Why Not a Ferengi Faction?

kirksplat · September 2012

I realized today that I'm spending a ton of time playing as a Ferengi in STO. I don't mean that I have a playable Ferengi toon. I mean that I'm hunting commodities, searching for economic loop holes, lucrative vendors, sites, doff missions, etc. etc. etc.

I'm already crunching numbers, looking for schemes, and watching the clock for the next lucrative business opportunity, whether it's dilithium or fleet marks. I'm calculating conversion rates of currencies. I'm riding the great river of commerce.

Apart from making Foundry missions, STO has become a rpg-type of Ferengi commerce. For example, I spent my ECs on keys, so now I've been trying to sell commodities, contraband, and all of the stuff that certain doff missions require.

It's amazing because with the doff and the starbase system, everything has been made profitable, even for the small time aspiring Ferengi.

Ex: You can buy Saurian brandy for 20 ECs at SFA. They sell on the exchange for 5000 ECs each. That's a business opportunity for a Ferengi. It would be cool if he could level based on the profit margin of that sale.

It would be fun to start out as a small type merchant selling mineral samples on the exchange, while having a doff system of prisoners, slaves, Orion beauties, etc.

Maybe the ECs would be the ultimate prize for a Ferengi. They wouldn't play missions to get XP. There would be no fighting. They'd doff it the whole way through with contraband, illegal trade networks, etc. Some days, you'd play sto just standing at the exchange for hours. I'm already doing that some days.

And slowly my Ferengi would get a bigger ship, as he rose in ranks to eventually become a key advisor to the Grand Nagus.

We have the bones built for a Ferengi faction, don't you think?

centersolace · September 2012

It might be fun to have a merchant/civilian faction, but like other factions in general, that's years down the road. STO would need a far larger dev team and player base in order to really consider this kind of stuff though.

That being said, having this game reach that level would be a dream come true.

kirksplat · September 2012

centersolace wrote: »

It might be fun to have a merchant/civilian faction, but like other factions in general, that's years down the road. STO would need a far larger dev team and player base in order to really consider this kind of stuff though.

That being said, having this game reach that level would be a dream come true.

But, I guess what I'm saying is that the mechanics have already been put in the game, for the most part. It wouldn't need to be a huge expansion like a Romulan faction. Instead it would be a process of lvl a toon through profit margins, doffs, commodities, etc. etc. Maybe an additional weapons trafficking system or something.

Ferengi would have only one mission: profit in the existing sto universe. Their shinies could consist of special canes, clothing, or net worth.

You can play the game this way today, if you ignore the fact that you're in Starfleet. If you think of your doffs as employees, you can aspire to end up in the great treasury.

centersolace · September 2012

kirksplat wrote: »

But, I guess what I'm saying is that the mechanics have already been put in the game, for the most part. It wouldn't need to be a huge expansion like a Romulan faction. Instead it would be a process of lvl a toon through profit margins, doffs, commodities, etc. etc. Maybe an additional weapons trafficking system or something.

Ferengi would have only one mission: profit in the existing sto universe. Their shinies could consist of special canes, clothing, or net worth.

I know what you're saying. And yes, I like it very much.

There's just a ways to go before such things are possible. How awesome would it be... if this game were that big?

jackdonner · September 2012

Ex: You can buy Saurian brandy for 20 ECs at SFA. They sell on the exchange for 5000 ECs each. That's a business opportunity for a Ferengi. It would be cool if he could level based on the profit margin of that sale.

Well, you just killed that business opportunity now that everyone knows you can get it at SFA for 20ec..

Making money on the exchange, and being successful requires you keep such things quiet if you want to make money.

*facepalms..

kirksplat · September 2012

jackdonner wrote: »

Well, you just killed that business opportunity now that everyone knows you can get it at SFA for 20ec..

Making money on the exchange, and being successful requires you keep such things quiet if you want to make money.

*facepalms..

*hangs head in shame and rereads the rules of acquisition.

azurianstar · September 2012

Short Answer: There is no Profit in the Ferengi.

Really, I agree with the merchant faction and Ferenginar as a base. I argued that point myself several times. We got transports in the game, they can go from world to world making money. Then it could involve a higher form of crafting, where the crafted items would be something specific to this faction, but would be in high demand by some of the playerbase like selling Accx2 starship weapons.

Orions could be the opposite of the Merchant faction in doing Privateering.

Also Ferenginar could be a major gambling hub, where we could do high-stakes gambling for Latinum (which is long needed), and maybe some of that Latinum could be converted into Lobi and players don't feel pressured to buy literally hundreds of Lockboxes to get some of those items (Cryptic, you know people aren't buying them like the clothing).

cusashorn · October 2012

Don't the Ferengi basically only have two ships in all of Star Trek canon anyway? The Maurader and it's shuttle craft.

bitemepwe · October 2012

I would like to think that one day the Ferengi faction would cover the whole idea of a nuetral faction made of Traders and even pirates, mercs and etc.

ltsmith · October 2012

Personally a Ferngi faction would be very intriguing, but it would be filled with too much exploitation and greed.

thecosmic1 · October 2012

I can already do a Ferengi Faction just by picking a the Ferengi race for Captain, stocking the ship with Ferengi BOFFs, putting them all in plain clothes, and keeping them in a T1 ship until I can afford a D'Kora. I can do the non-combat Missions, DOFFs, and play the Exchanges. I don't need Cryptic to add anything for me to do all that.

mithril2098 · October 2012

the Ferengi as a faction would be too limited in gameplay i think.

but perhaps the Black Market could be be given it's own sub-arc, similar to how you have the Diplomatic Corps material.

only instead of becoming a diplomat, you'd be carrying out missions for the black market (the ferengi, for independant traders, for the orion cartel, etc). these could be missions to pick up and deliver items, rescue/assist 'traders', and so on.. and a set of new duty officer missions.

unlike diplomacy and marauding, the black market gameplay could be available to both factions equally.

odstgeneral · October 2012

I don't really do to much on the economics part of the game, but what described makes it sound really exciting. I could see it now , players getting to use the NPC freighters as they start off and as their ship grows they get expanded inventory slots. Perhaps even a good reason to go back to crafting for many people.

I always kind of wanted to see an Eve economics type of atmosphere outside of Eve, and I think this would be the closest it would get.

notapwefan · October 2012

You can play Ferengi very easily in this game

1. Act like a Ferengi
2. Press Need everytime you play stf, fleet alerts etc
3. Don't heal anyone
4. Don't keep your promises
5. Announce that you'll start ground STF but actually you start space STF
6. whine about prices in exchange
etc...

age03 · October 2012

They went with the Federation as Roms son did so in DS9.There is still the Romulans,Cardassians and maybe Borg to do.

There could be Tholians or Andromedans and they could throw in some StarFleet Battle races like the Lyrans and Kzinti.

virgilpluton999 · October 2012

We already have Kzinti, they are called Ferasans for legal reasons.

age03 · October 2012

virgilpluton999 wrote: »

We already have Kzinti, they are called Ferasans for legal reasons.

What faction are they in?

mithril2098 · October 2012

age03 wrote: »

What faction are they in?

klingons.

and to elaborate on the naming thing, the Kzinti were originally a race created by Larry niven for his "Known space" series of novels, which are best known for the "Man vs. Kzin Wars" series of compilations (which are set in Niven's setting, but feature stories by other famous authors)

Larry Niven wrote the Star Trek Animated Series episode "the Slaver Weapon", which featured the Kzinti in the star trek universe. the episode was a partial rewrite of one of his short stories "The Soft Weapon", about a pair of humans and a Pierson's Puppeteer, who find find an ancient artifact from a prehistoric war, and how they outthink a group of Kzinti who want to artifact for themselves.

in the star trek episode, the humans and puppeteer are replaced by Spock, Uhura, and Sulu, and some of the background is loosely adapted to trek.

since Larry Niven holds the trademarks and copyrights to the kzinti, Cryptic renamed them and gave them a cosmetic overhaul to be a more generic cat people race.

CBS/Paramount had at various times tried to bring the Kzin back to trek (having enough money to buy the right to use the name and look), but Enterprise never got a 5th season and plans to do a CGI film with Sulu and the excelsior fighting against a Kzinti invasion never panned out.

kirksplat · October 2012

thecosmic1 wrote: »

I can already do a Ferengi Faction just by picking a the Ferengi race for Captain, stocking the ship with Ferengi BOFFs, putting them all in plain clothes, and keeping them in a T1 ship until I can afford a D'Kora. I can do the non-combat Missions, DOFFs, and play the Exchanges. I don't need Cryptic to add anything for me to do all that.

But in the end, you are still a Fed character, completely ignoring admirals' order. And you doffs are Starfleet officers. That makes no sense.

Seems like this would be the easiest way to add a 3rd faction, since Cryptic doesn't actually have to make story content to finish a faction, like they have to with the KDF.

anazonda · October 2012

Cryptic probably prefers to have that faction to themselves ^^

waveofthefuture · October 2012

I love STO, primarily for its economics. One can learn profit and loss, gains and windfalls, and the risk all without actual spending. A merchant faction would be welcomed, I think,

xenor002 · October 2012

Because that's the exclusive PWE/Cryptic faction.

chikahiro · October 2012

I would like to see Ferengi for Klingons, at least.

That said, while the idea of having more factions sounds appealing, having actual 1-50 content seems a bit daunting/unrealistic, at least for the near future. I'd personally rather see "seedlings" of factions put in along with some sort of faction-based meta-game. Think Risk or Settlers of Catan, or maybe more accurately Civilization or Alpha Centauri. Compete via economics, cultural influence, politics, espionage, etc.

The nice thing with Star Trek is many of the of the factions already have strengths and weaknesses, and thus natural affinities and antagonisms.

Now, how to do this in a not half-baked way? Errr... beats me

admiralbrad77 · October 2012

i was thinking, this may have even been suggested already but along with a Ferengi faction how about a neutral faction like for just crafter or traders that fly barges like for example Travis Mayweather's family in Enterprise???

azniadeet · October 2012

Ever since I got my Tuffli class freighter, I've wanted to see a civilian faction. I think it would be awesome to have a play style throughout this game that is a bit more focused on commerce and negotiation, than on battle and warfare.

kirksplat · October 2012

chikahiro wrote: »

That said, while the idea of having more factions sounds appealing, having actual 1-50 content seems a bit daunting/unrealistic, at least for the near future.

Well, the point of the OP was to stress that the content is already there. I'm not suggesting any story content. Cryptic can't do story. But, some kind of lvl mechanic could work.

Ex: The amount of XP is related to the profit margin of a sale. That's all the Ferengi faction would need to level a toon 1-50. If a Ferengi buys something for 20 ecs and sells it for 5000. That's worthy of a XP boost. However if a Ferengi buys something for 5 mil ECs and sells for 6 million, that's not really worthy of a boost, despite a profit of 1 million ECs.

khayuung · October 2012

...not another one.

The only way STO is going to have another faction, is to move away from factions in the first place. Have just Fleet based PvP, and allow everyone to attack everyone else should they declare war.

I don't know how that works with canon, but the mechanics of the game (and the aptitude of the devs) do not allow for proper management for yet another faction.

I'd much rather one have a third party faction that eventually has to choose between Starfleet and KDF. Its the best compromise we have. As such, all we need is to beef up KDF missions for 1-50, then have the new factions roll on the side they want once they clear their tutorial.

kirksplat · October 2012

khayuung wrote: »

...not another one.

The only way STO is going to have another faction, is to move away from factions in the first place. Have just Fleet based PvP, and allow everyone to attack everyone else should they declare war.

I don't know how that works with canon, but the mechanics of the game (and the aptitude of the devs) do not allow for proper management for yet another faction.

I'd much rather one have a third party faction that eventually has to choose between Starfleet and KDF. Its the best compromise we have. As such, all we need is to beef up KDF missions for 1-50, then have the new factions roll on the side they want once they clear their tutorial.

Why is nobody reading my OP?

age03 · October 2012

mithril2098 wrote: »

klingons.

They should be part of the Federation as that is what they are in SFB in the Alliance vs the Coalition.

Why Not a Ferengi Faction?

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