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maxlevelgod69
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I've been playing MMO's for a very long time (some would argue as long as there has been dirt), and while I do have a penchant for Science Fiction and the Star Trek Universe as a whole, Star Trek Online simply does not do the franchise justice in many cases.
Here's a few suggestions, taking cues from other games:
#1) FIX THE DARN music!
Every time I enter a new sector I get that Star Trek grandiose orchestra, and a couple string instruments when I enter combat, but that's really the limit of it. I fell in absolute love with Worlds of ******** because not only did they have a visual attention to detail, but they gave my ears an ice cream treat - everywhere I go there is very distinctive music and beautiful choreography. Star Trek Online OVERDOES all the music over and over, to the point of tediousness, and there's no originality with it.
My advice: Take ADVANTAGE of some of these starving artists and orchestras - who WANT to be taken advantage of - who would LOVE to have their material promoted via a truly amazing futuristic game which promoted artistic contributions. Now if you were to genuinely embrace and encourage the community similar to how Gene Roddenberry envisioned it when he invented Star Trek, you could really build Star Trek into a much more popular and fun game with much greater diversity. And by all means GIVE CREDIT to the author's work!
For example - When something is playing, put a subtle link which does not detract from the RPG aspect of the game on the lower right hand corner of the screen, which will take you directly to the artist. This way, you don't spend a dime, we get a much more engaging auditory experience, you increase your potential paying audience who come to STO not just for the trekkie aspect of things, and the artist(s) get free mass scale promotion..
win/win/win for all.
#2) Make the Foundry FREE
Look, let's face it. Much of the content within the STO Universe is tedious, at best, and at worst, it's again repetitive.
So when I played my first foundry missions the other day, that opened up new ideas and thoughts about how I can contribute to the Star Trek Universe myself.
Thank you for Foundry Content!
I wanted to create content for others. If they could afford to pay for things, all the power to them, I would if I could, but I'm looking at being very poor for a while, so for me, it's a disappointment that I can't contribute my ideas and content to help YOUR community grow and become something more robust. Well I can, here at least for now!
You see, I am dirt poor quite literally living in a third world country and have no income to pay for online content. While I'd love to buy 'zen' or a subscription to upgrade , like most people outside the United States, I have no credit cards and no income, so I can only contribute with ideas and content and feedback. How do I have a computer? I'm a former hi-tech worker from the states who couldn't find support to develop the 'next generation' of 3d applications for corporate management there, so I left - If you're at all interested in what I am doing - you can look me up on the web by doing a search for vrilliant project list and brian gregory.
This isn't a plug for me and my services though. It's a simple statement:
My Advice: MAKE The foundry FREE. By playing with Foundry - It makes me WANT to HELP you build your revenue stream, because that encourages you to loosen up restriction on the creative tools which can potentially be of benefit for both me and for you to have fun creativity and both of us potentially profit from it.
And if you're a subscriber. Let's face it. You're looking for content and willing to pay for it. Logically, why would you NOT want to have more offerings?
#3) Allow us to convert ZEN to Dollars
Once you've unleashed the creative potential, another way to inspire content creators is to ALLOW them to make a real life income by custom developing this content for others.
Now this requires that you fix the memory leaks (which dear god you've got a buttload of them), that you focus on engine optimization, account security, network latency, and you know- the core things you should have done in the first place - all to create a more solid foundation for content creation and for securing transactions - and in general - OPTIMIZATION, and that way - we can - as content creators - KNOW what we create is NOT going to crash other's systems, and that it's going to function consistently. For us, as potential content creators, the sky is the limit, and as your tools become more robust for assisting us with these endeavors, I truly see things like this becoming the next generation of storytelling - and even tv and movie creation. Across time and space, and alternate realities no less ;-)
My advice: Treat your currency like a market oriented currency, and see if you can't get it listed for exchange on Ameritrade or Charles Schwab or ETrade. Many online games have as many people on them as countries have people. So why would they turn you down if you have legitimacy and satisfy the reporting requirements? You do this, this opens up the opportunity for you to understand real world financial systems and - gives you and content creators a solid revenue stream.
And heck, maybe you can provide different ideas for the corporate world which is stagnating as it is!
#4) Geographically distribute your servers
Again, I am out of the country - and experience a boat load of lag here. While a relocation for financial reasons may not be optimal to you, if you focused on WHAT regions can provide - beyond simple dollar revenue streams, you might have a more robust income potential. But this means you have to think of revenue generation beyond the blunt instrument approach that reminds me of miners mining for gold.... IFF (If and only if) you are interested in engaging the community with additional content creation - and supporting those communities - will you find your own potential for revenue with this franchise is beyond ANYTHING you ever imagined.
You just have to give the content creators a chance.
My advice: There are 7 continents. Be the first to 'go where no one has gone before' - make the news - and provide server support ON EVERY CONTINENT (Yep, include Antarctica). Not only can you use this as a press release to amplify your exposure and commitment to the player and the creator, you'll also likely see an influx of new paying customers, and you will also get deep respect by the people who love Gene Roddenberry's vision - by doing something that 'no one has done before'.
That and it gives you an opportunity to send some of your more adventurous staff to oversee the project! Heck, I wouldn't say no if you wanted to send me to these places - even Antarctica (aka Hoth!)
Why the distribution? Latency. I get time outs on my connection ALL the time and have a speedy connection. It's the distance between your server and my machine - and you clearly haven't tested out too well for those of us out of the US. My bet is Asia is even worse. I used to fix these problems for shall we say some larger companies. But for a game company to have this issue... surprised....
#5) Encourage risque content - and ALL community mods and variations of the interface
We've all seen it, the nude mod, right? Sure, I played around with it. Then I had an idea:
The Voyager has an alternate timeline, where it took them 25 years to get back. Slider's has a nude world they show up to. I had this concept of a Foundry based mission which detailed how all the Voyager crew in an alternate timeline found out they were actually women, and after about 15 years they were scavenging for material to put in the replicators when finally they just said 'to heck with it' and put their clothes to reap the energy for replicating necessary items for subsistence.
So in my imagination, here's a bunch of attractive thin women who shed their clothes simply to have something to eat! My mind told a story which included the invention of whole new alternate realities and timelines, not one of which was sexually related!
So with Foundry, why not put a rating system in that LETS us make our own choices about what we do and do not want in a mod we play. You can rate it 'N' for nudity, 'V' for violence, 'S' for sexuality and so on, have varying levels of each, and LET us make our own choices and decisions what we choose to indulge in and for the content that we create. This way, I as a creator CAN tell the story of the alternate reality with a nude female crew without it being perverted, and this opens up infinite other potential for customization of both characters and their own stories that led to variety yet a high level of technological awareness.
#6) Better Integrate and develop CUSTOM CONTENT
So after all is said and done, Foundry missions are like b**tard unwanted stepchildren additions to your system.
Beyond precanned imagery, textures, and colors - there doesn't seem to be the ability to include our own.
Now mind you - I've only watched the videos. but I had an idea for a mission - a time traveling episode which takes you to modern day Hong Kong, and you walk the city streets that look like Hong Kong.
NOT possible currently. Scripting and dialog is limited. External imagery is forbidden. And making time travel - such an important part of the entire series - LOOK like time travel - is difficult, at best, impossible.
And the load times. My god what's with the speed. Work on optimization, PLEASE!
In any case:
My advice: Integrate the custom content story telling DIRECTLY in game. Real life characters in Deep Space 9. Let me go to an alternate earth I envision and paint a little area for the story I want to tell. Let me include textures of characters and places and music in the process so my story telling has depth to it. Quit focusing so much on the canned approach and instead, let it be more organic. Fun. Wild.
After all, the Borg came around for a reason and recklessly pursue biology and technology . I'd love to tell that story. Maybe that IS their story, maybe I am telling this to the Borg now and this commences their pursuit for better story telling, and maybe they are simply a misunderstood species?
Who knows. But without 'time, location, and alternate reality stories which may be unpalatable' at my disposal, we may never understand what could have caused a species like the Borg to come into existence.
#7) This one is a HUGE one - Fix SPACE!
In Eve - I can go in ANY direction from x,y,z - draw a vector out to a given point in x,y,z - and go.
In Star Trek Online, I have a definite floor and ceiling both on ground and in space.
WHY? Lazy programmers? Do they still think the Earth is flat? It would seem so by what they've coded up.
My advice: Hire some great 3d programmers and/or team - to redo the engine - leverage up to date graphics ala the Unreal Engine or Unity or even (my favorite) Blender - and make Space - the 'final frontier' more like space - where you can go any direction.
In this 'redo', I'd envision you'd slowly port your community over based on how they leverage the content - perhaps several rounds of alpha and beta testing - and that way - you can focus more on ray traced models rather than pre loaded imagery - which will make your graphics SO much more responsive AND - your scenery, your content, and your models - SO much more manageable - and fun!
Yep. it's work. but let's face it. If you're interested in leveraging and building a creator based community, you're gonna need a more robust presentation and model to build from to really give Gene Roddenberry's vision justice!
After all, I am halfway convinced that Star Trek as we have seen it CAME from your future revision of the game itself, and from custom created content by guys like me. Well. Not just like me. Maybe women too.
That's the issue with pre loading imagery. You dont allow someone to express themselves that way!
Including creators.
.,...
Thank you for letting me ramble.
Dont get me wrong. I enjoy the game.
But there's a difference between enjoyment.
And loving it.
If I had more... ability as a poor man to both tell stories, and freedom to make an income from those stories..
Maybe, just maybe, you might set a trend....
After all, Hollywood seems to be too incestual and 'closed for business' for new ideas.
Maybe you can build a platform that inspires the next generation of story tellers!
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
Here's a few suggestions, taking cues from other games:
#1) FIX THE DARN music!
Every time I enter a new sector I get that Star Trek grandiose orchestra, and a couple string instruments when I enter combat, but that's really the limit of it. I fell in absolute love with Worlds of ******** because not only did they have a visual attention to detail, but they gave my ears an ice cream treat - everywhere I go there is very distinctive music and beautiful choreography. Star Trek Online OVERDOES all the music over and over, to the point of tediousness, and there's no originality with it.
My advice: Take ADVANTAGE of some of these starving artists and orchestras - who WANT to be taken advantage of - who would LOVE to have their material promoted via a truly amazing futuristic game which promoted artistic contributions. Now if you were to genuinely embrace and encourage the community similar to how Gene Roddenberry envisioned it when he invented Star Trek, you could really build Star Trek into a much more popular and fun game with much greater diversity. And by all means GIVE CREDIT to the author's work!
For example - When something is playing, put a subtle link which does not detract from the RPG aspect of the game on the lower right hand corner of the screen, which will take you directly to the artist. This way, you don't spend a dime, we get a much more engaging auditory experience, you increase your potential paying audience who come to STO not just for the trekkie aspect of things, and the artist(s) get free mass scale promotion..
win/win/win for all.
#2) Make the Foundry FREE
Look, let's face it. Much of the content within the STO Universe is tedious, at best, and at worst, it's again repetitive.
So when I played my first foundry missions the other day, that opened up new ideas and thoughts about how I can contribute to the Star Trek Universe myself.
Thank you for Foundry Content!
I wanted to create content for others. If they could afford to pay for things, all the power to them, I would if I could, but I'm looking at being very poor for a while, so for me, it's a disappointment that I can't contribute my ideas and content to help YOUR community grow and become something more robust. Well I can, here at least for now!
You see, I am dirt poor quite literally living in a third world country and have no income to pay for online content. While I'd love to buy 'zen' or a subscription to upgrade , like most people outside the United States, I have no credit cards and no income, so I can only contribute with ideas and content and feedback. How do I have a computer? I'm a former hi-tech worker from the states who couldn't find support to develop the 'next generation' of 3d applications for corporate management there, so I left - If you're at all interested in what I am doing - you can look me up on the web by doing a search for vrilliant project list and brian gregory.
This isn't a plug for me and my services though. It's a simple statement:
My Advice: MAKE The foundry FREE. By playing with Foundry - It makes me WANT to HELP you build your revenue stream, because that encourages you to loosen up restriction on the creative tools which can potentially be of benefit for both me and for you to have fun creativity and both of us potentially profit from it.
And if you're a subscriber. Let's face it. You're looking for content and willing to pay for it. Logically, why would you NOT want to have more offerings?
#3) Allow us to convert ZEN to Dollars
Once you've unleashed the creative potential, another way to inspire content creators is to ALLOW them to make a real life income by custom developing this content for others.
Now this requires that you fix the memory leaks (which dear god you've got a buttload of them), that you focus on engine optimization, account security, network latency, and you know- the core things you should have done in the first place - all to create a more solid foundation for content creation and for securing transactions - and in general - OPTIMIZATION, and that way - we can - as content creators - KNOW what we create is NOT going to crash other's systems, and that it's going to function consistently. For us, as potential content creators, the sky is the limit, and as your tools become more robust for assisting us with these endeavors, I truly see things like this becoming the next generation of storytelling - and even tv and movie creation. Across time and space, and alternate realities no less ;-)
My advice: Treat your currency like a market oriented currency, and see if you can't get it listed for exchange on Ameritrade or Charles Schwab or ETrade. Many online games have as many people on them as countries have people. So why would they turn you down if you have legitimacy and satisfy the reporting requirements? You do this, this opens up the opportunity for you to understand real world financial systems and - gives you and content creators a solid revenue stream.
And heck, maybe you can provide different ideas for the corporate world which is stagnating as it is!
#4) Geographically distribute your servers
Again, I am out of the country - and experience a boat load of lag here. While a relocation for financial reasons may not be optimal to you, if you focused on WHAT regions can provide - beyond simple dollar revenue streams, you might have a more robust income potential. But this means you have to think of revenue generation beyond the blunt instrument approach that reminds me of miners mining for gold.... IFF (If and only if) you are interested in engaging the community with additional content creation - and supporting those communities - will you find your own potential for revenue with this franchise is beyond ANYTHING you ever imagined.
You just have to give the content creators a chance.
My advice: There are 7 continents. Be the first to 'go where no one has gone before' - make the news - and provide server support ON EVERY CONTINENT (Yep, include Antarctica). Not only can you use this as a press release to amplify your exposure and commitment to the player and the creator, you'll also likely see an influx of new paying customers, and you will also get deep respect by the people who love Gene Roddenberry's vision - by doing something that 'no one has done before'.
That and it gives you an opportunity to send some of your more adventurous staff to oversee the project! Heck, I wouldn't say no if you wanted to send me to these places - even Antarctica (aka Hoth!)
Why the distribution? Latency. I get time outs on my connection ALL the time and have a speedy connection. It's the distance between your server and my machine - and you clearly haven't tested out too well for those of us out of the US. My bet is Asia is even worse. I used to fix these problems for shall we say some larger companies. But for a game company to have this issue... surprised....
#5) Encourage risque content - and ALL community mods and variations of the interface
We've all seen it, the nude mod, right? Sure, I played around with it. Then I had an idea:
The Voyager has an alternate timeline, where it took them 25 years to get back. Slider's has a nude world they show up to. I had this concept of a Foundry based mission which detailed how all the Voyager crew in an alternate timeline found out they were actually women, and after about 15 years they were scavenging for material to put in the replicators when finally they just said 'to heck with it' and put their clothes to reap the energy for replicating necessary items for subsistence.
So in my imagination, here's a bunch of attractive thin women who shed their clothes simply to have something to eat! My mind told a story which included the invention of whole new alternate realities and timelines, not one of which was sexually related!
So with Foundry, why not put a rating system in that LETS us make our own choices about what we do and do not want in a mod we play. You can rate it 'N' for nudity, 'V' for violence, 'S' for sexuality and so on, have varying levels of each, and LET us make our own choices and decisions what we choose to indulge in and for the content that we create. This way, I as a creator CAN tell the story of the alternate reality with a nude female crew without it being perverted, and this opens up infinite other potential for customization of both characters and their own stories that led to variety yet a high level of technological awareness.
#6) Better Integrate and develop CUSTOM CONTENT
So after all is said and done, Foundry missions are like b**tard unwanted stepchildren additions to your system.
Beyond precanned imagery, textures, and colors - there doesn't seem to be the ability to include our own.
Now mind you - I've only watched the videos. but I had an idea for a mission - a time traveling episode which takes you to modern day Hong Kong, and you walk the city streets that look like Hong Kong.
NOT possible currently. Scripting and dialog is limited. External imagery is forbidden. And making time travel - such an important part of the entire series - LOOK like time travel - is difficult, at best, impossible.
And the load times. My god what's with the speed. Work on optimization, PLEASE!
In any case:
My advice: Integrate the custom content story telling DIRECTLY in game. Real life characters in Deep Space 9. Let me go to an alternate earth I envision and paint a little area for the story I want to tell. Let me include textures of characters and places and music in the process so my story telling has depth to it. Quit focusing so much on the canned approach and instead, let it be more organic. Fun. Wild.
After all, the Borg came around for a reason and recklessly pursue biology and technology . I'd love to tell that story. Maybe that IS their story, maybe I am telling this to the Borg now and this commences their pursuit for better story telling, and maybe they are simply a misunderstood species?
Who knows. But without 'time, location, and alternate reality stories which may be unpalatable' at my disposal, we may never understand what could have caused a species like the Borg to come into existence.
#7) This one is a HUGE one - Fix SPACE!
In Eve - I can go in ANY direction from x,y,z - draw a vector out to a given point in x,y,z - and go.
In Star Trek Online, I have a definite floor and ceiling both on ground and in space.
WHY? Lazy programmers? Do they still think the Earth is flat? It would seem so by what they've coded up.
My advice: Hire some great 3d programmers and/or team - to redo the engine - leverage up to date graphics ala the Unreal Engine or Unity or even (my favorite) Blender - and make Space - the 'final frontier' more like space - where you can go any direction.
In this 'redo', I'd envision you'd slowly port your community over based on how they leverage the content - perhaps several rounds of alpha and beta testing - and that way - you can focus more on ray traced models rather than pre loaded imagery - which will make your graphics SO much more responsive AND - your scenery, your content, and your models - SO much more manageable - and fun!
Yep. it's work. but let's face it. If you're interested in leveraging and building a creator based community, you're gonna need a more robust presentation and model to build from to really give Gene Roddenberry's vision justice!
After all, I am halfway convinced that Star Trek as we have seen it CAME from your future revision of the game itself, and from custom created content by guys like me. Well. Not just like me. Maybe women too.
That's the issue with pre loading imagery. You dont allow someone to express themselves that way!
Including creators.
.,...
Thank you for letting me ramble.
Dont get me wrong. I enjoy the game.
But there's a difference between enjoyment.
And loving it.
If I had more... ability as a poor man to both tell stories, and freedom to make an income from those stories..
Maybe, just maybe, you might set a trend....
After all, Hollywood seems to be too incestual and 'closed for business' for new ideas.
Maybe you can build a platform that inspires the next generation of story tellers!
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
Post edited by maxlevelgod69 on
0
Comments
#3) I have to say BAD PLAN. This would cause untold exploitation of the game from third parties, such as gold sellers. Its already done to some extent, but this would make the game a priority target for hacking accounts and more, + hordes of dil farming accounts. It sounds good in theory, but it is just a recipe for disaster in reality.
#3B) This game is extremely efficient actually, and it does not leak substantial memory. You perhaps have a bad driver or something that makes the game leak? I do not know, but this engine seems to be a cut above most (and a side note, I develop real time controls software, so I am not blowing smoke here). Anything can be improved, but having sampled many MMOs, this one is not bad at all (buggy, yes, but inefficient, no).
#4) Good idea, but who is paying for it? Distributed servers means a team to maintain them at each location, + hardware and physical location for them, + power, and more... its not a cheap thing to do.
#5) Free games with nudity would break all sorts of laws in all sorts of countries, resulting in outright bans on the game or requirements to maintain multiple skins (lol?) for the models to downgrade the content in more strict countries, and hassles in the USA should a minor see it (yes, we know kids look at stuff on the web, but it is an issue). It is simply not something that can be done in a way that works for the very wide audience.
7) the fix you seek is called quaternions. Without em, you can't go up, twist, and come back down, it causes a trigonometric instability (undefined result). This is simple to do, it is highschool level math, but it is also extremely complicated to retrofit into an existing model (yes, I have had to do this... and it was painful). I would love true 3d space too (with orbiting junk instead of stationary, and more) but it is not easy fix. I wish it were.... would be so awesome.
I'd say I've seen worse ideas, but...I'd be lying.
Aaaaand, just threw up in my mouth a little.
Go away. Just...go away, and take these "ideas" (such as they are) with you.
Balanced PVP and swimsuits. Then this game would be perfect. That is all. Thank you for your time.
#3) The World's economy functions the same way. To you, bad plan, to me as an MBA who likes the idea of corporate America being forced to recognize games as a market opportunity, I see it as a marvelous opportunity for Cryptic to understand the needs of the corporate world and to create a more solid platform, and to offer potential jobs for us poor MBA's who are sitting on our thumbs trying to find FUN work and play games at the same time.
Is there work to this? Absolutely. But the reward potential if this is taken seriously parallels the reward given to countries for taking their economy seriously. And for an online based business. The sky is NOT the limit!
#3B) Everything is relatively. The game's a memory hog, and sit for 8 hours and it slows to a crawl, highly inefficient, and has to physically be shut down. So either you're in an alternate reality looking at a different version of the game I am (highly possible), or your idea of extreme efficient is highly distorted and/or you're a representative of the company defending a product which still clearly needs work. Whatever the case, sorry bud, to me it is not efficient at all and is actually a hog. I've been in development a very long time so I do have authority to make this statement.
#4) I wasn't suggesting adding servers. I was suggesting redistributing. Reducing costs locally and pushing those costs to locations abroad to serve the remote communities where costs are cheaper anyways, and thus reduce costs overall. Should be a wash. Do the math.
#5) Right now, STO openly talks about drugs (Ketracell White), A highly addictive substance that seems very similar to cocaine and/or methamphetamine. Drugs and open promotion of drugs is illegal in many countries anyways.
So to your argument that nudity is illegal. No, generally it's not, but drugs are. Star Trek online has already started walking the slippery slope of ethics in a very naive way, and needs to do work on their own rating systems. So with the introduction of a new more liberal concept of aliens and off world species which CLEARLY has demand for it in the community - seems like the PERFECT opportunity (excuse) to introduce a better content awareness and rating system.
if you try to appeal to everyone, you try to find a common norm which gets watered down and is - quite simply - boring.
My point being: If you take the time to understand WHY your users are making mods - not to degrade your content and not to offend you - but to tell more widely appealing stories - even if you don't agree - if you're in it - as you say - to make money, then it behooves you to loosen the rules and implement a better self-governing community model, and quit treating the community like children reinforcing your idea of how they should think and act.
After all, some of us are against drugs. Accordingly, I dont take drug running missions in game, I figure why promote trafficking drugs when I dont agree with them? Does that mean I think the content should be taken out? No, I'm an adult, and don't mind it being there.
#7) Agreed. Lovin Blender and learnin at the same time. So you're of the same opinion that Star Trek would be that much more awesome if it adopted that?
Agreed on the just say no to Arc.
And you're entitled to your opinions. Fortunately, it's people like you who I wouldn't be making the content for. That's the beauty of entertainment. You can always switch the channel and tune out.
But should your perspective limit the content I can create in game to that which you deem fit?
Hopefully you're not stupid or naive enough to not comprehend the errors in that logic.
No more than your "anything should go" perspective should mean any rating from G to NC-17 should be allowable.
No seriously...keep dreaming, but I'd advise against holding your breath waiting for Cryptic to "see the light" and allow you to start making Star Trek: The Nudist Colony missions.
Balanced PVP = Boring.
Imagine in real life if they'd have balanced 'life'.
I like the idea of more organic structure in video games. Balancing it waters it down and makes it boring. And also, spins the developers in circles playing whack a mole.
Great idea, but the implementation would need work. These artists are going to want to get a guaranteed paycheck for a project like STO, and free advertisement that may or may not result in cash-in-pocket isn't going to put food on the table when the artist is starving.
That said, I'd also love to see better music in-game. The music we have is good, but a wider variety is always better.
I could play Devil's Advocate on this one really. Yeah, it'd be cool, but does it matter? To me, not really. Just my opinion.
I'm no legal genius here, but given that its been argued that lockboxes could be classified as a form of gambling in some eyes, couldn't that become a legal issue in some places? Just the amount they'd have to pay lawyers to be able to make this happen without ending up in court could end up so high that it wouldn't be worth it to pursue.
Great idea from our (the customer) standpoint, but likely a legal, technical, and financial nightmare for PWE to implement.
Just in the U.S. ALONE that would create huge issues. The game would, at minimum, have to have its ESRB rating changed to at least "M", which would mean a huge sales hit as parents of young children unsub and uninstall to keep them from seeing this content. And there would be enough social uproar that this game would have its image so tarnished it'd be black.
Again, interesting idea with solid reasoning behind it, but probably not worth the headache.
Storage becomes an issue here. Where does this custom content get stored once created? Who pays for said storage? Just to throw some random hypothetical numbers out there (I'd like to stress these are not real, only to illustrate my point) - if 50,000 people each create 2 custom trees to use in missions, at even a file size of 1Mb each, yer looking at almost 100Gb of storage. And that's just for STATIC images. 100Gb isn't a lot these days, so this may not be the BEST logic to go by, but the message is that file size adds up, and can get expensive.
I think a lot of people (myself included) would like to see improvements to space. However, as soon as you called the programmers lazy, I stopped reading.
I fully expect to be flamed, as I'm not a programmer, or a developer, or a lawyer... but those are my thoughts. Enjoy!
1), While more music would be a fantastic thing to have, your crowdsourcing idea is a legal ****storm waiting to happen. Who owns the music? Cryptic, or the artist? What if Cryptic uses a song, and tweaks it slightly..but enough that the artist does not approve of the message/tone of it. What if the artist wishes to update a song, as a new lick. Not only that, you have a wide range of quality issues that you have to consider. Plus post editing and encoding it into the game.
If you want more songs in a game, best to hire a professional and get it done right the first time. Sign a contract and keep it civil between everyone.
2)The Foundry is not free.. but it cost less than two days worth of dil grinding on one toon. Not that expensive and not that hard to get. It is virtually free to start your own projects.
3) So basically selling your Zen for real world money. That is against the TOS to trade, sell, auction or otherwise transfer any virtual items or goods of any nature outside the game. (Sec 10. Paragraph M) It is against the rules and prevents PWE from losing potential profits from outside sources.
4) Geographically relocating servers cost alot more than you think. Not only that, but i have friends in Australia who play this game no issue. Talk to you ISP about your connection.
5)Wow.. this.. is actually a first...
But not going to happen, at all.. ever...
If you want to do a client side mod that makes you and everyone else live in a nudist colony.. fine. Although not that again, third party software that modifies the game code is forbidden by the TOS that you agreed to when you created an account.
In the meantime, this game is rated "Teen" for Fantasty Violence and mild suggestive themes. adding nudity tot he game would rocket the rating to a hard Mature and would alienate alot of good fans and a playerbase.
If you want to reenact your fantasy... That side of the internet is just down the alley and to the left. Otherwise.. keep it off the servers and don't ask the devs to help you with your erotic-fan fiction.
6) The Foundry is actually quite flexible in terms of time travel and alternate realities. Some of the best missions that I've played have been going back and forth through time. It takes a bit of playing wit hthe mechanics and using what is there, But there are loads of ways you can pull of time travel.
However, this is a Trek game, and limited to the trek verse. You are not going to Recreate Hong Kong in the Foundry. If you want that level of control, go write a fanfiction.
7) we have been asking Z axis controls since the game launched. The basic idea behind their denial is they want to have the great "tall ships" feel to the game, and the limits of the engine is why they have a box around us. To change that, you have to put in a new engine. At that point, you might as well just start a new game.
All in all your ideas seems a bit ridiculous, ignoring both the legal nature of game development, and the technical hurdles. And you seemed bent on this notion of getting to see naked ladies. THere are a billion websites dedicate to that. There is no need to bring that here.
I'm totally on-board with swimsuits IF we can get an update to in-game jiggle physics for both males and females.
Thank you for your time.
2) I think you misread that I 100% agreed with your idea. It should be free, because its a ton of work and commitment to make a scenario.
3) You missed my point. Whether the real world economy works that way or not, the game would be heavily exploited and it is not practical to do that. If cryptic would by zen from you for say 10% of the price they charge you, they would still to bankrupt with 100000000000 gold farmer got online, farmed dil, converted it to zen, and sold it back for real cash. And that is assuming the poor server could handle the load.
3b) It is not the game... because I have done that, run it for well over 12 hours without any issues that you describe, and my machine is not really very good, if there were a massive memory leak, it would have hit me.
#4 ... you assume a server farm is a bunch of boxes. It may be one box with removable cpu boards. Depends on the hardware whether it can be split up, but either way, they would still need people to maintain them at each site and physical rented space and so on. It is more expensive, period. Whether revenue from additional sales due to better performance would outweigh the costs and lead to profits .... that is your area, not mine, but presumably they have considered this model and rejected it.
#5) I am telling you, just take the USA. Drug use or booze in a game gets you a minor warning label at this level (pg-13 effective rating). Actual promotion of it at a deeper level that (bars, mention in passing) such as actually buying, taking, and having visual/audio effects to simulate said dope would get you a higher rating. Nudity is going to get a mature 18+ rating. Parents will not let the kids play anymore. Its a big deal to a large number of people. Whatever your personal morality and feelings about it, there are standards and currently in the USA, right or wrong, nudity leads to a higher age restriction and worse rating than virtual beer -- you can even look the standards up, I am not making this up. Most mmos have a bar and most have a warning about it. Almost none have nudity so the kids can play and get mom & dad to pay into em. Its not about right/wrong/morality, its about the laws that have been passed which are a result of a random mishmash of people's opinions on morality and so on. And other countries are much more relaxed or strict, depending .... and I would bet this game is not legal in some countries already.
Got it.
Ever heard of such a thing as p2p networking? host your content in a cloud, share with others, and others share with you through you. Costs nothing to Cryptic, all they do is provide the reference server, which saves them a boatload in hosted costs anyways.
You could even take this a step further, and respect local governments by allowing them to set controls on what is and is not acceptable via the p2p mechanism.
Reduce server and hosting cost for existing content, widen the pool of content available for all, let local governments set the rules.
Win/win.
Since the probability is darn near zero, it's not worth my bother.
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As for allowing currency to be sold back for cash that's an instant never will happen. Second Life has this (using it as a reference for the time being) however they had to drastically change their way of thinking when the rules came down about gambling and selling in game currency. Basically put, if there is ANY type of chance system in a game that people can earn (in any way) a type of currency and trade it out for real life currency it is considered a casino at that point and under federal law not allowed in the US. Which would most likely make lockboxes (among other things) a problem.
Now if I believe the law is just or not really isn't for debate on here, but it is what it is so sadly no way could anyone make money from zen in the manner you're speaking
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
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Well good to know it's not just me.
It's bad enough we have all space travelers looking human. And in a game - there's no variance with values and cultures, almost like they've all been cut from a manufacturing line.
Game ratings on interactive entertainment is a devious way of creating collective behavior through conformity to a single standard.
Ray, I went to Thunderbird, #1 International Management school in the world (Yep, I am proud) - and if there's anything we learned there - it's that when you think an economy is undependable - then it's because the ethics and culture of those within the economy are undependable.
A game is no different. You're merely dealing with a different community where the ethical standards are still a common norm.
Now I'd like to think the those participating in the Star Trek Online Universe are more intelligent than most, and have higher standards than most on our community. I'm convinced if we simply understand that it's up to us to discuss what we want and why, and provide the developers and Cryptic with ways to mitigate the problems we ourselves fully comprehend - then we will see online communities - and electronic currencies - flourish.
To me, to imagine being in a Starship and only having books to read and a web site to make money on in a financially based economy sounds incredibly boring at times. Even with a holodeck, which we'd have limited time in, we'd still be looking for other things to do.
So why not rethink gaming? And if Trekkies are 'all that' and a box of rocks, then quit thinking like a box of rocks and let's figure out ways to make an online economy work so we can play games while we're traveling the stars and have an income at the same time.
Sure, it's likely to be rocky at first.
But seriously, can you think of a better test bed for futuristic economies in 'real life' than Star Trek Online?
If we can't figure this out in a game, how in the hell are we ever gonna figure it out in real life?
More content would be nice, especially more endgame content like more STFs.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius