First, yes I am a fanboy by some definitions. Second, this isn't going to be the Cryptic love fest you all came here to flame;) So read on and comment.
I will start in order of game play experience. Thus we shall start with the tutorial. At first I was kinda impressed with it. Especially the voice over and direction. However, having now played through it more than once I have come to the conclusion it has got to go. Here's why. First everyone wants to fly their own Starship yet your first encounter with game play is ground action. Worse then that it is almost Wow style ground action. Meaning a slighly open area. No teaming and you have to compete for the objectives. In this case destroying borg artifacts. Granted there are plenty but sittl I shouldn't have to compete if there is more than one person doiing it. Second the competing for resources continues in the second space part as well as the ground part on Vega colony. This brings up my second problem with the tutorial. Your first interduction borders on the open world concept invoked by WoW and others. Yet as soon as the tutorial is over that goes away and is never seen again. Its almost a bait and switch. Combine these two and it causes me some serious concerns.
Never fear I have some suggestions to fix this. Take the tutorial and make it a bonified story arc mission like all the others we have. Don't make it a tutorial anymore. Instead create a new tutorial. Here's how. Use Starfleet academy. Specifically start us off taking the Kobiashi Maru test. This does several things. One it puts in an iconic Star Trek item that many have wanted. Two it serves as a tutorial for starship combat. Further more wth a little tweaking you can work in explanations of the injury system and the difficulty slider. After all its a training simulation. This alleviates the immersion breaker of talking to someone on Sol spacedock about non-universe things. You can use a holo-deck simulation to introduce ground combate mechanics as well. Finally to transition from the Academy to your command you can run what is now the tutorial as a standard story arc mission. It would make more sense and be a real true immersion experience.
Next, even with as good as the new tutorial system would be there will be some who want to skip it. Thus I present the Veteran Officer program. Bascially once you cap your first character any others crearted can take advantage of this program. Basically it amounts to a cut scene of your ship nearly beng destoyed and your new character assuming command and finishing off the bad guys. Quick and simple. You then get a mission from Quinn to take command permanently. Get skill points and skill up and you start at Lt. 5. Gearing up would be easy you can be give special veteran plaques to take to the various vendors on Sol to purchase weapons and consoles etc of your choice.
In the interest of keeping this short (its already long I know) I will skip to the other end of the game since the middle part is decent as it s stand now (in my opinion). The end game. Wow. We need some work here. I know more content and sectors are coming. I applaud this. My conern is over the main end-game content. Specifically the STF's. These have been beat to death. My thought on this runs a little different thant some. I do believe they are, at times, unrealistically hard. There are places where the mob numbers are simply way to high. Thinking about this it occured to me that more man-power wouuld help. Well either you can increae the number of Captains or simply the number of allied units. I went with the second route. It makes sense to me that each Admiral should be able to beam down one and only one bridge officer. Wait don't scream yet here me out. There would be some limitatinos. They would have to be locked to fire only on your target. There would have to be a officer tray to control their powers. Now why does this make sense? Well lets look a canon for the answers.
Per canon as seen in TNG captains rarely beam down to a planet. They are simply to valuable to loose. Riker stopped Picard a number of times. When Picard was captured by the Borg Deanna prevented Riker from beaming to the Borg ships since he was no captain. Second, also from canon, no Flag officer shall beam into a hazardous situation without armedescort. Quoted from regulations cited to Kirk in The Wrath of Khan. Both of these support the fact that if our Admirals are beaming down into very hazardous conditions our crews would absolutlely insist at least one of them beam down as escort.
I have a lot more but this post has gotten long enough. I got the two most important points that bothered me off my chest. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Per canon as seen in TNG captains rarely beam down to a planet.
This game is a sort of mish-mash between all the Star Trek shows. This includes TOS where the captain was CONSTANTLY going down to the planet.
Personally, I like my captain and I like going down to planets to do research or assist my team.
Secondly, I'm not terribly fond of all the "WoW" references. The game's ground combat is almost nothing like it, aside from targeting behavior (as opposed to something like, FPS manual targeting). However, WoW is hardly the only game that does this.
This game is a sort of mish-mash between all the Star Trek shows. This includes TOS where the captain was CONSTANTLY going down to the planet.
Personally, I like my captain and I like going down to planets to do research or assist my team.
Secondly, I'm not terribly fond of all the "WoW" references. The game's ground combat is almost nothing like it, aside from targeting behavior (as opposed to something like, FPS manual targeting). However, WoW is hardly the only game that does this.
If you are referring to my WoW references perhaps you misunderstood me. I was referring only to the Tutorial. Its areas are almost exactly like WoW in the fact that you have to compete for the objectives. Take Vega for instance you could be heading for a group of colonists only to have someone get there first. Even if you help them whom ever fired the first shot gets credit. Sorry but that is exactly like WoW yet the rest of the game is not. That is a terrible first impression to make. Which by the way is my point.
Second I never said a captain could not beam down. I said that it would make more sense to allow us to take 1 BO with us on STF ground parts because it makes sense wiht the various regulations I referenced.
This game is a sort of mish-mash between all the Star Trek shows. This includes TOS where the captain was CONSTANTLY going down to the planet.
In my opinion this is something that is overlooked far toooooo often. This is a video game, this isn't the show, this isn't a book, this isn't a movie. It's not canon. A LOT of things are going to happen that just would never happen in the show, like running the same mission over...and over...and over...and over. A lot of people need to understand the difference because real "immersion" just isn't possible in an MMO setting. If I see the Enterprise-J fly by guess what...it's not going to RUIN my experience because 5 minutes ago I saw a ship named the USS FartKnocker flown by Captain Clueless. Get a grip and enjoy it for what it is...a game.
Great take.
In my opinion this is something that is overlooked far toooooo often. This is a video game, this isn't the show, this isn't a book, this isn't a movie. It's not canon. A LOT of things are going to happen that just would never happen in the show, like running the same mission over...and over...and over...and over. A lot of people need to understand the difference because real "immersion" just isn't possible in an MMO setting. If I see the Enterprise-J fly by guess what...it's not going to RUIN my experience because 5 minutes ago I saw a ship named the USS FartKnocker flown by Captain Clueless. Get a grip and enjoy it for what it is...a game.
Great take.
Well I agree; however, if I can site references from canon that support my point then why not? It only adds evidence to support my point and does not hurt anything. Yes this is a game but it is based on a concept called Star Trek which has certain points that should generally be adhered to. I mean would it be Star Trek if Quo'nos was suddenly the Federation homeworld?
Well I agree; however, if I can site references from canon that support my point then why not? It only adds evidence to support my point and does not hurt anything. Yes this is a game but it is based on a concept called Star Trek which has certain points that should generally be adhered to. I mean would it be Star Trek if Quo'nos was suddenly the Federation homeworld?
I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. Of course they have to lay a "framework" with canon.
What I'm talking about is the large number of idiots who complain about "Captain names" "Ship Names" "Thinking it's the end of the world if one thing isn't perfect with the time line" etc. Yes you can point out in TOS the captain went down on seemingly every away mission. In TNG era however, things had changed. We are closer to that era than Kirk's but guess what...how exciting would the game be if you spent the entire time saying "go do this" then had to bide your time waiting?? The captain doesn't drive the ship either, but in the game you do. All I'm saying a lot of these people shouldn't get so hung up on EVERYTHING being exactly the same because there are a billion examples you can point to that don't jive with cannon or contribute to immersion.
I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. Of course they have to lay a "framework" with canon.
What I'm talking about is the large number of idiots who complain about "Captain names" "Ship Names" "Thinking it's the end of the world if one thing isn't perfect with the time line" etc. Yes you can point out in TOS the captain went down on seemingly every away mission. In TNG era however, things had changed. We are closer to that era than Kirk's but guess what...how exciting would the game be if you spent the entire time saying "go do this" then had to bide your time waiting?? The captain doesn't drive the ship either, but in the game you do. All I'm saying a lot of these people shouldn't get so hung up on EVERYTHING being exactly the same because there are a billion examples you can point to that don't jive with cannon or contribute to immersion.
Ohh I agree. My only point was in reference to letting us bring one BO with us when doing the STFs. Its one of the things I think would help balance them out. As they are currently they border on unplayable.
Comments
This game is a sort of mish-mash between all the Star Trek shows. This includes TOS where the captain was CONSTANTLY going down to the planet.
Personally, I like my captain and I like going down to planets to do research or assist my team.
Secondly, I'm not terribly fond of all the "WoW" references. The game's ground combat is almost nothing like it, aside from targeting behavior (as opposed to something like, FPS manual targeting). However, WoW is hardly the only game that does this.
If you are referring to my WoW references perhaps you misunderstood me. I was referring only to the Tutorial. Its areas are almost exactly like WoW in the fact that you have to compete for the objectives. Take Vega for instance you could be heading for a group of colonists only to have someone get there first. Even if you help them whom ever fired the first shot gets credit. Sorry but that is exactly like WoW yet the rest of the game is not. That is a terrible first impression to make. Which by the way is my point.
Second I never said a captain could not beam down. I said that it would make more sense to allow us to take 1 BO with us on STF ground parts because it makes sense wiht the various regulations I referenced.
Anything else you would like me to explain?
In my opinion this is something that is overlooked far toooooo often. This is a video game, this isn't the show, this isn't a book, this isn't a movie. It's not canon. A LOT of things are going to happen that just would never happen in the show, like running the same mission over...and over...and over...and over. A lot of people need to understand the difference because real "immersion" just isn't possible in an MMO setting. If I see the Enterprise-J fly by guess what...it's not going to RUIN my experience because 5 minutes ago I saw a ship named the USS FartKnocker flown by Captain Clueless. Get a grip and enjoy it for what it is...a game.
Great take.
Well I agree; however, if I can site references from canon that support my point then why not? It only adds evidence to support my point and does not hurt anything. Yes this is a game but it is based on a concept called Star Trek which has certain points that should generally be adhered to. I mean would it be Star Trek if Quo'nos was suddenly the Federation homeworld?
I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. Of course they have to lay a "framework" with canon.
What I'm talking about is the large number of idiots who complain about "Captain names" "Ship Names" "Thinking it's the end of the world if one thing isn't perfect with the time line" etc. Yes you can point out in TOS the captain went down on seemingly every away mission. In TNG era however, things had changed. We are closer to that era than Kirk's but guess what...how exciting would the game be if you spent the entire time saying "go do this" then had to bide your time waiting?? The captain doesn't drive the ship either, but in the game you do. All I'm saying a lot of these people shouldn't get so hung up on EVERYTHING being exactly the same because there are a billion examples you can point to that don't jive with cannon or contribute to immersion.
Ohh I agree. My only point was in reference to letting us bring one BO with us when doing the STFs. Its one of the things I think would help balance them out. As they are currently they border on unplayable.