All my enthusiasm about this expansion has been replaced with concern.
We do not need or want a level cap increase
We do not need or want MK 15 or 16 gear
We do not need or want T7 ships
You say the expansion doesn't include T7 ships. I have trouble believing they aren't coming down the pipe.
I want those...all of those.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
I for one didn't care about the TOS expansion at all and only created a toon for the boosts, not because I wanted to walk around in what, for me as a young person, looks like environments that were created with ancient technology. (I'm not arguing against the Devs here; they did a good job but simply because they recreated the TOS style very well, I didn't care about it )
I also never took the Vaadwaur too serious as an enemy, considering them to be somewhat unrealistic as a tough enemy. So saying that the Hur'q are not a dangerous enemy is an opinion. One which you are entitled to have of course, but which doesn't warrant such harsh criticism I think, also considering the 'we don't know that much yet about this expansion' thing I mentioned earlier.
I look forward to this expansion, much more than I looked forward to the TOS one, and I think this expansion will certainly have a more positive impact than Delta Rising, which also had its downsides.
The specialisation won't be useless. It's just that some people don't recognise the usefulness of things in this game until some guy starts breaking DPS records with it. The new spec will boost survivability and give boosts for having a primary target. Something literally every player already has. Take ISA as an example: it will make it even easier to target all enemies at once while focussing on one (the gate, the cube) without worrying much about anything.
To me it seems that it will thus support the play style of many players.
Besides, even if the top DPS players won't benefit from this (which I doubt) then that is still a stupid criterion to judge content on. If the new spec benefits the majority of the lower DPS players, then it's a good thing cause top DPS players don't need assistance or new toys - they're already doing fine.
Further, there are more than 3 voice actors.
They have already said that there will be a sector battlezone, so we'll get to see plenty of the Gamma quadrant space, I assume.
You are also wrong on many other details. Delta Rising added two primary specs, one secondary. Not the other way around. Delta Rising also didn't add 5 different 'NPC groups' - most of the species added were fairly minor species and only four of them were really fleshed out: Vaadwaur, Talaxians which were turned into a playable species, the Cooperative and the Kobali. We'll likely have the Hur'q, the Jem'hadar and maybe Vorta for this expansion, and Cardassian NPCs have already been given attention - not as part of an expansion, but work was put into it nevertheless.
Spelling out literally every detail of the old expansions while only some general information has been released on the new one, is a bit unfair don't you think? You and I don't know the length of those 6 'measly' episodes, we don't know if the level cap increase will only give a new title, we don't know whether there will only be one playable species. Further, we don't know what the new progression systems that have been mentioned will entail so again, summing up the R&D, the spec trees of Delta Rising is again unfair if you don't sum up the details of these new systems (which we, of course, don't know about yet but that's the bottom line of my post here: your judgement is somewhat premature).
Is Thot Gor or Thot Pran returning? Breen playable race? Breen EV Suit/Armor/outfit? Breen homeworld hub? Breen lockbox? I have so many Breen questions! Will the big surprise be the Breen save us all from the Hur'q? Just some food for Thot. Thank you.
Tier 7 ships are not a planned feature for Victory is Life.
Well... It's nice to know that T7 ships will eventually find their way into the game. Maybe not with this expansion but you definitely didn't say that there are no plans for a T7 run of ships.
If this expansion ends up being another Fed and KDF kitbash into Fed and Fed-KDF stories with very little content that is original. I won't bother! I want to be the bad guys! KDF was ruined by rolling everything into the follow the Fed's. Romulan was a missed opportunity to allow us to side with and join the Tal Shiar under Empress Sela.
Star Trek was about old enemies becoming allies, and everyone learning to live peacefully together eventually.
Having the Romulans, Klingons and Federation at each other's throats for too long would be boring. It has been done too often, and we've moved on from that point.
Tier 7 ships are not a planned feature for Victory is Life.
Well... It's nice to know that T7 ships will eventually find their way into the game. Maybe not with this expansion but you definitely didn't say that there are no plans for a T7 run of ships.
If this expansion ends up being another Fed and KDF kitbash into Fed and Fed-KDF stories with very little content that is original. I won't bother! I want to be the bad guys! KDF was ruined by rolling everything into the follow the Fed's. Romulan was a missed opportunity to allow us to side with and join the Tal Shiar under Empress Sela.
Star Trek was about old enemies becoming allies, and everyone learning to live peacefully together eventually.
Having the Romulans, Klingons and Federation at each other's throats for too long would be boring. It has been done too often, and we've moved on from that point.
I disagree! You can be at war with a faction and not actually engage in battle. The US and North Korea have been at war since 1950. Opposing factions don't have to have active conflict but separate story lines and independent content is definitely welcome. Especially getting away from the Federation puppets PWE has turned every other faction into.
I'm gonna need a detailed explanation as to why and how a Jem'Hadar faction is even possible when they've expressly stated they wouldn't do a Cardassian faction. I need this on the grounds that the reason given was always because they'd made the mistake of releasing Cardie ships in lockboxes, but the same is even more true for Jem'Hadar, so this complete 180 on the topic is baffling to me. Especially since playable Cardassians are, as far as I've seen, much more desired than playable Jem'Hadar.
I also find myself concerned about the implications thereof for Jem'Hadar lockbox ships and what this could mean to their value.
I'm even further concerned about the level cap increase and what it might mean for ships. No T7 confirmed, but not a word on "T6-U".
Honestly this expac is, at least right now, far and away the one I'm least excited about, to put it lightly. This just seems like a veritable circus act of bad decisions from what little we know right now.
Tier 7 ships are not a planned feature for Victory is Life.
Well... It's nice to know that T7 ships will eventually find their way into the game. Maybe not with this expansion but you definitely didn't say that there are no plans for a T7 run of ships.
If this expansion ends up being another Fed and KDF kitbash into Fed and Fed-KDF stories with very little content that is original. I won't bother! I want to be the bad guys! KDF was ruined by rolling everything into the follow the Fed's. Romulan was a missed opportunity to allow us to side with and join the Tal Shiar under Empress Sela.
Star Trek was about old enemies becoming allies, and everyone learning to live peacefully together eventually.
Having the Romulans, Klingons and Federation at each other's throats for too long would be boring. It has been done too often, and we've moved on from that point.
I disagree! You can be at war with a faction and not actually engage in battle. The US and North Korea have been at war since 1950. Opposing factions don't have to have active conflict but separate story lines and independent content is definitely welcome. Especially getting away from the Federation puppets PWE has turned every other faction into.
Great, you can play as a non-autonomous life form?
And why are the Hur'q being made into some great unstoppable things? They were mentioned once, in passing, as some guys who raided Kronos in ancient history. Hur'q isn't even their name, it's a Klingon word for "outsiders".
*sigh*
@Venture-1. @Venture from City of Heroes if you remember that. Yes, that Venture. Yes, I probably trashed your MA arc. You'll have to be specific; for me it was Tuesday.
I still think Kira Nerys' facial design needs some refining. It just doesn't look like her. The others are not perfect of course but good & have a stronger resemblance.
Anyone else excited for the remastered Deep Space Nine? Just look at some of the character pics. Odo is clearly in his security office, which doesn't exist on the current station. The console behind him is also canon accurate, as apposed to the fairly colorless and washed out displays on the current station.
Great, you can play as a non-autonomous life form?
And why are the Hur'q being made into some great unstoppable things? They were mentioned once, in passing, as some guys who raided Kronos in ancient history. Hur'q isn't even their name, it's a Klingon word for "outsiders".
*sigh*
Are you kidding? Look how developed the Elachi became in this game and they appeared in one single episode of Enterprise. They had no dialog, name, or even clear motivations, but it was enough for Cryptic to work with when bringing them to the game. I always thought STO was good at taking one off species with little canon information and making them interesting.
VictoryisLife - the Fourth Expansion to Star Trek Online, is coming to PC in June of 2018! Play as the brand new Jem'Hadar faction, climb to level 65, and experience a brand new story featuring ten actors from StarTrek: DeepSpaceNine! We're announcing the first four actors today: Rene Auberjonois, Nana Visitor, Armin Shimerman and JG Hertzler!
This is absolutely fantastic news! It looks like Cryptic/PWE is going to earn itself some more of my money with this new content! I am absolutely stoked that STO has chosen to focus on a DS9 storyline and not some tie-in to the underwhelming ST:Discovery retcon nonsense. Odo, Kira, Quark and Martok, combined with other classic ST series cast members is a winning combination around which to build a story arc. The idea of a playable Jem'Hadar/Dominion Faction is equally appealing. I am surprised, though, that the Dominion Faction debuts before the Cardassians? As they were part of the Dominion once, might we see playable Cardassians in this expansion? In any event, this new expansion is exactly the kind of content for which I am willing to pay. Thank you Cryptic/PWE...:)
Much like the show its based off of this expansion looks to be remarkably weak.
While I have no expectation that this expansion will be anything but a fiasco, if you think DS9 was "weak" your sense of proportion has disappeared straight up your aesthetic. It was far and away the best of the modern Treks. (I suppose I have to exclude Discovery since I haven't/can't watch it but I've heard nothing about it that suggests it would change my mind.)
Of course, this is largely because it was working off of better source material than TNG or VGR.
@Venture-1. @Venture from City of Heroes if you remember that. Yes, that Venture. Yes, I probably trashed your MA arc. You'll have to be specific; for me it was Tuesday.
*level cap raise to 65 - not needed, not wanted, more grind (at least stick with the current skill system and make it not dozens of millions of xp to next level please)
(I hope T6-U or T7 ships NEVER get released - it just would devaluate everything we bought before) *new progression systems - not needed, not wanted, even more grind, leave specialisation system in place plox (players are OP & DPS-bombs already) *Gamma quadrant as huge (persistent?) sector battlezone - after a few months it will be almost empty and doing the same things again and again which reset every 30 minutes is not fun in the long run *playable Jem’Hadar faction - why not Cardassians???
You should have focused on more story content - especially for a Cardassian faction story - and new stfs tbh.
Reintroducing a new exploration system in which one has to team up for unexplored Gamma Quadrant areas could have been a great idea.
Giving us access to the revamped federation ship interiors which are used in missions would also be nice.
More ships like for a Cardassian faction would have been great.
Bug fixing, like the flickering with lighting 1.0, bloom not working right, and not properly selectable windows (e.g. hull section gets e.g. yellow windows forward section stays white) with some Klingon and Romulan ships should also be a priority.
Redesign Kira's ingame face please. It looks strange.
Hmm. Level 65. I wonder how the Jem' Hadar is going to work. Sounds good guys.
I'm really hoping that we have race options for it. Not keen on the idea of a faction with only one race, but I don't think that's actually going to happen as we've never had a single race faction.
You know, now that I think about it... this xpan will be free... but the ship pack bundle that should come with it ships for each faction (4 to 5 for each faction, so 12 to 15 ships) and and dedicated JHD cross faction ships (3 to five more ships that is limited to the new JHD characters). Hopefully the new race is not tied to the xpan pack.
Great, you can play as a non-autonomous life form?
They're not as non-autonomous as you'd think.
It was explained that Ketracel white was created specifically because the Jem'Hadar aren't easy to control.
It's also been shown several times that the Jem'Hadar will make decisions against their orders/superiors if they believe their leadership is making mistakes.
And they're not stupid, one of Weyoun's predecessors found that out the hard way when his First learned about a fact that was being concealed from him.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Also... Jem'Hadar faction? Not Dominion faction?
Will there be Vorta? cuz Jem’Hadar doesn't really seem like the leadership/captain types.
And what about the Cardassians?
"Please, Captain, not in front of the Klingons." Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
VictoryisLife - the Fourth Expansion to Star Trek Online, is coming to PC in June of 2018! Play as the brand new Jem'Hadar faction.
Yes Yes Yes YES!
I've been waiting to play as Jem'Hadar ever since the game launched and my patience paid off!
Some questions about how this content update will work:
Can the Jem'Hadar choose to align with Starfleet faction so that my JH playable Captain can join my fleet?
Will there be Vorta Bridge Officers?
Given that the Dominion ships are already ingame as purchasable items (lobi store/phoenix token/exchange), will this prevent Jem'Hadar captains from acquiring Dominion vessels through the C-Store or via level progression?
Will there be a kar'tarkin melee weapon?
I think Cardassians will be a later faction, as they're not part of the Dominion anymore, but an independent power nominally aligned with Starfleet.
Based on what I've found so far I can make some educated guesses to answer your questions:
[*] I read that the Jem'Hadar are starting out at level 65 complete with a handful of filled out Reputations and R&D branches. If that doesn't just scream quasi-faction I don't know what does. So in order to give new JH players plenty to do the easiest way would be to give them access to existing content.
[*] Their wording is pretty specific, they said "Jem'Hadar", not "Dominion", and that you'd get to play as the genetically engineered soldiers. My guess? Probably not, even though canon wise it would make sense because Vorta were put in charge and were the distributors of the Kectracel White for a reason.
[*] Given the amount of stats they could change on ships, they could keep the ship models and alter the stats to make them functionally different than the lobi/lottery box versions. Knowing them, they'll probably alter the models somewhat as well though.
[*] Probably, there's not nearly as much content for the Jem'Hadar as the other factions in the game so the upside is we'll likely get everything equipmentwise Jem'Hadar related in addition to some made up stuff to fill in whatever gaps remain.
Don't get me wrong though, I wouldn't mind at all making a Jem'Hadar and I'm looking forward to this release.
Are you kidding? Look how developed the Elachi became in this game and they appeared in one single episode of Enterprise. They had no dialog, name, or even clear motivations, but it was enough for Cryptic to work with when bringing them to the game. I always thought STO was good at taking one off species with little canon information and making them interesting.
a) The Elachi were not "interesting". They were barely props.
b) I thought the decision to drag them out was terrible. It was exemplary of the worst tendencies of fanfic: the insistence that absolutely everything mentioned in the source material must be significant and connected to everything else. N.b. that this has been a defining quality of what passes for writing in STO for some time now. This is particularly damning when you take into account that the race's original appearance in ENT was intended to serve as an unexplained and incomprehensible event.
c) There was, in fact, nothing for Cryptic to work with in the ENT appearance, by intent, and that means Cryptic could have done whatever they wanted with them. What they did was rather perfunctory; they just folded them into the Iconians.
@Venture-1. @Venture from City of Heroes if you remember that. Yes, that Venture. Yes, I probably trashed your MA arc. You'll have to be specific; for me it was Tuesday.
As a viewer who found DS9 the best of ST, I am greatly looking forward to this expansion. Not really interested in being Jem'Hadar (but will give it a go), just enthused to see several DS9 regulars coming to these new missions.
Can't wait Cryptic!
"The Prime Directive is merely a guideline to help make the right choice" -Vn'dor Phail, Capt :: sneezes :: Why is it no-one dusts the bridge on Starfleet vessels?" -Emsil Marat, Glinn "We can not interfere in the progression of one's life" -Richard Lynch, LtCdr
Comments
I want those...all of those.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
I also never took the Vaadwaur too serious as an enemy, considering them to be somewhat unrealistic as a tough enemy. So saying that the Hur'q are not a dangerous enemy is an opinion. One which you are entitled to have of course, but which doesn't warrant such harsh criticism I think, also considering the 'we don't know that much yet about this expansion' thing I mentioned earlier.
I look forward to this expansion, much more than I looked forward to the TOS one, and I think this expansion will certainly have a more positive impact than Delta Rising, which also had its downsides.
Sorry but you are wrong on many things.
The specialisation won't be useless. It's just that some people don't recognise the usefulness of things in this game until some guy starts breaking DPS records with it. The new spec will boost survivability and give boosts for having a primary target. Something literally every player already has. Take ISA as an example: it will make it even easier to target all enemies at once while focussing on one (the gate, the cube) without worrying much about anything.
To me it seems that it will thus support the play style of many players.
Besides, even if the top DPS players won't benefit from this (which I doubt) then that is still a stupid criterion to judge content on. If the new spec benefits the majority of the lower DPS players, then it's a good thing cause top DPS players don't need assistance or new toys - they're already doing fine.
Further, there are more than 3 voice actors.
They have already said that there will be a sector battlezone, so we'll get to see plenty of the Gamma quadrant space, I assume.
You are also wrong on many other details. Delta Rising added two primary specs, one secondary. Not the other way around. Delta Rising also didn't add 5 different 'NPC groups' - most of the species added were fairly minor species and only four of them were really fleshed out: Vaadwaur, Talaxians which were turned into a playable species, the Cooperative and the Kobali. We'll likely have the Hur'q, the Jem'hadar and maybe Vorta for this expansion, and Cardassian NPCs have already been given attention - not as part of an expansion, but work was put into it nevertheless.
Spelling out literally every detail of the old expansions while only some general information has been released on the new one, is a bit unfair don't you think? You and I don't know the length of those 6 'measly' episodes, we don't know if the level cap increase will only give a new title, we don't know whether there will only be one playable species. Further, we don't know what the new progression systems that have been mentioned will entail so again, summing up the R&D, the spec trees of Delta Rising is again unfair if you don't sum up the details of these new systems (which we, of course, don't know about yet but that's the bottom line of my post here: your judgement is somewhat premature).
Edit: grammar
Star Trek was about old enemies becoming allies, and everyone learning to live peacefully together eventually.
Having the Romulans, Klingons and Federation at each other's throats for too long would be boring. It has been done too often, and we've moved on from that point.
It seems legit, but only the devs can really confirm it, I suppose.
I disagree! You can be at war with a faction and not actually engage in battle. The US and North Korea have been at war since 1950. Opposing factions don't have to have active conflict but separate story lines and independent content is definitely welcome. Especially getting away from the Federation puppets PWE has turned every other faction into.
I also find myself concerned about the implications thereof for Jem'Hadar lockbox ships and what this could mean to their value.
I'm even further concerned about the level cap increase and what it might mean for ships. No T7 confirmed, but not a word on "T6-U".
Honestly this expac is, at least right now, far and away the one I'm least excited about, to put it lightly. This just seems like a veritable circus act of bad decisions from what little we know right now.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
Fleet Shatner.
Awesome.
...what?
Great, you can play as a non-autonomous life form?
And why are the Hur'q being made into some great unstoppable things? They were mentioned once, in passing, as some guys who raided Kronos in ancient history. Hur'q isn't even their name, it's a Klingon word for "outsiders".
*sigh*
Are you kidding? Look how developed the Elachi became in this game and they appeared in one single episode of Enterprise. They had no dialog, name, or even clear motivations, but it was enough for Cryptic to work with when bringing them to the game. I always thought STO was good at taking one off species with little canon information and making them interesting.
This is absolutely fantastic news! It looks like Cryptic/PWE is going to earn itself some more of my money with this new content! I am absolutely stoked that STO has chosen to focus on a DS9 storyline and not some tie-in to the underwhelming ST:Discovery retcon nonsense. Odo, Kira, Quark and Martok, combined with other classic ST series cast members is a winning combination around which to build a story arc. The idea of a playable Jem'Hadar/Dominion Faction is equally appealing. I am surprised, though, that the Dominion Faction debuts before the Cardassians? As they were part of the Dominion once, might we see playable Cardassians in this expansion? In any event, this new expansion is exactly the kind of content for which I am willing to pay. Thank you Cryptic/PWE...:)
Being a jerk isn't the same as being critical. Only one of those things gets posts deleted.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
While I have no expectation that this expansion will be anything but a fiasco, if you think DS9 was "weak" your sense of proportion has disappeared straight up your aesthetic. It was far and away the best of the modern Treks. (I suppose I have to exclude Discovery since I haven't/can't watch it but I've heard nothing about it that suggests it would change my mind.)
Of course, this is largely because it was working off of better source material than TNG or VGR.
(I hope T6-U or T7 ships NEVER get released - it just would devaluate everything we bought before)
*new progression systems - not needed, not wanted, even more grind, leave specialisation system in place plox (players are OP & DPS-bombs already)
*Gamma quadrant as huge (persistent?) sector battlezone - after a few months it will be almost empty and doing the same things again and again which reset every 30 minutes is not fun in the long run
*playable Jem’Hadar faction - why not Cardassians???
You should have focused on more story content - especially for a Cardassian faction story - and new stfs tbh.
Reintroducing a new exploration system in which one has to team up for unexplored Gamma Quadrant areas could have been a great idea.
Giving us access to the revamped federation ship interiors which are used in missions would also be nice.
More ships like for a Cardassian faction would have been great.
Bug fixing, like the flickering with lighting 1.0, bloom not working right, and not properly selectable windows (e.g. hull section gets e.g. yellow windows forward section stays white) with some Klingon and Romulan ships should also be a priority.
Redesign Kira's ingame face please. It looks strange.
My character Tsin'xing
They're not as non-autonomous as you'd think.
It was explained that Ketracel white was created specifically because the Jem'Hadar aren't easy to control.
It's also been shown several times that the Jem'Hadar will make decisions against their orders/superiors if they believe their leadership is making mistakes.
And they're not stupid, one of Weyoun's predecessors found that out the hard way when his First learned about a fact that was being concealed from him.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Also... Jem'Hadar faction? Not Dominion faction?
Will there be Vorta? cuz Jem’Hadar doesn't really seem like the leadership/captain types.
And what about the Cardassians?
Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
That looks nothing like Kira ... the art department has been on a roll for years now, what happened??
Based on what I've found so far I can make some educated guesses to answer your questions:
[*] I read that the Jem'Hadar are starting out at level 65 complete with a handful of filled out Reputations and R&D branches. If that doesn't just scream quasi-faction I don't know what does. So in order to give new JH players plenty to do the easiest way would be to give them access to existing content.
[*] Their wording is pretty specific, they said "Jem'Hadar", not "Dominion", and that you'd get to play as the genetically engineered soldiers. My guess? Probably not, even though canon wise it would make sense because Vorta were put in charge and were the distributors of the Kectracel White for a reason.
[*] Given the amount of stats they could change on ships, they could keep the ship models and alter the stats to make them functionally different than the lobi/lottery box versions. Knowing them, they'll probably alter the models somewhat as well though.
[*] Probably, there's not nearly as much content for the Jem'Hadar as the other factions in the game so the upside is we'll likely get everything equipmentwise Jem'Hadar related in addition to some made up stuff to fill in whatever gaps remain.
Don't get me wrong though, I wouldn't mind at all making a Jem'Hadar and I'm looking forward to this release.
a) The Elachi were not "interesting". They were barely props.
b) I thought the decision to drag them out was terrible. It was exemplary of the worst tendencies of fanfic: the insistence that absolutely everything mentioned in the source material must be significant and connected to everything else. N.b. that this has been a defining quality of what passes for writing in STO for some time now. This is particularly damning when you take into account that the race's original appearance in ENT was intended to serve as an unexplained and incomprehensible event.
c) There was, in fact, nothing for Cryptic to work with in the ENT appearance, by intent, and that means Cryptic could have done whatever they wanted with them. What they did was rather perfunctory; they just folded them into the Iconians.
Can't wait Cryptic!
:: sneezes :: Why is it no-one dusts the bridge on Starfleet vessels?" -Emsil Marat, Glinn
"We can not interfere in the progression of one's life" -Richard Lynch, LtCdr