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[AoY] Starter Species Selection and Premium Species
psiameese
Member Posts: 1,650 Arc User
I assume that during testing we will eventually see six species choices to create from: Human, Vulcan, Tellerite, Andorian, Rigilian AND Alien. As the first five are the established founders of the UFP. And the TOS episode, Journey to Babel, establishes additional Alien member to the Federation. New player's should be free to speculate on them through Alien Gen. To offer otherwise, suggests that player's are limited to being crew of only the Starship Enterprise. And not Captains and crew of the broader Starfleet that the expansion time period represents.
As someone entirely familiar with the infamous 2010 topic, The Great Caitian Mis-CommuniCAITIAN, I fought HARD to get the Caitian species included in the game at all. I do acknowledge that it exists for player's only as a Premium Species. I don't expect NEW player's - who have yet to use the in-game C-Store - to have freedom to create beyond the default species offered. BUT. As a previously established account holder and one who purchased a Premium Species through the C-Store, I expect to see my FED Premium Species at Character Creation on expansion launch day. And that is regardless of which FED Premium Species that may be. This is previously purchased and well-earned privilege. To offer otherwise, IMO, would suggest to me that Agents of Yesterday isn't an expansion at all. But its own separate game.
Devs, please clarify your intentions?
As someone entirely familiar with the infamous 2010 topic, The Great Caitian Mis-CommuniCAITIAN, I fought HARD to get the Caitian species included in the game at all. I do acknowledge that it exists for player's only as a Premium Species. I don't expect NEW player's - who have yet to use the in-game C-Store - to have freedom to create beyond the default species offered. BUT. As a previously established account holder and one who purchased a Premium Species through the C-Store, I expect to see my FED Premium Species at Character Creation on expansion launch day. And that is regardless of which FED Premium Species that may be. This is previously purchased and well-earned privilege. To offer otherwise, IMO, would suggest to me that Agents of Yesterday isn't an expansion at all. But its own separate game.
Devs, please clarify your intentions?
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I heard they dev's said they will only be including the four core races of the federation (tellarite, humans, vulcan, andorians) for the entire expansion.
Several premium races simply make no sense and would be breaking lore. (Klingons come to mind, as do Ferengi)
Every Federation ship needs one.
Neither is the Daedalus class. It's a ship only seen in DS9 (model in Sisko's office). Placing it in the TOS era requires the same leap as placing Caitians, Trill, Saurians, or Rigelians in the same period. We know they were there from a later production (though Saurians were actually first referenced in TOS), and, in the case of the Daedalus, cryptic has extrapolated what that means for the visual style of the TOS era by including it in AOY. And yet it's too much to consider including more species, even if Caitians (in particular) follow the "animal people" theme of TOS races (complimenting Gorn and Tellarite).
It doesn't really hold up, and the effort is likely going to be wasted in any case because with costume customization players are going to be able to break with the TOS visual style with the first visit to the tailor. "Red, Blue, Gold? I'm going Tan, Orange, Purple!"
The authenticity Cryptic is trying to build probably won't exist (in full) with AoY, thanks to anyone who wants to do something a bit different. So why take the [seemingly] arbitrary stand that we can only have the four basic federation races to play with? It doesn't seem like it would have any more than a marginal impact on overall aesthetics (consider what could be done with Lobi costumes), while it would significantly impact player choice in a key area (while furthermore presenting, in a very immediate way, an incredibly divisive attitude towards where the franchise falls in relation to TOS, regardless of what the intentions may actually be).
It's worth remembering (and this is a very general appoint addressed to everyone, though this should all be taken as a general point made to the topic) that the TOS faction doesn't exist in a vacuum. In a sense, it has to compete with the FED/KDF/ROM for attention. That's not hard to do at first with a new leveling experience and content release, but over the long term there could be a serious problem with species choice. The FED has access to all available species in STO that could be said to be members of Starfleet in the "Kirk era." It'll also have access to uniforms and TOS ships, and likely the weapons that are coming soon too.
Once you've played through AoY once, seen the story, and know how a TOS character relates in with the rest of the STO universe, what's to draw you in again? The standard FED will have more complete platform to create a TOS character with. It'll require a head-canon tweak as you level (ex. the jump forward in time took place before the first mission, or you could just ignore story for a while) but after the faction arcs the experience will pretty much be identical. You may have missed out on a TOS replay, but at the end-game you'll be where you want to be. If that happens to be using one of the "four founders" then well and good, but otherwise you'll be avoiding AoY specifically to create a TOS character.
TL|DR: The choice of TOS species is a bit disappointing.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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But if you do that then bob will want to use his rommie Dave his klink and Ted his ferengi. It's immersion breaking to use races not part of star fleet.
This guys probably was too, to be an Admiral during The Voyage Home.
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!
So I imagine they're picking and choosing as they go along, trying to fit things in that fans want. We'll have to see what ends up in the final launch.
Personally, I see this as a great opportunity to spend some resources on adding some additional customization to the Caitians, Rigelians and Saurians. I've always felt like their options were very limited. Saurians especially look like just a weird head on a regular humanoid body. Some different hands and feet options - like they have in the alien gen might help add to the race.
I totally agree with you. In the end, if you can't get something you want out a specific faction, you tend to go to the faction that will best satisfy your interests. That being said, I can see the TOS faction falling by the wayside and receiving similar attention as the KDF and Romulan factions in the end. In some ways, TOS should have been its own game, even if it ended up using the same engine as STO. Yes, there would have been competition between STO and TOS, but TOS has much more possibilities in dealing with the issue of exploration within the TOS time period and space. As someone else mentioned in another thread, though the missions should evoke some nostalgia, they should not have our captains focus on cleaning up Kirk's messes nor follow the Enterprise throughout the galaxy.
As for Caitians, they should be added to the TOS faction.
That would be a fix-all options for a lack of options but it probably has the most potential for "diverging from TOS aesthetics."
For example:
Could always remove parts from TNG/DS9/VOY era species, but it's hard to imagine doing much with Andorian, Tellarite, Denobulan, Trill, and Kreetassan parts only (and maybe one or two others.) As much as I'm a fan of creativity [without alien gen I probably still wouldn't be playing STO] I do think there needs to be some limitation with AoY, but not as severe as we're looking at now [ie. more species].
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!
OK, I'm joking, but still, you gotta wonder with these looks.
I get that we don't need Cardassians, Borg, Klingons with ridges, etc walking around in the TOS timeline. However, I think with that being said, the general spirit and theme of Star Trek should allow for the inclusion of alien races beyond just Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians. It's worth remembering that there is TAS and also that the 1701 is only one ship in a still very large chunk of space.
Yes, there has been a dev response from Zero (STO Producer Maria Rosseau), but you won't like it (skip to 26:25 if the link fails you):
that's really a shame and makes me glad I haven't spent money on the packs yet. It seems like when devs get into this arrogant mode of "we know best" is when they tend to make a lot of bad decisions all at once that only later gets fixed like last year with Trendy and the fixes to the leveling problems that DR caused.
Often mentioned in TOS. If Saurians didn't exist in that era, why was their brandy mentioned?
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The Stars are Mine.
Not sure about Saurians, i think they, and the Bolians, only just got admitted to the Federation around the V'ger incident. AOY time might be too early, could make said admission into a noncombat episode, though.