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To boldly go where no man has gone before - Exploration in STO

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
In this thread I hope to hear your thoughts on how the exploration sectors can be improved. What you would want to see visually when you warp into one of these areas and what you would hope to do once there.

I know Dstahl mentioned they were getting a minor tweak visually. Planets will look like planets and anomalies will look like anomalies. He also mentioned something about adding a main race to them that gives us quests. So I know they are thinking hard of what to do to these places right now. So lets give them some of our Ideas.

Also in addition to your ideas please tell us how important are these sectors to you? How important is it to you that these sectors receive a well needed overhaul?


My thoughts:

To me the exploration area was one of the most exciting and anticipated parts of this game for me. I was quickly disappointed in how lackluster these places where. I counted 13-14 exploration sectors in the game. and 13 regular sectors. That is basically half the playable space in this game is dedicated to the exploration content. Right now there are only something like 15 (if anyone knows the correct number please let me know) or so variations of quests you can get in one of these sectors. and these quests are repeated in every exploration sector just with new aliens races slapped in. So that is half the game that can be played in the first few levels after you've played through those quests in the Delta Volanis Cluster. Time to really give these areas some love. I know season 4 is mostly crew system and Ground combat. I feel a decent change should also be made to these places in season 4 and season 5 should be all about exploration space.

Key changes to look at:

1. Visual changes - Each of these areas should have their own individual alien feel to them. Add some visual effects to them so we feel we are inside a large nebula,star cluster, stellar nursery, ect... I want to see these sectors from normal sector space and want to go check them out on this alone. Once they tear down these walls it will be awesome if entering exploration space will be similar to entering the badlands right now within sector space.

2. Each sector should have it's own individuality. Not only in appearance but in why we go there. Think of it this way. Each of these sectors should have it's own "weekly series" type quest chain that defines what is happening there. These chain quests need to be written with both fed and KDF in mind and tell us who the major players are and what kinds of new alien creatures or phenomenon we can discover. Introducing us to this new race would send us on a story of this region its inhabitants and a series of dailies could be open up that send us on missions of discovery. For the KDF they could meet a new ally or a new race to subjugate and concur. This could also spark new possible PVP within these sectors.

3. Each sector needs to be open to both KDF and Feds.

4. existing quest need to be rewritten or simply nuked all together.

5. set aside one sector for a Voyager kinda quest chain - where we get sucked into another quadrant and have to find out way home. We could leave this map anytime to play other parts of the game and return here whenever we wanted to continue the journey.(inspired by Darren Kitlor's idea)

6. Allow a rep grind with the new Races via a series of dailies within these sectors so that eventually they will want to open trade negotiations which opens up a store type situation allowing us to purchase tech,gear,crafting schematics ect.

7. An extensive accolade system for the exploration areas which include scanning planets to discover all the classes, as well as the stars nebulae ect.


I feel these areas hold the key to adding some amazing TREK type feel to this game. Feel free to discuss some of these ideas. expand on them or simply offer brand new suggestions.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I have a few ideas that I'm working on around this, basically integrating Foundry content, aliens, mobs, and ships within an exploration focus.

    Some ideas:
    • create and share species you helped design - and tie them to a specific exploration region
    • allow mission authors to set-up faction agnostic content using said species
    • optional territory control - with gameplay impacts
    • storyline pvp "nodes" that count for more control than just arena-style maps.
    • weekly PvP tournaments, disguised as said storyline PvP content - with talk of various fleets being recognized for their performance.
    • Foundry contests to create missions around unified themes for each exploration sector, each month
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