Why people hope for a Cardassian faction when the general direction is the Delta Quadrant, is beyond me.
As for voice actors: Jeffrey Combs and Tim Russ please. Kate Mulgrew would be very welcome too. Say what you will about Janeway but her voice is badass.
Marc Alaimo is a great VA. Loved him as Ray McCall in the Call of Juarez games.
The big ones, i.e. Shatner, Stewart or Spiner are probably too expensive.
I really do hope that they are going to release a new faction such as Cardassian or Liberated Borg.
It will be no problem to make new ships for these factions. Quite awesome to moving around in the Delta quadrant sectors with a Borg cube, sphere or the diamond.
If it will be the Cardassian and possibly together with the Jem'Hadar, Vorta, The Founder and the Breen.
We have the ships now for that part to make a Cardassian faction. Maybe they will share the part with the Iconian and the Dyson sphere.
I hate to say this but now we have the Dyson sphere with the Voth that take place in the Delta quadrant then they don't do yet the Gamma quadrant.
I suspect we will hear the next voice over for the Delta quadrant and it will be for example Jeri Ryan and many more from Star Trek Voyager.
But anything can change for next year.
I hope we get the Constellation class for the 4th anniversary.
how many times have i seen people suggest a cardassian playable then fall flat on their face with jem'hadar, vorta, breen and founders. if there was a new cardassian playable the last thing the new democratic cardassian government wants is to bring back the very thing they are trying to prevent. its not likely either the trueway would be playable as they are a terrorist group.
you also won't see borg involved as a playable unless its hugh's borg and maybe Axum/Korak's rebels together. but even these are only few in number, probably not enough to become dependent on cubes as these typically carry upwards of 50,000 drones or more and to carry too few liberated borg would invite intruders to set up a small camp in a virtually abandoned area of the cube. no, besides cubes in player hands would be way too op as well as too big. spheres are a possibility like interceptors, probes, scout cubes and such.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I think the game has enough branches already to create not 1 but 2 or 3 individual races with their own individual characteristics without having to be dependent of Fed and Kling ons
It is time for Romulans to be on their own, it is time for Cardassians to be on their own and it is time for some race from the Delta Quadrant to be in its own. I would like to see the Otto race develop on its own using their proxies Jem'Hadar etc etc
Seek and ye shall find. Ask and ye shall receive. Rabboni
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" (Benjamin Franklin).
Most unexpectedly, this turned into a flame-fest! Closed it goes!. /sigh What flamefestery is this? pwlaughingtrendy
That "Reflection" was kind of funny to read. The Romulan implementation doesn't count as a faction for me being tied to the Federation and Klingon's but the expansion of the STO map by a new sector was nice addition. That and the other carefully hand picked nods aside, the letter seems to reinforce all of what the dev team seems to acknowledge. All I saw was, we did good here, but when it comes to where improvement is severely needed, there is a complete lack of acknowledgement. Thinking about a letter of "Reflections" from the players to the STO team (please, someone do this), I wonder how the reality of this past year would really be received. The list of bugs continues to grow into astronomical proportions, grind after grind added with very little actual story content, and a particular person from the STO team (who I won't name) attacking the players consistently just to point out a few. Is ignorance really that blissful?
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2013 has been by far the best year for STO thus far, and to all the Devs and everyone at Cryptic / PWE thank you, thank you, thank you.
That said let us not forget that STO also lost one of it's shining stars, by this I mean Mark Valentine. Mark's death has left an empty hole for the game.
Please, please, please when you all are with your families and loved ones this Christmas, spare a thought for the Valentine family and the empty chair he leaves around the dining table .
Good work on the game cryptic, i love the new dyson zones, but seriously if i am to be playing the game for life (LTS here) then it is pointless adding new content unless you give us more space to save our stuff.
I have maxed out all the possible unlocks for bank, account, and inventory and still find my self discarding things i would much rather keep, just to make space for the new things you make for us.
Hate to be miserable, but where is everyone getting the impression that 'expansion' automatically equates to 'new faction'?
I mean, the letter (link in the OP) makes a point of referring to new Delta Quadrant content. How are so many people getting "yay - Cardassian faction!" from that??
Well, LoR is so far the ONLY expansion to date for this game. What made it different from all of the 8 season updates? The Romulan Republic.
The only way I can think of for them to justify calling something an expansion instead of a season update is to add a few new sector blocks and a few dozen story missions to go with them. Or a huge new game feature.... like changing the level cap.
Seriously, season updates are usually big. Tau Dewa was added as a season update. The Doff system was a season update. LoR was the first update big enough to be an expansion.
Yeah, pity there werent some more Wayoun clones stashed away somewhere (or were there???)... I'd love to hear some Jeffrey Combs in STO (he kills it in TSW!)
It stands to reason they still had clones or genetic material of him in storage in the gamma quadrant. considering how the vorta work, it only makes sense.
But... what happened with General Martok?
Uh...is that a serious question? They made it pretty clear in the backstory that he was killed. Its mentioned several times
. I wonder if they'll squeeze in an S10 before the expansion or if the expansion will be S10... Oh, the possibilities...
Seasons and expansions are two different things
JG Hertzler is the mayor of a town in New York right now. If memory serves, he campaigned as bringing a Klingon touch to town government.
Nope. He was elected to a 2 year term to the town council of ulysses, new york. Not the mayor
So, can we have cardassians as a faction next, include playable breen, vorta, jem'hadar and you got a solid area...plus
That makes no sense at all. cardassia isn't part of the dominion anymore, nor are the breen
Probably because Data's resurrection was kinda dumb. Granted, killing Data off in the first place was dumb too, but two dumbs don't make a smart.
Data's resurrection was the best part of the STO novel. Not the IDEA of it necessarily (although Spiner had plans to bring back Data when they killed him off; there were ideas for one more TNG film -- a lot of what he wanted was to do away with the annoying anti-aging makeup, not necessarily the character). But what the novel did right in my opinion was the EXECUTION.
Maddox found Data backed up intact on B4 but restoring Data would mean killing B4.
Geordi was going through a rough patch, full of guilt and regret after losing Data and marrying/divorcing Leah Brahms, presumably leaving her to raise their three kids. He'd left Starfleet to design ships for the Vulcans, like the Jellyfish.
Geordi made the call to kill B4 to bring back Data. Data challenged him over the morality of it once back and threatened suicide to save B4 until Geordi and Maddox found an out by backing B4 up onto a holodeck.
That chapter was a tense little morality play that felt like an episode to me. It also addressed something I thought was pretty revolutionary: Data and B4 (and Lore) aren't really androids. They're computer programs running inside androids. That's thought provoking for me at least.
It's also been followed up on by Cryptic in Star Trek magazine with Data now rebuilding Lore's braindead body as a host for the B4 program. Which I'm sure will go wrong and, again, that story feels like an actual episode of an actual show.
This would be unnecessary. As mentioned in other posts, Data is already alive. In fact, he is alive again in at least three different continuities:
Data is alive and Captain of the Enterprise-E in in the Abramsverse thanks to a prequel comic book to the 2009 Star Trek film.
Data is alive in a brand new state-of-the-art non-green body thanks to his "father" in the Star Trek: Cold Equations novels.
Data is alive in the 2409 Star Trek Online universe thanks to a short story (co-starring Capt. Va'kel Shon) that appeared in Star Trek magazine.
Maybe someday Cryptic will reprint all of those Star Trek Magazine-exclusive stories into another novel.
This is because CBS and Paramount declared the Countdown comic semi-canon for the novels, comics, and games. They left each licensee room for differences in how they got Data back and what happened later but in all three, Data came back, commanded the Enterprise, fought Nero, and helped Spock before Spock went back.
Data's return is covered in game in STO and in the novel. The Star Trek magazine piece is about his retirement and a meeting with Shon. Cryptic very deliberately wasn't allowed to say what happened to the Enterprise-E (CBS wouldn't allow them to) but just that something happened in fluidic space and now it's no longer in service.
It might be retired, destroyed, intact and still there. There's an implication that Data, Nog, and the 1701-E crew landed a major victory against the Undine at some great cost to the ship and had to use strange means to get back, probably abandoning/destroying/crippling the E and stealing an Undine ship to make it back.
Well, LoR is so far the ONLY expansion to date for this game. What made it different from all of the 8 season updates? The Romulan Republic.
The only way I can think of for them to justify calling something an expansion instead of a season update is to add a few new sector blocks and a few dozen story missions to go with them. Or a huge new game feature.... like changing the level cap.
Seriously, season updates are usually big. Tau Dewa was added as a season update. The Doff system was a season update. LoR was the first update big enough to be an expansion.
I'm not sure it needs a faction per se but it needs something big. For example, I could see an alternate cross faction leveling path and new professions as an expansion.
The important thing to me is some kind of game defining set of new features that would matter to new players and new characters and content/systems overhaul built around a major theme.
I've gotta echo the suggestions to get Jeffrey Combs - he portrayed a pretty silly number of characters over the years, so with some careful planning you could get a lot of mileage out of a few recording sessions. In terms of bang for buck I can't think of a better single Trek alum to recommend.
Rene Auberjonois as the voice of the Link would be cool. What's been going on with the Link since Odo returned? You could make at least one expansion about the Dominion that way.
I gotta say my personal hope, though, would be Andrew Robinson - especially if the 2014 faction is Cardassia as some have suspected. He'd be an excellent choice for the levelup voiceovers and as a central character. If you could get Alexander Siddig, having their two characters corresponding again would be really fun and a way to tie in new Cardassian content to existing Federation characters. Hell, canonizing any of Robinson's writing or his play with Siddig would be a really neat thing to do and a way to reward the passion that Robinson brought to realizing Garak.
I've gotta echo the suggestions to get Jeffrey Combs - he portrayed a pretty silly number of characters over the years, so with some careful planning you could get a lot of mileage out of a few recording sessions. In terms of bang for buck I can't think of a better single Trek alum to recommend.
Rene Auberjonois as the voice of the Link would be cool. What's been going on with the Link since Odo returned? You could make at least one expansion about the Dominion that way.
I gotta say my personal hope, though, would be Andrew Robinson - especially if the 2014 faction is Cardassia as some have suspected. He'd be an excellent choice for the levelup voiceovers and as a central character. If you could get Alexander Siddig, having their two characters corresponding again would be really fun and a way to tie in new Cardassian content to existing Federation characters. Hell, canonizing any of Robinson's writing or his play with Siddig would be a really neat thing to do and a way to reward the passion that Robinson brought to realizing Garak.
Me, I love Alexander Siddig. I actually preferred his role of Phillip Burton on the British show Primeval to his role as Dr. Bashir--completely different role, but he was actually more awesome in Primeval. Srsly.
Garak would be cool, too. My GF says that he's the DS9 character she most wants to cuddle. Go figure.
Odo is one of my personal favorite characters, and I hope to see him return. I REALLY hope to see him return.
Rep system stinks but that's kind of a given, all rep systems in all games are garbage because it's impossible to make grind smell more like flowers and less like compost. Most everything else was pretty good though. Not a bad year overall.
First off: Great job on what has been released to this point. I have played the game since it went Free To Play in early 2012. I have no complaints on how things are done and the content available.
Like other players, I do have a few requests.
1) Concerning VO talents: I have several Trek actors that I would love to hear in the game in the coming year: Avery Brooks, Andrew Robinson, Jeffery Combs just to name a few.
I also would like our characters to get a VO as well. Have several people voice the same lines and we choose which voice we would like. Its just a thought.
2) Featured Episodes: The main idea I have for a Featured Episode Series would be focused around Captain Sisko and Dukat. Neither of which are dead; just in a place outside of normal space-time.
3) Playable Factions: There are several I would like to see introduced. The Cardassian Union with the True Way, The Tal Shiar, The Xindi Reptiles and Insectoids, An empire that threatens the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant, The Furies, just to name a few ideas.
4) Quadrants and Andromeda: According to the End of Voyager, about 22 years was shaved off the journey from the Delta Quadrant to Earth thanks to an Alternate Janeway. There is still a large section of the Delta Quadrant unexplored. Were in the Delta Quadrant is the Solanea Dyson Sphere?
The Gamma Quadrant is largely unexplored because of the Dominion. How much territory does the Dominion occupy? A whole expansion could open up the Gamma Quadrant and move the story forward.
The Andromeda Galaxy, as hinted in the Sphere Of Influence and mentioned in an Episode of the Original Star Trek Series, would bring about a whole new element to the Star Trek Universe. That alone could introduce new playable factions that would have absolutely nothing to do with the existing war/cease-fire and actually move the story in a definite forward movement.
5) 2409: We have been in the year 2409 since the game launched. I do understand that the main story of the game takes place in 2409, but what lies beyond? I personally would like to see a more linear progression.
6) Playable Races: As future expansions, seasons, and episodes progress, are we going to see more playable races for each empire, such as Talaxians, Suliban, Xindi Primate, Hirogen, etc.? As the galaxy opens up, more and more would be seen.
7) A New Expansion: I am glad to see another expansion on the schedule, though its much sooner than I expected. Will we start seeing more expansion on a yearly basis or are you just playing by ear? Either way, I am excited to hear of one so soon.
8) Elite PVE Ques: I like the fact more of these are showing up beyond the Elite STFs. Personally, I would like to see even more of these ques that also reward the items, marks, and Dilithium the current elite ques do.
9) Ship Upgrades: I had a thought one day about players upgrading existing ships they own. Is it possible to get a game mechanic that would allow players to refit their ships an additional weapon slot (maxing out at either 5 fore or five aft), increase the capacity of a bridge officer station (no higher than an additional LtCmdr. Station.), upgrade the console slots (no more than by 1 slot to each of the three types), just to name a few ideas. A refit should be more than just items that are placed on the ship, but allowing players to increase the number of slots to place them on.
10) Computer Cores: With the introduction of Warp/Singularity Cores to the game, it only makes sense to introduce Computer Cores as well. A Computer Core would be more geared to science and engineering abilities more than tactical abilities.
All in all, a great game. Looking forward to 2014.
It was a nice year to be playing this game. Really thank full for all the awesome people that built this. Keep it up Star Trek Team, looking forward to your future releases.
P.S. REALLY NICE WORK ON THE DYSON SPHERE MAP. The people that worked on that have my thanks.
Comments
As for voice actors: Jeffrey Combs and Tim Russ please. Kate Mulgrew would be very welcome too. Say what you will about Janeway but her voice is badass.
Marc Alaimo is a great VA. Loved him as Ray McCall in the Call of Juarez games.
The big ones, i.e. Shatner, Stewart or Spiner are probably too expensive.
"The Borg - party-poopers of the galaxy" ~ The Doctor
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
how many times have i seen people suggest a cardassian playable then fall flat on their face with jem'hadar, vorta, breen and founders. if there was a new cardassian playable the last thing the new democratic cardassian government wants is to bring back the very thing they are trying to prevent. its not likely either the trueway would be playable as they are a terrorist group.
you also won't see borg involved as a playable unless its hugh's borg and maybe Axum/Korak's rebels together. but even these are only few in number, probably not enough to become dependent on cubes as these typically carry upwards of 50,000 drones or more and to carry too few liberated borg would invite intruders to set up a small camp in a virtually abandoned area of the cube. no, besides cubes in player hands would be way too op as well as too big. spheres are a possibility like interceptors, probes, scout cubes and such.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
It is time for Romulans to be on their own, it is time for Cardassians to be on their own and it is time for some race from the Delta Quadrant to be in its own. I would like to see the Otto race develop on its own using their proxies Jem'Hadar etc etc
Most unexpectedly, this turned into a flame-fest! Closed it goes!. /sigh What flamefestery is this? pwlaughingtrendy
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That said let us not forget that STO also lost one of it's shining stars, by this I mean Mark Valentine. Mark's death has left an empty hole for the game.
Please, please, please when you all are with your families and loved ones this Christmas, spare a thought for the Valentine family and the empty chair he leaves around the dining table .
I have maxed out all the possible unlocks for bank, account, and inventory and still find my self discarding things i would much rather keep, just to make space for the new things you make for us.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
oh and...I would love to see Brent Spiner, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, or Jonathan Frakes in the game
Admiral Sovak
Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers...
The only way I can think of for them to justify calling something an expansion instead of a season update is to add a few new sector blocks and a few dozen story missions to go with them. Or a huge new game feature.... like changing the level cap.
Seriously, season updates are usually big. Tau Dewa was added as a season update. The Doff system was a season update. LoR was the first update big enough to be an expansion.
My character Tsin'xing
She wrote the book on the Delta Quadrant.
Recruitment: Neverwinter Online (spotlight)(wiki) - Star Trek Online Federation - Star Trek Online Klingon - Star Trek Online Romulan - Champions Online
Guild FAQs: Neverwinter FAQ - Star Trek FAQ - Champions FAQ ..........Facebook: Mattachine Guild
It stands to reason they still had clones or genetic material of him in storage in the gamma quadrant. considering how the vorta work, it only makes sense.
Uh...is that a serious question? They made it pretty clear in the backstory that he was killed. Its mentioned several times
Seasons and expansions are two different things
Nope. He was elected to a 2 year term to the town council of ulysses, new york. Not the mayor
That makes no sense at all. cardassia isn't part of the dominion anymore, nor are the breen
Data's resurrection was the best part of the STO novel. Not the IDEA of it necessarily (although Spiner had plans to bring back Data when they killed him off; there were ideas for one more TNG film -- a lot of what he wanted was to do away with the annoying anti-aging makeup, not necessarily the character). But what the novel did right in my opinion was the EXECUTION.
Maddox found Data backed up intact on B4 but restoring Data would mean killing B4.
Geordi was going through a rough patch, full of guilt and regret after losing Data and marrying/divorcing Leah Brahms, presumably leaving her to raise their three kids. He'd left Starfleet to design ships for the Vulcans, like the Jellyfish.
Geordi made the call to kill B4 to bring back Data. Data challenged him over the morality of it once back and threatened suicide to save B4 until Geordi and Maddox found an out by backing B4 up onto a holodeck.
That chapter was a tense little morality play that felt like an episode to me. It also addressed something I thought was pretty revolutionary: Data and B4 (and Lore) aren't really androids. They're computer programs running inside androids. That's thought provoking for me at least.
It's also been followed up on by Cryptic in Star Trek magazine with Data now rebuilding Lore's braindead body as a host for the B4 program. Which I'm sure will go wrong and, again, that story feels like an actual episode of an actual show.
This is because CBS and Paramount declared the Countdown comic semi-canon for the novels, comics, and games. They left each licensee room for differences in how they got Data back and what happened later but in all three, Data came back, commanded the Enterprise, fought Nero, and helped Spock before Spock went back.
Data's return is covered in game in STO and in the novel. The Star Trek magazine piece is about his retirement and a meeting with Shon. Cryptic very deliberately wasn't allowed to say what happened to the Enterprise-E (CBS wouldn't allow them to) but just that something happened in fluidic space and now it's no longer in service.
It might be retired, destroyed, intact and still there. There's an implication that Data, Nog, and the 1701-E crew landed a major victory against the Undine at some great cost to the ship and had to use strange means to get back, probably abandoning/destroying/crippling the E and stealing an Undine ship to make it back.
I'm not sure it needs a faction per se but it needs something big. For example, I could see an alternate cross faction leveling path and new professions as an expansion.
The important thing to me is some kind of game defining set of new features that would matter to new players and new characters and content/systems overhaul built around a major theme.
Oh, thank you. It's been a while since I read the news story; my bad.
Rene Auberjonois as the voice of the Link would be cool. What's been going on with the Link since Odo returned? You could make at least one expansion about the Dominion that way.
I gotta say my personal hope, though, would be Andrew Robinson - especially if the 2014 faction is Cardassia as some have suspected. He'd be an excellent choice for the levelup voiceovers and as a central character. If you could get Alexander Siddig, having their two characters corresponding again would be really fun and a way to tie in new Cardassian content to existing Federation characters. Hell, canonizing any of Robinson's writing or his play with Siddig would be a really neat thing to do and a way to reward the passion that Robinson brought to realizing Garak.
Me, I love Alexander Siddig. I actually preferred his role of Phillip Burton on the British show Primeval to his role as Dr. Bashir--completely different role, but he was actually more awesome in Primeval. Srsly.
Garak would be cool, too. My GF says that he's the DS9 character she most wants to cuddle. Go figure.
Odo is one of my personal favorite characters, and I hope to see him return. I REALLY hope to see him return.
Protip: Nobody likes Janeway.
Like other players, I do have a few requests.
1) Concerning VO talents: I have several Trek actors that I would love to hear in the game in the coming year: Avery Brooks, Andrew Robinson, Jeffery Combs just to name a few.
I also would like our characters to get a VO as well. Have several people voice the same lines and we choose which voice we would like. Its just a thought.
2) Featured Episodes: The main idea I have for a Featured Episode Series would be focused around Captain Sisko and Dukat. Neither of which are dead; just in a place outside of normal space-time.
3) Playable Factions: There are several I would like to see introduced. The Cardassian Union with the True Way, The Tal Shiar, The Xindi Reptiles and Insectoids, An empire that threatens the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant, The Furies, just to name a few ideas.
4) Quadrants and Andromeda: According to the End of Voyager, about 22 years was shaved off the journey from the Delta Quadrant to Earth thanks to an Alternate Janeway. There is still a large section of the Delta Quadrant unexplored. Were in the Delta Quadrant is the Solanea Dyson Sphere?
The Gamma Quadrant is largely unexplored because of the Dominion. How much territory does the Dominion occupy? A whole expansion could open up the Gamma Quadrant and move the story forward.
The Andromeda Galaxy, as hinted in the Sphere Of Influence and mentioned in an Episode of the Original Star Trek Series, would bring about a whole new element to the Star Trek Universe. That alone could introduce new playable factions that would have absolutely nothing to do with the existing war/cease-fire and actually move the story in a definite forward movement.
5) 2409: We have been in the year 2409 since the game launched. I do understand that the main story of the game takes place in 2409, but what lies beyond? I personally would like to see a more linear progression.
6) Playable Races: As future expansions, seasons, and episodes progress, are we going to see more playable races for each empire, such as Talaxians, Suliban, Xindi Primate, Hirogen, etc.? As the galaxy opens up, more and more would be seen.
7) A New Expansion: I am glad to see another expansion on the schedule, though its much sooner than I expected. Will we start seeing more expansion on a yearly basis or are you just playing by ear? Either way, I am excited to hear of one so soon.
8) Elite PVE Ques: I like the fact more of these are showing up beyond the Elite STFs. Personally, I would like to see even more of these ques that also reward the items, marks, and Dilithium the current elite ques do.
9) Ship Upgrades: I had a thought one day about players upgrading existing ships they own. Is it possible to get a game mechanic that would allow players to refit their ships an additional weapon slot (maxing out at either 5 fore or five aft), increase the capacity of a bridge officer station (no higher than an additional LtCmdr. Station.), upgrade the console slots (no more than by 1 slot to each of the three types), just to name a few ideas. A refit should be more than just items that are placed on the ship, but allowing players to increase the number of slots to place them on.
10) Computer Cores: With the introduction of Warp/Singularity Cores to the game, it only makes sense to introduce Computer Cores as well. A Computer Core would be more geared to science and engineering abilities more than tactical abilities.
All in all, a great game. Looking forward to 2014.
P.S. REALLY NICE WORK ON THE DYSON SPHERE MAP. The people that worked on that have my thanks.