Um.. not saying there has even been communication between CBS and Cryptic, but lets do a theoretical.. Say NASCAR decided to do a Chevrolet 500 race. Do you think that NASCAR would then snub Chevrolet and run a toyota or ford as the pace car?
Two things are happening.
1. it has been stated time and again, the devs were running out of ideas (I can't see it personally, but we will take that in consideration) along comes Disco and Picard. now we have two shows IN PRODUCTION to draw story lines from.
2. There are, believe it or not, new players who don't much know about nor care about TOS TNG DS9 and voyager because they came into Star Trek watching DISCO. you going to turn off new fans? not a smart move. now should we do something to break it up/shake it up? absolutely. a pause to revisit some old friends, like the gangster planet, or the amusement park planet. they don't have to be "story arcs", just fun little diversions.
bottom line is there ais plenty of content for TNG DS9TOS and VOY.. maybe someone out there has crunched number on percentage of content for each series, but like it or not, there isn't much Picard content (yet) and once YOK / Ju'la is done, we can expect more Picard.
I don't think anyone would find it strange to come up with a story that draws from the series currently in production.
What could have been done better though, is integrating it into STO's story. There's just too many disconnected pieces right now, missions that were added just to have them in the game.
And although some of those missions aren't bad per se - as said, the environment of missions like Battle of the binary stars looks simply amazing - they aren't really part of STO's story. They're either just simulations, even when it makes no sense to run it because you already know what happened and a possible different outcome isn't relevant anyway since it's all been in the past. Or they're missions that didn't really require Discovery to be told (like the centuries old Klingon who causes a rupture in the Klingon Empire - they already had Martok and J'mpok, did they really need an unbelievable story about some random Klingon with a super weapon who's still centuries behind everyone else?).
As for them running out of ideas: many suggestions for story arcs have been made by people on the forum over the years. Among the playerbase, there are a lot of talented writers who happily created missions in the Foundry for others to play. Use that, use their imagination to come up with a good story for STO's timeline. It'd allow both a greater diversity of stories AND you could alleviate some of the negative impact the removal of the Foundry and all content in it has had.
From the KDF perspective, YoK makes little sense. After everything the PC has done and achieved he'd just challange and replace the idiot chancellor.
That only makes sense if you're playing a Klingon, there's no way the Klingon Empire would allow a Gorn or an Orion to rule them, then there's the whole meta stuff, since it's a MMO there's going to be multiple players claiming chancellorship, in order for it to be lore friendly the chancellor has to be an NPC.
More varied content!? The game has covered EVERY iteration of the TV and Movies, plus loads of episodes that aren't. We are talking over 185 episodes and not to mention the mountain of TFO's etc. This game has literally more content than the vast majority of AAA games....FOR FREE! That's 100's of hours of game-play!
This original post is nothing but an excuse for a DSC and Picard whinge thread, and the OP clearly forgets there is a pandemic going on, so production is naturally reduced. That Cryptic gets material, including an episode that was meant for the TV series is amazing. This breathes more life and longevity into the game.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
More varied content!? The game has covered EVERY iteration of the TV and Movies, plus loads of episodes that aren't. We are talking over 185 episodes and not to mention the mountain of TFO's etc. This game has literally more content than the vast majority of AAA games....FOR FREE! That's 100's of hours of game-play!
This original post is nothing but an excuse for a DSC and Picard whinge thread, and the OP clearly forgets there is a pandemic going on, so production is naturally reduced. That Cryptic gets material, including an episode that was meant for the TV series is amazing. This breathes more life and longevity into the game.
I think its hard to agree with this. The fact is most of Trek is episodic. If there are ~100 episodes of a series, there are ~100 different stories there. ST:P and ST:D, by contrast, are serialized shows which have more drawn out focuses on a handful of ideas.
So because brief introduction to concepts happen in most Trek, its really quite different to bring in Iconians vs say the Battle of Binary Stars or Synthwave. TNG established there were Iconians, but STO really invented them. The STFs on the other hand are basically wholesale reproductions.
More varied content!? The game has covered EVERY iteration of the TV and Movies, plus loads of episodes that aren't. We are talking over 185 episodes and not to mention the mountain of TFO's etc. This game has literally more content than the vast majority of AAA games....FOR FREE! That's 100's of hours of game-play!
This original post is nothing but an excuse for a DSC and Picard whinge thread, and the OP clearly forgets there is a pandemic going on, so production is naturally reduced. That Cryptic gets material, including an episode that was meant for the TV series is amazing. This breathes more life and longevity into the game.
I think its hard to agree with this. The fact is most of Trek is episodic. If there are ~100 episodes of a series, there are ~100 different stories there. ST:P and ST:D, by contrast, are serialized shows which have more drawn out focuses on a handful of ideas.
So because brief introduction to concepts happen in most Trek, its really quite different to bring in Iconians vs say the Battle of Binary Stars or Synthwave. TNG established there were Iconians, but STO really invented them. The STFs on the other hand are basically wholesale reproductions.
But that's thing isn't it. Prior on-screen content bred STO creativity, and as already mentioned, Cryptic were short on ideas. The DSC and Picard series now open more creative avenues, but you cannot blame Cryptic for taking advantage of tying up loose ends or using other elements, because they is exactly alot of what they have done with prior series. The fact DSC and Picard are serialised is irrelevant to the matter, because Cryptic can create answers to even the vaguest of questions raised in both series.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
More varied content!? The game has covered EVERY iteration of the TV and Movies, plus loads of episodes that aren't. We are talking over 185 episodes and not to mention the mountain of TFO's etc. This game has literally more content than the vast majority of AAA games....FOR FREE! That's 100's of hours of game-play!
This original post is nothing but an excuse for a DSC and Picard whinge thread, and the OP clearly forgets there is a pandemic going on, so production is naturally reduced. That Cryptic gets material, including an episode that was meant for the TV series is amazing. This breathes more life and longevity into the game.
I think its hard to agree with this. The fact is most of Trek is episodic. If there are ~100 episodes of a series, there are ~100 different stories there. ST:P and ST:D, by contrast, are serialized shows which have more drawn out focuses on a handful of ideas.
So because brief introduction to concepts happen in most Trek, its really quite different to bring in Iconians vs say the Battle of Binary Stars or Synthwave. TNG established there were Iconians, but STO really invented them. The STFs on the other hand are basically wholesale reproductions.
But that's thing isn't it. Prior on-screen content bred STO creativity, and as already mentioned, Cryptic were short on ideas. The DSC and Picard series now open more creative avenues, but you cannot blame Cryptic for taking advantage of tying up loose ends or using other elements, because they is exactly alot of what they have done with prior series. The fact DSC and Picard are serialised is irrelevant to the matter, because Cryptic can create answers to even the vaguest of questions raised in both series.
I'm sorry, there are a lot of ideas I have that Cryptic hasn't touched on from old Trek. There are tons of things they could explore, and they can always make things up, like the Deferi, or the Lukari (and yes the Deferi sucked, but that was more because of trying to hamfist a way that both KDF and FED can work with them.)
By contrast, I can't really imagine exploring anything from ST:P. It was really bleak, dark, and the writing being as awful as it was with the wild inconsistences and logic issues, so that even the conclusions to various plots in that show were unsatisfying and distasteful, and perhaps more importantly, largely resolved like the AI ban (even though it only banned androids.) Really the only thing there is robocthulu, this mysterious thing that somehow exists to wipe out life but won't do it till it gets a phone call from an android, but then turns around and goes home if they hang up.
ST:D I still am not interested in watching so I don't know what that might have left us to look at, but as far as I can tell we just revisited things the show did. And S3 has fundamental premises that are really incompatible with STO, like the ban on time travel, and the fact it is far in the future.
People say PVP in this game is dead, but just look at this thread. The forums are still the best place for it.
Discovery has had some ups and downs in its first few seasons, but go back and watch TNG, DS9, and VOY Seasons 1 & 2 and come back. Generally I dig it. So far, Picard has had some of the weakest plots and executions, but I can see why they're tying in what they are.
Picard is also the one most in danger of directly disrupting the STO timeline (Icheb at K-7, you will be missed), so I'm definitely glad they're avoiding most of the plot related tie-in potentials. It's really either that or start treating some of these as alternate timelines. Which I know I will personally be headcanoning if Picard S2 somehow undermines the forming of the Romulan Republic.
As much as I loathe Bury Your Gays, STOs episodes with Patel and Landry are quite nice after the pointless on-screen death in DSC. And so far I've really enjoyed Measure of Morality and the Klingon Civil War thus far. Would love to see the return of Excalbian!Burnham, Holo!Stamets, and Terran!Killy in game.
Mixed bag? Sure. But isn't that what "Varied" usually means?
Call me "El," she/her only. I love my wife and I don't care who knows it!
Agreed 200%. However, OP be aware of those who will disagree. They will make any excuse in the book to counter the opinion.
I have been here since beta and missed the real content. Late years have been just drips of story contents when we used to get over 5-10 stories per expansion. The last major one was ViL and that was 3 years ago.
AoD was just a few TFOs. These days TFOs are considered content and at most perhaps 1 or 2 feature story is HUGE in STO.
No more real BEEF and only crumbs of content since then.
Players will come and go but TRUE content has gone down the way of extinction.
What could have been done better though, is integrating it into STO's story. There's just too many disconnected pieces right now, missions that were added just to have them in the game.
Agreed. I play through Steam, and I made my review only recently (seeing how close I was... and being the nerd I am... I waited until I hit 1,701 hours, lol), and I basically made my judgment: If you can pretend the story doesn't make sense (because after ten years, it doesn't, even though the devs somehow believe it does), it's the best way to "be in Star Trek".
Agreed 200%. However, OP be aware of those who will disagree. They will make any excuse in the book to counter the opinion.
I have been here since beta and missed the real content. Late years have been just drips of story contents when we used to get over 5-10 stories per expansion. The last major one was ViL and that was 3 years ago.
AoD was just a few TFOs. These days TFOs are considered content and at most perhaps 1 or 2 feature story is HUGE in STO.
No more real BEEF and only crumbs of content since then.
Players will come and go but TRUE content has gone down the way of extinction.
This is objectively false.
25 Oct 2016 - Agents Of Yesterday: Artifacts - “Echoes of Light”
26 Jan 2017 - Season 12: Reckoning - “Of Signs and Portents”, “Survivor”
25 Apr 2017 - Season 13: Escalation - “Mirrors and Smoke”:
18 Jul 2017 - Season 13.5 - “Brushfire”, “Beyond the Nexus”
3 Oct 2017 - Season 14: Emergence - "Melting Pot"
23 Jan 2018 - Anniversary Update - “Scylla and Charybdis”
3 Apr 2018 - Season 14.5 - “The Renegade's Regret”
Between the first post AoY release in Oct 2016, and up to Season 14.5 in Apr 2018, we got 9 new missions in 19 months. An average of one new mission every 2.1 months.
Since the Discovery content started
9 Oct 2018 - Season 15: Age of Discovery - Disco starting experience, "Secrets", "Downfall"
23 Jan 2019 - Season 16: Mirror of Discovery - “Para Pacem”, “Illusion of Communication”
14 May 2019 - Season 17: Rise of Discovery - “The Plausibility of the Possible”, “Impossibility of Reason”
10 Sep 2019 - Season 18: Awakening - “Beneath the Skin”
28 Jan 2020 - Season 19: Legacy - “The Measure of Morality (Part 1)”, “The Measure of Morality (Part 2)”
30 Jun 2020 - Season 20: House Divided - “The Centre Cannot Hold”, “The Khitomer Discord”
6 Oct 2020 - Season 21: House Shattered - “Partisans”
26 Jan 2021 - Anniversary Update - “Knowledge is Power”, “Leap of Faith”
15 story missions in 28 months, an average of 1 new story mission every 1.8 months.
I think otherwise. Actually you made my point.
If one thinks content is a TFO or a new ship or lockbox...probably ok? I was referring to TRUE episodes with a story or full story arcs. However, I get that if one wants to keep on believing the moon is full of cheese so be it.
Here's my source and perhaps a visual perspective might help:
The two little tiny blimps (in red) in what you call content in 2020 are almost nonexistent as compared to others since launch. However one depends on what one might call "content".
Agreed 200%. However, OP be aware of those who will disagree. They will make any excuse in the book to counter the opinion.
I have been here since beta and missed the real content. Late years have been just drips of story contents when we used to get over 5-10 stories per expansion. The last major one was ViL and that was 3 years ago.
AoD was just a few TFOs. These days TFOs are considered content and at most perhaps 1 or 2 feature story is HUGE in STO.
No more real BEEF and only crumbs of content since then.
Players will come and go but TRUE content has gone down the way of extinction.
This is objectively false.
25 Oct 2016 - Agents Of Yesterday: Artifacts - “Echoes of Light”
26 Jan 2017 - Season 12: Reckoning - “Of Signs and Portents”, “Survivor”
25 Apr 2017 - Season 13: Escalation - “Mirrors and Smoke”:
18 Jul 2017 - Season 13.5 - “Brushfire”, “Beyond the Nexus”
3 Oct 2017 - Season 14: Emergence - "Melting Pot"
23 Jan 2018 - Anniversary Update - “Scylla and Charybdis”
3 Apr 2018 - Season 14.5 - “The Renegade's Regret”
Between the first post AoY release in Oct 2016, and up to Season 14.5 in Apr 2018, we got 9 new missions in 19 months. An average of one new mission every 2.1 months.
Since the Discovery content started
9 Oct 2018 - Season 15: Age of Discovery - Disco starting experience, "Secrets", "Downfall"
23 Jan 2019 - Season 16: Mirror of Discovery - “Para Pacem”, “Illusion of Communication”
14 May 2019 - Season 17: Rise of Discovery - “The Plausibility of the Possible”, “Impossibility of Reason”
10 Sep 2019 - Season 18: Awakening - “Beneath the Skin”
28 Jan 2020 - Season 19: Legacy - “The Measure of Morality (Part 1)”, “The Measure of Morality (Part 2)”
30 Jun 2020 - Season 20: House Divided - “The Centre Cannot Hold”, “The Khitomer Discord”
6 Oct 2020 - Season 21: House Shattered - “Partisans”
26 Jan 2021 - Anniversary Update - “Knowledge is Power”, “Leap of Faith”
15 story missions in 28 months, an average of 1 new story mission every 1.8 months.
I think otherwise. Actually you made my point.
If one thinks content is a TFO or a new ship or lockbox...probably ok? I was referring to TRUE episodes with a story or full story arcs. However, I get that if one wants to keep on believing the moon is full of cheese so be it.
Here's my source and perhaps a visual perspective might help:
The two little tiny blimps (in red) in what you call content in 2020 are almost nonexistent as compared to others since launch. However one depends on what one might call "content".
This original post is nothing but an excuse for a DSC and Picard whinge thread, and the OP clearly forgets there is a pandemic going on, so production is naturally reduced.
The episode slow down happened WAY before the pandemic. It's been a thing for YEARS now. In fact, the slow down of releases was so bad that the pandemic's effect on the release schedule BARELY made a dent in it.
You made me TRIBBLEing SNORT, Cold! Thank god I wasn't drinking anything when I read your post! ROFL.
Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
While I'm with you regarding Discovery and Picard, I do understand why they're the focus lately. However, I do agree with your other points... indeed, I've been saying the same things for years.
Star Trek should be about more than COMBAT. Indeed, combat was never the focus of the shows. Even episodes that WERE about combat, were actually about the characters, their choices and motivations. Consider Balance of Terror. The whole episode is a fight between two ships... or rather, between two COMMANDERS, Kirk trying to outguess his foe, who was trying to outguess Kirk. We saw the reluctance of Kirk to engage, his uncertainty. We saw how his crew and friends rallied around him... and we saw the same on the Romulan ship. Now, it would be hard to do all that in the game, but the point is that it shouldn't be just battle for the sake of battle.
Star Trek was about exploring strange new worlds, but we have NO exploration. Star Trek resolved its conflicts with COMMUNICATION, far more often than with phasers, but we have NONE of that.
We have three classes of characters, Tactical, Science and Engineering Officers... but only one class gets to do their in-universe job... and even then only one aspect of it.
Tactical Officers are the combat officers, trained to fight and command in battle. However, they would also be trained in security, diplomacy and conflict resolution.
Science Officers would be trained to STUDY things, to do research. There is NONE of this in the game.
Engineers would be trained to build and maintain things. They would be expected to help build colonies, repair damaged equipment, maintain satellites and more. We have none of that.
What I would do is expand the game so each class gets to do its JOB. Science Officers should have gameplay representing their studies and research. In my mind the best way to do this is to attach it to the crafting system, making Science Officers the gatherer class, gathering resources they then convert to usable materials. Engineers would be the other half of the crafting system, using those materials to build things, crafting items, ships, and to conduct engineering themed missions, building colonies or satellites, or what have you, again using detailed and complex gameplay.
But, it would be a lot of work. If they had done this back when I first recommended it... I don't know, 8 years ago?... it might have been worthwhile. In a game the age of STO, with what limited resources they have... it's VERY unlikely we'll see anything like any of this. They're far more likely to just spew more of the same stuff until they shut things down.
More's the pity. I used to have high hopes for the game, I wanted it to be the best MMO ever made... but it never aspired to that.
I 100% agree with this statement, Violence is usually the last resort Starfleet officers use, but here in STO it's the other way around, are you sure that our Feds aren't part of the Terran Empire, our toons are saying "We Come In Peace", while they literally commit genocide. No, they don't. Please look up "genocide" in a dictionary. -- WingedHussar
But lately we’ve been in kind of a rut, since the debut of Star Trek Discovery and Picard. That seems to be the only thing you guys can focus on, all the content being released is Discovery and Picard related.
Except the Discovery content ended with Rise of Discovery back in May 2019. We have been in post Discovery content since then. Hence things like, the Lukari, the Doomsday Machine, Martok, J'mpok, the Elachi, Madran, Nimbus, and all the other non Discovery content taking center stage. The current missions are as much of Discovery content as the Iconian War arc was TNG content, and that was full of Seven of Nine, Tom Paris, Nog, the Krenim, etc. etc.
Also, it seems you guys are taking much longer to create basic episodes
Actually, we used to get one new mission every 3 months, or around 4 new missions a year. At the current rate they are going we get 2 new missions every 4 months, or about 6 new missions a year. They are actually putting out more story content, faster, then they used to.
But please, just create some new missions. Start a new arc focused in this century, focused on the lore Star Trek Online has developed without the need to rely on Discovery or Picard for a plot or characters. Give is something fresh, something unique.
According to Cryptic, before all these new Trek shows started coming out, they only had like one more story arc idea left for STO, and they had pretty much run out of ideas. The only known story arc idea they had left, which was the original plan for after ViL, involved Mirror Leeta's return and final defeat.
Also the current arc is a "this century" arc. J'mpok being evil, and possibly going rogue, was something hinted back in the Path to 2409, and has been building since Martok got rescued back in the Tzenkethi arc.
Maybe you should bring back some of the missions that were deleted? In order to be polished? It can’t be that hard to get these ready.
Cryptic has stated it takes just as much time to revamp a mission as it does to make one from scratch due to all the new mechanics, UI elements, pathing changes, and cutscene work, that goes into revamping missions.
You guys made the mistake of removing the foundry, simply because you were unable or unable to keep the people who kept the system running employed. The foundry, for all its flaws was a gift to this game.
This was not why the Foundry was closed. The Foundry was closed because it broke every update, like modding tools do for every game, and it took forever to fix. On top of that, the majority of STO's playerbase never used the Foundry, and many that did only used it for grinder missions. Very few people actually used the Foundry for its intended purpose, which made continued development of it not productive.
Bring back the exploration clusters? Create a system that will randomly generate maps, characters and dialog for us to explore. That’s exactly what the old system did, just very poorly.
The problem is that procedural generation technology is still really only good for basic terrain creation, and basic fetch quest design. Even the top tier procedural generation games, Minecraft, and No Man's Sky, have no substantive story, and are just "go place, get resources, to go other place, repeat". Trying to use this technology for quest and dialog design just results in Skyrim/Fallout 4 radiant quest tier stuff, or the super basic things in Tomb Raider that you mentioned. and that isn't fun, and people openly mock it.
Yeah, I just don't get it. To me, way, WAY too little of the game has been focused on TNG
The game pretty much started off as "TNG: The game" with the big bad in the shadows being the Iconians, who come from a TNG episode. Not to mention things like
The Crystalline Entity
The Bluegill
Tiaru Jarok, daughter from the Romulan from "The Defector"\
the continuation of the "Yesterday's Enterprise" episode via Temporal Ambassador and Survivor.
The Tox Uthat from "Captain's Holiday"
The Romulan Republic from the "Unification" two parter
The Devidians from the "Time's Arrow" two parter
The Solanae from "Schisms"
The Dyson Sphere from "Relics"
The Preservers from "The Chase"
The clone of Kahless from "Rightful Heir"
Alexander/Worf's death from "Firstborn"
And various other creatures, and technologies, like the Gekli, and the Farpoint Jellyfish, that have shown up.
They also do almost nothing involving the Star Trek I-VI era (like... is there any content in the game tailored to that very important timeframe?)
-The Borg Command ships are in the shape of mini V'gers, confirming that, in STO, the machine planet visited by V'ger, seen by Spock in TMP, was a Borg world.
-The Genesis device, the major plot device from ST:II and ST:III featured heavily in the Tzenkethi arc
-The whales from ST:IV, or at least their descendants, can be seen in the waters off Starfleet Academy sometimes.
-Nimbus from ST:V is an adventure zone
Technically, the Preservers were coined in The Paradise Syndrome in TOS,
While I'm with you regarding Discovery and Picard, I do understand why they're the focus lately. However, I do agree with your other points... indeed, I've been saying the same things for years.
Star Trek should be about more than COMBAT. Indeed, combat was never the focus of the shows. Even episodes that WERE about combat, were actually about the characters, their choices and motivations. Consider Balance of Terror. The whole episode is a fight between two ships... or rather, between two COMMANDERS, Kirk trying to outguess his foe, who was trying to outguess Kirk. We saw the reluctance of Kirk to engage, his uncertainty. We saw how his crew and friends rallied around him... and we saw the same on the Romulan ship. Now, it would be hard to do all that in the game, but the point is that it shouldn't be just battle for the sake of battle.
Star Trek was about exploring strange new worlds, but we have NO exploration. Star Trek resolved its conflicts with COMMUNICATION, far more often than with phasers, but we have NONE of that.
We have three classes of characters, Tactical, Science and Engineering Officers... but only one class gets to do their in-universe job... and even then only one aspect of it.
Tactical Officers are the combat officers, trained to fight and command in battle. However, they would also be trained in security, diplomacy and conflict resolution.
Science Officers would be trained to STUDY things, to do research. There is NONE of this in the game.
Engineers would be trained to build and maintain things. They would be expected to help build colonies, repair damaged equipment, maintain satellites and more. We have none of that.
What I would do is expand the game so each class gets to do its JOB. Science Officers should have gameplay representing their studies and research. In my mind the best way to do this is to attach it to the crafting system, making Science Officers the gatherer class, gathering resources they then convert to usable materials. Engineers would be the other half of the crafting system, using those materials to build things, crafting items, ships, and to conduct engineering themed missions, building colonies or satellites, or what have you, again using detailed and complex gameplay.
But, it would be a lot of work. If they had done this back when I first recommended it... I don't know, 8 years ago?... it might have been worthwhile. In a game the age of STO, with what limited resources they have... it's VERY unlikely we'll see anything like any of this. They're far more likely to just spew more of the same stuff until they shut things down.
More's the pity. I used to have high hopes for the game, I wanted it to be the best MMO ever made... but it never aspired to that.
While I tend to agree, I have to point out that I cannot think of a single successful MMO that is not combat oriented
I think the thing is 'juula right now isn't entirely about discovery the first bits where sure but now the arc is about a klingon civil war. Juula is tied to it sure but it's not entirely discovery per say.
Comments
I don't think anyone would find it strange to come up with a story that draws from the series currently in production.
What could have been done better though, is integrating it into STO's story. There's just too many disconnected pieces right now, missions that were added just to have them in the game.
And although some of those missions aren't bad per se - as said, the environment of missions like Battle of the binary stars looks simply amazing - they aren't really part of STO's story. They're either just simulations, even when it makes no sense to run it because you already know what happened and a possible different outcome isn't relevant anyway since it's all been in the past. Or they're missions that didn't really require Discovery to be told (like the centuries old Klingon who causes a rupture in the Klingon Empire - they already had Martok and J'mpok, did they really need an unbelievable story about some random Klingon with a super weapon who's still centuries behind everyone else?).
As for them running out of ideas: many suggestions for story arcs have been made by people on the forum over the years. Among the playerbase, there are a lot of talented writers who happily created missions in the Foundry for others to play. Use that, use their imagination to come up with a good story for STO's timeline. It'd allow both a greater diversity of stories AND you could alleviate some of the negative impact the removal of the Foundry and all content in it has had.
That only makes sense if you're playing a Klingon, there's no way the Klingon Empire would allow a Gorn or an Orion to rule them, then there's the whole meta stuff, since it's a MMO there's going to be multiple players claiming chancellorship, in order for it to be lore friendly the chancellor has to be an NPC.
This original post is nothing but an excuse for a DSC and Picard whinge thread, and the OP clearly forgets there is a pandemic going on, so production is naturally reduced. That Cryptic gets material, including an episode that was meant for the TV series is amazing. This breathes more life and longevity into the game.
I think its hard to agree with this. The fact is most of Trek is episodic. If there are ~100 episodes of a series, there are ~100 different stories there. ST:P and ST:D, by contrast, are serialized shows which have more drawn out focuses on a handful of ideas.
So because brief introduction to concepts happen in most Trek, its really quite different to bring in Iconians vs say the Battle of Binary Stars or Synthwave. TNG established there were Iconians, but STO really invented them. The STFs on the other hand are basically wholesale reproductions.
But that's thing isn't it. Prior on-screen content bred STO creativity, and as already mentioned, Cryptic were short on ideas. The DSC and Picard series now open more creative avenues, but you cannot blame Cryptic for taking advantage of tying up loose ends or using other elements, because they is exactly alot of what they have done with prior series. The fact DSC and Picard are serialised is irrelevant to the matter, because Cryptic can create answers to even the vaguest of questions raised in both series.
I'm sorry, there are a lot of ideas I have that Cryptic hasn't touched on from old Trek. There are tons of things they could explore, and they can always make things up, like the Deferi, or the Lukari (and yes the Deferi sucked, but that was more because of trying to hamfist a way that both KDF and FED can work with them.)
By contrast, I can't really imagine exploring anything from ST:P. It was really bleak, dark, and the writing being as awful as it was with the wild inconsistences and logic issues, so that even the conclusions to various plots in that show were unsatisfying and distasteful, and perhaps more importantly, largely resolved like the AI ban (even though it only banned androids.) Really the only thing there is robocthulu, this mysterious thing that somehow exists to wipe out life but won't do it till it gets a phone call from an android, but then turns around and goes home if they hang up.
ST:D I still am not interested in watching so I don't know what that might have left us to look at, but as far as I can tell we just revisited things the show did. And S3 has fundamental premises that are really incompatible with STO, like the ban on time travel, and the fact it is far in the future.
Discovery has had some ups and downs in its first few seasons, but go back and watch TNG, DS9, and VOY Seasons 1 & 2 and come back. Generally I dig it. So far, Picard has had some of the weakest plots and executions, but I can see why they're tying in what they are.
Picard is also the one most in danger of directly disrupting the STO timeline (Icheb at K-7, you will be missed), so I'm definitely glad they're avoiding most of the plot related tie-in potentials. It's really either that or start treating some of these as alternate timelines. Which I know I will personally be headcanoning if Picard S2 somehow undermines the forming of the Romulan Republic.
As much as I loathe Bury Your Gays, STOs episodes with Patel and Landry are quite nice after the pointless on-screen death in DSC. And so far I've really enjoyed Measure of Morality and the Klingon Civil War thus far. Would love to see the return of Excalbian!Burnham, Holo!Stamets, and Terran!Killy in game.
Mixed bag? Sure. But isn't that what "Varied" usually means?
I have been here since beta and missed the real content. Late years have been just drips of story contents when we used to get over 5-10 stories per expansion. The last major one was ViL and that was 3 years ago.
AoD was just a few TFOs. These days TFOs are considered content and at most perhaps 1 or 2 feature story is HUGE in STO.
No more real BEEF and only crumbs of content since then.
Players will come and go but TRUE content has gone down the way of extinction.
Original STO beta tester.
Agreed. I play through Steam, and I made my review only recently (seeing how close I was... and being the nerd I am... I waited until I hit 1,701 hours, lol), and I basically made my judgment: If you can pretend the story doesn't make sense (because after ten years, it doesn't, even though the devs somehow believe it does), it's the best way to "be in Star Trek".
"There's No Way Like Poway!"
Real Join Date: October 2010
I think otherwise. Actually you made my point.
If one thinks content is a TFO or a new ship or lockbox...probably ok? I was referring to TRUE episodes with a story or full story arcs. However, I get that if one wants to keep on believing the moon is full of cheese so be it.
Here's my source and perhaps a visual perspective might help:
The two little tiny blimps (in red) in what you call content in 2020 are almost nonexistent as compared to others since launch. However one depends on what one might call "content".
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Season
Original STO beta tester.
I missed the old stories as well. Oh well at least we get to grind same old content over and over again
You made me TRIBBLEing SNORT, Cold! Thank god I wasn't drinking anything when I read your post! ROFL.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
I 100% agree with this statement, Violence is usually the last resort Starfleet officers use, but here in STO it's the other way around, are you sure that our Feds aren't part of the Terran Empire, our toons are saying "We Come In Peace", while they literally commit genocide. No, they don't. Please look up "genocide" in a dictionary. -- WingedHussar
Technically, the Preservers were coined in The Paradise Syndrome in TOS,
While I tend to agree, I have to point out that I cannot think of a single successful MMO that is not combat oriented
...THEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED!