could have done the Romulan Star Empire, but that's partly irritation at how the reboot films handled things, plus me being a big fan of Diane Duane's work.
Yeah it has to be a bit more nuanced, The Sith Empire in SWTOR is just as self-destructive, genocidal, xenophobic and evil as the Terran Empire, but with Sith Politics involved, a Terran might backstab their Captain for personal gains, while Someone in the Sith Empire would do it out of Fear because their Insane Space Wizard boss told them to or they'll start murdering people,
you'll even have cases where you'll be ordered to shoot down another Imperial ship because your sith boss hates the sith that ship works for, over petty reasons like for examples eating your boss' sandwich or because your boss is simply bored, Sith politics are weird but also interesting at the same time.
Not only that, you can actually make Light Side choices even as a member of the Sith Empire. I got a Sith Warrior who comes across more like a Jedi, confused the hell out of a young Jedi who joined up with me because how can a Sith be more Jedi than a Jedi, probably enraged Lord Chubby Mask (I mean Darth Baras the Wide... I mean Darth Baras) even MORE because of her apparently hidden Light Side alignment and her snark at how good his lungs were...
Basically... my character was a Light Side Sith Revanite who wanted to change the Empire for the better recognizing that Dark Side alone was self destructive.
So... yea. Nuance.
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It's bad for immersion if one franchise's universe is affected by something that only takes place in the same universe in real life.
In other words: the only reason someone from Star Wars or Transformers can show up in the Star Trek universe, is because real life connects these. Not because there are supposed to be any Autobots flying between Vulcan and Earth or anything. So by linking them, you constantly remind whoever's watching or playing that nothing what they're experiencing is real.
Which they know of course, but isn't the purpose of most media to tell believable stories and to make them seem real?
I guess I could rebuild the Tal Shiar with all this newly aquired mirror borg tech (maybe make better Borg implants, with built in regeneration crystals and Thalaron explosive failsafe), I can use on Federation civilians.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
That said, you might be surprised at how crazy the combinations can be and still be able to pull it off with a natural and seamless flair. For example, on TV there was a crossover episode that tied the science-grounded CSI-like show Bones with the urban fantasy/supernatural drama TV show Sleepy Hollow that, despite having a big dose of the typical craziness of the latter show, came out well and would fit very smoothly into either of the shows.
A big part of it was that the writers cooperated well and the script was cleverly enough written so that no one in the two casts ever broke character, instead each side interpreted the situation from the viewpoint of their particular paradigms (and thought the other side was a bit squirrely) but were able to solve the situation by working it from both sides.
I can say with confidence that you can do a crossover with anything. However the KEY is HOW you tie them together. If that hook is believable... you got a shot. Its easy to just mash two things together and call it a day. The real trick is finding a believable way to connect the two.
So it is possible to do anything, but if you're gonna do it, make the hook believable.
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In the end, yes.
And they do that by telling stories. Which, in the case of fiction, generally have to be immersive or no one would be interested in them anyway. Especially if we're talking about a sci fi franchise that has historically strived to be of the more serious kind.
Cross-overs don't really fit there, because they break immersion and, hence, threatens the reputation of your franchise. And thereby your revenue.
True, some people might like it, but I think we all know that the Trek fanbase is generally very protective of what does and what doesn't belong in the Star Trek universe. A cross-over is likely to be only appreciated by a small portion of the fanbase and might even cause resentment with many more people.
Of course it's going to depend on how believable you can make stuff.
But previous cross-overs inlcuded stuff from a franchise that has huge anthropomorphic cars living on and destroying significant parts of Earth multiple times over. Yet we never hear anything about these events within the Star Trek universe.
Based on that, I think it'd be best if they didn't try it again. Obviously others are thinking differently about it, but I've found it more difficult to take Trek seriously after the 'anything goes' mentality became the rule at CBS because they weren't really producing much themselves and were more interested in some easily made revenue.
I just think that whoever's in charge of these decisions are too easily ignoring the potential damage to the brand and fans' immersion if things get too silly.
Star Trek does have a baked in explanation. World War III.
Again... how you tie them together. Why didn't we hear about it? World War III happened. Threw everything for a loop.
And with Star Trek, the other method of crossover events is anomalies or multidimensional shenanigans. For example with the X-Men, USS Enterprise-E got pulled into a conflict with Kang the Conqueror immediately after the events of First Contact. A year later, the X-Men get pulled into the Star Trek universe in time to help with a mutant crisis on another planet and once again get to fight alongside the crew of the Enterprise against aliens wanting to use that world's mutants as bioweapons.
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