After playing it a bit more I'd have to go with false , it's more like the delta recruit event than an expansion.
You only get 1 free ship everything else is behind a pay wall , and there's little content past level 10 making it seem more like a tutorial. Finally to top it off three of the most wanted ships in the game are thrown into that aweful gambling scam.
Not to mention the story makes little sense with 23rd century clunkers taking on ships that are light years more advanced. By all rights they should be space dust the moment the first shot is fired.
This is doesn't have half what LoR expansion had. I would not even call this an expansion.
What was better is surely open for debate but what I would not agree with is that the new stuff added this time is only 50% of what LoR added. Far from it actually:
Of course if one does not go for the new stuff while squeezing all out of LoR such a misconception could certainly form.
I think if the devs would have made at least 4-6 more AoY faction specific missions and not included major parts of the Klingon War and Romulan arcs (aside from the featured episodes) from the 25th century fed faction we would not even have the present discussion.
Well they went and made some universal missions for everybody to enjoy instead and this isn’t bad at all. We also didn’t get these dull place filler patrol missions to stretch it like we did with DR. This is fine too.
The new reputation system is also supported by two completely new maps. Back at the day LoR rushed out the Nukara reputation with zippo now contend to cover it…
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Nope, in no way is it a good expansion, let alone trying to convince people 'it is the best'.
Film grain ruins all the effort and hard work to make ToS graphics, do people seriously believe anyone would want that over crisp, clear visuals?
If you gave the makers of ToS the choice of the film grain they had to have or crystal-clear film you can bet your last pennies they wouldn't have gone for the film grain.
Anyone else noticed that sometimes when you get lag beaming into somewhere your away team looks like they are trashing around in the transporter effect?
Then there is the long list of bugs found and 'fixed' on tribble that still made it to release day.
Add to that the hilarious claim this ToS tutorial is 'as much a faction as the romulans' and you get an overly hyped up tutorial or a new recruitment event, one they knew people would take their time over, thanks to how fast people blitzed through the delta recruit event, so they added 'bonuses' for doing all the things we'd have to do anyway if we were going to keep the new characters.
As for me, i enjoyed the all to brief foray into ToS era starfleet.
I will now proceed to level him up, at my own pace thank you, while he laughs how a 'temporal agent' can't even notice mirror universe transporter accident victims
I SO wanted to love this expansion - and I have so far; but I know once I hit level 10 the TOS content dries up and it's back to the usual sets of stories/missions, which I have NO intention of replaying yet again.
I have not even been able to play at more than 3 TOS missions, because finally it is a waste of time for this reason. it is impossible for me to do again and again all these missions. + the fed missions are the worst. -> TOS toon deleted
I just did the entire starting arc. I'm on the fence on this one.
Good - Seeing the old stuff all over again and playing in it. The VOs is very nice to see and the missions was very nice too. The additional customs on the characters are nice as well. The Film Grain was a excellent effect, and really like that too. The story to get you started as an Agent was good as well. Wanted more missions in that era to stop the time villains. Really love the tech and sound effects to go with that as well. Some of the best time I had on the game in a while!
Bad - Wanted more in that era, not just to Lv10. Would been great to have a whole level experience, so I won't have to redo all those other story arcs again.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Okay, as a guy who was introduced to Trek via The Motion Picture, and went back to see the TOS series and all connected to it. I was excited for this expansion, but now...I feel disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the TOS missions were well done and executed. Just, there should have been more. They coulda shifted some of the missions around more and added in a couple more also.
It just feels like they had a chance to do something epic and they, as usual, dropped the ball.
There are players who have already gone through every new bit of content this expansion has to offer, save for reputation grinds behind time gates. When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion. That's barely even a content patch.
After the mere handful of new intro missions, your "temporal agent" character is basically just another alt--going through the exact same content as before, and doing everything all over again in the exact same way. There is no actual "temporal agent" content or mechanics beyond the intro. You get some bonuses (most of which are insignificant, or just in the category of 'jump starting' your new alt) for character progression and doing lame probe puzzles.
The temporal probe 'guess-the-number' "puzzles" are probably some of the most creatively bankrupt and boring "puzzles" ever imagined.
No new ground STF.
The new space NPCs and their temporal/physical power spam are just as ridiculous as the Terran space NPCs with their overpowered TBR spam. Shields have been rendered useless and I hope you enjoy getting teleported every 5 seconds. Also, more cutscene spam.
Every cut scene--of which there are an abundance--continues to be like watching a dubbed Chinese film due to terrible animation syncing.
Inconsistent and jarringly different audio quality for voice overs on occasion.
No access to 23c Boffs or Boff abilities outside of the tutorial. Also, no high tier versions of these abilities.
Bugged Starship traits. Bugged NPCs in missions.
They appear to have broken something with mouse/inventory interaction that is a real annoyance.
Lolfilmgrain.
One of the new episode missions has KDF characters fighting and killing Klingons in order to save Feds. Shameful.
LolDaniels.
etc.
Altogether yawn-worthy. Doesn't even qualify as an expansion to me. More like a glorified, yet otherwise standard season.
When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion.
Other MMO's have had similar "expansions" where the only things not blown through were behind time gates. So industry-wide, the terminology still fits.
There are players who have already gone through every new bit of content this expansion has to offer, save for reputation grinds behind time gates. When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion. That's barely even a content patch.
After the mere handful of new intro missions, your "temporal agent" character is basically just another alt--going through the exact same content as before, and doing everything all over again in the exact same way. There is no actual "temporal agent" content or mechanics beyond the intro. You get some bonuses (most of which are insignificant, or just in the category of 'jump starting' your new alt) for character progression and doing lame probe puzzles.
The temporal probe 'guess-the-number' "puzzles" are probably some of the most creatively bankrupt and boring "puzzles" ever imagined.
No new ground STF.
The new space NPCs and their temporal/physical power spam are just as ridiculous as the Terran space NPCs with their overpowered TBR spam. Shields have been rendered useless and I hope you enjoy getting teleported every 5 seconds. Also, more cutscene spam.
Every cut scene--of which there are an abundance--continues to be like watching a dubbed Chinese film due to terrible animation syncing.
Inconsistent and jarringly different audio quality for voice overs on occasion.
No access to 23c Boffs or Boff abilities outside of the tutorial. Also, no high tier versions of these abilities.
Bugged Starship traits. Bugged NPCs in missions.
They appear to have broken something with mouse/inventory interaction that is a real annoyance.
Lolfilmgrain.
One of the new episode missions has KDF characters fighting and killing Klingons in order to save Feds. Shameful.
LolDaniels.
etc.
Altogether yawn-worthy. Doesn't even qualify as an expansion to me. More like a glorified, yet otherwise standard season.
LOR was a half faction but AOY is just almost 1/3 of a faction. The content as always was rushed and not well planned even tough there was already a precedent with LOR they did not even follow the outline.
When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion.
Other MMO's have had similar "expansions" where the only things not blown through were behind time gates. So industry-wide, the terminology still fits.
AoY doesn't even measure up when compared to STOs own expansions, let alone the amounts of content other games add in their expansions. This is nothing more than a glorified season.
When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion.
Other MMO's have had similar "expansions" where the only things not blown through were behind time gates. So industry-wide, the terminology still fits.
Loving every second of it!
I wished for more time related stuff since they fist intruduced the wells class back in the day.
And now that its here it was worth the wait. ^w^
I loved most of the sound effects, even some of the visuals (torpedo strikes etc), it had that TOS feel. It's massively let down by glitches, bugs, some ropey animations, bad cues for things and some what almost seem totally out of context sound bites from TOS. Then to rub it in, it's over in 6 missions and you're thrown into the future to play the normal game all over again. Really? Six missions? After all the hype? Even DR had more than that. It could've been something so great as well.
When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion.
Other MMO's have had similar "expansions" where the only things not blown through were behind time gates. So industry-wide, the terminology still fits.
AoY doesn't even measure up when compared to STOs own expansions, let alone the amounts of content other games add in their expansions. This is nothing more than a glorified season.
Other MMOs put out content updates that have more content than all STO "seasons" combined, so I'm not entirely sure why your insult carries all that much weight when calling something a glorified season?
When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion.
Other MMO's have had similar "expansions" where the only things not blown through were behind time gates. So industry-wide, the terminology still fits.
AoY doesn't even measure up when compared to STOs own expansions, let alone the amounts of content other games add in their expansions. This is nothing more than a glorified season.
Other MMOs put out content updates that have more content than all STO "seasons" combined, so I'm not entirely sure why your insult carries all that much weight when calling something a glorified season?
I did not insult the game, I simply stated a fact. I enjoy the update, but it's far too small even in comparison to LoR and DR, the number of missions added is more in line with a season than an expansion. I only referenced other MMOs because you had done the same.
...LOR was a half faction but AOY is just almost 1/3 of a faction. The content as always was rushed and not well planned even tough there was already a precedent with LOR they did not even follow the outline.
Look I LOVED the 23rd century environment and the missions that were created for it - and they did such a GOOD job incorporating old TOS sound effects that for me are iconic (I LOVE that they used the 'Hull Impact' sound effect for the weapon hits on 23c ships for example.) That said:
I 100% agree with the person I quoted above. In fact I think 1/3 of a faction is TOO HIGH a fraction here. What we get is basically a new tutorial set in the TOS era and that's it. And hell, ESG in the 23rd century doesn't even have a Bank for the players to access. (And you know what, if the Devs answer is "It's breaks immersion because you leave the 23rd century"... spare me. It breaks immersion that I can place an item in my Bank on ESD and then fly to any other location in the Galaxy (K-7, DS9, New Romulus, et. al.);[ and grab that item out of the Bank at that new location.)
Again, the environment and sector maps for the TOS 23rd century are AMAZING. But I was really disappointed (for example) that while Starbase 39, Vulcan and Andoria et. al. ARE selectable as destinations; you didn't even bother to do a map we could beam into.
^^^
An it's really sad because a lot of what Cryptic did for this is AMAZING; but at the same time so much comes across as half-a**ed as well. It's like a few of the designers either weren't given time to think things though or you had a Lead that was just going through the motions and doesn't really like or get why so many STILL LOVE the TOS era; and were/are excited to play in it.
Sadly, that's the main failure of "Agents of Yesterday"; it gives you just a incredibly small taste of what could be; then throws you right back into the 6 year old content with nothing much except a SHORT (on paper it's 6 - but it's really just 5 missions) 'tutorial' arc. <--- IMO that doesn't even qualify as 1/3 of a faction, it's WAY less.
Overall, I have to say I really don't see AoY as a real 'expansion' per se because hell, we got MORE content in Season 8 when the Dyson Sphere content was added; and that was expanded really quickly. Unless there a similar content addition to AoY in the near future - IMO this barely qualifies as a season - it's more like one of STO's '.5' season updates.
Again, it's all really sad too, because the content that's there IS GOOD; I just wish there was MORE of it - and further that more thought had been given to many aspects lie what's available on the 23c ESD - or the ability for TOS faction characters to return there to get items if they wish throughout their leveling process.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion.
Other MMO's have had similar "expansions" where the only things not blown through were behind time gates. So industry-wide, the terminology still fits.
AoY doesn't even measure up when compared to STOs own expansions, let alone the amounts of content other games add in their expansions. This is nothing more than a glorified season.
Other MMOs put out content updates that have more content than all STO "seasons" combined, so I'm not entirely sure why your insult carries all that much weight when calling something a glorified season?
I did not insult the game, I simply stated a fact. I enjoy the update, but it's far too small even in comparison to LoR and DR, the number of missions added is more in line with a season than an expansion. I only referenced other MMOs because you had done the same.
I guess what I'm seeking here, as I do in a lot of "debate" is a clearer metric. Better data on which to base the discussion. Which is why I want to compare it to other MMOs. The MMO genre has been around for a long time. And there have been a lot of examples of MMOs that release expansions and content updates that were sparse. Or that had content people chewed through far too quickly. It's where time gates come from in the first place (Getting through the Akheva Ruins or The Deep was pretty fast when Shadows of Luclin launched. Getting your guild the KEY for Vex Thal, though, was just time consuming).
To veer a bit into the semi personal realm for a sec ... I'm an illustrator and designer, but have shifted in my career path the past decade. I do project management and run operations for a digital marketing company and I got there by having this insane love of SEO, analytics and essentially data management. I'm also a rabid sports fan. But one of those new fangled ones. I have an insane love of ... analytics and advanced metrics.
So whether it's debating who I think should be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, what Google AdWords adcopy is going to get the most clicks, or ... what STO expansion is best ... I really want to have the discussion anchored with data. And that's why I keep bringing up other MMOs. But if you want we can forget all about them. Let's just stack this up internally, AoY vs. LoR and DR.
But let's try to come up with some stats to work out a better ranking system or better baseline for the discussion?
Let's first do a raw comparison. How many missions did each expansion have? How much new content? How did each expansion fit in with the established game at the time? ie AoY presents a new "faction" as did LoR, but DR did not. However AoY's faction is just a redressed version of one of the current factions and LoR's faction still ended up having to choose one of the two pre-existing factions ... so how do you rate that? How do you measure that? For instance, there's been a lot of criticism of AoY's "faction" not really being a faction. But, neither was LoR's and it got slammed repeatedly for forcing people to choose federation or klingon. That context has to be maintained to fairly compare the two. Let's tack on a grade or number to that?
How many missions does an expansion need? Is DR going to get dinged for using filler "patrol" missions? How do you evaluate the levelling problems DR had and eventually needed to revise to fix?
How do you differentiate between season and expansion? How do you define expansion in STO? I know how Cryptic does, but does their definition fit what the players use or even want? I mean on a basic basic basic level, they're just identifying updates to the game that give new content. Cryptic has said in the past that seasons aren't designed to carry with them a lot of story content. But they've recalibrated, refined and moved the goal posts on that quite a bit from the debut of season 1 to season 11.5 you know? So it's harder to hold them to a measurement since that measurement itself has evolved.
Let's try to nail down that measurement then. Or at least our expectations of that measurement.
What else plays into expectations on content updates/expansions/seasons? New ships? Power of those new ships? LoR for example brought a TON of new power with its new ships. But that was only for the Romulans. Which makes sense thematically but how does that rate in a larger comparison? DR brought a ton of power in new ships as it brought a whole new TIER of ship. But how does that rate in comparison? AoY brought a bunch of new ships too. But it brought a lot less to KDF and Romulans. Still those 3 are good and one of them certainly helps give both KDF and Romulans a science ship they lacked. Does that help in a comparison? Or does AoY still get negative points for just not bringing enough non-fed ships?
I know I usually don't post with much seriousness. I've felt the need to chill out about this game and have fun is far more important than having a serious discussion. However, Trek fans are logical and certainly open to discussing data. And the players of this game have a large contingent of people who are very very comfortable with data analysis (as seen in the build forum). So if we want to have a serious discussion about comparing which expansion was best ... why not try to break it down statistically? Let's tie some numbers and rankings to it?
At worst this just turns into one of those classic debates of who was better, player A or player B ... Band A or Band B ... Super Hero Team A or Super Hero Team B.
As compared to its own metrics...AOY is indeed inferior to LoR and perhaps DR. However, due to the "shorter" number of missions it seems overall bug/exploit free so far.
Remember that when DR was launched there was a huge exploit in Argala that was nerfed to oblivion infuriating most of the playerbase. Lots of people got flammed and quit STO.
I hope that does not happen here. So far most people are just ok with playing missions but no major bugs...The weekend is coming and that will test the whole system.
Its not a new faction at all, its still the federation faction, you just get to pick your prefered tutorial now.
Its not even a 1/3 faction, its the exact same faction as the federation!
Last season was more of an expansion then this, but maybe that's because I'm a Niner (favourite series DS9), as well as soneone who doesn't want to make a new TOS character.
The only real highlight for me is the new Cross Faction 31st Century Temporal Ships and for those with deeper pockets the Kelvin Timeline ships (the D4x Pilot BoP with 5 fore weapons has been on the KDF wishlist as has a Romulan Carrier for the Romulan Republic players, ect...
I'm not a hater, for a regular season its okay, but its not an expansion, its not in the league of LoR, Delta, or even the more major none expansion seasons like the Iconian War, New Dawn (what I think of as the DS9/Mirror Universe season).
Also I'm worried that the plot this season has STO trapped, where do they go from here? I don't mind some temporal episodes, but I don't want all future episodes to be Temporal.
Am I missing something, or is this "expansion" nothing more then 40 minutes of story content (including crawling across sector space at warp zero between missions) and a $130 'ship pack'.
My operational definition of the word 'expansion' has led me to expect more.
Am I missing something, or is this "expansion" nothing more then 40 minutes of story content (including crawling across sector space at warp zero between missions) and a $130 'ship pack'.
My operational definition of the word 'expansion' has led me to expect more.
Pretty much this. Keeping in mind they are busy with the console ports I can forgive them.
Although I really really enjoyed the first steps until lvl 10.
But what really bugs me beyond everything else: a 23c ship taking on super advanced na'kuhl cruisers??????? I woul love to have an explaination for this.
When you can blow through the "expansion" content in less than a day, I don't even see how that qualifies as an expansion.
Other MMO's have had similar "expansions" where the only things not blown through were behind time gates. So industry-wide, the terminology still fits.
AoY doesn't even measure up when compared to STOs own expansions, let alone the amounts of content other games add in their expansions. This is nothing more than a glorified season.
Other MMOs put out content updates that have more content than all STO "seasons" combined, so I'm not entirely sure why your insult carries all that much weight when calling something a glorified season?
I did not insult the game, I simply stated a fact. I enjoy the update, but it's far too small even in comparison to LoR and DR, the number of missions added is more in line with a season than an expansion. I only referenced other MMOs because you had done the same.
I guess what I'm seeking here, as I do in a lot of "debate" is a clearer metric. Better data on which to base the discussion. Which is why I want to compare it to other MMOs. The MMO genre has been around for a long time. And there have been a lot of examples of MMOs that release expansions and content updates that were sparse. Or that had content people chewed through far too quickly. It's where time gates come from in the first place (Getting through the Akheva Ruins or The Deep was pretty fast when Shadows of Luclin launched. Getting your guild the KEY for Vex Thal, though, was just time consuming).
To veer a bit into the semi personal realm for a sec ... I'm an illustrator and designer, but have shifted in my career path the past decade. I do project management and run operations for a digital marketing company and I got there by having this insane love of SEO, analytics and essentially data management. I'm also a rabid sports fan. But one of those new fangled ones. I have an insane love of ... analytics and advanced metrics.
So whether it's debating who I think should be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, what Google AdWords adcopy is going to get the most clicks, or ... what STO expansion is best ... I really want to have the discussion anchored with data. And that's why I keep bringing up other MMOs. But if you want we can forget all about them. Let's just stack this up internally, AoY vs. LoR and DR.
But let's try to come up with some stats to work out a better ranking system or better baseline for the discussion?
Let's first do a raw comparison. How many missions did each expansion have? How much new content? How did each expansion fit in with the established game at the time? ie AoY presents a new "faction" as did LoR, but DR did not. However AoY's faction is just a redressed version of one of the current factions and LoR's faction still ended up having to choose one of the two pre-existing factions ... so how do you rate that? How do you measure that? For instance, there's been a lot of criticism of AoY's "faction" not really being a faction. But, neither was LoR's and it got slammed repeatedly for forcing people to choose federation or klingon. That context has to be maintained to fairly compare the two. Let's tack on a grade or number to that?
How many missions does an expansion need? Is DR going to get dinged for using filler "patrol" missions? How do you evaluate the levelling problems DR had and eventually needed to revise to fix?
How do you differentiate between season and expansion? How do you define expansion in STO? I know how Cryptic does, but does their definition fit what the players use or even want? I mean on a basic basic basic level, they're just identifying updates to the game that give new content. Cryptic has said in the past that seasons aren't designed to carry with them a lot of story content. But they've recalibrated, refined and moved the goal posts on that quite a bit from the debut of season 1 to season 11.5 you know? So it's harder to hold them to a measurement since that measurement itself has evolved.
Let's try to nail down that measurement then. Or at least our expectations of that measurement.
What else plays into expectations on content updates/expansions/seasons? New ships? Power of those new ships? LoR for example brought a TON of new power with its new ships. But that was only for the Romulans. Which makes sense thematically but how does that rate in a larger comparison? DR brought a ton of power in new ships as it brought a whole new TIER of ship. But how does that rate in comparison? AoY brought a bunch of new ships too. But it brought a lot less to KDF and Romulans. Still those 3 are good and one of them certainly helps give both KDF and Romulans a science ship they lacked. Does that help in a comparison? Or does AoY still get negative points for just not bringing enough non-fed ships?
I know I usually don't post with much seriousness. I've felt the need to chill out about this game and have fun is far more important than having a serious discussion. However, Trek fans are logical and certainly open to discussing data. And the players of this game have a large contingent of people who are very very comfortable with data analysis (as seen in the build forum). So if we want to have a serious discussion about comparing which expansion was best ... why not try to break it down statistically? Let's tie some numbers and rankings to it?
At worst this just turns into one of those classic debates of who was better, player A or player B ... Band A or Band B ... Super Hero Team A or Super Hero Team B.
Filler missions were fine by me, they at least gave you stuff to do, and personally I wish the Iconian arc had had some so it didn't feel like the war is over almost right away.
One or two DR style patrol missions in the 23rd century would have made the TOS stuff feel bigger. I cant speak for the higher level stuff as I haven't played it yet, but the quantity already has me looking at LoR and shaking my head.
Each expansion has less and less of what actually makes an expansion an expansion: content. I enjoy the content but there's just not enough of it, not to call it an expansion imho, so for me it's a huge disappointment and I rank it as the worst "expansion" STO has had.
Last night in my last successful ISA pug, I hung around in my T6 Daedalus and flew side by side with a teammate that was doing a shakedown run on their T6 Kelvin Connie. It was just soooooo cool!
well, we have understood that you have a daedalus, i think that you can stop now.
I get what you're saying. And I understand that it may seem obnoxious. But ... I've got 6 years of the opposite negativity to make up for. You see I've been bashed, trolled and antagonized for 6 whole years by large chunks of "true" Star Trek fans who needed to tell me how wrong a fan I was for:
1- Liking the TOS era aesthetic
2- Liking the Golfball ships
3- Wanting to fly the Daedalus of all ships
4- Wanting to fly old ships that are too small, decommissioned and archaic to work in the modern STO.
Keep in mind a huge percentage of these true fans flew Excelsiors and D'Kyrs and B'Rels and Somraws and T'Varos. And had all these wonderfully pretzel like twists on how THAT was a-ok, but me wanting to fly a Top Tier Deed was off the charts cray!
After all that time of consistent forum needling, I think I'm going to ride out my happiness wave for a bit longer.
Every Borg Tactical Cube my DeedleDerp Vaporizes makes me enjoy AoY that much more! Every T6 Kelvin Connie I fly next to makes me smile. When I finally get a T6 Connie for my main ... my elation will likely achieve warp velocity.
TLDR: You all had your fun for 6 years. Now I get to have some!
#elitegolfballship
"Payback's a TRIBBLE, ain't it?!"
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
Comments
You only get 1 free ship everything else is behind a pay wall , and there's little content past level 10 making it seem more like a tutorial. Finally to top it off three of the most wanted ships in the game are thrown into that aweful gambling scam.
Not to mention the story makes little sense with 23rd century clunkers taking on ships that are light years more advanced. By all rights they should be space dust the moment the first shot is fired.
What was better is surely open for debate but what I would not agree with is that the new stuff added this time is only 50% of what LoR added. Far from it actually:
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Agents_Of_Yesterday
Of course if one does not go for the new stuff while squeezing all out of LoR such a misconception could certainly form.
I think if the devs would have made at least 4-6 more AoY faction specific missions and not included major parts of the Klingon War and Romulan arcs (aside from the featured episodes) from the 25th century fed faction we would not even have the present discussion.
Well they went and made some universal missions for everybody to enjoy instead and this isn’t bad at all. We also didn’t get these dull place filler patrol missions to stretch it like we did with DR. This is fine too.
The new reputation system is also supported by two completely new maps. Back at the day LoR rushed out the Nukara reputation with zippo now contend to cover it…
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Film grain ruins all the effort and hard work to make ToS graphics, do people seriously believe anyone would want that over crisp, clear visuals?
If you gave the makers of ToS the choice of the film grain they had to have or crystal-clear film you can bet your last pennies they wouldn't have gone for the film grain.
Anyone else noticed that sometimes when you get lag beaming into somewhere your away team looks like they are trashing around in the transporter effect?
Then there is the long list of bugs found and 'fixed' on tribble that still made it to release day.
Add to that the hilarious claim this ToS tutorial is 'as much a faction as the romulans' and you get an overly hyped up tutorial or a new recruitment event, one they knew people would take their time over, thanks to how fast people blitzed through the delta recruit event, so they added 'bonuses' for doing all the things we'd have to do anyway if we were going to keep the new characters.
As for me, i enjoyed the all to brief foray into ToS era starfleet.
I will now proceed to level him up, at my own pace thank you, while he laughs how a 'temporal agent' can't even notice mirror universe transporter accident victims
I have not even been able to play at more than 3 TOS missions, because finally it is a waste of time for this reason. it is impossible for me to do again and again all these missions. + the fed missions are the worst. -> TOS toon deleted
Good - Seeing the old stuff all over again and playing in it. The VOs is very nice to see and the missions was very nice too. The additional customs on the characters are nice as well. The Film Grain was a excellent effect, and really like that too. The story to get you started as an Agent was good as well. Wanted more missions in that era to stop the time villains. Really love the tech and sound effects to go with that as well. Some of the best time I had on the game in a while!
Bad - Wanted more in that era, not just to Lv10. Would been great to have a whole level experience, so I won't have to redo all those other story arcs again.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
It just feels like they had a chance to do something epic and they, as usual, dropped the ball.
After the mere handful of new intro missions, your "temporal agent" character is basically just another alt--going through the exact same content as before, and doing everything all over again in the exact same way. There is no actual "temporal agent" content or mechanics beyond the intro. You get some bonuses (most of which are insignificant, or just in the category of 'jump starting' your new alt) for character progression and doing lame probe puzzles.
The temporal probe 'guess-the-number' "puzzles" are probably some of the most creatively bankrupt and boring "puzzles" ever imagined.
No new ground STF.
The new space NPCs and their temporal/physical power spam are just as ridiculous as the Terran space NPCs with their overpowered TBR spam. Shields have been rendered useless and I hope you enjoy getting teleported every 5 seconds. Also, more cutscene spam.
Every cut scene--of which there are an abundance--continues to be like watching a dubbed Chinese film due to terrible animation syncing.
Inconsistent and jarringly different audio quality for voice overs on occasion.
No access to 23c Boffs or Boff abilities outside of the tutorial. Also, no high tier versions of these abilities.
Bugged Starship traits. Bugged NPCs in missions.
They appear to have broken something with mouse/inventory interaction that is a real annoyance.
Lolfilmgrain.
One of the new episode missions has KDF characters fighting and killing Klingons in order to save Feds. Shameful.
LolDaniels.
etc.
Altogether yawn-worthy. Doesn't even qualify as an expansion to me. More like a glorified, yet otherwise standard season.
Other MMO's have had similar "expansions" where the only things not blown through were behind time gates. So industry-wide, the terminology still fits.
LOR was a half faction but AOY is just almost 1/3 of a faction. The content as always was rushed and not well planned even tough there was already a precedent with LOR they did not even follow the outline.
AoY doesn't even measure up when compared to STOs own expansions, let alone the amounts of content other games add in their expansions. This is nothing more than a glorified season.
Rationalize garbage all you like.
I wished for more time related stuff since they fist intruduced the wells class back in the day.
And now that its here it was worth the wait. ^w^
It's ok but far from the best.
I loved most of the sound effects, even some of the visuals (torpedo strikes etc), it had that TOS feel.
It's massively let down by glitches, bugs, some ropey animations, bad cues for things and some what almost seem totally out of context sound bites from TOS.
Then to rub it in, it's over in 6 missions and you're thrown into the future to play the normal game all over again.
Really?
Six missions?
After all the hype?
Even DR had more than that.
It could've been something so great as well.
Other MMOs put out content updates that have more content than all STO "seasons" combined, so I'm not entirely sure why your insult carries all that much weight when calling something a glorified season?
I did not insult the game, I simply stated a fact. I enjoy the update, but it's far too small even in comparison to LoR and DR, the number of missions added is more in line with a season than an expansion. I only referenced other MMOs because you had done the same.
Look I LOVED the 23rd century environment and the missions that were created for it - and they did such a GOOD job incorporating old TOS sound effects that for me are iconic (I LOVE that they used the 'Hull Impact' sound effect for the weapon hits on 23c ships for example.) That said:
I 100% agree with the person I quoted above. In fact I think 1/3 of a faction is TOO HIGH a fraction here. What we get is basically a new tutorial set in the TOS era and that's it. And hell, ESG in the 23rd century doesn't even have a Bank for the players to access. (And you know what, if the Devs answer is "It's breaks immersion because you leave the 23rd century"... spare me. It breaks immersion that I can place an item in my Bank on ESD and then fly to any other location in the Galaxy (K-7, DS9, New Romulus, et. al.);[ and grab that item out of the Bank at that new location.)
Again, the environment and sector maps for the TOS 23rd century are AMAZING. But I was really disappointed (for example) that while Starbase 39, Vulcan and Andoria et. al. ARE selectable as destinations; you didn't even bother to do a map we could beam into.
^^^
An it's really sad because a lot of what Cryptic did for this is AMAZING; but at the same time so much comes across as half-a**ed as well. It's like a few of the designers either weren't given time to think things though or you had a Lead that was just going through the motions and doesn't really like or get why so many STILL LOVE the TOS era; and were/are excited to play in it.
Sadly, that's the main failure of "Agents of Yesterday"; it gives you just a incredibly small taste of what could be; then throws you right back into the 6 year old content with nothing much except a SHORT (on paper it's 6 - but it's really just 5 missions) 'tutorial' arc. <--- IMO that doesn't even qualify as 1/3 of a faction, it's WAY less.
Overall, I have to say I really don't see AoY as a real 'expansion' per se because hell, we got MORE content in Season 8 when the Dyson Sphere content was added; and that was expanded really quickly. Unless there a similar content addition to AoY in the near future - IMO this barely qualifies as a season - it's more like one of STO's '.5' season updates.
Again, it's all really sad too, because the content that's there IS GOOD; I just wish there was MORE of it - and further that more thought had been given to many aspects lie what's available on the 23c ESD - or the ability for TOS faction characters to return there to get items if they wish throughout their leveling process.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I guess what I'm seeking here, as I do in a lot of "debate" is a clearer metric. Better data on which to base the discussion. Which is why I want to compare it to other MMOs. The MMO genre has been around for a long time. And there have been a lot of examples of MMOs that release expansions and content updates that were sparse. Or that had content people chewed through far too quickly. It's where time gates come from in the first place (Getting through the Akheva Ruins or The Deep was pretty fast when Shadows of Luclin launched. Getting your guild the KEY for Vex Thal, though, was just time consuming).
To veer a bit into the semi personal realm for a sec ... I'm an illustrator and designer, but have shifted in my career path the past decade. I do project management and run operations for a digital marketing company and I got there by having this insane love of SEO, analytics and essentially data management. I'm also a rabid sports fan. But one of those new fangled ones. I have an insane love of ... analytics and advanced metrics.
So whether it's debating who I think should be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, what Google AdWords adcopy is going to get the most clicks, or ... what STO expansion is best ... I really want to have the discussion anchored with data. And that's why I keep bringing up other MMOs. But if you want we can forget all about them. Let's just stack this up internally, AoY vs. LoR and DR.
But let's try to come up with some stats to work out a better ranking system or better baseline for the discussion?
Let's first do a raw comparison. How many missions did each expansion have? How much new content? How did each expansion fit in with the established game at the time? ie AoY presents a new "faction" as did LoR, but DR did not. However AoY's faction is just a redressed version of one of the current factions and LoR's faction still ended up having to choose one of the two pre-existing factions ... so how do you rate that? How do you measure that? For instance, there's been a lot of criticism of AoY's "faction" not really being a faction. But, neither was LoR's and it got slammed repeatedly for forcing people to choose federation or klingon. That context has to be maintained to fairly compare the two. Let's tack on a grade or number to that?
How many missions does an expansion need? Is DR going to get dinged for using filler "patrol" missions? How do you evaluate the levelling problems DR had and eventually needed to revise to fix?
How do you differentiate between season and expansion? How do you define expansion in STO? I know how Cryptic does, but does their definition fit what the players use or even want? I mean on a basic basic basic level, they're just identifying updates to the game that give new content. Cryptic has said in the past that seasons aren't designed to carry with them a lot of story content. But they've recalibrated, refined and moved the goal posts on that quite a bit from the debut of season 1 to season 11.5 you know? So it's harder to hold them to a measurement since that measurement itself has evolved.
Let's try to nail down that measurement then. Or at least our expectations of that measurement.
What else plays into expectations on content updates/expansions/seasons? New ships? Power of those new ships? LoR for example brought a TON of new power with its new ships. But that was only for the Romulans. Which makes sense thematically but how does that rate in a larger comparison? DR brought a ton of power in new ships as it brought a whole new TIER of ship. But how does that rate in comparison? AoY brought a bunch of new ships too. But it brought a lot less to KDF and Romulans. Still those 3 are good and one of them certainly helps give both KDF and Romulans a science ship they lacked. Does that help in a comparison? Or does AoY still get negative points for just not bringing enough non-fed ships?
I know I usually don't post with much seriousness. I've felt the need to chill out about this game and have fun is far more important than having a serious discussion. However, Trek fans are logical and certainly open to discussing data. And the players of this game have a large contingent of people who are very very comfortable with data analysis (as seen in the build forum). So if we want to have a serious discussion about comparing which expansion was best ... why not try to break it down statistically? Let's tie some numbers and rankings to it?
At worst this just turns into one of those classic debates of who was better, player A or player B ... Band A or Band B ... Super Hero Team A or Super Hero Team B.
Remember that when DR was launched there was a huge exploit in Argala that was nerfed to oblivion infuriating most of the playerbase. Lots of people got flammed and quit STO.
I hope that does not happen here. So far most people are just ok with playing missions but no major bugs...The weekend is coming and that will test the whole system.
Its not even a 1/3 faction, its the exact same faction as the federation!
Last season was more of an expansion then this, but maybe that's because I'm a Niner (favourite series DS9), as well as soneone who doesn't want to make a new TOS character.
The only real highlight for me is the new Cross Faction 31st Century Temporal Ships and for those with deeper pockets the Kelvin Timeline ships (the D4x Pilot BoP with 5 fore weapons has been on the KDF wishlist as has a Romulan Carrier for the Romulan Republic players, ect...
I'm not a hater, for a regular season its okay, but its not an expansion, its not in the league of LoR, Delta, or even the more major none expansion seasons like the Iconian War, New Dawn (what I think of as the DS9/Mirror Universe season).
Also I'm worried that the plot this season has STO trapped, where do they go from here? I don't mind some temporal episodes, but I don't want all future episodes to be Temporal.
I'm having a blast.
I am not a fan of the Original Series and have absolutely zero interest in seeing a whole expansion dedicated to that.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
My operational definition of the word 'expansion' has led me to expect more.
Pretty much this. Keeping in mind they are busy with the console ports I can forgive them.
Although I really really enjoyed the first steps until lvl 10.
But what really bugs me beyond everything else: a 23c ship taking on super advanced na'kuhl cruisers??????? I woul love to have an explaination for this.
Filler missions were fine by me, they at least gave you stuff to do, and personally I wish the Iconian arc had had some so it didn't feel like the war is over almost right away.
One or two DR style patrol missions in the 23rd century would have made the TOS stuff feel bigger. I cant speak for the higher level stuff as I haven't played it yet, but the quantity already has me looking at LoR and shaking my head.
Each expansion has less and less of what actually makes an expansion an expansion: content. I enjoy the content but there's just not enough of it, not to call it an expansion imho, so for me it's a huge disappointment and I rank it as the worst "expansion" STO has had.
"Payback's a TRIBBLE, ain't it?!"
Speaking of the delta recruit thing why does the instruction keep calling temporal agents delta recruits? lol
I have no idea how the KDF got its hands on the Chronos, so I'm going to assume it was like how the KDF won its Kar'fi, glorious, glorious battle!!!
The Chronos is my battle trophy, in the name of the Klingon Empire and the Orion Syndicate, and is now my flag ship. Enemies of the Empire Tremble!
as opposed to the bend over,grab your ankles and think happy thoughts while you take everything they give you type of superior customer?