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An Update on Upcoming Content
baddmoonrizin
Member Posts: 10,864 Community Moderator
We've got a quick update about what to expect in the next few months, Captains.
https://www.playstartrekonline.com/en/news/article/11571272
https://www.playstartrekonline.com/en/news/article/11571272
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LLAP Guys
I have absolutely no problem waiting for the Anniversary for the next part of the story and look forward to what the new team at DECA will bring.
> I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion, but while I appreciate your candor and that you want to only give out quality episodes, your answer to 4 to 6 months of no new episodes is.... new grind content. So you can't make new episodes, but you can make new content that we need to grind every day for 14-21 days? Then add in that Halloween event is never your strongest event and then grind over the Holidays. So basically STO for the next half a year is... do the same content over and over. My other complaint is that you didn't know you weren't going to be able to put out a new episode earlier than this? You had to wait until the last minute to say "yeah we're not going to do it... but hey... you can always grind more."
Have you thought that these events have been in the pipeline for awhile? Remember they plan these things ahead of time, it is probably the last of the Cryptic stuff before DECA takes over. Also, how do you know that they waited until the last minute to make the announcement? It might have been prepared beforehand.
How do you know that the Halloween Event is never their strongest event? Do you have statistics on it? It is not just the Hearts and Minds episode anymore.
Also, you can do other stuff and not just the events. During the events you can choose a different TFO to do or do it on a different character. You can create a new character, do a different build, etc. If you are burned out, then play another game. You have options. Be glad there is something to do.
No, they need to keep us playing.
Now, when we're expecting New Content to come soon, this would definitely be the right time to make the announcement - which they did.
They're been quite upfront about what's to come over the next few months and the decision remains with us, as it always has. Will we keep playing, or take a break from the game?
Personally, I think I'll take the week of the Red Alert and knock off a few more goals from a few Recruit characters, ignore the Red Alert completely (perhaps), and just have some fun in the game...
Also, there's a whole 5 months ahead to speculate who the new guest actor will be!
2024 will have had a grand total of two new missions for the entire year which is worse than the already low rate of three a year let alone we still do not have the Klingon war missions that we were promised so many years ago.
Also lets be real the new content is likely to be a reused event TFO with a new reward unless they do something interesting for Halloween, further more honestly I'm getting kinda tired of these voice actors, sure it is neat to see them but it does feel a bit too much emphasis is placed on them these days personally while I love the voice actors from the shows and there characters STO has always had the potential for there own stuff and has used it previously it would be nice to see a bit more a resurgence in that aspect.
Overall I do not think this will effect things much, it just feels like a bit of a letdown that the rate of content has slowed so much quality is nice but there is also the factor of a nine month wait (going off February being the anniversary) is a bit extreme.
Guess we will just have to wait and see and judge it at the time of if it was worth the wait.
CRM
If they do, I hope at least one of those threads deals TOS and SNW. They have made a good start on the possibility to do that with the multiverse stuff going on now.
As someone who's been playing since 2012 I think the bigger issue is other than new rewards there haven't been any updates in content to events like the Summer, Winter, and Halloween events for several years (and the Summer event still has a number of broken events). If I'm being honest none of the Ground and Space Battlezones have had any updates or changes in years as well so they are only really useful for grinding reputation or endeavors once a player has done those story missions (aside from Patrol missions there really hasn't been any content featuring the Delta Quadrant since the Iconian War and that ended back in 2015). I ultimately don't mind the devs reusing events but it would be nice to get some new or updated content outside of story missions and TFOs, even if it's just bringing back some of the content that's been removed over the years but rebalanced.
What you on about the Halloween event it relatively new as we suffered a decade of the same bring mission that was remotely scary in anyway. As for the Summer and Winter events I like them. Two events that take minutes to do a day and bosh nice new ship. I welcome the prommise of more well polished content over push new stuff out for the sake of it.
In 2022, two patrols were added, and although we were told that there'd be content added gradually over the years, we got nothing new in 2023. (To be fair, we weren't told it would be every year.)
I'd like to see "Hearts and Minds" added to the Hallowe'en Event as a qualifier for progress, though.
The Winter and Summer Events are quite full of things to do, and really don't need any new additions.
Quite true, and whilst Risa got a clean-up graphically a couple of years, Q's-WW could do with a graphical overhaul..... seeing as there's now a 4 month wait for a new episode, I'm hopeful they can actually get round to it.
The one upside to the situation (which sucks for Cryptic but DECA is providing a lifeline for the games that Embracer wouldn't have followed through with in all likelihood otherwise) is that with new people coming in you have new viewpoints on old arguments. Ex. how worthwhile it is to invest in old battlezones and events. The old guard being so reliable and polished in their execution on STO also meant a singular creative group voice, which has left STO to fall into a bit of a rut of routine over the last half decade or so as they hammered well on a proven formula (and suggestions for new things were heavily weighted against that proven experience). We tried X and player numbers didn't follow. So experiments like X get back burnered to meeting core engagement priorities. It's a sensible way to run the game but it leads to canalization (which over the long term leads to a battle of attrition against entropy. Change is needed eventually to find new pockets of engagement to excite folks).
So with new devs coming online its worth having discussions again about old content and other forms of content that haven't been tried in a long while. Ex. maybe do something more with social zones and non-combat narrative content. There's an opportunity for radiation once DECA's pipelines get fully online (which doesn't mean we'll immediately hit a new golden age of content. Radiation also means failed experiments, most likely. So patience is going to still be required even when our new stuff index hits regular levels again.)
Cryptic plans a lot of things they don't tell us about immediately. We're players, not shareholders. It's also hugely premature to say this is the last of Cryptic's stuff. Remember, it's a slow process of turnover set by the rate at which individual devs decide to leave. There's no forced cutoff for Cryptic development, Cryptic may remain a supporting entity to DECA indefinitely (per Cryptic's CEO), and the balance of Cryptic to DECA content (already hitting the game with the ship team) is going to be a mix set by how well the DECA devs are able to step to major production roles.
And notably: we haven't even hit the point where (say) 50% of ship work is coming from new folks. And other departments in an unknown state. Although given that bug fixes have been principally concentrated on ships (showing excess dev time in that pipeline), as well as the subject of Cryptic's update here, it would be a bad guess to say that mission content team is further ahead in the transition. Losing Jesse has meant a perceptible loss in mission development, meaning that DECA has not replaced Cryptic's production capacity yet or is likely to in a few short months. If by next anniversary we see a ship or two fully modeled by the new DECA folks, it'll be a fairly reasonable state of training and development. But for it ALL to be DECA at that point (zero Cryptic input, majority input milestone blown past at warp speed) is not probable.
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!
It'll probably be a very big name, if they're announcing it so far in advance.
Maybe not as big as Stewart/Shatner/Hemsworth/Brooks/Bakula, but at the very least I'm thinking of someone like Frakes or Spiner.
Or it's Robert Beltran, given that he has returned to doing Trek-things too, while being one of the few remaining regular cast members of the older shows who are currently involved again, but not present in STO yet.
I'm thinking and hoping it's Frakes to be honest, he has a rather 'aggressive' or confident way of talking that fits well for a game like STO and a Starfleet that's constantly being threatened.
His character is also one of those that has been duplicated, so with all the alternate dimension stuff, it would be a logical choice too to have Riker involved.