Exploration.

durango4 · August 2015

I recently read an article saying that Star Trek Online is going to start the next season scaling back on the war side of the game and begin a series of exploration missions. This makes me excited but nervous as well.

Exploring means to find something we haven't found before. If the main game developers create of season of exploration how many time can we play it before the exploring is over? May I fire out some ideas?

How about the players create the exploration through the fleets? I've always played around with the idea of linking my fleet to a series of Foundry missions. Give my fleet a story.

But what if the fleets actually had a planet. The ability to create their own races. And using an interface similar to the Foundry the fleet owner can then select how that race or planet interacts with the rest of the star trek online community. Create some enemies or some friends. Fleets may even be able to "make friends" with each other.

There was some talk a while back about creating a new faction. How about new function? Just a thought.

ashrod63 · August 2015

Sounds like a decent enough idea. Sadly it is more likely to be just a one off, one race encounter in the main storyline. Well I say one off, you'll be asked to play through three times probably.

kodachikuno · August 2015

If you read the topic titled "New Season 11 interviews from Massively & MMORPG" you can put your anxiety meds away. Season 11 won't ship with a new exploration system

gurugeorge · August 2015

I think when they gave up on the old exploration system instead of improving it, they pretty much gave up on making this anything more than a cash-grab "game".

It's a sad, sad state of affairs for Cryptic and I really feel sorry for how far they've fallen. From City of Heroes to these three "games"? They're only barely games, these days, they're overwhelmingly just skinner boxes that happen to be a cut above most skinner boxes because of the remnants of greatness in a once great company.

Cryptic's saving grace has always been that they've had good, engaging core combat, and that's always held true right from the beginning, and thankfully still holds true. And that makes their 3 MMOs fun to drop by in now and then. But that's not enough for greatness, you need more than a mere addiction machine, you need an actual game with some sense of immersion and virtual world around it too.

Star Trek should be much more than it is - and even with its age, it still could be. And I think the team probably does fight for that "something more" as much as they can, bless them; but it seems their hands are pretty much tied by their chicken overlords.

risian4 · August 2015

gurugeorge wrote: »

I think when they gave up on the old exploration system instead of improving it, they pretty much gave up on making this anything more than a cash-grab "game".

It's a sad, sad state of affairs for Cryptic and I really feel sorry for how far they've fallen. From City of Heroes to these three "games"? They're only barely games, these days, they're overwhelmingly just skinner boxes that happen to be a cut above most skinner boxes because of the remnants of greatness in a once great company.

Cryptic's saving grace has always been that they've had good, engaging core combat, and that's always held true right from the beginning, and thankfully still holds true. And that makes their 3 MMOs fun to drop by in now and then. But that's not enough for greatness, you need more than a mere addiction machine, you need an actual game with some sense of immersion and virtual world around it too.

Star Trek should be much more than it is - and even with its age, it still could be. And I think the team probably does fight for that "something more" as much as they can, bless them; but it seems their hands are pretty much tied by their chicken overlords.

While I do agree that there have been times I felt the game was a cash-grab (the Annorax promotion which isn't actually Annorax' ship, the whole re-releasing of ships as T6, then T6 fleet ships), there are some... interesting claims you make.

'Engaging core combat'? How many times have I seen people complain on this forum that you can just fire-at-will-spam everything? The only enemies that, imo, are truly engaging are the Voth and the Heralds. And people are complaining that they're spamming their abilities too much

I wish all enemies would be revamped and made more like the Voth and the Heralds, but then people would probably be complaining even more.

Besides, you have to take into account that there are people who don't want to do anything but 'pew pew' everything they see. Just pug a random ground borg mission and you'll see what I mean. Most of the pugs I get don't pay attention to their mission text, they don't want to read objectives, they are not interested in the ideas or the culture of someone in front of them, they just want to know how to get him down ASAP.
People need ships and gear to do 'pew pew' so that's where the company gets the money from to keep the game up and running. Now, they could just focus entirely on exploration, but to keep it interesting, they'd probably have to keep working on that continuously. Which means that space and ground combat would get less attention. Which is, in the end, bad for the survivability of the game.

I do agree that more virtual worlds that create a sense of immersion would be nice. At the same time however, I understand why this hasn't been the focal point for Cryptic.

durango4 · August 2015

risian4 wrote: »

gurugeorge wrote: »

I think when they gave up on the old exploration system instead of improving it, they pretty much gave up on making this anything more than a cash-grab "game".

I do agree that more virtual worlds that create a sense of immersion would be nice. At the same time however, I understand why this hasn't been the focal point for Cryptic.

Some of what I'm referring to are the patrol missions. Has anybody tried those? It's a set of five (I think) missions that is intended to be "Patrols," but they actually just repeat the same mission over and over again. The same five anyway. (I think it's five, I never counted them.) That's what exploration will be like if it went off the main story line.

I'm just wondering if anyone agrees that if the Fleets had their own "Planet Surface" and was able create a small mission of their own individually if they would be more random and entertaining. Each Fleet would have their own Foundry mission series type thing.

thegrandnagus1 · August 2015

Unfortunately, I do not think there will be as much "exploration" as some of the S11 press releases suggested. Yes, they did say we would meet a new species, but it sounds like the main focus will be a new war with the mirror universe.

Also, regarding your idea about the foundry and fleets, they said in the Vegas interview with P1 that there were not currently any plans to add new function to the foundry, only assets.

angrytarg · August 2015

As other posters pointed out, a new Exploration system is not on the horizon right now. Aside from finding a feasible model the definition of how "Exploration" should work is hard to find in the first place. When you browse the forums quite some people claim that "Exploration" should just be a synonym for episodes - a notion I cannot understand. Because episodes with moral twists and messages should be the episodes.

What I understand under the term "Exploration" is a Trek-friendly term to describe open-ended endgame gameplay which secures the games' longevity over episodes and five-year repetition of the same queued events. Take the featured episodes as, well, episodes where writers can make out plots and include meassages and dilemmas in their missions. Foundry missions are fanfic episodes - they are not exploration. The episodes are your hero crew/captain having the Star Trek drama moment - the exploration system should reflect the day-to-day duty Starfleet crews have. Think of the missions you see in the DOFF game, but now imagine you could actually interactively play those. If you think that's already a boring thought more power to you, then this kind of gameplay is not for you. But if you think receiving diplomats, patroling sectors, escorting/freeing prisoners, defending/raiding transports, settle disputes, intimidate systems etc. without a connecting metaplot is a fun way to spend your gametime this could be interesting.

My reference are a lot of old PC games that I still play with joy decades after their release because "back then" and still a few modern games that orient themselves alongisde old titles knew that fun gameplay mechanics increase replayability of a title almost into infinity. When I think about games like Diablo 1+2 where you always do the same (hack and slay monsters for loot) but do so in randomly generated maps and encounter random mobs with random resists (so you never know against hwat you're up to) you can do that for ages hoping to find better/unique loot and progress your character. If you think about UFO Defense (original X-COM), the metagame is always the same, but every UFO landing is a unique, randomly generated map and you never know what aliens you face, where they are and how the terrain influences your tactics. When you load up real time strategy titles like the Total War series, every game is different (ignoring "playing the AI" and basically exploit it

), diplomatic relations are always different and you can try new tactics every time. And finally a Trek example, see "Birth of the Federation" by Microprose which is essentially a "Masters of Orion II" clone with a Star Trek skin - random universe, random encounters, random events, different game every time you play. The old exploration system was an interesting case study and even in it's old form was a fun element for many players. When you dive into "Exploration" you should never know what you encounter.

Now imagine those DOFF missions made interactive and randomly selected during your journey into deep-space to Explore strange new worlds, to secure new room for the Empire or in the search of the universe's secrets that will make your faction a power again. You establish trading routes in negotiations which can be dialogue based or through a show of strength or through good deals. You can then defend those trading routes from random pirates or raid other trading routes. You can build and support colonies, defend them or attack them. You can receive diplomats and represent your faction, you can scan anomalies, map planets, meet people in need - all those ecnounters you have are random aliengen races with different attitudes, strengths and weaknesses. While exploring deep space your elite AP build can encounter a people heavily resistant to AP weaponry - tough luck.

The sum of those encounters ar saved in your "Exploration log" - elements saved there have a chance of reappearing again. You can actually encounter random alien race 2534 repeatedly, developing a kind of rivalry or alien race 8365 which likes you occasionally helps you out. Small map based plots develop your relation with those people and maybe occasionally lead to unique encounters rewarding you premium items. If you really don't like them you could always "clear" your exploration records and start over again.

Write your own stories. Have your own adventures. That would be an epic addition to the game.

durango4 · August 2015

angrytarg wrote: »

As other posters pointed out, a new Exploration system is not on the horizon right now. Aside from finding a feasible model the definition of how "Exploration" should work is hard to find in the first place. When you browse the forums quite some people claim that "Exploration" should just be a synonym for episodes - a notion I cannot understand. Because episodes with moral twists and messages should be the episodes.

What I understand under the term "Exploration" is a Trek-friendly term to describe open-ended endgame gameplay which secures the games' longevity over episodes and five-year repetition of the same queued events. Take the featured episodes as, well, episodes where writers can make out plots and include meassages and dilemmas in their missions. Foundry missions are fanfic episodes - they are not exploration. The episodes are your hero crew/captain having the Star Trek drama moment - the exploration system should reflect the day-to-day duty Starfleet crews have. Think of the missions you see in the DOFF game, but now imagine you could actually interactively play those. If you think that's already a boring thought more power to you, then this kind of gameplay is not for you. But if you think receiving diplomats, patroling sectors, escorting/freeing prisoners, defending/raiding transports, settle disputes, intimidate systems etc. without a connecting metaplot is a fun way to spend your gametime this could be interesting.

My reference are a lot of old PC games that I still play with joy decades after their release because "back then" and still a few modern games that orient themselves alongisde old titles knew that fun gameplay mechanics increase replayability of a title almost into infinity. When I think about games like Diablo 1+2 where you always do the same (hack and slay monsters for loot) but do so in randomly generated maps and encounter random mobs with random resists (so you never know against hwat you're up to) you can do that for ages hoping to find better/unique loot and progress your character. If you think about UFO Defense (original X-COM), the metagame is always the same, but every UFO landing is a unique, randomly generated map and you never know what aliens you face, where they are and how the terrain influences your tactics. When you load up real time strategy titles like the Total War series, every game is different (ignoring "playing the AI" and basically exploit it ), diplomatic relations are always different and you can try new tactics every time. And finally a Trek example, see "Birth of the Federation" by Microprose which is essentially a "Masters of Orion II" clone with a Star Trek skin - random universe, random encounters, random events, different game every time you play. The old exploration system was an interesting case study and even in it's old form was a fun element for many players. When you dive into "Exploration" you should never know what you encounter.

Now imagine those DOFF missions made interactive and randomly selected during your journey into deep-space to Explore strange new worlds, to secure new room for the Empire or in the search of the universe's secrets that will make your faction a power again. You establish trading routes in negotiations which can be dialogue based or through a show of strength or through good deals. You can then defend those trading routes from random pirates or raid other trading routes. You can build and support colonies, defend them or attack them. You can receive diplomats and represent your faction, you can scan anomalies, map planets, meet people in need - all those ecnounters you have are random aliengen races with different attitudes, strengths and weaknesses. While exploring deep space your elite AP build can encounter a people heavily resistant to AP weaponry - tough luck.

The sum of those encounters ar saved in your "Exploration log" - elements saved there have a chance of reappearing again. You can actually encounter random alien race 2534 repeatedly, developing a kind of rivalry or alien race 8365 which likes you occasionally helps you out. Small map based plots develop your relation with those people and maybe occasionally lead to unique encounters rewarding you premium items. If you really don't like them you could always "clear" your exploration records and start over again.

Write your own stories. Have your own adventures. That would be an epic addition to the game.

I like this one.

theanothername · August 2015

Would be nice to have a proper exploration system. But I fear it will be something along the lines of "send your unused T4 ship to YXZ to scan an anomaly & get the results back 12h later".

sheldonlcooper · August 2015

I'm willing to give a lot of leeway to this New Dawn. It may not come right at the start, but I think we will see some different kinds of things over the next year. I believe the pendulum is swinging back to the trekkies side and away from the hardcore gamers. This may simply be because all upgrades and most T6 ships have already been sold. So now it is time to reach back out to the fans.

Exploration.

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