2 - They need to make the game like what they see in Star Trek.
- Remove cross faction starships, this includes alien starships from lock boxes.
- Remove special abilities like Tyken's Rift and Gravity Well since those abilities are not used in the Star Trek shows / movies... unless that occurred in Enterprise which I have not bothered watching after a few episodes.
- Remove ECs and Dilithium as rewards because they are not used in any of the shows or movies.
- Remove cross faction weapons. Federation ships only use phasers. KDF uses disruptors and Romulan uses plasma-disruptor hybrid because I do not recall any episode that clearly states what type of beam weapon they use. If they did, then I must have missed it.
- Remove carriers from the game. They do not exist in canon.
- Remove cross faction starships, this includes alien starships from lock boxes.
- Remove special abilities like Tyken's Rift and Gravity Well since those abilities are not used in the Star Trek shows / movies... unless that occurred in Enterprise which I have not bothered watching after a few episodes.
- Remove ECs and Dilithium as rewards because they are not used in any of the shows or movies.
- Remove cross faction weapons. Federation ships only use phasers. KDF uses disruptors and Romulan uses plasma-disruptor hybrid because I do not recall any episode that clearly states what type of beam weapon they use. If they did, then I must have missed it.
- Remove carriers from the game. They do not exist in canon.
Because right now, pewpewpew is what sells this game.
That's a bit of a cop out and the crux of the criticism. Right now I keep reading all of this amazing critical acclaim for the latest Last of Us game. How story telling really can transcend video gaming making it a visceral and completely unique entertainment experience that neither flim nor print can deliver.
Which would be the complete foil to what you're saying.
Imagine if the developers took that kind of path with this game?
It'd certainly begin to take on a more Trek-like feel, that's for sure. And it might even sell. I mean this is a crazy outlandish concept I know, but I hear tell that the RPG genre, even the MMORPG genre, has its roots and history entrenched in the idea of story telling.
I think shoot em up kind of peaked with this game anyways.
But: You didn say we could not include minigames... You asked what non-com content there was...
But Ok... There's the Of Bajor mission...
wow, one mission that is non combat.. well, there are a few more.. well there used to be.. lol.. all the diplomacy missions are gone..
but another one, is when you have the cardassians beam aboard and you have to delegate a truce between a wrongfully accused person and the cardassians need for vengeance..
that was an awesome mission.. not saying all missions need to be non combat, but we need a good mix.. not just two missions in a thousand..
as for the guy commenting about tos.. this is far from tos.. it was a different era.. but the trend of star trek has been getting more and more that they don't want to fight.. I don't mind pew pew in moderate amounts.. but I came to this game thinking I would be made to think, and figure out problems like they did on the shows, with occasional pew pew.. but its all pew pew, with 2 or 3 thinking missions in it.
as far as me not knowing my trek.. well sir.. i am very confident that i know more about trek than id say 3/4's of the people on these forums.. i live and breathe it.. ive watched all series, all seasons at least 5 times each.. (more recently i have been on a huge voyager kick, so i am actually excited about the expansion lol). i also have read close to all the star trek books out there in publication.. and own most of them.. i have all the tech manuals, and i have even spent time behind the scenes on one of the podcasts as someone who was their go to guy about anything canon.
even as a music teacher, i have had my school band play at least 1 star trek song each year.. (this year is search for spock suite). lol...
so yeah, i hope we go into the delta quadrant on a mission of peace, and not just shooting everything that moves..
That's a bit of a cop out and the crux of the criticism. Right now I keep reading all of this amazing critical acclaim for the latest Last of Us game. How story telling really can transcend video gaming making it a visceral and completely unique entertainment experience that neither flim nor print can deliver.
Which would be the complete foil to what you're saying.
Imagine if the developers took that kind of path with this game?
It'd certainly begin to take on a more Trek-like feel, that's for sure. And it might even sell. I mean this is a crazy outlandish concept I know, but I hear tell that the RPG genre, even the MMORPG genre, has its roots and history entrenched in the idea of story telling.
I think shoot em up kind of peaked with this game anyways.
In all fairness quite a few recent changes to the game have fallen in line with what that poster was getting at. Things being "removed."
and I disagree what they are doing is bringing this game to a boring halt, it is fine the way they have it with carriers etc
I think a Star Trek game should have a robust exploration system. The old "exploration" system STO had certainly wasn't it. I'm disappointed that Delta Rising won't bring us this, but I'm not going to cry about it.
I think they're aware of the deficiency but unsure how to address it, and I don't know what else to say about it.
With ALL players able to work together to fulfill all of a sector's objectives, that is what will happen. And when the threshold is reached for completed objectives, the next new sector block would be procedurally generated and open up for exploration. If done right, events could be seeded throughout these otherwise randomly generated environments that would allow for story-driven missions to be produced and make sense.
...and right when you have almost completed everything, the KDF comes in and conquers that section through valiant and glorious battles to expand their ever growing Empire.
Hmmm ...kinda puts that into perspective huh?
This game is not *just* about the Federation, as much as people would like to forget about the KDF, they do exist, and they do tend to solve things around combat.
Furthermore, for majority of this game - the Federation was at war with the KDF. Ummm, that's combat right there ... whether the Federation wanted it or not ...
Cryptic says they're a software company that developed City of Heroes and City of Villains, along with Champions Online and Star Trek Online.
But they also said there was going to be a lot of other things in the game that never came to pass.
How do we know they actually developed STO? Or any other game?
You Cryptic fanboys can say what you want, but I don't think Star Trek Online ever existed. Just because they say they developed the game doesn't mean there is actually a game called Star Trek Online.
Delta Rising revealed in Las Vegas? I've never even been to Las Vegas. I know a lot of other people haven't either.
I have my doubts Las Vegas even exists just because Cryptic said their revelation for this supposed expansion was even there.
Anyone who says they've been to Las Vegas or Nevada obviously will believe anything Cryptic says. Including these "supposed" cities that "allegedly" exist in the "state" of "Nevada".
Keep drinking that Kool-Aid. I'll just be right here in reality where my entire world exists simply as far as my eyes can see. Which means nothing exists outside of my walls.
to be honest , this game is just a Sci fi MMO with a Star Trek Skin nothing more nothing less . its got some trek like story elements and other good sci fi story elements . its got sci fi action (pew pew and such) but has elements to me dont fit with the trek shows and movies IMO
You keep defending Cryptic all you want, but there are those of us who know the real truth.
You really believe Cryptic watches Star Trek on their lunch break?
How do you even know that they eat lunch? Have they ever said what specific foods they ate on their lunch break? Has any food service testified that they have, in fact, delivered food to Cryptic? I don't remember Al Rivera posting any lunch receipts on his Twitter account.
Has anyone actually watched Tacofangs eat lunch? How about Thomas Marrone?
Maybe it's because they've never eaten lunch.
It's really just like Cryptic saying KDF and Federation were going to have equal content. You can't trust anything they say.
The truth is everyone at Cryptic photosynthesize chemicals as a result of sunlight. That's why they're in sunny California. PWE is included. "Redwood City"? PWE consists entirely of Redwood Trees. Morrigan and Trevor have never verified they've ever eaten any food at all.
The truth is they're both Redwood Trees. They're using money spend on Zen to pay gardeners to water them every day.
Open your eyes and soak in the truth. Cryptic and PWE consist entirely of plantlife. Al Rivera is probably being pollinated by honey bees as we speak, but you Cryptic fanboys are too busy being blind sheeple to recognize it.
You keep defending Cryptic all you want, but there are those of us who know the real truth.
You really believe Cryptic watches Star Trek on their lunch break?
How do you even know that they eat lunch? Have they ever said what specific foods they ate on their lunch break? Has any food service testified that they have, in fact, delivered food to Cryptic? I don't remember Al Rivera posting any lunch receipts on his Twitter account.
Has anyone actually watched Tacofangs eat lunch? How about Thomas Marrone?
Maybe it's because they've never eaten lunch.
It's really just like Cryptic saying KDF and Federation were going to have equal content. You can't trust anything they say.
The truth is everyone at Cryptic photosynthesize chemicals as a result of sunlight. That's why they're in sunny California. PWE is included. "Redwood City"? PWE consists entirely of Redwood Trees. Morrigan and Trevor have never verified they've ever eaten any food at all.
The truth is they're both Redwood Trees. They're using money spend on Zen to pay gardeners to water them every day.
Open your eyes and soak in the truth. Cryptic and PWE consist entirely of plantlife. Al Rivera is probably being pollinated by honey bees as we speak, but you Cryptic fanboys are too busy being blind sheeple to recognize it.
To be honest, if there was any real issue I had with STO, it was the repetitive nature of non-Remastered or Feature Series missions. You entered a system, fought some ships, beamed down, fought some guys, beamed up and fought more ships, mission over. You didn't delegate too much, you killed everything in front of you, and it really didn't matter what kind of officer you were.
The Remastered and Feature Series episodes, however, completely turn that on its head.
With many of those, you can talk your way out of a fight, accomplish side objectives, or even make your life easier by using some of that Academy training. It mattered what you were, and how you played it; the closer you were to what a "real" Starfleet officer would do, the more rewarding and engrossing the game became. It wasn't a grind fest anymore; now you were really doing something.
I'm looking forward to Delta Rising because of these new missions, and hopefully some more remastering of previous missions (I am really hoping they'll spruce up the Romulan front). Most of all, I'm looking forward to playing the game like a Starfleet captain.
Let me say one last thing; I haven't played a great deal of MMOs, so I'm no expert. But STO is the only MMO I've ever played that allowed you to make your own diary entries. I have written dozens of Captain's Logs, because it made me feel like a Starfleet officer. It made me feel like I was there.
Well aside from the storytelling and mission makeup of STO i'd like to address some things that would make the game personally more pleasing graphics-wise.
"Phasers": Instead of the disco light show we have when using directed energy weapons (phasers) can we possibly limit the amount of beams firing off?
May I suggest that instead of each "phaser" firing it's own beam that in it's place a single beam fire and it's length of time firing be based on the number of "phasers" placed in our weapon slots? Maybe the first slotted weapon is what is used to determine the animation rendered.
Another possibility is during the firing cycle the beam would change appearance based on the weapons slotted.
For an example a beam would lance out with the orange phaser graphic changing green when the next slotted bio-molecular phaser is up followed by the yellowish hue of a Xindi phaser or whatever is slotted next. This could all be a single unbroken beam or fired in a pulse like fashion.
Torpedoes: Torpedo spreads and especially the higher tiered versions of the skill look crazy! The sheer volume of torpedoes is overkill.
I'm not sure, but at one time prior to this iteration of Torpedo Spread the number of torps was lesser.
Perhaps The number of torpedoes per target could be decreased rather than what looks like six or more per target with TorpSpread3?
Possibly with the skill TorpSpread I there would be a single torpedo each for the two targets, two torps/target for TSII, and three at each of the four targets with TSIII.
Also the speed of torpedoes seem like they need to be sped up a bit. Time to target seems rather slow especially with the speeds our ships are able to reach. Seems unlikely and ungainly that a photon or quantum looks to be outrun by a starship.
Possibly these changes would limit the number of things to display during battles and reduce certain rendering problems i.e. "invisatorps", weapons fire occurring yet not displayed, invisible Gravity Wells, etc.
I didn't say ANYTHING about REMOVING stuff from the game...
Not going to comment to everything you stated, but in your original post you did state the following:
It's really quite simple:
1 - They need to WATCH STAR TREK
2 - They need to make the game like what they see in Star Trek.
Energy credits do not exist. Captain Picard explicitly stated in First Contact that money does not exist. However, some form of "currency" must exist in the Federation since it is rather obvious not everyone lives in the same type of home. Perhaps there exists a "civic duty" reputation system in the Federation. You turn in your marks to pay for food, clothing, housing etc.
While Dilithium Crystals are needed by starships, you don't see any Star Trek episode where someone gets rewarded Dilithium Crystals for doing a good job... unless you can point me to a specific episode. Spock's & Scotty's re-crystalilzation process using gamma radiation (Star Trek IV) decreased the value of dilithium crystals.
Regarding carriers.... see your quoted statement above. I have never seen a carrier in Star Trek. Sure, carriers can be implied. But so can all things that Cryptic put in the game can be implied as well. The truth is those scenes were simply edited out from the final cut so that commercials can be inserted so that the broadcast stations can earn money.
By a specific standard uniform I mean that players cannot customize their uniform. You get what StarFleet Command has given you and that is it. That typically means a standard duty uniform and a dress uniform. Nothing else, not even custom colors.
While most of the points I have made takes things out of the game (because they really do not exist in any of the shows), they will also make the game feel more like Star Trek as seen on TV and on the silver screen.
Oh......
Regarding use of non standard equipment, those circumstances are typically only limited to the specific episode themselves. The two exceptions (off the top of my head; I am sure there are a couple more) are:
1. The Cloaking device installed on the Defiant and only the Defiant, no other Defiant class starship has one. Originally it could not be used without a Romulan officer on board. Forgot the circumstance for the change in policy as DS9 episodes progressed.
2. Borg Regeneration Chamber - Well since mass murderer / psychopath Captain Janeway took 7 of 9 on board Voyager, they needed some way to keep her alive.
Another thread for people to gripe about style decisions and storytelling.
Does this community literally have nothing else planned for the afternoon? Or any other afternoon? Why the vitriol? I legitimately don't understand. I've never played a video game that I hated as much as this community hates STO. Usually when I hate a game I stop playing it and go find something else to do.
Apparently I've been going about it the wrong way. Keep playing and just b*tch non-stop until they remake the game in a form I want to see it in.
I suppose one day when I no longer have a soul, I'll give it a try.
So few words for so much melodrama. I've never seen a video game match the film/TV franchise for ANY franchise, let alone Star Trek. And this thread is serving only one purpose; to gather more angry people to say more angry nonsense that everyone knows is frankly impossible.
I'm just glad there are people in this thread posting sense and reason in opposition of this mad suggestion.
Also, it's a bit of an insult to the dev team for them to do THIS MUCH work on the Star Trek game and have you say they clearly have never watched an episode of Star Trek before. If anything, I am willing to bet they understand the franchise better than I do and I have been a fan of the franchise for almost 30 years.
You're not happy with the state of game but don't go into specifics about whats bothering you, typical. Instead of whining tell the devs what you don't like and how you'd like to see things get changed.
Would you prefer to sit in your ship's Ready Room filling out duty rosters and reading engineering reports? How about crawling through jeffries tubes looking to fix conduits? Oh I know, what about waiting an hour to warp from ESD to DS9? If any of those came to pass people would bail on this game even though it would be more realistic. So I ask again what do have in mind to replace grinding?
I will agree with you about enticing more people to subscribe to the game, but again you offer no suggestions on how to do it. Here is one of my suggestions: Give subscribers early access to new ships or other gear, they get stuff 24 hours earlier than everyone else.
You can obtain most of the stuff in this game without once opening your checkbook. Trade in your dilithium for Zen to buy gear and ships or buy keys to obtain Lobi, this trading is great for people who can't afford to pay and for people who have the money but not enough time to play.
I'd honestly like to hear what your ideas and what the devs would say about them. Please post your ideas.
"Live Long and Prosper but always carry a fully charged phaser, just in case!". Arrr'ow
No, their economical system is different because the system we use simply cannot exist when Replications exist, our current model simply does not work.
Credits exist because likely they need some reference point to other economies, likely its just from government to government as the currency seems to be worthless on private citizens due to how the Federation basic economy worked.
Federation Credits are a source of controversy in canon, because it's both stated that money doesn't exist within the Federation, and yet there is the "Federation Credit".
I feel the Credit exists purely as a Federation-established medium of exchange for goods purchased by dealers within the Federation and those who deal with the Federation from the outside, more the way money was used long long ago as simply a qualifier that you have the right under government law to acquire unreplicatable goods in exchange for the goods you have previously traded to another dealer or work performed without physical compensation.
And since no one has ever seen a physical bank note labeled "Credit Note of the United Federation of Planets", I'm inclined to believe that the Credit is a non-physical currency.
Cryptic says they're a software company that developed City of Heroes and City of Villains, along with Champions Online and Star Trek Online.
But they also said there was going to be a lot of other things in the game that never came to pass.
How do we know they actually developed STO? Or any other game?
You Cryptic fanboys can say what you want, but I don't think Star Trek Online ever existed. Just because they say they developed the game doesn't mean there is actually a game called Star Trek Online.
Delta Rising revealed in Las Vegas? I've never even been to Las Vegas. I know a lot of other people haven't either.
I have my doubts Las Vegas even exists just because Cryptic said their revelation for this supposed expansion was even there.
Anyone who says they've been to Las Vegas or Nevada obviously will believe anything Cryptic says. Including these "supposed" cities that "allegedly" exist in the "state" of "Nevada".
Keep drinking that Kool-Aid. I'll just be right here in reality where my entire world exists simply as far as my eyes can see. Which means nothing exists outside of my walls.
Schrodinger's Forumite.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"
Federation Credits are a source of controversy in canon, because it's both stated that money doesn't exist within the Federation, and yet there is the "Federation Credit".
I feel the Credit exists purely as a Federation-established medium of exchange for goods purchased by dealers within the Federation and those who deal with the Federation from the outside, more the way money was used long long ago as simply a qualifier that you have the right under government law to acquire unreplicatable goods in exchange for the goods you have previously traded to another dealer or work performed without physical compensation.
And since no one has ever seen a physical bank note labeled "Credit Note of the United Federation of Planets", I'm inclined to believe that the Credit is a non-physical currency.
People who love to cite Picard's First Contact dialogue with Lilly just looooove to forget all the other times in the past few decades in the franchise where money has been confirmed to exist in canon, in Starfleet, and in the Federation.
Neither have I. But every MMO that is announced and based on a beloved IP, I hold out hope that maybe this time, the developer in question would demonstrate an interest in doing more than just leaching the bucks off fans of said IP by creating a gaming experience in which the IP is not merely skin-deep and in fact permeates the entirety of the core design.
This may come as a shock to you, but said games are there to make money.
This is not Star Trek Online. It's Star Trek Skin on a generic MMO Engine With More Grindfests Than You Can Shake A Stick At Online.
Unless you're the holder of the intellectual property of Star Trek, you really have no substance to back your claim that this isn't Star Trek Online. You can have your opinion that it isn't as 'Star Trek' as it could be, but to say it isn't Star Trek at all is nonsense.
The intellectual property holder that licenses it to Cryptic has said that it's Star Trek. Therefore it's Star Trek.
I don't know... This thread seems pretty civil compared to many.
But you don't disagree that it's asking for the impossible?
Are you a Star Trek fan? Do you really feel like this game is really doing Star Trek justice?
Relevance? I'm a Star Trek fan and I think the game does the IP justice for the most part. Does it resemble my personal opinion on what it should be? Absolutely not. Do I hold the opinion that Cryptic got the game mostly right? Yes, I believe that.
Or are you just playing this game just to pass some time and don't really care whether it does Star Trek justice? Because All I want to see is some effort on the part of Cryptic that shows that they really do care about the IP and want to do it justice, in more than periodic story-bones tossed to the community that will be consumed very quickly leaving many with just one question... "What now?"
The problem with using terms and phrases such as "Doing Star Trek justice", "Making it more Star Trek", and "Caring about the IP", is they're weasel words that don't really describe anything at all.
Asking Cryptic to watch Star Trek and then make a game off of what they see in the shows is extremely vague.
You produce no valuable feedback for Cryptic or the players of STO to really draw from. You're using an extremely vague 'talking point' and expecting the rest of us to draw the conclusion of what you're trying to say. But we aren't mind readers. Some of us love Star Trek and love Star Trek Online. And even we don't know what you're trying to ask for.
Whatever you're asking for is either inside your head and can't be properly described, or you're expecting people to know exactly what you're talking about.
In either case, the communication attempt you're making isn't even remotely helpful to the narrative you're trying to present.
Because they know that there is a massive Star Trek fan base and they want to make money off od them...
Gene Roddenberry thought the same thing. Star Trek isn't a religious text. It isn't sacred. It has been there since the 1960's to generate money first and foremost. The 'message' has always been secondary, if not tertiary.
I am a Star Trek fan, first and foremost. I am an MMO fan as well. And when this MMO becomes more reflective of Star Trek, then I will spend some money on it. Until then... I won't. That is my prerogative.
And I am a Star Trek fan, but I am a human being first and foremost. I have different opinions, desires, wants, and needs. I do not expect other Star Trek fans to have my exact same wants and needs. A Star Trek fan who grew up with TOS may want a different Star Trek experience to those who liked Deep Space Nine, just for example.
If I want Cryptic to consider doing this or that, I will try to communicate it to them in the most constructive way possible. I will point out specific examples of what should be changed, or what should be added.
Sometimes I will even derisively mock various people at Cryptic for doing something I think they should have known better than to do. In general, I point my fingers at the people up top for greenlighting these things to happen. But I always try to be very clear and to the point.
However, as a Star Trek fan, I am also open to compromise. I have compromised on many design decisions of the game. Cryptic has met me halfway a great deal of the time, and I have done the same for them. I have attempted to not be entirely unreasonable in my feedback, but I also acknowledge I'm not a developer -- they are artists, creators, and they have their own vision and design which does not always resemble my own.
To expect that vision to be uncompromised with any other individual Star Trek fan is asking the impossible. And if one is to ask the impossible, it is best not to ask at all.
Well, if they do, then they need to start making design decisions that reflect that understanding. What have they got to lose? Players? Who would leave if the game became more like Star Trek? Trekkers? I don't think so. Non-Trekkers? This is Star Trek Online. I would rather lose players who really don't give a rip about Star Trek than those who do. If that seems harsh, then too bad.
Similarly, I dislike a great deal of the STO playerbase. But it has absolutely nothing to do with how much or how little they love Star Trek. I really just dislike humanity in general. But I will say Star Trek Online captures enough of the Star Trek IP to keep me hooked, no matter how many curve balls they throw at me or how irritated I get at some of their design decisions.
Whether Cryptic/PWE likes it or not, by licensing the Star Trek IP, they get the Star Trek fandom that goes with it. And if the Star Trek fans are not the core audience, then who is? I still haven't figured out just who they are trying to appeal to.
Whoever they are appealing to, it seems to be working. Presumably, it isn't you.
Comments
- Remove cross faction starships, this includes alien starships from lock boxes.
- Remove special abilities like Tyken's Rift and Gravity Well since those abilities are not used in the Star Trek shows / movies... unless that occurred in Enterprise which I have not bothered watching after a few episodes.
- Remove ECs and Dilithium as rewards because they are not used in any of the shows or movies.
- Remove cross faction weapons. Federation ships only use phasers. KDF uses disruptors and Romulan uses plasma-disruptor hybrid because I do not recall any episode that clearly states what type of beam weapon they use. If they did, then I must have missed it.
- Remove carriers from the game. They do not exist in canon.
- More emphasis on diplomacy and exploration.
- A specific standard uniform for each faction.
- No combat pets.
That's all for now...
In other words, grind this game to a boring halt.
That's a bit of a cop out and the crux of the criticism. Right now I keep reading all of this amazing critical acclaim for the latest Last of Us game. How story telling really can transcend video gaming making it a visceral and completely unique entertainment experience that neither flim nor print can deliver.
Which would be the complete foil to what you're saying.
Imagine if the developers took that kind of path with this game?
It'd certainly begin to take on a more Trek-like feel, that's for sure. And it might even sell. I mean this is a crazy outlandish concept I know, but I hear tell that the RPG genre, even the MMORPG genre, has its roots and history entrenched in the idea of story telling.
I think shoot em up kind of peaked with this game anyways.
In all fairness quite a few recent changes to the game have fallen in line with what that poster was getting at. Things being "removed."
wow, one mission that is non combat.. well, there are a few more.. well there used to be.. lol.. all the diplomacy missions are gone..
but another one, is when you have the cardassians beam aboard and you have to delegate a truce between a wrongfully accused person and the cardassians need for vengeance..
that was an awesome mission.. not saying all missions need to be non combat, but we need a good mix.. not just two missions in a thousand..
as for the guy commenting about tos.. this is far from tos.. it was a different era.. but the trend of star trek has been getting more and more that they don't want to fight.. I don't mind pew pew in moderate amounts.. but I came to this game thinking I would be made to think, and figure out problems like they did on the shows, with occasional pew pew.. but its all pew pew, with 2 or 3 thinking missions in it.
as far as me not knowing my trek.. well sir.. i am very confident that i know more about trek than id say 3/4's of the people on these forums.. i live and breathe it.. ive watched all series, all seasons at least 5 times each.. (more recently i have been on a huge voyager kick, so i am actually excited about the expansion lol). i also have read close to all the star trek books out there in publication.. and own most of them.. i have all the tech manuals, and i have even spent time behind the scenes on one of the podcasts as someone who was their go to guy about anything canon.
even as a music teacher, i have had my school band play at least 1 star trek song each year.. (this year is search for spock suite). lol...
so yeah, i hope we go into the delta quadrant on a mission of peace, and not just shooting everything that moves..
and I disagree what they are doing is bringing this game to a boring halt, it is fine the way they have it with carriers etc
I think they're aware of the deficiency but unsure how to address it, and I don't know what else to say about it.
...and right when you have almost completed everything, the KDF comes in and conquers that section through valiant and glorious battles to expand their ever growing Empire.
Hmmm ...kinda puts that into perspective huh?
This game is not *just* about the Federation, as much as people would like to forget about the KDF, they do exist, and they do tend to solve things around combat.
Furthermore, for majority of this game - the Federation was at war with the KDF. Ummm, that's combat right there ... whether the Federation wanted it or not ...
Just sayin ....
But they also said there was going to be a lot of other things in the game that never came to pass.
How do we know they actually developed STO? Or any other game?
You Cryptic fanboys can say what you want, but I don't think Star Trek Online ever existed. Just because they say they developed the game doesn't mean there is actually a game called Star Trek Online.
Delta Rising revealed in Las Vegas? I've never even been to Las Vegas. I know a lot of other people haven't either.
I have my doubts Las Vegas even exists just because Cryptic said their revelation for this supposed expansion was even there.
Anyone who says they've been to Las Vegas or Nevada obviously will believe anything Cryptic says. Including these "supposed" cities that "allegedly" exist in the "state" of "Nevada".
Keep drinking that Kool-Aid. I'll just be right here in reality where my entire world exists simply as far as my eyes can see. Which means nothing exists outside of my walls.
You keep defending Cryptic all you want, but there are those of us who know the real truth.
You really believe Cryptic watches Star Trek on their lunch break?
How do you even know that they eat lunch? Have they ever said what specific foods they ate on their lunch break? Has any food service testified that they have, in fact, delivered food to Cryptic? I don't remember Al Rivera posting any lunch receipts on his Twitter account.
Has anyone actually watched Tacofangs eat lunch? How about Thomas Marrone?
Maybe it's because they've never eaten lunch.
It's really just like Cryptic saying KDF and Federation were going to have equal content. You can't trust anything they say.
The truth is everyone at Cryptic photosynthesize chemicals as a result of sunlight. That's why they're in sunny California. PWE is included. "Redwood City"? PWE consists entirely of Redwood Trees. Morrigan and Trevor have never verified they've ever eaten any food at all.
The truth is they're both Redwood Trees. They're using money spend on Zen to pay gardeners to water them every day.
Open your eyes and soak in the truth. Cryptic and PWE consist entirely of plantlife. Al Rivera is probably being pollinated by honey bees as we speak, but you Cryptic fanboys are too busy being blind sheeple to recognize it.
They're Ents! I should have known!
Isengard everyone from the lies of Cryptic.
You win everything, my friend.
To be honest, if there was any real issue I had with STO, it was the repetitive nature of non-Remastered or Feature Series missions. You entered a system, fought some ships, beamed down, fought some guys, beamed up and fought more ships, mission over. You didn't delegate too much, you killed everything in front of you, and it really didn't matter what kind of officer you were.
The Remastered and Feature Series episodes, however, completely turn that on its head.
With many of those, you can talk your way out of a fight, accomplish side objectives, or even make your life easier by using some of that Academy training. It mattered what you were, and how you played it; the closer you were to what a "real" Starfleet officer would do, the more rewarding and engrossing the game became. It wasn't a grind fest anymore; now you were really doing something.
I'm looking forward to Delta Rising because of these new missions, and hopefully some more remastering of previous missions (I am really hoping they'll spruce up the Romulan front). Most of all, I'm looking forward to playing the game like a Starfleet captain.
Let me say one last thing; I haven't played a great deal of MMOs, so I'm no expert. But STO is the only MMO I've ever played that allowed you to make your own diary entries. I have written dozens of Captain's Logs, because it made me feel like a Starfleet officer. It made me feel like I was there.
Isn't that what an MMO is for?
"Phasers": Instead of the disco light show we have when using directed energy weapons (phasers) can we possibly limit the amount of beams firing off?
May I suggest that instead of each "phaser" firing it's own beam that in it's place a single beam fire and it's length of time firing be based on the number of "phasers" placed in our weapon slots? Maybe the first slotted weapon is what is used to determine the animation rendered.
Another possibility is during the firing cycle the beam would change appearance based on the weapons slotted.
For an example a beam would lance out with the orange phaser graphic changing green when the next slotted bio-molecular phaser is up followed by the yellowish hue of a Xindi phaser or whatever is slotted next. This could all be a single unbroken beam or fired in a pulse like fashion.
Torpedoes: Torpedo spreads and especially the higher tiered versions of the skill look crazy! The sheer volume of torpedoes is overkill.
I'm not sure, but at one time prior to this iteration of Torpedo Spread the number of torps was lesser.
Perhaps The number of torpedoes per target could be decreased rather than what looks like six or more per target with TorpSpread3?
Possibly with the skill TorpSpread I there would be a single torpedo each for the two targets, two torps/target for TSII, and three at each of the four targets with TSIII.
Also the speed of torpedoes seem like they need to be sped up a bit. Time to target seems rather slow especially with the speeds our ships are able to reach. Seems unlikely and ungainly that a photon or quantum looks to be outrun by a starship.
Possibly these changes would limit the number of things to display during battles and reduce certain rendering problems i.e. "invisatorps", weapons fire occurring yet not displayed, invisible Gravity Wells, etc.
Not going to comment to everything you stated, but in your original post you did state the following:
Energy credits do not exist. Captain Picard explicitly stated in First Contact that money does not exist. However, some form of "currency" must exist in the Federation since it is rather obvious not everyone lives in the same type of home. Perhaps there exists a "civic duty" reputation system in the Federation. You turn in your marks to pay for food, clothing, housing etc.
While Dilithium Crystals are needed by starships, you don't see any Star Trek episode where someone gets rewarded Dilithium Crystals for doing a good job... unless you can point me to a specific episode. Spock's & Scotty's re-crystalilzation process using gamma radiation (Star Trek IV) decreased the value of dilithium crystals.
Regarding carriers.... see your quoted statement above. I have never seen a carrier in Star Trek. Sure, carriers can be implied. But so can all things that Cryptic put in the game can be implied as well. The truth is those scenes were simply edited out from the final cut so that commercials can be inserted so that the broadcast stations can earn money.
By a specific standard uniform I mean that players cannot customize their uniform. You get what StarFleet Command has given you and that is it. That typically means a standard duty uniform and a dress uniform. Nothing else, not even custom colors.
While most of the points I have made takes things out of the game (because they really do not exist in any of the shows), they will also make the game feel more like Star Trek as seen on TV and on the silver screen.
Oh......
Regarding use of non standard equipment, those circumstances are typically only limited to the specific episode themselves. The two exceptions (off the top of my head; I am sure there are a couple more) are:
1. The Cloaking device installed on the Defiant and only the Defiant, no other Defiant class starship has one. Originally it could not be used without a Romulan officer on board. Forgot the circumstance for the change in policy as DS9 episodes progressed.
2. Borg Regeneration Chamber - Well since mass murderer / psychopath Captain Janeway took 7 of 9 on board Voyager, they needed some way to keep her alive.
Does this community literally have nothing else planned for the afternoon? Or any other afternoon? Why the vitriol? I legitimately don't understand. I've never played a video game that I hated as much as this community hates STO. Usually when I hate a game I stop playing it and go find something else to do.
Apparently I've been going about it the wrong way. Keep playing and just b*tch non-stop until they remake the game in a form I want to see it in.
I suppose one day when I no longer have a soul, I'll give it a try.
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
So few words for so much melodrama. I've never seen a video game match the film/TV franchise for ANY franchise, let alone Star Trek. And this thread is serving only one purpose; to gather more angry people to say more angry nonsense that everyone knows is frankly impossible.
I'm just glad there are people in this thread posting sense and reason in opposition of this mad suggestion.
Also, it's a bit of an insult to the dev team for them to do THIS MUCH work on the Star Trek game and have you say they clearly have never watched an episode of Star Trek before. If anything, I am willing to bet they understand the franchise better than I do and I have been a fan of the franchise for almost 30 years.
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Would you prefer to sit in your ship's Ready Room filling out duty rosters and reading engineering reports? How about crawling through jeffries tubes looking to fix conduits? Oh I know, what about waiting an hour to warp from ESD to DS9? If any of those came to pass people would bail on this game even though it would be more realistic. So I ask again what do have in mind to replace grinding?
I will agree with you about enticing more people to subscribe to the game, but again you offer no suggestions on how to do it. Here is one of my suggestions: Give subscribers early access to new ships or other gear, they get stuff 24 hours earlier than everyone else.
You can obtain most of the stuff in this game without once opening your checkbook. Trade in your dilithium for Zen to buy gear and ships or buy keys to obtain Lobi, this trading is great for people who can't afford to pay and for people who have the money but not enough time to play.
I'd honestly like to hear what your ideas and what the devs would say about them. Please post your ideas.
Co-Leader of Serenity's Grasp
Federation Credits are a source of controversy in canon, because it's both stated that money doesn't exist within the Federation, and yet there is the "Federation Credit".
I feel the Credit exists purely as a Federation-established medium of exchange for goods purchased by dealers within the Federation and those who deal with the Federation from the outside, more the way money was used long long ago as simply a qualifier that you have the right under government law to acquire unreplicatable goods in exchange for the goods you have previously traded to another dealer or work performed without physical compensation.
And since no one has ever seen a physical bank note labeled "Credit Note of the United Federation of Planets", I'm inclined to believe that the Credit is a non-physical currency.
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Schrodinger's Forumite.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
Money has been contradictory and inconsistent in Star Trek since TOS.
People who love to cite Picard's First Contact dialogue with Lilly just looooove to forget all the other times in the past few decades in the franchise where money has been confirmed to exist in canon, in Starfleet, and in the Federation.
This may come as a shock to you, but said games are there to make money.
Unless you're the holder of the intellectual property of Star Trek, you really have no substance to back your claim that this isn't Star Trek Online. You can have your opinion that it isn't as 'Star Trek' as it could be, but to say it isn't Star Trek at all is nonsense.
The intellectual property holder that licenses it to Cryptic has said that it's Star Trek. Therefore it's Star Trek.
But you don't disagree that it's asking for the impossible?
Relevance? I'm a Star Trek fan and I think the game does the IP justice for the most part. Does it resemble my personal opinion on what it should be? Absolutely not. Do I hold the opinion that Cryptic got the game mostly right? Yes, I believe that.
The problem with using terms and phrases such as "Doing Star Trek justice", "Making it more Star Trek", and "Caring about the IP", is they're weasel words that don't really describe anything at all.
Asking Cryptic to watch Star Trek and then make a game off of what they see in the shows is extremely vague.
You produce no valuable feedback for Cryptic or the players of STO to really draw from. You're using an extremely vague 'talking point' and expecting the rest of us to draw the conclusion of what you're trying to say. But we aren't mind readers. Some of us love Star Trek and love Star Trek Online. And even we don't know what you're trying to ask for.
Whatever you're asking for is either inside your head and can't be properly described, or you're expecting people to know exactly what you're talking about.
In either case, the communication attempt you're making isn't even remotely helpful to the narrative you're trying to present.
Gene Roddenberry thought the same thing. Star Trek isn't a religious text. It isn't sacred. It has been there since the 1960's to generate money first and foremost. The 'message' has always been secondary, if not tertiary.
And I am a Star Trek fan, but I am a human being first and foremost. I have different opinions, desires, wants, and needs. I do not expect other Star Trek fans to have my exact same wants and needs. A Star Trek fan who grew up with TOS may want a different Star Trek experience to those who liked Deep Space Nine, just for example.
If I want Cryptic to consider doing this or that, I will try to communicate it to them in the most constructive way possible. I will point out specific examples of what should be changed, or what should be added.
Sometimes I will even derisively mock various people at Cryptic for doing something I think they should have known better than to do. In general, I point my fingers at the people up top for greenlighting these things to happen. But I always try to be very clear and to the point.
However, as a Star Trek fan, I am also open to compromise. I have compromised on many design decisions of the game. Cryptic has met me halfway a great deal of the time, and I have done the same for them. I have attempted to not be entirely unreasonable in my feedback, but I also acknowledge I'm not a developer -- they are artists, creators, and they have their own vision and design which does not always resemble my own.
To expect that vision to be uncompromised with any other individual Star Trek fan is asking the impossible. And if one is to ask the impossible, it is best not to ask at all.
Similarly, I dislike a great deal of the STO playerbase. But it has absolutely nothing to do with how much or how little they love Star Trek. I really just dislike humanity in general. But I will say Star Trek Online captures enough of the Star Trek IP to keep me hooked, no matter how many curve balls they throw at me or how irritated I get at some of their design decisions.
Whoever they are appealing to, it seems to be working. Presumably, it isn't you.