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captainjtietz
Member Posts: 16 Arc User
Personally I'd like to see the Vorta added to the Dominion faction, after all it'd only be logical. Denobulans and maybe Lukari added to the Federation. There could also be female alternates to the many KDF races. Cool new factions could be a Delta Quadrant faction, like the Delta alliance or maybe Hirogen, or possibly a Tholian faction.
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Playable Vorta won't happen. Too much of the Jem'Hadar (Gamma Quadrant) storyline relies on you playing as Jem'Hadar and would require some reworking of dialogue. Getting those DS9 actors in and re-recording lines would likely be too costly for such a minor change.
Female versions of some of the Male-only species are unlikely to happen simply because we've never seen female versions on screen, and it may be a long time before we do. As an example, Doctor Who debuted the Ice Warriors in 1967 - it took until 2017 before we saw a female.
A Delta Quadrant faction might be interesting but the entire storyline there revolves around our current factions unifying the various species against a common foe. Such a faction would need a completely different introductory storyline for each species.
Alas, whilst we might like to see these, and wish for them to be added to the game, the development time and cost likely isn't going to be anywhere near feasible. (Although, I'd secretly like to have playable Vorta too!
That hasn't stopped them before, the only thing stopping them is their always eternal focus on the federation only
We never saw female Tellarites, Saurian, Pakled, or Reman on screen but they were still made
It is true that Delta is already well represented (especially in the reputation system where it has two reps of its own) and formalizing the temporary Delta Alliance (they were fractious enough that it probably would have fallen apart after the war considering a lot of that arc was an exercise similar to herding cats to get them together in the first place) would not open much (if any) potential storylines in the probably short time before the general Alliance would presumably take in any who wished to remain allied.
Adding female versions of distinctly non-humanlike races is likewise problematical, (even in the case of the Gorn where LD and SNW directly contradict each other on the subject), though "female" Jem'Hadar (easily justifiable as a move to making them an actual species instead of just bioconstructs, or at least to appear as if they were an actual species) might help remove some of the objections and get more people to make a character for the Gamma Recruit event since gender-locking content (especially a whole faction with unique content like that) is one of the most hated practices in MMOs, though just doing that and ignoring Vorta would leave some serious canon issues.
The Gamma arc, like all other post-tutorial arcs in the game, has a faction-neutral path available and Vorta could very easily follow that without any expensive (or impossible in the case of deceased actors) voice re-recording with what should be just a few minor flag changes on the back end of the faction. And yes, it is possible that if the devs got very sloppy with the code and used faction flags in dialog trees where they used race flags for the other factions it could take a little more work than that, but if the code for that faction is that poorly written then it would reduce the potential for bugs to clean it up anyway so there really is no downside to adding Vorta, and a lot to gain in the long run.
The only place where something would have to be done in the front-end stuff is a few words in the starting cutscene of the tutorial, (and maybe one of the ones later in the tutorial), where it is obvious that the devs assumed that the PCs would only be hornytoads at that point and the part of the cutscene that has the iffy lines has a generic voice, not an actor from the show. The only other possible issue with the tutorial would be either skipping the shroud training segment or replacing it with a telekinetic attack segment when Vorta characters go through it.
For that matter, even the Ketracel White addiction thing could be integrated into a Vorta as a 'cure' to release them from the unnatural fanatical devotion to the Founders if the devs wanted to incorporate it, since it is not unreasonable to think that the Founders might have used a different application of Ketracel on the Vorta during the cloning process to cause it in the first place and could take long, difficult, therapy-then-addiction-breaking sequence with a modified version to free them of it. And yes, the regular Founders might not trust Vorta who have done that, which could explain why those who do have to, in effect, defect to one of the Alpha/Beta factions along with the freed Jem'Hadar.
Even leaving the few dialog inconsistencies (and possibly ketracel stuff) as is would probably not be too immersion breaking for those who want playable Vorta as a more realistic and canon-friendly way of playing that faction.
There is no logic in having playable Vorta for Odo's Dominion faction as it is in it's current form. It was purposely built for the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta are not subservient to the Jem'Hadar. They have poor eyesight, which makes them poor soldiers, that said, Vorta are administrators and the voice of the founders but it still makes no sense to go to Cryptic and say 'rewrite this so Vorta can play'. They would have to spend a few months of time rewriting, rebuilding and rerecording the entire tutorial so a handful of players can play a Vorta.
Handy-wavy logic of having them re-engineered to be soldiers defeats the purpose the Founders bred them for and makes them a direct threat to the Founders.
@phoenixc#0738
As for having female Jem'Hadar. Come on! We know why it can't happen. They are the Dominion's ultimate soldiers and the Founders do not want distractions. Odo probably doesn't even have the knowledge to alter the breeding process to make Females. And there's also the fact the Dominion is not part of the Federation, so having them 'conform' to Federation ideals and actually make them a 'full species' will not happen. The Jem'hadar are technically genderless, but making it out to be a nefarious move to 'genderlock' content is absolutely out of order. There are no female Jem'hadar, period, because they were created that way, in the 90's, by CBS, NOT Cryptic!
Ah... Sorry, I thought I saw something.
Technically, they always were soldiers and spies. In DS9 all the Dominion ship captains were Vorta, all ground units shown were commanded by Vorta even in the field no matter how much Weyoun tried to convince the Federation otherwise. They don't need to be "re-engineered to be soldiers" any more than Pike (who has an understated and thoughtful command style very similar to some of the Vorta) needs to be "re-engineered" to be an effective Starfleet captain.
Weyoun was a disinformation officer, his job was to deceive the enemy (in this case the Federation) about the capabilities, organization, and intentions of the Dominion, and they deliberately showed the Vorta (and some other stuff) to be contrary to what Weyoun claimed to be true, which is a classic foreshadowing technique.
Unfortunately, it backfired since in the years before DS9 was spun-off the time limitations of TNG's "alien of the week" format and the technobabble used to quickly get plot information across trained the viewers into giving more weight to what was said in the show rather than what was shown, and Jeffrey Combs's excellently smooth and subtle portrayal of Weyoun reinforced that (unless they read his body language, which few seemed to do) so many viewers simply ignored the difference between what was said and what was shown.
Vorta are simply not the meek, mild, timid creatures only useful as clerks and for light administration duties that Weyoun claimed they were as part of the maskirovka campaign he was running, some were shown to be rather bold in fact (Eris was probably the best example of that but hardly the only one). He also said a lot of half-truths, like the fact that Vorta eyesight is not quite up to human standards, but he conveniently left out the fact that their main sense is a passive-sonar-grade hearing, not sight, so it is not a limitation. A number of other species in Trek use something besides sight as their main sense too, such as the Aenar (who are completely blind visually and use a kind of psionic spatial awareness as their primary sense).
And how would changing one or two lines of monolog in a single tutorial cutscene (and perhaps omitting the shroud training when a Vorta character is selected) be "rewriting, rebuilding and rerecording the entire tutorial"?
Adding Vorta to Odo's expeditionary force as equals would be no more of a stretch than him elevating the Jem'Hadar (which the founders consider to be nothing more than semi-autonomous smart-weapon systems) to officer status, especially since it would require the gestation tanks insert a lot more pre-programmed skills (and much more complex ones at that) into the hornytoad before decanting it.
As for female-looking Jem'Hadar (or even full female if Odo is trying to actually transition the Jem'Hadar from bioconstructs to an actual species), I did say it would not be ideal (putting Vorta in their canon officer corps role from the show would be the ideal thing), but as a stopgap it would get more people to make Gamma Recruit characters instead of the event falling flat like the MMO population sites show it to be (there is barely a ripple for Gamma, unlike the spikes the other recruitments make), assuming the devs made them a bit less ugly than the males like some other games do.
A good example of that is how the Blizzard devs did it in WoW for Night Elves and Orcs, which would allow the "female" Jem'Hadar in STO work to for Space Barbie, unlike the "males" who look like tribble no matter what they are dressed in (unless it is full space armor with an opaque helmet). The "females" could have smoother skin, fewer (or no) spikes, and hair, similar to how an actress in Jem'Hadar "child" or "youth" makeup would look for instance.
And I did not say it was a "nefarious move" or anything of the sort, I simply pointed out that statistics show genderlocking like that is by far the most unpopular feature in MMOs that use it, and suggested a least-effort way they could get around it.
That would be nice, and it would be an easy one too since it would mostly just be a skin and eye color option, but CBS absolutely refused to allow STO to offer them as playable characters so unless Paramount overturns that it isn't happening.
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I will say again, the Jem'hadar are not a victim of genderlocking by Cryptic. They were created that way and there are no females, period. The reasoning for this was well explored. Why should they (The Dominion, CBSViacom and Cryptic) conform to HUMAN (and Federation) ideals!? Why should Cryptic go against something so ingrained in canon (that CBS would immediately veto), just because you wish it? There are many types of procreation (in Star Trek) and races with one, two and three natal-genders exist.
You're effectively saying it's discriminatory and creating 'offense' where there is none. Using other game's examples as a reason is not an excuse to change the game for something barely a handful of people asked for.
You are drawing some pretty weird conclusions here. If you actually read what I said instead of just seeing the word "genderlock" and assuming from there, you would see that I never said anything about victimization or discrimination. What I said was simply that according to industry statistics, genderlocking is the number one peeve that players have with MMOs (and it is, just look it up if you don't believe me), and for practical reasons (not some imagined outrage or whatever) it would almost certainly be to the game's advantage to ameliorate the problem so more people would participate in the Gamma Recruit event.
I also never claimed that Cryptic were the ones who genderlocked them, I am well aware that in canon they are actually artificially produced pre-programmed intelligent adaptive weapons platforms made from biotechnology that are fully configured and combat-ready within three days of decanting from the machinery that creates them. Essentially, they are "meat droids" with no gender that simply look like males to humans, and I have no problem with that per se.
There was no outrage or accusations of any sort involved on my part, just a discussion pointing out how some of the OP's requests could be combined to bring the Gamma Recruit event participation levels up. If I was the rabid crusader you seem to think I am I would have supported the OP's suggestion that the devs offer female options for the KDF species genderlocked in the character creator instead of pointing out there would be little practical advantage to doing so (the KDF has plenty of other species, including ones made in the 'Alien' tab).
Personally, my only concern is that not having any options for Gamma Recruits means that event is essentially useless for people who (like me) approach the game from a roleplay perspective and/or artistic Space Barbie one (and yes, I do dislike unnecessary genderlocking to some extent, but I am not a fanatic about it and do play some games with it, like Black Desert and even have one Gamma Recruit though I never use it for anything but occasional ship combat because it is so tedious to play missions with).
As for how much of the playerbase would welcome those options, those MMO industry statistics, along with what I see here in the forums and in-game chat, makes me suspect that more than "barely a handful of people" would be interested in having options in Gamma, regardless of how it is implemented.
That misunderstanding sidetrack aside, can we get back to canon, lore, and practical considerations now?
It would be nice to get some of the other Gamma quadrant species into that faction, but the endgame-starting schtick it has pretty much rules out the normal ones like Dosi, Wadi, Yaderan, and even Hunters and whatnot (though Yaderan Photonics might not be too unbelievable I suppose), and of the two that make sense otherwise, one is ruled out so that just leaves the J'H.
The crux of the issue with Jem'Hadar (at least for me anyway) is that as mass produced meat-droids with no past or any other life experiences, no intrinsic need for social contact outside of their pre-programmed unit organization (aka comfort zone in character-writing terms), or anything else that would differentiate them from any other Jem'Hadar means they have little or nothing in the way of character hooks to work with and build on. That makes them very boring, like roleplaying a traffic light, the only even faintly interesting character/plot possibility for one of them is already taken by Dukan-Rex and playing that (in the same arc no less) would be too derivative to be interesting.
A "female" Jem'Hadar, while not exactly ideal (they would still be sadly short on character hooks, though not quite as bad as the regular ones since they would be something new and have to deal with that fact) would be the easiest and quickest fix as things stand now, either as another meat-droid model that is designed to look female (similar to the BD-3000 "Bettiebots" in Clone Wars and somewhat similar to L3-37 that, although completely non-human looking, has a distinctly female personality and voice in Solo: A Star Wars Story), or as part of Odo trying to make the Jem'Hadar into an actual species instead of biobots (more on this later). Either way it would at least give the more artistic players something to use in that "faction" for Space Barbie as long as the devs toned down the ugly and gave them a smoother, less toad's back appearance, than the male-looking Jem'Hadar.
The female-like meat-droid concept is really no different from the Star Wars examples I mentioned in the previous paragraph or the Maker's androids from I, Mudd (which were made in assorted "male" and "female" looking models, and I highly doubt the Normans and the Alices go sneaking off to do the horizontal tango if that is what you are worried about). Whether the construction is inorganic assembly or artificial organic cell manipulation followed by programming and left to grow for three days is irrelevant.
The Founders probably would not object to (or at least not any more than they would over Odo's other weird Alpha quadrant notions) making another model of Jem'Hadar that looks female if there is a practical reason to make it, and there are those, especially if they are making them for export to Odo. To a shapeshifter form probably does not matter as much as it does to a solid anyway.
Canon Dominion wartime doctrine in the show boiled down to a specialized silk-glove (Vorta) and iron-fist (Jem'Hadar) combination, but Odo is trying to use the big lumbering thick-lumpy-skinned spike-monsters for general purpose roles despite the fact that they were never designed for anything besides killing and terrorizing uncooperative potential competition. That is not very efficient and likely to cause more problems than it solves, and even the Founders would see that he needs something to replace the silk glove that for some reason he left back in the Gamma quadrant.
A new, small fast series of Jem'Hadar that look female added to the mix would work for that silk glove, especially since gendered species in Trek tend to think the females are less prone to violence (well, except for Klingons anyway) cooler headed, and more amenable to negotiation (especially if they're pretty for some reason), which would result in a balance that is a bit different from but still similar enough to the original doctrine. And since for the silk glove they need to be programmed with some social skills, it is not too of much a stretch to think they could even have a personality (in DS9 the effective lack of personality was often used for humor where the J'H were often the stooge in the jokes, like Dax's age jokes).
As for new species thing, I said the least about that because frankly it is rather far-fetched compared to the other options, but it does seem like something Odo might try since he already considers J'H more than just autonomous-smartweapon platforms.
Also, the Founders would probably be terrified of the idea since while they would multiply a lot slower than the manufactured three-day version, they would not have the absolute control of the numbers of the new and probably dangerous species that the manufacturing gives them over the inventory of meat-droids, so it is one favor the Link would probably not grant Odo.
Sorry, but your arguments are illogical from the point of view of the Dominion. You are doing alot of 'reaching' to try and shoe-horn females in, and you created the 'offence' by claiming that the Jem'hadar event suffers because there are no females.....without a shred of evidence from Cryptic, who are the only ones who hold such information.
The Dominion are set in their ways and have existed that way for hundreds, if not thousands of years. They would not see any benefit creating a Female Jem'hadar when the Vorta ARE already the silk glove. The Dominion already have every tool they require and they are still a significant military force. Everything is engineered so there is little to no dissension including not having a distraction for their over-grown teenage (if they make it that far) Jem'Hadar who are pure-bred soldiers. Odo also has Vorta and Jem'hadar too, so even he has no need for more silk gloves, and I doubt that the Dominion would give him access to their genetic engineering tech. I shouldn't need to remind you the sheer amount of trouble the Female Changeling had when creating their forces.
The Dominion requires absolute obedience and allowing the Jem'hadar to have females (and thereby, procreate) creates a direct threat to the integrity of that obedience. You really, really need to think from the Dominion's perspective, not from a human perspective. If this was a Romulan-based race, then yes, it probably would happen if they had an androgynous-type race, but not the Dominion.
I'll repeat, and I would bet everything I own that Female Jem'hadar would get nixxed by CBS. You should know by now what happens when someone messes with canon, especially canon races (here's looking at you Mo'Kai!)
You can get easily create one through the alien generator. But I've hardly ever seen an Alien-Denobulan.
I certainly would like it if they were added, as they were one of the earliest species to work close together with the 'other' (1) founding species of the Federation. But I find it hard to argue that it makes sense, business-wise, to devote resources to this.
Lukari, on the other hand, seem fairly popular. Also, given that they continue to play a role in STO's story, there's a better case here to add them as official playable species. It also helps that we've got plenty of tech (kit modules), outfits, Boffs and ships for them.
1. I know they're not really a founding species, but personally I do consider them as one.
RETURN OF AZRAEL
HA HA HA HA
Well, the same could be said about Talaxians to be honest. Or Cardassians. If we follow the storyline, they shouldn't really be around for the tutorials set in 2409 either.
And honestly, we can fly Baltim Raiders and Temporal ships right after creating a character anyway. Heck, we can even fly Borg ships that were never seen in the shows and do so right after the Borg's return at Vega. Those things shouldn't really be possible either as they make no sense chronologically.
Even if you decide not to fly such ships or create a toon of species you aren't supposed to have met yet, there's nothing preventing your character from running into them anyway if another player does create such a character or flies such a ship.
I think we're at the point where players' freedom and adding more unique experiences/choices are more important than whether something fits the game's narrative.
The episodes? I don't play them on each new toon, most certainly not all of them. I think players should have the option to create things that don't really fit well with the game's main storyline, because playing that storyline isn't really a requirement for creating a toon - so I don't really see why it should limit the options and possibilities players get.
Attempting to redefine the term "offense" into something it isn't does not have any effect on the logic of the situation. If anyone is taking offence it is you who are doing so.
You are right in that the Dominion is very set in their ways, in the show they have a rigid cast system, which the "Jem'Hadar faction" ignores entirely already. In fact, that not being able to play Dominion characters in a canon way is one of the objections people in chat and in these forums usually bring up when the subject of the Gamma Recruitment or anything else Dominion is broached. So yes, the suggestion I put forward is not strictly within canon, but that ship already sailed long ago with ViL itself anyway and so the only course now is to go forward and extrapolate a solution from where things stand now in the game continuity.
And yes, Cryptic has the most accurate source of population activity for the game, which just makes the fact that even the cruder counts done by third parties show the poor participation in the event even more significant, as does the fact that Cryptic keeps shifting the event around like they are trying to find a calendar quarter where it actually works well. Doing something about that relatively poor participation would help, but the question is what should they do beyond all that shuffling around.
All logic points to the near-certainty that genderlocking is one of (or probably THE) main culprit in that underwhelming performance since it is a well-known and highly polarizing problem in the industry as a whole, people complain about it in chat (along with the fact that they cannot make a canon-accurate captain) in this game, and people often request another Dominion race that would take care of that problem (and hopefully the canon issues as well) here in the forums.
As for the new species part, I agree with you that even with the inordinate influence Odo has they would most likely balk at the idea, just like I said in my last comment. I also agree that the Founders would be very unlikely to use faux-female meat-droids in their own forces since they still have the traditional silk glove available (which Odo does not for the most part, just a small handful mostly in diplomatic positions from what is shown in the Gamma arc), but the idea that they might produce some strictly for export to Odo's Alpha/Beta quadrant operations where the "human perspective" as you call it is so prevalent is no more of a stretch than Odo's elevating the lowest cast up to be equal with (or above, considering that the previous officer corps cannot command ships in Odo's organization) the Dominion's middle cast.
Those meat-droids, if designed in the same way as the canon Jem'Hadar, would be no more capable of getting together and self-procreating than C-3PO and L3-37 would be (in fact even less so since a humanoid SW droid would theoretically be physically capable of assembling a box of parts by hand to make another droid the same way a human could, even though they would not do it because they consider machines making other machines perverse), they are simply not equipped for the ability to procreate at all. Being in a better grade of science fiction means Founders are not as dumb as the fictional millionaire who built a park full of dinosaurs.
As for the Lukari, it would probably be enough to put Lukari and Kentari appliances, skin tones, and eyes in the alien tab of the character generator, most of the more unique aspects of them are technological and their outlooks on things rather than inherent traits. It would also be nice for some other new parts in there too, like the Oran'taku ripples between the outer edges of their eyes and their ears and others where they only need a new part or two. Some metallic skin tones would be good too, like the coppery tones of Ithenite skin.
Yridians and Suliban are long overdue as well.
Nausicaans, Gorn and Letheans are also still missing female options.
The Alien creator as a whole needs a massive overhaul/update.
- Thot Gar - Commanding Officer of the Braaktak Kaan
With so little actual multiplayer Boff content, their species are mostly relevant for RP'ing and crew building related reasons. We shouldn't have to pay 300 lobi a piece for that.
They focus their limited resources on what the majority of the playerbase actually plays.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
True, just looking around in social areas shows that the majority of players prefer the more human-looking types, followed by a relatively small number of Gorn, and Ferengi, then wild 'bem' style types, then lastly by the occasional non-human-looking canon species. Space Barbie is a major factor in STO, and the less human looking the species is the less useful they are for it.
The Jem'Hadar are harder to pin down on that scale and it varies a lot depending on whether you are in a social zone or a TFO.
On the ground there is usually at least one slouching and staggering around in any instance, mostly just standing around afk or something, possibly waiting out the addiction timer or whatever (I am not sure how that addiction-breaking thing works) but very few are in good health, so it seems likely. There is a significantly fewer number of Jem'Hadar in those areas who are active and not in withdrawal (and almost all of those are in full armor with opaque helmets). On the ground like that they are more common than Gorn, but not by much.
On TFO's they are much more common and most of those seem to be Vanguard types (probably because their gimmick is that their ground traits also apply to space combat, which (at least on paper anyway) looks like it would be a significant advantage in combat). They are still not quite as popular in space as the more human-looking types but are close.
Female Gorn would seem to be a good candidate for inclusion, but Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds directly contradict each other on the Gorn's method of reproduction, and traditionally live action always was the higher canon in continuity cases like this in Trek so technically, canon Gorn would be parasites who breed in a genderless or semi-genderless manner like the Xenomorphs in the Alien movies, and the devs might be waiting to see how it all shakes out.
Talaxians maybe, but no reason for Cardassians...they've been around, and as Worf and Nog have shown your race doesn't need to be part of the Federation to join Starfleet
paramount was a hard no to that one
suliban are DOA, because you introduce them and then the players whine that can't shape-shift. one of the reasons a playable Founder is a no go
Yridians are already in the game as adversaries,
Yiridian ships on the other hand would be interesting, they have a kind of unique dragonfly look to them and the Yiridians have the interesting idea of making their destroyers and freighters on the same hulls, presumably so pirates think twice about jumping one of their freighters in case it is actually a warship. It would be a nice gun-based alternative to the Federation's Seneca carrier, and it would give the KDF their own Q-ship for players who want to roleplay anti-piracy characters on the "red" side of the faction line or just want more variety than only one ship for the role.