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Biggest Problems with the Romulan story
tachyonharmonic
Member Posts: 292 Arc User
So now that I've played through the Romulan storyline, I thought I'd share some feedback on some of the glaring issues with the LoR story. I doubt there's much that can/will be done for them, but that's what happens when you open up testing only a couple weeks before launch.
Firstly, Cryptic led us to believe that the Romulans would have primarily an exclusive storyline of their own. This is not exactly true. The new Romulan content only goes from level 1 to about 30, and according to the recent Dev Blog, it sounds like the Nimbus arc will actually be shared with the Fed/KDF, so it's more like 25 levels of exclusive story (half your leveling).
Secondly, many people such as myself were expecting to play as part of the Romulan Star Empire, even if we couldn't play the Tal Shiar. We certainly could have had a "rebuilding" storyline without gutting the Romulan Empire. Unfortunately we were told that no, that's not the story that will be told, instead we get to be refugees. The problem is that there's still a huge number of holes in this. People suggest we're not refugees, yet we flee our colony and depend on the aid of the Fed/KDF, using their equipment and their starbases. If I'm actually a member of the Romulan Republic, why am I forced to grind rep with them despite being a major factor in the "success" of establishing the new homeworld. "Hey that's the guy who found New Romulus and saved us all, let's not trust him". It doesn't make sense.
Furthermore, the whole Elachi and Tal Shiar parts seem forced together. They don't really work together during the story. During the colony invasion, the Tal Shiar seem out of place and would be better off if they were Elachi there too. The missions you do infiltrating or fighting the Tal Shiar have nothing to do with the Elachi either; in fact there's more of the Tal Shiar dealing with Borg than Elachi. This brings up another good point, the Elachi seem basically to fulfill the role that the Borg do, and it seems like someone just took a planned Elachi Featured Episode and shoved it into the storyline. I think Hakeev mentions the Elachi once in his diatribes, and there's only one vague reference to the idea that the Tal Shiar and Elachi are both associating with the "Masters", presumably the Iconians. Unfortunately it really just doesn't answer any questions. The Elachi might as well have been Borg for all the personality they have, and they are just another mysterious enemy with new technology that comes to abduct people and destroy colonies. There seems to be little resolution to the story as well. We destroy one of their stations and stop their invasion of New Romulus (you're welcome Romulan Republic, explain again why you don't trust me?) but after that it's simply "we won, the end". There's obviously more Elachi out there somewhere, couldn't we at least have had a reason there's not more of them coming? Did I miss it?
Most important is one of my major pet peeves with regards to RPG storylines; the illusion of choice. There are many points where Cryptic offers us a few choices but it doesn't matter what we pick. Some examples:
People have been able to make choices that have consequences in RPGs for a long time. Heck, The Old Republic is an MMO and has had meaningful choices in it for a year now. In my opinion, offering us what seems like a choice and then having the same result either way is a cop-out. It's not bad design, it's lazy design, which is worse in my opinion.
In the end, there are a lot of cracks showing in the seams where it feels like a lot of this content was forced together, like mismatched puzzle pieces. It feels like this was a formerly planned Featured Episode or two that got re-purposed into "unique" storyline content for the Romulans. If you're going to have us be integral to the founding of the Romulan Republic, don't have us hit 50 and then suddenly be untrusted by the Romulan Republic. If you're going to give us moral choices, or choices at all, make those choices actually do something, instead of just running the same result anyways.
I'm not happy with the direction Cryptic decided to take the game in, but if that's where we're going, at least give it the due diligence it deserves. In my opinion, fixing issues like the ones I've mentioned above are the difference between a good game and a truly great game.
Firstly, Cryptic led us to believe that the Romulans would have primarily an exclusive storyline of their own. This is not exactly true. The new Romulan content only goes from level 1 to about 30, and according to the recent Dev Blog, it sounds like the Nimbus arc will actually be shared with the Fed/KDF, so it's more like 25 levels of exclusive story (half your leveling).
Secondly, many people such as myself were expecting to play as part of the Romulan Star Empire, even if we couldn't play the Tal Shiar. We certainly could have had a "rebuilding" storyline without gutting the Romulan Empire. Unfortunately we were told that no, that's not the story that will be told, instead we get to be refugees. The problem is that there's still a huge number of holes in this. People suggest we're not refugees, yet we flee our colony and depend on the aid of the Fed/KDF, using their equipment and their starbases. If I'm actually a member of the Romulan Republic, why am I forced to grind rep with them despite being a major factor in the "success" of establishing the new homeworld. "Hey that's the guy who found New Romulus and saved us all, let's not trust him". It doesn't make sense.
Furthermore, the whole Elachi and Tal Shiar parts seem forced together. They don't really work together during the story. During the colony invasion, the Tal Shiar seem out of place and would be better off if they were Elachi there too. The missions you do infiltrating or fighting the Tal Shiar have nothing to do with the Elachi either; in fact there's more of the Tal Shiar dealing with Borg than Elachi. This brings up another good point, the Elachi seem basically to fulfill the role that the Borg do, and it seems like someone just took a planned Elachi Featured Episode and shoved it into the storyline. I think Hakeev mentions the Elachi once in his diatribes, and there's only one vague reference to the idea that the Tal Shiar and Elachi are both associating with the "Masters", presumably the Iconians. Unfortunately it really just doesn't answer any questions. The Elachi might as well have been Borg for all the personality they have, and they are just another mysterious enemy with new technology that comes to abduct people and destroy colonies. There seems to be little resolution to the story as well. We destroy one of their stations and stop their invasion of New Romulus (you're welcome Romulan Republic, explain again why you don't trust me?) but after that it's simply "we won, the end". There's obviously more Elachi out there somewhere, couldn't we at least have had a reason there's not more of them coming? Did I miss it?
Most important is one of my major pet peeves with regards to RPG storylines; the illusion of choice. There are many points where Cryptic offers us a few choices but it doesn't matter what we pick. Some examples:
- Tutorial: Telling the Lorekeeper how we got to the colony is a nice touch, but give us something for it (an accolade or decoration for our ready room)
- Spectator No More: Hakeev offers you the option to surrender and join him, but you fight him on either choice
- Spectator No More: Temer offers you to join D'Tan, but even if you say you don't want to be part of the war, you're forced to join. Then he thanks you for offering to help. Lame.
- Runaway Helix: Moralok tells you to surrender, but you claim the Tal Shiar is corrupt, despite no evidence and later being willing to hear them out.
- When you get to the Flotilla all of a sudden you're saying "I'm here to join the fleet" even if you didn't want to.
- Former Allies: You are given the option to trust Lortrix, but you then follow the same procedure as if you didn't
- Former Allies: When Lortrix is downed you can kill him or transport him to sickbay, but in sickbay he just dies anyways. Seems meaningless.
- Smash and Grab: We keep telling people that we're not Romulan Terrorists, but the second we don't find what we're looking for, we blow up a convoy of Cardassian ships, stating "Show them the true cost of crossing the republic". That sounds like a terrorist to me.
- Revelation (Hobus Assault): Talking to Taris about her role, do the responses make a difference at all?
- Mind Game: I understand we're going for a brainwash theme, but if you're offering the player other choices, at least give them some sort of reward or result for fighting vs. just going along.
- Blind Men Tell All Tales: Again we say we're not terrorists, but we're beaming down soldiers to give a show of force to the populace? Kinda shady
- The Undying (Cleaning House): Does it matter if you capture or kill Hassan?
- When you capture Charva, it's never explained what happens to her after that, she's just taken away. How about some resolution?
- Devil's Choice: Is there a difference between choosing "I won't let them build an army" vs. "Save who we can but we're on a time limit"?
People have been able to make choices that have consequences in RPGs for a long time. Heck, The Old Republic is an MMO and has had meaningful choices in it for a year now. In my opinion, offering us what seems like a choice and then having the same result either way is a cop-out. It's not bad design, it's lazy design, which is worse in my opinion.
In the end, there are a lot of cracks showing in the seams where it feels like a lot of this content was forced together, like mismatched puzzle pieces. It feels like this was a formerly planned Featured Episode or two that got re-purposed into "unique" storyline content for the Romulans. If you're going to have us be integral to the founding of the Romulan Republic, don't have us hit 50 and then suddenly be untrusted by the Romulan Republic. If you're going to give us moral choices, or choices at all, make those choices actually do something, instead of just running the same result anyways.
I'm not happy with the direction Cryptic decided to take the game in, but if that's where we're going, at least give it the due diligence it deserves. In my opinion, fixing issues like the ones I've mentioned above are the difference between a good game and a truly great game.
Post edited by tachyonharmonic on
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1) In the tutorial, Tovan has us do target practice and we run around blowing ships up. Later when we do Memory Lane, he is very concerned about the dead and doesnt want us to disturb anything.
2) The entire Elachi/Iconian subplots. Even as a long time player it was very confusing. One minute we are dealing with the Elachi, then suddenly we get back to Hobus and the Iconians, then that plotline vanishes until later during cutting the cord. And then vanishes. Hakeev's plan and motive is fairly muttled. If I were a new player it would make little if any sense.
You make some valid points about "choices". I would like more dialogue options regardless of how the outcome plays out.
For instance at one point you say "Dtan is an honorable man and the best thing since canned ale" . There is simply no option for any other opinion "Dtan is a deluded zealot" "Agreed Dtan id a fool but..."
Same goes with most Tovan interaction. Regardless of outcome there are no options other than agreeing with him or simply saying "Noted". Like when he says in his dopey voice "Im not Ok with this" there is not negative or reprimand choice. "I dont believe I asked your opinion Sublieutentant
This way, all three factions are now aware of an Iconian plot and the upcoming series and seasons will address what they are going to do about it.
During the tutorial there were long abandoned ships that you use for target practice. The ships you scan in Memory Lane are those that tried to escape during the Elachi attack and probably still contain corpses of Tovan's friends (I say Tovan's because I know that you didn't have any friends there.)
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
I kinda wondered about that. At the beginning of the story we're looking for a sister and a dad. I think we find them in the end, but it went by to fast. I may have unintentionally zipped past a screen because I think I just said, "There they are" in the middle of a mission.
I also didn't quite figure out- or at least I don't think I did- who the Elachi are.
As far as I can figure out-
Hakeev was a big bad, who wanted to bring the Romulan Empire back to it's former glory
Hakeev was part of- or leader of- the Tal Shiar
Hakeev may or may not have been working for Sela
- DStahl just said she was abducted, so I'm going with Hakeev was not working with Sela
To do this he wanted to bring back the Iconians
Somewhere along the way (before the Hobus supernova) he met the Elachi who were a lesser race, serving the Iconians, who are still around. (Did I miss how?)
Hakeev, with the Elachi, were attacking Romulan colonies to get more recruits for the Elachi fleet.
Hakeev was responsible for the Hobus supernova
The end of the Romulan arc brings all three faction's timelines together- in 2409.
- A new Romulan/Reman homeworld has been established
- The Romulans have dealt the Elachi a powerful blow
- The Fed (or KDF) helped the Remans deal a blow to Hakeev's forces
- Sela is missing, or was rescued by her allies.
- The Iconians aren't around, but they have powerful allies that are.'
- The Tholians are really interested in Iconian technology, which ties into the history of they beginning of the Romulan Empire (Way before TOS) for there own reasons.
some of the Elachi tech almost looks like borg tech. Or at least borged. As if Hakeev was sharing borg tech, from the vault, with his allies. Or the Elachi and borg have a shared history.
It almost seems like we have two big bads- the borg and the Iconians. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless eventually it all comes together.
I understand if that's what you wanted to do, but I feel like a lot of it doesn't really fit together. There's the discovery of the Iconian gateway and a vague reference by the Elachi, but I didn't really see much else. I didn't feel like the story had anything really to do with an Iconian plot or Iconians in general outside of finding one of their old gateways.
Its good the KDF was included in all of this... I was expecting it not to be bothered with lol.
End The Silly War Ser!
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Here's the big question: are they all going to do the exact same thing about it, and team up with each other while they do so? Or will they be given missions and stories that are unique to each faction, rather than the exact same endgame content for all three factions?
I'm sure some of that was my fault in presuming that one of them was a puppet of the other and possibly not paying enough attention during Installation 18, but the story flow was just kind of.. "Yay! We beat the snot out of Hakeev and the Tal Shiar!".. "Let's have ourselves a vacation on Nimbus!".. "What? Elachi are attacking us!? Let's go beat the snot out of them!"
What I mean is, each mission is a separate instanced entity, nothing before or after it alters it in any way, the only way for your decisions to matter across missions is to make several somewhat identical ones reflecting your choice, then somehow coding in something that records your player choices to choose the right one.
Also, even in-misson I don't think dialogue can be tiered based on decision, I think its just 'text, answer 1 answer 2 answer 3' - 'answer 1 goes to alt box 1, which leads to end' - answer 2 leads to end' - 'answer 3 leads to alt box 2, which leads to alt box 3, which leads to end'
The problem here is that everything must lead to the end of that text box if you want the character to move or shoot anything, and there is nothing that stores your conversation choices letting you pick out specific ones for a future conversation.
The only way it could be done is, each and every relevant text box would have a quick '(EVIL PATH)' '(GOOD PATH)' '(NEUTRAL PATH)' sort of thing that you chose according to what you're generally doing, then that would go down a branch for that specific conversation crafted for that 'decision'.
This would be the same way you'd make certain things happen based on path, before an event or consequence begins you'd click a console or something choosing your decision path.
Again this is problematic, as your decisions would have zero consequences, you could just jump back in the conversation and go down a completely different path because you can.
well, in SWTOR, your choices are actually irrelevant. It all is preplannned and linear and makes no difference to the plot (aside from earning LS, DS points) which option you pick. What it does do is give your character flavor.
So as a sith warrior, I might have an option that is pro-Sith, another that is Pro Empire and another that is neutral or more "good".
So regardless of outcome, my issue was that we are presented with no actual opinion choices.
It has been pre-determined what YOUR character thinks about this or that. There is little ambiguity or wiggle room. I am not even a big RPer and having my characters thoughts and motivations decided by someone else is bothersome, requiring me as a player to simply disregard chunks of a story I am forced to particpate in.
While I do understand the galactic wide effect of the Iconians and the Elachi and the need to Unite all the factions in an upcoming story arc, i believe that the way it has been approached has undermined the authenticity and uniqueness of each race.. The political climate between the Klingons and federation alone could make for n entire game ( or really long and fairly boring book ). As for the romulans? Admiral t'Nae is exact on in her platitudes regarding them.. Originally Based on the ideals of Rome ( which according to legend was established by Romulus and Remus: the Last survivors of Troy ) Their methods have always been patterned more along the lines of what was believed to be ( in the sixties ) the workings of the communist chinese ( please note the early fu man chu mustachios, slanted syebrows etc ) which the original creator saw as sneaky, underhanded, divisive, and oppressive ( ergo the Tal Shiar ). I can only hope that future story arcs allow for a re-unification of the Romulan race as a single entity under one flag. instead of having to face our own brothers and sisters from across a battlefield ( i.e. The federation has it's own story, The klingons Have their own story. We'd like Our own story too please ).
Actually regarding SWTOR that's not quite true. There are many places in SWTOR where you can either kill someone or let them go, become romantically involved with an NPC or keep it professional, so on and so forth. While the overall story is the same, they have built in spots that are totally dependent on the player choices, and those choices have lasting effects and subsequent stories.
As far as choice in STO, they keep offering us choices but don't make them do anything lasting. Each choice you make just pops up a dialogue box that brings you back to where they wanted you to go anyways. I'm not actually playing a role and making dialogue choices as much as I'm doing "press F to continue the scene".
It's a shame that there's a distinct lack of RPG in this MMORPG.
Now we have 3 distinct flavours of factions :
Federation : The idealistic democracy.
KDF : The conquering empire.
Romulan Republic : The refugees fighting for their new home.
If the Star Empire replaces the Republic... its only 2 flavours :
Federation : The idealistic democracy.
KDF : The conquering empire.
Romulan Empire : The conquering empire.
The Klingons and the Romulans would be just recoloured versions of each other.
So why diminish the KDF's theme with Romulans, when they can have another theme with the republic ones?
Another thing is that the Republic is allied with the feds, so they can take part in the Omega reputation STFs.
Now the Republic is allied to the Feds and KDF, and the Star Empire is against the Republic so that would make the omega force invitation unlikely for the Star Empire.
So there would be no STFS for romulans, nor romulan reputation. Nor Tholian reputation.
Actually, you're technically only looking for a sister. Veril never interacts with you again, not even when you find Zden (who, by the way, is dead by the time you find him.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Did that make the other allied nations "mere servants" of the British Empire?
The new Republic is allying with the other major forces in the quadrant, trading their technological superiority for the reinforcement Starfleet and the KDF can provide. They aren't "subjects" - they're allies. The difference is crucial, although in a military situation largely psychological (your superior in an allied force can issue commands you must obey, as when I took orders from a Canadian officer regarding operations of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff while I was in the Air Force).
I get that some folks really want to ally with the Tal Shiar. I don't understand it, but I get it - there seems to be a strong undercurrent amongst MMOs of people who want to play the Bad Guys of the setting. You can't. Get over it. If you must, adopt the same mindset as those who want to play villains in Champions Online - your character is in fact a mole, infiltrating the highest ranks of the Republic and the Federation/Klingon Empire, and secretly reporting back to your handlers in the RSE. But please stop trying to tell the rest of us we're having BadWrongFun. It gets boring quickly.
except we arent refugees, we have an entire quadrant of settled planents and colonies.
We DONT need a new home.
this
RSE is/was actually bigger than KDF space (canon)
do not tell me the whole ****e is ruled by tal'shiar?!? now and nobody fights back?
a story where a new leader forms an alliance of planets/systems previously under RSE and starts the fight for independence would be far more believable.
"Romulan Republic" as is is a joke imho. And i hate D'Tan from the heart.
I did not meant that they had no planets.
I said the romulan empire is the SAME as the klingon empire. Its the same thing with a fetish for backstabbing and green instead of honor and red.
Its the same story. Conquer this! For the Empire! Its the same feel.
Now refugees have a different feel then just another empire that is like klingons, just not the klingon one.
"a story where a new leader forms an alliance of planets/systems previously under RSE and starts the fight for independence would be far more believable."
That is what D'tan did. Except said colonies gotten abducted. And its quite possible the Tal'shiar rules the whole empire.
Except we're not talking about one operation, and we're not talking about allies banding together. We're talking about tentative enemies getting full mixing of crews and ships. If we were talking WW2, it would be Russian commanders taking day-to-day orders from American commanders, sometimes using American ships, with American crews and American officers completely intermingled with the Russian crews. Not exactly realistic to then say they're completely unique factions.
"You can't. Get over it." is what's known as a thought-terminating cliche. It serves no purpose other than to say "I win, you lose, stfu." which stifles discussion. Imagine when everyone was outraged over the dilithium changes and Cryptic had said "It's done, get over it". Do you think that would've gone well? Also, telling us to "role play" is a cop-out, in my opinion, an attempt to get us to shut up and make believe over what we see as flaws in the design. The reality is that despite what you think, nobody's trying to tell you you're having "BadWrongFun", what we're trying to do is register our grievances with Cryptic and get a dialogue. If you're bored of reading it well that tells me that there's a lot of people who feel this way, and feel passionately about it. Nobody's forcing you to read these threads, but this is the only place where we even feel we have a remote chance of having our voices heard. In fact, that's kind of what the forums are here fore. So rather, perhaps you stop telling us we're not allowed to voice our opinions and displeasure and try to get some of these issues worked out.
Furthermore, this thread wasn't even about letting us play the RSE/Tal Shiar, it was about the major holes in the Romulan storyline and trying to open a dialogue on that. The fact that it turned into a discussion about RR vs. RSE just shows you how much of a hot-button issue it is.
That's why it's plausible that the entire Empire collapsed after Romulus was destroyed - it was just too centralized. Moving the center is no help when everything that was at the old center was destroyed first. (In STO's storyline, that's probably why the Tal Shiar are running things now - they had forewarning, and were able to move all their important records and personnel to Rator III before Hobus ever blew.)
I'm sorry, but that is unrealistic to ask for. Like asking for all c-store and fleet ships to be given free to all players.
There is no canonical information concerning the true size of the Romulan Empire in comparison to the Federation. Star Trek writer/producer Ronald D. Moore has indicated that it is larger than the Klingon Empire but smaller than the Federation. However, in the Voyager computer game, Elite Force, the Romulan Star Empire is approximately two-thirds larger than the Klingon Empire, and is well over five times as large as the Federation, considering the Romulans' expansive nature. In the Star Trek Atlas, the Romulan Star Empire is about 1/3 the size of the Klingon Empire and surrounded by the Federation. Their territory has a spherical shape with a small tail shape extension heading to the Delta Quadrant. In the book The Romulan Way by Diane Duane and Peter Morewood set in the 23rd century, it is implied that the Federation's resources far outstrip the Romulans, and in any conflict, the Federation would prevail by sheer weight of numbers. Several other episodes and licensed materials such as the Next Generation episode Face of the Enemy and the video game Star Trek: Starfleet Command III support this, and give the indication that the force multipliers of cloaking technology and other such secrecy is the only way they can maintain an even footing with the numerically superior Federation.
system Lord Baal is dead
and im sorry you and a few others don't get that no true or die hard fan of romulans will like this RR
system Lord Baal is dead
You know back in original Beta the #1 forum post was name SECTOR SPACE MUST DIE, where basically the entire player base said how much we hated the lolipop planets...
The head guy - dstahl or the other one - came in amoungst the 100s of pages and told us that Sector Space was set in stone and would never ever change. shut up and deal with it.
Do you see any lolipop star systems today?
I recall that thread and think I posted on it
system Lord Baal is dead
No true Scotsman.