You're an officer in an organization that needs you "out there." To spend any more than a few days convalescing is pushing it and forcing the organization to look at you and say, "do we really need this officer?" If you're Klingon, your first officer will take your place and kill you when you try to return.
So a typical American company?
Worse...there's more riding on it than meeting a sales quota. Are the Borg assimilating that sector of space and if so why? Are the Undine massing for an invasion? Is that space anomaly a threat to the planets around it? Etc. etc. infinitum. I think that's why the ships offer so much...you live on them for a very long time and they're capable of housing a crew and supporting it for a very long time.
You're an officer in an organization that needs you "out there." To spend any more than a few days convalescing is pushing it and forcing the organization to look at you and say, "do we really need this officer?" If you're Klingon, your first officer will take your place and kill you when you try to return.
So a typical American company?
Worse...there's more riding on it than meeting a sales quota. Are the Borg assimilating that sector of space and if so why? Are the Undine massing for an invasion? Is that space anomaly a threat to the planets around it? Etc. etc. infinitum. I think that's why the ships offer so much...you live on them for a very long time and they're capable of housing a crew and supporting it for a very long time.
For the sake of argument I am going to ignore STO for this. (Risa vacations during a galactic war or two.)
Captain's Holiday. They con him into demanding a 'crewman' take a vacation. Then it turns out it is him. Not go spend some time in Ten Forward or play a Dixon Hill Novel. Get off the ship and visit a beach.
(Yet places I have worked irl will demand you take your vacation time as it looks bad if you don't. But even one day off for a funeral is met with "We may decide we don't need you." )
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
You're an officer in an organization that needs you "out there." To spend any more than a few days convalescing is pushing it and forcing the organization to look at you and say, "do we really need this officer?" If you're Klingon, your first officer will take your place and kill you when you try to return.
So a typical American company?
Worse...there's more riding on it than meeting a sales quota. Are the Borg assimilating that sector of space and if so why? Are the Undine massing for an invasion? Is that space anomaly a threat to the planets around it? Etc. etc. infinitum. I think that's why the ships offer so much...you live on them for a very long time and they're capable of housing a crew and supporting it for a very long time.
For the sake of argument I am going to ignore STO for this. (Risa vacations during a galactic war or two.)
Captain's Holiday. They con him into demanding a 'crewman' take a vacation. Then it turns out it is him. Not go spend some time in Ten Forward or play a Dixon Hill Novel. Get off the ship and visit a beach.
(Yet places I have worked irl will demand you take your vacation time as it looks bad if you don't. But even one day off for a funeral is met with "We may decide we don't need you." )
So...for one day off...or even a week...you need a house?!!!!
You're an officer in an organization that needs you "out there." To spend any more than a few days convalescing is pushing it and forcing the organization to look at you and say, "do we really need this officer?" If you're Klingon, your first officer will take your place and kill you when you try to return.
So a typical American company?
Worse...there's more riding on it than meeting a sales quota. Are the Borg assimilating that sector of space and if so why? Are the Undine massing for an invasion? Is that space anomaly a threat to the planets around it? Etc. etc. infinitum. I think that's why the ships offer so much...you live on them for a very long time and they're capable of housing a crew and supporting it for a very long time.
For the sake of argument I am going to ignore STO for this. (Risa vacations during a galactic war or two.)
Captain's Holiday. They con him into demanding a 'crewman' take a vacation. Then it turns out it is him. Not go spend some time in Ten Forward or play a Dixon Hill Novel. Get off the ship and visit a beach.
(Yet places I have worked irl will demand you take your vacation time as it looks bad if you don't. But even one day off for a funeral is met with "We may decide we don't need you." )
So...for one day off...or even a week...you need a house?!!!!
Thank you for bringing back on topic.
Every person in game the various fleets are assumed to be from 'somewhere' Kirk had an apartment and eventually a house with a barn and horses. The others were all assumed to have had 'something' on their home worlds. Why do each person have a 'house' will vary. Perhaps it is your family home, your apartment for when not on your ship. (Note others have mentioned the maintenance schedule for most things is mostly down time.) The reasons for a house in game are as varied as the player base and in theory could be made up and decorated as such.
My points are it could be a thing people would enjoy building up if just for bragging rights. (Hence a place for them to be visible) And potentially monetized in people getting rare decorations out of lock boxes. Buying and selling on the exchange. Etc.
But as you mentioned if anyone in a military so much as convalesces after injuries their home fleets will suddenly decide they never needed that person. And that sounds as cynical as the businesses I have been in that fire people for taking their sick days etc.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Player housing is awesome! Nothing like building a cosy little nest for yourself, that's different from everyone else's! That need is already being fulfilled, minimally, by ship customizations in general; but I want moar!
Kirk had a house (in Idaho, I think) with a barn when he was in Starfleet Ops, before the first movie. It's where he went back to in the Nexus, because he almost got married and settled down there. Later, before the second movie, he'd taken promotion again, and was again at a desk in Starfleet Ops ("This isn't about age, and you know it. This is about you sitting at a desk when you want to be out there hopping galaxies!"); he therefore needed that apartment in San Francisco, convenient to work.
As long as I'm in the center seat of my starship, that is home.
I really think player housing would be a worthwhile project, as long as it is done right.
I don't think turning ship Interiors and Bridges into housing is the answer, rather I kind of think taking a page from games like SWTOR or LOTRO might be in order.
Those games have houses in different areas with completely unique themes, which would be awesome in STO.
We could have an apartment overlooking San Fransisco Bay, or we could have Quarters on DS9, ESD or wherever, there are a lot of possibilities.
I also think STF's should be touched up and be given a close relationship with housing by having Elite queues have "trophies" as rare drop items that you could then place and show off your accomplishments. Customizable item based hotspots would be absolutely essential.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
I'm in favor of them really developing the ship interiors as the player housing instead of spending time and development on something completely "new" (apartments, etc.) for a few reasons- but the first would be that the ship interior system already exists, therefore it can be refined and expanded.
Another point to be made is they never really "went anywhere" with the ship interiors functionally- so perhaps it's time to revisit this and really do something with it instead of treating it as "the elephant in the middle of the room" no one talks about.
I personally wouldn't utilize a "housing" system, not really interested in the "trophy" thing, or any of that.
IMO, I'd much rather they spent game development time on new content and/or improving existing systems, instead of the ADHD tendency to jump to "MOAR BLINGY STUFFZ!" all the time which just introduces layers of problems on top of existing ones. *shrugs*
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
Those games have houses in different areas with completely unique themes, which would be awesome in STO.
We could have an apartment overlooking San Fransisco Bay, or we could have Quarters on DS9, ESD or wherever, there are a lot of possibilities.
^^ Ooo, I'd love that! "Houses in different areas with completely unique themes," that's what (paid) subscribers get in Second Life too (those Linden homes are kinda crappy, though, but that's beside the point). And I loved the apartment I got in Mass Effect 3! Please, Taco, make it so! I promise you, I'll spend good money on it!
It already exists. Your ship is your home. You've got the bridge, you've got the crew deck, complete with your very own shag pad room and bar(unless you use the majority of the lockbox ships as your main ship). You've also got the fleet starbase. If you want a planetside "home," you've got foundry missions to build your own. You can even RP "claim" an area as one that you manage when your character isn't off BFAWing everything in sight(for example, my toon Brikta manages the bar in First City in her downtime). It's up to you to use your imagination.
Regardless of where housing might be... starship, some bungalos on Risa, etc. Housing could be the dil sink that some people have been clamoring for. SWG, LOTRO, even EQ2 had good housing and customization options, but they also have, and should have, upkeep costs. Personally, I don't want another dil sink, but there are other currencies in the game we could use i.e. GPL.
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I dont think the OP asked the right question. Its not whether or not "housing" (in our case bridges) has a point, but more does it have a worthy, necessary function that we have to utilize from time to time. Right now, outside of things like cells, tufflis, dkoras, et al, they dont. Some are cool to look at a few times (kelvin, annorax, etc etc) and you might visit a doff contact there once in a while but more often than not they dont serve a purpose. Once that problem is solved, we will have a reason to go there, and Cryptic will have a reason to make more of them (OR alllow us to buy the damn Voyager bridge if you already have the ship, wink wink).
I think a new thread that asks people to list things they feel would make player housing aka ship bridges more useful might be the best way to go.
Dr. Miranda Jones: I understand, Mr. Spock. The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.
Mr. Spock: And the ways our differences combine, to create meaning and beauty.
I'm in favor of them really developing the ship interiors as the player housing instead of spending time and development on something completely "new" (apartments, etc.) for a few reasons- but the first would be that the ship interior system already exists, therefore it can be refined and expanded.
No, it can't. There are too many interiors, it would be too much work to do anything meaningful for all of them.
So, if the Captain's Quarters and the Ready Room became customizable. And the what the crew wears too. And those things be purchasable through the Lobi, Dilithium and C-Store's. Then they would have player homes. But that is not there yet.
As for having a point, no player housing doesn't need to have a point, just a purpose. And they can monetize it by putting it in stores that I mentioned above. And the people who enjoy that kind of thing will do it, and those that don't, won't. But each person can find their own purpose in it, or not.
who did housing right? Star Wars Galaxies.... to a MUCH lesser extent Star Wars the Old Republic... and SWTOR's model is perfect for STO, one giant add-on to space barbie fueled by cash shop items, and free drops in game. Hell collecting certain bits give the daily grinding that is endgame a point.
Could STO use something like that? Yeah sure, would be a good expansion on fleet bases to have your own area on the spire or starbase. Rigging up your own ship interiors could also be really cool.
Is it worth the epic amounts of work they would need to do for it?? *looks at all the effort that went into one off TOS content*
Absolutely.
So, if the Captain's Quarters and the Ready Room became customizable. And the what the crew wears too. And those things be purchasable through the Lobi, Dilithium and C-Store's. Then they would have player homes. But that is not there yet.
Most special ship interiors don't have captain's quarters or ready rooms at all, or any crew other than a few boffs.
So, if the Captain's Quarters and the Ready Room became customizable. And the what the crew wears too. And those things be purchasable through the Lobi, Dilithium and C-Store's. Then they would have player homes. But that is not there yet.
Most special ship interiors don't have captain's quarters or ready rooms at all, or any crew other than a few boffs.
Now THIS is actually a good case to be made for why the ship interior isn't (at present) the best method to introduce a housing system.
I completely concur, however, it doesn't really outweigh the reasoning of an existing system as opposed to introducing a completely new one. That said- I'd also be in favor or BOTH reworking the interior ship system AND introducing a new one (apartments located at docking areas, etc.) but not just abandoning the ship interior system in favor of a completely new one.
I'd prefer they stay with the existing system only because it means they have to spend more money and development time on a completely new one- when they could just spend that money to really make the existing one shine.
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
So, if the Captain's Quarters and the Ready Room became customizable. And the what the crew wears too. And those things be purchasable through the Lobi, Dilithium and C-Store's. Then they would have player homes. But that is not there yet.
Most special ship interiors don't have captain's quarters or ready rooms at all, or any crew other than a few boffs.
I know. But that is my requirement for there to be player housing. Those two rooms and customizable crew outfits. Which is also why I said that it is not there yet. There would be work required on their part to accomplish this.
Housing could work, only if it were in ship's interior, after all we are admirals, captain in starship, we past our time in ship than in a house on a single planet
unfortunately they confirmed that they won't do anything that concern ship interior since it won't bring much profit on that.
But this is my idea, what if customizing the interiors bring some passives to the ship? would be neat! this could bring the player base attention in the ship interior. Posting rooms, officers quarters, Arsenal, Torpedo bay, decks, engineering modules, Science laboratories, etc.
So, if the Captain's Quarters and the Ready Room became customizable. And the what the crew wears too. And those things be purchasable through the Lobi, Dilithium and C-Store's. Then they would have player homes. But that is not there yet.
Most special ship interiors don't have captain's quarters or ready rooms at all, or any crew other than a few boffs.
Now THIS is actually a good case to be made for why the ship interior isn't (at present) the best method to introduce a housing system.
I completely concur, however, it doesn't really outweigh the reasoning of an existing system as opposed to introducing a completely new one. That said- I'd also be in favor or BOTH reworking the interior ship system AND introducing a new one (apartments located at docking areas, etc.) but not just abandoning the ship interior system in favor of a completely new one.
I'd prefer they stay with the existing system only because it means they have to spend more money and development time on a completely new one- when they could just spend that money to really make the existing one shine.
Where do you get that from? I don't have a detailed count, but there are dozens of ship interior maps in the game. Doing anything with all of them would take massive amount of work from environment design alone. And a lot of the interiors are just one room. The devs have said it takes something like a month IIRC to build a full interior, even to the current non-customizable, barely-functional specifications. Nothing is ever going to justify the workload of expanding all those stub interiors. Nothing.
Unless you're suggesting they remove all the different interiors from the game and just make a generic one to customize, then it could of course work. Are you?
And ship interiors aren't really a "system." The ship tailor has a system for selecting which interior to use, for ships that have more than one option, but other than that they're just normal, pre-made ground maps. Any kind of customization system would have to be scratch-built anyway.
Actually Guild Wars 2 has a way they made it useful and could easily be adapted process for this game. What they do is when they have a special event or new type of content coming out there are nodes you can gather from. With STO they could just add functions to different bridge stations and such. So basically having a contact or interact with a bridge npc or station as well as engineering or crew decks where you could get your daily boxes and then a selling point would be to add new contacts to your bridges from lockboxes.
So really on that note if they would and could do this because they can it would require no programmer time. It would encourage bridges being built and such if there was money backing it thru the lockboxes. For federation bridges being able to win holodeck programs from your ships holodeck would be one way to make mini games more viable in the game.
As for the foundry its always been a state of unfriendliness to the average user. Then lots of bad reviews come about because of how bad the assets look in it. IMHO the foundry should either be taken down and made professional or either just remove it from the game entirely. It has potential to be as wide spread as any other area of content in the game but its like one of the few things from STO's earlier years that just hasn't been brought up to par with the rest of the content.
So overall though the ship bridges do have potential too its just how its implemented but for the most part they were only developed slightly due to the doff system. The key thing Cryptic has to do is drop some potential winning talking points on putting things in lockboxes that can be used on the bridges that will appeal to players and surely it would be approved based on they don't need any new or modified tech to implement it.
My first idea would be on scimitar bridge musical thalaron chairs. Be able to get some tal shiar prisoners and randomly stop the spinner and whoevers chair it lands on is vaporized would be a cool mini game to get out of a lockbox that could be used on the bridge lol Kinda like the dabo table but you can use enemy prisoners instead
We know the sto game engine is very likely to have housing because champions has housing. But the champs stuff is clunky. In terms of who did it best and what could it add to STO, I'll say swtor and black desert.
Swtor has a few houses and a mix of free, cash shop, and gamble box decorations. The initial house is affordable, but unlocking extra rooms becomes the sink. You can buy the house either with the ec equivalent, or the Zen equivalent, but if you go ec and sell the house your expansions are lost and you have to reexpand if you but again. Advantages of these systems come to sto: easily monetized, has an ongoing sink value, not just a one time sink, has features for both free and paid players. Few locations means developer time is contained.
Black desert has interactive cities where you can invest in buildings and make them workshops (like for duty officers), bank storage, or housing. The houses are pretty small but you can have lots. They have a system where every decoration gives points and the highest rated house in a specific location can have unique unlocks, such as worker nodes, or investment banks. They have both crafted and cash decorations. Most interestingly is that the decorations are often functional. Lying on a bed recovers energy to use with crafting. Installing a kitchen allows cooking. Installing an anvil allows relating your own gear. Installing an alchemy set allows brewing potions, etc. So one house could be a bar and the owner can literally brew and serve drinks to guests (well, could until they locked out trades because of gold sellers, blech). Advantages of implementing systems into sto: again easily monetized and had stuff for both free and paid players. Would not be worth the effort to make the city investment side, but allowing specialization of function makes it different from fleet holdings (where every none has the same potential functions) and a way to express character. Having many small houses can mean one for each character, or one per account, or anything in between at the player's discretion. But being small keeps development time down and limits collision issues. Could use the chamions ability to pick which of several options each character uses, just like bdo allows unique houses per character or shared.
I would LOVE player housing. However it is implemented. I see the limited bridges as a great reason and potential for using the ship. Just add a door in the turbolift. Leave all existing bridges intact and unchanged. Walk off the bridge to access the customized area. Don't make the bridges customizeable, but do use them as doors. Then they just need some skins to match the different aesthetics. or stick them at locations in the game world. Either way.
CO Hideouts are roughly equivalent in use to Bridges/Ready Rooms; the primary difference is that for some reason a ship with a crew complement of over 1000 doesn't have a tailor on board. On the other paw, the big reason I still have people using those Tier 6 Ferengi ships is that they come with the D'kora bridge, which includes access to the Exchange and a private dabo table...
Then again, a fair number of CO players are jealous of Fleet Starbases, wanting to copy that system over for Supergroup HQs.
Most/all uniforms have literally a base "color pattern", and the actual color displayed for each "predefined swath" of uniform is based on the entry picked while at the tailor. Can this technology be somewhat readily adapted to ship interiors - where instead of being "upper shoulders, trim, stripe, main body" it'd be "ceiling, upper wall panels, lower wall panels, carpet"?
Can a map be build in a manner where the designer positions walls, counters, consoles, doors, etc., and the system applies an appropriate texture / component based on the selected bridge? Say that if I'm in a "Solanae" ship (Obelisk Carrier, Dyson Sci Destroyer) I get "Solanae" walls, doors, consoles, etc., while if I'm on a Galor I'd get "Cardassian" walls, doors, consoles, etc.?
Can certain "Rooms" of a map "borrow" Foundry Tech so that the player can decide the layout? This would be saved for say the Conference Room, Captain's Quarters, and maybe Ready Room.
For the record, the "color pallet" maneuver is an attempt to cut back on Developer workload, instead of having to redo all existing bridges 3x (once in each color pattern), the "uniform technology" does most of that work, so rebuild the room once and go to town?
And the second maneuver would be a very... Ferengi... thing to do. "While retrofitting the ship, the Lobi Crystal Consortium took great pains and liberties to ensure that the prominent crew decks would be built to the standards of the owning race, while maintaining a liberal use of the components already within the ship."
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Well they could consider our ships as the free version of housing and leave that as is... OK touch them up a bit. I mean if this were the Navy we would get our own quarters but we wouldn't get fancy them up like we can our own home/apartments. At the end of the day they aren't really our ships.
I think the point of housing, like everything else, is for Cryptic to make money. There are people so into this world that they wouldn't mind living here, even virtually. So give then a dedicated player housing planet. Some remote colony world. Provide them with a basic house. Put other homes in the Dil store or the C-Store. Develop furniture sets, develop specific pieces of furniture. Maybe even add souvenirs to new and old missions that they can acquire and use in decorating their new homes. Souvenirs can be places in ready rooms, which could also be personalized.
Of course this isn't for the people who are here to blow TRIBBLE up. It's for the guy or girl who wants to be at home, in a home in the Federation or the Empire or the Republic.
I've always wanted there to be more ship interior stuff, but the devs have long hidden behind their circular argument of "We won't work on interiors anymore because nobody uses them, because we won't work on them."
I think the idea is that if they do actually do something with interiors, it'll be a modular design, where we can drag and drop prefabricated rooms and hallways onto a map, and then deco it to a degree. Sort of like the Foundry is set up in Neverwinter (which they've also claimed that they'd like to adapt to over here at STO, but just haven't had the development time or resources to do so). I believe it was Taco that made some suggestion to that effect (I could be wrong about him saying that, but one of the Devs did at some point in the not too distance past. Note the word suggestion as well, as he didn't say that that was a definite plan).
If that were the case - even if they only did it for the Foundry - then I think that take some of the pressure off of the subject of ship interiors, and it would help even the novice players navigate the Foundry to create their own personalized space to share with others.
Whether or not they actually put housing in is a topic of much discussion. each player would have varied reasons for owning a house or apartment. There is nothing wrong with this, even the devs own/rent a place.
The main thing that the game needs, and I'm sure everyone will agree. It to update the social zones. To where at least all the furniture is right click to use. If they do nothing else, this would be an overall tremendous improvement. Though I would like to see Quark's get an overhaul, at least add some four person tables. The promenade is suppose to have a Riplimat with food items, it doesn't right now, this is not a big concern. They just need to go through all the social zones and add click to sit furniture.
Comments
Worse...there's more riding on it than meeting a sales quota. Are the Borg assimilating that sector of space and if so why? Are the Undine massing for an invasion? Is that space anomaly a threat to the planets around it? Etc. etc. infinitum. I think that's why the ships offer so much...you live on them for a very long time and they're capable of housing a crew and supporting it for a very long time.
For the sake of argument I am going to ignore STO for this. (Risa vacations during a galactic war or two.)
Captain's Holiday. They con him into demanding a 'crewman' take a vacation. Then it turns out it is him. Not go spend some time in Ten Forward or play a Dixon Hill Novel. Get off the ship and visit a beach.
(Yet places I have worked irl will demand you take your vacation time as it looks bad if you don't. But even one day off for a funeral is met with "We may decide we don't need you." )
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
So...for one day off...or even a week...you need a house?!!!!
Thank you for bringing back on topic.
Every person in game the various fleets are assumed to be from 'somewhere' Kirk had an apartment and eventually a house with a barn and horses. The others were all assumed to have had 'something' on their home worlds. Why do each person have a 'house' will vary. Perhaps it is your family home, your apartment for when not on your ship. (Note others have mentioned the maintenance schedule for most things is mostly down time.) The reasons for a house in game are as varied as the player base and in theory could be made up and decorated as such.
My points are it could be a thing people would enjoy building up if just for bragging rights. (Hence a place for them to be visible) And potentially monetized in people getting rare decorations out of lock boxes. Buying and selling on the exchange. Etc.
But as you mentioned if anyone in a military so much as convalesces after injuries their home fleets will suddenly decide they never needed that person. And that sounds as cynical as the businesses I have been in that fire people for taking their sick days etc.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
As long as I'm in the center seat of my starship, that is home.
I don't think turning ship Interiors and Bridges into housing is the answer, rather I kind of think taking a page from games like SWTOR or LOTRO might be in order.
Those games have houses in different areas with completely unique themes, which would be awesome in STO.
We could have an apartment overlooking San Fransisco Bay, or we could have Quarters on DS9, ESD or wherever, there are a lot of possibilities.
I also think STF's should be touched up and be given a close relationship with housing by having Elite queues have "trophies" as rare drop items that you could then place and show off your accomplishments. Customizable item based hotspots would be absolutely essential.
Another point to be made is they never really "went anywhere" with the ship interiors functionally- so perhaps it's time to revisit this and really do something with it instead of treating it as "the elephant in the middle of the room" no one talks about.
I personally wouldn't utilize a "housing" system, not really interested in the "trophy" thing, or any of that.
IMO, I'd much rather they spent game development time on new content and/or improving existing systems, instead of the ADHD tendency to jump to "MOAR BLINGY STUFFZ!" all the time which just introduces layers of problems on top of existing ones. *shrugs*
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
^^ Ooo, I'd love that! "Houses in different areas with completely unique themes," that's what (paid) subscribers get in Second Life too (those Linden homes are kinda crappy, though, but that's beside the point). And I loved the apartment I got in Mass Effect 3! Please, Taco, make it so! I promise you, I'll spend good money on it!
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I think a new thread that asks people to list things they feel would make player housing aka ship bridges more useful might be the best way to go.
Mr. Spock: And the ways our differences combine, to create meaning and beauty.
-Star Trek: Is There in Truth No Beauty? (1968)
As for having a point, no player housing doesn't need to have a point, just a purpose. And they can monetize it by putting it in stores that I mentioned above. And the people who enjoy that kind of thing will do it, and those that don't, won't. But each person can find their own purpose in it, or not.
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Could STO use something like that? Yeah sure, would be a good expansion on fleet bases to have your own area on the spire or starbase. Rigging up your own ship interiors could also be really cool.
Is it worth the epic amounts of work they would need to do for it?? *looks at all the effort that went into one off TOS content*
Absolutely.
Now THIS is actually a good case to be made for why the ship interior isn't (at present) the best method to introduce a housing system.
I completely concur, however, it doesn't really outweigh the reasoning of an existing system as opposed to introducing a completely new one. That said- I'd also be in favor or BOTH reworking the interior ship system AND introducing a new one (apartments located at docking areas, etc.) but not just abandoning the ship interior system in favor of a completely new one.
I'd prefer they stay with the existing system only because it means they have to spend more money and development time on a completely new one- when they could just spend that money to really make the existing one shine.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
I know. But that is my requirement for there to be player housing. Those two rooms and customizable crew outfits. Which is also why I said that it is not there yet. There would be work required on their part to accomplish this.
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unfortunately they confirmed that they won't do anything that concern ship interior since it won't bring much profit on that.
But this is my idea, what if customizing the interiors bring some passives to the ship? would be neat! this could bring the player base attention in the ship interior. Posting rooms, officers quarters, Arsenal, Torpedo bay, decks, engineering modules, Science laboratories, etc.
Unless you're suggesting they remove all the different interiors from the game and just make a generic one to customize, then it could of course work. Are you?
And ship interiors aren't really a "system." The ship tailor has a system for selecting which interior to use, for ships that have more than one option, but other than that they're just normal, pre-made ground maps. Any kind of customization system would have to be scratch-built anyway.
So really on that note if they would and could do this because they can it would require no programmer time. It would encourage bridges being built and such if there was money backing it thru the lockboxes. For federation bridges being able to win holodeck programs from your ships holodeck would be one way to make mini games more viable in the game.
As for the foundry its always been a state of unfriendliness to the average user. Then lots of bad reviews come about because of how bad the assets look in it. IMHO the foundry should either be taken down and made professional or either just remove it from the game entirely. It has potential to be as wide spread as any other area of content in the game but its like one of the few things from STO's earlier years that just hasn't been brought up to par with the rest of the content.
So overall though the ship bridges do have potential too its just how its implemented but for the most part they were only developed slightly due to the doff system. The key thing Cryptic has to do is drop some potential winning talking points on putting things in lockboxes that can be used on the bridges that will appeal to players and surely it would be approved based on they don't need any new or modified tech to implement it.
My first idea would be on scimitar bridge musical thalaron chairs. Be able to get some tal shiar prisoners and randomly stop the spinner and whoevers chair it lands on is vaporized would be a cool mini game to get out of a lockbox that could be used on the bridge lol
Swtor has a few houses and a mix of free, cash shop, and gamble box decorations. The initial house is affordable, but unlocking extra rooms becomes the sink. You can buy the house either with the ec equivalent, or the Zen equivalent, but if you go ec and sell the house your expansions are lost and you have to reexpand if you but again.
Advantages of these systems come to sto: easily monetized, has an ongoing sink value, not just a one time sink, has features for both free and paid players. Few locations means developer time is contained.
Black desert has interactive cities where you can invest in buildings and make them workshops (like for duty officers), bank storage, or housing. The houses are pretty small but you can have lots. They have a system where every decoration gives points and the highest rated house in a specific location can have unique unlocks, such as worker nodes, or investment banks. They have both crafted and cash decorations. Most interestingly is that the decorations are often functional. Lying on a bed recovers energy to use with crafting. Installing a kitchen allows cooking. Installing an anvil allows relating your own gear. Installing an alchemy set allows brewing potions, etc. So one house could be a bar and the owner can literally brew and serve drinks to guests (well, could until they locked out trades because of gold sellers, blech).
Advantages of implementing systems into sto: again easily monetized and had stuff for both free and paid players. Would not be worth the effort to make the city investment side, but allowing specialization of function makes it different from fleet holdings (where every none has the same potential functions) and a way to express character. Having many small houses can mean one for each character, or one per account, or anything in between at the player's discretion. But being small keeps development time down and limits collision issues. Could use the chamions ability to pick which of several options each character uses, just like bdo allows unique houses per character or shared.
I would LOVE player housing. However it is implemented. I see the limited bridges as a great reason and potential for using the ship. Just add a door in the turbolift. Leave all existing bridges intact and unchanged. Walk off the bridge to access the customized area. Don't make the bridges customizeable, but do use them as doors. Then they just need some skins to match the different aesthetics. or stick them at locations in the game world. Either way.
Then again, a fair number of CO players are jealous of Fleet Starbases, wanting to copy that system over for Supergroup HQs.
Most/all uniforms have literally a base "color pattern", and the actual color displayed for each "predefined swath" of uniform is based on the entry picked while at the tailor. Can this technology be somewhat readily adapted to ship interiors - where instead of being "upper shoulders, trim, stripe, main body" it'd be "ceiling, upper wall panels, lower wall panels, carpet"?
Can a map be build in a manner where the designer positions walls, counters, consoles, doors, etc., and the system applies an appropriate texture / component based on the selected bridge? Say that if I'm in a "Solanae" ship (Obelisk Carrier, Dyson Sci Destroyer) I get "Solanae" walls, doors, consoles, etc., while if I'm on a Galor I'd get "Cardassian" walls, doors, consoles, etc.?
Can certain "Rooms" of a map "borrow" Foundry Tech so that the player can decide the layout? This would be saved for say the Conference Room, Captain's Quarters, and maybe Ready Room.
For the record, the "color pallet" maneuver is an attempt to cut back on Developer workload, instead of having to redo all existing bridges 3x (once in each color pattern), the "uniform technology" does most of that work, so rebuild the room once and go to town?
And the second maneuver would be a very... Ferengi... thing to do. "While retrofitting the ship, the Lobi Crystal Consortium took great pains and liberties to ensure that the prominent crew decks would be built to the standards of the owning race, while maintaining a liberal use of the components already within the ship."
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Of course this isn't for the people who are here to blow TRIBBLE up. It's for the guy or girl who wants to be at home, in a home in the Federation or the Empire or the Republic.
If that were the case - even if they only did it for the Foundry - then I think that take some of the pressure off of the subject of ship interiors, and it would help even the novice players navigate the Foundry to create their own personalized space to share with others.
The main thing that the game needs, and I'm sure everyone will agree. It to update the social zones. To where at least all the furniture is right click to use. If they do nothing else, this would be an overall tremendous improvement. Though I would like to see Quark's get an overhaul, at least add some four person tables. The promenade is suppose to have a Riplimat with food items, it doesn't right now, this is not a big concern. They just need to go through all the social zones and add click to sit furniture.