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I ust genuinely love the Romulan storyline!
orphalesion
Member Posts: 10 Arc User
Hey,
First of all I don't usually play MMOs and was talked into giving STO a try by a friend. Yet I must say I am positively surprised.
I started by trying out all the different factions. The Federation tutorial was a bit bland and I hate Elisa Flores. The Klingons.... yeah... I'm not really suited for that culture, that constant killing of throngs of people for such imaginary reasons like "honor" is not really my thing and left me apathetic to whether I succeed or not. Also everything looked so rusty and ugly.
I tried the Romulans last, because I didn't like them on the show, those militaristic, scheming space fascists.
However my opinion of them quickly changed as I played through the tutorial alone. The beautiful world of Virinat, the way the colonists treated each other, the idea that everybody was sick of the Empire and just wanted to find a new way of living. Now THAT'S something I can get behind!
The storyline just continued to push all the right buttons with me to motivate to do the next mission. D'Tan is a cool leader who seems to know the score, the Remans finally have a hand in their own fate, and I have to say I even like Kovan and was actually quite interested in finding his sister (to bad that it was kinda anti-climactic) And I freaking love the uniforms they look like the uniforms from the 1970s Battlestar Galactica
I also found Sela to be an excellent villain and the missions where she brainwashes you were entertaining as hell. Another favorite mission was the survey of New Romulus and it strange fauna/flora.
I'm now at the point where it peters out into what appear the same missions Starfleet gets, which is a bit disappointing I'd rather have more storyline dealing wit the Republic and the Empire than with the Cardassians or the Borg. Who needs them?
Another critique is that my bridge crew is a bit mono-racial, my Betazoid Federation officer doesn't even show up on the bridge, no matter what I do
Anyway I just wanted to congratulate the developers for those early Romulan missions that greatly caught my interest.
First of all I don't usually play MMOs and was talked into giving STO a try by a friend. Yet I must say I am positively surprised.
I started by trying out all the different factions. The Federation tutorial was a bit bland and I hate Elisa Flores. The Klingons.... yeah... I'm not really suited for that culture, that constant killing of throngs of people for such imaginary reasons like "honor" is not really my thing and left me apathetic to whether I succeed or not. Also everything looked so rusty and ugly.
I tried the Romulans last, because I didn't like them on the show, those militaristic, scheming space fascists.
However my opinion of them quickly changed as I played through the tutorial alone. The beautiful world of Virinat, the way the colonists treated each other, the idea that everybody was sick of the Empire and just wanted to find a new way of living. Now THAT'S something I can get behind!
The storyline just continued to push all the right buttons with me to motivate to do the next mission. D'Tan is a cool leader who seems to know the score, the Remans finally have a hand in their own fate, and I have to say I even like Kovan and was actually quite interested in finding his sister (to bad that it was kinda anti-climactic) And I freaking love the uniforms they look like the uniforms from the 1970s Battlestar Galactica
I also found Sela to be an excellent villain and the missions where she brainwashes you were entertaining as hell. Another favorite mission was the survey of New Romulus and it strange fauna/flora.
I'm now at the point where it peters out into what appear the same missions Starfleet gets, which is a bit disappointing I'd rather have more storyline dealing wit the Republic and the Empire than with the Cardassians or the Borg. Who needs them?
Another critique is that my bridge crew is a bit mono-racial, my Betazoid Federation officer doesn't even show up on the bridge, no matter what I do
Anyway I just wanted to congratulate the developers for those early Romulan missions that greatly caught my interest.
Fleeing Tal Shiar opression, Proconsul D'Tan leads a ragtag flotilla on a lonely quest...a shining planet known as Mol'Rihan.
Post edited by orphalesion on
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[Combat (Self)] You lose 6549 (7572) Cold from the torment of the underworld.
In-game handle @Janetza
well... it had to happen at some point I guess....
I do agree that there is a distinct lack of diversity in the Republic BOFF options. I really wish there were more opportunities to earn BOFFs, particularly Remans. A quick solution would be to make the Reman Science officer special reward from "Cutting the Cord" a permanent drop for lifetime members, and fix him so that he is a REPUBLIC BOFF rather than a KDF or Fed "loaned" officer.
Pretty much spells out my own problem with the faction though:
It wasn't designed to appeal to fans of the Romulans from the shows-the "militaristic, scheming space fascists", but rather to be as generically appealing to as wide an audience as possible,
Not sure why some people like Tovan Khev-he steals the spotlight in a game that's already determined to take the helm away from the player as much as possible in regards to the plot- at least the devs seem to have learned their lesson with the Klingon and Starfleet Khev equivalents.
Every episode they featured in. That pretty much definces them. They were undoubtedly militaristic, and they hit all the fascist high notes: ethnic nationalism (promoting race and nation above all else), autocratic totalitarian government, a politically powerful secret police/intelligence organization, and definitely militarism. They are undoubtedly fascist.
I also heartily agree with the OP. The Romulan storyline is the best out of all the factions. THe outfits are superior to the Klingon, and better than most of the Fed outfits. The ships look great, the planet is an awesome social zone, and the asthetics are cool. All it needs it more attention, such as a Romulan design starbase (Points at Gasko and Rhi'hiho. HInt hint, Cryptic). And despite the insane hatred from some segments for Tovan Khev, I find him far more likeable than many other characters (The aggressively stupid Koren and whiny annoying Kurland, and the Hammy Hakeev come to mind). The story was rather anticlimactic, so I ended up making a Rinna Khev boff of my own.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts OP. Always good to have another Romulan fan fighting the Federation monopoly.
I do like the uniforms better than the Klingon ones....those really need a redo ASAP.
Honestly most of my complaints about the Republic don't stem from the idea of a faction like the Republic-but rather the application of it. It would be amazing as a Bajoran storyline/faction, but is woefully out of place amongst the Romulans. If we were going to have a 'villain faction' in STO-lets be honest-the Romulans would be the ones to fill those shoes.
I expect I'd greatly enjoy it as a Bajoran faction though. Tovan would fit in much better as well, IMO.
I see were you are coming from, still I found it very creative of them to actually have the Romulans move on from that. I agree with others who ay that the Romulans almost play like a "Bajoran" faction and have to admit that the Bajorans are among my favorite species in Star Trek lore.
Maye they will be more faithful when/if they create a Cardassian faction, then people still get to play the scheming space fascists. It won't be the same as Romulans, but still.
I really like that you sorta have a "second guy" in the form of Kovan. I have to say I mostly play JRPGs so I'm used to getting a set of non-customizable characters and follow their story. Kovan kind of is like that, that's why I like him.
That, while an idea would not help me. I like this game, however I don't like it enough to break my iron rule not to pay for digital content. I'd pay for the game if it came in the shape of a CD, once, to obtain said CD, but I would not use my hard earned money to get a better ship or a BOFF.
I know, but it was so anticlimactic, it'd be nice to have her run around New Romulus or something.
Good idea, I might do that!
As a side note, I find the Bajorans in STO to be highly irritating, with the constant harping on the occupation that ended 40 years ago, especially considering how much better off the Bajorans are then the Cardassians. They WON, and still act like oppressed victims.
Honestly while they were antagonistic to the federation, they weren't villains really. Just because someone has a different perspective/opinion/culture doesn't make them villains. Klingons have no problem pulling a blade on someone that insults them a gutting them in the street. Doesn't make them villains even tho thats hugely against UFP morality and laws. It makes them DIFFERENT which is what Cryptic refuses to do with its factions/fractions. We're all "one big happy fleet" to quote a famous villain.
It's all about those 'metrics' or whatever Cryptic is calling them nowadays. They didn't have a problem with letting players play 'evil factions' until they decided that 'evil' factions don't sell well enough to warrant investment-this is why the Romulans are a 'good guy faction' based off the Bajorans instead of TNG/DS9-style Romulans.
They are on record saying as much. Villain factions just aren't efficient enough compared to good-guy factions in making money for them to bother anymore. It has nothing to do with being inappropriate for Star Trek or STO.
Even under Gene the Federation always had antagonists, and that's a niche that the Romulans have traditionally filled in most of their appearances.And whatever he may or may not have thought on the matter, there are quite a few existing Trek games that let one fill the boots of Trek antagonists like the Romulans, Klingons, and even the Borg.
Besides, if I was Rihannsu, I'd want to overthrow Sela. Just to be able to tell her, "Shut UP! You Frakkin' IDIOT!!" And make it stick.
A lot of people like Tovan, I see Romulans running around with him all the time. While I can understand why some people don't like him, for people who don't have a firm back story already for their character, he helps tell the story of what's happening.
The whole 'Federation has the best culture and everyone should be like us' shtick that Gene loved has some rather sinister undertones of cultural imperialism IMO...see Quark and Garak's 'root bear' conversation...one of the few times when writers took a shot at that.
I've long suspected Star Trek of hidden racism. Humans seem to make most of the decisions in Starfleet. In ST: Insurrection, Picard protected the community of wholesomecsmall town folksy white people from the evils of being moved so that the rest of the galaxy could live longer, healthier lives.
Also, the Klingons are about as villainous as cryptic will allow. Even then, your character is supposed to be a paragon of Klingon honor (canonically).
Its like he's cheating on me.
Oh man! I lol'd! I'll send you the cleaning bill for my laptop. Because your post made me spit my coffee all over it.
Thanks for the laugh. I needed it. Much appreciated.
Just because a handful of people can't stand him doesn't means everyone can't stand him. In LOR Beta Tovan got a lot of positive feedback, so much so I feel very safe in saying its a rather small minority that wants to delete him, a sentiment backed up by the fact that after there was some Tovan backlash and the dev team looked at what it would take to make him optional, that they decided it wasn't worth the effort to do so. If there was any sizable amount of people that disliked him they would have make a greater effort to fix the problems that made him required as unhappy customers impact the bottom line.
As far as the story is concerned. Gameplay is another story. They are the new Klingons of STO. The devs doesn't care about them anymore, while the glue and duct tape trying to hold the faction together clearly show.
As for Tovan, he's fine IMO. I still prefer to have my own stories with my own BOFF, but whatever, it was a change, and I enjoyed it.
That was rude and uncalled for.
Yer missin the point of my post, you claimed people must like him because they use him, I simply pointed out just because he's in use doesn't mean he's liked. Also thanks for the lol at the concept of Cryptic actually doing what players would want... you apparently haven't been paying attention.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Same here. I named mine Dralath. Which I later learned was the mad praetor responsible for the attack on Narendra III, and thus the Khitomer accords.
I use the Reman Borg Legacy BOFF as my XO and tactical officer. Slowly as I get more Remans, I am phasing out the Romulan groupies, although Satra is proving to be a very useful Med Officer (boht in space and on ground) and Hiven is decent when it comes to running the overnight maintanace shifts(his Sci team is useful in an Ensign slot).
One of the main complaints was the he took the space for potential better boffs with stuff like SRO and so on.
Now that we don't need 20 specialised boffs anymore, cause they don't "forget" their skills now, his presence has become much more tolerable.
I don't know any Romulan players who don't want a full Romulan Faction, starbase and all. But if you don't like the Romulan Storyline, don't play it. ANd don't call names. Go ahead and express your opinions about the faction, but don't insult the people themselves. It's a sign that you are either a troll, or getting too invested in the politics of a GAME, which nearly happened to me once.
No that's more because it is cheaper to leave your characters as humans rather than put them under elaborate makeup and the believe that audiences, being human, would identify with the human characters more than alien ones.
That is indeed quite annoying, I have replaced the rest of the tutorial characters by now for that reason. However as I said I'm used to pre-defined characters. I gave him a bit of a makeover to remedy that.
I am not trolling. I just really like the storyline and like the idea of them moving on culturally from the very rigid society in the show. I can understand their fans being upset, but I never was a fan of the Romulans from the series/movies, so I see the whole thing differently. I thought I give this feedback because I was positively surprised that a mmo story could actually hold my interest.
It's called "different opinions" it's quite common among humans. :-)
I'm not too bothered that you have to join either the Klingons or the Feds. Naturally it would be better for the Romulan Republic to still be their own thing but as of where I am now it has not really factored into the storyline much, except when Tasha Yar called my character a "Starfleet Officer"
"Starfleet Officer"?. Sorry ma'am no, "Starfleet Officer" here, only a proud defender of Mol'Rihan.
@OP: go to Vulcan ground and do the diplomatic daily quest as a Fed-Rom if you want to see something really weird.
My character Tsin'xing