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Money making idea: Complete Crew Customization
captainhunter1
Member Posts: 1,632 Arc User
How about this for a money making idea: Putting the access to total Crew Customization up for sale on the C-Store.
By Crew Customization I mean giving Captain's total and complete control over how their crew, ALL their crew, appears in-game (not just Bridge Officers).
Lets start off with the most obvious problem: shipboard NPC crew members.
We have been asking for a long time to be able to assign ship NPCs a 'ship's uniform' - something that more closely matches our Bridge Officer's uniforms...or not, if that's the Captain's choice. Why not start out with a 'Crew Customization' interface based on the Duty Officer interface, but with a 'Fleet Uniform'-like window put in place of the assignments window that would allow us to chose standard duty uniforms for all our NPC crew members. This, like the Fleet Uniform window, would include the ability to have different uniforms for all branches (tac, sci, eng) and genders (male, female, other).
The old 'DOff' part of the interface would let us use the same drop down customization menus we are used to seeing there so we could completely customize our crew any way we like. Want an all Andorian crew? No problem, just put a checkmark next to 'Andorian' on the Species dropdown menu. Want only Klingons and Gorn NPCs on your KDF ship - and none of those pesky Letheans or Orions? Just click the boxes next to 'Klingon' and 'Gorn'. Don't care what your crew is made up of race-wise? Just leave the default 'Mixed' button checked. This goes for all other aspects too. Want an all Female or Male crew? Just check the appropriate boxes on the drop down menu. So on and so forth.
This interface would also tie-in and fix so many other areas of player customization requests. For example: Are you a tac officer and can't stand that random group of no-bodies that beam down when you call your ship for a security team? Or how about that medic that just beamed in from using that Hypo? Well now they will beam down with your ship's specified customization (uniform, race, gender, etc) to make them stand out from those other captain's security detail or medics that also beamed down right next to you in that STF.
Next would be something we already have (some) control over: Bridge Officers.
Yes, we can customize their appearance (which is terrific BTW), but when it comes to assignment stations onboard our ships, that is done automatically and somewhat randomly. How about the ability to 'place' them at any station we wanted on our bridge - or anywhere else in the ships interior? By using something like the DOff 'Department Head' interface, we could assign Bridge Officers to any command station on the ship. Want your Head Engineer to be at the warp core on the Engineering Deck instead of on the Bridge? No problem, just assign him that station through the drop down menu. Tired of that no name NPC hogging up the Conn when your hand picked Bridge Officer helmsman stands idly somewhere else (or even nowhere to be seen on the Bridge at all?). Again, the drop down station menu puts him/her/it right where you want them. And this placement ability would not only be for the special 'away team' officers you have...this would be for ALL Bridge Officers currently on active duty (ALL those in your BOff list on the left side of your character sheet window). The number of station assigment drop down menus automatically increases as you gain new BOff slots, whether you have them filled or not.
Another customization option in the interface: DOff usage.
It would be cool to use unique DOffs as part of your crew as well. Maybe not to the extent of BOffs, but maybe as part of the random crowds you pass on your ship. These would include 'named' DOffs such as 'Helna' or 'Law'. This could be as simple as a checkbox labeled, 'Use unique Duty Officers in crew' (Although I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement as there is currently no established way to pick them out individually like there is for BOffs.)
This C-Store Crew Customization idea seems like a huge win-win-win situation:
1. It follows Star Trek canon (even as far back as TOS, crewmen and crewwomen wore different uniforms (pants and dresses), they also had all one race crews (all Human on the Enterprise (minus BOff Spock - lol) and all Vulcans on the Intrepid)).
2. Cryptic gets a terrific way for making a lot of additional money (a C-store item that will certainly produce a lot of sales).
3. The playerbase gets something we've wanted for a long time (control over those NPCs that seem like strangers wandering around onboard or beaming down from our own ships).
So how about it talented Cryptic folks? Here's a great way to make money AND make the players happy.
P.S. This almost goes without saying, but this interface could also be utilized by the Foundry. This would give authors the option to 'Use player crew' for a wide variety of situations.
By Crew Customization I mean giving Captain's total and complete control over how their crew, ALL their crew, appears in-game (not just Bridge Officers).
Lets start off with the most obvious problem: shipboard NPC crew members.
We have been asking for a long time to be able to assign ship NPCs a 'ship's uniform' - something that more closely matches our Bridge Officer's uniforms...or not, if that's the Captain's choice. Why not start out with a 'Crew Customization' interface based on the Duty Officer interface, but with a 'Fleet Uniform'-like window put in place of the assignments window that would allow us to chose standard duty uniforms for all our NPC crew members. This, like the Fleet Uniform window, would include the ability to have different uniforms for all branches (tac, sci, eng) and genders (male, female, other).
The old 'DOff' part of the interface would let us use the same drop down customization menus we are used to seeing there so we could completely customize our crew any way we like. Want an all Andorian crew? No problem, just put a checkmark next to 'Andorian' on the Species dropdown menu. Want only Klingons and Gorn NPCs on your KDF ship - and none of those pesky Letheans or Orions? Just click the boxes next to 'Klingon' and 'Gorn'. Don't care what your crew is made up of race-wise? Just leave the default 'Mixed' button checked. This goes for all other aspects too. Want an all Female or Male crew? Just check the appropriate boxes on the drop down menu. So on and so forth.
This interface would also tie-in and fix so many other areas of player customization requests. For example: Are you a tac officer and can't stand that random group of no-bodies that beam down when you call your ship for a security team? Or how about that medic that just beamed in from using that Hypo? Well now they will beam down with your ship's specified customization (uniform, race, gender, etc) to make them stand out from those other captain's security detail or medics that also beamed down right next to you in that STF.
Next would be something we already have (some) control over: Bridge Officers.
Yes, we can customize their appearance (which is terrific BTW), but when it comes to assignment stations onboard our ships, that is done automatically and somewhat randomly. How about the ability to 'place' them at any station we wanted on our bridge - or anywhere else in the ships interior? By using something like the DOff 'Department Head' interface, we could assign Bridge Officers to any command station on the ship. Want your Head Engineer to be at the warp core on the Engineering Deck instead of on the Bridge? No problem, just assign him that station through the drop down menu. Tired of that no name NPC hogging up the Conn when your hand picked Bridge Officer helmsman stands idly somewhere else (or even nowhere to be seen on the Bridge at all?). Again, the drop down station menu puts him/her/it right where you want them. And this placement ability would not only be for the special 'away team' officers you have...this would be for ALL Bridge Officers currently on active duty (ALL those in your BOff list on the left side of your character sheet window). The number of station assigment drop down menus automatically increases as you gain new BOff slots, whether you have them filled or not.
Another customization option in the interface: DOff usage.
It would be cool to use unique DOffs as part of your crew as well. Maybe not to the extent of BOffs, but maybe as part of the random crowds you pass on your ship. These would include 'named' DOffs such as 'Helna' or 'Law'. This could be as simple as a checkbox labeled, 'Use unique Duty Officers in crew' (Although I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement as there is currently no established way to pick them out individually like there is for BOffs.)
This C-Store Crew Customization idea seems like a huge win-win-win situation:
1. It follows Star Trek canon (even as far back as TOS, crewmen and crewwomen wore different uniforms (pants and dresses), they also had all one race crews (all Human on the Enterprise (minus BOff Spock - lol) and all Vulcans on the Intrepid)).
2. Cryptic gets a terrific way for making a lot of additional money (a C-store item that will certainly produce a lot of sales).
3. The playerbase gets something we've wanted for a long time (control over those NPCs that seem like strangers wandering around onboard or beaming down from our own ships).
So how about it talented Cryptic folks? Here's a great way to make money AND make the players happy.
P.S. This almost goes without saying, but this interface could also be utilized by the Foundry. This would give authors the option to 'Use player crew' for a wide variety of situations.
My consolidated list of game improvements for STO:
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
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However, a ship has its own uniform seems odd to me. I can't imagine if every ship in the Starfleet has it's own uniform, it just doesn't make sense.
It would make even more sense in the KDF or Romulan Republic; a Klingon captain might have his crew wear a specific uniform as a sign of loyalty to him and to his house while a now-Republic warbird could be Star Navy defectors and still use the 'Tal Shiar' Star Empire uniform (and the I.R.W. prefix).
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
> I like your ideas and I wish Cryptic will implement them.
>
> However, a ship has its own uniform seems odd to me. I can't imagine if every ship in the Starfleet has it's own uniform, it just doesn't make sense.
I think that point is already long gone.
You've probably noticed that there a certain "default uniform" in the game already (I forget what it's called). All new Boffs, and a majority of NPCs in game are wearing a variation of said uniform. Now keep in mind that our players can customize his/her own uniform as well as Boffs, so it kind of already is like every ship in Starfleet has it's own uniform.
So I'd like to think that if Starfleet had an issue with the potential of every ship having it's own uniform, then we'd have no ability to customize our looks.
And personally, I'm in favour of just about everything that you've listed here. Let's get some of it in game, please and thank you!
But I might pay a little Zen to unlock customization for the redshirts spawned by the Security Escort ability.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
To expand on that: add to the rewards for maxing the TFO rep the option to have said escorts show up in their distinctive battledress. Come to think of it, I'm mildly surprised you can't requisition teams from them as is currently possible with the New Romulus rep.
In fact, with respect to the 'Summon X...' requisitionables, I am curious as to whether it would be practical to add a variant which costs much more dil, but instead unlocks such as an action (w/appropriate cooldown) instead of a consumable.
Another suggestion I would add is allowing special slots for the security team that beams in. I would love to give them more of an armored look, as well as have them carrying a much better array of weapons than a hand phaser.
I do, however, really like and agree with the Doffs being part of the NPC's on the ship. That is a great idea. We know they already have the characters modeled, so why not allow them to be randomly generated through out the ship based on their jobs? It would completely add another layer to the already insanely under used/developed ship interiors.
I'm just saying that some of us put a LOT of work into our BOFFs, so we'd like to see them aboard the ship.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
Agreed. +1
And what about DOFFs? Sure, many of them have generic looks, but I figure that an in-game model must've been used for their DOFF portraits. Perhaps those same models could be used to further populate the ship's crew based on data associated with the DOFF. Maybe even add an extra column in the DOFF interface that allows you to place a check next to the DOFFs you want to have populate to give customization control.
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I don't see it happening any time soon, if at all. As it currently stands, it appears as though each specific ships interior was designed with "fixed" crew members (with the exceptions of the BOFFS. Basically any gven DOFF in the ships interior was coded in as a specific race, sex, and uniform and given a specific, and very limited, set of actions to perform.
To accomplish what we would all like to see, (all being those of us who posted here saying they would like to see it), they would have to code a separate ship interior for every available race, multiplied by every available uniform. To keep the math simple, if the Feds have only 5 races, and only 5 uniforms, each Fed ship would now need 26 separate interiors (5 races times 5 uniforms for a total of 25 possible combinations, plus the already existing "mixed"). And that is only to allow for a single race ships crew all wearing the same uniform.
Now you take that and multiply it by the number of Fed ships ..... actually Fed ship interiors as a lot of ships share the same interior, and you have a quite large number of ship interiors the developers will have to design ...... not to mention changing the ships/interiors coding itself to even allow for multiple, user changeable, interiors. And that's just for the Fed ships.....which from past experience would likely be the first to get the make over if it ever did happen.....
Besides the large amount of work involved to make it happen, we also have to consider what percentage of the payer base actually spend enough time actually wandering around their ships interior to be willing to pay to customize it. It is only those players that would comprise the customer base for such an undertaking.
So, to quote myself, it would be nice to see but ........
> Yes to the idea, no to the "monetization". I'm tired of seeing every little thing gets set in stores in one way or the other and I don't support that model. Either it becomes a general feature or they don't have to bother in my opinion. (And no, support the game or else it's gone is no argument for me. In my opinion it doesn't help to support a sub-par model only to keep said sub-par model afloat).
Agreed. Aggressively monetizing every feature of a game just makes it feel disjointed- inconvenient at best, game breaking at worst. I understand that to remain moderately successful, at least enough to stay in business, a F2P game has to monetize features. It's just part and parcel of the model.
But there are plenty of ways to do that without nickel-and-diming your customers to the point of contempt. Because let's face it, it can be extremely tempting to just quit a game when you realize that you'll never actually "own" the game for the absurd amount of micro-payments it would take just to get what should already be baseline.
I've seen the F2P model done very well, and I've played games with a perfectly acceptable F2P model. It can be done. You just need to be willing to draw the line somewhere between profit and the "free" portion of F2P- and sadly, a lot of game developing companies don't.
/That/ aside, I like the idea of this. It would open up a lot of new concepts, particularly for roleplayers or those looking for immersion. I quite like the idea of manufacturing a makeshift Ferengi trading ship, myself..