With February approaching, are we going to see 2409 summed up and put into a "Future Past" format and incorporated into the history? I'm talkin' from a lore perspective rather than a technical one (I'm sure most of us can write whole thesis papers on the technical issues of the past year). There are quite a few plots that I've played through that I'm sure have affected the overall political landscape of both quadrants and would like to see them expanded on.
In turn, I'd also like to have missions that play off of those changes as well
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The real over-arcing question I have is whether we'll see some evolution since Star Trek is a little more complex in terms of allegiances and political alignments than most other MMO's. Since we the players don't have control over those aspects like we would in say Darkfall or EVE, it's up to the folks in charge whether we'll see the galaxy change as we play through it. For example, you have phasing technology in World of Warcraft that changes the landscape and your character interactions based on your progression, plus they're changing things around dramatically next month with their new expansion.
Course we are only a year in and it would be dramatic to see huge change like what WoW presents, but evolution of the galaxy around us would be cool to make it a little more alive and exciting.
A movable timeline would be one of the greatest things in an MMO, however lets say for arguments sake the Federation makes peace with the Romulans as a part of the changing political landscape. There goes the entire Romulan sector arc that they would be required to redo. I doubt that they would remove that kind of content, it would be like shipping a new game out every year...
At the moment they seem to be doing the best thing for the game, bring more factions in that will either become allies or enemies (Deferi) that mixes things up but doesn't affect earlier content.
There wouldn't be anything wrong with implementing the same sort of phasing technology that we see present within WoW though, which would give you the best of both worlds since the prior content remains and the world changes as the player progresses through it. So if you wanted a player to always start as if it was 2409, you could, then as they did the content and completed more missions in a given area, the area will phase into it's new state for that player. Best example I can think of would be a shifting of boundaries in the Federation/Klingon War. Who wouldn't want some more stuff to do in Eta Eridani or Pi Canis where you had to defend against a Klingon Fleet or had to beam down to a planet to liberate a facility from Federation control. It'd be a linear progression, but at least the world would look like it's shifting about from your actions.
It can complicate things for those that are attempting to group up since they may be out of phase with each other, but the majority of the content doesn't call you to be with other players to complete. There'd be a bit of excitement, at least from me, to see how the galaxy was unfolding in Cryptic's eyes from season to season as we did the content.