We're not dealing with an individual mind. They don't have a single leader. It's the collective minds of all of them.
The Borg don't have captains or officers. They are of one mind about everything all the time - that's the point. They do sometimes employ drones to speak for the collective but that's just the whole collective speaking through them. Locutus was the voice of the collective, same with 7 of 9 before being unplugged and the same goes for the Borg queen.
There are no Borg captains, no Borg ranks and the Borg don't operate in terms of missions with diplomacy, exploration or anything else. Their ships operate like mobile termite colonies with the combined mental power of all of them making whatever it wants a reality. For example if the Borg were playable, commanding a cube would be like having 10,000 BOFFS at your disposal, each with the efficiency trait adding a bonus to your abilities, and each one with a stack of abilities to use.
They move as a whole, like a swarm of locusts. They should not be a playable race because they simply don't operate like the conventional races in Star Trek and in this game.
The Borg is the ultimate user. They're not interested in political conquest, wealth or power as you know it. They're simply interested in your ship - it's technology. They've identified it as something they can consume.
Sure they can. They're not much different than playing the Federation or Klingons really. Instead of receiving orders from an Admiral or Brigadier General, you will receive instructions from the Collective.
First, you already can't excercise decision making and free will doing story arcs in the Federation (ie. wiping out entire starbases full of innocent Romulan scientists and doctors, destroying Jem'Hadar cloning facilities). That's not much different than being a Borg drone.
Second, it all depends on what the story arcs are for the Collective. Perhaps you are one of the Borg impacted by the re-introduction of Hugh, or effected by the issues of "Unimatrix Zero".
We're not dealing with an individual mind. They don't have a single leader. It's the collective minds of all of them.
No offense, but in a game they work just as well as any other faction. They were a playable faction in SFC3, and they worked just as well as the Feds, Klings, and Roms. They were a playable faction in Armada 1 and 2, and they worked just as well as the other factions. Just so we're clear, I understand your argument. But as far as a video game goes, its irrelevant.
I don't care if they come up with an ingenious way for a borg faction to work, even if it fits within canon and makes sense. a playable borg faction, no matter how they get it to work, would be dumb, and the second it happens is the second my subscription is cancelled.
I don't care if they come up with an ingenious way for a borg faction to work, even if it fits within canon and makes sense. a playable borg faction, no matter how they get it to work, would be dumb, and the second it happens is the second my subscription is cancelled.
I somehow doubt that is true, because if "dumb" things made you cancel you would have canceled already. But if and when a Borg faction is added, I'll try to remember to check your profile for any activity
i think regardless of canon the poll speaks for itself, cryptic will go where the majority of fans want them to. I'm a huge cardassian fan and don't like the idea of a borg faction either but those that want borg outnumber my cardie freinds almost two to one and number only just under cardies and dominion combined.
As much as it pains me to say this I think at this point we have to start looking at how they'll be implemented, not if.
I don't care if they come up with an ingenious way for a borg faction to work, even if it fits within canon and makes sense. a playable borg faction, no matter how they get it to work, would be dumb, and the second it happens is the second my subscription is cancelled.
In your opinion. Personally, I think they would be fun.
i think regardless of canon the poll speaks for itself, cryptic will go where the majority of fans want them to. I'm a huge cardassian fan and don't like the idea of a borg faction either but those that want borg outnumber my cardie freinds almost two to one and number only just under cardies and dominion combined.
As much as it pains me to say this I think at this point we have to start looking at how they'll be implemented, not if.
It sounds like you need to read this thread, since you are also confused about the poll results.
i think regardless of canon the poll speaks for itself, cryptic will go where the majority of fans want them to. I'm a huge cardassian fan and don't like the idea of a borg faction either but those that want borg outnumber my cardie freinds almost two to one and number only just under cardies and dominion combined.
As much as it pains me to say this I think at this point we have to start looking at how they'll be implemented, not if.
I wouldn't say that we'll never see the Cardassians as a playable faction. The artwork/ships/coding is already in the game. It's just a matter of creating the content to go with them.
i think regardless of canon the poll speaks for itself, cryptic will go where the majority of fans want them to. I'm a huge cardassian fan and don't like the idea of a borg faction either but those that want borg outnumber my cardie freinds almost two to one and number only just under cardies and dominion combined.
As much as it pains me to say this I think at this point we have to start looking at how they'll be implemented, not if.
did you not read the OP?
it does not mean that people want a borg faction after romulans. for all you know, all of the people that voted romulans would vote for cardassians or dominion next.
if borg ever make it as a playable race I would quit, but not before participating in the biggest whine campaign this forum has ever seen. it will make the advisory council look like a blip on the screen, and many others would be there with me.
Just for the sake of the game you can't have Borg or Undine as playable.
Playable factions only war against each other in PvP. For the sake of PVE factions need a common enemy for the story line. The Borg and Undine are that common enemy.
Once you have them as playable you remove that common enemy and put yourself in a script writing nightmare for PVE. Then you have to find more big bad enemies to write whole new storylines about and I don''t think there is the manpowwer, creativity and resources for that.
I don't care if they come up with an ingenious way for a borg faction to work, even if it fits within canon and makes sense. a playable borg faction, no matter how they get it to work, would be dumb, and the second it happens is the second my subscription is cancelled.
After everything that has happened this is what would make you cancel your subscription? Im sorry but that seems a little silly. And ultimatums dont work. No one wants to see another player go. I know I dont. But your argument is lacking other than to state you are seriously against it.
Anything that is canon should be acceptable. Look at all the things that has happened to the Borg both in the series and the books. It is certainly feasable in this game to have them as a playable race and I am intrigued with how the development team would launch that. I, however, would rather see other ones come well before the Borg - Romulans and Cardassians for example.
Btw, I dont like the idea either, I am just saying it is doable.
Edit:
I like what ZootCadillac wrote. I agree 100%.
In effect the only difference between a Hive-mind and a traditional Command structure is that "orders" in a collective are delivered telepathically whilst in Starfleet they come through a subspace communication from an Admiral or Starfleet Command.
The efficiency of a Hive-mind structure comes only from the fact that decisions on any given course of action are (in theory) made faster - drawing on a vast pool of intellects, experiences and insights all at the same time in order to come to the best decision. Versus a command structure which is arguably a lot slower with critical decisions taken at the top of the heirachy and passed down the ranks with each individual along the way potentially being able to delay or modify instructions based on their own personal thoughts/feeling/personalities.
But in terms of how the resulting orders and commands are then given out and executed upon - there is no difference between vessels in Starfleet or Borg vessles within the Collective "receiving" their orders and carrying them out.
We have seen many times that Borg units do actually recieve orders fairly conventionally - sometimes directly from the Queen.
I think having the Borg in the game would be a great idea. It would not be that unbalancing, and like in Armada there are plenty of ship designs to choose from and wouldn't be as hard to implement. The trick is to try and come up with a way to have it make sense. What i would like to see is the areas that are borders actually use some kind of system where players could band together and actually take star systems away from the faction they border. (This would be a great thing for fleets to do together). The borg at this point could be used to try and assimilate contested star systems. Maybe a faction reward system could be worked out for how many systems held in a certain period of time.. and the Borg would have to compete. Just my two cents.. great game overall.
Just for the sake of the game you can't have Borg or Undine as playable.
Playable factions only war against each other in PvP. For the sake of PVE factions need a common enemy for the story line. The Borg and Undine are that common enemy.
Once you have them as playable you remove that common enemy and put yourself in a script writing nightmare for PVE. Then you have to find more big bad enemies to write whole new storylines about and I don''t think there is the manpowwer, creativity and resources for that.
I'm confused...
Its not the fact that the Borg are currently NPCs that defines them as a common "enemy" of the Feds/Klinks/Undine. What defines them as a common enemy is simply storytelling and missions
As a playable Borg the game could easily simply pit me against player or NPC Feds, Klinks or Undine.
The Borg as a common enemy of the Feds/Klinks/Undine wouldn't change at all just because the Borg you are fighting against happens to be an actual person rather than an NPC...
As a Fed or Klink you would simply continue to fight NPC borg in PvE and playable Borg in PvP. And a borg would encounter Feds, Klinks and Undine in PvE and PvP.
Sorry if I missed some deeply complex point in your post...
Aside from this - new enemies can (and I think should) be added to the game anyway over time. In fact - maybe the borg will not be the primary end-game mob for Admiral 5-10 - who knows!? It could be a completely new (or old, come to that) enemy...
We're not dealing with an individual mind. They don't have a single leader. It's the collective minds of all of them.
[...lotsa snip...]
Maybe this is all just thinking aloud, but I'm am totally open to hearing about the "cool things" they are thinking about in regards to the Borg. Hell, even if the playerbase completely torpedoes the idea, I would love to hear about what game mechanics the designers think are possible for this faction, it would give us some ideas about other things they can do.
At this point it seems too early to proclaim they "can't work", whether they are desirable or popular with the players is another matter altogether, there's lots of things they can do gamewise to make them work.
Just like the KDF and Feds dont have to operate as highly organized state institutions, neither does PC Borg. Just like the Alpha/Beta meatbag factions in game, all we need is a symbolance of the Collective.
All we need is a gaming "translation" of Collective operation, behavior, etc, to develop a viable and semi-immersive PC Borg experience that would be no more "off" than the current semi-immersive Alpha/Beta meatbag experience we currently enjoy in game.
So what, if we wont have the true Collective network, chat approximates the transfer and decimiation of information. The Collective network and chat/voice comms, etc all have the same core function...it doesnt matter that we cant replicate it to the extent in which is functions in the actual Collective...all we nned is the symbolance of coordination and information sharing.
The Collective is not as micro-managing of its units as you make think(dont get me wrong, it can when it nees to). Borg ships can and do operate autonomously within the interest and under the set directives of the Collective. Meaning, there is a mutual and intimate unerstanding between all parts of the Borg regarding the Collectives interests. The individual units the operate in that interests as autonomous parts of a Collective and extensivly well connected Collective
So, PC Borg would likly operate form a perspective of a basic local goup, in this case the ship. The player would be the ship(actually the Vinculum of the ship), the ship and drones would be pets/tools used to perfom operations based on pre-set directives which are within the Collective's interest. This is simply: Expand, assimilate, remove threts/obstacles to expansion and assimilation. Technically, anything that furthers that basic and prime directives of the Collective's interest is viable.
The player can be given a local/regional listing of Collective interests: Explore this system, gather information, assimilate a sample of the local inhabitants, etc, etc. The player need only select or operate within the broadest terms of the objective or interests...no need for anything to specific except for missions that require a very specific objective be met to complete and progress within that specific mission.
So there would be no Captain avatar, no BOs...just your ships and your away team composition. The drone on teh away team are inter-changeable and expendble pets. Anytime you lose one, you could just beam down replacements until you run out of surplus drones on the ship(ideally there is a minimum core compliment of drones for the ship to operate).
Lastly, we have to recognize that there has to be a recognized seperation between the player and the character(in this case the ship/Vinculum). You cant fault and use player to player interactions and interfaces against the character's immersion. Though i'd like to restrictive character vs character interactions(for instance in-game interactiosn between my Borg unit and a Fed Captain), you can not include my ability to send a chat message to the player of the Fed Captain as unimmersive for Borg...because thats a person to person activity outside the confines of the character to character interactions. You also cant count the ability of the player to not want to do a specific missions as being against the immersion of the Borg character.
No way the Borg could be a playable faction without completely trashing canon. Borg are drones, they aren't individuals unless disconnected from the collective (ie: reclaimed).
The Borg Queen was a bad enough twisting of the canon, but it happened in an actual film which does at least make it official to have one.
No way the Borg could be a playable faction without completely trashing canon. Borg are drones, they aren't individuals unless disconnected from the collective (ie: reclaimed).
The Borg Queen was a bad enough twisting of the canon, but it happened in an actual film which does at least make it official to have one.
Why the heck would be be the drones? Oh yeah, you're thinking like a meatbag. As stated, the player could be the ship Vinculum. Drones would be the ship's(player's) pets, operating as not interactve crew while in space...and for ground operations, behaving like BOs do for the meatbags on thier away teams.
No way the Borg could be a playable faction without completely trashing canon. Borg are drones, they aren't individuals unless disconnected from the collective (ie: reclaimed).
As far as actual game mechanics go, that is no different than any other faction. If you are a member of Starfleet, you recieve orders and you have to follow them. You dont have the option to disobey. Mechanically speaking, thats no different than recieving orders from the collective(or queen) and having to follow them.
As far as actual game mechanics go, that is no different than any other faction. If you are a member of Starfleet, you recieve orders and you have to follow them. You dont have the option to disobey. Mechanically speaking, thats no different than recieving orders from the collective(or queen) and having to follow them.
And honestly, there is no reason to assume the Queen does or will contrl every aspect of a Borg sub-group's every activity. For all we know, most Borg sub-groups might go years without an explicit re-direct or specific control of their operation.
So in game, specific commands from the Queen/Collective might only come in episodic type content, after you as a player have already accepted the content to play. So essentially, the direct command is being followed under the linear progression of the content in question.
well, the Borg could work as a faction because the gameplay system could be very different. Here's a list i just thought up.
-Borg don't get bridge officers but instead get a list of skills for the "captain"
-Borg ships have fast recharge rates (relatively) and a large amount of shielding and weapons power.
-Borg wouldn't rely on "powers" and "abilities" as much as the federation and Klingons because of the increased power of their hulls, shields, and weapons on all sizes of ship.
-Borg have a limited number of weapons types they can employ. All those types are powerful though.
The way I see it. The Borg should be uniform, that means their customisability should be SEVERELY limited. The powers they have should be SEVERELY limited.
You could even be a semi-independent drone like Locutus, or a Queen. The Queen avatar would at least be a canon independant thinker.
well, the Borg could work as a faction because the gameplay system could be very different. Here's a list i just thought up.
-Borg don't get bridge officers but instead get a list of skills for the "captain"
-Borg ships have fast recharge rates (relatively) and a large amount of shielding and weapons power.
-Borg wouldn't rely on "powers" and "abilities" as much as the federation and Klingons because of the increased power of their hulls, shields, and weapons on all sizes of ship.
-Borg have a limited number of weapons types they can employ. All those types are powerful though.
The way I see it. The Borg should be uniform, that means their customisability should be SEVERELY limited. The powers they have should be SEVERELY limited.
You could even be a semi-independent drone like Locutus, or a Queen. The Queen avatar would at least be a canon independant thinker.
You had a hug coming until I read the above. We dont need to be no stinkin' Queen and dadgum a semi-indepndent!. Though i suspect Picard wasnt semi-independent, just 1 of 1 for his particular tasking...but still very much part of the Collective.
And the "captain" as you said in your first bullet point, would easily be represented by the Borg ship's Vinculum.
You had a hug coming until I read the above. We dont need to be no stinkin' Queen and dadgum a semi-indepndent!. Though i suspect Picard wasnt semi-independent, just 1 of 1 for his particular tasking...but still very much part of the Collective.
And the "captain" as you said in your first bullet point, would easily be represented by the Borg ship's Vinculum.
i agree, but its just a concept. I couldn't decide how we could have a personal avatar and yet be able to name them. I wouldn't say in any way independant. They would function as like a sub processor. or whatever the "such-and-such of Borg" are.
I'm a huge cardassian fan and don't like the idea of a borg faction either but those that want borg outnumber my cardie freinds almost two to one and number only just under cardies and dominion combined...
Don't give up hope because of a poll. I'm of the mind that we eventually want to do all of them and will do so in time. There's plenty of spoonhead lovers on the team and it will be hard to keep them from wanting to make this happen.
Comments
First, you already can't excercise decision making and free will doing story arcs in the Federation (ie. wiping out entire starbases full of innocent Romulan scientists and doctors, destroying Jem'Hadar cloning facilities). That's not much different than being a Borg drone.
Second, it all depends on what the story arcs are for the Collective. Perhaps you are one of the Borg impacted by the re-introduction of Hugh, or effected by the issues of "Unimatrix Zero".
It all depends on how they are presented.
No offense, but in a game they work just as well as any other faction. They were a playable faction in SFC3, and they worked just as well as the Feds, Klings, and Roms. They were a playable faction in Armada 1 and 2, and they worked just as well as the other factions. Just so we're clear, I understand your argument. But as far as a video game goes, its irrelevant.
I somehow doubt that is true, because if "dumb" things made you cancel you would have canceled already. But if and when a Borg faction is added, I'll try to remember to check your profile for any activity
As much as it pains me to say this I think at this point we have to start looking at how they'll be implemented, not if.
In your opinion. Personally, I think they would be fun.
It sounds like you need to read this thread, since you are also confused about the poll results.
I wouldn't say that we'll never see the Cardassians as a playable faction. The artwork/ships/coding is already in the game. It's just a matter of creating the content to go with them.
did you not read the OP?
it does not mean that people want a borg faction after romulans. for all you know, all of the people that voted romulans would vote for cardassians or dominion next.
if borg ever make it as a playable race I would quit, but not before participating in the biggest whine campaign this forum has ever seen. it will make the advisory council look like a blip on the screen, and many others would be there with me.
Then they need to scrap the current poll and make a new one, this is cryptic, they'll look at that poll and make borg after romulans.
Playable factions only war against each other in PvP. For the sake of PVE factions need a common enemy for the story line. The Borg and Undine are that common enemy.
Once you have them as playable you remove that common enemy and put yourself in a script writing nightmare for PVE. Then you have to find more big bad enemies to write whole new storylines about and I don''t think there is the manpowwer, creativity and resources for that.
After everything that has happened this is what would make you cancel your subscription? Im sorry but that seems a little silly. And ultimatums dont work. No one wants to see another player go. I know I dont. But your argument is lacking other than to state you are seriously against it.
Anything that is canon should be acceptable. Look at all the things that has happened to the Borg both in the series and the books. It is certainly feasable in this game to have them as a playable race and I am intrigued with how the development team would launch that. I, however, would rather see other ones come well before the Borg - Romulans and Cardassians for example.
Btw, I dont like the idea either, I am just saying it is doable.
Edit:
I like what ZootCadillac wrote. I agree 100%.
In effect the only difference between a Hive-mind and a traditional Command structure is that "orders" in a collective are delivered telepathically whilst in Starfleet they come through a subspace communication from an Admiral or Starfleet Command.
The efficiency of a Hive-mind structure comes only from the fact that decisions on any given course of action are (in theory) made faster - drawing on a vast pool of intellects, experiences and insights all at the same time in order to come to the best decision. Versus a command structure which is arguably a lot slower with critical decisions taken at the top of the heirachy and passed down the ranks with each individual along the way potentially being able to delay or modify instructions based on their own personal thoughts/feeling/personalities.
But in terms of how the resulting orders and commands are then given out and executed upon - there is no difference between vessels in Starfleet or Borg vessles within the Collective "receiving" their orders and carrying them out.
We have seen many times that Borg units do actually recieve orders fairly conventionally - sometimes directly from the Queen.
I'm confused...
Its not the fact that the Borg are currently NPCs that defines them as a common "enemy" of the Feds/Klinks/Undine. What defines them as a common enemy is simply storytelling and missions
As a playable Borg the game could easily simply pit me against player or NPC Feds, Klinks or Undine.
The Borg as a common enemy of the Feds/Klinks/Undine wouldn't change at all just because the Borg you are fighting against happens to be an actual person rather than an NPC...
As a Fed or Klink you would simply continue to fight NPC borg in PvE and playable Borg in PvP. And a borg would encounter Feds, Klinks and Undine in PvE and PvP.
Sorry if I missed some deeply complex point in your post...
Aside from this - new enemies can (and I think should) be added to the game anyway over time. In fact - maybe the borg will not be the primary end-game mob for Admiral 5-10 - who knows!? It could be a completely new (or old, come to that) enemy...
Maybe this is all just thinking aloud, but I'm am totally open to hearing about the "cool things" they are thinking about in regards to the Borg. Hell, even if the playerbase completely torpedoes the idea, I would love to hear about what game mechanics the designers think are possible for this faction, it would give us some ideas about other things they can do.
At this point it seems too early to proclaim they "can't work", whether they are desirable or popular with the players is another matter altogether, there's lots of things they can do gamewise to make them work.
All we need is a gaming "translation" of Collective operation, behavior, etc, to develop a viable and semi-immersive PC Borg experience that would be no more "off" than the current semi-immersive Alpha/Beta meatbag experience we currently enjoy in game.
So what, if we wont have the true Collective network, chat approximates the transfer and decimiation of information. The Collective network and chat/voice comms, etc all have the same core function...it doesnt matter that we cant replicate it to the extent in which is functions in the actual Collective...all we nned is the symbolance of coordination and information sharing.
The Collective is not as micro-managing of its units as you make think(dont get me wrong, it can when it nees to). Borg ships can and do operate autonomously within the interest and under the set directives of the Collective. Meaning, there is a mutual and intimate unerstanding between all parts of the Borg regarding the Collectives interests. The individual units the operate in that interests as autonomous parts of a Collective and extensivly well connected Collective
So, PC Borg would likly operate form a perspective of a basic local goup, in this case the ship. The player would be the ship(actually the Vinculum of the ship), the ship and drones would be pets/tools used to perfom operations based on pre-set directives which are within the Collective's interest. This is simply: Expand, assimilate, remove threts/obstacles to expansion and assimilation. Technically, anything that furthers that basic and prime directives of the Collective's interest is viable.
The player can be given a local/regional listing of Collective interests: Explore this system, gather information, assimilate a sample of the local inhabitants, etc, etc. The player need only select or operate within the broadest terms of the objective or interests...no need for anything to specific except for missions that require a very specific objective be met to complete and progress within that specific mission.
So there would be no Captain avatar, no BOs...just your ships and your away team composition. The drone on teh away team are inter-changeable and expendble pets. Anytime you lose one, you could just beam down replacements until you run out of surplus drones on the ship(ideally there is a minimum core compliment of drones for the ship to operate).
Lastly, we have to recognize that there has to be a recognized seperation between the player and the character(in this case the ship/Vinculum). You cant fault and use player to player interactions and interfaces against the character's immersion. Though i'd like to restrictive character vs character interactions(for instance in-game interactiosn between my Borg unit and a Fed Captain), you can not include my ability to send a chat message to the player of the Fed Captain as unimmersive for Borg...because thats a person to person activity outside the confines of the character to character interactions. You also cant count the ability of the player to not want to do a specific missions as being against the immersion of the Borg character.
The Borg Queen was a bad enough twisting of the canon, but it happened in an actual film which does at least make it official to have one.
Why the heck would be be the drones? Oh yeah, you're thinking like a meatbag. As stated, the player could be the ship Vinculum. Drones would be the ship's(player's) pets, operating as not interactve crew while in space...and for ground operations, behaving like BOs do for the meatbags on thier away teams.
As far as actual game mechanics go, that is no different than any other faction. If you are a member of Starfleet, you recieve orders and you have to follow them. You dont have the option to disobey. Mechanically speaking, thats no different than recieving orders from the collective(or queen) and having to follow them.
And honestly, there is no reason to assume the Queen does or will contrl every aspect of a Borg sub-group's every activity. For all we know, most Borg sub-groups might go years without an explicit re-direct or specific control of their operation.
So in game, specific commands from the Queen/Collective might only come in episodic type content, after you as a player have already accepted the content to play. So essentially, the direct command is being followed under the linear progression of the content in question.
-Borg don't get bridge officers but instead get a list of skills for the "captain"
-Borg ships have fast recharge rates (relatively) and a large amount of shielding and weapons power.
-Borg wouldn't rely on "powers" and "abilities" as much as the federation and Klingons because of the increased power of their hulls, shields, and weapons on all sizes of ship.
-Borg have a limited number of weapons types they can employ. All those types are powerful though.
The way I see it. The Borg should be uniform, that means their customisability should be SEVERELY limited. The powers they have should be SEVERELY limited.
You could even be a semi-independent drone like Locutus, or a Queen. The Queen avatar would at least be a canon independant thinker.
I'm curous to how you could make the Tar monsters work. go make a thread on it and explain yourself :-P
You had a hug coming until I read the above. We dont need to be no stinkin' Queen and dadgum a semi-indepndent!. Though i suspect Picard wasnt semi-independent, just 1 of 1 for his particular tasking...but still very much part of the Collective.
And the "captain" as you said in your first bullet point, would easily be represented by the Borg ship's Vinculum.
i agree, but its just a concept. I couldn't decide how we could have a personal avatar and yet be able to name them. I wouldn't say in any way independant. They would function as like a sub processor. or whatever the "such-and-such of Borg" are.
rofl ok ..........
Don't give up hope because of a poll. I'm of the mind that we eventually want to do all of them and will do so in time. There's plenty of spoonhead lovers on the team and it will be hard to keep them from wanting to make this happen.