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True Romulan Independence
flash525
Member Posts: 5,441 Arc User
Before I get started, I fully understand why Cryptic made the decision to lock the Romulans in with the Federation and Klingon factions; especially in terms of Fleets. I can't remember which Dev it was, but I remember reading a statement from one of them which stated that they may implement a Romulan Fleet System at a later date. That being said, I would like to think that one day, our Romulans will in fact be able to stand alone. Unfortunately however, I don't see this ever coming to light. From what I can make of their reasons, they don't add up.
I would like to ask the question though, to everyone else: Do you ever think we'll actually see a Romulan Fleet System, and a true independent faction?
In an ideal world (at least from my point of view) in 6-9 months time, the team will have evolved the Romulan story to a point in which they can stand alone. We'll have progressed and rebuilt the 'empire' to some position of glory and wont need the support of either the Federation or Klingons. Those two factions have a Fleet Base in the ETA Erandi Sector, why? Because they're at war. A Romulan Fleet Base can be in any of the Green Sectors, why? Because they're at 'war' with the Tal Shiar.
You'd keep your Boffs (though maybe allowing us to turn them in for specific diplomatic ones) and any equipment that you didn't get from your alliance (such as the other costume unlocks, or the other fleet weapons/ships) you can purchase for zen on the store.
Alas, the above question is the one that I'm here to get answered. It seems I've rambled on a bit though, heh.
Edit: I should note that although I don't appreciate having a Romulan Officer walking around Earth Space Dock, I do love the new faction and everything else about it.
I would like to ask the question though, to everyone else: Do you ever think we'll actually see a Romulan Fleet System, and a true independent faction?
In an ideal world (at least from my point of view) in 6-9 months time, the team will have evolved the Romulan story to a point in which they can stand alone. We'll have progressed and rebuilt the 'empire' to some position of glory and wont need the support of either the Federation or Klingons. Those two factions have a Fleet Base in the ETA Erandi Sector, why? Because they're at war. A Romulan Fleet Base can be in any of the Green Sectors, why? Because they're at 'war' with the Tal Shiar.
You'd keep your Boffs (though maybe allowing us to turn them in for specific diplomatic ones) and any equipment that you didn't get from your alliance (such as the other costume unlocks, or the other fleet weapons/ships) you can purchase for zen on the store.
Alas, the above question is the one that I'm here to get answered. It seems I've rambled on a bit though, heh.
Edit: I should note that although I don't appreciate having a Romulan Officer walking around Earth Space Dock, I do love the new faction and everything else about it.
Post edited by flash525 on
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If they made the game from scratch, yes they could have done it, but its too far gone as they have added a bit at a time to the point where we have a strange mix of cross faction and faction specific content. too much of the infrastructure is built around klingons v feds and now romulans have their ally to pick, its done. you cant undo that.
they can make romulans only missions but they wont want to as that will split the playerbase at endgame. yes they can make romulan starbases, but there are already romulans in other fleets so that mixture will stay forever. pvp will only become more integrated to simple red v blue.
they can move away a little bit, but not fully.
Though I think the real indication will be how many people play romulans as a main character regardless of alliance. If too few do they will leave it as a fraction rather than a faction.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
I live in hope that one day they'll be able to rebuild the groundwork one day so that they can rework their infrastructure.
Romulan Fleets wouldn't take away from current fleets. People already jump between Fleets.
Three-way PvP would be awesome though, as would PvPvE (if they could implement more of that).
If launch is any indication, the Romulans are very popular. It'll be interesting to see just how popular in 3-6 months.
I'd imagine the issue for a lot of gamers (especially the older); they've already spend loads of money on their FED toons, add to that they've spent countless hours grinding for two rep systems (not to mention the newest one). I can't imagine a whole lot of people being too chuffed about having to do it all again for a new character.
Short answer: no, it will never happen. They may make some changes here and there, fleet starbases, or maybe add three-way PVP eventually, but the Romulan Star Empire as a distinct third faction is dead and gone in this game's universe.
Then there is the problem with modelling the SB'ses and other holdings.
Extra weapons, sets and everything..
Will that be profitable?
If they decide to do it, i hope they will also allow to CONVERT the dedicated Romulan fleets to the new model, so we don't have to start from scratch.
Maybe. I'm sure they can add Romulan art assets to the Fleet system if they choose to do so. Allowing people with Romulan toons to create new fleets to make use of these new assets.
Will we ever see an independent Romulan faction?
Sadly, no I don't think we will. I believe it's already too late to make the Romulans a separate faction.
A lot of people have already joined pre-existing Federation and KDF fleets. What happens to those if the Devs decide to make the Romulans an independent faction? Will they be forced to leave their chosen ally fleet and start anew as part of a new Romulan faction? The forums would go into meltdown if they did that.
That would leave letting people chose whether to stay allied with the Fed/KDF or move to this new Romulan faction as the only option. By doing this, however, you are technically creating 4 Romulan factions (The RSE/Tal Shiar NPC's, the Fed allied Romulans, the KDF allied Romulans and the new independent Romulan Republic).
as all content would be cross faction, there would not be a problem with the fleets.
i only hope they would consider letting us CHANGE the design/designation of our fleet and its holdings IF we would declare to be a Romulan fleet. which we are, and i know there are already a few of them .
it could be a 1.000.000 Dill project.
long term they will be looking at how they can add a cardassian faction for example if adding romulans are a huge success. I kinda think if there was to be a 4th in the future they would need to make romulans independent. then maybe the cardassians get the same treatment the romulans have now.
also their decision against an independent 3rd faction is flawed massively. you can't divide the player base if you give 1 slot per faction. that's not dividing that is a choice and lets face it the fed do not need more people :eek: lol
If they were to make a truly independent Romulan faction then, cross faction content or not, there would be a major problem - All the Romulans who are in a fleet are already part of Federation or KDF fleets.
A truly independent faction means no more ties/alliances with the KDF or Federation, which means either letting those already in a KDF/Federation fleet stay there (essentially making them a part of the KDF or Federation) or force them to leave and join a Romulan fleet.
I can't see either of those options being good for the game, force people to move from their cozy Tier 5 fleet to start again at 0 will just cause way too much aggro. Allowing people to remain with their current allied fleet would just massively shrink the population of a true independent Romulan faction.
If cross faction content is the cure-all, then why not just go the whole nine yards and scrap factions all together? Let Romulan, Federation and KDF toons all join the same fleet.
Now let me explain why. STO is set in one year, 2409. The Romulan story line starts two weeks before the invasion of Vega colony (Fed tutorial mission) and links up with the Klingon Fed story somewhere around the Odyssey mission.
One year is simply not enough time to go from establishing a new home world with some semblance of Government and fighting the Tal Shiar to becoming an Empire. If STO were suddenly advance 10 to 15 years then and only then would it be viable story wise (completely ignoring the logistical barriers here) to see the Romulans as their own faction. My view is that the alliance with the Feds or the KDF (depending on your characters view point) is only a means to an end until the Empire is whole again and powerful enough to stand on it's own two feet.
surely if your faction leaves or ends alliances for what ever reason then you stick with your faction. if you really wanted to be fed you roll a fed if you wanted to be kdf you roll a kdf pretty simple really. if the roumulans had reason to believe the kdf or the feds was behind something not in the interest of the romulan people then yeah the romulan faction would have to unite and do what best for them. it is star trek after all.
if that in game means level a new star base so be it. just looking at the volume of people playing romulan i'm certain lots of fleets would have coped with any hurdles thrown at them.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
What i dont understand is, when they lock the Romis to other faction because of kind of an "alliance", your Romi toon can fly all ships of the other faction (for a huge amount of dil of course :cool: ) even the Z ship, why cant this toon fly an allied VA ship as well.
The Lor pack is useless.
It is to late for me as I already picked a side hopefully I can get out of it as an option.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
No.
Cryptic has already spent months or years of time and several million dollars building the half-faction that's in place - they'll never go back and re-work it all. It's simple business, and now that they've committed to the system that's in place, there's no economic justification to overhaul it.
Personally, I've been hoping for a 3-faction universe since launch, but Cryptic's limited budget, vision, or skillset hasn't proven up to the task.
That is not to say that fed and klinks would be able to fly each others ships, but through the rommie fleet they can team up for STF's, chat with each other, visit the bridges of fleetmates, hold event's together and so on.
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I didn't get much time to play durring the beta due to work, but happened to get four days off this week and made it to lvl 30 quickly... I chose to go KDF because I hadn't seen any of that content since right after launch, and everyone's complaining that it's a "half faction" lead me to think that I would see quite a bit of their missions -- - - - little did I know you pretty much don't get to see much of that content as a rommie anyway - since we pretty much have a full faction up to end level content.
but now I can't join the fleet my other toons are in, I can't include my rommie in my "which character has the best story/panty line parties" and so on. split factions are always frustrating to me in MMO's - either do the same thing your friend did - or you don't get to play with them.
B.S. - Rommies open us up for cross faction fleets, and it's about time we start demanding them.
Me playing UT2k4 (red guy) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz0DnP7wXnU
Exactly! Just like they did with the Klingons!
Oh wait ...
Uh oh
I think that is very possible. The thing is, Cryptic is a rather small studio trying to do big things. If you follow their track record closely, you'll see that they always walked the most secure and safe path for the game in order to keep it allive and make it grow. They are not fans of radical decisions, but rather work with small cautious steps untill they make sure the next thing they have in mind has no way of failing and is fool-proof in a way.
That said, if the Romulan faction is popular and establishes itself with a set population of players (which I'm sure it will) and if the game population keeps growing and more people play STO - it's very possible that we'll see a conclusion of the Romulan Republic's initial story where the faction is established and it doesn't need protection of Federation and KDF fleets to defend it's teritory.
Why? Because if the game population in STO experiences a steady growth in the next year, year and a half - it could make the devs. rethink their current position. Currently they don't want to separate and overspread their playerbase. It's cool. Like I said, Cryptic likes playing it safe in order to prevent issues that could hurt STO. I can understand that. But if STO's playerbase, let's say for the sake of argument, doubles during that period of time separating the factions might become viable to them in order to appease and bring more entertainment to their already grown and larger playerbase.
This (for me) would mean that Romulan starbases will become availible and the current fleets will get some kind of a special project that migh cost more than 200.000 dil (which I don't think will be a problem for a lot Romulan at heart fleets) which will turn the regular KDF/Fed base into a Romulan one.
It would mean that even if they decide to keep the 2-way PvP (although a 3-way would be awesome), they will make queues be: FED vs KDF; ROM vs FED; KDF vs ROM.
If this ever happened, it could overlapse with a level cap increase in STO and releasing Tier 6 ships. (Don't worry, Mr.Stahl already said that if they ever go the T6 route, they'll make all T5 ones upgradable). That would make the T4 and below ships so obsolete that I doubt there will be big outcry if Cryptic says: OK, so Romulans are separating, no longer using ally Tier 1 to 4 ships.
The ally Boffs and Doffs for me are the most cosmetic issue that could easily be resolved by changing the species, but keeping the professions and special traits.
I'm not saying it would be easy or will happen soon. But the question was wheather it is possible? Yeah, if there's enough will from both sides and evidence to support it, it is possible.
If Batman and Spiderman have a right to walk around ESD, then sure as hell my allied Romulan that cooperates on a number of missions with Starfleet has the same right! :cool::D