I seem to remember this coming up even before launch. While it's something I'd love to see, even at the expense of the Bridge packs I bought, Cryptic have consistently shot it down. Personally, I'd be happy for them to scrap a season or two and fix existing interiors, expand how much of every ship we see, add more customisation and get them ready for interior missions. I doubt we'll see any of that though.
it will never happen. cryptic needs to make money to survive, they cant do that when their server is down.
I didn't mean I wanted the server down, just to stop developing new content while they do it. I'm not sure how my post suggested I thought it was actually going to happen, just my wishful thinking. The bridges I paid for are broken as it is with boffs sitting in the floor if my boffs even spawn at all. I certainly don't expect new content when the old stuff hasn't been fixed.
My alt army: K'ymara, Orion Engineer. Caedera of Borg, Liberated Borg Tactical, Elyza Vix, Joined Trill Scientist. Christina Bellona, Augmented Human Tactical. T'Lana, Vulcan Scientist. Arbol, Martian Tactical. Ayzer Bryn, Joined Trill Engineer. Hawke, Betazoid Scientist. Karna Valkras, Klingon Engineer. Beth Parker, Human Tactical Sarel, Romulan Engineer (Federation). Yazuri, Reman Scientist (KDF)
I find myself curious as to just how much potential functionality the game system must lack, if it doesn't have the ability to create dynamic interaction points in room cells that can be used for actors to create a path to and interact with. Other games do use systems like this. Room cells and environmental objects have a tag connected with them, and actors are programmed to make a path to the tagged object or character and begin interaction. If STO's system COULD do this, then the only thing that would need to be changed with any interiors is the adding and adjusting of these interaction points (which would have some standardization for cross-interior and cross-mission compatibility). So with this system, regardless of what bridge/interior you are using, the same npc actor would be programmed to spawn in whatever room that has the appropriate tag and to interact with whatever environmental things or people who have the appropriate tags associated with them, which the mission's script tells it to.
Though, 1. I'm not a programmer so this is just theoretical to me, and more specifically 2. I've never scripted any missions for foundry or anything like that so I don't know how STO's mission scripting works anyway. I just find it perplexing that I have heard of other games having that type of dynamic interaction, but STO doesn't.
I seem to remember this coming up even before launch. While it's something I'd love to see, even at the expense of the Bridge packs I bought, Cryptic have consistently shot it down. Personally, I'd be happy for them to scrap a season or two and fix existing interiors, expand how much of every ship we see, add more customisation and get them ready for interior missions. I doubt we'll see any of that though.
it will never happen. cryptic needs to make money to survive, they cant do that when their server is down.
I didn't mean I wanted the server down, just to stop developing new content while they do it. I'm not sure how my post suggested I thought it was actually going to happen, just my wishful thinking. The bridges I paid for are broken as it is with boffs sitting in the floor if my boffs even spawn at all. I certainly don't expect new content when the old stuff hasn't been fixed.
if they stopped making content, people will go bored looking for new content, without that new content cryptic are left hoping that all the current content will be enough to keep them going while keeping the playerbase content, but that is one hell of a risk to play. in the short term of a few months, it should be alright, in the past there have been some barren spells in development, but longer term and there will be people who will be complaining at the lack of content, before long people will start leaving the game.
The aim is to keep the metrics going and keeping people spending money, to make it look as attractive as possible to PWI/PWE so cryptic and STO can keep going. only the most serious issues are looked into and general bugs are fixed along the way, but a good deal of these are left on the side either ignored or revisited at a later date. thats how it has always been with this game.
i do know what you are getting at, but significant bug fixing over content doesnt win them your wallet or your number on their metrics.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Unfortunately, this isn't going to happen, and here is why:
1) Let's say 5 different players have 5 different ship interiors. With me so far?
2) Because the interiors look different and are laid out differently, there is no way to make a single mission that would work in all 5 interiors.
Now, it is important that you actually *understand* this point. If you do, great. If you don't, we're in trouble already. But the simplest way I can explain it is that missions require you to go to a *specific* spot on a map, and there is no way to make that same spot work on different interiors that are laid out differently.
3) That means Cryptic would have to make 5 *different* missions; one for *each* interior.
So, here is the choice the dev team faces:
A: they can spend their time making a "single" mission, but with 5 different versions(which really only results in a single mission experience for each of those 5 people). OR,
B: they can spend their time making 5 regular missions, which results in a 5 mission experience for each of those 5 people.
If you can actually understand the logic I just laid out, it's pretty obvious why they aren't going to make these kind of interior missions.
PS: also, this is most certainly *not* a "new" idea. It is a very, very old idea that hasn't happened for the logistical reasons mentioned above.
All of this can be avoided if they did X mission that put us in Y ship (Sphere of Influence) ... though I suppose that wouldn't be the 'players ship' ... but that's the best I can think of to avoid all those issues.
Great Idea. Here's the elephant in the room with a dose of truth. STO devs are not that smart or creative. End of story. It would be nice if they could prove me wrong though.
I seem to remember this coming up even before launch. While it's something I'd love to see, even at the expense of the Bridge packs I bought, Cryptic have consistently shot it down. Personally, I'd be happy for them to scrap a season or two and fix existing interiors, expand how much of every ship we see, add more customisation and get them ready for interior missions. I doubt we'll see any of that though.
it will never happen. cryptic needs to make money to survive, they cant do that when their server is down.
I didn't mean I wanted the server down, just to stop developing new content while they do it. I'm not sure how my post suggested I thought it was actually going to happen, just my wishful thinking. The bridges I paid for are broken as it is with boffs sitting in the floor if my boffs even spawn at all. I certainly don't expect new content when the old stuff hasn't been fixed.
if they stopped making content, people will go bored looking for new content, without that new content cryptic are left hoping that all the current content will be enough to keep them going while keeping the playerbase content, but that is one hell of a risk to play. in the short term of a few months, it should be alright, in the past there have been some barren spells in development, but longer term and there will be people who will be complaining at the lack of content, before long people will start leaving the game.
The aim is to keep the metrics going and keeping people spending money, to make it look as attractive as possible to PWI/PWE so cryptic and STO can keep going. only the most serious issues are looked into and general bugs are fixed along the way, but a good deal of these are left on the side either ignored or revisited at a later date. thats how it has always been with this game.
i do know what you are getting at, but significant bug fixing over content doesnt win them your wallet or your number on their metrics.
Good point. But eventually they either have to fix the growing amount of bugs, lag, lack of voicovers/music, nonfunctioning features, etc..., or they can just be not much better than a bunch of deadbeat landlords that want to collect rent without fixing the apartments. The problem with that idea is noone needs this game, nearly as much as a place to live. The more they refuse to fix because it don't make money, the less attractive it is, the more people may move on.
Maybe there is a halfway house - if perhaps the interior missions were entirely contact based and you had the same contacts on all versions of the ship interior. Maybe they could get it to work that way. Would still be a lot of work just for an interior mission still and not all bridges have full interiors... We do at least have one interior mission - the tutorial.
How about some missions that play inside our ships?
With our selected interiours and a without those stupid speech windows, but a voiceover for our character and our crewmembers ?
And some more missions that play way back in the past, would be awesome. Since Star Trek is becoming 50 and we allready have time travel involved in this game...
I think hat would be a nice addition.
What do you guys
think?
When someone like yourself asks for a totally different way to play the game, that is your INDICATOR that you are not playing the right game.
Read up on current reviews before you sink more than 30 bucks into a game only to decide you don't like it later.
You would almost need to make one standard layout for each type of ship (escort, destroyer, cruiser, and so on) and then have design packs that are applied to the ship based on the faction that ship is (federation, romulan, alien, and such). Than tie which ship you in a group go to by who is the leader of that ship. THis would give you abit of unique feel while allowing them to have a good deal of control on how things look an flow for the missions, but still this is a huge degree of work an time for what could be barely worth the effort an time payoff wise. I could see this if they did mission packs that used these new interiors that you buy in the store, and had some desirable rewards in them that would incentive players to buy an play the missions making them worth the effort an time investment. I am actually okay with this idea of them making mission packs that within which they can add things to the game thru, that might not be worth making an selling on their own such as vanity items an interiors or bridges by tying to them thigns players would want to get as well.
How about some missions that play inside our ships?
With our selected interiours and a without those stupid speech windows, but a voiceover for our character and our crewmembers ?
And some more missions that play way back in the past, would be awesome. Since Star Trek is becoming 50 and we allready have time travel involved in this game...
I think hat would be a nice addition.
What do you guys
think?
When someone like yourself asks for a totally different way to play the game, that is your INDICATOR that you are not playing the right game.
Read up on current reviews before you sink more than 30 bucks into a game only to decide you don't like it later.
I play the right game.
Dont you worry, my little minded humanoid.
If you have to resort to ad hominem, that only proves you lack a valid argument.
Now, as far as your actual goal, ship interior missions: that is not going to happen until you can SOLVE the logistical problem I explained in the first reply to this thread. So if you think you have a solution, let's hear it. But until then, no amount of bumping this thread is going to accomplish anything.
PS: I should also mention that any proposed solution has to be realistic. If you are going to propose they redesign the core mechanics of the game, such as their mission building system, that isn't very realistic. So if you actually want this to happen, you're going to have to propose some realistic solution to the problem.
You would almost need to make one standard layout for each type of ship (escort, destroyer, cruiser, and so on) and then have design packs that are applied to the ship based on the faction that ship is (federation, romulan, alien, and such). Than tie which ship you in a group go to by who is the leader of that ship. THis would give you abit of unique feel while allowing them to have a good deal of control on how things look an flow for the missions, but still this is a huge degree of work an time for what could be barely worth the effort an time payoff wise.
Why? I dont see that. Quality game lovers would storm this TRIBBLE!
True but how many players in the game are so called "quality" gamers that would actually play it compared to the other players that would barely play it beyond the first few times. It does not make much sense business wise to sink time an resources into content that is aimed at a smaller group of your playerbase, compared to creating content for the larger group that will use an make your time an resources spent that much better spent. If we were talking about a sub game than yeah it would make sense to create content that appeals to many more types of gamers, but in a game that us free to play you are much better off creating more generalized content that appeals to many more players to make that content more cost effective.
How about some missions that play inside our ships?
With our selected interiours and a without those stupid speech windows, but a voiceover for our character and our crewmembers ?
And some more missions that play way back in the past, would be awesome. Since Star Trek is becoming 50 and we allready have time travel involved in this game...
I think hat would be a nice addition.
What do you guys
think?
When someone like yourself asks for a totally different way to play the game, that is your INDICATOR that you are not playing the right game.
Read up on current reviews before you sink more than 30 bucks into a game only to decide you don't like it later.
I play the right game.
Dont you worry, my little minded humanoid.
If you have to resort to ad hominem, that only proves you lack a valid argument.
Now, as far as your actual goal, ship interior missions: that is not going to happen until you can SOLVE the logistical problem I explained in the first reply to this thread. So if you think you have a solution, let's hear it. But until then, no amount of bumping this thread is going to accomplish anything.
PS: I should also mention that any proposed solution has to be realistic. If you are going to propose they redesign the core mechanics of the game, such as their mission building system, that isn't very realistic. So if you actually want this to happen, you're going to have to propose some realistic solution to the problem.
Dude what do you want from me?
There is no better argrument to that kind of lie, because when you are serious about that, you do not know anything about games of today.
Its absolutely makeable.
Its all about building it with modules. And if you dont mind, i would like to ignore you from now on, since that is not makeable on this forum (no clue why) i just say this, good bye.
Nothing I said is a lie, and how other games work has nothing to do with how STO works. If you are suggesting they rebuild their entire mission system from the ground up, then you are making an incredibly unrealistic suggestion. Whether you ignore me or not doesn't change that fact.
They can totally do interior ship missions. They just can't do them in your custom interior or custom bridge. But they can certainly fake it with some out-of-the-box thinking.
You end up with a map transition to an interior map with rooms and corridors that don't connect to any of your common areas in your custom interior. Same ship (IC), but not the same map (OOC).
Most starships are big enough to accommodate that. Instead of taking place on the main bridge, have an emergency bridge that's the same for everybody. Instead of taking place in main engineering, have a scenario take place in an auxillary engineering room. So on, and so-forth. So instead of one mission per interior, you only need one per faction -- which I freely admit is still probably two extra missions too many, from Cryptic's perspective.
They -might- be able to put standard mission doors and spawn points in the custom interiors that would allow moving from one to the other (the turbolift is an obvious choice) and they -might- be able to reuse standard NPC's in the custom interiors as interactive contacts -if- they can make the object relationships flexible enough. But the answer so far has been no and I'm not holding my breath that will change.
They can totally do interior ship missions. They just can't do them in your custom interior or custom bridge.
And yet, that is exactly what the OP wants. Missions on our own custom interiors. But for the reasons already explained, it isn't going to happen.
But they can certainly fake it with some out-of-the-box thinking.
You end up with a map transition to an interior map with rooms and corridors that don't connect to any of your common areas in your custom interior. Same ship (IC), but not the same map (OOC).
I agree, using areas that aren't actually part of our ship interior is really the only option they have. The only issue then is those areas not matching up with something like TOS era aesthetics.
They -might- be able to put standard mission doors and spawn points in the custom interiors that would allow moving from one to the other (the turbolift is an obvious choice) and they -might- be able to reuse standard NPC's in the custom interiors as interactive contacts -if- they can make the object relationships flexible enough. But the answer so far has been no and I'm not holding my breath that will change.
The question is, if it is something they could actually do, and it isn't extremely difficult or time consuming(to the point where the time isn't worth the return on investment)...why wouldn't they have done it by now? The shear fact that they haven't, despite interior stories being a fairly big part of the Trek shows, is pretty suggestive that it either isn't possible or they have determined it is not a good time/return investment. I'm basically repeating this same point from the first page:
Indeed true Nagus, but what if Cryptic standardized all interiors? Exceptions of course would include Bridge Packs such as Intrepid, TOS Connie, Defiant etc that come with unique interiors and corridors. For example the interior that we see in the Tutorial would be ideal for this new standardization? Cryptic *could* and I stress this could take the OP's idea and exclude "unique" interior packs in favour of the standardized interiors?
but the TOS bridge pack gives you TOS corridors ect. already. you could get away with the single storyline, and you can make the map the same despite one may look like TOS vs modern ships the transporter room can be in the same map location
They -might- be able to put standard mission doors and spawn points in the custom interiors that would allow moving from one to the other (the turbolift is an obvious choice) and they -might- be able to reuse standard NPC's in the custom interiors as interactive contacts -if- they can make the object relationships flexible enough. But the answer so far has been no and I'm not holding my breath that will change.
The question is, if it is something they could actually do, and it isn't extremely difficult or time consuming(to the point where the time isn't worth the return on investment)...why wouldn't they have done it by now? The shear fact that they haven't, despite interior stories being a fairly big part of the Trek shows, is pretty suggestive that it either isn't possible or they have determined it is not a good time/return investment. I'm basically repeating this same point from the first page:
Or, is there some other logical reason I'm missing?
No, I don't think you're missing anything. If it were a slam dunk they would have done it already. I think they might be able move things in that direction so that it becomes doable in the future. That's the optimistic view. Unfortunately, I'm not generally optimistic by nature -- hence the not holding my breath part.
Comments
I didn't mean I wanted the server down, just to stop developing new content while they do it. I'm not sure how my post suggested I thought it was actually going to happen, just my wishful thinking. The bridges I paid for are broken as it is with boffs sitting in the floor if my boffs even spawn at all. I certainly don't expect new content when the old stuff hasn't been fixed.
K'ymara, Orion Engineer. Caedera of Borg, Liberated Borg Tactical, Elyza Vix, Joined Trill Scientist. Christina Bellona, Augmented Human Tactical.
T'Lana, Vulcan Scientist. Arbol, Martian Tactical. Ayzer Bryn, Joined Trill Engineer. Hawke, Betazoid Scientist. Karna Valkras, Klingon Engineer. Beth Parker, Human Tactical
Sarel, Romulan Engineer (Federation). Yazuri, Reman Scientist (KDF)
Though, 1. I'm not a programmer so this is just theoretical to me, and more specifically 2. I've never scripted any missions for foundry or anything like that so I don't know how STO's mission scripting works anyway. I just find it perplexing that I have heard of other games having that type of dynamic interaction, but STO doesn't.
if they stopped making content, people will go bored looking for new content, without that new content cryptic are left hoping that all the current content will be enough to keep them going while keeping the playerbase content, but that is one hell of a risk to play. in the short term of a few months, it should be alright, in the past there have been some barren spells in development, but longer term and there will be people who will be complaining at the lack of content, before long people will start leaving the game.
The aim is to keep the metrics going and keeping people spending money, to make it look as attractive as possible to PWI/PWE so cryptic and STO can keep going. only the most serious issues are looked into and general bugs are fixed along the way, but a good deal of these are left on the side either ignored or revisited at a later date. thats how it has always been with this game.
i do know what you are getting at, but significant bug fixing over content doesnt win them your wallet or your number on their metrics.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
All of this can be avoided if they did X mission that put us in Y ship (Sphere of Influence) ... though I suppose that wouldn't be the 'players ship' ... but that's the best I can think of to avoid all those issues.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
We never took control of the ship during those missions... we were Tuvok's guests
Good point. But eventually they either have to fix the growing amount of bugs, lag, lack of voicovers/music, nonfunctioning features, etc..., or they can just be not much better than a bunch of deadbeat landlords that want to collect rent without fixing the apartments. The problem with that idea is noone needs this game, nearly as much as a place to live. The more they refuse to fix because it don't make money, the less attractive it is, the more people may move on.
When someone like yourself asks for a totally different way to play the game, that is your INDICATOR that you are not playing the right game.
Read up on current reviews before you sink more than 30 bucks into a game only to decide you don't like it later.
If you have to resort to ad hominem, that only proves you lack a valid argument.
Now, as far as your actual goal, ship interior missions: that is not going to happen until you can SOLVE the logistical problem I explained in the first reply to this thread. So if you think you have a solution, let's hear it. But until then, no amount of bumping this thread is going to accomplish anything.
PS: I should also mention that any proposed solution has to be realistic. If you are going to propose they redesign the core mechanics of the game, such as their mission building system, that isn't very realistic. So if you actually want this to happen, you're going to have to propose some realistic solution to the problem.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
True but how many players in the game are so called "quality" gamers that would actually play it compared to the other players that would barely play it beyond the first few times. It does not make much sense business wise to sink time an resources into content that is aimed at a smaller group of your playerbase, compared to creating content for the larger group that will use an make your time an resources spent that much better spent. If we were talking about a sub game than yeah it would make sense to create content that appeals to many more types of gamers, but in a game that us free to play you are much better off creating more generalized content that appeals to many more players to make that content more cost effective.
Nothing I said is a lie, and how other games work has nothing to do with how STO works. If you are suggesting they rebuild their entire mission system from the ground up, then you are making an incredibly unrealistic suggestion. Whether you ignore me or not doesn't change that fact.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
You end up with a map transition to an interior map with rooms and corridors that don't connect to any of your common areas in your custom interior. Same ship (IC), but not the same map (OOC).
Most starships are big enough to accommodate that. Instead of taking place on the main bridge, have an emergency bridge that's the same for everybody. Instead of taking place in main engineering, have a scenario take place in an auxillary engineering room. So on, and so-forth. So instead of one mission per interior, you only need one per faction -- which I freely admit is still probably two extra missions too many, from Cryptic's perspective.
They -might- be able to put standard mission doors and spawn points in the custom interiors that would allow moving from one to the other (the turbolift is an obvious choice) and they -might- be able to reuse standard NPC's in the custom interiors as interactive contacts -if- they can make the object relationships flexible enough. But the answer so far has been no and I'm not holding my breath that will change.
And yet, that is exactly what the OP wants. Missions on our own custom interiors. But for the reasons already explained, it isn't going to happen.
I agree, using areas that aren't actually part of our ship interior is really the only option they have. The only issue then is those areas not matching up with something like TOS era aesthetics.
The question is, if it is something they could actually do, and it isn't extremely difficult or time consuming(to the point where the time isn't worth the return on investment)...why wouldn't they have done it by now? The shear fact that they haven't, despite interior stories being a fairly big part of the Trek shows, is pretty suggestive that it either isn't possible or they have determined it is not a good time/return investment. I'm basically repeating this same point from the first page:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/comment/12859378
Or, is there some other logical reason I'm missing?
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
No, I don't think you're missing anything. If it were a slam dunk they would have done it already. I think they might be able move things in that direction so that it becomes doable in the future. That's the optimistic view. Unfortunately, I'm not generally optimistic by nature -- hence the not holding my breath part.