test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Future of the STO storyline
apollo
Member Posts: 12 Arc User
Hey all! I played this game a lot a long time ago, and returned about a month ago. I just wish to tell you my opinion about the STO storyline, and curious about how many ppl think this way, and how many do in another..
I think there is a problem with direction of the current STO stories. Its hard to tell, moreover as english is not my first language, but I find it in a way boring that there is always a new main enemy in the game. I watched some Star Trek series, not all, and haven't watched all the movies. I have no problem with campaigns against jemhadar, cardassians, borgs, or undine, fedss and klingons and I could tell a lot of more main races I remember of from the Star Trek films.
We had the vadwaaur, very strong, very technologically advanced aand defeated. Then we had the iconians. Very strong, very advanced aaand - well not defeated just survived. But another super strong main enemy race is gone. Now we have the nakhuls. I bet they will be very strong, very advanced aaaand at the end we defeat them too. And there will be another race. From another timeline, from another universe, from another galaxy, but a more stronger, a more advanced super evil enemy will come and we will always defeat them..
I wanted to write that this is boring, but that is not the best word and I do not even know how to describe it. Of course this is only my own opinion, I do not say this is soo bad and unplayable and boring. This is a good game and I like it, buut I would like better if the story was not about a big big big friendship, coalition, alliance and galactic union between klingons, feds, cardassians, romulans.. noo! For me these are one of the main races, and if everyone is happy with everyone it will be boring.
Someone said in a mission, maybe it was cpt. Walker that in timelines where there were no alliance between klingons, feds and romulans or the alliance ended, well that timeline was disastrous, or somethin similar he mentioned. I want that timeline!!! I would be so happy if the alliance between these three races would somehow ended in the coming storyline. I want a campaing, no, I want MANY campaigns, storyline missions and even new reputation systems about new wars between the federation and klingon empire. Maybe the romulans could join either side as "mercenaires" or something, but I want endless wars, and battles not with terrans, iconians, nakhuls and who the hell know what kind of super evil species will show up later. But I want between klingons, feds, romulans, jemhadar, and cardassians. There can be a ceasefire in every two or three season, there can be even new species with less role, but Star Trek is this for me. Of course next to the endless explorations but we all know that this is a more action based game.
I do not want a main role again for another specie coming out of the blue and another galactic crusade where we save the whole universe from ultimate evil, again, for the 128th times. I just want a simple endless war between klingons and feds. "Normal" scale battles and wars, without any superweapons, super destruction, super annihilation etc.
Thank you for reading! Your opinions?
I think there is a problem with direction of the current STO stories. Its hard to tell, moreover as english is not my first language, but I find it in a way boring that there is always a new main enemy in the game. I watched some Star Trek series, not all, and haven't watched all the movies. I have no problem with campaigns against jemhadar, cardassians, borgs, or undine, fedss and klingons and I could tell a lot of more main races I remember of from the Star Trek films.
We had the vadwaaur, very strong, very technologically advanced aand defeated. Then we had the iconians. Very strong, very advanced aaand - well not defeated just survived. But another super strong main enemy race is gone. Now we have the nakhuls. I bet they will be very strong, very advanced aaaand at the end we defeat them too. And there will be another race. From another timeline, from another universe, from another galaxy, but a more stronger, a more advanced super evil enemy will come and we will always defeat them..
I wanted to write that this is boring, but that is not the best word and I do not even know how to describe it. Of course this is only my own opinion, I do not say this is soo bad and unplayable and boring. This is a good game and I like it, buut I would like better if the story was not about a big big big friendship, coalition, alliance and galactic union between klingons, feds, cardassians, romulans.. noo! For me these are one of the main races, and if everyone is happy with everyone it will be boring.
Someone said in a mission, maybe it was cpt. Walker that in timelines where there were no alliance between klingons, feds and romulans or the alliance ended, well that timeline was disastrous, or somethin similar he mentioned. I want that timeline!!! I would be so happy if the alliance between these three races would somehow ended in the coming storyline. I want a campaing, no, I want MANY campaigns, storyline missions and even new reputation systems about new wars between the federation and klingon empire. Maybe the romulans could join either side as "mercenaires" or something, but I want endless wars, and battles not with terrans, iconians, nakhuls and who the hell know what kind of super evil species will show up later. But I want between klingons, feds, romulans, jemhadar, and cardassians. There can be a ceasefire in every two or three season, there can be even new species with less role, but Star Trek is this for me. Of course next to the endless explorations but we all know that this is a more action based game.
I do not want a main role again for another specie coming out of the blue and another galactic crusade where we save the whole universe from ultimate evil, again, for the 128th times. I just want a simple endless war between klingons and feds. "Normal" scale battles and wars, without any superweapons, super destruction, super annihilation etc.
Thank you for reading! Your opinions?
0
Comments
However, it simply hasn't. It has completely wasted its potential because the Devs are content with pushing out the bare minimum of content possible. Take Delta Rising and compare it to Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward or World of Warcraft: Warlords of Dreanor and there is just no comparison.
Now before anyone starts with the rage, remember, I know that the dev team of this game is fairly small however I have seen community mods like Star Trek: Armada III for Sins of a Solar Empire and Star Trek: Armada II Fleet Operations push out TWICE as much content with much smaller development teams.
What matters to me is passion for Star Trek, which the Devs just do not seem to have. Their stories are lackluster at best, simply drawing on aspects from the shows randomly as if a Dev sat down and watched "Year of Hell" a week before the release of all the Krenim stuff and somebody obviously sat down and watched "Storm Front". Where is the original content, where is the depth to this game.
Its been over five years and I have still been waiting for some real depth, its like the Devs don't care anymore. They know people will give them money regardless of what they do. Nobody at Cryptic is doing quality control. Things are being released and pushed to live with bugs, glitches and who knows what else, like they never play test things beforehand. I have seen better missions in the foundry then what the devs can actually produce.
Also, I have a full level character (never been interested in alts, never seen the point of them) but once you have done all the repetitive grind for the reputation, I find myself, logging in, doing the next mission for 15 minutes, checking out the new skill system, doing a Nak'hul grindfest and then logging out after just an hour. An entire 6 months worth of content since the last one and I can do it all in one hour.
The devs are not even interested in sustainable things that may keep people in the game, like PvP, sustainable gameplay that can keep players occupied for hours. Nobody in my fleet bothers to log in anymore because Cryptic are just too lazy and its sad that they have been allowed to become so complacent.
This game used to have so much promise, I stayed through the bad times but now it seems they've done to this what they did to Sonic the Hedgehog and people are just playing this out of some sense of obligation, because its the only real Star Trek content avaliable these days. But as an MMO and compared to other F2P MMO's that have become popular, this one pales in comaprison.
Sorry...
Change can happen - Tier 6 Galaxy... Believe in yourself...
https://taskforcerepublic.tumblr.com/ - Task Force: Republic, Second Life Roleplay Community
> To be fair, whilst it could have been handled better, a great deal of the Iconian war storyline (Feature Episodes) had us losing the war.
and then using the magic of time travel to make the Iconians feel peace and love again. But you never actually FELT like the war was difficult or had any effect on the Federation outside those missions and a few blod entries.
Change can happen - Tier 6 Galaxy... Believe in yourself...
https://taskforcerepublic.tumblr.com/ - Task Force: Republic, Second Life Roleplay Community
Anyways, the present future of the STO Storyline is in the past. When we're past that the present future of the coming storyline will likely be to look at the present, as CBS has a new show coming up in the future that I'm sure will be a bridge between the past work here and the future direction that will invariably link the present metaplot.
Ya dig?
Really!?
Bare minimum of content!? You forget that the Dev's won't have the budget of Blizzard. You also seem to have missed a cacaphony of new missions, ships, equipment, admiralty etc. And just to also point out, this game is fully FREE to play with no paywalls blocking actual content, unlike WoW!
Continuation of storylines from the TV series!? What is wrong with that? They are continuing these storylines to answer the what if's and what happened to's.
Lack of playtesting!? Obviously you have no idea how things develop onto the Holodeck server nor why bugs and issues happen at all!! When something has been created, it is tested internally to see if it works and how it impacts the game. Then it is put on the Tribble test server for the PUBLIC to test. After a time, when modifications, if needed, are applied it is put onto the main server. Just remember this though, each server is a different beast and bugs are bound to creep in at some point.
Lastly, I've played numerous F2P's, and this ranks as the best and probably most generous and by no means the least stressful MMO out there!
Looking back over the past number of years, I think the content in place does tie together quite well (and not for a lack of retconning on the part of Cryptic). For instance, to use my example above, who knew that the preservers and the Breen arc would feature as it did in the eventual Iconian storyline wrap up? I'm sure Cryptic at the time didn't but it has successfully lent itself very well to the later story development.
I have a terrible bias towards certain types of 'Star Trek' story tropes which leaves me rather disconnected from certain others. Unfortunately, this has been the case for a long time now in the game as the repeated returns to the Mirror Universe and Time Travel based storylines just don't work for me. I hope to see us move away from them for a while. Best in small doses.
Finally, I'd like to see more smaller arcs developed which expand and pick up from canon episodes. I think Cryptic has done a good job on that so far, though their choice of episodes is of course debatable.
Yeah, I agree that they need to step out in a new direction every now and then, which they aren't doing enough of. But I have to admit that I really enjoy these nods to Trek history even if the gameplay doesn't always work out as well.
If you haven't figured out yet that this game is all about fan-service and nostalgia, I don't know what to tell you. It's how they make money.
The Iconian War was being planned for even before launch and it took them years to get there. Along the way, they've built episode after episode tying together bits and pieces of Trek lore to build up to that.
You could accuse them of being unoriginal, but then I look at the Romulan Republic. Cryptic took a storyline that was literally forced on them -- the destruction of Romulus -- and parlayed it into an original story arc for Romulan players, which they then managed to weave into the Iconian metastory almost seamlessly.
I choose to take that as an encouraging sign that they can develop a cohesive overall plot with familiar factions and settings and keep evolving it.
As far as the constant conflict goes, well, that's an MMO. Every story needs conflict, and games need even more of it. Nothing interesting or exciting happens without conflict. You can only tag so many Epohh before it gets 'stale as hell'.
umm.... I wasn't aware that liberally ripping off Star Wars and the Rebel Alliance for plot ideas constituted an "original" story arc
edit:
then again it worked for Star Wars ep7
Not to mention that it involved the complete butchering of the Romulans thematically. Cryptic took one of the most distinctive, iconic factions in Trek and used it to slap together a generic, bland 'rebel alliance' faction that we have all seen a hundred times before.
And the 'Iconian Metastory' was a poorly thought out mess from beginning to end. It's 'seamless' like a pillow without stitching is seamless-it can't hold itself together and falls apart if you look at it funny.
The Romulans and the Iconian war arc are probably the two parts of the game that I'd consider the least encouraging signs.
They at least admitted to that part. Flat out stating they didnt appeal to Romulan fans with the Republic so much as generic SciFi fans.
My character Tsin'xing
Also I hope STO finally moves on from the time travel and next big bad nonsense and gets back to exploration for the sake of every fan who cares one bit about star trek.
"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."
True, one was free, the others cost $25 and $20, respectively, even a year and a half after release.
Yet your only examples of MMOs here are 2 subscription games that release expansions that you have to pay for.
i will do you one better a tilet being flushed AND an lolcat
> So what if the Devs draw their inspiration from loose threads in past TV shows and movies instead of making up completely new plot devices?
>
> Yeah, I agree that they need to step out in a new direction every now and then, which they aren't doing enough of. But I have to admit that I really enjoy these nods to Trek history even if the gameplay doesn't always work out as well.
>
> If you haven't figured out yet that this game is all about fan-service and nostalgia, I don't know what to tell you. It's how they make money.
>
> The Iconian War was being planned for even before launch and it took them years to get there. Along the way, they've built episode after episode tying together bits and pieces of Trek lore to build up to that.
>
> You could accuse them of being unoriginal, but then I look at the Romulan Republic. Cryptic took a storyline that was literally forced on them -- the destruction of Romulus -- and parlayed it into an original story arc for Romulan players, which they then managed to weave into the Iconian metastory almost seamlessly.
>
> I choose to take that as an encouraging sign that they can develop a cohesive overall plot with familiar factions and settings and keep evolving it.
>
> As far as the constant conflict goes, well, that's an MMO. Every story needs conflict, and games need even more of it. Nothing interesting or exciting happens without conflict. You can only tag so many Epohh before it gets 'stale as hell'.
Original story arc my ar**, they just copied Mass Effect 2 which was the big blockbuster at the time, the story is practically the same with the Elachi doubling as the Collectors and the Iconians being the big bad villian in the darkness, like the Repears.
The Elachi kidnap colonists to experiment on, which is what the collectors do. They both live on a massive space station in an inaccessable part of space (Omega 4 Relay for the Collectors and Subspace for the Elachi) and they both work for a "bigger, badder, power). Its pretty obvious, I cannot believe nobody has seen this before.
Cryptic have show they just do not have the skills needed to write good, engaging plots. The Iconian War was a joke, we never saw the effects of it, except Dev Blogs which were pointless and a few missions. We never felt they were a threat. Cryptic have never had an original story idea in their entire life as a company.
Change can happen - Tier 6 Galaxy... Believe in yourself...
https://taskforcerepublic.tumblr.com/ - Task Force: Republic, Second Life Roleplay Community
But seriously I would prefer smaller, self contained story arcs like the Breen episodes, to these big drawn out story arcs and missions you have to repeat until you get all set bits. Big galactic war stories should be for full expansions (if at all) not filler, and as for the temporal thing, its Star Trek not Dr Who, so stop it.
Reyan, they could of done so much more, but instead it felt flat and no real danger.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
But I think that STO gives lots of content. What was the last update content in WOW? last summer?
I'd actually flip that around. Personally, from TNG on the Romulans played out like the evil empires from classic sci-fi cinema that inspired Voy's Chaoticia. You may not be too familiar with those yourself but as someone who's seen a bit of that genre it's a feeling that you can't shake once acquired (right up to the grey theatrical uniforms :P). Giving them a separatist republic was precisely the thing to make them an interesting, compelling faction that's worth spending an MMO's worth of time on (at least for me.)
Anway, enough prodding fossilized horses.
I think what may be causing the new villain factions to bleed together is a consisten base of motivations. For some reason or another they're dissatisfied with the current political structure of the galaxy. Each one has had their homeworld obliterated for some reason or another and attributes this to the generalized action (even across time) of other species. We being part of that generalized group have to resist and over the two completed arcs we've done so in such a way that leads to some reconciliation. And that's undoubtedly coming with the current two and the next hinted one (who also lost their homeworld and can attribute that to the failings of the rest of the galaxy.)
It's not so much (to the OP) that they're powerful aliens with advanced technology (so are the Gorn) but that there's a lot of convergent story points that, after a while, start to cancel themselves out (until what you're left with as the unique feel of a faction is the superficial details, the depth in the backstory doesn't register because of how similar it is to other factions.)
So while you might be able to say that there's no definite problem with any one of our recent villians the issue could be that we've gone beyond the point of diminishing returns on this type of story. STO does indeed need to move on (and speaking from what I've made in the foundry there's plenty of strong alternatives for where STO is now. A Gorn Rebellion comes to particularly mind, but I'm sure the big D would be appreciated more generally :P.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Even SWTOR spends more time with NON-combat quests, and revisiting planets you've been to before for additional content and extending the stories.
Becuase Cryptic apparently has an aversion to non combat content. Have you noticed we still don't have any more adventure zones in the style of New Romulus and no expansion to New Romulus?
"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."
But more to the point, every faction needs a motive for conflict. The Vaadwaur aren't really out for blood because they lost their HW. They lost their HW BECAUSE their elitist idea that they could conquer the universe failed. The Na'kuhl race aren't all genocidal maniacs, just Vosk's faction. So in their case it is only a portion of their race that WANT revenge.
Another difference is that Na'kuhl didn't explode. Thus the casualties were much lower than in the case of Romulus.
My character Tsin'xing
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
So you're suggesting the Organians show up and give us all just a Moment's Peace?
And yet, as I mentioned, even SWTOR has more non-combat material than STO.
Eh, every MMO I've ever played has non-combat options. Usually it's crafting. But sometimes they merge other non-combat activities like housing and stuff like that. I can't really think of an MMO that doesn't at least have crafting (this one does even).
Are there MMOs that are solely combat focused with no non-combat option?
STO's Non-Combat Options are pretty varied:
- DOFFing
- Crafting
- The stuff on New Romulus
- Admiralty
- The Trivia stuff
- First Contact Missions still around?
- Risa
- Story driven missions in the Foundry
- The Tour the Sectors race or whatever that is
- Dabo
It used to have other stuff too like:
- Exploration
- Diplomacy
- Bringing a Jum Jum stick to O'Brien's kid.
- The mini game to get crafting materials
- Aid Planet missions
And then there's the unofficial but VERY popular non-combat gameplay of STO:
Playing the Exchange.
This game has a lot for people to do that isn't combat focused. And that's not even getting into Space Barbie.