I share the sentiments from others in this thread. Apart from the Featured Episodes, there is no war...
At the very least there should be Herald/Iconian ships flying through all sectors of space. Would be even cooler if they used the old tech from space encounters, and followed you around pulling you into them....
While the ending of ME3 was really bad, the Reaper Invasion was rendered in a great way.
This is what STO should attempt to emulate. Of course, we have a MMO here... but when I look at ESO's phasing system for example... it is certainly possible to do something like that.
Thus far, despite the excellent FEs, the Iconian War is disappointing.
It is like the Devs decided that they need to end this storyline now because Geko had some new idea for 2016... that is really how it feels to me.
Rushed to get it done. Geko stated on P1 podcast that they feel it would be wrong to "drag out the war for more then a single Season".
I could not disagree more. You dragged out the build-up to the war beyond measures of ridiculous. And the actual event falls short on almost every front.
Not even a Battlezone? Really? The Voth, Undine and especially Vaadwaur are more fleshed out enemies then the Iconians/Heralds.
What you should have done? Red Alerts/Sector encounters, a Battlezone, use of phasing tech to render a Galaxy truly in despair and, as a crowning achievement, implemented the technology used for Delta Recruits (global events) to let the players influence the frontlines of the Iconian War Galaxy map.
I mean... it is like you set it all up for these features.
1. new Galaxy map
2. Delta Recruit's global events
3. FEs kicking off the Iconian invasion
And what now?! Geko blatantly states that this is it. Season 10. The FEs and the queued events are everything there is.
I do not even hold my breath for a Season 10.5 this time.
Damn, there were filler Seasons with more content.
It is a well written story, but no war worthy of a living, breathing MMO environment.
PS: In regards to "phasing"... what about the Herald Sphere? Is it there on the Galaxy map for new players? I think that Sphere only pops up after you finished Uneasy Allies?
If phasing is out of the question, at the VERY LEAST do Level 50 (or 60) exclusive Iconian Red Alerts. And a Battlezone. These should be pretty basic.
I would like to second what most people said as well. I really enjoy the tales of war, but you don't feel it happening in game.
The Iconian invasion is pretty much the climax of every big Storyline STO had since the beginning, so yes, it should feel like the universe shaking event it was set up to be.
There's no Iconian ships in red alerts , no officers standing in front of casualty lists on ESD, no remains of battles fought in sector space etc.
Hell, NPCs on Qonos are still talking about fighting the Federation, talk about news traveling slow.
-
Join Starfleet,
Boldly go where no man has gone before,
Meet interesting new species, and Kill them!
Of all the games I've played that handled 'we're losing badly' the best, I think Freespace 2 is the best. Bit of background for FS2 -- 30 years ago, Earth and her ally, the Vasudans, managed to (barely) stop a world-burning ship belonging to a race of aliens that the humans had named the Shivans. The Shivans lived up to the human's name for them, burning Vasuda Prime to the bedrock, before moving on to Earth. Nothing they had ship-wise could stand up to the Shivan ship, until a weakness was detected in the Shivan ship's shields -- impenetrable when up, but rendered offline when going FTL, so the Humans and Vasudans sent a team of strike craft to blow the ship up in hyperspace. The invasion was stopped, and humans and Vasudans thought themselves triumphant. They learned from what they saw the Shivan ships using, and over the next 30 years, advanced. Their strike craft were faster and heavier shielded. Their capital starships went from using pulse cannons and railguns to using true beam weapons. They built a massive starship far bigger than the ship they destroyed in hyperspace, and figured that this ship would protect them from anything out there.
Then the Shivans came back. You play a fighter pilot. Your missions see you first putting down a human rebellion, followed by your first encounters with the Shivans. You even get some victories, destroying the same light escorts that gave you so much trouble in the first game, sometimes quite spectacularly. And the Shivans took notice. They start overrunning your worlds. So, you bring out the big ship, thinking that it will stand before the onslaught. The Shivans introduce you to *their* big ship. It's bigger than yours. By alot. And simulations show it will cut through your big ship in seconds. So you scramble your best pilots to defang it so your big ship can kill it, but it kills several of your larger ships before you finish. By the skin of your teeth, you manage to defang it and let the aptly named Collossus blow it up. You celebrate the destruction of the Shivan Juggernaut, and pat yourself on the back, thinking that you averted the destruction of human kind again, much as the people 30 years ago defeated the Lucifer.
Then the Shivans prove how screwed you really are. Tens, no, HUNDREDS of these 'Sathanas' juggernauts start pouring out of jump gates and swarming over your systems. Your last ditch effort is to close the jump nodes from the system they are invading going to your core worlds. A massive fight to get your people living in the star system to safety, many of them not making it as the Shivan ships swarm anything that moves. A few of the Juggernauts kill your big ships, including the Colossus (which goes down in almost as many seconds as it took in years to build it...), and more smaller ships kill your civilian ships. And all while this is going on, 80+ Juggernauts surround the star. You learn what these ships are doing at the last minute...when you either die in the supernova triggered in the star by the Juggernauts, or you escape with your life just before the jump gates were closed permanently.
And every step of the way, you accomplish some goals, but lose many big things in the process.
Blood of Ancients kind of fit this. You 'win' the mission by completing goals, but in the end, you lose the Starbase, the New Romulus gate, and the Preserver Archive, and a third of the fleet sent to drive the Heralds off. That really felt like the Second Shivan War to me. But we need more of it. We need to be introduced to NPCs in early missions, ones that we get attached to, and then they need to be slaughtered mercilessly by the Iconians. And when we finally beat the Iconians, the Butcher's Bill should really pull at our heart strings...
When it comes to conveying the war in game, I guess they couldn't come up with a way of showing we are losing. That's because losing generally means respawns leading to an annoyed player.
Though I guess they could have refitted No Win Scenario for use with Heralds (truly no-win this time). And even used it as a new lvl 60 DSE/Red Alert. It'd convey the losing part pretty well.
1) Starbase 234 getting blown up. No way to save it.
2) Victory on the New Romulus suddenly turned to a loss. The Gateway to Lae'nas III and The Preservers becomes our only hope.
3) The Preserver Archive destroyed by Iconian daughter as well as a Preserver librarian.
4) Iaidon Dreadnought attacks Lae'nas III cracking the planet perhaps to its core. The remaining Preservers and the Archive seemed to have been destroyed, too.
5) Same beam that shoots at Lae'nas III also destroys many ships between the Iaidon Dreadnought and the planet.
1) Starbase 234 getting blown up. No way to save it.
2) Victory on the New Romulus suddenly turned to a loss. The Gateway to Lae'nas III and The Preservers becomes our only hope.
3) The Preserver Archive destroyed by Iconian daughter as well as a Preserver librarian.
4) Iaidon Dreadnought attacks Lae'nas III cracking the planet perhaps to its core. The remaining Preservers and the Archive seemed to have been destroyed, too.
5) Same beam that shoots at Lae'nas III also destroys many ships between the Iaidon Dreadnought and the planet.
IMHO - That sounds like a lot of loss to me.
And that's just Mission: Blood of Ancients.
Except...
...much like how we can lose all of our crew but they come back - none of that loss is actual loss.
It's about as much loss as flipping channels too fast and going by the channel you were looking for...
...you just go back.
* * * * *
Sometimes, it just feels like it would be better to read STO than to play STO.
1) Starbase 234 getting blown up. No way to save it.
2) Victory on the New Romulus suddenly turned to a loss. The Gateway to Lae'nas III and The Preservers becomes our only hope.
3) The Preserver Archive destroyed by Iconian daughter as well as a Preserver librarian.
4) Iaidon Dreadnought attacks Lae'nas III cracking the planet perhaps to its core. The remaining Preservers and the Archive seemed to have been destroyed, too.
5) Same beam that shoots at Lae'nas III also destroys many ships between the Iaidon Dreadnought and the planet.
IMHO - That sounds like a lot of loss to me.
And that's just Mission: Blood of Ancients.
NPC loss, and that's the problem, there is this great war going on in the Devs minds and none of the players (or at least most)
we couldn't even get a battle zone for this supposive war, we managed one for a bunch of dinos with lasers....
I fear the Iconian War and Iconians are suffering from the development team not having enough staff to do what they are conjuring in posters.
You want me to feel some loss? How bout kill Quinn, Sulu, maybe some other notable npcs that we have had more interaction with then 5 minutes worth.
IM betting Commander Roxy dies next, due to boredom.
Shon isn't dead yet, and judging from this bit he's not going to be resting until he is
getting 3 hours sleep at most every day, not in the "frame of mind" (- TNG, 6x21). hes practically dead already if he has lost his wits about him after months of that.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
1) Starbase 234 getting blown up. No way to save it.
2) Victory on the New Romulus suddenly turned to a loss. The Gateway to Lae'nas III and The Preservers becomes our only hope.
3) The Preserver Archive destroyed by Iconian daughter as well as a Preserver librarian.
4) Iaidon Dreadnought attacks Lae'nas III cracking the planet perhaps to its core. The remaining Preservers and the Archive seemed to have been destroyed, too.
5) Same beam that shoots at Lae'nas III also destroys many ships between the Iaidon Dreadnought and the planet.
IMHO - That sounds like a lot of loss to me.
And that's just Mission: Blood of Ancients.
And that's the problem: it's just Blood of Ancients. The rest of the time, entire legions of Heralds get decimated by a small squad of ships or people.
That is, only if you join a queue.
Where are the Borg getting randomly decimated by Heralds in their Red Alerts, like with the Tholians?
Where are the Herald Red Alerts?
Where are the Heralds randomly showing anywhere? In Champions Online, you could have Nemesis minions showing up randomly to try and kill you, why not applying the same thing in the episodes and their replays? Wouldn't that be cool to have heralds showing up in your holodeck reenactements of your past successes to remind you not even the Holodeck of your ship can protect you?
Where are the massive funerals to attend to at ESD/Qo' Nos/New Romulus to show we're losing many people?
Heck, even simpler, where are the reports saying "we lost X ships this hour to the Iconians" like you get a report whenever someone gets a ship from a lockbox?
Heck, even pretending the Iconians caused the disappearance of the "Haggle for" assignments!
Anything that says "we're at war at a quadrant level"!
Sure, the war is mentioned in Tales of War and in briefings, but that's it, how am I supposed to feel concerned?
Where are the massive funerals to attend to at ESD/Qo' Nos/New Romulus to show we're losing many people?
Heck, even simpler, where are the reports saying "we lost X ships this hour to the Iconians" like you get a report whenever someone gets a ship from a lockbox?
They should add something like that to the homeworlds. Every day the number is significantly increased and the list gets updated with new randomly generated names to show while scrolling.
And it would be nice if the homeworlds had floating holograms showing the corresponding faction recruitment posters.
That's a good idea. Every half an hour a mission is selected from a list and all players receive a red alert. Those who accept the red alert are randomly put into groups and play their own instance of the mission. Missions could be set in the homeworlds, social zones such as Vulcan and Risa, hubs such as Drozana and DS9, fleet starbases, etc. The missions would be divided in two parts: A space battle against the Heralds, maybe with support from the Elachi, and then a ground battle against the heralds with support from Elachi and Bluegills in a war thorn version of the corresponding ground map. The ground battle portion could have different versions for the game to randomly pick from: Protect an area or item from waves of enemies, fight through the enemy lines to reach a particular thing, kill a boss enemy while under attack by respawning grunts, etc.
As others have said prior to me - Where's the war? I can read the stories. I can see the results of some minor skirmishes. But the Herald War, I prefer to call it this because it is a much more accurate description, does not feel like a real threat to the various nation states of our galaxy.
The idea is brilliant and potentially something which could change STO forever, However the execution seems slapdash and hesitant. Even Delta Ridiculous feels more complete. The Herald Skirmish feels like someone's give a damn is busted. All that ballyhoo and lead up and then just this?
I have a theory. The hype we were bombarded with about S10 was really just a very extended infomercial intended to sell Pilot Ships. Seen from this viewpoint, it fits nearly perfectly. Wouldn't be the first time deliberate misdirection or something like it happened around here. Could be the the last though.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
1) Starbase 234 getting blown up. No way to save it.
2) Victory on the New Romulus suddenly turned to a loss. The Gateway to Lae'nas III and The Preservers becomes our only hope.
3) The Preserver Archive destroyed by Iconian daughter as well as a Preserver librarian.
4) Iaidon Dreadnought attacks Lae'nas III cracking the planet perhaps to its core. The remaining Preservers and the Archive seemed to have been destroyed, too.
5) Same beam that shoots at Lae'nas III also destroys many ships between the Iaidon Dreadnought and the planet.
IMHO - That sounds like a lot of loss to me.
And that's just Mission: Blood of Ancients.
And to help fight off the Herelds, I'm fighting the Vaadwuar on Kobali to help the war. Since that is the only place to solo Iconian Rep. :rolleyes:
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I thin the entire "war " stuff doesn't do the franchise justice ( as far as I'm concerned this season can't be over too soon ) . Where's the exploration which pretty much defined all series ? The storytelling ?
You have these blogs ,but that's about it . Ingame it's fly to A> shoot a gazillion ships, then fly to B and do the same ...
as I stated elsewhere : Star Trek was never about war ( even when there was one in progress ) ,but used that as a backdrop
Okay, question for everyone who's posted in this thread:
How many of you would log out, and not come back (at least until the event was over), if they took you at your word and forced the war on you?
No queues except those relating to the war; no difficulty below Advanced; and if you fail any of the "optionals", that's it you're done (like it was before).
No more Borg, Tholian, etc fleet actions - all Iconians, all the time.
No Foundry. There's a war on, no time for holodeck fantasies!
All the other battlezones, ground and space, are closed.
All the existing DOff assignments, chains, etc replaced with maybe a dozen new assignments, all of them relating to the war.
All the existing story missions, 1-50 and Delta Rising, replaced by a dozen or so missions where you fight the Iconians... over and over and over. And they're always at least +2 to you (on Normal - it's worse on Advanced, etc). That's your new leveling path.
While flying through sector space, you have ... let's say a 50% chance per minute of being engaged by Herald ships, or boarded by a bunch of Constructs, Thralls etc who pop directly onto your ship via gateways, and who you have to fight on your bridge and interior.
All the social zones on high alert and locked down; Qo'Nos, in particular, would be under constant siege. (You want to use the bank or other services, KDF players? Sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else.)
You want to fight Iconians? Okay, that's what you get to do. And nothing else.
Sound like fun?
EDIT:
Oh, and I just thought of another item for the list - you may not always be able to get all the Components and Regenerators you need to fix all those injuries you'll be racking up. (Wartime supply shortages, y'know?) So over time, your ship and characters will become more and more crippled, until they're basically combat ineffective. For that added touch of realism.
Now, does anybody else find it odd that a story about Shon is emblazoned with a Romulan image?
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed. True, prior stories didn't really feature propaganda posters that were specifically related to the content of said stories, but there were still general enough that the juxtaposition wasn't quite as jarring as, say, a Republic Propaganda Poster emblazoned above a Starfleet-centered story. :rolleyes:
One has to wonder if the person in charge of pasting the posters into these stories pays attention to the actual content of a given story....
You want to fight Iconians? Okay, that's what you get to do. And nothing else.
Sound like fun?
I don't really think that's what people are asking for...well okay, some people are going a little overboard. >_>
But again, it's kind of disheartening that the current conflict with the Iconians, one which has been hyped into the heavens for years now, is not nearly as fleshed out as our prior conflicts, especially the more recent ones with the Voth, Undine, and Vaadwaur.
I know for me, personally, both a Herald battlezone of some sort as well as Herald Red Alerts would go a long way toward selling the idea of there being an actual, ongoing conflict with the Heralds currently happening. And I'm not asking them to replace anything, just add on to what we currently have, as they have done so in the past.
In fact, save for the fact that maybe the Sector revamp ate up any spare money and/or development time they had this season, it's actually somewhat mystifying that, at the very least, we have not gotten as much content with this conflict as we have with previous conflicts.
As for the story itself, between Shon's answer to the Kobayashi Maru simulation, and some of his past actions in certain feature episodes, it's starting to seem like the guy has a bit of a martyr complex. :P
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
Great story. I only wish the gameplay itself had that kind of depth of feeling. There's so much grind and pewpewpew that one never even remotely stops to consider the story of the crewmen that must die on my ship regularly (not to mention the uncountable host of enemy fodder I've slain).
For many months I've been saying something similar (if not 100%) to what you said, sometimes in forum threads, sometimes to fellow players. But I guess that's the downside of games ... you can't get the "depth of feeling" (excellent way of putting it) that TV shows do, movies do, and books do. Granted, in games, it's all 0's and 1's, not flesh-and-blood, but still.
It's reminds me of the scene in ST6 where Enterprise is docked at ESD and Kirk asks the new helmsman (a female Vulcan officer) to take the ship out at one-quarter impulse speed. She turns around, starts citing Starfleet regulations ... Spock turns around and shakes his head, doing a tsk tsk tsk sort of thing, and Uhura smiles and does the same thing (as if to say, "Trust us. The captain knows what he's doing."). Kirk smiles at his helmsman and says, "Helm, you heard the order." "Yes, sir. One-quarter impulse." Just a wonderful way to show how the existing (old) crew worked so well together. I miss that in STO. After all, if it can happen in SWTOR, why not in STO as well?
1) Starbase 234 getting blown up. No way to save it.
2) Victory on the New Romulus suddenly turned to a loss. The Gateway to Lae'nas III and The Preservers becomes our only hope.
3) The Preserver Archive destroyed by Iconian daughter as well as a Preserver librarian.
4) Iaidon Dreadnought attacks Lae'nas III cracking the planet perhaps to its core. The remaining Preservers and the Archive seemed to have been destroyed, too.
5) Same beam that shoots at Lae'nas III also destroys many ships between the Iaidon Dreadnought and the planet.
IMHO - That sounds like a lot of loss to me.
And that's just Mission: Blood of Ancients.
Yes, just that mission. And with one another mission and a (couple lvl 60?) queues. That's it. How often do you play those two missions? It just doesn't feel like we're at war.
(Note: Yes, several other people pointed that out already.)
Okay, question for everyone who's posted in this thread:
How many of you would log out, and not come back (at least until the event was over), if they took you at your word and forced the war on you?
No queues except those relating to the war; no difficulty below Advanced; and if you fail any of the "optionals", that's it you're done (like it was before).
No more Borg, Tholian, etc fleet actions - all Iconians, all the time.
No Foundry. There's a war on, no time for holodeck fantasies!
All the other battlezones, ground and space, are closed.
All the existing DOff assignments, chains, etc replaced with maybe a dozen new assignments, all of them relating to the war.
All the existing story missions, 1-50 and Delta Rising, replaced by a dozen or so missions where you fight the Iconians... over and over and over. And they're always at least +2 to you (on Normal - it's worse on Advanced, etc). That's your new leveling path.
While flying through sector space, you have ... let's say a 50% chance per minute of being engaged by Herald ships, or boarded by a bunch of Constructs, Thralls etc who pop directly onto your ship via gateways, and who you have to fight on your bridge and interior.
All the social zones on high alert and locked down; Qo'Nos, in particular, would be under constant siege. (You want to use the bank or other services, KDF players? Sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else.)
You want to fight Iconians? Okay, that's what you get to do. And nothing else.
Sound like fun?
EDIT:
Oh, and I just thought of another item for the list - you may not always be able to get all the Components and Regenerators you need to fix all those injuries you'll be racking up. (Wartime supply shortages, y'know?) So over time, your ship and characters will become more and more crippled, until they're basically combat ineffective. For that added touch of realism.
I may have missed a couple posts, but I haven't noticed anyone asking for what you describe...
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
My Delta Recruits are only dealing with Sela and Hakeev, one of them has been moved on to Deep Space Nine to deal with the True Way Cardassians.
Even my main character has only just killed Gaul and my secondary main character is still hip-deep in Vaudwaar blood.
Not all us are in a state of war with the Iconians. Sure I support more phased-in lvl 60 stuff like red alerts and whatnot that are Iconian based but I don't want the war popping up all over the place for those of us who haven't even got there yet.
Okay, question for everyone who's posted in this thread:
How many of you would log out, and not come back (at least until the event was over), if they took you at your word and forced the war on you?
No queues except those relating to the war; no difficulty below Advanced; and if you fail any of the "optionals", that's it you're done (like it was before).
No more Borg, Tholian, etc fleet actions - all Iconians, all the time.
No Foundry. There's a war on, no time for holodeck fantasies!
All the other battlezones, ground and space, are closed.
All the existing DOff assignments, chains, etc replaced with maybe a dozen new assignments, all of them relating to the war.
All the existing story missions, 1-50 and Delta Rising, replaced by a dozen or so missions where you fight the Iconians... over and over and over. And they're always at least +2 to you (on Normal - it's worse on Advanced, etc). That's your new leveling path.
While flying through sector space, you have ... let's say a 50% chance per minute of being engaged by Herald ships, or boarded by a bunch of Constructs, Thralls etc who pop directly onto your ship via gateways, and who you have to fight on your bridge and interior.
All the social zones on high alert and locked down; Qo'Nos, in particular, would be under constant siege. (You want to use the bank or other services, KDF players? Sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else.)
You want to fight Iconians? Okay, that's what you get to do. And nothing else.
Sound like fun?
EDIT:
Oh, and I just thought of another item for the list - you may not always be able to get all the Components and Regenerators you need to fix all those injuries you'll be racking up. (Wartime supply shortages, y'know?) So over time, your ship and characters will become more and more crippled, until they're basically combat ineffective. For that added touch of realism.
Dont know anyone asking for this..but thanks for going the extra mile on overboard reactions...
People are simply asking where the war is at?
Not a single battleground for this when we have 3 others for non war purposes
No red alerts with iconians
All were getting is fan fiction, posters, and cutscenes of npc places blowing up or nameless npcs dying...this isnt a war, this is a skirmish.
Okay, question for everyone who's posted in this thread:
How many of you would log out, and not come back (at least until the event was over), if they took you at your word and forced the war on you?
I recently decided to, and no idea when I'll be willing to return to the game (granted it's only been 1 1/2 weeks so far, but the urge to return just isn't there). This is *not* the game I first registered for and logged into in September 2012 (and it hasn't been for at least a year now). This is not the game I use to (and gladly) spent almost entire days (I was unemployed back then), something like 12-16 hours on average. For all the improvements since then (sector space revamp, more story-driven Romulan episodes, to name two of them), too much of the old stuff is gone ... apparently for good. Old ESD? Gone. Old random exploration clusters/nebulae? Gone. I guess I could try Foundry missions, to see what there is that's story-driven; but even that inclination isn't there.
No, I am *not* giving up completely. That won't happen. But I may end up waiting a *very* long time before I come back. Only time will tell.
Perhaps my motto should be: "Make Star Trek, not war."
Okay, question for everyone who's posted in this thread:
How many of you would log out, and not come back (at least until the event was over), if they took you at your word and forced the war on you?
No queues except those relating to the war; no difficulty below Advanced; and if you fail any of the "optionals", that's it you're done (like it was before).
No more Borg, Tholian, etc fleet actions - all Iconians, all the time.
No Foundry. There's a war on, no time for holodeck fantasies!
All the other battlezones, ground and space, are closed.
All the existing DOff assignments, chains, etc replaced with maybe a dozen new assignments, all of them relating to the war.
All the existing story missions, 1-50 and Delta Rising, replaced by a dozen or so missions where you fight the Iconians... over and over and over. And they're always at least +2 to you (on Normal - it's worse on Advanced, etc). That's your new leveling path.
While flying through sector space, you have ... let's say a 50% chance per minute of being engaged by Herald ships, or boarded by a bunch of Constructs, Thralls etc who pop directly onto your ship via gateways, and who you have to fight on your bridge and interior.
All the social zones on high alert and locked down; Qo'Nos, in particular, would be under constant siege. (You want to use the bank or other services, KDF players? Sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else.)
You want to fight Iconians? Okay, that's what you get to do. And nothing else.
Sound like fun?
EDIT:
Oh, and I just thought of another item for the list - you may not always be able to get all the Components and Regenerators you need to fix all those injuries you'll be racking up. (Wartime supply shortages, y'know?) So over time, your ship and characters will become more and more crippled, until they're basically combat ineffective. For that added touch of realism.
This is not what I was asking for. And no one else for this matter. I mostly wanted a ground Battlezone for solo playing. That fits with the war. Not having to do one over and over that has nothing to do with the war. Also have random space encounters like the Borg red alerts. So playing solo you can go in, help out, and get marks as well. This at least shows we are fighting them off and being part of the war. Instead I'm killing Vaadwuar on Kobali for marks. That has nothing to do with the Iconian War.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Okay, question for everyone who's posted in this thread:
How many of you would log out, and not come back (at least until the event was over), if they took you at your word and forced the war on you?
No queues except those relating to the war; no difficulty below Advanced; and if you fail any of the "optionals", that's it you're done (like it was before).
No more Borg, Tholian, etc fleet actions - all Iconians, all the time.
No Foundry. There's a war on, no time for holodeck fantasies!
All the other battlezones, ground and space, are closed.
All the existing DOff assignments, chains, etc replaced with maybe a dozen new assignments, all of them relating to the war.
All the existing story missions, 1-50 and Delta Rising, replaced by a dozen or so missions where you fight the Iconians... over and over and over. And they're always at least +2 to you (on Normal - it's worse on Advanced, etc). That's your new leveling path.
While flying through sector space, you have ... let's say a 50% chance per minute of being engaged by Herald ships, or boarded by a bunch of Constructs, Thralls etc who pop directly onto your ship via gateways, and who you have to fight on your bridge and interior.
All the social zones on high alert and locked down; Qo'Nos, in particular, would be under constant siege. (You want to use the bank or other services, KDF players? Sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else.)
You want to fight Iconians? Okay, that's what you get to do. And nothing else.
Sound like fun?
EDIT:
Oh, and I just thought of another item for the list - you may not always be able to get all the Components and Regenerators you need to fix all those injuries you'll be racking up. (Wartime supply shortages, y'know?) So over time, your ship and characters will become more and more crippled, until they're basically combat ineffective. For that added touch of realism.
I don't think that anyone was asking for that level of forced emersion.
But to answer your question, I would be logging in every day. It sounds like fun!
Kind goes along with my idea of doing an Ironman STO character. Play till he blows up, or is not revived by away team, then delete and start over. I am also thinking of strictly using only gear gotten through the rewards from the episodes and drops. Not sure on other rules yet. Still in planing stages.
Comments
At the very least there should be Herald/Iconian ships flying through all sectors of space. Would be even cooler if they used the old tech from space encounters, and followed you around pulling you into them....
This is what STO should attempt to emulate. Of course, we have a MMO here... but when I look at ESO's phasing system for example... it is certainly possible to do something like that.
Thus far, despite the excellent FEs, the Iconian War is disappointing.
It is like the Devs decided that they need to end this storyline now because Geko had some new idea for 2016... that is really how it feels to me.
Rushed to get it done. Geko stated on P1 podcast that they feel it would be wrong to "drag out the war for more then a single Season".
I could not disagree more. You dragged out the build-up to the war beyond measures of ridiculous. And the actual event falls short on almost every front.
Not even a Battlezone? Really? The Voth, Undine and especially Vaadwaur are more fleshed out enemies then the Iconians/Heralds.
What you should have done? Red Alerts/Sector encounters, a Battlezone, use of phasing tech to render a Galaxy truly in despair and, as a crowning achievement, implemented the technology used for Delta Recruits (global events) to let the players influence the frontlines of the Iconian War Galaxy map.
I mean... it is like you set it all up for these features.
1. new Galaxy map
2. Delta Recruit's global events
3. FEs kicking off the Iconian invasion
And what now?! Geko blatantly states that this is it. Season 10. The FEs and the queued events are everything there is.
I do not even hold my breath for a Season 10.5 this time.
Damn, there were filler Seasons with more content.
It is a well written story, but no war worthy of a living, breathing MMO environment.
PS: In regards to "phasing"... what about the Herald Sphere? Is it there on the Galaxy map for new players? I think that Sphere only pops up after you finished Uneasy Allies?
If phasing is out of the question, at the VERY LEAST do Level 50 (or 60) exclusive Iconian Red Alerts. And a Battlezone. These should be pretty basic.
The Iconian invasion is pretty much the climax of every big Storyline STO had since the beginning, so yes, it should feel like the universe shaking event it was set up to be.
There's no Iconian ships in red alerts , no officers standing in front of casualty lists on ESD, no remains of battles fought in sector space etc.
Hell, NPCs on Qonos are still talking about fighting the Federation, talk about news traveling slow.
Join Starfleet,
Boldly go where no man has gone before,
Meet interesting new species, and Kill them!
Then the Shivans came back. You play a fighter pilot. Your missions see you first putting down a human rebellion, followed by your first encounters with the Shivans. You even get some victories, destroying the same light escorts that gave you so much trouble in the first game, sometimes quite spectacularly. And the Shivans took notice. They start overrunning your worlds. So, you bring out the big ship, thinking that it will stand before the onslaught. The Shivans introduce you to *their* big ship. It's bigger than yours. By alot. And simulations show it will cut through your big ship in seconds. So you scramble your best pilots to defang it so your big ship can kill it, but it kills several of your larger ships before you finish. By the skin of your teeth, you manage to defang it and let the aptly named Collossus blow it up. You celebrate the destruction of the Shivan Juggernaut, and pat yourself on the back, thinking that you averted the destruction of human kind again, much as the people 30 years ago defeated the Lucifer.
Then the Shivans prove how screwed you really are. Tens, no, HUNDREDS of these 'Sathanas' juggernauts start pouring out of jump gates and swarming over your systems. Your last ditch effort is to close the jump nodes from the system they are invading going to your core worlds. A massive fight to get your people living in the star system to safety, many of them not making it as the Shivan ships swarm anything that moves. A few of the Juggernauts kill your big ships, including the Colossus (which goes down in almost as many seconds as it took in years to build it...), and more smaller ships kill your civilian ships. And all while this is going on, 80+ Juggernauts surround the star. You learn what these ships are doing at the last minute...when you either die in the supernova triggered in the star by the Juggernauts, or you escape with your life just before the jump gates were closed permanently.
And every step of the way, you accomplish some goals, but lose many big things in the process.
Blood of Ancients kind of fit this. You 'win' the mission by completing goals, but in the end, you lose the Starbase, the New Romulus gate, and the Preserver Archive, and a third of the fleet sent to drive the Heralds off. That really felt like the Second Shivan War to me. But we need more of it. We need to be introduced to NPCs in early missions, ones that we get attached to, and then they need to be slaughtered mercilessly by the Iconians. And when we finally beat the Iconians, the Butcher's Bill should really pull at our heart strings...
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
He was my favorite NPC. I can't believe the Devs Redshirted him. :mad:
:: sniff ::
I'm really gonna miss ole Maddy.
1) Starbase 234 getting blown up. No way to save it.
2) Victory on the New Romulus suddenly turned to a loss. The Gateway to Lae'nas III and The Preservers becomes our only hope.
3) The Preserver Archive destroyed by Iconian daughter as well as a Preserver librarian.
4) Iaidon Dreadnought attacks Lae'nas III cracking the planet perhaps to its core. The remaining Preservers and the Archive seemed to have been destroyed, too.
5) Same beam that shoots at Lae'nas III also destroys many ships between the Iaidon Dreadnought and the planet.
IMHO - That sounds like a lot of loss to me.
And that's just Mission: Blood of Ancients.
Except...
...much like how we can lose all of our crew but they come back - none of that loss is actual loss.
It's about as much loss as flipping channels too fast and going by the channel you were looking for...
...you just go back.
* * * * *
Sometimes, it just feels like it would be better to read STO than to play STO.
NPC loss, and that's the problem, there is this great war going on in the Devs minds and none of the players (or at least most)
we couldn't even get a battle zone for this supposive war, we managed one for a bunch of dinos with lasers....
I fear the Iconian War and Iconians are suffering from the development team not having enough staff to do what they are conjuring in posters.
You want me to feel some loss? How bout kill Quinn, Sulu, maybe some other notable npcs that we have had more interaction with then 5 minutes worth.
IM betting Commander Roxy dies next, due to boredom.
Afair, Geko stated explicitly that nothing but FEs are in the pipeline for the Iconian War.
I think he said 5 more in total.
getting 3 hours sleep at most every day, not in the "frame of mind" (- TNG, 6x21). hes practically dead already if he has lost his wits about him after months of that.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
There is nothing wrong with 'had had'.
Now, does anybody else find it odd that a story about Shon is emblazoned with a Romulan image?
Pointing out our problems doesn't help, we acknowledged it years ago....:rolleyes:
And that's the problem: it's just Blood of Ancients. The rest of the time, entire legions of Heralds get decimated by a small squad of ships or people.
That is, only if you join a queue.
Where are the Borg getting randomly decimated by Heralds in their Red Alerts, like with the Tholians?
Where are the Herald Red Alerts?
Where are the Heralds randomly showing anywhere? In Champions Online, you could have Nemesis minions showing up randomly to try and kill you, why not applying the same thing in the episodes and their replays? Wouldn't that be cool to have heralds showing up in your holodeck reenactements of your past successes to remind you not even the Holodeck of your ship can protect you?
Where are the massive funerals to attend to at ESD/Qo' Nos/New Romulus to show we're losing many people?
Heck, even simpler, where are the reports saying "we lost X ships this hour to the Iconians" like you get a report whenever someone gets a ship from a lockbox?
Heck, even pretending the Iconians caused the disappearance of the "Haggle for" assignments!
Anything that says "we're at war at a quadrant level"!
Sure, the war is mentioned in Tales of War and in briefings, but that's it, how am I supposed to feel concerned?
They should add something like that to the homeworlds. Every day the number is significantly increased and the list gets updated with new randomly generated names to show while scrolling.
And it would be nice if the homeworlds had floating holograms showing the corresponding faction recruitment posters.
That's a good idea. Every half an hour a mission is selected from a list and all players receive a red alert. Those who accept the red alert are randomly put into groups and play their own instance of the mission. Missions could be set in the homeworlds, social zones such as Vulcan and Risa, hubs such as Drozana and DS9, fleet starbases, etc. The missions would be divided in two parts: A space battle against the Heralds, maybe with support from the Elachi, and then a ground battle against the heralds with support from Elachi and Bluegills in a war thorn version of the corresponding ground map. The ground battle portion could have different versions for the game to randomly pick from: Protect an area or item from waves of enemies, fight through the enemy lines to reach a particular thing, kill a boss enemy while under attack by respawning grunts, etc.
The idea is brilliant and potentially something which could change STO forever, However the execution seems slapdash and hesitant. Even Delta Ridiculous feels more complete. The Herald Skirmish feels like someone's give a damn is busted. All that ballyhoo and lead up and then just this?
I have a theory. The hype we were bombarded with about S10 was really just a very extended infomercial intended to sell Pilot Ships. Seen from this viewpoint, it fits nearly perfectly. Wouldn't be the first time deliberate misdirection or something like it happened around here. Could be the the last though.
And to help fight off the Herelds, I'm fighting the Vaadwuar on Kobali to help the war. Since that is the only place to solo Iconian Rep. :rolleyes:
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
You have these blogs ,but that's about it . Ingame it's fly to A> shoot a gazillion ships, then fly to B and do the same ...
as I stated elsewhere : Star Trek was never about war ( even when there was one in progress ) ,but used that as a backdrop
How many of you would log out, and not come back (at least until the event was over), if they took you at your word and forced the war on you?
No queues except those relating to the war; no difficulty below Advanced; and if you fail any of the "optionals", that's it you're done (like it was before).
No more Borg, Tholian, etc fleet actions - all Iconians, all the time.
No Foundry. There's a war on, no time for holodeck fantasies!
All the other battlezones, ground and space, are closed.
All the existing DOff assignments, chains, etc replaced with maybe a dozen new assignments, all of them relating to the war.
All the existing story missions, 1-50 and Delta Rising, replaced by a dozen or so missions where you fight the Iconians... over and over and over. And they're always at least +2 to you (on Normal - it's worse on Advanced, etc). That's your new leveling path.
While flying through sector space, you have ... let's say a 50% chance per minute of being engaged by Herald ships, or boarded by a bunch of Constructs, Thralls etc who pop directly onto your ship via gateways, and who you have to fight on your bridge and interior.
All the social zones on high alert and locked down; Qo'Nos, in particular, would be under constant siege. (You want to use the bank or other services, KDF players? Sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else.)
You want to fight Iconians? Okay, that's what you get to do. And nothing else.
Sound like fun?
EDIT:
Oh, and I just thought of another item for the list - you may not always be able to get all the Components and Regenerators you need to fix all those injuries you'll be racking up. (Wartime supply shortages, y'know?) So over time, your ship and characters will become more and more crippled, until they're basically combat ineffective. For that added touch of realism.
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed. True, prior stories didn't really feature propaganda posters that were specifically related to the content of said stories, but there were still general enough that the juxtaposition wasn't quite as jarring as, say, a Republic Propaganda Poster emblazoned above a Starfleet-centered story. :rolleyes:
One has to wonder if the person in charge of pasting the posters into these stories pays attention to the actual content of a given story....
I don't really think that's what people are asking for...well okay, some people are going a little overboard. >_>
But again, it's kind of disheartening that the current conflict with the Iconians, one which has been hyped into the heavens for years now, is not nearly as fleshed out as our prior conflicts, especially the more recent ones with the Voth, Undine, and Vaadwaur.
I know for me, personally, both a Herald battlezone of some sort as well as Herald Red Alerts would go a long way toward selling the idea of there being an actual, ongoing conflict with the Heralds currently happening. And I'm not asking them to replace anything, just add on to what we currently have, as they have done so in the past.
In fact, save for the fact that maybe the Sector revamp ate up any spare money and/or development time they had this season, it's actually somewhat mystifying that, at the very least, we have not gotten as much content with this conflict as we have with previous conflicts.
As for the story itself, between Shon's answer to the Kobayashi Maru simulation, and some of his past actions in certain feature episodes, it's starting to seem like the guy has a bit of a martyr complex. :P
I think it's more the thread would be liking to see a higher Iconian presence - red alerts, deep space encounters, etc.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
For many months I've been saying something similar (if not 100%) to what you said, sometimes in forum threads, sometimes to fellow players. But I guess that's the downside of games ... you can't get the "depth of feeling" (excellent way of putting it) that TV shows do, movies do, and books do. Granted, in games, it's all 0's and 1's, not flesh-and-blood, but still.
It's reminds me of the scene in ST6 where Enterprise is docked at ESD and Kirk asks the new helmsman (a female Vulcan officer) to take the ship out at one-quarter impulse speed. She turns around, starts citing Starfleet regulations ... Spock turns around and shakes his head, doing a tsk tsk tsk sort of thing, and Uhura smiles and does the same thing (as if to say, "Trust us. The captain knows what he's doing."). Kirk smiles at his helmsman and says, "Helm, you heard the order." "Yes, sir. One-quarter impulse." Just a wonderful way to show how the existing (old) crew worked so well together. I miss that in STO. After all, if it can happen in SWTOR, why not in STO as well?
(Note: Yes, several other people pointed that out already.)
I may have missed a couple posts, but I haven't noticed anyone asking for what you describe...
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
My Delta Recruits are only dealing with Sela and Hakeev, one of them has been moved on to Deep Space Nine to deal with the True Way Cardassians.
Even my main character has only just killed Gaul and my secondary main character is still hip-deep in Vaudwaar blood.
Not all us are in a state of war with the Iconians. Sure I support more phased-in lvl 60 stuff like red alerts and whatnot that are Iconian based but I don't want the war popping up all over the place for those of us who haven't even got there yet.
Dont know anyone asking for this..but thanks for going the extra mile on overboard reactions...
People are simply asking where the war is at?
Not a single battleground for this when we have 3 others for non war purposes
No red alerts with iconians
All were getting is fan fiction, posters, and cutscenes of npc places blowing up or nameless npcs dying...this isnt a war, this is a skirmish.
I recently decided to, and no idea when I'll be willing to return to the game (granted it's only been 1 1/2 weeks so far, but the urge to return just isn't there). This is *not* the game I first registered for and logged into in September 2012 (and it hasn't been for at least a year now). This is not the game I use to (and gladly) spent almost entire days (I was unemployed back then), something like 12-16 hours on average. For all the improvements since then (sector space revamp, more story-driven Romulan episodes, to name two of them), too much of the old stuff is gone ... apparently for good. Old ESD? Gone. Old random exploration clusters/nebulae? Gone. I guess I could try Foundry missions, to see what there is that's story-driven; but even that inclination isn't there.
No, I am *not* giving up completely. That won't happen. But I may end up waiting a *very* long time before I come back. Only time will tell.
Perhaps my motto should be: "Make Star Trek, not war."
This is not what I was asking for. And no one else for this matter. I mostly wanted a ground Battlezone for solo playing. That fits with the war. Not having to do one over and over that has nothing to do with the war. Also have random space encounters like the Borg red alerts. So playing solo you can go in, help out, and get marks as well. This at least shows we are fighting them off and being part of the war. Instead I'm killing Vaadwuar on Kobali for marks. That has nothing to do with the Iconian War.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I don't think that anyone was asking for that level of forced emersion.
But to answer your question, I would be logging in every day. It sounds like fun!
Kind goes along with my idea of doing an Ironman STO character. Play till he blows up, or is not revived by away team, then delete and start over. I am also thinking of strictly using only gear gotten through the rewards from the episodes and drops. Not sure on other rules yet. Still in planing stages.
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RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
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