They said they will create Foundry hooks so that missions can start at exploration clusters. Unfortunately, nothing else has been said - what we'd need is a Foundry search mode in where we can look by mission start area. If we had that, it would be easier to find exploration-minded mission easier, and it could also allow later to create a Foundry Interface specifically for exploration clusters.
I agree. I'm excited about the possibilities, but they need to do more than hand it off to us and hook up doors.
When Cryptic start paying me, I will start doing work for them.
You don't make missions for Cryptic, you make them for yourself and for the community that plays the game.
I for one appreciate a little democracy in a game. Instead of having to lobby and lobby and hope my voice gets heard I can say F that and make my own content.
You don't make missions for Cryptic, you make them for yourself and for the community that plays the game.
I for one appreciate a little democracy in a game. Instead of having to lobby and lobby and hope my voice gets heard I can say F that and make my own content.
That's kind of what got me started. I was determined to demonstrate that a completely non-combat diplomacy mission could be fun and interesting. And that it could feel more like Star Trek than some epic space battle.
No worries. I've been watching your back to basics episodes and spending time snooping around StarbaseUGC and currently writing a story as my first entry.
As a note, I will be one of those newbies biting some of your cool tricks. Hopefully with some cool tricks of my own worth biting.
If you need help, you can get instant answers to any questions in our chat room. Good luck.
Well, at least we will still have access to the Doff missions and rewards; that was my major concern with the removal of the clusters themselves. I wonder if that will have an impact on any associated accolades though?
There is a eula that authors have to agree to be bound by, and players have to agree to a eula of their own when accepting a foundry mission for the first time. As for the other stuff, I'm sure all of this was run through Cryptic's legal a long time before they even decided to build the tools. They are in California which has pretty strict laws about volunteer workers.
Technically, I think maybe foundry authors are classified as players who "play" the foundry part of the game, lol. It would be neat if we had some of the Second Life functionality of actually earning $$$ making content for the game. I've never played Second Life, but I hear that some people even make a living through their stores or what not.
EULAs get challenged quite often when there's money at stake... and just because you are happy to provide your time and creative effort for free, that doesn't mean everybody is. (Second Life's owners, I gather, are also incorporated in California).
I'm quite serious - I can hear the distant sound of a can of worms being opened, here, and a well-intentioned "Technically I think maybe" is unlikely to halt the remorseless grinding of the can opener.
(Besides which, have you no concern at all for the ethics of this situation? Suppose Cryptic decides to cut costs, and says to itself, "what the heck, we'll sack a content developer or two, now we know the Foundry authors will pick up the slack"? Are you OK with that? Do you believe they wouldn't do it?)
(Besides which, have you no concern at all for the ethics of this situation? Suppose Cryptic decides to cut costs, and says to itself, "what the heck, we'll sack a content developer or two, now we know the Foundry authors will pick up the slack"? Are you OK with that? Do you believe they wouldn't do it?)
I can't control what a company like PWE or Cryptic does. If anything, the actions of the past 2 1/2 years indicate that the Foundry is about the lowest priority. Well, not as low as PVP, I guess.
The thing has been in "beta" for like 30ish months. You would think that if the company had some kind of long-term plan to use Foundry in place of dev content, they might update it, give us more tools, assets, etc. The only way we get stuff is when somebody like TacoFangs comes in on a Saturday or something.
Cryptic made a third faction for their MMO, and apparently, nobody thought to turn it on for foundry authors to make Romulan missions. That is how disconnected it is from their radar.
If they were relying on our content, you might also wonder why they don't seem to care that:
A. Players can't find our missions without a custom search
B. The listings usually only display 50 results. Imagine if Google worked that way and had no next page button for search results.
Those two things would be problems that needed to be fixed if Cryptic was really wanting us to pick up their slack.
If you need help, you can get instant answers to any questions in our chat room. Good luck.
I should probably make a mission one of these days...
Might be fun. I would like a better free-form alien generator first, though.
Also, Starbase UGC and the rest of the Foundry nerd crowd are one of the main reasons I play STO. IMHO, that guy who wrote "The Sword of the Kuvah'Magh" should be given a free LTS and made a dev. That mission is better and more fun than 80% of the official fed missions.
I should probably make a mission one of these days...
Might be fun. I would like a better free-form alien generator first, though.
Also, Starbase UGC and the rest of the Foundry nerd crowd are one of the main reasons I play STO. IMHO, that guy who wrote "The Sword of the Kuvah'Magh" should be given a free LTS and made a dev. That mission is better and more fun than 80% of the official fed missions.
I don't see that alien generator happening, tbh. You may have to just get in there and see what you can do. You can make some pretty wild aliens. Thanks for kind words, Worffan.
I like Exploration but since you seem so unable to think of anything to replace clusters, how about opening up all systems so people so people can visit them more than just once. Did I say visit I mean explore. You can station mobs in system that are level specific.
This means you will have to do a little work, programming. Wait a minute forget it, it will not work, for the before mention reason.
I don't see that alien generator happening, tbh. You may have to just get in there and see what you can do. You can make some pretty wild aliens. Thanks for kind words, Worffan.
"Gord'don (morale: 47%)" always makes me laugh so hard my entire BO crew dies. Every. Single. Time.
Yeah, one thing that's unequivocally great about this game is the art. Unfortunately, the random aliens you can make are rather limited. Snouts especially are really hard to do, as are nonhumanoid body plans and humanoid-with-a-twist body plans.
I hope that Tacofangs or whoever's in charge of the character art figures out a way to get us easy nonhumanoid alien generation soon. That would DEFINITELY make my day.
I'll say this again. (As I'm now back from a sort of vacation.)
If you are bent on removing people's source of dil and crafting materials, well, that's your call (I don't approve, naturally). But that in no way means you should remove the cluster maps at all.
By relegating clusters to a handful of Colony doff assignements, you're seriously gimping doffing (in addition to the UI obstructions).
At least keep empty cluster maps with current doff assignements.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
At least keep empty cluster maps with current doff assignements.
Now that just doesn't make any sense. Your compromise is an empty map (i.e., nothingness) with doff assignments when what they are giving you is a point to go to in sector space with the same doff assignments.
I'm against the removal of the exploration clusters for several reasons:
1) The removal of content without any revealing of plans for adequate replacements. Some of which were non combat missions which is a complete rarity in this game. So much of the content is combat based which can be unappealing to some, adding more pure puzzle/logic type content into the game would give a nice variety.
2) Loss of easily and non combat farmed data samples. Not having to shoot x amount of things to gain loot was a nice change of pace, since you could fly around the cluster and scan anomalies.
3) Loss of a specific map/instance to share duty officer missions with other players, now all players are forced to go to the same spot.
4) Cryptic's handling of the entire situation, its arrogant and condescending. "We at Cryptic believe that the exploration clusters will not fit well into a reputation based system, and that new players are some how getting upset about the download size and are unable to use the map key, so we are removing them from the game altogether"
Here is a potential solution to the problem at hand, hunt and remove the broken missions that were generated from the RNG. Move the exploration clusters all to an interact in the Gamma Orionis Sector Block (this is a ~level 50 gated instance so new players wouldn't be able to entire and get frustrated at the content). Keep the exploration clusters maps/instances separate to appease the doffers and the people who enjoy scanning the anomalies.
With that solution it removes the bugged/broken/non-sensible content from the game, effectively hides it, and gates it to a high rank, all the while keeping the existing players from getting upset with any type of removals. It is a win-win, everyone gets what they want.
Wow what a well thought out idea. This really would solve all parties' problems.
*Reads the feedback. Looks like I'm in the minority as I think it's a good thing the star clusters are being removed.
Reason 1: no more loading maps to access a star cluster doff mission.
Reason 2: easier way to get those star cluster story accolades which were a big pain before.
Now that just doesn't make any sense. Your compromise is an empty map (i.e., nothingness) with doff assignments when what they are giving you is a point to go to in sector space with the same doff assignments.
Am I missing something here?
Yes. They only offer you a couple colonisation assignements in place of a current map all assignements and all DH assignements available in clusters now.
That's a neat loss.
Also you can't invite anyone/get invited on anyone's bridge to see those few offered colonisation assignements.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
B. There is an expansion coming, and it's not a new faction.
I can see why folks would connect the dots. You are right though. All of it reminds me of the assumption that the foundry team would return to STO some day, because our toolset is still beta.
Pure speculation, and given the track record...
The thing is - IF the expansion held anything related to a new Exploration system; why pull the existing Exploration system (as bad as it is) before the new expansion's release?
Given the above, I doubt there's anything related to any sort of revamped Exploration system in the upcoming STO expansion. But I guess we'll see as info on what is in the upcoming expansion is released.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
The thing is - IF the expansion held anything related to a new Exploration system; why pull the existing Exploration system (as bad as it is) before the new expansion's release?
Given the above, I doubt there's anything related to any sort of revamped Exploration system in the upcoming STO expansion. But I guess we'll see as info on what is in the upcoming expansion is released.
Ah, but what if the new exploration system is related to Foundry, as has been talked about off and on for two years. Dstahl spent a year talking about a Foundry + Exploration combo of some sorts.
Just wishful thinking. Pigs would probably fly before they did something like that.
The thing is - IF the expansion held anything related to a new Exploration system; why pull the existing Exploration system (as bad as it is) before the new expansion's release?
Given the above, I doubt there's anything related to any sort of revamped Exploration system in the upcoming STO expansion. But I guess we'll see as info on what is in the upcoming expansion is released.
If there is a new exploration system in Expansion 2, then it has absolutely nothing to do with the Exploration Clusters. Expansion 2 supposedly takes place in the Delta Quadrant and that is the perfect place for exploration since exploration means encountering races that have never been contacted by a species of the Alpha Quadrant. Voyager had the most exploration compared to the other series because they were in unexplored space and new absolutely nothing about the races they would encounter except for the Q and Borg.
Since Exploration in that scenario would be level 50+ content, then it doesn't matter if Cryptic removes the Exploration Clusters or not unless they have other reasons for it. The obvious reason is Cryptic wants to reduce the amount of farming for materials in Exploration Clusters. A secondary reason is that Exploration Clusters are in the way of adding additional sector blocks. With all the Exploration Clusters changed into nebulas, then Cryptic can add Ferenginar, Betazed, and other planets in other Sectors Blocks. It makes no sense that the Klingon Empire is limited to one Sector Block.
Not sure we needed another thread on this, but I won't miss them either. A bad foundry mission is better than "Explore Unknown System" followed by "Hello, Starfleet, where are our supplies? You are late with your scheduled delivery."
They say in the PR that they will include exploration mission capabilities through the foundry. If so, it'll be slow to get going, but I think it may be a far better way to do exploration. I'm really only new to the game (only played till lvl5, dropped the game and only came back last week), but what I've experienced through the foundry (although it isn't perfect) is actually quite enjoyable. Because there are fans making the missions, it makes the missions truer to the star trek ethos and vibe. I think the exploration aspect of the game will be better through this medium.
In fact, if the devs plan it out well enough, you could ad a race of mysterious alien beings not classified/contacted and let the foundry authors introduce them as neutral/enemy/friendly NPCs as part of exploration missions. By checking out the metrics of how foundry players react to them (allow RP choices into the missions) you could plan out their introduction to the game (friend/foe/meh). Then introduce them as part of a pve episode and then introduce them fully into the game with future expansions.
This would make exploration a major development tool in the game (as it should be considering it is Star Trek) .
They say in the PR that they will include exploration mission capabilities through the foundry. If so, it'll be slow to get going, but I think it may be a far better way to do exploration. I'm really only new to the game (only played till lvl5, dropped the game and only came back last week), but what I've experienced through the foundry (although it isn't perfect) is actually quite enjoyable. Because there are fans making the missions, it makes the missions truer to the star trek ethos and vibe. I think the exploration aspect of the game will be better through this medium.
In fact, if the devs plan it out well enough, you could ad a race of mysterious alien beings not classified/contacted and let the foundry authors introduce them as neutral/enemy/friendly NPCs as part of exploration missions. By checking out the metrics of how foundry players react to them (allow RP choices into the missions) you could plan out their introduction to the game (friend/foe/meh). Then introduce them as part of a pve episode and then introduce them fully into the game with future expansions.
This would make exploration a major development tool in the game (as it should be considering it is Star Trek) .
Cheers!
To do Exploration through the Foundry system correctly, it has to be completely random. Exploration is all about encountering the unknown so it is not Exploration if you know what you are getting into. A system where you can select which type of Foundry missions are picked based on tags would help to customize your exploration experience.
To do Exploration through the Foundry system correctly, it has to be completely random. Exploration is all about encountering the unknown so it is not Exploration if you know what you are getting into. A system where you can select which type of Foundry missions are picked based on tags would help to customize your exploration experience.
Yes. They only offer you a couple colonisation assignements in place of a current map all assignements and all DH assignements available in clusters now.
That's a neat loss.
Also you can't invite anyone/get invited on anyone's bridge to see those few offered colonisation assignements.
Yup, players were getting too many vr doffs from support missions . . .need to slow that down.
Comments
I agree. I'm excited about the possibilities, but they need to do more than hand it off to us and hook up doors.
You don't make missions for Cryptic, you make them for yourself and for the community that plays the game.
I for one appreciate a little democracy in a game. Instead of having to lobby and lobby and hope my voice gets heard I can say F that and make my own content.
That's kind of what got me started. I was determined to demonstrate that a completely non-combat diplomacy mission could be fun and interesting. And that it could feel more like Star Trek than some epic space battle.
No worries.
As a note, I will be one of those newbies biting some of your cool tricks. Hopefully with some cool tricks of my own worth biting.
If you need help, you can get instant answers to any questions in our chat room. Good luck.
STO Beta Test and Launch Veteran
EULAs get challenged quite often when there's money at stake... and just because you are happy to provide your time and creative effort for free, that doesn't mean everybody is. (Second Life's owners, I gather, are also incorporated in California).
I'm quite serious - I can hear the distant sound of a can of worms being opened, here, and a well-intentioned "Technically I think maybe" is unlikely to halt the remorseless grinding of the can opener.
(Besides which, have you no concern at all for the ethics of this situation? Suppose Cryptic decides to cut costs, and says to itself, "what the heck, we'll sack a content developer or two, now we know the Foundry authors will pick up the slack"? Are you OK with that? Do you believe they wouldn't do it?)
I can't control what a company like PWE or Cryptic does. If anything, the actions of the past 2 1/2 years indicate that the Foundry is about the lowest priority. Well, not as low as PVP, I guess.
The thing has been in "beta" for like 30ish months. You would think that if the company had some kind of long-term plan to use Foundry in place of dev content, they might update it, give us more tools, assets, etc. The only way we get stuff is when somebody like TacoFangs comes in on a Saturday or something.
Cryptic made a third faction for their MMO, and apparently, nobody thought to turn it on for foundry authors to make Romulan missions. That is how disconnected it is from their radar.
If they were relying on our content, you might also wonder why they don't seem to care that:
A. Players can't find our missions without a custom search
B. The listings usually only display 50 results. Imagine if Google worked that way and had no next page button for search results.
Those two things would be problems that needed to be fixed if Cryptic was really wanting us to pick up their slack.
I should probably make a mission one of these days...
Might be fun. I would like a better free-form alien generator first, though.
Also, Starbase UGC and the rest of the Foundry nerd crowd are one of the main reasons I play STO. IMHO, that guy who wrote "The Sword of the Kuvah'Magh" should be given a free LTS and made a dev. That mission is better and more fun than 80% of the official fed missions.
I don't see that alien generator happening, tbh. You may have to just get in there and see what you can do. You can make some pretty wild aliens. Thanks for kind words, Worffan.
This means you will have to do a little work, programming. Wait a minute forget it, it will not work, for the before mention reason.
Gene...I'm so, so sorry.
"Gord'don (morale: 47%)" always makes me laugh so hard my entire BO crew dies. Every. Single. Time.
Yeah, one thing that's unequivocally great about this game is the art. Unfortunately, the random aliens you can make are rather limited. Snouts especially are really hard to do, as are nonhumanoid body plans and humanoid-with-a-twist body plans.
I hope that Tacofangs or whoever's in charge of the character art figures out a way to get us easy nonhumanoid alien generation soon. That would DEFINITELY make my day.
If you are bent on removing people's source of dil and crafting materials, well, that's your call (I don't approve, naturally). But that in no way means you should remove the cluster maps at all.
By relegating clusters to a handful of Colony doff assignements, you're seriously gimping doffing (in addition to the UI obstructions).
At least keep empty cluster maps with current doff assignements.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
Now that just doesn't make any sense. Your compromise is an empty map (i.e., nothingness) with doff assignments when what they are giving you is a point to go to in sector space with the same doff assignments.
Am I missing something here?
So sad.
Wow. I am sadden also. To take out any kind of exploration rips the heart of Star Trek, Genes vision, and fans for over 30+ years.
Here we go...You guys are just golden.
Popcorn, anyone? *munch munch munch* :cool:
Wow what a well thought out idea. This really would solve all parties' problems.
Reason 1: no more loading maps to access a star cluster doff mission.
Reason 2: easier way to get those star cluster story accolades which were a big pain before.
Yes. They only offer you a couple colonisation assignements in place of a current map all assignements and all DH assignements available in clusters now.
That's a neat loss.
Also you can't invite anyone/get invited on anyone's bridge to see those few offered colonisation assignements.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
The thing is - IF the expansion held anything related to a new Exploration system; why pull the existing Exploration system (as bad as it is) before the new expansion's release?
Given the above, I doubt there's anything related to any sort of revamped Exploration system in the upcoming STO expansion. But I guess we'll see as info on what is in the upcoming expansion is released.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Ah, but what if the new exploration system is related to Foundry, as has been talked about off and on for two years. Dstahl spent a year talking about a Foundry + Exploration combo of some sorts.
Just wishful thinking. Pigs would probably fly before they did something like that.
If there is a new exploration system in Expansion 2, then it has absolutely nothing to do with the Exploration Clusters. Expansion 2 supposedly takes place in the Delta Quadrant and that is the perfect place for exploration since exploration means encountering races that have never been contacted by a species of the Alpha Quadrant. Voyager had the most exploration compared to the other series because they were in unexplored space and new absolutely nothing about the races they would encounter except for the Q and Borg.
Since Exploration in that scenario would be level 50+ content, then it doesn't matter if Cryptic removes the Exploration Clusters or not unless they have other reasons for it. The obvious reason is Cryptic wants to reduce the amount of farming for materials in Exploration Clusters. A secondary reason is that Exploration Clusters are in the way of adding additional sector blocks. With all the Exploration Clusters changed into nebulas, then Cryptic can add Ferenginar, Betazed, and other planets in other Sectors Blocks. It makes no sense that the Klingon Empire is limited to one Sector Block.
Or searching for "new species' that are clearly classical greek columns.....
It's an internet joke. A very old internet joke.
In fact, if the devs plan it out well enough, you could ad a race of mysterious alien beings not classified/contacted and let the foundry authors introduce them as neutral/enemy/friendly NPCs as part of exploration missions. By checking out the metrics of how foundry players react to them (allow RP choices into the missions) you could plan out their introduction to the game (friend/foe/meh). Then introduce them as part of a pve episode and then introduce them fully into the game with future expansions.
This would make exploration a major development tool in the game (as it should be considering it is Star Trek)
Cheers!
To do Exploration through the Foundry system correctly, it has to be completely random. Exploration is all about encountering the unknown so it is not Exploration if you know what you are getting into. A system where you can select which type of Foundry missions are picked based on tags would help to customize your exploration experience.
I would support that.
Yup, players were getting too many vr doffs from support missions . . .need to slow that down.