Would it be so much to ask that the social areas on SB's & planets have functional seating? Yeah, I'M seated at my comp, but (again with the immersion factor) why can't my character be seated in a bar full of chairs? I would actually use the social areas more if the setting LOOKED correct. In game, I like a nice quiet place to do my DOff assignments, like the Bajoran chapel at DS9. In RL, I never liked going to a club where I couldn't sit down, so why would my alt be any different? Just saying...
lol that's a thing that's always made me laugh about social zones in MMOs. Supposedly you're at some bar/nightclub/whatever for your toon to unwind but everyone's all standing tensely and sometimes in a fully combat ready stance depending on the game. It's a real minor thing but one that amuses me.
The biggest waste of a wonderfully designed area for players to gather at is Romulan Flotilla at Tau Dewa Sector Block. Very nicely designed, great atmosphere, gives the proper mood that the Romulan Republic is essentially really based on the ships while the new homeworld is being built up.
New Romulus Command cannot compare to Romulan Flotilla's atmosphere.
I think it's all a matter of what purpose you want the locations to serve. I also don't think I need to remind anyone about the Foundry mission rewards fiasco from last year.
If you want the area to serve a social function. put social things to do there. If you put dailies with rewards there, people will be grinding dailies to get their rewards and jet off to the next set of grinders, not socializing. Put "rewards" in, and people will flock for the "rewards", not for the other thing you want them to experience.
Private PvP duals like the Ushaan duals on Andoria, Lirpa matches on Vulcan, or Bat'leth tournaments on Forcas III may be the closest to being practically "social" because it entails interacting with another player (unless they make it single player matches against NPCs).
Its very difficult to force people that don't want to be social to be social. Most players of this game usually have an idea of something they want to get done in this game when they play it. They do that thing and then get out. Few people are of the old SWG RP'er mindset where they want to "live" in the MMO and hang out in cantinas/bars just chatting with each other for hours. Not that people looking for this type of gameplay don't exist anymore, because they most certainly do, it's just that it's not a very big crowd.A lot of the old "social-ness" of the older MMOs happened because it was very difficult to find anybody to do things with. Because you needed assistance to do what you actually wanted to do and had to hang out somewhere while you found someone to do that with. Nowadays in the more modern MMOs, everything is easily soloable or simple to get into a group/match on your own. It's actually because games don't suck in order to play anymore that has caused the games to be less "social". Nobody's hanging out in bars or townhalls because they're out playing the game.
Another possibility in addition to the ideas expressed in this thread, is to add Personal Holdings wherein you can acquire a personal dwelling at these various locations and spice them up.
In the mission to Vulcan, you're there for about 5 seconds to pick up some jerk and don't even need to go into the main area which is a complete waste. Might as well have just beamed him up vs the trouble of taking a shuttle. A few well placed "phone calls" and you're off to P'Jem.
Maybe those unused and oft unseen areas could contain a living complex you can fill with Vulcan artifacts, a location-specific wardrobe tailor, etc. And that arena someone was talking about. Ditto for Andoria and all the other places that are barely used.
Another idea I had inspired by other posts in this thread would be location related uniforms-- I'm still looking for a way to recreate Andorian uniforms, surely there's a couple vulcan uniforms not in game yet, etc.
Any future mini-hub expansions to these areas would do well with their own unique tailor contact. Complete the daily x amount of times, complete the doff chain, get the exploration accolade, unlock the unique costume from the tailor on the planet. Similar to how they did the nimbus fan dance.
You mean you don't love flying to your faction's homeworld [map transfer], approaching the nebula [map transfer], and beaming down to the station [map transfer]?
That's the reason for me, why I'm not visiting any social zone except for ESD, once my chars are done with rep projects.
The problem with any social zone is the griefers. If those balloon guns and other 'toys' were inactive except in a Fleet Starbase and Embassy then they can only grief themselves and I think that most social zones would get used again. I hate being the 'victim' of a child, or childish-minded person, with a balloon gun or snowball pile, etc. I am here to play STO MY way, not theirs, and I should not have to be forced to move on to avoid them. I also despise the way they interfere with RP. Most players engaged in public RP would, or should, welcome random encounters, but only if they are in keeping with the scenario ... certain payers, I have noticed, will prevent that RP from being enjoyed by their inappropriate actions. I think Cryptic is too easy on them ... if they cause grief, ban them ... period. Don't let them get away with it or they will continue to do it and socializing will continue to decline.
I do like the idea of dailies in social areas. With Captains flying in and out I think they would become utilized a lot more.
Fantastic ideas here. There are a lot of zones to choose from, but when it comes down to it, people are going to end up staying in the zone that is most convenient for them. Any time events, turn-ins or something else that is faction main base only comes up, everyone has to travel back to their home of choice. Getting to the faction main base is easy enough, but then getting back to DS9 can be a chore without unlocking the transwarp point.
As suggested above, make the Captains Table a button enable or a transwarp point. But, when leaving, give us a choice to travel to a laundry list of social homes.
This makes the Captains Table a place worth traveling to and makes getting around the galaxy simple. It is already easy to travel, but it is a time sink, a PITA. This takes the pain out of it.
Are you trying to incite something on the forums? It seems like you are trying to flame while working around the name and shame rule.
I think what he has posted is fair. I don't know which fleet he is talking about, but its probably why the idea i am about to suggest won't work. I'll post it anyway....
As someone said I'd like to see 'RP zones' I'm not an RP'er, and find it a bit odd when I am trying to play and theres strange RP messages in my chat box. I'd like to see a choice of options for some of the underused zones, which places you in exactly the same map but a closed zone.
For example, there would be two identical risas, or defera surfaces, and you would have an extra 'beam down' button,saying 'Beam down to Risa (Role Play)'. People who wanted to go there and have a look around could go in the non rp instance, all the Rpers could play without annoying others in the other.
But yeah, other than that, vendors, discounted traders, security officers, doff exchanges or mission start points would all lively up a few of these places.
If you want the area to serve a social function. put social things to do there. If you put dailies with rewards there, people will be grinding dailies to get their rewards and jet off to the next set of grinders, not socializing. Put "rewards" in, and people will flock for the "rewards", not for the other thing you want them to experience.
I have come to accept the fact that a social zone, pretty much, means somewhere you can go and see other people. This isn't Star Wars Galaxies and no one is going to tip me for dancing on a table. Like many others, my social activity takes place in fleet chat and stray ESD nonsense. I have come to enjoy it. Even if there is not any real productive talk going on the fact that you see other players running around and chatting makes the world feel populated.
That's why I think that adding the dil missions would help. I could beam down to bajor and see others, like myself, running the daily mission. We would all know what we were there for and it would add to the sense of community. And like I said before, I would look forward to having a reason to visit the some of the most impressive places in the game.
Personally, the best way to revive social zone and keep these features is minigames and the like. Give us a reason to go to social zones to relax. It works well for many other games. Who hasn't forgotten to save the world in Legend of Zelda because they're fishing or that Sepiroth exists because that darn snowboarding game was too much fun. What we need is a distraction from the game.
I agree.
When I played Star Wars Galaxies, I would break up my bounty hunting missions with a trip to the nearby cantina to play roulette.
I started playing Neverwinter in the midst of the recent Winter event and spent just as much time fishing as I did adventuring.
Maybe they could take some of the DOFF missions and make mini-game versions out of a few for each system. Not replacing the DOFF versions, of course, just a more personal experience with different rewards.
I agree.
When I played Star Wars Galaxies, I would break up my bounty hunting missions with a trip to the nearby cantina to play roulette.
I started playing Neverwinter in the midst of the recent Winter event and spent just as much time fishing as I did adventuring.
Maybe they could take some of the DOFF missions and make mini-game versions out of a few for each system. Not replacing the DOFF versions, of course, just a more personal experience with different rewards.
Well, I guess I would love it if STO managed to put up some pazaak tables before SWtOR does...
Regarding the Captain's Table: they DID kill it, for me at least, when they removed the Ship Selection officer. Of course, with the new ship swap ability, that becomes a moot issue.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Former/Cryptic Name: Captain_Hans_Langsdorff
Founding member, Special Service Squadron
"Fear God and Dread Nought." First Sea Lord, Adm. Jacky Fisher
Regarding the Captain's Table: they DID kill it, for me at least, when they removed the Ship Selection officer. Of course, with the new ship swap ability, that becomes a moot issue.
Comments
lol that's a thing that's always made me laugh about social zones in MMOs. Supposedly you're at some bar/nightclub/whatever for your toon to unwind but everyone's all standing tensely and sometimes in a fully combat ready stance depending on the game. It's a real minor thing but one that amuses me.
New Romulus Command cannot compare to Romulan Flotilla's atmosphere.
If you want the area to serve a social function. put social things to do there. If you put dailies with rewards there, people will be grinding dailies to get their rewards and jet off to the next set of grinders, not socializing. Put "rewards" in, and people will flock for the "rewards", not for the other thing you want them to experience.
Private PvP duals like the Ushaan duals on Andoria, Lirpa matches on Vulcan, or Bat'leth tournaments on Forcas III may be the closest to being practically "social" because it entails interacting with another player (unless they make it single player matches against NPCs).
Its very difficult to force people that don't want to be social to be social. Most players of this game usually have an idea of something they want to get done in this game when they play it. They do that thing and then get out. Few people are of the old SWG RP'er mindset where they want to "live" in the MMO and hang out in cantinas/bars just chatting with each other for hours. Not that people looking for this type of gameplay don't exist anymore, because they most certainly do, it's just that it's not a very big crowd.A lot of the old "social-ness" of the older MMOs happened because it was very difficult to find anybody to do things with. Because you needed assistance to do what you actually wanted to do and had to hang out somewhere while you found someone to do that with. Nowadays in the more modern MMOs, everything is easily soloable or simple to get into a group/match on your own. It's actually because games don't suck in order to play anymore that has caused the games to be less "social". Nobody's hanging out in bars or townhalls because they're out playing the game.
Raptr profile
In the mission to Vulcan, you're there for about 5 seconds to pick up some jerk and don't even need to go into the main area which is a complete waste. Might as well have just beamed him up vs the trouble of taking a shuttle. A few well placed "phone calls" and you're off to P'Jem.
Maybe those unused and oft unseen areas could contain a living complex you can fill with Vulcan artifacts, a location-specific wardrobe tailor, etc. And that arena someone was talking about. Ditto for Andoria and all the other places that are barely used.
Any future mini-hub expansions to these areas would do well with their own unique tailor contact. Complete the daily x amount of times, complete the doff chain, get the exploration accolade, unlock the unique costume from the tailor on the planet. Similar to how they did the nimbus fan dance.
That's the reason for me, why I'm not visiting any social zone except for ESD, once my chars are done with rep projects.
Too much time wasted looking at a loading screen.
I do like the idea of dailies in social areas. With Captains flying in and out I think they would become utilized a lot more.
As suggested above, make the Captains Table a button enable or a transwarp point. But, when leaving, give us a choice to travel to a laundry list of social homes.
This makes the Captains Table a place worth traveling to and makes getting around the galaxy simple. It is already easy to travel, but it is a time sink, a PITA. This takes the pain out of it.
I think what he has posted is fair. I don't know which fleet he is talking about, but its probably why the idea i am about to suggest won't work. I'll post it anyway....
As someone said I'd like to see 'RP zones' I'm not an RP'er, and find it a bit odd when I am trying to play and theres strange RP messages in my chat box. I'd like to see a choice of options for some of the underused zones, which places you in exactly the same map but a closed zone.
For example, there would be two identical risas, or defera surfaces, and you would have an extra 'beam down' button,saying 'Beam down to Risa (Role Play)'. People who wanted to go there and have a look around could go in the non rp instance, all the Rpers could play without annoying others in the other.
But yeah, other than that, vendors, discounted traders, security officers, doff exchanges or mission start points would all lively up a few of these places.
I have come to accept the fact that a social zone, pretty much, means somewhere you can go and see other people. This isn't Star Wars Galaxies and no one is going to tip me for dancing on a table. Like many others, my social activity takes place in fleet chat and stray ESD nonsense. I have come to enjoy it. Even if there is not any real productive talk going on the fact that you see other players running around and chatting makes the world feel populated.
That's why I think that adding the dil missions would help. I could beam down to bajor and see others, like myself, running the daily mission. We would all know what we were there for and it would add to the sense of community. And like I said before, I would look forward to having a reason to visit the some of the most impressive places in the game.
I agree.
When I played Star Wars Galaxies, I would break up my bounty hunting missions with a trip to the nearby cantina to play roulette.
I started playing Neverwinter in the midst of the recent Winter event and spent just as much time fishing as I did adventuring.
Maybe they could take some of the DOFF missions and make mini-game versions out of a few for each system. Not replacing the DOFF versions, of course, just a more personal experience with different rewards.
Well, I guess I would love it if STO managed to put up some pazaak tables before SWtOR does...
Raptr profile
Former/Cryptic Name: Captain_Hans_Langsdorff
Founding member, Special Service Squadron
"Fear God and Dread Nought." First Sea Lord, Adm. Jacky Fisher
Yeah, I never did understand why they did that.