Yes lets go hack these rip offs from other well known franchises! Rather than go with the more original and interesting description:
"The Tzenkethi are a flexible race of humanoids, or near-humanoids, with no bones other than a spine. They’re instead supported by fluid-filled sacs, which can be contracted and expanded as needed. They’re beautiful and ethereal, glowing with natural light and giving off a noticeable electrical charge. Psychologically, they like enclosed spaces and make use of ceilings and walls as often as they do floors, thanks in part to artificial gravity envelopes. Their ships are sleek, organic-looking vessels armed with plasma weapons."
I think Humanoid shaped jellyfish are more interesting.
In any case what I find far more interesting is the contrast with the federation and the reason why they would be antagonists. They practice EUGENICS and control their population through their media, they also fear the Federation and its Democratic practices, viewing them as evil and chaotic.
Maybe this was just too close to a description of certain current RL political entities for the Devs?
on the down side Voth 2.0 and an enemy that will be barely utilized and thrown away like every other antagonist in sto ever
What?
Every enemy race we have fought in STO has gotten a full arc from start to finish. I don't see how any of them are barely utilized at all.
I think the objection is that we rarely see enemies outside of the story arc they were introduced in, with the exception of the three main factions and the Borg.
Breen? Outside of ongoing winter events, they're done.
True Way Cardassians? They disappear after the Cardassian arc is done. We do see Cardassians in the Alliance, but not as enemies.
Voth? They make one appearance in the Delta arc and after that nothing.
Undine? The original big bad. Where are they now? After the mission "Midnight" introducing the Delta arc we don't see them anymore either.
Vaadwaur? Bluegill? Elachi? Iconians? Changelings?
All of those are still out there, diminished but not defeated.
Yes lets go hack these rip offs from other well known franchises! Rather than go with the more original and interesting description:
"The Tzenkethi are a flexible race of humanoids, or near-humanoids, with no bones other than a spine. They’re instead supported by fluid-filled sacs, which can be contracted and expanded as needed. They’re beautiful and ethereal, glowing with natural light and giving off a noticeable electrical charge. Psychologically, they like enclosed spaces and make use of ceilings and walls as often as they do floors, thanks in part to artificial gravity envelopes. Their ships are sleek, organic-looking vessels armed with plasma weapons."
I think Humanoid shaped jellyfish are more interesting.
In any case what I find far more interesting is the contrast with the federation and the reason why they would be antagonists. They practice EUGENICS and control their population through their media, they also fear the Federation and its Democratic practices, viewing them as evil and chaotic.
Maybe this was just too close to a description of certain current RL political entities for the Devs?
Hahahahahaha, yeah because an army of Kif Kroker's is TERRIFYING!
Watch out, they might sigh despondently in your general direction. The entire premise of those humanoids was laughable when the books introduced them and I'm glad they're being relegated to the bin.
I think the objection is that we rarely see enemies outside of the story arc they were introduced in, with the exception of the three main factions and the Borg.
Breen? Outside of ongoing winter events, they're done.
True Way Cardassians? They disappear after the Cardassian arc is done. We do see Cardassians in the Alliance, but not as enemies.
Voth? They make one appearance in the Delta arc and after that nothing.
Undine? The original big bad. Where are they now? After the mission "Midnight" introducing the Delta arc we don't see them anymore either.
Vaadwaur? Bluegill? Elachi? Iconians? Changelings?
All of those are still out there, diminished but not defeated.
Well
A. we don't see them outside those arcs because we thoroughly defeat them in said arcs.
B.
-Voth appear in Delta Rising in missions, deep space encounters, and pve queues. They wouldn't show up after that because they are a DQ race, and we already tamed the DQ.
-Iconians, Elachi, and bluegill all went back to Iconia to rebuild. Also, T'ket is still attacking the Klingon homeworld every so often, her being kept alive being used to explain why the pve queues still went on.
-Breen played a part in the newest arc, appearing not only as friendly on New Khitomer, but also as enemies in "Vorgon Conclusions".
etc. etc.
Everything you list conveniently ignores all the later appearances those races have made, and/or ignores we already ened their threat totally.
*I* don't have a problem with those races dropping out of sight. From a gameplay standpoint, it would be difficult to integrate them into new storylines even if they wanted to. It's not scalable to throw every new race into every new story. And we all know about "aliens-of-the-week" so that's nothing new.
I was trying to express the criticism from others who say that Cryptic's creations are under utilized and "thrown away".
I for one am simply happy that we're not getting another humanoid rubber-forehead species. I know Trek has an explanation for all that, but I didn't care for it when that episode first aired and I still don't.
Some exploration might be nice - considering this is supposed to be Star Trek.
You mean the show that spent most of TNG and DS9 interacting with previously established races?
You sure like to provoke an argument, don't you?
To be accurate, both TNG and DS9 also introduced a fair number of races we hadn't seen before. TNG featured exploration as a theme heavily and even DS9 took it on where the wormhole was concerned. Arguably, Voyager and Enterprise were all about exploration beginning to end.
So yeah. Some of us do wonder where the exploration part went. I accept that it doesn't always make for great gameplay and give Cryptic a pass (for now).
That reminds me of a joke David Brenner once told.
It was near the end of basic training and all the soldiers were getting ready for the war. A private came charging into his Lieutenant's office and said " Lieutenant, we don't have enough rifles. What am I going to use for the war?"
"I don't have time to deal with this right now" the lieutenant thought.
He grabbed a broom, sawed off the bottom, and handed it to the solder. "Here use this instead."
"How is this going to work?"
"When you see the bad guys coming at you, just point it at them and say 'Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang'".
So the private ran out with his new "rifle". But soon he came running back to the Lieutenant saying "Lieutenant, we don't have enough bayonets!"
The Lieutenant grabbed a piece of string off of his desk and gave it the private. "When you see the bad guys coming just throw this at them and say 'Stabity Stab Stab, Stab Stab.'"
So the private was all ready for his war. He was sitting in a fox hole, hating being out there, when he saw an enemy creeping along the top of a nearby hill.
He grabbed his broom, pointed it at the bad guy and said "Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang" and he fell down dead.
"Wow this really works" thought the private. He started going through the underbrush when another enemy jumped out and try to gut him - he threw his string at him and said, 'Stabbity Stab Stab, Stab Stab!'. The enemy fell down, dead.
Pretty soon, he saw another guy rampaging through the woods. He pointed his broomstick at him and yelled, 'Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang!' Nothing, so he did it again, 'Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang!' The guy was running at him now. He threw the string, Stabbit Stab Stab StabStab!' The enemy kept running at him and plowed him over, mortally wounding him.
Then he heard the big guy mumbling as he went past him "Tankity Tank Tank Tank Tank Tankity Tank Tank Tank Tank."
Less humanoid species is always a plus to me, no matter the form. We already have far too many human Halloween mask species in Trek. They have their place, but it's time for more unique species that actually do look like aliens to have their reign in the future of Trek! This design here is a move in that proper direction.
Since the "Tzenkethi" are derived from the Kzinti from Star Trek TAS (which we have seen on TV), shouldn't they be cat humanoids?
What did you say? Oh, we already have cat-humanoids as the Ferasans? Because the devs jumped the gun in releasing them into the game not having the foresight they were going to have "Tzenkethi" in the game? So that's why we have these monsterous absurd Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle villain rejects playing these "Tzenkethi" now? Oh okay, gotcha.
on the down side Voth 2.0 and an enemy that will be barely utilized and thrown away like every other antagonist in sto ever
What?
Every enemy race we have fought in STO has gotten a full arc from start to finish. I don't see how any of them are barely utilized at all.
they get one arc, and generally a very short one in which we rampage across their stuff genocidally with minimal to no difficulty then they are forgotten and never used again in any future arcs or plots except as bit parts.
i guess the reason they didn't go by the (semi-canon) descriptions of them is they would end up looking like pre-war iconians. (which would be preferable to Voth or Undine 2.0 tbh)
That was the first thing in my mind when I saw them.
We explored a wide range of ideas from the “femme fatale” kind of alien
More Orions would be cool. Also more Orion ships for Orions to fly would be cooler.
Finally... more bug fixes please. People don't buy as much when game crashes from memory leaks and other issues like the one Vadwaar mission having deck plates not where the decks should be in the enemy base.
What's with all the hate? I think they look badass. And is that a human size comparison at the end? Damn, those guys are big!
The novels are non-canon, so Cryptic is under no obligation to ape them. And the novel depictions of the Tzenkethi would be far less interesting when we're fighting them in a video game rather than reading about them in a book.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
If you get any they will just pile up in your bag with the Cherry Epohhs and you will have to buy more bag space. On an unrelated subject am I the only one that noticed the word ZEN in Tzenkethi? Humm hints of things to come.
Hmmm. I LIKE this newest antagonist. I am looking forward to seeing more of them. I am also hoping the Dev Team learned a few things from 17x Rising and the Iconian Blog Wars...errr, Skirmishes. I am also hoping they learned a few things from AoY. Altogether too short but still enjoyable and the story hung together really well.
Somebody has put a lot of time and effort into these Tzenkethi already. I can only hope it lives up to the hype.
Waitaminnit! What am I thinking?! This is Cryptic. Where smoke and shadows part to reveal... yet another underwhelming game experience. All of which have occurred since after Legacy of Romulus. I want them to knock one out of the park, but I already know the best they can do is a stand up single. Not really their fault, either. Limited resources will cause any company to act this way.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
Im conflicted on this one. On one hand I don't give a TRIBBLE about the novels (I do sympathize with those who got attached to the novels, but any Star Wars fan will tell you, cannon is a cruel mistress). I also don't think the designs are necessarily bad (though I swear I've seen them before and just cant put my finger on it...), they are sufficiently lizard-monstery with a bit of a Krogan vibe to them. But my thing is....we can do better (read more original). You had a bonified blank slate with name recognition, and you could have gotten really creative and giant monster is the best you can do? This is star trek dammit. You can make anything feel dangerous and imposing by making it big and/or numerous. The real interesting stories are in creating a villain that is neither of those, but still terrifying. I appreciate that you tried to get away from humanoid a little, but Gorro is not really that far. What about something tentical-y like jellyfish or octupus-like but different. What about something entirely telekinetic with no limbs. What about something silicone based that is amoeba-ish or has a thousand little limbs. Something so alien its hard to find common ground to negotiate, or something that is so good at negotiation that that's their method of conquering other species (wait that may be the Federation already...). I made a similar point when the stories from the Nakul homefront were so overly cribbed from a 1950's family from pre-WW2 TRIBBLE Germany as to be boring and far too on the nose. The philosophy of Star Trek has always been "Space is vast, so should our Ideas be", so why are we still shoving the same stuff thats already been done into the game? I wont go as far as others have and call this a "fail", because you quite adeptly accomplished your mission, but your mission was the problem. "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations" Lets do that
Also, Star Trek is all about 99% of species in the galaxy being humanoid derivative of some kind, they even had an episode of TNG to explain, and verify in lore, why this is.
And all the Aliens they met, from the Klingons, to the Romulans, to the Cardassians, to even to more "out there" aliens like the Q, are all based on some aspect of human personality taken to some extreme.
What I meant to say was Star Trek at its best, because the show was at its best when It got more speculative and creative. Yes I enjoyed that political intrigue and social interaction that came with basically having different kinds of humans interacting, but we already have that in the game in spades! We get only glimpses into the side of Trek that was more exploratory and diverse, and they could have done that here (The creator's description of them was in an interview/offhand comment, which is about as cannon as the novels, so yeah they had plenty of choice in the matter). They had an opportunity to try for a little of that and they didn't take it. As to you assertion that "None of those would be feasible in a game setting due to the lack of a rigid form" that is just a lack of imagination. There is plenty of totally normal ways that something without bones can be rigid (talk to your TRIBBLE for further evidence) which doesn't even go into the more out there speculative out-there treknobabble excuses they could use (like tk as I mentioned)
Comments
"The Tzenkethi are a flexible race of humanoids, or near-humanoids, with no bones other than a spine. They’re instead supported by fluid-filled sacs, which can be contracted and expanded as needed. They’re beautiful and ethereal, glowing with natural light and giving off a noticeable electrical charge. Psychologically, they like enclosed spaces and make use of ceilings and walls as often as they do floors, thanks in part to artificial gravity envelopes. Their ships are sleek, organic-looking vessels armed with plasma weapons."
I think Humanoid shaped jellyfish are more interesting.
In any case what I find far more interesting is the contrast with the federation and the reason why they would be antagonists. They practice EUGENICS and control their population through their media, they also fear the Federation and its Democratic practices, viewing them as evil and chaotic.
Maybe this was just too close to a description of certain current RL political entities for the Devs?
I think the objection is that we rarely see enemies outside of the story arc they were introduced in, with the exception of the three main factions and the Borg.
Breen? Outside of ongoing winter events, they're done.
True Way Cardassians? They disappear after the Cardassian arc is done. We do see Cardassians in the Alliance, but not as enemies.
Voth? They make one appearance in the Delta arc and after that nothing.
Undine? The original big bad. Where are they now? After the mission "Midnight" introducing the Delta arc we don't see them anymore either.
Vaadwaur? Bluegill? Elachi? Iconians? Changelings?
All of those are still out there, diminished but not defeated.
Hahahahahaha, yeah because an army of Kif Kroker's is TERRIFYING!
Watch out, they might sigh despondently in your general direction. The entire premise of those humanoids was laughable when the books introduced them and I'm glad they're being relegated to the bin.
*I* don't have a problem with those races dropping out of sight. From a gameplay standpoint, it would be difficult to integrate them into new storylines even if they wanted to. It's not scalable to throw every new race into every new story. And we all know about "aliens-of-the-week" so that's nothing new.
I was trying to express the criticism from others who say that Cryptic's creations are under utilized and "thrown away".
You sure like to provoke an argument, don't you?
To be accurate, both TNG and DS9 also introduced a fair number of races we hadn't seen before. TNG featured exploration as a theme heavily and even DS9 took it on where the wormhole was concerned. Arguably, Voyager and Enterprise were all about exploration beginning to end.
So yeah. Some of us do wonder where the exploration part went. I accept that it doesn't always make for great gameplay and give Cryptic a pass (for now).
That reminds me of a joke David Brenner once told.
It was near the end of basic training and all the soldiers were getting ready for the war. A private came charging into his Lieutenant's office and said " Lieutenant, we don't have enough rifles. What am I going to use for the war?"
"I don't have time to deal with this right now" the lieutenant thought.
He grabbed a broom, sawed off the bottom, and handed it to the solder. "Here use this instead."
"How is this going to work?"
"When you see the bad guys coming at you, just point it at them and say 'Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang'".
So the private ran out with his new "rifle". But soon he came running back to the Lieutenant saying "Lieutenant, we don't have enough bayonets!"
The Lieutenant grabbed a piece of string off of his desk and gave it the private. "When you see the bad guys coming just throw this at them and say 'Stabity Stab Stab, Stab Stab.'"
So the private was all ready for his war. He was sitting in a fox hole, hating being out there, when he saw an enemy creeping along the top of a nearby hill.
He grabbed his broom, pointed it at the bad guy and said "Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang" and he fell down dead.
"Wow this really works" thought the private. He started going through the underbrush when another enemy jumped out and try to gut him - he threw his string at him and said, 'Stabbity Stab Stab, Stab Stab!'. The enemy fell down, dead.
Pretty soon, he saw another guy rampaging through the woods. He pointed his broomstick at him and yelled, 'Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang!' Nothing, so he did it again, 'Bangity Bang Bang, Bang Bang!' The guy was running at him now. He threw the string, Stabbit Stab Stab StabStab!' The enemy kept running at him and plowed him over, mortally wounding him.
Then he heard the big guy mumbling as he went past him "Tankity Tank Tank Tank Tank Tankity Tank Tank Tank Tank."
What did you say? Oh, we already have cat-humanoids as the Ferasans? Because the devs jumped the gun in releasing them into the game not having the foresight they were going to have "Tzenkethi" in the game? So that's why we have these monsterous absurd Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle villain rejects playing these "Tzenkethi" now? Oh okay, gotcha.
sound like the new expansion!
they get one arc, and generally a very short one in which we rampage across their stuff genocidally with minimal to no difficulty then they are forgotten and never used again in any future arcs or plots except as bit parts.
That was the first thing in my mind when I saw them.
More Orions would be cool. Also more Orion ships for Orions to fly would be cooler.
Finally... more bug fixes please. People don't buy as much when game crashes from memory leaks and other issues like the one Vadwaar mission having deck plates not where the decks should be in the enemy base.
The novels are non-canon, so Cryptic is under no obligation to ape them. And the novel depictions of the Tzenkethi would be far less interesting when we're fighting them in a video game rather than reading about them in a book.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
If you get any they will just pile up in your bag with the Cherry Epohhs and you will have to buy more bag space. On an unrelated subject am I the only one that noticed the word ZEN in Tzenkethi? Humm hints of things to come.
Somebody has put a lot of time and effort into these Tzenkethi already. I can only hope it lives up to the hype.
Waitaminnit! What am I thinking?! This is Cryptic. Where smoke and shadows part to reveal... yet another underwhelming game experience. All of which have occurred since after Legacy of Romulus. I want them to knock one out of the park, but I already know the best they can do is a stand up single. Not really their fault, either. Limited resources will cause any company to act this way.
I guess we just don't have enough in the Trek universe... you know aside from the
Gorn(TOS)
Voth(VOY)
Arkonian(ENT)
Vaadwaur(VOY)
Jem'Hadar(DS9)
Selay(TNG)
Rigellians(TMP/ENT)
Tygarians(TNG/DS9)
Cardassians(TNG/DS9)
Xindi-Reptilians(ENT)
Tosk(DS9)
Caatati(VOY)
Saurians(TOS/TMP/DS9)
Delta Theta III Aborigines(TAS)
those Reptohumanoids(Voayger)
Yeap... TOTALLY not enough REPTILES in the TREK universe.... *sigh*
This was wholly your one "out of the box" moment.... To make a plant species.... or a really outside of the box aquatic species...
But noooo... we had to have lizards..... again. Not to mention they have to be brutish-looking.
Honestly... How in the hell did no one go... "You know what would be badass? Plants with protomatter weapons!"
I guess i'm the only one.....
Once again, Cryptic proves how dependable they are at disappointment....
What I meant to say was Star Trek at its best, because the show was at its best when It got more speculative and creative. Yes I enjoyed that political intrigue and social interaction that came with basically having different kinds of humans interacting, but we already have that in the game in spades! We get only glimpses into the side of Trek that was more exploratory and diverse, and they could have done that here (The creator's description of them was in an interview/offhand comment, which is about as cannon as the novels, so yeah they had plenty of choice in the matter). They had an opportunity to try for a little of that and they didn't take it. As to you assertion that "None of those would be feasible in a game setting due to the lack of a rigid form" that is just a lack of imagination. There is plenty of totally normal ways that something without bones can be rigid (talk to your TRIBBLE for further evidence) which doesn't even go into the more out there speculative out-there treknobabble excuses they could use (like tk as I mentioned)