So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
You could go with the concept Cryptic originally planed before they dropped it for star clusters. I'm still waiting to discover a planet and have it named after me.
If we want to talk about exploration, why don't we try utilizing the player base to make entire sectors and tie foundry missions to them, users could then vote on whether or not these sectors are of sufficient quality before they're implemented in-game. Sure we could have restrictions to minimise some craziness. Though, overall, wouldn't this be a great idea? Potentially thousands of sectors to roam, explore and discover. We could choose where our fleet starbases could be, and allow users to visit it (to use the bank, exchange, shipyards, etc). We could tie in anomalies, artifacts, our own custom civilizations (or introduce Betazed!).
As it stands the galaxy in STO feels, small and tight. We can't rely on Cryptic to do this by themselves as this would take too long, so why not use the playerbase and design sectors in the foundry or the like?
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So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
Taco,
Thanks for popping in. Exploration has been a feature I've wanted but has always been difficult to implement. However there are a few ways to make this feel more Treky and less star ship combat simulator.
1) developer made exploration maps: released in quarterly updates, I don't think scanning per say is the problem hell we all know our favorite captains complained about that boring planetary survey they had to do as an Ensign. Just make the scanning interesting.. Ie as an example planetary survey beam down and take samples of life forms, geology, weather patterns, atmosphere etc.. Just not the same thing. Maybe some planets have hostile life forms that might attack if we get to close.. Like apex predators. Maybe some of the planets are perfect for colonization... Can then open a Doff chain to colonize the planet. Maybe it can be terra formed... Another Doff mission. Maybe it's useless or very rarely we could find something that would require the planet to be closed off.. Yet another Doff mission . From one activity you have a wide variety of outcomes.. The thing is you could take the same maps and randomize the outcome each time.
2) foundry content.. Not my favorite but useful.. Others have covered this.
3) make ranks in the various Doff mission categories useful... Everywhere. Requires extreme revamp.. Population would love you for it. Has already been done in a few missions. What I mean is allow options based on the ranks we've gained in various Doff categories like diplomacy, military, espionage, science, medical etc to open up. Ie if you have a high enough diplomacy skill you can talk your way out of a fight. So a patrol that normally says kill 5 groups perhaps after you defeat the first group and you have a high enough diplo ranks you are allowed to talk to the other groups and talk them into leaving. Or if you have a super high espionage skill perhaps you get an option to send over a boarding party or two to take over some ships and turn them to your side. Again the conditions could be really varied.. Again extreme revamp but the payoffs would huge.. It would put the Trek back in to Star Trek Online. Every story should have this built in.. Sometimes you can not avoid a fight but almost every Federation captain will try. Now my Klingon friends .., well with all the military categories I'm sure they'll have fun to.
I personally liked the Romulus walk through mission where you shoot the bottles. It is little details like that which make an exploration mission. Just something random and fun to do.
Agreed...
And what's the chances of something like that spawning a side mission? This may be beyond the scope of what the game can do, but what if interacting with an object could be the door to a mission? Say someone observes you shooting those bottles and now they're a contact for a mission to hunt down some Tal Shiar spotted south of the settlement?
Exploration should provide incentive to explore and interact with the environment... head off the beaten path in hopes of finding something. More than once I've gone exploring the instance map just to see what the map artists created, hoping to find some secret little area with something interesting there.
If the system provided an alternative way to acquire resources that currently require endless grinding it could be a huge boost to the game.
You could go with the concept Cryptic originally planed before they dropped it for star clusters. I'm still waiting to discover a planet and have it named after me.
I think I remember seeing this on the commercial that was on The Original Series season 1 HD-DVDs. Not sure if this was Cryptic, or that was when Perpetual was still "developing" the game.
To answer this question we must answer the obvious..."What IS exploration in relation to Star Trek?"
To those who have pointed out the No Man's Sky approach, well that is a yet unproven and new technology. And regardless of how many auto generated worlds they produce, from their marketing videos it's a lot of scanning and walking around. And it won't take trillions of worlds to get bored in short order.
Exploration without fighting? I'm not sure that's the blueprint to follow either and in some ways cheapens what conflict can bring to a story to promote engagement.
Which brings us back to the question of what IS exploration in relation to Star Trek?
If we start with the definition of exploration: the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it, then exploration in Star Trek is almost always a starting point. In fact exploration historically, that is real history, is a starting point to a journey. And that is, I believe, what more of us pine for than just mindless scanning or scientific intrigue. That is to say, we want to explore but we want to get in some *ish on the way that will challenge us and expand us in some meaningful way. And at the end of that journey gain some kind of meaningful benefit or reward that will help up on the next journey.
The answers to select from in the poll, "Exploration MISSIONS" are a bit misleading if not leading the user to a specific answer. Is it Exploration we want or is it missions which involve exploring? Is there a difference?
I think you bring a very good point to the table. Whats actually wished by, I assume the majority, those who clicked "exploration" in the poll is an actual exploration system; a game mechanic. Having a 6 Mission story arc that is called the exploration of X which involves the exploration of a certain planet & its inhabitants while probably entertaining is *NOT* exploration; its new story missions about exploration called exploration.
So whatever the brain-father of the "Exploration Missions" wording meant in that poll should not be a new story arc; not be something that is only exploration by the choice of flavor words in the mission text.
One last point I'd like to add, irrespective of how or what we get in terms of "exploration", it'd be helpful if the following were at least added: Tricorder and ship sensor scans need to do more than they do currently. The ability to scan in different bandwidths and frequencies would help. Ship scanning needs to be applied to sector/quadrant space too if we're to find things there.
Also science skills such as graviton and particle generators need to help in success rates for exploration and investigations, with subspace decompiler giving bigger success rates in solving subspace based phenomena, due to its rarity on items and player skill point cost. The starship sensors skill could also factor into this.
Exploration for me means a new sector with fog of war and multiple worlds, asteroids, space stations, and anomalies to investigate. On one world, you find the remains of an ancient civilization and must determine what happened to them. On another, you make first contact and must solve a dispute. Elsewhere, on a seemingly abandoned space station yo find nothing but corpses and discover you are not alone. That last one woukd be great as a 5 player team up.
So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
I did not have a chance to read all of the pages here, many good ideas. Since I am answering the question of what is enjoyable to do beyond fighting, any repeats should be seen as another vote. And sorry in advance for the wall of text.
I am looking as this as non-combat in addition to Exploration. The original scan 5 things, kill 5 things can be added back in as a break, the key is to have a variety of mission types.
That is the key for me, mission types vs maps. To avoid the multiple maps, the backdrops can look very similar, in fact many games I play are the same backdrop rotated 90 degrees or cut down. The story behind why I am there is the key. When this was done in the past it lead to interesting combinations, like trying to find a radiation source to save a society while the Borg planet takeover was used. I think the Borg are the bigger problem, but that may just be me.
Back to the question, what would I enjoy. For many of these I looked to parts of existing and past missions. Combining these in to 3 part missions like the previous method would work, keeping each part to 10 minutes or so. Not looking for epic stories, just something to keep my interest.
First Contact/Diplomatic party - As mentioned before, the First contact missions where we had to talk to people, the answer questions about how we are alike and different. Could also lead stopping a fight between people. Many missions have had the listen to all species and respond in an appropriate manner.
Medical aid - Quite a few missions have had a section where we review a patient and select a treatment to match. For example when we meet Bones.
Bartending - Ok this one is a stretch. I had fun making a drink based on Scotty's recommendations. Add to that ingredients that the species are allergic to or find repulsive. "How was I supposed to know that tequila was poison to them?" "Captain's log - Pineapple based drinks are Viagra to the new discovered species, use with extreme caution."
Distress Call/Ship Repairs - Similar to the medical aid. We have had parts of missions where we need to review what is wrong with the ship and repair it. Note: Watch out for Packleds.
Escort/Transport - We need to get someone or something from point A to point B. While this can lead to shoot em ups, replace that other dangers - avoid wormholes, black holes, mine fields, etc.
On report - In addition to ideas like having a crew member on report for a crime, there are more mundane issues to deal with like conflict, promotion, encouragement.
Doff Mission - In our DOFF missions there are ones that would work for a short mission. Confiscate contraband for example. There are exploration missions in there.
TL;DR version - Look to the missions already out there, many can be cut down into smaller non-combat missions.
Peaceful exploration? I have a heavily armed ship and a phaser with a kill setting, how peaceful is that?
The famous quote every Star Trek fan and average citizen is familiar with. But space in STO feels more like an airport parking lot than a frontier. We need more space, a lot more space or at least the illusion of more space. Whatever the current distance is between star systems...triple it, double triple it leaving empty space in between. Expand each system into a solar system. That is, when approaching Sol I should have the option to descend on any of its 8 planets...err 9 planets...or is it 10 planets now??? Anyhow, you get the idea. Give us the ability to fly to Jupiter Station, chill out next to Mars or fly around the Sun. Do this for each system in sector space.
Next, sprinkle objects in between these spaces. I use the word sprinkle purposefully instead of "fill" as expanding the space in between systems to only fill them up with other stuff defeats the purpose. These objects should be things like Star Clusters, Nebula's, asteroid fields and spacial anomalies.
Give players the option to travel these distances with their current speeds or fast travel to the location of their desire completely bypassing the "flying through space" experience. This option can be in the map selection when double clicking a system.
Before providing exploration you must first set the proper stage to create the feeling of exploration.
2a. Purpose
"Why, why? Why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting... for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose."
I present Agent Smith's monologue to Neo as a retort to Tacofangs concern about the boredom of scanning endlessly as a means to create exploration in STO. The question is purpose Tacofangs/STO. Why are we scanning these objects? As it existed in the Exploration Clusters before they were removed what was the reason we were scanning a bush? What was the benefit of exploring a system or defunct satellite? A pittance of XP? The "feeling" of exploring?
The problem is not scanning the tree which needs to be solved but giving proper context and purpose as to why we are scanning it with appropriate reward and benefit. And to be clear adding more XP does nothing to solve this problem.
Each faction - within Star Trek canon - has a purpose. Yet in STO each faction captain spends their time fighting...endlessly fighting and killing. All factions, all classes are subject to this fate. I find it humorous sometimes players who favor the KDF complain about not having that much content given to them because all factions seem to have taken a page out of the Klignon playbook. Glorious battle.
So...
2b. Release the DOFF!
The Federation defends, helps and explores. The Romulan's plot, scheme and conquer. The Klignon's headbutt each other and say Qapla'. When a ship leaves dry dock from their respective factions base of operation there is an expectation of what job responsibilities they will perform. Unto each faction each class has specific duties they are to perform. This is the daily grind and where a majority of the exploration comes from. It also provides a sense of purpose for that mission.
And there already exists of wealth of content to choose from specific to each class and faction. By creating a playable mission for each and every DOFF mission you now have a foundation for exploration that is specific to each class within each faction. Give us the choice to choose whether to complete a DOFF mission as we currently do or actively participate in that DOFF mission for higher rewards. Like the difference between sending a DOFF to gather materials or scanning them yourself with the mini game.
Rather than playing a single mission over and over and over...and over...and over again you can choose from dozens of non story specific missions. Again, these are not meant to be endless or entirely exciting. They are your job duties, the grindy stuff.
2c. Never Stop Learning
In addition to XP rewards how about some kind of long term educational benefit? After scanning and learning about a particular particle or tree or thing I now have enough information to do something of interest. There should be a reward for learning something over time. One ROI you have already created is crafting - I collect materials and build things with them when I have enough. Expand on that.
Provide more education in the game. When I scan a spacial anomaly put some real life astronomical data on my captains computer in my ready room that I can reference for the sake of learning something new. Keep it on pace with some of the cool stuff NASA is learning. Put in more education about Star Trek lore.
3. A + B = C
The Army has a saying - "No plan survives first contact." Never a truer phrase when flying through empty space with backup 100 light years away. The random encounter is what makes exploration dangerous and exciting. Sure I can go to my backyard and "explore" what lies beneath my finely cured lawn - but take a journey to an uncharted land (A) with the unknown before me (B)...that's a different story (C).
The way this mechanic should work is two-fold. While on your DOFF mission or flying through sector space. The former would work as such: while on your DOFF mission - some random time during the mission - you are presented with a either a Foundry mission that starts at the system you are in or a genesis auto generated/STO created encounter. Your DOFF mission would still need to be completed in addition to the random encounter.
The latter would occur randomly while traveling through sector space to simulate Distress calls or other anomalies encountered. By making the anomalies Foundry Doors authors can attach stories to these obstacles. In addition your can have floating Foundry Doors - these locations would "appear" to Foundry authors as large circular spaces in between systems where the missions could trigger anywhere within that circle. To take from a Final Fantasy mechanic for random encounters the slower you travel through space the more encounters you chance upon. The faster you travel the less. And of course with fast travel you bypass them altogether. For players who like traveling through space with interruption give us the option to turn random encounters off entirely.
Next, get rid of the "Engage Enemy Contacts" floating around sector space and turn them into random enemy encounters that you can't see. To replace the option of being able to fly to a location and battle certain enemies put them in the different factions HQ's as simulations to run in a holodeck. Keep the Red Alerts.
As always provide choice. Rather than forcing players into encounters (as I recall this was how they used to function) the option to engage would be the players. Much like the flying around a star cluster your would be presented with "Explore Unknown System" which you could click on or skip.
4. Faction Fleets
What I mean is 3 large "fleets" that consist of each faction and all of that factions solo captains and fleets - To further provide the purpose behind what we are doing for our daily grinds (read: DOFF missions). It would function like a fleet or reputation in that it would keep track of the materials gathered etc. And each faction would gather materials for a specific purpose that once reached would result in something. Like a collective grind. It shouldn't cost as much per player as fleet projects or reputation. One incarnation of this could be the fate of a new star system. Will it become a new member of the Federation? A listening post for the Romulan's? Or new territory for the Empire? Each faction would have to provide certain materials and other to persuade the outcome of the system and some other player specific reward.
When a goal is reached that would result in a new FE to provide the cinematic theme or the "Summer Blockbuster" so to speak. Which leads to me to...
5. The Featured Episode/Exploration
Gamers chew through content like little Japanese men at a hot dog eating contest. Spending a year to create a new FE must feel like throwing rocks at the Enterprise while on an intercept course. Within one weekend your content has been consumed and the drought begins. So instead of just dropping Episodes include the habit of Featured Exploration which updates and provides new exploration content that can help keep the game fresh. This can be done by adding new systems or star clusters or new materials to scan.
Look you guys have the FE down for the most part (go live bugs not withstanding) but leave much to be desired in the time between.
6. Conclusion
More space to create the foundation of a frontier. Faction specific daily tasks which don't evolve around playing the same map countless times. Purpose to the grind. Regular updates to both episodes and exploration content.
Now when I log into STO I select what duties to perform for the day - say provide colonial support to a Federation planet. I may have 4 missions I need to complete for this - 1) Locate a reliable source of some material 2) Gather/mine enough materials to craft industrial replicator 3) Deliver materials to the planet. Simple enough. But along the way during sub mission 2 I receive a distress call that takes me on a journey only my ship and its crew are in position to assist. Something strange and new.
I expect Fog of War just is not feasible for an MMO - tens of thousands of players with their own settings? The Cryptic DBA just shot herself in the head...
My take is that Exploration should be a bit of a hybrid between hand crafted maps and rewards and randomly generated stuff.
My biggest issue with the old exploration system, is that unexplored space was just far too populated.
Space is vast and the planets that can support life are an incredible minority to those that can.
So IMO new species and populated worlds should be for the most part hand crafted by the developers.
In between, we can sprinkle in a huge variety of "unpopulated" worlds to visit and survey and perhaps discover materials or rare components and items etc, these worlds would be randomly generated.
I loved the Original Mass Effect game, and while driving around in the MAKO was a pain, control wise, I very much enjoyed exploring the different alien worlds, which were diverse and had a variety of different hazards.
Which brings me to another point.
Exploration IMO would need to be more than just walking around on foot, and I think shuttlecraft may need to start playing a more important role there.
In fact, what would be great would be randomly generated archetype based planets, with assosciated "landing zone" hotspots, where a player could land and transition to a small ground map for a closer look.
Environmental hazards of different types is also something that should be, which could be anything from acid rain or a heavily ionized atmosphere, to a full Demon Class planet.
What I great discussion. I love the idea of explorable solar systems, especially the possibility of letting players design their own. Perhaps they could be simulated using the 'sector block' mechanic. Surely a 'random solar system generator' could be implemented in some form.
If anyone here is old enough to remember the "Star Trek: The Rebel Universe" early PC/C64 game, that had a really great system exploration concept, albeit within the limitations of the rather primitive computer tech. Warp in, see an overview of the star system, then set course to the various planets and interact/send an away team. There's an example here at about 2" and 10:20":
Obviously STO would want something considerably more up to date, but it's one example, and an example of an amazingly fleshed out sector oof space using very limited resources.
It would also be nice to be able to beam down to planets/ships/bases using our Environmental suits more often than currently.
So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
As far as the million maps thing goes, the Diablo series of games makes random maps for every level and never makes one in error, like a dead end or one unable to finish the level. Engine differnt Yada yada yada but they get it right every time. With a little design you and your staff could as well.
That depends on each individual. Like anazonda pointed out before me - different strokes for different folks. To someone scanning rocks and trees will get old, to others kill 5 gorups of 5 aliens is getting old. I would say a healthy mix of all elements would be best.
Personally, I'm still sad and kinda' in disbelief that the exploration clusters were removed. While they were not top-notch gameplay by any standards, they provided a nice calm distraction from the main course and with a little bit of imagination a lot of us enjoyed them. I would prefered if they were somehow trimmed or improved upon rather that the outright removal that happened.
Maybe it's possible for each class to influence the type of exploration players will encounter, wheather it will be some scientific scanning and puzzle solving, fighting or helping a small colony/civilization with some techical issues. Or if that isn't fair for people to be locked because of the class they picked, maybe a toggle where one could select what profile of exploration missions they want? Or if that's too much and too complicated work, just a healthy dose of everything for everyone would work just fine.
There is a thread that I can't seem to find atm, maybe you can work some dev. magic to locate it (or maybe the OP will show up) - it was basically a thread about exploration ideas and it had at least a dozen of pages of some seriously good suggestions to pick from. Maybe that can be usefull for inspiration.
One thing noone can deny is that this community is thirsty for exploration content, the outrage following the removal of the clusters has shown that and this current poll is on it's way to show that as well.
Honestly the exploration missions, much like Aquaman, sucked. And while exploration was a goal of the Federation, Star Trek, every single episode, was about CONFLICTS and overcoming them, not the boring daily chores of running a particle detection surveys every day.
As far as the million maps thing goes, the Diablo series of games makes random maps for every level and never makes one in error, like a dead end or one unable to finish the level. Engine differnt Yada yada yada but they get it right every time. With a little design you and your staff could as well.
As a former Diablo 2 modder I can shed some light on how that works. (It's been years so I might have forgotten a few details.)
D2 never had fully randomized maps. The maps in D2 could be fully static, partially static, or mostly random.
Each map had several parts that were preset. Special locations related to quests are a good example. The tree you need to find out in the wilderness in Act 1 always looks the same. Map entrances/exits are usually the same each time, this will often go so far as to have the entrance always the same angle, but not always. The village that is the social hub for Act 1 has a fixed interior layout(Charsi's always in the same spot, etc...), but the perimeter varies, and the side of the village that is the exit varies, also there may or may not be a river next to the village.
Maps also have a variety of preset assemblies as decorations. An example of this is the cottages that you find scattered around the outdoor maps in Act 1. The placement is random but the layout of the cottages is not, there are several presets of varying sizes and layouts, but no real randomization of shapes. Interior maps will often have preset room assemblies, such as the treasure chambers in the dungeons leading up to the Act 1 boss. Another good example are the underground temples in Act 3. They consist of several randomly placed room assemblies connected by hallways. They're kinda small with only a few rooms each, but that's by design since you need to search several of them for a quest. Preset assemblies vary in size considerably. Some are only a few tiles, others..... well the biggest I can think of is the infernal cathedral set in Act 4. That thing is bigger than one of the social zones.
Maps were constructed by placing the fixed features, drawing paths connecting them, filling in the gaps between the paths, then decorating the map. Deciding where to place the fixed features, well that had rather complex logic behind it in some cases, some maps had fixed features that would always go on the same side of the map, such as the gate leading into the castle that the Act 1 boss lives in.
Oh and no, it DID have glitches. occasionally there would be randomly placed (but unimportant) hallways or rooms that you had to teleport to get to. but the glitches typically were just cosmetic stuff that didn't really matter, sych as a small hallway that doesn't connect to anything.
maybe you should watch some TNG, TOS, and VOY, a number of the missions they took part in had no combat or fairly little. the aspect of exploration isnt just scanning rocks, but diplomacy and exploration of the human condition. perhaps you forgotten what the original message of what star trek was about to begin with? if you have, reconnect with star trek and find imaginative idea for exploration for STO.
solving puzzles to unlock a deeper mystery on a map, finding a way of building a bridge across a lava river and saving lives, general dicsussion and political ramaifications that leads to a potential encounter with another random exploration, and one that may have nothing to do with the other, helping out saving a world from a virus, dealing with an intelligent lifeform one doesnt understand at first and learning to understand it. solving the problem of a geological instability on an inhabited world that threatens to destroy itself...
surely your telling us you dont have enough imagination to come up with some really good exploration?
You're not talking about exploration, not really. Pursuant to another post a few pages back, people are really asking for more fully fleshed-out story content. Exploration is only the means by which you would access it - the difference is that these missions wouldn't get slotted in to the main story progression line and you'd have to go find them on your own, which also calls into question just how much effort you'd want the devs to spend on making content that players might not even seek out. I'd be interested to hear from the devs on how long it takes to build the average storyline mission.
People want exploration missions, and ask for randomly-generated replayable content out of one side of their mouths while asking for tightly-written meaningful story content out of the other side.
If you want meaningful content, there's a finite amount of it that can be produced before you blow through it all (just like with every group of new missions they release). If you want randomized content, you're not going to get anything close to tightly-written and engaging stories.
I think you bring a very good point to the table. Whats actually wished by, I assume the majority, those who clicked "exploration" in the poll is an actual exploration system; a game mechanic. Having a 6 Mission story arc that is called the exploration of X which involves the exploration of a certain planet & its inhabitants while probably entertaining is *NOT* exploration; its new story missions about exploration called exploration.
So whatever the brain-father of the "Exploration Missions" wording meant in that poll should not be a new story arc; not be something that is only exploration by the choice of flavor words in the mission text.
Somebody at Cryptic has to actually produce this content. There's no magic space-hamster that's going to conjure a mission out of thin air just for you to play.
Within the confines of a video game made by some dudes sitting in an office somewhere, there's really no room for "discovery" of any kind.
Somebody at Cryptic has to actually produce this content. There's no magic space-hamster that's going to conjure a mission out of thin air just for you to play.
Or Foundry authors... unless you consider foundry authors to be magic space hamsters, which I guess could be true...
that's an interesting idea since it gives a reason why we can't go back to where we were yesterday.
They coud even turn a few into mini events where the Wormhole in a particular place could be stabilized for a week or so to give a repeatable mission for a worth while reward. With Wormholes having no ties to the current timeline, they could even create some missions that take us into the past or even into the future.
Other than creating the missions, it doesn't seem like it would take much work to add some randomly appearing Wormholes in sector space that work in a similar way as DSE's did. You approach it, enter, and you are taken to a new map. For special content that would be available for extended periods of time, a pop up could happen when you enter the sector giving you a mission to visit a stabilized anomaly. To stretch them out, they could even have them appear only on Tuesdays as an example. Best of all, they could be used to return missions like Deja Q to the game without feeling the need to tie it into any story lines.
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Outsourcing exploration to the Foundry authors would be neat, but sort of a niche thing; my favorite foundry missions are the longer ones, and several of the ones I really enjoyed turned into entire series.
Let's suppose for the sake of an example that they put the old exploration clusters back in, but now the 'hooks' you get which used to lead to the old-style exploration missions now lead to a database of Foundry missions which have been flagged as "exploration" or somesuch. So, you pull up to the 'unexplored system' and the game goes and retrieves one of those for you. You play it. Yay!
You'd have to keep them short and sweet; although plenty of missions on the Foundry fit that bill. You'd just have to make sure that the designers were writing them in keeping with that idea; you wouldn't want a guy looking for an exploration mission to draw a Foundry mission about saving the Federation from mirror universe Klingons in the core Sirius sector.
I'd be fine with that idea. It links more directly into the Foundry, which for the longest time has just sort of been hanging out largely ignored off on the side. The spotlight missions list hasn't changed in as long as I can remember.
But from what I'm seeing in this thread, people don't want those standalone missions that fit the sort of 'adventure of the week' format. A number of people posting here want some kind of procedurally-generated galaxy to literally explore and find cool new things that nobody had ever seen and nobody else would ever see. I don't see that happening given the constraints of the game we're actually playing.
Another significant drawback would be that you're relying on people who aren't being compensated to prop up this whole mechanic. If the flow of new content stops, that's it for your exploration. To say nothing of the wildly-varying quality you're going to get since it's not being held to any sort of standard without oversight, either from authors themselves or Cryptic. Then there's always the chance of drawing the same mission twice, which would really break the 'exploration' immersion, right?
I didn't mind the old system, for what it was. An amusing diversion from the main storyline stuff. It wasn't exploration, not by a long shot. It was more like 'here's some stuff that you and your crew did that wasn't cool enough/interesting enough to merit an actual mission.' Routine stuff.
They coud even turn a few into mini events where the Wormhole in a particular place could be stabilized for a week or so to give a repeatable mission for a worth while reward. With Wormholes having no ties to the current timeline, they could even create some missions that take us into the past or even into the future.
Other than creating the missions, it doesn't seem like it would take much work to add some randomly appearing Wormholes in sector space that work in a similar way as DSE's did. You approach it, enter, and you are taken to a new map. For special content that would be available for extended periods of time, a pop up could happen when you enter the sector giving you a mission to visit a stabilized anomaly. To stretch them out, they could even have them appear only on Tuesdays as an example. Best of all, they could be used to return missions like Deja Q to the game without feeling the need to tie it into any story lines.
Other than creating the missions... which was the hard part of creating the old exploration missions.
found myself playing Mass Effect 2 last night... there is a fair amount of exploration in the ME titles, while various sections wouldn't work with STO there are still some areas that could be mined for ideas, such as dropping into orbit over a world and performing a scan, find an anomaly? Send an away team or probe(depending on the planet type and anomaly type). While this would(and does) get old if its the sole means of exploration, these ideas could be used in conjunction with others mentioned in here.
So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
Indeed.
Even the series never actually focus on exploration, but instead on the 1% of exploration which results in something interesting.
I don't believe the players asking for exploration have any concept of how complicated a system it would need to be to remain even mildly engaging.
Doing it right would probably necessitate it being the core of the game.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
How about a system like the fleets? Where certain players can come together and make their own alien race? And thus make their own foundry missions for the encounters? It would be like a Star Trek Sim City. Just a thought.
Ok, so: there are 4 main ways I can see them doing "exploration" content:
A) episodic missions that are actually *about* exploration (good stuff, but take a long time to make and once you have played them you know the story, so probably wouldn't feel like "exploration" the second or third time you play it)
randomly generated content (remember the old star clusters? yeah. Not really "exploration", but at least you didn't know what you were going to get. The main problem with these is that when you randomly generate components, you wind up with a story that makes no sense, aka the Borg Third Dynasty)
C) adventure zone (New Romulus. This is the closest thing to "exploration" the game has, specifically the scanning the various flora, fauna, and relics. Of course, this is pretty light on story and pretty heavy on running around hitting "F")
D) the foundry (create a new sector, call the exploration sector, and ask authors to create missions for this sector which are all about exploration. The flaw, of course, is the subjective quality of foundry missions and the lack of any official support for problems)
There is a thread that I can't seem to find atm, maybe you can work some dev. magic to locate it ([I]or maybe the OP will show up[/I]) - it was basically a thread about exploration ideas and it had at least a dozen of pages of some seriously good suggestions to pick from. Maybe that can be usefull for inspiration.
One thing noone can deny is that this community is thirsty for exploration content, the outrage following the removal of the clusters has shown that and this current poll is on it's way to show that as well.
If you are talking about me, the thread is linked in my sig. I still stand by what's in it; even though most of my ideas were technically about expanding the old clusters.
Just had to chimed in when OP brought up "conflict".
Stories are about conflicts. The misconception is that all conflicts must involve violence of sort (fists, weapons, and such). Conflicts drive the story.
A conflict is when you want something/someone want something and something is in your way or preventing you from getting that something. The antagonist may be out to stop you, or just simply is in your way because his want happen to make his path cross with your path.
Just clarifying that conflict isn't about "pew-pew" or "fistfight".
Comments
You could go with the concept Cryptic originally planed before they dropped it for star clusters. I'm still waiting to discover a planet and have it named after me.
Kanharn's Memory Alpha.
If we want to talk about exploration, why don't we try utilizing the player base to make entire sectors and tie foundry missions to them, users could then vote on whether or not these sectors are of sufficient quality before they're implemented in-game. Sure we could have restrictions to minimise some craziness. Though, overall, wouldn't this be a great idea? Potentially thousands of sectors to roam, explore and discover. We could choose where our fleet starbases could be, and allow users to visit it (to use the bank, exchange, shipyards, etc). We could tie in anomalies, artifacts, our own custom civilizations (or introduce Betazed!).
As it stands the galaxy in STO feels, small and tight. We can't rely on Cryptic to do this by themselves as this would take too long, so why not use the playerbase and design sectors in the foundry or the like?
Lag Watch:
Delta Rising: Warning
Anniversary Event: Severe
Iconian Season: Critical
Taco,
Thanks for popping in. Exploration has been a feature I've wanted but has always been difficult to implement. However there are a few ways to make this feel more Treky and less star ship combat simulator.
1) developer made exploration maps: released in quarterly updates, I don't think scanning per say is the problem hell we all know our favorite captains complained about that boring planetary survey they had to do as an Ensign. Just make the scanning interesting.. Ie as an example planetary survey beam down and take samples of life forms, geology, weather patterns, atmosphere etc.. Just not the same thing. Maybe some planets have hostile life forms that might attack if we get to close.. Like apex predators. Maybe some of the planets are perfect for colonization... Can then open a Doff chain to colonize the planet. Maybe it can be terra formed... Another Doff mission. Maybe it's useless or very rarely we could find something that would require the planet to be closed off.. Yet another Doff mission . From one activity you have a wide variety of outcomes.. The thing is you could take the same maps and randomize the outcome each time.
2) foundry content.. Not my favorite but useful.. Others have covered this.
3) make ranks in the various Doff mission categories useful... Everywhere. Requires extreme revamp.. Population would love you for it. Has already been done in a few missions. What I mean is allow options based on the ranks we've gained in various Doff categories like diplomacy, military, espionage, science, medical etc to open up. Ie if you have a high enough diplomacy skill you can talk your way out of a fight. So a patrol that normally says kill 5 groups perhaps after you defeat the first group and you have a high enough diplo ranks you are allowed to talk to the other groups and talk them into leaving. Or if you have a super high espionage skill perhaps you get an option to send over a boarding party or two to take over some ships and turn them to your side. Again the conditions could be really varied.. Again extreme revamp but the payoffs would huge.. It would put the Trek back in to Star Trek Online. Every story should have this built in.. Sometimes you can not avoid a fight but almost every Federation captain will try. Now my Klingon friends .., well with all the military categories I'm sure they'll have fun to.
There you have it!
Agreed...
And what's the chances of something like that spawning a side mission? This may be beyond the scope of what the game can do, but what if interacting with an object could be the door to a mission? Say someone observes you shooting those bottles and now they're a contact for a mission to hunt down some Tal Shiar spotted south of the settlement?
Exploration should provide incentive to explore and interact with the environment... head off the beaten path in hopes of finding something. More than once I've gone exploring the instance map just to see what the map artists created, hoping to find some secret little area with something interesting there.
If the system provided an alternative way to acquire resources that currently require endless grinding it could be a huge boost to the game.
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
I think I remember seeing this on the commercial that was on The Original Series season 1 HD-DVDs. Not sure if this was Cryptic, or that was when Perpetual was still "developing" the game.
Would still be cool though.
I think you bring a very good point to the table. Whats actually wished by, I assume the majority, those who clicked "exploration" in the poll is an actual exploration system; a game mechanic. Having a 6 Mission story arc that is called the exploration of X which involves the exploration of a certain planet & its inhabitants while probably entertaining is *NOT* exploration; its new story missions about exploration called exploration.
So whatever the brain-father of the "Exploration Missions" wording meant in that poll should not be a new story arc; not be something that is only exploration by the choice of flavor words in the mission text.
Also science skills such as graviton and particle generators need to help in success rates for exploration and investigations, with subspace decompiler giving bigger success rates in solving subspace based phenomena, due to its rarity on items and player skill point cost. The starship sensors skill could also factor into this.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
I did not have a chance to read all of the pages here, many good ideas. Since I am answering the question of what is enjoyable to do beyond fighting, any repeats should be seen as another vote. And sorry in advance for the wall of text.
I am looking as this as non-combat in addition to Exploration. The original scan 5 things, kill 5 things can be added back in as a break, the key is to have a variety of mission types.
That is the key for me, mission types vs maps. To avoid the multiple maps, the backdrops can look very similar, in fact many games I play are the same backdrop rotated 90 degrees or cut down. The story behind why I am there is the key. When this was done in the past it lead to interesting combinations, like trying to find a radiation source to save a society while the Borg planet takeover was used. I think the Borg are the bigger problem, but that may just be me.
Back to the question, what would I enjoy. For many of these I looked to parts of existing and past missions. Combining these in to 3 part missions like the previous method would work, keeping each part to 10 minutes or so. Not looking for epic stories, just something to keep my interest.
First Contact/Diplomatic party - As mentioned before, the First contact missions where we had to talk to people, the answer questions about how we are alike and different. Could also lead stopping a fight between people. Many missions have had the listen to all species and respond in an appropriate manner.
Medical aid - Quite a few missions have had a section where we review a patient and select a treatment to match. For example when we meet Bones.
Bartending - Ok this one is a stretch. I had fun making a drink based on Scotty's recommendations. Add to that ingredients that the species are allergic to or find repulsive. "How was I supposed to know that tequila was poison to them?" "Captain's log - Pineapple based drinks are Viagra to the new discovered species, use with extreme caution."
Distress Call/Ship Repairs - Similar to the medical aid. We have had parts of missions where we need to review what is wrong with the ship and repair it. Note: Watch out for Packleds.
Escort/Transport - We need to get someone or something from point A to point B. While this can lead to shoot em ups, replace that other dangers - avoid wormholes, black holes, mine fields, etc.
On report - In addition to ideas like having a crew member on report for a crime, there are more mundane issues to deal with like conflict, promotion, encouragement.
Doff Mission - In our DOFF missions there are ones that would work for a short mission. Confiscate contraband for example. There are exploration missions in there.
TL;DR version - Look to the missions already out there, many can be cut down into smaller non-combat missions.
Peaceful exploration? I have a heavily armed ship and a phaser with a kill setting, how peaceful is that?
1. Space...The Final Frontier
The famous quote every Star Trek fan and average citizen is familiar with. But space in STO feels more like an airport parking lot than a frontier. We need more space, a lot more space or at least the illusion of more space. Whatever the current distance is between star systems...triple it, double triple it leaving empty space in between. Expand each system into a solar system. That is, when approaching Sol I should have the option to descend on any of its 8 planets...err 9 planets...or is it 10 planets now??? Anyhow, you get the idea. Give us the ability to fly to Jupiter Station, chill out next to Mars or fly around the Sun. Do this for each system in sector space.
Next, sprinkle objects in between these spaces. I use the word sprinkle purposefully instead of "fill" as expanding the space in between systems to only fill them up with other stuff defeats the purpose. These objects should be things like Star Clusters, Nebula's, asteroid fields and spacial anomalies.
Give players the option to travel these distances with their current speeds or fast travel to the location of their desire completely bypassing the "flying through space" experience. This option can be in the map selection when double clicking a system.
Before providing exploration you must first set the proper stage to create the feeling of exploration.
2a. Purpose
"Why, why? Why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting... for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose."
I present Agent Smith's monologue to Neo as a retort to Tacofangs concern about the boredom of scanning endlessly as a means to create exploration in STO. The question is purpose Tacofangs/STO. Why are we scanning these objects? As it existed in the Exploration Clusters before they were removed what was the reason we were scanning a bush? What was the benefit of exploring a system or defunct satellite? A pittance of XP? The "feeling" of exploring?
The problem is not scanning the tree which needs to be solved but giving proper context and purpose as to why we are scanning it with appropriate reward and benefit. And to be clear adding more XP does nothing to solve this problem.
Each faction - within Star Trek canon - has a purpose. Yet in STO each faction captain spends their time fighting...endlessly fighting and killing. All factions, all classes are subject to this fate. I find it humorous sometimes players who favor the KDF complain about not having that much content given to them because all factions seem to have taken a page out of the Klignon playbook. Glorious battle.
So...
2b. Release the DOFF!
The Federation defends, helps and explores. The Romulan's plot, scheme and conquer. The Klignon's headbutt each other and say Qapla'. When a ship leaves dry dock from their respective factions base of operation there is an expectation of what job responsibilities they will perform. Unto each faction each class has specific duties they are to perform. This is the daily grind and where a majority of the exploration comes from. It also provides a sense of purpose for that mission.
And there already exists of wealth of content to choose from specific to each class and faction. By creating a playable mission for each and every DOFF mission you now have a foundation for exploration that is specific to each class within each faction. Give us the choice to choose whether to complete a DOFF mission as we currently do or actively participate in that DOFF mission for higher rewards. Like the difference between sending a DOFF to gather materials or scanning them yourself with the mini game.
Rather than playing a single mission over and over and over...and over...and over again you can choose from dozens of non story specific missions. Again, these are not meant to be endless or entirely exciting. They are your job duties, the grindy stuff.
2c. Never Stop Learning
In addition to XP rewards how about some kind of long term educational benefit? After scanning and learning about a particular particle or tree or thing I now have enough information to do something of interest. There should be a reward for learning something over time. One ROI you have already created is crafting - I collect materials and build things with them when I have enough. Expand on that.
Provide more education in the game. When I scan a spacial anomaly put some real life astronomical data on my captains computer in my ready room that I can reference for the sake of learning something new. Keep it on pace with some of the cool stuff NASA is learning. Put in more education about Star Trek lore.
3. A + B = C
The Army has a saying - "No plan survives first contact." Never a truer phrase when flying through empty space with backup 100 light years away. The random encounter is what makes exploration dangerous and exciting. Sure I can go to my backyard and "explore" what lies beneath my finely cured lawn - but take a journey to an uncharted land (A) with the unknown before me (B)...that's a different story (C).
The way this mechanic should work is two-fold. While on your DOFF mission or flying through sector space. The former would work as such: while on your DOFF mission - some random time during the mission - you are presented with a either a Foundry mission that starts at the system you are in or a genesis auto generated/STO created encounter. Your DOFF mission would still need to be completed in addition to the random encounter.
The latter would occur randomly while traveling through sector space to simulate Distress calls or other anomalies encountered. By making the anomalies Foundry Doors authors can attach stories to these obstacles. In addition your can have floating Foundry Doors - these locations would "appear" to Foundry authors as large circular spaces in between systems where the missions could trigger anywhere within that circle. To take from a Final Fantasy mechanic for random encounters the slower you travel through space the more encounters you chance upon. The faster you travel the less. And of course with fast travel you bypass them altogether. For players who like traveling through space with interruption give us the option to turn random encounters off entirely.
Next, get rid of the "Engage Enemy Contacts" floating around sector space and turn them into random enemy encounters that you can't see. To replace the option of being able to fly to a location and battle certain enemies put them in the different factions HQ's as simulations to run in a holodeck. Keep the Red Alerts.
As always provide choice. Rather than forcing players into encounters (as I recall this was how they used to function) the option to engage would be the players. Much like the flying around a star cluster your would be presented with "Explore Unknown System" which you could click on or skip.
4. Faction Fleets
What I mean is 3 large "fleets" that consist of each faction and all of that factions solo captains and fleets - To further provide the purpose behind what we are doing for our daily grinds (read: DOFF missions). It would function like a fleet or reputation in that it would keep track of the materials gathered etc. And each faction would gather materials for a specific purpose that once reached would result in something. Like a collective grind. It shouldn't cost as much per player as fleet projects or reputation. One incarnation of this could be the fate of a new star system. Will it become a new member of the Federation? A listening post for the Romulan's? Or new territory for the Empire? Each faction would have to provide certain materials and other to persuade the outcome of the system and some other player specific reward.
When a goal is reached that would result in a new FE to provide the cinematic theme or the "Summer Blockbuster" so to speak. Which leads to me to...
5. The Featured Episode/Exploration
Gamers chew through content like little Japanese men at a hot dog eating contest. Spending a year to create a new FE must feel like throwing rocks at the Enterprise while on an intercept course. Within one weekend your content has been consumed and the drought begins. So instead of just dropping Episodes include the habit of Featured Exploration which updates and provides new exploration content that can help keep the game fresh. This can be done by adding new systems or star clusters or new materials to scan.
Look you guys have the FE down for the most part (go live bugs not withstanding) but leave much to be desired in the time between.
6. Conclusion
More space to create the foundation of a frontier. Faction specific daily tasks which don't evolve around playing the same map countless times. Purpose to the grind. Regular updates to both episodes and exploration content.
Now when I log into STO I select what duties to perform for the day - say provide colonial support to a Federation planet. I may have 4 missions I need to complete for this - 1) Locate a reliable source of some material 2) Gather/mine enough materials to craft industrial replicator 3) Deliver materials to the planet. Simple enough. But along the way during sub mission 2 I receive a distress call that takes me on a journey only my ship and its crew are in position to assist. Something strange and new.
My biggest issue with the old exploration system, is that unexplored space was just far too populated.
Space is vast and the planets that can support life are an incredible minority to those that can.
So IMO new species and populated worlds should be for the most part hand crafted by the developers.
In between, we can sprinkle in a huge variety of "unpopulated" worlds to visit and survey and perhaps discover materials or rare components and items etc, these worlds would be randomly generated.
I loved the Original Mass Effect game, and while driving around in the MAKO was a pain, control wise, I very much enjoyed exploring the different alien worlds, which were diverse and had a variety of different hazards.
Which brings me to another point.
Exploration IMO would need to be more than just walking around on foot, and I think shuttlecraft may need to start playing a more important role there.
In fact, what would be great would be randomly generated archetype based planets, with assosciated "landing zone" hotspots, where a player could land and transition to a small ground map for a closer look.
Environmental hazards of different types is also something that should be, which could be anything from acid rain or a heavily ionized atmosphere, to a full Demon Class planet.
If anyone here is old enough to remember the "Star Trek: The Rebel Universe" early PC/C64 game, that had a really great system exploration concept, albeit within the limitations of the rather primitive computer tech. Warp in, see an overview of the star system, then set course to the various planets and interact/send an away team. There's an example here at about 2" and 10:20":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqeytuar5Lk
Obviously STO would want something considerably more up to date, but it's one example, and an example of an amazingly fleshed out sector oof space using very limited resources.
It would also be nice to be able to beam down to planets/ships/bases using our Environmental suits more often than currently.
As far as the million maps thing goes, the Diablo series of games makes random maps for every level and never makes one in error, like a dead end or one unable to finish the level. Engine differnt Yada yada yada but they get it right every time. With a little design you and your staff could as well.
Honestly the exploration missions, much like Aquaman, sucked. And while exploration was a goal of the Federation, Star Trek, every single episode, was about CONFLICTS and overcoming them, not the boring daily chores of running a particle detection surveys every day.
D2 never had fully randomized maps. The maps in D2 could be fully static, partially static, or mostly random.
Each map had several parts that were preset. Special locations related to quests are a good example. The tree you need to find out in the wilderness in Act 1 always looks the same. Map entrances/exits are usually the same each time, this will often go so far as to have the entrance always the same angle, but not always. The village that is the social hub for Act 1 has a fixed interior layout(Charsi's always in the same spot, etc...), but the perimeter varies, and the side of the village that is the exit varies, also there may or may not be a river next to the village.
Maps also have a variety of preset assemblies as decorations. An example of this is the cottages that you find scattered around the outdoor maps in Act 1. The placement is random but the layout of the cottages is not, there are several presets of varying sizes and layouts, but no real randomization of shapes. Interior maps will often have preset room assemblies, such as the treasure chambers in the dungeons leading up to the Act 1 boss. Another good example are the underground temples in Act 3. They consist of several randomly placed room assemblies connected by hallways. They're kinda small with only a few rooms each, but that's by design since you need to search several of them for a quest. Preset assemblies vary in size considerably. Some are only a few tiles, others..... well the biggest I can think of is the infernal cathedral set in Act 4. That thing is bigger than one of the social zones.
Maps were constructed by placing the fixed features, drawing paths connecting them, filling in the gaps between the paths, then decorating the map. Deciding where to place the fixed features, well that had rather complex logic behind it in some cases, some maps had fixed features that would always go on the same side of the map, such as the gate leading into the castle that the Act 1 boss lives in.
Oh and no, it DID have glitches. occasionally there would be randomly placed (but unimportant) hallways or rooms that you had to teleport to get to. but the glitches typically were just cosmetic stuff that didn't really matter, sych as a small hallway that doesn't connect to anything.
My character Tsin'xing
You're not talking about exploration, not really. Pursuant to another post a few pages back, people are really asking for more fully fleshed-out story content. Exploration is only the means by which you would access it - the difference is that these missions wouldn't get slotted in to the main story progression line and you'd have to go find them on your own, which also calls into question just how much effort you'd want the devs to spend on making content that players might not even seek out. I'd be interested to hear from the devs on how long it takes to build the average storyline mission.
People want exploration missions, and ask for randomly-generated replayable content out of one side of their mouths while asking for tightly-written meaningful story content out of the other side.
If you want meaningful content, there's a finite amount of it that can be produced before you blow through it all (just like with every group of new missions they release). If you want randomized content, you're not going to get anything close to tightly-written and engaging stories.
Somebody at Cryptic has to actually produce this content. There's no magic space-hamster that's going to conjure a mission out of thin air just for you to play.
Within the confines of a video game made by some dudes sitting in an office somewhere, there's really no room for "discovery" of any kind.
Or Foundry authors... unless you consider foundry authors to be magic space hamsters, which I guess could be true...
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
Either way, it's story content and it's not going to be random/procedurally-generated/whatever.
Somebody sits and builds it. It's designed content. People want that, but they don't want it - at the same time.
They coud even turn a few into mini events where the Wormhole in a particular place could be stabilized for a week or so to give a repeatable mission for a worth while reward. With Wormholes having no ties to the current timeline, they could even create some missions that take us into the past or even into the future.
Other than creating the missions, it doesn't seem like it would take much work to add some randomly appearing Wormholes in sector space that work in a similar way as DSE's did. You approach it, enter, and you are taken to a new map. For special content that would be available for extended periods of time, a pop up could happen when you enter the sector giving you a mission to visit a stabilized anomaly. To stretch them out, they could even have them appear only on Tuesdays as an example. Best of all, they could be used to return missions like Deja Q to the game without feeling the need to tie it into any story lines.
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Let's suppose for the sake of an example that they put the old exploration clusters back in, but now the 'hooks' you get which used to lead to the old-style exploration missions now lead to a database of Foundry missions which have been flagged as "exploration" or somesuch. So, you pull up to the 'unexplored system' and the game goes and retrieves one of those for you. You play it. Yay!
You'd have to keep them short and sweet; although plenty of missions on the Foundry fit that bill. You'd just have to make sure that the designers were writing them in keeping with that idea; you wouldn't want a guy looking for an exploration mission to draw a Foundry mission about saving the Federation from mirror universe Klingons in the core Sirius sector.
I'd be fine with that idea. It links more directly into the Foundry, which for the longest time has just sort of been hanging out largely ignored off on the side. The spotlight missions list hasn't changed in as long as I can remember.
But from what I'm seeing in this thread, people don't want those standalone missions that fit the sort of 'adventure of the week' format. A number of people posting here want some kind of procedurally-generated galaxy to literally explore and find cool new things that nobody had ever seen and nobody else would ever see. I don't see that happening given the constraints of the game we're actually playing.
Another significant drawback would be that you're relying on people who aren't being compensated to prop up this whole mechanic. If the flow of new content stops, that's it for your exploration. To say nothing of the wildly-varying quality you're going to get since it's not being held to any sort of standard without oversight, either from authors themselves or Cryptic. Then there's always the chance of drawing the same mission twice, which would really break the 'exploration' immersion, right?
I didn't mind the old system, for what it was. An amusing diversion from the main storyline stuff. It wasn't exploration, not by a long shot. It was more like 'here's some stuff that you and your crew did that wasn't cool enough/interesting enough to merit an actual mission.' Routine stuff.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
Even the series never actually focus on exploration, but instead on the 1% of exploration which results in something interesting.
I don't believe the players asking for exploration have any concept of how complicated a system it would need to be to remain even mildly engaging.
Doing it right would probably necessitate it being the core of the game.
A) episodic missions that are actually *about* exploration (good stuff, but take a long time to make and once you have played them you know the story, so probably wouldn't feel like "exploration" the second or third time you play it)
C) adventure zone (New Romulus. This is the closest thing to "exploration" the game has, specifically the scanning the various flora, fauna, and relics. Of course, this is pretty light on story and pretty heavy on running around hitting "F")
D) the foundry (create a new sector, call the exploration sector, and ask authors to create missions for this sector which are all about exploration. The flaw, of course, is the subjective quality of foundry missions and the lack of any official support for problems)
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
If you are talking about me, the thread is linked in my sig. I still stand by what's in it; even though most of my ideas were technically about expanding the old clusters.
Stories are about conflicts. The misconception is that all conflicts must involve violence of sort (fists, weapons, and such). Conflicts drive the story.
A conflict is when you want something/someone want something and something is in your way or preventing you from getting that something. The antagonist may be out to stop you, or just simply is in your way because his want happen to make his path cross with your path.
Just clarifying that conflict isn't about "pew-pew" or "fistfight".