dunno why you dont get geko to create an ingame library, lore and background archive for everything explored, killed or analysed over your time, and relevant stuff on the game, species and so on, put some real hard background to the game. its better then just writing these things up that get ignored before long.
Perhaps put it on a map of some sort. Maybe a map that has already been created for a similar purpose. Maybe on a planet that we can already go to. This place could even be a part of Star Trek canon.
Like some sort of planet whose entire purpose is to act as a galactic library. Some kind of place where you could have large amounts of information stored, kind of like memory.
Some kind of... memory... planet...
Unfortunately, I don't think such a location ever existed in Star Trek, nor do I think it ever was portrayed in Star Trek Online if it did. Oh well.
Perhaps put it on a map of some sort. Maybe a map that has already been created for a similar purpose. Maybe on a planet that we can already go to. This place could even be a part of Star Trek canon.
Like some sort of planet whose entire purpose is to act as a galactic library. Some kind of place where you could have large amounts of information stored, kind of like memory.
Some kind of... memory... planet...
Unfortunately, I don't think such a location ever existed in Star Trek, nor do I think it ever was portrayed in Star Trek Online if it did. Oh well.
No...my sides...they're gone. They're dead, Jim.
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Admiral Hawkye L. Narasumas
Commanding Officer, NX-91883 U.S.S. Harmony - Prometheus Class Custom Variant
Fleet Commander, No Fate ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
its unclear if Tom Paris was in command of ESD as an admiral or that Tom just refused to accept the Admiral's position knowing full well he would never make a good one.
im guessing quinn asked tom to become one, but tom said no. this was quinn asking paris for this favor, and instead paris instead gets the favor from quinn for another assignment.
tom always knew his limits, and i would never expect him to become an admiral at any point, it just doesnt suit the character.
It could also have been that Tom didn't necessarily get to fleet admiral, but was in command of esd at VA rank or some such. Depending on how old this iteration of Quinn is, might it not also have been Quinn's previous incarnation that was on the other side of the desk?
When I actually processed what Guroth said I squeed. Like, literally made a squee sound. Then I was like "I want him! DOFF, BOFF, I don't care, I want this guy in my crew!"
Outside of that, I loved the chuckle he gave and the tone in which he asked the question about whether or not we new what happened...perfect dose of mad scientist.
dunno why you dont get geko to create an ingame library, lore and background archive for everything explored, killed or analysed over your time, and relevant stuff on the game, species and so on, put some real hard background to the game. its better then just writing these things up that get ignored before long.
They have those nice Library Computers in our ready rooms, the least they could do is put all the Intelligence Reports/Personal Logs/etc in there that they have posted the past few years.
Perhaps put it on a map of some sort. Maybe a map that has already been created for a similar purpose. Maybe on a planet that we can already go to. This place could even be a part of Star Trek canon.
Like some sort of planet whose entire purpose is to act as a galactic library. Some kind of place where you could have large amounts of information stored, kind of like memory.
Some kind of... memory... planet...
Unfortunately, I don't think such a location ever existed in Star Trek, nor do I think it ever was portrayed in Star Trek Online if it did. Oh well.
loved the story that leads up to Delta Flight, and from I was getting from the end there sounds like Tom was once an Admiral be ether decided to go back to captain or was demoted for something he did, we'll never know.
That's all my crew needs to know, they consider a battle a party
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I liked Guroth. In my head, my character's reaction to him asking if we knew what happened when you crammed five quantum torpedoes into one shell was that I really wanted to find out. .
You and me both, although I think he was a tad unambitious for a klingon weapon nut... If it was me, I'd put 5 gravimetrics in one casing and watch the ensuing black hole from afar
Me, too. Demote all player characters, please, except those who explicitly don't want to.
I wish they'd set it so that your rank you set on the character costume was the one applied to you. It'd make for good role playing, and mean that it'd make sense why you're not being called "sir" by everyone during endgame stuff
Why the gamma quadrant (that till i know is also being attacked by the heralds) wasnt shown in the storyline yet... is the bajoran wormhole offline? :P
I gotta say it doesn't feel like we are at war. I flew all over Sector Space in the Alpha and Beta quadrants. I saw no invasion fleets. I didn't get jumped by Iconians (like in the old old days when enemy contacts in Sector Space drew you into combat).
All this hype, and honestly it feels no different than it did the day before the patch.
I'd call this the Iconian Skirmish....but definitely not the Iconian War.
Ideally. Hopefully. STO will take a page from the first Guild Wars (or do something similar). I recall that game would have you create a character then drop you (and every other newly created PC) in the "world-at-peace" section of the game. This allowed for story-building and introduction to gameplay before players progressed to a "world-at-war/ruined world" section of the game.
So, in an effort to maintain gameplay/storyline consistency, maybe players will see partially war torn quadrants soon enough when players officially begin Season 10. "Starting" season 10 will permanently move that character to the "Iconian War Galaxy" in which Season 10 (and subsequent Seasons) will playout. Until the player knowingly begins season 10, they will remain in the "current Galaxy".
STO Gameplay/Storyline Progression:
Current Galaxy -- New Character - Season 9
Iconian War Galaxy -- Season 10 - ?
This way, new characters can still be created and new players can still join and play the game correctly from Season 1 to the latest Season
I don't know how much liberty Cryptic has with the Star Trek universe from CBS, but this seems like a viable option. Of course, there is always space magic! For example:
"Captains!! Thanks to the combined efforts of all the alliance races, we've been able to redirect all Iconian gate travel to the gate at that newly discovered location and erect a space-time barrier in which to contain them so they cannot ravage the quadrants! Travel to the Iconian War battlezone ASAP to assist in repelling the invasion!"
Recently the war has been going badly. Temporal interference has meant the Iconians are winning this war and everything looks very bleak. The Tesseract Communications Receiver has been very intermittent over the past few days.
Oooh I think I can get into the RP story stuff...
I am not in the Klingon Empire so please fix the proxy errors as I can not connect to the Federation News Service or walk on my bridge, fire weapons..... nope nevermind it is back online. Thank you Franklin.
Wait, someone refreshed me, who's "Quinn" again? I don't recall a Quinn being best of friends with Tom Paris. I know Admiral Gregory Quinn, who himself got infected by a parasite.
Is STO's Quinn the son or grandson of Admiral Quinn? If so, I won't be surprised if he gets infected later
Wait, someone refreshed me, who's "Quinn" again? I don't recall a Quinn being best of friends with Tom Paris. I know Admiral Gregory Quinn, who himself got infected by a parasite.
Is STO's Quinn the son or grandson of Admiral Quinn? If so, I won't be surprised if he gets infected later
The current Admiral Quinn is a Trill. Probably no relation to Gregory Quinn.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
Ideally. Hopefully. STO will take a page from the first Guild Wars (or do something similar). I recall that game would have you create a character then drop you (and every other newly created PC) in the "world-at-peace" section of the game. This allowed for story-building and introduction to gameplay before players progressed to a "world-at-war/ruined world" section of the game.
So, in an effort to maintain gameplay/storyline consistency, maybe players will see partially war torn quadrants soon enough when players officially begin Season 10. "Starting" season 10 will permanently move that character to the "Iconian War Galaxy" in which Season 10 (and subsequent Seasons) will playout. Until the player knowingly begins season 10, they will remain in the "current Galaxy".
STO Gameplay/Storyline Progression:
Current Galaxy -- New Character - Season 9
Iconian War Galaxy -- Season 10 - ?
This way, new characters can still be created and new players can still join and play the game correctly from Season 1 to the latest Season
I don't know how much liberty Cryptic has with the Star Trek universe from CBS, but this seems like a viable option. Of course, there is always space magic! For example:
"Captains!! Thanks to the combined efforts of all the alliance races, we've been able to redirect all Iconian gate travel to the gate at that newly discovered location and erect a space-time barrier in which to contain them so they cannot ravage the quadrants! Travel to the Iconian War battlezone ASAP to assist in repelling the invasion!"
This is where Phase/Phasing technology comes into play.
Lord of the Rings Online - when players move forward in the storyline, they can only encounter and interact with that time period. Any players in the "past" and "future" relative to his character are virtually elsewhere in time.
In other words, a character that progressed in the storyline cannot go back to the starting point and expect to see newly created characters. There's no one to PK and no one to help skip this and that.
Later though, they added a feature where you can help your lowbie friends.
World of ******** - they first experimented with Phasing Technology in Wrath of the Lich King and the Death Knight starting zone. It was very limited then but you will indeed feel that the zone is changing as you progressed in the story line.
Just like in LotRO, anyone in the "past" and "future" relative to your character, are inaccessible to you. You won't encounter them within the phased area, but you can chat fine in the global and zone channels. Even if you're in a party, the two of you will get separated because you're in different phase of the zone.
After WotLK, they started to implement phasing technology in the other zones and it worked perfectly. As far as immersion goes, you'll see the changes in the environment.
Guild Wars 1 & 2 - I don't remember ever encountering phasing technology in GW1 and GW2. GW1 is instance-centric. While GW2 is event-centric.
Yes, there is phasing technology in GW2 but it was implemented based on events, not characters. For example, if the players were able to prevent an invasion event, that area will phased with the town still intact and the NPCs offering discounts for example.
But if the players failed to prevent it, the town will phased showing it was destroyed, and the enemies lingering around. Probably some NPCs talking how much the players failed protecting them.
Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa - this is a special mention, as Richard Garriott was able to implement both instance technology and phasing technology perfectly, while maintaining an open-world game.
Which was later implemented in GW/GW2, and copied by WoW. It was because of TR that instance and phasing technologies changed how MMOs do things. Prior to a successful implementation of TR, no other game was serious into these two tech. Some who played with it was not able to implement it correctly, example, LotRO faced an issue wherein their community and the members of guilds were so separated from each other because they're all in different phases.
GW1, everything was instanced, it was like a "Single Player Online Role-Playing Game".
WoW, took it slowly because they don't want to repeat the same mistakes as LotRO and GW1. But the idea still came from Tabula Rasa.
How about Star Trek Online? Oh, we do have phasing technology. Checkout Nimbus III for example. Ever noticed how sometimes there are areas when players and NPCs disappear and replaced by a new set? That's phasing tech in action.
STO's implementation of phasing tech is based on the character's mission. If you have a particular mission active when you reach a certain area where this mission is supposed to happen, that area phases in your mission. But if you do not have the mission, the area remains as-is, in its generic version.
STO also have instance technology. We see this a lot whenever we enter a mission from sector space. For example, if you're in DS9 sector space, you'll have an option to "Go into orbit DS9" and "Begin: Mission this and that".
If you choose "Begin: Mission", you will enter DS9 in an instance, where you and your party are the only ones in it. While everybody else is in the non-instance version (or possibly in a public instance )
The question now is, when are we going to see phasing technology implemented on a wide scale in Star Trek Online?
STO is a game that is ripe and perfect for phasing technology, all the while avoiding the pitfalls in GW1's instance-centric implementation and LotRO's phase-centric implementation.
STO can do what Tabula Rasa and World of ******** did in implementing Instance Tech + Phase Tech yet maintaining the open-world system.
Example, New Romulus was devastated by the Iconian attack. I'd love to see that outside of the mission. But what if I want to farm Romulan Marks?
Well, who said New Romulus was totally devastated? We barely explored the whole planet! The free Romulans could have re-established elsewhere on the planet. Why would the free Romulans give up their new homeworld so easily? That's so un-Romulan!
How about Qo'nos? Why not see the effects of the attacks outside of the PvE queue? Isn't it about time to overhaul Qo'nos confusing and too large layout?
We already have the system in place in helping "lowbies" or those in the "past". They invite us in a party, and voila, we can help them -- without changing the past.
This also opens-up the possibility of creating more open-world missions. We already have that system in place too! Nimbus III, New Romulus, and former Vadwaar planet (dang, can't remember the place). WoW and GW2 did it, why not STO?
The invasion of New Romulus could have been an open-world mission! Then this is where the phase tech kicks-in, after finishing this mission, players will now see the old Romulan settlements devastated.
The new center in New Romulus will have moved elsewhere. Then they can add new ground missions where we explore the ruined settlements for whatever -- say, collect dead bodies of the enemy or tech left behind.
Yes, I know, easy to say than to program. But hey, ideas are ideas. I for one would love to see it implemented in STO.
Bottomline is, the game will always present a fresh perspective because of a perfect implementation of instance and phasing technologies while keeping it open-world at the same time.
Ideally. Hopefully. STO will take a page from the first Guild Wars (or do something similar). I recall that game would have you create a character then drop you (and every other newly created PC) in the "world-at-peace" section of the game. This allowed for story-building and introduction to gameplay before players progressed to a "world-at-war/ruined world" section of the game.
So, in an effort to maintain gameplay/storyline consistency, maybe players will see partially war torn quadrants soon enough when players officially begin Season 10. "Starting" season 10 will permanently move that character to the "Iconian War Galaxy" in which Season 10 (and subsequent Seasons) will playout. Until the player knowingly begins season 10, they will remain in the "current Galaxy".
STO Gameplay/Storyline Progression:
Current Galaxy -- New Character - Season 9
Iconian War Galaxy -- Season 10 - ?
This way, new characters can still be created and new players can still join and play the game correctly from Season 1 to the latest Season
I don't know how much liberty Cryptic has with the Star Trek universe from CBS, but this seems like a viable option. Of course, there is always space magic! For example:
"Captains!! Thanks to the combined efforts of all the alliance races, we've been able to redirect all Iconian gate travel to the gate at that newly discovered location and erect a space-time barrier in which to contain them so they cannot ravage the quadrants! Travel to the Iconian War battlezone ASAP to assist in repelling the invasion!"
They has the perfect chance to test this when ESD was destroyed everyone that didnt do that storyline yet could have old esd and the ones who did could have the new one. but alas they didnt think it throug properly
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
They has the perfect chance to test this when ESD was destroyed everyone that didnt do that storyline yet could have old esd and the ones who did could have the new one. but alas they didnt think it throug properly
They thought it through. They decided that the old ESD sucked, and that the new one would make a good replacement for it. "Surface Tension" was more of an acknowledgement of the change than an explanation.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
Isn't Adm. Quinn a Trill? Maybe his previous host (say 6 or 7 years ago) was a Starfleet Lt. serving under Tom. When the host died, the worm got planted into an Admiral. Seems more plausible than Tom being hyperpromoted.
That's the most reasonable explanation that I've heard so far.
Perhaps put it on a map of some sort. Maybe a map that has already been created for a similar purpose. Maybe on a planet that we can already go to. This place could even be a part of Star Trek canon.
Like some sort of planet whose entire purpose is to act as a galactic library. Some kind of place where you could have large amounts of information stored, kind of like memory.
Some kind of... memory... planet...
Unfortunately, I don't think such a location ever existed in Star Trek, nor do I think it ever was portrayed in Star Trek Online if it did. Oh well.
They thought it through. They decided that the old ESD sucked, and that the new one would make a good replacement for it. "Surface Tension" was more of an acknowledgement of the change than an explanation.
Where is this episode and how can I play it? I didn't know some episodes got removed from the roster.
Something I think I'd like to see as part of this Iconian Conflict - A War Bond Tour.
Maybe it could only be implemented as a DOff Assignment. Or, maybe it could be a wrapper mission for a series of four or five system patrols. Such as was done with Delta Rising.
A veteran crew with a brilliant and daring commander is tasked with touring the home front as part of an ongoing morale building exercise for those in the Federation or the Empire or the Republic who are building the ships and providing the resources to support the war. While on this tour, these brave men and women make appearances, kiss babies, officiate over parades, and the like. They may even discover a nefarious plot by saboteurs determined to deal a telling blow to the war effort which would ensure the final victory of the Iconians. Being the only ship in the Sector, they take it upon themselves to halt this dastardly sneak attack!
Hmmm...If The Devs don't do something like this, I might give it a whack as soon as the Foundry becomes available again. Make a nice first mission, I think. Although I may not have the chops to pull it off. So if one of you Foundry Mission Gods gets to it before I do, no worries. Just tell 'em where you got the idea from, lol.
EDIT: For some reason while writing the second paragraph above, I began hearing in my head the radio serial which was used during the Agent Carter miniseries. Or the style used by the Announcer in the arena fights over on Nimbus III. Something a little over the top and just a tad too flowery.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Where is this episode and how can I play it? I didn't know some episodes got removed from the roster.
"Surface Tension"? Open your Missions list > Solanae Dyson Sphere > scroll down, last mission
As for "some episodes got removed", I don't recall any of those missions have the old ESD. I think you're confusing the old ESD as being tied to an episode.
Missions are only using ESD. ESD is independent of the missions. They can change it again if they want without introducing or removing any missions
Comments
I would think they would manage to get all the Fed Ships in game in that pic, expically consindering there are a total of 8 Excelsiors in the pic
Perhaps put it on a map of some sort. Maybe a map that has already been created for a similar purpose. Maybe on a planet that we can already go to. This place could even be a part of Star Trek canon.
Like some sort of planet whose entire purpose is to act as a galactic library. Some kind of place where you could have large amounts of information stored, kind of like memory.
Some kind of... memory... planet...
Unfortunately, I don't think such a location ever existed in Star Trek, nor do I think it ever was portrayed in Star Trek Online if it did. Oh well.
No...my sides...they're gone. They're dead, Jim.
Admiral Hawkye L. Narasumas
Commanding Officer, NX-91883 U.S.S. Harmony - Prometheus Class Custom Variant
Fleet Commander, No Fate
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
It could also have been that Tom didn't necessarily get to fleet admiral, but was in command of esd at VA rank or some such. Depending on how old this iteration of Quinn is, might it not also have been Quinn's previous incarnation that was on the other side of the desk?
Outside of that, I loved the chuckle he gave and the tone in which he asked the question about whether or not we new what happened...perfect dose of mad scientist.
They have those nice Library Computers in our ready rooms, the least they could do is put all the Intelligence Reports/Personal Logs/etc in there that they have posted the past few years.
Iconians have struck again...
Time will only tell!
That's all my crew needs to know, they consider a battle a party
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
You and me both, although I think he was a tad unambitious for a klingon weapon nut... If it was me, I'd put 5 gravimetrics in one casing and watch the ensuing black hole from afar
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
lovely material to eat uuh read. :P
I wish they'd set it so that your rank you set on the character costume was the one applied to you. It'd make for good role playing, and mean that it'd make sense why you're not being called "sir" by everyone during endgame stuff
Ideally. Hopefully. STO will take a page from the first Guild Wars (or do something similar). I recall that game would have you create a character then drop you (and every other newly created PC) in the "world-at-peace" section of the game. This allowed for story-building and introduction to gameplay before players progressed to a "world-at-war/ruined world" section of the game.
So, in an effort to maintain gameplay/storyline consistency, maybe players will see partially war torn quadrants soon enough when players officially begin Season 10. "Starting" season 10 will permanently move that character to the "Iconian War Galaxy" in which Season 10 (and subsequent Seasons) will playout. Until the player knowingly begins season 10, they will remain in the "current Galaxy".
STO Gameplay/Storyline Progression:
This way, new characters can still be created and new players can still join and play the game correctly from Season 1 to the latest Season
I don't know how much liberty Cryptic has with the Star Trek universe from CBS, but this seems like a viable option. Of course, there is always space magic! For example:
"Captains!! Thanks to the combined efforts of all the alliance races, we've been able to redirect all Iconian gate travel to the gate at that newly discovered location and erect a space-time barrier in which to contain them so they cannot ravage the quadrants! Travel to the Iconian War battlezone ASAP to assist in repelling the invasion!"
Oooh I think I can get into the RP story stuff...
I am not in the Klingon Empire so please fix the proxy errors as I can not connect to the Federation News Service or walk on my bridge, fire weapons..... nope nevermind it is back online. Thank you Franklin.
Is STO's Quinn the son or grandson of Admiral Quinn? If so, I won't be surprised if he gets infected later
[ Blog: YOOki Chronicles ]
[ Verify me: Keybase | OpenPGP ]
"Someone should do a story where a Horta meets a Vorta. And then they find a portal to Vorta-Vor and become immortal. Sorta." ~Christopher L. Bennett
The current Admiral Quinn is a Trill. Probably no relation to Gregory Quinn.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
This is where Phase/Phasing technology comes into play.
Lord of the Rings Online - when players move forward in the storyline, they can only encounter and interact with that time period. Any players in the "past" and "future" relative to his character are virtually elsewhere in time.
In other words, a character that progressed in the storyline cannot go back to the starting point and expect to see newly created characters. There's no one to PK and no one to help skip this and that.
Later though, they added a feature where you can help your lowbie friends.
World of ******** - they first experimented with Phasing Technology in Wrath of the Lich King and the Death Knight starting zone. It was very limited then but you will indeed feel that the zone is changing as you progressed in the story line.
Just like in LotRO, anyone in the "past" and "future" relative to your character, are inaccessible to you. You won't encounter them within the phased area, but you can chat fine in the global and zone channels. Even if you're in a party, the two of you will get separated because you're in different phase of the zone.
After WotLK, they started to implement phasing technology in the other zones and it worked perfectly. As far as immersion goes, you'll see the changes in the environment.
Guild Wars 1 & 2 - I don't remember ever encountering phasing technology in GW1 and GW2. GW1 is instance-centric. While GW2 is event-centric.
Yes, there is phasing technology in GW2 but it was implemented based on events, not characters. For example, if the players were able to prevent an invasion event, that area will phased with the town still intact and the NPCs offering discounts for example.
But if the players failed to prevent it, the town will phased showing it was destroyed, and the enemies lingering around. Probably some NPCs talking how much the players failed protecting them.
Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa - this is a special mention, as Richard Garriott was able to implement both instance technology and phasing technology perfectly, while maintaining an open-world game.
Which was later implemented in GW/GW2, and copied by WoW. It was because of TR that instance and phasing technologies changed how MMOs do things. Prior to a successful implementation of TR, no other game was serious into these two tech. Some who played with it was not able to implement it correctly, example, LotRO faced an issue wherein their community and the members of guilds were so separated from each other because they're all in different phases.
GW1, everything was instanced, it was like a "Single Player Online Role-Playing Game".
WoW, took it slowly because they don't want to repeat the same mistakes as LotRO and GW1. But the idea still came from Tabula Rasa.
How about Star Trek Online? Oh, we do have phasing technology. Checkout Nimbus III for example. Ever noticed how sometimes there are areas when players and NPCs disappear and replaced by a new set? That's phasing tech in action.
STO's implementation of phasing tech is based on the character's mission. If you have a particular mission active when you reach a certain area where this mission is supposed to happen, that area phases in your mission. But if you do not have the mission, the area remains as-is, in its generic version.
STO also have instance technology. We see this a lot whenever we enter a mission from sector space. For example, if you're in DS9 sector space, you'll have an option to "Go into orbit DS9" and "Begin: Mission this and that".
If you choose "Begin: Mission", you will enter DS9 in an instance, where you and your party are the only ones in it. While everybody else is in the non-instance version (or possibly in a public instance
The question now is, when are we going to see phasing technology implemented on a wide scale in Star Trek Online?
STO is a game that is ripe and perfect for phasing technology, all the while avoiding the pitfalls in GW1's instance-centric implementation and LotRO's phase-centric implementation.
STO can do what Tabula Rasa and World of ******** did in implementing Instance Tech + Phase Tech yet maintaining the open-world system.
Example, New Romulus was devastated by the Iconian attack. I'd love to see that outside of the mission. But what if I want to farm Romulan Marks?
Well, who said New Romulus was totally devastated? We barely explored the whole planet! The free Romulans could have re-established elsewhere on the planet. Why would the free Romulans give up their new homeworld so easily? That's so un-Romulan!
How about Qo'nos? Why not see the effects of the attacks outside of the PvE queue? Isn't it about time to overhaul Qo'nos confusing and too large layout?
We already have the system in place in helping "lowbies" or those in the "past". They invite us in a party, and voila, we can help them -- without changing the past.
This also opens-up the possibility of creating more open-world missions. We already have that system in place too! Nimbus III, New Romulus, and former Vadwaar planet (dang, can't remember the place). WoW and GW2 did it, why not STO?
The invasion of New Romulus could have been an open-world mission! Then this is where the phase tech kicks-in, after finishing this mission, players will now see the old Romulan settlements devastated.
The new center in New Romulus will have moved elsewhere. Then they can add new ground missions where we explore the ruined settlements for whatever -- say, collect dead bodies of the enemy or tech left behind.
Yes, I know, easy to say than to program. But hey, ideas are ideas. I for one would love to see it implemented in STO.
Bottomline is, the game will always present a fresh perspective because of a perfect implementation of instance and phasing technologies while keeping it open-world at the same time.
[ Blog: YOOki Chronicles ]
[ Verify me: Keybase | OpenPGP ]
"Someone should do a story where a Horta meets a Vorta. And then they find a portal to Vorta-Vor and become immortal. Sorta." ~Christopher L. Bennett
They has the perfect chance to test this when ESD was destroyed everyone that didnt do that storyline yet could have old esd and the ones who did could have the new one. but alas they didnt think it throug properly
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
They thought it through. They decided that the old ESD sucked, and that the new one would make a good replacement for it. "Surface Tension" was more of an acknowledgement of the change than an explanation.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
That's the most reasonable explanation that I've heard so far.
Looking forward to reading more!
I see what you did there...
Where is this episode and how can I play it? I didn't know some episodes got removed from the roster.
Maybe it could only be implemented as a DOff Assignment. Or, maybe it could be a wrapper mission for a series of four or five system patrols. Such as was done with Delta Rising.
A veteran crew with a brilliant and daring commander is tasked with touring the home front as part of an ongoing morale building exercise for those in the Federation or the Empire or the Republic who are building the ships and providing the resources to support the war. While on this tour, these brave men and women make appearances, kiss babies, officiate over parades, and the like. They may even discover a nefarious plot by saboteurs determined to deal a telling blow to the war effort which would ensure the final victory of the Iconians. Being the only ship in the Sector, they take it upon themselves to halt this dastardly sneak attack!
Hmmm...If The Devs don't do something like this, I might give it a whack as soon as the Foundry becomes available again. Make a nice first mission, I think. Although I may not have the chops to pull it off. So if one of you Foundry Mission Gods gets to it before I do, no worries. Just tell 'em where you got the idea from, lol.
EDIT: For some reason while writing the second paragraph above, I began hearing in my head the radio serial which was used during the Agent Carter miniseries. Or the style used by the Announcer in the arena fights over on Nimbus III. Something a little over the top and just a tad too flowery.
"Surface Tension"? Open your Missions list > Solanae Dyson Sphere > scroll down, last mission
As for "some episodes got removed", I don't recall any of those missions have the old ESD. I think you're confusing the old ESD as being tied to an episode.
Missions are only using ESD. ESD is independent of the missions. They can change it again if they want without introducing or removing any missions
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"Someone should do a story where a Horta meets a Vorta. And then they find a portal to Vorta-Vor and become immortal. Sorta." ~Christopher L. Bennett
Please keep writing them!
Thank you