If you use a private chat channel there's no chance you can attract other people to the RP in the hopes of expanding the player base.
The problem with reporting the trolls is that I have never seen that do any good. I've reported some of the Dental guys so many times and they always come back pulling the same stuff again, and new ones pop up all the time.
That is the downside of a game that's free to play, it doesn't take any effort to create a new account, fit out a Lieutenant level toon (and in this case I use this word advisedly) and start trolling. There's no way the GMs can be on top of this unless they're actively present and monitoring the situation as it develops.
Also, changing instance is not always possible. I've often received a "no possible maps" error message when I tried. I would assume this is due to not enough people at that particular location at that particular time but I'm not sure about the actual reason.
If, however, players are given the option to completely ignore other players, including visuals, on social maps, nobody would have a reason to complain any more and this form of trolling would disappear.
That would then only leave public queue PvP and PvE mission trolling, really. I don't know what could be done to effectively limit that, but then that's an entirely different topic altogether.
Now, I realise your suggestions are not meant as a cure-all to the problem, they're ways of dealing with the situation in the limited way that is currently possible in the game. My suggestion is meant to eliminate the problem at its core.
Recently, trollers at Drozana station have begun shooting at other players, throwing grenades at them, exploding bombs... basically using all kinds of combat.
Previously this wasn't possible, weapons used to be disabled on social maps such as Drozana. I don't know why this was suddenly doable but it led to an entirely new form of trolling, as with that players could be disrupted away from terminals and even killed, forcing them to respawn.
Personally, I believe anyone who shot at other players at Drozana should be found out in the chat-logs, fined a large amount of in-game currency and banned for a month. Maybe that'll teach them.
Hello again everyone! Just a reminder the roundtables are tommorrow!
There will be 2 roundtable timeslots: one at 11am PST (8pm CET), and another at 5pm PST (8pm EST). We will be meeting up on Risa! See you tomorrow!
Definitely will try to be there. I'm excited!
Captain Steven "Sarge" DePoe, Senior Captain, Aurcanis Star Operations; CO USS Leyte Gulf
Captain Marida Harper, Co-Director 5th Armored Division; CO USS Infinity
Captain Gurrat Reen, member MACO 7th Fleet, CO USS Milwaukee
Commander Korn, General, House MeQ'pu'yay 7th KAG
Of course, they only know you're RPing if you use local chat, and it's much easier to not draw attention if you use a chat channel or other private channel.
That isn't entirely true, I know from experience and yes...it was Dental. :rolleyes:
A friendly reminder that our RP Roundtable discussion is in-game tomorrow on Risa at 11AM PST (7PM GMT) and 5PM PST (8PM EST). More info in the Guest Blog: http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=804761
Brian, do we have any plans for which instance we'll be using of Risa? In the event that different shards are created, will there be a chat channel to use?
Brian, do we have any plans for which instance we'll be using of Risa? In the event that different shards are created, will there be a chat channel to use?
Brandon* :P
We'll have more details once the event starts, but we don't expect there to be multiple instances of Risa. If there are, we'll use Zone chat to communicate more instructions
Can I just say that this roundtable has me gidd with excitement? I only get to see a small part of the RP community, and I look forward to meeting new people, as well as discussing new ways to improve the game.
Captain Steven "Sarge" DePoe, Senior Captain, Aurcanis Star Operations; CO USS Leyte Gulf
Captain Marida Harper, Co-Director 5th Armored Division; CO USS Infinity
Captain Gurrat Reen, member MACO 7th Fleet, CO USS Milwaukee
Commander Korn, General, House MeQ'pu'yay 7th KAG
Thank you so much for putting this on, it was wonderful seeing so many people show up and give their feedback and ideas. I really hope to see what comes of this and it happen again.
I'm very impressed in the fact that the RP community has received this attention. Thank you so very much!
Thanks again to The Trust, for putting this together. I was wondering if there had been any feedback yet from the Cryptic staff on the meeting's minutes?
I hope so, but as my fleet is fond of saying RL comes first, so I'm willing to give Cryptic all the time they need to read over the chat transcript and *mumbles* make an Aquarius-style interior for all decks like we talked about...
Just a thought! *hand hovers over his credit card*
Thank you to all who participated in the first Roundtable! It was an absolutely great turnout I've had a chance to read over the logs, and here are some of the takeaways that I'll be passing along to the team in a comprehensive report (NOTE: This is not a list of things that will/can happen, but what players would love to see happen):
Social Maps, Foundry Maps, and Ship Interiors
Players would love to see more social maps that can be used for RP purposes
Players would love to be able to make their own social maps in the Foundry that allow for more than 5 players, including space maps
Players would love to be able to create private instances of existing maps so they can invite, expel, etc.
Players would love for these to be cross-factional
Players would love to be able to create a bridge map that has no NPCs, so players can play the NPCs
Players would love to be able to toggle between Yellow and Red Alert while on a bridge social map (e.g. including smoke, shaking, etc.)
Players would love to see an expansion to the Starbase and Embassy interiors (e.g. more rooms, shuttlebay, useable holodeck etc.)
Uninvited Guests
Players would love to be able to ignore someone, but that person's avatar is also invisible
Emotes
Players would love to have access to more emotes, including those available in the Foundry
Players would love to be able to use other emotes while remaining stetted [if they make sense (e.g. thinking, laughing, pointing)]
Players would love to see chair tech added to all chairs
Players would love to have a swimming emote
Costumes and Avatars
Players would love more costume options (e.g. bare foot, swim wear, robes, trousers, etc.)
Players would love to be able to have more hair styles, etc.
Players would love more holo-costumes that could be used for PR purposes, or to be able to temporarily change race/shape for the RP exercise
Players would love to be able to designate a uniform that their crew wears on ship interiors
Miscellaneous
Players would love to have independent chat windows (i.e. the option to actually drag and drop the different windows out from each other)
Players would love to have more minigames to play socially
Players would love to be able to customize the look of weapons
Players would love to be able to create subdivisions within fleets (e.g. squadrons)
As you can tell, there were some great discussions that took place. If you were not able to attend, please feel free to reply to this thread with additional comments, including discussion on any of the above items or anything missing that you'd like to add.
We'll be announcing a second RP Roundtable soon, and we plan to have it towards the end of this month or the beginning of next.
Again, thanks to all who made it out to participate in the Roundtable and to the Trust for their awesome guest blog.
For those who were not able to be at the meeting, here is the expansion of what I myself put forward:
I was thinking maybe the holodecks could also be used for starting Foundry missions, maybe not all the missions, but the missions that would work best in such a setting.
And for the trousers, my thoughts were something similar to Jupiter made available to KDF. Since the default trousers are skin-tight, and the Korath is Zen only, and therefore character bound.
Kahless, Worf, and some of the guards wear robes, so I know it is possible for KDF to wear them. In addition, the gaurds wea them with the Veteran pauldrons, so such an option may please many of the Lifetime Vets.
The Mercenary Set would fit many KDF players perfectly, so making that cross-faction would encourage more and more people to use it. The current list of Zen Store stuff for KFD only consists of the Academy Uniform, and the EV suit, so the Mercenary Set would also liven up that page a bit.
The Roundtable meeting was indeed great fun! And Risa was the perfect location for it, seeing as how that beautiful planet often goes unused and wasted. Much thanks to Trust, and the other participates.
Console Emotes so when Rp on ship or station they can do more than just stand there and pretend.
This could just be a clickie but typeing shouldnt be to hard.
Could we get rid of the Klingons in the Bar on Bajor I feel that moment has passed and it has all clickie chair in there where as Quarks has none.
Definitely a "Typing at console" emote so we don't look stupid during RP when we need to interact with a console outside of story missions. It's already in the game as an action. Just make it an emote or an interact on consoles by click. Only by click though so we don't accidentally activate it with the interact key. I can't stress this enough.
Aliens. Aliens need to be truly customizable. That means they should allow for choosing ANY AND ALL racial "parts" you have unlocked on your account, including race specific clothes like Orion dancer clothes or Borg skin/bodysuit. For example: Gorn head with a Felinoid tail should be allowed for the Alien race, because face it, somebody could be crazy enough to come up with that kind of race.
Proud Pre-Launch CO and Pre-Launch STO Lifetime Subscriber.
Map Transitions:
Instead of just "beaming in" to ship bridge where such transitioning would not make sense, change Visit Bridge to a beam-in to transporter room from starbases, other ships, and planets. Also, when player is transitioning from exterior ship view to their own ship bridge, place owner's character in captain's chair without "beam-in" effects.
Sector space traveling while inside ships:
Allow for warp travel while inside ship. Sector Map could be integrated as a console on the bridge and would display marker of ship position on sector map. Selecting designation can move ship marker normally as is currently the case from sector space. This would allow group to RP from inside one of the player's ships while en route to group's destination.
Map Transitions:
Instead of just "beaming in" to ship bridge where such transitioning would not make sense, change Visit Bridge to a beam-in to transporter room from starbases, other ships, and planets. Also, when player is transitioning from exterior ship view to their own ship bridge, place owner's character in captain's chair without "beam-in" effects.
Sector space traveling while inside ships:
Allow for warp travel while inside ship. Sector Map could be integrated as a console on the bridge and would display marker of ship position on sector map. Selecting designation can move ship marker normally as is currently the case from sector space. This would allow group to RP from inside one of the player's ships while en route to group's destination.
Fleets should be allowed to invite other factions to their fleet bases....in the interests of diplomacy and the furtherance of knowledge and understanding of other factions...I understand there is an issue with npc but the guest could be given some sort of diplomatic immunity for the duration of their visit. [ a troublesome guest can always be ejected]
Sooooo jelly that CO doesn't have Devs who are interested in the Rp community..
Or well Devs to speak of anyway..
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
A leader of The Blackwatch Defenders
I have a couple of concerns about cross-faction. When we buy a ship such as catian something or other or the andorian... if it unlocks for all captains on one faction, it should unlock for at least the admirals of the otherside. I'd love to have my klingon in a Catian carrier. or maybe if we buy it in the zen market it doesnt matter what faction it is. also the klingons need offduty wear sometimes too.
If we buy a race, it should unlock that option for the other side.
I'm a life-timer, I get borg humans. But what about borg-other races?
more emotes in general, or the option to custom type emotes like many other rpg mmos. "/emote or /e whatever your character is doing" type thing...
I'm not an RPer, mostly because I can't keep a straight face while doing so, and often diverge into things that I find amusing, usually only leading to the real RPers getting mad at me. But I have an appreciation for it. This is a good article/video, thanks for doing it.
I'm curious, I often hear that STO isn't set up for RP, or doesn't support the RP community, but I never hear specifics. What are some things we (Cryptic) could be doing to support you guys better, without negatively impacting those who are not interested? Is there something specifically on the Environment side of things that I could keep in mind going forward? I'm always up for suggestions on other socialish places to include in maps besides bars/restaurants, but time/existing assets/lack of ideas often lead to more bars, etc.
Well, Tacofangs, while I myself am also not an active "group RPer" (busy, busy, busy in RL, and don't ask me to dress up in a tunic, phaser, and tights because I am too self-conscious to try it without a camera rolling and a paycheck coming in from CBS), please allow me to offer some Tiny Tidbits of STO goodness that could be added to the game for the sake of creating an appealing immersive experience. I, for one, can appreciate the subtleties of RP from an online-solo-playing (i.e. private) point of view, even if I don't jump right into the group RP dynamic (give me some time and maybe we'll see).
These may or may not involve simple fixes or mods, but are definitely good things to think about while going forward:
Tiny tidbits #1: Make the images of accolades into actual uniform badges that can be displayed from the tailor options (i.e. on formal uniforms) or selected in the Overview. It'd be fun to show off the accolades we fight for (or grind, as the case may be) on our uniforms instead of just in the character title (I'd LOVE to show off the Silver Star Award in-game!).
Tiny Tidbits #2: Change the "Go to Tactical View" from bridge, and the "Visit Bridge" from sector space, NON-transporter beam-in/out. Where am I transporting to? Space? Gack!!! Can't breath out hheee..... (you get it).
Tiny Tidbits #3: (Related to TT #2) Beam on board ships where one would expect to: the transporter room. We do it on ESD, we do it on Hathor, we do it on the Fleet Starbase... Why must we ALWAYS beam directly to the bridge? Why do our visitors do so, as well? At least make it an option toggle... you know, for those days when we want to skip the RP mystique and get down to STFing.
These are just a few ideas that I missed sharing at the last RPRoundtable (yes, I attend and contribute to the discussion even though I am a fringe kinda guy) due to Real Life stuff (University research on black holes, no kidding) taking priority. I will be coming up with more, though, so stay tuned!...
I wanted to share something, that I know was asked about in our roundtables. Their testing a multiple chat windown on Tribble. I took this from the Patch Notes.
Multiple chat windows are now supported.
To add additional windows, open the Chat Settings window and click Add New Window.
When I was involved with a "White Wolf" table-top rpg group, the first and up most important rule that existed was, "There are no rules for role-playing."
Whoever told you that was an idiot.
All table-top rpg rules books have a line that says, "Break the rules and use your creative expression." Its encouraged.
...in bad rules texts. It's a disastrous principle that held the hobby back for a decade; fortunately, modern designers are doing away with this nonsense.
Now the point of my intervening in this discussion is this: what a lot of you who "RP" seem to want is not very much like tabletop RP at all. Not that I mind; your fun is your fun and all. But I doubt you could get too much from tabletop gaming principles, and even I, as someone who greatly enjoys tabletop, do not want to see the common areas of STO monopolised with people doing things that potentially interfere with my fun in playing this, STO, game.
Second, "Star Trek" is science-fiction. Although there are real life concepts, the majority of the concepts are inventive.
Science fiction is supposed to based on at least PLAUSIBLE ideas. It's a free-for-all fantasy thing. Original trek had a bunch of bona fide science fiction authors writing its episodes, so it did rise to the level of being real SF. The later series, not so much. Not inteersted in getting into a discussion of their merits though, my only point is, SF cannot be cited as an excuse for "anything goes".
Comments
The problem with reporting the trolls is that I have never seen that do any good. I've reported some of the Dental guys so many times and they always come back pulling the same stuff again, and new ones pop up all the time.
That is the downside of a game that's free to play, it doesn't take any effort to create a new account, fit out a Lieutenant level toon (and in this case I use this word advisedly) and start trolling. There's no way the GMs can be on top of this unless they're actively present and monitoring the situation as it develops.
Also, changing instance is not always possible. I've often received a "no possible maps" error message when I tried. I would assume this is due to not enough people at that particular location at that particular time but I'm not sure about the actual reason.
If, however, players are given the option to completely ignore other players, including visuals, on social maps, nobody would have a reason to complain any more and this form of trolling would disappear.
That would then only leave public queue PvP and PvE mission trolling, really. I don't know what could be done to effectively limit that, but then that's an entirely different topic altogether.
Now, I realise your suggestions are not meant as a cure-all to the problem, they're ways of dealing with the situation in the limited way that is currently possible in the game. My suggestion is meant to eliminate the problem at its core.
Recently, trollers at Drozana station have begun shooting at other players, throwing grenades at them, exploding bombs... basically using all kinds of combat.
Previously this wasn't possible, weapons used to be disabled on social maps such as Drozana. I don't know why this was suddenly doable but it led to an entirely new form of trolling, as with that players could be disrupted away from terminals and even killed, forcing them to respawn.
Personally, I believe anyone who shot at other players at Drozana should be found out in the chat-logs, fined a large amount of in-game currency and banned for a month. Maybe that'll teach them.
There will be 2 roundtable timeslots: one at 11am PST (8pm CET), and another at 5pm PST (8pm EST). We will be meeting up on Risa! See you tomorrow!
Definitely will try to be there. I'm excited!
Captain Marida Harper, Co-Director 5th Armored Division; CO USS Infinity
Captain Gurrat Reen, member MACO 7th Fleet, CO USS Milwaukee
Commander Korn, General, House MeQ'pu'yay 7th KAG
That isn't entirely true, I know from experience and yes...it was Dental. :rolleyes:
We hope to see you there!
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
Brandon* :P
We'll have more details once the event starts, but we don't expect there to be multiple instances of Risa. If there are, we'll use Zone chat to communicate more instructions
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
Captain Marida Harper, Co-Director 5th Armored Division; CO USS Infinity
Captain Gurrat Reen, member MACO 7th Fleet, CO USS Milwaukee
Commander Korn, General, House MeQ'pu'yay 7th KAG
I'm very impressed in the fact that the RP community has received this attention. Thank you so very much!
Just a thought! *hand hovers over his credit card*
Thanks all for who attended again!
Social Maps, Foundry Maps, and Ship Interiors
Uninvited Guests
Emotes
Costumes and Avatars
Miscellaneous
As you can tell, there were some great discussions that took place. If you were not able to attend, please feel free to reply to this thread with additional comments, including discussion on any of the above items or anything missing that you'd like to add.
We'll be announcing a second RP Roundtable soon, and we plan to have it towards the end of this month or the beginning of next.
Again, thanks to all who made it out to participate in the Roundtable and to the Trust for their awesome guest blog.
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
I was thinking maybe the holodecks could also be used for starting Foundry missions, maybe not all the missions, but the missions that would work best in such a setting.
And for the trousers, my thoughts were something similar to Jupiter made available to KDF. Since the default trousers are skin-tight, and the Korath is Zen only, and therefore character bound.
Kahless, Worf, and some of the guards wear robes, so I know it is possible for KDF to wear them. In addition, the gaurds wea them with the Veteran pauldrons, so such an option may please many of the Lifetime Vets.
The Mercenary Set would fit many KDF players perfectly, so making that cross-faction would encourage more and more people to use it. The current list of Zen Store stuff for KFD only consists of the Academy Uniform, and the EV suit, so the Mercenary Set would also liven up that page a bit.
The Roundtable meeting was indeed great fun! And Risa was the perfect location for it, seeing as how that beautiful planet often goes unused and wasted. Much thanks to Trust, and the other participates.
My Ship Builds: USS Conqueror, HMS Victorious, HMS Concord, ISS Queen Elizabeth, Black Widow III
Click here to view my DeviantArt.
This could just be a clickie but typeing shouldnt be to hard.
Could we get rid of the Klingons in the Bar on Bajor I feel that moment has passed and it has all clickie chair in there where as Quarks has none.
Aliens. Aliens need to be truly customizable. That means they should allow for choosing ANY AND ALL racial "parts" you have unlocked on your account, including race specific clothes like Orion dancer clothes or Borg skin/bodysuit. For example: Gorn head with a Felinoid tail should be allowed for the Alien race, because face it, somebody could be crazy enough to come up with that kind of race.
Instead of just "beaming in" to ship bridge where such transitioning would not make sense, change Visit Bridge to a beam-in to transporter room from starbases, other ships, and planets. Also, when player is transitioning from exterior ship view to their own ship bridge, place owner's character in captain's chair without "beam-in" effects.
Sector space traveling while inside ships:
Allow for warp travel while inside ship. Sector Map could be integrated as a console on the bridge and would display marker of ship position on sector map. Selecting designation can move ship marker normally as is currently the case from sector space. This would allow group to RP from inside one of the player's ships while en route to group's destination.
All of these are good, but this is probably the most important. Even if the invisible avatar only applies on non-combat maps.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
I like both of these ideas.
Or well Devs to speak of anyway..
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
A leader of The Blackwatch Defenders
If we buy a race, it should unlock that option for the other side.
I'm a life-timer, I get borg humans. But what about borg-other races?
more emotes in general, or the option to custom type emotes like many other rpg mmos. "/emote or /e whatever your character is doing" type thing...
Well, Tacofangs, while I myself am also not an active "group RPer" (busy, busy, busy in RL, and don't ask me to dress up in a tunic, phaser, and tights because I am too self-conscious to try it without a camera rolling and a paycheck coming in from CBS), please allow me to offer some Tiny Tidbits of STO goodness that could be added to the game for the sake of creating an appealing immersive experience. I, for one, can appreciate the subtleties of RP from an online-solo-playing (i.e. private) point of view, even if I don't jump right into the group RP dynamic (give me some time and maybe we'll see).
These may or may not involve simple fixes or mods, but are definitely good things to think about while going forward:
Tiny tidbits #1: Make the images of accolades into actual uniform badges that can be displayed from the tailor options (i.e. on formal uniforms) or selected in the Overview. It'd be fun to show off the accolades we fight for (or grind, as the case may be) on our uniforms instead of just in the character title (I'd LOVE to show off the Silver Star Award in-game!).
Tiny Tidbits #2: Change the "Go to Tactical View" from bridge, and the "Visit Bridge" from sector space, NON-transporter beam-in/out. Where am I transporting to? Space? Gack!!! Can't breath out hheee..... (you get it).
Tiny Tidbits #3: (Related to TT #2) Beam on board ships where one would expect to: the transporter room. We do it on ESD, we do it on Hathor, we do it on the Fleet Starbase... Why must we ALWAYS beam directly to the bridge? Why do our visitors do so, as well? At least make it an option toggle... you know, for those days when we want to skip the RP mystique and get down to STFing.
These are just a few ideas that I missed sharing at the last RPRoundtable (yes, I attend and contribute to the discussion even though I am a fringe kinda guy) due to Real Life stuff (University research on black holes, no kidding) taking priority. I will be coming up with more, though, so stay tuned!...
Whoever told you that was an idiot.
...in bad rules texts. It's a disastrous principle that held the hobby back for a decade; fortunately, modern designers are doing away with this nonsense.
Now the point of my intervening in this discussion is this: what a lot of you who "RP" seem to want is not very much like tabletop RP at all. Not that I mind; your fun is your fun and all. But I doubt you could get too much from tabletop gaming principles, and even I, as someone who greatly enjoys tabletop, do not want to see the common areas of STO monopolised with people doing things that potentially interfere with my fun in playing this, STO, game.
Science fiction is supposed to based on at least PLAUSIBLE ideas. It's a free-for-all fantasy thing. Original trek had a bunch of bona fide science fiction authors writing its episodes, so it did rise to the level of being real SF. The later series, not so much. Not inteersted in getting into a discussion of their merits though, my only point is, SF cannot be cited as an excuse for "anything goes".