Star Trek was about the PEACEFUL approach to conflict with combat as last resort. I realize we are at war now, but with EVERYONE??? There is never an alternate approach to defusing a situation such as a bluff or negotiation or temp treaty or ANYTHING other than combat! There is no remorse or consquences to the many many deaths we have committed. Never any mention of the Prime Directive either.
While those are probably boring to others, those options are what set Star Trek apart from other space shows/movies. I know I am probably just whizzing in the wind here, but would be nice to be able to come up with other options.
I expect this to fall on deaf ears, just venting a little.
Star Trek was about the PEACEFUL approach to conflict with combat as last resort. I realize we are at war now, but with EVERYONE??? There is never an alternate approach to defusing a situation such as a bluff or negotiation or temp treaty or ANYTHING other than combat! There is no remorse or consquences to the many many deaths we have committed. Never any mention of the Prime Directive either.
While those are probably boring to others, those options are what set Star Trek apart from other space shows/movies. I know I am probably just whizzing in the wind here, but would be nice to be able to come up with other options.
I expect this to fall on deaf ears, just venting a little.
I think you watched too much TNG/TOS.
You don't see much fighting in those because the Enterprise is a ship of exploration; that's its standing mission.
DS9, Voyager, Enterprise... a lot more combat. It's still "as a last resort" but that time comes a lot quicker.
If it makes you happy just let the bad guys fire first. Self defense and all.
While I do agree it's odd to be attacking first as a StarFleet officer, I've come to terms that Starfleet is less of an exploratory and research orgnization and more a military one.
As a result, combat is more common, especially with wars on two, maybe three or more fronts.
If it makes you happy just let the bad guys fire first. Self defense and all.
I had that thought just this morning. There was a group of klingons with one kneeling on the ground scanning something. So i threw a plasma grenade at his feet and shot him in the face but once i did i thought that maybe i shoulda waited, that poor bugger could have just been peacefully scanning something interesting and here i come along and burn/shoot him for it!
since then i figure i'll wait for them to shoot first.
yes, then we all chuckled and the credits rolled and everything was back to how it was for the next weeks show.
they set the game in a time of war. diplomacy has broken down and starfleet is being called upon to act in its military capacity to defend the people of the Federation.
If the Organians hadnt stepped in there would have been one HELL of a throwdown between kirk and the klingons.. and if picard hadnt have been such a smooth talker with G'kar.. sorry Tomalok, there would have been war with the romulans too..
see, the shows are set in times of peace for the most part, only open wars shown were on DS9 and the series didnt center on the war, mearly the crew of a station that took part in it. so we have no canon to draw from how starfleet would act in times of war when entering a situation and confronted by ships of a race you're either A - at war with formally, with hostilities taking place all over, or B - are in a semi cold war state with and who often take hostile action against your own ships.
because its open declared war if there's diplomacy to be done, its being done at much higher levels than just ship's captains. so i have no issues in the fact that we're to open fire on klingon, gorn, orion, naussican or romulan and hirogen ships, because if there's a solution to be had there, its at government levels.
i do get a little peeved at the several dozen "crypti-mon" races the federation also appears to be at war with, mostly found in star cluster missions. i understand the game dynamic of having a foe to combat, but with those races it would be nice to have the chance to talk and try and negotiate.
so yeah, the game needs some diplomacy in it, but not against the alliances we're actively at war with..
Star Trek was about the PEACEFUL approach to conflict with combat as last resort. I realize we are at war now, but with EVERYONE??? There is never an alternate approach to defusing a situation such as a bluff or negotiation or temp treaty or ANYTHING other than combat! There is no remorse or consquences to the many many deaths we have committed. Never any mention of the Prime Directive either.
While those are probably boring to others, those options are what set Star Trek apart from other space shows/movies. I know I am probably just whizzing in the wind here, but would be nice to be able to come up with other options.
I expect this to fall on deaf ears, just venting a little.
Remember the wildly popular negotiating and peaceful diplomacy mmo.......
Your opinion has been voiced many times and I kinda agree with it too...
I'm going to sound like a jerk for asking this, but it's a honest question...
Do you want to pay a monthly fee in a MMO to click on buttons and just be diplomatic? Really?
Trek can be about war, we have all seen it. There is plenty of email/website Trek RPGs out there, maybe try that?
It's also a little more complicated then just saying "were at war, I know, yadda yadda".
Read the Path to 2409, politics/Romulans is what got us in this mess The in-game episodes are great, read the mission pop-ups. I don't want to spoil anything, but if you read, your going to find out how and why the Romulan home world was destroyed.
Well, normally I'd never dream of saying this about background and lore, especially bout Star Trek lore, but well, $%&# Kirk, and Starfleet, and the Federation, and peaceful contact, and the prime directive. Not to put too fine a point on it.
Bottom line is, this game is fun. Making friends with Klingons is all well and good if this was real life or something, but I'm paying to play this game to have fun blowing TRIBBLE up, not negotiating over territory disputes or resolving cultural differences.
And Kirk also got to boink every female that looked his way, so until they add that feature I'll settle for blowing TRIBBLE up.
I agree with you 200%, this bloodbath is ridiculous. Don't listen to the "diz iz wooooar" crowd, this excuse is even MORE ridiculous. Any war as spying, politics, black markets, prisoners, secret diplomatic treaties, underground networks, science to find new weapons etc. etc. This is not a war, this is a dumb shoot them up.
Fortunately, Cryptic knows better that the "diz iz wooooar" fanbois and is planning more non combat content.
Jack Emmert said in his last chat that Cryptic will implement diplomacy and / or minigames
Guest-1297: Do you plan to add non-combat gameplay elements in the game, like minigames or a diplomacy system ?
Jack-Cryptic: Yes.
He said it again in an interview by MMORPG website :
Many open beta players have complained that the missions are repetitive. Why is this, and is more variation planned in the near future?
STO Team : We definitely have plans for more exploration and more diplomatic missions. Also more fleet actions will be included. There are a lot of things that we are looking to add in the game that gives it great variation and different styles of gameplay. One of the things people have been talking a lot about is more interaction on your ship, so that is one thing we're looking at now.
...with the next few updates later this year, we're definitely going to be adding [non-combat gameplay]. We've just scratched the surface of what the Genesis system can do with the exploration content we have and I really look to that realm of the game to be the place where the non-combat, where the diplomacy, where the first contact missions really start happening. I see us doing a lot of work over the next year to fill that gameplay out.
In which the Federation eventually allied with the Klingons. In this game we seem to be at war with the entire galaxy. I don't think we have ANY allies outside the Federation. Besides, in the Dominion Wars, the fate of the entire alpha quadrant was threatened, desperate times call for desperate measures, that is not the case with our war against the Kiingons.
I love the combat we have in the game, obviously ALL diplomacy would be boring and not particularly realistic . However, we do need a greater proportion of missions involving branching story lines whereby you do have the option of a peaceful resolution to the situation. Also, exploration would not entirely stop during a war, the Federation would still like to make contact with new civilisations, in the hope that they would become allies and eventually join the Federation.
Star Trek was about the PEACEFUL approach to conflict with combat as last resort. I realize we are at war now, but with EVERYONE??? There is never an alternate approach to defusing a situation such as a bluff or negotiation or temp treaty or ANYTHING other than combat! There is no remorse or consquences to the many many deaths we have committed. Never any mention of the Prime Directive either.
While those are probably boring to others, those options are what set Star Trek apart from other space shows/movies. I know I am probably just whizzing in the wind here, but would be nice to be able to come up with other options.
I expect this to fall on deaf ears, just venting a little.
The only good alien is a dead alien. HUMAN POWER!!!!
To each their own really. Some people like the diplomacy that TOS/TNG brought to the genre, others (myself included) like the epic space battles that took place in the Dominion wars and even the strategy that Voyager had to employ since diplomacy went something like this in the show:
Alien: Hi
Capt. Janeway: Hi
Alien: Enough chat, we kill you now.
Capt. Janeway: Like hell .... later TRIBBLE!
I do like the fact that the dev's are implementing the diplomatic solution in the game though. It shows that they are listening (somewhat) to the pulse of the community. (No giggling)
Oh, and wasn't it Picard that slaughtered Star Fleet at Wolf 359? Sure he was "Borgified" there, but still ... nice diplomacy.
Picard: Hi, I didn't get my raise in my last paycheck ... prepare to die.
Do you want to pay a monthly fee in a MMO to click on buttons and just be diplomatic? Really?
.
The point is not that there is not combat, but that it has a moral and honarable justification for it.
Most of the episodes had actions, but you felt like they were the good guys when they got into a scrape.
The easiest point to make would be the one where Kirk Spock Lincoln, and the Vulcan that started peace were on a planet against 4 of the worst people in history. It was set up as a battle of good and evil.
But the thing setting the fight only saw the contest being about who could fight. A repeated theme in many episodes.
And the peacenick vulcan did try diplomacy first, then they all did there fighting thing.
The idea with deplomacy is it gives you moral high ground, and societal acceptance to other actions, since it is a last resort not a first one, and only done after all other options are used.
But more importantly I think part of it is that the game does not let you choose any action paths but is scripted do this do that form.
You know in TOS there was an episode where Kirk got grabbed by the locals. The locals then tried to drive off the enterprise with ground batteries. Scotty wanted to start nuking them and only the Ambassador on board (aka a plot obstacle) stopped him from doing it. TOS was not the hippy pc peace loving space commune that TNG was.
Well, I do agree with the sentiment behind the thread, but 90% of the player base isn't playing this for Roleplaying, despite how counter-intuitive that seems at first glance. Yes, non-combat missions and such would make it more like most of the Star Trek series', but it would make for a boring game that even someone like me, who owns EVERY EPISODE of EVERY SERIES (besides Enterprise), would get either bored or ****ed off and cancel after 2 weeks.
And Don't get me wrong, I'm a dedicated roleplayer and casual player. I absolutely believe we need more non-combat things to do in this game (Like the ability to walk around the rest of your ship, and customize your personal quarters, and actual crafting, anda bunch of stuff along those lines). Roleplaying tools, if you will. But we most definitely do not need missions that involve walking around a planet and spamming F on every person you meet, and you know that that's what non-combat missions would devolve to.
In theory, you're absolutely correct. This game violates everything Starfleet has ever stood for. But in practice, I'm enjoying the heck out of it just the way it is. And in addition to that, I've always disagreed with Starfleet's ambiguous morals and smug superiority and sense of entitlement, and I'm secretly ecstatic to see them brought down to the level of the races and organizations they've always scorned and oppressed.
I have to agree with the OP. There are times when I think to myself: "Wait, I just killed a crapton of klingons, and now this Klingon that I am talking to wants to help me?" or when I ponder why I'm attacking - the storyline sometimes doesn't support the fact that I'm killing fifty Romulans, Klingons, or [insert any species name here].
We NEED to have more non-combative missions or this game is not truly Trek in spirit. Right now, it's simply KILL X BAD GUYS, without regard for the fact that sometimes the storyline could permit a more 'friendly' approach to the situation.
Yes, non-combat missions and such would make it more like most of the Star Trek series', but it would make for a boring game that even someone like me, who owns EVERY EPISODE of EVERY SERIES (besides Enterprise), would get either bored or ****ed off and cancel after 2 weeks.
Nonsense, there are many ways to simulate non combat activities, they were used in many different video games including MMOs. Furthermore, it is very easy to make those elements skippable and optional so they won't bother the more action driven players. Even more interesting, those activities, once abstracted, require very little development time, are real time sink and will allow to grab more subs which can be invested to develop much more expansive content like an entirely playable faction.
Diplomacy
Several different systems were suggested already.
Reputation system : your actions give you reputation points with the other factions, allowing you certain missions or actions (EvE Online)
Card game : this was succesfully used in a not so succesful MMO (Vanguard)
2 skills (Diplomacy / Intimidation) allowing you to open a channel and try to negociate with your opponents or to scare them (Mass Effect)
They would simulate the non combat actions. They should be skippable because they could be boring to the most action driven players. Here is a thread with awesome examples of minigames especially designed for STO (with pictures !)
With minigames, you can simulate doors unlocking, equipment sabotage, computers hacking, cure creation etc. etc. Used in many MMOs like Runescape and in many RPGs like Mass Effect for instance.
Games at Quarks
We could play games at Quarks : dabo, domjot, poker, 3D Chess, fizzbin, darts, whatever, vs AI or other players (that PVP I'd play !). Of course, we would bet energy credits !
Scanning with tricorders
Can become a non combat activity on its own. It's another kind of minigame but it is so iconic that it deserves its own category. A powerful tricorders system has been proposed by JP. Just have a look here (with pictures !) :
This would be ADDED to the game, it would NOT replace the star clusters. How does it work :
1) You can scan anywhere except during fight (tricorder on ground / sensors in space). You get a % of finding something based upon skills, equipment and the location (deep dangerous space = more chances to find something)
2) Activate scan. Cryptic computes (rolls dice) : did you find something ?
No ? You cannot scan again before leaving the system or the planet.
Yes ? What did you find ? Depends on your success, it can be :
1 - crafting stuff
2 - Lore info (just informations about the ST universe, for instance an old holodisc or an archeological thing)
3 - Hidden Klingon's base, let's go get them
4 - Rare or semi rare gear
5 - Someone in distress you need to save
6 - Gateway to the mirror universe
7 - A cool pet
8 - The bat'leth of Kahless floating in space ;-)
etc. etc.
The good things :
- it works everywhere, when you want => feeling of freedom
- Cryptic can add new things to discover easily : any time a dev has an idea, he can add it to the "discoveries"
database and release it with the next update. It is a good way to give the players perks for instance.
All this does exist already in an MMO (EvE Online), in a much more complex system. I realize that STO is not EvE (fortunately) but we can keep it very simple and it would help the "exploration feeling" a great deal IMHO.
Your opinion has been voiced many times and I kinda agree with it too...
I'm going to sound like a jerk for asking this, but it's a honest question...
Do you want to pay a monthly fee in a MMO to click on buttons and just be diplomatic? Really?
Trek can be about war, we have all seen it. There is plenty of email/website Trek RPGs out there, maybe try that?
It's also a little more complicated then just saying "were at war, I know, yadda yadda".
Read the Path to 2409, politics/Romulans is what got us in this mess The in-game episodes are great, read the mission pop-ups. I don't want to spoil anything, but if you read, your going to find out how and why the Romulan home world was destroyed.
Anything can happen in Trek.
I think you're overstating the case. No one's asking for it to just be 7/24 diplomacy. But the whole point of Trek is to seek a peaceful solution first, then to occasionally open up a can of whoop--- at the end of the episode.
Star Trek was about the PEACEFUL approach to conflict with combat as last resort. I realize we are at war now, but with EVERYONE??? There is never an alternate approach to defusing a situation such as a bluff or negotiation or temp treaty or ANYTHING other than combat! There is no remorse or consquences to the many many deaths we have committed. Never any mention of the Prime Directive either.
While those are probably boring to others, those options are what set Star Trek apart from other space shows/movies. I know I am probably just whizzing in the wind here, but would be nice to be able to come up with other options.
I expect this to fall on deaf ears, just venting a little.
I've had a level that mentioned the Prime Directive. My crew almost broke it!:D
You know in TOS there was an episode where Kirk got grabbed by the locals. The locals then tried to drive off the enterprise with ground batteries. Scotty wanted to start nuking them and only the Ambassador on board (aka a plot obstacle) stopped him from doing it. TOS was not the hippy pc peace loving space commune that TNG was.
Agreed, The original series was somewhere in the middle, and even had hippy ideas as failing in many episodes. But they still seemed like the good guys when they did not mow down enemies every show.
There was an episode where hippies took over the ship, definitely casting hippies in a bad light.
Another episode everyone fell under the spell of plant spores, and the solution was to get people passionate. Again not the hippy way but opposite of hippy way, where just surviving in bliss, is not as important as actually having built something.
And the Vulcan hero of peace tried to fight against evil using peace methods to little effect in an episode.
The show was anti hippy, but it was also anti other side, it was somewhere in the middle with thought.
But they did not massacre the children just because they were chanting grumps, grumps, grumps, and even when the rock thing was killing miners, Kirk had first bones heal it, then spock talk to it to find another way other then destroying it.
There are lots of examples of the multiple facets of war and how it includes diplomacy in the original series.
The episode where Kirk being split into two halves also argues both good and bad sides of a person are needed.
And when backed into a corner they fight, but they also have a good side that gives reason to that. And he refused to finish off the Gorn after figuring out a way to kill him, while gorn just used brute force. And at the OK coral it was not the combat, it was understanding it was not real that made them untouchable. Most of the enemies did not have solutions where a phasor was the only answer.
One episode had the answer being letting a good lady be hit by a bus in the street, but for those to work in the game there has to be both decisions and different rewards for those decisions. Who knows, maybe Star Trek insipired the comment thrown under the bus, or maybe they told that story in that episode.
I agree with you 200%, this bloodbath is ridiculous. Don't listen to the "diz iz wooooar" crowd, this excuse is even MORE ridiculous. Any war as spying, politics, black markets, prisoners, secret diplomatic treaties, underground networks, science to find new weapons etc. etc. This is not a war, this is a dumb shoot them up.
Fortunately, Cryptic knows better that the "diz iz wooooar" fanbois and is planning more non combat content.
Jack Emmert said in his last chat that Cryptic will implement diplomacy and / or minigames
I very much fear that Jake will discover that an actual diplomacy system is hard, and just give us mini-games instead. (In a way, Bioware's success in single player RPGs can be seen as directly related to what is basically an NPC-diplomacy system. The fact that they're so head and shoulders above the crowd says that this isn't trivial.)
Yay, another iteration of connect-3. *yawn*
Dammit Jim, this wasn't the non-combat gameplay I was looking for!
Comments
I think you watched too much TNG/TOS.
You don't see much fighting in those because the Enterprise is a ship of exploration; that's its standing mission.
DS9, Voyager, Enterprise... a lot more combat. It's still "as a last resort" but that time comes a lot quicker.
If it makes you happy just let the bad guys fire first. Self defense and all.
As a result, combat is more common, especially with wars on two, maybe three or more fronts.
I had that thought just this morning. There was a group of klingons with one kneeling on the ground scanning something. So i threw a plasma grenade at his feet and shot him in the face but once i did i thought that maybe i shoulda waited, that poor bugger could have just been peacefully scanning something interesting and here i come along and burn/shoot him for it!
since then i figure i'll wait for them to shoot first.
yes, then we all chuckled and the credits rolled and everything was back to how it was for the next weeks show.
they set the game in a time of war. diplomacy has broken down and starfleet is being called upon to act in its military capacity to defend the people of the Federation.
If the Organians hadnt stepped in there would have been one HELL of a throwdown between kirk and the klingons.. and if picard hadnt have been such a smooth talker with G'kar.. sorry Tomalok, there would have been war with the romulans too..
see, the shows are set in times of peace for the most part, only open wars shown were on DS9 and the series didnt center on the war, mearly the crew of a station that took part in it. so we have no canon to draw from how starfleet would act in times of war when entering a situation and confronted by ships of a race you're either A - at war with formally, with hostilities taking place all over, or B - are in a semi cold war state with and who often take hostile action against your own ships.
because its open declared war if there's diplomacy to be done, its being done at much higher levels than just ship's captains. so i have no issues in the fact that we're to open fire on klingon, gorn, orion, naussican or romulan and hirogen ships, because if there's a solution to be had there, its at government levels.
i do get a little peeved at the several dozen "crypti-mon" races the federation also appears to be at war with, mostly found in star cluster missions. i understand the game dynamic of having a foe to combat, but with those races it would be nice to have the chance to talk and try and negotiate.
so yeah, the game needs some diplomacy in it, but not against the alliances we're actively at war with..
Remember the wildly popular negotiating and peaceful diplomacy mmo.......
me either
I'm going to sound like a jerk for asking this, but it's a honest question...
Do you want to pay a monthly fee in a MMO to click on buttons and just be diplomatic? Really?
Trek can be about war, we have all seen it. There is plenty of email/website Trek RPGs out there, maybe try that?
It's also a little more complicated then just saying "were at war, I know, yadda yadda".
Read the Path to 2409, politics/Romulans is what got us in this mess
Anything can happen in Trek.
Bottom line is, this game is fun. Making friends with Klingons is all well and good if this was real life or something, but I'm paying to play this game to have fun blowing TRIBBLE up, not negotiating over territory disputes or resolving cultural differences.
And Kirk also got to boink every female that looked his way, so until they add that feature I'll settle for blowing TRIBBLE up.
And he faked a conspiracy just to get an entire race to join a bloody war that didn't involved them.....
I agree with you 200%, this bloodbath is ridiculous. Don't listen to the "diz iz wooooar" crowd, this excuse is even MORE ridiculous. Any war as spying, politics, black markets, prisoners, secret diplomatic treaties, underground networks, science to find new weapons etc. etc. This is not a war, this is a dumb shoot them up.
Fortunately, Cryptic knows better that the "diz iz wooooar" fanbois and is planning more non combat content.
Jack Emmert said in his last chat that Cryptic will implement diplomacy and / or minigames
http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Gaming/Star-Trek-Online-Live-Chat-Transcript/td-p/91426
Zinc said on Storadio that Cryptic will add more non combat in the star clusters
http://www.mmojunkies.tv/2010/01/28/storadio-1-7-presented-by-mmo-junkies/
Direct download : http://mmojunkies.podbean.com/mf/web/8m7hkq/storadioshow8.mp3 (@48mn25)
He said it again in an interview by MMORPG website :
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/352/feature/3977/Star-Trek-Online-Launch-Day-Interview.html
And again here yesterday :
http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/02/star_trek_online_producer_warn.php
This, I agree with completely.
In which the Federation eventually allied with the Klingons. In this game we seem to be at war with the entire galaxy. I don't think we have ANY allies outside the Federation. Besides, in the Dominion Wars, the fate of the entire alpha quadrant was threatened, desperate times call for desperate measures, that is not the case with our war against the Kiingons.
I love the combat we have in the game, obviously ALL diplomacy would be boring and not particularly realistic . However, we do need a greater proportion of missions involving branching story lines whereby you do have the option of a peaceful resolution to the situation. Also, exploration would not entirely stop during a war, the Federation would still like to make contact with new civilisations, in the hope that they would become allies and eventually join the Federation.
The only good alien is a dead alien. HUMAN POWER!!!!
*goes off to play his Alien*
Alien: Hi
Capt. Janeway: Hi
Alien: Enough chat, we kill you now.
Capt. Janeway: Like hell .... later TRIBBLE!
I do like the fact that the dev's are implementing the diplomatic solution in the game though. It shows that they are listening (somewhat) to the pulse of the community. (No giggling)
Oh, and wasn't it Picard that slaughtered Star Fleet at Wolf 359? Sure he was "Borgified" there, but still ... nice diplomacy.
Picard: Hi, I didn't get my raise in my last paycheck ... prepare to die.
The point is not that there is not combat, but that it has a moral and honarable justification for it.
Most of the episodes had actions, but you felt like they were the good guys when they got into a scrape.
The easiest point to make would be the one where Kirk Spock Lincoln, and the Vulcan that started peace were on a planet against 4 of the worst people in history. It was set up as a battle of good and evil.
But the thing setting the fight only saw the contest being about who could fight. A repeated theme in many episodes.
And the peacenick vulcan did try diplomacy first, then they all did there fighting thing.
The idea with deplomacy is it gives you moral high ground, and societal acceptance to other actions, since it is a last resort not a first one, and only done after all other options are used.
But more importantly I think part of it is that the game does not let you choose any action paths but is scripted do this do that form.
My new sig!
And Don't get me wrong, I'm a dedicated roleplayer and casual player. I absolutely believe we need more non-combat things to do in this game (Like the ability to walk around the rest of your ship, and customize your personal quarters, and actual crafting, anda bunch of stuff along those lines). Roleplaying tools, if you will. But we most definitely do not need missions that involve walking around a planet and spamming F on every person you meet, and you know that that's what non-combat missions would devolve to.
In theory, you're absolutely correct. This game violates everything Starfleet has ever stood for. But in practice, I'm enjoying the heck out of it just the way it is. And in addition to that, I've always disagreed with Starfleet's ambiguous morals and smug superiority and sense of entitlement, and I'm secretly ecstatic to see them brought down to the level of the races and organizations they've always scorned and oppressed.
We NEED to have more non-combative missions or this game is not truly Trek in spirit. Right now, it's simply KILL X BAD GUYS, without regard for the fact that sometimes the storyline could permit a more 'friendly' approach to the situation.
Glad I could be of service!!
We seek out and destory where no man has destroyed before.
I mean, there's a ton captains and admirals flying around. And most of them are "James T. Kirk" or some Kirk variation. LOL
Nonsense, there are many ways to simulate non combat activities, they were used in many different video games including MMOs. Furthermore, it is very easy to make those elements skippable and optional so they won't bother the more action driven players. Even more interesting, those activities, once abstracted, require very little development time, are real time sink and will allow to grab more subs which can be invested to develop much more expansive content like an entirely playable faction.
Diplomacy
Several different systems were suggested already.
Minigames to simulate actions
They would simulate the non combat actions. They should be skippable because they could be boring to the most action driven players. Here is a thread with awesome examples of minigames especially designed for STO (with pictures !)
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=72963
With minigames, you can simulate doors unlocking, equipment sabotage, computers hacking, cure creation etc. etc. Used in many MMOs like Runescape and in many RPGs like Mass Effect for instance.
Games at Quarks
We could play games at Quarks : dabo, domjot, poker, 3D Chess, fizzbin, darts, whatever, vs AI or other players (that PVP I'd play !). Of course, we would bet energy credits !
Scanning with tricorders
Can become a non combat activity on its own. It's another kind of minigame but it is so iconic that it deserves its own category. A powerful tricorders system has been proposed by JP. Just have a look here (with pictures !) :
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=59035
Quick and dirty exploration system
This would be ADDED to the game, it would NOT replace the star clusters. How does it work :
1) You can scan anywhere except during fight (tricorder on ground / sensors in space). You get a % of finding something based upon skills, equipment and the location (deep dangerous space = more chances to find something)
2) Activate scan. Cryptic computes (rolls dice) : did you find something ?
No ? You cannot scan again before leaving the system or the planet.
Yes ? What did you find ? Depends on your success, it can be :
1 - crafting stuff
2 - Lore info (just informations about the ST universe, for instance an old holodisc or an archeological thing)
3 - Hidden Klingon's base, let's go get them
4 - Rare or semi rare gear
5 - Someone in distress you need to save
6 - Gateway to the mirror universe
7 - A cool pet
8 - The bat'leth of Kahless floating in space ;-)
etc. etc.
The good things :
- it works everywhere, when you want => feeling of freedom
- Cryptic can add new things to discover easily : any time a dev has an idea, he can add it to the "discoveries"
database and release it with the next update. It is a good way to give the players perks for instance.
All this does exist already in an MMO (EvE Online), in a much more complex system. I realize that STO is not EvE (fortunately) but we can keep it very simple and it would help the "exploration feeling" a great deal IMHO.
I think you're overstating the case. No one's asking for it to just be 7/24 diplomacy. But the whole point of Trek is to seek a peaceful solution first, then to occasionally open up a can of whoop--- at the end of the episode.
I've had a level that mentioned the Prime Directive. My crew almost broke it!:D
Agreed, The original series was somewhere in the middle, and even had hippy ideas as failing in many episodes. But they still seemed like the good guys when they did not mow down enemies every show.
There was an episode where hippies took over the ship, definitely casting hippies in a bad light.
Another episode everyone fell under the spell of plant spores, and the solution was to get people passionate. Again not the hippy way but opposite of hippy way, where just surviving in bliss, is not as important as actually having built something.
And the Vulcan hero of peace tried to fight against evil using peace methods to little effect in an episode.
The show was anti hippy, but it was also anti other side, it was somewhere in the middle with thought.
But they did not massacre the children just because they were chanting grumps, grumps, grumps, and even when the rock thing was killing miners, Kirk had first bones heal it, then spock talk to it to find another way other then destroying it.
There are lots of examples of the multiple facets of war and how it includes diplomacy in the original series.
The episode where Kirk being split into two halves also argues both good and bad sides of a person are needed.
And when backed into a corner they fight, but they also have a good side that gives reason to that. And he refused to finish off the Gorn after figuring out a way to kill him, while gorn just used brute force. And at the OK coral it was not the combat, it was understanding it was not real that made them untouchable. Most of the enemies did not have solutions where a phasor was the only answer.
One episode had the answer being letting a good lady be hit by a bus in the street, but for those to work in the game there has to be both decisions and different rewards for those decisions. Who knows, maybe Star Trek insipired the comment thrown under the bus, or maybe they told that story in that episode.
I very much fear that Jake will discover that an actual diplomacy system is hard, and just give us mini-games instead. (In a way, Bioware's success in single player RPGs can be seen as directly related to what is basically an NPC-diplomacy system. The fact that they're so head and shoulders above the crowd says that this isn't trivial.)
Yay, another iteration of connect-3. *yawn*
Dammit Jim, this wasn't the non-combat gameplay I was looking for!
/jedihandwave