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The one thing that is missing from Star Trek Online is the Personal Element
cyberpunkfalcon
Member Posts: 125 Arc User
The one thing that is missing from Star Trek Online is the Personal Element. Contains TNG and DS9 Spoilers
Recently with LoR and the new FED Tutorial we have seen a small amount of what I am referring to but I believe that is must be expanded on.
Star Trek is more than exploration and Space Battles. Star Trek also has a personal element that comes from mini stories mixed into the main storyline. For example Miles and Julian's love for darts, Picard's unease around children, Diana Troi's on again off again relationship with Riker, Killing Voll's in DS9's computer systems, Poker night on the Enterprise, or Jadzia's love of Ferengi and Tongo on DS9.
These are just small examples of a large tapestry that made star trek all the better that just some space battle sci-fi.
In STO I've read that the development team doesn't make many different insides to the ships because we don't spend a lot of time in there.
The Commander of a ship with 500 crew has no one to talk to...
I think that combining these two lacking areas it could become something quite special.
Imagine if you will; going to your bridge and speaking to your bridge crew who might comment on one of the last missions you did, or your shiny new ship.
Talking with your crew in the mess and getting into little mini adventures about the lives that you command on-board. Everything from looking out for a missing data-pad, to helping crew member overcome his/her/its combat psychological problem, welcoming a new crew member (available when at a space dock maybe), or even breakup and discipline a fight in the mess when combat stress is at an all-time high.
Given that this is a war situation several themes used in the television series can't be used like families on-board, but there is a lot of material that can be used from the show and movies.
Tell us and Cryptic what you think and what other little on-board stories you come with
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Post edited by cyberpunkfalcon on
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Comments
Fantastic idea, no really... really LIKE that idea but unfortunately, this is simply beyond Cryptic's doing. I don't think they could do it and you need to ask yourself the question "How can I make money from this...?" if you cannot answer that question then Cryptic will never do it. They want maximum profit and not really interested in mechanics that they cannot sell to you. Its a shame because your idea is really damn good.
Cryptic is kinda boned no matter what direction they go in. If they add a highly scripted character, who we cannot change because that would break the scripting, then RP-ers who imagine their stories and write all sorts of bios for their crew get angry because there is now an element that is beyond their control. Case in point, I made a Cardassian because I got a galor in a lockbox. His crew is comprised entirely of Section 31 psychopaths with varying degrees of insanity. I would be upset if cryptic added stories to them, making them goody-two-shoes.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Let the department heads have their own tasks(Engineering could use some replacement warp coils, etc.) that they would approach their captain with if you talk to them aboard your starship. Make your Tactical department/head happy and you get a small +1% damage buff to your ship, or as an alternative, grant all tactical doff assignments a +10% chance of (critical)success, etc.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Yeah, just keep those heavily scripted TOR style companion systems out of STO. I like having a unique crew and not feel like I'm Jedi #235632 running around with female padawan #93467.
The worst part about that in SWTOR was when the crew mate you had with you on a mission started saying things as loud as they possibly could, which made things like immersion when in stealth absolutely terrible to say the least. That and the fact that when they started spewing those random dialogues on a mission everyone in the zone would hear what they were saying as though you were standing right beside them.
They were even apparently working in "same sex" love affairs but I never did stick around long enough to even consider checking that out...:eek:
I like the idea, it would add a lot to STO but like someone has already pointed out....unless you had to unlock all of these options with ZEN it will never happen.:(
How about CBS go to Bioware, Bethesda (I think Obsidian doesn't exist anymore) I was going to say "Totally Games" and give them to the license to make an ALL NEW Star Trek MMO. I would love to see Cryptic squirm.
The hypocrisy is strong in this one.
-- The Icewind Dale paradigm, where the party is basically a blank slate. Pro: You can build it how you want. Con: Giving the companions a personality is tricky, but it's generally unwanted by the playerbase anyway. The most recent completely straight example I can think of apart from STO is Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir.
-- The Baldur's Gate paradigm, exemplified by almost everything BioWare makes, with premade companions who are heavily characterized from the word go.
There's a bit of a scale in between them (ref: Skyrim, where companions are characterized a little and voiced, especially ones from guilds who have their own actual backstories and whatnot). I don't personally have a preference but basically you need to pick one or the other and stick with it, because that's the one your players will get used to and then complain when you try to do something different with it.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
No, you are just Generic Starfleet/Romulan/KDF Captain number 464645 instead
Truth be told I personally can't stand the social team elements of games like Dragon Age or Mass Effect. I've got better things to do then constantly talk with my companions all day so I can keep their unusually sensitive feelings in order.
In RPG's I prefer the lone wolf method, sticking to my own devices and doing my own thing at my own pace. So I suppose I am glad that I don't have to concern myself with crews in STO.
BUT that isn't to say it wouldn't be a welcome feature for those who do like such elements.
or, have one of the Doffs give it and lock them to one slot in the assignment, with special doofs giving unique assginments
eg: move the support anti-dominion agent mission to be given by Gul Tain himself
or Rai giving a mission about tracking down other Virinat survivors
for spoiler text use #1b1c1f
That would go a long way to improving the usefulness of the bridge crew.
I thought we where playing Star Trek Online...not Star Trek Consoler Edition...
what you realy need for real life drama within the game in much greater emphisis on fleet interaction.
a whole large part of the fleet rep system could be made only attainable if you have some regular fleet only teams doing pve missions together and regular fortnightly fleet meetings at your starbase with at least 10% of the fleet in attendance.
these social interactions are far more likly to lead to real life drama then anything you will ever get from in game characters.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
It could be a skippable option, or have buy-able background stories (to answer knucklesstar lol) As for the rest of the crew, especially on the Rommie ships, they are nearly useless in their current form.
BTW I did the whole Cardassian Section 31 thing too lol
This could avoid many of the problems people have with Tovan: the crewmen are inherently subordinate to you, they can be killed off or dismissed if that's what the captain wants. If you need a new character, you don't have to come up with an elaborate plot to introduce them like was necessary with the romulan boffs.
In some cases it might be as simple as giving a unique appearance, name and voice to an npc and having them be the designated cook or transporter officer, not really having an effect so much as being there for ambiance. This might annoy people who like to have single-species (semi-believable) or single-gender (infinitesimally improbable) crews, however.
Of course more missions (or mission segments) inside your ships are a must. It doesn't necessarily need elaborate character interactions. Just incorporate the the events ON ship more into missions.
Foundry missions are a good source for ideas on how to do this. Some of them have some fairly sophisticated methods of creating on-ship missions and interactions with characters.
EDIT: I guess I should add that it's not just single-species or single-gender crews that might be affected. Other specialized crews (like my own KDF captain who I decided is a conscript captain of a conscript crew of assorted aliens with no Klingons aboard) could also be messed up as described in the post above mine.
If they commissioned the collective of these forums by offering a "top 200" best back-story dialogues for 5000 zen and used those in game, there would be a very minimum cost. Likewise, having the 200 custom dialogues for your bridge officers would add a LOT of value to the game which would make the game more friendly to role-players that would eat up the many gimmick ships, uniforms, and vanity pets. In essence, I spent three seconds in this thought process of creating a profit from nothing, they could expand on that at least a day and improve it ten-fold.
This is true...after all this is an MMO based on a bunch of 1's and 0's. You don't expect a TRUE Startrek experience here do you? Perhaps RP or joining a "good" fleet can help during moments of solitude. Heck even with a holodeck you will miss the human interactions...No game will serve that purpose but true human experience.:)