The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
That's the problem with Too Long Didn't Read.
One way to circumvent this is to start the essay with a summary of the essay contents. This gives the reader knowledge of the full contents before they read all of it.
Plenty of ways to handle exploration. Meet a new civilization. They need supplies like the old Exploration clusters. You do that, open relations. You start peaceful talks if they are warp capable.
depending on how you do, you start real diplomatic relations. Then you start trade agreements, with the planet, your ship is tasked with patrolling for pirates and such to keep freedom of navigation(or hell could even give us squadrons tumdedum). Planet is brought into the federation, or RR or KDF. Hey they want a starbase and you start bringing in supplies like strategy style, then you have to defend against god knows what depending on where you are.
there's a whole chain of missions you could set up in exploration.
Or we do those rare things and get to watch a star go super nova(and get a unique title for doing so). Then there's the boring old stuff you saw from the beginning of First Contact.
BUT. For me it goes under the header of "A day in the life of a star fleet captain".
RIGHT. I forgot about that.
I haven't thought of a game mechanic that wouldn't cancel the ongoing gameplay without adding more areas of exploration and new species, but at some point bringing the civilization into the Federation or the Romulan Republic.
The Klingon Empire would like conquer the civilization at some point.
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
That's the problem with Too Long Didn't Read.
One way to circumvent this is to start the essay with a summary of the essay contents. This gives the reader knowledge of the full contents before they read all of it.
That's fair.
I usually just post train of thought style so indexing my posts isn't a natural inclination, but I'll look to do that in the future.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Considering the NMS devs blatantly lied to people about their game to the point that Steam is issuing refunds, I don't think NMS should be emulated.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Anyway I can understand the frustration people have with the game. PC players (most of them) couldn't even get it to launch on day one.
Like I said earlier though, it's far from perfect, but it's been the best 7/10 game I've ever played. And the OST is incredible. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game. At least most people agree on that judging from youtube comments.
One thing I found that NMS did an excellent job on is that you actually feel the vastness of space when you're flying from planet to planet in system.
It can take you 5mins+ to travel from one planetary body to another within system at "Pulse Drive speed" (max speed in system), that same 5mins, if travelled at non-Pulse Drive speed could literally take you years to get there. STO space travel feels absolutely claustrophobic in comparison.
Which is unfortunately the one thing STO cannot change, they have their maps and way of travel firmly cemented into the system already, and that would be the most arduous of things to change in game. So I don't even need/want that "Distance" feel here in STO. But it sure is impressive, and I would hope if they ever make an STO 2, this would be something taken into consideration.
Like anything in life, those with a grievance will scream the loudest. Myself, I'm really enjoying the journey and don't have many complaints.
It certainly wont be something I replay over and over more then once or twice, but its been an entertaining game for me the last couple weeks. I'll be happy I experienced it first hand. Rather then having others make up my mind for me.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
Next up on the Hype train;
Red Dead 3
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Gears of War 4
Mass Effect Andromeda
Etc,etc,etc
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
I have not played NMS and I while I have been interested in playing the game since I first heard about 9 - 12 months ago I have definitely not been ridding the hype train.
I do not think it is fair to compare NMS to ME3. ME3 on the whole had a pretty decent launch with not many missing features or broken performance. I have to state I did not play ME3 until around 3 months after it launched so I am not aware of any thing that would be considered game breaking from a performance point of view. However, I do know of the Day One DLC controversy regarding Javik (the last surviving Prothean). But that is just one feature, not a laundry list of many. Excluding the ending, the only gripe I remember having was that ME3 was more of a 3rd person action game rather than a 3rd person RPG game. I think ME2 had the right mix.
On the other hand NMS seems to have numerous performance issues on the PC based on what I have read. That is kinda ironic since NMS was initially developed as a PC game if what I have read is true. Then there are the missing features a lot of people have complained about and there was even an exhaustive list on Reddit of all the promised features that were not in the retail game.
Sure, both games have ending that basically sucks, but that is as far as I would go with the comparison between ME3 and NMS for someone who has actually not played NMS yet. It's still piqued my interest, but I am going to wait for a price drop and more importantly patches to incorporate messing features into the game.
Regarding the "missing features" I would say there are at least two ways of looking at...
#1 - Gamer's point of view - I guess all the interviews and demonstrations of the game during the development process (which I did not bother to read / watch), NWS was supposed to have a lot features there compared to what actually was in the retail version of the game. Naturally, people who were super hyped about the game expected to see all those features or at least a majority of them. But sadly, that was not the case and they felt cheated, lied to and probably even betrayed by the developer.
#2 - Developer's point of view - Everyone knows developing games is a lot easier said than done. Hello Games promised a lot and wanted to give it's target audience the best game they can deliver to the best of their abilities. I am not sure when NMS was originally expected to be released prior to the announcement the game was also going to be released for the PS4. But since Sony was flipping the bill for providing promotional and marketing support, I suppose Sony had a hand in deciding when the game is to be released. That creates a problem... the game might have been rushed out the door to meet Sony's deadline expectations. At that point the developer could have been forced to release what is known as a MVP.
No, this is not sports so MVP does not mean "Most Valuable Player". Instead it means "Minimal Viable Product", where Sony is more or less forcing Hello Games to release a product that can be considered "playable", but not complete. It kinda reminds me of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II that was being developed by Obsidian. Lucas Arts force Obsidian to cut development time of the game so that it can be released for holiday sales in December 2004 rather than what was probably going to be a Spring 2005 release.
Star Wars: KOTOR II was originally supposed to have a total of 3 acts to the game, but due to time constraints mandated by LucasArts executives Obsidian had no choice but to cut content from the game to meet the December 2004 release date. Fortunately, the cut content assets was included on the DVD (if I remember correctly) and later various fan made "Restoration Projects" were in the works to flesh out KOTOR II's story with the cut content. I think the most recent project is The Sith Lords Restored.
Anywaste... the truth is probably the combination of #1 and #2 or perhaps something else. In any case I'll just wait for more patches to be released and a price drop before I decide to buy the game. That assumes at that time I am still interested in playing the game.
STO will never be able to do a good procedurally generated content system with the limitations of an ancient engine and the lack of dedicated server space to process each and every different area to a good degree. At best, it'd just be a series of mix-and-match maps with different objectives, NPCs, and buildings or flora and fauna.
And furthermore, STO will never allow original naming of random new species or real choices that affect your game on the level of Mass Effect's choices (even including the corrected freedom of choice final endings).
Considering the NMS devs blatantly lied to people about their game to the point that Steam is issuing refunds, I don't think NMS should be emulated.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Anyway I can understand the frustration people have with the game. PC players (most of them) couldn't even get it to launch on day one.
Like I said earlier though, it's far from perfect, but it's been the best 7/10 game I've ever played. And the OST is incredible. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game. At least most people agree on that judging from youtube comments.
One thing I found that NMS did an excellent job on is that you actually feel the vastness of space when you're flying from planet to planet in system.
It can take you 5mins+ to travel from one planetary body to another within system at "Pulse Drive speed" (max speed in system), that same 5mins, if travelled at non-Pulse Drive speed could literally take you years to get there. STO space travel feels absolutely claustrophobic in comparison.
Which is unfortunately the one thing STO cannot change, they have their maps and way of travel firmly cemented into the system already, and that would be the most arduous of things to change in game. So I don't even need/want that "Distance" feel here in STO. But it sure is impressive, and I would hope if they ever make an STO 2, this would be something taken into consideration.
Like anything in life, those with a grievance will scream the loudest. Myself, I'm really enjoying the journey and don't have many complaints.
It certainly wont be something I replay over and over more then once or twice, but its been an entertaining game for me the last couple weeks. I'll be happy I experienced it first hand. Rather then having others make up my mind for me.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
Next up on the Hype train;
Red Dead 3
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Gears of War 4
Mass Effect Andromeda
Etc,etc,etc
Keep your expectations to a dull roar.
Count me among those furious at Mass 3's ending. I still haven't played through on the any of my other four characters after the first.
But, it was still a hell of a Trilogy. And Mass Effect Andromeda is bringing me home again.
I think the easiest thing for an STO2 would definitely be to open up the final frontier. I'll give them massive credit for Quadrant space though. That was a huge improvement to me and I appreciate the effort.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
I have not played NMS and I while I have been interested in playing the game since I first heard about 9 - 12 months ago I have definitely not been ridding the hype train.
I do not think it is fair to compare NMS to ME3. ME3 on the whole had a pretty decent launch with not many missing features or broken performance. I have to state I did not play ME3 until around 3 months after it launched so I am not aware of any thing that would be considered game breaking from a performance point of view. However, I do know of the Day One DLC controversy regarding Javik (the last surviving Prothean). But that is just one feature, not a laundry list of many. Excluding the ending, the only gripe I remember having was that ME3 was more of a 3rd person action game rather than a 3rd person RPG game. I think ME2 had the right mix.
On the other hand NMS seems to have numerous performance issues on the PC based on what I have read. That is kinda ironic since NMS was initially developed as a PC game if what I have read is true. Then there are the missing features a lot of people have complained about and there was even an exhaustive list on Reddit of all the promised features that were not in the retail game.
Sure, both games have ending that basically sucks, but that is as far as I would go with the comparison between ME3 and NMS for someone who has actually not played NMS yet. It's still piqued my interest, but I am going to wait for a price drop and more importantly patches to incorporate messing features into the game.
Regarding the "missing features" I would say there are at least two ways of looking at...
#1 - Gamer's point of view - I guess all the interviews and demonstrations of the game during the development process (which I did not bother to read / watch), NWS was supposed to have a lot features there compared to what actually was in the retail version of the game. Naturally, people who were super hyped about the game expected to see all those features or at least a majority of them. But sadly, that was not the case and they felt cheated, lied to and probably even betrayed by the developer.
#2 - Developer's point of view - Everyone knows developing games is a lot easier said than done. Hello Games promised a lot and wanted to give it's target audience the best game they can deliver to the best of their abilities. I am not sure when NMS was originally expected to be released prior to the announcement the game was also going to be released for the PS4. But since Sony was flipping the bill for providing promotional and marketing support, I suppose Sony had a hand in deciding when the game is to be released. That creates a problem... the game might have been rushed out the door to meet Sony's deadline expectations. At that point the developer could have been forced to release what is known as a MVP.
No, this is not sports so MVP does not mean "Most Valuable Player". Instead it means "Minimal Viable Product", where Sony is more or less forcing Hello Games to release a product that can be considered "playable", but not complete. It kinda reminds me of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II that was being developed by Obsidian. Lucas Arts force Obsidian to cut development time of the game so that it can be released for holiday sales in December 2004 rather than what was probably going to be a Spring 2005 release.
Star Wars: KOTOR II was originally supposed to have a total of 3 acts to the game, but due to time constraints mandated by LucasArts executives Obsidian had no choice but to cut content from the game to meet the December 2004 release date. Fortunately, the cut content assets was included on the DVD (if I remember correctly) and later various fan made "Restoration Projects" were in the works to flesh out KOTOR II's story with the cut content. I think the most recent project is The Sith Lords Restored.
Anywaste... the truth is probably the combination of #1 and #2 or perhaps something else. In any case I'll just wait for more patches to be released and a price drop before I decide to buy the game. That assumes at that time I am still interested in playing the game.
Minimal Viable Product. Wouldn't be the first time Sony pushed that though. That's what happened with the launch of Street Fighter V as they wanted it available for the EVO or another tournament so they pushed the game out before the story mode or in game store were complete.
STO will never be able to do a good procedurally generated content system with the limitations of an ancient engine and the lack of dedicated server space to process each and every different area to a good degree. At best, it'd just be a series of mix-and-match maps with different objectives, NPCs, and buildings or flora and fauna.
And furthermore, STO will never allow original naming of random new species or real choices that affect your game on the level of Mass Effect's choices (even including the corrected freedom of choice final endings).
Well an engine overhaul isn't in the cards that's for damn sure. Part of the reason the game was able to be made at all was because Cryptic could build it in their own engine in a short period of time Piggybacking on Jaguar's statement, STO itself was an MVP game at launch. Perpetual sat on the license without making progress for so long STO had a severely truncated development time. But improvements to the engine will never be able to generate the kind of improvements they would get from a new engine.
STO has experimented with choice based gameplay, the Delta Quadrant mission where the Vaadwaur refugees just want away from the fighting and a nice place to start over actually will determine what kind of Vaadwaur reinforcements you get at Vaadwaur Prime for the final battle. The game simply will judge based on your last decision in that mission. Ultimately it's a series of yes/no or score based decisions in the engine that will be referenced by the system later. So choice IS actually possible in STO.
For my ideas I was actually thinking that the content as far as species wouldn't be fully procedurally created as a matter of quality, but the devs would create several sets of aliens for each cluster just with common scenarios to unite them, First Contact, embassy creation, deal violation, enemy attack, pirate raid, convoy escort, etc. Three species you could contact at launch and every season they add new species to each exploration cluster quadrant each season.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Considering the NMS devs blatantly lied to people about their game to the point that Steam is issuing refunds, I don't think NMS should be emulated.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Except its not really multiplayer at all, because people DID find eachother and it turned out they can't actually see eachother no matter what.
The problem with NMS is the hype that has been created over the years. So we created in our minds a version of NMS that didn't exist. As a procedurally generated universe it has succeeded.
As far as anyone believing it was actually multiplayer, it is as much multiplayer as Spore is. If I encounter a world that has been discovered by someone else, then I can see what they named the solar system, planets, plants, waypoints, and animals. However, a multiplayer game can't exist if you are able to load a previous saved game.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
I have not played NMS and I while I have been interested in playing the game since I first heard about 9 - 12 months ago I have definitely not been ridding the hype train.
I do not think it is fair to compare NMS to ME3. ME3 on the whole had a pretty decent launch with not many missing features or broken performance. I have to state I did not play ME3 until around 3 months after it launched so I am not aware of any thing that would be considered game breaking from a performance point of view. However, I do know of the Day One DLC controversy regarding Javik (the last surviving Prothean). But that is just one feature, not a laundry list of many. Excluding the ending, the only gripe I remember having was that ME3 was more of a 3rd person action game rather than a 3rd person RPG game. I think ME2 had the right mix.
On the other hand NMS seems to have numerous performance issues on the PC based on what I have read. That is kinda ironic since NMS was initially developed as a PC game if what I have read is true. Then there are the missing features a lot of people have complained about and there was even an exhaustive list on Reddit of all the promised features that were not in the retail game.
Sure, both games have ending that basically sucks, but that is as far as I would go with the comparison between ME3 and NMS for someone who has actually not played NMS yet. It's still piqued my interest, but I am going to wait for a price drop and more importantly patches to incorporate messing features into the game.
Regarding the "missing features" I would say there are at least two ways of looking at...
#1 - Gamer's point of view - I guess all the interviews and demonstrations of the game during the development process (which I did not bother to read / watch), NWS was supposed to have a lot features there compared to what actually was in the retail version of the game. Naturally, people who were super hyped about the game expected to see all those features or at least a majority of them. But sadly, that was not the case and they felt cheated, lied to and probably even betrayed by the developer.
#2 - Developer's point of view - Everyone knows developing games is a lot easier said than done. Hello Games promised a lot and wanted to give it's target audience the best game they can deliver to the best of their abilities. I am not sure when NMS was originally expected to be released prior to the announcement the game was also going to be released for the PS4. But since Sony was flipping the bill for providing promotional and marketing support, I suppose Sony had a hand in deciding when the game is to be released. That creates a problem... the game might have been rushed out the door to meet Sony's deadline expectations. At that point the developer could have been forced to release what is known as a MVP.
No, this is not sports so MVP does not mean "Most Valuable Player". Instead it means "Minimal Viable Product", where Sony is more or less forcing Hello Games to release a product that can be considered "playable", but not complete. It kinda reminds me of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II that was being developed by Obsidian. Lucas Arts force Obsidian to cut development time of the game so that it can be released for holiday sales in December 2004 rather than what was probably going to be a Spring 2005 release.
Star Wars: KOTOR II was originally supposed to have a total of 3 acts to the game, but due to time constraints mandated by LucasArts executives Obsidian had no choice but to cut content from the game to meet the December 2004 release date. Fortunately, the cut content assets was included on the DVD (if I remember correctly) and later various fan made "Restoration Projects" were in the works to flesh out KOTOR II's story with the cut content. I think the most recent project is The Sith Lords Restored.
Anywaste... the truth is probably the combination of #1 and #2 or perhaps something else. In any case I'll just wait for more patches to be released and a price drop before I decide to buy the game. That assumes at that time I am still interested in playing the game.
I agree with most of that, and nice post.
But to clarify a bit about the ME3/NMS comparison, what I mean specifically is the "anger/rage" is similar. It reached astronomical levels with ME3, and basically took over the internet for a time lol. That same level of outrage is being reached with NMS.
But yeah totally agree, ME3 didn't crash on me, and gave pretty much what it promised. It was just the ending where your choices didn't matter much that much which pissed people off after playing it for 7-8 years. Despite that though, I loved the ME series. And I'd also agree ME2 had the best mix of combat/rpg/ and story, it'll be hard to top.
Considering the NMS devs blatantly lied to people about their game to the point that Steam is issuing refunds, I don't think NMS should be emulated.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Except its not really multiplayer at all, because people DID find eachother and it turned out they can't actually see eachother no matter what.
I had heard this was due to them not adding the player models to game. But yeah, probably was never intended to be multiplayer. And like @starkaos said, most online multiplayer games cannot load previous saves. Or even pausing the game.
Most multiplayer games you can "soft pause" but the action continues around you. So yeah I guess that's a pretty huge grievance for those who expected it. And I do think it's a shame they didn't add at least flight combat multiplayer module/arena.
Maybe in the future it'll happen, but I think it'll be too little too late for most people.
They were supposed to add base building soon, maybe that will allow players to meet up, I dunno.. I was talking with my friends who are playing last night, and we thought it would be nice, if your friends could visit your base, and share resources with one another. For example, one guy might be in need of aluminum, but is having trouble finding it, so you say "Hey come by the base, I've got some aluminum for you.." Or even, just leave it there banked for them. Then they could drop by at their leisure when they get time.
@jaguarskx yeah wait until you can find a used copy, I'd feel bad if you paid full price and didn't like it.
But its a pretty cool experience if you think long distance space travel sounds interesting.
So many suggestions along those lines have been put forth but the end-game is still the same old Doffing and repetitive STF grinds.
And story driven episodes, which unlike "exploration" in the style of NMS are somewhat analogous to the style and focus of the Star Trek television series.
If you want a proof of concept for why this is an important torpedo struck against the hull of Exploration 2.0, consider your first playthrough of the Delta Rising patrols. Without knowing the content, shuffled mission selection, and with randomized mission elements, they strongly emulated what the core gameplay of a new STO exploration system would most plausibly be like (without the supporting systems, just the heart of the idea.) Yet the community did not cry out "THIS IS PERFECT, WE'RE INCREMENTALLY APPROACHING THE TYPE OF SYSTEM CRYPTIC SHOULD BE DEVELOPING!" because the mode of small vignettes distributed randomly through space, ultimately, is not a more suitable format to STO than what STO has more heavily invested in (ie. bigger story driven episodes with characters, plots, and issues.)
One can hope that next time will be different, but when at the heart of the matter is an fundamental disconnect between the X3/Elite Dangerous/NMS genre and Star Trek (they do very different things in very different ways) another strictly mechanical approach to exploration would be a sizable risk. I don't think it's fair to lament that the devs haven't jumped at it.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
@jaguarskx yeah wait until you can find a used copy, I'd feel bad if you paid full price and didn't like it.
But its a pretty cool experience if you think long distance space travel sounds interesting.
I did not buy the game yet. I think somewhere in the middle of my post I mentioned I was simply going to wait for NMS to be patched (for performance issues and more content) and the price to be reduced before I buy it. That's assuming I am still interested in playing it later.
So many suggestions along those lines have been put forth but the end-game is still the same old Doffing and repetitive STF grinds.
And story driven episodes, which unlike "exploration" in the style of NMS are somewhat analogous to the style and focus of the Star Trek television series.
If you want a proof of concept for why this is an important torpedo struck against the hull of Exploration 2.0, consider your first playthrough of the Delta Rising patrols. Without knowing the content, shuffled mission selection, and with randomized mission elements, they strongly emulated what the core gameplay of a new STO exploration system would most plausibly be like (without the supporting systems, just the heart of the idea.) Yet the community did not cry out "THIS IS PERFECT, WE'RE INCREMENTALLY APPROACHING THE TYPE OF SYSTEM CRYPTIC SHOULD BE DEVELOPING!" because the mode of small vignettes distributed randomly through space, ultimately, is not a more suitable format to STO than what STO has more heavily invested in (ie. bigger story driven episodes with characters, plots, and issues.)
One can hope that next time will be different, but when at the heart of the matter is an fundamental disconnect between the X3/Elite Dangerous/NMS genre and Star Trek (they do very different things in very different ways) another strictly mechanical approach to exploration would be a sizable risk. I don't think it's fair to lament that the devs haven't jumped at it.
I am always surprised how much hatred the Delta Rising patrols garnered. They were perfect for fleshing out the Delta Quadrant. They gave you a bit of insight into the different species, so that even people that have never seen anything of VOY would get an idea what the major players are. I thought they were quite nice.
Though honestly, I suspect people only hated it because of the level gating and the "need" to repeatedly play those patrols. No matter what kind of masterpiece a mission would be, playing it 10 or 50 times in a row would make you hate it. That's like a child's parents demanding it to read the first Lord of the Ring novel 10 times before they would buy you the second novel.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I am always surprised how much hatred the Delta Rising patrols garnered. They were perfect for fleshing out the Delta Quadrant. They gave you a bit of insight into the different species, so that even people that have never seen anything of VOY would get an idea what the major players are. I thought they were quite nice.
They added a lot of flavor in their own right but where I think the functional problems comes in is context. There's better ways of incorporating flavor than isolated mini-missions spaced between episodes (such in-mission as optional dialog, optional objectives, and greater indulgence taken with the setting.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
I am always surprised how much hatred the Delta Rising patrols garnered. They were perfect for fleshing out the Delta Quadrant. They gave you a bit of insight into the different species, so that even people that have never seen anything of VOY would get an idea what the major players are. I thought they were quite nice.
Though honestly, I suspect people only hated it because of the level gating and the "need" to repeatedly play those patrols. No matter what kind of masterpiece a mission would be, playing it 10 or 50 times in a row would make you hate it. That's like a child's parents demanding it to read the first Lord of the Ring novel 10 times before they would buy you the second novel.
Yeah people went absolutely batshit when they realized how much time it'd take to grind to 60 in one day....
not everyone is all that happy with NMS
there is a forbes article that says a LOT of players are feeling ripped off
I could've sworn it was one of the most maligned games to come out since Watch Dogs.
Yeah, there's a lot of rage going around right now. About pricing, multiplayer, game instability, content removal.
Personally, I think in many cases it's a bandwagon thing. People are hopping on the Hate Train left and right, because its the cool thing to do at the moment. Many of those people haven't even played the game, they're just piling on, for the sake of piling on.
In my experience, I've had 3 system freezes in about 60 hours of gameplay. Maybe I'm lucky in this regard, maybe its worse for others. Not sure, but it has not been anything more then a minor issue for me on PS4.
I do know PC had a terrible launch and like 99% of players couldn't play it on day one.
I think that's where things started to spiral out of control.
Many PC players rated it 0, and returned it right away. And then things got really out of control from there.
On Multiplayer, I never really cared about it to begin with, so that doesn't affect me. But some were expecting it, and I think it's a fair complaint.
As for the pricing issue, no one was forced to buy/preorder the game, and nobody held a gun to my head or anyone else's. If it turned out that I didn't like the game (which is not the case, I think its a great journey so far), that's really all on me, for not being patient and testing it out before buying.
Furthermore, with the insane level of Hype NMS achieved, Sony and Hello Games would have been out of their minds to charge anything less then market value, which is 60$ American;
It's sort of like the Connie Promo here in STO. While I may personally believe a straight CStore release would have been the best for everyone, with the amount of hype the Connie carries, it would have been foolish for PWE to release it any other way then Promo.
Just like Hello Games and Sony would've been crazy to sell this super hyped game for say, 20-30$.
So many suggestions along those lines have been put forth but the end-game is still the same old Doffing and repetitive STF grinds.
And story driven episodes, which unlike "exploration" in the style of NMS are somewhat analogous to the style and focus of the Star Trek television series.
If you want a proof of concept for why this is an important torpedo struck against the hull of Exploration 2.0, consider your first playthrough of the Delta Rising patrols. Without knowing the content, shuffled mission selection, and with randomized mission elements, they strongly emulated what the core gameplay of a new STO exploration system would most plausibly be like (without the supporting systems, just the heart of the idea.) Yet the community did not cry out "THIS IS PERFECT, WE'RE INCREMENTALLY APPROACHING THE TYPE OF SYSTEM CRYPTIC SHOULD BE DEVELOPING!" because the mode of small vignettes distributed randomly through space, ultimately, is not a more suitable format to STO than what STO has more heavily invested in (ie. bigger story driven episodes with characters, plots, and issues.)
One can hope that next time will be different, but when at the heart of the matter is an fundamental disconnect between the X3/Elite Dangerous/NMS genre and Star Trek (they do very different things in very different ways) another strictly mechanical approach to exploration would be a sizable risk. I don't think it's fair to lament that the devs haven't jumped at it.
I am always surprised how much hatred the Delta Rising patrols garnered. They were perfect for fleshing out the Delta Quadrant. They gave you a bit of insight into the different species, so that even people that have never seen anything of VOY would get an idea what the major players are. I thought they were quite nice.
Though honestly, I suspect people only hated it because of the level gating and the "need" to repeatedly play those patrols. No matter what kind of masterpiece a mission would be, playing it 10 or 50 times in a row would make you hate it. That's like a child's parents demanding it to read the first Lord of the Ring novel 10 times before they would buy you the second novel.
I could barely get through LotR one time lol. Tolkien just keeps rambling on and on with the descriptors...it nearly killed me.
10x would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment I think.
but anyway, I too liked the Delta patrols, I never had an issue with them, actually I still do a patrol circuit from time to time. I really like the how they included the APU race in the patrols, that was a nice surprise for me. But yeah, the level gating was pretty damn annoying.
I didn't have a problem with the Delta patrols - until about the 3rd time I ran into one.
Patrol missions COULD be a great way to fill out the game's depth, but the Delta Patrols were really just a lot of monotony and tedium. Real missions can be this way, and one every now an then is alright, but they put a lot of those together in an effort to pad out the Delta Arc. With a lot of players who are probably ADD to begin with, you easily loose the player's attention to boredom.
It may be why they've shifted to a more shoot-'em-up-Bang-Bang attitude to gameplay.
I think it's called 'Fighter Pilot Syndrome', where you have to be on the edge of your seat the whole time or else you loose complete focus and just zone out.
not everyone is all that happy with NMS
there is a forbes article that says a LOT of players are feeling ripped off
I could've sworn it was one of the most maligned games to come out since Watch Dogs.
Yeah, there's a lot of rage going around right now. About pricing, multiplayer, game instability, content removal.
Personally, I think in many cases it's a bandwagon thing. People are hopping on the Hate Train left and right, because its the cool thing to do at the moment. Many of those people haven't even played the game, they're just piling on, for the sake of piling on.
In my experience, I've had 3 system freezes in about 60 hours of gameplay. Maybe I'm lucky in this regard, maybe its worse for others. Not sure, but it has not been anything more then a minor issue for me on PS4.
I do know PC had a terrible launch and like 99% of players couldn't play it on day one.
I think that's where things started to spiral out of control.
Many PC players rated it 0, and returned it right away. And then things got really out of control from there.
On Multiplayer, I never really cared about it to begin with, so that doesn't affect me. But some were expecting it, and I think it's a fair complaint.
As for the pricing issue, no one was forced to buy/preorder the game, and nobody held a gun to my head or anyone else's. If it turned out that I didn't like the game (which is not the case, I think its a great journey so far), that's really all on me, for not being patient and testing it out before buying.
Furthermore, with the insane level of Hype NMS achieved, Sony and Hello Games would have been out of their minds to charge anything less then market value, which is 60$ American;
It's sort of like the Connie Promo here in STO. While I may personally believe a straight CStore release would have been the best for everyone, with the amount of hype the Connie carries, it would have been foolish for PWE to release it any other way then Promo.
Just like Hello Games and Sony would've been crazy to sell this super hyped game for say, 20-30$.
I'm only on the rage train because I spent 60 bucks, did everything they said to do, and STILL couldn't get the game to work on a very very good PC.
Needless to say, took my money back and said frak it.
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STO will never be able to do a good procedurally generated content system with the limitations of an ancient engine and the lack of dedicated server space to process each and every different area to a good degree. At best, it'd just be a series of mix-and-match maps with different objectives, NPCs, and buildings or flora and fauna.
And furthermore, STO will never allow original naming of random new species or real choices that affect your game on the level of Mass Effect's choices (even including the corrected freedom of choice final endings).
Well an engine overhaul isn't in the cards that's for damn sure. Part of the reason the game was able to be made at all was because Cryptic could build it in their own engine in a short period of time Piggybacking on Jaguar's statement, STO itself was an MVP game at launch. Perpetual sat on the license without making progress for so long STO had a severely truncated development time. But improvements to the engine will never be able to generate the kind of improvements they would get from a new engine.
STO has experimented with choice based gameplay, the Delta Quadrant mission where the Vaadwaur refugees just want away from the fighting and a nice place to start over actually will determine what kind of Vaadwaur reinforcements you get at Vaadwaur Prime for the final battle. The game simply will judge based on your last decision in that mission. Ultimately it's a series of yes/no or score based decisions in the engine that will be referenced by the system later. So choice IS actually possible in STO.
For my ideas I was actually thinking that the content as far as species wouldn't be fully procedurally created as a matter of quality, but the devs would create several sets of aliens for each cluster just with common scenarios to unite them, First Contact, embassy creation, deal violation, enemy attack, pirate raid, convoy escort, etc. Three species you could contact at launch and every season they add new species to each exploration cluster quadrant each season.
STO's engine is the same one used to run Champions Online, IIRC. We've had the devs themselves state across different subjects as to why they can't make certain things work (true 3D movement, move to a location while on the bridge, etc), and the overall reason is that the engine is ancient and inflexible, and for some cases, would require a completely new engine.
And while STO has experimented with choice-based gameplay (see Fed's Rescue the Azura mission and the class-specific choices) and again in Delta as you mentioned, both were quickly abandoned and did not notably affect any cutscene or event. Why couldn't my Klingon slap or punch Keten, drag him to a mirror, and tell him he's no longer Harry Kim, and have a cutscene showing that? Why can't I punch Sela unconscious in one or two missions? Why can't the players choose which ending they prefer by having them take up sides based on their actions; such as choosing to stop Sela from harming the Iconians or allowing her to, and the majority choice either results in returning to a shifted reality in which the Iconians are a distant, but friendly race, or the ending we got where it's an apocalyptic battle that ends only because we gave them back their ball of DNA since they lost the means to breed their race.
As to your ideas, they would fit in as pre-generated content that's then pulled upon in a controlled fashion in a fascimile of procedurally driven content (basically, a more organized and in-depth form of the failed Exploration content that was pulled a long while back). The catch would be if the system is able to remember your decisions from the earlier generated content and not only propel you along your own miniature choose-your-own-adventure, but also reward you well enough for it and still somehow be replayable, without resorting to a "timeline reset" function to replay it all along a new path. Maybe you got tired of being a good guy for this particular alien group, or you didn't like the reward, and want to do it all over again, even if the objectives change some or the story changes some.
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
I spent the first part of this post reading thinking, what is he talking about Pay to Play. PvP Player vs Player.
RIGHT. I forgot about that.
I haven't thought of a game mechanic that wouldn't cancel the ongoing gameplay without adding more areas of exploration and new species, but at some point bringing the civilization into the Federation or the Romulan Republic.
The Klingon Empire would like conquer the civilization at some point.
That's fair.
I usually just post train of thought style so indexing my posts isn't a natural inclination, but I'll look to do that in the future.
My character Tsin'xing
Just google "No Man's Lie".
My character Tsin'xing
My fault. Sry. I'm still used to the old format abbrevs, so tend to use ones that mean different things now.
P2P used to mean Player-to-Player.
But that was from before the whole pay-to-play stuff came about.
Actually I don't believe he lied, but saying it was going to multiplayer was a bit misleading.
I think the best quote I've heard on it was something like;
"Yeah it's multiplayer, but if you have 5 people on earth, you may never find each other for your whole lives, even if you were actively looking for them."
Which people took as, "Yeah, its going to be multiplayer, *end Quote*"
Anyway I can understand the frustration people have with the game. PC players (most of them) couldn't even get it to launch on day one.
Like I said earlier though, it's far from perfect, but it's been the best 7/10 game I've ever played. And the OST is incredible. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game. At least most people agree on that judging from youtube comments.
One thing I found that NMS did an excellent job on is that you actually feel the vastness of space when you're flying from planet to planet in system.
It can take you 5mins+ to travel from one planetary body to another within system at "Pulse Drive speed" (max speed in system), that same 5mins, if travelled at non-Pulse Drive speed could literally take you years to get there. STO space travel feels absolutely claustrophobic in comparison.
Which is unfortunately the one thing STO cannot change, they have their maps and way of travel firmly cemented into the system already, and that would be the most arduous of things to change in game. So I don't even need/want that "Distance" feel here in STO. But it sure is impressive, and I would hope if they ever make an STO 2, this would be something taken into consideration.
Like anything in life, those with a grievance will scream the loudest. Myself, I'm really enjoying the journey and don't have many complaints.
It certainly wont be something I replay over and over more then once or twice, but its been an entertaining game for me the last couple weeks. I'll be happy I experienced it first hand. Rather then having others make up my mind for me.
The whole uproar about NMS reminds me of ME3. Which is actually a pretty great game, despite the infuriating ending.
Next up on the Hype train;
Red Dead 3
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Gears of War 4
Mass Effect Andromeda
Etc,etc,etc
Keep your expectations to a dull roar.
I have not played NMS and I while I have been interested in playing the game since I first heard about 9 - 12 months ago I have definitely not been ridding the hype train.
I do not think it is fair to compare NMS to ME3. ME3 on the whole had a pretty decent launch with not many missing features or broken performance. I have to state I did not play ME3 until around 3 months after it launched so I am not aware of any thing that would be considered game breaking from a performance point of view. However, I do know of the Day One DLC controversy regarding Javik (the last surviving Prothean). But that is just one feature, not a laundry list of many. Excluding the ending, the only gripe I remember having was that ME3 was more of a 3rd person action game rather than a 3rd person RPG game. I think ME2 had the right mix.
On the other hand NMS seems to have numerous performance issues on the PC based on what I have read. That is kinda ironic since NMS was initially developed as a PC game if what I have read is true. Then there are the missing features a lot of people have complained about and there was even an exhaustive list on Reddit of all the promised features that were not in the retail game.
Sure, both games have ending that basically sucks, but that is as far as I would go with the comparison between ME3 and NMS for someone who has actually not played NMS yet. It's still piqued my interest, but I am going to wait for a price drop and more importantly patches to incorporate messing features into the game.
Regarding the "missing features" I would say there are at least two ways of looking at...
#1 - Gamer's point of view - I guess all the interviews and demonstrations of the game during the development process (which I did not bother to read / watch), NWS was supposed to have a lot features there compared to what actually was in the retail version of the game. Naturally, people who were super hyped about the game expected to see all those features or at least a majority of them. But sadly, that was not the case and they felt cheated, lied to and probably even betrayed by the developer.
#2 - Developer's point of view - Everyone knows developing games is a lot easier said than done. Hello Games promised a lot and wanted to give it's target audience the best game they can deliver to the best of their abilities. I am not sure when NMS was originally expected to be released prior to the announcement the game was also going to be released for the PS4. But since Sony was flipping the bill for providing promotional and marketing support, I suppose Sony had a hand in deciding when the game is to be released. That creates a problem... the game might have been rushed out the door to meet Sony's deadline expectations. At that point the developer could have been forced to release what is known as a MVP.
No, this is not sports so MVP does not mean "Most Valuable Player". Instead it means "Minimal Viable Product", where Sony is more or less forcing Hello Games to release a product that can be considered "playable", but not complete. It kinda reminds me of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II that was being developed by Obsidian. Lucas Arts force Obsidian to cut development time of the game so that it can be released for holiday sales in December 2004 rather than what was probably going to be a Spring 2005 release.
Star Wars: KOTOR II was originally supposed to have a total of 3 acts to the game, but due to time constraints mandated by LucasArts executives Obsidian had no choice but to cut content from the game to meet the December 2004 release date. Fortunately, the cut content assets was included on the DVD (if I remember correctly) and later various fan made "Restoration Projects" were in the works to flesh out KOTOR II's story with the cut content. I think the most recent project is The Sith Lords Restored.
Anywaste... the truth is probably the combination of #1 and #2 or perhaps something else. In any case I'll just wait for more patches to be released and a price drop before I decide to buy the game. That assumes at that time I am still interested in playing the game.
And furthermore, STO will never allow original naming of random new species or real choices that affect your game on the level of Mass Effect's choices (even including the corrected freedom of choice final endings).
I dig. I figured that out after a while. It was still funny though. And away from gaming it's still peer 2 peer. No need to apologize at all.
Count me among those furious at Mass 3's ending. I still haven't played through on the any of my other four characters after the first.
But, it was still a hell of a Trilogy. And Mass Effect Andromeda is bringing me home again.
I think the easiest thing for an STO2 would definitely be to open up the final frontier. I'll give them massive credit for Quadrant space though. That was a huge improvement to me and I appreciate the effort.
Minimal Viable Product. Wouldn't be the first time Sony pushed that though. That's what happened with the launch of Street Fighter V as they wanted it available for the EVO or another tournament so they pushed the game out before the story mode or in game store were complete.
Well an engine overhaul isn't in the cards that's for damn sure. Part of the reason the game was able to be made at all was because Cryptic could build it in their own engine in a short period of time Piggybacking on Jaguar's statement, STO itself was an MVP game at launch. Perpetual sat on the license without making progress for so long STO had a severely truncated development time. But improvements to the engine will never be able to generate the kind of improvements they would get from a new engine.
STO has experimented with choice based gameplay, the Delta Quadrant mission where the Vaadwaur refugees just want away from the fighting and a nice place to start over actually will determine what kind of Vaadwaur reinforcements you get at Vaadwaur Prime for the final battle. The game simply will judge based on your last decision in that mission. Ultimately it's a series of yes/no or score based decisions in the engine that will be referenced by the system later. So choice IS actually possible in STO.
For my ideas I was actually thinking that the content as far as species wouldn't be fully procedurally created as a matter of quality, but the devs would create several sets of aliens for each cluster just with common scenarios to unite them, First Contact, embassy creation, deal violation, enemy attack, pirate raid, convoy escort, etc. Three species you could contact at launch and every season they add new species to each exploration cluster quadrant each season.
Except its not really multiplayer at all, because people DID find eachother and it turned out they can't actually see eachother no matter what.
As far as anyone believing it was actually multiplayer, it is as much multiplayer as Spore is. If I encounter a world that has been discovered by someone else, then I can see what they named the solar system, planets, plants, waypoints, and animals. However, a multiplayer game can't exist if you are able to load a previous saved game.
I agree with most of that, and nice post.
But to clarify a bit about the ME3/NMS comparison, what I mean specifically is the "anger/rage" is similar. It reached astronomical levels with ME3, and basically took over the internet for a time lol. That same level of outrage is being reached with NMS.
But yeah totally agree, ME3 didn't crash on me, and gave pretty much what it promised. It was just the ending where your choices didn't matter much that much which pissed people off after playing it for 7-8 years. Despite that though, I loved the ME series. And I'd also agree ME2 had the best mix of combat/rpg/ and story, it'll be hard to top.
I had heard this was due to them not adding the player models to game. But yeah, probably was never intended to be multiplayer. And like @starkaos said, most online multiplayer games cannot load previous saves. Or even pausing the game.
Most multiplayer games you can "soft pause" but the action continues around you. So yeah I guess that's a pretty huge grievance for those who expected it. And I do think it's a shame they didn't add at least flight combat multiplayer module/arena.
Maybe in the future it'll happen, but I think it'll be too little too late for most people.
They were supposed to add base building soon, maybe that will allow players to meet up, I dunno.. I was talking with my friends who are playing last night, and we thought it would be nice, if your friends could visit your base, and share resources with one another. For example, one guy might be in need of aluminum, but is having trouble finding it, so you say "Hey come by the base, I've got some aluminum for you.." Or even, just leave it there banked for them. Then they could drop by at their leisure when they get time.
@jaguarskx yeah wait until you can find a used copy, I'd feel bad if you paid full price and didn't like it.
But its a pretty cool experience if you think long distance space travel sounds interesting.
So many suggestions along those lines have been put forth but the end-game is still the same old Doffing and repetitive STF grinds.
And story driven episodes, which unlike "exploration" in the style of NMS are somewhat analogous to the style and focus of the Star Trek television series.
If you want a proof of concept for why this is an important torpedo struck against the hull of Exploration 2.0, consider your first playthrough of the Delta Rising patrols. Without knowing the content, shuffled mission selection, and with randomized mission elements, they strongly emulated what the core gameplay of a new STO exploration system would most plausibly be like (without the supporting systems, just the heart of the idea.) Yet the community did not cry out "THIS IS PERFECT, WE'RE INCREMENTALLY APPROACHING THE TYPE OF SYSTEM CRYPTIC SHOULD BE DEVELOPING!" because the mode of small vignettes distributed randomly through space, ultimately, is not a more suitable format to STO than what STO has more heavily invested in (ie. bigger story driven episodes with characters, plots, and issues.)
One can hope that next time will be different, but when at the heart of the matter is an fundamental disconnect between the X3/Elite Dangerous/NMS genre and Star Trek (they do very different things in very different ways) another strictly mechanical approach to exploration would be a sizable risk. I don't think it's fair to lament that the devs haven't jumped at it.
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!
I did not buy the game yet. I think somewhere in the middle of my post I mentioned I was simply going to wait for NMS to be patched (for performance issues and more content) and the price to be reduced before I buy it. That's assuming I am still interested in playing it later.
there is a forbes article that says a LOT of players are feeling ripped off
I am always surprised how much hatred the Delta Rising patrols garnered. They were perfect for fleshing out the Delta Quadrant. They gave you a bit of insight into the different species, so that even people that have never seen anything of VOY would get an idea what the major players are. I thought they were quite nice.
Though honestly, I suspect people only hated it because of the level gating and the "need" to repeatedly play those patrols. No matter what kind of masterpiece a mission would be, playing it 10 or 50 times in a row would make you hate it. That's like a child's parents demanding it to read the first Lord of the Ring novel 10 times before they would buy you the second novel.
I could've sworn it was one of the most maligned games to come out since Watch Dogs.
They added a lot of flavor in their own right but where I think the functional problems comes in is context. There's better ways of incorporating flavor than isolated mini-missions spaced between episodes (such in-mission as optional dialog, optional objectives, and greater indulgence taken with the setting.)
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!
My character Tsin'xing
Yeah, there's a lot of rage going around right now. About pricing, multiplayer, game instability, content removal.
Personally, I think in many cases it's a bandwagon thing. People are hopping on the Hate Train left and right, because its the cool thing to do at the moment. Many of those people haven't even played the game, they're just piling on, for the sake of piling on.
In my experience, I've had 3 system freezes in about 60 hours of gameplay. Maybe I'm lucky in this regard, maybe its worse for others. Not sure, but it has not been anything more then a minor issue for me on PS4.
I do know PC had a terrible launch and like 99% of players couldn't play it on day one.
I think that's where things started to spiral out of control.
Many PC players rated it 0, and returned it right away. And then things got really out of control from there.
On Multiplayer, I never really cared about it to begin with, so that doesn't affect me. But some were expecting it, and I think it's a fair complaint.
As for the pricing issue, no one was forced to buy/preorder the game, and nobody held a gun to my head or anyone else's. If it turned out that I didn't like the game (which is not the case, I think its a great journey so far), that's really all on me, for not being patient and testing it out before buying.
Furthermore, with the insane level of Hype NMS achieved, Sony and Hello Games would have been out of their minds to charge anything less then market value, which is 60$ American;
It's sort of like the Connie Promo here in STO. While I may personally believe a straight CStore release would have been the best for everyone, with the amount of hype the Connie carries, it would have been foolish for PWE to release it any other way then Promo.
Just like Hello Games and Sony would've been crazy to sell this super hyped game for say, 20-30$.
I could barely get through LotR one time lol. Tolkien just keeps rambling on and on with the descriptors...it nearly killed me.
10x would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment I think.
but anyway, I too liked the Delta patrols, I never had an issue with them, actually I still do a patrol circuit from time to time. I really like the how they included the APU race in the patrols, that was a nice surprise for me. But yeah, the level gating was pretty damn annoying.
Patrol missions COULD be a great way to fill out the game's depth, but the Delta Patrols were really just a lot of monotony and tedium. Real missions can be this way, and one every now an then is alright, but they put a lot of those together in an effort to pad out the Delta Arc. With a lot of players who are probably ADD to begin with, you easily loose the player's attention to boredom.
It may be why they've shifted to a more shoot-'em-up-Bang-Bang attitude to gameplay.
I think it's called 'Fighter Pilot Syndrome', where you have to be on the edge of your seat the whole time or else you loose complete focus and just zone out.
You misspelled Star Citizen.
I'm only on the rage train because I spent 60 bucks, did everything they said to do, and STILL couldn't get the game to work on a very very good PC.
Needless to say, took my money back and said frak it.
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http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
STO's engine is the same one used to run Champions Online, IIRC. We've had the devs themselves state across different subjects as to why they can't make certain things work (true 3D movement, move to a location while on the bridge, etc), and the overall reason is that the engine is ancient and inflexible, and for some cases, would require a completely new engine.
And while STO has experimented with choice-based gameplay (see Fed's Rescue the Azura mission and the class-specific choices) and again in Delta as you mentioned, both were quickly abandoned and did not notably affect any cutscene or event. Why couldn't my Klingon slap or punch Keten, drag him to a mirror, and tell him he's no longer Harry Kim, and have a cutscene showing that? Why can't I punch Sela unconscious in one or two missions? Why can't the players choose which ending they prefer by having them take up sides based on their actions; such as choosing to stop Sela from harming the Iconians or allowing her to, and the majority choice either results in returning to a shifted reality in which the Iconians are a distant, but friendly race, or the ending we got where it's an apocalyptic battle that ends only because we gave them back their ball of DNA since they lost the means to breed their race.
As to your ideas, they would fit in as pre-generated content that's then pulled upon in a controlled fashion in a fascimile of procedurally driven content (basically, a more organized and in-depth form of the failed Exploration content that was pulled a long while back). The catch would be if the system is able to remember your decisions from the earlier generated content and not only propel you along your own miniature choose-your-own-adventure, but also reward you well enough for it and still somehow be replayable, without resorting to a "timeline reset" function to replay it all along a new path. Maybe you got tired of being a good guy for this particular alien group, or you didn't like the reward, and want to do it all over again, even if the objectives change some or the story changes some.