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Ten Forward Weekly 12/5/23
protoneous
Member Posts: 2,988 Arc User
From: https://reddit.com/r/sto/comments/18bxhac/ten_forward_weekly_12523/ Credit to: https://reddit.com/user/TheSajuukKhar/
- Kael has told Thomas there is some player interest in the Jamestown(a kitbash Lexington with a different kind of mission pod)
- Kael will look into Integrity Reality Labs selling STO 3D printed ships with NFTs(apparently Cryptic is aware of it)
- Adding Temerian parts to alien gen is about the same amount of work as making a whole playable species
- Kael will look into why the pink nanopulse weapons are missing from the winter store(at least according to someone in chat)
- Anniv ship is one of the prettiest ships Kael has seen
- There's been talk about doing more charity tie ins. Cryptic wasn't doing them for reasons Kael cant talk about, but those reasons are likely clearing up soon.
- Kael will bring up KDF lower decks DOFFs again
- Unlikely they will update ESD to match what was seen in Picard
- No current plants for a new Red Alert
- Not much internal push for a new reputation though Kael has brought it up a few times
- Moving STO to a new engine would take 2-3 years of work just to move over the game as is. Engine change and/or total graphics overhaul unlikely.
- Unlikely we will get playable Valkyrie small craft because small craft aren't really popular/Cryptic doesn't focus on it
- Kael thinks its more likely they could get Chris Pine to play Kirk in STO than Shatner, thinks the Kirk from SNW would be even more likely
- Kael has brought up unlocking all bridges for all ships because he thinks new alien ships being stuck with the default bridge sucks
- Cryptic is aware of the Gravity Kills bug, the team is working on it. The team can see the bug on live but they can't replicate it internally
- Promotion with Star Trek Infinite happened because Thomas is very good at reaching out to other licensors and making things happen
- Kael will ask about the Burnham braids hairstyle
- No update on the removed Klingon War missions being brought back
- There is a new lockbox with the anniv
- They haven't started planning anything for the 15 anniv yet
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
On a more serious note, the multiverse arc has so much potential that anything could happen, and I hope it lives up to it.
Ideally, they could use it as an opportunity to set STO up to be able to do any era of Trek without the current restrictions that led to the overuse of "holodeck simulation" scenarios (well, beyond the practical ones of a shortage of digital props for doing the look of some of them anyway) by putting versions of the eras in parallel with the main timeline which they could use instead of linear time travel for scenarios that do not require the classic "go back and fix time" schtick.
He also said that Pine would be really expensive, I think KT inclusion wasn't implied to be likely on stream. It's possible but I think it sits in the same realm of Enterprise as there not being a whole lot of active drive to play around with potential content. Ex. if an anomaly sends us somewhere *weird* a one-off mission in 32c would probably be a more likely destination.
That said, KT 2409 would be a really cool theme to explore one day, if the team is willing to invest in it.
We've already had that with Agents of Yesterday that allowed itself to do any Trek era at a whim, with and without the fixing schtick. Doing it again now brings up new possibilities but not new ground for story telling as we've already dealt with the stakes at play (with Noye and the temporal liberation front providing huge connectivity to STO and the franchise, organically developed, coupled with reflections on that through measure of morality). I'd strongly caution Cryptic from going this route as we've just spent an arc and a bit on multiversal shenanigans and the current Borg are being hyped as the ultimate doom bringer (after we've had so many). There's a huge risk of negating a sense of place and personal investment in our home setting with infinite timelines, parallel dimensions, literally inconceivable scales of annihilation threatened, and any amount of handwaving between them that can cause or undo anything and everything. Blow up the universe? The Aetherians could easily be written with a McGuffin to sort that out, to Resurrection F our way to a climatic fake-out (Dragon Ball Super reference). It's a precarious position for writing to be at this place in the game.
For shifting to a stated 2409 focus we've only really had that in the culmination to the KDF civil war, and very little of that was fresh worldbuilding. Before that was Discovery, after was Terrans, and now there's multidimensional Borg. We haven't spent much time at all fleshing out our own setting in modern STO history. Ex. Khitomer Alliance and how that's getting along after its introductory episode, exploration at the edge of known space, what the Iconians have been up to, and what's up with Andromeda. If we still had the Foundry, we'd have no shortage of gaps to fill in Cryptic's chosen story telling mode. There's horizons to explore *before* you get to the multiverse and some of that is now Cryptic's least tapped, most promising material.
We can go anywhere but I don't think we should for the punchiest stories STO could tell.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Please! Besides alien ships, sometimes a different bridge would fit a theme captain better than the current choices.
(Even if there's nothing to do on the bridge except doffing on PC, it still would be nice.)
100% agree on Cryptic needing to refocus on building 2409+. Time travel and alternate realities is taking too much focus out of building an actual STO-ST-verse. Now that ST:Picard has written new prime, the gloves can come off in STO......perhaps that much needed EXPLORATION!?
One of our best received Foundry series in the later years just plonked itself down at the edge of the sector map and asked what's out there. New empires, old empires (eg. remnants of civilizations long thought dead, ex. T'Kon), pockets of factions we haven't dealt with in a while (ex. Solanagen hanging out in real space after getting cut loose after the iconian war, far flung Voth colony, Undine recon base, ect.). Even an especially aggressive subset of Borg could have been written there as opposed to needing another universe to bring in. Cryptic has really rich ground for exploration there, and exploration in the primary sense of discovery through narrative and organically learning (something optional dialog is fantastic for) rather than just minigame scanning activities followed by main mission exposition.
All that said Cryptic could take the opposite approach and put the player in Cerritos mode of 2nd contact and support missions within known space (bringing the stakes down for the odd episode to smaller factions and *character interests* (which have largely been relegated for the sake of heavy main-plot drama. See. Kuumaarke being who we rescued instead of Kim's crew last episode). You can explore underdeveloped locals just as well as brand new planets. Cryptic's been focusing on the bombast a lot through its recent arcs and its worth emphasizing that what make Trek good wasn't just the big eps like Best of Both Worlds (and having nothing but is a little wearing). Its the varied episodes that gave those big points of drama richer context through a variety of stated scales of interest and stakes in just exploring your setting earnestly. See. Quark's Lucky 7, a fantastic example of integrative worldbuilding (something J'Ula and the Inquisitor lacked) in the context of the Victory Is Life arc.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Honestly even if unlocking all bridges wasn't an option, an updated "generic alien" bridge would be lovely as current one is ancient and it shows.
Rebuilding The Romulan Star Empire in the Not Canon Universe of STO would be a Glorious Start as we go "To Conquer Strange New Worlds, To Subjugate New Life and New Civilizations, To Boldly Go Where No Romulan Has Gone Before..."
Yeah...nah. Tal-shiar and the Empire no longer exists beyond maybe a 'hidden world' and a handle full of ships that wouldn't fare well enough against the Cardassian Civilian Reserves, nevermind anyone else.
What more can STO Do?
Most of the Villains are either dead or defected into the Khitomer Alliance, we even settled our differences with the Freaking Terrans, The only Major Threats left are The Borg and T'Ket.
I've said for a long time that STO needs low stakes missions to "reset the awe" so to speak, if everything is on an epic scale then that scale becomes mundane and boring. If they absolutely must tie an arc to the next big threat (lets say that Embracer or Gearbox demand it) then have an "arc" of seemingly unconnected low scale missions that only reveal themselves as part of a greater whole when the players find the critical piece either in last mission or nearly the last mission of the arc. That way you can have best of both worlds (excuse the pun) of having low scale missions but also a big threat in the horizon.
The Vaadwaur are still kinda dangerous. There was no real resolution to the conflict with them. They just got beaten back and I think its more Cold War with some flareup skirmishes. But as for new threats... we still have all the unexplored regions of the galaxy, as well as potential access to Andromeda via Iconian Gateways. Just because there are few KNOWN Major Threats doesn't mean there are no UNKNOWN Major Threats.
As for T'Ket... I think she's still reeling from the Hur'q attack on her fleet during the Hur'q Conflict. If she survived or not has yet to be revealed. But last we saw her fleet was not only fighting the Fek'lhri, but the Hur'q in a three way brawl.
Hmmmm... Considering the Idea of Unknown Threats and the current Arc being a multiverse one there could be a Star Trek universe where the Debrune isn't extinct and infact a Major Threat, STO could even give them a culture that's neither Romulan (No Romans or Samurais) nor Vulcan (No Logic).
It also plays into the long-held theory that bridges are to some extent standard drop-in kits that can be relatively easily installed on practically any ship, so it does have a kind of lore-based precedent. With Federation ships especially it would highlight the fact that, like in WWII in the real world, ships built at different yards using common plans are not always built exactly the same, as shipyards often substitute what they have on hand (when possible) to speed construction when necessary.
It could even spur sales of the c-store bridges by removing the uncertainty of whether the bought bridge could be used on their main ship.
DC comics once thought much the same way and collapsed their multiverse into a single universe that Wolfman thought would make for much more consistent and deeper storytelling that would be more inline with what he thought the readers wanted, and then spent the next few decades trying to dig themselves out of that mistake since none of those predictions were correct.
The unified timeline turned out to be incredibly convoluted and took way too much time and effort to wrangle around to even tell consistent stories let alone deep ones, and on top of that it was a very unpopular move with the majority of the readers. Multiverse stories, if done right, actually enhance the main setting with contrasts rather than diffusing the focus, and are naturally much more versatile.
That versatility could come in extremely handy for STO depending on how CBS decides to handle Trek spinoffs in the near future. Right now, the most popular live action Trek is SNW and after DSC wraps this upcoming season SNW will probably be the only one for at least a year or two (or longer depending on how many resources they want to throw into spinning a new show up), and SNW is set in 2258, not anywhere near STO's era, so anything imported from it would end up as more stakeless 'holodeck simulations'.
The teaser at the end of PIC for Legacy does not guarantee that the show will get greenlit anytime soon (it wasn't as of august 30th which is the latest official word I heard about it) and if previous post-strike behavior in the entertainment industry is anything to go by they will be licking their financial wounds and nursing their spreadsheets for at least until year-end reports and probably for at least a quarter or several past that rather than greenlighting very expensive science fiction shows before the industry settles into a more normal mode.
And that (year or two at least) time between greenlighting and premier does not even start until then.
That means new fans coming to the game wanting to play in the environment of their favorite still-active show will be disappointed to find out that the characters and other stuff from the show are long dead in the era STO depicts and the only interactions they can have with their preferred setting have no actual bearing on any of the live plots in the game. And no, it is not a problem that could kill the game or anything, but it is less optimal than a setup where the devs can take advantage of the draw of shows set in any Trek period, especially the active one(s).
AoY is not the same as having parallel timelines in which the "now" of the timelines are the different eras independent of the pasts of the others. It decouples the whole paradox/continuity problem that travelling forward or back on a single timeline like the AoY arc had from the equation.
A multiverse expands possibilities while a single arc like AoY, no matter how long it may be, puts heavy constraints on the kind of stories that can be done. A multiverse also makes dealing with inconsistencies in the various shows easier as long as the devs do not overuse into a sort of deus ex machina crutch.
As for bringing back the Romulan Empire, the TNG Romulans are about as exciting as watching paint dry since by that time all but the faintest vestiges of the old honorable Romulan society were gone and with rare exceptions they were depicted as little more than cardboard villains.
It was the strong hints of internal turmoil in their society and political/military structures as the old society fell that made them so interesting in TOS and it was not something that could be believably stretched long enough to continue in TNG, though the threads of new rebellion sewn in that latter part of TNG and the DS9/VOY era started them on the path to gaining depth again (which STO embraced handily with the Republic).
The Holodeck should be reserved for weird stuff like Cowboys and Dinosaurs, Noir Borg, Klingon Merrymen.
#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!"
Iirc, they did it for entertainment, not as missions.
You mean, like, the entire first part of the game leading up to the reveal of the Iconians and Iconian War?
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I've said it a dozen times... I wanna see the gangster planet, check up on the people of vaal, make sure the Romans aren't up to any mischief. if we need a new Big Bad, the Iconian Gates can take us to Andromeda or the Magellanic clouds. there are entities out there like Trelane. If STO is able to use content from other games, The Hydrans and Lyrans could be introduced, not even as Big Bads. maybe the Lyrans are suffering from a plague, and we help them out. Maybe we open relations with the First Federation.
I haven't heard anything about Trelane being Q Jr. There is a novel where Trelane IS a Q, but that novel is extremely confusing with three timelines being explored at the same time.
Is Trelane a Q? Maybe. Is he Q Jr? I don't think so.
I believe the Star Trek fanbase would have unrealistically high expectations of any content that included Kirk.
I'm of the opinion that STO is better to avoid bringing Kirk, or even Picard, to the game. (I know that's going to disappoint folks...)
Those missions were removed to be remastered, but they've already been remastered about three or four times already and could easily just be dropped back into the game. I really wish they'd do just that!
Well at least we got Spock and he's like 10 times better than Kirk, the people who want Kirk are probably expecting the Shatner version, however Seeing as STO and Shatner aren't really on good terms and that means he's not an Opinion, Some People might like the Pine version but there's a chunk of the fan base that would complain because he's from the Kelvin Timeline, Then you have Wesley Kirk, honestly would popular among the fanbase but a small chunk might not like it because SNW is technically still DSC content as it is a Spinoff series of Discovery, honestly Best Options are to either do a crossover with all Kirks involving temporal stuff or Clone Kirk with the dead body, Picard reintroduced and artificially merge all 3 versions (basically just combine all the facial features of the Kirk actors) into a single version and call him STO Kirk, maybe have a STO employee voice him to save money.
Kind of like that yeah. We need smaller stakes to reset things so the next big thing feel big.
I'm voting for Orion Syndicate, they're a small time threat, I heard that it's ran by Melani D'ian, an STO original character with No Physical Model, just that She's mentioned on Wiki, maybe we help them deal with a potential coup.
For me personally when it comes down to small time threats that deal with lower stakes we're either dealing with Syndicate Business or putting down a Gorn Rebellion, maybe both if we're lucky.
Personally It's a shame that most the lower stakes stuff would be coming from KDF Territory and not Federation Space, it's not like the Federation can have another Maquis scenario, unless Starfleet Officers were truly incompetent at their jobs.
Hirogen harassing the Romulan Republic, fallout from stuff in Gamma Quadrant, stuff in Delta Quadrant, whatever remains of the True Way in Alpha Quadrant...
An Orion mission would be a natural in Federation space, there are a lot of Orions on both sides of the line. The difference is that the ones on the KDF side are mostly organized into the Syndicate while (according to a few bits of throwaway dialog mainly in DS9) the ones on the Fed side are less organized and tend to be in the loose Orion Free Traders organization or just scattered around on Federation worlds without any organization.
They are not all pirates and slavers, and are ripe for squabbles between their internal factions. The trick of using that for STO missions or patrols would be coming up with a reason for it to spill out and annoy the major powers enough to step in and knock some heads together, and there are plenty of possibilities for that.
It could also be used to foreshadow a much bigger danger like some of the minor stuff before the Iconian war, perhaps some organization working behind the scenes ratcheting up tensions between the big powers again to threaten the still-new Alliance before moving in with conventional forces, a classic move for the Dominion that would be great for an arc dealing with renegade founders back for another try at revenge for instance.
Astrocartography also works to the advantage of an Orion crisis involving the Federation and Klingon Empire since in both TOS and (especially) ENT their worlds were mainly clustered in the fuzzy border area between the two major powers. Getting Romulan or Dominion players involved would not be too difficult either since they both take orders from either Starfleet or the KDF and sending in a "neutral" ship to investigate actually makes sense.
Gorn would not be much harder to involve since they have their rebel faction, the colonists on Cestus III and/or Nimbus, and the pro-KDF imperialists, which is more than enough factionalism to generate minor scenario plots similar to the Orions.
Come to think of it, some minor side scenarios involving the Fesarians would be a great sideshow to the current multiverse arc considering the Mirror arc already showed that at least some of the space along their borders have dimensional thin spots that make it easier to slip through. Their territory could also have the access point for some direct SNW content or whatever after the current arc plays out or some such.
Anyway, rabbitholes aside, there are a lot of things the devs could do to get the heroes off the save the universe pedestal for a while if they want to.
The holodeck was shown on multiple occasions since TNG started as being used for tactical simulations in preparation for missions. Doing missions 'on the holodeck' is the correct way to frame 'historic' missions beyond actually time-travelling.