So the next lock box ships are herald ones. Now to get something straight from the beginning i am totally fine with them being lock box ships. Cryptic needs to earn some money....sad truth is this game currently only stands because of the massive new ship spam sales else it would slowly decay... The thing is this new herald ships break the immersion, break the story and feel of star trek. Some say that already happened when you could fly undine and tholian ship...eh not really while totally alien to the alliance it wasn't so crowded with exotic ships and we could argue that iconians with heralds play a pivotal role in STO so these new ships have a bigger impact.
But now we get this...Hey Johny lets play the iconian arc you know the story cryptic has been preparing us for 5 years almost all mission leading to this moment. Sure says Johny let me bring my Herald Quas Flight Deck Cruiser or my Herald Baltim Heavy Raider or my Herald Vonph Dreadnought Carrier....WAIT WHAT ? You just thrown the mystery, the fear and the soul of iconians and herlads down the toilet. Now they are just some generic cookie cutter enemy, everyone can fly their ships now...even a drunk klingon who had to much blood wine can.
You could say ahhh this is nothing, it doesn't matter at all, but lets think deeper, a lot deeper..... You sure can like both space and ground combat like me but let me throw you out something, there are single and multi player games which have superior combat out there....but HEY ! why are you playing this game then...Simple because it has the star trek feel, the star trek mythos...flying iconic ships, relive the moments similar to the series.....And this lock box thing doesn't help that really. Whats next...a playable Vger...borg lock box.....OW NO. Imagine a scenario were an enlightened, kind federation captain (we will call him Johny again), flies to a colony in need of some supplies....IN A BORG CUBE causing a mass hysteria on the colony and he beams down and says, relax guys its just my new RAD cube check it out its shiny.... Hey Steven beam down the supplies... and then 50 borg drones materialize and star to asimilate the planet...ooops sorry captain wrong cargo...but hey we still got our RAD CUBE..whatever.
Sad thing is this could have been easily avoided, instead of exact looking ships we could have gotten 3 ships... an escort a sci ship and a cruiser or dreadnought or carrier that has the look of the alliance (fed, kling and rom) combined with some herald designs. But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already in game just some tweaking to the already existing models and voila new ships to sell...What does that spell for us if the developer is that lazy...bad things ? (ADMIRALTY SYSTEM...OUCH) for the future content that emphasizes on exploration...WELL I HOPE NOT.
What are your opinions on this matter? Does it bother you or not, and why? Have a nice day.
Since you asked for thoughts and what not OP I'm going to be very blunt with you and straight forward as to how I see it. Keep in mind despite my tone throughout I am not angry or anything of the such, but have dealt with far too many arguments like this.
For the whole immersion thing, it honestly doesn't break the immersion for me at all. Arguments based on immersion are always VERY subjective and are always baseless as they can never be proven or disproven. You as the OP may consider the new Herald stuff as something that breaks immersion where as I don't. I consider those ships as being something that was reverse engineered from what tech we were able to capture during the war. That or perhaps the Iconians gave us some resources to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up. There's a ton of different ways you can spin it story wise to make it fit for yourself. What one person considers immersive or breaking immersion, another person next to him may not. Arguments based on immersion are not valid arguments to bring to the table in a case such as this other than providing opinion. I for example should not be restricted from flying a Herald ship simply because YOU think it breaks YOUR immersion.
Your argument based on immersion was one of the same arguments that was used to try to restrict flying over on WoW. I'll tell you the same thing I told them. This game does not revolve around you and I play this game strictly for myself and to chill with the friends I have made online. I do not owe you any explanation of how I choose to play my toons or why I picked the ship for them I did. I earned the ships and equipment I have by hard work and a little cash in some cases. You're not owed it by me or anyone else to give up the ability to the fly the Herald ships should I obtain one simply because it ruins YOUR immersion. If your ability to play the game is so badly ruined by me choosing to fly a Herald ship instead of a non-iconian ship like yours, then you have more problems than just "ruined immersion." You are not owed it by me or anyone else in this game to fly non-Iconian ships to satisfy YOUR immersion nor should I have to give up the ability to use something simply because you don't like it, when it effects you in literally no way. Further your solution to not liking the Herald ships is already in game, don't fly the ship. I personally am not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships in game but I'm not out here suggesting they shouldn't be allowed to exist in game.
As to your arguments of science specific, tac specific and so on now. It takes a ton of work to create something in game. especially something that people can use. I myself am a small time modder for older games. For some of the missions I created in older games I have 20 hours+ in just getting the map setup how I wanted. That's not counting the some 15+ hours into setting up the logic and all of those things behind the scenes that make the mission tick. It's much easier for them to just program a ship and give it a versatile and adaptable layout than it is to make multiple versions of the same ship. Yes i agree it would be cool to have sci specific, tac specific, and so on of the Herald ships or whatever other ships you can think of, but I understand why sometimes they don't do it like that.
Overall I feel that you're overreacting to the Herald ships without even giving them a chance. I myself originally was not a fan of the Guardian Cruiser. Once I picked up the ship and actually flew it, now I consider it one of my favorite in game ships.
While i agree with your part of how hard is it to make new ships and models or in this case hybrids the other part of your post is bonkers to me. Where did you see at any point that i am forbidding or actively
encouraging people not to fly what they like... even herald ships? You missed the train sorry. I wouldn ever tell other people how to play the game. This is not a post for boycotting cryptic or telling people to stop playing the game or how to play the game, its a genuine concern on the fact that crpytic is doing this even though how big of a role the iconians and the heralds are playing in their game. Herald ships are coming that a fact to me... i am not trying to remove them howerver whe coudl have gottne something completely different and more story related like hybrids but whatever. I am glad you mentioned the adapted battlecruiser, its 100% more logical to be in the players hands then the herald ships. We see its slow development, we see it in the story and guess what its a hybrid of rom and borg technology not like..A CUBE which could have happened in its place... Considering romulan republic is ally to both kling and fed and they would know many things already about the ship considering its mostly rom tech, its feasible they could recreate it for other people... I am happy that you like the guardian but i am not complaining about the playability, power or usefulness of the herald ships, but their relation to the story. And while your argument about how hard is it to make new ships can hold a little water you cant apply it here. There are indie games which take months or years to complete and cost less then 1 ship here. Its not like making new unique ships for cryptic is some unreachable wall, they did them multiple times in this case it simply because models were already there and it was a quick solution to get new ships in the game not some huge inability to make unique ships...
Op ive played STO since it went F2P and take my word there is no immersion on this game if there was it was broken long before i got here.
Perhaps thats true or not, kinda makes me sad then this is only a small facade of star trek and a lot of average mmo with bugs which will be the same for the foreseeable future..well i hope not i guess each must answer to himself why is he or she playing the game.
But now we get this...Hey Johny lets play the iconian arc you know the story cryptic has been preparing us for 5 years almost all mission leading to this moment. Sure says Johny let me bring my Herald Quas Flight Deck Cruiser or my Herald Baltim Heavy Raider or my Herald Vonph Dreadnought Carrier....WAIT WHAT ? You just thrown the mystery, the fear and the soul of iconians and herlads down the toilet. Now they are just some generic cookie cutter enemy, everyone can fly their ships now...even a drunk klingon who had to much blood wine can.
Because fighting Tholians from the bridge of your Widow didn't break immersion
or fighting Elachi with your Monbosh/S'golth didn't break immersion
or fighting Dominion from your Jem'hadar Dreadnought/JHSS didn't break immersion
or fighting Voth from your Bastion/Bulwark didn't break immersion
or fighting Breen from your Theln/Grett/Brekt didn't break immersion
And because your Starfleet/KDF/RR character "exploring" the TRIBBLE outta everyone you meet in that Krenim Imperium warship didn't break immersion
It did so whats your point? Not my fault for complete lack of any lore or logical progression from crpytic. Thing is iconians with heralds are portrayed as the biggest baddest thread. Everything in mission leads to them, EVERYTHING... even your first officer who slips and faceplants on the console causing the selfdestruct...IT WAS ICONIANS FAULT... Take for instance the current message cryptic sent to us, telling us how 5 years lead to this one mission, one immersive mission called midnight...NOW FOR A LIMITED TIME YOU CAN immersive yourself with herald ships...the iconians wont know what hit them muahahahahah...whatever. Your mindset is like hey why are you scared and sad now that a murder happened in your vicinity...murders happen all the time...with that mindset what can we expect from the future of STO and their claim oF "EXPLORATION"...well i know SET PHASER TO KILL..lol i hope not.
My point is immersion never existed but you wait 5yrs to cry foul over THIS ONE?! Your denial aside, you know that "returning to being explorers" means "SET PHASER TO KILL" as you put it... You will explore the TRIBBLE outta those XXXX and you will like it, and once you're done exploring wether or not they are disruptor/phaser/tetryon/etc resistant and how much it takes to vaporize one, Cryptic will have you explore a dozen patrol missions where you explore how resistant XXXX's ships are.
I know right if you are a murder why change ? Or jebus forbid having branching options and storyline if crpytic would put that in the WHOLE UNIVERSE WOULD EXPLODE...so better not, better just to shoot i guess.
Honestly, there never was immersion in STO from the beginning. Cryptic never took the steps to ensure a logically progressing world and storyline, it always was a free-for-all theme park with loose storyline missions in between. So anyone saying that these ships somehow break immersion has to accept that there never was immersion to begin with.
What I find pitiful, however, is that Cryptic doesn't even pay attention to the stuff they write themselves. Having Iconian starships and weapons casually and readily available, everything the writers now come up with as the next big thread is unbelievable as we now posses the ultimate technology that is undefeatable. Yes, the MU-nonsense and they defeaqted their Iconians but they still use the stock mirror starships and phasers instead of opening rifts and all of that so that's once again just a story bit existing in blogs, not the actual game, another point Cryptic repeatedly drops the ball with.
Actually it never did seem to me that the Iconian weapons and ships were exceedingly powerful. They were just strong, but we obviously beat them in conventional battles. The problem was their gateway technology, which allowed them to maneuver huge fleets at a whim so it was impossible for us to control where and when they would attack. We could only always react to their attacks. And the other advantage was the sheer size of their fleet. (Allededly blocking out a sun).
There was even a point (Butterfly episode) made that merely delaying the Iconian assault for a while could allow us to beat them - because their technology did not advance anywhere as fast as ours. (They had 200,000 years to build their forces, and we already had ships capable of engaging theirs in toe-to-toe combat after mere 300 years of warp flight.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
There was even a point (Butterfly episode) made that merely delaying the Iconian assault for a while could allow us to beat them - because their technology did not advance anywhere as fast as ours. (They had 200,000 years to build their forces, and we already had ships capable of engaging theirs in toe-to-toe combat after mere 300 years of warp flight.)
If by "engaging toe-to-toe" you mean "curbstomping into next week," then yes.
The problem was mission script saying "they're too powerful we have to retreat" after we're done with said curbstomping.
There was even a point (Butterfly episode) made that merely delaying the Iconian assault for a while could allow us to beat them - because their technology did not advance anywhere as fast as ours. (They had 200,000 years to build their forces, and we already had ships capable of engaging theirs in toe-to-toe combat after mere 300 years of warp flight.)
If by "engaging toe-to-toe" you mean "curbstomping into next week," then yes.
The problem was mission script saying "they're too powerful we have to retreat" after we're done with said curbstomping.
I think the Iconian War handled that overall better than the Jem'Hadar/Dominion arc. When the Jem'Hadar fleet came through the wormhole to attack DS9, not only did I curbstomp them, there was nowhere a sign of urgency in the game.
During the Iconian War, they had background canvas showing lots of ships and even untargetable fleets engaged in combat. And the fleet that headed towards the Herald Sphere was decidedly larger than the ship that got back. And I did miss part of the space combat because I was boarding an Iconian flagship - so I probably missed a lot of the counter-curbstomping.
And overall, in the Iconian War I knew that my personal fight might be going well -but I can't be everywhere. But the Iconians can be.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
So the next lock box ships are herald ones. Now to get something straight from the beginning i am totally fine with them being lock box ships. Cryptic needs to earn some money....sad truth is this game currently only stands because of the massive new ship spam sales else it would slowly decay... The thing is this new herald ships break the immersion, break the story and feel of star trek. Some say that already happened when you could fly undine and tholian ship...eh not really while totally alien to the alliance it wasn't so crowded with exotic ships and we could argue that iconians with heralds play a pivotal role in STO so these new ships have a bigger impact.
But now we get this...Hey Johny lets play the iconian arc you know the story cryptic has been preparing us for 5 years almost all mission leading to this moment. Sure says Johny let me bring my Herald Quas Flight Deck Cruiser or my Herald Baltim Heavy Raider or my Herald Vonph Dreadnought Carrier....WAIT WHAT ? You just thrown the mystery, the fear and the soul of iconians and herlads down the toilet. Now they are just some generic cookie cutter enemy, everyone can fly their ships now...even a drunk klingon who had to much blood wine can.
You could say ahhh this is nothing, it doesn't matter at all, but lets think deeper, a lot deeper..... You sure can like both space and ground combat like me but let me throw you out something, there are single and multi player games which have superior combat out there....but HEY ! why are you playing this game then...Simple because it has the star trek feel, the star trek mythos...flying iconic ships, relive the moments similar to the series.....And this lock box thing doesn't help that really. Whats next...a playable Vger...borg lock box.....OW NO. Imagine a scenario were an enlightened, kind federation captain (we will call him Johny again), flies to a colony in need of some supplies....IN A BORG CUBE causing a mass hysteria on the colony and he beams down and says, relax guys its just my new RAD cube check it out its shiny.... Hey Steven beam down the supplies... and then 50 borg drones materialize and star to asimilate the planet...ooops sorry captain wrong cargo...but hey we still got our RAD CUBE..whatever.
Sad thing is this could have been easily avoided, instead of exact looking ships we could have gotten 3 ships... an escort a sci ship and a cruiser or dreadnought or carrier that has the look of the alliance (fed, kling and rom) combined with some herald designs. But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already in game just some tweaking to the already existing models and voila new ships to sell...What does that spell for us if the developer is that lazy...bad things ? (ADMIRALTY SYSTEM...OUCH) for the future content that emphasizes on exploration...WELL I HOPE NOT.
What are your opinions on this matter? Does it bother you or not, and why? Have a nice day.
Since you asked for thoughts and what not OP I'm going to be very blunt with you and straight forward as to how I see it. Keep in mind despite my tone throughout I am not angry or anything of the such, but have dealt with far too many arguments like this.
For the whole immersion thing, it honestly doesn't break the immersion for me at all. Arguments based on immersion are always VERY subjective and are always baseless as they can never be proven or disproven. You as the OP may consider the new Herald stuff as something that breaks immersion where as I don't. I consider those ships as being something that was reverse engineered from what tech we were able to capture during the war. That or perhaps the Iconians gave us some resources to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up. There's a ton of different ways you can spin it story wise to make it fit for yourself. What one person considers immersive or breaking immersion, another person next to him may not. Arguments based on immersion are not valid arguments to bring to the table in a case such as this other than providing opinion. I for example should not be restricted from flying a Herald ship simply because YOU think it breaks YOUR immersion.
Your argument based on immersion was one of the same arguments that was used to try to restrict flying over on WoW. I'll tell you the same thing I told them. This game does not revolve around you and I play this game strictly for myself and to chill with the friends I have made online. I do not owe you any explanation of how I choose to play my toons or why I picked the ship for them I did. I earned the ships and equipment I have by hard work and a little cash in some cases. You're not owed it by me or anyone else to give up the ability to the fly the Herald ships should I obtain one simply because it ruins YOUR immersion. If your ability to play the game is so badly ruined by me choosing to fly a Herald ship instead of a non-iconian ship like yours, then you have more problems than just "ruined immersion." You are not owed it by me or anyone else in this game to fly non-Iconian ships to satisfy YOUR immersion nor should I have to give up the ability to use something simply because you don't like it, when it effects you in literally no way. Further your solution to not liking the Herald ships is already in game, don't fly the ship. I personally am not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships in game but I'm not out here suggesting they shouldn't be allowed to exist in game.
As to your arguments of science specific, tac specific and so on now. It takes a ton of work to create something in game. especially something that people can use. I myself am a small time modder for older games. For some of the missions I created in older games I have 20 hours+ in just getting the map setup how I wanted. That's not counting the some 15+ hours into setting up the logic and all of those things behind the scenes that make the mission tick. It's much easier for them to just program a ship and give it a versatile and adaptable layout than it is to make multiple versions of the same ship. Yes i agree it would be cool to have sci specific, tac specific, and so on of the Herald ships or whatever other ships you can think of, but I understand why sometimes they don't do it like that.
Overall I feel that you're overreacting to the Herald ships without even giving them a chance. I myself originally was not a fan of the Guardian Cruiser. Once I picked up the ship and actually flew it, now I consider it one of my favorite in game ships.
While i agree with your part of how hard is it to make new ships and models or in this case hybrids the other part of your post is bonkers to me. Where did you see at any point that i am forbidding or actively
encouraging people not to fly what they like... even herald ships? You missed the train sorry. I wouldn ever tell other people how to play the game. This is not a post for boycotting cryptic or telling people to stop playing the game or how to play the game, its a genuine concern on the fact that crpytic is doing this even though how big of a role the iconians and the heralds are playing in their game. Herald ships are coming that a fact to me... i am not trying to remove them howerver whe coudl have gottne something completely different and more story related like hybrids but whatever. I am glad you mentioned the adapted battlecruiser, its 100% more logical to be in the players hands then the herald ships. We see its slow development, we see it in the story and guess what its a hybrid of rom and borg technology not like..A CUBE which could have happened in its place... Considering romulan republic is ally to both kling and fed and they would know many things already about the ship considering its mostly rom tech, its feasible they could recreate it for other people... I am happy that you like the guardian but i am not complaining about the playability, power or usefulness of the herald ships, but their relation to the story. And while your argument about how hard is it to make new ships can hold a little water you cant apply it here. There are indie games which take months or years to complete and cost less then 1 ship here. Its not like making new unique ships for cryptic is some unreachable wall, they did them multiple times in this case it simply because models were already there and it was a quick solution to get new ships in the game not some huge inability to make unique ships...
First I would say, don't ask for opinions if you don't want people to actually tell you what they think or be blunt. that's what I have done here is I was very blunt on what I see. Getting into your post now.
This is a huge back peddle on your part. You say you understand that it can take awhile to get stuff put into the game when it comes to ships and you agree with me on that. I don't think you really do understand what all goes into making things such as a ship or even a map. Some of my most basic maps that I created could take a bare minimum of 15 hours. When you're designing something with a game there's a few questions that you must answer. In terms of a level or mission you must answer: why would I ever go there? If you can't give a reason for someone to go to your level or run that mission then you can't expect anyone else to do so either. When placing items or creating them you must answer: why would I ever use this? If you can't give a good reason for someone to use it, then why would anyone else. In terms of ships one thing that I would ask if I were given the task to design a ship by Cryptic: why this particular boff layout? In other words why would I give the ship the particular layout I did. Do I intend the ship to be a universal useable by everyone, just a generic layout, or more specialized. You want it to be good, but you don't want it to be stupid op either.
You base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. What you consider immersive is not necessarily what I or someone else consider immersive, thus it's subjective. It can't be proven or disproven thus is not a valid argument to utilize. I personally don't see the Herald ships as taking the mystery or fear of the Iconians away. To use that argument as you have is like saying that, the prime universe ships we fly takes away the fear, threat, and mystery of the mirror universe. The Iconians are no less of a threat simply because someone flies one of their ships against them. The Elachi were no less of a threat simply because we flew the Obelisk carrier against them in a mission. You can spin the Herald ships in a number of ways as I said previously. You can say that they were reverse engineered, gifted by the Iconians to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up, or even super old versions of the ships that were left behind during the original bombardment and we recovered. In terms of the Borg cube argument you made, in the lore you have the Borg cooperative and many Borg who broke free from the collective that retained control of their Borg ships. So for all that colony knows they're dealing with the cooperative.
In your last paragraph of your first post you go on to say that "Sad thing is this could have easily been avoided" which means that they didn't need to do it the way they did. You assume as well because they didn't give us a sci ship, escort, and so on in the style of the alliance ships that it makes the devs lazy. Each time we've defeated a major power in game, Elachi, Cardassians, Voth, Vaadwaur and so on, we've gotten a box themed after them, yet NOW you choose to speak up about it. By the logic you're using we shouldn't be able to fly bioships, yet it's made clear that bioships are living organisms with minds of their own even if simplistic. The ships could simply agree to work with us, much how the giant bioship helping Cooper chose not invade and killed him. It's the epitome of arrogance to assume that the dev's are lazy because they didn't do it the way YOU think they should have. It's one thing to believe something is lazy and state it as opinion, but you stated it as fact. "But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already existing models and viola new ships to sell... What does this spell for us if the developer is that lazy... bad things?" Those are your own words where you call the devs lazy. We've always had lockboxes made after major powers we've beaten, this is no different, yet suddenly you just NOW have an issue with it. You also go on to bash the admirality system in the same paragraph.
If you don't like the ships I get it, I'm not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships, yet I'm not calling it lazy on the part of the devs for creating those ships as you have for them with the Herald ships. It's the epitome of self-entitlement thinking the way you stated. You say this could have been avoided, yet in this new post say that you're not wanting it restricted or complaining, but "showing concern." You present what you said as a matter of fact and not opinion. Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
You wanted thoughts on this, which is what I have given you.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
There was even a point (Butterfly episode) made that merely delaying the Iconian assault for a while could allow us to beat them - because their technology did not advance anywhere as fast as ours. (They had 200,000 years to build their forces, and we already had ships capable of engaging theirs in toe-to-toe combat after mere 300 years of warp flight.)
If by "engaging toe-to-toe" you mean "curbstomping into next week," then yes.
The problem was mission script saying "they're too powerful we have to retreat" after we're done with said curbstomping.
I think the Iconian War handled that overall better than the Jem'Hadar/Dominion arc. When the Jem'Hadar fleet came through the wormhole to attack DS9, not only did I curbstomp them, there was nowhere a sign of urgency in the game.
During the Iconian War, they had background canvas showing lots of ships and even untargetable fleets engaged in combat. And the fleet that headed towards the Herald Sphere was decidedly larger than the ship that got back. And I did miss part of the space combat because I was boarding an Iconian flagship - so I probably missed a lot of the counter-curbstomping.
And overall, in the Iconian War I knew that my personal fight might be going well -but I can't be everywhere. But the Iconians can be.
True, but that then highlights the incredible power discrepancy between U.S.S. Player Character and every other ship out there. There is no plausible explanation for how the player can casually lay waste to entire fleets of Heralds while everone else dies (off-screen).
And in the earlier missions, there aren't even redshirts dying for show. You're alone or with some invincible named character ship(s), and the only reason you don't win is the script says no. Blood of Ancients was particularly obvious about it. You go from one encounter to the next, wipe the proverbial floor with some Heralds and then you're told you lose, go away. At least they had the good sense to make the dreadnought at the end immune to all damage, because it would've been embarrassing if players killed it before it got to shoot at the preserver base. And they would've.
I like the kit modules. Finally some more cool science ground magic! Not so into the ships, but the traits from em seem pretty darn good.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Well if you looked at the space around ESD there were so many derelicts from both sides, it is a wonder that more of those Herald ships were not available.
Good Captains use whatever is at their disposal to fight the food fight.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Well if you looked at the space around ESD there were so many derelicts from both sides, it is a wonder that more of those Herald ships were not available.
Good Captains use whatever is at their disposal to fight the food fight.
exactly. there's a million different ways to spin it. in fact derelicts are how we have the Jem'hadar ships we do currently. we found them adrift, the dominion didn't want them back so we kept them.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
So the next lock box ships are herald ones. Now to get something straight from the beginning i am totally fine with them being lock box ships. Cryptic needs to earn some money....sad truth is this game currently only stands because of the massive new ship spam sales else it would slowly decay... The thing is this new herald ships break the immersion, break the story and feel of star trek. Some say that already happened when you could fly undine and tholian ship...eh not really while totally alien to the alliance it wasn't so crowded with exotic ships and we could argue that iconians with heralds play a pivotal role in STO so these new ships have a bigger impact.
But now we get this...Hey Johny lets play the iconian arc you know the story cryptic has been preparing us for 5 years almost all mission leading to this moment. Sure says Johny let me bring my Herald Quas Flight Deck Cruiser or my Herald Baltim Heavy Raider or my Herald Vonph Dreadnought Carrier....WAIT WHAT ? You just thrown the mystery, the fear and the soul of iconians and herlads down the toilet. Now they are just some generic cookie cutter enemy, everyone can fly their ships now...even a drunk klingon who had to much blood wine can.
You could say ahhh this is nothing, it doesn't matter at all, but lets think deeper, a lot deeper..... You sure can like both space and ground combat like me but let me throw you out something, there are single and multi player games which have superior combat out there....but HEY ! why are you playing this game then...Simple because it has the star trek feel, the star trek mythos...flying iconic ships, relive the moments similar to the series.....And this lock box thing doesn't help that really. Whats next...a playable Vger...borg lock box.....OW NO. Imagine a scenario were an enlightened, kind federation captain (we will call him Johny again), flies to a colony in need of some supplies....IN A BORG CUBE causing a mass hysteria on the colony and he beams down and says, relax guys its just my new RAD cube check it out its shiny.... Hey Steven beam down the supplies... and then 50 borg drones materialize and star to asimilate the planet...ooops sorry captain wrong cargo...but hey we still got our RAD CUBE..whatever.
Sad thing is this could have been easily avoided, instead of exact looking ships we could have gotten 3 ships... an escort a sci ship and a cruiser or dreadnought or carrier that has the look of the alliance (fed, kling and rom) combined with some herald designs. But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already in game just some tweaking to the already existing models and voila new ships to sell...What does that spell for us if the developer is that lazy...bad things ? (ADMIRALTY SYSTEM...OUCH) for the future content that emphasizes on exploration...WELL I HOPE NOT.
What are your opinions on this matter? Does it bother you or not, and why? Have a nice day.
Since you asked for thoughts and what not OP I'm going to be very blunt with you and straight forward as to how I see it. Keep in mind despite my tone throughout I am not angry or anything of the such, but have dealt with far too many arguments like this.
For the whole immersion thing, it honestly doesn't break the immersion for me at all. Arguments based on immersion are always VERY subjective and are always baseless as they can never be proven or disproven. You as the OP may consider the new Herald stuff as something that breaks immersion where as I don't. I consider those ships as being something that was reverse engineered from what tech we were able to capture during the war. That or perhaps the Iconians gave us some resources to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up. There's a ton of different ways you can spin it story wise to make it fit for yourself. What one person considers immersive or breaking immersion, another person next to him may not. Arguments based on immersion are not valid arguments to bring to the table in a case such as this other than providing opinion. I for example should not be restricted from flying a Herald ship simply because YOU think it breaks YOUR immersion.
Your argument based on immersion was one of the same arguments that was used to try to restrict flying over on WoW. I'll tell you the same thing I told them. This game does not revolve around you and I play this game strictly for myself and to chill with the friends I have made online. I do not owe you any explanation of how I choose to play my toons or why I picked the ship for them I did. I earned the ships and equipment I have by hard work and a little cash in some cases. You're not owed it by me or anyone else to give up the ability to the fly the Herald ships should I obtain one simply because it ruins YOUR immersion. If your ability to play the game is so badly ruined by me choosing to fly a Herald ship instead of a non-iconian ship like yours, then you have more problems than just "ruined immersion." You are not owed it by me or anyone else in this game to fly non-Iconian ships to satisfy YOUR immersion nor should I have to give up the ability to use something simply because you don't like it, when it effects you in literally no way. Further your solution to not liking the Herald ships is already in game, don't fly the ship. I personally am not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships in game but I'm not out here suggesting they shouldn't be allowed to exist in game.
As to your arguments of science specific, tac specific and so on now. It takes a ton of work to create something in game. especially something that people can use. I myself am a small time modder for older games. For some of the missions I created in older games I have 20 hours+ in just getting the map setup how I wanted. That's not counting the some 15+ hours into setting up the logic and all of those things behind the scenes that make the mission tick. It's much easier for them to just program a ship and give it a versatile and adaptable layout than it is to make multiple versions of the same ship. Yes i agree it would be cool to have sci specific, tac specific, and so on of the Herald ships or whatever other ships you can think of, but I understand why sometimes they don't do it like that.
Overall I feel that you're overreacting to the Herald ships without even giving them a chance. I myself originally was not a fan of the Guardian Cruiser. Once I picked up the ship and actually flew it, now I consider it one of my favorite in game ships.
While i agree with your part of how hard is it to make new ships and models or in this case hybrids the other part of your post is bonkers to me. Where did you see at any point that i am forbidding or actively
encouraging people not to fly what they like... even herald ships? You missed the train sorry. I wouldn ever tell other people how to play the game. This is not a post for boycotting cryptic or telling people to stop playing the game or how to play the game, its a genuine concern on the fact that crpytic is doing this even though how big of a role the iconians and the heralds are playing in their game. Herald ships are coming that a fact to me... i am not trying to remove them howerver whe coudl have gottne something completely different and more story related like hybrids but whatever. I am glad you mentioned the adapted battlecruiser, its 100% more logical to be in the players hands then the herald ships. We see its slow development, we see it in the story and guess what its a hybrid of rom and borg technology not like..A CUBE which could have happened in its place... Considering romulan republic is ally to both kling and fed and they would know many things already about the ship considering its mostly rom tech, its feasible they could recreate it for other people... I am happy that you like the guardian but i am not complaining about the playability, power or usefulness of the herald ships, but their relation to the story. And while your argument about how hard is it to make new ships can hold a little water you cant apply it here. There are indie games which take months or years to complete and cost less then 1 ship here. Its not like making new unique ships for cryptic is some unreachable wall, they did them multiple times in this case it simply because models were already there and it was a quick solution to get new ships in the game not some huge inability to make unique ships...
First I would say, don't ask for opinions if you don't want people to actually tell you what they think or be blunt. that's what I have done here is I was very blunt on what I see. Getting into your post now.
This is a huge back peddle on your part. You say you understand that it can take awhile to get stuff put into the game when it comes to ships and you agree with me on that. I don't think you really do understand what all goes into making things such as a ship or even a map. Some of my most basic maps that I created could take a bare minimum of 15 hours. When you're designing something with a game there's a few questions that you must answer. In terms of a level or mission you must answer: why would I ever go there? If you can't give a reason for someone to go to your level or run that mission then you can't expect anyone else to do so either. When placing items or creating them you must answer: why would I ever use this? If you can't give a good reason for someone to use it, then why would anyone else. In terms of ships one thing that I would ask if I were given the task to design a ship by Cryptic: why this particular boff layout? In other words why would I give the ship the particular layout I did. Do I intend the ship to be a universal useable by everyone, just a generic layout, or more specialized. You want it to be good, but you don't want it to be stupid op either.
You base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. What you consider immersive is not necessarily what I or someone else consider immersive, thus it's subjective. It can't be proven or disproven thus is not a valid argument to utilize. I personally don't see the Herald ships as taking the mystery or fear of the Iconians away. To use that argument as you have is like saying that, the prime universe ships we fly takes away the fear, threat, and mystery of the mirror universe. The Iconians are no less of a threat simply because someone flies one of their ships against them. The Elachi were no less of a threat simply because we flew the Obelisk carrier against them in a mission. You can spin the Herald ships in a number of ways as I said previously. You can say that they were reverse engineered, gifted by the Iconians to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up, or even super old versions of the ships that were left behind during the original bombardment and we recovered. In terms of the Borg cube argument you made, in the lore you have the Borg cooperative and many Borg who broke free from the collective that retained control of their Borg ships. So for all that colony knows they're dealing with the cooperative.
In your last paragraph of your first post you go on to say that "Sad thing is this could have easily been avoided" which means that they didn't need to do it the way they did. You assume as well because they didn't give us a sci ship, escort, and so on in the style of the alliance ships that it makes the devs lazy. Each time we've defeated a major power in game, Elachi, Cardassians, Voth, Vaadwaur and so on, we've gotten a box themed after them, yet NOW you choose to speak up about it. By the logic you're using we shouldn't be able to fly bioships, yet it's made clear that bioships are living organisms with minds of their own even if simplistic. The ships could simply agree to work with us, much how the giant bioship helping Cooper chose not invade and killed him. It's the epitome of arrogance to assume that the dev's are lazy because they didn't do it the way YOU think they should have. It's one thing to believe something is lazy and state it as opinion, but you stated it as fact. "But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already existing models and viola new ships to sell... What does this spell for us if the developer is that lazy... bad things?" Those are your own words where you call the devs lazy. We've always had lockboxes made after major powers we've beaten, this is no different, yet suddenly you just NOW have an issue with it. You also go on to bash the admirality system in the same paragraph.
If you don't like the ships I get it, I'm not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships, yet I'm not calling it lazy on the part of the devs for creating those ships as you have for them with the Herald ships. It's the epitome of self-entitlement thinking the way you stated. You say this could have been avoided, yet in this new post say that you're not wanting it restricted or complaining, but "showing concern." You present what you said as a matter of fact and not opinion. Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
You wanted thoughts on this, which is what I have given you.
I did want opinions but you didnt gave one. You were blunt to parts that weren't in my post that's a big difference...I don't need someone to make up words and then give opinion on them and call them my words.. You were blunt on the parts that werent even included in my post about saying what people should do or not. Again you also make it sound that putting a new model of ship is something so unbelievable, something almost impossible ? Its their job to do it they work for that, ofc it takes effort, cutting down trees takes also, would you believe that ? Again because you poorly read my post i will spell it out for you why i am bothered now and not before its simply because how the iconians are portrayed in the story and STO as whole, if they were a minor race or barely noticeable it wouldn't be such a problem... Nowhere did i say people should stop flying those ship or lose them again something you made out of thin air. I did rise my not liking of current phase of Admirality system but no where did i bash it so please show me my post of bashing it..and good luck finding it because it doesn't exist.... The only thing that you read properly is that i called them lazy and that is true. They had the choice to do hybrid ships...thats a fact not an opinion...the choice was there, and i said could not that they should, should have or had to do it my way...
You call me self-entitled yet you post the following words in your post: you base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. AND Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
While i agree on the subjective part the other parts make you a nice hypocrite. Some people stated same concerns then me in the same post, stated their reasons etc and YOU call that baseless and irrelevant...funny mr. president.
Please before you respond to my post again dont make words up..No one has called me out on me denying them flying their ships, doing what they want, me telling them how to play and you know why...because its nowhere in my post you just made it out so you can be...blunt? And why would you even respond to me or people who feel the same after all by your very objective post (that makes stuff up about what other people say...) its baseless and irrelevant...
Well if you looked at the space around ESD there were so many derelicts from both sides, it is a wonder that more of those Herald ships were not available.
Good Captains use whatever is at their disposal to fight the food fight.
exactly. there's a million different ways to spin it. in fact derelicts are how we have the Jem'hadar ships we do currently. we found them adrift, the dominion didn't want them back so we kept them.
That could be plausible, ofc if the iconinas who are now at peace with us didnt clear them up for multiple reasons but it is a possiblity i guess.
There was even a point (Butterfly episode) made that merely delaying the Iconian assault for a while could allow us to beat them - because their technology did not advance anywhere as fast as ours. (They had 200,000 years to build their forces, and we already had ships capable of engaging theirs in toe-to-toe combat after mere 300 years of warp flight.)
If by "engaging toe-to-toe" you mean "curbstomping into next week," then yes.
The problem was mission script saying "they're too powerful we have to retreat" after we're done with said curbstomping.
It was implied in the last FE that the tech used by the Heralds is not the best that the Iconians can make, also.... the Heralds are barely smart enough to know how to push the buttons. Actually working on it? nah.
Well if you looked at the space around ESD there were so many derelicts from both sides, it is a wonder that more of those Herald ships were not available.
Good Captains use whatever is at their disposal to fight the food fight.
exactly. there's a million different ways to spin it. in fact derelicts are how we have the Jem'hadar ships we do currently. we found them adrift, the dominion didn't want them back so we kept them.
That could be plausible, ofc if the iconinas who are now at peace with us didnt clear them up for multiple reasons but it is a possiblity i guess.
indeed, but it is clearly stated in the story written by Cryptic than the iconians don't share their technology. Maybe they should rewrite "Midnight" before the release of the Herald box
The Iconians may not share their tech but if it gets stolen...well, they have it coming, especially since they still let T'Ket the Psycho run around unchecked.
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So the next lock box ships are herald ones. Now to get something straight from the beginning i am totally fine with them being lock box ships. Cryptic needs to earn some money....sad truth is this game currently only stands because of the massive new ship spam sales else it would slowly decay... The thing is this new herald ships break the immersion, break the story and feel of star trek. Some say that already happened when you could fly undine and tholian ship...eh not really while totally alien to the alliance it wasn't so crowded with exotic ships and we could argue that iconians with heralds play a pivotal role in STO so these new ships have a bigger impact.
But now we get this...Hey Johny lets play the iconian arc you know the story cryptic has been preparing us for 5 years almost all mission leading to this moment. Sure says Johny let me bring my Herald Quas Flight Deck Cruiser or my Herald Baltim Heavy Raider or my Herald Vonph Dreadnought Carrier....WAIT WHAT ? You just thrown the mystery, the fear and the soul of iconians and herlads down the toilet. Now they are just some generic cookie cutter enemy, everyone can fly their ships now...even a drunk klingon who had to much blood wine can.
You could say ahhh this is nothing, it doesn't matter at all, but lets think deeper, a lot deeper..... You sure can like both space and ground combat like me but let me throw you out something, there are single and multi player games which have superior combat out there....but HEY ! why are you playing this game then...Simple because it has the star trek feel, the star trek mythos...flying iconic ships, relive the moments similar to the series.....And this lock box thing doesn't help that really. Whats next...a playable Vger...borg lock box.....OW NO. Imagine a scenario were an enlightened, kind federation captain (we will call him Johny again), flies to a colony in need of some supplies....IN A BORG CUBE causing a mass hysteria on the colony and he beams down and says, relax guys its just my new RAD cube check it out its shiny.... Hey Steven beam down the supplies... and then 50 borg drones materialize and star to asimilate the planet...ooops sorry captain wrong cargo...but hey we still got our RAD CUBE..whatever.
Sad thing is this could have been easily avoided, instead of exact looking ships we could have gotten 3 ships... an escort a sci ship and a cruiser or dreadnought or carrier that has the look of the alliance (fed, kling and rom) combined with some herald designs. But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already in game just some tweaking to the already existing models and voila new ships to sell...What does that spell for us if the developer is that lazy...bad things ? (ADMIRALTY SYSTEM...OUCH) for the future content that emphasizes on exploration...WELL I HOPE NOT.
What are your opinions on this matter? Does it bother you or not, and why? Have a nice day.
Since you asked for thoughts and what not OP I'm going to be very blunt with you and straight forward as to how I see it. Keep in mind despite my tone throughout I am not angry or anything of the such, but have dealt with far too many arguments like this.
For the whole immersion thing, it honestly doesn't break the immersion for me at all. Arguments based on immersion are always VERY subjective and are always baseless as they can never be proven or disproven. You as the OP may consider the new Herald stuff as something that breaks immersion where as I don't. I consider those ships as being something that was reverse engineered from what tech we were able to capture during the war. That or perhaps the Iconians gave us some resources to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up. There's a ton of different ways you can spin it story wise to make it fit for yourself. What one person considers immersive or breaking immersion, another person next to him may not. Arguments based on immersion are not valid arguments to bring to the table in a case such as this other than providing opinion. I for example should not be restricted from flying a Herald ship simply because YOU think it breaks YOUR immersion.
Your argument based on immersion was one of the same arguments that was used to try to restrict flying over on WoW. I'll tell you the same thing I told them. This game does not revolve around you and I play this game strictly for myself and to chill with the friends I have made online. I do not owe you any explanation of how I choose to play my toons or why I picked the ship for them I did. I earned the ships and equipment I have by hard work and a little cash in some cases. You're not owed it by me or anyone else to give up the ability to the fly the Herald ships should I obtain one simply because it ruins YOUR immersion. If your ability to play the game is so badly ruined by me choosing to fly a Herald ship instead of a non-iconian ship like yours, then you have more problems than just "ruined immersion." You are not owed it by me or anyone else in this game to fly non-Iconian ships to satisfy YOUR immersion nor should I have to give up the ability to use something simply because you don't like it, when it effects you in literally no way. Further your solution to not liking the Herald ships is already in game, don't fly the ship. I personally am not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships in game but I'm not out here suggesting they shouldn't be allowed to exist in game.
As to your arguments of science specific, tac specific and so on now. It takes a ton of work to create something in game. especially something that people can use. I myself am a small time modder for older games. For some of the missions I created in older games I have 20 hours+ in just getting the map setup how I wanted. That's not counting the some 15+ hours into setting up the logic and all of those things behind the scenes that make the mission tick. It's much easier for them to just program a ship and give it a versatile and adaptable layout than it is to make multiple versions of the same ship. Yes i agree it would be cool to have sci specific, tac specific, and so on of the Herald ships or whatever other ships you can think of, but I understand why sometimes they don't do it like that.
Overall I feel that you're overreacting to the Herald ships without even giving them a chance. I myself originally was not a fan of the Guardian Cruiser. Once I picked up the ship and actually flew it, now I consider it one of my favorite in game ships.
While i agree with your part of how hard is it to make new ships and models or in this case hybrids the other part of your post is bonkers to me. Where did you see at any point that i am forbidding or actively
encouraging people not to fly what they like... even herald ships? You missed the train sorry. I wouldn ever tell other people how to play the game. This is not a post for boycotting cryptic or telling people to stop playing the game or how to play the game, its a genuine concern on the fact that crpytic is doing this even though how big of a role the iconians and the heralds are playing in their game. Herald ships are coming that a fact to me... i am not trying to remove them howerver whe coudl have gottne something completely different and more story related like hybrids but whatever. I am glad you mentioned the adapted battlecruiser, its 100% more logical to be in the players hands then the herald ships. We see its slow development, we see it in the story and guess what its a hybrid of rom and borg technology not like..A CUBE which could have happened in its place... Considering romulan republic is ally to both kling and fed and they would know many things already about the ship considering its mostly rom tech, its feasible they could recreate it for other people... I am happy that you like the guardian but i am not complaining about the playability, power or usefulness of the herald ships, but their relation to the story. And while your argument about how hard is it to make new ships can hold a little water you cant apply it here. There are indie games which take months or years to complete and cost less then 1 ship here. Its not like making new unique ships for cryptic is some unreachable wall, they did them multiple times in this case it simply because models were already there and it was a quick solution to get new ships in the game not some huge inability to make unique ships...
First I would say, don't ask for opinions if you don't want people to actually tell you what they think or be blunt. that's what I have done here is I was very blunt on what I see. Getting into your post now.
This is a huge back peddle on your part. You say you understand that it can take awhile to get stuff put into the game when it comes to ships and you agree with me on that. I don't think you really do understand what all goes into making things such as a ship or even a map. Some of my most basic maps that I created could take a bare minimum of 15 hours. When you're designing something with a game there's a few questions that you must answer. In terms of a level or mission you must answer: why would I ever go there? If you can't give a reason for someone to go to your level or run that mission then you can't expect anyone else to do so either. When placing items or creating them you must answer: why would I ever use this? If you can't give a good reason for someone to use it, then why would anyone else. In terms of ships one thing that I would ask if I were given the task to design a ship by Cryptic: why this particular boff layout? In other words why would I give the ship the particular layout I did. Do I intend the ship to be a universal useable by everyone, just a generic layout, or more specialized. You want it to be good, but you don't want it to be stupid op either.
You base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. What you consider immersive is not necessarily what I or someone else consider immersive, thus it's subjective. It can't be proven or disproven thus is not a valid argument to utilize. I personally don't see the Herald ships as taking the mystery or fear of the Iconians away. To use that argument as you have is like saying that, the prime universe ships we fly takes away the fear, threat, and mystery of the mirror universe. The Iconians are no less of a threat simply because someone flies one of their ships against them. The Elachi were no less of a threat simply because we flew the Obelisk carrier against them in a mission. You can spin the Herald ships in a number of ways as I said previously. You can say that they were reverse engineered, gifted by the Iconians to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up, or even super old versions of the ships that were left behind during the original bombardment and we recovered. In terms of the Borg cube argument you made, in the lore you have the Borg cooperative and many Borg who broke free from the collective that retained control of their Borg ships. So for all that colony knows they're dealing with the cooperative.
In your last paragraph of your first post you go on to say that "Sad thing is this could have easily been avoided" which means that they didn't need to do it the way they did. You assume as well because they didn't give us a sci ship, escort, and so on in the style of the alliance ships that it makes the devs lazy. Each time we've defeated a major power in game, Elachi, Cardassians, Voth, Vaadwaur and so on, we've gotten a box themed after them, yet NOW you choose to speak up about it. By the logic you're using we shouldn't be able to fly bioships, yet it's made clear that bioships are living organisms with minds of their own even if simplistic. The ships could simply agree to work with us, much how the giant bioship helping Cooper chose not invade and killed him. It's the epitome of arrogance to assume that the dev's are lazy because they didn't do it the way YOU think they should have. It's one thing to believe something is lazy and state it as opinion, but you stated it as fact. "But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already existing models and viola new ships to sell... What does this spell for us if the developer is that lazy... bad things?" Those are your own words where you call the devs lazy. We've always had lockboxes made after major powers we've beaten, this is no different, yet suddenly you just NOW have an issue with it. You also go on to bash the admirality system in the same paragraph.
If you don't like the ships I get it, I'm not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships, yet I'm not calling it lazy on the part of the devs for creating those ships as you have for them with the Herald ships. It's the epitome of self-entitlement thinking the way you stated. You say this could have been avoided, yet in this new post say that you're not wanting it restricted or complaining, but "showing concern." You present what you said as a matter of fact and not opinion. Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
You wanted thoughts on this, which is what I have given you.
I did want opinions but you didnt gave one. You were blunt to parts that weren't in my post that's a big difference...I don't need someone to make up words and then give opinion on them and call them my words.. You were blunt on the parts that werent even included in my post about saying what people should do or not. Again you also make it sound that putting a new model of ship is something so unbelievable, something almost impossible ? Its their job to do it they work for that, ofc it takes effort, cutting down trees takes also, would you believe that ? Again because you poorly read my post i will spell it out for you why i am bothered now and not before its simply because how the iconians are portrayed in the story and STO as whole, if they were a minor race or barely noticeable it wouldn't be such a problem... Nowhere did i say people should stop flying those ship or lose them again something you made out of thin air. I did rise my not liking of current phase of Admirality system but no where did i bash it so please show me my post of bashing it..and good luck finding it because it doesn't exist.... The only thing that you read properly is that i called them lazy and that is true. They had the choice to do hybrid ships...thats a fact not an opinion...the choice was there, and i said could not that they should, should have or had to do it my way...
You call me self-entitled yet you post the following words in your post: you base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. AND Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
While i agree on the subjective part the other parts make you a nice hypocrite. Some people stated same concerns then me in the same post, stated their reasons etc and YOU call that baseless and irrelevant...funny mr. president.
Please before you respond to my post again dont make words up..No one has called me out on me denying them flying their ships, doing what they want, me telling them how to play and you know why...because its nowhere in my post you just made it out so you can be...blunt? And why would you even respond to me or people who feel the same after all by your very objective post (that makes stuff up about what other people say...) its baseless and irrelevant...
I did give you an opinion, I gave you one saying that no, having Iconian ships does not bother me or break immersion for me. I also gave opinions on your other points you made. I told you that I think it would be cool to have sci, tac and eng versions of the ships. Development concerns and the difficulty of development, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not are valid concerns. You assume that there is a one size fits all approach to game development with your point in indie-games when that's purely not so. Indie-games are typically not multi-million dollar mmos. programming things are not always as simple as flipping switches.
I've not made anything up save going off your own words. I get the fact you feel that it breaks immersion, and that's cool if that's what you believe. I however do not agree with your logic behind some of your points and have been blunt about that since you asked for opinions on the matter. You would've liked a different look and so on for the ships and I get that, however that's not what we got.
By your very own logic of it not being a problem if they were a minor race, you should have spoken up LONG before now. The Elachi are a major race and in fact were encountered in Enterprise. No we didn't know much about them before the timeline of the game, but it still does not change the fact of them being a major race. The Vaadwaur are also a major race. yes their numbers were more populace during the time of their empire 1,000 years ago, but again they are still a major race. The Dominion are another major race as well, technically 3 if you count the Jem'hadar, Vorta, and Changelings as individual races. The Benthans are also a major race as are the Malon, and similar Delta Quadrant races. The Tholians are a major race as well. All of those are major races that each have their ships implemented into lockboxes and lobi in some cases. By your own logic these races having their ships in game to be player controlled should be a problem as well, yet you're just now speaking up and don't seem to have an issue with those races. By your own logic it makes no sense and is a double standard since you don't seem to have a problem with those other races. It's a straight forward question, why is this particular race, and not any of the other major races just now an issue.
I called your way of thinking self-entitled because that's what I see. You call it lazy because the devs put the actual Herald ships into the game for players to control, instead of making all new pseudo-Herald ships in the theme of the alliance races, Fed Kdf and Romulan. You call it lazy because they didn't do it the way YOU wanted them to do it, and yes that is self-entitlement. You also bash the Admirality system when you don't even know if it's going to get expanded on or what Cryptic's intentions are for exploration. yes that is self-entitlement when you call that lazy. There are other folks in this game that actually will enjoy the Hereald ships, myself included if/when I pick one up. I've always wanted to see the Iconians since they were first talked about in TNG, and now the possibility of actually flying an Iconian ship is epicness to me.
Cryptic could make every ship a hybrid from now until the end of time, but the fact is they're not going to do that. Not every ship needs to be a hybrid nor should it be. You're correct factually that they could have made the ships be hybrids, but that's it, they're not obligated to do so.
If calling your post like I see it and addressing the self-entitlement in calling the the devs lazy makes me a hyporcite then so be it. immersion is based purely on the player and is not something that Cryptic can truthfully take into account when developing something. People will either consider it immersive or they won't. You see it as an issue, but I don't. You can say all day long that you didn't bash on the ships but you did even if you didn't come out and say it. There are already solutions to your concerns in game yet you simply choose not to use them. Part of a game is being able to use your imagination with it as well. Imagine different scenarios in which the Iconian ships make sense.
You asked for opinions and that's what I gave you. Because you asked for opinions I gave you the courtesy of giving you an honest response about what I see. If you agree with me then cool, if not that's cool to. I've given you my thoughts and opinions to do with what you will.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
I guess it would be a nice feature to be able to hide non-faction ships in shared areas. If you combined that with private grouping instead of PUGs you'd never need to see these ships (and Xindi, Jem'Hadar, etc.) except when you need to PUG an event like Crystalline Catastrophe.
I am not sure how that would work out in functional terms. Not only does it sound like a coding nightmare, but where do you draw the line? That could become very arbitrary. What about the person with a Mirror ship who reskinned it to look totally fed? What about the person with an alien-gen Cardassian (which you can't even detect by ANY kind of code) who flies a Cardassian ship? Or other things?
To me, that just doesn't seem feasible.
It's actually pretty feasible, but it will fry toasters and mid-range non-gaming PCs due to the clientside-calculations. The tech is in-game already.
Do you recall those Hologram Emitters that change a ship's appearance? Just reuse those, but on a mass-scale, and without the hologram effect.
Basically, in the UI Graphics settings, you can choose to activate Factional Immersion or Disable it. Activating it turns all non-Faction ships into the closest equivalent 2410 design, or the latest C-Store skin variant. What they turn into depend on the faction of the players. So Fed ships on Fed players, Rom ships on Rom Players, and KDF ships on KDF players.
For example for a Fed player hanging around ESD with Faction Immersion active:
All raiders will show up as Aquarius-class raiders.
All escorts will show up as anything random from Patrol Escorts to Defiant-class or Phantom-class escorts.
All destroyers will show up as an Alita-class or Hestia-class ship.
All cruisers will show up as any random cruiser from a Regent-class to an Andromeda-class, Presidio-class, or Eclipse-class.
All dreadnoughts will show up as Odyssey-class ships (size-purposes; Science Dreadnoughts included).
All carriers will show up as Atrox carriers and Omega-class carriers.
All science vessels will show up as Pathfinder-class and Scryer-class ships.
All Frigate pets default to Defiants, shuttles to a random Fed shuttle, and fighters/drones to a random Fed fighter.
Fed Romulans in non-faction ships appear in the nearest Warbird equivalent in 2410 skins or last-tier C-store skins.
Due to engine limitations, beams and torpedoes being fired are still that of the actual ship, whether it's pets or a player ship.
The tech is there, but it's up to Cryptic to implement it, and the players to upgrade their machines so that the clientside calculations can draw all non-Faction ships into standard Faction ships without lagging; especially when map-changing (as it doesn't keep a consistent faction ship assigned; if your teammate showed up as a Defiant in one map, they may show up as a Phantom in the next map).
I still think that gets pretty silly even IF the coding is feasible (and the fact that it could be so rough on the client side may be an argument against that), this idea that other people can't simply ignore a ship they don't like. Again, it's not like I am trying to stick a finger in anybody's eye and personally offend them when I take my Undine ship--yes, the ship that got so many complaints when it came out and that people still complain about existing to this day--I have it because a) I figured out a build that WORKS for me with that ship the way what I flew before that was NOT working, and b) as crazy as other people may find the story, I know exactly how it is that this ship fell into my character's hands and why he and his first officer were able to master it. I think I can be convincing with that story if asked--but at the same time, I really shouldn't have to be asked to defend myself to be allowed to use something that is in game and is not causing detrimental effects on anybody else's ability to get the marks, dilithium, or whatever else they need. (If you want detrimental effects, I can go back to flying my old ship and be a drain on whoever I'm running with. )
And beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If those who don't like the non-faction ships get their button to put mine out of sight, then I should get a button to not have to look at any T6 faction vessel that I find ugly. And there are a LOT of ugly as sin T6's out there, especially on the Federation side, that I find downright hideous and if I weren't already refusing to buy because of the Delta Rising debacle, I would have refused to buy simply on the grounds of their horrifyingly ugly appearance. The way my aesthetic sense goes, I'd rather look at my Dromias, which to me is true to the Undine and how they would design ships, than look at the horror that is an Intel ship. I'd even rather look at a Herald ship--disjointed parts and all--than an Intel ship.
And that illustrates why this idea of hiding from the ships one doesn't like really breaks down. At this point you'd pretty much have to create a checkbox system wherein each user would have to go through and check or uncheck each and every ship model they do or do not want to see, in order to suit everyone's tastes. That seems pretty silly to me. I don't need to be protected from someone's Intel ship to keep playing the game. And I don't feel like the people that went out and bought an Intel ship did it with the intention of annoying me. Maybe they really liked the stats. Maybe they disagree with my aesthetic preferences and they like the way it looks. That's OK, that's up to them. I don't need to knock them for it.
I can even take it one further. If someone wants to make the canon argument, then my comment to that becomes, exactly what's not canon about me flying my Galor into DS9? How many times did we see that exact shot in the show? You can easily pretend my character is a visiting gul from the Cardassian Union--and guess what, I do indeed play that character as a dual-commissioned Starfleet and CDF officer who has every right to be flying that ship as its gul. Maybe I should say the anti-lockbox-ship people shouldn't be allowed to "ban" my Galor for that reason? Because it's canon?
This is where I think it gets back to just turning one's camera or navigating elsewhere if my ship is that unpleasant to someone's eyes. I'm not going to tell people they're not allowed to buy and fly Intel ships even though I think they're a hideous design the Federation would never do. I am not going to tell that person to leave my instance, and I surely am not going to mess them up because they brought one of those ships into an STF or other group battle like I hear people say they'll do to people who fly lock box ships. I can suck it up and be a team player long enough to finish the queue and I would expect others to do the same favor in return.
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I guess it would be a nice feature to be able to hide non-faction ships in shared areas. If you combined that with private grouping instead of PUGs you'd never need to see these ships (and Xindi, Jem'Hadar, etc.) except when you need to PUG an event like Crystalline Catastrophe.
I am not sure how that would work out in functional terms. Not only does it sound like a coding nightmare, but where do you draw the line? That could become very arbitrary. What about the person with a Mirror ship who reskinned it to look totally fed? What about the person with an alien-gen Cardassian (which you can't even detect by ANY kind of code) who flies a Cardassian ship? Or other things?
To me, that just doesn't seem feasible.
It's actually pretty feasible, but it will fry toasters and mid-range non-gaming PCs due to the clientside-calculations. The tech is in-game already.
Do you recall those Hologram Emitters that change a ship's appearance? Just reuse those, but on a mass-scale, and without the hologram effect.
The hologram effect is very different - it affects every player the same. You see the holographic ship, as does everyone else looking at your ship.
That Cryptic can change costumes for characters is nothing new. But being able to do it selectively on a player by player basis, I think that technology exists nowhere. The only thing they can do is make things invisible to some players but visible to others, like it happens with cloak. But not showing something and showing something different are two separate things.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Heh.... faction-specific stuff is not lock-box. Except the temporal destroyers.
Also these ships are not actual copies of the originals, they're cheap knock-offs built by reverse engineering Herald tech.
With the Romulan expansion, they really did put so much effort into things...
Creating Romulan and Klingon variants of the Temporal Science and Destroyer for each faction, with unique designs. My only bugaboo was that the Romulan version didn't come with a Singularity Core and both with cloaks. They could have dropped the stats or done something to make them each special.
Every ship since however...maybe because none have been canon, are just very vanilla in comparison.
Personally i would be fine with owning a borg cube but i think people might complain about how big it is since cubes dwarf all the current big ships in size xP
Personally i would be fine with owning a borg cube but i think people might complain about how big it is since cubes dwarf all the current big ships in size xP
Maybe a Sphere or a Probe. Co-Operative with limitations, so people won't moan...and oh, but how it would be fun for a ship interior to be Borg and have drones all around you.
So the next lock box ships are herald ones. Now to get something straight from the beginning i am totally fine with them being lock box ships. Cryptic needs to earn some money....sad truth is this game currently only stands because of the massive new ship spam sales else it would slowly decay... The thing is this new herald ships break the immersion, break the story and feel of star trek. Some say that already happened when you could fly undine and tholian ship...eh not really while totally alien to the alliance it wasn't so crowded with exotic ships and we could argue that iconians with heralds play a pivotal role in STO so these new ships have a bigger impact.
But now we get this...Hey Johny lets play the iconian arc you know the story cryptic has been preparing us for 5 years almost all mission leading to this moment. Sure says Johny let me bring my Herald Quas Flight Deck Cruiser or my Herald Baltim Heavy Raider or my Herald Vonph Dreadnought Carrier....WAIT WHAT ? You just thrown the mystery, the fear and the soul of iconians and herlads down the toilet. Now they are just some generic cookie cutter enemy, everyone can fly their ships now...even a drunk klingon who had to much blood wine can.
You could say ahhh this is nothing, it doesn't matter at all, but lets think deeper, a lot deeper..... You sure can like both space and ground combat like me but let me throw you out something, there are single and multi player games which have superior combat out there....but HEY ! why are you playing this game then...Simple because it has the star trek feel, the star trek mythos...flying iconic ships, relive the moments similar to the series.....And this lock box thing doesn't help that really. Whats next...a playable Vger...borg lock box.....OW NO. Imagine a scenario were an enlightened, kind federation captain (we will call him Johny again), flies to a colony in need of some supplies....IN A BORG CUBE causing a mass hysteria on the colony and he beams down and says, relax guys its just my new RAD cube check it out its shiny.... Hey Steven beam down the supplies... and then 50 borg drones materialize and star to asimilate the planet...ooops sorry captain wrong cargo...but hey we still got our RAD CUBE..whatever.
Sad thing is this could have been easily avoided, instead of exact looking ships we could have gotten 3 ships... an escort a sci ship and a cruiser or dreadnought or carrier that has the look of the alliance (fed, kling and rom) combined with some herald designs. But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already in game just some tweaking to the already existing models and voila new ships to sell...What does that spell for us if the developer is that lazy...bad things ? (ADMIRALTY SYSTEM...OUCH) for the future content that emphasizes on exploration...WELL I HOPE NOT.
What are your opinions on this matter? Does it bother you or not, and why? Have a nice day.
Since you asked for thoughts and what not OP I'm going to be very blunt with you and straight forward as to how I see it. Keep in mind despite my tone throughout I am not angry or anything of the such, but have dealt with far too many arguments like this.
For the whole immersion thing, it honestly doesn't break the immersion for me at all. Arguments based on immersion are always VERY subjective and are always baseless as they can never be proven or disproven. You as the OP may consider the new Herald stuff as something that breaks immersion where as I don't. I consider those ships as being something that was reverse engineered from what tech we were able to capture during the war. That or perhaps the Iconians gave us some resources to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up. There's a ton of different ways you can spin it story wise to make it fit for yourself. What one person considers immersive or breaking immersion, another person next to him may not. Arguments based on immersion are not valid arguments to bring to the table in a case such as this other than providing opinion. I for example should not be restricted from flying a Herald ship simply because YOU think it breaks YOUR immersion.
Your argument based on immersion was one of the same arguments that was used to try to restrict flying over on WoW. I'll tell you the same thing I told them. This game does not revolve around you and I play this game strictly for myself and to chill with the friends I have made online. I do not owe you any explanation of how I choose to play my toons or why I picked the ship for them I did. I earned the ships and equipment I have by hard work and a little cash in some cases. You're not owed it by me or anyone else to give up the ability to the fly the Herald ships should I obtain one simply because it ruins YOUR immersion. If your ability to play the game is so badly ruined by me choosing to fly a Herald ship instead of a non-iconian ship like yours, then you have more problems than just "ruined immersion." You are not owed it by me or anyone else in this game to fly non-Iconian ships to satisfy YOUR immersion nor should I have to give up the ability to use something simply because you don't like it, when it effects you in literally no way. Further your solution to not liking the Herald ships is already in game, don't fly the ship. I personally am not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships in game but I'm not out here suggesting they shouldn't be allowed to exist in game.
As to your arguments of science specific, tac specific and so on now. It takes a ton of work to create something in game. especially something that people can use. I myself am a small time modder for older games. For some of the missions I created in older games I have 20 hours+ in just getting the map setup how I wanted. That's not counting the some 15+ hours into setting up the logic and all of those things behind the scenes that make the mission tick. It's much easier for them to just program a ship and give it a versatile and adaptable layout than it is to make multiple versions of the same ship. Yes i agree it would be cool to have sci specific, tac specific, and so on of the Herald ships or whatever other ships you can think of, but I understand why sometimes they don't do it like that.
Overall I feel that you're overreacting to the Herald ships without even giving them a chance. I myself originally was not a fan of the Guardian Cruiser. Once I picked up the ship and actually flew it, now I consider it one of my favorite in game ships.
While i agree with your part of how hard is it to make new ships and models or in this case hybrids the other part of your post is bonkers to me. Where did you see at any point that i am forbidding or actively
encouraging people not to fly what they like... even herald ships? You missed the train sorry. I wouldn ever tell other people how to play the game. This is not a post for boycotting cryptic or telling people to stop playing the game or how to play the game, its a genuine concern on the fact that crpytic is doing this even though how big of a role the iconians and the heralds are playing in their game. Herald ships are coming that a fact to me... i am not trying to remove them howerver whe coudl have gottne something completely different and more story related like hybrids but whatever. I am glad you mentioned the adapted battlecruiser, its 100% more logical to be in the players hands then the herald ships. We see its slow development, we see it in the story and guess what its a hybrid of rom and borg technology not like..A CUBE which could have happened in its place... Considering romulan republic is ally to both kling and fed and they would know many things already about the ship considering its mostly rom tech, its feasible they could recreate it for other people... I am happy that you like the guardian but i am not complaining about the playability, power or usefulness of the herald ships, but their relation to the story. And while your argument about how hard is it to make new ships can hold a little water you cant apply it here. There are indie games which take months or years to complete and cost less then 1 ship here. Its not like making new unique ships for cryptic is some unreachable wall, they did them multiple times in this case it simply because models were already there and it was a quick solution to get new ships in the game not some huge inability to make unique ships...
First I would say, don't ask for opinions if you don't want people to actually tell you what they think or be blunt. that's what I have done here is I was very blunt on what I see. Getting into your post now.
This is a huge back peddle on your part. You say you understand that it can take awhile to get stuff put into the game when it comes to ships and you agree with me on that. I don't think you really do understand what all goes into making things such as a ship or even a map. Some of my most basic maps that I created could take a bare minimum of 15 hours. When you're designing something with a game there's a few questions that you must answer. In terms of a level or mission you must answer: why would I ever go there? If you can't give a reason for someone to go to your level or run that mission then you can't expect anyone else to do so either. When placing items or creating them you must answer: why would I ever use this? If you can't give a good reason for someone to use it, then why would anyone else. In terms of ships one thing that I would ask if I were given the task to design a ship by Cryptic: why this particular boff layout? In other words why would I give the ship the particular layout I did. Do I intend the ship to be a universal useable by everyone, just a generic layout, or more specialized. You want it to be good, but you don't want it to be stupid op either.
You base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. What you consider immersive is not necessarily what I or someone else consider immersive, thus it's subjective. It can't be proven or disproven thus is not a valid argument to utilize. I personally don't see the Herald ships as taking the mystery or fear of the Iconians away. To use that argument as you have is like saying that, the prime universe ships we fly takes away the fear, threat, and mystery of the mirror universe. The Iconians are no less of a threat simply because someone flies one of their ships against them. The Elachi were no less of a threat simply because we flew the Obelisk carrier against them in a mission. You can spin the Herald ships in a number of ways as I said previously. You can say that they were reverse engineered, gifted by the Iconians to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up, or even super old versions of the ships that were left behind during the original bombardment and we recovered. In terms of the Borg cube argument you made, in the lore you have the Borg cooperative and many Borg who broke free from the collective that retained control of their Borg ships. So for all that colony knows they're dealing with the cooperative.
In your last paragraph of your first post you go on to say that "Sad thing is this could have easily been avoided" which means that they didn't need to do it the way they did. You assume as well because they didn't give us a sci ship, escort, and so on in the style of the alliance ships that it makes the devs lazy. Each time we've defeated a major power in game, Elachi, Cardassians, Voth, Vaadwaur and so on, we've gotten a box themed after them, yet NOW you choose to speak up about it. By the logic you're using we shouldn't be able to fly bioships, yet it's made clear that bioships are living organisms with minds of their own even if simplistic. The ships could simply agree to work with us, much how the giant bioship helping Cooper chose not invade and killed him. It's the epitome of arrogance to assume that the dev's are lazy because they didn't do it the way YOU think they should have. It's one thing to believe something is lazy and state it as opinion, but you stated it as fact. "But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already existing models and viola new ships to sell... What does this spell for us if the developer is that lazy... bad things?" Those are your own words where you call the devs lazy. We've always had lockboxes made after major powers we've beaten, this is no different, yet suddenly you just NOW have an issue with it. You also go on to bash the admirality system in the same paragraph.
If you don't like the ships I get it, I'm not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships, yet I'm not calling it lazy on the part of the devs for creating those ships as you have for them with the Herald ships. It's the epitome of self-entitlement thinking the way you stated. You say this could have been avoided, yet in this new post say that you're not wanting it restricted or complaining, but "showing concern." You present what you said as a matter of fact and not opinion. Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
You wanted thoughts on this, which is what I have given you.
I did want opinions but you didnt gave one. You were blunt to parts that weren't in my post that's a big difference...I don't need someone to make up words and then give opinion on them and call them my words.. You were blunt on the parts that werent even included in my post about saying what people should do or not. Again you also make it sound that putting a new model of ship is something so unbelievable, something almost impossible ? Its their job to do it they work for that, ofc it takes effort, cutting down trees takes also, would you believe that ? Again because you poorly read my post i will spell it out for you why i am bothered now and not before its simply because how the iconians are portrayed in the story and STO as whole, if they were a minor race or barely noticeable it wouldn't be such a problem... Nowhere did i say people should stop flying those ship or lose them again something you made out of thin air. I did rise my not liking of current phase of Admirality system but no where did i bash it so please show me my post of bashing it..and good luck finding it because it doesn't exist.... The only thing that you read properly is that i called them lazy and that is true. They had the choice to do hybrid ships...thats a fact not an opinion...the choice was there, and i said could not that they should, should have or had to do it my way...
You call me self-entitled yet you post the following words in your post: you base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. AND Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
While i agree on the subjective part the other parts make you a nice hypocrite. Some people stated same concerns then me in the same post, stated their reasons etc and YOU call that baseless and irrelevant...funny mr. president.
Please before you respond to my post again dont make words up..No one has called me out on me denying them flying their ships, doing what they want, me telling them how to play and you know why...because its nowhere in my post you just made it out so you can be...blunt? And why would you even respond to me or people who feel the same after all by your very objective post (that makes stuff up about what other people say...) its baseless and irrelevant...
I did give you an opinion, I gave you one saying that no, having Iconian ships does not bother me or break immersion for me. I also gave opinions on your other points you made. I told you that I think it would be cool to have sci, tac and eng versions of the ships. Development concerns and the difficulty of development, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not are valid concerns. You assume that there is a one size fits all approach to game development with your point in indie-games when that's purely not so. Indie-games are typically not multi-million dollar mmos. programming things are not always as simple as flipping switches.
I've not made anything up save going off your own words. I get the fact you feel that it breaks immersion, and that's cool if that's what you believe. I however do not agree with your logic behind some of your points and have been blunt about that since you asked for opinions on the matter. You would've liked a different look and so on for the ships and I get that, however that's not what we got.
By your very own logic of it not being a problem if they were a minor race, you should have spoken up LONG before now. The Elachi are a major race and in fact were encountered in Enterprise. No we didn't know much about them before the timeline of the game, but it still does not change the fact of them being a major race. The Vaadwaur are also a major race. yes their numbers were more populace during the time of their empire 1,000 years ago, but again they are still a major race. The Dominion are another major race as well, technically 3 if you count the Jem'hadar, Vorta, and Changelings as individual races. The Benthans are also a major race as are the Malon, and similar Delta Quadrant races. The Tholians are a major race as well. All of those are major races that each have their ships implemented into lockboxes and lobi in some cases. By your own logic these races having their ships in game to be player controlled should be a problem as well, yet you're just now speaking up and don't seem to have an issue with those races. By your own logic it makes no sense and is a double standard since you don't seem to have a problem with those other races. It's a straight forward question, why is this particular race, and not any of the other major races just now an issue.
I called your way of thinking self-entitled because that's what I see. You call it lazy because the devs put the actual Herald ships into the game for players to control, instead of making all new pseudo-Herald ships in the theme of the alliance races, Fed Kdf and Romulan. You call it lazy because they didn't do it the way YOU wanted them to do it, and yes that is self-entitlement. You also bash the Admirality system when you don't even know if it's going to get expanded on or what Cryptic's intentions are for exploration. yes that is self-entitlement when you call that lazy. There are other folks in this game that actually will enjoy the Hereald ships, myself included if/when I pick one up. I've always wanted to see the Iconians since they were first talked about in TNG, and now the possibility of actually flying an Iconian ship is epicness to me.
Cryptic could make every ship a hybrid from now until the end of time, but the fact is they're not going to do that. Not every ship needs to be a hybrid nor should it be. You're correct factually that they could have made the ships be hybrids, but that's it, they're not obligated to do so.
If calling your post like I see it and addressing the self-entitlement in calling the the devs lazy makes me a hyporcite then so be it. immersion is based purely on the player and is not something that Cryptic can truthfully take into account when developing something. People will either consider it immersive or they won't. You see it as an issue, but I don't. You can say all day long that you didn't bash on the ships but you did even if you didn't come out and say it. There are already solutions to your concerns in game yet you simply choose not to use them. Part of a game is being able to use your imagination with it as well. Imagine different scenarios in which the Iconian ships make sense.
You asked for opinions and that's what I gave you. Because you asked for opinions I gave you the courtesy of giving you an honest response about what I see. If you agree with me then cool, if not that's cool to. I've given you my thoughts and opinions to do with what you will.
You gave your opinion and those facts yes and i respect that... and also gave an opinion on made up words, that didnt come from me... It does make you hypocrite first calling one self-entitled and then proceed to be just the same in your post. You see it as an issue, but I don't. You can say all day long that you didn't bash on the ships but you did even if you didn't come out and say it. You see? what i mean about making up words...so you somehow know what i think and mean even if i didnt write and i myself dont know it...this just makes you loose respect...how can i take your post seriously or even correctly reply to your post if you make words up...and its disrespectful to me calling something out on me while its not in my post..again your are doing the same stuff, making up words and then replying to them.
Cryptic could make every ship a hybrid from now until the end of time, but the fact is they're not going to do that. Not every ship needs to be a hybrid nor should it be I agree so please show me my post which states they should make only hybrids from now on.... And bashing the admirality system with these words OUCH ADMIRALITY SYSTEM..wow this must be a new record for bashing in such few words i am proud of myself. And something else, critics and reviewers criticize or bash a game even after it may get patches or dlc or expansion, those are either looked at sepertly or in a new review for the entire collection . By your logic when the admirality system comes out a person who would criticize it would be in the wrong beacuse...cryptic may expand it...you are so wrong. Its completely normal to either bash or criticize the current system that is available or in construction, until ofc changes come and if they come. By your logic there wouldnt be any reviews, critics until the game is fully finished with all patches, all expansions and dlc and when the producer says that this is the final product...no it doesnt run like that in this world..unless you are from an alternate reality... Considering you know so much of the process of making new ship models and cryptic as whole in your objective please do state some facts to me and the curious rest about their processes, how many people are working on models, how are they designing new ships, available resources cryptic can muster for making new ships, their thought process, how many people are working on different ships and parts of the game, crpytics income from STO...if not i stand by my as you say baseless post about making new models...
While those races you mentioned can be classified as major race they come no where near iconian level in terms of story in this game. Crpytic crafted iconians purposefully through multiple story arc, making them look like the biggest baddest meanest threat. That was all done by cryptic so they can do a full reverse in midnight on their race. So in this game they are the alpha major race of antagonist hence the biggest impact on me. Also i dont totally agree with your post that the immersion is 100% subjective, while it is the majority, carefully crafting and making story in the star trek mythos by the developers does help or enchance your immersion, by how much depends on the person really. I know that they are folks here who will envoy the ships..they replied to me and i to them...nowhere did i deny them that pleasure...
Personally i would be fine with owning a borg cube but i think people might complain about how big it is since cubes dwarf all the current big ships in size xP
Maybe a Sphere or a Probe. Co-Operative with limitations, so people won't moan...and oh, but how it would be fun for a ship interior to be Borg and have drones all around you.
Asthetically that would be very interesting even with the limitations of being only a sphere or probe.
Now, when it comes to immersion, my Cardassian has a Galor but as far as I'm concerned, because he's a dual-commissioned exchange officer, he has EVERY possible excuse to have access to that ship. It will be the same if a Cardassian uniform ever comes out...he has every right to that uniform.
I sort of do the same thing with my own toons. I tend to play Aenar (with the understanding that not all Aenar are strict pacifists). But given that the Aenar are reclusive, and the Andorians have been attempting rapprochement since Shran's time, the Imperial Guard _and_ Starfleet were both very keen on recruiting any Aenar that show the inclination for training.
The Imperial Guard simply noticed me first. That said, Starfleet was still eager to shove me into any leadership role I turned out to be suited for, and the I.G. were happy to provide as much support as they could (by providing, from their own ranks, an experienced core for my own crew.)
So yeah, as you say, my dress uniform (veteran's coat in red with white pants) and ground BDUs (based mostly on very recolored Jem Hadar gear) are styled to (what I imagine as) the I.G. code, whereas my flight gear (enterprise pants with Sierra 2 coat, enterprise and fleet shoulder patches) is more influenced by Starfleet (and Top Gun, if I'm honest.)
It's actually pretty feasible, but it will fry toasters and mid-range non-gaming PCs due to the clientside-calculations. The tech is in-game already.
Nah, computationally, it's adding a single if statement and a non-time-sensitive query result which is small enough to be stored locally. The if statement would add load if it has to be added to a critical loop, but that's probably avoidable, too.
Server says:
You see a ship at [actualmodel, immersionmodel, x, y, z, orientation].
If immersion is off, drawmodel := actualmodel
else /* If immersion is on */ drawmodel := immersionmodel
/* later */
draw(drawmodel, x, y, z, orientation)
If this is something the devs would be interested in doing (I don't really see why they would or should be), the client-side footprint would be minimal.
I guess I'm in the 'yeah the iconian ships will be as distracting as the undine and jem hadar ships were/are, but it'll pass quickly enough that I'm not especially fussed about it'.
Cryptic mind as well release the Borg lockbox now. If we can salvage Iconian tech, why not Borg tech?
I suppose the sole objection now is that Herald tech is not likely to multiply out of control and steal your free will on the slightest misstep (we seem to be much better able to counter Iconian viral probes than in TNG days).
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Cryptic mind as well release the Borg lockbox now. If we can salvage Iconian tech, why not Borg tech?
I suppose the sole objection now is that Herald tech is not likely to multiply out of control and steal your free will on the slightest misstep (we seem to be much better able to counter Iconian viral probes than in TNG days).
Yes. Between the space wizards and the space zombies, I'd pick wizard tech, too. It may be weird, but it's significantly less likely to eat you.
You gave your opinion and those facts yes and i respect that... and also gave an opinion on made up words, that didnt come from me... It does make you hypocrite first calling one self-entitled and then proceed to be just the same in your post. You see it as an issue, but I don't. You can say all day long that you didn't bash on the ships but you did even if you didn't come out and say it. You see? what i mean about making up words...so you somehow know what i think and mean even if i didnt write and i myself dont know it...this just makes you loose respect...how can i take your post seriously or even correctly reply to your post if you make words up...and its disrespectful to me calling something out on me while its not in my post..again your are doing the same stuff, making up words and then replying to them.
Cryptic could make every ship a hybrid from now until the end of time, but the fact is they're not going to do that. Not every ship needs to be a hybrid nor should it be I agree so please show me my post which states they should make only hybrids from now on.... And bashing the admirality system with these words OUCH ADMIRALITY SYSTEM..wow this must be a new record for bashing in such few words i am proud of myself. And something else, critics and reviewers criticize or bash a game even after it may get patches or dlc or expansion, those are either looked at sepertly or in a new review for the entire collection . By your logic when the admirality system comes out a person who would criticize it would be in the wrong beacuse...cryptic may expand it...you are so wrong. Its completely normal to either bash or criticize the current system that is available or in construction, until ofc changes come and if they come. By your logic there wouldnt be any reviews, critics until the game is fully finished with all patches, all expansions and dlc and when the producer says that this is the final product...no it doesnt run like that in this world..unless you are from an alternate reality... Considering you know so much of the process of making new ship models and cryptic as whole in your objective please do state some facts to me and the curious rest about their processes, how many people are working on models, how are they designing new ships, available resources cryptic can muster for making new ships, their thought process, how many people are working on different ships and parts of the game, crpytics income from STO...if not i stand by my as you say baseless post about making new models...
While those races you mentioned can be classified as major race they come no where near iconian level in terms of story in this game. Crpytic crafted iconians purposefully through multiple story arc, making them look like the biggest baddest meanest threat. That was all done by cryptic so they can do a full reverse in midnight on their race. So in this game they are the alpha major race of antagonist hence the biggest impact on me. Also i dont totally agree with your post that the immersion is 100% subjective, while it is the majority, carefully crafting and making story in the star trek mythos by the developers does help or enchance your immersion, by how much depends on the person really. I know that they are folks here who will envoy the ships..they replied to me and i to them...nowhere did i deny them that pleasure...
First off you bashed the devs in your original post in this thread because they used the actual Herald ships instead of Herald inspired Fed KDF and Romulan ships. You called them lazy because they didn't make the ships as hybrids and so on. In other words because they didn't do it the way YOU think it should have been done you call them lazy. Now when I've called shenanigans on that logic and pointed out that logic for being self-entitled, you've been trying to back peddle ever since. In your first post to me you say "Herald ships are coming that a fact to me... i am not trying to remove them however we could have gotten something completely different and more story related like hybrids but whatever." Those are you own words where once again you bash on us having not gotten hybrids. The fact is there is a ton of different candidates they could have given at any point during the game, such as the Undine dreadnaught with the Undine box, the Sheshar Dread could have been a lockbox ship but was made into a promo, and they could have made hybrids of Iconian and Alliance design. Also in your first post to me you assumed that simply because some indie-games made new models for their games that this means Crytpic should have to do it each time as well. What one game chooses to do, does NOT mean that another game must do the same thing. Bottom line, could they have made all new models and so on, yes they could have. The truth is though that they chose to use the actual Herald ships and you need to just get over it because it's not going to change now.
For the Admirality system I criticized your point on that because you're equating that as being the only thing we're getting exploration wise when you clearly can't know that. You bashed the Admirality system based on something that you assumed (it's the only exploration we get) and have no evidence to prove. To even equate my criticism of your Admirality comments as meaning that you wouldn't be able to criticize a game at all you're really grasping at straws. You can criticize something you don't like about Admirality and even the system itself all day long. However when you bash it in the manor you did by assuming it's all we're getting for exploration, when you know good and well that's never been said, you lose credibility and makes it look like you just want something to complain about. Also, nowhere anywhere have I said I know everything that goes on at Cryptic or even remotely on those lines. Now you are grasping at straws with that comment line. No I don't know everything that they do behind the scenes (which is quite alot) nor have I claimed to. However I have created several mods throughout my gaming career which includes full on missions, and maps, several of which were recommended by the companies themselves that made the games. I also have essentially modified an older Star Trek rts and rebalanced it, added new factions to it, and even have been working on my own custom faction for the game for several years now. No I don't know everything that goes on behind the scenes at Cryptic nor have I claimed to. No I haven't worked on anything as major as a mmo like this game, but I know a bit about what goes on behind the scenes of a game that makes it tic and more experience with it than you think I do.
Part of immersion and watching movies, playing games, and so on is the ability to suspend unbelief. In other words, can you look at something and hear the story behind it and believe it is what they say it is, such as an alien on screen, even if you can clearly see the actor/actress features. Can you in an instance like that believe they're supposed to be an alien? The more you can suspend your own unbelief, the more into the story you can get. Simply because a power such as the Dominion, Vaadwaur, Elachi, or other such power doesn't get much attention story wise, does not mean they're any less of a major power. For example we've had no attention given to the Kelvins from the Andromeda galaxy yet we know they're a major power that has interacted with us before.
This is where we get into the realm of opinion and you can't prove or disprove anything as it has no logical base. You say to you that the way the final episode Midnight made them less mean, threatening and so on. That's your prerogative if you feel that way. The Iconians were no less of a threat simply because now we knew the reason behind why they're the way they are. Immersion is indeed 100% on the person whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. You say you don't agree with that and the devs can add in things to assist with immersion. Yet you contradict that when you say "by how much depends on the person really." What you fail to see is what you consider immersive and what someone else considers immersive may be 2 completely different things. For example I consider Admirality as something that gets me more immersed in the fact that I actually am a fleet admiral in terms of game rank. You on the other hand may not consider it as such. Thus it's 100% subjective. Immersion by nature is also how well one can integrate themselves into the story of what's going on. Simply because you may not be able to immerse yourself because of something doesn't mean there is on one out there who can't. I myself could not get into the Twilight movies and books. I thought they were very cheesy and poorly written and were an insult to the classics like Brom Stoker's Dracula. Obviously there were people who disagree with me and could get into the story. Thus what ruined immersion for me in the case of Twilight did not ruin it for everyone else. immersion is what you make of it, nothing more, nothing less.
Something as subjective as immersion is not a valid point to bring up in a debate as you have. You bashing the ships and the devs is based on personal opinion only. I also noticed by reading some of the other posts in here that I'm not the only one who has criticized your logic on these things. I'm not the only one who has called out your logic of just NOW speaking up and just NOW having an issue with the Iconian ships, but not the other major powers we have access to such as the Undine. No matter how you look at it and if you choose to acknowledge it or not, you have a huge double standard here.
With all of that said, I get it, you think they should have done something different, and that's cool. you're entitled to your opinion. The fact that you've went on to call it lazy and saying that this whole thing could have been avoided had they just made hybrids, still to me demonstrates self-entitlement. You are not owed it to not have your immersion broken. You also do not have a right to not be offended or what have you, but someone flying a ship you don't like. I and others do not play this game for you, nor do we or cryptic owe it to you to do things the way YOU think they should have been done. bashing the devs because they didn't give you the hybrids you wanted and calling them lazy, I'm sorry (not really), is self entitled thinking.
You can deny and try to back peddle all you wish as you've tried to do, but it makes no difference. your words are there in black and white for people to read. if you try to edit the posts to say something else it's going to show up and people will know you tried to change it. bottom line, they didn't do it the way you wanted and you called them lazy. they're not going to change their minds now, so as I said above, you need to get over it and move on. you might convince them to do more ships in the future, but right now this is what you have to work with.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Comments
While i agree with your part of how hard is it to make new ships and models or in this case hybrids the other part of your post is bonkers to me. Where did you see at any point that i am forbidding or actively
encouraging people not to fly what they like... even herald ships? You missed the train sorry. I wouldn ever tell other people how to play the game. This is not a post for boycotting cryptic or telling people to stop playing the game or how to play the game, its a genuine concern on the fact that crpytic is doing this even though how big of a role the iconians and the heralds are playing in their game. Herald ships are coming that a fact to me... i am not trying to remove them howerver whe coudl have gottne something completely different and more story related like hybrids but whatever. I am glad you mentioned the adapted battlecruiser, its 100% more logical to be in the players hands then the herald ships. We see its slow development, we see it in the story and guess what its a hybrid of rom and borg technology not like..A CUBE which could have happened in its place... Considering romulan republic is ally to both kling and fed and they would know many things already about the ship considering its mostly rom tech, its feasible they could recreate it for other people... I am happy that you like the guardian but i am not complaining about the playability, power or usefulness of the herald ships, but their relation to the story. And while your argument about how hard is it to make new ships can hold a little water you cant apply it here. There are indie games which take months or years to complete and cost less then 1 ship here. Its not like making new unique ships for cryptic is some unreachable wall, they did them multiple times in this case it simply because models were already there and it was a quick solution to get new ships in the game not some huge inability to make unique ships...
Perhaps thats true or not, kinda makes me sad then this is only a small facade of star trek and a lot of average mmo with bugs which will be the same for the foreseeable future..well i hope not i guess each must answer to himself why is he or she playing the game.
I know right if you are a murder why change ? Or jebus forbid having branching options and storyline if crpytic would put that in the WHOLE UNIVERSE WOULD EXPLODE...so better not, better just to shoot i guess.
Actually it never did seem to me that the Iconian weapons and ships were exceedingly powerful. They were just strong, but we obviously beat them in conventional battles. The problem was their gateway technology, which allowed them to maneuver huge fleets at a whim so it was impossible for us to control where and when they would attack. We could only always react to their attacks. And the other advantage was the sheer size of their fleet. (Allededly blocking out a sun).
There was even a point (Butterfly episode) made that merely delaying the Iconian assault for a while could allow us to beat them - because their technology did not advance anywhere as fast as ours. (They had 200,000 years to build their forces, and we already had ships capable of engaging theirs in toe-to-toe combat after mere 300 years of warp flight.)
If by "engaging toe-to-toe" you mean "curbstomping into next week," then yes.
The problem was mission script saying "they're too powerful we have to retreat" after we're done with said curbstomping.
I think the Iconian War handled that overall better than the Jem'Hadar/Dominion arc. When the Jem'Hadar fleet came through the wormhole to attack DS9, not only did I curbstomp them, there was nowhere a sign of urgency in the game.
During the Iconian War, they had background canvas showing lots of ships and even untargetable fleets engaged in combat. And the fleet that headed towards the Herald Sphere was decidedly larger than the ship that got back. And I did miss part of the space combat because I was boarding an Iconian flagship - so I probably missed a lot of the counter-curbstomping.
And overall, in the Iconian War I knew that my personal fight might be going well -but I can't be everywhere. But the Iconians can be.
First I would say, don't ask for opinions if you don't want people to actually tell you what they think or be blunt. that's what I have done here is I was very blunt on what I see. Getting into your post now.
This is a huge back peddle on your part. You say you understand that it can take awhile to get stuff put into the game when it comes to ships and you agree with me on that. I don't think you really do understand what all goes into making things such as a ship or even a map. Some of my most basic maps that I created could take a bare minimum of 15 hours. When you're designing something with a game there's a few questions that you must answer. In terms of a level or mission you must answer: why would I ever go there? If you can't give a reason for someone to go to your level or run that mission then you can't expect anyone else to do so either. When placing items or creating them you must answer: why would I ever use this? If you can't give a good reason for someone to use it, then why would anyone else. In terms of ships one thing that I would ask if I were given the task to design a ship by Cryptic: why this particular boff layout? In other words why would I give the ship the particular layout I did. Do I intend the ship to be a universal useable by everyone, just a generic layout, or more specialized. You want it to be good, but you don't want it to be stupid op either.
You base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. What you consider immersive is not necessarily what I or someone else consider immersive, thus it's subjective. It can't be proven or disproven thus is not a valid argument to utilize. I personally don't see the Herald ships as taking the mystery or fear of the Iconians away. To use that argument as you have is like saying that, the prime universe ships we fly takes away the fear, threat, and mystery of the mirror universe. The Iconians are no less of a threat simply because someone flies one of their ships against them. The Elachi were no less of a threat simply because we flew the Obelisk carrier against them in a mission. You can spin the Herald ships in a number of ways as I said previously. You can say that they were reverse engineered, gifted by the Iconians to make restitution for their TRIBBLE up, or even super old versions of the ships that were left behind during the original bombardment and we recovered. In terms of the Borg cube argument you made, in the lore you have the Borg cooperative and many Borg who broke free from the collective that retained control of their Borg ships. So for all that colony knows they're dealing with the cooperative.
In your last paragraph of your first post you go on to say that "Sad thing is this could have easily been avoided" which means that they didn't need to do it the way they did. You assume as well because they didn't give us a sci ship, escort, and so on in the style of the alliance ships that it makes the devs lazy. Each time we've defeated a major power in game, Elachi, Cardassians, Voth, Vaadwaur and so on, we've gotten a box themed after them, yet NOW you choose to speak up about it. By the logic you're using we shouldn't be able to fly bioships, yet it's made clear that bioships are living organisms with minds of their own even if simplistic. The ships could simply agree to work with us, much how the giant bioship helping Cooper chose not invade and killed him. It's the epitome of arrogance to assume that the dev's are lazy because they didn't do it the way YOU think they should have. It's one thing to believe something is lazy and state it as opinion, but you stated it as fact. "But we all know why we got same ships, because they were already existing models and viola new ships to sell... What does this spell for us if the developer is that lazy... bad things?" Those are your own words where you call the devs lazy. We've always had lockboxes made after major powers we've beaten, this is no different, yet suddenly you just NOW have an issue with it. You also go on to bash the admirality system in the same paragraph.
If you don't like the ships I get it, I'm not a fan of the Tal Shiar Adapted ships, yet I'm not calling it lazy on the part of the devs for creating those ships as you have for them with the Herald ships. It's the epitome of self-entitlement thinking the way you stated. You say this could have been avoided, yet in this new post say that you're not wanting it restricted or complaining, but "showing concern." You present what you said as a matter of fact and not opinion. Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
You wanted thoughts on this, which is what I have given you.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
True, but that then highlights the incredible power discrepancy between U.S.S. Player Character and every other ship out there. There is no plausible explanation for how the player can casually lay waste to entire fleets of Heralds while everone else dies (off-screen).
And in the earlier missions, there aren't even redshirts dying for show. You're alone or with some invincible named character ship(s), and the only reason you don't win is the script says no. Blood of Ancients was particularly obvious about it. You go from one encounter to the next, wipe the proverbial floor with some Heralds and then you're told you lose, go away. At least they had the good sense to make the dreadnought at the end immune to all damage, because it would've been embarrassing if players killed it before it got to shoot at the preserver base. And they would've.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Good Captains use whatever is at their disposal to fight the food fight.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
exactly. there's a million different ways to spin it. in fact derelicts are how we have the Jem'hadar ships we do currently. we found them adrift, the dominion didn't want them back so we kept them.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
I did want opinions but you didnt gave one. You were blunt to parts that weren't in my post that's a big difference...I don't need someone to make up words and then give opinion on them and call them my words.. You were blunt on the parts that werent even included in my post about saying what people should do or not. Again you also make it sound that putting a new model of ship is something so unbelievable, something almost impossible ? Its their job to do it they work for that, ofc it takes effort, cutting down trees takes also, would you believe that ? Again because you poorly read my post i will spell it out for you why i am bothered now and not before its simply because how the iconians are portrayed in the story and STO as whole, if they were a minor race or barely noticeable it wouldn't be such a problem... Nowhere did i say people should stop flying those ship or lose them again something you made out of thin air. I did rise my not liking of current phase of Admirality system but no where did i bash it so please show me my post of bashing it..and good luck finding it because it doesn't exist.... The only thing that you read properly is that i called them lazy and that is true. They had the choice to do hybrid ships...thats a fact not an opinion...the choice was there, and i said could not that they should, should have or had to do it my way...
You call me self-entitled yet you post the following words in your post: you base your points of concern/complaints on immersion, which is fine if you're strictly giving an opinion, but otherwise is completely baseless, subjective, and irrelevant. AND Immersion save for demonstrating one's own opinion, has NEVER been a valid reason to complain about something in a debate as you have started here.
While i agree on the subjective part the other parts make you a nice hypocrite. Some people stated same concerns then me in the same post, stated their reasons etc and YOU call that baseless and irrelevant...funny mr. president.
Please before you respond to my post again dont make words up..No one has called me out on me denying them flying their ships, doing what they want, me telling them how to play and you know why...because its nowhere in my post you just made it out so you can be...blunt? And why would you even respond to me or people who feel the same after all by your very objective post (that makes stuff up about what other people say...) its baseless and irrelevant...
That could be plausible, ofc if the iconinas who are now at peace with us didnt clear them up for multiple reasons but it is a possiblity i guess.
My character Tsin'xing
indeed, but it is clearly stated in the story written by Cryptic than the iconians don't share their technology. Maybe they should rewrite "Midnight" before the release of the Herald box
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I did give you an opinion, I gave you one saying that no, having Iconian ships does not bother me or break immersion for me. I also gave opinions on your other points you made. I told you that I think it would be cool to have sci, tac and eng versions of the ships. Development concerns and the difficulty of development, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not are valid concerns. You assume that there is a one size fits all approach to game development with your point in indie-games when that's purely not so. Indie-games are typically not multi-million dollar mmos. programming things are not always as simple as flipping switches.
I've not made anything up save going off your own words. I get the fact you feel that it breaks immersion, and that's cool if that's what you believe. I however do not agree with your logic behind some of your points and have been blunt about that since you asked for opinions on the matter. You would've liked a different look and so on for the ships and I get that, however that's not what we got.
By your very own logic of it not being a problem if they were a minor race, you should have spoken up LONG before now. The Elachi are a major race and in fact were encountered in Enterprise. No we didn't know much about them before the timeline of the game, but it still does not change the fact of them being a major race. The Vaadwaur are also a major race. yes their numbers were more populace during the time of their empire 1,000 years ago, but again they are still a major race. The Dominion are another major race as well, technically 3 if you count the Jem'hadar, Vorta, and Changelings as individual races. The Benthans are also a major race as are the Malon, and similar Delta Quadrant races. The Tholians are a major race as well. All of those are major races that each have their ships implemented into lockboxes and lobi in some cases. By your own logic these races having their ships in game to be player controlled should be a problem as well, yet you're just now speaking up and don't seem to have an issue with those races. By your own logic it makes no sense and is a double standard since you don't seem to have a problem with those other races. It's a straight forward question, why is this particular race, and not any of the other major races just now an issue.
I called your way of thinking self-entitled because that's what I see. You call it lazy because the devs put the actual Herald ships into the game for players to control, instead of making all new pseudo-Herald ships in the theme of the alliance races, Fed Kdf and Romulan. You call it lazy because they didn't do it the way YOU wanted them to do it, and yes that is self-entitlement. You also bash the Admirality system when you don't even know if it's going to get expanded on or what Cryptic's intentions are for exploration. yes that is self-entitlement when you call that lazy. There are other folks in this game that actually will enjoy the Hereald ships, myself included if/when I pick one up. I've always wanted to see the Iconians since they were first talked about in TNG, and now the possibility of actually flying an Iconian ship is epicness to me.
Cryptic could make every ship a hybrid from now until the end of time, but the fact is they're not going to do that. Not every ship needs to be a hybrid nor should it be. You're correct factually that they could have made the ships be hybrids, but that's it, they're not obligated to do so.
If calling your post like I see it and addressing the self-entitlement in calling the the devs lazy makes me a hyporcite then so be it. immersion is based purely on the player and is not something that Cryptic can truthfully take into account when developing something. People will either consider it immersive or they won't. You see it as an issue, but I don't. You can say all day long that you didn't bash on the ships but you did even if you didn't come out and say it. There are already solutions to your concerns in game yet you simply choose not to use them. Part of a game is being able to use your imagination with it as well. Imagine different scenarios in which the Iconian ships make sense.
You asked for opinions and that's what I gave you. Because you asked for opinions I gave you the courtesy of giving you an honest response about what I see. If you agree with me then cool, if not that's cool to. I've given you my thoughts and opinions to do with what you will.
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It's actually pretty feasible, but it will fry toasters and mid-range non-gaming PCs due to the clientside-calculations. The tech is in-game already.
Do you recall those Hologram Emitters that change a ship's appearance? Just reuse those, but on a mass-scale, and without the hologram effect.
Basically, in the UI Graphics settings, you can choose to activate Factional Immersion or Disable it. Activating it turns all non-Faction ships into the closest equivalent 2410 design, or the latest C-Store skin variant. What they turn into depend on the faction of the players. So Fed ships on Fed players, Rom ships on Rom Players, and KDF ships on KDF players.
For example for a Fed player hanging around ESD with Faction Immersion active:
Fed Romulans in non-faction ships appear in the nearest Warbird equivalent in 2410 skins or last-tier C-store skins.
Due to engine limitations, beams and torpedoes being fired are still that of the actual ship, whether it's pets or a player ship.
The tech is there, but it's up to Cryptic to implement it, and the players to upgrade their machines so that the clientside calculations can draw all non-Faction ships into standard Faction ships without lagging; especially when map-changing (as it doesn't keep a consistent faction ship assigned; if your teammate showed up as a Defiant in one map, they may show up as a Phantom in the next map).
And beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If those who don't like the non-faction ships get their button to put mine out of sight, then I should get a button to not have to look at any T6 faction vessel that I find ugly. And there are a LOT of ugly as sin T6's out there, especially on the Federation side, that I find downright hideous and if I weren't already refusing to buy because of the Delta Rising debacle, I would have refused to buy simply on the grounds of their horrifyingly ugly appearance. The way my aesthetic sense goes, I'd rather look at my Dromias, which to me is true to the Undine and how they would design ships, than look at the horror that is an Intel ship. I'd even rather look at a Herald ship--disjointed parts and all--than an Intel ship.
And that illustrates why this idea of hiding from the ships one doesn't like really breaks down. At this point you'd pretty much have to create a checkbox system wherein each user would have to go through and check or uncheck each and every ship model they do or do not want to see, in order to suit everyone's tastes. That seems pretty silly to me. I don't need to be protected from someone's Intel ship to keep playing the game. And I don't feel like the people that went out and bought an Intel ship did it with the intention of annoying me. Maybe they really liked the stats. Maybe they disagree with my aesthetic preferences and they like the way it looks. That's OK, that's up to them.
I can even take it one further. If someone wants to make the canon argument, then my comment to that becomes, exactly what's not canon about me flying my Galor into DS9? How many times did we see that exact shot in the show? You can easily pretend my character is a visiting gul from the Cardassian Union--and guess what, I do indeed play that character as a dual-commissioned Starfleet and CDF officer who has every right to be flying that ship as its gul. Maybe I should say the anti-lockbox-ship people shouldn't be allowed to "ban" my Galor for that reason? Because it's canon?
This is where I think it gets back to just turning one's camera or navigating elsewhere if my ship is that unpleasant to someone's eyes. I'm not going to tell people they're not allowed to buy and fly Intel ships even though I think they're a hideous design the Federation would never do. I am not going to tell that person to leave my instance, and I surely am not going to mess them up because they brought one of those ships into an STF or other group battle like I hear people say they'll do to people who fly lock box ships. I can suck it up and be a team player long enough to finish the queue and I would expect others to do the same favor in return.
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The hologram effect is very different - it affects every player the same. You see the holographic ship, as does everyone else looking at your ship.
That Cryptic can change costumes for characters is nothing new. But being able to do it selectively on a player by player basis, I think that technology exists nowhere. The only thing they can do is make things invisible to some players but visible to others, like it happens with cloak. But not showing something and showing something different are two separate things.
With the Romulan expansion, they really did put so much effort into things...
Creating Romulan and Klingon variants of the Temporal Science and Destroyer for each faction, with unique designs. My only bugaboo was that the Romulan version didn't come with a Singularity Core and both with cloaks. They could have dropped the stats or done something to make them each special.
Every ship since however...maybe because none have been canon, are just very vanilla in comparison.
Maybe a Sphere or a Probe. Co-Operative with limitations, so people won't moan...and oh, but how it would be fun for a ship interior to be Borg and have drones all around you.
You gave your opinion and those facts yes and i respect that... and also gave an opinion on made up words, that didnt come from me... It does make you hypocrite first calling one self-entitled and then proceed to be just the same in your post. You see it as an issue, but I don't. You can say all day long that you didn't bash on the ships but you did even if you didn't come out and say it. You see? what i mean about making up words...so you somehow know what i think and mean even if i didnt write and i myself dont know it...this just makes you loose respect...how can i take your post seriously or even correctly reply to your post if you make words up...and its disrespectful to me calling something out on me while its not in my post..again your are doing the same stuff, making up words and then replying to them.
Cryptic could make every ship a hybrid from now until the end of time, but the fact is they're not going to do that. Not every ship needs to be a hybrid nor should it be I agree so please show me my post which states they should make only hybrids from now on.... And bashing the admirality system with these words OUCH ADMIRALITY SYSTEM..wow this must be a new record for bashing in such few words i am proud of myself. And something else, critics and reviewers criticize or bash a game even after it may get patches or dlc or expansion, those are either looked at sepertly or in a new review for the entire collection . By your logic when the admirality system comes out a person who would criticize it would be in the wrong beacuse...cryptic may expand it...you are so wrong. Its completely normal to either bash or criticize the current system that is available or in construction, until ofc changes come and if they come. By your logic there wouldnt be any reviews, critics until the game is fully finished with all patches, all expansions and dlc and when the producer says that this is the final product...no it doesnt run like that in this world..unless you are from an alternate reality... Considering you know so much of the process of making new ship models and cryptic as whole in your objective please do state some facts to me and the curious rest about their processes, how many people are working on models, how are they designing new ships, available resources cryptic can muster for making new ships, their thought process, how many people are working on different ships and parts of the game, crpytics income from STO...if not i stand by my as you say baseless post about making new models...
While those races you mentioned can be classified as major race they come no where near iconian level in terms of story in this game. Crpytic crafted iconians purposefully through multiple story arc, making them look like the biggest baddest meanest threat. That was all done by cryptic so they can do a full reverse in midnight on their race. So in this game they are the alpha major race of antagonist hence the biggest impact on me. Also i dont totally agree with your post that the immersion is 100% subjective, while it is the majority, carefully crafting and making story in the star trek mythos by the developers does help or enchance your immersion, by how much depends on the person really. I know that they are folks here who will envoy the ships..they replied to me and i to them...nowhere did i deny them that pleasure...
Asthetically that would be very interesting even with the limitations of being only a sphere or probe.
I sort of do the same thing with my own toons. I tend to play Aenar (with the understanding that not all Aenar are strict pacifists). But given that the Aenar are reclusive, and the Andorians have been attempting rapprochement since Shran's time, the Imperial Guard _and_ Starfleet were both very keen on recruiting any Aenar that show the inclination for training.
The Imperial Guard simply noticed me first. That said, Starfleet was still eager to shove me into any leadership role I turned out to be suited for, and the I.G. were happy to provide as much support as they could (by providing, from their own ranks, an experienced core for my own crew.)
So yeah, as you say, my dress uniform (veteran's coat in red with white pants) and ground BDUs (based mostly on very recolored Jem Hadar gear) are styled to (what I imagine as) the I.G. code, whereas my flight gear (enterprise pants with Sierra 2 coat, enterprise and fleet shoulder patches) is more influenced by Starfleet (and Top Gun, if I'm honest.)
Nah, computationally, it's adding a single if statement and a non-time-sensitive query result which is small enough to be stored locally. The if statement would add load if it has to be added to a critical loop, but that's probably avoidable, too.
Server says:
You see a ship at [actualmodel, immersionmodel, x, y, z, orientation].
If immersion is off, drawmodel := actualmodel
else /* If immersion is on */ drawmodel := immersionmodel
/* later */
draw(drawmodel, x, y, z, orientation)
If this is something the devs would be interested in doing (I don't really see why they would or should be), the client-side footprint would be minimal.
I guess I'm in the 'yeah the iconian ships will be as distracting as the undine and jem hadar ships were/are, but it'll pass quickly enough that I'm not especially fussed about it'.
I suppose the sole objection now is that Herald tech is not likely to multiply out of control and steal your free will on the slightest misstep (we seem to be much better able to counter Iconian viral probes than in TNG days).
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Yes. Between the space wizards and the space zombies, I'd pick wizard tech, too. It may be weird, but it's significantly less likely to eat you.
First off you bashed the devs in your original post in this thread because they used the actual Herald ships instead of Herald inspired Fed KDF and Romulan ships. You called them lazy because they didn't make the ships as hybrids and so on. In other words because they didn't do it the way YOU think it should have been done you call them lazy. Now when I've called shenanigans on that logic and pointed out that logic for being self-entitled, you've been trying to back peddle ever since. In your first post to me you say "Herald ships are coming that a fact to me... i am not trying to remove them however we could have gotten something completely different and more story related like hybrids but whatever." Those are you own words where once again you bash on us having not gotten hybrids. The fact is there is a ton of different candidates they could have given at any point during the game, such as the Undine dreadnaught with the Undine box, the Sheshar Dread could have been a lockbox ship but was made into a promo, and they could have made hybrids of Iconian and Alliance design. Also in your first post to me you assumed that simply because some indie-games made new models for their games that this means Crytpic should have to do it each time as well. What one game chooses to do, does NOT mean that another game must do the same thing. Bottom line, could they have made all new models and so on, yes they could have. The truth is though that they chose to use the actual Herald ships and you need to just get over it because it's not going to change now.
For the Admirality system I criticized your point on that because you're equating that as being the only thing we're getting exploration wise when you clearly can't know that. You bashed the Admirality system based on something that you assumed (it's the only exploration we get) and have no evidence to prove. To even equate my criticism of your Admirality comments as meaning that you wouldn't be able to criticize a game at all you're really grasping at straws. You can criticize something you don't like about Admirality and even the system itself all day long. However when you bash it in the manor you did by assuming it's all we're getting for exploration, when you know good and well that's never been said, you lose credibility and makes it look like you just want something to complain about. Also, nowhere anywhere have I said I know everything that goes on at Cryptic or even remotely on those lines. Now you are grasping at straws with that comment line. No I don't know everything that they do behind the scenes (which is quite alot) nor have I claimed to. However I have created several mods throughout my gaming career which includes full on missions, and maps, several of which were recommended by the companies themselves that made the games. I also have essentially modified an older Star Trek rts and rebalanced it, added new factions to it, and even have been working on my own custom faction for the game for several years now. No I don't know everything that goes on behind the scenes at Cryptic nor have I claimed to. No I haven't worked on anything as major as a mmo like this game, but I know a bit about what goes on behind the scenes of a game that makes it tic and more experience with it than you think I do.
Part of immersion and watching movies, playing games, and so on is the ability to suspend unbelief. In other words, can you look at something and hear the story behind it and believe it is what they say it is, such as an alien on screen, even if you can clearly see the actor/actress features. Can you in an instance like that believe they're supposed to be an alien? The more you can suspend your own unbelief, the more into the story you can get. Simply because a power such as the Dominion, Vaadwaur, Elachi, or other such power doesn't get much attention story wise, does not mean they're any less of a major power. For example we've had no attention given to the Kelvins from the Andromeda galaxy yet we know they're a major power that has interacted with us before.
This is where we get into the realm of opinion and you can't prove or disprove anything as it has no logical base. You say to you that the way the final episode Midnight made them less mean, threatening and so on. That's your prerogative if you feel that way. The Iconians were no less of a threat simply because now we knew the reason behind why they're the way they are. Immersion is indeed 100% on the person whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. You say you don't agree with that and the devs can add in things to assist with immersion. Yet you contradict that when you say "by how much depends on the person really." What you fail to see is what you consider immersive and what someone else considers immersive may be 2 completely different things. For example I consider Admirality as something that gets me more immersed in the fact that I actually am a fleet admiral in terms of game rank. You on the other hand may not consider it as such. Thus it's 100% subjective. Immersion by nature is also how well one can integrate themselves into the story of what's going on. Simply because you may not be able to immerse yourself because of something doesn't mean there is on one out there who can't. I myself could not get into the Twilight movies and books. I thought they were very cheesy and poorly written and were an insult to the classics like Brom Stoker's Dracula. Obviously there were people who disagree with me and could get into the story. Thus what ruined immersion for me in the case of Twilight did not ruin it for everyone else. immersion is what you make of it, nothing more, nothing less.
Something as subjective as immersion is not a valid point to bring up in a debate as you have. You bashing the ships and the devs is based on personal opinion only. I also noticed by reading some of the other posts in here that I'm not the only one who has criticized your logic on these things. I'm not the only one who has called out your logic of just NOW speaking up and just NOW having an issue with the Iconian ships, but not the other major powers we have access to such as the Undine. No matter how you look at it and if you choose to acknowledge it or not, you have a huge double standard here.
With all of that said, I get it, you think they should have done something different, and that's cool. you're entitled to your opinion. The fact that you've went on to call it lazy and saying that this whole thing could have been avoided had they just made hybrids, still to me demonstrates self-entitlement. You are not owed it to not have your immersion broken. You also do not have a right to not be offended or what have you, but someone flying a ship you don't like. I and others do not play this game for you, nor do we or cryptic owe it to you to do things the way YOU think they should have been done. bashing the devs because they didn't give you the hybrids you wanted and calling them lazy, I'm sorry (not really), is self entitled thinking.
You can deny and try to back peddle all you wish as you've tried to do, but it makes no difference. your words are there in black and white for people to read. if you try to edit the posts to say something else it's going to show up and people will know you tried to change it. bottom line, they didn't do it the way you wanted and you called them lazy. they're not going to change their minds now, so as I said above, you need to get over it and move on. you might convince them to do more ships in the future, but right now this is what you have to work with.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator