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ZT Strike's Review: Legacy of Romulus
ztstrike
Member Posts: 66 Arc User
25 years ago a disaster was unleashed upon the Romulan people like no other in history. In a matter of hours, nearly an entire sector of Romulan space was wiped out of existence. There the worlds of Romulus, Remus, and twenty-seven others met their end. With them, the lives of ten billion Romulans and an unknown number of the races the ruled came to an end. Since then the Romulans and the races they once ruled have fought through one trial after another, in some cases overcoming all odds and in others finding the greatest of defeats. Overall, on their path they have endured, struggled, and in ways surpassed what they were once before.
Now I am about to step into a chamber on a world that most Romulans call their new home world. To discuss and negotiate on items that will involve their future for years to come. While I recognize that the destruction of Romulus changed the course of events forever, I can't help but be overcome by the idea that what happens here on New Romulus will have an even greater effect.
What comes in the coming days and years only time will tell. My greatest hope is that all races here today will find a path that helps us all. However, that maybe wishful thinking.
- Ambassador Luven Gerren, Federation Diplomatic Corps, Personal Log - January 8th, 2412, New Romulus.
On May 21st of this year Cryptic Studios released their largest expansion to the world of Star Trek Online. Named Legacy of Romulus, it featured many new things that drove hundreds of thousands to log in and play. From new ships, items, abilities, playable characters, and a new look; it had so much to drive new and old players a like. Now that some time has past, lets take some time to review all of what has unfolded.
Romulans
To start we will examine the feature part of the expansion, a 3rd playable faction, the Romulan Republic. This new feature gave players the ability to play another great race of the Star Trek Universe. Voted sometime before as the most wanted addition to the game, many dreams and wishes were fulfilled with this release. Players could now take to the stars as the green blooded badasses in their mighty warbirds. With this came a fresh and bold new story line for the Romulan characters.
The Romulans themselves were very detailed in the options that they came with. Their appearance from skin to uniforms were as optional and in some cases more so than other races already in the game. This came with the new architecture of buildings, ships, and fluff that made the Romulans feel as if we had simply not gotten around to playing them yet.
The story line is well done, far more gripping and personal than the older ones. With many twists and turns, plot moves and devices, this story will keep you far more entertained than the previous ones. However, with this comes the first sad remark of the expansion, the story for the Romulans is short. Only requiring a max level of 35 to finish the personal story, it leaves the latter part of the game with a feeling of its not over. For the player, it means grinding out older levels or multi-faction levels that have been done time and again. For the story, it leaves of feeling of a job not finished, or worse a feeling that more is to come later.
Tovan
One of the greatest additions both to the Romulans and their story was the bold move of adding a very personal frist officer. Named Tovan, he is your companion throughout the game. He comes with voice overs for his personal parts of the story, and truly adds personality to a video game. He does fill the role of a tactical bridge officer, with great very rare abilities and the ability to customize him as you could any other bridge officer. Sadly, his greatest strengths brew into his greatest flaws. He is inadmissible as a bridge officer, making him permanently stuck with you throughout your Romulan game. This makes him a permanent tactical officer of your ship unless you spend the money to add more bridge officer slots. Also while debatable as a problem, not only you but every Romulan player comes with Tovan. This makes the Romulan experience less personal when in contact with other Romulan characters running around with their own copy of him. In some cases it can even feel like a bad attack of the clones game from the Star Wars universe.
Ships
With the Romulans coming into the game, so came their mighty Warbirds as playable ships. Beautifully done with skins, interiors, and characteristics all to their own, they were a very welcomed addition to the game. However, the warbirds came with little options and customization. Only one warbird is available for selection for each tier of ship, except tier V. Also, each of these warbirds comes with set bridge officers, making every ship act in a similar way throughout the game. While there are versions available from the cryptic store with a bit more options to them, it doesn't make up for the great lack of options or availability. Overall, most of the Romulan ships come off as being a one trick pony.
The Choice
The last part of the Romulans that I will cover is the big choice in the game. Upon completion of a mission in the early game, the Romulan player is forced to make a choice of allying with either the Federation or the Klingon Empire. This choice has no major effects to the overall game, only making events unfold differently for the player/character. This leaves an unrealistic feeling to the player, seeing Romulan players choose between two sides in the story line would likely lead to heated debates and possibly another civil war. However, these choices bear little, if at all on how the story and game unfold.
The reason for this was stated to be the enforcement of a "main" theam in the game, being that the Federation and Klingon Empire were at war. This theme being so poorly enforced that most players forget about it by the time their characters are passing level 20.
If the developers wanted to stick with a major choice in the game that would affect it for the entire span of the game, it should have been the far more practical and apparent decision of the player choosing sides between the Romulan Republic or the Romulan Star Empire/Tal Shair. While this is more of an opinion than an observation, it must be stated that it seemed it would have been a far better decision.
Federation and Klingons
With Legacy came not just new things for the Romulans, but a little bit of something for everyone. Primarily, the Nimbus Adventure Zone. Simply described as a planet overrun by pirate scum, your character will go there for a host of reasons. Coming out to be a few missions of a different favor than the other story lines, it is a good stop for any player both new and old.
The Federation didn't get much from the massive expansion, but overall doesn't need much to gain. Being by far the most complete of all the factions, it is debatable if the Federation needed to gain anything new to themselves. However, Crypitic was sure not to spare love from all the factions, even the NPCs. They gave the Feds enhanced graphics to some ships and details, a new hud that was designed for the Romulans, and Nimbus to keep things fresh. Overall though, many players attention was on the Klingons.
Klingons
The Klingons were an incomplete faction before Legacy was released, and the news that yet another faction was releasing angered many. Many felt that the Klingons were side lined and would not get completed. However, to the amazement and satisfaction of many, the Klingons were given a brand new start with many new missions. Now being able to start at level 1 instead of level 20, the Klingon experience is now far more complete. While some would debate that is was not enough, it can be said that many doors that were left open got closed while opening up just enough to keep major interest. This seems to be one of the greater successes in Legacy.
Reputation
Legacy brought the third reputation system to the game. This one centering around the Tholian Assembly. It added more small benefits, advanced gear, and adventuring. However, what can also be noted about it is the lack of why you are doing these things. Not much explanation is given toward why you are trying to stop the Tholians, or what they are doing. Also, there are even fewer and more limited ways to get the marks and items for this reputation system.
The reputation system is for late/post game. The other two reputations are the Omega and Romulan reputations. The Omega Reputation while being repetitive after a while, is very detailed in why you are doing it and what it is about. With great goals, rewards, and even story missions that run parallel to it, it is by far the greatest of the reputation systems. While neither Omega or Romulan reputations are new, I bring them up to show a contrast between them. The Romulan reputation more like the Tholian reputation being somewhat lacking in why you are doing the things you are. While it does clear up better as you advance through the reputation, the small addition to what lets you advance through the reputation still leaves it feeling lacking in some areas.
CORES
One of the greatest additions of Legacy was its introduction of the fourth major ship component, the engine core. These cores in some ways greatly changed how the ship can/does function as a whole. The engine core has always been a major piece of starships in the Star Trek universe, but until Legacy its role was taken up by the impulse engine. Now we have gained this piece of hardware and the from first account it has much promise.
Warp Cores
The Federation and Klingons gained the famous Warp Core. It being the powerhouse of the ship in the Star Trek universe. In the game, it does reflect this in a minor degree and opens many doors. However, many of these doors were merely opened and not explored. In the early game, the warp core does affect your travel speed at warp. Later in the game though, the advanced impulse engines still dominate travel at high warp speeds. This seems to be part of a conversion that was only started and not finished. Another problem with Warp Cores is how little they can actually do, only the Very Rare ones have 4 bonuses giving some new utility. However, this can be coupled with power levels now being set at a minimum power of 15 instead of the prior 25 and redundant/useless warp core abilities in some instances leaving the warp core seeming like it actually hurts the player after introduction. Yet another problem with warp cores is that lack ability in getting them. Upon release and yet still, there are no special warp cores. Many items in the game come in special bundles or sets, which can give extra bonuses and abilities for having the set. However, Warp Cores didn't get a single special set/bundle version. To make this problem even worse, getting warp cores via crafting or standard rewards is almost nonexistent. Warp Cores were not even added into crafting, and through rewards you could only get a handful of junky warp cores to bluster your ship. This has left all of the good/decent warp cores only being obtainable via random drops from events and missions. These good cores can be traded between players at heavily inflated prices, but overall they don't seem to be worth the trouble the brought with them.
Singularity Cores
Singularity Cores were the second type of engine core put into the game. These are cores that can only be used by Romulan Warbirds. These cores were actually the reason engine cores were put into the game. Unfortunately, almost every problem the Warp Cores have is as bad or worse with the Singularity Cores. However, the big difference being that the Singularity cores in some/many ways make up for these problems. This core comes with abilities that get stronger as you fight in combat. These are used for many things in combination with what your ship already does/can do. In contrast to the Warp Core, the Singularity Core is far better suited for the game. However, the defining difference between the two cores is that the Singularity Core Generates forty less points of power in static condition. This is somewhat fixed as the core powers up in combat, but it maybe too high a price to pay.
Overall, the Engine Cores seemed like a great idea that got put in the game before its time. With so much seeming like it is unfinished or underdone, the Engine Core from my observation and personal opinion seems to be the greatest fault of Legacy.
Release
Legacy released around 12pm PST of May 21st as mostly scheduled. However, upon release problems started quickly and grew very fast. Servers became overloaded, first being that people were waiting hours for ten gigs of new files. Then for the first time ever in game history the servers filled beyond what they could handle. While Ques would reach thirty thousand people, the reality was that an estimated fifty to seventy thousand people could not enter the game. This, coupled with many glitches forced Cryptic to make many sudden/unscheduled maintenance times for nearly two weeks. While the Ques issues was actually solved in the first few days, it is not clear how much of it was the work of Cryptic and how much it was of people losing interest. On another note, the glitches were admitted to be sidelined until a later date. Most were resolved about 2 weeks later, but some still persist as of this review.
Conclusion
Overall Legacy of Romulus was/is a massive expansion to the world of Star Trek Online. Adding a new playable faction, fixing holes in another faction, and bringing a whole new look to the game has given it a great overhaul. Also given new abilities and gear has made the game more expansive and fun. However, the aim of Legacy seems to be its greatest weakness and fault. It unleashed so much, up to the point that after some examination it gives an overall feeling of a job not finished. Some of Legacy is done well from start to finish. However, most of its content seems unfinished, underdeveloped, and in cases like it just came off the drawing boards.
Personally I like most of the Legacy, and hate to give the overall tone I have to such hardwork and effort of the people at Cryptic. However, I won't deny that I have given a decently negative review of the work of the Cryptic team. I can only say personally, that I hope many lessons have been learned. While the real world is harsh in its day to day deals, I send my best wishes to the team at Cryptic and hope for a great launch of Season 8 come late fall. Until then I will see you all in game.
My overall score of Star Trek Online, Legacy of Romulus is 3/5.
Now I am about to step into a chamber on a world that most Romulans call their new home world. To discuss and negotiate on items that will involve their future for years to come. While I recognize that the destruction of Romulus changed the course of events forever, I can't help but be overcome by the idea that what happens here on New Romulus will have an even greater effect.
What comes in the coming days and years only time will tell. My greatest hope is that all races here today will find a path that helps us all. However, that maybe wishful thinking.
- Ambassador Luven Gerren, Federation Diplomatic Corps, Personal Log - January 8th, 2412, New Romulus.
On May 21st of this year Cryptic Studios released their largest expansion to the world of Star Trek Online. Named Legacy of Romulus, it featured many new things that drove hundreds of thousands to log in and play. From new ships, items, abilities, playable characters, and a new look; it had so much to drive new and old players a like. Now that some time has past, lets take some time to review all of what has unfolded.
Romulans
To start we will examine the feature part of the expansion, a 3rd playable faction, the Romulan Republic. This new feature gave players the ability to play another great race of the Star Trek Universe. Voted sometime before as the most wanted addition to the game, many dreams and wishes were fulfilled with this release. Players could now take to the stars as the green blooded badasses in their mighty warbirds. With this came a fresh and bold new story line for the Romulan characters.
The Romulans themselves were very detailed in the options that they came with. Their appearance from skin to uniforms were as optional and in some cases more so than other races already in the game. This came with the new architecture of buildings, ships, and fluff that made the Romulans feel as if we had simply not gotten around to playing them yet.
The story line is well done, far more gripping and personal than the older ones. With many twists and turns, plot moves and devices, this story will keep you far more entertained than the previous ones. However, with this comes the first sad remark of the expansion, the story for the Romulans is short. Only requiring a max level of 35 to finish the personal story, it leaves the latter part of the game with a feeling of its not over. For the player, it means grinding out older levels or multi-faction levels that have been done time and again. For the story, it leaves of feeling of a job not finished, or worse a feeling that more is to come later.
Tovan
One of the greatest additions both to the Romulans and their story was the bold move of adding a very personal frist officer. Named Tovan, he is your companion throughout the game. He comes with voice overs for his personal parts of the story, and truly adds personality to a video game. He does fill the role of a tactical bridge officer, with great very rare abilities and the ability to customize him as you could any other bridge officer. Sadly, his greatest strengths brew into his greatest flaws. He is inadmissible as a bridge officer, making him permanently stuck with you throughout your Romulan game. This makes him a permanent tactical officer of your ship unless you spend the money to add more bridge officer slots. Also while debatable as a problem, not only you but every Romulan player comes with Tovan. This makes the Romulan experience less personal when in contact with other Romulan characters running around with their own copy of him. In some cases it can even feel like a bad attack of the clones game from the Star Wars universe.
Ships
With the Romulans coming into the game, so came their mighty Warbirds as playable ships. Beautifully done with skins, interiors, and characteristics all to their own, they were a very welcomed addition to the game. However, the warbirds came with little options and customization. Only one warbird is available for selection for each tier of ship, except tier V. Also, each of these warbirds comes with set bridge officers, making every ship act in a similar way throughout the game. While there are versions available from the cryptic store with a bit more options to them, it doesn't make up for the great lack of options or availability. Overall, most of the Romulan ships come off as being a one trick pony.
The Choice
The last part of the Romulans that I will cover is the big choice in the game. Upon completion of a mission in the early game, the Romulan player is forced to make a choice of allying with either the Federation or the Klingon Empire. This choice has no major effects to the overall game, only making events unfold differently for the player/character. This leaves an unrealistic feeling to the player, seeing Romulan players choose between two sides in the story line would likely lead to heated debates and possibly another civil war. However, these choices bear little, if at all on how the story and game unfold.
The reason for this was stated to be the enforcement of a "main" theam in the game, being that the Federation and Klingon Empire were at war. This theme being so poorly enforced that most players forget about it by the time their characters are passing level 20.
If the developers wanted to stick with a major choice in the game that would affect it for the entire span of the game, it should have been the far more practical and apparent decision of the player choosing sides between the Romulan Republic or the Romulan Star Empire/Tal Shair. While this is more of an opinion than an observation, it must be stated that it seemed it would have been a far better decision.
Federation and Klingons
With Legacy came not just new things for the Romulans, but a little bit of something for everyone. Primarily, the Nimbus Adventure Zone. Simply described as a planet overrun by pirate scum, your character will go there for a host of reasons. Coming out to be a few missions of a different favor than the other story lines, it is a good stop for any player both new and old.
The Federation didn't get much from the massive expansion, but overall doesn't need much to gain. Being by far the most complete of all the factions, it is debatable if the Federation needed to gain anything new to themselves. However, Crypitic was sure not to spare love from all the factions, even the NPCs. They gave the Feds enhanced graphics to some ships and details, a new hud that was designed for the Romulans, and Nimbus to keep things fresh. Overall though, many players attention was on the Klingons.
Klingons
The Klingons were an incomplete faction before Legacy was released, and the news that yet another faction was releasing angered many. Many felt that the Klingons were side lined and would not get completed. However, to the amazement and satisfaction of many, the Klingons were given a brand new start with many new missions. Now being able to start at level 1 instead of level 20, the Klingon experience is now far more complete. While some would debate that is was not enough, it can be said that many doors that were left open got closed while opening up just enough to keep major interest. This seems to be one of the greater successes in Legacy.
Reputation
Legacy brought the third reputation system to the game. This one centering around the Tholian Assembly. It added more small benefits, advanced gear, and adventuring. However, what can also be noted about it is the lack of why you are doing these things. Not much explanation is given toward why you are trying to stop the Tholians, or what they are doing. Also, there are even fewer and more limited ways to get the marks and items for this reputation system.
The reputation system is for late/post game. The other two reputations are the Omega and Romulan reputations. The Omega Reputation while being repetitive after a while, is very detailed in why you are doing it and what it is about. With great goals, rewards, and even story missions that run parallel to it, it is by far the greatest of the reputation systems. While neither Omega or Romulan reputations are new, I bring them up to show a contrast between them. The Romulan reputation more like the Tholian reputation being somewhat lacking in why you are doing the things you are. While it does clear up better as you advance through the reputation, the small addition to what lets you advance through the reputation still leaves it feeling lacking in some areas.
CORES
One of the greatest additions of Legacy was its introduction of the fourth major ship component, the engine core. These cores in some ways greatly changed how the ship can/does function as a whole. The engine core has always been a major piece of starships in the Star Trek universe, but until Legacy its role was taken up by the impulse engine. Now we have gained this piece of hardware and the from first account it has much promise.
Warp Cores
The Federation and Klingons gained the famous Warp Core. It being the powerhouse of the ship in the Star Trek universe. In the game, it does reflect this in a minor degree and opens many doors. However, many of these doors were merely opened and not explored. In the early game, the warp core does affect your travel speed at warp. Later in the game though, the advanced impulse engines still dominate travel at high warp speeds. This seems to be part of a conversion that was only started and not finished. Another problem with Warp Cores is how little they can actually do, only the Very Rare ones have 4 bonuses giving some new utility. However, this can be coupled with power levels now being set at a minimum power of 15 instead of the prior 25 and redundant/useless warp core abilities in some instances leaving the warp core seeming like it actually hurts the player after introduction. Yet another problem with warp cores is that lack ability in getting them. Upon release and yet still, there are no special warp cores. Many items in the game come in special bundles or sets, which can give extra bonuses and abilities for having the set. However, Warp Cores didn't get a single special set/bundle version. To make this problem even worse, getting warp cores via crafting or standard rewards is almost nonexistent. Warp Cores were not even added into crafting, and through rewards you could only get a handful of junky warp cores to bluster your ship. This has left all of the good/decent warp cores only being obtainable via random drops from events and missions. These good cores can be traded between players at heavily inflated prices, but overall they don't seem to be worth the trouble the brought with them.
Singularity Cores
Singularity Cores were the second type of engine core put into the game. These are cores that can only be used by Romulan Warbirds. These cores were actually the reason engine cores were put into the game. Unfortunately, almost every problem the Warp Cores have is as bad or worse with the Singularity Cores. However, the big difference being that the Singularity cores in some/many ways make up for these problems. This core comes with abilities that get stronger as you fight in combat. These are used for many things in combination with what your ship already does/can do. In contrast to the Warp Core, the Singularity Core is far better suited for the game. However, the defining difference between the two cores is that the Singularity Core Generates forty less points of power in static condition. This is somewhat fixed as the core powers up in combat, but it maybe too high a price to pay.
Overall, the Engine Cores seemed like a great idea that got put in the game before its time. With so much seeming like it is unfinished or underdone, the Engine Core from my observation and personal opinion seems to be the greatest fault of Legacy.
Release
Legacy released around 12pm PST of May 21st as mostly scheduled. However, upon release problems started quickly and grew very fast. Servers became overloaded, first being that people were waiting hours for ten gigs of new files. Then for the first time ever in game history the servers filled beyond what they could handle. While Ques would reach thirty thousand people, the reality was that an estimated fifty to seventy thousand people could not enter the game. This, coupled with many glitches forced Cryptic to make many sudden/unscheduled maintenance times for nearly two weeks. While the Ques issues was actually solved in the first few days, it is not clear how much of it was the work of Cryptic and how much it was of people losing interest. On another note, the glitches were admitted to be sidelined until a later date. Most were resolved about 2 weeks later, but some still persist as of this review.
Conclusion
Overall Legacy of Romulus was/is a massive expansion to the world of Star Trek Online. Adding a new playable faction, fixing holes in another faction, and bringing a whole new look to the game has given it a great overhaul. Also given new abilities and gear has made the game more expansive and fun. However, the aim of Legacy seems to be its greatest weakness and fault. It unleashed so much, up to the point that after some examination it gives an overall feeling of a job not finished. Some of Legacy is done well from start to finish. However, most of its content seems unfinished, underdeveloped, and in cases like it just came off the drawing boards.
Personally I like most of the Legacy, and hate to give the overall tone I have to such hardwork and effort of the people at Cryptic. However, I won't deny that I have given a decently negative review of the work of the Cryptic team. I can only say personally, that I hope many lessons have been learned. While the real world is harsh in its day to day deals, I send my best wishes to the team at Cryptic and hope for a great launch of Season 8 come late fall. Until then I will see you all in game.
My overall score of Star Trek Online, Legacy of Romulus is 3/5.
-ZT Strike
"Come play STO free-to-pay! Lag'yer TRIBBLE off and get a migrane!! Yeehaa!":eek:
Post edited by ztstrike on
0
Comments
I have no intention of discussion or debate over the subject matter that I have posted. Most of it is left to perspective and opinion. That is where I intend to leave it. I made this post to express my many thoughts on the subject and to share them with you. I hope you find my thoughts of merit and worth interest.
Best Wishes, ZT Strike.
However, with the exception of the D'Deridex, it's one hell of a trick! (I think I might even stick with my Mogai until I reach Subadmiral this time - the weapons layout of the D'Deridex isn't that much better, and the thing handles like a cow on skates.)
Yeah, I'm thinking about going back to my Valdore. I'm learning to hate my D'Dawhale.
Same goes for singularity cores.
I agree with that. Like I always say its this huge gripping plotline full of twists turns emotional strife you feel with the romulans hate the tal shiar for making you do horrible things, and fight for your people's freedom.............Then admiral fifties-hair comes and orders you to kill ten cardassians that have no bearing on you.
Like I also say, No matter what faction you choose, you wind up helping the federation.
I also felt Nimbus missions should have been just part of the romulan plot. A: Tovan's voice sounds over your first officer no matter what faction...or gender..... they are. B: you rescue his sister, and if that's not done by his romulan captain it makes his whole plotline of finding her anti-climactic. C: why would gorn nausicaan and Orion players want to kill gorns nausicaans and Orions? Its kinda goofy to me.
I can expand on a few points with my own personal thoughts, such as:
Romulan Leveling Process
This was probably the high point of the expansion for me (if one of the only high points), I was actually shocked to be experiencing a really well put together story with missions that felt diverse and fun to play (given Cryptic's track record). However it is a shame though that this all abruptly ends at around level 35 or so, with a mission that is clearly too heavy for the game's engine to function as intended. Another thing that hit me was how I wish more story attention such as this went into the federation side, since this is were most of the game's attraction lies.
Romulan Ships
One of the serious low points for me was seeing how few amount of Romulan ships we have to chose from, especially when almost an equal amount have been added to the Z-Store (for the usual overpriced amount). I mean sure you can choose to use either the Federation's or Klingon's side vessels, but at such a steep dilithium price (which needs to be scrapped), It just ends up hurting the Romulan experience.
Bugs, bugs, and more bugs
Honestly I have never seen Star Trek Online in such a messed up state.
Don't expand the game if it is going to break what you already have in place!
Overall this expansion comes off as broken and unfinished, which is a shame because what little is there for the Romulans is actually quite good.
Its not that I think the Cores can't be useful, as much as it is that I think they should do more.
Oh so true!