To Boldly Go...Where?

francisakirk · April 2015

Been a treker from the get go. Yes prior to game start spent many a night on the forums, had a fleet, Galactic Fleet and member of the famous "Starfleet Headquarters". Yes that was fun and great RP's going back then.
So now we are all hagaling with Starbases, dilithium, skill points, bridge officers, R & D, sphere points, Omega, Delta, etc. It's nice when a new mission comes up every now and then. The games still intriges me and is still fun and has it's challengs but every now and then I wish I could just beam up to my ship and go anywhere I wish. Like real exploration. But...you can't. I've tried. If your not qued for an open mission on that planet, sector or cluster, you have to just move on.

Wouldn't it be great if you could warp to Sector 001, on the Romulan Neutral Zone and beam down to the old outposts(http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Earth_Outpost_Station} along the border and see how really bad condition they are in and maybe rebuilding them. Use to have an RP about this one. Wouldn't it be grand to check out Genisis or whats left of it? I kknow it is forbidden. Why can't I just beam down to any planet and explore? I know where probably talking more servers and such but just a little exploring??? A little "Free Flight" to wonder with a purpose? Don't get me wrong here, there are those places we can explore, like Bajor, Earth Spacedock, Qunos, etc. If you could go anywhere in the known Galaxy, where would you go? How about the unknown Galaxy? Ah, just a thought...What do you think?

ethanADAMS

chandlerashari · April 2015

I think what you need is to get into tabletop roleplayin man, no master key purchase requireD haha

Joking aside, iys a nice thought man, but i dont see the point in making what you wanna do in STO as its currently constructed...

Its not trek but star citizen or elite dangerous might satisfy your celestial wanderlust

nickcastleton · April 2015

there are some foundry missions that are like what you are looking for, try searching for them some are really good.

thlaylierah · April 2015

Currently its, "To Boldly Grind For Stuffs You Will Need When/ If They Ever Release Exploration."

gaalom · April 2015

They already tried that and it did not work the way they hoped. They tried introducing something like that in the form of the Genesis project in sto via the exploration zones. What ended up happening was most of the tme the missions that spawned were ground combat, with allot of npcs. To make maters worse the missions generated were generic. Dont get me wrong I enjoyed grinding mats in those zones, but ultimately the Genesis idea did not pan out the way they hoped. Essentially replacing it with the Foundry.

Now take a step back and think how much time and resources it would cost to open up every planet in the sto universe, not to mention expand the map so you can boldly go. Its not exactly realistically possible.

duncanidaho11 · April 2015

Think of Star Trek Online as a Starfleet Command game with more "active" combat, more customization, and a ground component. You can complain that Cryptic didn't fill out the Star Trek Universe to the point that you can go anywhere but such is the problem with all games. Even something at the scale of Spore's Galactic civilization stage has definite limitations (particularly where STO succeeds.)

You can always want more but that's an inevitable component of not having it all. Check your expectations against what's likely/possible and you'll have a happier time of gaming (in general).

duncanidaho11 · April 2015

gaalom wrote: »

Now take a step back and think how much time and resources it would cost to open up every planet in the sto universe, not to mention expand the map so you can boldly go. Its not exactly realistically possible.

Oddly the Foundry, sector map revamp, and the recent update that puts foundry missions in the sector map gets us closer.

ursusmorologus · April 2015

There is no end-game, never has been and seems pretty clear that there never will be. Just grind for grinding sake. And lockboxes.

frontline2042 · April 2015

ursusmorologus wrote: »

There is no end-game, never has been and seems pretty clear that there never will be. Just grind for grinding sake. And lockboxes.

Define "end game".

duncanidaho11 · April 2015

ursusmorologus wrote: »

There is no end-game, never has been and seems pretty clear that there never will be. Just grind for grinding sake. And lockboxes.

Um...using the same omissions (ex. story missions) you can say the exact same for any Bethesda RPG (minus the lock boxes.) You just run around and do pointless **** to level up your character so combat becomes incrementally easier. Even something like Halo is "just grinding" if you decide to take the view that video games don't mean anything in spite of a visual/narrative presentation (all that's left is just the mechanical action of pushing buttons to make parameters change.)

Recommendation: maybe this sort of thing just isn't for you? Gaming is quite popular these days but you don't have to buy into it for our sake.

ursusmorologus · April 2015

frontline2042 wrote: »

Define "end game".

The stuff you do with your character after he has been roughly developed. Exploration, diplomacy, territorial defense/expanse, the unstructured activities that your character engages in. STO does not have that, well other than Exchange Tycoon, and Space Barbie, that's about it. All the content in STO is structured around building a toon, no sandboxes for doing what you actually want to with that toon.

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

Oddly the Foundry, sector map revamp, and the recent update that puts foundry missions in the sector map gets us closer.

And rep passives got us closer to a balanced game, then it didn't matter after specs were added. Nothing hints at anything around here.

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

Um...using the same omissions (ex. story missions) you can say the exact same for any Bethesda RPG (minus the lock boxes.)

That's why I don't play any of them either

Recommendation: maybe this sort of thing just isn't for you?

Not for many it seems

spyralpegacyon · April 2015

ursusmorologus wrote: »

There is no end-game, never has been and seems pretty clear that there never will be. Just grind for grinding sake. And lockboxes.

And yet you are still here.

saboreth · April 2015

When I first started back around 2011ish, they had the B'Tran cluster, which I enjoyed immensely. Not every player did, I'm sure, but I'd come home from work, pop open a cold soda, and do the B'Tran exploration dailies. It was good decompression and it earned me -so- much Dilithium. I even got a couple accolades and a title for doing it so often, after a point.

The way it would work is that you'd pick up the mission - explore three systems - and then coast around scanning signals to pick up a system worth exploring. The game would randomly generate a scenario for you based on a list of scenarios and you'd roll through that. Sometimes it was a ground battle, sometimes a space battle; sometimes you investigated anomalous signatures groundside with new fighting, other times you collected resources from a resource rich system without firing a shot. Enemies were random, too. If you brought a friend, the difficulty scaled appropriately.

If you got First Contact missions, you could meet a new race in a meeting room on your ship (a generic meeting room, mind you, not -really- part of your ship). You met a race, compared notes, and then presented yourself to them with what fragments you could glean from your snapshot learning of their culture. You'd get a variable amount of Diplomatic xp depending on how well you did.

They took it out of the game not so long ago, and now where I used to cross into the B'Tran cluster, I hit a wall and get offered DOff missions there instead. I was broken hearted. I love Doffing, but while those missions did get redundant a bit, they were fun to play coming off work and getting ready for the rest of the game that night.

That's not to say that it was perfect. Again, the scenearios were from a fixed list of events, and the First Contact/Diplomatic angle could have used more attention and variety, too - but it was good as a start. After learning that the B'Tran cluster was gone and the First Contact missions along with, I haven't been anywhere near that sector since. I used to go through that transwarp gate a couple times a day. I don't think I've flown through it once since. I just don't need to be there anymore.

markhawkman · April 2015

saboreth wrote: »

When I first started back around 2011ish, they had the B'Tran cluster, which I enjoyed immensely. Not every player did, I'm sure, but I'd come home from work, pop open a cold soda, and do the B'Tran exploration dailies. It was good decompression and it earned me -so- much Dilithium. I even got a couple accolades and a title for doing it so often, after a point.

The way it would work is that you'd pick up the mission - explore three systems - and then coast around scanning signals to pick up a system worth exploring. The game would randomly generate a scenario for you based on a list of scenarios and you'd roll through that. Sometimes it was a ground battle, sometimes a space battle; sometimes you investigated anomalous signatures groundside with new fighting, other times you collected resources from a resource rich system without firing a shot. Enemies were random, too. If you brought a friend, the difficulty scaled appropriately.

If you got First Contact missions, you could meet a new race in a meeting room on your ship (a generic meeting room, mind you, not -really- part of your ship). You met a race, compared notes, and then presented yourself to them with what fragments you could glean from your snapshot learning of their culture. You'd get a variable amount of Diplomatic xp depending on how well you did.

They took it out of the game not so long ago, and now where I used to cross into the B'Tran cluster, I hit a wall and get offered DOff missions there instead. I was broken hearted. I love Doffing, but while those missions did get redundant a bit, they were fun to play coming off work and getting ready for the rest of the game that night.

That's not to say that it was perfect. Again, the scenearios were from a fixed list of events, and the First Contact/Diplomatic angle could have used more attention and variety, too - but it was good as a start. After learning that the B'Tran cluster was gone and the First Contact missions along with, I haven't been anywhere near that sector since. I used to go through that transwarp gate a couple times a day. I don't think I've flown through it once since. I just don't need to be there anymore.

Now I'm tempted to make a mission where you look for artifacts of the Third Borg Dynasty in B'Tran... :P

ursusmorologus · April 2015

spyralpegacyon wrote: »

And yet you are still here.

DOFFing in the mornings then logging out, all that end-game offers

article001 · April 2015

To boldly go where no one has pressed [F] before.

frontline2042 · April 2015

ursusmorologus wrote: »

The stuff you do with your character after he has been roughly developed. Exploration, diplomacy, territorial defense/expanse, the unstructured activities that your character engages in. STO does not have that, well other than Exchange Tycoon, and Space Barbie, that's about it. All the content in STO is structured around building a toon, no sandboxes for doing what you actually want to with that toon.

That's the opposite of what I think most people think of when they hear the term end game, so I'm glad I asked. Unstructured activities and sandbox. Like the battle zones, foundry, and doffing? You literally can't get much more sandbox than the foundry. Are you after activities with no real rewards or...??? I really miss the old explore clusters and their little missions and hopefully one day they will come back but I wouldn't really call them sandbox.

francisakirk · April 2015

ursusmorologus wrote: »

The stuff you do with your character after he has been roughly developed. Exploration, diplomacy, territorial defense/expanse, the unstructured activities that your character engages in. STO does not have that, well other than Exchange Tycoon, and Space Barbie, that's about it. All the content in STO is structured around building a toon, no sandboxes for doing what you actually want to with that toon.

And rep passives got us closer to a balanced game, then it didn't matter after specs were added. Nothing hints at anything around here.

That's why I don't play any of them either

Not for many it seems

Yo People, don't get me wrong here. I dig the game! I'm just hung up on the Sector001-003(Memory-Alpha). Foundry's are cool also. True it would be impossible to explore the entire Universe. Ha, how long was Janeway out there???Just dig those Outposts!
Here's a map of the know Universe: Star Chart Maps :

http://ethanadams-thegalaxy.blogspot.com/

ethanADAMS

millimidget · April 2015

francisakirk wrote: »

Don't get me wrong here, there are those places we can explore, like Bajor, Earth Spacedock, Qunos, etc.

After your first or second experience with new content, you'd just add it to the list you provide above.

That's why they don't put resources into developing this "exploration" request.

markhawkman · April 2015

millimidget wrote: »

After your first or second experience with new content, you'd just add it to the list you provide above.

That's why they don't put resources into developing this "exploration" request.

Yeah I have to agree there. Things are only new once. Playing missions takes a LOT longer than writing them. So anything they make will get played out pretty much immediately.

francisakirk · April 2015

Thanks for those needed replies. All true and helpful. My main Character is ethanADAMS they(Cryptic, PW) wouldn't allow me to use it. But back in day we had really cool RP's going. Spent hours typing away along with many of you guys.(and gals). Don't see many around recently...

Ok later, and thanks again. Always tell the newbies to come back here, but they never do. This is where its at!

eA

bobbydazlers · April 2015

I really cant see what your problem is, you can go anywhere you want, so if you get to a place you want to visit and you cant enter without the appropriate mission find out what the mission is and que the mission.
as to your point about unknown Galaxy this was the problem with the old cluster missions, there are only so many random variations they can program in and after a few visits its just more of the same thing over and over and soon becomes boring, been there done that boring, then it gets to the stage where most players never use it and it gets removed as was the case with the cluster missions.

francisakirk · April 2015

bobbydazlers wrote: »

I really cant see what your problem is, you can go anywhere you want, so if you get to a place you want to visit and you cant enter without the appropriate mission find out what the mission is and que the mission.
as to your point about unknown Galaxy this was the problem with the old cluster missions, there are only so many random variations they can program in and after a few visits its just more of the same thing over and over and soon becomes boring, been there done that boring, then it gets to the stage where most players never use it and it gets removed as was the case with the cluster missions.

There's no problem at all. I just have a wanton idea and wish I could visit Sector 001-003 along the Romulan Neutral Zone and beam down to all those Outposts( from 1 to eight, including Space Station D-5) Believed now, all were destroyed many years ago by the Borg. (Memeory-Alpha) Check it out very interesting. Had a good RP going about this many moons ago. Just don't have the time anymore to RP. Takes a lot of time and dedication. Thanks for sharing. Tried going there, but only enter Sector space.

ethanADAMS

francisakirk · April 2015

deokkent wrote: »

To boldly go to your pockets, retrieve your wallet and extract your credit card. Pay your way through .

LOL..I hear ya...More Servers

eA

To Boldly Go...Where?

Comments

When I think about everything we've been through together,

maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,

and if that journey takes a little longer,

so we can do something we all believe in,

I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.